A/N: This fic happens early in the series, and I tried to get it to adhere to canon.

We're carrying Danny back from yet another ghost fight. It's at times like this that I realize how gangly he is, and his head is bumping against my shoulder as Sam and I struggle to balance him between us.

"Freaking Box Ghost," Sam mutters. He's currently trapped in the thermos attached to my belt, and every few minutes I can faintly hear him yelling.

Now, normally the Box Ghost isn't much of a challenge for us, but after finishing off a pack of ecto-vultures, Danny was pretty drained, and the Box Ghost caught us off-guard. We finished him off with the thermos, but Danny was done after that. He sank to the ground, turned human again, and passed out.

And that's why Sam and I are doing our traditional "Drag the hero back to his room" walk through Amity Park.

We're actually getting better at this, not that I want the practice, and we walk in silence for the few blocks back to his house. The Fenton RV is still gone when we arrive, and I'm thankful that Danny's parents are still at their convention tonight. There are only so many times we can drag home their unconscious son before they get suspicious.

At the top of their steps, Sam reaches to open the door, and Danny lurches forward as my center of balance changes.

"Sam!"

She stops, and returns her arm to beneath his knees. "I'm sorry," she says, not looking in my eyes. Danny's head clunks back onto my shoulder loudly. I'm starting to think that he should be wearing a helmet for these escapades.

We awkwardly maneuver Danny so Sam can reach the door, and we carefully trudge up the narrow stairwell to his room.

"Do you think that in "Frankenstein", the monster is angry?" Sam asks suddenly.

I'm not really sure why she's quizzing me about literature while I'm trying to not drop Danny down the stairs, but I roll with it. She usually makes sense in the end. "I think he's sad, a little, but not angry. Why?"

We get to the top of the stairs, and Sam nudges the door open with her foot. "Do you think that he resents Frankenstein for creating him?"

Stumbling over the clothes Danny's left on his floor, Sam and I carry him over to his bed, and set him down. I stretch my back out and Sam tugs the blankets out from under his feet and covers him. I know I haven't answered her question, but she follows it with another one.

"Do you think Danny resents me?" she asks, still tugging the blankets up under his chin.

I stop. In the month since the accident, this has been the unspoken topic among the three of us. After all, Sam egged him on into the machine that night. I've wondered the same thing.

"I don't think he does."

She turns and I can see that her eyes are welling up. "But he never would have had to deal with this if I hadn't been so stupid, so naïve to think that it was safe to wander into that machine—and now he's—"

"Sam," I say softly, stepping forward to hug her. She hugs me back, and when I hear a few snuffles and deep breaths I rub her back reassuringly.

"Danny doesn't resent you," I tell her. "You've seen how excited he is after defeating a ghost. Maybe this is a little different than what he planned on. But he loves it. He's the hero."

Sam nods into my shoulder, and I continue. "The monster only resented Frankenstein after he abandoned him."

She steps back and wipes away the eyeliner that has tracked down her face, but she's still a little too choked-up to speak.

"We haven't abandoned him," I finish.

Sam nods, smiling slightly at me, and whispers, "Thanks, Tucker."

I smile back, and awkwardly we look down at Danny, who groggily stirs in his bed. "We should probably wait until he wakes up," I say, "so we can explain what happened."

She nods again and we sit at his desk, quietly occupying ourselves and waiting for Danny.

This is part of our routine, after all.

A/N: Thanks for reading!