Disclaimer: So it's not mine. Big deal. You're all a bunch of poo-heads anyways…

Cindy looked surprised, terrified, and then confused. "What do you mean 'found us'? Hasn't he known where we've been the past seven years?"

"And not have acted upon it?" Jimmy snapped, though he instantly regreted it, because as soon as the words left Cindy's mouth she seemed to realize what ill use of such knowledge would have been for Goobot. "After he rallied the League of Villains, I knew he wasn't going to stop trying to get revenge. I created a microscopic cloaking devise that would hide you, me, the whole gang back home, anyone and everyone related to us that Goobot might reek his vengeance on. It's impenetrable to any disabling unit, tracking devise, satalite, and radar; not even Goddard's readings can pick it up; I made sure of it. Only I can shut it down."

Cindy rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. She fixed him with a how-did-I-know-you-were-going-to-screw-up-again stare that was all too familiar and was strangly relieving for Jimmy to see. "Which you did how?"

Jimmy figited timorusly. He had been hoping for a simple "Jeeze, you idiot, what can we do to fix it", but he should have known better with Cindy and her need-to-know-all personality. "Well," he stammered, stalling uslessly – and poorly for that matter. "Ah, it woud seem that – some time back when I was in a bit of a, er, state, it seems I accidentally, um, disabled Vox with my watch and she shut down all the programs she was monitoring…the chip being one of them, obviously."

A malicious grin creeped slowly onto Cindy's features. Very pretty features, he thought. He mentally hit himself, horrified for thinking such a thing. She giddily and directly mocked him with the exact statement he had been hoping to avoid: "You were drunk."

"I was not!" he protested. He was inconveniently distracted by a spot of yellow paint by the left corner of her mouth, though, and didn't meet her eyes.

"Yes you were," she said back, taking his sudden distraction as an avoidment of the truth. She crossed her arms under her chest; his focus was caught again and shifted to a small dab of purple on her right wrist that was shaped like the state of Minnisota. He kept his full attention on it as she exposed him. "If I know you – and don't tell me I don't – the strongest thing you've taken in your life would be an asprin. Don't think I didn't see you two weeks ago; one doesn't get a hang-over from Purple Flurp. You were fully and totally plastered!"

He flicked his eyes up to hers and was surpised to see she was grinning. "What are we going to do with you, James Isaac Neutron? I ought to tell your mother."

"Could we perhaps focus on the problem at hand instead?" he grumbled, very put off at her odd behavior and the close proximities a brown stain on her shirt had to – Loosing focus. He mentally and physically shook himself. "Look, if you know me so well, you know that the fact that I came to you implies that I've tried every possible option to try to resolve this." Cindy looked only mildly insulted at this. Jimmy looked past it in his frazzled mood. "I need your help."

"You need some help, there's no denying that," she said, scratching a spot on her knee absently. "I don't know what you expect me to do, though. Why not get Carl and Sheen? They've been all to willing to be your guinea pigs in the past…"

Jimmy was flabbergasted that she had put them over herself, even if unwittingly. "Cindy, Carl still sleeps with a stuffed llama, and Sheen's doctor is running out of medication options!"

"Oh, but that eye twitch is getting so much better."

"I can't belive I'm having this conversation with you!" Jimmy burst out in frustration, throwing his hands in the air and pacing back and forth. "Unbelievable!"

"Well, I just don't know what you expect me to do!" Cindy said matter-of-factly.

"I don't either," Jimmy admited after a moment, thinking quickly as to what he could possibly say to convince her. "But I didn't know what help you all were going to be when our super powers went awry, or when Goobot abducted me, or when he kidnapped our parents, but you've always come through! I need you now." Jimmy was internally mortified not only the slight tone of desperation there was in his final sentence, but at the odd interpritations her roommates could make of it if they could hear him through the door. Cindy still looked hesitant.

"So I'm supposed to just up and leave school?" She rubbed away the Minnisota-shaped blob as she held Jimmy with a piercing gaze; Jimmy recognized the spurt of fierceness in which she spoke and venomous stare as signs of a pre-caving. "What am I going to tell my other professors? 'I'm sorry, I have to go stop a floating pile of goop from taking over the world again'?"

Jimmy sighed in a mixture of relief and aggravation. In one breath, he said, "Don't worry, I've got it all taken care of. The school thinks you will be going back home for a 'family emergency' and will be away for an indefinite amount of time – "

"'Indefinite'. Oh, that sounds cheery…"

" – you've been excused from all work in the period of time you are absent, and they will let you pick up where you left off when you get back."

"And I'm supposed to recount this to my roommates?"

"No! Well, yes, but – " Jimmy's watch beeped as a message from Goddard was played across it, startling him so much he jumped nearly a foot in the air and renewing his sense of terrified panic. He was sure he must have looked quite the sight to Cindy. "Look, we've got to go now! We don't have time to tell them anything at the moment. Goobot may have already located your coordinates to this place, and you could be endangering them!" He jabbed a finger over Cindy's shoulder at the closed door behind her.

That condition finally occurred to her; she took a shuddering breath, opened the door, and said to her equally paint-splattered roommate, "Emily, I've got to be somewhere, like, yesterday. I'll call you if I get the chance, 'kay?"

Emily laughed and waved her yellow-coated paintbrush at Cindy. "What, dressed like that?"

"I know," Cindy groaned. Jimmy was amazed at her ability to keep the terror she had shown out of her voice. "Terribly important, you see. Don't have time to explain."

Emily smirked and looked over Cindy's shoulder, locking her chesnut gaze with Jimmy's blue one. He flushed brightly when she said, "Oh, I can see. No need to."

Cindy laughed. Jimmy didn't have enough control over his senses to scowl at her; Emily's scrutinizing looks were making him feel rather squirmy. "Tell Miles I took his shoes." Cindy backed up and closed the door as Emily waved her brush in farewell. Jimmy blinked in surprise at her.

"You have very trusting friends," he said. "How long have you known them?"

"Oh, about a month now," Cindy said airily as she walked to the end of the porch, producing a rubber band from one of her pockets and pulling her damp, curly hair back into a bun with it. "Emily and I accidentally took each others luggage from the baggage return area. If we hadn't met that way, I would have been living in student housing." She grimaced at the thought.

"A fate far worse than even Goobot could inflict upon us," Jimmy agreed, hurrying after her. He grabbed her right hand with his left and jerked her to the right, leading her down the street at a near jog, explaining in a hushed voice, "We're heading to my apartment now, but we can't stay there for long. I've already called Libby and asked her to explain things minimally to the others; through other arrangement, everyone will be gathered to a pre-planned rendezvous point. Most likely, they'll stay there, just to keep them – and the people they were living with – safe."

"And my fate?" Cindy inquired, stumbling slightly as Jimmy pulled her out of the way of a couple, who stared blatently and curiously as they passed. He caught her before she fell off the curb and into the street. "As of now," he said, speaking all the softer still, "undetermined."

Cindy gave as best a non-commital shrug as she could while Jimmy was still pulling her along by one arm. He slowed as they rounded the corner past the campus and looked around him carefully. Cindy looked around as well, turning blessedly quite and alert for a total of six seconds before whispering, "We look ridiculous."

"Nonsense," Jimmy hissed back, crossing the street at an angle and turning down another one with Cindy still in tow. "Plently of certifiably sane people walk around in lab coats and artisan's paint…"

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Jimmy," Cindy scolded.

Jimmy growled in impatience. "The scene we are making is the least of my concerns right n – naah, move!" Cindy looked very alarmed at Jimmy's jumpy exclamation and ill choice of vocabulary. She silently protested as he yanked her into a narrow alleyway and behind a large – and unfortunatly, smelly – dumpster.

It had been difficult thusfar for Jimmy to convince Cindy to believe him even with the trust they had for each other; she was impeccably stubborn and reluctant to move without solid proof, giving her a tendancy to miss certain things while she argued. Even she, however, in her rampageous funk, could not fail to notice the lack of feet on the stranger that passed by decked in a long trench coat with the collar turned up. She shivered and clutched Jimmy's arm very tightly; he winced as her nails dug into his skin through his coat sleeve.

"They're following us?" she gasped. Jimmy grimly crept from behind the dumpster and peered around the corner of the alley just in time to see the poorly-diguised Yolkian altere its course and turne down the street to its left. Cindy, who had not let go of his numbing arm, shuddered again.

"They've been patrolling the proximity of the coordinates they were able to gather before the chip was re-enabled, hoping to catch a glimps of our exact location," Jimmy explained, slowly taking the same direction as their stalker, much to the further horrification of Cindy. "Luckily, I seem to attract very stupid adversaries, so as long as we watch ourselves we'll be fine – oh, it's right here, keep your skin on!" He lead Cindy up the stairs of his apartment complex which had been two buildings down from their brief hiding place – or rather, Jimmy merely walked and Cindy, still clinging onto his arm relentlessly, followed. As quickly as he was able single-handedly, he shoved his key into the lock and twisted it open.

"I can't feel my fingers," he complained out of the corner of his mouth. Cindy lessened her grip on their mad dash for the open elevator. When the doors closed and Jimmy punched the button for his floor, she slid down the wall with a pitiful wimper. Even with her face in her hands, she was still very audiable when she cried out, "This is terrible!"

Jimmy cocked his head at her. "To tell you the truth, I actually like you better cocky and abrasive!"" He eased himself down next to her as she glared at him through her fingers. "Come on, it's not that bad. It could always be worse."

"Ha! Yeah, right." She pulled her knees up to her chin and picked at a loose thread on one of her socks. "Can you honestly think of something worse than being followed? Having your privacy invaded? And did you have to live on the fourteenth floor?"

"Yes," he said simply, watching the indicator light click slowly over to the number eleven. Chaos-wrought Cindy was a new experience for him and one he was not keen on repeating it. "Just keep thinking about Emily, or whatever her name was," he said, failing at a consoling tone of voice. It seemed to work, though; she obviously had a close-knit bond with this unwitting luggage-thief. Cindy had fully composed herself by the time the doors slid open smoothly with a bright, annoying ping!

Even more annoying, though, was the person on the other side. Jimmy grabbed Cindy by the elbow and brushed past his overly-flirtatious neighbor Sky before she even had a chance to simper "Jimmy!" Cindy looked back curiously, but Jimmy had no need to; already he knew the brunette's bottom lip would be pouting out, hazel eyes narrowed, and quick imagination conjuring the most illogical rumor it could come up with on the spot.

"Friendly people around here," Cindy commented brightly. Jimmy scowled as he help his hand up to the scanner panel beside his apartment door, both at the suggestion her voice had held and the reasoning behind it. "They seem to be flocking to you. You get them here as well as school…shocking."

"What do you mean?" Jimmy asked as he closed the door behind them, curious in spite of better judgment. "Vox! Lights!"

"Lights on," the cool, female voice responded, and brightness at once flooded the room. Cindy looked around admiringly.

"Well, Emily's cousin, for example," she said, bending down and patting Goddard on the head as he came running up to her the second time that afternoon. "Elizabeth Sanders? One of my other rommates, she was my lab parter today – yes, you remember. If I recall, her first comments directed toward me were the curiosities she harbored for your dating resumé."

Jimmy was absolutly stupefied by this comment and had nothing to say that Cindy would have thought intelligent, so he kept his mouth shut and entered the swinging kitchen door on his immediate left. When he came back out, carrying the cordless extention of his telephone line, Cindy had stood with Goddard nesteled in her arms and was petting his absently as she continued to absorb her surroundings with interest.

"You sure pull out all the stops, don't you?" she said as more of a comment than a statement. Jimmy looked around, his eyes falling upon the over-stuffed, black leather couches, panaramic television set that Vox had considerately set on a local news channel, sleek traction lighting angled to splash onto the various pieces of artwork decorating his walls, and glass-topped coffe table with great disinterest.

"This isn't my doing," he said, punching in several numbers on the telephone's keypad. "One of my friends got ahold of my cheese-ray one day; in reconciliation for destroying what it used to be, he brought over an 'interior designer'. You should just see what they did to my kitchen – URGH!" He angrily aborted his call when it beeped at him in a particularly annoying pattern. "The ONE TIME I don't need a busy signal!"

"I wish I didn't need a busy signal only once in my life," Cindy commented thoughtfully and jealously. She flipped herself over the back of one of Jimmy's sofas and hung upside down, her legs dangling over the back. "It would be fabulous for it to go through every other time."

"Oh, would you please be quiet!" Jimmy snapped, punching in the numbers again and holding it up to his ear, cursing silently when the beeping returned. Reeves popped up beside him, but Jimmy kept him silent by waving the arm that wasn't busy retyping the digits into the phone at him. Looking distinctly ruffled, the hologram marched over to Cindy in attempts to keep himself busy and needed.

"Excuse me, madame," he said sniffily. She looked up at him with a look of polite bordome. "Would you please refrain from placing your tastelessly-covered feet on the furniture?"

"They're not on it. See?" She extended her legs out from the knee to show that, indeed, her orange sneaker-clad feet were not touching the couch. "Ha! What now, Mr. Stuffy-Pants? Mleh!"

It was hard to tell which had offended Reeves more, the 'Mr. Stuffy-Pants' title or the tounge that had been stuck out at him afterwards. After throwing a look of deep disgust at every moving object in the room, Reeves vanished. Jimmy didn't think he had even seen him more disgruntled.

The teenage genius wasn't feeling too happy himself, though. After his call was unsuccessfully put through for the eighth time, he collapsed on the couch next to Cindy (limbs going the proper direction.) He watched his blonde guest pull the rubber band from her messy, make-shift bun and begin braiding her still-damp locks. A sweet but tangy scent wafted his way. He asked, "What is that?"

"Jasmine, aloe vera, and something with the word 'arnica' in it," Cindy answered, "a concotion of Emily's."

"Arnica Montana," Jimmy supplied, curious not only at the placement but how this Emily had gotten ahold of the increasingly-rare flower. "It's a curious plant, endemic to Europe, and grows in nutrient-poor meadows, marshes, or heaths, making it all the stranger that it's a remedial herb."

"Oh yeah," Cindy said anamnistically, still plaiting her hair. "I had some shoved down my throat – in a soft, dissolving tablet-form – when Sheen accidentally launched me off a trampoline two years ago. It made my sprained wrist go away so quickly, my doctor thought I was using illegal drugs."

Jimmy smiled. "That's its main purpose, though I've only ever used an infusion of the leaves externally, when I fell off a roof. But a cream or diluted tincture of it is often used to treat alopecia, you know."

"Supurb," came Cindy's scathing disparagment. "I'm all set, then, aren't I? Clever Emily, always thinking ahead, replaced everyone's shampoo with her 'safer' homemade stuff; evidently the risk of us getting scalp cancer from all those chemicals factories put in the store-brand kind was becoming too much for her."

His mood conciderably lightened in a surprisingly short space of time – over a ridiculously erratic topic – Jimmy chuckled. Cindy grinned and levered herself up to the proper sitting position.

"Do you keep clean towles in your bathroom, or is there some special place you rich genius' put them?" She walked around the back of the couch and down the short hallway that shared the same pathway as the entrance to the cozy apartment.

"In the linin closet, door straight ahead," he called back, puzzled. "Why?"

Cindy walked back into veiw, holding two large, fluffy bath towles to give him an aporetic look. "Jimmy, I'm a walking Picasso. This is no suitable way to save the world from an untimely demise." She turned and walked away again, tutting about his inopportune timing and lack of presentation. Jimmy grinned at her back until she turned into another room and out of sight, wondering when she had become so sarcastic yet light-heartedly effervescent. It was with a forlorn and irritated sigh that he turned back to the accursed telephone in his hands.

A/N: Do you know what I really hate? Unmarked containers in your refrigerater. Because then you are coddled by the little voices in your head into sticking your finger in ithe contents within and tasting them, and what appears to be yummy cheesecake filling is in actuality very disgusting mayonnaise. (This is remarkably irrelevant to the plot of this fic, but that is my Story/Complaint of the Day and I felt like sharing it.)