Isabella and the gang had been trapped in the bubbles for a while, which had proven impervious to damage. The bubbles allowed sound through though, which meant Isabella had to put up with Buford arguing with the unicorn, Baljeet's complaints, and Steve's cheerful commentary, all of which were starting to grate on her already strained nerves.
Fortunately, Baljeet had some surprisingly potent hot sauce on his person, which was strong enough to disintegrate the bubbles. A few squirts later they were all free and Buford edged away from the unicorn apologetically. It stared back at him, as if it was saying yeah, you better back away.
Baljeet was lamenting the loss of his entire bottle of hot sauce. "I cannot believe I went through the entire thing! It is supposed to last for months!"
"Why do you even got a bottle of that in the first place, nerd?" Buford asked.
"It goes very well with vegetable samosas."
"Pft. Lamest reason I ever heard!"
"Do you not yourself carry around obscure musical instruments?"
"That's different!"
"ALL OF YOU GET OUT!"
Their heads all turned to Isabella, whose entire day's events finally culminated in her snapping at them in rage. Her expression was of a terrifying fury, and everyone except Buford winced at the sight. "Hey girlie, it's not even your backyard!" he retorted.
She glared at him as if she was about to explode. Buford held his hands up defensively, a nervous smile on his face. "Alright! We're going, we're going!"
Isabella pointed towards the gate, her meaning clear. Buford made his way out and Baljeet followed him obediently, but stopped to console Isabella.
"I am sure everything will work out with you and Phineas," he said sympathetically, before he headed back home.
The unicorn neighed in satisfaction. I bet you're glad those kids are gone right? But Isabella continued to point at the gate. Fine, the unicorn huffed in annoyance, and it trotted out to who knows where.
After they had left, Isabella sighed, her anger leaving her to be replaced by sadness. It had been a long day. Her hopes had been high at first, but then everything had just gone crazy so quickly!
Well, in all honesty, she could live with that. What really got her down was that she hasn't had a single moment of quality time with Phineas all day. Was it a lot to ask?
"Hello Isabella! Do you need cheering up?"
She jumped; Steve had taken her by surprise. "Oh, er, no thanks Steve. I'm fine," she managed.
"Ok then! I'll be inside the house, charging!"
The friendly robot had obliviously took her answer at face value. Like inventor like invention, I guess, Isabella figured. Steve wandered off into the house and left her alone in the backyard once more, thoughts still swirling in her mind.
"Hey Isabella."
Isabella turned abruptly. "Phineas? Back from building that theme park ride so soon?"
Phineas must have returned home to the backyard while Isabella was lost in thought. He looked a little worse for the wear. His hair was even scruffier than usual and his clothes looked a little messy, as if the day had taken its toll on him. "Actually, the whole day's been kind of a blur," he said shyly. "The last thing I remember is working on the water slide - which was going to be totally awesome by the way, it had rapids and a loop de loop and everything - and after that I remember being passed out on the floor with Ferb waking me up."
Isabella couldn't help but giggle at the image of Phineas hitting the wall after his caffeine high, being woken up by Ferb wafting his favourite wrench under his nose. "You know, too much coffee isn't healthy."
"Yeah," Phineas said, a smile creeping onto his face. "I think I hallucinated and saw a talking zebra. Remind me not to drink coffee when we get older."
"Maybe you should build an anti-caffeine satellite defense system," Isabella teased.
"Well I know what we're gonna do tomorrow!"
They made a few more jokes about the day's shenanigans and laughed for a while. Then they slipped into an uncomfortable silence. Isabella looked towards Phineas as he looked away from her and scratched his ear awkwardly. She knew this was her chance - her opportunity to probe Phineas about just how he realised what her feelings were for her and why he decided to reciprocate them. But, for some reason, she hesitated. I'm scared, she realised. I'm scared that it might not be real, that he doesn't really love me the way I've always wanted! What if it's just temporary, like the time he got turned all dull and boring?
Thankfully, Phineas spoke up first. "I'm... I'm sorry Isabella."
"For all the crazy backfired inventions?" she asked, scolding herself for not taking the opportunity but glad for the end of the awkward silence.
"Yeah. I mean, you really love me! I can't rest without thinking up things that'll make you happy, you deserve that much at least!"
"Oh Phineas..."
His voice was rising steadily in frustration with himself. "And I couldn't do it! Look what happened, you could've been hurt! I don't know what I'd do if something were to happen to you just after I've learned how you really feel about me!"
He paused and Isabella found her mind empty except for that one question. "How exactly did you realise it anyway?"
"Oh, remember last night when Buford made that remark about my future spouse? You got really annoyed, which meant you want us to get married one day."
Isabella was floored. After all of the obvious hints, all of the romantic moments they'd shared, all of the times they'd been through...
"You got that I've been madly in love with you for the whole summer... from that?"
"Well yeah. I mean, could you have been more obvious?"
It couldn't be true, surely.
"Are... are you sure it wasn't because of some weird ray from the sky?" she ventured.
"Actually it's funny you mention it. A strange ray hit Ferb and I late last night while we were out working, but it didn't do anything. It must've just been a colourful beam of light. Weird, huh?"
He turned his face away from her, oblivious to Isabella's still stunned expression. On one hand, Phineas had found out about her crush and the sky hadn't collapsed. But on the other hand, it was just nothing like how she'd envisioned it so many times. There was no music, no flowers, no magic. She didn't know how to feel.
And just when Isabella thought she couldn't get shocked by anything further, Phineas said miserably:
"I guess I'm just not competent enough for you."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Well, you're a really great person! You're so cute and smart and kind...I even ran the tests to verify it last night! You're amazing, Isabella. It's a scientific fact!"
Isabella had heard these words on her Phineas-land escapades so many times, in so many forms, in so many settings, and she always swooned, every single time. But hearing Phineas say it now barely caused her to blush. She was still recovering from the previous bombshells.
"You deserve someone great, Isabella. But I couldn't even keep you happy and safe for one day!
"I should just stop trying."
Phineas finished and looked miserably at the ground. It had been a long day. The middle of last night, he had woken up with a bolt, his subconscious finally piecing together the implications of the subtle hint in that evening's activities, and he had leapt out of bed as if he'd been electrocuted. His best friend wanted to marry him some day. How could he go back to sleep knowing something like that?
Phineas thought about everything he knew about love... which didn't take long. So he approached it scientifically. His results were clear - he and Isabella were perfect for each other.
He was a little hurt at first that everybody else already knew about her crush on him and nobody, not even Ferb, had told him, but he quickly realised that there was no time to be mad; he had to start inventing. Everyone was on board: Ferb helped him enthusiastically, going on and on about love; Baljeet relished the challenges; even Candace said she'd keep mom busy so that his inventions wouldn't disappear (and she said something about 'not busting him today' which he didn't understand, so he just rolled with it).
It was nearly dawn when he had started to get tired and he had the great idea of using coffee to stay awake. He drank a cup and, feeling invigorated, drank another, and another... the rest of the day was a blur of strange scenes and inexplicably talking hallucinations.
Ok, in hindsight, it wasn't such a great idea.
Anyway, despite all his efforts, he had failed Isabella. Just today was difficult enough. How could he go on like this? The conclusion was inescapable. He wasn't good enough for her.
Suddenly, he felt Isabella's warm hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her face and she stared back, directly into her eyes.
"I didn't fall in love with your inventions," she said, smiling. "I fell in love with you!"
"You did?"
"Yeah! It doesn't matter if you don't build loads of crazy inventions for me. I love the way you seize the day! It's fun being involved in all of the crazy projects! And our spontaneous musical numbers are great! I don't want all that to change!"
"Really?"
"Really. And I can take care of myself, you know," she said teasingly.
"Do... do you promise?" he asked hesitantly.
"Fireside Girl pinky promise." she said confidently. "I want things to stay just how they are... with, maybe... the occasional romantic time alone, just the two of us?" she suggested shyly.
Phineas stared at her for a moment, blankly. In reality he was stunned by what Isabella had just said. Could it really be that simple? I... I can do that!
Then his face broke into a smile. "Sure, Isabella!" he exclaimed.
Then he laughed and grabbed her hand. "I got it! One day, we'll... We'll have a picnic on a rainbow!"
"Isn't that kind of impossible?"
"I don't think so," he winked.
Isabella felt a tingle down her spine. She recognised its familiar feel, embraced it happily. It was magic, the sparks she thought had died away and become just a memory, a figment of her imagination.
"I'd like that, Phineas," she smiled, clutching his hand more tightly as they looked up at the beautiful sunset.
"I'd like that a lot."
"And it was all a dream!"
Isabella giggled. "Steve!"
The humanoid machine grinned widely. "Just doing my job, miss!"
Phineas grinned. "Nice 4th wall breaking there, Steve. But you have just reminded me about something important...
"Where's Perry?"
The semi-aquatic mammal checked the address of the house against the one on the slip of paper in his hand. He took a deep breath and knocked cleanly. A short while later, Caroline opened the door.
Perry offered her the bouquet of flowers that he was holding and she took it. Initially she was surprised. She looked at Perry curiously, seeking confirmation of her thoughts. He nodded, and understanding dawned on her face. Then, smiling, Perry tipped his hat to her, adjusted his jet pack, and flew off, leaving Caroline in the doorway.
She paused, thinking. Her expression still neutral, she then closed the door behind her and went inside, straight towards a little bin with some paper rubbish in it. One particular crumpled piece of paper was what she was after. She took it out of the bin and smoothed it out onto the desk, carefully laying it flat, setting the bouquet down beside it.
It was a photo, a snapshot of a particular moment she remembered well. Her mind was cast back to the previous night.
She had been shopping as usual. Knowing the aisle well, she absent-mindedly reached for the item - it was a jar of garlic - on the shelf, while looking down at her list. But her hand had touched someone else's.
Suddenly, she heard a crash. Somewhat startled, she looked up to see that the shelf with all of the jars had been shaken, sending jars flying everywhere. Not three steps from her was a strange-looking man, surrounded by strange spices and covered in condiments. Caroline covered her mouth, gasping in shock.
"Great," the man muttered angrily. "First my Compost-Inator was thwarted, then I ran out of garlic and had to come all this way just to get some, and then, just as I'm about to grab the jar, I touch the hand of the prettiest woman I've ever seen and fall in love... which causes me to lose my balance and bring an entire shelf of cooking ingredients straight on top of me!"
And that had been the moment she fell in love with Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
The rest of the night was a blur, but Caroline would never forget the moment the picture was taken: it was of the two of them together pulling silly faces at the camera, having been sent to the store jail after having messed around in the destroyed aisle.
She smiled. Still looking fondly at the photo and flowers, she picked up her phone and dialled a number. It rang, and connected.
"Hello, Heinz?"