Disclaimer: Reality bites with varying sizes of teeth. In this case, the jumbo-sized elephant teeth would be the fact that I don't own Jimmy Nuetron.

A/N: My my. That was a rather quick update. Surprised? I am too! Anyways...soooit's not as fluffy as the marshmallow ball I originally had planned it would explode into, but it's not agnsty, so I'm okay. And my reveiwers are too, apparently, because it took me two pages to respond to them all last chapter! Anyways, why are you reading this? You're here for the story! You can find it directly below the divider line. Enjoy.

Even though turning down Cody's invitation of joining him in a night out on Friday led to the uncheerful encounter with Cindy and some…other guy in the gym, Jimmy still did not take it up when it was repeated Saturday night. (The aftermath from two weeksprevious had been enough to scare him off college parties for life.) Instead, he spent the evening fiddling with his watch; it had been acting funny for quite some time and kept picking up faint interceptions.

Sunday morning, he left his apartment with a one-strapped bag containing his laptop, wallet, and stack of pre-lab papers that were still in need of grading before the next day, giving strict orders to Reeves to alert him if anyone called and not to let Cody get ahold of his cheese-ray again. (Even though he had sufficient enough money to do so, Jimmy loathed repurchasing all his furniture.) He wandered down the street to Zoey's Café, a little coffee and sandwich shop he often went to when the agonizing dullness of grading papers required a relief of better ambiance. Around noon, Cody appeared at the same time his third vanilla latte did.

"Morning, Jim," he said, looking no less chipper now than two consecutive evenings free of drinks and dances would have left him. He stepped up into one of the bar-height chairs with a little bounce and took a sip of the coffee next to Jimmy's notebook. Jimmy looked up from the lit laptop screen.

"How do you do it?" he asked, utterly intrigued.

"Beg y'pardon?" Cody responded.

"How do you go on like this, night upon endless night?" Cody grinned. Jimmy went on, still facinated. "You'd think that eventually either your liver or muscular structure would just collapse from the sheer over-working from it all." Cody tried not to look too pleased with himself.

"My parents were born '80's teens," he said in defense and explanation. "Slaves of rock and roll, party animals, and the best people to ask when you've got a toothache." When Jimmy raised an eyebrow at this, Cody said, "They're dentists, the both of them. They have the best practice open in the state of Nevada."

"I never pictured the creators of someone like you settling for a lifetime of flossing other people."

"Flossing brings in good money in the Gambling State."

"Pays for all the furniture you destroy, eh?"

"You should really tell people what damage those inventions of yours can do, you know?"

"You should stop poking around in a strange lab. You're lucky you didn't find my human-eating plant."

"You have a human-eating plant? Man, this coffee's good."

"Yes, and I'd thank you not to drink it. It was partial to girls before, but I havn't touched it since I moved six years ago, so it'll probably eat anything that's stupid enough to come in contact with it."

"That's plant cruelty, you know. I'll bet you don't treat Goddard that way."

"You've caught me. I'm biased against own lesser inventions."

"So long as you can admit it."

Jimmy let Cody continue on with his ramblings and got back to work, occaionally tuning in and catching tid-bits here and there. People were constantly moving around the pair. When the flow slowed a bit, Jimmy sent the still-gabbing Cody to fetch him a chicken parmesan sandwich. Cody continued to drink Jimmy's coffee instead of ordering his own. Jimmy didn't bother to tell him to buzz off. He finished grading nearly three quarters of the papers. His sandwich was supurb, but not entirly filling. He was too absorbed in his work to order another one. Cody continued to prattle. People continued to mill about. Suddenly, Cody grabbed Jimmy's arm, startling him out of his state of mind, and gasped, "Omigosh, Jimmy, there she is!"

Jimmy looked up, confused. "Huh?"

"That girl I told you about." Cody hissed, looking horrified that Jimmy had spoken above a whisper, even though the chances of it being heard by anyone over the low rumble of traffic or murmers of conversation were close to none.

Jimmy stretched his arms and arched his back. "Oh, the one go on endlessly about, though you've seen her only once – for a grand total of six seconds – and said three words to?" He laced his hands and rested them on the top of his head as Cody, thrilled he understood, whispered, "Yeah!"

Jimmy rolled his eyes, but Cody persisted onwards. "Look! She's right over there, just look!"

The general direction Cody was motioning towards with a jerk of his head was crowded with people, but they cleared and revealed a girl sittting three tables away from their own, her right side turned slightly towards them. She was bent over a legal-sized yellow pad of paper, intently copying notes down from the open laptop. Her blonde hair spilled over the shoulders of her wine-colored tee-shirt and hung in front of her face, obstructing Jimmy's veiw, but when she sat up and shook it back, he could clearly see she –

"You have got to be kidding me," he said incredulously. Out of the thousands of people… "That's her?"

"Yeah," Cody repeated, smugly, interpreting Jimmy's open mouth incorrectly. The dreamy expression he often wore those days returned as he continued to gaze at Cindy, who had not yet taken notice of her gawkers. "What do you think would happen if I were to ask her out?

Jimmy shuffled his papers around as he said, "I think she'd tai chi your sorry backside all the way to New York, to be completely honest with you."

Cody was intrigued. "You know her?"he asked.

"Yeah," Jimmy replied dryly. "She would be the bomb."

Cody's mouth formed into a small o. He looked between Cindy, who was still diligently transfering information from computer screen to notepad with a blue pen, to Jimmy, who was just as diligently putting away his papers in the event that Cindy might take Cody's invitation of a date in an even worse way and moving swiftly would be nessisary for his saftey. "Sooo…" Cody said hesitantly. "You wouldn't mind me asking her out?"

Jimmy snorted. "Why would I care?"

"Oh! We-ell-aah…" Cody stammered off and stood up quickly. He wound his way through the many people and furnishings that created a barrier between him and his destination, clumsily bumping into several of the former and stubbing his toe up against one of the latter. Jimmy sat back and watched in fascinated amusment: his friend was actually nervous. He came right up next to Cindy without any serious damage being created, though. Cindy, who was now chewing on her pen as she was peering at something on the screen of her laptop, looked up when Cody cleared his throat. They were clase enough that Jimmy could hear the conversation that ensued well enough.

"Hi!" Cody chirped. Jimmy grimaced. "I'm sorry if I'm inturrupting, but I was just sitting over there with my friend, and I couldn't help noticing that you look a lot like my next girlfriend."

Cindy looked over in the direction Cody had stupidly jestured at and locked eyes with Jimmy. Cindy's brilliantly green ones narrowed, suspicious and obviously still infuriated with the encounter she had come into with Jimmy the other night. Jimmy mouthed "I'm so sorry", shifting his gaze to Cody and back. Cindy did not appear to be consoled. She looked back up at Cody, her frown transforming into an overly-sweet smile. She still sported a bit of a glare, though, giving her a thoroughly heinous look. Jimmy winced for his friend.

"As entirly sentimental and touching that over-used pick-up line was, I'm afraid I don't associate with inferior personages, especially ones whose I.Q.'s, when dividing mine, still leave a number big enough to be confused with tax fluctuations."

Cody's eyebrows flew up. Jimmy bit both his lips to keep a laugh from escaping. Cindy's smile broadened, but it was not all that sweet any more. She waved her pen in the air as if to shoo a fly away. "I'm afraid I have work to do, or else I would love to continue this conversation."

Cody continued it anyways, completely flabbergasted. "Do you always respond to potential dates this way?"

"Just the unoriginal ones," Cindy sighed, resting her elbow on the table and putting her chin in her hand.

"You don't think it rude?" Cody asked, looking much like a wide-eyed child being told his favorite toy had been crushed into the ground by his favorite super hero.

"You don't think it rude to march up and inturrupt someone while they're busy with school work?" she sneered. "I'm sure the crowd you hang around may not do that stuff, but majority of us actually try to make use of our time here."

"You would be majority, then?"

"I won't say you're smarter than you look, but I'm glad you have brains enough to recognize that."

Cody tried to give her parting smile, but it flittered and died. Cindy grinned, showing him all her pearly white teeth, and turned back to her work. Jimmy did not know how Cody handled the small journey back to his seat because he needed to bury his face in his arms before he lost all control and burst out laughing. When he heard the chair neighboring his creak as 130 pounds of college student was deposited on it, he sat up, a straight face maintained, and said to his friend, "I'm sorry, man. I tried to warn you…"

Cody looked sick. He was pale and his eyes were wide, his pupils dilated so much there was hardly any of the stormy gray showing. Jimmy shook his arm, concerned.

"Hey, it's not that bad," he said. Cody slowly turned and looked at him.

"I – was – refused!" Each word was slowly and painfully hissed. Jimmy rolled his eyes.

"It's because you're so cocky," he told him, turning his attention back to laptop screen. "She can't stand cocky, the hypocritical, irascible little cur…"

"I am not cocky!" Cody cried, shock being replaced by outrage. Jimmy clicked open his internet connection when the flashing image of a mailbox told him an unopened e-mail awaited him.

"Oh, sure," he drawled sarcastically. "'I – was – refused!' The mark of an innocently polite prince charming." He moved the whimsical, atom-shaped cursor on the plasma screen to the link that would lead him to his on-line acount.

"Well, what would you have done?" Cody challenged, waggling Jimmy's half-empty and now cooled coffee at him. "Gone over and struck up a conversation about the new advancements the electromagnet has made in the discoveries of the scientific world?"

"Of course not," Jimmy said distractedly, confused at the information the new e-mail gave him: unknown name. "I invented the electromagnet; she knows that. I very well couldn't have talked about the advancements something I created has made. That would be cocky."

"Whatever," was Cody's disgruntled answer. Jimmy would have bet Goddard he went on, but he was not paying attention. He wasn't paying attention to anything going on around him. What he had cyberly opened up in front of him had seemed to suck out his ability to use any of his senses. (Other than his sight, of course, because even after blinking several times, the horrible message in front of him still remained.) Gradually, his hearing returned, but all he was able to discern with it was the loud and rapid beating of his heart and his heavy, ragged breathing.

WhatamI going to do?

A/N: Okay, so this is a bit shorter than the others. I'm sorry! More is on it's way. This was a sort of transitional chapter and bit of comic releif. (For me. I was bored out of my mind and needed to write something…stupid. I settled for this, even though it is insulting and hillariously like the first time my grandpa asked my grandma out.) And now it's time for me to get into the good stuff. You'll notice that wanna-be cliffie at the end? Yeah, that's my intro for plots-to-be. Nice, eh?

pokey: Thanks!
Angela Jewell: Thank you so much! I think the fics where they are older – and more "mature", as you said – are my favs. I'm glad you enjoy it as well.
Nuetron Phantom: Thanks! And don't worry; there will be.
jackie: Florida, eh? Ew. At least Arizona is dry. That still doesn't justify the triple-digit weather in the second week of May. Anyways, hope you liked this chapter.
Readrbug21: Thank you so much! Lol, well, if my slinky permits, I'll make it really long. I don't know if either of us will be able to make it to 72, though.
The CheezHead: I'm glad you loved the entirety of last chapter so much. Haha, you really made me laugh with that "EVERYBODY LOOK! SHE'S EATING A COOKIE!" because I have a friend just like that. I based Emily partially off of her and partially off a roommate my mom had in college who was a total hippie. Lol, and I totally agree on you with the argument thing. I almost didn't have that bit in there, but then I realized it would be a complete sin. It just flows so naturally to have a fight between Cindy and Jimmy, like peatnut butter and jelly, and apple slices and caramel, and Shandon without the company of her annoying younger siblings while she is trying to write an update for her loving reveiwers. Grr…sorry. Rambling; you know all about that, huh? ; ) Anyways, I'm glad my OC's aren't as annoying as my mons – er, siblings. That would have made me feel dreadful to do something like that to you. Good luck with school!
Flower Powerer: I'm so glad! And don't worry; I started laughing when one of my friends said "bucket" the other day, so I know exactly what you mean. (I'm not crazy, it just sounded weird. "Buc-ket". Haha, ok, so maybe I'm a little touched.)
MagicV: Thank you so much! I will!
A Pleasant Reader: You are too, too kind. I don't, don't mind though! Lol, thank you, and happy reading!
Elynsynos 18: Here it is, up as fast as I could get it! And I hope that's a comfortable chair you are in. I hate being on the edge of my seat when it's a sharp edge poking into my bum, and that's the last thing I would want for one of my readers.