Here is the next installment. I am putting it in now, because tomorrow I am off to Canada for a mini vacation. So make sure I come back to a lot of reviews. This is an extra long chapter, almost 7 pages typed. I am sorry that the end lacked a bit because I wanted to get it posted. Even though that 's no excuse. I'll rewrite that section in when I have time. I have exams tomorrow, so this should be interesting. The first section is a dream.
Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Dedication: To Sleep Warrior, for I know she will cheer me up when she replies to my email...(despite the title of the chapter)
"Sam." Sam whipped around to find no one. That voice that was Danny, the real Danny.
"Danny." His name escaped her lips.
"Sam." It sounded so close, but she couldn't place on exactly where it was.
"Danny." Her voice echoed"Where are you?" She heard grunts. He sounded like he was in pain. It was then that she saw him. Blood was splattered over her clothes. He was lying down, struggling to keep his eyes open. His shirt was burned at many places showing off all the scars on his chest.
"Sam." She bent over and her knees hit the floor.
"Danny, I'm here." She grasped his hand.
"Why did you leave me?" Sam felt sick inside. "Don't you like me anymore?" Again, she said nothing. Danny was thrown into a terrible coughing fit. Sam felt helpless just watching him. She began to rip the remains of his shirts to get to the exposed bleeding wounds. In mid of patching up a wound, Danny grabbed her hand. Sam tried to keep tying the knot, but Danny's grip grew stronger. A single word left his lips that made Sam want to break out in tears.
"Don't." He half smiled knowing that she understood, even if she didn't want to. Don't do anything? How could he expect her to do nothing as each second she wasted, more blood dripped underneath him. He couldn't seriously expect her to let him die.
"But Danny." Their eyes locked, and no words needed to be said. His eyes were telling her. I'm going to die. Tears spilled over.
"I'll be ok Sam." It was a lie.
"No you won't," She began to tie knots again.
"Sam." Danny tried to be stern, but he coughed again.
"No Danny. Listen, you're one of my best friends, I know we've had our tough times, but you can't die on"- Her voice faded and Danny smiled; he knew. "Who's going to endure all of Tucker's lame joke, who's going to be there to fight ghosts, and who will be there for me." She added quietly. Danny's eyes began to close. "Danny, stay with me." Half way closed. "Danny."
"Sam, I"- His eyes closed leaving Sam hugging a dead corpse.
Sam shot up out of bed. She took deep breaths. She looked around and realized that she was in her room on her bed not in an alleyway with a dead Danny. She quickly grabbed her phone, she had to make sure. After tow rings, a groggy voice of Jazz answered. "Hello?"
"Jazz, is Danny there?" Jazz was surprised at the intensity of her voice.
"Yes, why is there a ghost problem?"
"No, is he there?"
"Yeah, he's asleep. Why?" Sam let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Is everything alright Sam?"
"Yeah, everything is fine."
"You know you can talk to me about anything right?"
"Goodnight Jazz."
"Night Sam." Sam hung up and fell into a peaceful slumber.
Jazz on the other hand was far from being asleep. She was staring at Danny's empty room. But she couldn't stand Sam receiving any more emotional damage. Danny had once again disappeared in the middle of the night, with no clue to his whereabouts. The bitter tastes of lying sat on her tongue. So this is what is tasted like to lie. Sure she had lied to her parents about Danny's alter ego, but that was it. And even then it wasn't even lying most of the time, when her parents asked her where Danny was she would simply reply that she hadn't seen him. It wasn't technically a lie. She had seen Danny Phantom, just not Danny Fenton. She wasn't prone to lie, it just wasn't in her character, but lying about Danny's whereabouts seemed lie the right thing to do. Maybe Sam would sleep a little better tonight. The other half of her scolded herself for even thinking about it. Sam was a good friend, and she had no right to hide the truth from Sam. If Sam knew that Danny wasn't there she would panic, and they would probably send another night out looking for him. It would just cause the whole Phantom team to loose another night of sleep affected everyone's grades, health, and personality. The search would end no where, leaving Sam broken hearted and everyone else depressed. So the question that it boiled down to, is it alright to lie? She knew growing up that she was taught that it was wrong, but as things progressed, Jazz had a feeling that the lies and truth would become grey area.
The next day came too quickly for everyone. Jazz needed to clear her head, so what better way to do that except to jog. She grabbed water and her iPod filled with classical music and started to run. Run away from all of the problems. She was in detached till she reached the park. She slowed her run to a walk. There was Tucker sitting on one of the benches. He looked like he had lost a lot of sleep last night. He wasn't even fidgeting with his PDA.
"Tucker." As soon as the name left her mouth, she regretted it. He looked up and spotted her.
"Hey Jazz." He looked a little better, but Jazz guessed that he was just trying to hide it.
"Are you ok?" She placed her hand on his shoulder.
"I'm concerned about Sam." Jazz let out a heavy sigh as she took a seat next to Tucker.
"I know what you mean." The two sat in silence for a couple minutes just watching people walk past.
"Sam called me last night." She broke the silence. This piped Tucker's interest.
"I think she had another nightmare." She continued."I'm not a doctor, but I know it isn't good for her. She putting way too much stress on her body mentally, physically, and emotionally and I don't know how much longer her body can take." More silence. "Why can't it go back to the way it was before?" She finished. Both watched a teenage couple walk by hand in hand. Without them realizing it, they scooted closer together. "It would make it a whole lot easier." Tucker picked up that she just wasn't talking about Sam and Danny anymore.
"Jazz, we need to talk."
"About what?" Her hands started to fidget.
"Us. About what happened back at Sam's house."
"I need to get back home."
"No Jazz, you're not going to run away from me." Jazz sat down knowing that no matter how much she didn't want to face it, she knew she had to.
"Jazz, why did you kiss me?" A blush spread on both teen's cheeks.
"I don't know, it kind of just happened." She admitted.
"So it didn't mean anything?" Tucker asked. At that moment, Tucker realized how close they were, but he didn't move. Jazz, who still hadn't answered the question, finally looked up. "Jazz." He closed the gap between them. Neither Jazz nor Tucker could bring themselves to pull away.
Sam moped on her bed for half the day. After last night's dream, she wasn't sure she could do much of anything. The dream was so lifelike. Her thoughts were interrupted by her door bursting open leaving Tucker standing in the doorway looking like he had just run a mile.
"Tucker?"
"Sam, you'll never guess what just happened!" He collapsed on her bed as Sam scurried to get him some water.
Jazz cranked up the volume on her IPod. She couldn't believe that had just happened.
"Jazz." She had looked up, and the next thing she knew, Tucker's lips were on hers. She gave in and started kissing back, his hand cupped her cheek to deepen the kiss. Suddenly he stopped and pulled away. He shook his head and ran away.
"How could I have been so stupid?" She yelled at herself. "He probably doesn't even like me like that. I just can't help it, I like him so much." She continued. "He has a girlfriend." She added. Jazz stopped running so uncoordinatedly that she was lucky that she didn't fall. 'Oh no, Val.' her face paled. How could she do that to her after all they had been through? How would she react? Her doubt started to ease in. 'What if she never wants to see me again. It was only a one time thing.' Jazz started to run in the direction of Val's house. There was only one thing to do. She didn't want secrets to destroy the group; she was going to tell her.
"You did what?!"
"Shhh, do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you?"
"How did it happen?" Tucker shrugged.
"It just did." All of Sam's happiness drained.
"What about Val?"
"What about her?" Tucker replied.
"Tucker!"
"What!"
"You can't just go around kissing other girls when you have a girlfriend, hence the girlfriend."
"I couldn't help it."
"Do you even like her? Or are you just going to throw her away like all the other girls?" Tucker let out a sigh.
"I don't know ok? It just happened, Sam. Before I didn't, and not I-I" Tucker snapped at her. Realizing what he had done, he apologized and fell back on the bed. Sam just stood there if Tucker and Val broke up, in a sense it would break up the team. Sam had a feeling that things would get a lot more complex then they already where.
Jazz mentally cursed herself for coming to Val's house. She just hoped that an opportunity would present itself so she wouldn't have to do this. She hadn't even planned what she was going to say.
'Hey Val, There is something going on between Tucker and I' She shook her head. 'Val, Tucker kissed me, and you should break up with him.' She couldn't do it. Every time she thought of sounded stupid or it made her sound like she didn't care. 'Last chance.' Her mind warned her. She turned and started to go, but fate had other plans.
"Jazz." She stopped dead cold.
"Hey Val."
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know, I just wanted to…hangout." She finished quickly.
"Really, ok."
"But you're probably busy."
"No, I'm free." Val reassured.
'Great.'
"Where did you want to go?"
"The mall." Jazz finished lamely.
"Ok, let me grab my purse."
"Val, wait." Jazz sighed.
"What, we want to get to the mall before it gets busy."
"Forget the mall. I didn't come over to hang out." Confusion danced in Valerie's eyes.
"You didn't?"
"No." Jazz took a pregnant pause. "I have to talk to you."
"Well after we talk we can go to the mall."
"I don't know where to begin." She paused again.
"Jazz, you're starting to creep me out, what are you talking about?"
"It's not his fault. It just happened." She looked at her, she was still lost. "Tucker and I sort of…kissed." Silence stood for around two minutes before Val finally reacted.
"I don't believe you."
"Val, I'm sorry."
"Don't talk to me." Valerie pushed by Jazz and slammed the door to her house.
Tucker sat up as a brilliant plan came to mind. "You know what you need?" Sam rolled her eyes.
"Amuse me."
"You need to go out and enjoy the town." Sam burst out laughing.
"What?" Tucker argued slightly insulted that she didn't take him seriously. "Just listen ok?" Sam sat back in her computer chair interested in where he was going with this. "You need a night to forget about everything that's happening including Danny."
"Tuck, I don't think it will help."
"Trust me."
"Fine." The plan was sure to backfire.
Sam finished putting on her makeup as a pebble was thrown at the window. She pulled the windowsill open.
"Your prince charming awaits." Sam rolled her eyes.
"Hardly."
"That one hurt Sam." He punched his chest.
"Whatever."
"Ready."
"Always."
The clock struck 10 and the front door opened quickly and quietly. Two figures carrying suite cases dropped them off at the front entrance way.
"It's good to be home." Mrs. Manson whispered.
"Let's head off to bed." Her spouse suggested.
"First let's check on Sammy-kins and make sure she's alright." Little did they know that they would find an empty room.
Not really a cliff hanger but the last part is important. It was a pain all of my spaces were gone, so I had to go back and put them all in. Grrrr. If you feel sorry for me leave a reaview. Only 5 more chapters left...Review, and I might post something as soon as I get back from Canada. I'm sorry if you thought Sam was OOC, or any of the characters for that matter, but you have to remember that they are older, and I'm only human.