Disclaimer: I do not own Van Helsing or any of its affiliates! I almost missed saying that, lol.

A/N: Hey all! It's Gem, I'm back, and I brought my long-awaited sequel with me, YAY! This is the first chappie, DUH, but I only have 6 finished (I'm having a serious writer's block, ugh) so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update. Don't hate me! Anyway, the chappie does NOT start on that same day that my previous fic ended. Just so you know. It's a little boring…mostly about Andrea and what her life was like before her crazy dream adventure, so we learn stuff about her work, her friends, etc. And to any of you who haven't read The Perfect Dream, you might want to hit the back button right now and do that cuz otherwise you might get confused. Okay, with all that said, I give you…CHAPTER 1!

Chapter 1

I woke up slowly and looked at the clock. Yup, 6:08, as usual. It had been about a week or two since my crazy but very real adventure with Van Helsing and Carl, and ever since the night I returned home, I had woken up in the morning at 6:08 exactly, regardless of the real sunrise. I didn't even use my alarm anymore. I sighed, remembering, and got out of bed. It had been kind of hard adjusting back to my normal, boring, vampire-free life, and my friends all wondered why I was acting so strangely. After all, the whole thing took place in only one night in my time, and I still wasn't sure if I should tell them about it. Would they believe me? I mean, I knew we were all big fans of the Van Helsing movie, but this was a little different. They would probably think I was either insane, or way too obsessed for my own good.

I thought about all of this as I moved robotically through my morning routine: shower, hair, teeth, clothes. Before I left my room to head downstairs to the kitchen, I reached under my pillow and drew out a thin silver chain. Hanging on it was Dracula's ring. I slipped the chain over my head and tucked the ring in under my shirt. I never went anywhere without it; the ring was always either hidden around my neck or under my pillow at night. My friends didn't know about it, although if anything would make them believe my story it would be that. I was reluctant to share it with anyone else, however. Van Helsing had given it to me and me alone, and it reminded me of Dracula as well.

I arrived in the kitchen and sat down at the table, next to my roommate Lydia. We lived in a dorm complex right on campus for the hi-tech lab we worked at. We were such nerds, but I really enjoyed my work.

"Hey Andrea." Lydia said. "You want something to eat?" I thought about that. I was hungry, right? I decided I wanted something really good to start my day and cheer me up, get my mind off the past. "I had bacon and some eggs; I think there's some left if you want it."

"Thanks," I replied, "but I think I'm going to make fluffy Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries on top with a cup of hot cocoa." Lydia raised her eyebrow at me.

"Oh, getting fancy are we? Mind if I have some, that sounds great. Nothing like a total sugar rush at seven in the morning to get you psyched for work!"

I nodded in agreement. "So true. Yeah, I'll share, but only if you help make them!" She smiled and stood up.

"I was going to anyway. The last time you made grilled cheese you burnt the pan and melted the spatula! I wouldn't trust you alone in the kitchen for the world."

"Shut up!" I shouted in mock anger, "It was an accident!" We started laughing and getting out ingredients. I loved Lydia; she was probably closest to me out of all my friends. She was great...always understanding, and she'd never press me if I didn't want to talk about something. Plus, she was an awesome cook.

The waffles didn't take long to make, but we took our time eating them. The nice thing about living right on campus was that we didn't have technical work hours. We just showed up when we felt like it and worked until whenever. So, we didn't have to worry about getting to work on time or anything. And it's not like we only did stuff for an hour or so. My friends and I were so devoted to what we were doing. Before my little stint in the past, work was my life. Sometimes I'd stay in my lab until one or two in the morning working on some break through on something. But nowadays, I thought a little less about work and more about Van Helsing and the ring around my neck. I wondered what was happening there, if he still thought about me.

"Mmm, those waffles were delicious!" Lydia said when we'd finished licking the last of the whipped cream off our plates.

"If you do say so yourself." I joked; she had made most of it.

"No, this was a great idea. But now we'd better get out of here. They'll be waiting for us, and I thought of something last night that I want to test out." I nodded.

"You're right; the others will be waiting for us." We loaded our dishes into the dishwasher and left. It was a quick walk from the dorm complex to our lab building, but we grabbed coats anyway. It was early January in Massachusetts after all. The "others" were my other close friends and scientists in my department. Lydia and I specialized in general Biology and Chemistry. There was Sylvia, who worked on Biogenesis, and Fiona who was an expert in Biochemistry and Biomedical Engineering. We all worked in the same building area, which is how we met. The four of us were pretty inseparable, we'd been friends for years, and it's funny the way all our names are relatively exotic, and they all end in "a". Even though we all did different things, our work was all interconnected and we'd come to each other with help, questions, advice, whatever. We all loved our work; what we were doing was saving lives, curing diseases, and lots of other really cool stuff.

The four of us were, as I said before, really big Van Helsing fans. It's kind of really coincidental, because Sylvia looked a lot like Verona (long black hair with Italian heritage), Lydia seemed most like Marishka (blond hair and the youngest of us), and Fiona was most like Aleera (red hair and an occasional fiery temper). Their personalities were obviously nothing like the three brides from the movie ( I suppose they were real too, just like Van Helsing and Dracula...?), but it was uncanny how similar they looked. I, of course, was like Anna. When we first saw the movie we thought how freaky it was that there were four of us and four main female roles in the movie. Sometimes we even called each other by the movie character names.

But enough background. Lydia and I walked into our building, grabbed our stereotypical lab coats, and climbed the flight of stairs to our wing of the building. We met Fiona at the security checkpoint, where they check your building ID again (they check it at the front door as well) for authorized clearance and all that.

"Hey!" Fiona said when she caught sight of us. "Sylvia's already inside. When I got up this morning, she had already left. It most be something important." Fiona and Sylvia were roommates just like Lydia and I.

"Yeah,"Lydia commented, as we passed security without a problem and entered our main lab, "I saw her working way late yesterday. We'll have to ask her about it at lunch. I wouldn't want to disturb her now." Fiona nodded and waved as she turned left down to her lab area.

"See you then!" she called and walked down the other hall. Lydia and I proceeded down to the end where our workstations were. We talked about work and this and that, then sat down at our tables.

"Hello microscope," I said to the microscope sitting on my desk, my most-used lab instrument, "you advanced, 21st Century piece of technology. You miracle worker, you." and I patted it fondly. Lydia just stared at me strangely.

"Um, Andrea? You're talking to your scope again."

"What? Oh, well, this stuff we have here is truly amazing you know." I said, looking around at our cluttered laboratory.

"Yeah," Lydia responded slowly, "I know. It's the same stuff we've been working with since freshman year in college. You've been acting really strangely lately; are you sure you're alright?"

"Never better." I assured her with a smile. "Could you hand me that slide? Thanks." And our day went slowly by as usual. I went home pretty early that day having accomplished all that I'd wanted to, but Lydia wanted to stay a bit later to finish up some testing. Sylvia, the smartest and most dedicated of us all, was too deeply engrossed in some new discovery, and Fiona had a date with some guy recently transferred to her lab, so I walked to my dorm alone.

I opened the door and sat down in the kitchen, relaxing in the calm quiet and peace. But, as it always did when I wasn't around something else to distract me, my mind began to wander back to Van Helsing, Carl, and my adventure. I had written down every detail I could remember of it so I wouldn't forget; the whole story was in a journal on my laptop in my room. I absentmindedly pulled out Dracula's ring and studied it, as I had done countless times before, running my fingers across the dragon insignia on it.

I sighed, realizing that it was pointless to keep dwelling on the past (in more ways than one), and stood up, tucking the ring back under my shirt. I decided I should give cooking another go and make dinner for myself. I smiled when I thought that if I accidentally burned the place down, Lydia would certainly have something to say. She'd probably never let me near a kitchen again. I turned to a cupboard and reached up to grab a glass bowl, when I heard a noise behind me. It was getting brighter, and there was a feint flutter of wings...

I turned around not knowing what to think. Could it be possible? When the light finally faded enough to see clearly, I dropped the bowl in shock and it shattered all over the floor. Standing there in my kitchen, looking slightly dazed, was Van Helsing himself, pulled right out of the past and into 2005.

So, what did you think? Really? Well, you should write all that down in a review so I won't forget it, lol. Seriously though, I AM anxious to hear what other people think about this fic so far, so let me know! Flames are accepted, but if my story's that bad, I don't think I want to know, lol. I'll try to update soon! (Unless you all hate it, in which case, never mind…) Byes!

GEM