A/N – This is a funny idea I've had hanging around for a while. Vanessa belongs to Povenmire & Marsh, her roomies are mine.

The Boy Friend

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz stepped onto the third floor of the freshman women's dormitory and headed down the hall to her room. She had been at Ackerton State University for not quite two months and was already looking forward to her sophomore year, when she might be able to score a single room, or at least choose her roommate. But freshmen were shuffled into four-person "suites," two double rooms that shared a bath and a small common area, in an effort to encourage them to mix and mingle and negotiate peace treaties with their new classmates. Oh, they did get to fill out a short survey with a few vague questions about bedtimes and study habits, but the assignment process was deliberately random. Finding a way to live with your roomies without killing them was supposed to be a learning experience.

When she stopped to think about it, though, Vanessa had lucked into a fairly decent draw, especially considering some of the horror stories she was hearing or observing. At least her little pod was for the most part trying – and not in the bad sense of the word. Whatever gripes she had about the other girls, they probably all had their own gripes about her. Jess had made some genial crack about Vanessa having "drawn the short straw" when the two of them ended up sharing a bedroom, but the other girl did respect her space and for the most part minded her own business. Vanessa found her cheerful banter generally tolerable, apart from the suggestion that the two of them should be known as "Jess and Ness."

Now she opened the door to the sight of Jess emerging from the bathroom with a wet washcloth, and the sound of wretched snuffling coming from the other bedroom in their suite. Vanessa's only inquiry was a raised eyebrow, but Jess answered the unasked question.

"It's a crisis. Adam's got himself an Eve."

Sometimes her insistence on being clever just made things more confusing and Vanessa's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"

Heather's tear-soaked voice answered from the other room, "Adam's got a girlfriend."

That wasn't helping. Following Jess into the room, Vanessa asked, "Who's Adam?"

Heather's red-rimmed eyes looked up at her in shock at the question, but Kinley, who was sitting beside the crying girl, hovering over her with a look of concern, answered as if this should have been common knowledge, "The guy she likes."

"Also known as the only straight guy in the musical theatre department," said Jess, holding out the cold cloth.

"Oh, now, that's not true," Kinley clucked at her, taking the washcloth and coaxing Heather into allowing her to dab at her face.

"She's not even pretty," Heather whined. "She's fa-a-at."

Vanessa looked at Jess. "Is this someone we know?"

Jess shrugged, but Kinley explained, "It's Sara Felter." This prompted another snuffle from Heather, and Kinley gave her shoulders a sympathetic squeeze.

This still wasn't making things any clearer to Vanessa, but Jess said, "Felter the Belter?" After just a moment of consideration, she added, "She's not fat."

"Okay," said Vanessa, "obviously I've been living under a rock for the past two months, but who, or what, is 'Felter the Belter'?"

"Senior music major," Jess explained. "She has a fantastic voice; perfect pitch, and she can blow the roof off a concert hall. She had the lead in 'The King and I' last year. My mom and I saw it on a campus visit; we got free tickets."

"She should have shaved her head and played the King," the girl with the mangled heart sneered.

"Now that I would have paid to see," put in Jess with a chuckle.

Vanessa rolled her eyes at this and pulled up a desk chair, sitting down to face Heather. She had already secretly labeled her as 'The Diva,' but there wasn't a girl alive who hadn't crushed on some cute guy only to get her heart broken, one way or another, and Vanessa was not entirely without sympathy. "Look," she said, reaching out to pat her unhappy suitemate's knee, "guys aren't always what they're cracked up to be. I mean, this Adam – I'm sure he's great and all," she put in swiftly when Heather looked up with a glare, "but maybe he's just not the right one. And who says you need a boyfriend, anyway? This is college, you're supposed to be free and have fun, find yourself. You don't need some guy for that."

Heather looked at her in annoyance. "That's easy for you to say! You've got a boyfriend."

Thrown by this remark, Vanessa sat up in her chair. "No, I don't."

The other two girls looked baffled by her denial, and Jess said, "What about that guy in Danville?"

"Yeah," Kinley chimed in. "What's his name… Ferb?"

The name hit Vanessa like a sock in the stomach and knocked out of her a short, shocked laugh. "Ferb's not my boyfriend."

Jess responded with a laugh of her own. "Could have fooled me."

"He's all you talk about," sniped Heather. "Ferb says this, Ferb did that, Ferb built a spaceship and took me to the moon for ice cream…"

"It wasn't the moon," Vanessa corrected automatically. The accusation was ridiculous. It wasn't as if she just brought him up out of the blue for no reason. If she ever said anything about him, it was only because someone had asked a question Ferb would have known the answer to, or someone had mentioned Paris, or soccer, or going for a milkshake… The sudden dose of reality caught her by surprise and she cast a mortified glance around the circle of her suitemates. "Do I really talk about him that much?"

Kinley gave her the answer in that sensitive, overly compassionate way she had. "Um, yeah, Vanessa. You really kinda do."

"Oh, yeah," Jess grinned teasingly. "He's definitely not your boyfriend."

"He's not!" Vanessa exclaimed, aghast at the implications. "He's like twelve, for crying out loud! He's just this really smart kid I know. He and his brother build all these crazy things in their back yard, ski resorts and – and amusement rides – Everyone in Danville knows Ferb and Phineas. If you were from Danville, you'd get it," Vanessa defended herself, aware that she really was just blathering now. "His sister and I went to high school together, our moms are friends. I thought we were trying to solve Heather's boy problems here," she finally blurted in frustration.

This last comment brought her the exit she'd been groping for as The Diva seized the spotlight and twisted it back to herself. "That's right, what am I going to do about Adam?"

Leaving the other girls to sort out that drama, Vanessa slunk off to her bedroom. Ferb? Really? He was just this kid she knew. This weird, smart, funny, cool kid.

This kid she was definitely going to have to stop talking about.

THE END