Aha. I've been posting so much angst lately that most of the ideas I have in progress right now are actually happy and humorous, or at least, definitely not suitable for Angst Day. So I turned back to this oneshot that I was planning on posting in Through Danny Phantom as a tag/coda/whatever-you-call-it to "Memory Blank."

Possibly more cynical than angsty (although I'm trying out the parenthetical inserts again!), but the scenario depresses me every time I think about it, so I figured it was up to scruff. It most definitely does not portray Sam in her best light; like every character, she has her issues and so I took one of her worst, most cruel, unfeeling moments in the entire show and ran with it.

Like seriously. WHY WOULD YOU EVER DO THIS. (well, it's obviously because nobody can take Danny's place as Phantom and the show couldn't continue without it happening so it's a necessary plot device that needed to occur but still…!)

Thanks to Laora for assuring me that this is not an angsty mess. XD And Liv and I will try to collab later, so yayayayayay more angst!

if you wanted it that badly

October 1, 2013

(angst day)

Sam's wish had been made in the heat of the moment. They'd argued and it just slipped out. She hadn't really meant it.

(but he had still lost everything)

The memories of half a lifetime had been ripped away in the space of a single moment, a counterfeit past stuffed into his head to try to replace them even though they never could.

(they could just fool him for a little while)

(give him what he had always wanted)

(because he'd wanted it to be real)

.

.

It took him a long time to really remember everything.

Longer than Sam and Tucker thought it should have, judging by the disbelieving stares they kept shooting him whenever he said something weird again, because really, it had only been a couple days that had been thrown off and they couldn't understand how he'd been that affected.

(it had been years)

(it had been most of his life)

.

.

Sam had wished that they'd never met. But they'd known each other since second grade. All of those memories had to be removed, cut out of his head and his heart and replaced with something else to try to fill the gap. Something that wasn't even real.

He'd only ever had a couple friends. For the past few years, just Sam and Tucker, really.

No, just Tucker.

(who's Sam?)

.

.

Losing all recollection of Sam and their friendship meant that his memories had been rearranged to create a separate timeline in his head. Memories he could recall of years where he only had one best friend.

He could actually think back and remember what his life had been like when he had never known Sam and she had never joined him and Tucker in school or during lunch or at the movies on Friday nights. She'd never been to his house and never made him volunteer with her to campaign against some program that was harming the ecosystem. He'd never learned to look past the costume of anyone dressed completely in black metal and studs and she'd never been there to huff "boys" and laugh when he and Tucker made a really lame joke.

(gaining it all back in the course of a few seconds left him reeling)

(he had to find his way back into his own life)

.

.

He shouldn't have had a problem knowing what was real and what wasn't. Sam was his friend. Had been forever. She knew him and he knew her and they had classes together and she was sitting right there and he knew this. He knew it. He did.

But it didn't stop him from thinking for a moment that she should be dressed in a pink sweater and he was about to say so before he realized how monumentally stupid a move that would have been.

(it was Sam, for crying out loud)

(just Sam)

(not the weird cute girl who wouldn't stop showing them pictures at lunch)

.

.

He had two memories of almost everything.

(everything that mattered)

.

.

There was his tenth birthday when Tucker had had the chicken pox and couldn't come to his party.

He hadn't known any of the kids who showed up. Just seen them around in school but they didn't want to be his friends. They just ate his cake and hung out with each other. Those that stayed for more than a few minutes, anyway. Most of them had left as soon as they got a look at the house and the ghost-themed party and the truly obsessive way his Jack and Maddie greeted everyone armed with a full ghost hunting kit that would scare any sane person away from them forever.

(but there had been a girl dressed in purple)

(she thought ghosts were the coolest thing she'd ever seen)

(and raced inside the house dragging him behind her before her parents could recover from their shock and drive her back home)

He ended up sitting alone in the backyard until it was dark enough to see his glow in the dark model rocket ship.

.

.

And there were two versions of the school field trips to the modern art museum

(he and Tucker couldn't stop laughing the entire time)

(and they tried to hand in their summaries of the visit to their teachers with nothing more than a lopsided scribble or a torn up page, claiming it was art)

(they'd both gotten detention)

Sam had kicked them both in the shins when they started laughing at the toilet seat in the middle of the room. Then she lectured them on the symbolism and deep meaning behind the wedding dress make of recycled juice boxes.

By the time they left, Danny had to admit that the thing with plastic vampire fangs and the black roses wasn't half bad.

.

.

And there was the zoo. He had either spent all afternoon watching the lions or the purple backed gorilla. He couldn't remember now. Because he could picture them both.

.

.

He got headaches trying to straighten out what his summer vacations had been like. Who had actually come with him to the Dumpty Humpty Concert in Chicago and the St Louis Paranormal Convention in the summer before eighth grade.

He couldn't remember anymore.

He didn't know who had been there or what they had done or how he had felt about it.

(he couldn't remember who he was)

.

.

There was so much to reconcile that he found himself doing double takes far too often. Over the smallest things. Like including Sam in his texts with Tucker to plan their activities for the afternoon.

Or remembering not to make snide remarks about the contents of Sam's lunch tray, because it only set her and Tucker off into such a heated argument that he understood why he'd learned to never make that mistake again as soon as they'd made a habit of eating together.

He'd already headed off to the wrong classroom several times (because why on earth would he and Tucker have signed up for English as the last period of the day when that was when Lancer was at his most boring unless Sam had needed it to fit her schedule?) and balked at the slender hand catching his shirt collar to pull him back onto the right track.

.

.

After a while, he started getting the hang of some things again. And the things he couldn't remember, he pretended he did, just so Sam and Tucker would stop looking at him like that.

With the return of his memories, though, was a nagging question he tried to push out of his mind.

(because it couldn't possibly be true)

But it kept coming back to him, filling him with doubts he couldn't contain, no matter how hard he tried.

(because Sam had fixed it all, right?)

.

.

Sometimes he stared hard at Sam, trying to find something in her expression as they walked down the halls together, something that would deny the suspicions growing inside him, but she would just smile, or ask if something was wrong and he would quickly shake his head and say that everything was fine.

(except it wasn't)

.

.

Because even though the memories he kept sorting through made him double guess his every move, he was still Danny Phantom.

He still had to fight off the ghosts attacking the town and the school.

Which meant that he had to relearn every piece of strategy and power and knowledge he'd gathered over the past year, bit by painful bit.

(he hadn't had this many cuts and bruises in months)

.

.

He'd forgotten a lot.

(too much)

He forgot that Johnny 13's Shadow disintegrated with bright lights.

(he thought he was going to drown in that inky tar before Tucker managed to pull out a homemade flash bomb from somewhere)

And he mixed up Skulker with Technus.

(because really, didn't it make more sense for the ghost wearing a mechanical suit to be the one that can control mechanics and electronics?)

But that meant that on Monday he was electrocuted and shot at with paralyzing darts and on Tuesday he was chased by flying toasters and captured in a net and it wasn't until Wednesday that he was able to get them straight again before he ended up decapitated and pinned on the wall of the lair of the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter.

Then, of course, he forgot that the Box Ghost could control bubble wrap too. He had so many paper cuts in places he didn't know you could get paper cuts that it wasn't even funny.

(his parents and teachers would have a field day if they saw all of the straight cuts crisscrossing his forearms)

.

.

Sam and Tucker were great about helping him out and backing him up and reminding him of the all-important details of his ghostly foes until he was back up to par. They remembered everything that should have been second nature to him and saved him more than once, but even then, it just managed to solidify the feeling that something about this whole situation was wrong.

(so very, very wrong)

.

.

(because it never should have happened like this)

.

.

After a few weeks, he finally took Sam aside in between class periods.

(he needed to know)

(even if he was beginning to think he wouldn't like the answer)

.

.

"Hey, Sam," he asked, unusually subdued as he leaned back heavily against a metal locker.

"Yeah?" she returned with a quirked eyebrow as she shifted her textbooks around in her arms. She knew he had been acting a little weird since the whole Desiree thing, but that had mostly stopped now and he was almost his old self again.

"You knew," he stated. At her blank look, he clarified the train of thought that turned into a question even as he spoke. "You knew… what the portal would do to me?"

"Yes," she drew the word out while squinting her eyes, unsure of where this was going.

"You were sure," he paused, eyes flicking to the ground for a moment.

(because if he was going to stop, it had to be now)

(and did he really truly want to know)

.

.

After drawing in a long, shuddering breath, he continued. "Absolutely sure, that electrocuting me in an unstable invention that my parents hadn't been able to get to work properly wouldn't incinerate me?" he questioned, his stare hard and piercing.

Sam was floored. It had never occurred to her that this would be a sticking point, because no matter what the science behind Danny's accident was, it had worked that way the first time and she knew that by doing the exact same thing again, it would do the same for round two.

(never mind that it was a one in a million chance that he hadn't been blown to pieces by the colliding of worlds)

There were no adverse side effects. He was the same as he was before. He was fine. He didn't need to get uptight about something that could have been a problem but wasn't and never had been.

"Yes," she responded, voice firm despite the fact she had no scientific backing for her claim. "I knew it would work."

.

.

Danny stood very still for a moment, looking for something in her face.

(because even though she couldn't have been sure, it had worked)

(but still she had to have known, didn't she?)

(known that he didn't want this)

(he had told her enough)

.

.

She jutted out her jaw and stood her ground as he continued his examination.

Instead of responding, he asked another question. "And you knew that throughout… the first time, all I ever wanted was to be normal?"

Sam bristled. "Yeah, you'd said that before," she acknowledged. "But you know what?" she asked in a rising voice as she pointed a finger into his chest and poked it at him to emphasize every phrase she said, "What I remember is you showing off how great your powers were and how cool flying was and how convenient it was to be able to walk through walls."

(it was a good thing he didn't actually need to air)

(he couldn't breathe)

.

.

Danny brushed her hand aside and leaned closer as he said disbelievingly, "Oh, so every time I try to talk myself into liking my situation and finding something good to outweigh the bad, you think it meant that it was actually what I wanted the whole time?"

(how could you possibly think that)

(after everything I'd told you)

(after I told you)

.

.

Sam was tired of listening. "Look, we both know that deep down you liked it!" she snapped at him.

Danny drew back as if she had slapped him in the face.

(that would have been easier to bear)

(but this…)

(she knew)

(she knew)

(but she didn't understand and didn't care)

.

.

He blinked a few times. "Enough that I would want my best friend to purposefully kill me in order to turn me into a half dead ghost freak that nobody wants around?" he asked very quietly.

(because that was it, wasn't it?)

(he had gotten out)

(for a brief shining moment, he was free from the responsibility and pain)

(and he was normal)

(until Sam… fixed it)

"Yes," Sam said simply, shocked at his reaction. "Danny…" she reached out for him.

"No," he said, pulling away. "I don't want to hear it."

.

.

"I just have one more question for you, Sam," he bit out. "If you wanted to create a half ghost that badly, then why didn't you go into the portal yourself?"

.

.

As she tried to think of something to say, Danny stormed off through the school to his next period.

(he started walking down the wrong hallway)

(and she didn't stop him)

.

.