Title: Stitches

Characters: Sam, Danny

Rating: K+

Genre: Angst/Comfort, Romance

Word Count: 804

Pairing: Amethyst Ocean

Triggers: Needles, stitching

Whichever "Danny" Sam was sitting with, she didn't like it.

There was Danny Fenton, the awkward, hapless dork that barely scraped by in school and made jokes with Tucker and was late to every class. There was Danny Phantom, the care-free and skilled ghost hero that liked to crack bad puns and kept Amity Park safe from the more malignant spirits. There was her Danny, who liked to sit close to her and press his forehead to hers and run his hands through her hair and whisper corny things into her ear just to make her laugh.

This Danny was dead silent and worked meticulously on his stitching, his jaw set and his eyes dark.

Sam searched her brain for something, anything, to say to break the tension, but she was coming up with nothing. Tucker would undoubtedly be able to make a joke somehow and maybe coming from him, Danny would laugh. She, however, could not find a joke to tell, perhaps because of the pinching of the needle in her arm. As the years had gone by Danny had stopped flinching when she or Tucker sutured a wound shut, as though he had grown used to it. Sam had never been the one under the needle until that night, and she didn't see how Danny could stand it.

"You could've gone to a doctor," this Danny said in a small voice. It was a strange voice to hear, coming from him – no matter what "Danny", he always sounded so sure of himself.

"Yeah, but you owe me for stitching you up so many times," Sam replied, trying to sound as confident as ever despite the pain. This earned her a little smile that remained on his face unconsciously. "Besides, you're as good as any doctor at stitching up cuts."

"Unfortunately." The smile faded completely and he lapsed back into silence.

Sam sighed, flinching as the needle passed through her shoulder again. "Alright, Danny, what's eating at you?"

He paused mid-stitch, his entire form seeming to turn to stone. He opened his mouth a little to reply, shut it, then continued stitching. "I can't help but feel this was my fault," he admitted at last, then tried to appease her with "I know! I know!" as she started to protest, but she wouldn't have it.

"It's not your fault!" she said firmly. "You were busy with the other three ghosts, there's nothing you could've done. Besides, it wasn't too deep a cut."

"But it could've been," he insisted hoarsely. He had stopped stitching but Sam wasn't sure if he had finished. "It could've been worse. Sam, you could've died, you're always at risk-"

"Danny!" she scolded, scooting on her bed to face him head-on. "What's with the gloom-and-doom all of a sudden? We've been doing this for years now."

Danny bit the inside of his lip and stared down at the floor. "Yeah, I know," he replied, "but… you're always getting kidnapped, or in trouble with your parents, or hurt, and it's all because of me."

"And if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be half-ghost at all," she reminded him, lifting an eyebrow in his direction. "We can sit here and point fingers all night or we can finish closing up this wound."

"It's done," he said, snapping back to attention. "I just need to tie it off." And he did just that, but his shoulders were tensed in a way that meant he had more to say.

She took a steadying breath. "Danny, even if you weren't Phantom, there's always the chance we could all be hit by a car or fall off a building or-"

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?" he asked, but his tone was lighter. His mouth twitched up into a smile and he added, "Do we all fall off the building at once?"

Sam laughed. "My point is, anyone can die at any time, so there's no point planning our funerals while we're still alive because right now we are still alive. And I don't know about Tucker," Sam broke off with a resigned shrug and Danny snorted, "but I'm pretty good at taking care of myself and I'm not gonna die on you anytime soon. You got that?"

He gave her a sarcastic grin but when he said "Promise?" his tone was strained and desperate.

Sam forced herself to smile back. "I promise," she replied quietly, pulling him into a hug.

His powerful arms held her for longer than she expected, but she didn't mind. The throbbing pain in her arm seemed very far away now because she knew she had her Danny back, if only for this moment.

"I can't find a way to seamlessly transition into a sewing pun," Danny muttered, and Sam laughed. Yep, she had her Danny back.