A Needed Conversation

Valerie walked into the building, taking in the wash of the cool air on her skin, wiping the sweat from her brow. Some days she regretted keeping her hair so long—long hair just made her body absorb that much more heat.

But it looked cute.

Her eyes scanned the space, looking for a certain face. When she found it, she spun around to wave to the co-worker at the counter, then strode to the correct table. She ignored the conversations that were happening around her, ignored the stares the table she was heading toward had attracted.

Valerie had gotten good at blocking out unwanted attention.

She settled at the correct table, taking a seat.

"All right," she said, laying her arms on the table. "I'm here to talk. So talk."

Sam Manson, goth extraordinaire, gave her a look over. "So you are. But can I get you to promise that you'll answer my questions?"

A scowl came to her face. "Look, Manson. You wanted me here. I'm here. You get my time. That's the only thing you were promised. I'll answer if I want to. No more. Got it?"

"Fine." Sam took a sip of her drink. "You gonna order anything?"

"Nah. I spend too much time around this food to want to eat it." The other girl was lucky Valerie had even agreed to Nasty Burger as the meeting spot. The last thing she had wanted to do was spend her day off here.

Sam nodded. Her expression was once again all business. "Let's cut to the chase. You owe Danny an apology. Why haven't you given it to him?"

"What's the point?" she asked honestly. "We all know what I did. We all know it's unforgivable. Saying sorry won't change any of it. It's for the best that I just keep away from him until graduation."

"Normally I would agree with you. An apology doesn't change anything and you don't deserve to be forgiven. But I'm not the victim here. Danny is. It's up to him and you've taken his choice away from him."

Valerie flinched. She had never meant to hurt Danny—anymore than she already had, anyway.

Then she fell into her usual reaction when she felt vulnerable and gave into anger. "Oh, so if it's hurting Danny, then why isn't he the one sitting here to talk to me? Did you go behind his back to do this?"

"For your information, Danny knows where I am. Not like it's up to him what I do with my time. He knows I like my independence."

He had always been a good and conscientious person. Oh, how she had done him wrong.

"Anyway, Valerie, you know I don't like you. Even before you started hunting Danny Phantom you were mean to everyone you thought was beneath you, which was most of the school. You used Tucker. You terrorized ghosts. And you refused to listen to Danny when he told you Vlad Masters was bad news."'

Valerie folded her hands in her lap. While she could defend the Masters point—she had been secretly trying to take him down before he'd revealed himself as a half-ghost—all the rest was true.

"But one thing I never understood was why even when you started to warm up to Danny, you still seemed to dislike me. And Tucker too."

Oh. Well, that was complicated. "With Tucker . . . Well, there was that time he stood me up for the dance. Plus, he wouldn't stop hitting on me. It was refreshing when he finally just started treating me the same way you did. He's nowhere near as funny as he thinks he is. Plus, I was younger and thought his techno geek gimmick was annoying and lame."

"And me? Is it just because of Danny?"

She wished. If only it had been something so simple as fighting over a boy.

"You were just so . . ." It was difficult to put into words.

"Goth?" Sam said bitterly. "A loser? Preachy?"

"So good!" Valerie nearly shouted.

Sam's face took on a look of surprise.

Valerie continued. "I don't think I thought about it consciously until after that ghost dog ruined my life, and only really knew it for sure after I started getting closer to Danny and you pointed out I was really mean to you. I knew it was true but to hear it from you . . . it just bothered me. You're Sam Manson. You fought to save those frogs from dissection, you were friends with Danny even though most of the kids in school wrote him off as a loser from a family of crazy people, and after Danny revealed his secret, it became obvious that you'd been helping him with his ghost hunting. I don't know how much your parents have but you never seemed to worry about money yet you never flaunted it in people's faces, which you easily could've since I've learned how many kids at Casper High are low income. You were just too perfect."

"Too perfect?"

"You probably wouldn't get it. But looking at you, I just felt so jealous. You had a bunch of things I wanted but you weren't rubbing it in anyone's face. You just were. Confident, mature, and good. It just became easier to hate you and try to put you down than admit I was just a garbage person."

"Sounds like Paulina," Sam said.

"We did used to be best friends," Valerie reminded her. She chuckled. That felt like eons ago.

"But why was it so hard for you to admit it? From what Danny said, you seemed willing to truce whenever he called one. What made this different?"

"Ugh. God, it's hard to explain. When my life fell apart, I felt so powerless, so weak, so nothing. Getting that ghost hunting equipment gave me the chance to do something, to have some control over my life again, some power. Or so I thought. I was just another pawn. But I refused to consider the possibility. Even when my dad asked me, point-black, who would give a fourteen-year-old this kind of tech, I insisted it was because I was special and wronged. So even when Phantom—Danny, I mean—had me in a truce, it was still my decision. I could have said no at any time. It happened because he would only ask if he needed me. But it was different to admit I was wrong. Then I'd have to admit to being wrong about all of it."

Sam said nothing, allowed her to keep speaking.

"Because if I wasn't a good person, then why was I really protecting Amity Park? Was it because the town needed to be protected from someone that wasn't a ghost, or the Fentons, who couldn't catch a ghost under their own roof, or because my ego wouldn't let me let anyone else have the credit? Was I even making anything better? And to admit it to you? Someone who had always been better than me? Oh no."

"So you just got angry and didn't think about it."

Valerie shook her head. "That's the worst part, though. I did think about it. A lot. Even after the incident with Danielle. But I still refused to change, to apologize. I still thought I could handle things on my own. Which worked out great," she said bitterly.

Sam nodded. "That makes sense."

For a moment, neither of them said anything. A co-worker came to ask if Valerie wanted anything, was scared off at the vehement shake of her head.

"There's one thing I want to know," Valerie said. "Why hasn't Danny turned me in?"

"Turned you in?"

"To—I don't know, the cops? I mean, I almost killed him and Danielle. I hurt him on purpose. I'm a criminal."

Sam sighed. "He's a very forgiving person, as you might have noticed. Plus, I don't think he trusts the system after how easily Vlad got around it."

She conceded the point.

"Why did you give up ghost hunting?"

Valerie snorted. "What was the point of starting? I only caught a few ghosts and most of my successes were when I was working with Danny. Plus, all it did was give me an excuse to be an even worse person. I took all my anger and frustration out on the ghosts."

"Danny does that too," Sam said.

"Yeah, but I doubt he ever fantasized about destroying them." Valerie hated thinking about those days, about the person she desperately tried to get away from being. "And the suits were given to me just so I could be manipulated. It was never about me and what a good ghost hunter I could be. I was disposable."

"So quitting is working for you? I know Danny would appreciate the extra help."

Valerie would not allow herself to be guilted into it. Not even by someone she owed everything. "He probably would. But it's not about him, it's about me. Ghost hunting hurt my grades, hurt my dad, and honestly, it hurt me. It's only since stepping back that I've realized that I never really had the time to figure out who post-rich Valerie Gray really is. Even now I'm still trying to clean up my life so I might have a future but I don't know what I want to do, who I want to be. It's senior year and I'm completely terrified of graduating."

She would look back at this conversation and wonder why it was that she was opening up so much to Sam Manson of all people. But in the moment, it felt right to finally spill everything.

"So am I," Sam said.

Valerie sat back, raising her eyebrows. "Really? You? I thought for sure you'd have a whole bunch of schools or careers lined up. Plus, you've got friends and even a boyfriend who will back you on everything."

There was a pause. "I do have all those things. But Casper High has become so familiar. I know where I stand with everyone in that building. But college . . . I'm probably going to go to Amity University and I'll be surrounded by strangers. I don't trust that easily, which probably won't surprise you since I only really have two real friends and one of them is my boyfriend. And I really want to get further into activism but so much of it will be tricky because it's so easy to get arrested. And I'll admit it, prison scares me."

Valerie didn't disagree. Prison was something everyone in the black community was hyper aware of, whether anyone in their family had been or not.

"But the causes are worth it. I don't want to pressure Danny or anything. I've learned from the time I tried to change the cafeteria menu back in freshman year. But it'll probably get pretty lonely fighting so hard for this when most people just won't understand why I care so much."

"People only care about things that affect them," Valerie said. She knew that one personally. "And even then, it has to be really bad to get them to willingly change their behavior."

"I know. But I get what you mean about feeling powerless. Barely anyone seems to care about animal rights no matter how many protests there area. The government isn't doing enough about global warming since half the population claims it isn't real. I just don't know what to do."

Valerie said nothing. What words of comfort could she offer? Part of why people didn't care about animal rights was because if they were respected like the Sam Mansons of the world wanted, a bunch of people would be out of jobs. Plus, it was cultural and cultures were difficult to change. As for the global warming situation . . . Well, Valerie knew all too well how easy it was to ignore evidence right in front of your face rather than accept reality.

The other didn't seem to expect any reply.

"So . . . how is he? Danny, I mean."

Sam shrugged. "About what you'd expect. His parents have taken the reveal pretty well but sometimes they're a bit too interested in the data they get from his check-ups." She nodded in agreement at Valerie's flinch. "Yeah. Plus, the way the media won't leave him alone. You know Danny—he likes his privacy. Half the time he wishes he had just told his parents and left it a secret to everyone else but at the same time it's been useful for trying to get the Guys in White to change their ways since he can use his rights as a U. S. citizen. His grades have gone up but he's kind of like you right now. He doesn't really know what he wants since he's not doing well enough to get into NASA. And he misses Tucker since that boy's so busy now."

"Maybe he should do what I'm doing. After graduation I'm gonna take a gap year, figure out what my plans are. I've been saving up to see a therapist, hopefully get my anger under control."

"I've suggested it but Danny's such a last minute kind of person. He's like that with ghost hunting, too. He never has a plan. He just runs in, ready to punch or blast the ghost."

"How is Amity Park still standing?" Valerie asked, only joking a little.

Sam smirked. "Well, he's had me and Tucker for most of it. His parents are actually brilliant inventors, so their stuff has helped. But looking back, most of it was luck. He's incredibly powerful. If he'd been a more average ghost I don't think he would have done half of what he has."

Valerie let out a breath. "This is not how I expected this conversation to go."

"I know."

At this point, Valerie had imagined she would have stomped out of the place, furious at the things Sam had said to her. That had not happened. Sure, she'd been critical but there had also been a surprising amount of sympathy and willingness to hear her out.

Maybe she'd had the other girl wrong?

Well, it wouldn't be the first thing I've been completely wrong about, Valerie thought.

"Look, Valerie," Sam said. "I don't think we'll ever be friends. But I know Danny wants to talk to you again. You were one of the few people in Casper who actually gave him attention before his secret got out. And he's always been oddly forgiving toward people who tried to kill him as a ghost." Valerie knew the other girl spoke about his parents. "So if you actually go see Danny and give him the apology he deserves, I can almost guarantee he'll at least want to clear the air with you. And if you do . . . maybe we can start over."

Valerie thought about that. "You really meant it when you said I was welcome at your table if Danny wanted to date me, didn't you?"

"I did."

"You really care about him."

"He's my best friend." Sam smiled a little. "Even if we broke up tomorrow, I'd be behind him every step of the way. His happiness matters to me. He's been through too much."

Valerie nodded. And she had been one of the people who had added to his misery.

"I'll talk to Danny," she promised, rising from her seat. "And we'll see what happens."

Sam nodded. "We'll see what happens."

Valerie left the Nasty Burger, feeling a little lighter. Perhaps the Manson girl was right and they would never be friends. She could live with that. But maybe they could at least learn to get along, not let any jealousy or past vendettas get in the way. Valerie had a lot to answer for but she hoped that this would help.

Maybe this would be the start to becoming a new and improved Valerie Gray.


Author's Note: Written because while there's a bunch of post-reveal fics about Danny talking to Valerie, not as many show Valerie and Sam interacting. And I have my own interpretation of the characters so I thought I'd add this.

FYI, I'm not a fan of Sam or the Danny/Sam pairing, so let me know if I did her or the pairing wrong.