Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "No Light, No Light" by Florence and the Machine.

Antifreeze

I must be sick. After all, if I was well, why would I be in love with a dead boy?

Yes, love. I'll say it once, twice, until my voice is stolen and I fade into seafoam. Only I won't fade. I'll leave a lump of rotting meat, fit only as food for plants and maggots. Will you leave a body when you die? Or will you just dissolve into green muck that dries and sublimates, just like the not-blood you lose every time you have to fight?

If your heart stopped, would you stop too? Would you re-emerge, a butterfly tearing out of its chrysalis to spread poison-colored wings?

Why do I think about you all the time? Am I obsessed, like the restless souls we fight? Or is this what it means to be in love?

Once, we loved the night. You loved the stars, those far-off nuclear furnaces destroying the building blocks of this world, irrevocably changing them and burning the universe to death. I loved the shadows, the infinite darkness between lights, the shadow of the earth staining the moon blood red. You reached up, seeking, eyes flashing with firefly light. I reached out, pulling, eyes drawing in the comfort of a world in which only I could see. That was one of your favorite complaints when we were kids – you inherited your father's lack of night vision, so you couldn't see much at all without your old telescope I supposedly found in an attic. Really, I'd spent months looking for the model you wanted. It was state-of-the-art, not something a normal twelve-year-old could have so much as found, let alone bought. You didn't care, didn't think for a second I was lying. Why would you? I gave you a little piece of the heavens, and it was more than you would ever ask for, too-humble fool that you are.

It wasn't enough, but you didn't say it. You never do. You always wait for others to come to you, friends, family, bitter enemies – whoever or whatever comes, you just stand there, a rock in the river's current while I watch you get worn away bit by bit. You never ask for help. That's why Tucker makes dumb jokes and drags you out to the Nasty Burger. At least he tries to talk to people. That's why Jazz tries to fight, even though she inherited your dad's lack of combat skills. At least she can aim. You just wait, and then you deal. You welcome friends, bargain with allies, push family away (you and your idiotic hero complex), and crush enemies. And that scares me, because every time the river rages, a little more of you is changed irrevocably. That's why I always insist, why I drag you to bookstores and rallies and circuses (I am so, so sorry), why I can't leave you alone. At least I can watch the sky (but I can't save you if you fall).

Every time I look at the autumn sky, I think of your eyes sparkling with life. When I walk through the forest and the light reflects off new leaves in just the right way, I think of your eyes burning with an inhuman, unstoppable rage as implacable and uncaring as a blizzard. I think of blood-red jewels and tainted paradise.

When Undergrowth took me over, it wasn't like being overshadowed. Overshadowing is a bad headache, a (terrifying) blank spot in my memory and a horrible bitter-cold taste in my throat. I felt power rush through me, a nightmare of green growing things and a memory of petrified forests. Undergrowth was the consciousness of forests stained black with smog, fields cropped too short by greedy beef cattle, fragile new growth choked by metal in the ground and dead air. I hate these things, I hated how cruel humanity could be to the world in which we must live, a world we destroyed with our own hands. Undergrowth used that, twisted as any zealot, Mother Nature's scorn and loathing. Undergrowth succeeded where my parents, the A-list and that poser failed. Undergrowth made me hate the living (selfish) land, and my love of the land was one of the few things I have that are truly my own.

My room? In my parents' house. My clothes? I shop online, I only buy clothes handmade with organic fibers, I dress the way I want, but it's all bought with my parents' money. My music? Metal and darkness that would scandalize my parents, from a store they own stock in. My life? Not mine, not really. In the end, my parents have final say in my life. I push too hard, rebel a little too much, and all my glorious gothic princess-of-the-night stuff goes. It never mattered, though. Around the fourth time I tried to run away (stupid security), my grandpa died and my Grandma Ida moved in. She was a tiny, wrinkled dumpling of an old lady. She loved loud music, louder concerts and all things weird and scary. She was who I wanted to be when I was an old lady. She still is. My friendship (because we're not just family by blood, but family by choice – that's real friendship) with her was the first thing I had to myself. The courage to stand up to my parents, to put my foot down and be me, was the first part of my life that was truly mine.

I freely admit (never aloud) that I went a little overboard, and I owe Grandma Ida so much for keeping my mother out of my hair (and my yearbook), at least until I stopped wearing 23 piercings. Yes, I was twelve. Yes, I took rebellion farther than most people, but to be fair most people don't have "perfect" fifties parents. That's why the next thing I could call mine shocked me so much. Two things, actually. A couple of skinny, unpopular kids that were too fun for the nerds, too smart for the slackers, too real for the posers and way too nice for the jocks. Danny got shoved in his locker every day, and mine was right next to his. One day, Dash shoved Danny in my locker by mistake. Big mistake. I gave him a sucker punch, a black eye and a nosebleed for his trouble. Not too bad for a skinny girl. Anyone else would have been scared of me. Well, he was scared of me, but he thanked me anyway. Walked right up to me on the playground as Tucker tried to yank him away. He turned to me, smiled that silly (stupid, wonderful) lopsided smile and held out one hand. "Thank you."

Just like that, I had friends. My parents hated them, but that was just icing on the cake. Really, they were my friends because even though I punched them repeatedly and threatened Tucker with death by steel-toed boot, he wouldn't leave me alone.

Danny laughed apologetically, high-pitched little-boy voice cracking. Tucker snorted. "Lovebirds."

We were friends. The three of us, goth, geek, and… that guy. No one thought Danny was special (not even me). He liked comic books, he'd been friends with Tucker since kindergarten (so I got stuck with him, too), and his dream was to become an astronaut. His family was utterly insane, but in a fun way, not a scary way (not like mine). What more did I need to know?

That they were not, in fact, completely insane. All my dreams came true the day my best (beloved) friend died. Ghosts turned out to be real, as real as the monster under the bed and the devil whispering words into a king's ear. And he was one of them. My friend was gone in a flash of poison light and an all-too-human scream, and it was all my fault. I don't care if it was necessary, I don't care if Amity Park needs a protector, I don't care if the Portal needs a guard, I want my friend back! And while I'm at it, why not wish for the moon? It's not like anyone will hear me in the privacy of my own head.

You laugh at my poetry. You fail at video games. You can't string two sentences together to save your own life (too late). You never change, because you already have.

You know I'm interested (not obsessed) in the occult. You know I seek the dark spaces, the liar's whispers and the codes that hide the secrets of tortured minds. You know I love the dark, but you are light. Danny Fenton, you are like warm sunlight and a glimpse of distant suns. Danny Phantom, you are the alien sky (poison sky) and the chill (deadly) blue of glacial ice. Not "like", you just are. As much as I respect, admire and, yes, love you, I fear you. That day, my best friend died. The sun went out, and you were reborn from its ashes.

White light, pulsing neutron star, when will you collapse? Will you become a black hole, swallowing reality? Will you consume me, light burning away my darkness? Even if you did, I wouldn't leave you. If obsession is insanity, if love is cruel, if the world shatters, I wouldn't leave you. I can't leave you.

The first time I let you down, you nearly (not nearly, but I can't know that) died. The second time, Freakshow stole your mind. The third time, you regained your humanity (and lost your purpose). The fourth time, I ditched you and Tucker (mainly you) in favor of a freaking con artist. The last time, I tried to kill you! You can say it wasn't my fault all you want, but I remember. I remember hate, poison in my veins and twisted growth at my fingertips, and I remember how I hurt you. I remember your eyes turning blue.

Human eyes? In ghost form?

No. Not human. Less so (less? Do I really feel that way?) than ever. The warm, brilliant eyes of my dearest friend were frozen. Dead. That was the most painful moment of my life. Worse than Circus Gothika, worse than that stupid wish, worse than the nightmares (I refuse to admit they are more than that). Your eyes were blue. Blue was for the human boy, the autumn sky and dreams of distant fires. Green was for the ghost boy, acid vortex sky and hard-won knowledge of other worlds. Still Danny, always Danny, but until then I could pretend that my old friend was still in there. At that moment, I was too scared, too desperate to be free of the rot inside me, to get clean. It was later that I realized what those eyes meant. Blue as unstoppable and uncaring as cold itself, a reflection of the core of your being. You, not my first best friend.

If I had known then what I knew now, I never would have convinced you to go back in the portal. I never would have dared you to try it in the first place! If I'd known that I would be committing murder (of the first degree), I never would have done it.

Danny Fenton, you died three years ago. You smile at me apologetically, you rub the back of your neck and brush your bangs out of your eyes. You were my first love, but I was too stubborn to admit it, and now you're gone. This new being, cold and unyielding, poison blood and ice heart (shade of my oldest friend), how can I love him?

Is it really you? Can I love you, or is this yet another betrayal? Am I insane, and this is just the product of a fevered mind? No, my mind could never come up with anything quite this crazy. Tucker's the weird one. You are the dreamer.

Are you really Danny?

Why can't I ask that one simple question? (I'm afraid of the truth.)

Why am I in love with you?

(I don't cry unless I have to, unless I need to grieve. I cried at my grandfather's funeral, because I was a child and I couldn't stop myself because it was too late. I cried when I first met a boy with bone-white hair and poison-green eyes. I should have known.)

I can't be in love with a dead boy. But when you lift me up (you say it takes too long to walk), I feel a heart beat. Maybe not the same heart, but it's there. Your heart beats. You laugh, you cry, you trip and fall and get right back up, stubborn to the end and beyond. It's not life as I know it (because I would have quit from frustration and returned to dust), but you're here.

I will love you as long as we live.

A/N: Angsty rambling. Yes, I know she's rather OOC, but do you seriously think she could shake off the Undergrowth incident so easily? Sam was freaking Mind Raped (refer to TVTropes). I've seen plenty of fics involving Danny going on about how he nearly killed Sam at Circus Gothika, and we can't forget Dan (no matter how much I wish Brain Bleach was real), but this was just as bad. Sam loves nature. She loves her family and friends and Danny. She used what she loved most to hurt who she loved most. It doesn't matter how tough she is, something like that causes trauma!

Can be part of the SR Verse, or a stand-alone. After Claw of the Wild, before Falling Leaves.