Jimmy Neutron had fought in dozens of battles. He had outsmarted The League of Villains. He had brought down a Yolkian cruiser with a tomato. He'd outwitted algae men, fled an exploding lair down Mt. Everest, and had beaten stone aliens on Mars with interpretive dance. As the latest blast of plasma soared half a foot over his skull and the licking flames singed his hair, Jimmy Neutron had only one thought.

This time is different.

The five children and Goddard burst out of the blinding thickness of the Amazon Rainforest and collapsed in the middle of a stream. Carl, Libby, and Jimmy struggled to catch their breath. Cindy and Sheen splashed warm water onto their faces and stared at the six-foot high waterfall which was the stream's source. Goddard hovered a few feet above them, anxiously keeping watch for signs of Professor Calamitous in his battle suit.

Behind them, the sound of Calmitous' battle suit grew. Jimmy knew they only had a few more seconds until their nemesis was upon them. He took a quick stock of his surroundings: thick forest behind him, waterfall to his left, clear stream to his right, and more dense jungle dead ahead.

"We can't run anymore," Cindy struggled to say while gulping down a handful of water. Jimmy swallowed hard; he knew she was right. They had had a good head start, but Calamitous was flying over the roots and through the vines that were slowing them down.

Jimmy wiped the burning beads of sweat from his eyes and forced his mind to race. Run, fight, hide. The three most basic options. Running was out. Jimmy glanced at Cindy, barely able to move from exhaustion. She was in no shape to fight, but the pulse rifle hanging off her shoulder was.

Jimmy's eyes widened as he took in every inch of the weapon he had designed five months ago, after battling an enormous creature on Twonkus 3. He had no doubt it could tear through flesh and bone, but had never run simulations against an armored opponent.

"Neutron!" Cindy seethed as Jimmy's mind kept racing. The sound of Calamitous' thrusters was roaring louder, and a blast of plasma flew from the jungle behind them. The flaming ball of ionized gas slammed into one of the waterfall's banks and vaporized its stone bank.

Jimmy's left mouth and eye twitched as his brain raced still faster. Running is out. Fighting is risky. Hide. "Hide!" Jimmy feverishly whispered while yanking the nearby Cindy into a thick pile pocket of vines and branches near the scorched waterfall. Goddard followed his master and tucked into the nook of his arm.

Across the water and to Jimmy's right, Carl, Sheen, and Libby squeezed themselves in a similar thicket.

Five children, a mechanical dog, a single pulse rifle. Jimmy tallied what was on his side as Calamitous' shiny red battle suit barreled into the clearing, ceased its thrusters, and landed in the bubbling brook separating the children's two hiding places. Not wasting a moment, Calamitous opened up the plasma rifle built into the battle suit's right arm. A sharp hiss filled the jungle as a steaming core of ionized gas was ejected into the stream. The water rapidly boiled, and the five children watched as another cylinder of green vapor was loaded into the firing chamber.

None of the children made a sound as Calamitous slowly scanned the entire area. Jimmy narrowed his eyes at his foe, and then risked darting his pupils over to Cindy. His friend's breaths were coming easier, and while the sweat still shimmered over her brow, there were no new streams of the liquid. In this brief moment of serenity, the answer came to Jimmy.

Quicksand.

If they could entrap Calamitous' battle suit, remove its superior mobility, they could overwhelm him from behind.

Jimmy placed his mouth against Goddard's ear and whispered as quietly as he could. "Scan for nearby concentrations of sand, silt, and water with hydrogel properties." Goddard immediately nodded, widened his eyes, and ran the scan.

Jimmy then turned to Cindy, who'd been struggling to listen while keeping a watchful eye on Calamitous. "I'm searching for -"

"I know," Cindy barely mouthed while watching a flock of macaws leap from a tree. The sudden noise caused Calamitous to swivel around and fire five bolts of plasma. Each hit their target and vaporized the creatures in mid-flight.

Jimmy gulped as Cindy narrowed her eyes at the gun. "He hit all five. He's got to have automatic targeting." She waited a few seconds and then risked swiveling her head to face Jimmy. "He's too close. We make a break for it, he guns us down."

Jimmy couldn't argue this. Run, fight, hide. "Wait him out," Jimmy whispered.

Both children watched as Calamitous aimed at the center of the waterfall. A volley of green plasma obliterated everything it touched. As soon as the debris was smoking, Calamitous swiveled his gun a bit to the right, toward Libby, Carl, and Sheen. His intent was clear; slowly carve a path of destruction through everything in sight.

"Not an option," Cindy whispered a hair louder while unshouldering the pulse rifle she'd insisted on taking from Jimmy's rocket. The jungle's a dangerous place. Those five words, spoken hours before but with such a light, flirtatious tone, rocketed through her mind. She shook them no time to waste, she took aim and let loose a stream of ten bullets.

Calamitous' plasma launcher had been loud, but Jimmy's pulse rifle broke the sound barrier and thundered throughout the entire forest. Jimmy's throat squeezed shut in hopeful trepidation as the rounds slammed into the back of Calamitous suit.

They bounced off.

Run, fight, hide. Though hidden by the leaves, Jimmy saw the Calamitous' weapon swirl around and aim at Jimmy's skull. He felt a tug on his arm and shouted out the last option he had left. "Goddard!" he screamed as the plasma burnt through the curtain of green just as he landed on top of Cindy. "Play dead!"

Goddard was already barreling towards his assailant when Jimmy shouted those words. The scans of the rainforest filling his eyes cleared away in an instant as he focused solely on his target. Crosshairs locked, the battle suit filled his gaze, and heat radiated through every one of his nociceptors. This built to an agonizing crescendo as he slammed into the suit's chest and exploded into a hundred pieces.

Another deafening blast sent more birds flying into the sky. The five children blinked in amazement and crawled out of their hiding places. They stared across the river at each other, some daring a smile as they rose to their feet. The smoke was clearing, Goddard was gone, and Jimmy sighed in relief.

That all stopped when Calamitous began to move.

"No," Jimmy muttered in disbelief as their enemy wobbled back up. Cindy wasted no time and unloaded more rounds into the charred and dented suit, but they still clattered off. Carl slowly backpedaled and hid behind a tree. Libby and Sheen grabbed hands and dove back into the brush. Cindy, filled with rage and adrenaline, began stepping forward and fired more ineffective bursts at the twitching hulk of metal.

Jimmy watched the damaged battle suit slowly swivel its arm, sparks spewing out as it jerked upwards. It settled on Cindy, spasmed wildly, and collapsed to the ground before firing a deadly blast at the dirt below. Cindy took another step forward, but this time Calamitous used his suit's good arm to steady the weapon. He hoisted it back at Cindy and prepared to fire. Jimmy reached out and grabbed the back of Cindy's shirt, yanking her down hard.

"I can kill it!" she roared as a bolt of plasma flew overhead.

Jimmy struggled to walk backwards while dragging Cindy. "No," he croaked through the dissipating smoke while catching sight of Goddard's glass brain. The ever-constant bolts of electricity were still swirling around, indicating the dog's personality core was still intact. Jimmy managed a small nod of relief in spite of his situation; Goddard's play dead protocol had, as always, proved non-fatal.

As Jimmy watched the brain twitch and rolled towards the battle suit, he assumed Goddard was rebuilding itself. That all changed when the lightning inside danced more feverishly and hummed louder. Jimmy realized Goddard's intention with one second to spare.

One second to think and act. Over the coming days, Jimmy would always be surprised that he made the right choice, the one that saved his and Cindy's life. Instead of running towards his oldest friend, of futilely trying to stop him, Jimmy grabbed Cindy's shirt as hard as he could. He threw her a precious two feet back, sparing her from the worst of the blast. Then he threw himself onto the ground beside her, shielded his eyes, and screamed, "NO!"

The last bit of Goddard ignited and was forever gone.

The sun beat down on Retroville that sunny summer Sunday with a characteristic but still unwelcome fury. Shielded from this heat inside Cindy's living room, she and her three friends all took a sip from their sweating glasses of lemonade. As Cindy sucked hard through the straw, she stared at the dozen yellow blisters on her right hand. She registered the pain they brought and then realized how much worse she would be if Jimmy hadn't tossed her those two feet back. Would she be covered in those blisters? Or would she not have any skin to sear?

"I still think we should give him more time," Libby quietly spoke before placing her drink on the coffee table separating her and Cindy from Sheen and Carl.

Cindy let out a quiet sigh as she was brought back into the conversation. She stared to her right, at her best friend seated beside her on the couch. Then she looked at the dual arm chairs where Carl and Sheen were seated.

"No!" Sheen screamed while leaping to his feet and slamming a hand into his palm. "Jimmy needs us now, and we're not abandoning him! Do you think Ultralord abandoned his friend after -"

"Will you please shut up?" Cindy pleaded while scooping up Libby's glass and placing it on top of a coaster. "Or at least stop screaming?"

"I think he's right," Carl whispered.

Cindy forced her features to soften as he looked into Carl's frightened eyes. "I hate to admit it, I really do, but I think so too." She then turned to her best friend and nodded. "We've given Jimmy yesterday to himself. That's enough."

Libby shook her head. "I'd agree if he was…you know…crazy about it. But he seemed okay," Libby hesitated and shrugged while adding, "okay enough. If he wants some more time, I think we should give it."

Cindy flicked her tongue over her lips and considered Libby's point. It was true, Jimmy had handled Goddard's death better than expected. He'd avoided screaming at his friends when they'd checked up on him that Friday night, hadn't seemed on the verge of killing himself, hadn't even cried. All in all, Jimmy had seemed to be taking things well. He'd simply asked for time alone, so they had granted it. And he had spent the next day locked in his lab.

Cindy felt three pairs of eyes on her and rose to her feet. "We'll check on him. If he wants more time after that, we'll give it to him." She headed towards her front door, and her friends followed in tow. "But he needs to know we're here for him." Cindy felt the red, slightly torn skin at the base of her neck, remembered Jimmy's hands clamping onto her shirt and pulling her to safety. "He deserves that."

The lab's main entrance swung open to reveal Cindy, Carl, and Libby standing behind Sheen as he held up a single strand of Jimmy's hair.

"Should I even ask why you have that?" Cindy slowly asked while brushing Sheen aside and leading her group towards the elevator.

Sheen gently placed the hair back into a sandwich bag and carefully slid it into his pocket. "Probably not."

The elevator doors slid open after a few seconds to reveal nothing but darkness. Carl stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Um, hi Vox!" he shouted with a wave. "Lights please."

The lights immediately came on to reveal no sign of Jimmy and the lab in shambles. Cans of Purple Flurp littered the floor, Jimmy's workbench was covered with tools, and a dozen partially torn schematics were strewn around the area.

"Oh no," Libby whispered while approaching the workbench.

Cindy followed suit and ran her hands along the long slab of polished steel. She settled her hand on a half-ripped blueprint and studied it carefully. "Goddard's neural network," she whispered before gently placing it back down.

"Jimmy!" Sheen screeched out. "You in here? Show yourself!"

"We're not attacking him, Sheen," Libby chided while picking up two empty cans of soda and carrying them to a nearby trash can. "Don't tell him to show himself."

Cindy tuned out Sheen's rebuttal and Carl's cries for peace as she stumbled her way towards the lab's main monitor. The screensaver was zipping around the screen; a single image of the five of them plus Goddard at their fifth grade graduation. Cindy watched the square photo bounces off the monitor's edges a few times before moving the mouse.

The screen revealed a video that was paused halfway through. Cindy spotted the title and read Goddard Field Test #3. She glanced back at the chaotic workbench and nodded in determination. "We have to find him. He shouldn't be alone anymore."

"He could be anywhere," Carl pointed out.

"Then we'll search everywhere," Cindy countered. She took a quick glance around the lab and saw that the Strato XL was still in place. "He hasn't left Earth, so that's a start. Carl, head to the Candy Bar." She faced Sheen and quickly uttered, "Library."

Sheen opened his mouth to utter "Dang," but snapped it closed and flashed a quick salute as he remembered the importance of his task.

"Libs? The science museum."

Libby nodded and asked, 'What about you?"

Cindy flashed a quick glance back at the monitor. "I'll head to the school. He might be there. Everybody call me once you search your spot."

With a plan agreed on, the four kids quickly headed back to the surface and split up. Cindy began the mile-long walk to Lindbergh Elementary, wondering if she would truly find Jimmy there.

He's mourning Goddard. If he wanted to be alone, he would have stayed in the lab. If he wanted to go somewhere we wouldn't find him, he would have left Earth. Cindy stopped in her tracks and clenched both hands into fists. She felt that old anger at Neutron bubble up and cursed herself for it. She forced the words to come gently, but still asked, "Where are you, Jimmy?"

As she scanned the city's horizon, her eyes spotted the distant cross. Something deep inside Cindy forced her to stop and stare at the large symbol. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the rather insane possibility that it marked Jimmy's location, but with no better option she began the trek across town.

Jimmy Neutron had been standing outside the church door for five minutes, simply staring up at the enormity of the building. Retroville's church lacked the age of the Ysleta Mission or the beauty of the Cathedral Bassilica, but the mere presence of hallowed ground chilled the boy before it.

At last, Jimmy worked up his courage and yanked open the door. That Sunday's service had ended three hours before, so the nave and pulpit were empty. Step by measured step, Jimmy passed down the aisle and stopped between the second to last row of pews. He stared up at the three stained glass windows before him in silence.

Jimmy had been to church two times that he could remember. His parents had never been very observant, usually only going on Christmas and Easter. Jimmy had gone for both holidays when he was five before deciding that such endeavors were pointless. His parents had deemed it unnecessary to argue this. After all, Jimmy's connection had always been to elements and atoms, not God and angels.

"This is pointless," Jimmy whispered before turning around. He'd taken one step back towards the entrance when he heard footsteps to his right. A glance in that direction revealed Ike Burke, still in his altar boy's robes. "Ike?" Jimmy asked in disbelief. Not only was he shocked at seeing the boy, but Jimmy barely recognized him without his trademark sunglasses.

Ike stopped in his tracks before offering a smile. "Neutron," he said easily. "Never expected to see you here."

Ike took a seat on the pew to Jimmy's left and motioned for Jimmy to join him. Neutron took a deep breath and obliged. "I never expected to be here." As the two boys got comfortable, Jimmy asked, "What's with the clothes?"

"Altar boy," Ike happily explained. He gripped his vestments and rolled the fabric lovingly between his fingertips. "Since -"

"Third grade," Jimmy interrupted with a weary sigh. "Sandy, the bowl of punch, I know." Jimmy's despair mixed with Ike's unexpected appearance was nipping away at his patience. "We all know."

Ike frowned, took a look around the church, and managed a tired smile. "I guess I do tell that story a lot."

Jimmy ran a hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry. I just," he hesitated as he remembered why he was sitting in that pew. Not gone, Jimmy reminded himself. Not completely. With a steadier voice, he muttered, "Goddard died, Ike."

For a moment, Ike was unsure of how to respond. At last, he settled on asking, "How?"

Jimmy took a deep breath, but the air quivered in his lungs. "Calamitous. We went to the rain forest, to get some plants. We needed them for a mind control potion to keep our parents from sending us to summer camp."

Ike absorbed this and blinked slowly. "You guys can never settle for just going to mall, can you?"

Jimmy ignored the remark. "Turns out Calamitous had escaped from prison and set up a base there. He found us," Jimmy gulped before adding, "he attacked us." Jimmy recalled that mad dash through the jungle with Calamitous on their heels. "We couldn't stop him. So Goddard played dead."

Ike slowly rebutted, "But he played dead on Yolkus. He survived that."

"When he plays dead, he keeps his neural network intact." Jimmy tapped the side of his head and explained, "His brain is safe. But that first explosion didn't stop Calamitous. He was about to kill us, so Goddard detonated the neural network. That explosion," Jimmy glanced away as the wave of heat seemed to wash over him once more. "That one stopped Calamitous. And killed Goddard."

Jimmy took another look at those three stained glass windows. "Goddard's gone, Ike." Jimmy stared back at the black-haired boy and simply added, "I don't want him to be."

Ike nodded in understanding. "So you're here." He followed Jimmy's line of sight and watched the light reflect through the green windows. For a moment both boys were silent, and Ike bluntly asked, "Do you believe in God, Jimmy?"

"No," was Neutron's simple answer. "For Goddard, I want to. I want to believe that that there's a heaven where he can look down on me." Jimmy faced Ike and stared into the boy's dark brown eyes. "But I don't."

Ike chewed on his cheek and held his hand up to Jimmy's side. Jimmy watched as Ike hesitated but ultimately let it rest on his shoulder. "I won't repeat the whole story," Ike playfully assured James, "but after Sandy, after that punch and when I was so alone for so long, I was miserable." Ike curled his fingers tight and struggled to keep from scratching Jimmy's skin. "You don't know that feeling, Jimmy. Believe me, I know you're hurting. But it's only been a couple days. And you have your friends. Imagine feeling what you feel, every day for months, with no one to rely on. Completely, utterly alone."

Jimmy obliged his friend and considered this request. The torment was palpable. "And then?"

Ike shrugged. "One day, out of nowhere, I felt it. Just 100% certainty that I wasn't alone anymore. I woke up and God was there." Ike glanced back down at his robes and then into Jimmy's eyes. "I know it's clichéd, but at my darkest, that's when I saw his light. I know you can see it too if you try."

Willing to try anything for Goddard, Jimmy did as Ike suggested. He slowly inhaled as deep as he could and closed his eyes.

Jimmy admitted that he could not repair Goddard, that his physical form was truly gone. Instead of telling himself that if he could just believe in Heaven then Goddard could still exist, he focused on Goddard's death. Goddard is gone. Goddard is truly gone. He let the sorrow build, felt his stomach twist in painful knots, and grew nauseous as his mouth seemed to water. As the tears threatened to spill over his eyes and utter despair took over, Jimmy begged for God to appear, to take away the pain. Only emptiness greeted him.

"He's not there," Jimmy angrily spat while opening his eyes.

The sound of the church door opening reached Ike's ears, and he spun around to find Cindy Vortex step over the threshold. Her worried features softened as she spotted Jimmy, and Ike gave her a friendly nod.

"It will happen somehow. He does work in mysterious ways," Ike assured James while rising to his feet and clapping the boy on his shoulder. "Dominus vobiscum, Jimmy."

As Ike walked away, Jimmy heard a new set of footsteps approach. He turned around just as Cindy took Ike's empty seat, and they both watched as Ike disappeared through a door to the back of the church.

"How'd you find me?" Jimmy sincerely asked.

Happy to hear no malice in his tone, Cindy merely shook her head in amusement. "I figured you wouldn't make it easy for me. Once I realized that, it was obvious."

"I wasn't hiding," Jimmy mumbled.

"I know," Cindy quietly agreed. She took stock of the boy beside her; the dark bags under his eyes, his unkempt hair, the wrinkles in his days old clothes. "We're worried, Jimmy."

"I know," he quietly answered.

For a long moment, the two sat in silence. Jimmy pondered Ike's words and wondered if they held any merit as Cindy rested her arms on the pew before her and stared at the pulpit. Then, Jimmy finally asked, "Cindy?"

Cindy kept her gaze straight ahead as she studied the long wooden lectern housing an enormous bible. "Yeah?"

Jimmy sighed and faced her. "You're the smartest person I've ever met," he slowly admitted. "What do you think about this?" Jimmy motioned around the church. "About God?"

The bluntness of the question and compliment shocked her. She glanced at her friend and saw pure sadness and longing in his eyes. "I…" she hesitated and realized she had no idea what to say. Like Jimmy, she'd only been to church a few times in her life; she'd never given much thought to the idea of God.

After a long look around the church and then at the sky outside, the words came to her easily. "I think that people like you and me won't find answers to questions like that in a church." She looked back into Jimmy's curious eyes, measured her words, and then asked, "You up for a ride?"

Cindy rose to her feet and offered Jimmy her right hand to help him up. He went to grab it but stopped short as he noticed her blisters. True concern flashed in his eyes, so Cindy simply said, "It could have been worse."

"Goddard made it sure it wasn't," Jimmy whispered while rising up without grabbing her hand. He turned around in sorrow, but Cindy grabbed his wrist and yanked him back around.

"Goddard saved us," Cindy agreed, "but you saved me too." She stared down at her hand on his. "Just like I've saved you before."

Jimmy offered her hand a squeeze before gently pulling out of her grasp. "It's what we do." With that said he and Cindy headed out of the church and back onto the sunny street.

Deep inside Jimmy's lab, James and Cindy stood around the Strato XL's launch pad. Cindy rested a few feet back from the vehicle with a clipboard in her hands as Jimmy lay underneath the rocket. He rapped his knuckles against the thick metal above him. "Fuel line's intact." Cindy sighed and checked off another box on the sheet of paper.

"We all ride in this thing every week and you've never done a pre-flight checklist," she groaned while letting the clipboard drop to her waist. She was trying to be patient for Jimmy, but they'd spent a half hour inspecting the vehicle.

Jimmy's hands clenched into fists but he didn't look at her. Instead, he checked his rocket's emergency kit and blankly stated, "One thing goes wrong and we blow up. I've come to realize that's a very real possibility. So we finish the checklist."

Cindy didn't have a rebuttal for that, so she simply muttered, "Okay," and let her gaze drop back to the paper. She and James both glanced at the lab's main monitor as it crackled to life.

"We're here!" Sheen screeched while pressing his face against the glass.

"And we've got food!" Carl sing-songed while waving a bag of take-out in front of the camera.

Libby sighed and ran a hand down her weary face. "Please let me in."

Jimmy approached the monitor and opened the lab's front door. In a moment the five friends were reunited.

"What took you so long?" Cindy asked while setting the clipboard down on the workbench and approaching Libby.

"The food," Libby answered while pointing at the greasy white bag. She turned to Jimmy, whose eyes were fixed on the floor below her. Libby felt her smile wither away as she stepped towards her friend. "We figured you guys could use a snack up in space."

Jimmy opened his mouth as if to speak, but settled for a quiet nod. Libby waited a few seconds before wrapping James in an awkward hug. His eyes bugged open in surprise, but he kept from pulling back. "Be careful up there," Libby whispered while squeezing Jimmy tight. Then she pulled away and straightened her shirt.

Jimmy slowly nodded at his friend. Carl stepped forward and offered Jimmy the bag, which he accepted. "Candy Bar?" James quietly croaked.

Carl nodded. "Double cheeseburger, no pickle. Your favorite." He quickly turned to Cindy and added, "And we got the chicken club you like."

Cindy was surprised at how easily she smiled. "Thanks, Carl."

"It took all of our allowances!" Sheen proudly proclaimed.

Libby sighed and rubbed her temple. "Sheen, stop saying things."

Carl glanced at the Strato XL in front of him and then locked his beady eyes onto Jimmy's. "Are you sure you don't want us to come, Jim?"

"Yeah," Libby quickly piped in. "We don't mind."

Jimmy stared at Sheen's wide smile, Carl's oblivious anxiety, and Libby's concern. He cleared his throat and answered, "Thanks, but Cindy and I have to do this alone."

Normally, Libby would have grinned slyly and raised a knowing eyebrow at Cindy, but today she simply nodded in understanding. "Okay. We're here if you need us."

Jimmy hopped in the pilot's seat. "I know."

Cindy took the seat behind Jimmy and manned her own controls. "We'll be back later." She hesitated and then offered her three friends a wry smile. "You might want to step back."

Carl, Sheen, and Libby did as instructed. Jimmy placed his thumb against the dashboard's fingerprint scanner and heard the engine growl to life. "Initiating take-off procedure."

Cindy nodded as her dashboard lit up. "Roger. Engines to power…reading green."

Jimmy flicked a red switch and listened to the motor whine loader. "Turbines to speed…green across the board." He flicked another green switch and watched the lab's roof retract, followed by the shed's ceiling above it. "Preparing for launch in three, two, one…"

Cindy leaned back in her seat and stared hard at the boy in front of her. "Blast off."

Cindy had ridden in rockets a half dozen times, but she was still unprepared for the seemingly impossible acceleration. Wind barreled past her face, stripping away her beads of perspiration and leaving chafed skin in its wake.

Jimmy simply wiggled around in his seat to get comfortable and traced his right index finger along a few graphs on the diagnostic screen. "Hull integrity is stable."

Cindy watched in amazement as the rocket punched clean through a fluffy white cloud.

"Clearing the troposphere," Jimmy remarked while tapping his watch twice. "Activating micro-polymer Atmo-suits."

Cindy felt her skin tighten as the thin, invisible suits they wore for space travel compressed against her skin. She heard a tiny hiss against her ears, and took a deep breath of pressurized oxygen.

"Meteor hard to port, banking starboard," Jimmy uttered with all the urgency of a driver avoiding a pothole. Cindy watched in amazement as a flaming rock hurtled a hundred meters to their left and dissolved in the atmosphere.

Cindy's eyes widened and she lost her breath as blue sky gave way to infinite blackness. This time, Jimmy's voice held a trace of Cindy's awe. "Passing the Kármán Line."

Jimmy gave one last glance at the rocket's diagnostics, took a loving look at the enormous moon looming in front of him, and then leaned back in his seat with his hands off the wheel.

"Welcome to space, Cindy."

Cindy huffed and shook her head in disbelief. "Good to be back."

Jimmy kept his gaze fixed on the white and grey moon and managed a small smile. "So, you ready to tell me where we're heading?"

Cindy followed Jimmy's gaze. "Yeah," she immediately answered. "Head for Venus."

Jimmy turned around, puzzled at her response. "That close?"

"That close," Cindy agreed. "How long will it take?"

Jimmy boosted the rocket's engines and watched the moon to shrink to a pinpoint in an instant. "Twenty minutes."

The ride was utterly silent, save for the steady roar of the Stato XL's thrusters. At first, Cindy felt guilty for not giving some inspirational speech to her depressed friend. But the sheer beauty of space demanded her full attention, and she came to realize that Jimmy must have felt the same way. After all, she reasoned, he had initially wanted to be left alone. It was she who had come looking for him.

So, both complacent, Jimmy and Cindy made the short journey without sharing a sound. It wasn't until Cindy saw Venus turn from a bright speck of light to a flaming orange planet that she at last spoke.

"Put us in orbit so we can talk," she instructed while placed her hands on the back of Jimmy's seat and leaning forward. "God," she whispered while smiling at the planet in pure joy.

Jimmy couldn't stop his lips from twitching upwards. "Found him after all, huh?"

Cindy huffed in amusement and kept her eyes glued on the planet. She gave herself a few more seconds of satisfaction before turning to Jimmy, who was craning his neck to look at her. Their faces a few inches apart, they watched each other in awkward silence.

After a moment, Jimmy quietly cleared his throat and pulled back. "Why here?" he asked as gently as he could. He stared down at Venus, which was certainly impressive but nowhere near as beautiful as Saturn's rings or Jupiter's Red Spot. He glanced out at space and saw a few hundred distant stars. Again, they were no doubt beautiful, but there were more chilling views available.

Cindy leaned back in her seat as Jimmy spun around in his. They faced each other once more, and she explained the purpose of their journey. "Do you know how far we are from Earth?" she asked.

"You know I do," Jimmy answered with the least arrogance he could manage. "Twenty-six million miles."

Cindy nodded. "This is the closest planet to us, Jimmy. Closest by far. And look at it." Jimmy raised an eyebrow, so Cindy motioned at the redness below. Jimmy did as instructed, and Cindy followed his gaze. "Most of it is lava. Lava," she repeated with an amazed huff. "Just molten rock and sulfuric rain."

Cindy licked her lips and shook her head in amazement. "Pluto is just ice. Jupiter is a planet of storms. Mars is dust, Venus is lava, Earth is jungle and water." Cindy looked deep into Jimmy's eyes. "Do you realize how insane that is? People make a big deal because Earth is the only planet in our solar system capable of life. But do they even stop and think about how completely different the rest of the planets are?"

Jimmy considered the question. He remembered a year ago, before encountering the Yolkians, when he had been obsessed with searching for aliens. He had cataloged every planet he could, made note of all those that might contain water and an Earth-like climate. Every other celestial body he had simply ignored, barely taking the time to write down their name and location.

"No," he admitted at last. "I didn't."

Grateful for his affirmation, Cindy glanced back down at the swirling patches of red, molten rock below. "No two planets are the same. We lump them into Earth-like and non-Earth-like, but they're so much more than that." She glanced out at the sea of stars before her and felt her eyes widen in wonder.

"It's all so much more than that. People like Ike can go into a church and just know that God is out there. And that's fine for them. But it would never work like that for me."

Cindy stared eagerly back at Jimmy. He couldn't help but smile at the pure excitement in Cindy's tone, he had never seen her so filled with wonder and so willing to share it.

"If we just had Earth, just that one planet with life and everything else was plain rock, I would never get how people could say that was God's work." Cindy shook her head and gripped the seat in front of her. "One in a quadrillion planets with life? That's chance. But when I look at this," she motioned at Venus below, "when I look at every planet so different and so beautiful, I see something amazing."

Cindy took a deep breath and continued her speech. "I see an artist better than Picasso. I see an inventor greater than da Vinci. I see someone, or something, more brilliant than Einstein," her eyes darted playfully back to Jimmy, "or you."

She leaned back in her seat and succinctly answered Jimmy's question from the church. "I do believe in God, Jimmy."

A long silence filled the ship as Jimmy took in all that Cindy had said. He understood every point that Cindy had made, felt utter and complete amazement at the vastness and beauty of the universe, but still couldn't feel that connection to the unknown. Yet as he sat in his tiny seat, pondering the existence of the almighty, he realized how much better it was to be in space with Cindy than it was to be alone in his lab. As the seconds wore on and Cindy failed to narrow her eyes and curl her lips into a snarl, as she simply stared back at him in appreciative wonder, he was filled with an urge to sit beside her, to hold her hand, to truly share this moment with her. The rocket didn't allow for such a luxury, so he asked, "Do you want to see the surface?"

Cindy hopped out of the Strato XL clutching the bag of food Carl had given them. They had landed the rocket on a slab of orange rock. It was a hundred square meters and floating on a river of lava. Cindy watched Jimmy pull a picnic blanket out of his hypercube, unfold it, and set it down on the ground.

It immediately burst into flames.

Both children blinked and starred at the rapidly dissipating embers. Cindy slowly glanced up at Jimmy, who rubbed the back of his neck.

"I probably should have realized that would happen."

"Probably," Cindy agreed while strolling up to Jimmy. She watched as the boy genius pulled out an aerosol bottle labeled Neutro-Dome. He sprayed an orange mist that filled the air and solidified into a dome around them.

"Give it a minute," Jimmy instructed while tentatively poking the orange walls. He teetered back and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment while staring at his watch. "Fifty-nine, sixty," he muttered with a smile while tossing the spray can back into his hypercube and tapping a few buttons on his watch.

"Temperature's steady at seventy-two," he happily muttered. He then glanced at the orange walls and listened as they loudly hissed. Another peek at his watch led him to say, "And oxygen's at 20%. We can take off the suits and eat now."

"I've seen you do a lot of crazy things," Cindy mumbled while tapping a tiny black button on her wrist. She felt her suit decompress and flexed her cramped fingers. "But I think that takes the cake."

Cindy smiled and sat down on the rock beside Jimmy. He grabbed the bag of food and handed Cindy her sandwich. "Looks like those couple of minutes in atmosphere warmed them up."

"Thank God," Cindy said while unfolding the wrapping and taking a giant bite. "I'm starving."

Jimmy watched her eat and then took a small bite of his burger. They sat in silence once more, alternating gazes between the sky full of stars above and world of lava around them. After a while, Jimmy turned to Cindy and watched her eat. She quickly realized this and stared at him. "What?" she innocently asked.

Jimmy smiled and answered, "I was just thinking…I'm glad it's just the two of us."

After another moment of void of sound, Cindy scooched an inch closer to James. She tilted her head towards his shoulder, hesitated, and let it make contact. "Would be more interesting with Sheen," she whispered while nibbling on her sandwich. "Annoying, but interesting."

Jimmy smiled, suddenly remembered why they were on this trip, and immediately felt guilty. "I miss him."

Cindy lifted up her head and waited for Jimmy to look into her eyes. Both of their hands crept along the cooled rock and found each other. "I know."

Jimmy nodded and then glanced back up at the stars. "You know why I asked about God, about why we're here, right? Why I need to believe?"

Cindy hadn't heard Jimmy's explanation to Ike, but the answer was obvious. "You don't want Goddard to be gone."

Jimmy chewed on his lip, scrounged up his legs, and hugged his knees. "He was my best friend. My first friend." Jimmy glanced back at Venus' surface and stared straight ahead. "I understand everything you said up there," he went on while quickly darting his pupils towards the sky. "And I don't want to take that away from you. But for me, it's not enough." He stared desperately at Cindy.

"There's no evidence of anything but chance in the universe. There's no proof that all those beautiful worlds are just…atoms smashing together. And I want to believe in that great inventor and artist, but I just can't." Jimmy ran a trembling hand through his hair. "I can't."

Cindy shook her head and grabbed his shaking palm. "You don't have to. No one's forcing you to believe in God."

"But if I don't, then Goddard's gone." Jimmy blinked away the tears and choked out, "I can't let that happen."

Cindy's face melted as Jimmy dug his nails into his palm. She squeezed his fist tight and forced him to look at her. "Goddard dying was not your fault." Jimmy started to look away, but Cindy forced him back. "And whether God exists or he doesn't, whether Goddard is out there or not, nothing you believe can change that."

Jimmy's face fell further at the true realization of his impotence.

Cindy took in a deep breath and said the only thing she could. "I know that sucks to hear," she softly explained. "But we're not kids." She blinked hard and swallowed painfully. "Not anymore; not after all we've been through the past year. We can handle the hard truth. And that is that Goddard may be gone."

Cindy squeezed Jimmy's hand as hard as she could and drilled her eyes straight into his. "But the easier truth? That's that your friends will be there." Cindy put her free hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "James," she swallowed once more and leaned her forehead against his, "I'm always with you. You will never be alone."

Finally, for the first time since Goddard's death, Jimmy cried. He leaned his head against Cindy's shoulder, let her hold him, and felt the tears flow freely. Once the streams dried up and his ragged breaths steadied, Jimmy pulled away and looked into the eyes of his friend.

"Goddard's gone," he admitted at last. He gave himself a nod of resignation, let out a deep sigh, and stared miserably at his rocket. "So what now?"

Cindy stood up and offered Jimmy her hand. "Goddard saved us for a reason. Let's do what he wanted." Jimmy accepted her grip and she hoisted him to his feet.

"We live."

Sheen, Carl, and Libby filled the sofa inside the lab's lounge. Carl twiddled his thumbs, Libby stared at the semi-organized clutter of tools and mechanical components littering the lab, and Sheen happily whistled.

Libby eyed her boyfriend curiously. "Why are you so happy? I thought you'd be miserable with school starting tomorrow."

Sheen smiled widely and explained his near-maniacal joy. "Are you kidding? With Jimmy and Cindy spending every day in this lab, we haven't had an adventure in two weeks! Them calling us here can only mean one thing?"

Carl happily perked up. "An end of summer party?"

"No!" Sheen angrily snapped. "A mega-adventure to make up for lost time! I bet we're heading to the oceans of Mars or the lead-filled volcanoes of Dimension X!"

Libby shook her head in disgust. "None of those things exist on those things. That last place isn't even real."

"Oh, we'll see about that," Sheen cackled while rubbing his hands in maniacal glee.

The sound of a door opening grabbed the trio's attention. Jimmy and Cindy, both wearing lab coats, entered the lounge. "Thank you all for coming. I know Cindy and I have been busy for the past couple of weeks, but we want to finally share the product of our work."

"Stow the speech, Jimmy," Cindy playfully instructed while crossing her arms. "Guys, we want you to meet our first cooperative invention." Cindy spun around and gently instructed, "You can come out now!"

Slowly, a teal mechanical poodle crept into the lounge. Its steel tail was tucked between its legs, and it sniffed the ground before taking each new step. It eyed Carl, Sheen, and Libby with caution before looking at Cindy and Jimmy for guidance. They both nodded, so it stepped forward and sniffed Sheen's shoe.

"Aw, it's adorable," Carl cooed while kneeling down and patting the creature's head. "What's his name?"

Jimmy smiled and whistled for the robotic pup to return to his side. "It's a girl, actually." Jimmy got down on one knee and scratched under the dog's chin. "Her name's Morgan."

Libby smiled at Jimmy. "She's amazing," Libby dropped her voice and asked, "but are you sure you're ready for another dog?"

Jimmy grabbed Cindy's hand, rubbed Morgan's head, and stared back at the photograph of his first friend taped beside his main monitor. "I'll always love you, boy." He turned back to Libby and nodded. "But I'm ready."

Author's Note: I never say never, but for the foreseeable future, this is my final fanfic. I intended Last Call to be my swan song, but I thought it prudent to end my fanfiction career the way I started it: with a J/C story. I didn't want to just write a simple tale of Jimmy and Cindy going to a dance or moving away and getting together, so I tried to come up with something a bit more complex for my last entry. I also wanted to include some callbacks to my earlier stories and continue the themes of family and small moments vs. large declarations of love that I've explored with my latest fanfics. Thus this story came together.

As always, I want to truly thanks everyone who's read and reviewed my fanfiction stories. You all inspired me to write and I will always be thankful for it.

Lastly, if I've succeeded in making you crave my writing, your appetite can be obliged. My debut novel, Paranoia, is now for sale at www. amazon B00RDYVTD8 . (Remove the two spaces to access the link. It is also available on my user profile page.) It is $2.99, but can you can read a sample for free before purchase to see if it is your liking. It can be read on any computer, tablet, or smartphone after you download the free kindle reading app. I would absolutely love to see if my fanfiction readers enjoy this story that I've worked on for years. If you are at all interested, please check it out and let me know what you think.

Again, I give my sincere thanks to all of you. Keep writing and reading, and I love you all.