Trigger warning: sudden death, depression

I'm posting this before Valentine's Day so that everyone else's sappy stories can act as a palate cleanser. This one...not so sappy. It's marked 'tragedy' for a reason, although it's all in back story.

Timeline: Early February, Phineas and Isabella's sophomore year in high school; about 8 months after Back in Time for Dinner. Both are 15.

Isabella lay on her bed on a winter afternoon, thinking about all the Valentine's Days she'd spent mooning over Phineas.

There was the year I tried giving him twenty anonymous cards...he recognized my handwriting.

Then there was the year I sent myself an anonymous card professing undying love in hopes of making him jealous...he recognized my handwriting again.

And, no matter how hard I try, I can't forget the year I got sick on those awful candy hearts, moping because he didn't notice me again.

This year, however, was different for one critical reason: on their trip back in time, she and Phineas had finally confessed their attraction to each other, and agreed to start dating. Valentine's Day is less than a week away, and I have no idea what I'm going to do. Or what he's going to do. Actually...he's never really done anything for Valentine's Day for anyone. Neither has Ferb. That's odd. It's not like them to skip a holiday.

She decided to just ask him. Somehow it felt like cheating, but even after eight months of dating there was still a visceral thrill in being able to actually talk to him about her feelings instead of having to subtly hint about them. She pulled out her phone and sent him a quick text.

Hey - what are we doing for V-day?

The response came back a minute later:

I have no idea. I've never really thought about it. My family never celebrated it. What would you like?

Puzzled, she sent back a short question.

Why doesn't your family celebrate it?

The response came back immediately, as if he were already composing it in expectation.

Too long to explain over text. Wanna come over?

That was an offer she could never resist.

Be there in five minutes.

Phineas sighed. He found the photo album he wanted on the shelf just as Isabella rang the doorbell. Letting her in, he led her over to the couch.

"So...what's up with your family and Valentine's Day?" she asked.

"The short version is, bad things happened for both of my parents on Valentine's Day. Neither of them really felt like celebrating the holiday after that. Do you want the long version? I can give you the story of my biological father, but it's kinda depressing. I don't know the details from Ferb's side of the family, just that it's related to his birth mother somehow."

"I think I'd like to know what you can tell me," she said, putting her arm around him. He appreciated that; he wasn't looking forward to this story.

He opened the photo album to the first page, a wedding picture showing a much younger Linda Flynn, dressed in flowing white bridal gown, standing next to a tall blond man dressed in a grey tuxedo. "Meet Timothy Arthur Flynn. My biological father."

"He looks just like you. Except he's blond."

He smiled. "Mom says that too. I don't really see it. Anyway, they met in college. She was having computer problems, and her roommate offered to have her boyfriend's roommate - Tim - fix it. After he fixed it, she offered to pay him for the work he'd done, and he asked her for a date in payment instead. He thought it was cute that they both had the same last name already."

"Wait, your mother's maiden name was Flynn, and she married a guy with the same last name?"

"Right. One thing led to another, and they got married on the Valentine's Day after they graduated."

"How romantic!"

"Apparently, Tim picked the date as one he wouldn't forget."

Isabella laughed. "Was that a problem for him?"

"So I've been told. So," Phineas continued, flipping pages in the photo album, "Tim got a job working for Danville Telephone as a programmer, and Mom worked at a little antique store, then had Candace a little over a year after they got married."

Linda spoke up behind them. "He was a great dad. He loved Candace so much, and he was so looking forward to having a son."

Phineas looked around. "Oh, hi, Mom. Isabella asked why we never celebrated Valentine's Day..."

Linda nodded with moist eyes. "Keep going. I'll fill in what I need to."

Phineas flipped past pictures of Candace as a baby and toddler to a page with ultrasound pictures of a child with an oddly-angled head. "And then Mom got pregnant again a few years later. So they were coming up on their five year anniversary, with a three-year-old daughter and a son on the way. February 13, the day before their anniversary, he was working late, trying to make sure he had his plans for the next day ready to go."

"Plans?"

"He wanted to make it really special for Mom."

From behind, Linda laughed ruefully. "That he did."

"And then, apparently, he just...fell over. An undiscovered heart defect of some sort. He was dead on the scene. His co-workers tried CPR, but it was too late."

Isabella gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. "Oh, no. I can see why you wouldn't want to celebrate that."

Phineas continued, "It gets worse. His plans, that he'd been working on? Mom found out about them at nine o'clock the next day, when she got a text message from him. Telling her to take Candace along on a scavenger hunt he'd set up for them. And, ten minutes later, a hint for her, since she hadn't sent back the code from the first location. He'd set it all up to work automatically so he could manage it from work, then go surprise them at the last stage."

Isabella's eyes were brimming with tears. "Oh, no..." Phineas handed her a tissue and put his arm around her.

Her voice cracking, Linda said, "It took his co-workers two hours to figure out what he'd done and turn it off. Somebody took my phone away after the third message, fortunately."

"How did you get through it?"

"In the short term, I shut down. They couldn't put me on antidepressants because I was pregnant. My parents took care of Candace...and me. Candace may have some memories of that time, but I really don't. It's like a blank spot in my life where I crawled into a hole and only crawled out because the child within me needed to come out. By the time Phineas was born, I was able to function again. He needed me, and nobody else could fill that need."

Phineas looked at his mother. "What happened to his parents? They aren't the Grandma and Grandpa Flynn I know."

"They died not long after Tim did. He was their only child, born when they were relatively old already, and when he died, something in his mother died too. I had hoped that you would give her something to keep going for, but she just sort of...faded. When she died, her husband lost his own will to go on, and he followed her less than a month later. You weren't even a year old yet."

Isabella looked at Phineas. "I think I understand if you don't want to do anything for Valentine's Day."

Linda said, "That's up to you two. I still can't, but if you want to do something, please do. Just...not here, please. It's been sixteen years now, and it's still too fresh. I wouldn't trade away Lawrence or Ferb for anything, but part of me will always miss Tim.

"Lawrence has his own reasons for disliking the holiday, too. He can tell you the story some time, or Ferb can, but it's not my place to."

Ta-da. My solution for the question of 'If Linda's maiden name was Flynn, why do Candace and Phineas use it?'

'Something Special' and 'What's Up, Doc?' both start next weekend.