Author's Note: Second to last chapter, whoop, whoop!

Chapter Twenty-Five: Y is for YOUTHFUL

Youthful: vigorous and fresh

"Oh, oh, oh! Get this, get this!" Isabella was hopping up and down jovially, waving her hands just as excitedly. Phineas turned on his heel, skipping briskly down the aisle to peer over the shoulder of his grinning girlfriend.

"What? What is it?" Phineas asked curiously, weaving an arm around the young woman's waist casually.

"Play-Doh," Isabella informs her boyfriend cordially, her eyes wide with her elation.

"Oh my God," Phineas gasps, his own eyes dancing. "Yes. Let's get it."

"Which one?" Isabella inquires, crouching low to the floor tile. She examines the shelving carefully, glancing across each case with expert precision.

"Which one has the most gadgets?" Phineas questions, stunningly serious.

Isabella points to an especially colorful bucket on the lowest display. "This one. It's farm themed. It has little cookie cutters to make cows and pigs and all that good stuff."

Phineas chuckles at the woman's description. He nods in contemplation. "How many colors?"

"Six," Isabella mumbles, reading the list of contents quickly. "Primary and secondary."

"Then we'll get two," Phineas surmises, continuing to search the shelf. "Which one looks good?"

"Oh!" Isabella squeals childishly. "Oh my God, let's get this one. This one makes ice cream. Ice cream, baby."

Isabella hands the box of assorted clay and plastic hand tools to her boyfriend, which he turns over in his hands. "Holy shit," Phineas observes, chuckling. "It has sprinkled Play-Doh. Sprinkled."

Isabella is practically glowing. "Yes. Let's do it."

Phineas laughs, but adds the new item to his previous assortment just the same. "All right," he confirms. "We've got Play-Doh."

"Farm animals and ice cream," Isabella furthers, waggling her eyebrows.

Phineas tries to speak through his laughter. "We've got bubbles."

"With twenty-five percent more soap," Isabella giggles, holding up the bottle cheerily, waving the container rapidly.

Phineas snaps his fingers with narrowed eyes, a smirk defining his lips. "And the included variety of assorted bubble wands," he adds. "What else?"

"Frisbee?" Isabella questions, motioning towards Phineas' basket accordingly.

"Check," Phineas confirms. "LEGOs?"

"Right here," Isabella verifies. "Do we need anything more?"

Phineas glances up and down the aisles but doesn't seem to see anything of interest, so he shakes his head lazily. "Not that I know of. Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Isabella agrees. As the couple makes their way to the checkout counter, Isabella begins to giggle.

"What?" Phineas asks curiously.

"Nothing," Isabella clarifies. Phineas raises an eyebrow, and Isabella shakes her head. "It's just… all of these things. I haven't played with any of these things since I was a kid."

"You still are a kid," Phineas protests.

Isabella simpers, tilting her head to the side in disaccord. "I'm twenty-four," Isabella replies dully.

"So?" Phineas returns lamely. "Age is just a number. You're only as old as you feel."

"Oh, okay," Isabella drawls as the pair reach the checkout counter. As they unload their various recreational items, Isabella continues. "So it's perfectly normal for a twenty-four-year-old man to go to the store for the sole reason of purchasing children's toys?"

Phineas scoffs, sorting bills out of his wallet efficiently. "Okay, number one. Old? Try twenty-four years young."

Isabella giggles, "All right. Next?"

"Number two," Phineas declares confidently. "We came here to buy toys for Emmett. Not for us."

"Oh, of course," Isabella responds sarcastically, assisting the cashier as the spunky teenage girl begins to bag the couple's purchases. "No ulterior motive here."

"No, really," Phineas insists, chuckling heartily.

"Fine," Isabella surrenders. "Three?"

"Number three. No one said toys were wholly for children."

Isabella nods, her chest rumbling with a silent laugh. The pair had already exited the store, heading through the parking lot in the direction of Phineas' vehicle. Upon their arrival, the purchases were arranged accordingly and adjusted just as well.

The ride home was no different than the excursion through the store, with Phineas and Isabella joking and teasing one another, acting like children without a care in the world. By the time they arrived at their destination, the couple unloaded the car and entered their home.

The house was quiet, still until Phineas and Isabella rambunctiously ended the silence. It didn't take long for Ferb and Vanessa to appear, both looking around the room curiously as they came in.

"What's all this?" Vanessa wondered aloud as she observed the plastic bags littering the floor and counter.

"Toys," Isabella beamed. "For Emmett."

"You do realize," Ferb spoke quietly, poking through the bags casually, inspecting their contents. "That most of these are for ages five and up?"

"Your point?" Phineas asks, smirk firmly in place.

"Kind as your intentions were," Vanessa smiles slyly, smug look overtaking her features, "Emmett is hardly two."

"True facts," Phineas concedes, spreading his hands delicately. "But I'm sure they'll come in handy."

"Fine," Vanessa lets up. "Just don't poison him."

"Deal," Phineas agrees.

The next half an hour or so passes quickly, with Ferb and Vanessa giving Phineas and Isabella instructions necessary for Emmett's care. He's be staying with the young couple for only a week while his parents were away, but it was still long enough to be unusual for such a young child.

Ferb and Vanessa were in a hurry, however, and already late. They left as quickly as they came, showing their companions with a million thanks as they departed. Phineas and Isabella only blew off the gratitude, glad to have Emmett with them, if only for a short time.

"All right, scout," Phineas asks as soon as the front door closes. "What should we do first?"

Emmett only blinks his eyes, staring blankly into the grinning face of his uncle, clearly not understanding. The toddler is sitting balanced on Phineas' knee, his hands waving wildly in the air at his sides.

Isabella, too, bent down to Emmett's level. "Mommy said you already had lunch," she says, speaking clearly to the young boy. "She said it was okay to go outside. Do you want to play bubbles?"

"Bubbles?" Emmett repeats curiously, his childish voice high and uneven.

Isabella giggles, nodding. "Yes, bubbles," she responds. "Have you ever played bubbles?"

Emmett didn't show any inclination to respond, so Phineas replied for him. "He's pretty intelligent for his age," Phineas observed. "You'd think if he'd played with bubbles before, he'd remember it. Looks like new territory."

Isabella accepted Phineas' sound logic, nodding happily. "So it's a go?"

"Let's do this."

And so the adventure began, Phineas and Isabella seemingly more excited than Emmett. The pair unraveled the plastic coverings of the bubble soap, opening the lids and breaking the sealed caps. They organized themselves on the back porch, Phineas and Isabella sitting on the steps as Emmett was placed strategically in the grass below.

"Okay," Isabella finally states. "You go first. You'll help Emmett chase and I'll blow the bubbles. Deal?"

"Sounds like a plan," Phineas agrees, exerting a curt nod. The young man crawled off the stoop, crouching behind Emmett, awaiting Isabella's movement.

Isabella returned the gesture, nodding once. She dipped the wands into the bottle as far as the plastic would allow without wetting her fingers. And then, with a deep breath, she blew, creating a long stream of rainbow bubbles that flew quickly in Phineas and Emmett's direction.

The little boy squealed, clapping frantically, seemingly fascinated by the new sensation.

And so the play began.

Phineas was quick to teach Emmett how to catch the soap bubbles on his fingertips and hold them there for several seconds. And upon the newfound knowledge, he was also forced to calm the child upon Emmett's first view of a bubble's popping. It took a moment for the boy to grasp the concept of the bubbles being inanimate.

Besides the initial unfamiliarity of it all, Emmett warmed up to the new experience in time. As did Phineas and Isabella.

In fact, the couple took to the game long after their young nephew fell asleep.

"Oh, my bubbles rock so much harder than yours," Phineas teased, blowing soap bubbles across he and Isabella's bedroom through a plastic bubble pipe.

"Lies," Isabella protested numbly, spinning about the room dazedly, leaving trails of long, large creations behind her as she turned. "Your bubbles suck."

Phineas laughed out loud, throwing his head back wildly. "Too cruel, too cruel," Phineas jokes.

"We're going to have the stickiest carpets in Danville," Isabella giggles, stumbling when she ceases her twirling.

"No doubt," Phineas agrees.

Isabella begins to clear her tray of bubbles, but not before stopping to look over the items one last time. "You know," she whispers. "I feel like a little girl again."

"Yeah?" Phineas replies, glancing over his toy pointedly.

"Yes," Isabella mumbles. She smiles, looking over to Phineas with gratitude. "I like it."

Phineas grins. "Me, too."

"No, I mean it," Isabella insists. "If you weren't here to make me do things like this… I would miss out on it."

Phineas lifts an eyebrow. "Things like this?"

"Playing with bubbles. Spending thirty dollars on sets of Play-Doh," Isabella giggles. "Acting like a kid again. All of it."

"I'm glad," Phineas whispers. "But it doesn't really have anything to do with me." A pause. "Despite how much I love that you look like an angel when you're twirling around the room making bubbles."

"An angel, huh?" Isabella inquires, walking over to the bed and leaning close to Phineas' face.

"Yes," the young man confirms, his voice low and husky. He places a lingering to Isabella's neck, the young woman rolling her head back blissfully. She's practically on top of him now, straddling his waist as she crawls onto his lap. "You know," he whispers as he pulls back, continuing to nuzzle his face into Isabella's neck. "Emmett's asleep. The night is young, we're all alone… you know what that means, don't you?"

"Yes," Isabella growled seductively, gripping to Phineas' shirt tightly. The two shared a kiss for a moment before they break apart.

"Let's break out the Play-Doh!" Phineas cried, pushing Isabella from her position on his lap. She screeched and giggled as she landed, protesting intently.

The couple wrestled momentarily, Phineas pinning down Isabella's elbows for only a second before the young woman broke away, hopping off the bed and skipping out of the bedroom triumphantly.

Phineas could only laugh, watching as Isabella flew away, wildly shouting behind her:

"I call the jar with the sprinkles!"

Author's Note: Okay, so this idea came from a previous author's note, actually. A few chapters back I mentioned that the last four chapters of this story would be, "cute and frothy." Unknown to me, I've been using the word 'frothy' wrong all my life. I'd always believe the word to mean 'calm' or 'content.' Little did I know, the formal definition is actually: foamy or churned to the point of becoming infused with bubbles. And thus this chapter had to involve bubbles and Phineas and Isabella's childish antics. Bahaha. Next chapter is the last. ;) Reviews are appreciated, although not expected. I will update inconsistently, but the story will be finished within the month, I'm certain. Look out for the LAST CHAPTER.

Coming Up Next: Z is for ZESTFUL