"So…what do you make of this entire thing?" Sam asked, watching curiously as Danny surveyed the space between them His eyebrows were furrowed, hair messy and lower lip pushed out in a kind of adorable way. He almost looked like a puppy to her.

After Sam had gone home that day her parents had rushed to her, excited at first to give her their presents and stuff her with her favorite flavor of cake, but seeing the smudged makeup and red scratch across her cheek had immediately put them into a concerned frenzy. It had taken a few minutes of stuttering to finally come up with a convincing lie.

If she was honest with herself, all of the lies were starting to get a bit suffocating. It was exhausting having to constantly come up with stories to sate her parents curiosity and concern for her well being, and then remembering them all and keeping them consistent was even harder. That's why a few days later, immediately after school she had rushed to see Danny. There was something so separated about him from the rest of her every day life, and seeing him had become a break to her. Unfortunately, she only had time to do so every couple of days.

"Wait," he said, leaning back a little, excitement entering into his eyes and making them shine. It really didn't help the whole puppy image she was getting. "Hold on a second, do me a favor."

She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. Sam never agreed to doing favors if she didn't know what it was first.

"I want you to put your hand over mine, just like we were doing before, okay?"

"O…kay?" she responded, not really knowing where he was going with this. They both knew what was going to happen, anyway. They were going to try and touch, and instead a weird, pulsing wall was going to block them from doing that. They had been standing there talking about the damn thing for the past fifteen minutes and Sam couldn't think of anything they could do about that.

"Okay, so try and touch my hand again," Danny said, flipping a piece of hair out of his eyes.

"All…right," Sam stepped forward as they both pressed their hands against each other, another zap of energy going through their arm. Sam resisted the urge to jump back.

"I wanna see if this'll work." Danny turned, making sure their hands were still aligned with each other the entire time, but made it so that his back was now facing Sam. "Make sure you keep your hand there," he told her.

Sam rolled her eyes, but complied. She was half tempted to move away, just to see him fall on his butt.

Carefully, Danny leaned back against the pulsing wall, jumping slightly at the wave of energy that went through his back and slowly removed his hand. The ripples of energy coming from the wall seemed to increase, and Sam looked up from her hand to look at him.

Danny turned his head slightly to look at her, a boyish grin spreading across his face. "Look," he said, an air of satisfaction around him. Danny had made it so he was leaning against the wall, his hands folded across his chest with one leg pressed against whatever was separating them. In the moments where the pulsating energy had spread far enough away from them, it looked as though he was leaning on absolutely nothing, although the energy rippling through Sam's hand begged to differ. "You wanna try?"

This was kind of like a really weird version of a trust fall. "I'll pass." She responded with a smirk, no doubt thinking of him falling onto his butt.

A small change in pattern caused Sam to look up, noticing that the pulsing light had turned to an irregular flickering. She opened her mouth, about to comment on it to Danny when one last surge of power went through it, and the light disappeared completely. It took her a second to process Danny's cry of surprise before an unexpected weight was pressed against her hand, sending her, and whatever had fallen onto her, sprawling across the ground.

The Goth groaned, sitting up and rubbing her head, which had hit the ground before her hands could get there. She opened her eyes and found Danny right next to her in a similar position.

Except his hand had disappeared through the ground.

"What the fuck?" was the first thing that came out of her mouth as she watched his arm, not sure if she should be concerned or scared.

"Huh?" Danny looked up, his free hand running through his hair before looking back down.

He looked up.

Then back down again.

Sam was pretty sure she heard him curse under his breath.

Danny lifted his hand out of the floor, giving her a nervous look. Her eyes widened as he did so, noticing that his hand didn't just go through the floor...part of it had disappeared altogether.

…and then reappeared.

"What. The actual. Fuck." She said, looking at him with raised brows.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Oh, don't you dare play dumb with me. I'm not an idiot, I know what I saw, now you're going to explain it to me." On the inside she winced, noticing how much she sounded like her mom in that moment.

Danny looked at her cautiously for a few seconds before letting out a sigh of defeat. "Sam...you said you believe in ghosts, right?"

"Yes…we've already established that…" she answered slowly, eyeing him with hesitation. They had already established that neither of them were ghosts, and the 'wall' that had separated them only moments ago was more than enough to prove that something beyond the two of them was going on right now.

"Well…I kind of…am…one." He paused in between words, his voice growing more and more distant which each spoken syllable.

Sam felt a physical jolt of shock go through her body, but she didn't show it on the outside. Instead, she raised her eyebrows at him, and in a flat tone replied, "So you lied to me." It wasn't a question. If he had indeed lied to her, the lie certainly had not lasted very long.

"No!" he was quick to respond, sitting up straight with both of his (now completely visible) hands moving from the floor to his lap. Sam pushed herself off the floor, standing over him with her arms crossed. "No," he repeated, his voice sounding calmer, but still nervous. "No, you don't understand—"

"Well, that's what I'm trying to do right now, but you seem to have a problem with me understanding so—"

"I know that you're mad, and I get that, but let me ex—"

"Then fucking explain, Danny!" Her outburst left the both of them silent. Sam wasn't sure why she was so mad at him, he had no social obligations to her, she didn't even know what their relationship was, but oh god, she was so angry.

She knew they were practically strangers to each other. She knew that she had barely talked to his guy. She knew he had absolutely no obligation to do anything for her.

But for some reason, she felt betrayed.

The silence between them felt invasive. It wasn't supposed to be there, it really shouldn't be there. Sam should be teasing Danny about his soup thermos. Danny should be grinning at her and being the dork he usually was. They should be trying to figure out why the hell they couldn't touch each other. But there was none of that.

Finally, Danny spoke. "I'm…half."

There was another few seconds of silence as Sam processed his words.

"You're…what?"

"Half human. Half ghost. I'm both. Neither. I don't know."

Her eyes flitted from his eyes to his arm to the wall behind him and back again. "I don't understand."

Another tired sigh escaped from his lips, and in that moment Danny seemed to age by a decade. There was a weight pulling down on his shoulders that should not rest on any teenager.

He stood up, hands in his pockets, hunched over just slightly and met her eyes. A strange noise caused her to look down, where a ring of light now hovered at the boy's waist. Slowly, the ring separated into two as it moved over his body, changing black to white and white to black. She followed the light with her eyes, seemingly mesmerized by it as Danny's physical appearance was altered right before her. His white t-shirt and baggy jeans that he seemed to disappear into was turned into a form fitting, black suit, and looking at his chest she realized that a small letter 'D' had appeared there.

She looked into his eyes again, and an almost inaudible gasp left her mouth.

Green.

How is that even possible?

Sam took a step back to take in his appearance. She didn't notice Danny's frown grow wider.

After a few moments Danny had had enough. "Well?" he prodded her, shuffling his feet. "Say something."

Sam blinked a few times, even rubbing at her eyes and looking again, as though that would change something. She opened her mouth to speak.

"You are an absolute dork."

It took Danny a while to respond. He looked at her, visibly confused at her reaction. Just a second ago she'd been furious!

"Wait. What?" he stuttered out, even more perplexed on seeing the smirk tugging at the corner of her purple lips.

A breath of air escaped her mouth as she looked up at the ceiling and then back down. "You made this so much more complicated than it had to be, honestly."

"…you're not mad at me?"

"I mean, yeah, kind of." She shrugged, grimacing a little. "Well. I'm a little mad. I was definitely mad a minute ago, but then I realized I was being kind of unfair. You probably have your reasons, right?" She wanted to laugh at how enthusiastically Danny bobbed his head up and down. "Plus, I realized that after all of that, not being mad is what would fuck with you the most." She was still hurt, still definitely mad, but she could push that away. Bottling it up seemed to solve more problems than it caused.

"Wow. Thanks so much. You're a true friend."

Sam winked at him, grinning at the sarcasm in his voice.

A few seconds of silence entered the space, which Danny interrupted by clearing his throat . "So, uh, that wall…"

"Huh?" Sam looked up. "Oh, right. Think it's still there? I mean, considering the fall you took."

"Dunno," he responded with a shrug, still looking at her uncertainly due to her sudden change of mood. "Guess there's only one way to find out."

Sam nodded and stepped forward. Danny did the same, about to lift his hand up, but a look of confusion crossed his face when she didn't stop coming closer after a certain distance. She continued closing the distance until there were only a few inches between them.

Danny looked at her with wide eyes while Sam kept her expression completely neutral.

"Uh…Sam…what are you—" Her nose was almost touching his, and although there may have been a few other reasons why this was strange, the only thing Danny could think was If that wall's still there I don't want to get shocked on the nose.

Sam's stoic expression changed into a grin, and Danny opened his mouth to speak again when Sam lifted her hands and pulled on his cheeks, effectively cutting him off.

A noise that sounded like an, "Ow!" came out of the boy's mouth, and he placed his hands over Sam's, hoping to get her to stop pulling at them.

"That's what you get for lying to me," she said, letting go of them. She made sure to pat him a couple times before stepping back though.

Danny gave her a half-hearted glare while rubbing at his face. "You seem pretty uncaring about the fact that I'm a ghost." Seriously, wasn't she supposed to be scared or something? That's the reaction most of Amity Park tends to give him. Well, either that or attempts at physically injuring him.

Now it was Sam's turn to shrug. "You seem more like Casper the friendly ghost more than anything else. The white hair doesn't really take away from that image either." Her eyes wandered to his head, and then back to his bright green eyes. "Which, by the way, I still haven't gotten an explanation for."

"Right, explanation." Danny nodded as Sam made herself comfortable on one of the counters that lined the walls of the room they were in. "Well, uh, how do I start this?" he muttered to himself, running his fingers through his hair. Sam noticed that it looked really soft despite the fact that she had basically seen it get bleached right before her own eyes.

"Why don't you start with how the hell you managed to do that," she gestured to his body. Sam found her eyes lingering on his torso for a bit too long. That baggy shirt of his really hid a lot of muscle under there…

"Right," he started again before glancing at the door leading out of the basement, not noticing her blatant staring. Thank god.

Sam saw the ring of light reappear around his waist and make its way over his body again, his appearance changing wherever the light touched it.

She didn't think she'd ever get tired of seeing that happen.

"Yeah," she muttered, more to herself than him. "That."

Danny explained everything in as much detail as he possibly could. He and Tucker, his best friend, had been screwing around after one of his parents failed experiments.

"My parent's hunt ghosts for a living…that's what that thermos is all about."

"Oh," Sam's eyes widened on realizing exactly what that meant. Danny was a ghost too, after all.

"Yeah," Danny offered her a weak smile before continuing. "You know that weird looking door over there?" He jerked his head in the direction of the hexagonal structure that Sam had been wondering about ever since she had found this place. "It's a portal. Tucker thought it would be cool to go in there, do some looking around. I didn't see why not, so I went in aaaand I guess I didn't notice my hand running along a little 'on' switch in the wall." He swallowed. Sam wanted to say something, but decided against it. He needed to finish his story.

"The most painful thing I have ever experienced in my entire life." He said. "I'm pretty sure it only lasted a couple seconds but all I could remember is thinking, oh god let it stop." His eyes had a distant look to them. Danny wasn't just telling the story; he was reliving it. His mouth opened, but it took a few moments for words to form. "I came out and ended up collapsing right there. Tuck had to drag me up to my room and hide me away for a bit." He laughed, but Sam couldn't tell if it was genuine.

After thinking over his words, Danny shrugged, deciding that he had nothing more to say. "That's it I guess. I've had to deal with being like this ever since. I think maybe…when I got electrocuted…a part of me died right there." His eyes wandered. "I don't know, that sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it?"

Sam shook her head. "I mean, the fact that you can turn into a ghost kind of shows that logic must not really apply here, doesn't it?"

He didn't respond.

Sam, realizing that he wasn't planning on saying anything else, hopped off the counter, and before she could process what her own body was doing, had pulled him into a hug.

"Sorry," she said, completely aware that her lips were pressing onto his neck just slightly. "It must have been tough. You're really strong to be able to go through all of that."

"You're not much different," Danny's voice came out quieter than the both of them were expecting. Sam knew what he was talking about, and responded by squeezing him just a little tighter. She felt Danny's arms rise hesitantly, circling around her for a few seconds before he actually returned the hug.

She was the first one to pull back, giving him a smile as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ears. "It feels kind of weird being able to touch you now."

"You seem to be enjoying it though." Danny grinned.

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, whatever. I don't usually get all touchy-feely with people though, got it? That was a one time thing." She pointed a finger at his chest for dramatic effect.

"Sure," was his response, the grin still plastered onto his face, "Whatever you say." Sam realized at this moment that Danny no longer sounded far off. Before, his voice had a distant sound to it, like he was a lot farther away than he looked like he was. It was one of the reasons she had originally thought she had been talking to a ghost after all, but now his voice sounded completely clear. Huh.

Sam was about to ask what he thought of the whole situation—the wall being there in the first place was weird, but the fact that it disappeared for no reason was even stranger. What cut her off was the sound of heavy footsteps making their way down the stairs. Sam's heartbeat sped up, although she wasn't quite sure why. Danny didn't have enough time to tell her anything before an orange and blue jumpsuit came into Sam's vision.

"Danny, my boy!" A voice boomed from the door "I hope you've been spending your time cleaning the la—oh, who's this?"

Two people entered into Sam's vision. One, a large man with greying hair and another was a smaller woman with eyes like Sam's and chestnut brown hair falling above her shoulders.

The two adults looked between her and Danny curiously, and Sam realized that her anxiety came from the fact that in all of her time visiting this place she had never seen anyone but Danny.

"Danny, sweetie, you know what the rules are about taking your friends down here." Sam assumed from her tone of voice and choice of pet names that this woman was Danny's mom.

"That's right. Just because she's a girl doesn't make the rules any different, son." His father's tone was firm, but still extremely friendly. His overall attitude seemed a bit strange in comparison to his daunting size. Sam was almost certain Danny would end up being teased about bringing a girl over to his house after she was gone.

"Oh, by the way, I'm Maddie, and this is Jack, but you can call us Mr. and Mrs. Fenton if you're more comfortable with that. It's nice to meet you, dear." Danny's mom turned to her with a smile and an expectant look.

So Fenton is his last name…Danny Fenton…

"I'm S—"

"Wes!" Danny interrupted, stepping closer to his mother. "Her names Wes. Sorry, I forgot about introduction and all that. You know how I can be," His nervous laugh caused Sam to raise her eyebrows at him, but quickly returned her expression to normal before Mrs. Fenton could see.

"Right. Wes." She finished lamely. Where the hell did this guy get that name from? Wes? Really?

Apparently, Danny's parents had a similar thought.

"Isn't that a boys name?" Mr. Fenton asked with a frown.

"Uh…" Sam searched for an excuse to tell them before Danny could open his mouth and dig them into a bigger hole. He didn't seem like the best liar in the world, which was strange considering he had a lot to lie about.

"My parents don't believe in traditional gender roles?" her response came out sounding like a question, but other than that Sam thought it seemed like a pretty solid thing to say.

Mrs. Fenton looked pretty happy with her answer, because she smiled and nodded in agreement. "Well, why don't we take you up to the living room, considering it's much more suitable for guests." She gave Danny a hard look, which he responded to with a nervous grin. Sam felt kind of bad considering she may have just gotten him in trouble.

"Sure…" she responded, giving Danny an unsure look before glancing around at the basement one last time and following the three of them up the stairs and into the living room.

"Would you like some fudge, Wes?" Sam wanted to laugh, finding it extremely strange to be seriously addressed by that name.

"Um, sure Mrs. Fenton." She replied, taking a seat at the table in front of her. She looked up, expecting everything to look exactly like it had the first time she had found this house.

She was so wrong.

No longer was there dust lining the chairs and tables. The large psychology book that she had seen previously was back on the table, and the piles of dirty dishes in the sink were nowhere to be seen. The place was completely sanitary, and there were even a few futuristic looking devices placed on the kitchen counters that looked similar to the soup thermos she had grown used to seeing Danny carry around.

"Oh! Oh! I want fudge too!" Mr. Fenton exclaimed.

"Of course, dear." Mrs. Fenton beamed at him.

Danny must have seen the shocked look on her face because he nudged her gently before sitting down in the chair across from her. She shrugged and shook her head to tell him 'not right now.' It felt so strange having the appearance of the place she had been visiting for weeks suddenly change without any warning.

Granted, a lot of strange things had been happening lately.

Sam smiled at Mrs. Fenton as a plate of chocolate was placed in front of her. She bit into the sweet carefully at first, having had no experience with this particular families cooking, but soon realized her hesitation was completely unnecessary.

"This is delicious," Sam said, covering her mouth as she chewed, earning another smile from Danny's mother.

"Thank you, dear. So, how do you know Danny? He never brings girls home." She cast Danny a look that Sam could almost call a pout before turning her direction back to Sam.

The goth's chewing slowed as she glanced at Danny, trying to think of another lie to tell her. "Uh, we have a couple of classes together in school." I don't even know the name of the school he goes to…this is going to go well.

"Y-yeah," Danny interrupted, trying to help her out. Sam wasn't exactly sure whether his input would make the situation any better. "She tutors me sometimes, when I need help. That's why I come home later from school every once in a while."

"Oh?" Maddie's eyebrows shot up, obviously trying to decide whether or not to believe this. Sam just nodded her head. "Well, thank you for helping out our son," she said politely.

"God knows he needs it."

"Dad!" Danny whined. Sam just laughed. Danny didn't seem like the type to do poorly in school, although she remembered him mentioning it before.

She found herself enjoying the time she spent with the Fenton family. They were kind and she didn't feel out of place with them. His parents even took the opportunity to tease her when they could, which she didn't mind as much as she thought she would have. They reminded her of her parents a bit, which—

Oh.

Her parents.

"Um, sorry to interrupt but do you mind telling me what time it is?" she asked, directing the question at anyone who could answer.

"Oh, it's already eight!" Maddie said, sounding surprised herself. "That went by quickly, didn't it? You should probably head home dear, it's getting dark and we don't want your parents getting worried."

Sam nodded in agreement, although there was a voice in the back of her head wondering if she would even be able to find her house with all of the strange changes going on. From what she had gathered over the past few hours, it seemed like the house she had been seeing hadn't exactly been the house Danny had been living in.

"Danny, be a dear and walk her home, would you?" Maddie leaned over to where Danny was sitting to pinch at his cheeks and Sam snorted, being reminded of her own actions just a few hours ago.

"Yeah, sure Mom." He grumbled, rubbing at his face.

"Just remember your curfew," she warned him and he nodded, getting out of his seat and heading to the door. Sam could tell without a doubt that his curfew wasn't something he paid much attention to.

Sam said her goodbyes to the two of them before following Danny out the door. The second she placed a foot outside she was greeted with a cool breeze, and welcomed it happily. The teenagers walked for about two blocks, Sam making sure to tease him about his parents.

"By the way, where exactly are we going?" Sam finally asked, slowing down a little. "I mean, you don't know where I live…" Unless that came with the whole ghost thing. She didn't think it did.

"I just wanted to get a decent distance away from the house before we talked." Danny stopped walking and turned around to face her. "So…I don't want to alarm you or anything, but based off the things that have been happening…I'm not one hundred percent sure your house is going to be where it usually is."

"Yep." She replied, her voice going flat. "Neither am I."

"Well, at least we're on the same page here."

"The rest of the universe doesn't seem to be though."

Danny chuckled at her response. "We might as well go check it out though. Is your house far from here?"

Sam surveyed the area around them, having somewhat gotten used to the fact that the place she was walking in was an actual, completely lived-in neighborhood and not the trash filled abandoned streets she had gotten used to seeing.

"Well, I tend to run from there to here, and it takes a good twenty minutes then so…" she trailed off, scuffing her boots on the asphalt. "It'll take a while but I don't think we have another option."

"You don't know that."

Sam looked up to see Danny grinning at her.

"Oh?" she raised an eyebrow at him, feeling a smirk spread across her own face. "And what exactly does that mean?"

"Take a guess." He responded with an almost uncharacteristic cockiness, and Sam found herself looking at a white ring of light for the third time that day.

White gloved hands now rested at Danny's waist, and Sam found herself needing to blink a few times before she could get her thoughts back in order. Once she had fully processed what he was implying she found herself grinning again.

"Oh, that is awesome." She said, taking the hand that he held out to her.

"This might feel a bit weird. Just don't let go of my hand, okay?" A piece of white hair had fallen into his eyes again and Sam was tempted to brush it out of the way. She decided against it.

"Sure," she responded, before a cool feeling spread across her entire body and into her veins. It feels like I just covered myself in mint and had a bathe in cold in water, Sam thought to herself, and then gasped as she looked down and found nothing to look at.

"What the—" she looked to her side, aware that she was still holding Danny's hand—she could feel it after all—but it looked like there was no one standing next to her as well. Sam found that if she squinted she could just barely make out a distortion of light where Danny's body was.

"This is so weird," she said, earning a laugh from Danny.

"You'll get used to it." And without a warning, the ground was pulled out from under her, and they were flying.

"Holy shit!" She yelled, looking down as the ground grew further and further away. Adrenaline rushed into her veins as the wind whipped her hair around her face. Danny had stopped going higher once they were a few feet above the houses that lined the streets.

"You okay?" He asked, having to yell over the wind passing by them.

"Fuck yeah, I'm okay!" Sam laughed, kicking her feet back and forth.

"You're gonna have to give me directions to your house, all right?"

Sam complied, directing him to turn whenever necessary before realizing that they weren't on a road, and therefore could just fly in the direction her house was.

Wow, this was convenient.

Less than ten minutes had passed before she told him to start lowering them to the ground, and her body became visible again the second her feet touched the floor. "Oh my god that was amazing." Sam breathed, pushing her hair back into place, finding it strange to be on stable footing again.

"Good to know." Danny smiled. "Maybe we'll be able to do it again sometime."

"Oh, man I hope so." She giggled before looking up. "Well," a large breath of air left her chest. "This is my house."

Danny frowned as he looked at it before turning around to get a view of the other houses. "You know, this place looks completely unfamiliar to me."

"So?" Sam asked, her expression now mirroring his.

"So, I've been all over town. Literally. I swear I've never seen this place before."

"That's…really strange."

"I guess we'll just add it to the list then."

` "Definitely," Sam grinned. "Hopefully we'll figure this out eventually."

"Yeah," Danny nodded, his voice quieting. "I'll, uh, let you go then. Don't forget to bring your baby picture next time, okay?" He nodded at her house.

Sam nodded before asking, "You'll be okay getting back?" genuine worry entered her voice. He had told her he'd never seen this place before.

"I'll be fine. Thanks Sam." Danny gave her a gentle smile before turning around and taking off into the sky. Same only had half a second to realize that his legs had turned into some kind of tail before he disappeared completely.

Once he was out of sight she turned around and sighed, massaging at her forehead. Just before going into the house she realized something that made her pause.

As Danny was walking away, his voice had grown distant again.

Finally updated...I'm really bad at this lol.

Big thanks to Idealist101! Without their encouragement I don't think this chapter would have happened so soon (which is bad because it isn't soon at all)

Review and tell me what you think please :)