Flashback Attack

A romantic-comedy piece of fanfiction by Madam Crackerjack.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with this television series.

Announcement: I will go ahead and upload the last two chapters. Happy New Years, everyone.

chapter 4- The Fake Cough

Cindy found that sleep was impossible.

She sat up in bed and her eyes immediately rested on Jimmy's greatest invention ever- the Backtrack 3x, which rested on her desk. She had stayed up for hours flipping through countless memories, most of them including Jimmy in some way, shape or form. She wondered if her mother would find it odd to find a football helmet in her bedroom, but ignored it. It's not like she could make anything out of it. And if she did, Cindy assured herself that she could think of some random excuse had the moment popped up.

It was almost odd how amazing that thing was. How could Jimmy have come up with such a cool little gadget? Certainly more valuable than some cheese ray or a girl-eating plant... She wondered what kind of inspiration he got to create something so magnificent.

And he gave it to her. The thought of this made her feel all warm and mushy inside.

Sometimes, when these feeling rose, she found it hard to believe that she was feeling them for Jimmy Neutron, her arch nemesis. Of course things are different now, but since they had first met they were constantly butting heads. Who would have guessed that they would end up feeling warm and mushy for each other?

Her mother was right; what Cindy was feeling did feel like a weakness... but she could no longer deny how she loved it so.

So Cindy fell against her pillow with a sigh. Her memories felt refreshed and renewed, and they were spinning through her head as she started to fall asleep.

-

Jimmy was exhausted. He never could put a finger on it, but something about being with Cindy all day always tired him. But that was just the funny thing: no matter how woozy or confused she made him feel, he always went back for more the next day.

He looked at Goddard with a pained expression and a weak smile, "Hormones."

Goddard shook his tail and panted. Jimmy changed into his Pjs and slipped into bed and Goddard made his way to his own nest.

"Goodnight, boy."

"Bark!"

Just as Jimmy was beginning to fall asleep, a tiny plink awoke him. Then another. And another.

Jimmy sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He looked around his dark bedroom, wondering what that tapping noise was. He saw Goddard, who was just turning himself on, and his mechanical dog slowly lumbered out of his bed, whining softly as if to ask why his master was awake.

"Ssh," Jimmy hushed his dog and his eyes continued to scan the room. Another plink was heard, and he deducted that the sounds were coming from his window.

Jimmy lifted the window and peered out into the street, and a tiny pebble conked him on the nogin. "Ow!"

"Ssh!" Said a small voice, "Jimmy?"

"Cindy?" Jimmy gasped, leaning out of his window. Cindy was standing in the middle of his lawn looking up at him with a concerned look on her face. As if this wasn't weird enough, she was wearing her "flight suit". "What-" Jimmy swallowed a lump in his throat, "-what are you doing here?"

Cindy dug her foot in the grass and hid her hands behind her back, "I wanted to see you."

Jimmy blushed, "Well, I'm sorry but... it's the middle of the night!"

"No, Jimmy!" Cindy said, looking a little angry, "I want to talk to you!"

He felt as if she was pushing her limits with him as he motioned for her to quiet down and he whispered, "Can't we talk at school tomorrow?"

She urgently whispered, "NOW!"

Jimmy groaned and shut his window. Still in his Pjs, he slipped on his shoes and snuck downstairs. He pulled the door open, but ran straight into Cindy. He fell back onto his rump, surprised.

"C-Cindy?"

"Yes?"

When he looked up at her, he saw that she was smiling warmly at him, looking very calm and... lovely. Was she wearing make-up, again?

"Cindy," Jimmy felt himself smile a little, "Why are you wearing make-up in the middle of the night?"

Cindy giggled and grabbed his arms, pulling him to his feet and into her. She wrapped her arms around him as squeezed him tightly. Jimmy felt unbelievably uncomfortable, nervous, embarrassed, shocked, pleasant... Cindy brushed her lips against his neck causing his heart to flutter wildly, and she giggled as her fingers spread along his spine. He could feel his face burn against the slick material of her suit and he attempted to push her away, only to realize that the bones in his arms had somehow turned to pudding.

"Cindy-" He managed to squeak out, feeling as if his most precious of treasures, his brain, was slowly melting from the heat of his face. "Let go."

She did. He fell to the hard surface that was his front step and gasped, rubbing his bottom in pain. He heard her giggle (again) and she sat down beside him, draping herself around him and looked up at the stars. Jimmy, all the while, stared at her as if she had absolutely lost it.

"Aren't the stars romantic, Jimmy?"

He slowly attempted to pry her from him, "Yeah... sure..." But the harder he pushed, the harder she clinged. Finally, he gave up, "What are you doing, Cindy? Is this some weird way of getting me back after what happened at the Candy Bar?"

Cindy stared at him, (causing Jimmy to jump a little since their faces were so close) and she looked genuinely confused, "What happened? Huh?"

Jimmy rolled his eyes, "Okay, I'm sorry. There, I said it." And despite his slowly sinking pride, he smiled, "Well goodni-"

But as he tried to stand, she pulled him back down to the ground with her, forcing a smile onto her face. "Come on!" she grunted, "Tell me how pretty I am or something!"

Just as Jimmy thought that he might lose it, he saw someone stumble out of the Vortex household. It was a strange boy with a large head and a floppy brown hairdo. Cindy stomped out of her house a shook a fist at him, saying "This is the last time I'll warn-" but she paused, seeing someone else across the street- Jimmy.

Another Jimmy.

Cindy growled and started stomping towards what she assumed to be the "real" Jimmy. She approached his house, ready to ask if he had been playing with his cloning device again, that is, until she saw herself sitting beside him in her flight suit. Her mouth dropped.

"Wha..."

Jimmy stood, shocked that there were two Cindys, as there was no logical explanation after ruling out the cloning device in his lab, yet he found himself strangely relieved that Cindy hadn't turned into an attention-craving maniac.

"Cindy!" He said, looking around, "Am I glad to see you--"

"What's going on, Neutron?" She growled, crossing her arms across her chest and eyeballing her clone suspiciously.

"I-- Come on, stop calling me that!"

She threw her fists down, "I'll call you TurtlePoop if I want to!"

Jimmy growled and shook his head, "Look, I'm just as surprised as you are about this situation..."

His eyes suddenly shifted to his copy across the street who was tailing Cindy. The clone grabbed her hand, causing Cindy to spin around. He grabbed her other hand, telling her how beautiful and amazing she looked. Cindy started to smile, but she urgently pulled her hand away from the clone and cocked an eyebrow at Jimmy, motioning to the clone.

"See? This is what I just woke up to five minutes ago!"

"I- I get it!" Jimmy exclaimed, waving his arms, "Look, let's just bring these two down to my lab and see what's going on, here."

Suddenly, Cindy's clone jumped up from Jimmy's front step and ran into Jimmy's clone, falling into his arms. The two of them shared a deep kiss, causing Jimmy and Cindy to gag. Cindy looked at Jimmy, ready to slap him as if he had just done something outrageous.

"What in tarnation-?!" She started.

"I don't know!" Jimmy cried out, "I didn't do any of this, I swear!"

Just when the two of them thought that things couldn't get any stranger, two more clones were spotted strolling down the street, holding hands and chatting with eachother. Cindy could feel her blood pressure rising, as the stress of another one of Jimmy's dumb inventions gone wrong was too much for her to handle sometimes. She balled a fist and shook it at him.

"You're lucky it's the middle of the night, Neutron, because if anybody saw this I'd beat you into a pulp faster than you could blink!"

Jimmy was just as confused as she was, and he stood to his feet, scratching his head and looking around. So far, they had only spotted four clones, total... but who knew if there were more? Without thinking, he plucked a hair from his head and nodded at Cindy. "Go and grab the two clones in the street and I'll get these two," He mentioned towards the two in his front lawn. "It must be my cloning machine...somehow. Anyway, meet me at the lab."

Jimmy managed to force two of the clones towards the lab, partially by pushing and brute strength, with frequent explanations. Cindy threatened to drop-kick the other two clones in the face. It was easier than they expected, relocating the clones, that is. This was possibly because the clones were too busy worshiping eachother rather than questioning authority.

-

So without further ado, everyone was grouped up in the lab. The clones looked pretty comfortable, as their intentions stretched no further than eachother, but Cindy was purposefully ignoring the clones as her eyes scanned the lab impatiently.

Jimmy gasped, catching everyone's attention. As it turns out, the cloning machine had an inch of dust on it. When Jimmy went to inspect it, he also found that the thing wasn't even plugged in. He scratched his head, trying to think of an explanation.

"How could clones materialize out of nowhere?" He mumbled to himself, "There has to be some sort of-"

"Neutron!" Jimmy shouted out over the clones verbal abuse of over-affectionate nonsense, "What's going on? What's wrong with the machine!"

Jimmy growled as she interrupted his train of thought, "Do you mind?" He called out over his shoulder, "I'm trying to talk to myself, here! There must be some sort of..." He continued, his eyes staring blankly ahead, "...some sort of DNA regenerator, or..."

Cindy was tapping her foot, hardly unable to keep her eyes off of the clones for long. She was scowling, her arms crossed, and breathing a little heavily, and she was very tired. She yawned.

Suddenly, Jimmy shouted "BRAIN BLAST!" He spun around, facing Cindy, "Cindy! I need you to get the Backtrack 3x! Hurry!"

From his immediate instructions, Cindy would suddenly feel an adrenaline run through her tiring body, and she sprung out of his lab without a question asked. As she raced to her house, Jimmy looked around for a few things which occured to be a wrench, a screwdriver, and an extension of some sort. He hustled to his work bench and quickly slipped on his rubber gloves and snapped his goggles into place. When Cindy arrived, she came with guests.

"Here ya go, Neutron-" She growled, pushing two more lovestruck clones into the lab, all the while handling the BT3X beneath her arm. "One Backtrack and two reputation-wreckers!"

"Thanks Cindy," Said Jimmy hurriedly as he took the BT3X helmet from her.

He put it on the table, but he jumped back when something else started to leak out of it. Cindy stared inaudibly at the strange phenomenon taking place.

The helmet was laying on its side on the workbench. On the side, where the volume indicator was, there was a small nozzle that Jimmy had overlooked on the design. This was, apparently, where the Purple Flurp was supposedly brewed in the new brewery that Jimmy was previously planning on inventing. Out of the nozzle, leaked a silvery substance that made Jimmy cringe as he watched it drip into a puddle that slowly slipped off of the workbench and onto the floor. From there, it slowly formed, from feet-up, into a Cindy in torn clothing with small specks of dirt rubbed into her skin. She was smiling and looked around. Then the smile suddenly faded and she stared at Jimmy questioningly. "Why are we in your lab, Jimmy? What happened to the island? I didn't want to leave, Jimmy!"

Just as this new clone of Cindy was about to start crying, another silvery substance leaked out of the helmet and formed into a clone of Jimmy, as well in torn clothing. The new clone looked around and grinned, "Wow, we got home pretty quick!"

Jimmy quickly pushed the two clones out of the way and immediately got to work on the helmet. The first thing that he did was rip off the nozzle (that was a no-brainer, even for a genius) and he re-wired the circuits as quickly as he could. As he worked, he could feel a bead of sweat dripping down his cheek, and he tried as hard as he could to ignore the disturbing noise that came from the crowd of clones around him, as well as Cindy's constant whining and insults.

Eventually, he grabbed the extension (which was some sort of tube that hooked onto the helmet) and he pointed it at the clones, flipping the "on" switch.

Cindy could hear that familiar buzzing noise that reminded her of the embarrassing incident at the Candy Bar, and noticed that Jimmy had turned the helmet on again. As soon as Jimmy had flipped the switch that turned the helmet on, the clones suddenly melted into the silvery puddles that they had started out with. As the clones were being sucked into the helmet through the extension, she could hear her memories being played out in blurred audio that blared from the speakers in the helmet.

As soon as the last puddle was gone, Jimmy sighed and dropped the extension piece to the floor. He wiped his forhead.

There was a fierce silence...

...That is, until Cindy said, "Well, I'm not surprised."

"What?"

"You know," Cindy said, using her hands to express her exhaustion, "another experiment gone wrong."

Jimmy looked thoughtful for a second, and then he slipped on his lab coat and straightened it. He curtly waved his screwdriver at Cindy and said, "Not exactly."

"Jimmy-"

"No- Cindy, I can fix it." Jimmy replied, working on the helmet. He ripped open a metal door on the side of the helmet and pulled out some wires, "I know what's wrong, now."

He was pulled out of his tense concentration when he felt something soft press up against his cheek, and he turned his attention to realize that Cindy had just kissed him.

"What-" He said suddenly, dropping the screwdriver.

"Goodnight, Jimmy."

Cindy smiled warmly and turned to leave, thankful that everything was settled and that she could return to the comfort of her bed at last. Just as she was about to reach the exit of Jimmy's lab, she heard him say:

"Goodnight, PicklePoop."