A/N I am SO sorry for the long wait. As I say in my other stories and on my profile, I was unable to use my computer for awhile. I apologize for making you wait in unbridled anticipation of this chapter. I like it, it's not my absolute favorite, but it serves its purpose.

I love flashbacks and it has been far too long since I have used one in this story, so about half of this chapter is flashback. It ends with a comment made by Danny, fyi. This chapter skips around A LOT with POV but you can basically count on the fact that there is no shifting of POV within a paragraph; it will always be at least a full paragraph in that person's POV before it switches over.

Thank you to all of my awesome reviewers. I cannot believe that this story now has over 100 reviews. You guys are incredible.

Disclaimer: I actually own something in this chapter. No, Danny Phantom still does not belong to me; that honor is reserved solely to Butch Hartman. But I own the song "Midnight Confessions"; it is my own work and any unauthorized copying of it is illegal. Half of my family members are lawyers; I will not hesitate in suing your ass off.

Chapter Nine

Sam's backpack felt heavier and heavier as she trudged behind the three girls. She should know their names, really she should, but they slipped her mind nonetheless; she'd never been too good with names and dates and whatnot. One started with a B...

All of a sudden, their little group of adventurers came to a dead stop. Pun there, certainly, but not expected. Sam saw the irony as she looked up to see a sign, decaying, wooden, that read "Olfarm Cemetery." Great, more ghosts. Just what I need.

The sign looked a bit out of place. Its decrepancy stood out against the newly painted black iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. The trees looked well trimmed and genuinely taken care of. From what she could see, Sam deduced that the caretaker of this cemetery actually cared enough about his job that he didn't let the place go to shambles. That, or his benefactor paid lots of unscheduled visits. Either one was a suitable explanation.

What Sam wanted to know was why these three had brought her here, of all places.

She had a history with graveyards, obviously. None of them knew about it, though, and most would believe her if she had said anything about it. Judging from what she had seen in the past four years, this graveyard was far from scary. So what exactly were these girls trying to pull? Did they really expect her to back out? Fat chance. This was her element.

"So, Sam," began the tallest girl, the one who started with a B. "Before we enter the graveyard, we'd like to explain a bit more about your initiation." Bethany? Brittany? Bertha? Beatrice, perhaps? "Take off your backpack and place it on the ground." Sam glared only for a second before complying. The only reason she knew so much about the girl in front of her - Bridget? - was that Sam knew she was the leader, the guide, the one for whom Sam would have to suck up her pride tonight.

The second girl, a tall redhead, peered into Sam's signature bat-pack. "First, we need to do an inventory check." Her voice was a little hoarse, probably from the game earlier that day. Inwardly, Sam groaned; college led her to more jock-lovers. Great. "Bailey," the girl called to the first. Bailey! Knew it started with a B..."You have the list ready?"

Bailey narrowed her eyes at the redhead. "Don't question me. I know how this is done;" she hissed with a glare at the girl. She winced; Sam realized that it must have been a blow about her position. But she was still brought along; did that mean that she was being trained to follow in her leader's footsteps? Perhaps that was why the extra two were brought along in the first place. Sam watched through tired eyes as Bailey extracted a piece of paper from her jeans pocket. "Matches?"

Sam glanced at her bag. "Yep."

"Picture frame?"

"Black, as per request."

"Candles?"

"Fifteen of 'em."

"White robe?"

"Check."

"Sheet and pillow?"

"Hard as hell to fit in there, but yeah."

Bailey gave Sam a quick grin before reaching into her other pocket. "Alright, Sam, here's the part you don't know about yet," she said, holding up a picture. The quality wasn't good and the girl in it wasn't smiling. Must be pretty old, Sam noted. "For years, the Zeta Sigma Tau sorority has welcomed new recruits, but we have always been determined to weed the pool of applicants down to the dedicated few that actually join each year."

Why am I joining a sorority? Sam asked herself for the umpteenth time. She had sworn that she would never enter the greek system during college. But Zeta Sigma Tau drew her in from the start with stories of adopting turtles and whales, sponsoring trips to Washington DC for any worthwhile rallies, buying hundreds of acres of rainforest that bulldozers could never destroy, and sending members around the world to aid lesser-developed countries. Sam was hooked and she knew it.

"Each year," Bailey continued, oblivious to Sam's momentary lapse of thought, "we research the, ahem, inhabitants of this graveyard and come up with pictures of the inhabitants. Anyone who wishes to join must spend a night on their grave in order to pass the initiation."

Sam looked at the girl blankly. "And what does this have to do with the sorority goals?"

The third girl finally spoke in a feather-soft voice. "It's an experience that connects us all. We also usually get some personal sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from it."

"From spending the night on a grave?"

The third girl's lips quirked in a tight-lipped grin. "You'll see what I mean."

Bailey nodded to the other girls as they picked up Sam's belongings. "Sam, you wait here. Put on the robe while we go set everything up. We should be back in a few minutes."

This would be the first time in a long time that Sam willingly wore anything lighter than navy blue. Grudgingly, she put the robe on over her nightclothes (navy, actually) and waited. Glancing at her watch, she noted that it only took them about seven minutes to return. Silently, the trio of girls led Sam to where she would be spending the night.

The grave site was surrounded by the candles in a wide, sweeping circle of about fifteen feet in diameter. The sheet and pillow were set in such a way as to be lying directly over the patch of dirt that signified a coffin hidden beneath it, the pillow up against the headstone. It almost seemed as though it was Sam's own personal coffin.

"We'll see you in the morning, Sam." And with that, the three were gone.

Sam took a moment to look around her. This place, if any, would be teeming with ghosts, so she had to be on alert. Somehow, she'd managed to hide the Jack-o-Nine-Tails in her pajama's right pant leg without any of the girls noticing. Plus, she'd spent a lot of time watching Danny...er, watching Danny's ghost fighting. While he fought ghosts. Yeah...But anyway, she knew how to do this. Besides, spooky was her thing.

She lay back, her arms crossed behind her head (she'd considered crossing them in front of her to complete the image, but it wasn't all that comfortable). So what am I supposed to do here? Just sit and wait for dawn? Unfortunately, that seemed to be the case.

An owl was in a tree not too far from her, looking down with its large round eyes. If that bird shits on me, I swear...

New moon tonight; starlight and the candles were the only things that her vision really allowed her to see. Bailey and the other two had taken the flashlight back with them. She rolled on her side and spread out an arm to grab hold of one of the candles spread out before her. Eh, she could get some reading done so long as she didn't burn her book by accident. Or her hair, or something like that. Sam dug through her backpack before she realized that her new Isaac Asimov book was right where she left it: in her dorm room, on her bed.

For some reason, the picture caught Sam's eye. Slowly, she reached forward and placed the candle in front of the frame. The folds in the paper combined with the flicker of the candlelight almost made the girl seem as though she was smiling. The girl had long, almost waist-length dark hair and an exaggerated widows peak. Weren't they supposed to be signs of beauty back then? Sam wondered as she touched the tip of her own widow's peak. I guess times change. She wore a modest dress, below the knee but above the ankle. It almost looked as though she'd outgrown it but continued to wear it anyway. Maybe that was why she wasn't smiling; her dress looked like a freaking corset.

Her eyes were what intrigued Sam the most. There seemed to be so many different emotions floating around in them: sadness, pain, anger, and something else. It was something that Sam couldn't quite place.

"Who is she?" Sam murmured quietly. Then she rolled her eyes, a humorless grin on her face. "Duh, I know where I could find that out." She brushed aside the weeds from the gravestone and held her candle up to it.

Marilee Samantha Hawkins

April 20, 1880 - May 14, 1899

The rain above washes away your pain

While the whispered winds cry our own

Marilee Samantha Hawkins, Sam thought. I wonder why she looks so sad. Looking back at the date, Sam realized that the girl was about her age when she died; why had someone so young died? Illness? Murder? Suicide?

Could she read? Sam knew that not a lot of women from that time period could, but Marilee's eyes were intelligent. She might not have had a chance to learn, but Sam wouldn't put it past her to teach herself. What had her family been like? Big or small? Sam bet they didn't treat her as respectfully as they should have; Marilee was probably always arguing, or, considering the time period, always wanting to argue, with anything that her mother said.

Then it hit her. Here they both were, the same place even after over two hundred years. Two Samanthas in one grave.

"Wow, that's one hell of a story," Danny commented. It was the coldest day of the winter so far, a lovely -3 degrees, and his heat wasn't working to the best of its ability, so the apartment felt like it was about 20 degrees. Even Danny, with his advanced tolerance to cold, was shivering. Sam was cocooned in the six blankets that Danny owned and her black sweats, but she was still shivering as much as Danny.

"Yeah. It turned out that the third girl, Emmeline, was right." Sam took a moment to reposition herself on the couch. It was faux leather so she had to sit on the blankets in order to keep her sensitive skin from touching the cold surface. "That's what launched me into songwriting."

"Really?" Danny asked. He never knew she wrote, but then again, he hadn't seen her in the two years that she'd started. Personally, he was devoid of all semblance of creativity with the English language; visual art was something he was much better at, if doodling counted as an art form. "Can I hear one?"

Sam grimaced. He's going to think it's stupid. "I don't know..."

"Oh come on. I'll call Tuck and force him to make hot chocolate," Danny bargained, his eyebrows going up and down. He looked so awkward that Sam had to laugh.

"Okay, fine. This one's called Midnight Confessions. I actually wrote it right after the whole graveyard thing." She cleared her throat before she started to sing:

"I saw the demons as they rose from the ash.
I felt the graveyard soil quake beneath my feet.
I saw the wandring souls, caught in the crossfire;
I saw the wandring spirits, cursed to damnation."

Danny stared. Not only did he not know that Sam wrote, but apparently he'd never heard her sing, either. Her voice was quiet and shook slightly from the cold, but it blended perfectly into the haunting melody. In his mind's eye, he could almost see the conflict she described from her night at the graveyard. It was very...Sam.

"Opening our hearts for consumption,
Devouring our last chance at life."

To say that she was nervous would be an understatement. She'd never sang her own songs for anyone else before, instead preferring to keep them her own private joys. Let's just say that her voice had more vibrato to it than usual. She wasn't used to giving herself so freely to someone else, even one of her best friends. She felt exposed.

"Walking the graveyard after midnight
Beneath a darkening new moon.
Beware, the whispered winds are crying
And remember - don't let them get you."

The song was short, but the silence left in its wake was long. Neither Danny nor Sam knew exactly what to say; Sam was nervously avoiding his eyes while Danny just didn't know how to express what he was feeling right then without screwing something up.

Suddenly, almost without warning, Danny launched forward. One arm circled around Sam's back while the other turned her by the chin to face him as his lips locked firmly onto hers. Sam's eyes widened before they closed softly, allowing her to fall deeper into the kiss. She took his lower lip into her mouth and sucked on it lightly, earning a low moan from Danny as he opened his mouth to her. The arm around her back came to rest at the nape of her neck with his fingers lightly fisting in her hair.

Wait a second, Sam thought as she opened one eye. I can't move. The blankets she had so carefully positioned around her were now keeping her entire body, minus her head and neck, bound in place with limited mobility. Without breaking the kiss as Danny slid his tongue past her lips, she began to struggle against her confines. Unfortunately, she had taken great pains to keep herself warm and couldn't escape from her cocoon easily.

Danny had yet to notice anything wrong. He was drowning in the feel of her lips against his, of her tongue dancing with his, of her skin under his fingertips. It wasn't until she started to squirm that Danny hestitantly stopped his attentions. Does she not...want this like I do? Fearing the worst, he shakily asked, "Sam?"

Sam paid him little attention as she forcibly pushed away the folds of the blankets. Or attempted to. Her hands found the edges of one blanket and pushed through to the next layer and the next. After a half minute more, she'd managed to free herself from her bindings. Looking at Danny, her heart swelled. He looked hurt, like she'd rejected him or...Sam mentally slapped herself on the forehead. Duh! He thought I was trying to get away from him! "Idiot," she breathed before launching herself at him.

The force knocked Danny back against the couch. Sensing his surprise, Sam took advantage of the moment and slipped her tongue into his mouth as her arms clasped around his neck. He tastes so fresh. Danny moaned as their tongue touched, snaking his arms around her waist. His fingers sensuously traced over her spine before a hand came to the nape of her neck. Slowly, he moved across her jawline, leaving butterfly kisses in his wake. Sam gasped as he nipped at her earlobe before dipping into the shell of her ear.

In their passion, neither heard the jingle of keys from just outside, nor did they hear the door unlock. They did hear the door open and they did see the shocked, but ever amused, face of Tucker.

In his defense, Tucker had to pause and decide what his next move would be. He had not expected to find his two friends practically going at it on the couch, no matter how much he teased them. His first instinct was to close the door, walk away, and never mention it again. The "logical" part of his brain reminded him that he had already ruined the moment, so he had no real guilt when he made his decision.

"Well I came in to see if you guys needed some hot chocolate to warm you up, but it looks like you've found a better way to keep warm."

He watched in morbid amusement as Sam and Danny locked wide eyed gazes with each other and quickly moved to opposite sides of the couch, as though they thought he could ever erase that mental picture. Both were spotting matching shades of red and were now avoiding each others' gaze. Tucker sighed internally; something or someone (usually him) always had to interrupt, didn't it? From the frustrated look on Danny's face, he could tell that his friend was thinking along those same lines.

"Uh," Sam said after clearing her throat, "we were actually just going to call you."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt that."

Sam's blush darkened a shade. "No, we had been planning to, but..."

She stopped when Tucker raised a hand to silence her. "Say no more. I just came to offer my services. But," he grinned, "I think you like what Danny has to offer a bit more."

Without actually turning his head, Danny looked in his direction and glared so fiercely that Tucker felt the room temperature drop another five degrees. Tucker laughed nervously with a wince as he said, "Yeah, I should be going..." And with that, he darted out the door and prayed that Danny would not come after him.

The tension was thick enough that even a meat cleaver couldn't cut through it. A minute passed in silence, followed by another. Danny was drumming his fingers on his knee while Sam was just sitting very still.

"So," Danny said in attempts to break the silence, "I can see why he was called Bad Luck Tuck. His timing sucks."

This earned him a weak grin from Sam. "Yeah."

Silence again.

"Um," Danny started after another minute. "Do you have a dress for the wedding yet?"

"Uh, no. I haven't had a chance to go shopping yet. And you know how much I love shopping." Sam's voice was dripping with sarcasm as she rolled her eyes. "I guess I shouldn't put it off too much longer, though. You want to come with me tomorrow?"

"Sure." Danny glanced at his clock. "Hey, are you hungry?" Sam nodded. "There's a really great Chinese place a few miles up the road. You interested?"

Sam's eyes lit up at the word 'Chinese.' Chinese food was her favorite, her absolute favorite. "Do you even have to ask?" The nervous tension wasn't broken, but it had lessened. And both were okay with that, though they both continued to silently curse Tucker and his horrible sense of timing for the rest of the night.