A/N: I got this idea while listening to Good Charlotte. Man, they rule!
Ghost of You
And I will wait until the end
When the pendulum will swing back to the
Darker side of our hearts bleeding
I will save this empty space
Next to me like its a grave
Where I lay a place for us to sleep eternally together...
A boy with raven black hair sat on the edge of the roof of his building. He was leaning forward on his knees, looking down at everything that was going on below. This was how the days were usually passed on. Just him and his shadow, an occasional Tucker Foley some times too. But mostly, just him and his shadow. Some times, he would talk and listen to the wind. It was almost as if she were there with him, he thought. Her voice often drifted with the wind. The boy's name was Danny Fenton. "I wonder," he murmured. He noticed that he'd been doing that a lot lately, wondering, I mean. Danny looked up at the darkening sky. "I wonder where you are right now."
He stared at the sky, thinking deeply, pondering at why the question just barely came into his mind. He'd attended the funeral a long while ago. Two weeks, to be exact. Her death had been a very powerful punch to her parents. They wept every now and then when they talked about her. Tucker, Jazz, Maddie and Jack, Mr. and Mrs. Foley, they were all there to comfort Mr. and Mrs. Manson, and they were all crying. But Danny, Danny just stood there awkwardly, looking on as the grave was filled. He didn't know why he didn't even shed a tear. It ate at him so much, but he couldn't cry. His eyes always remained dry. Jazz was bawling her eyes out, Tucker, sniffled and shed a few tears. Maddie and Jack comforted the Mansons and had to keep themselves from crying else it may make things worst. But they cried anyway. The Foley's cried too. But Danny had remained silent. Eyes dry. His mind...elsewhere.
It wasn't like anything he'd ever felt before. It was almost hope, but more empty. The hope that she could come back. He'd gone on patrol more often for ghosts now. Tucker didn't usually join him, seeing as Danny had a false salvation caused the teen to only mourn for his fallen comrade and falling friend more. Tucker once told Danny that he should not get his hopes up. He told Danny not to believe everything that logic said. She may never come back. But Danny's answer shut him up quickly.
"Tucker, I'm empty without her," he had said. Tucker had only stared at his friend with great sorrow. He felt empty. Tucker had looked into his eyes and had to tear away from the intent gaze. Danny's eyes had darkened and clouded over. If you didn't know better, you'd think the boy was near blind but he wasn't.
Tucker had to turn away from his friend. "I'm sorry man, but she isn't coming back," he said. "You can search all you want, but chances are, she's gone forever."
"Then I will," Danny had replied.
Ihave been
Searching for
Traces of
What we were...
Two weeks. Two whole weeks without a trace. Without a glimpse. Danny was wondering what he was going to do without her. Everything just seemed so unimportant now. He didn't eat much anymore. He slacked off, as the teacher said, at school. He even refused to go to school a few times. Mostly he stayed on the roof, looking around, searching the horizon. Every time a ghost came along, his hopes would rise then fall at the notice of who it was. Skulker, Ember, YoungBlood, all disappointments.
Sighing, the boy stood from where he sat. The sound of a doorbell rang downstairs. He wanted to go see who it was. On his way down into the hallway from the roof, Jazz caught him. "Danny," she said softly. "It's for you. She's waiting downstairs."
Danny's eyes lit up at the word 'she' thinking that maybe, just maybe she-
He stopped his thoughts as he descended down the stairs and into the sight of Valerie Grey. It wasn't her. She hadn't come. Valerie caught sight of him and smiled fondly. He looked at her weirdly and walked down the last two stairs and towards her. "Hey, Danny," she said.
"Hi," he said. Valerie looked at him, then cast her gaze down at the floor.
"Danny," she said. "I heard about everything that's been going on. You refusing to go to school, your grades falling, Tucker's told me all about it. I decided maybe we should just talk for awhile, you know. I wanted to talk to you anyway so I thought maybe now would be for a better reason. What do you say? Let's go take a walk?"
Danny hesitated, but nodded either. "Okay," he said quietly and followed Valerie out the door of his house. They began to walk towards the park, which was fifteen minutes away walking. Things were quiet at first, then Valerie broke the silence.
"You miss her, don't you?" she asked him. Danny had his gaze downcast, his hands her in his pockets. He looked up at her with sad, empty, blue eyes. He nodded, then looked back down.
"Yeah, I do," he said, then looked up at the sky. "I do every second of the day and night."
"I didn't know her very well," Valerie admitted. "But I do know that she was a very good person. I didn't attend the funeral because I had a whole bunch of things on my mind that day and couldn't make it. I never found out how she died. How...did it happen?" Valerie was hesitating, wondering of bringing that up was the best idea. He looked ahead of them, as if focusing hard on the question, then shrugged one shoulder slightly.
"I don't know for sure," he replied. "It wasn't suicide, but I don't think it was an accident either. I don't really know."
A ghost of you
Is all that I have left
It's all that I have left of you to hold
I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me
And nothing left of what we were at all...
"Oh," she said. Valerie walked on, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. His shoulders were slumped and his gaze had fallen again. She looked ahead of them once more at his sudden silence. They were almost at the park now, getting closer. "You guys knew each other for a very long time, huh?" she said then.
Danny nodded. "I met her in kindergarten," he said. A small smile lit on his face. Valerie smiled now. Obviously the meeting was funny. Maybe this was her chance to lighten the moment.
"How'd you meet?" she asked.
"You see, in kinder you remember how they used to have building blocks?" he asked. Valerie nodded. "Well, we were all gathered around a large structure built with the building blocks. The person building it was no one other than Sam..."
A five-year-old Sam Manson was standing in the middle of a small crowd in her classroom. The teacher was busily writing on the board for when playtime was over. She was also keeping an ear out for every small hint of fight-like sound. In the middle of the small crowd was a little boy with black hair. His name was Kwan and he was five years old too. The boy grinned as he kept piling block over block to create the biggest pile ever in the whole entire classroom. As he went to pick up another red block, a small, shrill yelp escaped from between the crowd. Everyone turned to look at the small girl who'd cried out. The young Sam Manson was standing there, grasping the side of her head as another girl pulled at one of her pig-tails.
"Let go!" Sam yelped, trying to wrestle her way out of this one. The other girl had long black hair. Blue barrettes kept her long bangs from falling into her eyes. On her pink shirt was the stain of grape juice and what looked like chocolate.
"You had dunnited it on purpose!" the girl said as best as her thickly, Spanish accented voice could allow.
"It's not 'dunnited' it's 'done it'!" Sam screamed, grabbing onto to the other girl's hair too.
"Ow!" she yelped.
"Both of you stop fighting!" their teacher, Mrs. Aguirre, instructed.
"She dirtied my shirt!" the girl said. Her voice and looks identified her as Paulina Sanchez.
"I said stop it!" The teacher finally resolved to pulling both girls apart. Paulina let go of Sam's hair, but stole the green band that held her pig tail, leaving her hair a mess. Not letting Paulina be the only one to steal something, Sam quickly grasped one of the girl's barrettes. The teacher looked at both angry girls and said, "Now both of you, time out!"
Sam crossed her arms over her purple shirt and walked over to one of the corners of the room. Paulina walked to the opposite corner, still rubbing her head where Sam had pulled her hair.
The teacher walked back towards the board and the children went back to their game of building blocks. But one little boy was distracted from the building blocks. A soft sobbing sound caught his ear and he could not ignore it no matter how hard he tried. One of the girls, Paulina, was already crying her eyes out. But the other was only making quiet sob-sounds. The raven-haired boy furrowed his eyes brows in concern and looked towards the purple-shirted girl.
"Danny, Kwan is almost done with the blocks," his friend, a dark-skinned, African-American boy, said. His name was Tucker and he was Danny's best friend in the whole world.
The freckled-Danny Fenton nodded. "Okay, but I gotta do something first," he replied. Tucker shrugged and ran back into the small crowd as our young hero walked over to the sobbing girl now resting on her haunches. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said, cocking his head to one side in confusion. "Why are you cwying?"
The girl looked at him slightly. He sniffled and turned to him. "She ruined my pig-tail," she mumbled, now finally plopping down onto the ground and crossing her legs Indian Style. Danny sat down too.
"I can fix your hair," Danny offered. The little girl smiled and rubbed away the tears from her face. Danny grinned. "Jazzy told me how. She likes to practice on my hair for some reason." At this Danny grasped fistfuls of his hair before grinning and lowering his hands to the ground.
"Are you sure?" Sam asked the freckled-boy. Danny nodded eagerly.
"Yah," he said. "I promise you'll look pretty again!"
At this a blush crept onto Sam's face. Danny's smile vanished and he blinked one, twice. His brows furrowed in concern again as Sam lowered her gaze to avert his eyes. He didn't understand. He tried to look at her and asked softly, "Why are your cheeks so pink?" Sam shook her head. "Want me to fix your hair, then?" She nodded. "Okay! Turn around." Danny got on his knees as Sam's turned around, back to him. Danny pulled the green band off of her other pig-tail and began to gather her hair the way Jazz always did to her hair in the morning. Afterwards, he wrapped the green band around her hair to form just one pony-tail on her head. The rest of her black hair hung down to her shoulders. It had taken Danny only about five minutes before he was done expertly creating a pony-tail for Sam.
"There, see?" he said happily, locating a play mirror near the playhouse for the girls. He held the mirror up for Sam to see. The girl smiled.
"Thank you, Danny," she said, hugging him and kissing his cheek. Danny blinked again and Sam's face grew pink again.
"Hey," he said. "Ew! Gross!" He rubbed furiously at his cheek before frowning. "Why did-" He stopped mid-sentence as a hand grasped his shoulder.
"Daniel, you should be with the others Sam is in a time-out," Ms. Aguirre's voice sounded.
"I'm sorry," Danny mumbled, still looking at Sam. He got up and walked over to where the students were beginning to sit in rows to learn whatever the teacher was going to teach them. Sam grinned and turned back to the wall. She sighed.
So here I am, pacing around this house again
With pictures of us living on these walls
I see my breathe in the cold of the air that I breathe...
"You fixed her hair and she gave you a kiss?" Valerie asked skeptically. Danny grinned.
"Yeah," he said. "Back then I didn't understand what it meant. I just knew it was a grown-up thing that was disgusting to us boys."
Valerie giggled quietly into the palm of her hand. "Sounds like fun," she mumbled. Danny's smile vanished and instantly Valerie knew she'd said the wrong thing.
"I miss her," he said softly. Valerie frowned and looked at him. They reached the very center of the park. They stood next to the fountain. There, both Danny and Valerie stopped walking and stood opposite each other for a few, quiet seconds as the wind blew, becoming the only sound.
"I know you must," Valerie finally said. "I bet many people do. Tucker, her parents and grandmother..."
"She knew me better than anyone," Danny said.
"And you?" Valerie asked. Danny looked at her questioningly. "Did you ever take the time to get to know her just as well?"
"Of course," Danny whispered, as if Valerie had somehow accused him. "Of course I did. Why wouldn't I?"
"I'm sorry, Danny, I didn't know what I was saying..." Valerie said quickly. Danny nodded understandingly. "Let's continue on with our walk, huh?" Valerie asked.
The rest of the conversation flew by as if Danny was just a zombie. He hardly talked, barely listened. Valerie's question ran through his mind like a never-ending, circle-story that always brought him back to the very beginning. Then came the time when his ghost sense went off and a sudden beeping came from Valerie's pocket. She said she had to go quickly to take care of something and Danny knew it was her ghost-alarm or something. He nodded and said he would head home by himself. So he did.
Or rather, almost. He came upon Sam's old home. Her parents had moved out a short while back about three days after her death. They said they didn't want to be plagued by memories and would move to somewhere more peaceful. They left promptly. Now the house stood alone and deserted. Empty and forlorn. All in all, Danny wanted to enter it.
He'd made his way inside the building with no problem thanks to his ghost powers. Inside it was dark and cold, but he didn't mind. His attention was much to focused on the cold feeling that lingered inside him as he stared up at the picture frames still on forgotten table-tops and otherwise empty walls.
But his gaze fell upon the portrait held on one of the walls of Sam's bedroom. His gaze fell upon the picture frame holding the frozen memory of two friends. And as he held that position, looking up into the two smiling faces, the voices came back again.
"The perfect couple."
"They're meant to be."
"Lovebirds."
Always knew they'd end up together."
Then...after her death...
"They had a chance."
"He's so alone now."
"I feel guilty..."
"Why'd this have to happen?"
"I loved her."
Danny realized what he had just said. He realized that it had indeed been his voice that had said. That the words had come out of his very throat from his very heart. And there was pain there that would not subside and would not leave him alone. A pain that made his eyes sting and his teeth clench.
And I'm wondering
I'm wondering if it's you that I feel
If its you that I feel here haunting me forever
This was feeling he'd never been aware of, but it had always been there. It had always been at the ready, just waiting for something to trigger it. And as he gazed upon this picture, this simple picture of them laughing and dancing at their school dance, holding each other, he became, at last, aware of it. And since her death it had always been there...haunting him.
I have been
Searching for
Traces of
What we were
And now his mind tried to keep up with it all. He needed to understand what this feeling was. And the name was finally...finally perceived. "I loved her," he repeated, this time a bit more loud. His voice sounded as if he hadn't spoke for a very long time. Dry, raspy, unused. His hands turned to fists and he found his body felt so weak now. "I loved her. So. Much." His legs gave way and he fell down to his knees, him resting on his legs. "So much..."
5S5
A ghost of you
Is all that I have left
It's all that I have left of you to hold
I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me
And nothing left of what we were at all
Then, he felt a presence there.
And I'm not looking for
Anything but us
Anything but what we were
And I'm not asking for
Painted memories
I only want to know you're here
"Sam," he whispered, as if willing her be there. Willing her to come comfort him. To tell him it never happened. To assure him that everything was alright. He just wanted to know she was there. That she was still there. And the stinging sensation behind his eyes grew so much that he had to close his eyes. He hugged his arms and a sob escaped his lips. "Sam!"
A ghost of you
Is all that I have left
It's all that I have left of you to hold
I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me
and nothing left of what we were at all
"Forget, let go," came the soft, sing-song voice. "Please, you're hurting yourself."
"I can't." Danny shook his head as the tears fell from his eyes.
"You must, Danny," she said. "You've got to. I can't stand to see you like this. I can't..."
Then, the voice was no longer disembodied. There she was before him, resting on her knees. Right there. He looked at her, then reached out to her, curious. He blinked several times, trying to figure out she was real. And his hand landed on her shoulder. And suddenly, she looked beautiful. She looked so beautiful...
He found himself throwing himself at her, holding her close, hugging her tight, not wanting to let go. Never. Never again...
"Please, Danny," she whispered.
"I don't want you to go," he whispered, the tears still falling. "I don't want you to leave again. I love you."
"That's why you've got to move on," Sam whispered. "If you love me, don't suffer because of me. Forget. Let go. It's life, Danny. Please..."
"I missed you so much," Danny whispered.
"It's okay to forget me, it's okay to let go and move on," Sam said. "It's okay. I'll always be there. When you most need me, even if you don't realize it, okay? I'm always gonna be there. Just like before. Always."
"But..." Danny began to let go, loosen his grip. Sam now looked at him in the eye. His clear, blue eyes finally got life back into them.
"Always," Sam assured him and leaned forth, pressing her cold lips onto his own, soft, firm ones. The kiss was brief, and once Danny had once again opened her eyes, she was gone A single word lingered in her place. "Always..."
"Always..." he repeated, then felt his whole body become weak.
A ghost of you
Is all that I have left
It's all that I have left of you to hold
Twenty-four-year-old Danny bolted straight up in bed, arousing another figure next to him to also wake.
"Danny?" came the sleepy voice. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Danny whispered reassuringly. "Just a dream." The black-haired girl next to him looked at him with concern.
"Again?" she asked.
"It's her anniversary," Danny whispered. "She never lets me forget it." The woman smiled fondly.
"I'm sure," she agreed with a small, happy tone in her voice. "Think she's still here? I mean, think she's watching?"
"I don't know," Danny replied, lying back down and smiling fondly into the darkness of the room. "I'm not sure." He drew his arms behind his head. The woman next to him sighed and lay her head on his chest. He brought one arm down and hugged her.
"I think she's still looking out for you," she whispered.
"I think so too," Danny agreed. "For the both of us."
"I hope she's not the jealous type," the woman whispered. Danny grinned.
"She never was," he whispered.
"I'm gonna go back to sleep now," the woman said then. "Try to fall asleep too. She wouldn't want you to be tired."
"I'll try," Danny whispered.
"'night," she whispered and snuggled close to him.
"Good night," Danny whispered and stared into the darkness still. He could swear he heard a small giggle, and something nudged his shoulder. He paid no mind and grinned. "Happy anniversary, Sammy." Another nudge and he smiled sleepily before drifting off into sleep. "Happy anniversary..."
I wake in the night to find you're still watching over me
and you will always be there no matter what
Always...
E/N: Just don't ask, okay? I, for one, loved writing this particular fic. I really did like it. Moving on after her death but still remembering. Sam not letting him forget, it's amusing, sad, and a bit happy too. -dreamy sigh- Review if you wish! I'm off to take out the trash! And oh, I changed the ending of the song 'Ghost of You' by Good Charlotte! The song, by the way, does not belong to me!
--Airamé Phantom