Disclaimer: Disney used to stand for the F-Word. Now Raven just says, "snap," in place of another four-lettered F-word. What happened? Well, it wouldn't have if I owned PotF, which I don't. SNAP!
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
A/N: Thanks to all for the new lessons learned. They've been inserted into Chapter 2 for posterity.
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The F-Word – Chapter Three – "Where Lies the Truth?"
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It's nighttime and the stars are coming out for yet another performance. Rushing through the door, Phil brings out a box of heat bandages for Keely's right leg; he takes it out of its box and hands the bandage to Keely.
Keely could take it and almost does. Then she remembers about sensations. "Phil, would you put it on, please?" Not even a puppy-dog pout was necessary.
"Sorry, sure, of course." Phil reflects silently to himself, "Open up the bandage, or work the jeans leg back first? Duh. Keely will pull back the pant leg." So, Phil stands there.
"Phil?" He obviously got it wrong. He holds the heat bandage box between his legs while he gingerly slides the rough denim up and away from his Keely's sore, tender, ... soft, silky ... right calf, all the while hoping that he doesn't hurt her. Oh, Pim is going to regret this ever happened!
Somehow, Phil works the fabric back above her knee, bends her leg at the knee to better reach the back of her lower limb, and then begins peeling heat bandages.
"It's getting kinda hot. How many did you put on?"
"Just eight."
"EIGHT?" Her nails digging under the adhesive side of the strips, she rapidly tears off her treatments. That was hot. "TOO HOT!"
"What do I do, Keely?"
"Help me down to the cool grass – Quick!"
Truthfully, Keels could have gotten down to the grass on her own. Truthfully, the heat was already disappating. Maybe it was never even that hot. The grass is almost icy cool, but without dew. It felt great. Without the dew, the only spattering of dots anywhere are those in the nighttime sky.
"Keels, I'm so, so sorry. I ..."
"Phil, we need to talk." At first, Phil didn't know what to think. Worse; then he was worried. Wasn't that the line used in so many of the movies that he had watched with Keely – just before the girlfriend ended the relationship?
"Really, Keels, I'm sorry. I tried to ..."
Keely could see the pain and panic in her love's face and she had to help. "Sweetie Pie, it's okay. I'm going to be all right. Relax," and with that, she ran her fingertips across his right cheek, stopping at his mouth. Phil picked up the signal to shut up. He had permission.
"Describe me."
Time to talk again. Okay, and with that Phil started to describe what his heart's desire looked like.
What's a girlfriend to do?
Keely pulls a silk scarf out of her pocket and blindfolds Phil before he can react. Then she refocuses him, "Describe ME." She considers giving him a "Via-forehead-flick" ... chalk up one for Via's insightfulness ... but instead puts his head in her warm lap -- cool grass against his forearms -- and explains that she's out there among the stars. Lost. "Describe me so I can be found."
"First off lady, as a star, you wobble," Phil told his flaky girlfriend.
Keely introduced a little wiggle to her lap and a lightning bolt shot through Phil.
His voice crackled, "Yuh-yuh-you're warm, radiant, and a way-to-serious-about-the-direction-that-you're-traveling-in, blondish-colored stellar member. Although there are neighboring stars you're friendly with, you have someone closer to you than any other star could ever be," rattled Phil.
He tried to remember to breathe, slow down, relax. "There's a single, solitary planet orbiting you, very closely: Planet Phil. Captured by your gravitational attraction two years ago, he settled into a near-stellar orbit quickly. Lately, his orbit has been shrinking as he's become closer, ... Keely ran her hand from the nape of his neck ... more dear to -- ... to his clavicle ... you." ... then across Phil's chest, spreading and arching her fingers ...
Her boyfriend grinned, knowing what was coming next, "Right now, he's so close that you could tickle him with hardly an effort."
Pursing her lips, Keely exhaled across Phil's brow instead, causing Phil to paused and take in the cool air painting left and right across his forehead.
"He, er, it -- it doesn't care where the Star Keely is headed; I, he, I mean 'it' just wants to enjoy the warmth of her presence."
Phil's attention was being distracted by the difference between the cooling night air and the warmth of Keely's lap. He shifted his head a bit, and then Keely herself better accommodated her storyteller to both their satisfactions.
"Cosmic storms, stellar nurseries, spatial anomalies, black holes, white holes, worm holes, donut holes -- Phil will accept what comes their way. Other stars may pass closely by, but Phil cannot be torn from his orbital path around you -- the attraction is the strongest recorded in the universe. It doesn't matter what comes our way; the only thing that matters is being there to share it with you. Sometimes Phil's orbit falls behind where you're going, sometimes he scouts ahead, but usually he's at either of your sides. Do you see us up there?"
Despite three years and eight million dollars in development, the heat bandages had nothing on the warm rush of blood flooding Keely's cheeks. She raised Phil's head to kiss him, but it wasn't her lips that he first felt, but her warm escaping tears when she lowered her head. This only confused him more for an instant, but only for an instant. Keely's lips didn't reach their target to clarify everything. She stopped short, taking in all that he had pictured. "Cuh-couldn't," Keely managed to choke out, "be clearer." "Thank you. I see both of us. A billion billion stars and I can glimpse our belonging together with absolute clarity."
"Where's that, Keels?"
"Not where. How. Journeying together. Apart, we'd be just another planet, just another star. Together we're special. Not just different. More than unique. Together, we're precious. Together we ..."
Images rush in rapid progression through Phil's brain as if they are being flipped through by some penny arcade's antique nickelodeon's time-lapse photos -- Keely and himself six months from now, six years, then sixty years -- this is HOW he wants to be, this is WHO he wants to be -- Not just who he wants to be with -- WHO HE wants to be! His fretful paradox is finally squelched.
Even into the early 22nd Century, adults were still asking children what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was long past time for everyone to grow up and start asking "who."
Phil possesses his new paradigm: Ignore the distractions. The where, when, and what are just the setting for their love, but how they perform in any setting is what the play is about, and who they are together makes them precious as a couple and more so as individuals, not less.
Barbara and Lloyd spied the young couple through the living room window, both realizing the growth that was happening on their front lawn thanks to their son's earlier interrogations. Lloyd took his wife's warm familiar hand in his. Truth: the where, and when, and what didn't matter squat. She drew him into a hug that they both knew she wouldn't be releasing him from any time soon. It was the same way with them. She didn't want an astrosurgeon; not a what. She knew who. He didn't care what he did or when he lived. He cared how she felt, her happiness, and he counted himself a winner in finding someone who always saw every glass as 90-percent full, always having confidence that everything would work out in the long run.
What about kids? Together, a precious pairing would want to do something extra special to reward the Universe for bringing them together. To celebrate! Ready to share their abundance of love, what greater present than a fusion of the two of them? Someone uniquely special, uniquely precious. That's who children are: a celebration of love.
Keely thought about the little moons that they would forge because of their love; imitating their orbit ... Luna? Europa? Callisto? Io? Time to hit the Net again soon for a names search. She wonder if this is how Barbara and Lloyd settled on "Pim."
"Phil, you got quiet all of a sudden. Are you all right?"
"Uh, nothing. Just thinking. Wasn't there a kiss racing toward Planet Phil?"
"Hold on a second." Keely sat up without warning and her blindfolded boyfriend's noggin made an impression in the lawn. "What about our kids?"
"What kids? Keely, we just started dating."
"Phil, we're going to have kids, aren't we? We want kids, don't we? You do want kids, right?"
Keely's habit of making conclusions leaping light years ahead of where their conversation had left off nearly always left him struggling to catch up, but not this time. This time, he was in sync. He reached for her in the direction of her voice and pulled her into his lap this time. "Kids? Sure, Keels, we're going to have all the 'F-words'. Now, about that kiss?"
"There's no 'F' in 'kids,' Phil. Not in 'children,' either."
"There's an 'F' in 'family,' Keels, and that's who kids transform a couple into."
Silence, then, "You said 'all the "F-words."'"
Still blindfolded, Phil raised his left hand into empty space and opened his fingers, asking for hers, which she offered. "Fingers that speak with just a touch. Feelings that we'll wear as our hearts on our sleeves. Fondness for all our quirks. Fidelity that you'll never have to question." Keely snuggled into Phil's embrace as deeply as she could, and he shifted with a wiggle of his own to accommodate her best efforts. "Fondness. We're best friends and always will be. Are those enough 'F-words?'"
Breathe. Gotta remember to breathe. "Huuh. I can think of another: Fiancé."
"I accept!" jumped Phil at the position offered.
"Wait, I was just, we're too young, we were just ... the job is yours. You started last week." Via was right: Brass ring. Engagement ring. Wedding ring. Ring-a-ding-Ding!
"Ah, my fiancée offers us a future. Another 'F-word.' Now, Keely, can I take this blindfold off?"
"Keep it on -- For -- a minute. Sorry, I ran out of 'F's." Keely rolled in Phil's lap and fervently freshened their feverish lips.
-- Forever Pheely --
fini
"Uh, Phil, what IS that splashing sound?"
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Or maybe not "the end." WhiteRose6136 feels that this story isn't done, that "fini" doesn't mean what I thought it did. So be it. Chapter IV approaches, truth seekers!
Hope that was Pheely enough for all. Can Pheely be an honorary "F-word?"
Phil of the Future is on "hiatus," while Suite Life gets renewed and a MOVIE?
That's just sick and wrong.
Somebody recently posted in a review to another story the plea for anyone with a Nielson Family black box to be sure to watch Phil of the Future. In this, the information age where the most valuable thing is the information traded about each of us, broadcast companies like Disney have better sources for information than Nielson. Direct TV and the like have records that they can sell to interested sources like Disney about how many people are tuning into their broadcasts and when. So, ...
... set ALL your satellite control boxES to EACH AND EVERY broadcast of Phil of the Future and you can create a mathematical footprint 10x, 20x, 30-40x times what you alone watch. The longer Phil's on the Disney Channel, the more nagging the notion that we are right, that they made a mistake and would be wise to correct it -- movie, animated series, comics, y'know.