The Roads That Lead To Constantinople

by FanofPnF

After Isabella's dreams of an inevitable relationship with Phineas crashed when she saw him kissing his sister, she should have felt miserable forever. Should have. Because when a friendly green-haired boy offers her an alternative that no one would have considered possible, both Ferb and Isabella need to prepare for a date that could define their future. Direct sequel to FLSITTSA.

4. Wednesday (Candace and Buford, Baljeet)

Author's Note: Half-way point. In which Ferb and Isabella gradually move from the question of whether to date to the question of how - a question to which the answer is not so straight-forward as it may seem.

DAY FOUR

ISABELLA

To Isabella, the world felt somewhat lighter that Wednesday. Four days had passed since the non-date with Phineas had ended first in disaster and then in general strangeness, and since then, she had more or less managed to come to terms with what her life was now like. She was going to try to date Ferb Fletcher. Her mother knew about it, and so did her friends. They accepted it. Supported her. Had given her advice that might come in handy next Saturday, on a date that she was actually kind of looking forward to now.

Of course, that didn't mean she could just relax entirely and act like everything was normal again. She might feel fine now, but talking to Ferb or Phineas still wouldn't leave her at her best. Not for an in-depth conversation, at least. But she could say 'hi' to them without much awkwardness, as she did that Wednesday morning at school. It had been only in passing, and they had just been able to say hello and chat for a moment about which class was up next. That had been almost oddly relaxing, but, well, it hadn't had anything to do with the issues that had gone down between them. They had just been three ordinary middle school students who had known each other for years, and the topics of 'romance', let alone 'Candace', were forgotten.

The encounter had… heartened her somewhat. Isabella hadn't exactly been feeling depressed before, but she had been kind of down, and just casually chatting to her boys showed her how much that casual relationship had always meant to her. It cemented what they had discussed last Saturday, that even though she had felt like her relationship with Phineas was all about her crush, it actually wasn't. She could be his friend, too. It wouldn't be easy, and it would take time, but she could manage it. And though Ferb was of course a different question, friendship would remain the basis of that relationship too.

By the time the afternoon arrived, Isabella felt comfortable enough to start giving thoughts to other issues than her own, which was… probably something that was kind of overdue. She had always thought of herself as being a helpful and caring neighbor, looking out for others' welfare, and although overall that impression of herself hadn't been shaken she still knew that she had made her mistakes in dealing with Phineas, never really considering his view on the relationship that turned out to have never existed. Well, no matter. From now on, she was going to do better – and that meant thinking of what Ferb might want or worry about, too.

And as strange as it was to think of Ferb as being anything less than that steady, self-assured figure in the background, the Fireside Girls were right that she had seen him slip up over the past couple of days. If he really was anywhere near as insecure as she was over this whole thing, the fact that he hadn't heard from her about their date since her agreeing on Saturday might well get to him. He had apparently crushed on her for a while now (come to think of it, she really wanted to hear the details on that), but for her, he had only really entered the picture that very night. It wouldn't be strange if he presumed that her agreement to go out with him had been an impulsive decision. Perhaps one that she'd already long forgotten about. (Not to mention that she still wanted to know where they were going.)

No, it would be good to set matters straight. That was what Isabella became more and more convinced of after she went home from school that afternoon – and since she had thought of it too late to speak to Ferb about it there, and her mother wouldn't go to the Flynn-Fletcher house for her because she thought her daughter had to arrange those things for herself, she would just have to go to the Flynn-Fletchers. It was only her best friends' house, after all. It might be a bit daunting after all the things that had just happened, but come on. She had faced much more threatening things over the course of her life than a bit of relationship peril. She'd be just fine.

Isabella kept her mind focused on that thought as she walked over to her neighbors' home that afternoon, steadily walking over the street and then slightly less steadily walking through the gate that lead her into the backyard. As she had been able to discern from the lack of noise coming from that general direction, it was empty. Hardly a surprise, really – it was a week day, not to mention that it was quite cold, and not even Phineas and Ferb could be bothered to work an automatic heating system into every project. Besides, indoor activities could be fun too.

The glass door that looked out on the backyard was open, allowing Isabella to enter the living room. It seemed to be empty as well, although she could hear Phineas' voice coming from upstairs, so…

"Shapiro."

Startled, Isabella sprung around at hearing Candace's voice behind her. She hadn't noticed the other girl when she came in, and it soon turned out that there was a very good reason for that. Candace was sitting on the wall, her legs crossed and a notepad on her lap which she was apparently writing something in. She was looking straight at Isabella, giving her a relatively self-assured expression, as if sitting on a wall was an entirely natural thing to do.

Well, this was the Flynn-Fletcher home, and even though Candace had never been closely involved in her brothers' projects, she was still their sister. So in a way, to her, it would be the natural thing to do.

After being acquainted with Phineas and Ferb for so long, seeing their sister sitting on the wall only really surprised Isabella for a second or so. The main reason of her shock was because she suddenly realized that she was not at all prepared to face the girl she had last seen with her mouth pressed against that of Isabella's crush four days ago. She had certainly thought about the matter a lot in the past couple of days, but now that she was seeing her again Isabella knew she had not come to terms with Phineas' romance with his sister at all. Which was only natural, of course – even people like Phineas and Candace couldn't expect anyone, let alone her, to look upon their… thing with favor – but it did turn her previously lighthearted mood into a tense one.

"Flynn," she grumbled, staring the other girl straight in the eye because she wouldn't do her the pleasure of backing down. Candace was her rival now, the girl that had taken Phineas' heart despite the fact that by virtue of being his sibling by blood she should have been entirely unable to do such a thing.

Why? Why? What in the world did he see in her? What did that obnoxious woman have that she, a nice girl his age who had always been devoted to him, didn't? Even to someone as flighty as Phineas that long-necked, old, constantly shouting tattletale of an older sister of his couldn't possibly be superior to…

…no. No. She couldn't think like this. She had agreed to Phineas that she would try to accept this, and as hard as it would be, Isabella wanted to keep that promise.

Candace was glaring at her, and promise or no, Isabella had no problems with putting her hands in her sides and glaring back. It was a stand-off. An epic clash of wills. The two enemies' eyes were focused on each other, their hands were curled into fists, and their environment was underscored by the sounds of the rough deserts and open plains of the West, the music of heroic cowboys and vigilantes working to make good triumph over evil. This was their confrontation, the confrontation, and Isabella was not going to be intimidated here. It was an all-or-nothing battle, one of total victory or ignoble defeat. Whoever held their gaze the longest would hold all the cards, and it was going to be her who did so. She would not let herself be bested by this no-good, conceited…

…wait, where were those sounds even coming from?

Isabella blinked, drawing her attention away from the clash of wills for one moment as she focused on the steady strings of cowboy music in the background. Candace did the same, grumbling and getting up from the wall before stomping over to the stairs. "Ferb!" she roared, with such volume that Isabella had to plug her ears. "Get away from my banjo and invent your own instrument!" She turned back to the other girl, frowning. "Was that too harsh? I think maybe it was. I'm… still trying to learn how to channel my aggression since I stopped busting, and that definitely wasn't okay, but I can yell at my brother to stay away from my banjo, right?"

"I… guess so?" Isabella meekly replied.

"Good. I'm still catching my balance on this whole thing, but at least I'm learning." There was a brief, satisfied smile on the older girl's face. "I even joined Phineas and Ferb and the others earlier when they were doing their climbing competition across the house, but it still feels kind of weird, and I did have homework to do. Not much, but I figured that I might as well take care of it now and have the rest of the day to myself."

Isabella nodded. "I wouldn't think that you would need to adjust like that," she said, trying very hard not to think about how Candace had become convinced to give up on her age-old busting activities all of a sudden. "You never seemed to be bothered about it when you barged in on Phineas and Ferb's inventions to try to take them down from the inside or whatever – or in those rare cases when you joined us in the backyard."

Candace raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. "Well, there's a difference between barging into an invention for busting's sake, or getting carried away because of fun every once in a while, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, accepting that they're here to stay and I'm not going to do anything about it anymore," she replied, speaking in a slightly slower voice than usual as if she thought that Isabella was dimwitted or anything. (Which was rich, coming from the one who thought it was okay to commit incest.) "The one, you can justify to yourself… and I was always pretty good at rationalizing stupid things, while the other… well, it's a lot harder. But…" Her voice trailed off somewhat, and her eyes narrowed. "But it's none of your business anyway."

"Well, excuse me for asking then," Isabella snapped back. "I'm not here to listen to you anyway."

"I'm not surprised," Candace said dryly. "Let me guess – you're here for Ferb, right? He told me that he had a thing for you, and that you're going out on Saturday."

"And that's none of your business," Isabella hissed. Seriously, the way just hearing Candace mention her stepbrother's name had made her hairs stand on end… it wasn't like she was embarrassed about Ferb, of course, especially not after her interactions with the Fireside Girls yesterday, but she didn't want to talk about having these fledgling feelings in front of Candace, of all people.

The one who had called her lifelong crush 'a childish pipe dream'.

The one who had taken everything from her.

It had probably always been inevitable that some tension would exist between her and Candace Flynn – it was what a boyfriend's older siblings were for, after all. (Well, she'd usually heard about older brothers overprotecting their little sister against their potential suitors, but given Candace's aggressive nature, it would have worked just as well the other way around if she and Phineas had ever started dating.) But instead, what Candace had done had been far more far-reaching than any other older sibling could ever imagine. She had taken Phineas for herself, she had committed incest with him, and, and…

Isabella gritted her teeth and shook her head. She couldn't let herself get riled up at Candace like this. She had promised Phineas that she would try to accept that he and his sister were… a thing now, and she couldn't go back to pursuing Phineas as she once had anyway. She wouldn't do it, even if Ferb hadn't been there – things had just changed too much between them. And with the addition of Ferb… well, that meant that 'Phinbella' was certainly in the past now.

The fact that she could acknowledge all of those things of course did not make reconciling with Candace easy, but she looked up at the other girl in any case. "Look, I can tell that we're not exactly fond of each other right now, but… well, stuff went down last Saturday, but Phineas and I reconciled over it, and I know he and Ferb did too, so can we… stop treating each other like enemies? Okay? Because Phineas is still my friend, and he's your…"

"Boyfriend," Candace smugly replied. She looked absolutely insufferable. Seriously, as incomprehensible as Ferb straight-up punching Phineas in the face had been, Isabella could understand the sentiment right now. The only reason she wasn't wiping the other girl's smile off her face with her fist was the knowledge that as Candace was older and bigger than she was, she would be bound to lose any ensuing fight.

It sure wouldn't make that initial punch any less satisfying, though.

As well as she could, Isabella tried to shove down her vindictive feelings. "Whatever," she spat. "You might not want to say that so loudly, in case certain other people find out what you and your brother get up to." That did at least do the job of erasing Candace's smile from her face, and Isabella couldn't help but smile a little at how pale the other girl went. "I don't want to tell anyone – I don't want to talk about any of this. But if you keep raising the issue…"

"Yeah, yeah, point taken," Candace replied bitterly. She was trembling a little, although she was clearly determined not to show it. Which was kind of satisfying, but… they really were acting like they were each other's enemy, weren't they? Isabella sighed. She had to at least try to come to an agreement with the other girl, even if it was just one of 'not showing hatred'. And even though Isabella held the upper hand with the fact that she could expose their relationship, she knew that simple act would be likely to ruin her relationship with Phineas. Not to mention that, given that Candace's words would likely weigh much heavier with Phineas in any case, she could cut off Isabella's friendship with her best friend whenever she wanted to do so. Which meant that reconciliation was in both of their interests, really.

Fortunately, that seemed to be something that Candace was realizing too. The girl still looked disgruntled, but not quite as much as she had before, and Isabella seized her chance. "So, if we could stop arguing now, I'd really like to move on," she said. "I'm not going to keep obsessing over Phineas anyway."

Candace nodded thoughtfully. "No, I guess that given that you're going out with Ferb, that's out of the question now," she said. Isabella wasn't sure whether she sounded relieved. Maybe part of her just wanted Candace to sound relieved, because she wanted to be a threat to be reckoned with to the relationship the girl craved with her younger brother… but really, that was never going to happen. She knew that, now. Phineas was… off the table, because he had somehow fallen for his sister instead of for her, something that she would never understand as long as she lived, but which she still had to cope with.

It was no wonder that she'd never won that 'Understanding Boys' Minds' patch, really.

She shook her head, turning back to Candace. "Is he upstairs?"

"Unless he jumped out of the window in the past couple of minutes, yes," Candace deadpanned. "Which I wouldn't put past him or Phineas, really. What do you want to talk to him about?"

Oh boy, now she was even getting the 'overprotective older sister' act that she'd been spared from with Phineas (albeit for discomforting reasons) over Ferb. Isabella rolled her eyes and turned back to the older girl. "I just wanted to tell him that we're still going out next Saturday night," she said. "We were all kinda upset when we agreed on that, and I don't want him to think that it was some impulsive decision that I abandoned right away. I do want to go out with Ferb." She put her hands in her sides again, unable to resist the urge to be sarcastic. "If that's okay with you?"

Candace rolled her eyes. "Yes. Yes it is." She sighed. "I'm not… still mad at you or anything. I mean, you didn't punch Phineas in the face – and at any rate Ferb did apologize for that." She cleared her throat, looking awkwardly uncomfortable. "I… guess that I should kind of say sorry myself, to you, for yelling about your crush being a silly pipe dream? I know I was really mad at you then, but still, that was kinda overboard."

Isabella blinked, surprised to hear Candace talk about something that she had just been thinking about – something that had, indeed, made an impact on her. "Thank you," she murmured. "I… well, I think you said my dream of marrying him was childish, which I suppose it kind of was, in retrospect, in the way I was imagining it at least. I simply wasn't doing anything to achieve that." She shook her head. The last couple of days, it had been as if it should have all been so simple. She should have known to do something more. She should have known that Phineas would have his own opinions. She should have, but she hadn't.

"But… it's going to be different with Ferb, you know?" She awkwardly folded her arms. "I want to give this a try, and be better at this than I was when flirting with Phineas." She looked over at Candace, suddenly feeling a bit awkward about the fact that she was trying to justify herself, despite the flaws that might necessitate such a thing, in front of someone who thought it was okay to date her brother. "So, yeah. If it's up to me, Ferb and I are going to give dating a shot."

"At Nick Bunyan's, right?" Candace asked.

Isabella frowned. "Is that what he told you?" she asked, mentally filing the name away. The restaurant that had been named after Paul's lesser-known cousin was a lot like Paul Bunyan's, but at least it wouldn't invoke the same unpleasant memories that going to the other place would have. This was good. She could work with it. "He didn't mention a place the last time we talked, and I hadn't yet had a chance to ask him. But then yeah, I'm down for that for Saturday night."

She moved to walk on towards the stairs just as Candace replied. "I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that," she said. "He was kinda worried about dating you too."

The younger girl froze halfway and turned around. "He was?" she asked. "What did he say?" She had been thinking that Ferb might be as insecure as she was, but it was one thing to think it and another to hear it. If that was what she was hearing, and Candace didn't mean that Ferb wanted to give up on her? Because he didn't want to date her? No, that probably didn't make any sense.

Candace gave her a bemused smile. "Sit down," she offered, gesturing towards the couch. A couch which it appeared to be all but impossible for her to get to herself, given the fact that she was still walking on walls – but then again, Candace was a Flynn-Fletcher, and within a minute or two Isabella found herself sitting next to the other girl, who had managed to use bookshelves to propel herself to get to the couch. Sure, a close observer could see how she was leaning differently into the couch cushions than a person would for whom normal gravity applied, but she was on there.

"Ferb wanted advice from me," Candace began, "about how to date you. It took me a while to get exactly what he wanted to hear because I've never been good at the whole 'reading his face' thing, but eventually I told him to take things easy and not overwhelm you. You guys are new to this whole thing, after all, and Ferb can be a bit of a show-off."

Isabella nodded. That was a fair enough thing to say, she supposed. "So, how did he react to that?" She raised an eyebrow. "Did he… tell you anything about what he had planned?"

Candace shrugged. "I couldn't really get anything out of him, and honestly, that wasn't my priority at the time. I wanted to help him, but we only really had a brief conversation, and it's not like just because we're both girls that I could tell him how to approach you. Not to mention that if he hasn't told you yet, then it probably isn't something you ought to know anyway." That was… annoying, especially under these circumstances, but fair enough. "But the point here is that he came to me to ask for help with dating you, so he's still clearly interested in that. And I've seen him looking out the window over towards your house once or twice, too."

Isabella leaned back into her seat to reflect on that. That was at least something she didn't know before, then. If it was up to Ferb, their date was still on. That was probably not a surprise, given the fact that the boy had apparently crushed on her for a while now, but after everything she had gone through she couldn't help but feel that it was a bit of a relief at least.

Still, it was kind of meager. "That's all you have for me, huh?" she noted. "Just Ferb… being Ferb. Great. I'm sure that's going to help."

"Well, if you wanted to hear dating advice you should have asked for it" Candace replied. "I can't read minds, you know."

Dating advice – from the girl whose relationship with Jeremy had crashed and burned only a few weeks ago, and who was now trying out a new romance with her own brother? Isabella tried very hard not to scoff. "What would you even tell me?" she asked. "I've seen you trying to flirt with Jeremy, and I've got to say that it wasn't very impressive."

"Like you're one to talk, kiddo," Candace said, rolling her eyes. "If you…" She hesitated, and shook her head. "Never mind, I'm not going to argue about this again. You're right, I probably don't have too much to say. I didn't have much to say to Ferb about you either. I never studied either of you too closely over the past couple of years, for obvious reasons." Isabella nodded, trying not to grimace as she thought of just how obsessed Candace had always been with Phineas – the same Phineas who had gone on to see her as girlfriend material. Wait, was it possible that Candace's obsession had been an early indication of those same feelings?

…ugh. She should really stop thinking about this, because somehow she was only making it worse. She needed to find a way out of here, not to get in deeper.

"Well, anything would do, really," she found herself saying. "Even if it's not helpful at all, at least the two of us will have had a conversation without hating each other."

Candace nodded. "Fair enough." She shifted in her seat, briefly having to cling onto it for dear life due to the whole gravity distortion thing she was still undergoing. Was she just going to try and bear this all day? As some kind of compensation for having tried to bust her brothers? That sounded… kind of unhealthy. But, well, it wasn't like much of what Candace Flynn was doing right now was very healthy anyway, nor that Isabella cared.

"Ferb is…" she began. "Well, he's someone whom I never thought of as relationship material before? But then again, I never thought about Phineas as relationship material before either, and I could tell you all about him now, so…" She caught the unamused expression in Isabella's eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'll get on with it. I guess you could describe him as solid. He certainly had his head together a lot more than we did over the past couple of weeks, even if he did punch Phineas in the face that one time. He might be a quiet voice in the background, but when you need him, Ferb will always be there for you."

Isabella nodded, feeling distinctly disappointed. What she had just heard was something that she maybe hadn't vocalized before, but she had certainly known it in one way or another ever since Ferb had picked her up on that night of disaster. "Anything else?" she wanted to know.

Candace raised an eyebrow at her. "I get that you know all that already, but it's still good to know, you know" she said. "Ferb was the first one to pick up on Phineas' feelings," nothing personal but she would punch the other girl if she started going into detail about those feelings, "and he was the one to tell Phineas about them." Hmm. She hadn't known that, and although she knew that she couldn't have asked Ferb to keep concealing this from his more innocent brother and that there was a chance that she would be better off now that still kind of stung as a missed opportunity. "Ferb held him back – I'm not saying that he was always right about that, mind you, just that he was always the sensible voice of caution – and it was only after they got separated from each other due to that argument over your crush that Phineas came up with his idea of winning me back by arranging that date. Which was something Ferb certainly would have been against if he'd known, and although I eventually appreciated it, I know you… didn't."

That was putting it mildly, and Isabella knew that Candace was putting it mildly on purpose. "You know, if Ferb's so reliable and perceptive and sensible, maybe you should hook up with him instead," she grumbled. "At least you two wouldn't be blood related."

"Yeah, that's not happening," Candace said, sounding far firmer than she had any right to be. "Look, I know this is crazy, but Phineas makes me feel… happy. At ease. I love him, and that's not going to change."

Isabella gritted her teeth. "I'm sorry, did you perchance miss the part where I really didn't want to hear any of that?"

"You shouldn't have asked for it, then," Candace argued. "But seriously, Isabella… I know everything feels like a big mess right now. It feels the same way to me. But when the puzzle pieces settle, you can have Ferb – and I'm pretty sure that's going to be worth it. Because Ferb doesn't have to be my cup of tea for me to be able to see that he is a nice guy, romantic, helpful, and indeed reliable."

Isabella duly nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I guess so," she muttered. "I still don't know how we're going to get from here to there, though. I've always crushed on Phineas. A future with Ferb is…" Was it unthinkable? Not anymore, no, but it was incredibly abstract, and she didn't want to commit to it just because her old crush had decided to date his sister. "…out of reach," she finally lamely finished.

Candace chuckled. "If there's anything you should have learned in all those years that you came here, it's that for my brothers, nothing is ever out of reach," she said, an almost playful tone to her voice. "I used to think that was terrible, but now… well, I've seen how it can be helpful. My brother decided that he was in love with me, and it worked out. After that, nothing is impossible."

"You realize that's not exactly the happiest example you could offer up to me," Isabella replied, trying to suppress her irritation. "To me, if anything, it shows how things could go wrong. Even if Ferb and I should decide to start dating now, for all I know something terrible could come along next summer and blow it all out of the water again. Because I know what those summers are like with Phineas and Ferb – they're long and wild and all over the place, and I never minded that as long as I knew that romance-wise, they would at least not make things worse for me, but now?" She sighed. "Committing to Ferb… almost feels like taking a massive risk."

"Everything in life is a massive risk, though," Candace opined. "Dating Phineas or Ferb is no different – heck, if anything, it's more intense, because they've never done anything by halves. You're right that there's a lot of weird stuff in the lives of my brothers that could suddenly affect your relationship with Ferb, next summer or before it, but you can't let all the things that can change in a hundred and four days stop you. That's just stupid. You've got to go out there and face your fears, like I'm doing. And then, even if worst comes to worst and your relationship never goes anywhere, that's just part of normal life and you can pack yourself up again."

"Yeah, right," Isabella scoffed. "I know how well you stick to those rules, Candace."

The other girl blushed. "Well, maybe I didn't before," she admitted. "I do now, though. That's the point here."

Isabella let out a theatrical sigh. "Okay, I get it. Nothing lasts forever, Ferb is awesome and I should really give him a shot, but who knows how it'll work out. Really, Candace? No offense, but I could have figured out most of that on my own. I just want…" She hesitated. "I'm not sure what I want, actually. I just want to be prepared. To know more about him as I go in there next Saturday. Things that only you could tell me because you live with him."

"What, like about his color toothbrush or something?" Candace replied. "I hope you don't think I'm some sort of expert on my brothers. I'm not. And certainly not on Ferb."

"Well, it would certainly help if you at least tried to remember something helpful" Isabella pointed out. "Wasn't that what you were going to do earlier? What you promised me?"

Candace sighed. "I know, I know," she muttered. "But what can I say? Ferb is polite, he's quiet, he's thin, he's tall, he's unpredictable, good at dancing, he snores, he's superstitious…"

"Ferb is superstitious?" Isabella cut in. "Huh. I never noticed that."

The moment she said those words the Fireside Girl knew that Candace was bound to think that she never noticed anything about Ferb before (aside from the obvious stuff) and the deadpan look she got indicated that that was indeed on the other girl's mind. Fortunately, though, Candace didn't dwell on it and just nodded. "Yeah, he is. I don't know why, but, well, he's Ferb. I never pretended that I really understood him – and honestly, I don't think you would need to know every last detail about him either. You can find that out as you go."

"Maybe not every last detail, but I can't just… go in there blind either" Isabella protested. "Candace, I may have known Ferb, but I never really knew him, you know?" It hurt to admit it, to some extent, but she couldn't run away from the facts. "I… spent far too much time paying attention to Phineas for that."

"Whom you didn't know either, before you met him, and you never let that stop you," Candace dryly pointed out. "Look, I know Ferb can come across as… being out there, sometimes. Heck, I once thought that he'd been replaced by an alien, when it turned out that it was just a bunch of misunderstandings, one of my brothers' weird projects, and Ferb being Ferb." Isabella raised an eyebrow, and Candace blushed. "Anyway, but you can't let that hold you back. 'Cause deep down, though Ferb is his own unique person, he's also normal, like every one of us. He's a good guy. Saved my life once or twice, too. He's not so different from Phineas, just… different enough."

"Different enough," Isabella parroted under her breath, not sure and not caring much whether Candace could hear her. She folded her arms, grimacing. "But of course, it turned out that I didn't actually know Phineas either given that he decided to fall in love with you, so from that point of view I don't have any hope with Ferb."

"Yeah, that's how you're going to succeed, by assuming it's not gonna work out," Candace said, rolling her eyes. Isabella tried to suppress her irritation. "Look, kid, if you'll accept any advice from me, then let it be that you can never prepare for things like dating. They just… happen. I always tried and failed to do that with Jeremy, and now with Phineas, I've learned to let go, so why don't you do that, too? Be bold. Tell him what you want to know, or to do. I know you can stand up for yourself when you need to."

Isabella sighed. "Of course I can, but you know what happened the last time I thought I had everything all under control? Phineas rejected me. He… and you…" She gestured with her hand. "You know. I don't want to risk losing Ferb, too. Even if he is just as nervous about this as I am, it's still good to be prepared."

Candace shrugged. "Says you. Sometimes you've just got to barge into situations where you don't have it all under control. If you say that you can be confident, then do it. Go for it! Go straight ahead! Let Ferb know that you care about him." She winked. "I mean, that's what I do, and look at where it brought me."

"Could you just stop that?" Isabella exclaimed. "I… ugh. I can't stand it. I'll never be able to stand it. I want to accept Phineas as just a friend, but the idea of you… and him… he's your brother, Candace! Why would you ever fall in love with your own brother!"

The taller girl hesitated, looking slightly vulnerable. "Because… I just did," she said. "Because he's always been there for me, and always will be. I'm not expecting you to understand that, and I think if I'd try to explain it in more detail I would only unnerve you more."

"No kidding," Isabella muttered. "I know by now that I can't expect Phineas to listen to reason on any of this, but – you do know that incest is wrong, right?"

"The thought had occurred to me, yes," Candace replied. Isabella wasn't sure whether she was doing this whole snarkiness-thing on purpose or if it was just a defensive habit by now, but either way it was supremely annoying.

"And it hasn't, you know, snapped any sense into you?" she asked.

"If that's what you want to call it, no."

Isabella shook her head with a sigh. Pointless. All of this was absolutely pointless. There was no way she could talk sense into Candace – but, as she had to remind herself time and time again, she didn't even particularly want to or need to do so anymore. She was here for Ferb right now, wasn't she? (Even though, of course, the fact that she was pursuing a relationship of sorts with the other brother now didn't mean that she wasn't still very disturbed by Phineas' bizarre choice of romantic partner.)

"All right," she tried once more. "So what you're basically saying is that I should be forthright with Ferb? Not beat around the bush, just go for it and live with whatever the consequences are?" It sounded like a very silly strategy, but… well, Candace had been hardly shy about expressing her inner feelings around Phineas over the past couple of years, including every single negative one she'd ever felt towards him. And the consequences had been…

…ridiculous. That was the best word for it.

So since Ferb was Phineas' brother, why couldn't she have that ridiculousness work in her favor for a change? She knew how much Ferb was like his brother in the sense that he was bold and confident, and, though in the background, still in command of the situation – so might he, like Phineas, not respond well to someone else showing that she could do just as well on those parameters? To have her surprise him, rather than the other way around?

"That's exactly what I'm saying, yes" Candace replied. "Carpe diem, right? It's what they're always claiming to love, Ferb as much as Phineas. If you can do that, you will be fine." She smiled faintly. "Like what they're doing right now, by turning their gravities sideways. It's something that only they could really think of."

Isabella nodded. "And you've got no urges at all to bust them for it?" she said, a mild teasing sentiment slipping into her voice.

"I won't say that," Candace admitted. "It's… weird. It feels wrong not to be calling Mom when my brothers and their friends are walking on walls, but, well, I'll deal with it." She rapidly tapped her fingers on the side of the couch. "I try to be as calm as possible and not think about it, because Phineas deserves it. And it'll be fine! I can do this. I can totally do this."

Isabella nodded, figuring that it was probably better to leave Candace with her illusions. She had never really understood the other girl's desire to bust her brothers, although focused on Phineas as she was she had never really paid attention to it either. It was kind of annoying, but Phineas and Ferb never seemed to be deterred by it, and, well, she had not been willing to let herself be derailed from winning the heart of the love of her life by the fact that his sister was a bit of a weirdo. And although she might not be quite ready to call Ferb 'the love of her life' just yet, the rest had hardly changed now.

Candace was still fidgeting, glancing over at the window. Apparently now that the topic of busting had been raised, the girl couldn't get it out of her mind. And for some reason, she had to keep blathering about it too. "I… just didn't want to be bothered by them, you know?" she spoke up. "To live my own life, in peace. And I couldn't, not when my brothers were building all their crazy stuff in our backyard."

Isabella frowned. "But what about all the quiet projects? Or the ones that they built elsewhere? Phineas and Ferb never went out of their way to disturb you, did they?"

"Well, no," Candace admitted. "But they were still there. And they could have started bugging me at some point due to something crazy happening, and I couldn't think about anything but trying to get it to go away so that it wouldn't get that far."

Isabella cleared her throat. "You know, some might call that paranoia." And, at a certain stage, an excuse.

Candace glanced out of the window, away from her. "Some… might be right," she admitted, in a small voice. "I… was… well, it doesn't matter. I was wrong. I thought I was doing right, I thought I was getting back at my brothers for what they were doing to me and bringing it to a stop, but they weren't doing anything to me, or at least, they weren't actively trying, and the only one I was hurting was me. It all started so simple, with me just wanting to lead a normal life, away from inventions, but I was running away from something that's in myself, too, certainly if Phineas is to be believed. And you can't do that, not if you want to be happy at the same time. But I didn't realize that, I didn't let myself realize that, and it got to the point where I thought I'd be fine if the whole world thought I was crazy – Stacy, Mom, heck, even Jeremy when it came right down to it – as long as my brothers would be busted. Primarily because I thought I'd be able to fix all that, because when my brothers would be busted I would finally have the ability to fix all that, but deep down, if I'd had to choose, my gut would have chosen busting."

She took a deep breath. "And… and my gut was wrong. So, so wrong. Because as annoying as my brothers' inventions might still be, losing everything to get them to stop isn't worth it. Making Phineas and Ferb unhappy isn't worth it. Heck, losing even those inventions themselves may not be worth it. Because… because no matter how long I may have believed otherwise, their creativity isn't bad. It's the best thing about them." She blinked. "You know, I think I've heard that said before. I don't remember who said it. Someone desperate, I think. Never mind. What matters is that I'm going to take it to heart, and that I'm going to try to stop busting, because even if I can deal with the whole world thinking badly of me, calling me crazy and what not – heck, it's not like they don't do that anyway – I've discovered that I can't deal with Phineas thinking that."

She sighed. "But you know what they say – you never know how much you will miss something until you've achieved your life's goal of getting rid of it. Only I never needed to go that far, because of Phineas making me stop and think, and I can only be grateful to him for that."

There they were again with the Phineas-part. It wasn't something that she could ever shut up about, was it? Isabella sighed, wondering how in the world she was ever going to have to deal with this. Maybe she should just avoid meeting Candace ever again. "That's… well, that's something," she said. "But I'm here for your brother, you know, not for being your psychiatrist."

"Well excuse me for trying to honestly answer the questions that you brought up," Candace snapped, unexpectedly vitriolic. "I didn't want to ask your advice on anything, I just… got lost in the memories. This is the first time I've really thought about these things, felt the need to explain myself – not to you, but to myself. And if it's not something you wanted to listen to, then you should have just said so. It's none of your business anyway. Now, is there anything else you wanted to ask? Because I still have homework to do, you know."

Well, that conversation shift had been anything but subtle, and apparently it was time for her to get lost then. Pretty rich from the girl who had just been rambling on and on about everything. Isabella shook her head. "Nah, I'm good," she said. "You've… given me stuff to think about." She eyed the door to the staircase upstairs, wondering whether to seek out Ferb after all. She had been feeling reasonably confident at first, but apparently she needed to summon more confidence – and, well, it would be nice if her first real interaction with Ferb after last Saturday was her catching him off-guard in some way. To show that she wasn't just someone for him to woo, and that she was actually reasonably interested in wooing him right back. She wanted to do that, but she couldn't really do any of it with Phineas, Buford and Baljeet around. Especially Buford would probably ruin everything. He was a nice enough guy, for a bully, but when it came to discussing romantic feelings he had always been kinda annoying.

She wanted to say goodbye to Candace, but just as she was about to do so the older girl's ears perked up and she shot off the couch… tumbling down to the wall about two feet below. Isabella cringed, but Candace didn't even seem to notice, stumbling right back to her feet and all but leaping over towards the window. "It's Mom's car," she whispered, sounding… anxious? Eager? Wistful? She didn't know, really. It was hard to tell.

"Didn't you just explain all the reasons why you weren't going to bu…" Isabella began, but she didn't get a chance as Candace started rambling to herself, pacing back and forth on the wall and completely ignoring the younger girl. "I've got the perfect chance! But I can't… I shouldn't… if I bust them now, Phineas will be so disappointed… but Mom will finally see… their inventions will go away, but I don't want them to go away…"

Rather than watch Candace tear herself apart over the agonizing choice of whether or not to tattle on her own supposed boyfriend, Isabella chose that moment to make a hasty retreat through the back door. It was probably going to end the same way it always had, really, with Candace failing to achieve anything. Of that, at least, she had no doubt of it staying the same.

"But surely if their inventions aren't bad, they won't have anything to worry about… but Mom won't understand… then I can make her… but what if I can't, what if she's right… well, then I'd be right to bust, wouldn't I?... but what if Phineas gets upset… I-I can't betray him, not now…"

Isabella rolled her eyes as she closed the door behind her. "If you ask me, she needs a psychiatrist more than she needs a relationship with her brother," she muttered. "But no one would ever think to ask me – including Phineas, apparently. Well, if he wants a girl who goes on and on talking to herself while she's all alone to convince herself of a crazy argument, he's welcome to her."

It didn't matter anymore what Phineas wanted, really – because in a romantic sense, Phineas was no longer relevant to her. Because there, things had changed in her life, in a massive way. And maybe even the ways in which she had adapted to that change – blaming herself for stalking Phineas in order to be able to accept him and Candace, or accepting a meeker role in any future relationship with Ferb in order to adjust to the fact that she might end up dating an entirely different person than she'd originally planned to – were in serious need of overhauling.

Candace's advice was good advice, she decided. Maybe… maybe what had happened last Saturday wouldn't mean that she and the other girl needed to be bitter rivals after all. Instead, they would both be trying to date one of the famous Flynn-Fletcher brothers.

And maybe they needed to lean on each other to make a success out of it?

Isabella rapidly shook her head, scrunching her nose in disgust. No, not that. She would not be giving Candace dating advice on Phineas. Not just because it was wrong, and because her own forays into dating Phineas had ended up in miserable failure, but because as much of a wreck the other girl could obviously be, she actually seemed to be doing well at that. Well enough to make Phineas and herself happy, at least.

This… was complicated. And every time she had a new conversation, Isabella found that her view of the situation had only gotten even more complicated. It was almost getting too hard to keep track of.

But maybe, just maybe, it would all be worth it in the end.

FERB

Compared to his siblings, Ferb thought, he had always been pretty good at picking out patterns.

Granted, that was probably not the fairest comparison. Phineas and Candace had always been… kind of stubborn, in Candace's case, and lost in their own worlds, in both of their cases. Not to mention that he himself had not always been flawless either. He'd never thought Candace's mysterious force theory through until she had come up with it (and he still felt himself being a bit dubious about it from time to time) and he had not realized that Phineas was truly falling in love with Candace. Very often, his own preconceptions or simply being distracted had kept him from seeing things that he should have easily been able to see.

One pattern that he could pick out, though, now that he was paying attention to it at least, was that of the advice he had been getting. Even without meaning to, every day since last Saturday he had ended up having a conversation with someone about the new status quo which had ended in him getting help on how to date Isabella. (It was a pattern that was made much easier to discern because he didn't normally have extended conversations outside of Phineas in the first place.) He still wasn't sure whether they were going to help in the end, but they had been good talks, and that Wednesday Ferb found himself wondering whether another one was going to come by today. Normally, conversations with different people about major things might not 'just happen', but this was Danville. It had seen far more contrived coincidences.

He kept an eye out at school, although he was distracted by the fact that he managed to come into direct contact with Isabella herself when she passed him and Phineas on their way to class. She had only a brief conversation with them, which was unusual in its normalcy (even Phineas could see that, though it didn't deter him from being as cheerful as usual) but it was enough to make him take note of her different demeanor. Isabella appeared confident and self-assured. A marked contrast to what she'd looked like before. And yet, she still wasn't seeking them out for a longer conversation…

Ferb didn't want to be paranoid. His sister took up that role in the family, and he only took up the role of the voice of caution when no one else seemed to be available. (Seriously, after their encounters with Klimpaloon and the Inexplicable Giant Floating Baby Head, Ferb didn't know how Phineas could still dismiss the possibility of supernatural threats so easily. Well, no matter. Ferb Fletcher wasn't going to be unprepared when the next werewolf attack would come.) But even so, after seeing the change in Isabella he couldn't help but put two and two together. If she was confident but also staying away from them, didn't it stand to reason that one lead to the other? That she'd given up on him – on both of them – entirely as romantic partners, and thus no longer felt that tension that had been there before as she talked to them as casual acquaintances?

Okay, maybe he was overthinking this. It was Isabella, after all. She might have had her… less than savory traits when it came to romance, but it wouldn't keep her from being straight with him and cancelling their date if that was her intention. Unless she'd forgotten about it for some reason, Ferb had faith that Saturday would remain on for his crush.

Middle school math was as simple as ever that day, but it still provided a welcome distraction from his ordinary life, and as usual Ferb found himself able to sink into it more easily than his brother could (although the latter's cheerful disposition and tendency to find the fun in the driest of material would always keep him from straight-up acting out). Working hard also meant that they had less work to do by the time they got home, and it was still relatively early in the afternoon when Phineas, an eager glint in his eyes, suggested that they had time for a quick project today.

It was an offer Ferb didn't usually turn down, and certainly not today. It was still cold outside (and constructing artificial heating for every single project was such a hassle) but Phineas had always had enough 'inside ideas' too, and the gravitation distorter was one of them. The idea of tilting their gravity to make it horizontal was simple, but effective. (Making it vertical was considered, but ultimately dismissed as being too risky in case they wound up outside somehow – Ferb couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't been Candace's voice making itself known, although he figured that if it had been he would have known since that voice wasn't exactly a soft one.) Buford and Baljeet came over, a sixth sense alerting them to when they were building another one of their projects. (Maybe now that Candace wasn't chasing her Mysterious Force anymore, she could turn her eye to that mystery.) The distorter was turned on, and the fun could begin.

The afternoon passed in a blur, like so many had over the past and like so many would over the future. Phineas kept them constantly busy, and Ferb and the others of course contributed plenty of ideas of their own. Sure, maybe the house was a slightly limited space to explore the fun possibilities of altered gravity, but it was big enough for them to enjoy themselves. Even considering the presence of their unusual fifth member of the team – Candace.

Candace being around was hardly abnormal. Candace hanging out with them and enjoying herself with no motive aside from that enjoyment was far, far rarer, and their sister herself was only too aware of that fact. She remained slightly on edge throughout the day, and eventually excused herself to stay downstairs as the others went up again. Which was probably fair enough. Not only did she have to get used to actively trying not to bust them, but she also had to watch out not to let go so much that she would slip up about her and Phineas in front of Buford and Baljeet. Something which Phineas' relaxed nature wasn't exactly helpful with.

There was, of course, always a chance that Phineas would still slip up even now that Candace wasn't around. He tried as hard as he could, and Ferb had to give his brother credit for the way he'd managed to keep the secret thus far, but even so, those things could be hard, and Ferb felt privately relieved that Buford and Baljeet weren't prone to discussing relationships, certainly not now that Isabella wasn't around. They all just hung out in their house-turned-obstacle-course, generally having a good time and relaxing. This was fun. It was always fun, and after the past couple of weeks, it was something Ferb kind of felt that he needed.

But he needed to figure out his relationship with Isabella too, and it was during a break in their games that the circumstances for the advice he'd been expecting on some level aligned themselves. He had just been trying to play Candace's banjo (and gotten chewed out for the effort, as usual) when Buford sat down next to him. "You know," he said, "it just occurred to me – where's Girlie?"

Ferb gave the other boy a curious look and pointed out the window, across the street. Buford frowned. "At home? Huh. Would have figured that she'd have been over here the first chance she got." He shrugged. "I guess she could be busy with her scouts… and it's not like I really need her to be here, of course, but, you know, just thinkin'. She's usually here." There was a deepening frown on his face, and Ferb could see the bully, who could be surprisingly sharp when he wanted to be, putting a few things together. "You know, I haven't seen her around in a while here, ya know? And when I did, it was like she wasn't really as interested as she usually is, even this time o' year. Something the matter with her? Or between you guys?"

At that moment, Ferb figured that he could have easily shrugged and Buford would have taken his non-answer and left without mulling over it any further. These moments of insight came and went for him, after all. But just then, Baljeet came by, cheerfully jumping over the obstacle course they had set out. It would have been a challenging one under ordinary circumstances, but with the gravity alteration it was a piece of cake even for someone who didn't usually excel in athletics, and Baljeet was laughing in delight as he made his way over to them. "Why are you just sitting around like that?" he said. "Come on, there is so much more to do!"

"I was just asking Ferb here a question, nerd," Buford defended himself. Ferb watched their regular banter with some amusement, noticing that Baljeet probably wouldn't have been quite as bold around "his" bully a few years ago. "About Isabella – for your sake, you know, considering how you like her an' all."

Baljeet crossed his arms, looking rather huffy as his cheeks colored. "She is just a good friend, you know," he informed them. "I may have been interested in her as a girl once, but I am quite happy with Ginger right now. Not to mention, even I know that she only has eyes for Phineas."

"Not anymore," Ferb softly interjected.

As he could have expected, his friends immediately turned their heads to stare at him. "Care to repeat that?" Buford asked. "Since when is Isabella no longer mooning over Phineas at every chance she gets?"

Well, that was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? It was going to get out sooner or later, so it was probably for the best for him to tell both of his friends about it now, before Phineas' or Candace's actions could make them suspicious, and where he could control the exact nature of the story they were going to hear. And he had managed to tell his parents enough of the truth to make them happy, so it would be entirely possible to keep them from finding out Phineas and Candace's secret as long as he just said the right things.

"Phineas rejected her," he replied simply. "I comforted her thereafter, and we kissed."

He was met by the blank stares he was kind of expecting. "You kissed Isabella?" Baljeet asked. "After Phineas rejected her? Why should he do a thing like that? What could have brought her to address her feelings anyway?"

"Well, it can be postulated that Isabella's behavior, although familiar to us, would look quite discomforting from the perspective of the person who is afflicted, leading Phineas, once he learned of the true depth of Isabella's feelings for him, to object to her desire for a romantic relationship," Buford said.

"Huh?"

The bully grimaced. "Dinner Bell turned her down 'cause she was annoying, dweeb."

That wasn't… quite an accurate portrayal of what had happened, of course, although Ferb considered that it might well be the best way to explain why Phineas had rejected Isabella without mentioning Candace. (And to be honest, he still couldn't explain even to himself why Phineas would prefer his own sister over their charming and talented next-door neighbor – there was no accounting for taste, after all.) It would at least get Buford off his back, and given how upset Phineas had been at the reveal that Isabella had been hiding a crush on him that everyone else knew about, it wasn't even wrong.

Baljeet shook his head. "Oh, come on!" he exclaimed. "What did she ever do to him? Sure, she was always flirting with him, but so was Ginger with me, and well, I'd take that as a compliment if I were him."

"You're not Phineas, though," Buford pointed out. "You might think it's cool, but he's never really been into that kinda stuff." He shrugged. "Myself, I wouldn't have rejected her either, even if she had been crushin' on me without me knowing – but Phineas? Yeah, I can see it. He's always sharing everything, and he'd want Isabella to do the same, not to keep secrets from him, so if he found out in a particularly bad way…" He turned back to Ferb. "Did he?"

Ferb allowed himself a slight, wistful smile and blinked affirmatively. Phineas had, after all, found out in a 'particularly bad way' – learning the truth from his own girlfriend, who hadn't thought it was a big deal, and then hearing that his brother had been concealing the truth as well. That… well, he hadn't thought he'd committed a major transgression then, but looking back he could see how Phineas would have known. It had simply been so much easier not to talk about it, not to explain Isabella's crush in detail, and he'd never consciously thought about hiding it, it had just… happened. Just like it had happened with the truth about Candace's busting. He had been silent, as he always was, and Phineas had – in retrospect, rightly – called him out on it.

Of course, that still didn't compare with what had happened to Isabella when she'd barged in on Phineas and Candace kissing. Ferb grimaced as he thought back at that moment, and wished that he could simply enter into the museum time machine and prevent it from happening somehow. Isabella would never have responded well to that reveal, but this had to have been the worst possible way for her to find out.

"Okay, but that still does not explain why you kissed her," Baljeet protested. "I thought you had a crush on that girl Vanessa?"

"Do any of us need to hear all this?" Buford complained.

"I did not hear you complain back when we talked about your girlfriends," Baljeet pointed out. "Besides, if you really are not interested, you could just walk away."

The bully grimaced, but stayed put, and it was with a smug smirk on his face that Baljeet turned back to Ferb. The British boy couldn't help but ponder on the fact that not only was this the third extended conversation he'd had in a row with someone who wasn't Phineas, but it was also the third one in which he, and his feelings, were at the center of the conversation. Part of him wanted to just blink in response, as he usually did. Either Baljeet would get it, or he wouldn't and leave as quickly as he'd come once his patience had been exhausted, but in any case the conversation would be over and they could move on. There were a lot of aspects of gravity transformation they still hadn't explored, after all, and after a few minutes of sitting down his mind was buzzing with them again.

What was there to say, anyway? How would he explain his switch from Vanessa to Isabella? It had been something that had happened in his brain, of course partly influenced by the physical distance and by Vanessa's gentle but firm rejection, but also by feelings below the surface that he couldn't place so easily (even though he had tried as much as he could). Neither of those were Buford and Baljeet's business in any case. He had been interested in Vanessa, at a certain point he'd started noticing Isabella more and more, he had fallen in love with her, and when he had kissed her she had kissed him back. What more was there to say about it? Nothing, really. Why should he have to defend his actions?

Of course, Ferb knew that it was hardly a defense that he was being expected to mount – Baljeet was just curious, after all. If anyone was going to have to defend herself, it would be Isabella, whose friends would undoubtedly be critical about the fact that she'd upended her lifelong crush on Phineas Flynn just like that. The Fireside Girls had always seemed to be invested in Isabella's crush, if not to the impossible extent that she herself was, and from what Ferb knew of the fairer sex they tended to discuss crushes and get caught up in supporting them a lot. Granted, his knowledge there came from second-hand accounts and rumors so there might well be stereotypes involved, and it wasn't like the energetic, resourceful girls in Isabella's troupe exactly confirmed to the idea of girls locking themselves up in bedrooms for sleepovers to giggle about boys in magazines, but even so it was all too easy to imagine them making a stand in favor of the Phineas-story that Isabella had made so many of their activities involve around. And if all of her girlfriends pointed out that she'd always been attracted to Phineas and not to him, might Isabella not come to think of their kiss as a one-off expression of a foolish idea?

Ferb blinked, coming to his senses. Here he was, getting himself caught up in tangents again for no reason at all, only getting himself worked up while Baljeet was still staring at him. Because right now, he was the center of attention, and the other boy wasn't walking away – or at least, not yet. And given his earlier speculation about seeking advice, that may well be a good thing, even if it did mean spilling his soul out to Baljeet. He was the only one who had a girlfriend out of their friend group, after all. (Well, outside of Phineas, which was… still a strange thought to contemplate.)

"I have always thought Isabella was… attractive," he finally replied, noticing the other boys' eyes snap up as neither of them had obviously been expecting an answer anymore. "When Vanessa rejected me, and Isabella started spending more time with me to get advice for flirting with Phineas, I gradually fell for her. I helped her on that night, I attempted to console her, and now we have a date for next Saturday."

He had recounted the same story multiple times now – verbally, no less – and it still kind of felt like something that had happened to someone else, even as the memories of every detail were clear to him. It was an eerie sensation, but oh well, there was no point in mulling over it. There would be a time for that too, of course, but right now it was time for conversation.

He looked back at Baljeet and Buford, and noticed the latter's face breaking into a grin. "Congrats, Ferb," he said. "I knew you'd pull something like this off sooner or later. Hadn't expected it to be with Isabella, but, well, whadda ya know?"

Baljeet also smiled. "That is very good news, my friend" he said. "I would not have expected Isabella to get over Phineas so quickly either, but these things do happen fast sometimes." Ferb blinked affirmatively. "So, is there anything in particular that you have planned for Saturday? Something especially grand?"

"Maybe with explosives?" Buford suggested. "Explosives are great!"

"Bu-foord!" Baljeet exclaimed, in his familiar long-suffering tone. "Would you bring explosives to a date? Even I know that is a recipe for a romantic failure by now!" He sighed. "Phineas meant well when he was trying to arrange something for Mishti and myself a couple of years ago, but even though she turned out to be entirely normal despite being a girl now, she was still obviously not very impressed by his efforts."

"Wait, didn't that end with the entire ship sinking?" Buford pointed out. "So unless you're wantin' Ferb to do that, I can't see why he can't put that technical skill of his to work and give Isabella a good time."

"Because it is a first date, you know" Baljeet argued back. "No one is saying that he should build a ship and sink it – not even Phineas would do such a thing again now – but what you are saying is close enough. Applying explosives on a date can go horrendously wrong, and for a first date in particular Ferb would need something intimate, something special, something safe."

Ferb watched their bickering with bemusement. Both of them were making fair points (although contrary to Baljeet's words, he could easily envision a series of events in some parallel universe in which Phineas' method of asking Candace out had involved him thinking sinking a ship was a good idea because it had 'worked' for Baljeet and Mishti) but they weren't offering immediate solutions for what he should do next Saturday. Baljeet was right that he'd imagined it as a dinner date, given that it was at a public restaurant after all, and that Phineas' usual type of ideas weren't exactly what he had in mind for that. Isabella was special. She needed to be handled with care and decency and gallantry, the gallantry that she had apparently appreciated so much from him last Saturday, and Ferb knew he could be that gentleman. He was at ease being a gentleman.

And yet… and yet, much like Mishti, Isabella being a girl did not mean that she wasn't a normal human being like the rest of them – that she couldn't just be their friend, his friend, whose entire character didn't suddenly change now that she was someone he saw in a romantic light. Hadn't the previous conversations he'd had the past couple of days impressed that on him? Hadn't Phineas been successful in winning over Candace just by being himself? Hadn't Candace told him that Isabella was just a normal girl? That he didn't have to pretend to be perfect because it would only make her nervous?

He could be himself, then. And yes, part of being himself did mean being a gentleman – casually, like the way he had acted around Vanessa, and seriously, because this was going to be an official date. But he was also Ferb Fletcher, technical expert. That was the same Ferb Fletcher Isabella had fallen for, her entirely non-perfect friend and shoulder to cry on, and unless he wanted to present a front for Isabella – like Candace had for Jeremy – that was only going to make both of them miserable, he could and ought to show that side of himself, too.

There were… ideas. Ideas that he could use. Ones that wouldn't ruin the romantic atmosphere of the date, that wouldn't overwhelm Isabella, but ones that would be in line of the expectations she would have of him. Maybe he didn't need to knock her off her feet – maybe he shouldn't do that, especially not for a first date, and certainly not with explosives – but that didn't mean that he couldn't impress her.

He looked up again to see Buford was shaking his head. "All right, all right," he said. "Keep it simple then, if you want to – but don't say I didn't warn ya. It's up to you to figure something out, Ferb – and I wish you good luck with that." He stood up. "And now, I'm done."

"Wait – where are you going?" Baljeet asked, sounding confused.

"I'm heading downstairs," Buford replied. "I'm not done with all this yet, and besides, I've got to see where Phineas went off to. We haven't seen him for a couple o' minutes now. Why should he be having fun around the place while we're just sitting here?"

"You don't know that," Baljeet pointed out. "He could simply be talking to Candace downstairs."

Ferb froze up. Knowing Phineas, that was entirely possible – and although he would expect Candace to know not to tempt the fates while their friends were still in the house with them, it was certainly not impossible that in talking to each other, they had gotten… carried away. After all, from what he'd heard last Saturday, they had been on that couch for a while before he and Isabella had barged in. A complete obsession with each other to the detriment of paying attention to anything else was a well-known characteristic of how romances worked… possibly including his own with Isabella.

Before he could do much to deliberate on his next course of action to prevent Buford from seeing things that he shouldn't be seeing, though, Ferb noticed what his sister would probably call the Mysterious Force sweeping in, in the shape of a small tornado that barged through the open window and swept them up, carrying them down the stairs and into the living room. Another tornado raged through the living room and shattered the gravity distorter, carrying the pieces away with it as the rest of them were blown through the room. Ferb distinctly noticed a glimmer of hope, confusion and dread on his sister's face before the wind suddenly receded and plopped all five of them down on the couch and chairs – him, Phineas and Candace crammed fairly close together on the former, while the others were sitting on chairs next to them. The next moment, their mother's head peeked around the doorway into the living room.

"Hey boys," she greeted. "And Candace. Anyone want pie?"

"Yes," Phineas replied, beaming in a way that suggested that a good time had been had, whether it was because of their invention or because of him hanging out with their sister. "Yes we do."

Their mother left again, and Candace grimaced. "Figures," she muttered. "You know, for a moment there, I was really thinking that you… we wouldn't get away with it this time? But we did. Mom didn't see it." She shook her head, suddenly looking pensive. "You cut it so close, though? I don't think that you ever did so before. Maybe it's because I'm no longer trying to bust you guys that the Force is… waning, in a way?" She leaped to her feet and got a notepad and pen from the table, straining her brain as she scribbled something down. "Let's see, there were approximately three seconds between that tornado letting up and Mom coming in… or should I measure that compared to when your project got destroyed? 'Cause that was a couple of seconds earlier. It was definitely both sooner than normal, though. I should have calculated how fast the Mysterious Force normally acts. Maybe next time, I should use a stopwatch…"

"It would be pretty cool to be able to figure out how our inventions disappear, I guess?" Phineas proposed, awkwardly putting a hand on his sister's shoulder. Ferb raised an eyebrow. "But, well, wouldn't it be more fun to just concentrate on enjoying them until they go away? It's not like Mom finding out about them would really change that much anyway, I think. After all, Dad knows."

"There's always a difference between fathers and mothers, though," Candace argued. "I know… or at least, I have always known… that Mom would step up if she found out about what you guys were doing." She sighed, her shoulders slumped and she gave her younger brother a slightly saddened look and a wry smile, which he responded to with a more comforting smile. (The way they both none too subtly glanced in Baljeet and Buford's direction suggested that they would have done more than that had they been alone.) "Maybe I was wrong, though. Like I was wrong about… so many things, really." She attempted to smile more optimistically this time. "We'll just have to wait and see, I guess."

"Did you just say that you stopped busting your brothers?" Baljeet questioned. "That is new."

Ferb glanced over towards his sister, whose face twitched a little before she blinked and tried to reply as nonchalantly as she could. "Yeah, well, I was really getting too old for that," she said, pointedly not looking either of the boys in the face as her eyes trailed all over the room. "It was stupid, right? Trying to bust my brothers. What they're up to here isn't any of my business, and I have far more important things to do. Grown-up things, you know. Just spending all the time focusing on what these twerps were doing was really lame, and, well, sometimes, their stuff is kinda cool? Tagging along today was worthwhile, at least." She shrugged. "But, seriously, it's none of you guys' business anyway."

Buford blinked. "Eh, whatever floats your boat," he replied, grabbing Baljeet by the shoulder and pushing him along as he walked out of the room. "Come on, nerd, let's get some pie."

Ferb caught Phineas looking after their friends, and practically the moment they were gone (if not before that) his face broke into a bright smile as he turned towards Candace. "That was awesome, Candace," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "I don't think I could have not slipped up about us when trying to explain all that, but you did it." His face reddened a bit. "I mean, maybe I'm exaggerating now, and I know you're not perfect, but you're so much cooler in the face of danger than I am."

As usual, Phineas was being wildly overoptimistic, and although Candace had to at least appreciate that trait to some extent in order to have fallen for him Ferb still wasn't surprised to see her turn to their brother with a wary expression on her face. "I'm not, Phineas," she said slowly. "I really am not. I… those were your dorky friends, it shouldn't even have mattered so much what they would think, and yet I clammed up and I could barely get the words out. I mean, I am trying to quit busting, busting both of you guys, and though it's obviously related to what happened between you and me it also isn't, it's just me seeing how stupid I was. Stopping is just like what a lot of older siblings my age do, although they usually don't have to fall in love with their own brother to come to their senses." She shook her head. "And yet, when I try to explain, that is all that I can think about, and I may have gotten away with it now because it's just Buford and Baljeet and they're hardly the brightest bulbs in the marquee, but what if someone else comes along? Like Mom and Dad, or Jenny, or…" She shook her head. "I'm going to slip up at some point. I just know it."

Phineas sighed, and Ferb watched as a transformation went over his brother's face from the cheerful, easy-going, casual guy he normally was to the strong caring and desire to help that he had seen far more often over the past couple of days. Phineas had always been helpful, but he hadn't always realized just how difficult giving help could be, and that as a loving boyfriend, more was expected from him than a one-off pep talk. "Candace…" he said, hesitantly. "I know this is hard for you. It's hard for both of us. But I know you can do this. You've pulled off so many great things, and let's face it, you are better at this than I am. Even if you only look confident… well, that's half the battle, isn't it? If you can look and sound confident, people won't question you. Why would they ever think something was up?"

Candace sighed. "That's just the thing, though," she said. "I don't look confident – maybe to you, but, well, you do kind of see me through rose-tinted glasses." She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. "To everyone else, though, I know I'm a total wreck, and I know that's only going to make things worse but there is no way I can't be one, not when this is on the line." She shuffled closer towards Phineas, who put an arm around her. "I'm not going to leave you, I know how stupid that would be and I don't want to be just siblings again, but you can't ignore that this is going to be one heck of a ride for the both of us. Especially now that at the same time, I'm trying to quit busting and finding… finding my place in this world. In your world."

"Well, yeah," Phineas replied with a smile. "Of course it'll be difficult for you to stop busting, and you know I'll help you with that when you need me to. And I know it'll be a long ride for us to deal with keeping our relationship a secret, too – I've known it from the start, maybe not as much as you have, but I'm learning now. But you know what also features long rides? Rollercoasters. And rollercoasters are awesome."

Their sister good-naturedly rolled her eyes and nudged his side. "I don't think you can compare secret romances to rollercoasters, Phineas."

Though even Phineas was chuckling at the nature of the comparison he'd made, he still looked into Candace's eyes with an unflinching smile. "Can't you?" he argued. "Why not? Really, sis. If we just keep trying to do this, together, what's the worst that could happen? Stacy knows, Ferb knows, Isabella knows… and none of them have done anything against us."

"They could wake up one morning and decide that we're both disgusting and turn us into the police," Candace grimly murmured. She then chuckled to herself and shook her head. "I… I know that's not likely, Phineas. And I don't suppose they'd have anything on us anyway, at this stage? But Mom and Dad… I don't want them to find out about us. They're… they're parents." She awkwardly gestured with her hands. "It's different. I know it is. And something's going to happen sooner or later."

Phineas frowned. "Well, Mom has never seen our projects" he pointed out. "Why would this be any different?"

"Because this time it's me, and I'm never lucky?" Candace deadpanned. "I know what you mean, though. It's just… something that we can't be certain about, and it's going to keep freaking me out and I'm going to stay nervous about it, and maybe that's what'll ruin us."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Phineas said cheerfully, pressing their sister's hand. "We just need to be watchful. That's the best way to ensure nothing happens, right? If we're on top of this thing."

"I guess," Candace replied, putting her head in her hands. "I know you're right, but it's just – ugh. Hard."

As usual, Ferb had been quietly watching on the sidelines for the whole of the conversation, ready to jump in if either of his siblings needed him (and to jump out if they got entirely too intimate for his liking). Although after the past couple of weeks he certainly didn't want to denigrate Phineas and Candace's competence and resilience, he couldn't help but agree with his sister that it would be extraordinarily difficult for the both of them to keep the secret. It made him feel partially responsible, given that he had not told Phineas off when his brother first gained his crush, and it made it easier for him to also wreck his brain to find something he could help them with. And he believed that he had found it.

"What about Irving?" he asked.

Candace's head swiveled towards him – he wouldn't be surprised if she'd forgotten he was in the room – looking confused. "Irving? What do you me- oh no." She groaned, turning back to their other brother. "Remember when we were at that dance where... we had that argument? And how we talked about Irving and his cameras?"

"I think I do, yeah?" Phineas replied. He caught the worried look in his girlfriend's eyes and blinked, composing himself. "Well, I don't think there's any reason to panic there – I mean, even if he does know, he hasn't done anything with it yet – if he had, someone would have confronted us, wouldn't they? And no one has."

Candace rapidly shook her head. "You don't know that, Phineas," she stressed. "Maybe he did tell our parents, or someone else, but they've been sounding us out? Maybe… maybe he took it to the Fireside Girls? Because he likes them, and because they can use it as blackmail against Isabella? Maybe…"

Ferb was tempted to intervene as Candace's voice rose to an ever higher pitch while the scare stories spouted from her brain, but before he could do anything his brother stepped up to the task. "Candace, you're panicking," Phineas said, sounding unexpectedly firm as he took both of her hands. He was still looking as if he wasn't sure how to handle her problems, but he was clearly forcing it down for their sister's sake. "Look – we don't know if any of that has happened, okay? And I've got to say that a lot of the things you mentioned sound kind of farfetched to me. I don't think any of the Fireside Girls would ever blackmail Isabella over us – how does that even make sense?" He smiled awkwardly. "Don't worry. If you're so worried about Irving – and I understand why you are, and I know that he could know about us and tell on us – well, then we'll just have to go to him and see what he knows."

"Yeah, right," Candace replied with a slight scoff. "What if… okay, maybe I am overreacting here, but what if he doesn't know? Do you really think that either of us would be able to sound him out without giving the whole game away?" She shook her head. "I know I'm never going to be able to ask him whether he saw anything weird at our house over the past couple of months without making him suspicious, and no offense, bro, but you're not going to do any better."

Phineas smiled. "Yeah, you're right there" he said. "Still, it's an option, right? You wanted us to do something, and, well, this is something."

Ferb blinked at them, the gears in his head starting to churn. Candace was right that Irving was a potential problem for them – one that they had all apparently forgotten about over the course of the hectic last couple of weeks. She also had a point that flat-out going up there and asking him if he had seen her relationship with Phineas was very likely to backfire. Or at least, it would for her.

But if he went there… well, Ferb wasn't going to claim that he was flawless, but he knew he would be able to probe Irving. Not to mention that he'd have a conversation subject in store that he could use as a fallback in case the other boy got too close to the truth – Isabella. It might be a little… extreme to ask Irving questions about Isabella, but at least Irving wasn't spying on her the way he was on him and Phineas, right? The fact that they were tolerating Irving's unusual behavior made Ferb feel that he was entirely entitled to probe about what Irving knew about the girl from across the street. It was no different than what he had done with Buford and Baljeet this afternoon, and Irving would be bound to have something to say.

"I'll go," he said, startling his siblings. Candace looked at Phineas and back at him, a faint smile on her face.

"You'd do that?" she asked. Ferb wondered whether she thought that he felt he had to do that in order to compensate for punching Phineas and thus heal the rift that had been there between them. It wouldn't be a strange thing to wonder – although the moment didn't exactly haunt his thoughts, it wasn't something he had been very proud of, and if there was any way in which he could help Phineas, he would. With regards to his siblings' romantic relationship, which he initially hadn't been extremely enthusiastic about… well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they said in the old country.

He blinked in confirmation, and Candace smiled. "Thanks, Ferb," she said. "I… we really appreciate that." She paused. "You know, if it's anything I can do for you – I just spoke to Isabella. She came over to talk to you and reassure you that your date is still on for Saturday."

Her stepbrother blinked, feeling surprised. That was something that he had not seen coming, although he supposed that it wasn't out of the question. He had told himself that there was no reason to panic about Isabella, right? That she wasn't about to give up on him, because she had willingly agreed to go out with him, without him pushing her in any way – kind of like the way Phineas had initially talked Candace into going out with him? (Not that he held that against his brother, of course – different romances required different solutions, and incest was probably at the top of the list when it came to being different. It wasn't like Phineas had been pushy with their sister, after all.)

But as logical as all of that sounded, Ferb couldn't help but feel more surprised than he should have at the fact that Isabella had confirmed their date was still on. This… this was going to happen. In a few days' time, he was going out with a girl, trying to enter a serious relationship that might well change the course of their lives. He was learning about her, she was learning about him, if the fact that she'd known better than he did how much he needed her reassurance was any indication… this was happening. At the risk of getting overdramatic and overstating the case again, it was a pretty big deal.

Which made it all the more useful for him to go and visit Irving. To… probe. To try to figure things out. Not the kind of intimate facts that Irving probably knew about him, and not to use it against her, but to gain a better insight into the character of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro.

Of course, Phineas hadn't drawn all those deep conclusions from Candace's words. Which was probably a good thing, given how much people like he and Candace needed someone with Phineas' lighthearted levelheadedness sometimes. "You see?" he said, beaming. "I told you guys. It's all going to be fine. You and I will be together, Ferb will be with Isabella, and there's nothing to be worried about. Sure, there are questions, but we have the answers! We can get the answers, at least, and when we do, we can solve eve-"

"Kids?"

The sound of their mother's voice abruptly cut Phineas off, and all three of them looked over towards the doorway to see Linda standing there, pushing the door in and looking slightly distracted. "Are you three coming, or what? The pie's getting colder."

Phineas recovered first, because of course he would. "Sorry, mom," he said. "We'll be right there."

"Great." Their mother walked off again, and as Ferb turned his head he found that it was almost funny to see the paralysis leave Candace's face as she breathed a massive sigh of relief.

"That… was close enough," she muttered. She gave her boyfriend a wry look. "Nothing to be worried about, right?"

"Since it's obvious that Mom was too late to hear us talk about dating? Nothing at all," Phineas teased back. Candace dramatically rolled her eyes and nudged him in the side as they stood up and walked off towards the living room, Phineas going ahead, with Ferb and Candace trailing behind.

Candace was not as optimistic about the whole situation as Phineas was, of course. But an aside glance at the expression on her face told Ferb that – surprisingly, perhaps – it could have been a lot worse. Usually, their sister would have launched into the same kind of panicked ramble that she'd done when one of their inventions was on the verge of disappearing… or even like she had done just a few minutes ago. But there was none of that there now. Candace wasn't happy, and she obviously didn't entirely agree with Phineas' assessment, but she was still oddly relaxed. Sarcastic, rather than panicked. Deadpan, rather than worked up. Affectionately teasing, rather than shouting.

Phineas was overly optimistic, and both of them knew it. And yet Candace, who had firmly embraced her new life as her brother's girlfriend now, was confident enough to put her faith in him. Candace, of all people. And oddly enough, after every near-failure that had turned out all right over the past couple of weeks, Ferb felt compelled to do the same.

Because maybe this time, things really would be all right.