The Rain Won't Fall Tomorrow - part one

Thunder. It echoed through the skies and houses in Amity Park, growling almost constantly like a ferocious monster. The dark night skies had become the victim of thick forks of lightning darting accross the city destroying everything in their wake, the rain must have been too afraid to fall.

The weather had been like this for months, years; storming and dark yet never wet. For some reason the heavens refused to open, which in many ways made it all the worse. It started just a few days after the ghost-meteor went through Earth over ten years ago, strong winds and completely unpredictable weather patterns. Danny soon found out exactly what it was, Clockwork had explained it to him. He had said that dimensions are stacked together like dominos, natural portals open all over the place at different times and only usually last a few seconds, and that it is very unusual for two to be in permanent contact in such a way that the Ghost Zone and Earth are, and the Fenton and Master's ghost portals were only safe because they were controlled, not always left open. When the meteor soared through the Earth, the planet may have been protected and intangable, but the walls of reality weren't, causing a rip. A tear between two demensions that shouldn't exist, a big gaping hole that threw both realms into complete turmoil. It wasn't repairable, oh no. The only cure was time - not really much of it either, the rip was an atom compared to the size it could have been. Over the course of six months or so, the rip would eventually heal itself and the world would slowly go back to normal, but meanwhile the human race would just have to bear the change. They'll just blame it on global warming, or a 'bad coincidence' but nothing more, blessed things couldn't cope with knowledge of something more severe, afterall the discovery that ghosts really DID exist terrified people. The whole event would be remembered as the 'Great Storm of the 21st Century' and everything would return to normal, no harm done.

Only there was 'harm done', and a flippin' lot of it. Blood spill and destruction, and it hadn't repaired itself, only got worse throughout the years.

There was one thing that could be done, which involved a lot of power and was incredibly risky, could make things a hundred times as bad as they already were, so Danny decided to just forget the whole idea.

So there he was, the great Danny Phantom, outside in the cold at seven o'clock trying to save a little girl from a housefire caused by a large bolt of lightening. Luckily, the house stood on it's own so there was no risk of it spreading, but Danny knew that this wouldn't be the last burning building of the night, nor the last death. He poured a bottle of water over himself as he ran in, looking around frantically, greeted by the sight of a dead woman's body. Her hair was fizzled and black and burning away, her skin charred down to the bown. Her face was twisted into a horrified scream, the look of pure fear had taken residence in her empty glazed eyes. A flaming wooden support beam for the house fell over her stomach, and fire soon spread over her entire body and within a few seconds, comsuming her completely. Another lost soul. He heard a high pitched screaming, coming from upstairs, the sound almost covered up by the furious flickering flames. Turning intanglible, he ran up the stairs, shouting at her to keep up the yelling so he could tell where to look. The fire still burned.
And it hurt, oh god, it really hurt. Some of his clothes had burned away, his top hanging off one shoulder, gloves obbliterated. The rubber on the soles of his boots were leaving a melted trail behind him as he ran, sticking to the ground. He still didn't stop, bursting into the little girl's room and taking her in his arms, she was weeping softly, quivering with fear and clutching Danny tightly, afraid she might just fall into the volcanic remains of her ex-home. He didn't pay much attention to her, only enough to be sure she was alive and unharmed. He considered phasing through the walls and flying out, but the wallpaper was on fire and the windows were threatening to shatter. His ability to become intangible proved ineffective towards the fire, better not risk it. Running back out the way he came, he made for the stairs when suddenly the floorboards collapsed beneath his feet.

...Falling.

He woke up a few moments later aware of only the strong hand pulling him from the wreck by the arm. He felt warm blood on his chest and check and panic filled his heart, had the girl been injured? He could have sworn he'd protected her, shielded her from any danger with his own body. He managed to blink open his eyes, noticing he was being dragged away from the wreckage by a brave and heroic firefighter, and in the person's other arm was the girl, still screaming. Annoying brat, she should've been happy she was alive, not all people got that luxury. Once outside he saw the girl break free and run to a man who swept her up in his arms and swung her into a tight hug, both of them weeping softly and neither looking as if they'd let go anytime soon.
"Where's your mommy, Liz? Where is she?" Danny got up, pulling himself away from the fire, nodding at the firefighter briefly in appreciation before taking in a deep gasp of air, and saying in a raspy breath;
"Inside, there was a woman. Dead. I think it was the little girl's mother." He choked, before flying away. Only briefly aware of the pain across his chest, head and lungs. That's what he'd become now. Always saving, never stopping. Never asking for appreciation or thanks, just moving on. He couldn't stay behind, not ever. A consequence of guilt and fame. Part of him knew that the current state of the world wasn't his fault, but his heart simply refused to listen.

Thanks to his ghost half, his injuries healed themselves very quickly. A broken arm would be fully healed in a matter of a days, compared to the six weeks it takes a normal human. Deep gashes hardly ever scarred, except from one. He took off his outfit - which had changed a little over the years, but not much. Still in the form of Danny Phantom he looked at his back in the large mirror on the wall. It was slightly bloodstained at the top, thanks to the cut on his shoulder that had trickled half way down his back, fortunatly it had stopped bleeding now. Just below it a large white scar adorned his back, going from his top shoulderblade to the lower left side. Probably wasn't even noticable to an anyone who wasn't actually looking for it. It was noticeable to him. It had happened in the ghost zone a couple of months back; he'd used every ounce of his energy on a super-charged ghostly wail, it successfully got rid of Skulker who was hunting him at the time. Obviously did the trick and got rid of the metal-beast, however Danny still didn't know where exactly he went, he wasn't conscious to find out. The screams of his enemy were the last thing he remembered before he woke up in his own bed at home, having no idea how he got there, possibly just too dazed to remember. Wound's taken care of, the large one on his back bandaged around and all the cuts and grazes already beginning to heal, but Skulker had done a number on his back and it seemed to take just that but longer than the rest of the night's wounds.
But oh well, one scar was irrelevent and probably didn't even matter. One amongst many, if not for his accelerated healing abilities he'd have been a walking canvas by now.

Sighing, he reached under his bed and pulled out a new outfit, exactly like the old one and put it on, before transforming back to being human. Wouldn't want to transform mid-battle and find himself wearing the tattered remains of an old ruined 'hero costume', would he? He carelessly threw it to the ground, trudging into the bathroom where he stripped and turned on the shower, making sure the door was locked and waiting a few moments for the water to heat up before climbing in, his injurues staining it a crimson red. He closed his eyes and relaxed in the tender warmth of the falling water, ignoring the sting it inficted upon his injuries and burns.

He didn't know how long he'd been in the shower, but the water wasn't blood stained and his wounds were no longer causing him as much pain, meaning it must have been quite a long time. The water was going cold. Didn't matter, he was all better now. Climbing out of the shower he dried himself and his hair, grabbing a white towel robe and wrapping it around himself, fastening it at the front. He picked up his clothes and dumped them in his room, before going downstairs to get a drink. The new house was huge, part of the reason he hadn't left home in all the years. Over time donations from the happy-public grew and grew, and what with the sudden demand for ghost weapons, his parent's inventions became very popular, making them very rich. He walked into the kitchen. Instead of turning the lights on, he just used his glowing green eyeshine to light up the room, getting a glass from the cupboard and a bottle of cola from the fridge. He poured the glass half-full and headed back for his room. There was a note on his bedroom door, he hadn't noticed it before.
'Out ghost fighting. There's food in the fridge. Jazz is staying at Sam's house. Love Mom xx' He grunted, leaving the note in its place and going back to his room. He didn't bother putting the cola away, lazy sod. The maid would do it anyway, oh no wait - he'd scared her away. Nevermind, it'd just have to sit there 'till the family got home.

He took of the robe and flung it over a chair, putting on classic blue and white striped pyjamas... well the bottoms anyway, and climbing in bed. It wasn't even that late, he was just tired. What with burning buildings, wind storms, ghost attacks and chaos in general, Danny hadn't had a minute to himself. Hopefully his parents would take care of the ghost threat for a little while, atleast a couple of hours. He was out like a light as soon as his head touched the soft white pillows.

Black, darkness, it surrounded him, there was no light what so ever other than Clockwork's glowing form. Danny opened his mouth but found himself completely unable to speak. "Danny, this is of grave importance. Come to my domain imediatly, we must discuss the situation. Hope to see you soon." He said. It was quite amusing to watch Clockwork, the way he constantly morphed from being an old man with a beard and a hunched-back, to being a mere child, to being a young man. The process repeating itself all the time.

Danny woke up.

--------

Jazz sat crossed legged on Sam's bedroom floor, looking through an old school yearbook. She smiled at the sight of the photos, her brother looking so happy and carefree along with Sam and Tucker. There's Danny, grinning like an idiot on the class photo, surrounded by his two best friends. All the other teens are just standing there with gormless smiles adorning each and every one of their faces, not those three ofcourse. They have their arms around each other and have huge happy smiles.
"Those were the days, eh?" Sam said, sitting down beside Jazz with two huge mugs of hot chocolate. "No trouble, no ghosts, biggest threat was Dash having a temper tantrum. That was our last year at high school, so we were eighteen."
"that was almost ten years ago, y'know."
"True, true. Stop it Jazz, you're making me feel old." She chuckled.
"You? Old? I'm over thirty, don't start with that again!"
"heh, but seriously, lately Danny's been very... strange. Have you noticed?" Sam didn't give her time to reply. "He's always keeping himself to himself, never getting emotionally involved with anyone."
"Yeah, I noticed. That's part of the reason I came back home from university, our parent's were worried sick about him. I suspended all of the courses I was doing until 'further notice' because I had a feeling I wouldn't be returning soon, which was correct. Ofcourse after a while I stopped trying so hard to help him and Danny just kept - and keeps getting more and more distant, which is part of the reason why I came here tonight. There's always ghosts showing up at our place, and the weather can be frightful at times..."
"Didn't want to be alone? I understand . I can't help but worry about him either, he hasn't even called me for over two weeks."
"I've been meaning to ask, can't get anything out of Danny afterall, how is your relationship going?"
"Brilliant, considering there isn't one. It's a damn good thing we decided not to be married 'cause I have a feeling a divorce would in order."
"What? You broke up with him?"
"Not exactly, we had a fight. I asked him why he'd become so... introverted, and it just escalated from that. We're friends again, he called me and apologised, but also, hinted that we should take a break from the whole 'dating' thing, and I agreed with him." She looked a little saddened, but also confident. "It was the right thing to do, maybe if I tell myself that enough times I'll actually start to believe it."
"Aw, don't be so hard on yourself Sam, it was probably the right thing to do, he's already under a lot of pressure and love will just drag him down even further."
"I suppose so." She picked up a small spoon and stirred her hot chocolate, frowning, she didn't want to discuss the subject further. "But you know, there is one more thing... and I presume you didn't notice being that you see him every single day, but recently I've noticed that whilst I'm getting older and older, he still has the face of an eighteen year old."
"Well, I did notice, I was away studying for six months and when I got home he hadn't changed a bit. I was thinking it may be something in his ghost DNA, I mean take Vlad for example, those dark shadows under his eyes were obviously drawn on, and he dressed like an old fart too, other than that he was fit as a fiddle."
"Was? You think he's... dead." It was more of a statement than a question.

A long pause of silence came after that. Neither of them felt the need to say much, until Jazz spoke up. "I think it has something to do with Vlad, you know..."
"What? Why? He hates Vlad... and besides you just implied that you thought he was dead."
"Has he ever actually said that? And if he has, can you be sure he meant it? Let's face it, however different their goals may have been, they are the only two people in the universe of their kind - that is if Vlad is still alive, maybe they were closer than either of them let on... Vlad always wanted Danny to be his son, his apprentice."
"No but - no! Vlad's risked Danny's life countless times and even tried to kill him and - oh god. Danny once told me. Remember those C.A.T. tests we did a few years back? When he was acting really wierd, he told me he met Vlad in the future, that the old man he saw regretted it all. He regretted being bitter and selfish. Y'know what? I think we should phone him. Danny, right now."
"He might not be at home.."
"We won't know if we don't try." With that, she picked up the reciever and dailed.

-------
Danny slammed down the reciever, seething with anger. The smashed remains of what used to be a phone now lay scattered over the desk and the floor. The nerve! How dare they be so assumptious. Not that they were wrong, but they weren't right either. He was worried about Vlad, what happened to him, why he hadn't been seen since that day so long ago. But that wasn't the main thing bugging him, it was the dimensional fracture, well that and everything else. Speaking of the rip, he needed to go and see Clockwork. He wasn't sure how long Clockwork had been able to manipulate dreams, but he didn't really care. What's the worse that could happen? But he had a few of his own things to take care of first. He didn't bother getting dressed, he just left in his pyjama bottoms. He imagined he would have gotten a lot of strange stares, that is, if the streets weren't completely deserted. A literal ghost town.

The cold wind beat against his skin and it felt... good. He walked down the streets, aware only of the faint rustling of the trees and his own footsteps and heartbeat. After a while, he sensed that someone was following him. Spinning around, he saw a short-medium sized man, he had a slight pot-belly and was unshaven. It was hard to tell due to the black beanie hat he wore, but the man's hair looked like it was a greesy blonde. He had a cigarette in his mouth but didn't seem to actually be smoking it. All of his clothes were black. The man approached Danny, who was a few inches taller than him, stopping inches away from his face, breathing out the sickely smell of smoke and looking up into his confident blue eyes.
"Little boy's shouldn't walk out alone." he growled, his voice low and raspy. He made a sudden move ment and held a knife against Danny's throat, pushing himself against the young man. Danny knew exactly what the man was planning to do, and didn't have the time nor interest.
"Oh no, the big scary man's going to rape me, whatever shall I do?" He said in a mockingly high-pitched voice, before making his eyes glow a brilliant green. "You will take that knife, and you will slit your own throat." he said in a low, commanding voice. He took a few steps back and turned around, continuing down the street.

The ground was rough and cold, made every step just that little bit uncomfortable. He arrived at Sam's house and walked through the door, literally without opening it. He was soon in Sam's bedroom, seeing Jazz, Sam and Tucker, who had arrived only a few minutes before Danny himself.
"Oh good, you're all here, that means I don't have to make another journey." He began.
"Danny? What are you-"
"Don't interupt me, this is hard enough as it is." He paused for a moment, "On second thoughts, nevermind. I have stuff to do, just thought I'd pop by. Wow Sam, you look amazing, is that a new haircut?" He asked, to make them less suspicious. "Well, lovely to chat but I really must be off - bye!" And with that, he left, giving no one the chance to say even a word.

-----

"Danny, I've been expecting you." Clockwork said, such a cliché phrase. "I need you to close the rip, as soon as possible."
"I can't do that, especially not alone. Besides, doing that could be very, very, very, VERY bad! You're the one who told me that." He protested.
"That's a lot of 'very's, and you're right, it could be potentially catastrophic. Atleast you won't be on your own." Danny recongnised that voice, that deep mysterious voice, it belonged to...
"Vlad." he said softly, transfixed by the man standing by a pillar just by his right. Was he there before? He fought back the tears in his eyes which threatened to spill.
"It's physically impossible for me to apologise to you of all people, Daniel, let's just settle on an apologetic hand shake, shall we?" They both walked towards each other a little faster than the needed to. They each reached out a hand and shook, before Vlad pulled Danny into a soft embrace. Strangely, Danny felt relaxed, so did he. They seperated, looking deeply into each other's eyes.
"I thought you were dead. I thought it was my fault..."
"Well you're right on the latter ofcourse, simply because nothing is ever my fault." He smiled a little, "But no, I'm very much alive. Takes more than a planet-sized meteor to kill me off, little badger."
"Fruitloop."
"Pain in my evil-genius arse."
"If you two are quite finished! We have more serious matters to attend to than your twisted half-ghost antics. Fact is, I did more research. I believe you both know about the dimensional rip? I'll assume so. The rip isn't repairing itself, not fast enough anyway. There's only one way to repair it, which requires huge amounts of energy, the kind only the two of you posess. The thing is, the whole procedure involves many risks, fatal risks. You could fix the world and save billions of lives, you could have no effect at all, or you could kill yourselves trying." He took a deep breath, despite not actually needing to breath at all, probably just a personality trait passed on from when he was living (if he ever was).
"And, my dearest Clockwork, what do we get out of this?"
"I knew you'd ask that, Vlad; You get a chance to redeem yourself, but as I presume that probably isn't at the top of your 'things to do' list, I'll also alter reality slightly, making all the humans forget who you are and what you did. If you repair the rip, the world will adjust asthough nothing ever happened. The dead will come back to life, memories will be erased"

"We might die..." the older began.
"We might not." Danny said with a mischevious grin, similar to the one on Vlad's face.
"Alrighty then, so how do we pull this off?" Danny said enthusiastically.
"To begin with, you need to establish a telepathic connection. This will be difficult as a large amount of it depends entirely on your subconscious. The bond will probably be permanent. Ofcourse, I will understand completely if you do not wish to go through with it. This bond means that all thoughts and feelings will be passed on to each other. I'll explain how later."
"Hold on, I've heard of that. Isn't it like marriage for ghosts?!"
"Pretty much."
"But he's... fifty-something, I'm..."
"Completely unaged since you were at the maturing age of eighteen. Take a long look at Vlad. Does he really look like a fifty year old man?"
"Well ofcourse he - wait a minute, wait one god damn minute here, you're telling me that I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life?!"
"The rest of your immortal life, yes. I'm sorry, I thought you knew all this. A half-ghost doesn't age past the day they become an adult in both body and mind. You are also not exactly mortal compared to the average lifespan of humans, there's no telling how long you'll live."
"...So, about this telepathic connection?" Vlad interupted.
"Ah yes, from there you'll be able to syncronise your ghost energy, so that you can fill in the rip at precisely the right moment. As I said before, this requires collosal amounts of energy, and is very risky. You think the Earth is in a bad state at the moment? It will be absoloute chaos if you fail. The rip will get bigger, both realms could even collapse into each other - only in very extreme circumstances, but it's possible. Either way; earthquakes will shake the entire planet, volancos will form and erupt, the heavy rain will cause severe flooding."
"What about the ghost zone?" Vlad asked.
"A living nightmare. Over time, the ghost zone expands naturally, to make room for the deceased. The ghost zone is a place for unrestful spirits, bound to a never ending afterlife, it is unknown where the rest go. All the fear, pain and grief - imagine all the souls pouring in. Far more than the ghost zone can handle. More chaos."
"But why the sudden rush? Why can't we just leave it to heal itself?"
"It isn't healing Danny, it's only expanding. Slowly but surely getting bigger and bigger. If we're not careful both worlds will plunge into each other. Everyone and everything will cease to exist. And don't mistake that as dying, they will literally be erased from existance." Danny and Vlad looked at each other, an unreadable mix of fear and determination and something else written on each of their faces.
"Well," Danny began, "I'm up for it. But the question is, are you?"
"What, life threatening danger? Taking part in something that could destroy us?" Vlad paused, taking in the look of dissapointment that was slowly creeping onto Danny's face. "Ofcourse I'm in."

-----

It was dark in the room and though Sam couldn't see a clock, she knew it was the early hours of the morning. The wind billowed against the windows, making them creek and moan. Damn, she wished Danny would have stayed if only for a little while. She sat up and looked around her room. There was Jazz in her sleeping bag, out like a light. And Tucker laying on the rather grand chair in the corner, a thin blanket covering his sleeping form. So there she was in her room, the only one awake. A wash of fear ran through her mind for just a moment, when she heard the sirens of an ambulance and several police cars zooming down the road outside her house. Jumping out of bed she ran to the window to see what was going on.

Three slow hours passed. Hunger gnawed at her stomach and the snoring of her friends... well, let's just say she was loosing the will to live. She glanced at the clock, eight o'clock in the morning. A knock at the door. Walking downstairs she answered the door.

"Hello, ma'am. We have a few questions to ask you, if you don't mind ofcourse."
"No problem, come in, I was just about to put the kettle on." She stepped aside and pointed the police officers to her living room. "Excuse the mess, today's cleaning day. Can I get you boy's a coffee?"
"No thanks, we only need a minute. You may have heard, but a man was killed last night. We wondered if you might have seen or heard anything?"
"Afraid not. When did this happen, who was he?" She almost demanded, just slightly worried that it could be Danny.
"Ah, he doesn't exactly have an identity, he came here illegally. Although, the data we have on him says his name is 'Jack Travis', aged thirty-nine. He was a wanted rapist and murderer. However, the cause of death is a confusing case."
"How so?"
"It appears that he slit his own throat. Poor man, his face was twisted into an appauling grin, the knife was still held tight in his hand. One of our security cameras spotted Daniel Fenton walking down the street and the man appeared to be following him, but when we went to his house he wasn't there. We didn't see where he ended up, most the CCTV cameras in the city are down. Anyway, thankyou for your time. If you find out any information, just call this number. Thankyou for your time Ma'am, we'll let ourselves out" And with that, they left.

Sam sat down, Danny wouldn't kill someone, surely... Or would he? As soon as Tucker and Jazz woke up, she told them all about the encounter with the cops, sparing no details. Anyone else would think she was either very ungrateful or completely mad, but not these two. The day was long and dull, most of it spent watching old horror films. Sam had spent much of the day drawing, doodling new ideas for the latest range of gothic fashion. She had quite a sucessful career in fashion design, was quite wealthy money-wise in her own right. Unfortunatly, most of her work was done from home and had to be emailed accross, but the internet cables had been ruined in a storm and there was no chance of her leaving the house to do it, far too dangerous. Didn't really matter, she had enough money from her parents and such to stay afloat for the rest of her life. Must be nice to be rich, eh?

Tucker learned how to cook, if making tomato soup in a microwave counts as cooking, that is. Wasn't the best soup any of the three had even eaten, but that added to the dancing flames of the fireplace and the daytime television made it all the more enjoyable.

All these events plus the weather resulted in another sleep over.
----

Danny and Vlad flew over the dark skies of Amity Park, together.
"So, what time is it?" Danny asked.
"10:30pm" Danny had known the answer the second Vlad looked at his watch, god bless telepathy. Vlad continued, "Clockwork said it would be better if we did this at midnight, it has some sort of symbolic meaning. The rip is roughtly fifteen minutes away from here, and it should take us atleast another half an hour to fix it. That gives us an hour to kill."
"I have something I need to take care of." Danny said, he didn't need to say what, he just needed to think it. The mental bond between he and Vlad had taken a while to create, and even longer to get used to. Once they had each pushed past the surface thoughts, which consisted pretty much of 'oh god what have I gone and done', the connection was quite... nice.
"That's very heroic of you, I must say, but we might need help..."
"I made my choice a long time ago. It isn't fair on them... Come on, lets go."

They arrived in Sam's living room. Sam and Jazz were sitting on the sofa, covered by a large purple blanket with frayed edges. Tucker was sat infront of them, pretending to watch the movie when really he was just messing around with his PDA, latest model. Danny landed softly infront of the tv, turning it off.
"I sensed you'd all be here." He said in a cold voice. "There's something I have to tell you, something I should have said a long time ago.."
"What is it, Danny?" Jazz asked.
"I came here to tell you that you can't help me fight ghosts anymore. It isn't fair on you all, you deserve happy lives... safe lives."
"You can't just barge in here and say that!" Sam yelled, standing up and causing half of the blanket to fall to the ground. "How can you say that! We've been by your side since you got your powers when we were fourteen years old!"
"It isn't just a case of ghost fighting anymore though, is it?" He responded calmly, if sadly. "It isn't just a case of shoving the box ghost in the fenton thermos anymore. I see people die every day, I see the dead mangled corpses of innocent people on a daily basis. Imagine seeing that happen to someone you..."
"Someone you what, Danny?" Sam said, voice a little calmer - not much.
"I'm not risking you getting hurt, not any of you."
"That's not your choice to make." She still wasn't about to back down.
"I think you'll find it is!" he shouted, he actually shouted, and loudly too. Something about that bellow wasn't entirely human, which deep deep down, scared Sam very much.

"Mr. Foley's berét doesn't suit him anymore." Vlad stated completely out of the blue, atleast it broke the silence. Tucker's face twitched angrily and he removed the old red hat, inspecting it.
"Vlad!" Danny growled, narrowing his eyes.
"What? You were thinking the same thing." Danny shot him an angry look.
"Thinking the same thing? What's that supposed to mean?" Jazz perked up.
"Nothing, nothing at all!" The older half ghost spluttered, sounding very unconvincing.
"Ah, it's okay, they're bound to find out eventually. Me and Vlad and in permanent telepathic contact."
"WHAT?!" It was Sam's turn to yell. "You're brain buddies with that genocidal maniac?! How long 'till it wears off?"
"Can I just have a say in this? I didn't mean to almost wipe out the entire human and ghost race. And besides, if you had refused I'd have stopped the meteor anyway."
"Oh, you can shut up!" Sam yelled, pointing her finger threateningly at Vlad.
"It doesn't wear off. Like I said, permanent."
"But Danny, why would you do that?" she whined.
"It's required to save the world. And besides, it's not all bad. It means that Vlad can't plot any evil schemes without me knowing about it." He stepped forward and placed his hand gently against her cheek, and was quite unhappy with the way she flinched away when he did so. "Listen Sammy, it's all going to be okay, I promise."

…To be continued.