Beneath the Surface

17

Explanations had been difficult to come by, Jazz's scream rousing the entire neighborhood to see what, exactly, was wrong. And long before the three had managed to sort out a plausible explanation. Resurrection was out, though for several days the local news stations had covered it as a genuine miracle. That had stopped right out when Danny Phantom had showed up and presented them with a gift: a lawsuit on behalf of the Manson's, Sam included, and one Danny Fenton who shared actual credit for her rescue with Tucker.

In fact, the afternoon that Jazz found Sam asleep with Danny and Tucker had actually gone more with garbled sentences from all three as they talked over each other trying to figure it out. But once they had reassured Jazz that Sam wasn't a corpse or a zombie or even a ghost (no matter that if she were a ghost it would be only slightly less weird than Danny being a half ghost) Jazz had managed to curtail her usual streak of nosiness in favor of running her parents out into the hall saying that the Manson's needed to be called, and the police, too.

She's smirked as she left the three to figure out what they could actually say had gone on, knowing that she'd get the truth sooner or later.

They had; the story they worked out was that Sam had been kidnapped by a ghost the night they had broken in to the rec to have their swim. It had a grudge against the Fenton's, and Danny in particular for something he'd helped his parents with before leaving for college, and had decided the best way to get back at him was to take his girlfriend and convince him—and everyone else along with him—that she was dead.

Nobody said a word as the trio labeled Sam as Danny's girlfriend, but there were a few eyebrows raised. Mostly from Sam and Tucker since Danny was the one actually doing the fast talking.

They'd plead ignorance about the body that had been left behind, and true to form Jack Fenton had burst out with a completely insane explanation: it was an ectoplasmic manifestation of the ghost's will. Danny wasn't sure whether he should be pleased or worried that it had been latched on to and accepted so quickly and easily. He settled for relieved, and had continued with the story.

At Sam's insistence they'd worked in yet another character plug for Danny's alter ego, who had come to see Danny Fenton and tell him that the local gossip of the Ghost Zone was the human girl trapped inside. Alive. And once they'd confirmed location and whatnot, Danny and Tucker had gone into the Ghost Zone after her without saying a word to anyone.

"It would have been cruel to give them false hope," Danny had said of the Manson's when explaining it to the police. "We weren't sure it was actually Sam, or that if it was, she was actually alive." He'd shrugged and tossed out his patented clueless smile. "We know Phantom well enough that he wouldn't lead us wrong, but even he wasn't exactly sure."

It had been accepted, hook, line and sinker. And they'd been able to pin Charlie's disappearance on the nameless, faceless, nonexistent ghost, too. Though this time Danny had actually gone to the police as Phantom to tell them he'd found the ghost, taken care of it, and 'learned' that Charlie had apparently been killed or died. Sure, they were wasting time and money dredging Lake Michigan's shoreline for her body, but it was better than them thinking that Danny, Fenton or Phantom, had killed the girl.

And safer never to reveal that she hadn't been human. She was listed as missing and presumed dead, her personal possessions taken by the police well after Sam and Tucker had already picked through them and dismantled the spells and wards the succubus had erected around them. They'd come across a veritable treasure trove of magical supplies and ancient texts that the girl had carted around as a matter of fact.

Sam had been disturbed by the vial of green ectoblood that had been Danny's. But she hadn't said anything. In fact, she'd actually avoided talking about the succubus at all, especially at night, only covering salient points. That she had taken Sam, taunted Sam, and that she was dead now and not ever coming back. She hadn't even asked who had killed Charlie, from either of her friends. Like she was afraid to hear the answer, but already knew it.

Tucker bowed down to Danny's wisdom and never said a thing to Sam about it, and swore that he would never tell her how calm Danny had been about it. "It wasn't my first time." The utter blankness when he'd said that, knowing that it was something best left forgotten.

"Please don't tell Sam."

That plea still rang in Tucker's ears, and the naked fear that had streaked across Danny's face before he'd turned away. Danny didn't want her to know, that was good enough for Tucker, and he tried not to wonder. And Sam… She didn't want to know either. A wisdom that went beyond what any of them knew. All the same, Tucker wondered what would happen when Sam realized that Danny wasn't exactly the Danny he'd been. it would come out sooner or later; the day would come when Danny had to kill again if he already had, and more than once, in less than two years.

He crossed his fingers that it wouldn't happen around Sam.

Life had gone back to normal. Or as normal as it ever got for the people who lived in Amity Park. Not that it was ever normal for Danny and his friends. The normalcy they had thought to take refuge in had been shot to pieces by unexpected occurrences. The Manson's taking Danny and Tucker aside and thanking them profusely, offering money, a luxury car or two, and even a brownstone to try and show their appreciation for Sam's rescue. Wisely they two had turned it down. Danny, because he knew that Sam's apparent death actually had been his fault, to an extent. Even if it was only because he was what he was. And Tucker because he knew that Sam's boots would find a permanent home in his shins if he accepted anything.

Neither knew that the Manson's would and did change their will to include the two; their daughter finally taking the topmost pedestal in their hearts. They'd done without her once before—they would never make the mistake of taking Sam for granted again. To Danny and Tucker, that was the best thing they could receive for 'rescuing' her, though it ran very closely, in Danny's mind, to their unmitigated approval of his dating Sam.

The world hadn't paused for even a moment when Jazz had confessed that she wanted to go back to school for the fall semester, some three weeks away. It hadn't even blinked when she also confessed that she and Ryan had eloped when she'd disappeared one sunny afternoon and turned up several days later, husband in tow. The world might have bounced a little when her father had celebrated the fact that she had chosen to hyphenate her last name—a Fenton she was, and a Fenton she would always be.

But the world had ground, metaphorically speaking, to a halt when Sam had decided that she was skipping the fal semester and would return to school in the January, just in time to pick up a spring semester and some summer classes to make up the months she was going to miss. She wanted to spend time with her family, her friends, and have the freedom to do those as much as she wished without fear of slipping grades.

After all, she'd already seen how bleak life could become if she died, and the refused to think of Tucker or Danny dying any time soon. Her well practiced denial slipped easily from her feelings for Danny to the distinct possibility that he would most likely die young, and making it to the age of thirty would be nothing short of a miracle.

She had ten years until that, at least. He'd only just turned twenty that day.

xXx

The day that Danny Fenton turned twenty the sun was shining, and there wasn't a single cloud in sight. The only shadow to the day had been his father hulking over him to wake him well before he actually wanted to get up. Danny had acknowledged, very quietly inside his head as he brushed his teeth, that he was getting spoiled with all of the sleep that summer. School was going to be hell when he went back, an event that was only a week and a half away.

He was trying very hard not to think about it; the thought of leaving Sam was more painful than he wanted to admit, even if she promised to come see him once a month until she had to go back to school herself. And the smile she'd given him when she'd talked about going back to school had been downright evil, an expression that had no place being on her face, and looked far too at home there.

He'd managed to escape the enforced party to join his friends in the park for the afternoon, which was where Sam and Tucker had both found him, half asleep underneath a tree, stretched out with his head cradled on his arms.

"You think he's hibernating?" Sam asked Tucker.

"Not a chance," Tucker said with a sage shake of his head. "I have hibernated many times. This is not hibernating. This is Danny being lazy."

"I've earned it," he mumbled as he cracked his eyes up at his best friends. "You're both late."

Sam flashed him a smile and dropped down next to him, snuggling her head into his shoulder while he shifted to wrap his arm around her. "We had to get your birthday present."

"Just one?" he asked and Sam laughed.

Tucker pulled up some grass next to him and smirked. "I trust you won't mind if I don't play snuggly with you, right?"

"Oh, but Tucker, you know that we share everything with you," Danny drawled as Tucker rolled his eyes.

Sam patted his other arm and grinned as she said, "You're more than welcome to join in."

"Oh god," Tucker muttered. "See, this is why I am the only sane one out of the three of us."

"Oh sure," Danny said as he shifted again, and then sat up. "But sanity is highly overrated. And I've never been sane. So yeah, it's all good. Now," he said as he rubbed his hands together, "I want my present."

Tucker tugged a slim envelope from the pocket of his pants and passed it to Danny, who opened it and raised an eyebrow. "It's a plane ticket. To Amity."

"Well yeah," Tucker said with a smirk. "We have to make sure you come home for the holidays, don't we? And this time, you have to bring Sam jewelry, not a rock. Some nice diamond jewelry."

Both Sam and Danny blushed brightly, though Danny didn't offer to refuse the suggestion. Truth be told, he'd thought about it more than once. He could only thank god that Sam hadn't been there for the hopeless marriage proposal he'd given Charlie when he'd thought she was Sam. He tried to forget it repeatedly, and the burning hope that one day in the not too distant future he'd ask her again. Well, for the first time, and the sheer desperation that he'd get a yes.

"I think," Danny said, carefully avoiding looking at Sam, "that maybe we should date for more than a few weeks before I propose to her."

Tuckers mouth fell open and Danny could practically feel Sam's eyes staring at him like he'd lost his mind, but he only shrugged. "You know, Danny," Tucker offered. "You guys have been practically dating for years already. You have to admit you two were flirting like crazy all through high school."

"Even so," Sam interjected. "We didn't realize it then."

"Right. And 'de Nile' isn't just a river in Egypt."

"Lay off, Tuck," Danny said with a smile and started to fold the envelope back closed, considering the line of conversation finished.

"Wait!" Tuck managed to get out, making Danny stop in his tracks and look around, alarmed.

"That, and there's another ticket behind it," Sam put in.

"What?" Danny plucked the plane ticket from Sacramento out and his jaw fell as he saw what was sitting behind it. A first class ticket to Martinique, in the Barbados Island chain. "You're sending me to a resort?" The shock was loud, and Sam and Tucker laughed.

"Actually, we're all going," Tucker explained.

Sam grinned. "We made all the arrangements, but my parents ponied up the cash." She frowned. "They wanted to send you two anyway. They're being a little too grateful. It's freaking me out."

Danny chuckled. "Too much family time, huh, Sam?"

She muttered something too low for either of them to hear, but it did sound suspiciously like she was cursing ever coming 'back from the dead.' Danny bit back a chuckle and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, letting her sigh and lean into him while Tucker surreptitiously pulled his PDA out to snap another picture, hoping to use for blackmail one day.

He was cut off by a hand phasing the PDA from his and an annoyed Danny saying, "Do you ever get tired of that?"

"Nope," said Tucker happily as Danny dropped the PDA back into his hands without damaging it, or even trying to delete the new pictures.

Instead Danny only shrugged and reached into his pants pocket, pulling out two small black boxes with a faint grin and a devilish gleam to his blue eyes. Tucker chuckled and glanced a suddenly flushed Sam. "Danny, if you're giving me a ring I'm going to maim you. You know that, right?"

Danny shrugged. "Never said it was a ring. Here," he said quietly as he handed the small boxes to his friends, and smiled as they opened them. "We're a team, you know? I figured it was about time you guys had something to show for it. Even if it is a little cheesy."

Tucker whistled as he turned the box over and silver gleamed on his palm. Sam reached into it with slim fingers and hoisted another one. Turned in their hands the silver flashed at them, matching pins with the stylized Danny Phantom logo wrought clean and stark in unchanging metal, brightly gleaming the brilliant sunlight. Tucker smiled widely as Sam turned suddenly shining eyes on Danny, both undoing the clasps and finding places to wear them.

Tucker pinned his very prominently on his red beret, and stood, tilting it at a rakish angle as he chuckled. "Friends first, Danny. Always friends. But the pin is pretty kicking." He shot Danny a raised eyebrow and tossed him a wave before wandering off, his cell phone out and pressed to his ear as he promptly tuned his best friends out.

It was a good thing, Danny realized as he turned to Sam and saw her face looking distinctly watery. "Hey, it's not something to cry over, Sam."

She wavered a smile at him. "Yeah. Who are you and what have you done with my Danny?"

Danny chuckled. "Your Danny?"

"You are the one who called me his girlfriend, remember?" She smiled. "I don't mind."

"Really?" Danny asked surprised, since they'd never actually discussed it. She shook her head.

"But it'd be nice if I'd been asked."

Danny laughed softly and reached over to press a gentle kiss to her cheek. "If that's all it takes to clear it up, Sam? As high school as this sounds, and no laughing," he added with mock severity. "Will you go steady with me?"

"Is this he part where I swoon and profess my undying love for you?"

Danny chuckled. "No, a yes will suffice."

Sam grinned and pinned her Phantom pin to the hem of her skirt, where it would flash at her knees as she walked. "Well, then yes." She leaned over and tugged his face to hers, her hand buried in his dark hair. "And I do love you. Really, I do."

"I love you, too" Danny whispered back as he met her lips with his. "But then," he said wryly as he pulled back. "You knew that already, didn't you?" Sam only smiled as she leaned her head against his shoulder again. "We were coming to save you, you know."

Sam rolled her eyes. "I'm no damsel in distress," she said

"I've noticed."

She heard something underneath the words. Maybe a little wistfulness, or maybe guilt for no having saved her himself. And she could only sigh and shake her head, knowing that his sense of responsibility would poke at him as long as he felt he hadn't done his duty by the people he was supposed to protect. And her most of all. She smiled and leaned back, hands pressing to the warm grass they sat on.

"I'll make you a deal, Danny. If I can save myself, I will." She leaned forward to kiss the dismal look away. "And for the times that I can't, I know you'll be right there."

This time he kissed her, breaking it off as her lips chilled, blue mist rolling from his mouth as he pulled away with a groan. "Their timing," he groaned. "Hold that thought?" Sam nodded and Danny glanced around before shifting to Phantom and launching himself into the air.

Sam sighed and then glanced to her left, startled as Tucked dropped down next to her. "God, Tuck. You scared me."

"You know, one day he's going to do that and someone is going to be looking out their window."

"That's the day we protect him," Sam replied and then pointed to his cell phone. "Miranda?" Tucker nodded, and she chuckled. "So, Tucker, about that golem you made."

"What about it?" he asked, suddenly nervous at her tone.

"Danny told me what a great job you did," and Tucker paled, saying nothing. "How life like its performance was." And now Tucker groaned knowing exactly where she was going. "Tucker. How, exactly, did you know how to please a succubus in bed?"

He choked, rubbed a hand across his face, wiped his glasses off. Cleared his throat and finally just resigned himself to being brick red beneath his dark skin, "All right, what'll it take to keep your silence?"

"The pictures. All of them. In my possession before the day is over."

"Agreed," Tucker said fervently as his eyes tracked the dark dot that streaked across the sky after a paler blue shadow. "Have you two talked about when you go back to NYU?"

Sam shrugged. "No. we don't really need to."

"Oh?" and Tucker raised his brows.

Sam shot a pleased smile at him. "Danny doesn't know, but I'm transferring to UCLA."

Tucker grinned and Sam shot one back. "Lovebirds," Tucker teased gently.

"You'd better believe it," Sam whispered fervently, her amethyst eyes locked on Danny as he flew high above

xXx

For Nonny, my most faithful reader of this fic, and an amazing writer all on her own.

xXx

Afterward:

I hadn't intended on it ending like this. This isn't to say that the ending isn't as I wanted it; it is and very much so. But I realized, after the fact, that some of the things that happened (beginning with the fight wherein Tucker sees Danny kill without hesitation) were quite curious. And that there was a back story to this, and to Danny's time in California

There was never a sequel planned for this. Ever. But I've begun to realize that a continuation might be in order.

It will be some time in coming, I've many other projects I'd like to work on before jumping back into the particular universe, but I'm not leaving it for good. I like the self sufficient trio I've put together. I like Tucker and his technomancy, and Sam and her adoration of playing with leylines if only to irritate Tucker. (I still wonder myself what incident led to Tucker's dislike of leylines…) And I think I'm completely on with the idea of Danny as a ruthless person, if he had to be.

I've no idea myself why this is, but I aim to find out. If only for me and the few faithful readers I've had. So lastly, I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you and all my love to the people who've read and reviewed. This story may not have gotten the response I wanted it to, but for once in my fic writing career, I can say that I wrote this without the intentions of actually pleasing the readers.

I pleased myself. This was for me, to prove that I could.

I did, and thank you to Call Me Blue Streak, dragon-game, ThunderDragon, MxMrc, Me The Anon One, RiannonGrey, Annabelle Carter, Very Pissed!, Leppers, Raven of the Night676, DAFA The Que's October Sky, TDG3RD , CharmedNightSkye, b4k4 ch4n, Snea, challengeAUTHORITY, Girl in Blue and StrugglingArtist for coming along for the ride. And for those who come along after the fat, I hope you enjoyed it too.

Until next time.

Chaos Dragon