Things are probably going to go slowly right about now. I have no more chapters that are stored up and waiting for me to fix up, I'm making it all up as I go along. This means that what you see right now is where I have stopped. Chapter 9 is barely in progress!
Thanks to those who reviewed. Sorry I didn't list you guys. Forgive me?
Chapter 8: A Reunion
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, but I do own a miserable life. And don't worry, there's enough of it to share.
Sam parallel parked and stared outside.
"The park?" She asked, turning to Danny. He was grinning and Sam couldn't help the force that tugged her mouth into a smile.
"Yup, just the place," he said, excitedly. Sam shook her head and unlocked her seatbelt.
"How original," she said as she stepped out. She slammed the door behind her and turned to lean on the body of the car to look at Danny. The warm wind blew across her face, harshly using her hair as a whip. She pushed her sunglasses over her eyes and flipped her long hair over her shoulder. She was considering cutting it.
"I know!" He continued, excited, totally ignoring Sam's sarcasm. She rolled her eyes under her glasses and missed when Danny walked over to her side. He grabbed her hand and pulled her off her car. Sam followed behind him easily, forgetting anything else but where she was and who she was with.
"Where are you taking me? Are you kidnapping me Danny Fenton?" She asked.
"Probably. God knows that I want you to myself," he smiled. Sam smiled back and allowed him to pull her onto a wooden bench under a big tree. He plopped himself on it and pulled Sam down onto his lap with a whole lot of giggling. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. She melted against him, somehow able to enjoy the breeze that blew around them. People were walking their dogs, children were playing, small ice cream trucks and other small food trucks were parked to one side of the park with a huge crowd around them. It was a perfect setting to relax.
"So, what did you really bring me here for? To sexually harass me in public?" She asked.
"You'll find out in time. Hmmm…sexual harassment is a nice idea," he teased in a low, seductive voice. Sam could feel his hand on her chest. She looked down and saw nothing.
"Coward," she growled lightly.
"Ah, a challenge," he said and his hand flashed into view. Sam pushed it off and he laughed, only wrapping his arms around her more tightly and leaning in to smell her hair and kiss her neck under her hair so subtly.
"Wow, you did bring me here to sexually harass me," she smiled, enjoying the way his warm lips massaged her neck. His answer was a moan that sent shivers through her and a change from warm to icy. Sam arched her back just a little at the change. She could feel his laughter at the back of her neck.
"Anyone watching would think we're having sex," she said, twisting to the side in his lap. He looked up at her innocently with a question in his eyes.
"Do you want to try?" He asked. Sam's mouth hung slightly open in surprised amusement and then she smirked.
"I don't think so, I'm still marri…"
"Shhh. Don't say it," Danny said gently grasping her left hand. His fingers touched her ring and he looked at it. There, below Benjamin's ring, was his ring. She blushed, only to blush even more for it had been a while since she had turned pink.
"You still have this?" He whispered, looking into her eyes. Her hair fanned out, cutting their faces off from anybody's view. It was like a tent around them.
"Of course, I…I never left it behind…not once," she whispered back. Danny was so overcome by emotion that Sam could see it in his face. Danny crushed his lips to hers, fiercely, almost pushing her off his lap. She probably would have fallen too, if his hands were still not grasping her. His kiss was so powerful that Sam twisted her hands into the front of his shirt, a tiny ripping sound being heard. They moved rhythmically as his tongue pushed into her mouth, enveloping it in a blanket of ice. Sam gasped against his lips and moaned as her tongue started to battle with his romantically. Something strong built up in Sam and when he tried to pull away, she pulled him back in.
"Sam," he whispered against her face and a wave of ice cold breath washed over the contours of her face, touching every inch. She shivered with delight. Being a halfa had its advantages she had to admit.
"Danny." She whispered back, in the sweetest voice he had ever heard. He shivered at her voice. She pulled back, out of the most powerful kiss she had ever experienced and laughed.
"You're covering me in ice and you're the one that's shivering," she said, flipping her hair over one shoulder.
"Can we do that again?" He asked breathlessly. Sam then noticed how quickly her chest was moving up and down to regulate her breathing.
"I wish," she whispered, looking away. Danny's hand rubbed the exposed skin beneath her short skirt.
"I love you, so much, Sam. I thought I was going to go crazy insane without you," he whispered huskily into her hair, kissing it.
"Eh-hem, excuse me," somebody cleared their throat. Sam's eyes caught Danny's happy look, the one he had when he had left the car, and her head snapped around to see who he was so happy to see. It was Jazz. It was Jazmine Fenton, standing a few feet away from Sam, in a skirt suit, looking very professional and lovely. Sam froze for half a second, then she launched off of Danny's lap and ran right into his sister, almost knocking the thin girl down in her rush.
"Oh my goodness, Jazz! JAZZ! Is it really, really you? I didn't see this one coming! No wonder that old fart over there was so happy when we got here. Jazz!" She yelled as she crushed the girl with a massive bear hug.
"Sam! It's been…forever! When Danny told me he was bringing you here today, I thought I would stop by. I don't work too far from here, which meant that nothing was going to keep me from not coming!" Jazz exclaimed.
"Are you still breathing, Jazz?" Danny asked as he wandered over to them.
"Just fine," Jazz choked out. She was turning purple.
"Ok, time to let me hug her," Danny said, resting a hand on Sam's shoulder. She let go of Jazz and turned to face Danny.
"You've had her all to yourself for how long, I don't know. Allow us to have a good reunion, would you!" Sam said, and she was back to killing Jazz. When they pulled away from each other, Sam was fighting the tears from the corner of her eyes.
"I couldn't help but notice you guys and your make-out session, from across the park. Rather interesting as I'm sure more was going on that no one could see," Jazz said. Sam blushed again and glared at Danny.
"As if you didn't enjoy it, Sam," he said, hugging her. He gave her a peck on the cheek to back up his words.
"Hey, Danny, could you go get me something to eat over there, by that restaurant on wheels?" Sam asked. Danny looked over at the line. It was the longest one. He groaned to himself. That would be a long wait.
"Ok, what does your heart desire?" He asked.
"Whatever you like, you can just get me that," she said. Danny cocked one of his eyebrows.
"Umm, sure," he said and he started jogging off. Sam pulled Jazz onto a bench.
"I need to know about Danny," Sam began right away. Jazz seemed confused for a while, until she realized that sending Danny away was meant to get them alone time.
"What do you need to know?" She asked.
"What it was like for him in prison," Sam said. Jazz glanced behind her to see Danny join the line.
"I know I haven't seen you in a while, but I need to know this, before he comes back. When he comes back, we can talk about you. Please, I need to know," Sam begged.
"Danny mentioned you were married. Is that…true?" Jazz asked. Sam swallowed and nodded. Jazz gasped softly.
"His name is Benjamin Nichols and he's a lawyer. We're been married for 4 years and we have adopted 2 children. Zoey, who is 14 and Shaire, who is 7. He doesn't know about Danny, he also doesn't know that Shaire is Danny's son. He doesn't know how much I hate him and no one else from now on out except you will know that I pushed him down the stairs and he's in the hospital now," Sam confessed in a whisper. Jazz seemed frozen; Sam was wondering if she was even breathing. The whole world paused with Jazz. When her chest started moving again, so did reality.
"You have a son?" She asked. Her question came out as a whisper, though Sam was sure it wasn't supposed to. The incredibility of what she had said had knocked the voice out of Jazz.
"Yes. He's 7 and he looks exactly like Danny. He even calls him Daddy. I don't know how that is. I've never told him or implied it in any way. I don't know how he knows. He knows so many things that I don't want him to know. And…and…Jazz…he's a…he's…" Sam stuttered.
"He a quarter ghost," Jazz finished in surprise, in that same tone as she finished Sam's sentence. Sam swallowed past the knot in her throat and nodded. Jazz leaned back against the back of the seat in awe.
"You pushed your husband down the stairs? Why?" She asked, her voice gaining regularity.
"Because he hit me and threatened my children. I never loved him and I never will. I only married him because Danny told me I had to move on. I don't work, thanks to me giving up the fight against my parents, so I solely depend on him. I am using him; I only want the best for Zoey and Shaire. If I was selfish, I would have left him years ago when I realized that I had made a bad decision. The worst in my life. Now I am utterly confused. I have to choose between Danny and Ben. And it seems less like a choice now because I threatened to kill my husband and we both hate each other. What the hell was I thinking?" Sam asked in a rush of words, shrieking out the last sentence.
"Be calm, Sam. Obviously you have made a choice, subconsciously. So why beat yourself up over it? It's clear that Danny is who your mind has chosen, why else then would you push Ben down the stairs…apart from him hitting you," Jazz said. Sam cocked her side to the side in thought and looked at Jazz. Something that Zoey had said came back to her. "But think about this for a while Sam. What is what's good for you is the best thing for you?" Zoey had asked.
"So, you're saying that Danny is who I am choosing?" Sam asked.
"Not really. What I am trying to do is help you to realize who you should choose, or you could look at it as me giving Danny the upper hand. I am not controlling you, I am simply pushing you in the right direction," Jazz smiled.
"I can deal with that in a while. I just need to know about Danny," Sam urged, her eyes flickering to the subject, who was nowhere close to the front of the line and was frowning deeply.
"And you worry about him. Definitely Danny. You do know that nothing you do can stop me from telling him all of this, right?" Jazz asked as she raised an eyebrow. It was fun to tease Sam.
"I will get down on my knees and beg you, Jazz," Sam said. Jazz raised her eyebrows in question.
"Ok, I wouldn't, but could you please stop torturing me?" Sam asked. Jazz held up her hands in defeat.
"Ok, ok, what did you say you wanted to know?" She asked with a smile.
"I want to know everything. He hasn't told me in detail about prison and I want to know," Sam said softly, composing herself.
"Well, it wasn't easy. For a while he was suicidal and depressed. And it didn't take a genius to figure out what was the cause of it. So, we couldn't really help him, just hope that he would find a way out of it. He refused to eat, he got in a lot of fights with the other inmates, he didn't care what happened to him and he rejected all forms of comfort. For him it was like being locked away in hell, without the slightest chance of escape," Jazz said, looking straight at Sam. Sam's eyes widened and she looked away from Jazz's eyes guiltily.
"Suicidal?" Sam asked, still staring at the ground. She felt Jazz pull her into a hug.
"It's not your fault, Sam," Jazz said. Sam shook her head.
"I know it isn't, but a little part of me can't let me get away with listening to him when he told me not to visit him. I gave up that part of me a long time ago…I wish I hadn't," she said, turning to look at Jazz.
"He got over it, eventually. He told himself that he was an idiot for punishing himself for something out of his control and he made up his mind to persevere through everything. He wanted to give you up, but that was truly impossible. He never got over you or moved on, he simply stored you in that special place where he would have reason to cry whenever he visited it, and that was often. For most of the past 7 years, Danny was an emotional mess. I couldn't help him. Neither could mom or dad. He did everything by himself. I am proud of him, my strong little brother," Jazz said, smiling at Danny. He grinned back and waved.
"So…what was it like outside of prison? When did he get out?" Sam asked. She too gazed at Danny, wondering about him.
"He got out 5 months ago. It was the happiest day of my life. The happiest day of all our lives! They publicly apologized to us and it was on a whole lot of cable stations. They gave him a job as a mechanic and he started out on the road of life. Fixing cars isn't what he likes to do, but it's something that doesn't let him depend on other people too much. He still thinks it would have been cool to be an astronaut, but since he can't get so close to his stars, he decided that he wanted to work at an observatory. So, he started his classes and it brought us here to Cambridge. I'm not sure how the observatory business goes, but he's so excited to be working there already since his classes haven't finished. It seems he knows the constellations like the back of his hand," Jazz said, almost boasting.
"I never knew that," Sam said. Danny had never told her he was interested in the constellations.
"Really? Never?" Jazz seemed confused as her brows wrinkled together.
"Never," Sam said, exasperated. Jazz frowned for a bit.
"It's understandable enough why he didn't tell you," she said, after seemingly analyzing a thought.
"Pray tell why he didn't tell me," Sam said. She folded her arms roughly against her chest as she seethed with anger. Why didn't he tell her? It was obviously a major factor of his life. How much did Sam not know?
"He spent more time looking at you than he did at the stars. And when he wasn't looking at you, he was thinking about you. Plus, his interest dwindled after mom and dad were kidnapped. I can see now why he didn't mention it to you," Jazz said. Sam's anger instantly dissipated. She blushed slightly at what Jazz had said. She was the only one who was on his mind.
"Oh," Sam said simply. Jazz's words flowed through her head again. "Suicidal" rang a high note in her thoughts amongst those that played softly in her head.
She sat, frozen, for a while as she ran through her head what it must have been like for him. She had not been suicidal, though she had wished herself dead many times; she had just simply given up on life going the way she had wanted it to. She didn't fight anything after that, she didn't fight against the tide, she had let it fling her onto the shore of reality and real life. She wished that neither of them had had to face what they had faced.
"So what about you, Sam? How did you deal?" Jazz asked. They both looked at Danny; he was finally at the front of the line.
"I didn't. I gave up on life being whatever you make of it. I just listened to my parents and ended up doing what they wanted me to. I didn't care. And I always thought that by adopting children, I would be helping them. I never once thought that I was pulling them into my selfish, damned life! Zoey hates Ben! She calls him a bastard. Shaire is probably terrified of him. You should have seen him when he told me that he knew that Ben had hit me. He doesn't like him either! How could I have been so selfish all along? I'm killing my kids," Sam bashed herself. She could feel the tears. She didn't feel like living. It was hard to figure out what was the worst mistake of her life. She had made so many devastating choices.
"Don't hate yourself. Do not, Samantha!" Jazz ordered. Sam swiped her hand across her eyes and sniffed. She couldn't cry, she was stronger than this. She could find other ways to express her emotions.
"It won't do you any good to hate yourself! Not now! You have the chance, right now, to turn your life around! To change it! And that chance is coming right over here," Jazz pleaded with Sam. Sam sucked up the tears and focused on Danny who was walking over a disappointed look on his face and nothing in his hands.
It came suddenly, nothing short of an epiphany. The confused muddle that had once declared itself as Sam's brain was instantaneously cleared and she could see. She could think logically. She knew what she had to do.
She almost burst into tears, with the accompaniment of laughter as she realized that what she had truly wanted was what would work out best. Danny was her answer and she had been so dumb to not have noticed. Benjamin was not the one to be chosen. To continue surrendering to him would be to make not only her miserable, but also her children. She could not afford for Shaire and Zoey to feel the pain she felt. She would not let them.
All along she had thought that Ben would have been better, and it was clear. He had money, he could get either Zoey or Shaire into well-known schools based on his reputation and associations. But that wasn't the only thing that mattered in life. It was family. It was waking up in the morning and being happy. It was Danny.
"Thank you Jazz. I think I know what to do," Sam said. Jazz gently squeezed Sam in their hug before she let her go.
"I assure you, you're doing it right," Jazz said as Sam stood up. Sam nodded to her beaming friend and straightened herself. Her eyes fell on Danny immediately. Sam smiled and her eyes became blurry. Yes, she could feel it, it was right. She quickly began walking, knowing already what she would say to him.
His shoulders were slumped in disappointment. His hands only held money as he began the walk back over to his girls. They had nothing there that he thought Sam would like. It was all meat. He was trying to remember if she had changed her diet. His memory was from the time Ben had invited him over to dinner. He could not remember her choices; he was too busy trying to keep himself composed. He looked up and saw Sam, gracefully walking to meet him. His spirits sank lower. She would be disappointed too. He didn't want that. Then he realized that she was happy. He was confused. She was happy, yet tears shone in her eyes. What was wrong?
Walking was taking too long and Sam started sprinting, as fast as she could run, across the distance. She slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and almost dumping them on the ground. Her hands were flung around his neck and her head buried deep into his chest. His hands immediately wrapped around her, one hand rubbing her hair gently.
"Is something wrong?"' He asked, rocking them from side to side. He could feel her shake her head. It was a no.
"Then…what's happening?" He continued. Sam pulled away from his chest and tilted her head to look up at him, into his wonderfully blue eyes.
"I love you, Danny. More than I love my life. My life has been hell without you. I don't know how I went through 7 years without you by my side. I want you, Danny. I want you to be with me every day. I want to go to sleep with your arms around me. I want Zoey and Shaire to call you daddy. I want you in my life. Forever," she said, the tears flowing. Danny was shocked. He searched her eyes to see if he could read what had happened so suddenly to produce such a reaction from her.
"…What?" He asked, all intelligent words failing him. Sam smiled and pressed her body to his more sensually. She raised a hand to touch his face. The face she could gaze on for all eternity. The face of her lover. She tipped and brought his tender lips down to hers. And she kissed him. He kissed her back, a thankful reflex action. He pulled away from her a few seconds into the kiss and stared at her face with tears streaming down it. He raised a hand and gently killed one of her tears. His heart went soft. It had been a long time since he had seen her like this. Since recently, she had refused to show vulnerability to anyone, even to him.
She had allowed him to cry when they had spoken about Shaire. She had held him and pushed back everything while he cried like a little boy without a mother. And she had not collapsed in front of him when they had argued. She stood firm and defended her ground. How could he have called her weak especially when she was standing so strongly against him because of what she believed in? He had been an idiot. He didn't deserve her forgiveness. He didn't deserve her showing to him the faults in her strong shield. He wasn't enough for her. He wanted to cry too.
Her gesture was of course one of acceptance. She had come running into his arms like he could save her from everything evil, and keep her mind at peace. She had told him willingly how much she wanted him. She wanted him as her life, her reason to push through every day. He couldn't be that for her. He was incapable of her expectations. How silly he had been. How silly he had been to think that he would try everything in his power to win back Sam and make her his life. How ironic too, that in the beginning he had been the one fighting for her, never wanting to give up. Yet, here she was, without much effort on his part, giving him what he had wanted since he laid eyes on her in her house. Yet, he wanted to let her go. Tell her she was right, she had been right from the start and he was messing up everything. He was messing up everything she had worked for. He simply did not deserve her.
He blinked back the tears. It was his time to be strong. He would have to tell her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man, staring openly and unabashed at them. He was tall, with blue eyes and cropped golden hair. He was unnervingly familiar, but Danny could not place who he was. He shook the stranger's eyes out of his head and looked into Sam's amethyst orbs of amazement. She was searching his eyes too and her smile, still intact despite her tears, slowly faded to a frown of dark clouds and rain.
"What is it? Aren't you happy? I'm here. I'm yours. I'm not fighting you anymore Danny," she said softly, staring into his eyes now, ripping his heart out with her words. He placed his hands on her shoulders and put a space between them. He took a deep breath and shook his head to quell the storm that raged onwards in it. He looked deep into her eyes and spoke.
"I'm sorry Sam. I…I can't."
It's so strange. Some days I sit and I can't write a thing and other days everything flows so fast that I can't possibly get it out in time! It's abnormal and not good, since I felt like I was catching writers' block several times this week, but everything started flowing again for the last part and I went into chapter 9 without blinking. PLEASE REVIEW!! OR FLAME ME!! WHICHEVER! I NEED FEEDBACK!!!
