Author's Note: Another chapter. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Chapter Two

Doofenshmirtz was barely done with cleaning his lab when he heard the doorbell ring. "Coming, coming" he muttered. "Hello – Perry the Platypus? You're back? Already? But I don't have a new inator yet, I've just cleaned up the remains of the old one! And I don't have a new trap, or a back-story… I don't even have an idea! You know, it might be helpful if you came up with an idea sometimes. It's like I do all the work in this and you only come in to wreck things I've spent hours and hours on."

Perry just stared at him, walking out to the ruins of the Child-Inator, now resting in a pile near the wall. Doofenshmirtz followed him and tried to figure out what the platypus wanted. "You… you feel sorry about destroying it? That's… that's great Perry the Platypus, I never thought you'd voluntarily turn against the good guys!" He frowned, as Perry shook his head. "No? You want to borrow the scrap metal from the inator, then?" Another headshake. "You just came to help me clean it up?" Another headshake. "Huh, I was certain that would be it. It sure would've been nice for a change. Then… I guess you just want to stand there and point at the wreck?"

At that last one Perry just rolled his eyes, and Doofenshmirtz let out an exasperated sigh. "I know you can write, Perry the Platypus, so why don't you just take some paper and write down what you want instead of playing this stupid guessing game?"

Perry gave him a sheepish smile, and took a piece of paper and a pen from a drawer, writing something down. Doofenshmirtz wondered if he should feel freaked out by how well the platypus knew his way around Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, but dismissed it. He leaned in to read over Perry's shoulder. "Inator… hit… friend. Need… to… reverse it." The scientist squealed in delight. "Then you do need to reverse your work after all, don't you? And you think I'd let you? Now that for the first time, I've actually accomplished something evil?" Perry gave him a disappointed look, and Doofenshmirtz was about to gesture for him to get out when a thought hit him. "Then again," he muttered to himself, "if we rebuild the inator, I could still use it on Roger once Perry the Platypus is gone, and he'd have helped me rebuild it, which would make it even more evil…" He turned back to the platypus. "Actually, I changed my mind. You can stay here." Perry gave him a curious look. "Of course you can! We could even work together on rebuilding the inator, like we did last time! It'll be fun! Don't give me that look Perry the Platypus, it will be fun. You just wait and see!" Cheerful, he headed off to collect some tools, while Perry looked after him warily.

oooooooo

Even though Candace had ordered Phineas and Ferb to build an invention this time, that still didn't mean she liked the idea, and in the end she'd decided not to stick around but watch from a distance as her brothers built. Buford and Baljeet showing up had added to that determination, what with the looks Buford had given her. She wasn't sure why he was doing it, but if he thought she wanted anything to do with him now he was severely mistaken. That had been true before, and now that he was bigger and more intimidating to her, it was even truer.

And thus Candace Flynn had resigned herself to sitting down in a corner of the yard in the shade, watching her brothers drag in material for the new project. No matter how clever they were at making bustable things, it would still take a few hours before the invention was put together and she could get changed back to normal. She just hoped Stacy or Jeremy wouldn't come by before then. The thought of them seeing her like this made her even more desperate to become normal again. She'd tried calling Mom to come over and thus just let the Mysterious Force take care of it, but Mom hadn't answered her calls. It was all very frustrating.

As Candace was pondering all that, she noticed Isabella coming over, a sour look on her face. It was weird to see the girl was now her height, which made her even more inclined to offer Isabella a friendly smile and motion for her to sit down. "What's wrong?"

Isabella stared wryly at her. "Phineas, as always" she whispered.

Of course. Like everybody in Danville but Phineas himself, Candace knew about the crush Isabella had on her brother, and unlike everybody in Danville, she didn't really care. Isabella liked Phineas, so what? That didn't oblige her to help them get together like Ferb and the Fireside Girls occasionally did. Besides, she didn't even know if Phineas would like Isabella back. What if her brother didn't even want to be Isabella's boyfriend, as everyone in town seemed to presume he would? As such, she had always adopted an indifferent attitude, not helping Isabella out and even uncaringly stopping her every now and then when they'd be talking. If she needed Phineas' help, she wasn't going to refrain from getting his attention just because Isabella was next to him. Phineas was her brother, so she had the right to barge into his life every now and then and make her opinion known, especially if they were doing something bustable.

Today however, she felt much mellower. Part of that was because she didn't need Phineas for anything at the moment, but another part was that Isabella was her age right now. It felt easy not to care about her feelings and thoughts when she was just a little kid and Candace herself nearly an adult, but now that she was so young and small Isabella really was the closest to a best friend she had. Certainly, she still had the mind of a teenager, but she knew very well how out-of-place she would feel around Stacy or Jenny… for the moment, these kids were her age, and her equals.

And thus, where Candace might have otherwise dismissed Isabella and her strange obsession, today she nodded and gave her a sympathetic smile. "Do you want me to get Ferb or what's-her-name… the small brunette with the glasses…"

"Gretchen" Isabella said.

"Right, Gretchen" Candace replied. "Do you want me to get either of them to talk about this?"

Isabella thought about that, then shook her head. "Nah. Ferb is too busy, and so is Gretchen – and so are all the other girls, for that matter. I got them here to help Phineas and Ferb, and I don't want to distract them with my problems yet again." She smiled faintly. "Besides, I have someone better to talk to."

Candace blinked. "You mean me?" The Fireside Girl nodded. "Why me?"

"Well, you are Phineas' sister, and you know him well" Isabella argued. "When I talk to the girls they'll give me comfort and then advise me on how to win him over, but it's too general. Phineas is special, after all – and I'm not talking about how amazing he is. It's his obliviousness that I keep running into, and if there's anyone who'd know how to deal with it it's you. The Fireside Girls don't really know Phineas as deeply as you do, because you live with him. Besides Ferb, you probably know him best… I suppose I could talk to him, but like I said, he's busy. Maybe I should start doing that in the future. Anyway, now that you're my age, I kind of felt that you might be able to… understand… if you want to, of course."

"I'll certainly try" Candace said warmly. "What exactly is on your mind?"

"Everything that just happened" Isabella said. "The way he not only builds a giant machine for me that I never asked for – which he promptly dismissed in favor of your project, by the way… not that I don't realize how important it is to get you back to normal, but it still stung. And then he pretty much states that he couldn't see me as anything but a friend, not even considering how I would react to that. I keep telling myself he's just blind, but… this hurts, Candace. Continuous rejections, not noticing my feelings…" She sighed, frustrated. "He compliments everyone, not seeing that there's someone who just might like something special. Some unique attention. Not some amazing project that he'd give to all of our friends because he's just that nice, but some romantic time alone. And whenever he does give that kind of attention, it's always to Ferb or to your Mom or to you – never to me!"

Candace snorted. "What on earth makes you say that?"

"What just happened this morning, for one" Isabella said. "You heard him back there, right? About how good-looking you were… but when the subject got to me, he thought it was strange because we're friends. So what? You're his sister! As if that isn't weird! But no, he thinks saying you're pretty is all well and good, but when it comes to me it would be awkward!"

Candace smiled. "Isabella, you're not jealous of me, are you?"

She had meant it as a joke to lighten the mood a bit, but the look in Isabella's eyes made it clear the other girl took it differently. "Maybe I am. Here he's off making another project for you, and he's basically ignoring me. Maybe I'm the one who's oblivious, and he knows very well I like him and this is his way of subtly telling me he's not interested."

Candace looked at the downcast girl sympathetically, putting her arm around her. "Phineas wouldn't do that, even if he wasn't interested in you at all, and you know it" she said. "Besides, he invents stuff for you, too."

Isabella sighed wryly. "He does? Whose face did he carve into Mount Rushmore? He and Ferb made a whole movie around you! They turned your treehouse into a robot! I know it's kind of strange to be jealous of stuff like that, but the projects they made for you were bigger and more complicated than mine, and I at least appreciate them. You're always sulking."

Candace frowned. "I seem to recall you saying just about a zillion times how much you'd prefer just spending time with him over a weird project."

"I never say it to his face, though" Isabella said. "He doesn't know that – but even oblivious Phineas can't ignore how negative you are about his ideas, even when he creates them for you. And still he continues to make them. Remember Gitchie Gitchie Goo?"

"Isabella, that was so long ago…"

"Even so" Isabella insisted. "I know you were the winning contestant, but even when you at first refused he didn't even suggest making me your replacement. Certainly, we sung together the first time we performed the song, but I was waiting for the opportunity to get the top part alone and he didn't give it. There were plenty of Fireside Girls available for the Ferbettes as background music, but it didn't even occur to him that I could be his singing partner. He really doesn't see me that way."

Candace uneasily looked in front of her, to the yard where Phineas and Ferb were still building. "Well, he is pretty dense" she said. "You should have flat out brought it up."

"It was obvious, even to Phineas" Isabella said. "Of all the Fireside Girls, he and Ferb are closest to me. He knows that. He also knows I can sing. And yet, though I wanted to sing with him so badly, he didn't even consider me. And when I tried to ask him, he went off on a tangent on how strange it was that you didn't want to sing along and that we were kind of in a pickle without our winning contestant. He did let me sing with him when we travelled around the world – even if I lost my spot halfway and only got it back because you went off to talk to Jeremy – but the day we became a one-hit wonder? I guess I'm overreacting, but you can't deny that for Phineas it was all about you that day."

Candace frowned, taken back. Had it? Her memories of the day had always been skewed by the disappointment that her new singing career had ended before it had even begun, thanks to Phineas and Ferb's decision to be a strictly one-hit-wonder. But when she thought back about the song, then she had to admit that it had been… fun. And unusual, in how close she had been to her little brother. Singing a love duet together, the hearts in the background… she had never considered quite how strange that was, in retrospect, even keeping in mind that Phineas wouldn't have known from the start that she'd sing with them. But Phineas had acted as though it was entirely normal, and she'd just gone with it and never given it a second thought.

Until today.

Of course, Phineas had probably meant nothing by it. She knew her brother well, and he had always been very kind to her even if she didn't always appreciate it. And well, if Phineas really didn't consider Isabella as more than a friend, then he would probably consider it strange to sing with Izzy, who wasn't his girlfriend or a relative and whom he might consider it awkward to declare even a friendship-like love for – even if Phineas Flynn rarely felt awkward about anything. It didn't need to mean anything about how he viewed her. Love songs, even with familial love at the core, could still have hearts in them. And Phineas did love her. So what if the lyrics were extremely suggestive and Phineas had been shooting her those strange admiring looks all throughout the song…

"Candace?"

The girl snapped out of her reverie. "What?"

"I asked you if you could do anything to help me" Isabella said. "I asked you twice, because you were just staring off into space. Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm fine, I was just… thinking" Candace said, trying to shake off the strange thoughts that clouded her mind. "So, what exactly do you like about Phineas?"

The look in Isabella's eyes turned dreamy. "Where to start" she whispered. "I love his niceness, his optimism, his endless energy. I love the way he always helps other people without caring how they think about him or what they'll give him in return – although like I said, it can be annoying from time to time as well. I love how easy he is to talk to even if he is oblivious about feelings and sometimes just won't shut up. Those are the moments I wish he was a little more like his brother." She blushed. "Anyway, I love how innocent and sweet he is in some ways, and how mature in others."

Candace nodded, reviewing those traits in her mind. She could see that in Phineas, and understand that was why he was so likeable to Isabella. "Go on."

"Well, he's creative and bright" Isabella added. "He's an amazing inventor with an open mind towards new ideas… although I guess Ferb has all of that covered too. And he's really cute. Phineas, I mean. Not Ferb. Not that Ferb isn't cute, but… well, you get what I mean."

The formerly older teen shook her head. "I still can't believe you think that triangular head is cute. I guess it's not ugly and that it might grow on you after a while, but don't you think it's at least a little bit freaky?" Isabella shook her head. "Really? Not at all?" Another headshake. "Well, maybe I'm the one who has a problem then, and not Phineas."

Isabella looked slightly offended for Phineas' sake. "As if Jeremy is so cool."

"Of course he is!" Candace immediately exclaimed. "He's dreamy and awesome and sweet and perfect and caring and competent and adorable and so much more…"

Isabella rolled her eyes. "You can't spot a single flaw in him, can you?"

Candace thought that over for a few moments. "Well, I guess if I had to name one I would say how he never seems to notice what Suzy is doing" she said. Isabella gave her a look, but Candace shushed her. "Hear me out here. That kid is smart beyond her age, she's using her brightness to destroy my life, and Jeremy never even notices! Not that anyone else does, but he lives with her." She sighed. "I mean, I guess it's kind of sweet how sweet and trusting he is, and he's kind of adorable when he's naïve… but often it just annoys me just how oblivious he can be."

"Is this Jeremy we're talking about, or Phineas?" Isabella asked sarcastically.

Candace was surprised by the question. "Jeremy, of course. What makes you think I was talking about – oh." Of course Phineas was incredibly oblivious too, as well as sweet and trusting. Candace realized to her surprise how much her brother and Jeremy were… alike, in some ways. Then again, of course Jeremy didn't regularly build stuff that defied the laws of nature. He just played guitar and worked at Slushy Burger.

"Candace?" Isabella then asked. "I don't mean to snap you out of your reverie, but I should be going back to the group soon or even Phineas will notice I'm gone. Have you got any suggestions on how to help me yet?"

The orange-haired girl pondered it. "It should be something big" she finally decided. "Phineas won't notice it otherwise. Perhaps you should dress up as something he likes and subtly pry for his affections. That's it! You should just disguise yourself and ask him how he feels about you. I've got a fake moustache lying around from when I tried to help Stacy with Coltrane, but she didn't think it was a good idea."

"No, really?" Isabella said. "Candace, I…"

"I don't think I have anything to disguise your voice," Candace continued, "so maybe you should wear a paper bag over your head. The only problem with that is that it would render the moustache redundant. Anyway, I'm sure we'll find something to avert that problem. Of course you could always take the direct approach if you'd favor that." Isabella nodded. "Since he's not Jeremy, the world won't explode if anything goes wrong so maybe you could take some risk! Like jumping out of a cake that's specially delivered to him? No, Phineas and Ferb did that before to me and I hardly appreciated it so I doubt he will. Perhaps that's too embarrassing after all."

"I was thinking more along the lines of walking up and talking it out" Isabella interrupted.

Candace just looked at her uncomprehendingly and droned on. "We need something more subtle. Wait, how about a romantic stroll through the city, designed to take you past places you've nearly experienced romance with him before? Starting and ending here with some kind of grand heart where you'll tell him you love him? We could even drop red heart-shaped confetti along the way. Not too overt, of course, but enough to steer him in the right mood. It might not have worked in Paris but I think that is what you're looking for. Let me write this down…"

She didn't realize for another few minutes that Isabella had long walked back to the main group.

oooooooo

In the meantime, how was the situation going at Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated?

"Oh, we're doing well, thank you" Doofenshmirtz replied. "We already constructed the bottom part, and we're reconstructing the upper part in parts. Once those are done we'll only have to reassemble it all." He caught the look on Perry's face. "Yes, you already know all this, yes, I shouldn't break the fourth wall, blah blah blah. I'm evil, what did you expect?" Perry kept glaring and Doofenshmirtz relented. "Fine, let's get back to work. Fetch me the screwdriver, will you? They're in the kitchen drawers." That earned him another look. "Fine, so I'm scatterbrained and keep my tools in the kitchen drawers. Why should you care, Perry the Complainapus."

He realized too late that Perry was heading off to that drawer. "Wait, no no no no! Not that drawer, it's the other one! You need the other one! Perry the Platypus, don't!"

Perry gave him a curious look, then opened the drawer and took out that sheet before Doofenshmirtz was able to stop him. He cast one look at it then gave the scientist a bemused glare.

Doofenshmirtz blushed. "I don't know what got into me Perry the Platypus, I was just one day trying to come up with lyrics to my evil jingle, and I was playing some tunes on my piano, and all of a sudden I got the urge to come up with our own nemesis song! Yes, I know we already have one, but I really liked this idea. I based it off that catchy tune by that one kid band, I don't know if you heard of them. Mow mow mow, and my heart starts pumping – great stuff! So I came up with my own lyrics and I figured I could publish this, and then it would be a major rip-off and that is so delightfully evil." Perry stared at him. "I know, the lyrics are kind of cheesy, and, you know, really awkward… but we could play it at our nemeversaries!" Perry just kept staring. "All right, all right, it was a stupid idea and a stupid song. There, I said it. Now let's get back to the job."

Perry walked off, and Doofenshmirtz took a good look at the paper before leaving it to lie where it was. "Wow, it really was too much" he mumbled to himself.

Krrrrrrrrrrr!
So says my nemesis!
Bang bang bang,
and your tail starts kicking.
Chicka chicka choo wop,
our fights will never stop.
Gitchie gurbie goo means that I hate you!