Retroville was just a small town, where kids followed a routine. School, candy bar with friends, or home to do homework. A town small enough that most people just walked where they needed to go. There was nothing unnatural about the town except for what Jimmy brought around. He hadn't expected to be the only one causing abnormal adventure and supernatural phenomenon. Then again when it came to him and Cindy Vortex, nothing was ever scientifically correct. She began to spiral downwards, out of control almost, and for some reason she was disconnected from the only people likely to help. The further she spiraled the more she pushed everyone away, Libby, her parents, her aunt. Everyone except Jimmy, she didn't know why she only kept him around, why she felt the need to do incredible things when he was around was beyond her. Maybe it all started on a that rainy day years ago, that stormy night that intruded on Cindy's downward depression, and spun her all the way around.

It was the middle of fall and droplets had been coming down for a good 2 hours, just light sprinkles, but now at 8:14pm Jimmy looked out the window and it was pouring. He'd just been at the library a little bit ago, when it was just a drizzle, and taken his hover car home when he predicted worse weather. From his view at the window he could see Cindy running down the sidewalk, clutching her school books to her chest to keep them from the rain.

Ah, 14 year old Cindy Vortex, what a thing of beauty. Jimmy had long since admitted his crush on her to his friends, but couldn't bring terms to admit it to her. He admired her in a hurry to get home and felt a little bad, she was at the library just two tables away, he should have offered her a ride home if he knew the rain would get this bad. She looked cold running with only a light jacket, and jeans sticking to her long legs. In her years growing older, she shot up a few inches, and her once shoulder length blonde hair was flowing well down her back, with her ever-so-cindy bangs that swirled around her forehead like she'd had when she was younger. normally it was pulled back into a tight perfect pony tail, but the constant downpour seemed to have weighed it down and the running cause it to become floppy and tangled. It was cold enough to see her breath as she ran, and her cheeks and nose rosied from as well. Her beautiful green eyes began to well with tears from the icy wind.

She was almost home as her tennis shoes splashed puddle to puddle, and the dark made it difficult to see in front of her, with that just a few feet from her property line, she tripped on uneven sidewalk, and she sprawled to the hard wet ground. From his window Jimmy

watched her dive to the ground, and fall face first, with books thrown and scattered in puddles. "oh Crap." Instantly Jimmy was out of his desk seat, sprinting down his steps and jumping from the last three, he was out the door and into the rain before Cindy even had time to realize she'd fallen.

After a second of two she opened her eyes and looked around, her clothes were soaked and her books her resting all around her. Pain radiated from her right knee, her palms were skinned and a small line of blood trickled from a cut on the forehead. she murmured a pained 'Ow' as she began to pick herself up. "Cindy, are you okay?" Jimmy's voice grew closer as he ran to her, she looked embarrassed and picked herself up and onto her knees, wavering as she put pressure onto the right one, which she had harshly landed on.

Before she could further lift herself her neighbor and long time frenemy was beside her, arm around her shoulder and assisting her to her feet. He leaned her against the concrete base of the closest street lamp and turned to collect her books for her. "Jimmy?" She whispered still slightly hazed from the fall. Again he was beside her, pulling her arm around his shoulder so she could put her weight on him. He was only about an inch or two taller than her by now. His own acorn hairstyle getting flattened by the rain, but that didn't matter now as he helped her back to his house.

"Thank you Jimmy." Her voice was quiet and hoarse she sounded like she was in pain, which didn't surprise him. Once inside he wrapped a dry towel around her, and sat her on a kitchen bar stool. Taking a look at her injuries, it wasn't much worse than he had assumed, her palms were bleeding ever so lightly and the cut on her forehead had just stopped. After disappearing down the hall, he returned with a first aid kit. The rain continued to pour outside as he tended to her, examining her and getting close to her like he'd always wanted.

With her right leg propped up on another chair, Jimmy gently placed an ice pack over it, she winced slightly and relaxed again. "Can I see your hands please Cindy?" he was gentle as he asked, and she slowly presented the scraped up extremities. Ever so lightly Jimmy took hold of her hands and cleaned them, hydrogen peroxide and a topical cream for the pain, after which he dressed the wounds. Lastly her forehead, a small cut had extended from over her left eyebrow reaching up the the middle of her forehead to just below her hairline. With a cotton ball swabbed in Hydrogen peroxide he cleaned it and presented her with a bandage, waterproof given the current weather conditions. "If you go to the library after school, i'll start taking you home." He offered as he applied the bandage to the skin.

"Huh?" Was the only response she could mutter as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

"I don't want you getting hurt again, so since we both spend the same days at the library i'll take you home in the hovercraft." He gave her a small smile and a look over one last time, as if he was admiring his handy work on her injuries, though it did give him a reason to admire her lovely curves as well. She smile back and accepted his offer, "Okay Jimmy, that sounds good."

Her smile got wider which actually caused her head to fall sharp to pain, and she cringed in response. "ah, Still hurts a little." She replied to assure him it was nothing serious, in the next moment was what caused the chain reaction, a chain reaction that spread over three years. He leaned down, gently next to her head, pressed his lips lighter than a feather to her forehead, and kissed her sweet still damp skin. Slowly he pulled back, surprised by his own actions, but stood straight above her, and with a completely straight face, said "Is that better?" His voice cracking slightly from how nervous he was.

Her eyes were wide and her face red in a blush, heart beating and mind racing. "Yeah, that's... much better." in all honestly it was, she felt calmer and her muscles relaxed, causing the pain to go away. But a million thoughts were going through her head. This was the first time in 2 months Jimmy and her were getting along, other than this they bickered and argued every day, and now here they were he was treating her wounds, being sweet, he just kissed her forehead!? "Good, let's get you home for some rest."

"Okay." she weakly squeaked out, and he helped her to her feet again, mostly putting all her weight on Jimmy and the rest on her good foot. And he walked her home, letting her up the stairs and helping her to her room. She urged him to go home, that she needed to change and go to bed, and he couldn't really help with that. He smiled and told her he'd see her at school the next day, and he'd take her home from the library when they were there next. Cindy nodded in a agreement and grinned back at him, and with that he vanished out her bedroom door, leaving her only with a "Sweet dreams Vortex."