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The egg was drying out. It needed water. Badly. What would happen if it completely shriveled? Would whatever was inside it dry out and die? What could Dessin do? The egg needed his help.

Heck, he was a ghost! He might as well put his ghostly powers to use.

One night, after Xennik had already fallen asleep, Dessin made himself visible. This was a power that he had discovered early in his ghostly days. Ghosts could show themselves (with practice - everything took practice) to people who even somewhat believed. It didn''t help at all with Xennik, but he had been able to use the handy power to spook a doctor or two in his free time.

At first, making himself visible didn''t help at all. He still went through whatever he tried to touch, and he could feel himself tiring out. But then Xennik''s stupid monster of a guard dog woke up and saw him perched on Xennik''s dresser. Instead of barking and alerting authorities, like a good guard dog should have done, Term decided to try to rid the place of the intruder himself. So he ran, full speed, toward Dessin and rammed his head on Xennik''s dresser so hard that Dessin was sure he was going to wake the dead (if only!). The entire dresser rocked back and forth and a glass of water fell off and shattered on the floor, splashing water everywhere.

Xennik was immediately awake. "Ermuosupidog," he mumbled, feeling around in the dark for the light switch installed beside his bed. Dessin stuck his tongue out at Term and disappeared. Only then did the dog begin to bark.

~---------------------------------~

It had been questionable before, but the day that Raindrop hatched, Dessin knew that he was in love. A sweeter, more innocent thing he had never known in his afterlife.

And Xennik continued to ignore her. Dessin had long ago accepted defeat in getting his guardian's attention. The man was gone to this world, living only for the moment and wondering if he would live to the next. But Raindrop didn't know. She was smart enough to know the difference between death and life. In her world, Xennik was "Daddy" and Dessin was "friend". And she looked up to the zombie-like man as such, always waiting for the moment when he would look down and see her. And smile the way that she knew daddies were supposed to. But in the real world, painful as it was, Dessin was "caretaker", and Xennik was, simply, "stranger".

But, as much as Dessin tried, he could only be so much help to the young Raindrop. He couldn't hand her things from high shelves. He couldn't rock her to sleep. He could only tell her what to do and where to go for food and water.

And then she got sick.

It was Xennik, he finally realized, resigning himself to the fate, who could save her, and keep Raindrop alive.

They had to make him see her.

~---------------------------------~

If Dessin were solid, which was stupid and wistful thinking, as Dessin was a ghost, the whole project of getting the Advil for Raindrop would have been a thousand times easier. But he wasn't solid, and so could only pray that Raindrop had understood his instructions. Luckilly, she was pretty smart. For a blob.

Then Dessin had to find out a way to explain to Raindrop that she had to mash the pill into dust and take only an eighth of the dust, to prevent over-dosage. He soon discovered that Raindrop didn't know what an eighth was, and could only guess how to mash something.

By the time Raindrop was absorbing her eighth-of-an-advil dosage, Dessin was feeling exhausted, which is pretty hard for a ghost to feel.

"Alright, Regen. That's good. Don't take anymore, or you might kill yourself." Dessin turned, and couldn't help but sigh in ahh and releif at the sweet sight of Raindrop curled in a little ball, sound asleep.

A feeling of gloom settling over him, Dessin turned to Xennik's empty bed. He sighed, this time sadly. Xennik was supposed to be the Daddy, not Dessin. Dessin, of course, would love to care for Raindrop. But Dessin was dead. There's only so much a dead person can do.

~---------------------------------~

Raindrop's mind was boggled. There were other things like her? She practically had a twin! But why had they had to leave so early? Why was Daddy so upset? Raindrop bubbled closer to the ghost, who stood hovering over the sleeping Xennik, a strange look in his eyes.

She cooed gently.

He glanced down at her, but, for once, didn''t smile.

She cooed again.

"No, Raindrop. Don't call me that. I'm not your Daddy, he is." Dessin sighed, pointing at the sleeping man. "He was always meant to be." Gloomily, Dessin ran his finger over a line in Xennik's diary, slowly reading it aloud, " 'I have nothing to live for, anymore. I might as well be dead. At least then it wouldn't hurt as much.' Doesn't he know anything!? If he would just open his stupid, self-sympathizing eyes just a bit, he'd see that he has everything to live for!"

Raindrop squeaked in alarm as Dessin through his fist through Xennik''s body, his eyes burning with a rage that Raindrop had never seen before. She whimpered, frightened, but the ghost ignored her, continuing his onslaught of ghostly punches. "What is it with you living people!? You guys are all so wrapped up in your own worlds, you don't even realize what you have! If you would just open yor eyes...!" Dessin stumbled away from Xennik, his eyes wide. Raindrop soon saw why. A glowing, purple design had etched itself into the ghost's pale forehead. Dessin's eyes dimmed. He stared at his hands detachedly.

Finally, he allowed his hands to drop to his sides. He stared at Xennik through foggy eyes. "You idyit. You stupid, stupid idyit. You have no idea what you have. Stupid emo. Besides..." he fingered the fading mark on his forehead, "being dead isn't exactly a walk in the park, ya know..."

He flickered away and left Raindrop staring at where he had stood, confused.

Runes mirroring the ones that had just been visible on Dessin's forehead, flickered and faded from Xennik's, and the man groaned in his sleep.

~---------------------------------~

For the longest time, while Dessin had watched, helpless, from the background, Xennik had teetered quite incredibly in the same place. He was not well. He was definetly ill, and in quite bad conditions, yet he had come to a point where he had, incredibly, stopped. Just stopped. For the past six months he had gotten no better, yet no sicker at the same time. He was just floating, practically. He was extremely unresponsive, and spent most of his time just staring out the window at the sky. But when his doctors took him outside, his pulse would go wacko and he'd begin panicking, and they'd be forced to bring him back inside. There seemed to be no cure, and no way to puncture the lonely, melancholy cloud that Xennik had surrounded himself with.

And he got no worse, and no better.

But now things were changing, and one morning Xennik awoke with a cough. It soon got worse, and before long, Xennik had lost so much strength that he was bed-ridden.

Xennik's sudden sickness took many of the doctors by surprise, though it should have been expected. It was like someone walking through a dark room, just waiting to be scared. And when they finally were, the fear was intensified because they had been scaring themselves by expecting it.

Dessin spent the next several days crouched in the window of Xennik's room and staring forlornly at him. It was happening, finally. He was finally going to die. He had lived three years longer than he should have, as it was. He was finally getting his wish; death. Dessin dropped his head into his hands. He had been expecting this. Everyone had. But why was it so hard? Why did Xennik have to take Raindrop with him?

"My life would be a heckuva lot lonelier if you weren't around, Dessin."

That was the closest Xennik had ever come to calling anyone a friend, in his youth. He had been a lonely young man. Just out of school, a little lost. Not a friend in the world, to his knowledge, and weighed down by assumed guilt. It was stupid, and Dessin had told him so, but Xennik had always blamed himself for his mother's insanity.

He would be happier in heaven, Dessin assumed. He could be with the older brother and father that he had loved so much. It had shattered his young world when they had died, and ultimately led to his mother's loss of sanity. If he even made it to heaven. Dessin hadn't.

But what about Raindrop? She had barely begun her life...

Would it be fair to take her with him? Even if he didn't know she existed, was it fair? Was anything this world fair? Would Xennik have a funeral? Would anyone come?

Had Dessin had a funeral? Had anyone cried over him when he'd died, or had he been as lonly and desperate as Xennik?

Xennik got worse as the days passed. Soon he was hardly able to move at all. The feeding tube that for two years had been removed went back in, for Xennik would no longer eat.

Yet, as he became weaker and weaker, the barriers around his mind and heart began to crumble, and new doors were opened for Dessin, and the tiniest flame of hope ignited.

"No!" Dessin cried, but only Raindrop could hear him. She whimpered again, just as helpless as the ghost. "Xennik...No!" Dessin shouted again, diving at him in desperation. He then experienced the extremely strange sensation of falling through a living human being. There was no other feeling like it. Cold and whispy, then, suddenly, hot and pounding and intense, and then it was over, and Dessin had fallen straight through the bed and half-way through the floor. Confused little Raindrop was now crying, tiny tears nearly breaking Dessin''s heart. "You idiot!" Dessin snapped at the still oblivious Xennik, blinking tears out of his eyes.

Xennik''s finger had found the trigger, yet he seemed too mesmerized by the rain to pull it.

"No." Regen cheeped weakly. "Noo..." Then with more strength. "No! Bad! Bad! Naughty!" and she leapt into the air, her miniscule wings flapping furiously, and slammed her tiny body into the gun.

"Raindro--!"

"Gah!" Xennik cried out in startled surprise as the gun was knocked from his hands by an invisible force. "What the-? How?!"

The gun landed back on the bed, but Raindrop was not done yet. Tears still streaming down her face, she began to glow. The gun soon, too, began to glow an eerie bluish green. Wethkin puff began to shake violently and the gun rose from the bed and, to the startled cry of its owner, sailed out the window, leaving both Dessin and Xennik in a state of shock.

The shock did not last long for Xennik, however. He was soon at the window staring into the night with a look of fear and distress twisting his face. "No! I was so close! Why?! Why..." he slumped to the floor, dropped his head into his hands, and began to sob in defeat. How desperate must one be to sob in despair because they had just been saved from death? "Why..." He lifted his head and stared unseeingly at the Wethkin puff at his feet.

Raindrop had blacked out from exhaustion after her incredible show of power and had collapsed to the floor. After a moment, Xennik''s fogged eyes seemed to clear. He reached out a shaking, bloody hand and gently, gingerly lifted Raindrop toward him.

Dessin stared. Could he..? Finally..?!

"You...you''re not quite what I expected..." he murmurred with the smallest of chuckles, and then he too fainted in exhaustion, clutching Raindrop to his bare, bloody chest like a lifeline. That''s what she was to him, after all.

~---------------------------------~

Regen. He had named her Regen. Did he have a problem with the name Raindrop? Regen sounded so stiff and formal. And it was German for Pete's sake! It sounded like Xennik was going to march poor Raindrop right off to boot camp!

But Dessin had to admit that he was quite impressed. He had had no reason to fear that Xennik would mistreat the Wethkin. The moment he had laid eyes on her - and really seen her - he had taken everything into his own hands. Which was good, Dessin thought ironically, because Xennik still couldn't see him. But he hadn't needed to see his old, ghostly friend as desperately as he had needed to see Raindrop - Regen! -and had needed, desperately, to know that there was someone in the world that wanted him alive. He still blocked Dessin stubbornly from his world, probably too afraid and wary to allow him, and the memories - memories of a lonely, aggressive teenager with no place in the world - that would certainly come with him.

Not that Dessin minded or anything. No, he was better off without Xennik telling him what to do. Now that Raindrop - Regen! - had someone to care for her, Dessin could get back to his good old afterlife...alone.

Not that he cared, or anything.

Besides, Raindrop - Regen! - would still speak to him. She could still see him. It wasn't as though Raindrop - Regen, goshdarnit! - was just going to allow him to be editted out of her world, anyway.

He hoped.

Not that he cared.

~---------------------------------~