A/N: Ahahaaa did you guys think I wasn't alive? Or that I wasn't gonna finish this story? Well think again little brats, I ain't done with this story yet. So once again, excuses excuses horrible updater excuses final year of school stress excuses blah blah.

Disclaimer: don't own anything except for the plot :)

"The Wrong Danny"

Chapter Twenty: "The Incident At Starbucks"

Some days, Sam feels the cold sink deep in her bones and her insides stiffen.

Other days, it's the pain that gets her first.

The days are shorter; the nights are longer and colder. Sam gets the feeling it's December, but she refuses to entertain the idea that she's been trapped like this for nine months. She's forgotten what it feels like being warm, or safe, or feeling any other feeling besides fear and dread. Every night or so, she gets episodes of intense spasms. It usually starts with the restlessness in her right leg, then her left. And suddenly she's convulsing uncontrollably. She's never felt as helpless as she had in those moments, her vision swims and churns and just when she thinks the misery is over, she'll dry-heaves whatever sickly substance they force-feed her. She's unsure if he knows or decides to ignore it—she doubts he does, but comes to realise she doesn't care.

There are a lot of things she's forgotten to care about now.

CRACK.

She howls. It's loud and painful and her raw scream tears at the back of her throat. There's no point in hiding she is broken anymore.

Who knows how long it's been? How long will it be? The only thing Sam knows now is pain and disorientation, the shuffling between warehouses and that lingering smirk always, always mocking her. She feels it in front of her face and behind her back every time she dares to breathe. There's a dim light swinging above her eyes, back and forth casting disorientating shadows over his face, and she can see that grin under her hooded eyes. It's disgusting and sneering, that distorts his once handsome face into something she wishes she'd never seen.

She's swears to murder him the moment she gets her hands on him.

...

Today, she notices, he mopes.

In the dark, damp corner he sits on a wooden crate. She bets it's uncomfortable on his scrawny ass, but he gives no indication of it (could he feel any pain? She wonders and decides it's better not to dwell on it. Who cares if it hurts, she'll be lucky if he gets a large splinter up his ass). Smoke furls around him, the cigarette hangs loosely from his lips and he breathes a deep sigh of relief. She knows it's been a long time since he last smoked. Whenever his nicotine urges start acting up he starts fidgeting and moving things. It used to drive Vlad insane whenever he'd come back to find seven crates barricading the door and Copy half-amused because he'd forgotten it was there. Vlad used to scream bloody murder for 'damaging the merchandise' too, but as time wore on he'd lost the energy to even try. He stopped coming too. It's been almost two weeks since she's last seen him, now they simply get a text message to relocate and they shuffle without hesitation.

Sam's too weak to fight him off anyways.

So in, ironically, both their captivity she's taken the liberty of watching him. Who knows, she thinks, maybe it'll help her out someday when she finally gets to strangle the ass.

Another cute thing he does is hide his cigarettes on her. It's so juvenile, annoying and so like him. He finds it so clever when he sticks them in her bra or other inappropriate places when he feels daring enough to tolerate her wrath. He once tried to sneak his fingers under her skirt—she broke three of his fingers that day, and realised that just because she was a captive didn't mean she couldn't break him like a twig if she wanted to.

She stares. He smokes and the silence grows between them.

His back is to her and she's thankful because if he notices the way she watches him these small moments would be lost to her.

Her hearts throbs, painfully. When he's not torturing her, or yelling or screaming at that maniac billionaire—he looks so much like him.

Green eyes, tan skin and white hair. Copy lets out a groan of bliss, his lean body silhouetted by the smoke billowing out of his mouth. It tantalizingly obscures her vision of him and for a moment she remembers a fond memory of a park—a confession of her past, the sun on her skin, his green eyes illuminated by the pinkish sunset, and his kind words.

Her stomach lurches—he's beautiful—and it's disgusting how her torturer wears the same face as the one she loves, because she cannot truly bring herself to hate him. Not really.

...

Miles away, two boys are drowning under a sea of toddlers.

"Come on man can't you work faster?"

"Excuse me; do you wanna do this instead, since you're such an expert?"

"I'd still do a better job than you."

"Well Danny it seems you conveniently forgot who it was that landed us in detention the last time we were here."

"You were the one who flippin' pushed me."

"You know I can't take you seriously when you don't swear."

Danny gritted his teeth, "Tucker so help me God I will personally see you to the ends of the Ghost Zone if you don't get back here and be the Prince Tulip to my Fairy Mermaid Princess Petunia in the Fairy Princess Mermaid Saga."

The techno-geek barked a laugh. The chubby toddlers around him screamed and laughed over his voice in panicked glee.

"Danny, man, I seriously wish I could, because you know I love me some Prince Tulip but, like my finger-painting business is really kicking it off and I really can't afford to waste a single moment to help during story-time." Tucker grinned maniacally gesturing to the horde of toddlers surrounding his table.

Suddenly, a set of twins jumped on Tucker's knees, made his legs wobble and his right foot hook underneath the finger-painting station, flipping it over. Four cans of green, yellow, pink and orange paint flew and crashed onto the floor where his toddlers were rolling around in glee. Tucker, panicked, fell over on his own butt unable to free himself from a second wave of toddlers that jumped on him. The set of giggling twins had mysteriously vanished from the scene just as soon as the commotion was spotted by the supervisor, Mr. Thunderwock, who had up until now been wearily eyeing Tucker from a distance. Danny watched in fascination as Thunderwock's incredibly thick pale skin rose red in rage and the skin around his neck started growing purple.

Incredibly amused, Danny could only stare at the train-wreck of his best friend reduced to tears by the supervisor who spewed as many profanities a kindergarten teacher was allowed to spew. Which, considering wasn't a lot, only made him even more furious. And just when Danny was starting to enjoy himself, the supervisor dragged Tucker outside.

Leaving Danny, all alone...

With the kids...

During story-time.

Nishi, who had scrambled on his lap during the commotion, stared grumpily up at him. He stared back. He blinked, she stared. Suddenly Danny felt dwarfed by the gaggle of toddlers gathered around his feet—some covering his dark jeans in pink paint.

"Story time!" she demanded.

"Uh..."

"Story time!" she yelled, pulling his trouser leg in insistence.

"Let's wait for Tucker to come back okay Nishi?" he tried soothingly.

"Story time!" she cried tugging his leg. "Story time!"

He felt a migraine pulsate in his left eye, "Seriously Nishi, please can you just wait—"

"STORY TIME!" Nishi roared. The rest of the kids around her, spurned on in mob-mentality started screaming too—most were crying and leaving snot on his converse. She bared her teeth at him menacingly.

Danny would've founded it somewhat cute if his migraine wasn't drilling a hole in his skull. He sighed and dragged the 'intimidating' girl onto his lap and started the Fairy Princess Mermaid Saga. In an instant, the kids grew silent and stared up in fascination.

He promised that day he was never going to have kids—especially if his jeans had anything to say with it.

...

Tucker slurped his coffee intensely for a moment before addressing the elephant in the room.

"Stop moping."

"I'm not moping."

"You're drinking water in Starbucks which is depressing and a crime in itself."

Danny shot him a glare, "What do you want me to do? Crack a joke, go out and get pissed when Sam's God-knows-where and hasn't been seen in months? Or maybe I'll go on a date too as the ghosts are planning something suspicious and we haven't figured what it is in two months. Yes, good plan Tucker, I applaud you for your life advice skills, I'll send you a postcard when I'm older appreciating your God-given advice."

Tucker stared at him and hissed, "You could seriously cut someone with that tongue y'know." He slurped his coffee, "And just when you started cheering up during detention." He mumbled afterwards.

"Whatever."

For the moment, Tucker wisely decided to allow the conversation end and let the low hum of the coffee shop slowly settle between the silence. Danny stared meaninglessly out the window. It was the early afternoon—one nice thing about 'educational detention' was getting out of school earlier than everyone else—giving him the chance to observe the sunset in front of him. It slowly sunk in the orange-blue sky; the murmured chatter he could faintly hear from the bustling streets outside eased him into a comfortable sense of lethargy.

Sam would've loved this.

It was kind of stupid when Danny thought about it. Tucker had always been the one person who could talk sense into him where Jazz and his parents failed. But ever since Sam came into his life, it was getting harder for Tucker to reach through to him, and it wasn't because Danny was in love with her anything, it was just—the more time he spent with her, the more he realised how frivolous it was thinking himself as a 'superhero'. The more time he spent with her, the more he felt like he was real—he felt less divided, more human than a ghost, more like Danny Fenton than extra-freak-extraordinaire Danny Phantom (ironic, considering he paraded around as Danny Phantom around her). Ever since he made that fatal decision to poke in his parents' experimental ghost machine, he never truly felt like a teenager until he met Sam.

Because he wasn't a hero really—just a kid who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and unnecessarily added the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Who was he to think himself a hero? What did he really know about being good or bad? Was it really for the better of Amity Park or was it just some subconscious massive ego-trip like Jazz's many psychologists liked to say?

Hanging around Sam was getting dangerous, Danny concluded. Sam's consistent mentality of 'going against the norm' was rubbing off of him in ways he really didn't think was possible for him. This wasn't the first time he'd experienced a weird existential crisis concerning his half-ghost status. He'd become so intoned to Sam's rebellious attitude he could hear her voice in his head sometimes, saying things like 'ugh that's so mainstream!' or 'God, why are white males the only leads in action-movies?' The voice said silly things, things that Sam might or might not say, or already said.

Point was, he was going insane and he really needed her back before the voice tried to convince itself it was the real Sam (like it had tried that one time that he really, really, really tried to forget about).

"HEY DANNY!"

Danny felt the impending doom of the apocalypse rain upon him.

"Oh for fuck's sake—"

"Yo man! So like this Friday the 'rent's are out at my place for the weekend and we're totally crashin' it! So like do you think you could come? Because we totally need two uber popular dudes like you guys there!" Dash Baxter obnoxiously grinned at him like a golden retriever.

Danny stared at him like he was the most disgusting thing he's ever seen.

And he's seen a lot of disgusting things.

The mess started weeks ago. For no reason some hell-ish demon thing rained its revolting spell over the students of Casper High, somehow convincing the A-Listers and the Unpopulars to switch personalities overnight. In the wake of the ghost planning thing and the Sam nightmare, Danny had no time to even consider thinking about the personality switch problem. But somehow without fail, Dash has found way to completely ruin his life even when he was trying to be nice, somehow becoming even more obnoxious than he'd ever thought a person could become in reminding him of the shitty problem.

"C'mon man! Don't leave us hangin'!" he laughed good-naturally, flashing his ridiculous set of rich kid pearly whites.

God he's desperate, Danny signalled with a glance to Tucker.

You should go, you got the time, Tucker signalled back, snorting a laugh.

It took all of Danny's willpower not to zap him with this ghost eyes right then and there to shut him up. He questioned how Tucker ever became his friend for the millionth time that day. It's a surprise I haven't killed him yet considering how much he pisses me off, Danny thought annoyed.

"So man, you comin'?" Dash pleaded hopefully, "I mean like my 'rents rotate holidays and shizz so like, if you can't make it, there's always next time bro. Just tell me when and I'll get them some trip in Bermuda or somethin'." He shrugged, trying to play off cool.

This guy reeks of desperation oh my god, Danny signalled Tucker.

C'mon, you used to die for those kinds of invites last year, Tucker teased.

Danny scowled, you're fucking useless.

Tucker only grinned.

Danny turned to Dash, "Dash—"

"Before you say anything...I just want you to hear something." Dash started. Danny turned to glare at him but sobered at the suddenly serious look on Dash's face. "So um, in the past few weeks, I've had a lot of time to think about stuff. Stuff like school and friends and junk, and I just wanted you to know the reason I try so hard to like, get along with you is like...ugh, it's kinda embarrassing to say." Dash let out a humourless laugh, "but I just wanted to apologise."

Danny gave him a confused look.

"Look I know I haven't been like the nicest guy to ya. I've actually been on the recievin' end of that a lot pretty recently, so I guess I kinda know how you've been feeling like towards me for a while now. You probably hate my guts, and I know an apology ain't gonna fix all the shizz I made you go through the past few years—but um, I just needed you to know that I'm sorry. And I really am tryin' to fix stuff, not just with ya but with the other guys, and that thing with Manson at the beginning of the year too. It took me a long time to realise just how uncool that was, and if I could I would totally take it back. I used to think was totally invincible because of my parents—guess being rich really does bring out the shittiest in ya, huh?"

Shocked, Danny could only stare at his childhood bully in awe. In the corner of his memory, something bumped in his subconscious, a memory of someone in an orange-stained park with hardened violet eyes.

"Ah anyway...you don't gotta say anything. Just thanks for listenin'. The party's on Friday, you can come or not, it's totally cool because like I said, my parents rotate some shizz with their jobs. So they can take off whenever if I give them the right push." Dash gave Danny probably the most sincere smile he'd ever seen, and then left.

It took Tucker ten minutes to recover.

"...holy shit." he breathed, not realising he'd been holding his breath the entire time. "Did that actually happen?"

"...rotate." Danny muttered.

"Huh? What'd you say?"

"Rotate...they rotate...ah, wait. What I—ROTATE!" Danny suddenly screamed.

"WHAT?" Tucker jumped and screamed back.

"ROTATE! ROTATE!" Danny laughed.

"THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?" Tucker yelled, getting annoyed.

"Don't you get it? Rotate!" Danny burst out laughing again and ran out of the store. Tucker ran after him, hot on his heels with the entirety of Starbucks staring after the two of them.

...

"Man, I can't believe you figured all that out by 'rotate'. That's pretty ingenious man."

Danny grinned widely. "This will make finding Sam a whole lot easier."

"Just please don't do that again. I don't think I can ever step into that Starbucks ever again."

Danny snorted, "Whatever. I was right."

Tucker moved his large computer (the one he created and hid from his mom, who knows just how greedy she'd get if she realised the power of his internet connection?).

"So," he started typing on his computer, "Let's guess for now that fruitloop's still keeping Sam somewhere close, maybe just a little out of bounds of Amity Park. It makes no sense to have her out of state if he's using her as leverage." Tucker reasoned. He brought out up a map of Amity Park as Danny shuffled into the chair next to him.

Danny continued: "If you think about it logically, they couldn't possibly keep her stuck in one place for months. For example, they couldn't be renting houses or apartments. One thing, it's a long gruelling process that takes days to complete, and the neighbours would be suspicious if they spot whoever's guarding Sam buying food for the both of them, considering they'll never see her. Plus, they wouldn't be able to stay in the same place for longer than a month."

Tucker started typing, "Right, so we rule out houses and apartments. Wouldn't it make much more sense if they kept her in warehouses?"

Danny nodded, "Yeah. But Amity doesn't have a lot of warehouses, does it?"

"Actually," Tucker disagreed, "a couple of years ago, this chocolate company, Snax, was rising above the ranks in Texas—mostly because the CEO was this big-shot billionaire that got the company going. They started expanding their factories in other states, including Amity, but due to some scandal concerning some weird junk they used in the chocolate, the company went bankrupt. The warehouses that they bought are just kinda there, no one's bothered to buy them or anything. Nowadays, druggies and homeless people roam around there."

"...and you know this how?"

"...you don't wanna know my dark days Danny."

Danny looked at him in surprise, "Dark days? You had dark days? What kind of dark days? What kind of shit did you get up to?"

"All in due time, young ghosthopper."

"Aw come on! You can't pull the secret past card and then not tell me. Am I not your best bud?" Danny tried, widening his big baby blue eyes.

"No."

"Fuck you, you aren't fun."

"Yo, tryin' to save your girlfriend remember."

"Don't think this conversation is over, and she's not my girlfriend!" Danny gritted his teeth and turned back to the computer screen, "Anyway, where are these so-called Snax warehouses?"

"Oh I was fucking with you, they aren't actually real. I made them up."

"Stop dicking around before I murder you."

Tucker laughed, "Well, in all honesty there are actually only three warehouses that Snax bought. All three are in different sides of Amity. And they're all really, really far away."

Danny hissed: "You better not be fucking around. Amity's a small town, how can they be far away from one another? Why would they be far away from one another? Would've that just make things a thousand times harder?"

"Chill, I'm serious." Tucker pulled up his map, three red dots blinked from the screen, "these three dots are the warehouses I'm talking about. Technically they're not even in Amity, but on the outskirts. But they're all on opposite ends, forming a weird triangle. I guess they purposefully bought them away from one another so that they can cover all bases of Amity."

Danny thought for a moment, "Cover all bases...you know, that's actually makes perfect sense." He gave a sly grin. "They just keep shuffling from one warehouse to another on different sides of town. That way, they don't have to find new places; they've guaranteed a place to stash her where no one important would look and they're on different ends of town, so it'll be easy blending in for a few months before disappearing. No one remembers a face in a crowd."

"You're on a roll today man. I think you owe Dash a thank you." Tucker teased.

"Man, don't even get me started on that mess. I'll bring him back from Sensitive Land just as soon as I get Sam safe." Danny mused. "Who even knew he was capable of actual thought?"

"I know right? The guy just keeps on surprising me."

After printing the map, both boys made a beeline for Danny's house, strapping as many ghost weapons as they could onto their backs. Luckily, Danny's parents were already out on another ghost job—meaning they didn't have to pull any elaborate schemes to get them out of the basement, which honestly, never worked anyway.

Suddenly, Tucker said: "Hey man, where's Jazz? Don't you think we should get her in on this too?"

Danny thought for a moment, "Man I really want to, but she's got this psychology exam coming up and I really don't wanna disturb her."

"Do you even remember the last time we went off on something without her?" Tucker asked horrified, "I couldn't look her in the eye for a week!"

Both of them shuddered at the memory. Jazz was terrifying when she wanted to be, even more so when it was to do with Danny's ghostly alter ego. After contemplating and arguing about the matter for half an hour, they'd decided to confide in Jazz about their discovery. Jazz immediately wanted to help, but they refused to let her partake on the mission, forcing her to grudgingly accept that yes, ghost stuff was important but her future was too. In the end, Jazz became their look-out. Tucker had noticed that over the past month the 'random' ghost attacks have started to dwindle in number, and immediately became suspicious about the sudden change.

A flash of Sam's blood-stained shirt entered Danny's mind. What if they found her? What kind of state would she be in? God, what if Vlad did something to her, something irreversible? Fuck, if something happened to her, Danny didn't think he would ever be able to forgive himself.

"C'mon man, let's go get your girlfriend back."

"She isn't my girlfriend!"

A/N: Yeah I know, this was a pretty tame chapter in all honesty. But I kinda wanted to show just how long Sam had been missing. Also, I wanted to convey Danny's state of mind. He's been pretty confused about everything in this story, so he got to show off a little in this chapter. I like to think he isn't entirely stupid when the time comes for it. Also Jazz, because I'm pretty sure she's got that 'big scary sister' vibe down but likes to be huggable dorky sister a majority of the time.

Please review!

PhantomPotterGirl