Perry felt the blood dripping down his fore head, and it stung like crazy. But instead of warm, thick blood, it was…cold blood? Perry opened his eyes and took in an entirely different scene. His head was still throbbing in pain though, and the platypus winced in agony.

"Perry? Perry! Wake up!" he heard Doof shouting his name.

But no, it couldn't…Doof was…dead.

Suddenly Perry jolted himself awake, and realized that he wasn't bleeding. His head hurt badly though, and it was an ice pack that made the cool, dripping liquid stream down his face. Suddenly the ice pack was removed and he felt really warm.

The surprised platypus glanced around the room and put the pieces of the puzzle together, and realized he was at Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., except there wasn't any blood or dead bodies. It was all just a terrible dream! No, a nightmare. A horrible, frightening nightmare that was so clear it felt…real.

"Ah, Perry the Platypus! You're finally awake, huh sleepy head?" Doof said cheerfully, but there was clearly concern in his voice. "You were in pretty bad shape!"

Perry looked confused.

"What, you don't remember? You came here to foil my plans, but as soon as you burst in, you passed out. I was really worried, so I took your temperature and you had a 105 degree fever! I was going to try and take you straight home, but you fell asleep in my arms, and I didn't want to wake you. You must have really had some bad nightmares though. You were squirming and shaking the whole time! It really had me nervous; I thought you might frighten your self to death."

Perry whimpered, remembering the nightmare that would probably haunt him forever. Doof felt him cringe, and tried to calm Perry down. "Oh, it's alright now Perry! It was only a bad dream, I'm here! It's alright…" He reassured him, rubbing his fur.

Perry realized what was so warm now. Doof was cuddling him in his arms and pressing him against his chest. The animal started purring wildly. Usually, any other secret agent would have been embarrassed and even infuriated by the action, but Perry was never upset when he and his nemesis had such close contact like that. They were more like family then enemies most of the time anyway.

Then the panicked platypus felt himself crying. He was so happy that Doof wasn't really dead! Perry felt silly to feel so relieved that his nemesis was alive, since it was only a nightmare, but tears of joy rolled down his face anyway.

"Perry, why are you crying? Are you alright?" Doof asked, concern welling in his eyes.

The platypus didn't respond. He just cuddled himself deeper into Doof's warm chest. The scientist caressed his nemesis tighter, stroking his soft yet wet fur, and Perry continued purring.

Perry fell back to sleep to the sweet, soothing sound of Doofenshmirtz's beating heart.