Danny squirmed in his bed and clutched at his stomach and tried to curl himself in a ball to escape the pain, when his mother came in his room he felt some relief, now he could get some help.
"Come on sweetie, time to get up." His mum said softly shaking him.
"It hurts!" Danny whimpered clutching his stomach.
"What hurts? Are you okay honey?" his mother asked looking worried.
"My stomach! I have appendicitis, I'm going to die!" Danny cried curling up tighter.
"Appendicitis?" His mother laughed disbelievingly.
"Yes! I need to go to the hospital!" Danny begged in pain, his mother looked skywards as if trying to remember something.
"Oh Danny dear, don't be silly, you know what week it is. It's just period pain, now get up and go to school, no more messing around." Maddie said firmly as she got up.
"What?! I'm dying here! I know my own body mum, I need to go to hospital!" He shouted out indignantly as she left the room, tossing a packet of painkillers at him. Danny glared at the door and cursed the world that he was stuck in this body of all bodies as he scrabbled for his phone and dialled Sam's number, he should probably check if his mother was right or if he really did need to go to hospital.
"Hello?" Sam answered after a few rings.
"Sam, I'm dying." Danny moaned.
"What?" Sam asked not sure she'd heard correctly.
"I think I've got appendicitis it hurts so bad but mum just says it's period pain and just threw some stupid painkillers at me and told me to go to school." Danny whinged, Sam raised an eyebrow at this and looked at her male body in the mirror, she'd been halfway through getting dressed when Danny called and was currently shirtless, she took some small pleasure in the fact that she could actually face people like this and not be arrested. She thought happily of the fact that now if it got too hot in her goth wear in the summer, as it often did, she could simply take her shirt off and be fine.
"What does it feel like?" Sam asked trying to turn her attention back to Danny's potential imminent hospitalisation.
"Like someone punched me in the gut from the inside and like they're trying to claw their way out. Kind of like the alien movies, but with my stomach." Danny described and wondered briefly if maternity wards would be more interesting places if that was how babies were born, it would certainly make biology lessons cooler.
"Yeah, hate to say it Danny but you're not dying, you're just experiencing the monthly joy that every girl goes through from about thirteen to fifty or so." Sam said with a roll of her eyes.
"But it hurts so bad!" Danny complained rubbing his aching stomach.
"Yeah well, tough. Being a girl sucks sometimes." Sam said hanging up with some small satisfaction, finally a man would know the pain of women everywhere.
Meanwhile in his room Danny crawled out of bed and got dressed cursing the world, the evil ghost that put him here, Sam, his mother, women in general, the people who make painkillers that were weaker than morphine.
"Hey Danny." Sam said chirpily as she leant on the locker next to Danny.
"Bite me." Danny growled back his words filled with venom.
"Whoa, what's up with you?" Sam blinked surprised at the hostility.
"That time of the month." Tucker said teasingly, Sam winced knowing that this was exactly the wrong thing to say. All the same she'd never expected Danny to react the way he did, his eyes flashed green and with ghost powered strength Danny's small girl body grabbed Tucker by the shirt collar and shoved him up the locker sides violently.
"Whoa! Danny! Chill!" Sam yelped grabbing Danny's shoulder, Danny shot Sam a dark look and dropped Tucker and grabbed his bag and headed off silently to class.
"You okay Tucker?" Sam asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I was gonna be pounded at some point today, we've got gym, I just didn't expect to get pounded by Danny." Tucker said breathing out slowly and heading to gym class with Sam. Sam nodded in response and the two walked in silence as Sam tried to contemplate ways to avoid Dash Baxter, a Dash Baxter who was going to be taking off his clothes twice in the next hour in the same room as him.
Sam tugged of her shirt and pulled on her gym shirt feeling distinctly un-female as she became overwhelmingly aware of her male body whilst surrounded by others. She sighed and pulled off her gloves, she'd seen the sports the boys played and she didn't want them getting ripped or damaged, that is, more than she'd already done to them for stylistic purposes.
"So, what's up with Danny then?" Tucker asked taking his shirt of and then replacing his glasses.
"I think you might have been right in your suggestion, though I wouldn't recommend mentioning it to her again." Sam advised him as she sat down and started to undo her boots.
"Still, she didn't have to throw me against that locker." Tucker muttered opening his gym locker to take out his shorts and trainers.
"You had a girl beat you up? Loser!" A sudden voice from behind them laughed cruelly before Tucker found himself shoved forward, his face clashing painfully with the edge of his locker.
"Get lost Dash." Sam said turning around angrily, her commitment to her anger wavered as she saw that Dash was shirtless but she forced herself to glower at him, he was attacking Tucker, this was no time to go all girly over some boy. Especially since at the moment she WAS a boy and doing so might get HER pounded to death.
"Oh you want your ass kicked too do you Manson?" Dash said threateningly.
"What? Like Tucker? Yeah maybe I am looking for a girl like you to kick my ass, don't think you could manage it though." Sam shot back trying to suppress the contradictory voice in her head that pointed out she'd have chewed Danny and Tucker out for using girl as an insult as Danny himself had the other day, she was glad Danny wasn't here then, especially with the mood he'd been in this morning. A few of the guys that seemed perpetually clustered around Dash make jeery 'oooh' noise, they clearly wanted to goad Dash into pummelling her.
"What'd you say Manson?" Dash growled balling his fists, Sam knew she couldn't back down now, oddly she felt that the male pride she didn't have and shouldn't have cared about whispering in her ear to keep going. She listened.
"Going deaf now as well?" Sam taunted him.
"Sam…" Tucker whispered warily, he knew this would end badly.
"Oh need your boyfriend to back you up now do you?" Dash sneered.
"Gay insults? From you? Remember that you're the one that jumps on hot sweaty men on a regular basis and showers with like twelve other guys because you signed up to. I don't think you're in the place to be making insinuations here Dash." Sam said with a nasty grin. Dash's eyes narrowed and Sam only just managed to duck the fist swung at her, and much to her disappointment she let out an annoyingly girly yelp of surprise. Sam ducked to the side as Dash made another swing for her, she glared, Dash wasn't about to just leave her alone, this wasn't a fist slammed near her head on a locker, this was an all out fight and she couldn't duck forever. She ducked low and leapt forward catching Dash under the arm with her shoulder and smacking him to the floor with the force of her leap. Dash pulled himself to his knees and barrelled forward grabbing Sam's legs and toppling her to the floor painfully, Sam snarled and kicked at him.
Dash hauled himself up above her and pulled his fist back to punch her, Sam grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked hard. The blow to her face and the warm blood trickling from her nose reminded her that this was NOT a girl fight, hair pulling and scratching would not do. Sam jerked out with her elbow, destabilising the hand Dash was using to hold himself up so he could punch her with his free one. He wobbled and Sam used this moment to smash up into his face with the palm of her hand thanking silently for her self defence classes that all the girls took, she arched her back and kneed up into his stomach hard. She managed to push the winded and destabilised Dash off of her and climb on top of him, she pulled her own fist back and forced into her mind every time Dash had hit Danny and every time he'd stuffed him in his locker and she'd been unable to do nothing about it. Well now she was a boy, she was nearly Dash's height and she was strong and by god she'd make him remember it. Two or three good punches later Dash's had snapped up and grabbed Sam's throat and squeezed. Sam gasped and clawed at it, cursing her short boy nails, she opened her mouth and spat in Dash's face, the shock alone made Dash's grip loosen enough for Sam to push herself away from him. She fell to the side clutching her own throat and drawing in desperate gasps of breath. Dash was just about to lean over and punch Sam again when a hand grabbed his, he looked up to see a VERY angry looking gym teacher.
"Principals office. NOW." He growled. Dash and Sam hauled themselves off the floor and followed the teacher, it was only when they were walking down the hallway that Sam realised stupidly that she only had one boot on and was doing a ludicrously uneven walk that pushed her up and down in the air and left her with one clumpy footstep and one silent one.
Sam sat down on a chair in the principal's waiting room with an empty seat between her and Dash, as if that'd stop them if they started to fight again, she thought sarcastically. She rubbed her sore face and sniffed at her lightly bleeding nose, it'd mostly stopped now, she wiped it on her arm feeling dumb for not having a tissue on her, had she been a girl still she certainly would have had one.
"You know, you don't fight like a total wuss." Dash said looking side long at her. Sam stopped in mid wipe and looked at him incredulously, was that supposed to be some stupid boy compliment or a lead into another insult?
"Screw you." She said back in loss of anything else to say.
"It was a compliment you idiot, usually you fight like a girl or just run away like one." Dash snorted.
"Yeah well… you're not so bad yourself, although the choking was totally unnecessary." Sam said rubbing her sore neck.
"Whatever." Dash snickered to himself.
"You know, maybe I should start infirming the first years that the way to get the jocks to compliment you is to just kick their asses in the locker room occasionally." Sam smirked at him.
"Whatever, it's only cause you were good at it that you're not paste right now, you wanna tell them to start fights then be my guest, if they die it's your fault." Dash shrugged.
"Yeah right, it'd freak you 'team players' out if instantly everyone stopped respecting you and started beating on you." Sam pointed out and slightly relished the thought.
"Speaking of, you've got pretty decent reflexes, you should try out for the team." Dash mused, Sam looked disbelievingly at him.
"This is the weirdest freaking conversation of my life, you know that?" Sam said trying to think of a weirder one, even finding out about Danny's ghost powers hadn't been quite this weird.
"Mr. Manson." The receptionist called, Sam almost didn't look up, not recognising the Mr. part of her new name.
"Hey, just tell them you're sorry, it was a misunderstanding, teenage hormones yadda yadda yadda." Dash hissed grabbing Sam by the sleeve.
"…Thanks." Sam said after a second and walked into the principal's office.
Sam really did try to concentrate on the principal telling her off, she really did, she made all the right noises and apologies in the right places but her mind was fixedly on Dash and his apparent 180 in his behaviour towards Sam. Was it really that simple, stick up for yourself and fight a decent fight with another guy and suddenly you're cool? She'd always held firm in the belief that boys were weird and incomprehensible sometimes, and it wasn't any clearer now that she was one.
"And I'll be speaking to your parents about this." The principal said firmly, Sam snapped back to attention, this sounded like the end of the lecture so she should probably look alert and attentive, it usually did the trick.
"Yes, sir." Sam nodded.
"Now go to the nurses office, you look like hell." The principal said with a sigh, Sam nodded and let herself out of the office.
"Mr. Baxter." The receptionist called as Sam exited the principal's office in her uneven one booted walk, she nodded at Dash in goodbye as she walked past him and got a half wave in response.
Sam knocked on the nurses office door and entered, starling the nurse with her rapidly bruising face and half bleeding nose.
"Goodness! Sit down sit down!" The nurse said ushering Sam to a bed, Sam obligingly sat down on the bed and faced the one next to her. Whoever was under it had the sheets pulled up way over their head as if they wanted to shut out the world. Sam tilted her head, she could see the black hair scruffily poking out from under the sheets and see the forms of scrawny arms and legs just under them, she grinned and kicked the side of the bed soliciting a groan from the occupant.
"Hey Danny." Sam greeted his friend. Danny rolled over in his bed and looked at Sam.
"You look as bad as I feel." Danny remarked dryly.
"Grow a pair you girl." Sam said rolling her eyes.
"Believe me, I wish I could." Danny grumbled unhappily.
"Want mine?" Sam grinned.
"Ick. What the hell happened to you anyway?" Danny asked curiously.
"Got into a fight with Dash, it was kinda fun. He seems to like me now bizarrely, maybe you should have tried kicking the crap outta him, it might have stopped you two getting into fights." Sam suggested.
"Sounds great." Danny said dryly.
"Don't you go encouraging girls into getting into fights, it's un-ladylike." The nurse chided Sam as she gave her an ice pack to hold against her rapidly swelling cheek.
"Believe me miss, Danny's no lady." Sam laughed.
"You're just loving this aren't you?" Danny said accusatorially.
"Not really, I've been in more fights since this happened than I've been in the last two years. My parents will probably kill me when they find out." Sam admitted.
"Isn't testosterone fun?" Danny said dryly. Danny sat up with a groan, still clutching his sore stomach.
"I need to pee." Danny announced and shuffled off.
"Thanks for the info." Sam said rolling her eyes. Sam was just undoing her solitary boot whilst balancing the ice pack on her knee when she heard the scream.
"What on earth?!" The nurse exclaimed jumping up.
"Uhm, I think she needs help with uh… girl stuff." Sam said feeling embarrassed for Danny already. The nurse took the hint and hurried off inside the bathroom. Sam contemplated how badly today had been going, she'd been bizarrely crushing on Dash all week and despite the fact that she'd had no interest in him when she was a girl suddenly he was attractive to her, maybe her sex drive had just been kicked up a notch and people who wouldn't previously have been attractive to her suddenly were. They did say boys had only one thing on their minds after all, she was vaguely glad that Danny was girl shaped at the moment and thus off her radar or else she might not have been able to control herself if she was that attracted to Dash she'd hate to think how she would have reacted to boy Danny.
Sam shifted the ice pack to her sore knuckles and considered this, Dash was a jerk it had to be said, but since he was no longer really picking on Danny she didn't seem to mind too much, although him picking on Tucker wasn't cool with her either. Having said that, the punching aside, rolling around with a shirtless Dash on the floor hadn't been all that bad. And yes, the boy probably still tasted like failure… Sam's head jerked up at this, had it been her that kissed Dash in this world or Danny? Surely it'd still be her as it was Danny that was still Danny Phantom even if technically it should Dani Phantom, so… had she kissed Dash as a boy or had that whole thing happened differently? She wondered what it would have been like and how Dash would have reacted…
"Where's the nurse?" Dash asked at the door, Sam felt her face redden at her previous thoughts.
"Uh… bathroom." Sam choked out trying to inspect her knuckles. Silence fell between the two for a while.
"What's taking her so long? All I need her to do is tell them I'm not dead and then I can get back." Dash grumbled.
"Mmm." Sam nodded, Dash looked at Sam suspiciously.
"Thought about what I said?" Dash asked gruffly.
"Yeah, because I'd fit in so well with your crowd." Sam snorted.
"Can't imagine it'd go down well with your lot either." Dash shot back.
"You got the time? I took my watch of before I hit you in the face." Sam asked.
"Half past." The blonde replied pointing to the clock above Sam's head.
"Oh, yeah… didn't… see that…" Sam mumbled red faced.
"I've had enough of this I'm going." Dash said frustratedly and turned to leave just as the nurse exited the bathroom with a beet coloured Danny Fenton in tow.
"This couldn't get any more humiliating." Danny muttered to himself.
"Mr. Baxter!" The nurse exclaimed, if it was possible Danny went even redder.
"I take it back, someone up there hates me." Danny groaned humiliated.
"Can you just write down that I'm not bleeding to death or something so I can get back to class?" Dash sighed oblivious to Danny's embarrassment.
"Well let me see you, you seem to be fine… here, and try and stay out of trouble." The nurse sighed starting to write a note for Dash.
"Can I go home please miss? I really don't think I'm gonna make it through the day." Danny pleaded, the nurse looked Danny over and sighed.
"Do you have anyone that can come take you home?" The nurse asked concerned.
"I can take Danny home, I think I need to go home too, what with the head trauma." Sam said innocently, Dash's jaw dropped at this.
"What?!" He exclaimed disbelievingly.
"You'll make sure she gets home safe?" The nurse asked ignoring Dash.
"Yes ma'am." Sam nodded.
"Fine Danny you can go home, since it's your first. But don't think you can do this every month." The nurse sighed.
"Do what every month?" Dash blinked confused.
"Never mind Dash." Sam smirked hopping off the bed and leading Danny out of the nurses office, Dash grabbed Sam by the arm to stop her leaving.
"If I get into extra trouble because you told her I beat you so hard you had to go home then I'll…" Dash threatened vaguely.
"Beat me so hard that I really do have to go home?" Sam suggested helpfully.
"Yeah, that." Dash nodded.
"You'll be fine. Wait up Danny, I gotta get my stuff from the boy's locker room." Sam called after Danny.
"Oh yeah, right. Can you get mine while you're there?" Danny asked holding his stomach in pain.
"Why would YOUR stuff be in the boys locker room?" Dash asked making Danny realise his mistake.
"Oh… yeah… right. I'll just go to the girls locker room and get my back and meet you back here." Danny mumbled and shuffled off.
"Girls are weird." Dash muttered.
"You're weird." Sam snorted walking off.
"You're weirder!" Dash shouted after her.
A/N: wow… I didn't intend to make this so long but since it's been a while since I updated I guess you guys deserve it, so enjoy. My conclusion so far: boys and girls are both weird. Or weirder as Dash would say. ;;