Disclaimer: That's right, losers: Jimmy Neutron is MINE! I'm wasting my precious time writing this stupid fanfic instead of making the big bucks by creating a new season of the show! Haha, I fooled you!

A/N: Although the chances of her reading this are highly improable, I would like to extend an apology to the girl that sits next to me in my block class, where I write the majority of my fanfiction updates. I have this odd case of A.D.D. that doesn't allow me to focus on a single item unless there are several things going on at once; in this instance, it is listening to loud music and writing at the same time…music loud enough that my neighbor can hear it very, very well through my headphones. But on to the story!

College, Cindy thought to herself huffily, frowning nastily at the building in front of her. Hardly through half my day and I'm already sick of it.

Nothing at all as she had invisioned it to be, she spent her luch in a good sulk stationed under a tree, facing the dreaded building. Of course, Cindy had spent the greater part of her pre-teen life living in dissapointment and dispair until she had made a choice to change it; Princeton was not an easy thing to change, but living around it was possible. No reason to call it quits now.

The bell rang, signaling the continuation of Cindy's walking nightmare. She gathered her things and slung them in a bag over her shoulder, trudging off to her chemistry class. A boy, perhaps a few years older than her, came rushing around the corner she was approaching. His friend came peeling after him and, not able to swerve quickly enough, bumped into Cindy's right shoulder roughly, almost knocking her off balance.

"I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed, steadying her by her shoulders. He gaped at her for the split second pausethat Cindy allowed before, in a release of pent-up rage for the stupid school she had been crammed into, shouldered him off as roughly as she had been hit and snapped, "Oh, I'm sure!" She flounced away, leaving the boy very confused and with his mouth hanging open.

The final bell rang as Cindy was sliding into a seat four rows back and some distance to the right of the large teachers desk that sat in the front of the classroom, a wide chalkboard just beyond it. The professor was nowhere to be seen, though. No surprise to Cindy, she took her copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from her bag and picked up where the ever-tyranic bell had forced her to leave off. She became so absorbed in it, she did not notice anyone around her chatting and laughing until the door opened once more and, acompanied by a pair of feet walking quickly towards the desk, a horrifyingly familiar voice called out, "I'm terribly sorry I'm late. I had an engagment that I couldn't escape from."

Cindy's eyes widened. She dared not look up from the page. She shut her eyes tight as the noise being emitted from the classmates around her, having been cut off at the arrival of the professor, started up again as a confused muttering amongst themselves. She willed it to be anything but so. Her silent pleas were not heard, however, and she looked up reluctantly – terrified – at the owner of the voice that continued.

There he was, dropping his things on his desk. Still looking as cocky as ever.

Nothing she could imagine could deny what the facts gave her.

"I am your chemistry professor, James Neutron, and I will be until I fail you or you drop out." Hisstatement dilivered cooly, he jumped up on the desk and sat next to his bag, calmly awaiting the slew of questions that were inevitably to follow. At this invitation, the class, (sans Cindy, who was still sitting in a horrified trance,) commenced after a moment of stunned silence. An extremely tall young man in the back row was the first to immerge from the could of stupor and confusion that seemed to hang rankly over them.

"Neutron…" he said slowly. Jimmy swung his legs slowly and adopted a look of silent encouragment as the young giant attempted to process his thoughts. The giant finally said, "Are you the same kid who was selling his inventions to NASA?"

Although still thoroughly shocked, Cindy was irritated by the stupid comment. Jimmy was the one to voice her exacts thoughts, though: "No, that was the other 14-year-old genius."

More questions flew out through the laughter that ensued.

"How long have you been teaching?"

Jimmy pulled his legs up Indian style on the desk as he answered, "This will be my third year. It was a little weird needing a ride my first few months or so because I didn't have my licence yet."

The idiot deserves it, Cindy thought savagly, not feeling the same humor her classmates did as they laughed again. (Thawing from her hebetude, her hostile feelings were returning.)

"When did you go to high school?" someone else called out.

Jimmy frowned slightly. "In my hometown, when I was twelve. Thanks to a packed schedual and internet courses, I finished and graduated with all my credits in one year. My family and I moved out here after that when I was given a full scholarship to Harvard. I was fully graduated with a Ph.D in physics, chemistry, and a teacher's licence the summer I turned 16. Princeton offered me a position and, after I stepped back and realized my young childhood was gone, I accepted."

"All I really want to know," a girl sitting next to Cindy confided in her, "is his social status."

Cindy snorted dubiously. Nerd-tron dating? she thought to herself. Just the thought was laughable. She looked up again, trying to see what her neighbor saw.

It was Neutron; older, of course, of which brought startling changes. He had abandoned the soft-serve hairstyle that Cindy had found joy in teasing him over for a shorter cut that had been allowed to run free, giving him the odd, wind-swept appearance of one who had just ridden a motercycle …or hover-car. His height, having sprouted up several feet, might have rivled that of Sheen's. He looked so…proportional. No longer the big-headed idiot that lived across the street; instead, the regular-looking-headed moron that Cindy was expected to call her college professor. Unthinkable.

Something was different though. After a moment or two, Cindynoticed his eyes.Their bright bluecolor had lost luster andwere filled with a soberness on the confines of on bordom,not the fire she had always known from either the exhibition of a new invention, the latest fight with Cindy, or just from the swirling thoughts that wereendlessly running wild.

But what did she care? Nothing at all, that's what. Immersing herself once more in the writing's of Jane Austen, Cindy did her best to block out the voices around her that continued to glom over their professor, asking ridiculous questions that in no way would help them better their grades. After reading four pages and absorbing nothing, Cindy put the book aside in time to see Jimmy pull out a roster and begin to check names to the faces. She felt her stomach sink lower and lower with each name closer he came to her own. As though willing herself to simk through the floor, she slid down in her seat with her stomach.

"Sanders, Elizabeth?"

"Right here," Cindy's neighbor crooned as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, sickening Cindy even further.

"Tanner, Sam."

"Here." The giant raised an arm lazily. Jimmy glanced up and nodded in recognition. He looked down at his list again and searched for the next name as Cindy's heart tattooed an imprint she was certain people could see from the outside on her chest.

In the eternity it took for Jimmy's eyes to fall upon her name, Cindy had fully decided upon atheism when God didn't grant her pity and collapse the roof upon him. Her breath caught in her throat as he drew one and started, "Vor –" His brilliant eyes widened and time was thrust into a neck-break speed. "Cindy?" He jerked his head up, eyes rapidly flying across the faces in the room. He did a double take and locked gazes with her, his blue orbs widening even further with shock. Cindy, still scooched down low in her seat, unnecessarily raised her hand.

After a seeming eternity and several stutters, Jimmyproptly looked down and clamped his openly hanging mouth shut, stammering as he unsuccessfully groped for the next name. "Uh, Sa – no. Tann – uh, Williams, Gregory!"

Had Cindy exhaled any sharper or louder through her nostrils, it could have been classified as a snort. She picked up her book again. Her heart rate having subsided, she thoroughly enjoyed it after she berated herself for getting so worked up over something so stupid, tuning out Jimmy as he stumbled through the rest of the list and the answers to the continuing questions, completely missing the looks he repetedly threw her way until the final bell rang.

Cindy walked into the three-bedroom apartment just off campus that she shared with two other people and, after dropping her things on the table to the left of the door, looked up and was met by a very unpleasant sight: Elizabeth Sanders, the professor-dating hussy, was sitting on the couch in the small living room next to Cindy's roommate Emily. After gaping at the pair for a few seconds, she said, "I'm so sorry. I must have left my remainder of hope for life in chemistry…"

As she turned to open the door again, Emily came up to her saying, "Oh, no no no! Cindy, this is Lizzie, my cousin. Her friends bailed on her and she needs a place to stay. She'll be sharing my room and the rent."

Cindy was forcably turned to face Lizzie. If they really were cousin's, Cindy could see no similarities. Emily, lean, straight, and with a hippie-like personality, had a long, olive-skinned face, dark brown eyes and hair, straight and sweeping to her mid-back, while full and curvey Lizzie, with her bouncing blonde waves, light blue irises, and ivory complexion could have easily passed as a Maybelline model. (Cindy was certain she had bought less collective make-up her whole life than Lizzie was wearing at the moment and the only reason she would have wanted one of Emily's dozen or so recipies for homemade granola would be for a light super-model's lunch.) Lizzie grined upon recognizing Cindy and extened a slender hand, saying, "Oh, yes, I remember you. Professor Neutron's chemistry class, right?"

Cindy did not take the hand at first, but with a look from Emily and realization on her own part that she might have been being the slightest – and just the slightest – bit prejudice, took it half-heartedly and allowed hers to be shaken. By the odd look the model was pinning her with and the open-ended feeling her question had possesed, Cindy knew Lizzie was expecting an explanation for Jimmy's strange behavior in class. Not at all about to give her such satisfaction, Cindy excused herself with a nod. After retriving her things from the dining table, taking her 6-pack of Purple Flurp from the kitchenette that was on the oppostie side of the door, and squeezing back through the cramped living room, she entered the middle bedroom door that decorated the far wall.

She slammed her door behind her before pounding on her left wall, informing Miles – her other roommate – that his music was at an offensive volume. Instead of being lowered, it was shut of completely, and a second later the twiggy sophomore popped his curly head through her door.

"So," he said, perching himself with great difficulty on Cindy's desk chair as she flopped onto the bed that took up a great remainder of the space in her room, "how was your first day?"

Cindy seriously contemplated this as she watched her ceiling fan make several rotations. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said finally.

"Oh, come on, it couldn't have been that bad," Miles consoled.

"Not 'bad', per say," Cindy commented, sitting up and crossing her legs beneath her. "Just…extremely weird."

"I know what you mean," Miles responded, green eyes filled with sympathy. "Don't worry. Other people do, too."

Cindy doubted other peoples' childhood friend/enemy's became their college professor, but she knew it wouldn't be worth the effort to explain, so she changed the subject. "What's Lizzie like? She doesn't look the least bit like you or Emily…"

"Difference of parents can do that, you know," he said. Cindy gave him an admonishinglook, and he laughed. "Sorry. She looks more like her mother than our uncle…and she knows it." He paused to wrinkle his nose at the door. "Emily's either crazy oran angel to let her stay. I'll let her, but I'm not about to 'enjoy her company and take advantage of such an opportunity', as my saintly sister keeps insisting I try to do. I'm only allowing it because it eases up on our rent shares."

Cindy smiled, but she felt it turned out to be more of a grimace. "I got that impression; chemistry is going to be Hell with her."

Miles's eyes widened in mock horror. "May God help you!" She laughed with him as he left and retired to his own closet again, his music returning at the same ear-splitting level. Cindy threw an unnecessary shoe at the wall separating them as he graced her and lowered it to a light roar. Almost forgetting her sworn atheism until Miles's last comment, Cindy lay back and looked up at her ceiling again, thinking about the bizarre day.

There was no way she would suffer through chemistry with Jimmy. She would just have to go to the officials and tell them there was some sort of religious defiment to him being her teacher or something and get her classes switched. Killing two birds with one stone, she though, grimacing again as Lizzie's shrill laugh trilled over the British rock blasting from the stereo next door.

But then she thought, Why should I move for other people? And why should she? Was she really going to change aparments over Lizzie? She could stick it out. And switching her entire schedual just for Neutron was ridiculous! She was stronger than that. She had lived across the street from him for nearly her whole childhood; what difference did this make? Absolutley none.

Resolved, Cindy rolled over and pulled up her backpack and a Purple Flurp. Nothing like a good load of homwork and solid dose of liquified sugar to calm the nerves…

A/N: I know I must always say this, but I really ment to have this up sooner. However, my mouse was invaded by Casper's evil twin and went on a loopey spin, not allowing me to work or even log onto my user-name. Of course, instead of using the opportunity to practice the tutti in Mozart Konzertante, (of which I still have no idea how to get through,) or my Dvorák, I sat around and sulked. (I still did adequately at my concert, for those who were wondering.) Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to my fab reveiwers!

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