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Gaia's Shadow - My Best Friend's Keeper

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Summary: Sam isn't sure she'll ever pick up the pieces with how many curveballs life has been throwing at her lately. And the new guidance counselor her parents are making her talk to is definitely not helping. Neither is the new ghost that keeps showing up that Sam can't seem to get a handle on. Or Danny, chasing her around and trying to catch her ghost self.

Meanwhile, Tucker has some things to get caught up to speed on.

Author's Note: Just a heads up that the next update will probably take a bit longer. My summer has been incredibly busy, and I'm working on a couple other longer projects now too. But rest assured I am still working on this one as well! I don't have quite as much time as I used to, but it will most certainly not be abandoned.

...

The universe must have agreed it owed Sam some kind of boon following Johnny, because Youngblood does not show up to terrorize the town again. Maybe giving him space was, somehow, the right move. Not that Sam meant to do so.

In fact, after Sam gets rid of Johnny, things are strangely quiet. Honestly, if she had the energy, she’d call it suspiciously quiet. She would have imagined Johnny would have ranted and raved about how she “betrayed” him and sent a horde of ghosts on her tail, supported and encouraged by Youngblood.

But she doesn’t. Have the energy, that is. So it’s quiet, and Sam spends two days bracing herself for the giant ghost fight that’s definitely coming. And then it doesn’t. Which is fine. She’ll figure it out later.

She has a lot of things she’ll figure out later, lately. How she’ll deal with ghosts when she now has no idea if they can be trusted. How she’ll deal with people when she now has no idea if they can be trusted. The Fentons. Vlad.

Danny.

All of it is for later, because Sam can’t decide how she feels about any of it. She’ll need to figure out the ghost part soon, because apparently ghosts all over the “Ghost Zone” know about her, and will likely have opinions on her. She’ll need to figure out the human part soon, because everyone is changing in ways Sam failed to expect or understand.

None of it is fine. All of it is important. She’s not sure how to even begin to pull apart which aspects fall where, but her parents seem to have an idea. And their help has worked oh-so-well in the past.

“I’m sorry, you did what?” Sam asks. She’s been told her parents’ idea in the kitchen, just as she’s about to leave for school. They should know by now that Sam is too much of a creature of the night for them to have any successful conversations with her at this time of day. But well, they should know a lot of things about Sam by now.

“Honey, just listen,” her mother says, like she already knows that Sam’s going to react badly to this. (Why that didn’t stop her from bringing it up in the first place is anyone’s guess.)

“Uh, no?” Sam asks, crossing her arms. “This has to be a violation of some kind of code, or ethics, or something! Aren’t I supposed to make this sort of decision myself?”

“Samantha, we are perfectly willing to respect your decision if you just give this a try—”

Sam throws up her hands. Sometimes she wonders if her mother even hears herself when she speaks. “I am not seeing a counselor!”

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” her mother says. “And you won’t talk to me about it, or to—”

“Yeah, there’s a reason I don’t talk to you about anything!” Sam snaps.

“Samantha, don’t speak to your mother that way,” her father says, taking a step forward from where he’s been standing a good step back for most of this conversation. “We’re not saying this has to be a long term thing. Just something to try, to see if it helps with the way you’ve been acting lately.”

“Oh, is it? Finally giving up on fixing me yourself?”

“Samantha.”

“I’m not doing it!”

“Oh, yes you are,” her father says, taking another step forward. He looks angrier than he was a second ago, and Sam narrows her eyes. “You’ll do it, or we’ll ground you for a month.”

“Dad!”

“Samantha, this is not a debate. You are seeing Miss Penelope Spectra three times and that is final. If you don’t find her advice helpful after giving it an honest try, then we will talk. But you need to speak to someone.”

Sam scowls. Her dad looks angry enough to mean it. If she pushes him further, she’ll wind up grounded, and that will just get her in more trouble, since she can’t exactly stop leaving to take care of the ghost problem.

“Samantha,” her mother says gently, stepping back into Sam’s line of sight. “We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think it would help, dear. Miss Spectra is a professional. She knows what she’s doing. Give it a chance. It might help to talk about what you’ve been going through.”

Sam glares at the ground. Like her parents have any idea what she’s been going through.

“Samantha? Will you give it a chance?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Her parents’ lack of response makes the answer clear.

“Your first session is this morning,” her mother says after a moment. “Since you usually get to school so early anyway, she kindly agreed to meet you at 7:15.”

“Great,” Sam snaps. She snatches her bag off the ground next to the table. “Thanks.”

Her parents very wisely don’t speak again before she storms out the door.

This time, she actually does walk. Maybe if she gets there late enough she’ll miss the thing entirely and her parents won’t realize she did.

A counselor. What the hell is she supposed to say to a counselor? “Hey doc, I’ve been feeling down about the fact that technically, I’m dead, and the old college friend of my best friend’s parents convinced my best friend to hunt me for sport. Got any helpful advice?”

God, this is so fucking typical of her parents. Like everything would be solved if Sam would just conform to their plan and fall into place as the perfect rich daughter. Rich daughters don’t have problems, so obviously hers can be fixed in three sessions with the school counselor. She’s surprised they didn’t make this Spectra person come to their house to keep things even further under wraps.

It’s no use, though. She’s angry enough to speed up her walking pace, and she makes it to school by 7:10. Then, despite her attempts to hide out in the library, she feels a tap on her shoulder only a couple minutes later.

“Excuse me sweetie, are you Samantha Manson?”

“Nope,” Sam says, not looking up from the book she’s pretending to read. “You got your wires crossed.”

“Really? You’re not the one in this picture, then?”

Sam turns only slightly to the side before she’s met with a photograph of herself, right next to her face.

Sam leans back, and the woman standing above her puts the picture down, revealing herself to Sam. She has bright orange hair and a red suit to match, along with purple earrings that match with her eyeshadow. She’s got several flowers tucked into the front pocket of her suit, including a daffodil, a yellow rose, and a dandelion.

“Your parents gave me a picture of you when they set up the appointment,” Spectra says cheerfully. “Just since we hadn’t met before. Are you ready to come with me, then, or did you want to find a spot to meet here in the library?”

Sam tilts her head back and groans inwardly. But if this lady knows who she is and what she looks like, she’ll be able to tell her parents if Sam doesn’t show up. So, Sam pushes herself to her feet and follows Spectra back out into the hallway.

“Don’t worry, it’s just past here,” Spectra says, as they walk past the school nurse’s office, and towards another that Sam is pretty sure is empty. There’s a short man standing out front.

“This is my assistant, Bertrand,” Spectra says. Bertrand nods in greeting. “Don’t worry, he’s not here for our sessions. He’s only here to help with the scheduling for… well, you’ll find out!”

Before Sam can ask what that means, Spectra waves Bertrand off and opens the door to her office. And if Spectra likes to wear flowers on her person, that’s nothing compared to the way she’s completely decked out this place.

There’s flowers of all different kinds covering every surface that isn’t a chair. And Sam likes flowers, but the way that so many are shoved together just overpowers any pleasant scent they would have otherwise provided. She hadn’t even picked flowers that made sense to put together— it’s like she grabbed whatever she could find at the flower shop and called it a day.

“Do you like them?” Spectra asks as she walks over to her desk. “Your mother mentioned you’ve loved flowers ever since you were a little girl. I also think they add just such a lovely touch, don’t you? Nothing brightens a room up like flowers!”

“Uh, sure,” Sam mutters. She walks over and plops down into the seat across from Spectra. “Look, my parents made a mistake when they set this up. I’m doing great. So could I just work on homework for a bit while we sit in here and call it a day?”

“You can’t think of anything you want to talk about?” Spectra asks curiously. “Why, I’d call that a great place to start right there.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, crossing her arms.

Spectra folds her hands in front of her. “Why are you so reluctant to listen to your parents, sweetie?”

“Don’t call me sweetie.”

“Do you feel like you can’t talk to them? That’s not unusual for kids your age, you know. You don’t have to worry, this problem is fairly common. I’m sure we can figure it out in a jiffy.”

Sam scowls. What does this lady know about her life? Why does everyone assume her problems are easy to solve?

“Your parents just want the best for you, sweetie,” Spectra continues. “I know you might not realize, but they have decades of experience that you don’t. Listening to them might teach you a thing or two, and help you avoid mistakes that could potentially hurt someone. Don’t we all want to avoid that?”

Sam doesn’t say anything, just glares down at the desk in front of her and tries not to think about Danny. Spectra’s talking about hypotheticals— not to mention she has no idea what she’s talking about.

“I thought you were supposed to start counseling sessions with intake stuff,” Sam snaps instead of any kind of response.

“Well, your parents gave me a lot of insight already,” Spectra says. “But if there’s anything you feel like they might have missed, of course you’re welcome to bring it up.”

“Did they miss the part where this is stupid and I don’t need to be here?”

“I don’t think they wrote it down explicitly, but don’t worry, you’ve been fairly easy to read on that front.”

Sam keeps glaring at the desk and doesn’t say anything.

“Look, if you want to sit there and pout, I certainly can’t stop you. But I think you’ll get far more out of these sessions if you actually try—”

“I’m not pouting!” Sam snaps, glaring back up at Spectra this time.

Spectra’s gaze melts in sympathy, and she smiles. “Of course not, sweetie. You know what, you’re right. Let’s start with some intake paperwork, just so we can get to know each other a little better. Your parents said you’ve been grumpy lately, and that you’ve been having issues with being extra picky about certain foods. Would you like to start there?”

…

It’s another excruciating half hour before Sam’s allowed to leave, and by then the day’s pretty much gone down the toilet.

Picky. Her mom told Spectra she was picky. Well, there’s a limit to how much her parents can be understanding, she supposes.

The point is, Sam’s already in a bad mood when she leaves Spectra’s office, and what happens immediately after does not help.

“Hey, Sam, can I talk to you?”

Sam gives only a cursory glance over at Danny before spinning around and walking in the opposite direction.

“Sorry, busy,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Sam, seriously!” Sam hears feet pounding after her, and then Danny’s walking next to her at her pace.

“Yes, seriously,” Sam says through gritted teeth. “I’m seriously busy.”

“Sam, we haven’t talked since Johnny, we need to.”

“I know he was a ghost now, Danny,” Sam snaps. “I don’t particularly need to hear you gloat about it.”

“Wait, you do? How? I— I wasn’t going to gloat.”

Sam scoffs. “Really? You’d be entitled. You were right about everything, weren’t you?”

Danny’s quiet for a minute. “Just because I was right doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, whatever Danny! I have to go. I have homeroom.”

“I’m in your homeroom—”

Sam speeds up again, though it ends up not being necessary, because a couple steps into her attempts to lose Danny, he’s grabbed and pulled to the side by another student. Sam hears the beginnings of a ghost question, and takes advantage of that to make it down the hallway and out of Danny’s line of sight.

Tucker’s not there yet when she gets to homeroom, so Sam grabs a different seat than usual and hides as best she can by burying her head in her backpack.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to prevent Tucker from finding her. Not even a minute later she hears him ask “Sam?” along with feeling a tap on the shoulder.

“Headache,” Sam lies.

“Aw shoot, I’m sorry,” Tucker says. “So I shouldn’t play the loudest games my PDA has to offer, then?”

“I hate you.”

Tucker laughs, but doesn’t actually boot up anything on his PDA. It doesn’t really matter, though. His laugh is enough to make Sam grind her teeth. Doesn’t he know when to shut up?

Stupid Tucker. Stupid Danny. Stupid parents going behind her stupid back and mocking her for things they pretend like they understand. Stupid ghost half affecting what she eats. Stupid ghost half affecting her friendships. Stupid ghost half making Danny hate her. Stupid ghost half.

At least Danny doesn’t try to talk to her again when he shows up a couple minutes later. In fact, both of them leave Sam alone throughout the entirety of homeroom, which is a much-needed reprieve.

What definitely isn’t a reprieve, however, is the speaker coming on just before the end of homeroom. And her mother’s voice coming out of it.

“Good morning, Casper High pupils!” she says, and Sam’s head shoots right up off her desk. Tucker and Danny both turn immediately to her in bafflement.

“I’m sure most of you don’t know me, but I’m Pamela Manson! My husband Jeremy and I are going to be this year’s sponsors of Casper High Spirit Week! That means we’re adding more to the festivities, including more decorations and more exciting spirit sparklers! And as an extra treat, we brought in a Spirit Counselor who’s going to have one free visit with every student!”

Sam clenches her hands tightly around the table and tries not to blast it apart with a vine. What is she doing. What are they thinking.

…Actually, she can guess part of it. They can’t have a daughter going to a counselor for stupid reasons like being picky. Not without having a good excuse lined up, such as every other student in school is also going for equally stupid reasons. Like a Spirit Week Celebration, for example. They probably paid for every damn appointment themselves.

Sam’s quitting school. She’s going off the grid. She’s going to live in that Ghost Zone place everyone keeps talking about where at least she won’t have to deal with her parents calling her picky and her best friend calling her an it.

Her mom says something about a pep rally to end off Spirit Week, and that Spectra will be spending the week looking for a keynote speaker, so everyone should think about what they should say in case they get chosen. Her mom would think that a reasonable request to ask of high schoolers.

Sam buries her head in her backpack. “Is everyone looking at me?” she groans to Danny and Tucker.

“What? No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Tucker.”

“…Yeah.”

Mercifully, a second later Sam’s mom stops talking, and the announcements go over a few more details before the speaker goes blissfully silent.

“I’m killing them.”

“And how exactly are you going to do that?” Danny asks.

“You’ve got a basement fully capable of doing the job.”

“Please don’t shoot our ghost weapons at your parents, Sam.”

“I’ll do what I want, when I want.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Tucker says, though even he sounds like he doesn’t believe what he’s saying.

“You’re right, Tuck, it’ll definitely be worse,” Sam says.

“Oh come on, can’t we just try to—”

But Sam misses the rest of what Tucker’s suggesting they try to do, because naturally at that moment, her ghost sense goes off, a strong scent of dandelions filling the room.

She shoves herself to her feet the same time that Danny does, across the table from her. Sam shoots him a glare at the same moment that Danny shoots her a confused look, and Tucker looks up at both of them in alarm.

“Bathroom,” Sam says.

“Uh, yeah,” Danny says. “Me too.”

“Great.” Sam stomps off without saying anything else, and grabs the girls pass from the hook next to the door.

This is the first ghost fight since she found out who Danny is. She is not going to let it trip her up. At least, that was her plan.

Instead, she doesn’t even make it all the way to the bathroom before something slams into her and pushes her through the wall of the school.

…

Two minutes after Danny and Sam leave, there’s a ghost fight.

Tucker is going to lose it. How does this keep happening?

He runs to find Danny first, and freaks out more than a little when he’s not in the bathroom. Then he decides the life-or-death situations that are ghost fights warrant a little bit of a social faux pas, and runs into the girls room to look for Sam.

But she’s not there either. And Tucker is so tired of abandoning Sam during ghost fights just because he’s scared.

He did it with that lunch lady. He let Danny take the lead with that hunter ghost, and at the dance. He refused to believe that anything was wrong for far too long when Sam got possessed. He’s not doing this again.

So he swallows back all of his nerves (and a little bit of vomit), and runs out the first door he can find. He doesn’t have to run too far before he stumbles onto the action, taking place just at the front of the school. Unfortunately, there’s no Sam or Danny in sight.

Instead, there’s a big green ghostly blob shooting big blobs of said green at Gaia’s Shadow (that’s the name on the posters, right?), and a high-tech looking suit that presumably has a guy in it, floating in midair.

And, wow, would Tucker love to find out how that works. But with neither of his best friends being in imminent danger, his nerves instead kick back in, and he takes a couple steps back towards the school.

But then the guy in the suit yells, “Tell me what you did with Sam!” and Tucker’s interest is piqued again.

“Back off human pest,” the green goo ghost snaps. “You’re not needed here.” He shoots one of his green goos, and the guy manages to dodge on— is that a hoverboard? Okay, Tucker needs to talk to this guy later.

All three of them exchange blows above Tucker’s head fast enough to make it spin, so Tucker’s actually glad when Gaia’s Shadow starts talking again.

“Hey,” she snaps, spinning to face the guy on the hoverboard. “Are we done taking turns? Do you want to actually focus on the threat now?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” the guy snaps back, raising his arm to point at her. Gaia dodges the blast that seems to come from nowhere, or at least, nowhere Tucker can see.

It doesn’t seem to have done her much good, however, because a second later she’s hit in the back by one of green ghost’s gobs of goo, which smacks her hard enough to send her flying. Despite himself, Tucker winces.

Then, out of nowhere, the green blob ghost vanishes. Just, into thin air. Sure, Tucker’s seen ghosts do that before, but they don’t tend to dip mid-attack. Do they? Maybe he just hasn’t seen enough of them.

Either way, Tucker ducks further back into the school. Less to focus on means less distractions for Gaia, or the guy on the hoverboard, though he seems to be a little more on the human’s side.

But that guy said something about Sam. Tucker’s not leaving until he finds out she’s safe. Not again.

Gaia seems content to, however, because after a couple more traded blows between the two of them, she’s the first one to speak up.

“Hey, can we stop for a second?” she snaps, dodging one of the blasts aimed at her.

“Tell me where Sam is and I’ll consider it!”

Why does that voice sound so familiar?

“She’s—” Gaia screams in obvious frustration, and Tucker ducks back further. “I didn’t hurt your stupid friend!”

“Don’t call her stupid!”

“This is stupid! This is the stupidest thing ever!”

“Tell me where Sam is!”

Gaia screams again. “Fine! You’ll find her perfectly safe and not hurt behind the school!” she snaps.

Before Tucker even sees what happens next, he’s turning and running. He doesn’t make it all the way to the back of the school, however, before something whooshes to a stop right next to him.

Tucker cries out and throws up his hands before he can see what it is, but nothing hits him.

“Tu— uh, citizen! Are you alright?”

Tucker turns to the side to see the guy from before floating right in front of him. And, well, he’s not trying to shoot anything at him, so Tucker allows himself to take him in better.

He’s wearing a bright blue suit that covers all of his body and his face, and he is in fact standing on a hoverboard. He also just kicked a couple of ghosts’ butts, so he’s just about cleared Tucker’s requirements for coolest guy ever.

“Woah,” Tucker breathes. “Dude, you have a hoverboard.”

The guy laughs, and it— Tucker knows that laugh. Where does he know it from?

“Yeah,” the guy says. “I do. So I guess you weren’t hurt, then.”

“Uh, no, I— oh! Sam! The ghost out there said my friend would be back here, can you—”

“Right. Stay here,” the guy says, holding out a hand. Then he flies off back towards the back of the school.

“Sorry dude,” Tucker mutters to himself, starting to run again. “You might be super cool and have a hoverboard, but I’m not ditching Sam again.”

It’s not long before he reaches the back of the school, but he hears voices before he gets there.

“I already told you, I’m fine.” Sam. She’s snapping, it sounds like. “No one hurt me.”

“That ghost slammed you through a wall,” comes the guy’s voice, obviously concerned. He knows that voice.

“Phase-through, remember? Didn’t even feel it.”

“It’s called intangible.”

“I don’t care what it’s called!”

At that point, Tucker runs around the side of the building, and sure enough, there’s Sam, still in one piece.

“Sam!” he yells, drawing the attention of both of them.

“Tucker—” Sam starts, which is all she gets out before Tucker throws his arms around her.

“You have got to stop getting stuck in the middle of ghost fights,” Tucker says weakly, squeezing her tightly.

“I… sorry,” Sam says. She wraps her arms around his shoulders. “I’m… it’s not like I do it on purpose.”

“Yeah,” Tucker says, pulling back. “But still.”

“I told you to stay there,” says the familiar-voice Hoverboard Guy. “What if there was a ghost back here?”

“Didn’t that Gaia ghost say there wasn’t? Or, that Sam wouldn’t be hurt.”

The guy sighs. “Gaia is a ghost,” he says. “You can’t just trust it.”

“No, ‘course not,” Sam mutters, sounding irritated.

The guy sighs again. “Sam,” he says, exhausted and exasperated, and suddenly it clicks.

Tucker knows where he knows that voice.

“Well, I’m fine,” Sam snaps, turning and spreading her arms as if for proof. “You can go now.”

The guy on the hoverboard sighs again, exactly how Danny sighs when he’s irritated with Sam, which he’s been doing a lot lately. “Of course,” he says. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Hey,” Tucker calls, as he starts to fly off. “Uh—”

The guy turns back to him, and Tucker realizes he actually doesn’t have any clue what to say.

“Can I… check out that hoverboard sometime?” Tucker asks.

The guy laughs in surprise, exactly the way Danny laughs in surprise. “I’m sorry, but no,” he says, fond in the exact way Danny sounds when he’s feeling fond. “It’s too dangerous for normal, uh, citizens.”

Holy shit.

Tucker opens his mouth again, to test this theory, to say Danny’s name, but instead he turns and flies off on his hoverboard before he can say anything. Tucker stares after him for a moment, mouth agape.

“Uh, Tuck?” Sam asks.

Right! Sam! Is he gonna… should he…

…He should talk to Danny first.

“He’s got a hoverboard,” Tucker says instead, like that’s his only reason for being in awe of the guy.

Sam gives a half-laugh. “Alright Techno-Geek, back to class,” she says.

“Hey, Techno Geeks rule,” Tucker says, turning back to face Sam. He gives her another once over, but it really does seem that she’s not hurt. “And one day, you’ll know it too.”

“Sure I will,” Sam says. “Come on. Let’s not be any later to first period than we already are.”

…

So, turns out, Tucker’s friend is officially the coolest person ever.

While Tucker was busy trying to figure out how to stop being scared out of his mind when ghosts showed up, Danny must have gone up to his parents and said “Hey, can you build me a flying ghost fighting superhero suit that I can use to protect people from harm?”

Just, wow.

Sure, that does spark even more guilt about how long he’s taking to get his act together, but also, Tucker has to give credit where it’s due. That is insanely brave of his best friend.

Not that he knows for sure that’s what’s happening. He only thought he recognized Danny’s voice. And he hasn’t ever seen Danny carrying anything like a hoverboard and superhero suit around, so that’s definitely a potential flaw in this theory.

But he has a pretty good idea of how to find out.

“So,” Tucker says to Danny, “how do you feel about ghost fighting?”

He waits until he’s walking with Danny in between classes. He also waits until Sam’s not around, because there’s probably a reason he hasn’t told them. And sure, maybe it’s stupid, but Tucker’s going to wait until he figures out if it’s stupid or not, so he knows if he has to call Danny an idiot and pry it out of him or not.

Danny gives him a confused look. “Like, hypothetically? Because it’s not so hypothetical these days.”

“No, not hypothetically, practically,” Tucker says. “Like, how would you go about doing it?”

Something passes over Danny’s face that Tucker can’t read. “Why?”

“Just, if there’s going to be ghost fighting happening, shouldn’t we know everything we can?”

Danny groans. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to start asking me and Jazz questions like everyone else.”

“Hey, Fenton—”

“Not now!”

“No no, nothing like that,” Tucker says, waving his hands. He hadn’t even thought about that aspect before he started asking questions. Whoops. “Just, considering things like what happened this morning. If—” he takes a deep breath, and says firmly, “If I’m going to be able to help Sam at all when all these ghosts come after her, I need to know stuff, don’t I?”

“Woah woah, hey,” Danny says. He steps quickly in front of Tucker and turns to face him. “You don’t need to know how to fight ghosts. Don’t put yourself in danger.”

“Wh— don’t you do that all the time?” Tucker asks. And, before Danny can start getting suspicious, he adds, “You’ve basically been throwing yourself in between ghosts and who they’re fighting every chance you get.”

“That’s different,” Danny says. He reaches out and puts his hands on Tucker’s shoulders. “I have experience, you know, from my parents. I can threaten ghosts with everything that I know from them and the fact that I can ask them for help. You don’t have any of that stuff. Don’t make me worry about you too.”

“Well, that’s where learning stuff could come in, couldn’t it? Like, yeah, it’s dangerous and risky and all that, but you can’t deny it also sounds kinda cool!”

Like, Danny definitely is cool. If that was him fighting that ghost. Kicking butt and flying on a hoverboard and acting like a superhero and “oh, are you alright citizens who I definitely don’t know?”

“Well— wait, no it’s not! Tucker, people could get hurt. Especially people who are trying to get involved when they don’t know what they’re doing. However good their intentions are. Just, leave it to the professionals, okay? Please.”

“The professionals,” Tucker says, drawing the word out. “Sure.”

Danny looks at him, wary, and doesn’t say anything. And, well, Tucker doesn’t want to push, he just wants confirmation. And there are other ways to get that.

He shrugs. “Alright. Suit yourself. But you’ll at least teach me how to handle myself safely in a ghost fight, won’t you? As a citizen who needs to run or whatever.”

“Of course,” Danny says, sounding relieved. “You want to come over after school?”

“Sounds great,” Tucker says, smiling brightly at him. Danny seems to take that as his cue to move on, but Tucker can’t really do the same. He doesn’t bring it up the rest of the day, but he does keep thinking about it.

Because if it is Danny, and he knows how to do this stuff “professionally” and all that, there’s not a chance in hell that Tucker is sitting this one out. He’s not letting Danny make him sit this one out, either.

So he heads home with Danny that day. He lets Danny keep the conversation on casual stuff on the way there, their latest assignments and a new video game he wants to try and how annoying all the ghost questions are becoming. Tucker keeps up and manages to sound casual enough that he’s pretty sure Danny doesn’t suspect anything.

Unfortunately, his plans are sidetracked when the second Danny opens his front door they’re both met with the smiling face of Vlad Masters.

He looks slightly surprised to see Tucker, and Tucker is more thrown off than he should be to see him. He keeps forgetting the guy’s staying with the Fentons now.

Vlad at least adjusts quickly, however, and turns to face Tucker with a smile.

“Mr. Foley,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

He gives Danny a look, and Danny laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry Vlad,” he says. “Kind of an impromptu thing. Tucker said he wanted to know how to keep himself safe in a ghost fight.”

Vlad raises an eyebrow. “Did he now? Did you not tell him he should really leave the ghost fighting to the professionals?”

“No, yeah,” Danny says quickly. “He meant like, safe places to hide, or how to get away.”

Vlad turns to Tucker. “Ah, I see. Well, that’s certainly important information for citizens to know.” He holds Tucker’s gaze for a moment longer, then turns back to Danny and smiles. “Give me just a bit to finish up what I was working on and I’ll join you, my boy,” he says.

Danny smiles back. “Great,” he says. “Meet you in the lab?”

“Ah, let’s do the backyard,” Vlad says. “There’s potential dangerous equipment in the lab.”

“Right,” Danny says with a nod. “Good thinking. Come on, let’s go Tuck.”

“Wait, hang on,” Tucker says. “Vlad!”

Vlad stops before reaching the stairs and turns back to face Tucker.

“You still haven’t gotten me that PDA you promised me,” Tucker says with a grin.

Vlad chuckles. “You’re right. My apologies, my boy. I’ll get on that,” he says.

“Sweet,” Tucker says. “See you in the backyard, then!”

“See you then,” Vlad says.

Tucker turns to face Danny again, then follows him through the kitchen and towards the backyard. Tucker honestly hasn’t been there much in recent years. They’d had outdoor sleepovers as kids, but since the op-center went up it’s blocked out any potential stargazing views, meaning they’re usually on top of that instead. They’ve kind of outgrown outdoor sleepovers anyway.

The updates of ghostly targets and a ghost-shaped edition to the above-ground pool aren’t that surprising, though. The lab probably isn’t big enough to have space for all the target practice that would need to come outside of the actual ghost fights.

Danny sets his bag on the steps next to the back door, and turns to face Tucker.

“Okay,” he says. “So some of the ghosts that have shown up so far have been loud and obvious, like the hunter and the lunch lady. And then there are ones like Sidney Poindexter and Johnny, who are trying to blend in to cause damage. For the latter, my parents are working on something called a Spector Deflector, that should shock a ghost if it tries to interact with you.”

Tucker grins. “Woah, really? Can I see it?”

“Sorry,” Danny says with a shrug, “it’s still in the planning phase. They don’t even have a finalized blueprint yet. But I’ll be wanting some for you and Sam eventually. As for the more obvious ghosts, they tend to have some things in common.”

“Uh, they do?” Tucker asks. When he thinks back on obvious ghosts, the lunch lady and the hunter ghost and Gaia don’t really seem to have much in common. Even the one from that morning is different from the other examples they have so far.

“Well, not obviously,” Danny says. “But… okay, I’m gonna get a little technical here. But Vlad’s been sharing what he knows with us. All of those ghosts had a single-minded focus. They all wanted to cause harm— Sidney and Johnny too, by the way. But they all had specific ways of going about it. Themes, almost. You see what I mean?”

Tucker nods slowly. “Sure,” he says. “Like, that lunch lady was obsessed with keeping the school menu the same and getting rid of Sam’s plant garbage.”

“Uh, well I don’t know if I’d say it that way, and you should be glad she’s not here right now, but yeah. And the hunter ghost… well, you know.”

“He wanted to hunt Sam,” Tucker says with a nod. “Why her, by the way?”

“No idea,” Danny says. He looks frustrated with himself while he does it. “I’m gonna figure it out, though. But, anyway, ‘Sidney’ was focused on bullies, or at least, what it thought were bullies. And Johnny was focused on taking over Jazz.”

Tucker frowns. “That’s not really a theme.”

“It’s the way he did it,” Danny says. “The biker clothes he kept putting on Jazz were the way to take over her. You see what I mean?”

Well, not really. It seems like a pretty weak fit to the pattern, honestly. But Tucker nods anyway.

Then he pauses as he thinks of something. “Wait. What about Gaia?”

Danny wrinkles his nose immediately. “What about Gaia?”

“Well she’s not doing that whole theme thing, is she? She showed up first at the dance, but she hasn’t stuck to that at all.”

Danny sighs. “I know,” he says. He rubs the back of his neck, obviously thinking. “Vlad and I can’t figure her out. He thinks she might be a new ghost? I don’t know. The point is, for the most part, ghosts follow the pattern of using a specific, individualized method of causing harm. This means, once you figure out what that method is, you can plan for it and avoid it.”

“Oh, like how if Sam had changed the lunch menu back everything would have been solved?” Tucker asks with a grin.

Danny rolls his eyes. “Dude, seriously, don’t let her hear you. But… uh… yeah.”

Tucker laughs.

“Look, my actual point is, you can hide in ways that make them less likely to find you. Go someplace the hunter ghost wouldn’t like. Like a library, maybe. Make sense?”

Tucker nods. “Sure.”

“Good,” Danny says, sounding glad of it. “Now, as for ghosts like Johnny and Sidney, for right now—”

“Danny!” the back door opens, and Mrs. Fenton sticks her head out. “Get in here this instant young ma— oh, Tucker! I didn’t know you were here!”

Tucker gives a slightly awkward smile and waves. “Hi, Mrs. Fenton.”

“Sorry dear, but I need to borrow Danny for a moment. Danny, come here. We need to talk about your science test last week.”

Danny winces, and Tucker glances over at him in surprise. He’s acting like Tucker does when he gets called out for bad grades on his English tests. But Danny’s a whiz in science— in just about everything, actually. Tucker can’t remember the last time he got anything worse than a 95 on a test.

But sure enough, Danny mutters, “Be right back,” to Tucker and follows his mom sheepishly inside. Tucker looks after him for only a second, puzzled, before he realizes that Danny left his backpack next to the steps.

Now’s his chance.

Tucker waits just a couple seconds longer, and then walks quickly for the steps. He feels a little bad about snooping through Danny’s stuff, but not bad enough to stop him from unzipping the backpack and peeking inside.

And there it is— the blue hoverboard from earlier is sitting tucked in the back of his bag, behind his other notebooks and papers. It’s smaller than when Danny was riding it, meaning it can fold in on itself for easy storage, which is just the coolest thing ever. Where’s the suit? Does it also fold in on itself? Is it tucked behind the hoverboard?

Suddenly, from inside the house comes a sound of footsteps, and Tucker quickly zips up the bag and sets it back down. He has just enough time to take a couple steps back before the back door opens and Vlad steps outside. He stops on the final step instead of the yard, so Tucker has to look up further to meet his gaze.

“Uh, hi,” he says. “I thought you were Danny.”

“No, my boy,” Vlad says. “Daniel is rather busy. Will be for a while, in fact.”

“He will?” Tucker asks. “I didn’t think we were done. I thought you were supposed to meet us out here to talk about what to do in a ghost fight.”

“Yes, well unfortunately Daniel’s parents need to talk with him about something important, and from the way it looks, they’re going to be a while,” Vlad says. “They sent me out here to inform you of such. You can see Daniel again at school tomorrow.”

Tucker blinks. “But we were in the middle of something.”

Vlad raises his hands with an apologetic look on his face. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. I’m sure friends who see each other as often as you won’t have much trouble rescheduling?”

“I mean, I guess not, but—”

“Excellent,” Vlad says. He reaches down and picks up Danny’s backpack, gives Tucker a smile, and steps back in the house without another word.

Tucker looks at the back door for another second, trying to figure out what just happened and how he just got kicked out less than ten minutes after coming here.

He’ll have to talk to Danny about the ghost hunting stuff tomorrow, then.

Tucker heads out the side gate and starts the walk home, trying not to feel a little offended by the way that he was asked to leave. Danny hadn’t even come to do it himself.

Oh, whatever. If he’s fighting with his parents about a test, Tucker’s not going to make it worse than he’ll probably already feel tomorrow when he gets to school. Besides, he has more important things to think about.

Like the fact that Danny’s a freakin’ superhero.

Tucker’s not as surprised as he would have been had he not seen him this morning, but still. This means there are very important things to figure out. First of all, how the heck did Danny get such a cool hoverboard and ghost fighting suit? Did his parents make it? It doesn’t look like their usual style. But Danny seems totally comfortable using it, so he has to know where it comes from.

For that matter, how many ghosts has he fought? Tucker has only seen the one, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing too well to not at least have done some training. Where and when did he do that? And why hasn’t he told them? Tucker or Sam? If Danny is this cool, it’s not fair to just keep it from them! He has to figure out what to say to Danny, how to ask about it. How to tease him for thinking this was something he had to hide, if the reasoning is as stupid as Tucker’s imagining. Danny would be the type to keep being an actual superhero secret to “protect them” and all that junk.

Tucker would have been totally down with the idea of going home and spending the rest of the day figuring that out, but at that point something happens to pull him abruptly back to awareness. That is, Sam turns the corner and starts walking towards him, head pointed down at the ground and a not-so-happy look on her face.

Tucker brightens, and raises a hand to call out to her, before he stops. He still doesn’t have the first clue what he’s going to say to her. And if he tells Danny’s secret without asking him first, without even talking to him about it, Danny would probably be pretty ticked off. And Tucker doesn’t want to be a bad friend like that.

Fine, he’ll avoid the Danny topic. Besides, he should probably check in on her anyway, now that she’s had some time to cool down after—

Suddenly Sam spins around so fast it makes Tucker startle. She still doesn’t seem to have seen him yet, but she clearly noticed something, because she ducks down an alleyway just to the side. Tucker blinks in confusion, then looks back in the direction she’d spun to, and sees—

Oh, boy.

It’s not the same ghost from this morning. Instead it’s bigger, and panther shaped, right down to the very sharp teeth.

Thankfully, it’s not running right for him. Instead it’s sprinting along the sidewalk across from him. Some people are starting to run and scream, but Tucker doesn’t know what he can do for them. Danny would probably say something about avoiding whatever specific way this ghost is going to cause harm.

What’s specific to a wild animal again?

Tucker’s just going to follow Sam’s lead.

He sprints towards the alley he’d seen her run to, planning on just ducking behind whatever’s down there and explaining the situation (and maybe calling Danny), but that ends up not being what happens.

Instead, Tucker pokes his head around the corner and sees Sam standing in the middle of the alleyway.

She doesn’t look like she’s trying particularly hard to hide. Tucker’s about to call her name, when instead he sees a flash of light, and suddenly standing in Sam’s place is— is— what the hell?

Gaia’s Shadow doesn’t even stop to pay a single moment of attention to him, however. She doesn’t even seem to notice him. Instead, she flies right out of the alleyway and after the direction the panther ghost ran in.

Tucker whirls around to look after her, but quickly loses sight of her and the panther both, apart from another very familiar voice yelling “Get back here!”

“I— Sam?” he manages. He stands there for a second longer, waiting for the world to suddenly make sense.

It doesn’t.

The ghost doesn’t come back his way, but Sam— or, Gaia— doesn’t either, meaning Tucker is just left there to stare in the direction she went in and try and figure out what on earth just happened. It doesn’t feel like he can trust the evidence of his own eyes.

How could Sam be Gaia’s Shadow? She’s a human, she’s not a ghost. But then… how much does Tucker really know about ghosts anyway? They started showing up a couple months ago. They’ve been causing all sorts of problems. Problems like… going after Sam because she changed the lunch menu. And hunting down Sam specifically in the middle of a shopping mall. And overshadowing Sam, and no one else. And— and yelling about how Paulina had been using Danny at a dance, and it really didn’t make sense that she’d known that, did it? And sure, maybe he hadn’t known that some kind of human-ghost hybrid is possible, but how had he not realized this morning that Gaia’s voice sounded just as familiar as Danny’s?

As… oh god.

Sam is Gaia’s Shadow.

Gaia’s Shadow is Sam.

And Danny is…

Oh, god.

He doesn’t have a best friend who’s a superhero. He has a best friend who’s a ghost hunter.

And another best friend who’s a ghost.

…

The stupid panther ghost gets away, and Sam wants to kick herself.

She’d gotten close to catching it about six times, and it has to be the one from this morning that she let get away too, the voice is exactly the same. So apparently in addition to everything else about her life that sucks right now, she can’t get a handle on ghosts anymore either. So she just can’t do anything right.

And just as the perfect icing on the vegan cake, Danny shows up at the tail end of the fight, after Sam has basically already failed, and chases her another three blocks until Sam can successfully get to a hiding place and transform back.

At that point, she’s just fed up with everything, so she goes home and holes up in her room for the rest of the day. She tries to dip out of dinner too, but her mom just puts a plate of food outside her door and tells her to eat it whenever she wants.

So apparently she has no problem being nice and accommodating to Sam’s face, it’s just when she goes behind her back to set up counseling appointments against her will that she’s comfortable complaining about Sam being picky.

Whatever. Sam eats the food and leaves the dishes for her mom to take care of. Then she stays in her room for the rest of the night and sulks, because today has sucked and she’s earned it. It’s not like she can successfully do anything to make it better, anyway.

She goes to bed early, since, given her track record, she’ll probably be woken up from a ghost fight anyway.

And, well, she is woken up. But not from a ghost fight.

Instead, not two hours after she falls asleep, she’s woken up from a nightmare about getting captured by Danny.

Her heart is pounding impressively fast for someone who’s technically dead, and her cheeks feel wet, which Sam is going to ignore because she’s not the kind of person who cries because of a nightmare. Certainly not completely unrealistic ones about getting captured by her best friend and dragged back to his secret underground lab basement to be experimented on.

It doesn’t even make sense. The Fentons can’t test the portal’s effects on Sam anymore, because every time it’s opened, it just shows a swirling green vortex that leads to probably the Ghost Zone! Nothing tangible like before, nothing they could strap Sam down inside and—

Sam leaps out of bed and dives through her bedroom wall, down into the backyard and into her greenhouse. She curls up at the base of Sunny the orange tree and changes back into her human self, then tries to breathe in the calming effects that tend to come with her greenhouse these days.

Instead, she feels Pierre’s vines start curling around her feet. She feels the concern that flows through them into her own vines that are starting to sprout, that she’s doing a bad job at keeping from growing. She needs to stop them soon or they could choke her plants and then they’d probably hate her like everyone else these days—

Sunny drops several leaves on her shoulders, and Sam chokes down a sob.

“Just a dream,” she whispers to herself. “It’s just a dream, you’re okay. It’s just a dream.”

Dream or not, however, she stays there all night.

…

She doesn’t want any more questions from her lying mother the next day, so she makes sure to go back up to her room before it’s time to get up. It’s earlier than expected that her mother knocks on the door, however, because Sam managed to forget she has her second session with Spectra this morning.

Sam grabs both a lunch and a breakfast to-go, because she does not want to stick around the house any longer than she has to.

Spectra found her in the library last time, so this time Sam tries to find an empty classroom to eat breakfast in. Unfortunately, before she’s successful in that, Spectra appears out of a side hallway, and brightens when she sees Sam. Is the woman a bloodhound or something?

“Samantha!” she says, giving her a beaming smile as she approaches. “You’re here early! Punctuality is a great quality to have, sweetie.”

“I’m not ready to start,” Sam says quickly. “Just looking for a place to eat breakfast.”

“Oh, well you can do that in my office! Might as well keep that punctuality by getting where you need to be, right? And don’t worry, I don’t have any issues with your diet eccentricities.”

Sam scowls down at the second lunchbox her breakfast is packed in. She can’t think of anything she’d rather do less than eat in front of Spectra. But if her parents hear she ditched an appointment they’ll just make her go to another one. So she follows Spectra back to her office and keeps scowling down at the ground in protest.

Spectra doesn’t say anything while Sam eats her breakfast, which should be a relief. It should be, but it isn’t, because what she does instead is spend the entire time smiling brightly at Sam while she does so.

“Uh, do you have to do that?” Sam asks, poking at her vegan apple turnover.

“Do what, sweetie?”

Sam hunches over on herself. “Nevermind.” She eats quickly.

“Alright!” Spectra says brightly, clapping her hands together as Sam puts her lunchbox in her bag. “Well, with that out of the way, let’s get started! What would you like to talk about, sweetie?”

“Nothing,” Sam says. She doubts it’ll work, but she’s not about to help Spectra out.

“You wouldn’t want to talk about a certain ghost fight that happened yesterday?”

Sam clenches her hands into fists at her side. “No.”

“Really? Your friend Danny mentioned that you got grabbed by a ghost and could have been seriously hurt. That’s the kind of thing that could make anyone a little scared.”

Oh, great. Danny is talking about Sam behind her back too? Why on earth would he talk to Spectra of all people? Did— did her parents tell people that they’re making her do this?

“Samantha?” Spectra asks.

“Do you have to call me that?”

“I don’t understand, sweetie. Isn’t that your name?”

“It’s not— ugh, nevermind. Look, I’m fine. The stupid ghost didn’t scare me, it was just annoying.”

“Hmm. You’ve been the target of an awful lot of ghost fights, haven’t you?”

Sam grits her teeth. “Did Danny tell you that, too?”

“I’m sure he’s just worried about you. For a little girl like you, dealing with ghost fights must be scary.”

“I am not. A little girl.”

“Oh, those are his words, sweetie, not mine,” Spectra says, looking casually down at the papers in front of her.

“What?”

“Look, the point is, for a,” Spectra looks up thoughtfully, “young person, these fights can be a lot to handle! It’s nothing to be ashamed of if they make you feel scared. Not everyone knows how to handle them, and that’s okay.”

“I’m not—”

“Have you told your friends about how you’re feeling?” Spectra asks.

“Well, no, but that’s because—”

“Why do you feel scared to tell them things, Samantha?” Spectra asks, folding her hands together in front of her. “Maybe they wouldn’t both feel the need to come talk to me about you if you just told them what you were feeling.”

Maybe I’d tell them how I was feeling a little more if they didn’t go behind my back to say what they think about me to some stupid counselor, Sam doesn’t say.

Spectra gives another thoughtful hum. “Well, it’s often hard for young people to be open with others. Especially young teenagers. It’s okay if you need to take some time with these things.”

“Great,” Sam snaps. “Thanks for your permission.”

“Maybe we can practice that kind of thing here!” Spectra says, smiling brightly at Sam. “You could try admitting to me that you’re scared and see how it feels! What do you say?”

…

Sam goes from Spectra’s room straight to homeroom, and ends up being one of the first few people there. Thankfully, none of the other people there seem to know or care who she is enough to stop her from sitting down at her usual table and burying her head in her arms. Maybe she can get at least another twenty or so minutes of sleep before class starts.

At least, that was the plan. Instead, one of those supposed friends of hers shows up. The ones who decide when she doesn’t want to tell them anything, the best course of action is to go behind her back and spout what they think of her to the school counselor.

“Uh, hey Sam. How are you, you know, doing?”

Sam picks her head up and sends Tucker her best death glare. “I am not. In the mood. For you to ask me about my feelings, Tucker.”

Tucker doesn’t respond to that, just sits down and keeps looking at her like he’s trying to figure her out.

After a couple seconds of silence, Sam rolls her eyes and drops her head back into her crossed arms. Whatever. If Tucker wants to stare at her, he can go right ahead.

“Uh, hey,” Tucker says. There’s nerves in his voice all of a sudden. “You know I think you’re great, right?”

Sam pulls her head up. “What?”

“You,” Tucker says. He reaches out and grabs Sam’s hand, squeezes it tightly. “You’re awesome. And— and I know we fight all the time about like— stupid stuff, but you’re my best friend. You know that, right?”

It’s Sam’s turn to stare. What on earth is Tucker getting at?

“So like, if there’s ever anything you need to tell me, I just want to make sure you know you can always do that,” Tucker says. “Okay?”

Sam scowls. “Oh, can I now. This is about Spectra, then?”

Tucker blinks. “Uh, what? No. The new guidance counselor? What are you talking about?”

“She told me that you and Danny talked to her about me,” Sam snaps.

Tucker stares at her some more. “What are you talking about?” he asks. He sounds baffled.

Before Sam can snap at him some more, Danny’s bag is thrown on the table next to Tucker, startling him and Sam both.

“Hey,” Danny says. He sounds angry, but for once, Sam’s not his target. Instead he sits down and directs a glare at Tucker. “Why’d you ditch me yesterday, man?”

Tucker blinks at him. “What?”

“I came back outside and you were like, gone,” Danny says. “We were kind of in the middle of something?”

“But… I thought… you were going to be a while,” Tucker says.

Danny scowls. “Oh, great, thanks. So not only do my parents think one C on a test is the end of the world, but so do you?”

Sam blinks, a little surprised. Danny got a C on a test? That’s not like him.

“I…” Tucker looks at Danny for a couple seconds, and then looks at Sam, and then back again. “Okay, I think maybe the three of us need to—”

He’s cut off by the loudspeaker crackling overhead, and suddenly Spectra’s voice fills the air.

“Good morning Casper High students!” she says brightly. “This is your school counselor, just reminding you that we still need volunteers for the pep rally at the end of Spirit Week! I’ll be keeping an eye out for the students with the most spirit and pick one to be our keynote speaker! So make sure you’re all thinking about what you’d say if you’re lucky enough to get picked!”

A groan goes up around the classroom. Sam can concur.

“Make sure to keep those spirits up, Casper High! And remember, if you ever need to talk, my door is always open!”

The loudspeaker shuts off. Danny rolls his eyes and props his chin up onto his hand. Sam groans and buries her head in her backpack. Thankfully, neither of her backstabbing friends actually try to talk to her for the rest of homeroom, and Sam is able to get up when the bell rings with no argument.

She doesn’t see much more of Danny or Tucker for the next couple periods, but she should have known better than to assume she could avoid them all day. Not with how persistent and nosy they’ve apparently been lately.

Sure enough, just before lunch they both approach her in the hallway. Danny seems calmer than he did that morning, in that stupidly annoying way that he usually is these days when he’s about to talk to Sam. Tucker still seems nervous about something, looking back and forth between Sam and Danny.

Sam’s not really in the mood to deal with either of them right now.

“Hey, Sam, can I talk to you?” Danny asks, stopping in front of her. Tucker stops just behind him, looking uneasy.

Sam scowls. “Oh, so you want to talk to me now, then?” she asks.

Danny blinks. “What does that mean?”

“Geez, did you guys decide this would be funny or something?” Sam asks, splitting a glare between Danny and Tucker both. “I don’t appreciate being talked about behind my back!”

“What are you talking about? I know that,” Danny says, sounding more than a little irritated. “What is with you lately? It’s like for the past couple months it’s been one thing after another.”

Yeah, it really has, Sam doesn’t say.

“None of your business,” she goes with instead.

“You’re my friend, it is my business,” Danny insists. He reaches a hand out towards her shoulder. “Look, Sam—”

But he doesn’t get a chance to finish, because suddenly Tucker is there, throwing himself in between Danny and Sam, and both of them leap back in surprise.

There’s a couple seconds when all three of them stand there, and none of them say anything, just stare at each other.

Well, Danny and Sam stare. Tucker’s got his eyes closed and looks like he’s bracing for something.

Finally, Danny speaks first.

“Uh, Tucker?”

Tucker startles, and opens his eyes, and seems to remember where he is. “Oh,” he says. “I, uh— I’m sorry! I don’t know why I did that, I just…” he trails off.

“…Tucker?” Danny says, after a few more seconds pass. “You wanna like, move?”

“Sorry!” Tucker says, and steps very carefully to the side. Almost like he’s forcing himself to.

“Uh, anyway,” Danny says, looking just as weirded out as Sam feels, “I just wanted to say that if you need to talk, you—”

“Talk,” Sam says. “Right.”

“I’m just saying you don’t have to—”

“Mr. Foley!” Spectra’s voice cuts them all off. “Just the person I was looking for!”

Sam turns around to see the very proof of Danny and Tucker’s shitiness walking right towards them.

“Um, me?” Tucker asks, sounding confused.

“Why, yes! I need your help designing the final display for the Spirit Week Pep Rally!” Spectra says brightly. “I’ve heard around school that you’re the brightest techno geek around, yes?”

Tucker blinks. “Um, well, maybe, but I’m actually kind of in the middle of something—”

“I’m so sorry dear, but the Pep Rally can’t wait!” Spectra calls. She turns Tucker around by the shoulders and starts to lead him away. “Oh, and Danny, I still haven’t met with you! I’ll see you after lunch, I insist, okay? You’ll at least get to get out of some classes!” She winks at him, then pushes Tucker along.

Tucker casts a glance over his shoulder, but ultimately leaves with her. Has to go talk to his new BFF about the old one he doesn’t like anymore, after all.

Sam turns to find an empty classroom to hide in for lunch, because she’s not sitting with Danny and Tucker after all that.

Just before she manages to walk off, however, Danny catches her arm.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” he says. “Is all I was saying.”

Sam’s throat tightens, and for a moment she desperately wishes that were true. She covers it with a scoff and yanks her arm from Danny’s grasp. Then she walks away without a reply.

Halfway down the hall, she spots Paulina heading straight for her, but she’s not going to change her movements for someone like Paulina Sanchez, so a couple seconds later Paulina inevitably crashes right into her.

“Watch where you’re going,” Sam snaps.

Surprisingly, Paulina doesn’t snap back, just ducks to the side and continues down the hallway.

…

The great relationships in Sam’s life just keep making an appearance when she gets home that afternoon, because when Sam walks in the door, she finds her parents talking about her.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s doing much, is all,” her dad is saying. “This Spirit Week was supposed to get her in a better mood. That’s what it always did when we were in school.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s working, Jeremy,” her mom says. “We’re going to have to try something else.”

Why not talking about me behind my back, that always seems to work great.

Sam slams the door loud, and when her parents startle and look over at her, she marches angrily across the kitchen.

“Hello Samantha,” her mother says, ever fast to recover. “How was school?”

“Great,” Sam lies. She doesn’t slow down or stop, and for once her parents seem content to let her go to her room.

Of course her parents thought she’d like the Spirit Week crap. Of course they did. It’s like they don’t know her at all.

And in adding that to the pile, what does that make? Her parents, her friends, the ghost fighting, Vlad, Youngblood, the nightmares. What in her life still works right? Her greenhouse?

Maybe she should just start spending all of her time there. Maybe that would help. At least she couldn’t mess anything else up. Of course, with her luck she’d probably be dragged out of it every other minute by a ghost attack.

Sam groans, throws her bag to the side, and flops down onto her bed. When did her life get this screwed up?

And, because ghosts have never missed a chance to make her life harder, the next second she hears screams coming from outside the house, quickly followed by a strong smell of dandelions.

Sam swears under her breath but transforms, and flies up and through the ceiling. The ghost (a giant wasp this time, though Sam has a feeling it’s still the same one she’s been fighting) is already flying away from her house, and doesn’t even look back at Sam as she follows him.

Which, frankly, is just rude. If he’s going to ruin her night, the least he can do is pay attention.

“Hey!” Sam yells, and she shoots an armful of vines at him. He doesn’t react except to turn phase-through. Unfortunately, that means that the vines sail straight through him and slam into a mailbox down on the ground below.

“Wow, looks like you aren’t too careful,” the ghost says, going back to normal. “Someone could get hurt!”

“If they do, it’s your fault!” Sam snaps, and shoots another armful of vines again. But apparently she never learns, because the ghost just goes phase-through again and the vines scatter a group of screaming people before slamming into a car.

Sam lets out a growl of frustration.

“Don’t worry, everyone needs practice!” calls the wasp ghost. Then he finally makes a move, and dives right for Sam.

Sam cries out as he slams into her, and then a second later slams both of them into the street below. She kicks out on instinct.

For once, a blow of hers actually connects, though it doesn’t do much aside from shove the wasp ghost off of her. Still, it gives her a minute to fly back into the air and get her bearings.

What it doesn’t do is give her enough time to avoid the wasp’s stinger tearing right through her arm. Sam cries out and grabs at it as some kind of green blood starts leaking from the cut.

When she spins around and sees the wasp diving for her again, she shoots vines towards it, only for it to go phase-through once again and fly right through her. Sam’s vines hit a streetlamp. Then, when she turns to look for the wasp ghost again, she finds the street empty. But there are cars and mailboxes knocked over, and several holes in the street from where her vines punctured things. As she watches, the streetlamp leans heavy to one side, then topples over, though it at least doesn’t hit anything.

Awesome. More stuff for them to blame on her.

Well, she’s definitely not catching that stupid ghost tonight. Why does she even bother, honestly?

Sam stays phase-through the whole time she flies home, rather than give anyone the opportunity to see her and yell at her.

She crashes in her bed as soon as she gets into her room, though it’s a while before she manages to fall asleep. And even with that, she wakes up halfway through the night with images of flashing green light and tears in her eyes.

This was one of the worst ones she’s had yet. Everyone in her life ganged up on her, cornered her and handed her over to Danny, who handed her over to his parents with such an obvious look of disgust she wouldn’t recognize him if she saw it in real life. Then all three of them dragged her down to their basement lab, shoved her right into an inactive portal and fired it up—

Anyway, she ends up in her greenhouse again, and everything’s fine. She’s fine. She even manages to calm down by morning (though she doesn’t get any more sleep). Pierre is pretty good at being soothing. Doesn’t hurt that the vines can actually reach her as opposed to plants like Sunny, whose branches are too high to reach her shoulders when she’s slumped down on the dirt.

She flies back up to her room before her mom knocks on the door. Sam would be grateful for the lunch she has ready if her mother wasn’t just making it out of annoyance.

Instead, she takes the lunch and leaves immediately for school. Maybe if she gets there early enough she can actually get some time away from the impotent counselor her parents are forcing on her. The school seems pretty empty when she gets there, at least, with only a few teachers wandering around and no sign of Spectra.

What does this make, now? Her parents are trying to force a counselor on her and a Spirit Week on everyone for the sole sake of cheering her up, because that’s bound to work. Her parents and friends are talking about her behind her back to the counselor her parents saddled her with. One of those friends wants to kill her ghost self, with a little help from the only other person like her in existence. She doesn’t know what she’s doing in ghost fights anymore, either, and can’t figure out who’s worthy of trust and who she’s irreparably messed things up with. She can’t even manage to catch a ghost who is obviously dangerous.

Oh, and she can’t get any sleep anymore either. So that’s pretty much her entire life falling apart. Honestly, she can’t think of much that would make it worse.

And then, as if in a fucked-up response to a prayer, Paulina walks around the corner Sam is stomping towards and once again slams right into her.

“Hey,” Sam snaps, “didn’t I tell you to watch where you’re—”

She stops when Paulina looks up at her with ugly tears running down her cheeks.

Sam stares for a couple seconds with her mouth hanging open, at a loss. Since when does Paulina Sanchez cry?

“Ugh, great,” Paulina says. She scrubs at her face and smears her eyeliner. “What do I have to do for you to not tell anyone about this?”

Sam stares for another second. “Uh, are you… okay?” she asks. She almost can’t believe what she’s saying.

“What does it look like, goth freak?” Paulina snaps. “Just tell me what I owe you so you won’t say anything.”

Sam hesitates. She can think of a ton of stuff she’d love for Paulina to owe her. But…

She sighs. “Come with me,” she says. She grabs Paulina by the arm and pulls her down the hall into the girls bathroom. It’s bound to be empty this early in the morning, but that doesn’t mean they should take their time.

“Do you have makeup wipes with you or do we need to use mine?” Sam asks, slinging her bag off her shoulder and digging inside for her makeup kit.

“They’re in my locker,” Paulina admits.

“Okay,” Sam says. “Look up at me.”

Either Paulina is in a friendly mood, or she’s just too miserable to argue, because she does. Sam gets the ruined makeup off her face, at which point Paulina’s deep eyebags become visible.

“Not getting much beauty sleep, princess?” Sam asks, pulling out her eyeliner.

“Ugh, don’t touch me with that goth makeup,” Paulina says, leaning back.

“It’s waterproof,” Sam says, waving it temptingly.

Paulina hesitates. “Make it actually look good, or else.”

Sam rolls her eyes and starts applying the eyeliner. “We’ll need to go get your concealer though,” she admits. “We might have slightly different skin tones.”

Paulina gives a short laugh.

She doesn’t say much as Sam applies the eyeliner, and Sam finds herself being quiet too. It’s weird, not being snotty with Paulina, Paulina not being snotty with her. She doesn’t really expect much conversation, but after an admittedly long stretch of that being the case, Paulina speaks.

“It’s that Gaia ghost,” she says, and Sam goes still.

She goes back to the makeup before Paulina notices. “What is?”

“The lack of beauty sleep,” Paulina mumbles. “I keep having nightmares about her… dropping me.”

Well.

Turns out more things in Sam’s life can feel terrible.

She’s quiet for such a long time that Paulina groans, and Sam jolts back to attention in surprise.

“I shouldn’t have told you that,” Paulina says, looking up at the ceiling. “God, what’s wrong with me lately? Just… keep it to yourself, freak. I’ll owe you two things.”

“I’ve been having nightmares lately too,” Sam says quietly. She puts her eyeliner away so she doesn’t have to look Paulina in the eyes. She still catches her look up at Sam in surprise out of the corner of her eye, though.

“Oh,” she whispers, sounding suddenly understanding. “Those ghosts do target you a lot, don’t they?”

Sam nods. Whatever. She’s plenty used to half-truths.

There’s another moment of silence between them. Sam tries not to choke herself on the guilt suddenly clenched in her throat.

“Well, anyway,” Paulina mutters, looking away from Sam. “Just, that and having to do extra makeup every day isn’t helping. But it’s not like I can let anyone find out. If I lose my beauty, I lose my popularity, and then…” she shakes her head.

“What, then you’ll have to be a goth freak like me?” Sam asks. “There are worse things, you know.”

“That’s not what the counselor lady said,” Paulina says.

“Wait, what? You’ve talked to Spectra?”

“Everyone’s talked to her,” Paulina says. “It’s like, Spirit Week mandatory, remember?”

Sam blinks a couple times. “What… what did she say to you?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” Paulina says, waving her hand dismissively. “But you know the worst part? I was actually starting to enjoy getting to know you nerds a little bit. Especially Danny. He felt like one of the few people who actually saw me, and not just…” she waves at the eyeliner in Sam’s hand like that explains all of it.

“What? How you look? Danny isn’t like that.”

“Everyone’s like that,” Paulina says, rolling her eyes. “The counselor lady is right, that’s all people see. I mean, what, do you think people would care about me if I didn’t look like this? Who’s to say Danny’s not just like the rest of them?”

“I mean… look,” Sam says. “Teenage boys are dumb. And Danny can absolutely be a teenage boy.”

Paulina snorts, then covers her mouth like the sound should be hidden.

“But he’s not like that. Not really. Yeah, he can get distracted by a pretty girl like the next guy, but he wouldn’t ever make you feel like he only cares about you because you’re pretty. Even if… ugh,” Sam crosses her arms. “Even if you are pretty.”

Paulina smirks, and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Don’t push it, princess. Just don’t let people get in your head. You’re not just a pretty face.”

It comes so fast that Sam’s not expecting it, but Paulina’s arms are suddenly around her. Sam’s hands fly up, and a couple of vines start coming out of the tips of her fingers before she forces them back down.

Paulina’s hugging her.

Hesitantly, Sam puts her arms around her too.

“Thank you,” Paulina whispers.

Sam swallows down another mouthful of guilt. “I mean it,” she says quietly.

“You’re still going to my locker to get my concealer before I leave the bathroom, though.”

Sam snorts. “Deal.”

…

As a nice little side benefit, Sam’s stuck in the bathroom with Paulina just long enough to miss her session with Spectra. They part ways from the bathroom with no words as the time gets closer to homeroom (and leave separately, because obviously they can’t be seen together or anything like that). But the whole experience leaves Sam feeling very… not in her head, for the first time in days.

In fact, she’s enough “not in her head” that when other students start to arrive, Sam starts to notice that they all look awful. And then throughout the day, she can’t stop noticing it.

It’s not just Paulina, and apparently it’s not just herself either. Everyone at school for this Spirit Week looks like they forgot the spirit part of it. They’re walking around with their heads down, grumbling and snapping at each other, and just looking generally miserable. Even Danny looks much more drained and irritable during homeroom. But the entire school can’t possibly be dealing with this much misery all at once. Things aren’t that terrible.

Hadn’t Paulina said that meetings with Spectra were mandatory? Is that just a coincidence?

She doesn’t have enough information. Why has she spent this week wallowing instead of paying attention to the things around her?

“Hey,” comes a voice to her left. Sam, digging for her lunch inside her locker, glances to the side and turns to see Tucker looking nervously at her.

“Hey,” she says. “Where have you been all day? I haven’t seen you anywhere. Thought you might be sick.”

Tucker looks around like someone might be watching. “Nah, Spectra wanted me to help set up this like, fire-work show equivalent for the Pep Rally this afternoon.”

“Wow. That’s a bit much.”

“Yeah,” Tucker agrees. He takes a shaky breath. “What’s uh, what’s new then?”

His question reminds Sam of what she’d been thinking about, and she looks back out at the student body. “Tucker,” she says. “Is it just me, or does everyone look like they’ve had the most miserable week of their lives?”

“It’s not just you,” Tucker says. “Look, I think there’s been some kind of… mix-up, Sam.”

Sam glances over, and finds Tucker looking very intently at her.

“Danny and I would not talk about you behind your back,” he says. “I don’t know how or what Spectra heard, but it wasn’t from us.”

Sam looks at him for a moment, and realizes she believes him. That really wouldn’t be like the two of them at all. Why would they go behind her back to talk about her to a woman none of them had met before this week? Why had she believed Spectra so readily when she said that?

“Hey,” she says. “What did she talk to you about yesterday?”

Tucker’s eyes go wide, and there’s a sudden expression of fear in them that catches Sam off guard.

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing,” Tucker says. “She didn’t threaten— I mean, talk to me about anything, I just— I didn’t want you to think that I would spill your secrets to anyone. Because I wouldn’t. I promise.”

Sam looks at him another second. Tucker meets her gaze, and then his hands start shaking. When Sam looks down at them, Tucker clenches them into fists.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay?” Sam asks, looking back up.

“Just stressed,” Tucker says. And he does sound tense as he says it. Then he looks quickly around the hall, as if checking for eavesdroppers. “You know, about the Pep Rally after lunch.” His hands, still clenched at his sides, start shaking again.

Sam narrows her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Tucker says quickly. “I’m fine, it’s nothing. Why ah— w-why do you think the other students might be so upset? Is there a ghost that can do that? Or— or two ghosts? Or something?”

“What? What are you talking about? Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?”

Tucker glances around again, and then his eyes go wide. Suddenly, he turns back to Sam and snaps, “Yeah, well, if you’re not gonna believe me anyway I don’t know why I even bother!” Then he turns and speed-walks away.

Sam only gets a second to stare after him in complete bewilderment before a familiar voice speaks up behind her. “Samantha! I missed you for your session this morning, where were you sweetie?”

Sam turns and finds the rest of the hallway empty, and Spectra coming straight for her. “Helping a friend,” she says, before she remembers Spectra probably wouldn’t think it was weird if she just snapped “none of your business” at her.

She gets a sudden whiff of dandelions, and glances at Spectra’s pocket— those aren’t dandelions. That’s rough hawkbit.

All those flowers she keeps in her office… is that maybe too much of a coincidence?

Spectra smiles, and in this light, her teeth look just a little too sharp. “Well, that’s fantastic!” she says. “We’ve got a little bit of time now before the Pep Rally, if you want to come back to my office for your session!”

“Actually, can we pick it up next week?” Sam asks. “I have a big project I need to finish.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’d say good mental health is the most important project to work on!” Spectra says brightly.

“And I will take it very seriously,” Sam says. “Just as soon as I don’t have a chemistry model to finish.”

“I’m sure I can explain things to your teacher,” Spectra says. She reaches forward and grabs Sam’s wrist.

Sam clenches her jaw. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she says, and then does something probably pretty stupid— she turns her wrist phase-through and slips it out of Spectra’s grasp.

Spectra doesn’t startle, or scream, or even look down at Sam’s wrist in surprise. Instead, she smiles just a little bit too wide.

Gotcha.

Sam narrows her eyes. “It’s you,” she accuses. “You’re why everyone’s been so miserable lately.”

“Oh my,” Spectra says, “that’s a hurtful thing to accuse someone of.”

“Well, if the flower fits,” Sam snaps. She gives one more look around, and upon seeing no one there, transforms in the middle of the hallway. “Do you feed on it, or do you just like it? Either way that’s why you’re holed up in a high school instead of out there causing actual trouble.”

Spectra’s smile turns wicked sharp. “Do you even have the slightest idea what you’re talking about?” she asks. Then, as Sam watches, her teeth sharpen into fangs, and she starts glowing. Almost instantly, there’s a black shadow of a specter floating in the place of where Spectra used to be.

She dives right for Sam and pushes them both through the wall of the school, while also knocking Sam’s backpack to the ground inside of it.

Sam sends a group of vines towards her stomach, but they barely even manage to push Spectra back. She cackles.

“You think you can stop me? You?” She flies forward and grabs Sam by the arm, pulling her closer. “I’ve been feeding off your guilt and misery all week, along with every other student in that school. What are you? Just a scared little girl who doesn’t have the first clue what you’re doing!”

Sam goes phase-through and flies herself out of Spectra’s grip. Rather than seem disappointed, however, Spectra just laughs.

“You couldn’t even figure out I wasn’t working alone!”

“What are you talking about?” Sam snaps.

Spectra laughs again. “I suppose I should tell you. Why miss the final show?”

Rather than grab Sam this time, she darts away like she expects Sam to follow her.

And dammit, Sam has to!

She screams in frustration through her teeth and flies in the direction Spectra flew off in. She is so tired of chasing stupid ghosts this week!

She’s distracted enough in her frustration, however, that when she flies past the gym, she misses Spectra coming out from the shadow of the school.

She manages to successfully grab Sam again, and shoves her face in the window, where the Pep Rally is about to start.

Standing next to the stage is Tucker, holding a set of cue cards, and Bertrand.

Spectra’s assistant. The ghost that’s been giving Sam trouble all week. Of course.

“Tucker, that’s a ghost!” Sam yells, squirming in Spectra’s grasp.

Spectra cackles. “You think he doesn’t know, sweetie? That friend of yours is smarter than you give him credit for. He figured us out before you did! Well, for the most part, at least. But we didn’t have a problem telling him the rest. It’s so much more fun when he knows exactly what’s waiting for him at the end of that little speech!”

On cue, Bertrand shoves Tucker towards the stage. Tucker trips on the way up the steps but manages to hold onto the cue cards in his hands. Even still, his hands shake as he approaches the podium.

Sam goes phase-through again, slips out of Spectra’s grasp. “What are you going to do to him?” she snaps.

“Oh, we don’t have time for that, sweetie! After all, we haven’t even had our final session!” Spectra crows with delight. And with that, she sharpens her claws, and they start glowing bright red. Then she flies right towards Sam’s face.

The moment she reaches Sam, the world is ripped away from her.

…

“Come on, we can’t even look at it?”

“They said no,” Danny says, in that tone he only uses when he’s really not going to budge on something. “It doesn’t work anyway, and they said it might be dangerous.”

“If it doesn’t work, how could it be dangerous?” Sam asks.

“Because it’s a bunch of lab machinery that we don’t know how to work lying around just waiting for someone to hit a wrong button or switch,” Danny says. “And if one of you gets hurt, that’s on me, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Boo, you and your boring conscience,” Sam says.

“Hey, if you’re going to kick my butt, could you at least be concentrating while you do it?” Tucker complains, glaring at the television in front of them all on which they’re playing Doomed.

“You have too much self esteem already,” Sam says, glancing casually back at the screen and launching off another combo to land Tucker in the dirt. She turns back to Danny.

“You’re telling me you’re not even a little bit curious about the ghost portal sitting in your basement?”

“I am not,” Danny says. “Because ghosts don’t exist, Sam. So we’d just be looking at a bunch of empty machinery.”

“So what’s the harm? Let’s go look at it!”

“For the third time, no,” Danny says. “And if you don’t pay attention to that thing Tucker might actually beat you.”

“We all know that’s not the case,” Sam says, turning back to the game and killing Tucker’s character with one easy combo. She’s always got this in the bag.

“Oh come on!” Tucker groans, flopping back in the bean bag. Danny laughs too, because Sam’s talent is accepted as fact at this point and all of them know she’s going to win every time. The only time Danny and Tucker ever stand a chance is when they’re taking her on together. And Danny’s third remote has been broken for a while, meaning Sam’s set to pretty much wipe the floor with them every time.

“Alright, alright, my turn,” Danny says, nudging Sam for the remote. “Let us fight with a little dignity.”

“Oh but of course,” Sam says with a grin. She hands Danny the remote and switches beanbags with him so she can watch the two of them, and then settles back in to enjoy what’s sure to be a much longer fight.

And that’s about the time an idea sparks.

Danny and Tucker get pretty invested when they’re fighting in Doomed. And if they didn’t have reason to pay attention to Sam…

She waits just long enough for them to get into the fight, then calls, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and stands up.

“Don’t fall in!” Tucker calls without looking away from the screen.

“Gross,” Sam says, but otherwise she gets no response as she heads out of the room. She shuts the door after her, then, for good measure, walks down the hallway and shuts the door to the bathroom.

Then she tiptoes past Danny’s room and downstairs to the lab.

Okay, look, it’s not like she can leave an idea like ghost portal just sitting there and not check it out. She’s a goth for gods sake, if people ever find out she had access to a ghost portal and that she didn’t at least look at it, her reputation would tank.

She’s been down in Danny’s parents lab a couple of times, but never for an extended period of time, and not since the portal was built. Meaning that when she gets down there, for a moment she just pauses, a little struck by it.

It’s massive, taller than any human except maybe Mr. Fenton, and even then it’s a close thing. It seems almost like a tunnel, except it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, just ends a little further back into the wall. The circuitry inside is glowing a soft blue, though Sam’s not sure where the light source is coming from. As she gets closer, it almost seems like it’s pulsing, as if alive.

She shakes herself. Don’t be stupid.

She reaches out and runs one of her hands over the metal surrounding the entrance. It’s almost cold to her touch. Probably just because it’s in a basement.

Sam looks back upstairs for just a moment, hesitating. That metal would be pretty loud to step on, but Danny did say this lab is supposed to be soundproof…

Oh, what the hell. If they hear, she can ask forgiveness. She already knows what’ll happen if she asks permission.

She steps inside, listens to the metal clang under her feet. She looks to the side, at the soft glowing circuitry, and starts to grin. How could Danny not have wanted to show her this? It doesn’t seem dangerous, and it looks like a cool sci-fi tunnel to the future. Or a teleporter, or a—

Her foot hits a stray wire on the ground, and Sam cries out a little as she pitches forward. She throws her arm out and catches herself on the wall with a short laugh at how stupid she probably just looked.

Then she stands up, and something presses in under her hand with a soft beep.

Sam turns to the side, startled, and pulls her hand back to see what she just did. Before she can, however, something sharp and bright green lights up behind her. She spins around, and only has a moment to see something lit up in the back of the portal before it flashes and rushes forward to meet her.

She screams.

The world lights on fire around her. Something in the portal is shrieking too, metal on metal as everything lights up bright green. Something is burning. Maybe it’s her. It certainly feels like it could be. She had no idea anything could hurt this much.

…She’s going to die. This has to be what dying feels like. Danny and Tucker are going to find her burned corpse on the floor of the lab and realize exactly how much she fucked up—

As soon as it started, it’s over. Sam tumbles out of the portal onto the floor of the lab. She gasps, strangled breaths that can’t come fast enough, that can’t make the burning go away, that can’t fix the fact that she’s dying here alone in this basement.

Except…

It takes Sam too long to realize she’s not in pain anymore. Partly because she doesn’t know how she’s ever going to forget what that felt like, and partly because it doesn’t make sense that she’s not in pain anymore. But she’s not. She’s fine.

Sam reaches out to feel her hand, look and see if she can see any remnant of what just happened—

Her clothes are white. What the hell?

Sam looks down to confirm that she’s not hallucinating, and when she does that, a strand of hair falls in her face and reveals that her hair is now also white.

What… what happened to her?

Sam tries to push herself to her feet, but somehow, in doing so, she goes flying up into the air, and hits the ceiling of the lab. She cries out, then screams again, then scrambles around for anything to grab so she doesn’t hit the floor. It takes a little too long to realize that she’s not falling. She’s floating.

Oh, fuck.

Screw up with Danny’s parents’ crazy ghost science experiment, plus unbelievable pain that suddenly stops, plus floating in midair.

She’s dead.

She’s dead and Danny’s parents were right, ghosts are absolutely, 100% real.

Sam presses a hand to her mouth and muffles a sob.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, I take it back, I won’t—” she stops. She doesn’t have the first clue who she’s apologizing to. What the hell good would that do?

But she doesn’t want to be dead. She doesn’t want to be dead, she wants to go back upstairs and flop down on her bean bag and pretend this never happened and beat Danny and Tucker in Doomed, she wants to hear Danny rant about space, she wants to hear Tucker’s stupid vegetarian jokes, she wants to go home and be annoyed by her mom, she wants to go start high school in a couple weeks and be annoyed by her teachers, she wants to be alive again, she wants… she wants…

As if in response, there’s a flash from below her. Sam looks down, and sees a white ring around her waist, that turns her clothes back to what they were before as it travels up to her head. Once it reaches it, it vanishes, and Sam feels that sickening free-fall feeling that she hadn’t felt just moments ago.

Then she hits the ground with a crash.

She groans, and can’t quite stop another leftover sob from breaking free.

Okay, that hurts.

Sam looks down at her normal outfit, pulls her normal hair in front of her face, breathes in and out and feels it like normal. Hands shaking, Sam presses two fingers to her wrist.

A pulse. There’s a pulse.

She’s not dead.

At least, not completely. However that works.

Sam presses her head into her knees and sobs— part terror, part relief.

She’s alive.

She stays down in the basement for far too long before she remembers that she told Danny and Tucker she was just going to the bathroom. Somehow that gets her feet moving, though she’s shaking and stumbling and almost lands flat on her face six times.

She makes it to the hallway, though, and back past Danny’s bedroom where video game sounds are still coming from. She walks to the bathroom, leans her head against the closed door, and takes a deep breath.

She is dealing with that, whatever that was, later.

She lifts her head up and opens the bathroom door, as slowly and silently as she can. She slips inside, flushes the toilet, runs the sink for a moment, and heads back out. Then she walks back down the hall and into Danny’s room.

“Hey, you took your sweet time,” Tucker says, not looking away from the screen. “See, this is why you don’t eat vegetables.”

Sam swallows. Her pulse runs like a rabbit.

Danny glances back at her. “Sam?”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Gross, Tucker,” she says. “Danny, kick his ass for making jokes like that please?”

Danny snorts. “You got it,” he says, and turns back to the game.

…

“Come on, we can’t even look at it?”

No, no, not again.

“They said no,” Danny says, in that tone he only uses when he’s really not going to budge on something. “It doesn’t work anyway, and they said it might be dangerous.”

A voice cackles, seeming to come from all around Sam. She can’t figure out where it’s coming from.

“Do you see now?” the voice asks. Spectra.

That’s right, she was fighting Spectra.

“If it doesn’t work, how could it be dangerous?” Sam asks.

“How could someone like you have any idea how to save anyone? You’ve never had the slightest clue what was going on, you didn’t even know what happened to you, what you were!”

“Because it’s a bunch of lab machinery that we don’t know how to work lying around just waiting for someone to hit a wrong button or switch,” Danny says. “And if one of you gets hurt, that’s on me, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

Spectra laughs. “Aw, is that why you told yourself that you didn’t tell him? I’d almost call it sweet, if I didn’t know how much of a liar you are.”

“Shut up,” Sam snaps.

“Boo, you and your boring conscience,” Sam says.

“If I didn’t know the real reason was just because you didn’t want him to know how much of a failure you are.”

“Hey, if you’re going to kick my butt, could you at least be concentrating while you do it?” Tucker complains, glaring at the television in front of them all on which they’re playing Doomed.

Tucker.

Sam squeezes her eyes shut, presses her hands to them. Tries to take a breath. She can’t stay here, Tucker needs her!

“He needs you, does he?” Spectra asks. She reaches out and grabs Sam’s chin, then yanks it up harshly until Sam’s looking up at her.

She… she’s everywhere. How is Sam supposed to fight the space around her?

“And what exactly have you done for Tucker lately?”

“You have too much self esteem already,” Sam says, glancing casually back at the screen and launching off another combo to land Tucker in the dirt. She turns back to Danny.

“You laugh at him, you belittle him, you don’t even notice when he’s panicking and trying to ask for help. Why, the only one you’ve treated worse is Danny!”

“You’re telling me you’re not even a little bit curious about the ghost portal sitting in your basement?”

“I am not,” Danny says. “Because ghosts don’t exist, Sam. So we’d just be looking at a bunch of empty machinery.”

“Let go of me!” Sam snaps, struggling against Spectra’s grip on her chin.

“So what’s the harm? Let’s go look at it!”

“For the third time, no,” Danny says. “And if you don’t pay attention to that thing Tucker might actually beat you.”

Spectra drags her claws over Sam’s chin, and Sam cries out. “Disregarding him, dismissing him, lying to him,” Spectra laughs. “And all when he knows best! When he’d handle everything so much better than you have, because you’re just a scared stupid little girl who doesn’t know what you’re doing!”

“We all know that’s not the case,” Sam says, turning back to the game and killing Tucker’s character with one easy combo.

Sam grits her teeth and reaches out to pull Spectra’s hand away from her face. “Man, I am so tired of you lying to me,” she snaps.

She’s always got this in the bag.

Sam feels tears well up in her eyes, and she doesn’t stop them. “And I’m tired of lying to myself,” she manages. “Because dying sucked. And ghosts suck, and what Vlad and Danny are doing sucks. But more than any of that, you suck. And I will not let you hurt anyone else!”

Sam shoves her hands out and vines covered in black dahlias spread through the air all around them. Spectra cries out, and the image of Danny’s bedroom disappears, leaving Sam once more back outside the school. She wastes no time diving through the wall of the gym.

Once she’s in, she drops the phase-through aspect but stays invisible, and aims right for Tucker. Her arms slam into him as she hears something fire, and Tucker screams.

Sam wraps her arms tightly around him and carries him back through the other side of the gym, into the hallway. In the last second before they hit the ground, Sam flips around in midair, so she lands hard and her body softens the blow for Tucker.

Sam lets out a breath of relief and drops her head back to the ground. She relaxes for only a second, however, before she hears Tucker’s panicked attempts for air above her.

“Hey,” she says, opening her eyes again. “Are you alright?”

“She— she said that thing was gonna blast me,” Tucker gasps. He closes his eyes and buries his head in Sam’s chest. “And that if I didn’t go up there she’d tell— she’d hurt someone I care about.”

Sam stares down at Tucker for a second, trying to figure out what to say. “It’s okay,” she manages after a second. “You’re—”

Something grabs Sam and pulls her out from under Tucker. Tucker cries out in surprise, and Sam worries about him for a moment, but thankfully, whoever grabbed her just drags her through the wall of the school again.

Sam’s thrown to the ground, and she opens her eyes just in time to see Bertrand right above her, bearing down on her.

She launches a set of vines up towards him, which pushes him back long enough for Sam to get out from underneath him and up into the air. Bertrand glares up at him, and Sam prepares herself for another fight, when suddenly a blue light hits him from behind, and he’s pulled back into a thermos.

Sam’s thermos, as a matter of fact. Tucker’s holding it along with her backpack.

Sam grins at him, and for a moment, Tucker grins back.

Then Sam feels familiar claws grip into her shoulder and shove her back into a wall.

“How dare you,” Spectra growls. “You’re just a stupid little girl who’s going to get everyone killed! Your friends are right to hate you. All you ever do is cause them problems they have to clean up!”

“Hey, ugly!” yells Tucker. He storms up behind Spectra and shoves the thermos against her back. “That’s what friends are for!”

He hits the button, and Spectra barely has time to scream as she gets sucked into it. Tucker slams the top onto the thermos with a surprising amount of force and snaps, “And stay in there!”

He glares down at the thermos for another second, then looks back up at Sam.

Sam smiles at him, exhausted and relieved. “Are you okay?” she asks.

Tucker nods, though he still looks a bit shaken. “Are you okay?” he asks. He looks at her like he’s really asking, which is… weird, considering he doesn’t know who Sam is right now aside from ‘dangerous ghost.’

“That friend of yours is smarter than you give him credit for.”

No. No no no. She didn’t mean… she can’t mean that, because Sam’s not sure she can take one more piece of control over her life being stripped away from her. Tucker cannot know who she is. He can’t—

Tucker’s eyes widen slightly, and he takes a sudden step back. “Uh, I mean— oh no, a ghost! Run!” He shoves Sam’s thermos into her backpack and runs back for the door to the school. He pauses just before running inside, however, and turns back one more time to look at her.

“And, uh, thanks,” he says. Then he ducks inside the school and is gone.

…

After the weekend, everyone returns to school with a new spring in their step. People are smiling and joking around like a giant weight that had been pushing them all down has suddenly been lifted— which, of course, is exactly what happened.

Danny never did figure out that Spectra was a ghost, which is fine. Sam’s not going to clue him in on purpose. He’d ask how she knows. Paulina and Sam have a new, if strange, understanding. Sam’s going to have to try to make up for the “causing her nightmares” thing, but she has a feeling that’ll be a long term project. Tucker seems a little jumpier than usual, which isn’t that strange, considering he almost died— written off as a disappearing act by the teachers. Sam wishes she could comfort him, but he hasn’t brought it up to her as a human.

There’s a lot of things Sam can’t mention because they haven’t been brought up to her as a human. And while Tucker’s gained some new points in that regard, Danny’s still winning that one.

And yeah, it sucks. But she’ll do the best she can. She’s not going to ditch Danny because he has some things to learn about ghosts, and she’s definitely not going to ditch him because Vlad was a dick and took advantage of his ignorance. And maybe she does have some things to learn still, but that’s okay, because she’s dealing with a pretty big learning curve.

And she’s pretty sure she’s starting to get the hang of things.

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