[Finally! I've updated a little bit of Nellie! ^-^ In this one, we get a dream sequence as well as the first hints of romance.]

That afternoon, nothing much had been accomplished.

Nobody dared go back to Nellie's house and see what kind of state she was in, Lynette and Olga had seen to it that they were all thoroughly traumatized by what they had seen, at least to the point where they would always call before they went to see her.

Candace was, ironically, the calm one in this situation; she had said to the boys, "I can handle this. After all, I was the one who saw the movie!"

Both of them wanted to tell her that it wasn't how that worked, but why not let her have her moment while it lasted? She would find out soon enough that psychology was nothing like the movies.

While Phineas was printing out information, Ferb sat in his usual seat at the kitchen table, reading the book he brought home from the library and scribbling intently. A Case of Multiple Personalities, the story of a young Miss Beauchamp, held at least a little information for him. Sybil would take a lot longer to read but would probably hold an invariable wealth of knowledge as well for him, as long as he kept the book hidden from his parents. He did not want to have to lie twice in one day.

As he wrote his findings in the little pad of paper he had, Ferb stopped for a moment to consider something: A psychologist has to know his or her patient before he or she could really do anything. Said psychologist would need to dig into what that person was and what they meant to the world, as well as to themselves. When Nellie looked into a mirror, what did she see? Ferb cracked a grin, pencil still rolling across the lined paper. He knew what he certainly saw. Big brown eyes and a shy smile. Two hands always willing to help him breath life into his inventions and the ever-present magnifying glass that protruded from the pocket of an orange pinafore. He hated to say it, but he knew that Nellie meant worlds more to him than she did to herself, and this attachment would make it increasingly difficult to help her.

The boy knew that he had to do it, though. Even though she had visibly sealed herself off from the world, somehow, when he managed to catch her by the eyes with his, he could see something, someone closer to this world. She trusted him.

Honestly, it sort of hurt, the way Nellie looked at him; she saw him, he knew, as some sort of God, a safe haven where she wasn't hurting or afraid. I could if I tried...Ferb thought furiously, staving off the negative thoughts. I can't let her down. He tried taking more notes, needing some way to fight the dam of his pent-up insecurities and fears from washing away his calm resolve. Pretty soon, he couldn't even see his own writing; the green-haired boy's eyes had watered over, tears now springing to life from his cheeks. Ferb bit his lip, burying his face in his hands and allowing a single sob to escape. I can't do it! I'm not a psychologist, I'm not God! Even if I could fix Nellie I could never do so without doing it for my own gain!

The stress was making him crack, as was the lack of sleep he was suffering. A lot of what was going on was resting on his shoulders. It would almost certainly be he alone who stood to protect Nellie from herself.

"Please...Please...Please..."

A series of pleading whispers shocked Ferb into being; he surveyed his surroundings, taking in a disturbing landscape of dark reds, blacks, a sinister green for the sky, as well as dark blue cracks in the very fabric of the universe he now found himself in, like ink over wax. He shivered, feeling the icy lap of water at his feet and tasting salt in the air. He was standing on a jetty, a large, unstable rock overlooking an ocean of blackness and uncertainty.

The staccato cries of "Please...please...please..." were coming from the shore, where a small girl, tied to a large boulder, was slowly being drowned by the rising tide.

Nellie.

Ferb searched madly for a way to reach her, but it seemed as if every second he got a little further away. Finally, when he couldn't take seeing her swallow mouthful after mouthful of bitter seawater, he dove into the freezing ocean and rocketed toward her.

As he clambered up the strand, the boy was freezing and soaking wet, but otherwise fine...

...Until he looked down to see the fragile, porcelain outline of Nellie, still as the stone she was bound to. "God...No..." The words tumbled out of him as he gently untied her, arms falling away from her unmoving body. Nellie reminded him of Nimue Vivienne the way the salty sea gave her an air of fragility.

Ferb tried to pull her hair out of her face when, to his horror, Nellie's undead hand clasped his tiny wrist. The girl sat up, leering maliciously to him and speaking in Hannah's voice. "We've been waiting for you."

Hannah dragged him closer to the water, pushing him into the dark unknown. Five other hands, each different and yet the same, began dragging him down.

Ferb couldn't save Nellie. So in turn, her personalities were ensuring that he shared her fate.

They were going to drown him, as she too had drowned.

"FERB!" The preteen gasped, waking up with a piece of notebook paper plastered to his face. Phineas had his hand tightly pressed on his brother's shoulder. "Ferb, wake up!" He began coming to, now only trying to breathe regularly. Phineas frowned. "You were scaring me there." He regained his optimistic smile, handing him a few documents from the internet about DID, and taking the picture off of his face. "Nice picture of Nellie."

Ferb looked at it and blushed; in the margins of the paper were his notes, but in the center of it was a very good doodle of Nellie Alder. Phineas grinned wryly. "You were in Nellie Land, huh bro?"

Ferb gave him the glare of a lifetime. "I do not want to talk about it."

{A/N: Hope you liked. By the way, do any of my reviewers have a DA or Photo Bucket account? I'm looking for someone to draw Nellie.]