A/N Okay, long wait, yes, I know. However, I have attempted to make it up with the longest chapter thus far, nearly doubling the length of the last chapter. Watch out for the huge italicized part in the middle, which is a flashback. For some reason, I like writing flashbacks a lot; they seem to come out better than...well, the rest of the chapter, actually. I have attempted to draw a few parallels between the flashback and what happens before and after. And if you spot the single reference to one of my other stories (you don't have to look very far, there's only two), then you get a cookie.

Thank you to my many reviewers. Forty-seven reviews! HOLY CRAP! Thanks to RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, Snea, gothangel12345, Tara, DarkMoon1301, Beyonce's Angel925, too-morbid-for-words05, cutereviewgirl, Save danny69, Majestic Moon, bluename, theoneandonlydarkpowderpuff, Fairly Odd Phantom Fan, Writer's-BlockDP, PrincessKimikokitty, katiesparks, Rishi-Rishi, karmatic.luv, AirGirl Phantom, Conny14Sam, white artemis, lovingoxford321, and Tech-Man!

Disclaimer: Butch Hartman owns everything Danny Phantom. If I owned it like I own this story, then it sure as hell wouldn't be getting cancelled.

Chapter 5

Sam rolled her eyes. I'd like to have thought that he had matured somewhat since high school. He still had that smirk plastered on his face. He looked so self-satisfied with his less-than-mature remark that it was almost hard to stand.

And then an idea hit. As much as she loved him, she still loved messing with him. "As appealing as that sounds," she said dryly, the sarcasm coming off her in waves. Suddenly, she smiled, a sort of half-smirk, before pressing her lips firmly against his.

Danny's eyes bugged out. Isn't this supposed to be the part where Sam blushes and stutters? He felt her tongue brush across his lips, asking a silent question. You know what, I think I like this better, he thought to himself as his eyes closed, his lips now parted.

Their last fakeout makeout was brought to the front of both of their minds. He tastes just like I remember, thought Sam as she slid her tongue into his mouth. Her tongue met his as they wrapped their arms around each other. They stayed like that for a few minutes, attempting to close all space between each other, before Sam hesitantly pulled away. Smiling the same half-smirk, she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "I always keep 'em wanting more."

Danny, lying on his back, shivered as Sam spoke. He watched silently as she sachayed towards his room, his mouth agape the entire time. She stopped in the doorway to turn back to him, smiling that same seductive grin before quietly closing the door behind her. Almost instinctively, Danny's hand rose to his lips. He hadn't exactly become a ladies' man in the last two years; far from it. He'd absorbed himself so much in both his schoolwork and his ghostfighting that girls, as a whole, were an aside. Sure, he casually dated every once in a while, but still not much. But with Sam back...

"GAH!" he yelled as he unceremoniously fell onto the floor. Hey, at least he didn't hit his head on the coffee table. He shook his head as he smiled to himself. With Sam back, life will be a lot more interesting.

- - - - - - -

Sam was humming. She didn't even recognize the tune, but damn it all if she was going to stop humming it. This morning had been rather...different. She was usually so shy around Danny, especially after a blushy moment like THAT. So what exactly was she going to do about it?

Hell if I know.

She was currently curled up on her bed with her journal. Her pen was poised just above the page, stopping just short of actually marking the page. How would she record this momentous occasion? Meh, much better to think of what she was going to say before actually saying it. After all, she was planning on going back to that particular page quite a bit in her future. She sat there in thought, unable to phrase the words exactly as she wanted them. Ugh, writer's block...and it was only her journal.

"Well, this is getting nowhere fast," she grumbled to herself. She closed the book (it really was a book by this point; around ten years of her life were chronicled in there) and opened it to a random page. Page two hundred and twelve, age thirteen, May 30. Sam's eyes widened. Oh. Oh, dear. This was the day that the term "fakeout makeout" had been coined. Okay, that would have been a little too coincidental for Sam's taste. It was actually three days before that particular date. As to why Sam remembered the date, well, it had been her first kiss.

For some reason, she was curious to see what she'd written. After all, it's not like she read through her own diary every night like novel; in fact, she barely even skimmed through her old entries anymore. She flipped through a few more pages - damn, she wrote a lot at that age! - until she finally settled on it.

221

June 2

Holy crap, I just had my first kiss.

Sam snorted. Of course she hadn't written much on it, she'd been too excited to contain herself. But even at twenty years of age, Sam could still remember that night clearly.

For some inexplicable reason, Dash had invited Danny, Sam, and Tucker to his graduation party.Sam had a hunch it was his parents' doing. She could clearly see the awed faces of many kids with whom Dash would obviously never consort. Dash was in the corner of the room wearing a scowl on his face, clearly disgusted by the many unpopular kids hanging about his house.

"Wow," breathed Danny. He apparently couldn't get over his "good luck" at being invited to one of Dash Baxter's parties. It might have meant something about his rising popularity. Sam rolled her eyes. Somehow, she didn't think that was the case.

It had been about a year since Sam realized that she had a crush on her best friend and, sadly, nothing had happened since then. He, of course, had become borderline obsessed with Paulina during the course of their middle school careers. So had every other boy that was just discovering his own testosterone. For some reason, this had led to his crazy desire to be popular. As if, Sam scoffed.

"Hey, Danny, I think I see Tucker." Tucker, being Tucker, had wandered off to hit on some poor, unsuspecting girl. And Tucker, being Tucker, had most likely been slapped by now. Sam took hold of Danny's wrist and pulled him in Tucker's direction. Danny apparently had other plans and his feet refused to move from that spot. Sam caught his gaze and, of course, it was directed towards Paulina.

Sam huffed. Why does Danny like her so much anyway? "Danny..." He was now visibly drooling. "DANNY!"

Danny jumped slightly and turned to face Sam. "What?" he asked irritatedly. His arms were now crossed in front of his chest and his eyes were directed at her. Only his gaze was nothing like the loving look he gave to Paulina; all Sam received from his was a cold glare for having interrupted him at his Paulina-watching. Sam's face faltered a bit; why did he have to save such longing glances for someone so utterly not worth his time?

"Um." Sam couldn't think of anything. All she could see was Danny's cool gaze. "...um..." Now she was just searching for any plausible excuse to have done that. Why did she do that, anyway? Oh, right Tucker. No, he was just her first excuse. It was really Paulina the Bitch and her low cut shirts. And then, out of nowhere, she knew what to say.

"You like Paulina, right?"

Danny cocked an eyebrow. Duh, of course he did. "Yeah..."

"But she doesn't seem to be noticing you too much."

"Well, no..."

"I know how to make her see you."

Danny's eyes widened as his eyebrows disappeared somewhere underneath his messy bangs. Sam smirked inwardly at that look; hell, she smirked outwardly at it, too. She wasn't completely sure it would work, but, hey, she hated Paulina ,Paulina hated her. Maybe, if she timed it right..."How?" Danny asked, almost breathlessly.

"C'mere." Sam grabbed Danny roughly by the wrist and dragged him near to where Paulina was standing. She could feel Paulina's loathsome gaze on her, so she turned to return it. Danny was kind of a puddle of mush. Sam frowned. "Focus." Immediately his eyes shot back to hers, ready to do what he needed to do to get Paulina's attention.

Sam's heart raced. She knew what she was about to do and, frankly, it scared her. What if he liked it? What if he didn't? Would Paulina take notice and steal him away from her? Or would she just never notice Danny at all? Pushing these thoughts out of her head, Sam returned to the task at hand and, shutting her eyes quickly, leaned forward and kissed Danny full on the lips.

Well, it was actually more like she she crashed her lips against his. She had never kissed someone before and sincerely hoped he didn't hate her for this. To be quite honest, she thought it felt really good.

She could feel Danny frozen beside her. Smirking, she put his hands on her waist before throwing her own around his neck. She cracked open one of her eyes slightly to see Danny's eyes looking like they were going to pop from their sockets.

Hesitantly, she pulled away, not sure how he would react after that. His eyes were unfocused and his arms were frozen in place even after she took a step back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Paulina shaking with what she could only assume to be rage. Sam let out a small chuckle as she imagined the thoughts that must be flying around in the shallow bitch's head. Paulina, now completely livid that the freaky Goth girl had kissed someone before her, stomped away.

Sam felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Danny, his face showing a mixture of emotions and his hand raised to his lips. "Sam..." he said quietly. No. No, she couldn't even dare to hope he fell in love with her after that. It was just a kiss, after all. Right? Even with this impeccable logic at her disposal, Sam's face still shone with a glimmer of hope.

"You just made out with me."

"Eh?" Well that wasn't what she'd expected him to say. Should she deny it? Duh. "No, no, we were just faking Paulina out so that she would notice you," she said quickly, ending with a nervous giggle. "You mean you thought that was real?"

Danny looked so cute when he blushed. "No, I knew it was fake. A fakeout makeout, ha." He smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous.

Sam couldn't help but smile at his obvious discomfort. "Yeah, a fakeout makeout."

That, unsurprisingly, was the night that everyone started calling them "lovebirds."

She was stirred out of her thoughts by a crash in the kitchen. "Oh, god, now what?" she sighed, not forgetting to put her journal away at the bottom of her luggage. Like hell was she leaving THAT out in the open for prying eyes to find. She walked towards the kitchen slowly and silently, half expecting Danny to have broken something expensive. Wait, he's a college guy. He doesn't own anything expensive.

No, now that she was actually there to survey the damage for herself, she saw Danny hovering over a broken bowl, trying to pick up all of the pieces. The popcorn which, obviously, had previously been in the bowl was now strewn across the room. It was such an ordinary scene, klutzy ghost boy cleaning up the damage he's caused.

For some reason, this made Sam feel like crying. She'd been away for two years. Two whole years. She'd missed her friends, of course, especially Danny, but for some reason it hit her that she'd missed everything more than she'd realized. Here he was, cleaning up the mess as he'd always done, and here she was, just standing and watching. Is this how it always was? All this time he'd had his alter ego, Danny had done his job and rid the town of many a ghostly plague while she just...watched. At least it was better than nothing, she was still a partof his life and still a part of the team. And then she was gone. Nothing to watch, no team to belong to. Just her, only her. Her alone.

Sam felt the tears slipping from her eyes. Damn it.

For some reason, probably because he had just noticed her shadow, Danny looked up at her. Tears were streaming down her face as he looked on in horror. In half a second he was on his feet, his arm slung around her shoulders comfortingly. "Sam?" he whispered, a little afraid. He'd never seen Sam cry before. "Sam, are you okay?" He saw when she looked up that she was filled with some kind of pain. "Oh, god, you stepped on a piece of the bowl didn't you?" he asked, silently cursing himself for letting her get near enough to get hurt.

Sam gave him a weird look. Okay, not that. He pressed his hand to her cheek, lightly wiping away some of her tears with his thumb. "What's wrong?"

Gathering up all of the happiness she could muster, she smiled through her tears. "Nothing, Danny. I just feel like I'm missing a lot by being off at college."

"Is there...is there anything I can do to help?"

Sam thought for a moment before sighing. "Well, I guess you could do something stupid." Danny narrowed his eyes. Apparently, he hadn't understood what she meant, so she elaborated a bit. "You know, to cheer me up."

Danny raised an eyebrow. If this was how she got her kicks..."Fine. Any ideas?"

Sam shook her head. "No, then it wouldn't be a surprise which, in turn, wouldn't make it funny."

"Hmm..." Danny paced as he thought. And then, out of nowhere, he knew what to say. "What if I do something that could quite possibly be stupid?"

"Uh..."

"'Cause I've got something in mind that could cheer you up, though it's not exactly funny." At least, I hope not.

"Uh, sure. Why not?"

Danny smiled, almost wickedly, before walking up next to Sam. This part hadn't even been planned; it just kind of flew into his head. What if she liked it? What if she didn't? Pushing any negative thoughts from his head, he leaned in towards her.