9. I'm Hooked On a Feeling

Phineas couldn't stand the incredibly awkward atmosphere that had somehow formed between Baljeet and Ferb whilst he had been having his epiphany. The icy glares they had been throwing at each other had made focusing on work that much harder and so when they ran out of feathers Phineas jumped at the chance to escape. So here he was at the Superduper Mega Superstore wondering whether giant duck feathers would be in the Furry Critters or Wacky and Weird supplies section, when his phone rang. "Hel…"

"It rained."

"…lo?"

"No, not rained! The entire Pacific Ocean fell from the sky onto the field, I was honestly expecting a shark or tuna to start falling as well! You would think that the ref would call the match off, right? But NO! We had to keep playing and our opponents, they… they believed they were fish or something! With the amount of time they spent flopping on the ground! We had to defend against them, ankle deep in mud, whilst they flailed around taking out half my team in unintentional side tackles!"

"Isabella?" Phineas guesses.

"And you know what the worst thing is? Do you? It's not the fact that you honestly cannot tell if my hair is black or brown with the amount of mud I have in it. Not the fact that I think I could start my own aquarium with the water in my socks. It is the fact that my car is dead. And I am the last one here. And I don't have a change of clothes, and my car is now dirty and I'm cold and I am going late to my Fireside Girls reunion and I don't have time to change and every one of those upstate girls are going to judge me and, and, and…" There is sniffling and Phineas realises she might actually be crying.

He knows fudge all on how to comfort a crying Isabella. Phineas panics wildly for a second, before he realises she probably couldn't get a hold of Ferb. "Do you want me to get Ferb? It's Phi..."

"I know it's you Phineas."

Oh.

"You must be busy."

Oooooooooh.

"I didn't mean to bother you."

She wants help.

"Sorry I'll just…" Isabella sniffs.

She wants MY help.

"I'll be there in 3 minutes." Phineas starts running when an idea starts to form in his head.

"No seriously, Phineas I didn't mean to…"

"See you in a bit!" Phineas hangs up, before starting a flurry of calls and texts. He had a lot to plan in the walk to his car.

When he arrived at the field he found Isabella sitting in her car, her very muddy head resting against the steering wheel. He hops out and makes his way over to tap on her window, she looks up and squints at him in confusion before breaking out into a mile-wide smile. "Phineas!" She goes to hug him before remembering the state of her clothing. "Umm, maybe not. Thank you so much for coming!"

"It's no problem Isabella! I would never turn down a friend in need."

"Yes, a friend indeed." She mumbles.

"Pardon?"

"Oh no, I'm just grumbling about my terrible luck." She gestures to her car.

"I would have thought that a Fireside girl like yourself would have been able to somehow rig a charger using, like a lemon and some wire?"

"Well first off," She raises a hand. "I have neither a lemon or some wire or anything else as you can see." She gestures around at the admittedly empty field and basic bathrooms. "And secondly." She points to the back of her car, where on closer inspection it was easy to see how entrenched her back tires were in the boggy mud.

"Aah, I see." He looks down at his watch, "Well we don't really have time to fix this, so Ill just give you a lift to your reunion, okay? And we will deal with this later."

"Thanks a bunch, it's going to be so embarrassing to arrive like this. I'm sorry for how I look at the moment, I am probably going to get mud ALL over your car." She gestures at her body.

Phineas looks down at the outfit he had been trying so diligently to ignore. He wishes he didn't, the changes he had noticed earlier were being highlighted by the copious amounts of water and mud on her person. The soccer jersey she wore was now stuck to her torso, bordering the new curves of her hips and chest, the wind picked up and he noticed she was shivering. He diverted his attention back to her face.

"Well, it might not be much, but I have my gym bag here." He motions to the bag slung over his shoulder. "It has some soap, a towel, some socks and…um a pair of sweat pants." He comments as he quickly rummages through it. "Everything is clean but…I probably should have looked in here before, it doesn't look like I have a shirt in here…."

"No stress! I have an under shirt that I can probably salvage with the help of some soap and a hand dryer!" She lifts the bottom of her soccer jersey to show the white singlet she had been wearing earlier. "Wouldn't have thought that I was lucky to lose my team jersey, right?"

Phineas chuckles and hands her his bag. She thanks him and walks across to the bathrooms. Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down. Phineas' eyes drift down her back to where her usually loose soccer shorts are now mud soaked and clinging to her in a very flattering manner. His face goes a bit red while he watches her hips sway. He is glad to be distracted by a series of messages that come through on his phone. Right, he still has work to do.

Later he sees her walking back, looking a lot less dirty. He sends off one last message before putting his phone away to focus on her. She has had to roll up the bottom of the sweat pants a bit, showing her lack of socks. She is still in her soccer boots, but you could now at least see that they were pink. Her white singlet looks clean and dry, and her wet hair was once again black although it was missing its signature bow.

"You're looking cleaner. I'm sorry it's not something more appropriate for a get together."

"It is more appropriate than what I was wearing," She smiles at him. "Not to mention a lot more comfortable." Despite her words she shivers in the wind.

Phineas watches goosebumps run up her arms and frowns. "Come on, you must be freezing."

Once they are in his car Phineas goes to take his bag from her. When he brushes her hand, he feels how cold she really is. "Geez Isabella! How are you not turning blue already?"

"I'll be alright once we switch on the heater, it's just a bit of a nip in the wind that's… eepp! What are you doing!" She quickly grabs his hands that had been in the process of pulling his shirts off.

He had taken to wearing a long-sleeved vest beneath his t-shirt. "I was going to give you my shirts, I mean you are freezing and we can't have you getting sick going into exam season."

"NO, I couldn't! what about you? You would get cold!" Her face is red, and when she looks up at him she swiftly removes her hands and looks down mumbling and he faintly hears "... the universe hates me." Phineas hopes he isn't making her feel uncomfortable…. even if she had seen him shirtless many times when they were kids.

He frowns again, "Well it's a bit unfair that I have two thick warm shirts where you have one skimpy undershirt."

"Phineas, really I'm fi…STOP!" Before she could grab him again he removes his over shirt and throws it at her. She catches it with ease.

"Put it on or I'll take off this one." He threatens.

"Phineas, I don't.." His hands go down to his hem and in a flash Isabella is in his signature striped shirt.

He looks at her ruffled hair and makes eye contact with her before they both burst out laughing.

He starts driving when he calms down, though he is still chuckling. He glances over at her and sees her smelling his shirt. He is mortified but before he can apologise for his iffy man smell, she sighs with this adorable little smile and suddenly the blood burning in his cheeks is a thousand times worse.

They drive in silence for a bit, listening to the background murmurs of the radio. The sound of a platypus draws their attention to the console between them.

"Would you mind looking at who that is please?" He nods at his phone without looking away from the highway in front of him.

"Oh yeah sure!" She gets a hold of it before squinting at the screen. "Umm, it's from Ferb."

"What's he saying?"

"It's just a question mark."

"Oh cool, would you mind replying? The passcode is…"

"The first day of summer. I know." She notices him chancing a glance at her. "Eyes on the road. You haven't changed your passcode since you got your first phone Phineas. Now what do you want me to say?"

"Just type yes and send." He hears the automated send sounds and a message received tone. "What's he saying?"

"It's just a thumbs-up, what are you guys even talking about?"

"I have a project I'm organising." He says whilst happily tapping his fingers along to the faint beat of the radio.

"Oh, can I help with anything?"

He stops tapping, "I can't think of anything at the moment." He thinks for a minute. "Um, actually you can."

"Okay," She has her professional voice on now. "what do you need?"

"Tonight, could you keep your phone on you with the volume turned up?"

"Sure, what are you planning?"

"I've got this idea, to try find the equation to make a group occasion have maximum enjoyment."

"And I come in how?"

"Well, obviously its all just theory and calculations at the moment. I've been discussing what makes an event awesome with Ferb and some others, but I really wouldn't mind getting some expertise on the fairer sex's opinion of what they enjoy about societal gatherings."

"That sounds like a needlessly complex way of explaining the concept. But I'm up to help."

"Hey, don't judge me. I have spent the day around a needlessly complex Baljeet."

She snorts at that before pulling out her phone and turning up the volume. "Ugh… look at my hair!"

He peeks out of the corner of his eye and chokes on a laugh. He knew about Isabella's deathly battle with 'the frizzys' but this was something else entirely. Her hair's natural frizz, the sudden heat from the aircon, the lack of any form of brush and whatever had been the effect of the mud, had created a truly…unique hairstyle on Isabella. Instead of the frizz ball her hair normally became when it was humid, there was this wonderful mix of frizz, straight and curl. Random sections falling into each category, almost as if it couldn't decide what it wanted to do.

"I must look ridiculous."

"Nope." He pops his lips and hits his indicator.

"Stop lying." She laughs whilst attempting, and failing, to get her hair in order. She sighs as she sees the hotel coming up in front of them.

Her eyes fall shut when he eventually does pull up at the entrance to the hotel. These reunion events weren't just for catching up with old friends or reminiscing about Fireside shenanigans with fellow Girls. One of the main draws coming to these events was the chance to network with the ambitious, the successful and the wise. The Fireside Girls drew a certain group of people and being able to connect these people across borders, ages and cultures gave one a certain advantage in life. Candace had told Phineas about it after her first reunion, she had raved, like only Candace can, about the chances she had to rub elbows with the people who literally wrote the book on what Candace is studying. Therefore, Phineas knew how daunting it must be for Isabella to go into this looking… less than stellar. Especially as he could see some of the dresses on the girls her age from where he had parked.

Next to him Isabella takes a few deep breaths and opens her eyes. She opens the door and somewhere near the entrance he can hear laughter. Its not the nice kind. Phineas quickly gets out as well. He walks up to her and watches her with a bit of worry. He needn't. With a few deep breaths she pulls a serene smile up and lets the embarrassment and anxiety slip away.

Still he asks, "Are you going to be okay?"

She replies with a carefree laugh, "Look the conditions are less than ideal I admit, but I have faced worse than a bunch of upstate females in dresses. I can even make my outfit a conversation piece, no one else will be able to do that."

"You are definitely right there."

She hugs him then, he has grown this year and finally caught up to her. Both her arms are around his waist. Her head rests on his shoulder and he can't see her face when she says, "Thank you Phineas. It means a lot to me that you took time out of your busy day to come help me. I would have been a proper mess without you, I mean at least my hair is clean." As she moves to step back Phineas chuckles and zones in on a particularly rebellious piece of hair.

He takes his one hand and tucks the strands behind her ear, he loses his smile for a moment as he says, "I will always be here to help you, never doubt that. There are few things I would not do for a friend like you."

She pulls him tight again and he feels her breath against his throat when she giggles. "You are just too perfect, you know that?" He notices that that sentence didn't have the same joviality as the rest of their conversation.

With one more squeeze she moves away from him and looks at the building with a sort of frightening determination. She nods her head once, "Okay, let's do this."

He watches her confidently stride into the building's entrance, he knew that even in his gym clothes and soccer boots she would assuredly impress many.

His phone vibrates and he grins, now just imagine what she could do if she didn't have that disadvantage.

I tried.

THiaH