Disclaimer – I don't own Jimmy Neutron nor any other referenced media material.
After some dusting, a test run, a quick engine upgrade, and a tank full of fun fuel, Jimmy and Cindy were cruising down Retroville road, en route to the freeway. Cindy slouched in her seat, sighing contentedly. She enjoyed the feel of the night air blowing past her cheeks. Sitting next to her and manning the controls, Jimmy looked like he felt the same way.
"I can't believe this thing still works," Cindy said. She patted the exterior of the hover-car like a prized stallion. Her eyes regarded it with something like nostalgia.
"That's the power of Neutron engineering," Jimmy said. He had a very pleased look on his face as he made a right and they turned onto the entry ramp.
Cindy chuckled. She considered a sarcastic remark about Jimmy's ego, but decided against it. Instead, she examined their surroundings, trying to figure where they were. This was especially difficult since it was dark.
"Where did you say we were going again?" she asked.
Jimmy's smile only widened. "I didn't," he said. "It won't be too long. You'll find out soon enough."
"Well, at least I know it's somewhere on earth," Cindy said.
Her heart almost stopped. "We'll be back in time right? You said you had to leave in twelve hours."
"We'll be back in plenty of time," Jimmy said. He turned a dial and the hover-car accelerated. "Depending on weather conditions, it should only take us a couple of hours to get there and a couple of hours to come back."
"Oh. Well, then we have some time."
"Yes we do."
The pair sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet hum of the hover-car. Cindy put her hands behind her head and laid back. She was happier and more peaceful than she had been the entire night thus far. To Jimmy, this was excellent news.
"Well," Cindy said, stretching her arms into the air, "the girls at school will be jealous when they find out I spent all night riding around with Jimmy Neutron."
"I suppose," Jimmy said, his smile never fading.
Initially it had come as quite a shock, but as Jimmy's fame spread throughout the country and the rest of the world, he became a major girl magnet. Regarded as mostly a clumsy dork in middle school, by the end of ninth grade, Jimmy had a class full of female admirers. In retrospect, it made more sense. Appearing on the cover of numerous popular magazines and being reportedly involved in several government contracts had made Jimmy a celebrity. And as a celebrity, Jimmy received the usual perks.
"Funny, you never dated anyone for very long," Cindy said. She was staring at her sneakers, absorbed in thought.
Jimmy cocked an eyebrow. "You noticed?"
Cindy huffed in exasperation. "It was hard not to! You're practically all every female in Retroville High talks about. I probably learned more about you in the girls' bathroom than I did during all our adventures put together."
"Is that so?" Jimmy said.
"Don't pretend you don't know Neutron!"
"Kidding, just kidding," Jimmy said with a chuckle. He was glad when he thought he saw Cindy grin as well. "I admit, I am fond of the attention."
"I bet you are," Cindy muttered.
"But you know, it really is like they say. Pardon the egotism Vortex, but when you're…well, popular like I am, people really do like you for superficial reasons."
"Oh no, that must be so terrible," Cindy said, sounding like it was anything but terrible.
"The point I'm trying to make is, that's why I hardly dated." Jimmy let his words sink in a bit before continuing. "After a while, you get tired of everyone asking you how rich you're going to be, or how high your IQ is. You want to have an intelligent conversation with someone who likes you for who you are." He paused. "Kind of like the one we're having right now."
Cindy didn't say anything after this. Secretly, Jimmy hoped she was blushing. It was impossible to tell for sure in the dark under the dim moonlight.
"So…" he began, trying to prevent the discussion from becoming awkward. "What's…new?"
Without warning, Cindy burst out laughing. She clutched her stomach as her entire body shook, quaking with mirth. Jimmy was caught by surprise.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"That question," Cindy said. She giggled some more. "We saved the world on countless occasions back in fifth grade and middle school, barely talked to each other the past four years of high school, and now, all we can say to each other is 'so…what's new.'"
Heart pounding, Jimmy paled. "I-I'm sorry Cindy, I, I didn't mean to–"
"It's okay Neutron," Cindy said with another laugh. "I'm not mad. It's just, kinda pathetic, don't you think?"
Jimmy's shoulders sagged. That familiar feeling, the one of regret and missed opportunity that had been hounding him for weeks. It returned. He could feel it settling miserably at the pit of his stomach. "Yeah," he answered, trying to sound upbeat but knowing he failed. "It is kind of pathetic. Isn't it?"
"Totally!" Cindy said. She seemed unaware of Jimmy's mood shift. The blonde merely gazed ahead and folded her hands behind her neck. "Well, let's see." She mulled over Jimmy's amusing question. "In a couple of weeks, I'll be headed off to college."
"That's right," Jimmy said. "Libby told me you got into Harvard." He beamed at the blonde, in spite of his somber mood. "Congratulations Cindy. I know you've been wanting to go there for a really long time."
"Thanks."
"So what you want to do?"
"Research. I've thought about marine biology. With any luck, one day I'll be Professor Vortex."
"That's great Cindy. That really is."
Yet again, the hover-car fell silent. Not knowing what else to do or say, Cindy resumed investigating her environment. She caught sight of one of the road signs and found that they were traveling west. They were definitely out of Retroville now, and Cindy couldn't think of any place Jimmy would want to go that was so far out of town. Cindy thought she had only been down this route one time before (if she had ever been down it), and if Jimmy had gone through the effort of reviving the hover-car, that meant that…
"Jimmy?" Cindy said. Her voice sounded odd, even to her own ears. "Why exactly was it that we didn't take your car? You know…you're normal car?"
"For old time's sake," Jimmy chirped.
Cindy didn't believe this for a minute. She stared hard at their surroundings, trying to make sense of the passing signs, buildings, and roads. She couldn't find anything that really triggered her memory, yet all the while she couldn't shake off the feeling of déjà vu.
When realization dawned, Cindy broke out into a cold sweat. "Jimmy?" she asked, using that same odd tone. "We're not going where I think we're going, are we?"
Jimmy took a couple of seconds before responding. "And where exactly do you think that is?"
"You know darn well where I think that is!" Cindy snapped.
Jimmy paused again. "Maybe."
Cindy sighed. She didn't want to say this. She really didn't want to say it.
"Not that I want to be the wet blanket here, but are you sure that's a good idea?" she said. She waited, but Jimmy said nothing. It looked like it would be up to her to identify the elephant.
"Part of me wants to go back there too, but I don't know if we should do that if you have to leave the galaxy in half a day." Cindy hesitated before continuing. "A lot happened the last time we were there." Her gaze lowered. "At least, the way I remember it."
"Not that I'm confirming that that's our destination, but even if we did return there, who's to say it would be like last time?"
"Jimmy…" Cindy began. She closed her eyes, and then opened them. "Maybe I'm being a little oversensitive. I don't know; it was a weird couple of days. It's just, I don't want anything happening tonight that we're both going to regret later on." She gazed at Jimmy's profile. "I know you're stressed, and maybe you're not thinking clearly. You have a lot riding on you right now. I just don't want to see anything coming in-between you and your dream."
"Cindy, I have no idea what you're talking about."
It took everything in Cindy not to scream. She had reached the end of her rope. It had never been very long around Jimmy, and time had apparently done little to change this.
"Why is it so hard for you to say it?" she said. She sounded hurt and incredulous. Like a child asking their parents if they were being left behind.
It was all Jimmy could do not to scream as well. He fought down his emotions, struggling to remain calm. "To say what?"
"To say it!" Cindy said more forcefully.
"Cindy, I don't know what you're–"
"To say it!"
"To say what?"
"TO. SAY. IT!"
"TO SAY WHAT? I DON'T GET IT CINDY! I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! I DON'T HAVE THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!"
"Oh forget it," Cindy moaned, unable to take the pain any longer. She shook her head, letting the tears fall down her cheeks. "Forget it." She dropped her forehead onto her palms, head still shaking, sadder than she could recall being since the ninth grade.
What followed was the longest silence of the night thus far. Jimmy refrained from sparing so much as a glance at Cindy, his focus exclusively centered on getting them to their destination. Had he looked at her, even under the cover of night, he would have been able to make out the teardrops. The blonde wept silently, willing herself not let Jimmy notice her distress. Her eyes eventually bled themselves out, and she was left with the tired, empty feeling that inevitably follows emotional expenditure.
"Why do you want to go so bad?"
It had come out as barely more than a whisper. More painful, and more vulnerable than Cindy had preferred, but at least she hadn't broken down. At least she still sounded stable.
Morosely, she waited for her answer.
"It's who I am Cindy," Jimmy said at long at last. Unlike the blonde, he was so unemotional, it seemed abnormal. Jimmy, as was becoming his habit of late, kept everything bottled inside. "It's why I always shared my inventions with you guys when I was a kid. It's why I tried so hard to contact aliens back in grade school." Although Jimmy appeared to be staring at the road ahead, his gaze was elsewhere. "All my life, I've wanted to know everything there was to know about science, and to be able to spread that knowledge to the farthest reaches of space. When I was contacted by the Intergalactic Missionaries, I knew that I had found an organization whose dream epitomized my own. I knew that they would provide the way for me to achieve my goals. I knew that if I ever believed in destiny, that this was it."
"But to leave everything behind," Cindy said. She was still very much hurt. "To leave everyone behind. You have to sacrifice it all."
"It's not an easy choice," Jimmy said. Ever so slightly, he had become less stoic. "It is a difficult path."
"James," the humanoid said, staring at Jimmy from across the table. They had been talking for over an hour now, and the alien's tone, while always serious, had suddenly become very grave. "If accepted, the types of missions you will be going on…they may change you. These missions can take months in earth time. Years even. Once you enlist, you cannot back out. Your own wants. Desires. Family. They all must come second. It is the way we do things. It is the way it has always been done."
"But I can't miss this opportunity Cindy. I was the first human to have ever been considered. I'm the first to have been accepted. I couldn't let this pass by."
Cindy slumped in her seat, wishing this could have all turned out some other way. "I know." Her muscles all went limp. "I just wish you didn't have to give up everything."
But once again, when he had been given an opportunity of a different sort, this opportunity, Jimmy did nothing. He kept quiet, piloting the hover-car along with his bottled-up emotions, leaving Cindy to wonder if he really felt them at all.
Cindy, in need of some comfort, laid her head against Jimmy's side and fell asleep.
"Cindy. Hey Cindy, wake up. We're here."
Having fallen in a deep sleep, Cindy found it very difficult to heed Jimmy's words. At first, she became confused when she saw a pair of large, blue eyes not too far from her own. She was confused because those eyes had never been so close to her, except for in her dreams. Now it seemed reality had reversed, because the eyes hadn't been in her dreams but were now there while she was awake, waiting for her.
"You must have really been out of it."
Cindy's senses slowly came back to her. She remembered that she was with Jimmy, that they were in his hover-car, and that they were traveling at a high rate of speed. The last part explained why she felt off-balance, like she wasn't sitting completely still. In truth, she wasn't.
"We're here," Jimmy repeated. His tone was gentle and hopeful, like they had never gotten into an argument or spoken about his destiny at all.
Cindy looked ahead. She was fully awake now and remembered exactly where she was, what she was doing, and where she was headed. As this occurred, she was filled by a gruesome mixture of both joy, and dread.
Less than twenty meters away, the island was waiting for them. After seven long years, they had finally returned.
AN: Okay, I know everyone saw that coming, lol. I don't know how many people have done the 'island return' bit, but I think I can make mine a little different. According to my current plan, the next chapter should have some serious JC fluff. After that, things are going to get dramatic. Very dramatic. In the meantime, thank you all so much reviewing. Means so much.