A/N: And we interrupt your regularly scheduled 'everything-is-falling-apart' narrator for someone with a much more positive outlook on life. But even the very epitome of optimism is being affected - directly and indirectly - by Candace's reactions to her crumbling plans. And even he is running into the realization that long-standing patterns are beginning to slowly shift, for better or for worse.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

The bright red digits on the clock read 6:29 AM, and all in the bedroom was still. Not a soul was stirring - even the platypus was fast asleep, curled up cozily on the blankets.

Another handful of seconds disappeared into the past, and the red lights ever so subtly shifted around on the clock face.

6:30 AM.

Though there was no audible alarm, the force of habit was easily strong enough. The change that resulted was immediate. It was as if a switch had been flicked in Phineas's brain, instantly catapulting him from the depths of sleep, and into the warm embrace of the bright, new day.

He sat up in bed and rubbed his palms on his eyes. Morning was here! This could possibly be the best day ever. Shoving aside the blanket, he climbed out of bed and stepped over to the bedroom window, pulling on the drawstring. The blinds shot up to the roof, flooding the bedroom with early-morning sunlight.

Ferb shifted slightly in bed, rolling over to avoid the bright light streaming in the window. But the slight movement was enough to indicate that he was awake.

"Good morning!" Phineas announced. "How you feeling? Up for adventure today?"

Ferb reached out a hand and propped himself up in bed.

I'm awake. His face said. Aren't those two synonymous?

Phineas grinned. "Pretty much." He crossed the room and pulled open the dresser drawer. Picking the clothes laying on top, he quickly changed from pajamas into an outfit more fitting for the upcoming day's activities - whatever they were going to be.

"Come on!" he said, throwing open the bedroom door and walking out into the hallway. "Let's go eat! I don't know about you, but I'm starved! Perry? Come on!" The platypus leapt down from the bed and followed him out.

As expected, the other doors in the hall were still firmly shut. Candace wouldn't be up for another good twenty minutes at least. Aside from yesterday, when she'd actually wound up waking Phineas and Ferb. That had been unusual, but not entirely unpleasant. And it had been a cool idea she'd had. However, it appeared that yesterday was going to remain the exception rather than supplant the rule.

Reaching the base of the stairs, he rounded the corner into the kitchen, stopping only briefly to pour a lump of platypus food into Perry's plastic bowl.

Ferb appeared just a few moments later in the kitchen doorway.

"Oh, look." Phineas remarked, hunting through the refrigerator. "There's still a piece of pie from yesterday left over. Blueberries. Yum."

He pulled the milk out and set it on the table with a thump. Of all the fancy breakfasts one could have, there was something about ordinary cereal-and-milk that just rubbed him right. Producing the box of Smile! flakes from the shelf, he sat about to preparing the meal.

"Three bowls … three scoops … three helpings of cereal ... and three …" he stalled out. "Say, Ferb, what do you think the equivalent term to 'helping' would be for liquids? I suppose I could just say 'bowls-worth'. Three bowls-worth of milk. Yeah, that'll work."

Ferb shrugged and nodded, taking one of the three bowls, and sitting down in his chair.

A telltale squeak from the living room alerted them that someone was using the stairs - or at least using the third step from the bottom. Phineas glanced across the kitchen, but saw that Perry was still sleeping soundly the small bed next to the food dish. That left pretty much only one option.

"Candace?" he asked. A moment later, she rounded the corner.

"Hey." she replied, pulling out her chair, and collapsing into a heap on it.

"Good morning!" Phineas said excitedly. "We're just eating breakfast. The weather looks great today." He slid the third bowl across the table in her general direction.

"Mmm." she responded. Well, she wasn't feeling talkative today. That was fine - Phineas was certain he could handle the conversation well enough for the both of them. There would be no long, boring silences on his watch.

"So, anybody got ideas for today?" he asked, taking another bite of the cereal. Silence reigned as he chewed and swallowed.

"Man, it's like there's two of you in here, Ferb." he said. "Well, anyway, you know what might be cool? We could go skydiving - and not like regular skydiving either. Imagine skydiving from the edge of outer…"

"Actually." Candace suddenly spoke up.

Phineas stopped. "Hmm?"

She shifted in her seat, and pulled the napkin dispenser over to herself from the middle of the table.

"Actually, would it alright with you guys if I … just kinda … did my own thing?"

What? Well, this was … interesting. Oh, it might even better than low earth orbit skydiving.

"Do what?" he asked. "We can all help! It'll be fun. Whatcha got planned?"

Candace generally wasn't the one to come up with ideas - it normally fell to him. Which was great, of course, because he never ran out of ones to give. Still - her ideas were often just as (if not more) cool as his. Take yesterday for example. Opening an academy of sorts? That had been great.

She held the napkin dispenser out in front of herself, as if trying to take shelter behind it. That wouldn't work unless she was much smaller than she was, of course. Maybe one day they should rebuild some sort of shrinking device. There was still so much they hadn't done when shrunk the first time. He mentally filed the idea away for another time. Right now, her idea was getting priority place, as they pretty much always did.

"It's nothing. I just want to do - something. By myself. It's important. I mean - it's not important. Except … it's not."

Not important? That wasn't a problem. After all, plenty of the things they didn't weren't technically important. That didn't make them any less enjoyable.

"We can still help." he repeated. "I'm sure we can find some way to make whatever it is fun! I mean, what can't be made better by adding a few rocket engines and gravitation manipulators?"

But she shook her head.

"No. I've gotta do this by myself. Because … just because, okay?"

Phineas furrowed his forehead and looked over at Ferb. Ferb looked back at him. This was … unusual, to say the least. It kinda broke the routine a bit - not that he had a problem with that - but something about it wasn't sitting right. Still, she was his sister, and who was he to tell her what she could or couldn't do?

"Well." he said at last. "I guess if that's what you want, we shouldn't try to stop you."

It was sort of confusing, really. What could she possibly be doing that she wanted be alone? If they worked together, not only would whatever it was get done faster, but - well, they'd be working together. And that was a big part of summer too - spending time with each other.

Ah, well. He reasoned. It's only fair that she get to if she wants. And maybe she'll show us what it as after she finishes.

Now there was a thought. Whatever it was, it was doubtless going to be cool. Now he was almost looking forwards to seeing it. Surprises were nice.

His scoop scraped on the bottom of the bowl of milk with a discordant sound. Jumping up, he quickly deposited the dishes into the washer.

"I'm finished!" he announced. "Let's do this! The others will be over soon."

Once again, there was no response. Phineas faltered briefly. It really was like having two Ferbs. Candace remained sprawled into the chair, unmoving, her cereal untouched. Ferb stood and followed from the kitchen and through the house. First to the bathroom: taking turns utilizing the sink to brush their teeth and doing whatever else was necessary to prepare for the day. It wasn't many more minutes before they found themselves in the backyard, underneath the familiar shade of the single tree that had seen so much over it's lifetime. It was quieter than normal out here, Phineas thought, with just himself to do the talking. Not that Ferb wasn't just as interesting a conversationalist as anyone, but it was just… different from the animated rambles that he could get into with Candace.

But enough about that! The morning wouldn't last forever. It was high time that they got down to business.

"So, low-earth-orbit skydiving?" he asked. "How does that sound to you?"

Of course, there was no audible response, but Ferb's face was reply enough.

"That's what I figured." he said. "Ferb, Candace, I know what we're going to do today!"

Ferb smiled slightly, then pulled out a roll of blank blue paper. Oh yes! It was design time. Getting to low-earth orbit wasn't just going to happen. Phineas narrowed his eyes in thought.

Hmm. Getting to low earth orbit. Teleportation? - warping of physical space? - rocket boosters? No, with Candace using half the budget for her own project, we'll have to be more economical about - wait, I've got it!

He pulled a well-worn pencil from his pocket and settled down on the grass next to Ferb, eagerly beginning the sketch of the grand design.

Almost immediately after Linda left for the Squat n' Stitch at Googolplex, Candace appropriated the garage for herself, disappearing inside and shutting the door behind herself. A truck showed up shortly later, carrying a considerable pile of supplies. She reappeared to sign for the shipment, then vanished again with her boxes. A few minutes later, Phineas could hear the sound of a high-energy arc welder of some sort being used in there. What was she doing? He couldn't wait for the surprise to be revealed. Ooooh! Maybe it had something to do with his birthday. Granted, that was a bit of a stretch, considering how far away it was, but it was still the closest birthday to today - apart from Candace's own, of course. But you couldn't make yourself a surprise.

Unless you used a memory-wiper. He thought. Then you could.

Maybe that would a cool thing to do one day. They could …

The fence gate squeaked loudly behind him, cutting off the train of thought. That thing would definitely need some oil someday. Or maybe not - it was almost like one of those electronic chimes in stores, announcing people coming in or out.

"Hey, Phineas. Whatcha doin'?"

"Oh, hey Isabella!" he greeted, turning around. She was the first one to show up - as usual, considering her house was right across the street. "We're going to go skydiving today!"

"Skydiving?" she asked. "That's awfully … ordinary?" she questioned. Then her eyes opened wide. "I mean, it sounds great! We should ride a tandem harness tooogether. That would be so… nice."

"Oh, you don't need a tandem harness." he laughed. "After last year and those aliens, you're more than ready to fly solo. Besides, it's not normal skydiving anyway."

"Oh." Isabella said, eyes briefly dropping to the ground. Was there something there? He checked, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Yeah. I guess. So, what do you mean by 'not normal' anyway?"

Now this was the question he'd been waiting all morning for! He caught Ferb's eye for a moment and smiled in anticipation.

"We're gonna be skydiving from low Earth orbit!" he exclaimed. "From a height of twelve hundred miles. It'll be the longest free fall ever."

"Wow." Isabella replied, the enthusiasm returning to her voice.

"It will be!" he continued, feeling himself get more excited as he talked. "Free fall alone is gonna take ten minutes. We'll be wearing special suits to make sure we don't burn up on atmosphere re-entry like meteors - and to make it even better, Ferb and I are gonna set up a special super-strong trampoline so we won't even need parachutes."

"We just faaaaaall, and then ... boing?" Isabella asked. "That sounds fun."

Phineas nodded. It did sound fun. Of course it did, that was the whole reason it had been decided on in the first place.

"It's just a matter of getting a vehicle capable of transporting us that high." he said. "Obviously, an airplane won't do, because there's no atmosphere there. So, to that end, Ferb and I designed this-!"

He reached up and grabbed ahold of a string dangling down from the tree above them. It came easily, pulling along with it a large hanging slide, on which was drawn an intricate blueprint for a rocket-powered version of a virtual elevator.

Virtual elevators were very cool - the whole 'elevator platform with no physical cable or housing' look made it somewhat resemble a floating platform. Well, that's pretty much what they are, actually. Giant floating platforms - that, in this case, have miniature rocket engines attached to the underside. Which made this one in particular was especially cool. He and Ferb had spent the better part of the time after breakfast coming up with this particular design.

"Say…" Isabella asked from behind him. "Where's Pe - I mean, where's Candace? Isn't she usually out here?"

For a split second, Phineas caught himself wondering just where she was, if not in the backyard right next to them. The next instant he remembered, of course. Old habits die hard, and all that.

"She's in the garage." he answered. "Doing … something. She said she wanted to do it by herself." He lowered his voice confidentially, and continued in a whisper. "I think it's a surprise of some sort."

Even as he was saying so, he caught the tail end of a strange glance from Ferb out the corner of his eye.

"For what?" Isabella asked. "And for who?"

"Well," he started to explain. But it was useless - the next instant he was cut off by another squeak and the sound of a voice at the fence gate.

"Did I just hear a for who?" Baljeet exclaimed. "Are you aware that that is grammatically incorrect? The correct version of your phrase would be for whom. I feel as if I have said this many times before."

"Hey Baljeet!" Phineas said brightly, forgetting about Candace's absence for the moment. It wasn't a huge deal anyway - she'd be back this afternoon, when she revealed whatever grand thing she was creating in secret. It was something to look forward to. Although, it'd be only fair for him to at least ask her once more before they lifted off - if only to make doubly sure - that she actually was okay with missing out on skydiving. It was gonna be lot of fun.

"Hello, friends." Baljeet said. "What have you planned for this day's activity?"

Phineas grinned again. This was truly one of the best parts of summer. He took a breath and launched once more into explanation.

"Well, you see, today we're gonna go skydiving! But not any normal skydiving…"

The sun climbed higher into the sky as the small group worked busily constructing the twelve hundred mile tall elevator - and also erecting the world's largest trampoline. The trampoline had to be big and stretchy enough to safely catch a person after they'd been freefalling for over a thousand miles, and so it towered over the neighborhood of Arbor Estates, casting a dark shadow over the whole street. If wasn't for the Mysterious Force's basically guaranteed removal of it before the day was up, Phineas might have worried about the plant life beneath. But the trees and grass and bushes could easily survive a mere few hours without the sun. And as for people's houses, well, they had rigged up a powerful network of ultra-bright electric bulbs that lit up the area under the trampoline as bright as day above. The artificial light was bit harsher, a bit colder, and a bit whiter than sunlight; perhaps, but again, it'd only be a few hours before the Force stepped in anyway, making cleanup a snap.

It wasn't long before they were done. The background music for the construction montage gradually faded away into silence as they put the finishing touches on their creation. The virtual elevator towered up, up, and away into the clouds, until it disappeared into blueness of the sky. The giant trampoline creaked in the breeze, reaching at least forty stories into the air.

"It's done!" Isabella exclaimed. "Let's break it in for a first jump!"

"Yes, let's!" Phineas agreed. He pressed the button on the elevator, and with a ding!, the doors slid open, revealing the metal platform behind - the one destined to carry them all a thousand miles into the sky.

Everyone quickly slid into the lightweight anti-disintegration jackets hanging on a rack nearby. But there was still one more thing he had to take care of before he could make the jump in good conscience.

"Wait one second for me, guys." Phineas said. "I'll be right back."

"Hurry!" Buford said in his typical brusque manner. "I ain't waitin' long."

"I will!" he promised, turning and darting across the yard towards the garage.

Well, the loud hissing sound of the arc welder was gone. He paused to listen for a moment, but heard nothing. Grabbing ahold of the doorknob, he swung it inwards and peered inside. There was a table set up in the middle of the floor, on which was sitting some complex conglomerate of wires and metal parts. Candace was on a stool, hunched over the device, fiddling with its insides. Sparks were flying away from whatever she was doing. What he could make out of the internal workings of the contraption resembled some sort of mass information transfer device, but he couldn't guess at what kind exactly. He'd need to see more of it to ascertain that.

Oh, I probably shouldn't be peeking. He realized. If it is a surprise of some sort.

He took a step back outside and loudly knocked to announce his presence. It seemed to startle Candace. She let out a small yelp and almost dropped whatever she'd been holding.

"Candace?" he called out, stepping inside again.

"What?!" she exclaimed, stumbling away from the stool, almost upsetting it in her haste.

"Whatcha doin'?" he asked. "Can I see?"

"Phineas!" she exclaimed, her voice peaking sharply. "Wh-? Oh, uh, nothing!"

She struggled to stand in front of the table, trying her best to cover as much of it as possible with her body. Now that she'd moved, he could make out the easily-recognizable shape of two large metal helmets, linked together with a thick black wire. Oooh. It looked really cool. What did they do? There were so many possibilities. Well, she obviously was trying to hide it from him - so he wasn't going to spoil the surprise for himself.

"I just wanted to ask if you want to come skydiving with us." he said. "We're gonna drop from low earth orbit onto a -"

"I can't."

"-a giant trampo- what?" he stopped mid-sentence.

"I - I can't." she repeated.

Oh. That was, truth be told, a bit disappointing. It happened every so often, of course, but every time it did, the day just never felt as complete as the ones when she did stay around, which were, thankfully, the vast majority.

"Look, I - I'm sorry I didn't say something before." she said. "It's just - I've got to do this instead. It's - it's - yeah. Sorry."

Well, longer warning would have been nice, but he supposed that it was alright. So she'd miss skydiving. Alright, that was kind of … disappointing. But there'd be tomorrow, and all the days after. This would just be one of those days - days where they were just one person short. They happened - nothing to get worried about. Especially not when he didn't want to ruin something as cool as low earth orbit skydiving was going to be.

"What are you doing?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. If it actually turned out to be surprise, then she could just not answer, he reasoned. And it surely must be something important, if she was opting to miss something as cool as orbital skydiving over it. Normally, she'd only turn up absent over outings with Stacy, or much less commonly, Jeremy. And Stacy was pretty good about confining her schedules to the later parts of the afternoon anyway, so there was rarely a conflict between the two.

"Nothing!" she insisted. "It's, ah, it's … " she paused for an inordinate length of time before relenting. "It's... a neural information transfer headset."

Phineas blinked. Neural information transfer? That was pretty cool in its own right. You stuck on a helmet, and somebody else stuck on the matching one, and with a bit of computer wizardry, bada-bing, bada-boom!, you could instantly transfer knowledge and memories from one person to another - enabling effortless learning of things, for instance.

Of course, it was a bit more limited than that when it came to practical use. If you tried to transfer too much completely new information, the receiving brain would reject it - and the rejection would often be violent to the point of frying the delicate internal components of the helmets, and giving both people wearing the helmets a healthy electric shock that would keep their hair standing on end for hours to come. That was just the way things went, though. Still, it was great for learning a new recipe or something, provided someone else did first. Just because you couldn't spontaneously insert an entire encyclopedia's worth of information into someone's head was no reason to knock the technology.

"Cool." he replied. "What's it for?"

Candace made a weird face.

"It's for ... nothing." she said. "Yeah. Ahem."

"Oh." he replied.

Well, if she'd told him what it was - that kind of ruined the chance that it was a surprise, didn't it? Eh, maybe the surprise would be in how it was going to be used or something. He still wished that she'd come skydiving with them, but - well, asking one more time couldn't hurt, could it? He just wanted to be thorough.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" he asked. "I've already made an anti-disintegration suit for you, and the trampoline can easily handle your extra weight."

She made another face, looking at him, then out the garage door, then back at the NIT headsets sitting on the table.

"I - I just can't right now." she finally said. "Maybe later - if the Force hasn't done whatever with it."

That seemed unlikely to Phineas, but it was certainly better than a flat-out negative. Oh! Maybe if he helped her now, she'd get done faster. That way, there'd be time to try it before the Force did anything. He might miss the first jump, but that'd be fine.

"You want any help?" he offered. "If we worked on it together, I'm sure -"

"No." This time, the response was immediate. "Look, I've got to get back to work. I don't have much time before - I just don't have much time, okay?" She seemed strangely scattered. Perhaps the NIT helmets were being stubborn. It was a pretty delicate technology. Maybe he should try something with it someday.

"Alright." he said. "I'll do my best to keep the skydiving stuff around as long as I can - but you know the Force."

She didn't answer, instead sitting back down on the stool, and returning to work on the headsets.

Phineas watched her for a just a moment, then turned away. Shutting the garage door behind him, he walked back across the yard to the waiting elevator shaft. The thick padding of the anti-disintegration suit hung heavily across him, and he shook himself to readjust its weight across his shoulders.

"Yo, there you are!" Buford remarked loudly, as he approached the platform. "You haven't gone and died after all. What took ya' so long, anyway?"

"Oh, just asking Candace if she wanted to come too." he replied.

He caught Ferb's eye from where he was standing on the back of elevator platform.

Well? The look seemed to say. Phineas shook his head slightly. It should have been fairly obvious that she wasn't coming, after all, he had come back from the garage alone.

But it was nothing to worry about. Besides, he had something else to focus on right now - namely, free-falling for twelve hundred miles. It was going to be the coolest thing ever, and there'd be no heavy parachute packs to worry about or mess with.

He smiled broadly and stepped onto the platform, pressing the button that would begin the process of sending them far into the sky. The day was yet young - it was time to live it to its fullest.

The ride up to the destination height of twelve hundred miles took ten and half minutes on its own - even though the elevator platform had been traveling a good hundred miles an hour on it's way up.

The air quality at that height basically nil. It was a good thing that they brought along some handy breathing apparatuses.

"Are you guys even ready for this?" Phineas asked excitedly. He peered over the edge of the platform into the blueness beneath. The cloud layer almost completely obscured the view of the ground below - and what part of the ground that could be seen more closely resembled a misty haze than a solid surface. Not that the ground beneath was solid right now anyway - thanks to the world's largest trampoline stretched out down there, ready to safely catch anything that fell onto it.

"Well? What're you waiting on?" Buford declared. "Let's go! I came to bounce off a big trampoline, not stand in an elevator with a bunch of nerds all day."

Phineas grinned. "Absolutely nothing!" he replied, taking a huge step off the edge of the platform. Instantly the relative peaceful atmosphere around was gone. The wind whipped furiously past him as he plummeted through the air. Rolling in the air, he saw that his friends had already followed suit - joining him on the skydive of epic proportions.

Without the floating platform close by to judge distance and speed on, there was next to no way to perceive just how fast he was actually going. In fact, if it were not for the air buffeting his face and body on its way past, the sensation would have been like floating - not at all dissimilar to the way you feel in outer space, or somewhere else where gravity has either been temporarily disabled or doesn't apply in general.

And it felt completely awesome.

They fell for almost ten minutes - passing two orbital satellites, one flying saucer, and three jet airliners on the way down. Then it was time for the second part of the plan - the trampoline. The massive sheet of netting deformed heavily on impact, then rebound with shocking power, sending them soaring back up into the air. And up and down and up and down and up and down - a loop of what may as well have been flight. It was amazing. This had indeed turned out to be a great idea.

It took the better part of several hours before all of their momentum from the original jump was finally spent, and the height of massive trampoline's recoil was no higher than that of a ordinary trampoline - bouncing them lower and lower, until at last it had all but ceased. The sun had long since peaked past the point of noon, and was beginning the long, slow slide down the afternoon side of the sky.

"Wow!" Phineas exclaimed, sliding the trampoline's long exit slide. It twisted and turned down all forty stories of height, gently depositing them back on the ground of the backyard. "That was great." He fiddled with the zipper on the lightweight anti-disintegration jacket, slipping it off onto the ground.

"It was certainly exhilarating." Baljeet agreed.

"And now there will be pie." Buford said.

Phineas laughed. "Yes, there'll be pie, I'm sure." he agreed. "Just so soon as Mom gets home - which should be any minute now."

He turned to steal a glance at the garage. The door was hanging wide open, revealing what appeared to be an empty interior - though from this angle it was a bit difficult to tell. Just as he was about to walk over and get a better view of the inside, however, a sudden explosion of sound burst forth from the silence. It was like the sound of a tornado. Or perhaps a vacuum cleaner, or even some combination of the two.

An unearthly green glow shone over the yard, enveloping the forty-story trampoline. It raised up off the ground, and into the air . With a weird sucking sound, it began collapsing in on itself, becoming smaller and smaller, all the while hovering dramatically in the air over the neighborhood.

Then, with a metallic clanking sound, it fell back to the earth - no larger than a normal trampoline.

"Oh!" Isabella exclaimed. "It's a normal trampoline now. We need one of those at the Fireside Girls' lodge - our old one broke."

"You can have this one." Phineas offered, figuring that if the Mysterious Force wouldn't let them keep it anyway, they may as well make sure that at least someone would get use out of it. Probably a lot of use - if it was going to be the Fireside Girls' new trampoline. He was pretty sure he remembered Isabella telling him about a 10,000 Consecutive Jumps patch one time. That would definitely be a lot of use for a single trampoline - and if any trampoline could take it, it would be theirs.

"We can?!" Isabella exclaimed. "Oh, thank you! That's soooo nice of you!"

"Sure - it's no problem." he replied, thinking that her reaction was a bit over-the-top for just a trampoline? Maybe she enjoyed trampolining more than she'd let on at first. Well, that had worked out just perfectly, hadn't it? His eyes suddenly fell on Perry sleeping lazily next to the sliding glass door.

"Oh, there you are, Perry." he said. "You sure do sleep a lot for an animal that doesn't do much."

"And three…" Buford remarked, holding up three fingers. "And two...and one...and…"

He waved at the fence gate as it creaked open, and Linda appeared in the backyard.

"Hey, Mom!" Phineas greeted.

"Hey everybody." she called back, walking across the yard and towards the house. "Anybody want some pie?"

Everyone agreed enthusiastically to that, of course. And how could they not? Not only was pie good in general, but when it was made by his mom? He was sure that it was the best dessert ever.

And not even all the food science in the multiverse can get around that. Phineas thought, following the others through the sliding glass door inside.

They all sat down around the table, and Linda doled out generous slices of banana cream pie to everyone. Before he took a bite though, he realized that something wasn't quite right. The chair to the left of his was still noticeably empty. He paused and set the fork back down on the table. One more person needed to show up before the day could be completed in full.

"I'll just be right back." he said aloud, scooting his chair away from the table. Quickly crossing the house, he slid aside the glass door and returned to the backyard. Darting across the grass, he peeked into the garage. It was completely empty - missing the table and the NIT helmets and Candace herself. Well, if not here, then where was...

The garage door banged loudly against the wall behind him.

He turned around just in time to see Candace stalk in.

"Candace! He-"

Wow. Her appearance took him somewhat aback. Her hair and face and clothing were charred to a complete crisp, blacker than coal. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the noxious stench of burnt hair that followed her inside the garage.

"What - what happened?" he asked, slightly concerned. It seemed like someone could use a bit of a… cleaning up?

"I don't want to talk about it." she muttered.

Phineas frowned, but dropped the subject. As long as she wasn't hurt, there was no reason to press her on something that she didn't want to talk about.

"Well, do you want to come have pie with us?" he asked. Although, on second thought, Linda would probably not let Candace touch any of the furniture in the house with a ten-foot pole right now.

Candace reached up and tried to push her hair down, but it rigidly refused, remaining splayed out in all directions. Tiny, glowing sparks of electricity showered down from it until she gave up with a snort.

"No." she replied, her voice low and guttural. It sounded like there was some sort of ash stuck in her throat or something. A drink of water would probably do her good.

"Come on." Phineas repeated, motioning towards the door. "Let's get you some water or something."

But she refused.

"No. I don't want water. I just want to… no." She crossed her arms and sat down on the garage stool. "I just want to be alone."

"But…" he started to protest. Even on past days when something like conflicting schedules meant that she wasn't able to join them for projects, she never missed snack time. It was like an unwritten rule, almost: that no one missed out on the food.

"Just no,alright?!" she exclaimed. "Today I just - I just can't."

Well, it is her choice. He thought. And I suppose that one day isn't that big of a deal.

The thought was not particularly pleasing, but it made sense. After all, they still had the rest of summer - and all the time after that - to invent stuff, and eat pie. One lapse wasn't the end of the world - or even the end of the day.

"Well," he relented. "If that's what you want, I guess."

"Mmm hmm." she nodded. "Just - just leave me be."

Well, it is her business.

Disappointing? No doubt. But it was alright. There was still the rest of the day, and all the days in the future. It wasn't anything to get worked up about. Nevertheless, as he crossed the short stretch of yard between the garage and the house, he was already looking forwards to tomorrow. Then again, that wasn't so strange. Today may have been a good day, but tomorrow Candace would be with them. And that fact alone would make it a million and six times better.