Liar, Liar

Oneshot. Two wrongs don't make a right, but it's the closest Sam and Danny can get to absolution. A love story. Pompous Pep. For NebulousMistress with gratitude.

~*oOo*~

Not very good...sorry I've been away for so long, peoples. Lot of crap going on right now. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy.

Tick

They had the flowery wedding, despite Sam's misgivings (Jasmine, her maid of honor, had to carry down a potted orchid rather than a bouquet of freshly-cut flowers). She briefly considered wearing a dark ballgown for her wedding dress-complete with combat boots-but her mother's desperate pleas (and her father's desperate seizures) had shaken her out of that particular pipe dream. She wouldn't even look at the dresses her mother picked out for her, (Most of which were puffy and would have made her look like an oversized flamingo) but she and her grandmother picked out a simple white gown that Sam found surprisingly lovely. She certainly looked beautiful in it; for once, Mrs. Manson hadn't been able to complain about one aspect of her daughter's clothing, and Mr. Manson's response had primarily been tears.

Tock

Danny had looked extremely handsome in his tuxedo, and his gentle face had glowed with happiness when she had walked down the aisle. True to form, all eyes had been on her, while hers remained fixated on him.

When they kissed and their small wedding party of close friends and family erupted into cheers, Sam found herself slightly confused when they drew apart.

Something was wrong. Something that had always colored Danny's kisses—a foreign, but usually soft and endearing quality—felt wrong, obtuse this time.

She saw it in his eyes, or maybe that was just her own reflection, but they brushed it off, smashed cake in each other's faces, cut a rug on the dance floor, and left for their honeymoon, leaving their loved ones to sort through the enormous piles of congratulatory wedding gifts the world had sent for their savior and his sweetheart.

They hadn't said much during the ride to the beach house. They broke the heavy silence every now and again with a nervous giggle, both wondering what in the world was wrong. Sam attested it to nerves, and the little girl assumed everything would be glorious in the morning when reality crashed over them in their afterglow and made them like the crazy in love couples both Danny and Sam claimed to hate.

He took her to bed, or tried to. The experience was so painfully awkward that they had to end it almost immediately. They ordered Chinese and shared half a bag of Gummy Bears afterwards.

Tick

In sweet and naïve innocence, they never explored their sexuality. It would have seemed…improper somehow, like breaking some time-old taboo that had nothing to do with religion. Looking back, Sam has to admit that she could barely imagine doing anything beyond kissing with Danny, even as he slipped the ring over her finger.

And that was okay, really. Sex shouldn't define a healthy marriage. She was still in love with him, and he with her, even if he was never home, even if they couldn't bear to look at each other in the eyes.

But they're happy in their lovely castle. Sam's happy. She's not an obliging housewife but a still cool, independent girl who's stuck to Danny from the very beginning. They've worked too hard to be unhappy. Danny's the icon of the world, and she's…well, she's the girl a billion girls envy, judging from the stacks of hate mail she's received.

Tick

She's worked too hard at this to be lonely. He's worked too hard at this to be lonely.

Tock

The lovers who met as children. Is there anything quite so endearing or as iconic as such innocent, pure romance? Lust and want haven't colored naivety, haven't complicated things. A single, sugary peck is enough to keep someone buoyant, at the top of the world. There is no need for passion, for the dark desire to know every dip and curve of someone else's body better than your own.

There's no need for that, anyhow. You marry your best friend, not your lover. Any sensible human being knows that. They are happy. Danny and Sam smile in all the photos and look lovely. They have so much, enjoy so much. They are the laughing couple behind so many charities and organizations, the ones glittering in all the magazines. Danny is so well-loved that there's a school holiday called Danny Phantom Day in Finland and Danny Phantom Halloween costumes sell out like hot cakes weeks before September. Girls (and boys) send him letters by the truckload; he gets more mail than Santa Claus. He saves the day. And she….

….well, she's married to him. She's still a strong individual, even if she hasn't been feeling so good as of late. She has sweet, childhood romance on her side. Contentment is assured to her.

It's stamped on all too many cards, in so many movies. A little girl's hand in a blushing little boy's is enough to melt the heart of even the surliest of Grinches. "Love" at such an early age! It must be destiny.

Tick

Even Sam the eternal nihilist and hipster fell victim to it. The movies that end well end with weddings. The ultimate happily ever after. What matters after that? No one wants to know if Cinderella cheats on the prince by getting it on with her maid, or if Prince Charming happens to have a drinking problem.

Or if both are tremendously unhappy.

Tick

She comes home early one day from one of her Youth Groups, folds some laundry, and heard Danny's voice in one of the kitchens. She goes to meet him, and hears him speaking to someone. Do they have company?

She peeks in. He doesn't see her, has no idea she's there. Is clueless as to what she's about to hear.

Tick

Tick

Tick

Danny continues to whisper into the phone, eyes tortured.

"No. I'm married. I'm married, you—"

The nearby clock is still tick-tick-ticking, but there is no reciprocal tock anymore. Sam thinks about storming into the kitchen and snatching away the phone, or about casually strolling in and asking her husband nonchalantly who the fuck he thinks he's talking to.

She doesn't feel like doing either, to be honest. Her eyes are dry; she is not floating out the window while her heart is breaking. The words that keep coming from the kitchen are not earth-shattering, they do not excite her or kill her. They're simply…just so.

Just so.

She is firmly rooted to the ground like a tree—a tree that's tumbled, but has its roots still in the ground. Though there are the noises the house makes, such as the hum of the air conditioner or the ticking of the clock or the sounds of cars passing outside, she can make out every agonized word her husband is saying in the kitchen as if he's speaking right next to her.

"Please," she hears him say softly. "Don't do this. I mean it this time."

There's a pause, and she finds herself peeking around the corner before she can stop herself. Now she feels a twinge of surprise; there is no curiosity, so why is she looking?

She wishes she didn't; Danny Phantom, the most revered hero of the planet, beloved by all nations, her faithful and true husband, is kneeling on the ground, cradling the phone like it's his firstborn child. His shoulders tremble, and he looks so weak and so small all Sam wants to do is wrap him up in a blanket and send him to bed like a sick child. Or cry. She feels nothing, but her eyes are prickling. She has to keep wiping at them.

"I have to know you won't try and do that again," she hears Danny say, now sounding very far away. "I won't have your death on my hands."

Another pause. The ticking does not mark the passage of time. Time stands still. There is no progression, or regression for that matter-Sam cannot hear the postman sliding letters through the slot on their door, nor can she hear the cat meowing sleepily upstairs.

Danny's not finished yet. Now some anger creeps into his lifeless voice. "How dare you do that to me. You meant to make me feel guilty is all, whether or not you succeeded! You never wanted to help me, so how dare you write that! Congratulations, you heartless fuck-" Here his voice is marred by tears-"You succeeded! Thanks for taking me deeper down the slope of hell, you freak. You must feel pretty good about yourself, huh? You've reduced me to nothing, and all it took was you trying to put a bullet through your sick head!"

Silence. Silence though there is plenty of sound. Then, in a voice almost too low to hear:

"You can't take yourself away from me…."

Sam realizes that the basket is gone from her hands. She glances downwards, and realizes that the crisp linens have tumbled out all over the floor. Shame, really. She had spent a long time folding them into squares, nice and neat. She remembers being proud of them, actually.

The dark-haired man's shoulders begin to shake wildly, and he chokes on a sob. He sounds like a dying man. Sam withdraws her head so that she can't see Danny anymore. It feels like she is a stranger imposing on someone's grief, and she is embarrassed for the young man; it is inappropriate to watch, like some gawking child at a zoo.

Danny sniffs, and starts speaking more gently. "I know I've said this before, but this time, I mean it. One last time. One last time, I want to see you….and then, I need to say goodbye. If these meetings aren't the death of you, I'll be dead before midnight. We can't go on like this."

Another pregnant pause. A weary sigh, which sounds like that of a parent who has to re-explain a concept to a child for the umpteenth time.

"That…sounds nice. I like to hear your voice….though it never tells me anything good, or anything possible." Danny sounds about a thousand years old now, voice about to collapse to dust from weariness.

"No, go on, Vlad. I…I like the sound of your voice."

And there is the name. Now Sam wonders why she is looking down at her own self from the ceiling, a woman paralyzed outside the kitchen, expression blank, violet eyes tremendously sad. She wants to reach out and comfort this stranger before she realizes it's simply herself.

A plea from the distant air. "Please. Don't stop talking." The voice is cracked with so much pain, it is contagious; it is agony that cancels out all other emotion, becomes so intense that there is no room for other sensations.

Sam peeks at him again before she can stop herself. Danny is leaning against the counter now, eyes tightly squeezed shut, tears streaming down his pale face. He's still clutching the phone like a lifeline.

"Please…don't stop talking….dorogoy."

Being the wife of a diplomat, Sam understands enough Russian to know what the means.

And the young woman has been uprooted, so she starts to fly away. The sheets scatter away from her feet like frightened ghosts as she flees up the stairs, because she will die if she does not, because Danny will die if she does not. Past the picture frames all showing a happy and successful couple glowing with love and flowery beauty and happiness—

She collapses in their bedroom before she can make it to their bed, and crumples up into a ball before the sobs break loose from her chest. For a moment, there is too much pain, then comes the overwhelming and terrifying need for relief, for a boulder to clutch to in the waves, and so she climbs to her dresser like a dying man in the desert, rifles through her bottom drawer, and tugs out a flask of amber liquid.

Doesn't bother to grab a cup from the bathroom. Doesn't need one. The liquor burns all the way down, and she's glad of this new pain that shows her she can still feel something that wasn't caused by the final clincher, though the sensation is only a variation of the sharp and sweet agony that is making her cry so much right now.

For some reason or another, that thought doesn't make her feel any better.

~*oOo*~

When she is halfway through, she's quite drunk, and very sick. The woman attempts to stand up and struggle to the bathroom, but too late; she's thrown up on herself and lies on the ground, pathetic, and shivering. God, why in the world was it so cold in this house? What was it with wealthy people and their need to show their status equivalent by means of temperature? When it was wintry outside, folks like her parents felt the need to raise the temperature to a sweltering eighty-something degrees. When it was summery, she often needed to drag out a flipping coat to sleep in her own bedroom, for chrissakes. It was never anything comfortable, really. While stepping inside might be a relief for but a moment, it became unbearable very quickly.

Why? Because wealthy people like to have control, control over the air you breathe? The need to have something you never could possess, even though it was horrible to endure—a self-imposed misery?

~*oOo*~

When she wakes up with a splitting headache, she finds that someone has cleaned her up. Washed her up, dressed her in pajamas, and put her to bed, wrapping her up carefully in comforters, like a child who has had a very long day. Sam discovers a wet rag on her forehead when she finally thinks of moving.

There is headache medication waiting for her on the table beside their bed, a glass tumbler of water, and a bowl of soup waiting. It is still hot.

Maybe it's her misery or the sheer sweetness of the gesture, but Sam's eyes tear up, and the poor girl turns her face to the wall and proceeds to make love to it.

~*oOo*~

She follows him. And hears so much more than she would have ever liked to.

"You're terrible. You're a mean, shallow, bitter, selfish, and spiteful creature."

Vlad sinks to the ground, and he drags his cape over the sobbing wreck, clutching him like a ragdoll even as he helplessly tries to shield the one he loves away from the world, the way Sam never could.

Tock.

~*oOo*~

There are no silent tears, no fiery accusations, and no screams. No papers or packed suitcases. No discarded wedding rings. Sam moves robotically throughout her routine, and Danny moves through his. He knows she knows, and she knows he knows. To voice it aloud would have been a waste of words and time. They knew each other too well.

To Sam, silence is her peace offering, and perhaps even dense Danny can sense this, because he begins treating her even more kindly than he did before. He doesn't shower her with the empty and meaningless gifts he knows will bring her no joy, but he holds her closely at night. It isn't the romantic grip of the man who is hopelessly in love with her, but is the unbelievably tender and protective hold of a man who loves her desperately. It certainly isn't anything like the hugs she got from her father, who, while she was growing up, was an awkward and uncertain man who didn't really do embraces or know any bedtime stories.

He brings her breakfast in bed, and attends the rallies for the many, many activist groups Sam is involved with without complaint. She wants to go to their cottage in the mountains for the weekend; he packs them a suitcase within the hour and flies her there himself. She hurts herself while exercising, and he gently rubs her sore muscles. She has a nightmare; he strokes her hair and stays awake until she falls asleep again. When she gets drunk, he holds her head above the toilet and puts her to bed.

In a strange way, Sam figures it's sort of like having the father she'd always dreamed of having as a child. A father she is wedded to.

Although she supposes she is free to leave whenever she wants to, she finds that she doesn't really want to leave at all. It would be all too easy to send information of Danny's discretion to the press, but she shrinks away from the idea.

No. The paparazzi is like a little dog, both adoring and treacherous, so willing to shine the spotlight on 'pillars of society' whilst waiting in the wings, waiting for a d.u.i or an affair to stab a person's reputation with. She wonders if they enjoy their job, building glass towers just so they can enjoy slamming someone from it straight to the ground, so that they're no longer better than them but worse. Human people who had misled others and did terrible things. Humans who were arrested and went to rehab and developed eating disorders and died in the bathtub of some distant motel room, alone and scared.

The world would eat their hero alive. Never mind that he'd helped save the lives of billions of people. Too many people admired and envied Danny. The young man could become a ghost at will. Sam knew people would gladly trade all their limbs for such abilities. He had a legacy of heroism, of courage, of loyalty and service.

Of course people would enjoy tearing him to pieces. And it wouldn't just be a single country; it would be the world against Danny, and she loves Danny far too much to allow that to happen. She needs him, needs him to wipe the tears from her eyes, to rock her to sleep the way he does before he leaves her to get his own comfort.

Vlad comforts Danny, and Danny comforts Sam. Is Vlad indirectly comforting the wife of the man he can never have? The idea makes her laugh and a little sick.

~*oOo*~

So this is why so many celebrities become fucked up, Sam reasons. You're free to go anywhere but you can't move.

They both know the child's not his.

She doesn't need a mirror to know that she looks like a nightmare; she's absolutely exhausted, and the bed is soaked from sweat and fluids.

The romantic poets can say what they like; giving birth is not a pretty sight, and certainly not a pleasant one. Danny had wanted to phase the baby out of her when her water broke, but the nurses insisted that unless Sam had a C-section or a natural birth, both she and the baby would be in danger.

Maybe they still are, even though the ordeal is finished.

Smiling nurses bustle around the famous couple signing documents and smiling cheerily, oblivious to the hell both mother and 'father' are in. Sam keeps her eyes squeezed tightly shut from where she lies against the pillows, feeling boneless. Danny says nothing at all. The nurses just chuckle and assume it's all due to the wonder and rapture of new life.

Even though the child is only hours old, a tiny, pink parcel of a person, it is all too obvious that it is not Danny's baby. It snuffles and wriggles in the phantom's arms, cradled against the warmth of his shoulder.

Sam isn't looking at him; her purple eyes are fixed on her clenched hands, praying that people attributed the tears racing down her face to sheer joy.

The clock is ticking somewhere nearby, though it's stuck again, reticking the same second over and over again. There still is no reciprocal tock.

Danny breaks the silence at last by cooing softly as the baby starts to whimper. He playfully nuzzles the boy and tucks his tiny, blue-capped hand underneath his chin, patting him on the back.

"He's beautiful, Sam," he says, kissing the baby on the forehead adoringly. "Absolutely beautiful."

Sam's heart swells until she thinks it breaks her ribs, and then implodes in on itself from love. She starts crying, and Danny crosses the room in two paces so that he can pull mother and child into an embrace, smiling slightly. Sam just holds onto him and weeps, because never, ever, has she ever loved anyone—it would have been a miracle if anyone had ever loved this much—the way she loves Danny at this moment.

And for a moment, she quietly mourns, before she wipes away her tears and embraces her baby, her ugly, beautiful baby whom she adores.

So it isn't a lover who comes to greet her newborn baby in the world, but it's someone who loves her and this baby.

Maybe that's enough for her in a world where neither of them truly belong.

Fin.