Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy Neutron or related characters, because the world isn't perfect.

Author's Note: Hey everybody. It's Kle. This is my third written fanfic, my second finished fanfic, and my first posted one. So be nice, please.

Anyways, the summary is a bit cryptic, but it's true. So, read on, and I hope you enjoy. Originally going to be a one-shot but I kinda kept going and no one wants to read a 4,000 word one shot. Plus: I like to keep people in suspense. Hopefully this will. Anyways, here's the story:

Without You

Jimmy stared at his knees. The program in his hands shook so fiercely he was attracting stares, so he set it down on the pew next to him and lowered his eyes. He directed his attention to the small laminated card that had been passed around at the beginning of the service.

It was a great picture, he thought. Just the way she would have wanted to be remembered. Her green eyes danced and sparkled and her blonde hair waved in a breeze that had now ceased to blow. He recognized the picture as a cropped version of one that Libby had taped up in her locker. It was from a field trip the class had taken back in Miss Fowl's class a few years back. Under the picture was a name and a verse from a beloved song, and Jimmy read it and smiled. It was a perfect fit for her…

He felt hopeless and overwhelmed, and stowed the picture in his suit pocket, not being able to bear looking at it anymore. He buried his face in his hands and felt a small squeeze on his right shoulder. He looked to his right, and saw that it had been Libby, who now had tears streaming slowly from her eyes. Jimmy felt even more remorse for her. To lose her best friend…

He glanced at Sheen, who had his arm wrapped comfortingly and protectively around Libby's shoulder. Sheen gave Jimmy a small sad smile, the usual mischief and spark gone from his eyes for the time being.

Carl was an absolute mess on Jimmy's other side. Anything and everything made Carl cry, and funerals were high on the list that made him blubber like a small infant.

As for this funeral, however, Jimmy would not tell Carl to quiet down. Carl's outward display of emotion was not even one-tenth of what Jimmy was keeping inside.

Jimmy turned his eyes to the vaulted ceiling of the church and thought about the last two days. He realized almost immediately that he couldn't remember anything clearly. The wake was hazy, and all he could recall at all was what Libby had explained to him mere minutes ago.

Jimmy looked up from his rocket, annoyed. Who could be coming to his lab door this late at night? He looked over to his computer screen, shocked to see none other than Libby Folfax standing there, teary-eyed. Closer inspection revealed Sheen standing almost out of view of VOX's camera and a sullen Carl in the background.

"Jimmy," Libby sniffed, but that was all she could get out before she started sobbing. Alarmed, Jimmy threw off his lab coat and ran over to the speakerphone. "What's the matter, guys?" he asked, speaking urgently but cautiously, almost as though he didn't want to hear the answer.

He watched the screen carefully as Libby jerked her thumb in the direction of the house across the street and began crying on Sheen's shoulder. Sheen comforted her, hugging her, though not in the playful manner he normally did. There was something somber about his attitude that scared Jimmy more than anything else had so far.

Jimmy grabbed his outdoor coat off the chair in the corner and dashed over to the lab door, emerging outside in a matter of seconds. Libby and the others backed away from the door upon his arrival outside, and Jimmy quickly looked to each of them for an explanation, and then looked in the direction Libby had pointed.

The Vortex household was surprisingly lit up for such a late hour and there were many cars out front, and people slowly walking in.

"Are Cindy's parents having a party?" he asked slowly, confused.

At Cindy's name, Libby started to cry even more hysterically, and Sheen squeezed her even tighter and gave Jimmy a warning look.

Jimmy was getting angrier and more worried with each passing second, "If someone doesn't tell me what's going on this second, I'll-"

"It's a wake, Jimmy." Libby pulled her head away from Sheen's shoulder and glared at Jimmy with a sudden fire in her eyes, "The funeral is in the morning."

That was all Jimmy knew, but only because Libby had told him. Why couldn't he remember any of this? He guessed he must have suffered some memory loss because of the extreme stress and the complete devastation at losing someone he loved… and had never told that he loved.

The harpist stopped playing, and Jimmy looked finally up to the front of the church. The pastor stood up and the church was deadly silent but for the creaking of pews.

"Dearly beloved," the pastor began, and Jimmy grasped his own trembling hands as his eyes fell on the hundreds of flowers around the smooth mahogany casket. The same picture on the small laminated card was in a frame on the closed top, "We are gathered here to mourn in the death and celebrate the life of Miss Cynthia Aurora Vortex."

Upon hearing her name in this funeral speech, Jimmy buried his face in his hands and pressed extra hard on his eyeballs to keep the tears from coming, though he knew this to have no scientific effect on stemming the flow of his tears.

The pastor continued reading, and Libby shook next to Sheen, crying silently but convulsively.

Jimmy felt absolute turmoil in his soul as he tuned the pastor's words over and over in his head. Was there anything he could have done to save her? No, he had been away. But he could have told her how he felt… he could still remember their last conversation… Let's just say it hadn't been a good one.

As this eulogy came to a close, Jimmy tightened his grip on the pew ahead of him. The pastor was going to read some scripture, and then people were going to get up to talk about Cindy.

The scripture didn't seem very fitting. Cindy had never been a particularly religious person. This Jimmy knew. It was one of the only things they had ever agreed on, except for each one's mutual dislike of the other… and Jimmy now realized how ironic it was that this was all completely false… for him, at least...

When the pastor had finished, however, Jimmy was a wreck. He couldn't stop thinking about Cindy and all the time he had loved her and never told her.

If she had felt the same way, then there was so much time they could have spent together… before she died.

It took him a second after looking up to register who was speaking. Cindy's grandpa spoke from the podium about the times he'd spent with Cindy as a little girl. Jimmy saw Mr. Vortex pat his wife's shoulder comfortingly in the row ahead of him, as Sasha Vortex had obviously begun to cry a new stronger bout of tears.

People got up, one after another. A surprising amount of people had decided they had something good to say about the spunky blonde who had so recently disappeared from their midst.

After a few of their other classmates, Libby got up, and Jimmy heard her give a story about the last time she had spoken to Cindy, and said she had many to tell about the good times she'd had with her best friend in the world.

"We had fun talking about music, school, and boys," at the last item on the list she looked pointedly at Jimmy, who gave her a sad smile. He had been thinking for the last ten minutes and he finally knew what he wanted to say. When Libby had finished, having decided to tell the story about the time she and Cindy went with the guys to Egypt, she sat down, and there was perfect silence but for the chirping of some birds outside.

Jimmy stood up, and he could sense the stillness in the church as it intensified. He gave an even sadder smile, because he knew exactly what they were thinking: What will the boy genius have to say about his archenemy- the girl he hated the most?

Or maybe, on some level they knew about his feelings for the girl who no longer was, and they just felt sorry for him.

He walked past the coffin, tears springing to his eyes immediately. He wiped them away as he reached the podium.

"Cindy Vortex," he started, his voice breaking and his words choked with emotion. The whole church stared at him sadly. He continued slowly, "You want to know the last thing I said to her?" he asked rhetorically, "We had an argument after school. It was about Nick Dean. She'd agreed to go out with him. This was always an issue of jealousy for me, so we fought about it… This time for the last time," he smiled wistfully, "I recall telling her to get out of my life," he lifted a trembling hand from its death grip on the podium, "and now that I've said those words…" His voice shook as he spoke and he took a deep breath, "I regret them more than anything."

He took another deep breath, deciding once and for all to expose his feelings. So what if the person they would matter to the most wasn't here to listen?

"Most of you probably thought I hated Cindy. Some of you knew I didn't," he saw Libby nod and close her eyes, crying again, "She was a very complex person. I never could figure her out. And I think she had this knowledge and enjoyed it… immensely," Jimmy smiled his first real smile of the day, "But she never knew just how much power she had over me. I never told her." Jimmy wiped a tear from his left eye. "I never told her how much I loved her," he ignored the shocked faces of the majority of people in the pews. He heard their whispers and was amazed at his new inability to care, "That's right," he announced, and the whispers quieted down, "I loved her."

He looked down to the coffin again before speaking. "I loved her hair and her eyes and her smile and her intelligence and her confidence and her fighting spirit and her…" His voice broke again, but he continued as if his heart was squeezing the words out of his throat, "And it kills me that I never told her."

"Cindy was an amazing girl, and somehow we'll all survive without her. She was cruelly taken from us much too early, but not before she touched everyone's lives. For me, at least, I'll never be able to deal with the loss of the girl I loved more than anything in the world. I would give my life if I knew I could see her and talk to her one last time before I went."

He looked at the audience seriously, "Take my advice: Don't keep your feelings inside. You won't be able to live with yourself if you do. Trust me. I learned this the hard way." He sighed and backed away from the podium, fighting back tears as he passed the coffin again.

He sat back down behind Cindy's parents in his seat in the second row. Libby gave him a quick hug and showed intentions of wanting to speak to him and Carl told him in a whisper that his speech was beautiful.

He'd had more to say up there in his mini speech, but he left his words unsaid to turn around in his head in silence as the service went on.

As he was thinking, the service shifted to a hymn, and the familiar opening chords of Amazing Grace hit Jimmy's ears. The whole church stood, and began to sing. Jimmy felt the music stir his heart and small tears leak out of his eye one after another. He let them fall down his cheeks, and then he lowered his head and listened to the sound of 500 voices singing the beautiful hymn. It was a surreal moment. There was so much passion and sorrow in the voices and faces of the people around him. At was all too much. He made his way out of the row and out through the throngs of singers to the exit in the back of the church.

Before he had any idea what was happening, he was at Cindy's gravestone. It made no sense… he had just been at the service. He checked the ground below him. It was freshly dug but definitely closed. He must have zoned out completely… for a few hours? He couldn't remember doing anything since bursting out of the church doors…

He was stopped from investigating the matter further by shadow on his right. He turned. It was Libby, in a black dress similar to the one she had been wearing at the funeral.

"You really did love her," she stared at her best friend's effigy sadly.

Jimmy stared too, "I know I did."

"You should have told her. Why didn't you tell her? What were you afraid of?"

"That's why. I was afraid. Afraid my own feelings were too strong… afraid of rejection."

"But would you have been rejected?" Libby looked at him analytically.

"I don't kn-" he began.

"Exactly. And you will never know. You will never have known and you never will …because you never told her."

In an instant the whole crowd from the funeral was around Jimmy, appearing seemingly from nowhere, singing, "Tell her, never told her, should have told her," over and over again, these same words with swelling volume pounded like sledgehammers on Jimmy's brain continuously until suddenly… it all stopped.

So… What's happening here? Does anyone know? Guess and you get a cookie. Yes, this was supposed to be a one-shot, as I mentioned, but there's one more chapter, and it's already been written, so I'll post it as soon as I get some reviews. I'm pretty excited. It's my first posted fanfic and I would really like some feedback ) thanks in advance!

Kle