Daphne couldn't sleep.

As she tossed and turned on her bed in her bedroom in Mystery Inc.'s house, she couldn't figure out why. She wasn't full of energy, she had had enough exercise today swimming in the local pool with Fred, she wasn't ill; she couldn't think of any reason why she might be this way.

"Just go to sleep," she hissed to herself as she turned again, tangling her legs up in the duvet and having to kick it off and lose some of the warmth to get free. A growl of frustration came out of her mouth, and she sighed, remembering giving the same growl when she was a little girl and waiting on Christmas Eve for Santa to come and give her her presents.

It was useless. She just couldn't get any rest at all.

Slowly, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone else, she decided to go next door and see if Fred was asleep.

Creeping out of bed and down the landing, Daphne's fluffy lilac zebra-striped slippers padded on the pine flooring and silently made their way into the room. Fred was sleeping, one hand protruding from the duvet and hanging down from the bed, his eyes lightly closed and his breathing deep and quiet. Daphne moved closer and reached out to touch his hand, and then gasped guiltily as Fred opened his eyes and looked up at her, his blue irises filmed with sleep but warm and bright and curious, as always.

"Mmh… Daph, what're you doing?"

"Sorry."

"For?"
"Waking you up."

"That's OK. I don't mind."

"Can I…?" She motioned to the duvet, and he smiled and shifted over so that she could sit down.

"Be my guest," he joked as she lowered herself onto the mattress, smiling.

"Thanks," she whispered, grabbing half the duvet and winding it round herself. He moaned as the cold seeped through onto his legs and sat up, wrestling the duvet back and wrapping it round both of them.

"Anyway. Why did you come in here?"

"I couldn't sleep," Daphne murmured, feeling Fred wrapping his arms round her under the duvet and snuggling into his warmth, breathing in the familiar smell of him and the tang of deodorant and aftershave. She cringed inwardly as she said it; it seemed such a childish reason to have woken him up. He didn't seem to mind, and just cuddled her closer.

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just can't."

Fred frowned in the darkness, and Daphne, sensing his silence, reached out and ran her fingers over his face, feeling his expression.

"You're frowning. What's going through that mind of yours, Freddy?"

He smiled, looking down and seeing her sparkly slippers gleaming in the moonlight. He had forgotten to draw his curtains.

"I'm just wondering why. You're not ill or anything, are you?"

"No."

He pressed his palm to her forehead anyway, feeling her temperature, and Daphne smiled at the feel of his hand on her skin but pushed it away gently, taking his hand in hers and stroking it as she leaned against him.

"I probably won't get back to sleep either, you know."

Daphne laughed and leaned up to kiss him.

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Daphne smiled at him as he moved his head slightly and his face was bathed in the moonlight glow, highlighting his features and making her heart race slightly.

"Now I can see you," she joked softly, seeing his mouth curving into a smile.

Then, just like that, the glow disappeared.

"Huh?"

Fred turned, staring out of the window. It was a cloudless night, there wasn't any sign of so much as a wisp of cloud, but yet the moon had just… gone.

"What just happened?" Daphne asked quietly, moving closer to Fred under the covers and staring at where she presumed his head to be.

"I… I… I don't know."

Fred grasped her hand under the duvet and edged out, moving towards the window. Daphne yelped.

"No! Freddy, don't!"

"Why not?"

Fred turned, clearly confused. Daphne reached out and grabbed his pyjama bottoms, and he blushed and grabbed them as well.

"I'll pull them down if you go any closer."

"I'd do the same to you," he warned, prising her hands off and moving one step closer to the window. Daphne leapt up and grabbed him with both arms, pulling him back to the bed.

"Daph! What are you doing?" Fred asked, grabbing her wrists and looking deep into her eyes. Daphne stared into his blue irises and sighed.

"I just have the weirdest feeling. That if you were to go any closer, you would get hurt. Or we'd get hurt. Or just something bad would happen. Please, please don't go any further! Please? Stay here, please, with me. It's probably just some freak of nature that Velma will tell us about in the morning. Just don't go near the window."

Fred stared at her as she spoke, gradually ending and burying her head in his shoulder as a crazy emotion washed through her; loss and grief and… misery. It felt as though she was grieving, but she hadn't grieved for years, since her grandad had died when she was thirteen.

"Daph… I don't know. If you really are that desperate for me to stay here, I'll stay. But I don't get it… why don't you want me to take a look?"

"I just…"

Daphne shuddered, still holding Fred close. He held her back, pressing his lips to her forehead for a second to try and calm her down.

"…I just have this really bad feeling about you going near the window. Like something really bad would happen. Something that would hurt both of us."

"What, like the room would suddenly fall down, or something like that?" Fred asked gently, not making fun of her, trying to decipher what she was feeling and what she was thinking.

"Like that, yeah. Just please stay here. We'll just ask Velma in the morning and she'll come out with something that I probably won't understand but you will and you'll explain it to me and that'll be that. Please just stay here!"

"OK," Fred murmured, still holding her close and smoothing his fingers over her hair, frowning to himself as he held her and she held him back, her arms round his waist, pulling him towards her. The duvet was snuggled around them and Daphne pulled it closer, leaning on Fred's shoulder and closing her eyes.

Within seconds she had fallen asleep.

Fred chuckled to himself and slid Daphne off his shoulder, lying her down on the bed and standing up. With Daphne's nagging gone, his curiosity returned. As she had said, it was probably some phenomenon of the moon, and he wanted to see it with his own two eyes.

He stepped towards the window, his bare feet prickled by the carpet, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he saw the dark, lightless sky.

"Whoa," he murmured, reaching out and sliding the window open to get a better look. Chilly air washed over his body as he did so, and he shivered, thinking longingly of the thick duvet and the warmth he had shared with Daphne. His mind floated back to her strange apprehension, her eerie sense that something bad would happen to him. He sighed to himself, thinking of her "women's intuition". It always seemed to crop up on every mystery, some little thing that Daphne put down to her intuition. It was just annoying when it turned out to be right.

The sky was starless, moonless, completely devoid of illumination, and a shiver went through Fred's body as he stared up at it, his eyes wide despite the lack of light and his stance alert.

He blinked.

The world disappeared.

Fred yelped, throwing his hands out to try and grab something, anything, but they didn't find the solid window, the dresser, the curtains; he felt like he was falling into darkness, not like he was losing consciousness, but like he was physically falling…

And then he landed on something and the world really did go completely blank.


A/N: So. Like the beginning of this one, leave me a review and tell me about it! :) And also, the fluffy slippers- I know this is completely random, but I'm also wearing fluffy zebra-striped glittery slippers! :P Only mine are white rather than lilac. Sorry, that was completely random. Anyway, please please please review, and I hope you enjoyed it! Jazzola :)