Chapter Four: The Dream Deferred

Jenny gulped down some more cold water as she sat resting. She had finally been forced to take a break from her duties at the food drive, but she didn't want to relax too much or for too long. This, like all of her other causes, was something she was passionate about and the wanted to give everything she could for its sake. She only wished her friends would share her enthusiasm for once.

She sighed and looked up and down the street. 'Still no sign of any of them,' she thought to herself. 'I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They probably found something more interesting or fun to do than this. I kinda hoped they'd be here for me this time, though. I know this kind of stuff isn't typical summertime fun for teenagers, but it's fun for me nonetheless. And it's important too. I just wish I could get them to understand that for once.'

Just then, the sound of a truck's horn blared from down the street. Jenny looked in its direction and had to rub her eyes to make sure the heat wasn't making her see things. There, turning the corner, was a flatbed truck hauling what looked like a giant grilled cheese sandwich as its payload. She got up and ran to the truck as it came to a stop.

"Wh-what is this," she asked, still in shock.

"Special donation delivery," the driver said as he stepped down from the cab. "Buncha folks got together downtown to make this and send it over. They all signed this card to send over with it."

Jenny took the larger-than-normal card from the trucker and opened it. Out of all the names scribbled inside, only three were recognizable to her.

"Candace, Stacy, and Jeremy…did this? For me?"

The assembled volunteers for the drive all cheered as the sandwich got offloaded. All Jenny could do, though, was shed tears of joy at the gesture. Just when she thought she had her friends figured out, they went and proved her wrong.

Phineas couldn't escape the irony that just that morning the idea of walking hand-in-hand with a girl was completely alien to him and now here he was heading home hand-in-hand with Isabella.

"This has definitely been a day that didn't turn out how I thought it would to start," he said, shaking his head.

"You and me both," Isabella added, then squeezing his hand a little. "But that's not a bad thing, is it?"

"You kidding? I can't imagine today going any better at this point. Apart from my realizing that you've been trying to get my attention all summer long, that is."

"Phineas, it's okay. Really. I don't hold it against you."

"Well I do; especially when we were in Paris. Man do I feel horrible about that now that I think about it."

Isabella stopped walking and took both of Phineas' hands into hers. "I admit when that happened I was pretty devastated, but I realized something a little later that day. It was when you were about to give up on making it home. I realized that the Phineas Flynn I fell in love with – the one I've dreamed of having for my boyfriend for so long - wasn't the one who'd drop everything just to devote himself to me. It was the one who never let anything stop him from achieving his dreams, no matter how outlandish or improbable those dreams might be to others."

"Really?" Phineas asked the question with a sense of disbelief.

Isabella nodded to him with a smile. "Now that said, I still wouldn't mind it if you took some time away from your inventions and aspirations from time to time to go to a movie or walk in the park or something. I know that might be a little mundane for you, but I'm old-fashioned like that."

Phineas smiled back at her. "I think that can be arranged."

"Without Ferb," she added without missing a beat.

He chuckled a little at the idea. "Yeah, without Ferb. Like I said before, I'm sure he'll understand."

"I'll look forward to it, then," Isabella said, stepping close to kiss him for now the fifth time since their first kiss at the concert.

A short while later, they arrived back home and were greeted by Baljeet and Ferb, who had long since finished repairing the Age Swapper.

"We have been waiting for you," Baljeet told them as they approached. "Candace and her friends returned some time ago. They are in her tree house, though they are a bit confused as to how it changed from what they remember it being."

"Oh, heh, yeah I guess that would be a bit weird for them," Phineas noted, remembering when he and Ferb remodeled the once-dilapidated tree house.

"Where have you two been, then" Baljeet asked curiously.

"Just having an incredibly memorable day," Isabella told him. "One I don't think I'll ever forget."

"Me either," Phineas added.

"Funny you should say that, because actually, you will," Baljeet told them directly.

"What're you talking about, 'Jeet," Phineas asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Baljeet sighed and folded his arms. "You do remember the explanation I gave this morning about why Candace and her friends do not remember being teenagers, correct?"

"Yeah, you said it was like a system restore for them," Isabella said, repeating his own words.

"Well, when we switch our ages back it will have the opposite effects on everyone," Baljeet told her. "Candace and her friends will remember the events of today, but as things they think they did when they were actually ten years old. We, on the other hand, will have no recollection of today's activities."

"What?" both Phineas and Isabella exclaimed.

"That can't be right," Phineas said in disbelief.

"Phineas, think for a moment," Baljeet told him, stepping over closer to him. "We are not actually fifteen years old. We are ten. Technically speaking, this day will not have happened for us yet. Not for another five years. How are we supposed to remember something that hasn't actually happened yet? Reverting ourselves back to being ten will be another system restore, but for us this time."

"There's gotta be another way to do this, then," Phineas said resolutely. "Some way we can still remember this day and change back to our real ages. It's just not fair otherwise!"

"Phineas, be reasonable," Baljeet told him, now showing signs of frustration. "Even if there were another way, we do not have the time or resources to figure it out. Your mother and father will be home in an hour and we used all the replacement parts fixing the Age Swapper. There is not enough time to reconfigure it yet again. I am sorry, Phineas, but there is no alternative."

Isabella bit her lower lip as she came to terms with the reality of the situation, but just as she reached for Phineas' hand he jerked away from her.

"No," Phineas said bitterly. "I can't accept this. I won't! Not after…"

Phineas looked at Isabella, a hint of hopelessness in his eyes that she immediately recognized from when they thought they were stranded on that island.

"I don't want to forget today," he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Not now, not ever!" He took off running from the house, ignoring the calls from Baljeet and Isabella to stop.

"Baljeet, make sure Candace and her friends stay entertained," Isabella told him quickly. She then looked to Ferb. "Ferb, keep the Age Swapper ready. I'll have Phineas back in time for his folks to get home."

"Isabella, wait," Baljeet said, stopping her before she took off. "Before you go, there is one thing Phineas did not let me explain. Listen carefully."

As soon as Baljeet's explanation was done, Isabella took off after Phineas, hoping she could keep up with him enough to catch him wherever he was planning to run.

Phineas sat on the edge of the river, fiddling with something in his hands as he stewed over what could be done. He was still convinced there had to be a way for them to remember the day after they used the Age Swapper again. He just had no idea what that way was, and time was running out.

"A quarter for your thoughts," Isabella asked as she made her way to the river's edge alongside him.

"I thought the saying was 'a penny for your thoughts'," he noted, looking up at her. He stuffed what he'd been working on into his pocket, hoping she hadn't seen it.

She smiled down at him. "Your thoughts are worth way more than a penny; at least to me."

Phineas stood up and paced a bit away from her. "This is all wrong. I finally realized so much today and now I'm gonna forget it all happened? It's not fair."

"Aren't you being a bit selfish? I mean, you're not the only one who's going to-"

Phineas whirled around and cut her off mid-sentence. "I'm not talking about me, Isabella. I'm talking about you. This isn't fair to you."

Isabella was stunned into silence as Phineas continued.

"You've put up with so much from me and endured me being so ignorant of your feelings for so long. You've been patient far beyond what any normal person could endure! Now I've finally realized how you feel for me and how I feel about you, and tomorrow we're just gonna go back to how things were and never remember all this? I have no choice but to completely forget how much I care about you? Sure it's not fair to me but it's way more unfair to you. I can't accept it. I won't! I'll figure something out. We'll just stay like this until then. Mom and dad will just have to understand."

"Phineas, please stop and listen to me," Isabella said, pleading with him as she closed the distance between them. Phineas held off on continuing his rant as he listened intently to her. "You're right, it isn't fair. But neither is keeping us all stuck like this. Candace, Stacy, and Jeremy have their own lives they have to get back to, and I'm sure they wouldn't want to have to be ten years old all over again.

"As for us, I don't want to be fifteen for real yet. There's five years of stuff I still want to do; five years worth of incredible memories that I want to create. I know Baljeet feels the same, and deep down I'll bet you do too even if you won't admit it right now. Today has been the best day ever for me. You don't know how much it's meant to me to share my feelings with you and you really don't know how much it's meant to me for you to reciprocate it all. I will treasure this day forever…but I don't want to keep these memories if I won't get to have those five years of memories that I don't have yet. However unfair losing today may be, that's far more unfair; to me, to you, to everyone."

"I guess you have a point," Phineas conceded. "It still stinks that I'm just gonna go back to being totally ignorant of how you feel about me. And that I'm going to forget how I feel about you too."

"About that," Isabella continued, "you didn't let Baljeet finish. There's a chance the memory loss might not be permanent."

"How's that work?"

"He went into a lot of technical babble that I didn't get, but the gist of it is when we actually turn fifteen the memories of today may come back to us on their own."

Phineas stroked his chin for a moment in thought, and then realized the possibility. "I get it. It's not gonna erase today from our memories, it's just gonna put it into storage until we're actually this age again."

"But he said there's only a chance of it working out like that," Isabella reminded him. "We won't know for five years."

"I guess it'll have to do for now. Can you wait that long, Isabella?"

Isabella smiled warmly at him again. "I've waited this long for a day like this. Five more years won't be a thing."

Phineas nodded to her, and then fished into his pocket for something. "Listen, before we go back I want to give you something. A memento of…well, of a day we're not gonna remember for five years."

"Uh, okay…" Isabella said, uncertain of how that was going to actually work. Phineas opened his hand, letting a simple chain hang from his fingers. At the end was what looked like a hex nut with some kind of smoky-colored gem in it.

"I made this from some stuff I found lying around the riverbed here," he told her. "It's just a hex nut on a chain with a chunk of smoky quartz that I screwed into it. It's not much of a pendant, but I don't exactly have any money or time for something fancier."

Isabella took the makeshift pendant into her hands and held it close to her chest. "It's beautiful. And very much the sort of thing I'd expect from you, Phineas. I'll do my best to keep it safe."

"Guess we should get going, then, huh? How long until mom gets home?"

"At this point, I think we have about eleven minutes."

"Nothing like keeping it exciting right up to the end!"

The two took off for home once again, this time fully prepared to get everything set back to normal. Or at least, as normal as things typically were in Danville.

Ferb couldn't help but note that breakfast that morning was unusually quiet for once. It was the day after the Age Swapper incident, and he sat eating his cereal alongside Phineas, who looked to be lost in thought as he did the same. Silence from Phineas was certainly not unwelcome, but it was getting a bit unnerving. Ferb deduced that either Phineas had a particularly magnificent big idea he was still figuring out, or something was bothering him. Given the events of the last twenty-four hours, either was likely.

The swap back had gone like clockwork, though once again upon completion the Age Swapper had overloaded and completely shorted out. This time, however, Ferb made the executive decision to scrap the machine and destroy the blueprints completely. This was one invention that did not bear revisiting someday. After the swap, Candace and her friends had hurried off downtown to try and catch Jenny before the end of the food drive. Phineas, Isabella, and Baljeet spent the rest of the day in a bit of a daze, though. Just as predicted, none of them remembered what had gone on that day and Ferb thought it best to not tell them either. As Baljeet himself had suggested, time itself would tell if those memories were meant to be evoked once again.

"Morning guys," Candace said pleasantly as she arrived at the breakfast table. She sat across from them with her toast and juice. "What's the happs?"

"Morning sis," Phineas said, looking at her curiously. "You seem like you're in a good mood today."

"Yeah, well, I kinda remembered something from a long time back. Gave me the warm fuzzies."

"Anything worth sharing?"

"Just a thing I remembered from when I was younger, maybe like your guys' age? Anyway, it reminded me that I used to get crazy, big ideas like you, Phineas."

"That's interesting. So why don't you anymore?"

"I dunno, I guess I just grew out of it. You know, as you get older different stuff becomes more important to you and you don't have the time or interest in crazy stuff like the stunts you guys pull. There are perks to being a teenager, but it isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"I'll have to take your word for it there; on account of I haven't been a teenager yet."

Ferb had to stifle a laugh, almost making milk and cereal shoot out of his nose

"Anyway," Candace said, continuing her train of thought, "I guess what I'm getting to is remembering what I used to do is giving me a new appreciation for what you guys are trying to do with your summer. So I'm gonna try to lighten up on all the attempts to bust you guys. At least, so long as whatever you're doing doesn't look like it might get you both killed. Or horrendously embarrass me."

Phineas chuckled a bit. "Thanks for the heads up, sis. We'll keep it in mind."

"So, what's on the agenda for today," Candace asked. "If you don't mind my asking."

"Well that's just it," Phineas admitted. "I'm in a bit of a quandary. I have something in mind but…"

"But what?"

Phineas looked over at Ferb, who put down his spoon and listened intently to his brother. "It's not the sort of thing that'd involve both of us, Ferb. I could come up with something else, though, I guess."

"Phineas, just because we both want to make the most of summer doesn't mean we have to do something together every day," Ferb told him simply. "If there's something you'd like to do on your own today, you don't need my permission for it."

Phineas knuckle-bumped his brother with a smile. "Thanks, bro. Guess I'll get going, then."

"All well and good, but you still didn't answer my question," Candace told him. "What are you going to do today?"

"I guess that depends on what Isabella's doing today," Phineas replied as he headed for the door. "I'm gonna see if she wants to hang out or something. Later!"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Phineas did some growing up recently," Candace said with a smirk as she drank some of her juice.

Ferb smiled and shook his head as he went back to his cereal. "You have no idea."