Author's Note: And thus we come to the final chapter of a batch of five, and probably the most important one out of them. I've mentioned the title quotes I used over on the other site before, and this one has the, in my mind, deeply profound: "You know, you can't force these things" from Ferb during "Act Your Age". And although I've said many negative things about that episode before, I couldn't pass up this quote since it's so appropriate. To turn a phrase, never in the course of human history have words so profound been spoken about a pairing so rotten.

(Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little there, but there are moments when I just can't stand Phinbella. And I do believe firmly that Ferb's words, at least, are very accurate.) But in this chapter, it doesn't apply to Phinbella but instead to Canderemy. Which, as you'll see, it can fit as well. Please read, review and leave constructive criticism!


To say Candace was nervous for the big night was like saying the Pacific Ocean was a bit humid.

She had tried to relax during the early hours of the day, sleeping in and preparing what she would wear, what she would do, what she would say to him… it still hadn't helped calming her down, though. Now it was seven P.M. and it was just about time for her to leave for Jeremy's house – not too early, but not too late either. She was going to nail this final date no matter how much effort it would take.

After checking her appearance a final time in the mirror, Candace left her room and headed down the stairs into the backyard. It was the perfect night for a date – bright stars, the moon glowing softly, a cool temperature but not too cold…

…wait, was that her brothers building something in the backyard? At night?

Candace clenched her fists. They couldn't do that to her. Not tonight. Not while Mom and Dad were off to the theater again and she couldn't bust them. "What are you two up to!" she exclaimed.

Phineas noticed her approach. "Oh, hi Candace. It's nice of you to drop by, but we're making a surprise for you, and don't you have a date to attend?"

A surprise? Yes, he could say that they'd given her a surprise tonight, one casting her ability to go to her date severely in doubt. Candace hurriedly checked her phone. It was just a few minutes past seven… she would be a little late for her date with Jeremy if she ran off to get Mom, but she couldn't let them get away with this. What if Mom and Dad came home and discovered this in the backyard? Sure, they'd bust the boys, but what would they say about the fact that she would have failed to stop them?

She ran out to the streets for the best reception and rapidly tracked down her mother's number. As usual, it took a few tries before Linda Flynn-Fletcher picked up, leaving Candace frantically walking up and down the street until finally her mother's voice came through the receiver. "Candace?"

"Mom!" Candace exclaimed. "You've got to come home right away, the boys are building…" She squinted at the yard. "…something in the backyard! It's big!"

There was a pause. "Candace, your father and I are at our movie night. We asked you not to call unless there was anything serious. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not someone who's inclined to come investigate 'something in the backyard' without even getting any idea on what that something is."

Candace sighed. "Fine, I'll send you a picture instead."

"That would be appreciated." Her mother cut off the connection, after which Candace ran back into the yard and took a picture of the boys' invention… or at least, she tried to. Instead, when she had just managed to get the perfect view of what her brothers were building and pressed the appropriate button, what she got was a message saying the room for taking photographs had ran out.

Of course it had. In retrospect, taking and sending fifty pictures of herself for Jeremy over the last week alone probably hadn't been the smartest idea she'd ever had. Candace gritted her teeth and looked over at the boys, who were still happily hammering away. "Um, Phineas?" This was embarrassing, even more so mid-bust than usual. "Can I borrow your cell phone?"

Her brother blinked. "Sure, Candace. Let me see where I have it…" He checked the pockets of his pants but apparently came up empty. Ferb, too, shrugged. "Hm, that's strange. I must have left it in our room…"

Candace didn't bother to listen whether the sentence would go on for any longer. She ran into the house, raced up the stairs, and got into her brothers' room. And of course the phone wasn't on the desk in an easily visible location, but instead in a drawer she'd only checked after all the others. She grabbed it, ran outside, took a picture…

…and was reminded that Phineas' phone could only take pictures, not send them to others. Seriously, it was at moments like these that Candace wondered whether her brothers actually cared about what they could do. What was the point of being able to make the most advanced technology ever and only using a fraction of it? She supposed it was for the same reason Phineas and Ferb still often travelled by bike rather than by one of the many other means of transportation they had devised – nostalgia, simplicity and covering basic needs.

Well, at least she had the picture – now all she needed to do was to show it to Mom. And luckily, the movie theater wasn't too far away. She dashed over to the garage and got into her thankfully repaired car. She raced out of the garage, got the car on the road…

…and barely moved forwards. Oh, right. After continued insistence from her parents since the incident she'd had with the Nymph, she had consented to having an electronic speed controller installed 'until we can all be sure you've calmed down enough to be trusted with a car that could theoretically go hundred and forty miles per hour in a twenty-mile zone'. Needless to say, that moment had not happened yet.

It took Candace a painstaking eight minutes until finally, the theater was in sight. She got out of the car and rushed inside, only then coming to the realization that she didn't know what room her parents were in. Sure, all the movies were listed on the screen in the center of the hallway, but she didn't know what movies they had gone to see… they had probably told her, but she just hadn't listened again… She groaned, taking out her phone and dialing her mother's number.

Linda Flynn sounded more irate than the previous time. "What is it now, Candace?"

"I've got the evidence!" Candace replied cheerfully. "I've got proof of Phineas and Ferb being up to something tonight and I came to the theater to show it to you, but I don't know what room you're in."

There was a brief beat at the other end of the line. "Really?" her mother finally replied. "You came over to the theater, leaving your brothers home alone, and you want to show me something while I'm in the middle of a movie? Candace, I'm not going to tell you where we are at and they won't let you in anyway… although I suppose you wouldn't mind making a scene by bursting in instead!" Her mother paused and Candace could hear her father say something in a soft, soothing tone. "You're right, Lawrence. Listen, Candace, I'm going to hang up now. When we get back home you can show me whatever you want."

Candace blinked. "But wait, Mom, I…" She tried to call back, but was interrupted by another call coming in on her own phone, which was still in her back pocket. Confused, she checked the Caller ID.

It was Jeremy.

A chill crept up her spine as she answered it. "Um, hello, Jeremy?"

"Candace?" A familiar voice replied. "Where are you? We were supposed to have a final get together at my house tonight and you were to be there at seven and it's seven-forty now. You didn't respond to my messages," darn clogged up inbox, "so I headed over to your home and your brothers told me you'd gone off to the theater. Did you forget our appointment?"

The same chill expanded over the rest of her body. It couldn't be seven-forty already… But as she checked her watch, it verified what Jeremy was saying. Candace gulped. "I'm sorry Jeremy, I really am! I just got distracted trying to bust the boys…"

A sigh came at the other end. "Really, Candace? Is that's what this is all about?" It was like she could hear the exasperation seeping out of his voice. "Look, if you're not feeling up to this tonight, then I guess we don't have to have a final date before I leave…"

"No!" Candace exclaimed. "No, no I'm fine, I'm fine. I'll be there as soon as I can. Bye Jeremy!" She ran towards her car and shifted it into gear before racing back home as far as she could. All right, maybe she couldn't bust the boys, but that didn't matter right now. She'd gotten this date off to a disastrous start and she needed to make it up somehow.

The ride home was even tenser than the ride to the theater had been, but it was suddenly interrupted by someone stepping in front of the car when she was almost there. Well, to be fair, she had not exactly been paying attention to the road either – fortunately, the incident went off without a hitch as Candace's car came screeching to a halt. Afterwards, the person – a young woman in her twenties – came walking up to her window. "Hello?"

Candace gritted her teeth. She had no patience or time to talk with someone whom she'd just almost been in a car accident with. "What is it?"

The woman blinked. "Um… do you know where a Jeremy Johnson lives? I'm not familiar with Danville but he has to live somewhere in this neighborhood and you look to be about his age. Tall guy, blonde, good-looking…"

Candace froze. This was it, the stuff of her nightmares. Someone from Jeremy's college coming to meet him. She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't let the entire relationship fall apart. She had to do something…

The redhead thought quickly before giving the woman a sweet smile. "Actually, I do know where he lives" she replied. "Do you have a pen and a piece of paper?"

She got the items and carefully set down the route – a route which did not lead towards Jeremy's house but went about six hundred yards into the other direction, leading towards the home of a mad scientist she'd had to visit once to deliver Fireside Girl cupcakes. The man shot everyone who came up to his house with his 'Icinizer', which had merely frozen her for half an hour and was otherwise harmless, but would probably shock a non-native citizen of Danville. Hopefully enough to high-tail it out of here.

A satisfied smile came on her face, one that stuck as she drove back to the yard until it disappeared and was replaced by an uncertain expression. She would be meeting up with Jeremy again. What would he say? Would he be mad? What would he do with her?

Was that a giant restaurant?

Candace blinked. Sure enough, laid out before her in her backyard was a giant restaurant draped in soft red colors which stretched from the backdoor of the house all the way to the fence on the other side, although it had a strange, curved shape which she couldn't quite recognize. The shape vaguely resembled that of an M, though… had they made it for Milly the Fireside Girl? Was this what Phineas and Ferb had been building earlier this evening?

Well, Candace resolved to herself, the purpose of the strange building didn't matter. What mattered was that Phineas and Ferb had built something huge in the backyard again while she was in the middle of finding her way back to Jeremy. She slammed the door open, nearly knocking over poor Isabella who was serving as a porter, and headed in. She scanned the entrance hallway for a sign leading towards the kitchen and, not finding it, just stormed straight ahead. As she soon entered a large room filled with tables where she could see Phineas and Ferb at the bar, it appeared that method worked as well as any.

Candace stormed up to her brothers, barely able to conceal her frustration. "Phineas! Ferb! Seriously, what do you guys think you're doing!"

"Candace!" Phineas said cheerfully. "It's good to see you're here. You see, Jeremy just – "

"…called me to tell me I was late to our date, which I was because you two just had to build something impossible in our backyard for the zillionth time!" Candace exclaimed. "Seriously? Can't you go one day without building something crazy? I can't bust you and pay attention to Jeremy at the same time, and this is the last day of autumn vacation! I've got to create a lasting impression now or I could lose him forever!"

"Uh, Candace…" Phineas interrupted.

"No, you're not going to get away with it this time! I – seriously, Phineas, can't you see that what you're doing by building impossible things in our backyard is affecting my life as well? I keep having to call Mom and now I have to find Jeremy because I'm already half an hour late and I don't want him to break everything off over this because that is not how we're going to date through college and…"

Candace froze as she noticed Ferb's hand gestures. "Oh…" she added, a lot softer now. "You mean that… I've got something on my shirt?"

Ferb face palmed, while Phineas pointed past her. "Right, you mean he's behind me. Gee, I should have figured that out sooner…" Realization set in. "Oh."

"Evening, Candace" Jeremy said, his voice monotonous. As Candace turned around, she noticed him sitting at a table in the center of the room. From the plates and the candles on the table, Candace began to realize what that M-shape had meant, and it wasn't the name of a Fireside Girl – it was the shape of a heart.

"Ferb, Isabella and I built this romantic restaurant for you and Jeremy to enjoy a dinner date in" Phineas said softly, somehow making Candace feel even more embarrassed. She'd make it up to them, she resolved to herself. First, she had to figure out whether she and Jeremy were still on speaking terms. She awkwardly walked over and sat down, as Phineas and Ferb left the room.

"So…" Jeremy said, his voice more downcast than usual. "This is how you treat your brothers and talk about me when you think I'm not there? After taking nearly an hour to show up just because you feel the urge to bust them?"

Candace turned even redder than she already had. "Jeremy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"I know, Candace" Jeremy replied. "I know." He mustered a smile. "You know, I usually love your vibrant personality, but it feels like this date has gotten off to a fairly rotten start. Maybe we should just eat dinner and just go back to my place for a while afterwards?"

Candace nodded, wishing to say that the night still could be what they'd planned it to be but not really feeling it anymore either. It was going to take a while for this awkwardness to be smoothed over again, and all of the big plans she had made for tonight just didn't seem to fit into that anymore. Maybe she could still talk to Jeremy about plans for the future tonight, though. Or even play a game with him. She always had a good time at the Johnson house, Jeremy's family was nice (apart from Suzy, obviously) and that might just be a way for them to leave this night feeling good about themselves and each other again.

That feeling wasn't really fixed throughout dinner, which Phineas served immediately thereafter. It was delicious but didn't do anything to ease the tension that was there, nor did Candace's meager attempts to compensate by nervously cracking jokes, getting nervous whenever Jeremy mentioned other girls at college, or slipping out twice because she thought she'd heard a car horn and she didn't want to miss her mother seeing this. But Linda didn't come home throughout, and by the end of the dinner it was nine P.M. and only her stomach was properly satisfied.

They set off to Jeremy's house nevertheless, both determined to make something of the night after all. Jeremy was quiet at first, but as they walked through the moonlight and reminisced about previous dates, a bit of that spark came back. Maybe this night wasn't everything they had wanted, but they could still have a good time.

Candace's optimism shattered the moment they entered the house and saw a very familiar (and very much soaked) woman sitting on the couch. Jeremy's next words sealed it. "Elly? What are you doing here?"

The woman – Elly – leaned back and glared at Candace. "I was in the state anyway on business, so I thought I'd come and pay my little cousins and my uncle and aunt a surprise visit. I'd just forgotten where you lived exactly, so I decided to rely on the friendliness of the people of Danville and ask the way. Unfortunately, it seems my reliance was ill-judged and I ended up coated in ice by a creepy pharmacist instead."

It didn't take Jeremy long to place the link, and he turned to his girlfriend with a shocked, angered and just plain hurt look in his eyes. "…Candace?"

"I – I can explain!" Candace exclaimed. This was horrible. It was like a nightmare. "I thought she was a college friend of yours… not that you can't have female friends at college, of course… but that she might distract us from, you know, having a good night… I didn't know she was related to you, I…"

She should shut up. She was only making things worse. But she was Candace Flynn and she had always solved things with talking her way out of it, not to mention that she could see from Jeremy's expression that she wouldn't like what he would have to say when she stopped talking. So she didn't.

"I know I should have just guided her to your house, but you had just called me after I'd spent so much time busting the boys and I didn't want to risk having an uneasy evening which would be totally shattered by throwing someone else's presence into the mix…"

"…Candace"

"And I'm sorry, I really am, but it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time and well I don't mean the right right thing to do but the right thing for our relationship because this was the last night before college and I didn't want anything to ruin it and…"

"Candace, please…"

"And I will make it up to you and to your cousin too but if you'll just understand…"

"Candace!"

That got her to stop. Jeremy had rarely – scratch that, as far as she could recall he had never raised his voice against her before. But now, it appeared that he had enough. The expression on his face, where anger seemed to have gained predominance, said it all. "…Jeremy?"

Jeremy sighed, turning to his cousin. "Elly, could you leave us alone for a moment? My girlfriend and I have something we need to talk about."

Elly nodded. "I'll just be in the next room with your parents until you finish your discussion. And here I was thinking I would like meeting this Candace you'd always spoken so highly about." She gave the befuddled redhead a look and walked off.

That just left Candace and Jeremy alone in the room, staring at each other, and Candace realized this was not the moment to sit down as her boyfriend's expression remained far from friendly. "Candace," he said softly, "over the course of the night you've been fifty minutes late for our date, obsessed over busting your brothers, chewed out said brothers, revealed that you're trying to put up a front for me, and caused my cousin to… get frozen by a pharmacist or something? Well, I don't know exactly what you've done to her, and I don't really think I want to know."

"I know!" Candace exclaimed. "I shouldn't have done any of that and I know I'm a horrible person but I… I was trying…" She sighed. "You're right. No excuse. I'm just terrible."

Jeremy's frown softened and he patted her shoulder. "Candace, you're not a terrible person. You are neurotic and rash and you let your emotions do the thinking for you. That doesn't mean you're horrible, just flawed, like everyone's flawed." He sighed. "But I'm afraid that means this isn't going to work."

Candace blinked. "What do you mean?"

"When autumn started, I was all for dating through college" Jeremy replied. "But right now, I don't think we could keep it up. You'd just remain too worried about having to keep up appearances for me and whether I won't find someone else, and I don't want to put you through all that strain. Tonight was a disaster, Candace, and although I'm not saying that's all your fault I don't want that to happen to us again. So maybe it would be best if we took some time apart."

Candace's eyes widened. This was not her worst nightmare – it was so much worse. "You're breaking up with me?" She'd thought he had done that once before, but it had turned out to be a misunderstanding then. Somehow she didn't think it was now, although she desperately tried to keep hoping. Please say no, please say no, please say no…

Jeremy shook his head. "Not permanently. We can still hang out next summer and do boyfriend and girlfriend things, and maybe we could resume our relationship after college unless either of us has gotten reason not to continue this. But we can't go on like this, Candace. We can't date through college. I'm sorry."

"No" Candace whispered. "No, no, no! You – you can't do this to me! We're supposed to date through college and get married and have Xavier and Amanda! Don't you see? If you pull one thread the whole thing falls apart! We might as well break up now and I don't want to do that because I love you and…"

She broke into tears, and Jeremy awkwardly hugged her, which would usually be sweet but now just served to cement the hurt she felt. She couldn't believe this was really happening. It couldn't be happening. This all had to be some kind of crazy dream and she would wake up any minute back home and everything would be normal again…

"Candace?" Candace blinked and turned sideways at the familiar voice of her brother, standing in the doorway they had never quite gotten around to shutting and simply staring at her.

Jeremy noticed him as well. "Phineas? What are you doing here?"

Phineas just kept standing there, looking extremely concerned and at the same time conflicted about making a move. "Um, you forgot your drain unclogger, so I came over to bring it" he replied, putting the item down on a table near the entrance. "I – what happened here?"

"It's over" Candace whispered, tears streaming into her eyes as she began to realize what had happened despite her mind still trying to shut out the information. "Jeremy broke up with me. It – it's over. And it's all my fault. I messed up. I messed up so much…"

She couldn't take it anymore and burst out crying. Both boys looked at her and at each other and then tried to put a hand on her shoulders, but she shrugged them off. "I'm going home, I need some time to think. Goodbye."

Before Jeremy or Phineas could say anything else to stop her she walked out onto the curb and walked home, the darkening sky doing nothing to lift her spirits. Behind her, she could glance over her shoulder that Jeremy just stood there, clearly sorry for her but not going out to comfort her and tell her that he didn't mean it that way, no matter how much she wanted him to. Phineas just stood there at his side for a while, occasionally glancing at her ex-boyfriend with the darkest glare she'd ever seen on his face before finally following his sister at a distance.

She didn't care about them. Frankly, she could care less about anything at the moment. Not about the weather, not about boys, and definitely not about anyone who would try to comfort her as long as that comfort wouldn't come with a repaired relationship. She needed to be alone.

Jeremy had broken up with her. The last time something like this had happened, she had ran out into the wild and lived with monkeys for hours before finding out it had all been a misunderstanding. Now, however, it was real, and she didn't have any monkeys around to comfort her. All she could do was cry. She slumped home past the (naturally) disappeared restaurant, got into the house while ignoring her parents, and got up the stairs into her own room before falling down on the bed and letting her tears roam freely. Maybe eventually they would stop flowing, but for the moment Candace doubted it.

Her relationship with Jeremy was shattered. Her life was shattered.

How could she ever move on from that?