A/N: I wrote this last week, right before I moved. And despite the fact that it's the third in this collection, it was the first fanfiction I'd written in over a year. And that, my friends, is why it reads so sloppily. Forgive it, for it knoweth not what it is.

Also Skulker and Danny broshipping into eternity; I don't even know why.

Biannual

He awoke groggily, barely opening his eyes to the new day in his jumbled up life. Slowly, his mind still not working yet, he sat up and stretched before placing numb feet into a pair of worn out slippers.

Just another day…or night. He could never be quite sure in here.

He scuffled all the way out of his bedroom and into the meager excuse for a kitchen before it finally dawned on him.

His eyes shot wide open, and he couldn't help the corners of his mouth as they tugged upward.

Today was the day.

A laugh escaped his mouth, and his green eyes seemed to regain a bit of the life he'd so long ago left behind. Giddily, he pranced over to the calendar and circled the day – for the hundredth time – in red, for once not caring that his pen might run out of ink any time now.

He threw off his sweatpants right there in the kitchen and raced toward his room, ready to dress himself in normal, human clothes for the first time in months. Most days he settled with sweats or his usual ghostly jumpsuit all day long. It was all he needed anymore. But today…today was different.

He opened his closet, and the little ghost bats that flew out didn't even faze him (though they did, thankfully, phase through him). He grabbed his old, too-small-for-him T-shirt and jeans and took a good whiff, remembering the last time he'd worn them. They still smelled like her. Just a bit. But it had carried over for six months, as he'd hoped it would.

A knock at his door threw him into a nervous frenzy as he tossed the shirt over his head and hobbled out of his room, trying to stick his legs through his jeans and run at the same time.

"Coming!" he tried to sound normal but chipper. His voice rose in pitch about a thousand times in excitement, though, for what awaited him. Taking a deep breath right inside his door as he zipped up his pants, Danny nervously reached for the doorknob and pulled.

The stupid grin on his face and light in his eyes dulled, though, as Skulker cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What are you smiling about, whelp? Normally you're so lonely before I get here that Spectra could feed off of you from miles away."

Danny simply scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You must not remember what day it is, then."

Skulker thought for just a moment before it clicked.

"Has it been six months already? Huh. Time flies when you're dead, I guess."

"Yeah, well. Time drags when you're not dead, but the government considers you as such, and therefore banishes you from the human world," Danny deadpanned, opening his door just slightly more as an invitation for his friend to enter.

"Still bitter about that, I see," Skulker quipped.

"I will be until they fix it," Danny said needlessly. "I don't care if I'm only half human; I'm still human. That gives me human rights. I shouldn't be shunned from society and forced to live in the Ghost Zone."

Skulker yawned, more out of show than an actual feeling of lethargy. They went through this same routine every morning. He only went along with it because it gave him a certain sense of pride that the Ghost Child he'd always been after was finally trapped and caught somewhere. He liked to pretend it had been by his hand, so he frequented. Plus, it was a little nice to have someone intelligent to talk to since he had no more access to the human world, and the Box Ghost certainly wasn't going to provide him with sufficient conversation.

"So you always say," Skulker simply agreed.

Danny sighed, allowing himself a small chuckle of embarrassment. "Sorry to bore you. I know you hear this all the time, but…it's today, so I feel even more legitimized than usual in complaining."

Danny handed Skulker a cup of coffee, another of the reasons Skulker sometimes enjoyed swinging by. Despite the government's insistence that Danny was a ghost and therefore belonged solely in the Ghost Zone, they still provided him with food and drinks. Sure, he wasn't alive. But he still needed to eat.

Human logic. Pitiful.

Danny sighed again as he sat down on his couch next to Skulker, his hands visibly shaking as he held his mug.

"I'm so nervous. I mean, I'm so excited. I've been waiting for this day for six months. But I'm nervous."

"Couldn't tell," Skulker said, taking a sip.

Danny smirked as he watched him. "I'll never understand how you drink that through your suit."

"Never underestimate the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter."

Danny chuckled, deciding he was too nervous for the coffee and simply set it down on the table. He glanced around his apartment anxiously.

"It's a mess in here. Do you think she'll care?"

Skulker just looked at him.

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

Growing tired of hearing the Ghost Boy blather on about his nerves and his humanity, Skulker set his now-empty cup on the table next to Danny's and started to head out.

"Sorry to bore you!" Danny called after him, watching as the metal-armored ghost slipped out his door and closed it behind him, no more words exchanged. Ghosts were so one-track-minded and moody. Danny sighed as he tried not to dwell on the fact that 363 days out of the year, they were his only companions.

As Skulker walked back toward his own lair, he smirked as he spotted a character not native to the area. In fact, she wasn't even native to this world. But the ring on her left hand showed that she had a connection to it that even the human government couldn't deny.

The smirk left his face, however, when he noticed she was turned toward the wall and not moving. A stationary target was the least amusing kind, so he decided to provoke her.

"You should probably go in there so you can shut him up for me. He won't stop talking about you," Skulker said almost off-handedly to her.

Startled by the voice that she barely recognized anymore, Sam turned toward him with uncharacteristically fearful eyes, and…something else that was uncharacteristic.

Skulker's own eyes widened as he stared at her.

"Oh. Hm."

She just continued to eye at him nervously, unsure of what to say.

"Interesting," was all he said before continuing on his way, but not without one last glance back to her, almost as if he were sincerely curious.

She winced at his reaction, though his was not the reason she'd stopped right outside of her husband's apartment to try to collect herself. Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly toward his door – at least she hoped she remembered this being his door – and knocked. Er…she tried to knock. Being human in the Ghost Zone, her hand actually just phased right through. She almost laughed at her ignorance before just deciding to go for it all at once and step on in…

It felt odd being back here. Odd in an…almost good way. Good because it meant being with him. Even if this was…no. No need to think about it yet.

The subtle sound of phasing was all that caught his attention, but it was enough. He was sitting on the couch, and she held her breath as his head slowly turned toward her. Oh God. This was it. The moment.

Their eyes caught first. That familiar and wonderful electricity passed through them as they became reacquainted in an instant. But that instant passed too soon as his eyes inevitably drifted downward to the part of her he did not recognize.

"Sam?" he breathed, and she felt an aching warmth encompass her soul as he voiced her name. "Are you…is that…?"

"Yeah, Danny," she said. "I'm pregnant."

His eyes widened and shot back up to hers, and she almost laughed at the shock in them.

"Six months."

"B-but…how?" he asked, suddenly jumping to his feet and rushing over to her, as if he'd just realized he should probably greet his guest.

Tears of joy and remembrance filled her eyes as she watched him clumsily clamber over his furniture and stumble to her side. God, how she missed him. Every day.

"I guess certain things don't really work too well when your swimmers are sometimes ghost swimmers and can therefore phase through those certain things."

She almost laughed as the realization finally hit him.

"Damn," he said. "I didn't...oh God, wow…I had no idea."

"Neither did I. Obviously. Until I did."

Danny shook his head and began to smile. "So we're gonna be? And that's…?"

"Yes, Danny," she said softly. "It is."

But she didn't smile, and her heart broke as she watched his face contort through confusion, utter glee, and straight to despair in a matter of moments. She was hoping they'd be able to dwell on the good and the happy for awhile longer. But both were perceptive to the truth.

"But…we won't," he managed to choke out, "will we?"

She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying right then. There was so much more to tell, and this was only the most physically obvious of the changes coming to their lives.

"We should sit," she whispered. "We need to talk."

"Oh, geez! Yeah, of course! I'm sorry, Sam; here, sit over here," he guided her to his recliner, the one chair in the room that was actually corporeal so she wouldn't phase through – and what was usually his favorite seat in the house because it reminded him of home. Like she did.

She sat slowly, wanting to naturally berate him for the way he held her arm to keep her steady as she went down. She was not a fragile flower, she wanted to retort. But it had been so long since she'd felt his touch, soaked in his mannerisms, that she didn't have the heart to reprimand his chivalry.

He set her down carefully, and she let out a puff of breath as she took in her surroundings. Her husband was wearing the same shirt and jeans she'd last seen him in – his only human clothes, she knew – and everything about his "ghost apartment" seemed run down and tired. Looking into his concerned eyes, she noted, his apartment matched his demeanor. Broken, falling apart…

And only about to get worse.

Oblivious to the full extent of the implications of this surprise, Danny stroked her arm and smiled as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And, in a way, it was. At least, it should be.

"You okay, Sam?"

No. She bit back her immediate response with a reluctant nod and an attempt to smile at him.

"Yeah. You, uh…got anything to drink?"

You'd better, she thought bitterly. Or the government is going to be getting more of an earful than they already are.

"Oh, sure!" he said, scrambling toward the kitchen. "What do you need? Orange juice, soda, water?"

A variety. That's good.

"Just water, Danny. Thank you," she watched him fumble with a glass and she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. Subconsciously, she played with the ring on her left hand, stroking the diamond and wondering at how it was supposed to mean they'd be together forever.

Until everything got so messed up.

So much political effort began to concentrate on ghosts as they made their presence more prominent across the country and even the globe. The laws weren't fair yet. All humans were endowed with those unalienable rights, but half humans? It was a dumb and idiotic loophole that never should have even been considered, but when necessary to fill an agenda that forbade all ghosts from exiting the Ghost Zone lest they be immediately destroyed on sight in order to make the general public feel "safer"…

Though generally opposed to violence as she'd so often noted, Sam was ready to go to war for this. Unfortunately, the laws did not affect most people as much as they did her, and she therefore had few to fight as fervently on her side.

It was a long battle, and there was no end in sight. Which made this day – which was supposed to be one of the two best of the year – the absolute worst of her life. And she hadn't yet explained to him exactly why.

He brought her over the glass of water and handed it to her, now shaking even more violently than he had that morning. He muttered an apology as he spilled some on her, reaching instinctively to wipe it off her belly before pulling back as if a volatile bomb would go off should he get near.

She was struck again by how much she missed and ached for him.

"You can touch it," she reasoned. "It's not like it's gonna bite. Yet. Might kick me, though."

He released a weak laugh, staring intently at the unfamiliar roundness of her. It had been so long since he'd seen her. Six months exactly. And that's how long this little human…yes, human, he reminded himself…had been growing inside of her. It was astounding and frightening and amazing and terrifying, and he had to feel it. To know it was real.

He reached out tentatively, and her eyes softened at his gentleness, moving in ever so slowly and pulling back every few inches to make sure it was the sweetest touch she'd ever felt from him. And, oh. It was. She closed her eyes and savored the feel of Danny's hand tenderly caressing the wonderful – and horrible – thing they'd, however accidentally, made together.

"I can't believe this," he whispered. "I mean I…I can't believe this."

She almost lost herself in the moment. Almost got close to pretending this was real. That this was her husband simply stroking her stomach in admiration of the fact that it held their child. That tomorrow he'd be around to do the same thing. That in three months, he'd be able to hold the actual product of all this pain and effort…

She almost believed it.

"Danny," she breathed, feeling his hand stray from her stomach and move slowly up her body in a way she'd longed for so much throughout this ordeal. "Don't. We…we have to talk."

It felt like the most painful sentence she'd ever uttered, especially as he immediately drew his hand and his sweet, soft touch away from her. It would only get worse from here. But she had to tell him today. There was no choice.

"Danny, sit down. Please."

Sensing her sorrow, he pulled up a chair right next to the recliner and reached out a hand to stroke her cheek.

"What? What's wrong? I mean…besides the obvious things?" he noted painfully.

"Danny, I—" she cut herself off and stared with glassy eyes into his intent green ones. Oh God. She couldn't do this. "I don't know where to start."

He let out a short breath and looked back at her stomach, the visage of wonder and awe never leaving him. "Well. I mean, I know you guys are still fighting those laws, and they'll eventually change. I really believe that," he noted confidently. "But for now, we'll just have to make do with these bi-annual visitations. It's not the best scenario, but I'll do anything you need. I don't quite know how I'd…support you or give you anything aside from those days since I can't have outside contact aside from you. But we'll figure out something. And this baby will be a part of my family now, so they'll have to give him…her…er…whatever the right to see me too. Yeah? Until we're together again?"

He sounded so dejected but so hopeful, and it tore her apart inside to see the way his eyes glistened as he looked straight through her.

Oh, Danny…

"I wish," she whispered, "it were that simple."

He swallowed visibly and she wondered if it was nerves or fear or both. She suddenly felt ill, but she had to.

"Danny. I love you. I love you so, so much," she said, a single tear slipping from her eye, only to be caught by his gentle hand. "But this…today…is the last time I can see you. For a long, long time."

Maybe ever. She tried not to think.

She could see his heart drop. His warm breath stopped caressing her face as he ceased to breathe. She closed her eyes tightly and bit her tongue, fighting back more tears in an effort to stay calm for him.

"Wh-what?" he asked, confusion written plain across his features.

She breathed a heavy sigh and stared at the ceiling, unable to face the horrifying ache reflected in his eyes.

"If the government finds out," she began, "they will take it. And they will put him in here. Away from people. Away from the world. Away from life. The way they've kept you here. Or they might just flat out…destroy it. For being in the human world…"

She finally moved to look at his eyes as they darkened with realization.

"He won't have rights. The way you don't. And I…I can't let that happen to our child, Danny. I know it was not solely my decision to make because he's yours too, but…I didn't exactly have many options."

"It's a boy?" he asked suddenly, interrupting her. "And what are you…what do you mean? What wasn't your choice…?"

She tried to smile. "Yes. It's a boy. But, by official government standards…it's not yours."

His heart sank once more. "What?"

"I told them…when they noticed, they asked. You know how they are, always keeping tabs on us. They wanted to run DNA tests, so I panicked. And I told them…I told them it wasn't yours. To protect him. I told them that I…had an affair. I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't know what else to do. I was so scared."

She started crying, sobs wracking her whole body, and Danny immediately jumped up to hold her, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her back, even as his mind raced.

"Shh, don't, don't," he said. "You did the right thing; you're just doing what you had to do. Don't cry, Sam, please. I've lied to save people more times than I can count, and this is no different. Come on, Sam, please."

She kept crying, though. But she bit back her sobs so she could continue. It had to all come out at once or she'd never be able to say it again.

"I had to tell them that I…I didn't love you anymore. That there was no way this was yours. So they said," she sniffled, "that today…today had to be our last time. Just to finalize everything."

She felt him stiffen at that, but he continued to stroke her encouragingly.

"Today, I have to break up with you. Divorce you. Get on with my life because I can't raise a child and have a ghost husband. It's always been unorthodox and unnatural anyway…"

The words were bitter in her mouth, and she gagged.

"So," he whispered, rationalizing out loud as he always did, "if you told them the truth, they'd either take the baby away or…worse. And with this lie...the baby will be free to live his life with you, but I…I'll never get to see you. Or him. Ever again?"

She felt the despair in his words, and she wanted to crush every demon that had entered their lives to destroy them.

"Until we get the laws changed, this is the only way," she said, pulling out of his now-limp arms. "It was protect this baby or go on living a half-life with you…"

He winced at the words, and she immediately regretted them.

"I know this was supposed to be a happy day," she said, stroking his face as tears now began to fall from his own eyes. "And we were supposed to be together and love and laugh and act like we have the happy, normal marriage that we're supposed to. But everything is so wrong."

His face fell heavily into her touch, and his words came out thickly.

"I'll lose everything," he whispered. "You're my only tie to home. To life. To hope. I'm afraid, if I lose you…if I lose this baby…"

"Don't, Danny," she breathed.

"I'll lose it all."

The words hung ominously between them, and she tried so hard to push away the implications of that. To lose his tie to life and hope. What would he become? Would he…actually belong here…?

"We're still going to fight this, Danny," she said. "We'll get it set right."

"We've been trying for over a year now," defeat rang clear in his voice. "And now, with them believing you…you don't even love me anymore. That you'll have moved on…what need would there be to fight to bring me back?"

She shook her head and bit her lip, tasting water and salt. She wished she had an answer. She wished she could just kiss him hard on the mouth right there, and then everything would magically go back to normal. In fact, she grabbed his face and pressed her lips against his quiet ones just to see. He tasted so familiar, so warm, so perfect. But he was so lost and forlorn that he barely responded to her. She felt his hand on the back of her neck, and her heart leapt into her throat as she moved toward him desperately. But he pulled away from her before she could continue, and she watched as his head sagged toward his chest and unabashed sobs wracked his form.

"I've lost so much. My family, my friends, my life. And now, I…I have to lose you. And my…my son," he reached out again and clung to her belly like it was the anchor of his world. "My son that I never even knew…will never know…"

"Danny, please, don't," she said, almost frustrated and grabbing his face. "Don't lose hope. We're going to fix this. It will be all right."

She felt icy fear grip her heart as she stared down into his green eyes and noted the lack of light – of life – in them anymore.

"Please, Danny," she muttered, closing her eyes to block his out and leaning her forehead against his.

In her self-imposed darkness, she once again fumbled with her ring. Her connection to him. She was not permitted to return with it. But it still held a purpose.

She practically wrenched it from her finger and sobbed at its absence before opening her eyes and pulling Danny's lifeless ones to meet her gaze. She grabbed his hand and placed her wedding ring squarely in his palm before using both of her hands to wrap his fingers around it.

"Promise me you won't give up, Danny. Promise."

She watched and held her breath as she saw the nuances in his gaze shift. The light of his soul bounced back and forth as he struggled, and his hand shook against hers. He didn't break promises. And he'd never denied her request for one. It was hypocritical, she realized, as she was currently breaking the biggest promise they'd ever made to each other. But if he promised…

"I promise," he relented, his eyes growing somehow sadder.

And even though it was completely illogical and stupid, she felt a wave of relief crash over her. If he promised…she knew she'd see him again.

Someday.

Somehow.

And that was it. The rest of the day was a blur. Love and goodbyes. Promises reinforced. A most dreaded final parting, and it was over. Danny wanted to relent. To give in to the darkness threatening to encompass his soul, but every glance at the silver wedding ring on his table reminded him, and he didn't. And he wouldn't. No matter how many times he had to wake up feeling the ache of never knowing; no matter how many mornings he had to muddle through by talking to a ghostly neighbor who couldn't relate…he wouldn't give up.

Because he promised.

Danny don't break no promises, yo. Also, ew, get the cliche Danny/Sam off of me; I need some Grey Ghost to make up for this...