A GLINT OF GOLD

(Author's notes: This fanfic is biased on a slight color glitch during the end of the first Ember episode where Danny's eyes begin to glow meant to signify his determination to stop her evil plans and gain vengeance for putting him through the heartache she dealt him. His eyes glow a gold color rather than their regular green shade.

I do not own Danny Phantom or its related materials.)

The past:

Standing at the side stage gazing at Sam, who had just kissed Dash, and now apologized for hurting him, he only vaguely heard her. His heart felt as if it had imploded in his chest and it hurt far more than any punch or kick ever could have. He wanted to crawl into the deepest darkest hole that the earth possessed and die. He wanted to fade away.

Then he looked out at the crowd, all chanting mindlessly the name "Ember", and other people whom he had never met were doing the same all over the world. Finally his eyes landed on Ember McLane, and he could almost see the well of energy that she was feeding from. He forgot his broken heart and was filled with a righteous sense of Justice.

His first truly selfless act, and his eyes, for just a moment, flashed a brilliant gold.

The Present:

The chase was on. Honestly, Danny had been thinking of just inviting the Box Ghost to join the team for years. He didn't put up much of a challenge but he gave Danny a really good cardio workout. The Box Ghost would have made a great personal trainer. As it was they were speeding around the city, and Danny was catching up. He'd been training hard since they had saved the world, and things had gone back to normal or at least as normal as they had been before the meteor. Once again ghosts were escaping the Ghost Zone to get to the 'Real' World.

The only real difference was that, with the whole world aware that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, he didn't have to worry about keeping his secret or explaining his absences during day and night.

"Danny?"

"Huh?" Danny was drawn from his thoughts by Sam over the two-way communicator, a neat little device created by his sister, plugged into his ear, "What's up Sam?"

"Uh, have you caught the Box Ghost yet? It usually doesn't take this long, and Grandma wanted to take us out for dinner, remember?"

Danny stopped and looked about him. He'd lost the Box Ghost when he was in his own thoughts. Everything else could wait, but not Sam. Since he had realized how he felt about her he had let nothing stand between them.

"Sorry Sam, I seem to have lost him, but, really, it's the Box Ghost, what harm could he do? Maybe I should let him go just this once?"

"Beware!," Yelled a voice from behind Danny.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck and smiled, knowing what he would find when he turned around, "Never mind Sam, give me 15 minutes and I'll meet you back at your place, k?"

"K, Love you."

He still loved hearing that, "Love you, too."

Slowly Danny turned and faced the Box Ghost.

"I am the Box Ghost! Beware!" The Box Ghost said again. A sort of self styled catchphrase he'd used since their first encounter.

Danny looked back at him with amusement, "Look, here's the deal, I have somewhere to be. So, I can either, beat you to a pulp and shove you into the Fenton thermos and, eventually, dump you back into the Ghost Zone, or, if you promise to behave, I can let you go tonight and we can pick this up again tomorrow. What do you say?"

The Box Ghost contemplated this for a moment then, with a slightly dejected tone, replied, "Oh-kay."

The Box Ghost slowly floated away, and then, once he was far enough, shouted back his final word on the subject, "Beware!"

Danny couldn't help but let out a little laugh.

Taking off himself, he sped towards Sam's place at top speed. Now that he had a chance to explore his abilities he found that he was able to progress far quicker than he had been. He was well on his way to honing them down to an art form.

To start with, his speed had doubled and he could travel at nearly 200 miles per hour while solid before friction became a problem, and when intangible he could reach faster than Mach 1, his ghostly wail could now shake a mountain to pieces, he could freeze a lake solid, his ectoplasmic energy blasts could be reduced to a micron or enlarged to 6ft without losing intensity, he could even change his appearance, and, he had mastered making duplicates, which got him through the last year of high school, and was making college much easier.

Sure, with the whole world and Amity Park in his debt he could have just sat back and saved the world for a living. Few places in town didn't at least offer their services for free, but he insisted on paying. It had been his determination, and willingness to do the right thing that had gotten him where he was and he didn't want any of that to change. So he had finished high school on his own merit, and some tutoring from Mr. Lancer and his sister Jazz, and during the summer he had found a job with a local construction company. He figured that he could help build up what he damaged while battling the ghosts that still popped up from time to time, and it would help to work out his human side, which wasn't his stronger side. By the Fall he'd actually bulked up enough to go from slim to medium build and he felt good about that. He also felt good when he enrolled in college, mostly online courses with a few night classes, for a teaching degree. He still had a passion for aeronautics and space travel, but he knew that it wasn't meant to be, at least not in any conventional sense. As long as he had his powers he would need some flexibility and, more over, he wanted to stay in Amity Park.

He couldn't always be everywhere, but he did want to always be where Sam was.

Danny touched down outside of the 2 story brownstone shop where Sam worked and lived. After high school she had planned on pursing a literary major, still not sure what she wanted to do with her life, and it had been her mother's idea to open a bookstore that combined her love of the Gothic and the unseen world by selling ancient tomes of lore along with contemporary works of gothic fiction, in not so many words (actually what she had said was, "How about a bookstore with those grungy books and those old ones that you like?"). Sam had debated the idea with Danny on a long walk through Amity Park. She felt, deep down, that it was a good idea and something that she actually wanted to do, but she was frightened of what might happen if she couldn't make it work. When Danny thought about it, it was the only thing he could see her doing and being happy about, and he told her so. He also told her that if it didn't work out that it wouldn't change who she was or how he felt about her but if she didn't at least try then she would always wonder about how it could have been.

They stopped then, so she could kiss him for being so sweet, and when they had looked around, to figure out where they were, she saw the brownstone and fell in love.

It had been standing in the 50's and had probably been built in the 30's, but under it's glass store front window, covered in years worth of dust and grime, it still advertised its latest sale. As a bonus the second story was a spacious apartment. She had rushed back to her parents and told them all about, and the next week they, Sam, Tucker, Danny, and the whole Fenton clan, were moving her into her new home. Her parents had simply bought the building, 'just in case' as they had said, and gave her seed money to start the book shop. Danny and Tucker had stayed the first few days, helping her get things ready with the store and apartment. It had felt like a sleep over from the old days. When they weren't working they would watch movies and share stories until the early morning. Tucker eventually had to leave, he was still the mayor and had surprisingly won a landslide victory on the first run-off election as a write-in candidate, but Danny stayed behind the rest of the week to 'get the store ready to open', as he had told their parents (which was true; mostly), and with a little help from his ghost powers 'Phantom Books' was open the following week. Danny and Tucker were her first sales, but as word began to spread business picked up. By the end of the summer she had been forced to hire a full time assistant, Daisy, a short, mousey haired girl, who habitually wore an oversized sweater, and was wildly gesturing, that very moment, at Danny.

Danny had gone back to his human form, and waved pleasantly at the younger girl before he realized why she was gesturing at him. He pulled his button up shirt out of his pants and put it on. Heading for the door at side of the bookstore which led up to the apartment he waved his thanks to Daisy.

Tucking his shirt into his pants was a habit he had formed working on hot construction sites in the middle of summer, and because his Danny Phantom costume appeared on him whenever he transformed he tended to forget that he didn't have a shirt on. Sam hated it, not that she didn't like to see him without a shirt on, and it wasn't exactly jealousy; more of a sense of 'mine'. After the meteor he became famous worldwide and, apart from reporters and TV personalities wanting interviews, he began to receive letters and calls from 'fans', mostly women. They would send marriage proposals, love letters (sometimes quite explicit), articles of clothing, plane tickets, and tons of other stuff (including some pictures that he never told Sam or Tucker about). It made Sam furious that all these people who didn't even know him suddenly wanted his attention, even though he paid them no mind, and only because he was now a star. While the world wide acclaim had eventually died down, the local attention only grew and had gotten worse since he had started to bulk up, and, while Sam would never tell him that she wanted him to put on a shirt when they were out together, he hated it when she glared at the girls that happened to look at him.

He took the stairs two at a time and walked into Sam's apartment. The door was unlocked, but he had a key anyway and locked doors weren't really a problem for him anymore. Still, she knew he was coming, she knew he would use the door, and she knew him. That was all that mattered.

Sam was at her desk, at the edge of the living room its whole surface littered with papers, on the phone. Her black dyed hair hung just below her shoulders and the tips had been dyed purple. She wore a black thigh-long sleeveless dress edged, on both high neck and hem, with thick black lacework, knee high converse all-star boots, multiple bracelets on each wrist, and a dogs choker chain around her neck. Her purple eyeliner and lipstick made her seem even paler than she was. Slight spots of color showed on her checks as she motioned for Danny to give her a minute.

She was yelling at whoever was on the other end of the phone, "I said I would think it over! That's not the way things work! Things have to be researched and discussed before I can move the store or open up another Phantom Books location. Now, Stop Calling!"

She switched lines on the phone and held the pen she had stuffed behind her ear poised over a ledger, "Sorry about that, I'm putting in an order for Phantom Books. We're going to need..."

Danny listened as she rattled off textbook names; ones that they would need to have in stock before the next semester of classes started. He moved over to the couch and sat down. The living room was filled with book cases, and what little wall was left was covered with old movie posters in frames. Things like 'Nosferato' and 'Frankenstien' starring Boris Karloff, but over the TV, on the wall, was a gilded frame was a small picture, a copy of which had once lined the back of his locker. A picture was of him, Sam, and Tucker taken just before high school, not long before the accident that gave him his powers. Sam had tons of pictures of the three of them in albums under the TV, but only one other one was displayed. On the desk, where she could see it every day, was a picture taken of her and Danny at the senior prom.

Sam finished her phone call, walked over, and fell into Danny's lap. He put his arms around her and she kissed him.

They broke their kiss after a good few minutes and Sam leaned her head back, lovingly, on his shoulder. She sighed contently, "I guess work never ends for either of us, huh? So, what happened with the Box Ghost?"

"I let him go." Danny said, nonchalantly.

"Why?"

Danny smiled and shrugged, and held Sam a little tighter, "Well, it's the Box Ghost. He's never been much of a threat, and there's always tomorrow. Besides, I'm beginning to think that he just likes the chase."

"Oh, I see." Sam laughed, "Thought I might get jealous?"

Danny laughed back, "Maybe."

Sam playfully slapped his chest. He gently raised her face to his and caught her eye.

"What's this about moving the store?"

Sam laid her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes, "Oh, that. That guy has been calling everyday about having to go so far to get to the store. He keeps saying that we'd do even more business if we moved to his town. I'd never move the store but, since we started carrying textbooks, the volume of business we've gotten has got me thinking about maybe opening a second location, you know, letting Daisy run one to explore a more various selection, and getting back to the kind of stuff I like here, and text books still, of course."

"What's stopping you?" Danny asked resting his cheek on her hair and getting a good whiff of her berry shampoo.

Sam smiled, "Money, of course. I've almost saved enough to pay back my parents and buy the building from them. Once I do that I can think about opening up a second shop."

"I get it, but I'm sure your parents wouldn't mind you take a little longer to pay them back for the shop and the building. They approved of me didn't they?"

"Yeah and that only took you saving the world." Sam said laughing, "They've done so much to get me started, I just want them to know that they did well on their investment."

Danny raised her head to his and kissed her softly on her lips, "You're not an investment; you're their daughter. I understand through, you'll pay them back, buy the building, and when you do open the second Phantom Books it will be just as good as when you opened this one."

"You always know what to say." Sam reached up and tweaked his nose.

Danny stood up, lifting Sam as he did.

"Maybe so but my timing isn't always the best. Take how long it took me to tell you how much you mean to me, or," Danny continued over the rumble of his stomach, "how long its taken to remember dinner."

Sam looked down at the watch hidden among the many bracelets on her wrist and let out a little squeal. She hoped down from Danny's arms and went to grab her coat.

"Oh, shoot we're supposed to meet Grandma at the restaurant in 15 minutes!" Sam said, beginning to panic, grabbing keys from a peg on the wall next to her coat.

"How about I fly us there?"

Sam threw him a look, "Oh no, and what will I do if you get called off after dinner?"

It had only happened once, but she really didn't want it to happen again.

A mischievous grin passed Danny's lips, "How about a compromise?"

"This is soooooooooooo much worse than walking home!" Sam screamed as she held, white knuckled, to the steering wheel.

"I thought you liked to fly."

"With you, I like to fly with you! Not in my car!" Sam screamed out of the window of her all-black 1975 VW Beetle convertible as it sped through the cities by-ways a clear 70ft above all other traffic.

Danny's mischievous smile had returned with a vengeance, "Look at what great time we're making and think of how easy it will be to park."

In only ten minutes they made it across town in stop and go traffic, or rather over it, and, phasing through the ground, he touched the car down night across from the restaurant. Sam opened the door and got out of the car on shaky as Danny came out of the sidewalk and transformed.

Propped against the car Sam looked seriously, "Well, if you don't make it as a teacher, you could always set up one Hell of an amusement park ride."

"Oh, HA HA." Danny replied, holding out an arm for her to take.

She took his arm and together they walked into the restaurant.

It was a small but expensive French restaurant, called 'Le Fuer', and they immediately felt uncomfortable. They were far too underdressed, Danny especially, and even the wait-staff stared at them as they walked in the door. The young girl, wearing a black silk evening gown, making the seating arrangements made it even more obvious with a look of simple contempt. Duty seemed to come before disgust in her alphabet because, instead of simply asking them to leave, she asked, with an air of superiority, "Do you have a reservation?"

Before Danny or Sam could even answer, a small nervous-looking, balding, squat man with a waxed mustache and wearing a tuxedo came scurrying from the other side of the long dinning room and pushed the girl out of the way.

"May I help you?" He asked, in a tone that oozed pleasantness.

The young girl was mystified, "Sir?"

He turned to her angrily, and spoke in hushed tones that everyone could hear, "Don't you know who that is?"

He made a heroic attempt at mimicking the statue that stood in front of city hall; it was almost laughable. It took a second for the girl to understand but when she did it was plainly visible on her face. She turned to Danny in shocked awe and he gave her a little wave. She returned his wave, realized that she hadn't needed to, and walked into the kitchen. The little man in the tux straightened his wax mustache and turned back to Danny and Sam.

"Can I offer you our best table, sir? And, of course, you and your lady friend may have anything form our menu free of charge." He beamed.

Danny raised an eyebrow at Sam, who gave him an elbow to the ribs, and he turned back to the man, "Thank you, but that won't be necessary. We're meeting someone here and we'll be paying for our own meals like everyone else, but thank you for the offer."

"Sir is too generous." The little man said, generously grateful that his offer of free food had been turned down, and put his finger to the seating chart, "And whom might the gentleman and lady be dining with this evening?"

From clear across the room a voice blasted out to them, "Hey kids! Come on over here and let me look at you!"

The little man's eyes nearly escaped his skull as they wondered off to where Sam's grandmother was sitting. Danny loved Sam's Grandma for many reasons, but at that moment he loved her most for her ability to just know. She was dressed down as much as Sam and Danny, in a simple skirt and button up sweater, and, even though she would never have admitted it, she had known that neither of them would come dressed appropriately, so she didn't either to make them feel more comfortable.

They both gave her a hug and sat down. Danny grabbed a slice of French bread from a basket in the middle of the table, and went about settling his growling stomach.

"Thanks for inviting us out Grandma." Sam said.

Danny added his thanks around a piece of bread.

"Oh; its nothing. I hardly ever see you kids these days, you're always so busy, and its nice to spend some time with you." Sam's Grandma said, cheerfully, "How are you two doing?"

"Sam's thinking of opening a second location for her bookstore." Danny said, looking over at Sam with a smile.

She came back with, "And Danny's letting ghosts go through town unsupervised."

Sam's Grandma smiled at the two, "That sounds nice dears, but what I really want to know is when you two are going to be settling down. I want to hear the pitter patter of little feet one more time before I kick the bucket."

Sam was mortified, "Grandma!"

Danny slipped a hand into hers, "I've been thinking about that too."

Sam blushed with embarrassment, but Danny looked at her with a brilliant smile and gave her hand a squeeze.

"Well, you already gave her a ring." Sam's Grandma said pointing to the ring he had given her years before during the meteor incident. The one with her name engraved inside, which she had read as 'Wes' when she first saw it. It was the only ring that she currently wore.

Danny reached into his pocket and fingered the box that he had been carrying around all week, "Yeah, but I want to get something a little more special."

Sam's Grandma, clapped her hands, and, with a good natured laugh, said, "Good, only the best for my Sam-kins."

"Grandma!" Sam busted again and put her hand up to hide her face from the people still staring at them.

The conversation continued on in this manner until the food arrived, as it turned out Sam's Grandma had ordered for them and paid in advance. They protested at first, but when they were thankful when they found out that the simple meal was almost $100 per person. The conversation dipped as they ate, and then turned to more mundane topics. Sam talked about the book store, coming events planned, the strange books people requested, Daisy (who she had caught, quickly, reading the Twilight books), and her plans for the future of Phantom books. Danny amused them with job site anticdotes, filled Sam's Grandma in on what was going on in his family (Jazz taking on a dual doctorate in Psychology and Electronics, and his parents trying to get a TV show by putting videos of themselves and their exploits in ghost hunting on YouTube, which turned into more of an 'America's Home Videos' gag reel), and avoided talking about his own adventures. Then Sam's Grandma told them how she was passing her time. She said that they called it 'Extreme Bingo', which consisted of a communal bucket list that they marked off as they completed. Some of the seniors had decided to treat it like a regular 'Bingo' game but she wanted to fill out the card.

"But Grandma isn't that dangerous?" Sam asked, concerned.

"Sure, but that's what makes it fun." Sam's Grandma explained, "At my age I need at least a little danger just to keep my heart pumping."

She suddenly turned to Danny, "Speaking of age, Danny you're a man now. Do you still plan to go by Danny?"

Danny moved his head side to side, noncommittally, "Well, it's never really bothered me either way, and all the guys at the job site call me 'Dan' anyway. Whichever people want to call me is fine, as far as I'm concerned."

Sam wrapped her arms around his neck, "You'll always be Danny to me."

"And to me, as well." A voice, unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time, spoke from behind them, followed by a blast of energy.

On instinct Danny lifted Sam out of her chair, a fraction of a second before it was disintegrated, threw the table up onto it's side as a blockade, and raised a shield of ectoplasmic energy, one of the abilities that he had learned to tap while in his human form though it wasn't as powerful as when he went 'ghost'.

The blasts kept coming and Danny did all that he could to hold them back, but it was taking a toll. Doing all he could to concentrate, he edged over and took a peek at his enemy. Black and red, a flowing cape, and lots of black and red, but no one he immediately recognized.

Sam crawled up behind him, "Who is it?"

"I" Danny, began to sweat with the strain on his ectoplasmic shield, "I don't know."

The unknown villain laughed heartily, still blasting away, "Oh, son, you still haven't figured out yet?"

The floor around them explored and Danny shielded the three of them from the brunt of the blast.

"I was exiled from this world when you caused me to be exposed to the world." The villain ranted, steadily turning the restaurant into a wooden work of found art.

"Vlad Plasmius?" Sam and Danny said in unison.

"The former mayor?" Sam's Grandma added.

"That's right whelp, it is I, Vlad Plasmius!" Vlad took a moment to gloat, which gave Danny a second to recuperate and look his enemy over.

"What the Hell happened to you?" Danny asked.

He was covered in a black outfit lined with red, a flowing black red-lined cloak, red tinged skin, slicked back hair, and horns.

Vlad resumed his barrage, "I've ascended! I am far beyond anything you could wish to achieve, child!"

"I don't know how much longer I can hold this up!" Danny conceded; sweat pouring off of him in sheets.

"You've got to 'go ghost'!" Sam yelled at him.

"No!" Danny felt righteous anger began to fill him up, "I'll have to drop the shield to 'go ghost' and that will leave you and Grandma unprotected."

"Danny..." Sam began.

He turned to her, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Danny? Your eyes are glowing." Sam said, concerned.

"They always glow when I use my Ghost powers." He replied.

"No Danny," Sam shook her head, "Your eyes are glowing gold."

(Final thoughts: I think that this is a fitting continuation of the Danny Phantom storyline and hope that you enjoy it as much as I do, but that goes without saying as I wrote the piece. I plan to add one more chapter to this story but I leave it to you, the reader, to decide if it will continue after that. My continuing of this story will be solely determined by the reader response. I am looking for a total of 10 reviews. If I make that mark I will continue on a basis of 5 responses per chapter to keep it going. I do this not out of spite but because I am rather busy and this is a long piece. I have three other ongoing projects and a 80 hour a week or more job so I really don't have much time to cram in something new but what I have so far has been ratting around in my head for awhile and I wanted to share it with you.

I hope you enjoyed the piece and will continue to read this and the other things I have posted. Thank you for your time and patience.)