Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any character related to it. I am just a dedicated fan.

DarkDragonQueen: I hate my muses at this particular moment. Plot I and III were neck and neck when it came to the votes so when I had decide which one to use, once again Drama and Angst had to pop up in my head. They kept arguing that the first story didn't have enough of them in it and they would not be satisfied until I made a good story with them in it. It got so bad that they started to send me different way to develop the plot of the third Plot and not the first, so in the end I relented. Plot III won and all because my muses wouldn't leave me alone.

I know it's been a while, but don't mad. I really wanted to update. It's just I've been busy these past months and didn't want to put up the fisrt chapter and have you waiting three weeks for the next chapter. So here I am and I hope you enjoy.

You know what I'm about to put here so, here's the shortened version. My grammar's not perfect, use of words and spelling make up for that, so don't go tripping about it and so on and so on…

So without further ado I give you the first chapter of the second book of… Trial, Transition, Growth.

-.oOOo.-

The Beginning

By

DarkDragonQueen

-.oOOo.-

Sam sighed as she put her pillow over her head. Her alarm clock was blaring in her ear and she was feeling so lazy she really didn't feel attempting to find the button to turn it off. So she did the next best thing. She grabbed onto the plug and pulled it out the socket. Now it was time to get a few more minutes of rest… Or so she had hoped.

"Mommy!" a high pitched yell came and Sam felt the bed bouncing up and down with the weight of her daughter jumping up and down on the bed. "Come on Mommy, time to get up."

Sam groaned and slowly lifted the pillow and the covers off her head to reveal the dyed hair underneath it. She had put the dies back in about a year after Lilith had been born since she had the strength to keep it up. She looked at the violet eyed four year old who was currently jumping on her bed.

"Come on Mommy. You said you'd take me to the zoo today to see the lions." Lilith said while her strawberry blonde hair shook and bounced with her. It was just like her mother's except there was a bit more red in it.

"Okay," Sam said sighing as she got up. "Go get dressed and then I'll make breakfast."

"Can we have cereal?" Lilith asked hopefully

Sam frowned.

"Please Mommy, it's Saturday. I can have whatever I want."

"Alright." Sam said giving in to allow the girl to have sweet sugary cereal she normally only had for dessert on very rare occasions.

"Yay!" Lilith ran out the room to wait for her mother.

Sam got up and went in the bathroom connected to her room. Twenty minutes later she was out and searching her closet for something to wear. She had matured in the past four years since she had had Lilith. She was Nineteen now and in only a month would be twenty. As the years went by her own body had not only gotten back into shape, but developed. So now, instead of being the small A- cup, horribly thin fifteen- year old girl. She was a C- cup, hourglass figured, almost twenty- year old woman, but still quite thin.

Her hair was pulled in a ponytail with a few loose strands in her face. Her face still held a youthful look at some times though, showing just how young she was. She finished dressing and went out the room heading towards the kitchen where Lilith was standing on her tiptoes with a bowl on the table trying to pour her own cereal. Just as it was all about to pour out she ran over and put a hand over Lilith's small one and help her to slowly shake the cereal out.

"You were supposed to wait Lilith." Sam frowned as the young girl sat down and waited impatiently for her mother to pour some milk into her cereal.

"I can do it by myself now." Lilith crossed her arms and frowned.

"Uncross your arms Lilith and if you keep frowning it will make your lips stay in that way permanently.

Lilith looked up at her mother still frowning, but in confusion. "What's permanently?"

"It means forever." Sam smiled as Lilith gasped and quickly dropped her frown.

Sam laughed at the four year old who was now taking small bites of cereal. Sam, deciding she wasn't really hungry decided she would sit down and maybe catch a few more minutes of sleep. Instead, she drifted into her thoughts. She had moved out the Fentons' house as soon as she turned eighteen. The whole family had been in dismay at the thought of her moving out, for she had become another member of the family in the short two and a half years she had been there. In the end, she told them not to worry and that she would visit often. The house had become home in those years she had stayed there.

As for transportation, Aly had come to visit quite upset one day. She was cursing Sam's parents to their grave when she came in uninvited. When asked what her problem was, she said that the (insert some inappropriate words here) were trying to bribe her into staying at home during college. They had purchased another car and then offered to buy her a house as long as she stayed. Aly had ended up giving her the black Cadillac in favor of keeping the Lexus they had brought her.

"Mommy!" Lilith yelled jumping out her chair. "I'm ready to go. Come on."

Sam stood up and put the bowl in the sink. "Okay, Lilith. Let's go."

-.oOOo.-

Lilith ran through the entrance of the museum and without waiting on her mother ran over to a bench where someone was waiting patiently. Lilith grabbed the person around the neck.

"Valerie!" Lilith exclaimed in happiness.

Valerie hugged the little girl back. "Hey Lilith. Where's you mother?"

Lilith looked backwards. "She's walking really slow."

Sam frowned coming up behind Lilith. "Or maybe you go too fast."

Valerie laughed. "Hey Sam! The little rug rat been giving you any trouble?"

"She's/ I'm not a rug rat!" Sam and Lilith said simultaneously, though Sam laughed and Lilith pouted.

Valerie laughed at the pair and Sam had to smile. Over the years she had become close friends with the girl who was a ghost hunter, though the said girl didn't know she knew about it.

"Well then, are you ready?" Valerie asked.

"I want to see the Lions first!" Lilith declared.

After seeing the lions and many other animals before they finally got to that destination, they left the zoo a few hours later. By that time, it was around lunch time and they were headed to a nice Chinese restaurant. Sam sighed. She had promised Lilith this day a month ago when the girl came stomping into her room saying she was gone too much. Of course with those few words and the tears in the little girl's eyes was enough to break anyone's heart. So today was Lilith's to have and that meant Chinese food for their lunch.

Sam sipped on her water as they waited for their meal to come with a small Lilith swinging her legs on her chair making silly faces and expressions. Valerie laughed.

"She's really something." She stated.

Sam sighed. "I know. She grown so fast it seems. I remember when she was just a little baby. She was so small and I couldn't get over that."

Valerie laughed. "Can't say I know the feeling. I've had no children yet."

Sam said nothing and then looked towards the TV in the restaurant. The news was on and there was a report on a serial rapist.

"Amity Park officials have reason to believe that a serial rapist has taken root in Amity Park recently. According to record this man is highly dangerous and follows girls from four to twelve years old before injuring or killing their guardians or parents and raping them …"

Sam ignored the rest of the report as Valerie spoke up.

"That's sick." Valerie said disgusted. "I mean how could anyone do something like that to a child? How could anyone be human and do something like that?"

"People like that are below human." Sam said as her eyes hardened and then softened as she looked at Lilith. "No one with any humanity would do such a thing to any person much less an innocent child."

"Rape is a crime that should be punishable by death." Valerie put in.

"Well, you have to take in the statutory rape situations. Some of the people they put in jail had willing counterparts or were only a year or two appart, but just because of age were arrested." Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, and in this society there's hardly ever a middle ground." Valerie agreed with a sad sigh. She abruptly changed the subject. "So, have you heard from Danny lately?"

"Oh I talk to him at least once a week. He's taken a loving for Atlanta you know. He says it's a big city, but not so big it's crowded like New York. He wants to bring me and Lilith down there one of these days." Sam replied looking down at the plate that had just been brought to her. She looked over at Lilith's children's meal which was still quite large though it was for children. She didn't notice Valerie's smirk as she watch Lilith open her chop sticks and began to eat the rice noodles.

"So he invited you and Lilith only?" she asked.

"Yeah." Sam said as she sighed and looked up at Valerie finally noticing the smirk. "What?"

"Just you, Lilith, and Danny… Interesting…" Valerie smiled.

"What are you-?" Sam started and then frowned. "Valerie! There is nothing between Danny and me. We're just close… friends." Sam said a bit unsure and Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Okay very close friends, but that doesn't mean anything."

"He took you to the prom in senior year." Valerie shot.

"Only because he had no one to ask." Sam defended.

"He had plenty of girls to ask, he just didn't want to take any of them." Valerie replied.

"Still, it doesn't mean anything significant." Sam replied.

"Un- huh," Valerie said rolling her eyes. "

"Lilith misses him though. She asks me all the time when he's coming to visit and I'll admit Danny is the only person she sees as a father figure. Everyone else is uncle." Sam gave Lilith a piercing look that told her to slow down with her eating.

"Really, when he comes back for Thanksgiving or whatever, you need to act on those feeling you say you don't have before one of those girls in Atlanta sweeps him off his feet. It's a big city and I here they're much finer than us girls in the smaller cities."

Sam blushed. Valerie could be as blunt as Aly sometimes. It was as though they didn't even know the definition of shame at times. She continued to enjoy the company of Valerie and the atmosphere of the restaurant. She hadn't been out in weeks, but an after half hour or so later Sam looked down at her watch.

"Oh shoot!" Sam snapped her finger. "I have to go. I really do need to finish this essay tonight. I just want to sleep all day tomorrow." She almost whined.

Valerie rolled her eyes. "You sure the rug rat is going to let you do that?"

Sam sighed. "You have a point. Come on Lilith."

Sam started toward the exit.

"Hey Sam," Valerie called her before she left.

Sam looked back. "Hm?"

"Be careful alright. I worry about you sometimes. You seem so… I don't know. Sometimes you just harden up and distance yourself."

Sam smiled a bit. She knew what that was. No matter what she did, the way Lilith had been conceived always came back to haunt her, like she was sure it would tonight after hearing that news report, which is why she stayed away from watching the local news a lot.

She didn't know though, that later on, her thoughts would mean much more than she anticipated.

-.oOOo.-

That last sentence was ominous wasn't it? So how did you like it? R&R.