Disclaimer: Phineas & Ferb belongs to Dan Povenmire, Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh and Disney. I own nothing.

Chapter 7

Early the next morning, Phineas was still asleep. He seemed troubled as his sheet was cast on the floor and he was tossing and turning in his bed. Perry had gotten up earlier and went back to sleep on Ferb's bed. As he turned onto his side, he was having the weirdest dream of his life. He was being held by a pair of black metal hands as two guys, one of them looking like a pharmacist approached him.

"Now you have no choice but to fix my machine." said the taller of the two. He was dressed in a black lab coat and had an eye patch over his left eye which, for some reason, had a scar over it.

"No."

"That's not one of your choices. Fix the machine."

"No"

"Fix it!"

"No."

"Look, I would make myself do it, but apparently he's an idiot." He turned to face the man behind him. 'Myself'? Was this guy a clone or something?

"Hey" was all he replied to his other self before the taller one returned to face me.

"Fix the machine!"

"No"

"Alright then, you've forced my hand." He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a poorly made sock puppet.

"Fix the machine!" he said, talking through the puppet.

"No"

"Really? When I was your age, I did anything a puppet told me to do."

"How old do you think we are?"

"I don't know, one, two? I… It's, you know… It's hard to tell with the one eye."

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Their alarm went off as it did every day, at seven am. Phineas was the first to get up, still troubled by the dreams he was having. They made no sense and yet something about them was different to other dreams he had. These were more like memories but, he didn't remember any of it. These images only came to him while he was dreaming. As he slipped into deep thought, a hand patted him on the shoulder.

"Are you coming to breakfast?" Ferb asked him

"Yeah sure, I'll be down in a moment." Ferb raised an eyebrow to this. Phineas was usually dragging him downstairs by now.

"Okay." Ferb dropped off Perry on his bed and headed downstairs, hoping the Monotreme would jog Phineas' gears back in to place. As he made his way into the kitchen, there was mom, cooking up bacon and eggs for breakfast, despite the fact that she went the bed the latest last night.

"Oh, hi Ferb. Where's your brother?"

"He's still upstairs. He'll be down in a minute."

"So what did you do yesterday, Hun?"

"Well…" he began remembering how the Fireside Girls refused to let him into their lodge. "We tried finding out about love." He tried to simplify it so his mom wouldn't ask too many questions.

"Awww. That's so sweet. Anyone have a big crush on someone?" She began to plate up

"No offense, but I think that after yesterday, something's are better off being kept private."

"That bad huh? Is that why Phineas is still up in his room?"

"What?"

"I mean did she tell him?" Ferb didn't need to think twice to know who his mom was on about.

"No, actually she was only there in the morning and I haven't seen her since."

"Oh, I hope she's alright." She finished plating up their morning meals. "I better call Vivian. Ferb, go check on Phineas won't you." Ferb only replied with a nod as he got up from his chair and began to climb the stairs.

Over at the Garcia-Shapiro house, Isabella awoke to find her head in a daze. She sat up for a minute, trying to remember everything before she went to bed. Pinky, her Chihuahua, jumped up into her lap. He tried to get her to move but she remained still as she went back over the previous day's events in her mind. He tried barking at her, nudging her, even trying to drag her off of her bed with his mouth but nothing worked. Over the street, Perry was in a similar predicament. Phineas was aware of Perry's presence next to him but he was trying so hard to remember that day of summer which, it seemed, no one had recollection of. Perry was tempted to use his O.W.C.A. training to move him off of his bed but he kept calm and kept trying to move him as their pet, not a secret agent. However, as Ferb opened the door to check on his brother, Phineas gave him that look that filled both of them with confidence.

"Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!"

As the boys were planning their invention for the day, over at Isabella's, Vivian, her mom, was on to Linda, reassuring her that her 'Isa' was home, safe and well. While Linda believed that Isabella was too young to stay home alone, Vivian assured her that she was more responsible than she lets on and that she wouldn't leave her home alone if she didn't trust her daughter. Unknown to her mother, Isabella would have been safe anyway, as long as her Chihuahua was near. After that was cleared up, they began to talk about last night. Upstairs, Pinky had given up, but not entirely. While he could do nothing to snap her out of her daydreaming, he kept a sharp eye on her in case something happened. After a few minutes of watchin' and waitin', Isabella began to stir from her thoughts. Pinky began to relax for a second before he jumped as high as the roof when Isabella yelled:

"I DIDN'T TELL HIM!" She flew from her bed and franticly brushed her hair, teeth and got dressed, her pink bow drooping slightly to the left. She was nowhere near what she would consider suitable for Phineas to see, but she needed to tell him now. The longer she held it in, the harder it would be to get out. She didn't even notice her mother on the phone as she bolted out of the door.

"Oh, look out, Linda" she said with a smirk. "Looks like someone's on a mission. They both giggled at the fact that they both knew what she was rushing off for or who and returned to their conversation.

In their back yard, Phineas and Ferb had almost finished their latest big idea; however, this was mainly Phineas' big idea. Their machine looked awfully similar to their project yesterday, but there were certain, visual differences, that made it stand out. While Ferb was happy to lend his craftsmanship expertise to his brother, he wondered why he insisted on building it this soon and so quickly. Their machine was soon complete and Phineas jumped in to the metal chair that extended from it and pulled down a helmet looking device on his head.

"Okay Ferb, when you press that button, I will be able to enter my subconscious and, hopefully retrieve any memories that have been locked away. " Phineas said with his normal enthusiasm.

"And why are we doing this again?" his brother asked.

"No time. Hit it." His brother complied by hitting the big button on his remote and a visor slid over Phineas' face but stopping just above his mouth. The lights around the helmet began to glow and soon Phineas was out cold. Just then Isabella burst through the door, not stopping until she saw Phineas wired to the metal structure.

"Um, Ferb. What's he doin'?" she asked, obviously concerned for him.

"Oh, well, he was acting strange this morning and, when I went to check on him, he wanted to enter his subconscious… or something. He didn't explain all that clearly. Something about … memories" She turned her gaze back to him. 'Oh Phineas, what are you doing?' she thought as every second that passed, the more she began to doubt herself.