A/N: OOOOOHHHH! I thought that Valerie and Tucker were just as cute as Danny and Sam were, didn't you? Well, then, I would, of course, think that! After all, I'm an unashamedly staunch shipper of DxS and TxV, that's all!! Anyhow, hope you're like this story! Remember, IDNOAC and here is Chapter 8 for ya. Enjoy!

Trueheart—Chapter 8-- The New Couple on the Block

As was usual, Danny and Sam were approaching Tucker's house the next day to meet up with him to go to school. But they both instinctively glanced at each other when they saw Valerie approaching in the distance from the other side. She had never done this before. Usually she met up with Tucker at school. She waved at them and they sheepishly waved back.

"This is new," Sam said under her breath to Danny as she continued to barely smile at Valerie, who at that point was out of earshot. She still wasn't comfortable around her because she continued to hunt her boyfriend; or more specifically, her boyfriend's ghost form.

Danny smirked at Sam, and asked, "Yeah, so does this mean we're going on a 'double date'? Uh, even though this really isn't a 'date' date since we're all going to school?"

Sam rolled her eyes and deadpanned, "Funny. But I'll guess we'll have no choice. I hope I can roll with it. Can you?"

"As long as she's hunting for Tucker rather than Phantom, I can," he answered with another smirk.

This time she groaned, and they pressed onward, stopping as they reached Valerie.

All three stood in silence at first, feeling suddenly awkward with this new, thrust-upon non-routine. Before they could say anything, however, Tucker bolted out of his door and yelled, "Hi, Danny! Hi, Sam! Hi, Valerie!"

All three teens turned to him in bewilderment. He was so very peppy for first thing in the morning.

He rushed right up to Valerie and said again, a little more romantically this time, "Hi, Valerie!" as he slipped his hand into hers.

Danny and Sam jolted a little when Valerie giggled back, "Hi, there, yourself, Tucker! Gee, you would think you hadn't seen me for a week."

Tucker said, and his voice sounded a little too mushy, "For me, a minute away from you might as well be a week."

"Oh, Tucker, that's so nice, but you know we still have a lot of classes together. So, we can't help but see each other today. Still, there's always, after school."

Tucker just smiled back, and the look on his face made Danny and Sam feel just a little too uncomfortable.

"Uh, maybe we should get going. To school," Danny finally insisted. But he didn't need to prod Sam to get going at all; she had been way ahead of him. He suddenly grunted at the jerk she had given him as she pulled him forward, away from the other couple.

But Tucker and Valerie didn't notice that and followed right behind them.

When they had gone a little way, Sam slowed her pace and Danny caught up. He was glad she had calmed down. He didn't know how much longer he could take having his arm pulled out of its joint. Finally, she leaned closer to Danny. Without missing a beat in their walk, she whispered, "What was that all about?"

"Don't know, and really, I don't want to know right now," he whispered back. "Let's talk about it when we get to school, OK?"

"OK, or we could, you know," she suggested with a slight cringe.

He smirked a little and answered mentally, "OK, since you insist."

"Well, if you rather we wait…" she offered.

But he insisted mentally back, "It's OK. We've already started it, you know. But let me tell you what I think. I think it looks like they may be getting more serious then we thought. And I also think that it's about time that we let them be around us more often. Tucker has done his best to keep their, uh, relationship away from us. He knows that we're—or I should say, you are—a little uncomfortable having her around. I understand that, but I'm not as uptight as you are about that. As long as she isn't in her huntress mood or mode, I don't think we have anything to worry about. And I think we've been a little unfair to Tucker. He has been very tolerant with us and I think it's our turn to be tolerant with him and Valerie."

Sam blinked mentally and physically at her boyfriend's remark. She sent her response back to his mind. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"Well, quite honestly, it hasn't been a real issue. But from the way they just acted, it looks like it might become one now. I mean, we really haven't seen Tucker and Valerie too much together. Even at school, Tucker keeps a low profile with her. And Tuck did say that she is way too busy to just 'hang around' him all the time. And that's also because he's usually hanging around us."

Sam swallowed in guilt. She knew Danny was right. "OK, Danny, I agree with you. But if she just so much as looks cross-eyed when she talks about Danny Phantom, I'll…."

She heard his laugh in her mind just before he said, "Don't worry, OK, Sam? I've taken so many 'hits' on my character, hearing any more of them from one of the 'experts' won't be any different. I think it would be better if we just let them slide off of us. Otherwise, don't you think she might become suspicious of our reactions?"

This time, Sam stopped in her tracks, which because they were still holding hands, jerked Danny backward. Even Tucker and Valerie almost ran into them.

"What was that all about?" Danny mentally threw at her, a little irritated by her reaction.

"Sorry!" she sheepishly said to Tucker and Valerie as she continued onward, this time gently urging Danny on. Then, she finally answered her boyfriend in their minds. "Sorry, Danny. I just was a little blown away with your response just now. I'm still getting use to the 'new and improved' you, even though I really like it! I am just wowed all the time!"

Knowing that she was referring to the fact that he was now actually thinking about things more often than not, he deadpanned. "Very funny. Now, I could really 'wow' you in spouting out some philosophical nonsense about why horses shouldn't have shoes, but I think I'll pass!"

This time they both laughed and didn't say anything more—verbally or mentally for the rest of the walk to school.

But neither of them had noticed the flit of a tiny green fly that kept itself both near and far from them the whole time.

The new girl looked around nervously, hoping that she would be able to blend into this foreign school as much as possible. She had managed to go relatively unnoticed in the past two weeks since she had come, so she hoped that her luck would hold out. She didn't even want to be in this town, least of all, at this school! But her family had moved here after her father landed his new job.

She was a little glad that she was old enough to kinda roll with it. And it would only be for three years at the most. Really, less, since she was now a little into her sophomore year. With another quick, irritated flick of her hand, she pushed away her blonde hair that had fallen into her ocean-colored eyes again and went up to her locker.

Before she could wrestle with her combination lock, she heard a groan from the person next to her as he wrestled with his….

The tall, dark-haired, brown-eyed boy was a sophomore just like her. He, however, was a refugee from Croatia along with his family, having arrived in this country only a month before. And this was his very first day at Casper High. He was very thankful to be here, starting his new life in this big, inviting country. His English, of course, was poor, but he was determined to blend in as much as possible in spite of that.

As he struggled with the lock on his locker, he cursed under his breath in his native language. This should be easy enough, but he was having a hard time with it. He stopped and stared at the slip of paper in his other hand again.

The sandy-haired girl finally noticed his dilemma, but hesitated. Finally, as he was obviously becoming more exasperated with his continuing failure, she finally braved a response, "Uh, here, maybe I can help? These lame lockers this school gave us are just as useless as the books within them!"

He smiled weakly as she took the combination lock out of his hands, and continued, "So, what's the combination?"

He didn't understand her, but he also didn't want to seem rude. So he uttered in his thick accent, "Sorry. No talk to English vell. Took a little in Croatia, but not much."

She thought his accent was kinda cute and she immediately pointed to the slip of paper in his hand.

He squeamishly surrendered it to her and she deftly turned the lock to the designated points. The lock snapped open and the boy sighed before saying, "Thank me. In your country, the movement are the…ree-verse!"

She smiled and said, "You're welcome! And my name is Alice. But my friends call me "Al".

He shot his right hand forward and she took it, and as he shook it, he said, "You are Armen. From Croatia."

She giggled, "No, you are Armen from Croatia."

He blinked in confusion. Isn't that what he just said? Then, why did she say that? He thought she called herself 'Alice'. Or was it 'Al'? But he blurted out, "No. You are Armen. He iz Alice."

She laughed this time but assuredly said, "That's OK. I know what you mean. I can see you're even newer here than me! That's kinda nice to have at least that in common with someone!"

"Yez," he replied, though he wasn't that certain what she had said. "You are new! He iz sorry."

She scrunched her face up at first, and then knew what he meant. "That's all right! You don't—I mean, 'he' doesn't have to be sorry! It's just that I really thought I was the only one in this school who was the alien from another planet. Not that you're an alien, per se. It's just that…"

But she could see by the look on his face, that even though he was trying very hard to follow her conversation, he was not succeeding. She stopped and then shrugged. Well, maybe he was half-alien. But then she said, "What class do you have next?"

He was glad that he kinda understood her this time. "English," he said with a smile.

"Ugh! No wonder you're all screwed up! You probably know more English than that lame teacher does!" she said with a laugh.

He smiled, not having a clue to what she just said. "Uh, English next to me, also?" he asked.

"No, I have math. What a drag that is, too! But I'm doing all right in it so far, considering I've literally jumped in with both feet," she answered.

"I have the both feet for math?" he asked, completely taken aback by her comment. What did feet have to do with writing out math problems?

She giggled a little. Maybe this was going to be a fun year after all! He was cute and seemed awfully nice. "Hey, Armen, don't worry about it, OK? When do you have lunch? If you have it at the same time as me, how about a couple of nobody 'newbies' having lunch together?"

"Yez," he agreed, not sure if she had said something about a 'lunch', whatever that was. Still, whatever that was, she wanted to do that together. Maybe? He looked at his schedule, afraid to admit to her that he still wasn't able to read it very well.

But she noticed that in his frustration, he had turned it upside-down. She was about to say something, but before she could, he nodded politely to her and headed toward another part of the school.

She ran right after him and said with a smile, "No, No! English class is that way."

He turned his head in the direction in which she was pointing. "Tank me." But then, he stopped and sheepishly handed her his schedule. "Sorry. You do not know your schedule."

She smirked, now amused at herself. She knew exactly what he meant. She looked over the paper and let out a small giggle. They would be having lunch together.

The first bell rang and she hurriedly said, "At lunch, when 'he and you' meet to eat, 'you' will tell 'he' some correct English! See you then, OK?"

"Oh. Kay," he said, as he watched after her as she turned to leave. Suddenly, he couldn't help but be hopeful that he would be all right in this totally new place after all. She seemed very nice and the only one so far who took the time to try to understand him. He headed toward the right direction to his English class.

Alice smiled as she walked on, nearing another boy who was crouched at his open locker with lots of books on the floor. She suddenly jerked her head back toward Armen, hoping to catch one last peek of him before she would have to hurry to math. But when she turned back, she found herself falling—right into the arms of the surprised boy, who reacted reflexively and deftly caught her.

He quickly righted them both and pulling back from her, nervously said, "Uh, sorry! I shouldn't have been pulling out so many books at once. I'm always having to re-arrange my darn locker to get just to one little thing." He quickly followed that remark with a quick tossing of all his books pell-mell back into the locker. He then slammed the door, shoving back at the books fighting to fall back out. Smiling at his success, he niftily secured the lock on the groaning door.

After watching the scene unfold, while partially stunned, Alice was finally able to say, "That's OK. I wasn't looking where I was going, either. No harm done, 'K?"

"'K!" he said, relieved. "Uh, are you new here? I don't think I've seen you before? I'm Danny."

"And, yeah, I just got here a couple of weeks ago. And my name is Alic- Al. Al."

"Al?" Danny asked with a smirk, before turning to his girlfriend, whose locker was right next to his. "Hey, Sam, meet Al! Al, Sam!....He chuckled on his next remark, "That's just too weird to be here with two girls that, well, you know, both of you have, well,…"

Sam smirked and gently interrupted him, "Don't mind him, Al. He does this all the time!"

"Hey!" Danny objected, but knew that she was kidding when she slipped her hand quietly into his and squeezed.

"Well, I better be going, then," Al said. "See ya sometime?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny and Sam said in unison.

"She seems nice," Danny commented as he watched the girl leave.

"Yeah. Anyone who isn't in any kind of clique is OK in my book," Sam dryly said, glancing back at the retreating girl. "So, I'll see you at lunch, then?"

"You bet! I just wish we had more classes together this semester," he replied with a disappointed tone as they started toward their respective classes.

"Well, maybe it's best that we didn't. Don't want you to get burned out with me," she quipped back.

He smiled and said to her mentally, "What? And miss all this…" But he stopped when he caught a drift of her thoughts. She had been momentarily jealous of that girl?

Sam's eyes snapped wider when she realized what had happened. She could feel the blood rush to her checks. She chuckled nervously and stammered, "U-Uh, it's really freaky that such random thoughts just jump at you at the lamest times, right, Danny?"

"No problem, Sam. It's not important. And I didn't knock first before I just barged in," her boyfriend said assuredly. "So, let's not sweat about it, OK?" He leaned over and gave her a quick peck on her still blushing cheek.

"OK, Danny. See ya at lunch, then," Sam agreed, and then fumed at herself just as he left. "You're such an idiot, Sam! Why should you be jealous any more about any girl? After all we've gone through, what's there to worry about? We're definitely comfortable with each other; we trust each other. So, just roll with that and don't get bent out-of-shape if a girl so much as looks at him!"

But she still frowned in dissatisfaction. She had gone through too many years of fighting and hiding her feelings, especially her jealousy. After all, they had been dating only for a little over a year now, well, really a little more. And they had gone through so much. This shouldn't be a bother at all! Even though she knew that their relationship was stronger than ever, it would still take some time for her to completely work through her insecurities.

She shook her thoughts away as she finally got to her English class and went in. She sat down at her usual seat, which was right next to Tucker and the new boy, Armen.

As they waited for the teacher to start the class, Tucker, as usual, was being hyper-friendly to the new boy. Sam thought the new boy looked aloof and even seemed to be ignoring Tucker. But, in reality, Armen had sort of phased away from the conversation because he simply couldn't keep up with Tucker's bullet-fast rate of speech.

Finally, Sam took pity on the new kid and said to her bespectacled friend, "Tucker, knock it off, will you? Can't you see that he's not interested?"

Then she immediately turned to Armen and said, "Don't mind him. He does this to everyone. He's quite harmless when you get to know him."

"Hey!" Tucker objected, but the new boy just cringed.

Sam scrunched her face up, confused at the new kid's reaction. She had meant that as a joke. Either he was clueless or stuck-up.

But before she could ponder over it any more, the teacher announced, "OK, class…."

Finally, class was over and it was time to leave. Armen had kept silent throughout the session. He was trying his best to take it all in. But the mental energy needed to do all that exhausted him. His mind in a fog, he headed to his locker, not paying any attention at all to how he was headed toward his locker. He was trying to study his schedule at the same time as moving in autopilot. But just before he was able to get which class he should next go to, he ran right into Dash Baxter who was actually walking on the 'wrong' side of the hall. They both grunted at the impact and Armen dropped his books.

"Oh. Sorry," Armen said with a worried frown. "Your problem. You did not meant to bump me. " But, of course, he didn't have a handle on the proper use of pronouns, er, really, English in general.

"Me bump you? YOU bumped me, chump!" Dash growled back.

By this time, Sam and Tucker had arrived on the scene and heard the commotion. From what they heard next, they now knew why the new kid had been so quiet and seemed distant during their English class. He was obviously a foreigner.

"Sorry," Armen pleaded again in his unmistakably thick accent. "Not talk to English vell. Name are Armen." He shot his hand forward to Dash, hoping to diffuse the situation.

But Dash started to laugh, and then jeered, "Armen? Your name is 'Armen'? As in 'Arm 'n' Hammer'?" He stifled a snort, but continued, "What kind of name is that? Do you give discounts for doing our laundry, then?" This time, he croaked with laughter.

Sam instinctually jumped between Armen and Dash. "Leave him alone, Dash," she growled. "Can't you see that he can't speak English well? Give him some slack!"

"You mean, give him my slacks to wash? Maybe after gym!" Dash barely uttered between his laughs.

Sam growled again and then grabbing Armen's hand, pulled him away from the scene.

Tucker dutifully followed them. Not that he was afraid of Dash at all any more. He just wanted to avoid any trouble and not give him an excuse as to why he shouldn't use his PDA on the jock.

They had just gotten down the hall some ways, when who should turn the corner than Alice. When she saw Sam holding on to Armen's hand, she instantly glowered in jealousy. Didn't that girl already have a boyfriend? And now that girl was hitting on the guy she liked? What nerve! She angrily turned around and stormed off.

Finally, Sam decided that they had gone far enough away and let go of Armen's hand. She turned to him and said, "Uh, sorry. We're not all bad here, you know. Take it from me. Paying attention to jock-jerks like him isn't worth it at all. Just stay away from him and you'll do fine."

Armen didn't understand a lot of what she said, but he knew that she had 'rescued' him from 'the Dash'. He said, "You like tank me... I met, tank me, uhm, you? Right?"

"Oh, OK. You're welcome. I think." Sam replied with a smirk. "Oh, my name is Sam,…." She quickly pointed to her friend and continued, "And this is Tucker."

Armen smiled and politely replied, "You are Armen. You are from Croatia."

Sam and Tucker quickly glanced at each other and then blinked in bewilderment at the boy in front of them.

Tucker then said, "I think you meant, 'You are Armen'. I mean, 'I am Armen.' We say 'I' to mean 'me', not 'you'. Like 'I am Tucker'. See?"

This time, Armen blinked in bewilderment at him. Didn't Sam just say his name was 'Tucker'? Then why was that boy calling himself 'Armen' and then that new name, too? But, of course, he must have heard her wrong. He braved a response. "Uh, tank you, 'I-am-Tucker."

Tucker winced. This was definitely going to be a challenge.

But just then, the first tardy bell rang.

Tucker said, "Well, we've got to be going. See ya sometime?"

"Uh, good," Armen said with a weak smile.

Then they all left, wondering what the heck they had been talking about in the end.

But the ever watchful insect eyes had widened at all this news.