Interim:

Vakko stepped into the room, forgetfully leaving the door open.

Wakko pulled out his mallet and Yakko pulled out his two paddleballs. Realizing how useless they'd be in a fight, he put them back in his pockets and pulled out a mallet as well.

Yakko opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Vakko.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Vakko said, holding his hands in front of him in a defensive manner.

"Don't you 'wait a minute' me," Yakko said. "You just interrupted the first line I've had in quite a while!"

"Uhhh...good point. I'll buy you an ice cream sundae later or something."

Wakko continued to look menacing.

"...And a big bucket of ice cream for you," Vakko said to Wakko. "...And a jar of caramel."

Wakko looked less menacing, but kept his mallet raised.

Carley couldn't see what was going on, just the back of WakkoRyan's head. "Hello?" she said, but was unintentionally ignored.

"Anyways," Vakko said, "what I was about to say was that I'm not here to hurt you or anything...I didn't even mean to in the first place!"

WakkoRyan angrily lifted his shirt. "Well, this wound feels pretty real."

"What I mean is that I couldn't control myself. For the first few hours after I fell off the tower, I couldn't even remember what happened! And I think I'm still missing pieces of my memory from that night. I don't know how I got from the tower to the forest where I hid out. Once I realized what happened, I found out what hospital you were taken to and snuck around there for a bit...I followed you here but didn't appear to you until now because I knew that I wouldn't be welcome, so I was apprehensive."

Ryan had trouble forgiving Vakko. "Oh yeah, you're the apprehensive one now."

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Well, aren't we just the best at detecting sarcasm."

"Maybe you are, but I'm not."

"Well said."

(((A/N: wow, that's a lot of italicized words right there...hopefully they show up.)))

Yakko decided he had been silent long enough. "How do we know we can trust you?" he said.

"Well, you can't, really," Vakko said.

Brain lifted an eyebrow. "Your honesty is impressive, but not comforting."

Carley once again tried to interject. "The microphone isn't picking up anyone but Ryan for me...what's going on? Hello?"

The sound of the wind was interfering with what Carley could hear the people in the room say, and also distorted the sound of her voice entering Ryan's ears to the point where he couldn't discern that he was being spoken to.

Carley realized that she couldn't be heard, so she just typed 'brb' and left the computer to go and make mini pizzas and iced tea...from scratch.

In the meantime, WakkoRyan had continued on with the conversation.

"So, if we can't trust you, but you're not here to hurt us, why are you here?"

"I need help," Vakko said. "And Brain here may be my best option. In terms of spells, that guy from Witches, Doctors, and Witchdoctors is borderline evil and also somewhat incompetent. And in terms of p-sychology..."

"You got Scratchy," WakkoRyan finished. "Good point about a bad idea."

"So, Brain," said Vakko, " will you help me?"

"It depends," Brain said. "I may need some persuasion." Looking at Ryan, he said, "perhaps five more days of persuasion."

"Alright, alright..." said Ryan. "Fifteen days of world rule it is. You drive a hard bargain, Brain."

Pinky interjected. "Wait. I thought you drove a Toyota Corolla, Brain."

Wakko, who had remained silent for quite some time, took the opportunity to do a rimshot.

Pinky looked confused, but that was no surprise.

Brain continued. "Now that we have my, ahem, 'payment' increased, I believe I can help you. But for now, it would appear that the more important task is to get Ryan's mind back to his body. Since you yourself said that we can't trust you, we must restrain you for the interim."

(((A/N: Yeah, there's predictable jokes about bondage to make here. Use your imagination.)))

"Oh, boy!" said Dot. "I like tying people up!"

Yakko's expression became shocked. Looking at the fanficiton audience, he said, "goodnight everybody!" then blew a kiss and waved.

(((A/N: You just couldn't let that opportunity slip away, eh Dot?)))

"Nope!"

(((A/N: Good answer.)))

"Thanks," she said cutely.

By this time, Dot and Yakko had their hands in Wakko's gag bag or wakky sak or whatever you want to call it, searching for rope while Wakko held it open.

Pinky went over to the door to finally close it (((A/N: he used a forklift))) while Brain went to the computer.

"We must begin preparations for the return of your body to your mind, Ryan," Brain said.

Looking at the computer screen, he and Ryan saw an empty couch.

"Carley? Carley!" Ryan called out.

Carley could be heard in the background. "Now where did that cheese shredder go? And for that matter, the cheese?"

In the meantime, the sibs were tying up Vakko.

"Be careful not to tie me up too tightly," Vakko said.

"Sorry," Yakko said. "We gotta protect ourselves." He then pulled the rope tight, giving Vakko a bit of a rope burn.

Vakko yelped. "Aaargh! What the hell?" His eyes turned lavender.

Wakko got out a roll of duct tape, and ran the entire length around Vakko's torso in about 1.27 seconds.

"GODDAMMIT, DO YOU REALIZE HOW PAINFUL IT'S GOING TO BE TO GET THIS DUCT TAPE OFF OF MY ARM FUR?" His eyes were deep purple (((A/N: or should I capitalize Deep Purple...smooooke on the waaater / and fi-re in the sky-y...anyways, back to the story.)))

Wakko appeared deep in thought. "No, I don't really know how painful that'd be...but if you think it'd be painful, I can start removing it right now so you don't have to worry about it later."

Wakko reached for the duct tape, and before Vakko could yell to stop him, had quickly unraveled a foot-long piece.

Vakko freaked out, and by this time his eyes were glowing red. "AAARGHH! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU STUPID MOTHERF-"

Dot interrupted him. "Now, now...no need to be angry." She kissed the location of his 'boo-boo.' "My brother didn't mean to be mean. Pleeease forgive him." She said the last part with her special wet cute eyes.

Vakko's eyes began to change back to Deep Purple, lavender, and then to blue. He looked at Wakko and genuinely apologized. "Sorry Wakko. And thank you Dot."

"No prob!" Dot said.

Vakko spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. "Well, you can see now what I mean by not being able to control myself."

"Indeed," Brain (who was still at the computer) said. "And I'll get to work on fixing that sometime, but as of now I have Carley back at the computer, and we are ready for the transfer."