"So you got the whole 'at a certain time in a girl's life certain changes start to happen' talk then?" Sam asked carrying Danny's stuff for him as they walked to his house.
"Yes. God that was horrible and humiliating." Danny muttered with a dark look.
"Yeah well I think nurses enjoy humiliating people. You'll be fine though." Sam said comfortingly.
"Does… it always hurt this much?" Danny asked looking up at Sam, he wasn't used to Sam being taller than him but he'd shrunk since he'd become a girl and Sam had grown a fair amount.
"It probably feels worse to you because you've never felt it before, but… yeah it does." Sam shrugged unsure of what to say.
"I feel like I have flu, everything aches and it just really hurts in my stomach, it feels like something's trying to claw it's way out." Danny whined.
"Hm, maybe you've been attacked by one of the creatures from the alien films and any second now a baby alien is going to rip through your abdomen and run amuck through town." Sam said in a mock serious voice.
"Very funny." Danny said flatly.
"I know, I'm so hilarious." Sam laughed teasingly as they rounded the corner to Danny's house.
"Ugh, I just want to find that damn ghost and make it change us back. I've learnt my lesson already surely, I know it's hard being a girl, I know about the physical pain now. Can't we just switch back now? Surely we've both learned our lessons?" Danny groaned sliding the key in to the lock and opening his front door.
"Yeah, I get it, being a guy isn't easy you get beat up and people treat you really rough, yadda yadda yadda." Sam said rolling her eyes and tossing her bag in the corner of Danny's hallway as she followed him inside.
"It can't be yadda yadda yadda Sam! You've got to actually take this seriously!" Danny said stomping his foot in a rather girly gesture.
"I know, I know." Sam said holding up her hands defensively.
"It's not like there's anything keeping you here is there?" Danny said frustratedly as he walked into the living room.
"Nothing… comes to mind…" Sam said with the image of Dash definitely coming to mind, she felt her face redden a little unconsciously, she definitely did not want to have this conversation with Danny right now, or ever actually.
"I'm not buying that." Danny said narrowing his eyes at her and finding this a little harder with longer eyelashes.
"Not buying what? I don't know what you mean." Sam shrugged feigning ignorance.
"That there's nothing keeping you here, or at least you know of something that might be. You're lying to me!" Danny snapped as Sam leant against the kitchen table and looked down at him, he really didn't like her being tall as a guy, it was a little intimidating to be honest.
"Just drop it Danny, it doesn't matter." Sam said closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose.
"It does matter! If we've not entirely changed like that ghost said then we're never going to get back! You can't hold out on me here Sam or I'll be stuck like this forever, now what's keeping you here?" Danny demanded.
"Nothing." Sam muttered unconsciously rubbing her cheek where Dash had hit her, she only realised what she was doing when her thumb brushed up against some very fine stubble and made her jump.
"It's not nothing, tell me!" Danny snapped feeling his anger build up more and more, he was sure that the hormones must be affecting his judgement somewhere but he was beyond caring, Sam was lying to him and because of it he might be stuck like this forever.
"Maybe you're right okay?! Maybe you were right all along and that being male is far better than being female, I already don't have to deal with any glass ceiling, I don't have to deal with cramps, hell, this is a cakewalk compared to what I'm used to! Maybe I just like being around boys than I do the vapid members of my own gender!" Sam snapped angrily, she hoped in the back of her mind that this little outburst would distract Danny and make him mad enough to leave the subject alone, although she'd no doubt have to live with having said this forever when they did eventually turn back but at least he'd never have to discover about Dash.
"What?! You don't know what you're talking about Sam!" Danny shot back angrily, how dare Sam say that? How could she want to be left like this? How could she willingly trap Danny in a body that he didn't want?
"I'm going!" Sam said throwing her arms up in the air and storming out of the house. Danny winced and curled up on the sofa clutching a pillow to his stomach.
"How can you do this to me Sam?" Danny whimpered to himself alone in the house trapped in a girl's body.
It was midnight when Danny finally decided to try out his ghost form in his new body, the least he could do it to try and find that ghost and bargain with it saying that at least he'd leant his lesson and could he be changed back please? And screw Sam, she could stay how she was, she had no idea what it was like to be a guy at all. Danny inspected his ghost form in the mirror, not much had changed, he was still in the same jumpsuit as always which he was glad about, he had some horrible idea that it would be some hideous pink suit or something. He smiled to himself and flew through the wall and over the city.
Sam yawned loudly as she came downstairs for breakfast that morning, she'd seen Danny fly over the area last night but had quite pointedly not been called about Danny deciding to patrol as a ghost and her help certainly hadn't been requested. Not that she cared, Danny could sulk as much as he liked, it wasn't going to make Sam apologise, after all she'd said nothing wrong.
"Morning Mom." Sam said stifling another yawn as she sat down at the breakfast table.
"Morning sweetheart." Sam's mother chirped perkily, Sam winced, it was FAR too early in the morning for perky, but that was her mother for you.
"Don't smother the boy Pam, he's already strange enough as is." Sam's father said with a hint of disdain.
"Daaaad." Sam groaned, her father was always like this, disapproving of her look, of her friends of… well… pretty much everything.
"No Sam, I'm serious. I want you to stop all this 'goth' nonsense, eyeliner wearing, honestly. No wonder you never have a girlfriend. I tell you when I was your age I had plenty of girlfriends." Her father said scoldingly.
"Dad! What the hell? When- If I were a girl you'd be forbidding me from even looking at a boy until I left the house!" Sam said hastily correcting herself.
"But you're not a girl, Sam. You should be out there playing the field like a normal boy and you should forget all this environmental nonsense and take up the family business like you should, become lawyers like us." Her father said sternly.
"What? Where has this come from?" Sam stammered in shock.
"That's always been the plan Samuel, you know that." Her father said frowning at her with an air of suspicion in his voice.
"Forget it, I'm out of here." Sam grumbled leaving the table and forgoing breakfast as she grabbed her bag and left the house.
"Go find yourself a girl!" Her father shouted after her, as Sam started to close the door she heard her father mutter "he'll be bringing back boys if he doesn't soon. I swear there's something wrong with that boy."
"He was all like, join the family business, sell your soul, become a lawyer!" Sam said parroting her father's voice as she viciously dug a groove into the table with he compass.
"What do you expect? My parents are all like that at me, get a career, meet a girl, settle down." Tucker agreed despairingly.
"I even heard him saying that he thought I might be gay because I'm not running after everything in a skirt!" Sam said still smarting from the comment earlier, she dreaded to think what her father would think of her recent affection for the school's quarterback and somewhat doubted that the explanation of 'really Dad, I'm actually a girl, it's just there was this ghost and so, I'm not really gay you see' would fly with him.
"What did you expect him to say?" Danny grumbled from behind Sam as he moved to the seat next to Tucker and sat down huffily.
"Well it's not exactly right is it? Why should I have to date to keep him happy? Shouldn't I just focus on people I like?" Sam said rolling her eyes.
"That might fly if you were a girl but as a boy it's weird." Danny shot back.
"Danny's got a point, it's just part of the deal." Tucker shrugged.
"But that's not-" Sam began frustratedly.
"Fair? Tough." Danny snapped angrily.
"I'm guessing you're still sore about-" Sam began carefully.
"Just leave it." Danny growled. Sam leant back in her chair huffily, Danny was totally overreacting, he was getting all worked up over some stupid argument? Why couldn't he just forget it?
"Alright class, we're all here, now let's get to the bus for the field trip." Mr Lancer said. As one the class stood up to the sounds of scraping chairs, Danny pushed past Sam roughly. Sam frowned at this, Danny sure had become a lot stroppier since they'd changed genders, a thought struck Sam and she bit her lip in response. Had Danny really changed or had her perception of him changed? Was she falling into the male trap of seeing women as unpredictable emotional tornados? Was her male brain affecting how she'd usually think? Then again did her female brain affect how she thought? She thought of the way that she used to think as right but how was it any different or more right than how she was thinking now? Did her brain chemistry really make that much difference? She slowly followed behind with the rest of the class on their journey to the bus and tried to figure out which one of her was right and if it really made a difference at all.