You guys outdid yourselves. I had my goal for 7 votes in… hmmm like 3 hours after I made the request? Thanks so much, guys.

This chapter of the story starts out with Jimmy in mid brain-blast.

Jimmy needed to make Calamitous drop the remote but all he could think about was Cindy, and suddenly, her pink hair elastic flashed across his brain. He remembered Friday, in class, Butch had shot him in the forehead with a rubber band and he had dropped the invention the he was holding.

"Brain blast!"

He jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out Cindy's pink hair tie. Before anyone could stop him or even see what he was doing, he shot it at Professor Calamitous.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw the look of surprise register on the face of Professor Finbarr Calamitous, who flung up his hands to protect his face, losing his grip on the invention. Jimmy set Cindy down quickly and sprung on to the ground to catch the remote when it fell. The elastic struck Calamitous right above the eye and the action dropped the remote control device and the elastic right into his outstretched hands.

Jimmy sprung up agilely and smiled. He felt sure for the first time in days that things would be okay.

"Now," he said quietly, threateningly, and with as much menace as he could muster in his exhausted state, waving the remote around as if it were a loaded gun, "the ball is in my court. I'm leaving now..." Calamitous' men stood their ground, "...unless you want me to blow up your space laser, and your entire base."

The men stood aside on Calamitous' order and Jimmy carried Cindy in his arms towards the astrocar, and then he turned around, "But just to warn you, I'm blowing it up anyway." He pushed the button, and it flashed bright red. He threw it back to Calamitous, and it hit him in the head and knocked him over.

"Get him!" he shouted from the ground, but Jimmy was nearly to the astrocar now, and as he approached it, the side door popped open and he launched himself and Cindy inside.

"Hurry, you guys! The base is gonna blow!" he shouted from the floor.

"Go! Go!" Libby shouted to the guys.

Carl hit the button to shut the door, and they were soon airborne and out of danger, but not before Jimmy heard a shout from his archenemy, "This isn't over, Jimmy Neutron, I'll get you!"

"Sure you will," Jimmy muttered. Then he stood up and surveyed the inside of the astrocar. It was pretty much a mess, but he was too tired to care. Carl was sitting in the captain's chair, looking thoroughly confused, and just pressing random buttons. Sheen was staring out at the scene of confusion they had just left behind. Libby was bent over Cindy, apparently quite concerned. She gave Jimmy a questioning stare, and he mumbled an incoherent and insufficient explanation before kneeling down on Cindy's right side.

"Someone should probably steer the ship." Libby suggested as he held Cindy's wrist to check her pulse and monitored her other vital signs with his watch.

Without looking up, Jimmy said, "You can put it on autopilot. I'm not moving. Just press the yellow button on the dashboard twice."

When Libby returned, she brought with her a pillow and one of the Neutron blankets. They put the pillow under Cindy's head and covered her with the blanket. Libby eyed the Neutron sweatshirt Cindy was wearing with interest but made no comment. "Halleluiah," Jimmy thought.

"So what really happened to her?"

"She got a severe electrical shock."

"And who gave her the severe electrical shock?"

"Uh... that would be me," Jimmy put his hands up to pacify her and possibly to shield myself, "but it was the only way we could escape. Otherwise there's no way I would have done it! She was in iron shackles!"

"How did frying her help? Why didn't you just cut through them with your little laser thingy?" Libby gave him a fierce glare that made him miss Cindy even more. It was a very Cindyish look.

"They were programmed to give her their own massive electrical shock if I tried."

"So you just decided to do it for them?"

He struggled to find a response to this. In the back of his mind, he knew what he had done was right, but Libby was making him doubt his actions more and more with every passing minute.

"When will she wake up?"

"I... I don't know."

"She is going to be fine, isn't she?"

"I don't know!" he snapped. Couldn't she see that this was killing him? On second thought, he hoped not... He hoped no one could see how much this was tearing him up inside... seeing her like this, and knowing he did it...

"Who kidnapped Cindy anyway?" Sheen asked from the back of the craft, where he was still eagerly watching to witness the explosion of the base. And then Jimmy heard a, "WHOA! Cooool!" (Jimmy guessed that was where the base exploded.)

"Calamitous." Jimmy mumbled, and Carl and Sheen gasped. Libby wasn't surprised, as she'd caught a glimpse of him back down on the surface.

"What was his plan this time, Jimmy?" Carl shuddered and hugged his stuffed llama.

Jimmy answered all of their questions wearily, his eyes never leaving Cindy's face.

"How long until we get back to Retroville?" Libby finally asked tentatively.

"About 10 hours. It's about 2 AM right now, so we'll be back around noon. Why?"

"Oh, because, I have, um, plans at 8 tonight, so I was just wondering," She looked almost uncomfortable, and he knew why. She was talking about Cindy's party, to which Jimmy was not invited. He had completely forgotten about it. It seemed impossible that with all he had just gone through, life on Earth and life for other people was still going on, "That is, if the birthday girl doesn't die." She finished, seeming to find anger as a substitute for her discomfort.

He just let this blow hit him like all the others. Nothing she could say would make him feel any worse. The only person who could do that was lying on the ground, oblivious to all happening around her.

This brought his thoughts back to said girl. To say he was extremely worried was the biggest understatement anyone could make. Had using his new invention on her been stupid? He may have been able to find another way to get her out of there. But there had been no time!

His head hurt again. He hadn't eaten in almost 2 days, and he had barely slept the previous night. Plus, it was 2 in the morning. He hadn't even been sure what day it was until Libby had mentioned the party being later the same day.

Soon, Carl was asleep at the wheel, and Sheen had fallen asleep on his vibrating chair. Libby got up a few minutes later and shut off the chair, and almost immediately fell asleep on the floor a few feet away from Cindy.

Jimmy resented them a little. How could they sleep? What had they been doing while he and Cindy were imprisoned?

So, with his muscles limp and his eyes half shut with fatigue, he refused to sleep until he was sure Cindy was fine. This was all his fault. He felt terrible.

No, it was worse than terrible... It was an emotion not yet named by the guys who make up words. With every minute her condition didn't improve, he became more and more disquieted.

A strand of hair had fallen across her face, and he brushed it back.

He noted as he did this that her eyes were moving rapidly under her closed eyelids. He was dreaming, she realized.

That gave him some hope. It basically told him she was only unconscious, as she still had brainwave activity.Jimmy shut his eyes briefly. If only he had his Dream Injector 5000. He could go into her head and reassure her. He wasn't sure what good it would do, though. He still wished he knew what she was thinking about.

It was amazing, he thought. He missed her so much, and yet, there she was, right next to him. He longed to look into her vivid green eyes, no matter what kind of look they were giving back.

He tucked the blanket tighter around her, and grabbed her right hand in both of his. He made sure everyone else was asleep and leaned over and silently kissed her forehead. He thought he felt her squeeze his hand when he did this, but it was almost definitely just his imagination.

As the autopilot navigated them past the Van Patten radiation belt, he remembered back when they had gotten superpowers. After a while, his friends' powers had worn off, but he had still been strong, and about to crush Cindy with a rock, and yet she had calmed him down. What she had said still rang in his mind as clear as when she had said it, "You're a great guy. You're smart and talented... you don't deserve the way I treat you. I only do it so you won't recognize my real feelings. Truth is, well, I secretly sort of luh...luh..."

But what had she meant to say? She gone unconscious, he recalled. Just like she was now. But even though she hadn't said she liked him, or even loved him, she had admitted that she acted the way she did towards him so he wouldn't see her true feelings, which meant she had some...

He smiled. She was mumbling, and he listened carefully, he thought he heard his name once.

And so, as the astrocar took them closer to Retroville and their homes and families, Jimmy stayed wide awake, holding on desperately to the girl he loved more than anything, and at that moment, he would have given almost anything to have her know how he felt. He resolved right then to tell her everything the second she woke up.

Though she had lost all sense of time, it was right before she awoke that she was in a battle with her own subconscious. She found herself reliving every moment she had with Jimmy. It was all starting to make some sense to her now.

She was meant to be with him. But every time they got close, someone or something pushed them apart. Usually it was Cindy denying her own feelings, but sometimes it was Jimmy, just being a jerk.

He really is a jerk, she thought, I mean, I love him, and I nearly told him so countless times. So I am through trying to make him come to me. From now on, it's his move. He gets zero compassion from me, and let's see how he likes it. And in this state of righteous anger, she gave a great jolt and her eyes fluttered open, to see for the first time in hours.

Jimmy, who had been noticing her ever-increasing movement for minutes, gave a small shout, waking Libby. Before she knew what was happening, he hugged her tightly, but then quickly released her, looking into her eyes intently before quickly looking back over to Libby, slightly embarrassed.

There he is, Cindy decided, doing it again. Unless... he really, truly has no feelings for me. That must be it.

"You're okay!" Jimmy sounded more relieved than he would have thought possible, "I was so wor-"

"I'm obviously fine, Nerd-tron, now if you would please let go of my hand... You're crushing it."

Jimmy, quite shocked, let go, and Cindy got up and walked over to Libby, gave her a quick hug, and then started answering her friend's eager questions.

Jimmy sat there on the floor. He could not have been more shocked if she had slapped him across the face.

Poor Jimmy. 8 is the magic number this time. 8 reviews and you get chapter 8. Wow. That's a bag of awesome for ya.