You know, I actually had this chapter completed for about a month now and just realized the other day that I forgot to post it? Eh-heh... oopsie? I very sorry...

I have news! I be lifeguard now! I so happy! Yay!

Freddy: …And we care because…?

Kim: (Throws brick at him) Because now I am certified to save people, or to just let them drown. Heh heh heh heh heh.

Angie: - Remind me not to go swimming when you're on duty…
Kim: Hey! Just so long as you're not a pro-wrestler, you're fine! Muscle sinks -, we had one guy in my class no one could get out of the water. Poor sap.

Erik: And as interesting as this is, it's relevant, how?

Kim: It's not, I just felt like sharing.

Angie: (facepalm) Just get on with the damn story!

Kim: oh fine, party pooper.

Disclaimer: Must I? Cuz no one would watch a Nightmare on Elmstreet movie if I owned the franchise.

Angie: (cackles maniacally)

Chapter 28: Pre-Storm Calm

"You know, the last time we heard from you, you were living in an apartment in the city with that friend of yours."

Kim grinned as she filled three water glasses for her friends. "Things change. And Angie lives here, when she wants to anyway." Melchaiah chose that particular moment to come barreling into the kitchen, barking his head off. "Sit!" Kim commanded sharply, pointing at the floor. The Doberman sat down mid-run, sliding the last few feet to a stop at Kim's feet, still glaring suspiciously at the newcomers. "She has to come back soon and get her dog anyway, though I have a funny feeling I'm gonna end up stuck with him more often than not." She grinned, ruffling Melchaiah's short head fur.

Langley rolled his eyes, brushing a strand of blond hair out of his face.

Frohike eyed the still glaring dog dubiously. "He won't attack, will he?"

Kim shook her head. "No. He'll watch you guys for a while, but once he sees that I trust you he'll be as friendly as anything. Though you might just wish that he hated you, he has an annoying habit of getting and staying underfoot."

Diva chose that precise moment to slink under the table and rub her white, fluffy self against Langley's jeans, causing the man in question to jump. "Speaking of underfoot," he muttered. "I forgot you had such a penchant for animals."

"Eh-heh," Kim giggled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head as she passed around the water.

"Care to give us the heads-up before we trip down the stairs?" Frohike deadpanned, folding his arms across his chest, though not quite managing to hide the quirk to his lips.

"Three cats, two dogs, and an iguana," Kim recited in quick succession, smiling once again in response to the chuckles the list prompted.

"And still no sense of priorities," Byer's commented dryly, flicking idly through the half-finished pile of bills. Kim stuck her tongue out at him. He adjusted his tie and pretended not to notice.

"So," Langley began, ignoring the childish display. "How can we and our peerless skills be of assistance to you?"

Kim sighed, pushing the Springwood letter across the table for the blonde to read. His blue eyes scanned it quickly from behind his glasses, before passing it across the table to Byers. Frohike had stood in the meantime and was cautiously patting Melchaiah on the head with a fingerless-glove clad hand.

"From what I understand of Springwood, they don't like letting their children leave the town. They're a very close-knit society. How'd you manage to get the girl in the first place?" Byers asked curiously.

"Blackmail," Kim replied without hesitation. Langley chuckled at the answer, but stopped when she arched a brow and said, "What? I wasn't kidding."

"So, you blackmailed Springwood?" he asked, an almost eager curiosity on his face. "How'd you manage that and why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"I didn't want you guys dragged into the middle of this if you didn't have to be. It's… complicated," Kim admitted, scratching Samara behind the ears as her cat leapt into her lap. "But I went through hell and high water to get Chris out of there, and I have no intentions of letting them steal her back through some stupid little made-up technicality like this. You think you can help me out with this? Prove this information is fake?"

"Cakewalk," Langley announced, rubbing his hands together. "We're not the Lone Gunmen for nothing. Give me a few hours tonight and I can do it. You hacked into their police system database yet?"

Kim smirked. "I can give you all the information they had from back when I was there. It's dated and everything. Oh, and I have another favor to ask, while we're at it. If I give you some of the information I was holding over them would you mind running an article on it? I want them to know that I don't make idle threats."

"We've been trying to get a story on Springwood for years," Byers responded, standing and straightening his suit jacket. "You'd be doing us a favor by giving us any information you have."

Kim grinned wickedly as she led them down the hall to her study. "I was hoping you would say something like that. Oh, and Byers?"

He looked up, fingers pausing in fruitlessly brushing long, white cat hair off his usually impeccably neat dark suit.

"I own five animals, four of which have fur and spend every spare second they have producing hair to shed all over the house."

"And?" he asked, unconsciously brushing at his jacket again.

Kim smirked. "You, my friend, are fighting a losing battle."

11111

Freddy stalked into his living room, scowling, only to find his girlfriend in an equally bad temper, splayed across the couch massaging her wrists.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he muttered, watching the rather mesmerizing motion of her hands twirling through the air in an effort to loosen up aching muscles.

"I'm behind on commissions," Angie snapped. "I was drawing all damn day, and when I got fed up with that I had to color a bunch of the damned things in. Some are digital, some are markered, some are a mix of a bunch of shit. I'm so frikken behind I have to do some of the work here while I'm asleep or I'll be busy until the end of the damn century!" she ranted.

Freddy raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you should take a break?" he hazarded. Angie fixed him with a Blazing Glare of Doom.

"What, exactly, does it look like I'm trying to do?" she asked in an icy tone.

"Looks like you're trying to rub the skin off your wrists is what it looks like," Freddy muttered, moving to sit beside her. Angie sat up.

"Give me a massage, will you?"

Rolling his eyes, the Dream Demon complied with her demand. It had been a while since Angie had gotten this backed up with her work. She was a pretty popular artist, the manga she had drawn earlier in the year had been an almost instant hit in the art community. People raved about her style, and as a consequence commissions had started coming in almost immediately with offers for almost obscene amounts of money. She hadn't complained at first, the commissions were paying well and if they kept up like this she wouldn't have to look for another job for a while, which made a nice change from working behind registers. Dealing with people sucked. But the more popular she became, the faster the commissions came in, so in almost hysteric desperation she had declared herself too busy to take new ones for a while, but that hadn't made the already humungous pile stacked on her desk any shorter. As a result, she'd been driving herself more crazy than she had during her sleep-deprived college days. And by now, Freddy knew better than to bother her when she was so busy she took her work into Dreamworld with her. Angie was damn scary when she was stressed, the chainsaw she kept next to her desk notwithstanding. She didn't even need the damn thing.

"I'm not doing any work tonight!" Angie declared. "None! And I'm not taking any new commissions for a month! I've had quite enough of this shit! People don't seem to understand that I have a frikken life, and that it does not revolve around doing artwork for everyone else in the world!"

Freddy turned a deaf ear, letting her rant. She'd continue in that vein for a while until she ran out of steam or developed a sore throat. In the meantime he continued to ponder the other female problems he had; namely the Kim and Alice problems. He'd set traps for both of them, and though he'd nearly netted the two of them together just a few nights previously, the blonde bitch Kristen had managed to warn them in time for them to avoid it and it to go off without snaring anything. He was struggling to keep one step ahead of them, but it had been hard enough keeping tabs on one, and there was no discernable pattern that they seemed to use. The victims they went after were random, with the only exception being that the first two Alice had rescued had been her boyfriend and her brother. Since then, they seemed just as determined to be unpredictable as he was to predict their movements. One helpful thing was that neither had actually been to Elmstreet since two nights ago when they'd narrowly avoided that last trap, giving him a little breathing room.

It was with a rather sharp jolt, namely Angie's elbow to his ribs, which alerted Freddy to the fact that his girlfriend had finished ranting. Quite a few minutes ago too, if the glare she was leveling over her shoulder was anything to go by. He swatted her shoulder with his bladed hand in retaliation, ignoring the fact that the blades would do no damage and stood. Then blinked in shock as Angie stretched, and four tiny streams of blood ran down her arm from four newly formed scratches, no more deep than paper cuts.

"W-what? How? The fuck?" Freddy stuttered. Angie craned her head over her shoulder, trying to see the reason for her boyfriend's unusual slack jawed appearance. Then she grinned.

"So I was right," she all but purred, standing and smirking at Freddy through half-lidded eyes.

"Right about what, exactly?" Freddy asked with a glare, crossing his arms over his chest.

"That the shield that prevents you from hurting me is something I can put up and take down at will," she replied, a Cheshire Cat grin plastered all over her face. Freddy wondered again why she was so obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. Stupid concept had always pissed him off.

"And just why are you testing this particular theory?" he asked with a growl, running his blades threateningly across her chest, drawing a few more thin lines of red. "And why didn't you tell me about it before testing it out?" Angie shrugged the ruined tee-shirt off, then grabbed his hand and ran the blades down her own arm.

"Oh, no real reason," she purred, seduction written in every line of her body as she curled even closer, grinning as he curled his hand lightly around the back of her neck. Her grin was evil. "Just a little payback for the time you turned your hair red and didn't tell me." Freddy growled, wondering why he put up with her. "And I just wanted to know. Up for a little creative experimentation?"

And then Freddy was reminded rather sharply of just why he kept this particular human girl around.

1111111111

"Okay. Christine is?"

"On hypnocil and sleeping."

"Freddy?"

"…Busy."

"Your friend? Angie?"

"Busy. Make your own implications."

Alice rolled her eyes while Kim studied her nails, apparently finding her new purple manicure fascinating.

"And these other three friends of yours?"

"Up late huddled around the computer, positively drooling over the folder of information I gave them on Springwood."

"And you didn't even give them a quarter of what you have."

"Amazing how deep of a hole that town managed to dig for itself, isn't it?"

"Quite." Alice sighed. "Okay, so that's all your bases covered. Mine consist of my son, who is currently sleeping, well out of reach of this evil town. So why do I have the feeling that something's about to go incredibly wrong?"

"Don't know," Kim muttered, rubbing her arms as if from a sudden chill. Samara twined worriedly through her ankles, looking up at her mistress with bright, distressed eyes. "But I feel it and hell, even my cat can feel it, so I doubt you're imagining things. But dwelling on it won't help, so I say for now, we ignore it as best we can and just face it when it comes."

"Sounds like a plan. Unfortunately." Alice said with a sigh. "So, we're set on who we're each searching for next?"

"You've got those bus kids, I've got the John Doe," Kim recited, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Have fun with that, by the way."

"At least I'm not looking for a house falling through the air," Alice teased as they started to walk.

"Hey, I don't have to wander through the desert, so don't-" Kim started, then stopped, face going pale. "Please tell me you feel that?" she asked quietly.

Alice nodded. Acting on impulse both dreamwalked automatically to where the feeling of 'wrong' had just originated, and found themselves staring at another one of Freddy's hastily thrown together traps, and the three confused and frightened men stuck at its center.

"Guys!" Kim yelped in pure, frightened panic, recognizing the Lone Gunmen instantly and ignoring Alice's cry for her to wait, she leaped in to help them. Something burned along her arm and she hissed, standing protectively in front of Langley as whatever had been about to strike him hit her instead. Blood ran down her arm from a long, deep cut she sustained from failing to block that attack as she struggled to break the four of them out of whatever this particular trap was. But she was finding to her fear that she couldn't, it could only be broken from the outside, and she, in her panic had leaped right into its center, and oh God she was an idiot for just leaping in, that was stupid, stupid, stupid and they were going to die here and it was all her fault…

A section of the shield shattered from the outside and Kim literally dreamleaped for it, dragging the three guys with her. She collapsed into Alice's waiting arms, letting them drop behind her, as she all but hyperventilated, gasping desperately for air. As soon as she got herself under some semblance of control she sent a sharp jolt to the three guys that she knew would startle their confused minds into wakefulness. She wasn't ready, yet, to deal with their questions. She then quietly murmured a farewell to Alice and dropped away from Dreamworld and into an actual dreamstate herself, her frazzled mind gratefully surrendering to it.

1111111111

Angie winced as she stepped into the shower the following morning and the hot water hit the freshly scabbing cuts her arms and torso now sported. She hissed as she turned and it hit the deeper ones on her back. Damn, but those things stung! She couldn't help but smirk though. Last night had been worth all the stinging she was enduring right now. Oh hell was it worth it, she thought and grinned. Why she hadn't thought to lower her shields before this was beyond her, but she was creative and now she knew several new ways to have one hell of a time. Regrets? Not in a million years.

Strong hands caught hers as she reached for the soap and a low, growling voice whispered in her ear.

"Allow me…"

She grinned wider. Oh yeah, so damn fucking worth it.

1111111111

Langley, Byers, and Frohike wandered into the kitchen the following morning, still shaking off the remnants of a rather vivid nightmare and trying to let the daylight shatter the illusion their minds had for some reason created, trying not to ponder why they'd all shared the same dream, and hoping they could kill the memory over breakfast. They stopped dead in their tracks, however, when they found Kim sitting at the table waiting for them, a cup of tea in hand and a long, fresh, jagged slash down her left arm. Her eyes met theirs, swimming with guilt.

"Guys, I haven't been completely honest about my connection with Springwood…"

So yay, chapter be done. Blah. Well, some news about this story, part 1 has two to three more chapters to go before it gets wrapped up, but no worries there will be a sequel, I have several parts planned out to this story all ready, so don't expect it to finish up that fast.

Freddy: ah fuck…

Kim: (glare)

Erik: (lynches Freddy)

Kim: (evil smirk)

Angie: - This is getting annoyingly repetitive, you know…

Oh, and congrats to Music Whore (Kat Black), Ghostwriter, and Zim'sGirl56 for getting the question I asked last chapter correct! You all get to make a brief appearance in a future chapter, and one lucky person get's to be in the next one! Appologies for Zim'sGirl56 for not e-mailing you personally, but I haven't checked my mail in a while... sheepish head scratch And now I'm going to apologize to all of you, my in-box is evil and erases all my old mail after a while. After you're finished beating me over the head with the bricks Freddy will probably provide, please review and include a description of how you want to appear, and a brief personality description (can't promise I won't Mary Sue you for fun, but, meh.) Anyway, I'll catch you all in the next update, which, since this one is so late should be coming soon...

Angie: yes, because you've really taught us to trust your word.

Kim: (sulks) Leave me alone...