sorry for the hold up. life and all that rot...

ps: i have nothing against athletes and those that strive for those goals. you'll see what i mean later. just in the context of the story, it's of disapproval

Carl rang the doorbell and waited patiently. He didn't know what to do at all. He'd never been in this situation. In fact he didn't think he'd ever have to deal with this but fate had a cruel way of handling things. He knocked on the door this time, still waiting. The door opened and Hugh turned from talking to someone.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Um, it's Carl… Carl Wheezer?"

"Oh! Carl! Big Carl, the Carl-ster, Carl-arooney, Carl-o! I didn't recognize you!"

"Yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it…"

"Hugh…" Judy walked around her husband and smiled. "Well hello, Carl."

"Hi, Mrs. Neutron…" he said, feeling his cheeks flush from remembering his pubescent crush on Jimmy's mother.

The crush had decided to rear its ugly head in his adolescent years now.

"What brings you here today?"

"I was wondering if I could talk to Jimmy? I'm having some… issues."

"Is it the rash again?" Judy said sympathetically.

"I know a great dermatologist that can help you with that." Hugh said, giving him finger guns.

Judy just made him turn around and leave.

Carl tried to keep his embarrassment from giving him an asthma attack from not breathing as Judy turned her attention back to him.

"So it's not that? I'll tell Jimmy you're coming down."

"Thanks…"

Jimmy was pouring through the video cameras again when he clenched his fist and turned angrily to his friend. Sheen looked up as he pointed at him.

"Will you quit doing that?!"

"Doing what?"

"Bouncing the ball against the wall and then scampering after it. You're a wolf, not a dog."

"Well I need some sort of stimuli and since you refuse to play fetch with me, I will do it myself. Besides, I like that I have no idea where it's going to go."

"I can't concentrate with the ball bouncing everywhere and worrying about you knocking into experiments."

The sound of the 'elevator' caught the both of them off guard and Sheen immediately went in front of Jimmy. It opened up and Carl stepped out.

"Carl? What are you doing here?" Jimmy asked, moving Sheen out of his way.

"I… well… I came to talk with you but I can see you're busy."

"Don't mind me." Sheen said.

"I can't do it when he's here." Carl snided.

Jimmy lifted an eyebrow. "Okay… Do you have a problem with Sheen?"

Carl frowned. "It's just that- holy cow! What's up with your stomach?"

Jimmy forgot that Carl hadn't been at the major 'reveal'.

"Um… well… uh…"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Well… yeah…" Jimmy said, looking away.

Carl blinked for a second but shrugged. "Have you found out what it is yet?"

Jimmy blinked this time. "Not yet… you're okay with this?"

"Remember Schmengo? At least the baby is in your stomach and not your butt."

"Oh yeah… um… Sheen?"

"I got it. I've been meaning to ask your mom for snacks anyway." Sheen said, leaving the lab.

The two watched him go and Jimmy absentmindedly rubbed his stomach.

"So um… You needed to talk?"

"It's about Libby..." Carl said, sitting in the chair. "Did um… did Sheen tell you anything?"

"Cindy told me that Libby broke up with you when she called to see how I was."

"What? No, she didn't break up with me, I broke up with her."

Jimmy blinked. "You did?"

"Yeah… I had a feeling that when Sheen came back that she would try to be with him again… I really did like Libby and wanted to stay with her but… but I knew that she would only think of Sheen when she was with me. When Sheen wasn't there, she could actually have a relationship with me and yeah, it was rocky, but we were getting there. I know it's not Sheen's fault for coming back at the wrong times, but he always came back just when Libby was getting over the breakup and moving on. I love Libby but I can't continue to be a rebound forever… So I broke it off with her after she told me what she found out about Sheen. I just want to know if that was the right thing to do."

So something did happen between Sheen and Libby. I'll have to hit him up later… "You're talking to the wrong person about relationships, Carl. I let Cindy get away from me and she ended up with Nick."

"She always liked Nick."

"But she never dumbed herself down to get his attention though. When I came back and saw what she had been doing I couldn't believe it. Cynthia Vortex, my witty and brainy ex-girlfriend had reduced herself to an athlete to keep her boyfriend from feeling dumb."

"She is a great cheerleader and wins first place for the track team."

"I'm not saying sports are bad, I just meant that when I was with her, they were secondary to her mind. She was so smart and beautiful, always challenging me with her amazing brain and then I find her just… living…"

"You act like she isn't smart anymore. She's always been smart and gotten straight A's. It's just that since she didn't have a brainiac boyfriend, she didn't have to continually show how smart she was. Maybe she was happy with that. Did you ever think to ask?"

"I didn't make her break up with Nick." Jimmy growled. "Nick started hitting her and Cindy broke up with him."

"He got violent because you showed up." Carl looked away for a moment. "Jimmy, did you ever think that maybe a lot of things happen because you're around? Not even part of anything, but just… being around?"

Jimmy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well… I mean… if you weren't around, Sheen would have never been tempted to sneak into your lab and go to Zeenu. If we hadn't met you, none of the weird stuff that happened to us would have happened. Your inventions sometimes caused a lot of problems… Nick wouldn't have gotten jealous and drank and then hurt Cindy. You wouldn't be pregnant… I don't know what happened with that, but I'm sure something you did before made this happen."

"Are you saying that me being here is a nuisance?"

"I'm just pointing out my observation. A lot of weird things happen when you're around, there's no denying that."

"Nothing weird happened when I was in High Tech City! So what the hell does Retroville have to do with me and what happens to everyone?! I'm just a genius trying to be a genius and I have friends who get into my business and screw things up! Sure, I screwed myself over a couple of times but that doesn't mean I cause heartache for everyone! Maybe it's this town!" Jimmy grabbed Carl by the arm and made him get up from his seat. "Get out."

"Jimmy-"

"You seemed to have made it quite clear that I fuck up everyone's lives here. When the baby is born (or whatever) I'm moving back to High Tech City. Apparently me being there was better for everyone including my girlfriend and the people I thought were my friends."

Carl sighed but left the lab as Jimmy turned away from him in the seat. When Carl was gone he began to sob. He knew it was half hormones and half knowing that maybe Carl was right: maybe he was the cause of everyone's problems.

"Wait, so you didn't break up with Carl?" Cindy asked at the Candy Shop as she drank a milkshake.

"No, he broke it off with me. I told him all that happened and he said that maybe it would be best if we broke it off indefinitely."

"Wow… I would have never guessed. So are you going to try and get back with Sheen?"

"I'm not sure. Now that I know what's going on, I'm not sure if I can handle him. He was hard enough on a regular basis but now that he's a werewolf… It's too hard to tell. What about you and Jimmy?"

"Same here. He's so different than before. I know the guilt of Sheen's disappearance to Zeenu really messed him up but… I'm really worried about him. People seem to have gotten really bold in regards to him."

"How do you mean?"

"Like… okay, you know how his experiments usually ended up as disasters?"

"Yeah, girl, how can I forget?" Libby said with a roll of her eyes.

"Well, a lot of those flubs were because of odd circumstances that sometimes weren't in his control. Sheen's werewolf gene, for instance. Who would have thought that that weird Halloween thing had caused an actual dormant werewolf gene to be created? And we both know that the Zeenu thing was all Sheen's fault."

"Oh I know, girl. I know that all too well."

"But what happened with Sheen later was none of Jimmy's fault. That was Sheen's dad and the facilities he went to."

"I get that but what does that have to do with people being bold?"

"People are starting to look at all that and see Jimmy as the root cause and blaming him, but aren't really seeing the facts. Jimmy was there and he may have started it, but it was other stuff that made it happen and then he had to fix it. No one realizes that 75% of the time, Jimmy is not to blame."

Libby thought for a second and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess you're right in a lot of things."

"Plus, a lot of his creations were voluntarily tested on by us. We all agreed to test his stuff out, so whatever happened was kind of on us too."

"True… although this has me wondering: if the werewolf gene was within Sheen, does that mean it's in me? And what about you? Didn't you get turned into a vampire? And didn't Jimmy become an octopus or something?"

"I don't think second hand turning has the same affect… Either way, I'm sure all this negative stuff isn't good on Jimmy… or the baby."

"By the way, are you okay with that? I mean…"

"It could be worse."

Carl had felt bad about what he said to Jimmy and decided to go to the park. He had stayed there for a few hours when he got a call from his mother. She asked him what he wanted for dinner and he told her something comforting. He wasn't feeling up to eating, but his mother's cooking was something to die for.

Literally.

It was smothered in grease and lard and everything that was unhealthy about food. But damn was it good.

As he headed back home and felt like someone was following him. He looked around a little but didn't change anything. He didn't want to alert the person (if he was truly being stalked) that he was on to them.

"I can smell the fear on you, Carl. You should learn not to be so obvious." A voice said behind him.

Carl screamed as he slammed against the wall of a building. Sheen came at him with a growl, pinning Carl against the building.

"Please don't eat me!"

"Can't exactly say what I'll do. My instincts are a bitch to control…"

"Wh-wh-what do you want?"

"You said some pretty hurtful things to Jimmy today."

"What do you know of them? You weren't there."

Sheen turned his head. "I'm a werewolf, Carl. I could hear your conversation from the elevator shaft in perfect clarity."

Carl frowned and looked Sheen in the eyes.

"So what?! Between the two of you I get the short end of the stick at all times! You keep taking Libby away from me and Jimmy overshadows me, making me seem small and weak! So what if I hurt Jimmy's feelings?! No one cares about mine!"

Sheen backed up for a second, putting his hands in his pockets to look over Carl.

"What's wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

Sheen sniffed and lunged at Carl again, making him scream. He started sniffing all over his body and finally found what he was looking for. He ripped off the small patch and snarled at it as Carl looked at him in confusion.

"Sheen? What the heck am I doing here?"

"Who gave this to you?"

Carl looked at the Band-aid.

"Nick did. I cut myself in Home Ec. Why?"

Sheen pointed. "Nanotechnology. Can you not see it?"

Carl squinted and could just barely see a small motherboard.

"Wow…"

"I have to get this to Jimmy… and do you remember the last 24 hours?"

Carl thought for a minute. "I remember some things…"

"Do you remember visiting Jimmy?"

"Jimmy? No I haven't seen Jimmy in a few days."

"So you don't remember saying what you said to him?"

Carl frowned. "What did I say?"

Sheen grabbed Carl to go back to Jimmy's house.

Nick waited on the corner, throwing a yo-yo. These covert missions were starting to get cumbersome.

"So?"

"Seems to have worked." He said to the person on the other side of the corner. "So what now?"

"Well, we have his precious Goddard, who is giving me everything that I need in regards to labs, schematics, and everything else. With that patch, Jimmy will be distraught enough to leave everything pretty open and not try to hack back into his metal dog. Once I have everything, I will be able to try again once more. And this time, I won't be defeated. Little pregnant Jimmy wouldn't possibly put his child in harm's way."

"All I care about is Cindy… who I haven't gotten back yet."

"Here." He said, flicking something to Nick.

"What's this?"

"I call it a Love Tap. You put that in a Purple Flurp and get her to kiss you, she'll be all over you. She won't think twice about Nerdtron."

Nick smirked. "Now this is the shit I'm talking about…"

sheen is extremely protective of jimmy, as we can see. it's a dog thing, not a yaoi thing. and poor carl, he gets used so badly...

and we'll be revealing james' intentions soon. not much more to go. hopefully jimmy's hormones will calm down enough to realize carl didn't mean it and get back to work!

and if you think about it, what cindy says is true. jimmy would start a lot of stuff but other factors made it where the inventions went haywire most of the time. every once in a while it was his fault but the majority of the time it was timing, interruptions, friends, family, etc.