Author's Note: I found this when I was digging through the folder of ancient oneshots that I never finished. Timmy/Tootie lovers will be pleased.

Disclaimer: I don't own FOP, but I own Lexi.

Another regular school day, another regular lunchtime. Timmy, Chester, AJ, and Lexi sat at one end of the lunch table, and Sanjay and Elmer sat at the other, completely ignored. But the two didn't mind. Elmer was having a silent argument with his boil, Bob, and Sanjay was doodling in his notebook and daydreaming about Timmy-again. At the other end of the table, Chester and AJ were fighting over who was better: the Crimson Chin, or Crash Nebula. So far, neither of them were winning. Timmy and Lexi were having their own conversation.

"What should we do after school?" Timmy asked, swiping a cookie from Lexi's tray and shoving it into his mouth.

"I don't know," Lexi answered. She leaned across the table and grabbed a handful of Timmy's chips. Smiling, she tossed one into her mouth, and Timmy glared at her. "What?"

"Just because I take a cookie from you, you get to take chips from me?" he demanded. Lexi rolled her eyes.

"It was my last one," she reminded him. "And anyways, you have half the bag left. It's not my fault you can't ask before you steal."

"I didn't steal it. I borrowed it without asking."

"Oh, so you're gonna give it back?"

"No." Timmy sighed. He knew when he had been defeated. Then he turned to his two other friends. "Guys, calm down. Crash and the Chin are both awesome. Agree to disagree." Chester opened his mouth to argue, but suddenly a French fry flew from the nearby table of jocks and hit him on the side of the head.

Chester didn't seem to mind; in fact, he ate the fry, but Lexi frowned. Jocks always bothered her. They thought they were so good at every sport, when she knew that it was just a matter of time before they realized that she could crush any of them at anything.

So to get revenge for the French fry, she grabbed the entire apple from her lunch tray and threw it with all of her might at the jocks' table. Lexi had a good arm, and she succeeded in hitting one of them over the head with it. He yelled at her, and she laughed.

"Mission accomplished!" she cheered, pumping her fist in the air happily. But her happiness was short-lived, for she happened to glance over to see Tootie sitting all alone on the other side of the cafeteria.

"What are you looking at?" Chester asked.

"Guys, do ya think we should invite Tootie to sit with us?" Lexi said with a slight frown. Timmy had convinced her that Tootie was a weirdo-stalker, but Lexi wasn't so sure. Tootie seemed nice enough. A little crazy maybe, but everyone had their faults.

Timmy yelped. "No way! She's insane!"

"Yes, but she does have an above average IQ," reasoned AJ.

"Unlike you, Timmy," Chester teased.

"I'm gonna go invite her over," Lexi cut in. "Anybody who wants to come can." She ended up walking across the cafeteria by herself. She stopped in front of Tootie's table. "Hi!"

Tootie glanced up, surprised that someone was actually talking to her. No one ever dared sit next to her; they were all terrified of her older sister-Icky Vicky. "Hi, Lexi?" It sounded more like a question than a greeting.

The young girl had calmed down on her obsessive crush on Timmy. She still had some items devoted to him in her room (thank goodness she had finally gotten rid of her complete Timmy Shrine), and she daydreamed about him whenever she could, but she was a lot better.

Sure, there were times when she was walking past his house that she would be tempted to grab binoculars and peer in his window, but she restrained herself.

But now that someone was talking to her, she found herself nervous and hyper. "Are you sitting with Timmy?" Tootie blurted before she could stop herself. "Did he say anything about me? Did he?"

Lexi opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, deciding against telling Tootie that Timmy had recently shot off his mouth with several not-so-nice phrases. "Um, no," she said finally. "Sorry. Hey, do you want to come over and sit with us? You look kinda lonely over here all by yourself."

Tootie couldn't believe her ears. Somebody actually wanted her to sit with them? And Lexi wasn't exactly a "nerd" either. She had a bad reputation for sitting with the "losers," and some considered her weird for occasionally talking to inanimate objects, but she was great at sports, and she was pretty.

"S-sure," stammered Tootie, coming to her senses.

Lexi smiled and grabbed Tootie's hand, dragging her over to their table. "Great!" she cried happily as they approached the boys. "Guys, Tootie's gonna join us, 'kay?"

Chester and AJ waved, and Timmy shrunk down in his seat, as if trying to make himself disappear. From his lunch tray, three oddly colored milk cartons gave him curious glances. Timmy ignored them and kept a cautious eye on Tootie, who was just sitting down next to Lexi. He noticed that she chose not to sit next to him, which was strange. A few months ago Tootie would have throttled just about anyone if it meant a seat next to Timmy.

But not she seemed perfectly happy sitting on the other side of Lexi, clear across the table. She was bent over an orange notebook. The only thing was…she wasn't writing in it. Timmy couldn't see exactly what she was doing. Weirdo.

Tootie was interrupted from her thoughts by a poke in the shoulder. She looked up, surprised, to see Lexi was looking at her in a strange way. "Are you talking to your notebook?"

Horrified, Tootie grabbed her orange notebook and shoved it roughly into her backpack. "What? No, of course not! W-why would you think that?" It took all of her will-power to not start hyperventilating.

Alarmed, Lexi blinked. "Alrighty then. So, what did you think about the history test yesterday? I barely had enough time to finish. If I get anything below a C, my mom will seriously chop my head off."

Tootie started to laugh, but covered it up with a cough when she realized that Lexi was serious. "Oh. I actually thought it was pretty easy. I have no problem remembering dates and things like that." She pushed her purple glasses up on her nose with a small shrug.

Lexi gaped at her. "Really? Whoa, you have to teach me how to learn that stuff. Think we could study sometime? You could come over to my house on Friday?"

"Will Timmy be there?" asked Tootie, trying to keep the squeal out of her voice.

"Do you want him to be?"

The young girl's eyes almost popped out from beneath her glasses. "Yes!"

Lexi shot her a genuine smile. "Then I think that can be arranged." She turned to the pink-hatted boy (A.N./ Is "hatted" a word? I'm not sure, so I'm just gonna say yes.) on the other side of her and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, Timmy! You, me, and Tootie are gonna study together this weekend. Fun stuff, right?"

Timmy looked at her like she just sprouted another head. Lexi actually believed that it was a good idea for he and Tootie to study together? Clearly Lexi had lost all sanity left in her.

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Timmy said to his best friend, "Um, Lexi? Have you gone completely insane? Tootie's in love with me. She follows me. She stalks me. And you want to study with her? She's not normal, dude."

"She's fine, Timmy," replied Lexi with a slight frown. "Trust me, she's calmed down a lot with her crush on you. And it's not like you still think girls have cooties." A thought crossed her mind, and she added, "You don't really think that, do you?"

Timmy glared at her until she stopped laughing. "No. But I do think that Tootie has cooties. Or at least, some weird, love-struck disease. You guys can study all you want. But count me out." Then he turned back to Chester and AJ.

He felt a little bad. Mostly because he knew from the look on her face that Lexi couldn't believe him. And he also knew from the look on Tootie's face that she had heard the whole thing. The thing was, though, he found himself not as hateful towards Tootie as he used to be. She was nice enough, and sort of pretty-and she got good grades. And Lexi seemed to like her. Lexi was Timmy's best friend, and he trusted her judgment enough.

Okay, so maybe Lexi didn't have the best judgment on things like stunts…and…well, everything. Everything except people. She was a great judge of character, and Timmy knew it.

So maybe that was why he cornered Tootie after school that day.

Tootie was walking home after a rather exhausting day of school. It had all been fine up until lunch. Then she had heard all of the things Timmy said about her. Timmy-her long life crush-had said she had "cooties." And a whole bunch of other things she didn't even want to think about.

With a little bitten-back sob, she turned the corner away from school, preparing herself for another horrid afternoon of doing Vicky's chores. But then someone stepped right in front of her.

"Excuse me," mumbled Tootie, trying to step around whoever it was. But the person wouldn't budge. Then she happened to look up and see…Timmy?

"What do you want?" she asked, irritated. For once in her life, the sight of Timmy didn't make her want to scream with absolute joy, or hug him until he couldn't breathe. Now she just wanted to go home.

Timmy stepped awkwardly from one foot to the other. He had a bad feeling about how this might turn out. "Uh, I just wanted to, uh, apologize. You know, for what I said to Lexi about you. At lunch," he added quickly, just so she didn't get any other ideas.

Tootie stared at him for a long minute before snapping, "What, did Lexi force you to come apologize to me? Because I know you wouldn't on your own."

Timmy glared back at her. How dare she say that! He was perfectly capable of forming an apology without Lexi's help. Sure, he didn't like saying he was sorry, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it. "No, as a matter of fact, she didn't. She doesn't even know I'm here right now." He smiled triumphantly at Tootie's taken-aback look.

Tootie blinked in surprise, immediately regretting what she had said. "Oh. Well…sorry, I guess. But you shouldn't have said I have cooties. I thought we all got over that in first grade."

Cheeks turning red, Timmy looked down at the sidewalk with a sigh. "I did. Sometimes I just don't think about what I say before I say it."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed." Tootie snorted.

"What's the point in even talking to you?" Timmy exploded. "Everything I say you twist up to make it sound like I'm the bad guy here."

"Well, you were the one who complained about me to my friend."

Now that crossed the line. Timmy balled his fists, even though he knew he could never possibly hit a girl. "Lexi's my friend too! My best friend! She knows me better than she knows you! The only reason she's being nice to you is because she feels bad for you!"

Knowing a lie when she heard one, Tootie shook her head. "Oh yeah? And did she tell you that?"

Timmy growled. "No, but I know she was thinking it."

"Sure."

With a groan, Timmy hung his head in half shame, half annoyance. "Listen," he said finally, looking up to see Tootie still standing in front of him, hands on her hips. "I really don't wanna fight with you. I lied about Lexi; I know she does think you're cool." He smiled his normal, goofy, bucked-toothed smile. "Now that she told me."

Tootie grinned, her silver braces reflecting off the sun's rays. It felt good to have a friend-finally. "Well, you can tell her that I think she's pretty cool too." Then she lowered her voice and added, "And I think you're cool, too."

She opened one eye at him, expecting him to take off and run for his life or call her a rude name or something along those lines. But instead, he smiled again. "Thanks. And for the record, I think you're kinda cool too." He paused. "For a girl."

She giggled despite herself. "Thanks. Now I better go before Vicky finds out I'm late. She said if I'm late one more time, she'll dunk my head in the toilet for three hours straight." With a wave and a starry-eyed grin, she raced off down the street.

Timmy stared after her. Oh boy. He had a lot to tell Cosmo, Wanda, and Poof when he got home.