Sorry for the wait! *Bows* Real life has me preoccupied and for a while the story just stopped coming to me. However, I now have almost all of the ending written. Unfortunately, in the story's time, there's a good week or so that has to pass before the ending starts. I have a lot planned, but little written. That and I just stared Veterinary Technology school. So, please, be patient. I DO NOT want to let this story die. It just may take a bit of time. Thank you all who have stuck with it, reviewed, faved, and added me to their watch lists! It really has helped me to stay at it.

Chapter 4 – I Know What We're Gonna Do Today

"Ya know that platypus never did stay put." Buford commented as he and Baljeet stood just inside the shade of the tree and watched Phineas tinker with a device he couldn't name. "If I were you, I'd just forget about him and find yourself a good pet that stays right where ya want it to stay. Like a goldfish! Goldfish are great. Just don't take 'em swimmin' and you're good."

Phineas kept his eyes on his work. "Actually, we've had a goldfish before."

"Yeah? What happened to that?" Buford asked.

Phineas shrugged. "He ran away to go live in the ocean."

Buford's eyes widened. "Wow." He paused then added. "That's just sad."

"Naw," Phineas grinned. "He's happy there, so we're happy. Right, Ferb?" He looked back at his brother for confirmation. Ferb gave a nod.

Buford frowned. "Your optimism scares me sometimes."

"One last adjustment…" Phineas murmured as he used a small screwdriver to twist a tiny screw. "There!" He set the screwdriver down and held up the device for everyone to see. "It's finished!"

"Cool!" Isabella chimed as she rejoined the group. Phineas had given her the task of finding both Perry's and Candace's hairbrushes. "What is it?"

"It's a DNA-based tracking device," Phineas replied. "I just combined dad's GPS system with Ferb's DNA tester. Now all we have to do is insert a piece of DNA, like, for example, a hair, and the GPS screen will show us exactly where that person – or semi-aquatic mammal – is!"

"Heeeey…" Buford interrupted whatever Phineas was about to say next. "Didn't they do this on The Fairly Oddparents? To make a fairy tracker?"

"Why yes, yes they did," Phineas replied. Everyone was quiet for a moment, looking at Buford.

"You watch The Fairly Oddparents?" Baljeet broke the silence, speaking the question that was on everyone's mind, but nobody wanted to be the one to ask.

"Yeah, what's it to ya?" Buford growled.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Baljeet replied quickly.

"So, I don't watch stereotypical shows; you all got a problem with that?" Buford demanded of the group.

"Uh, not really," Phineas shrugged. Everyone was quiet for another moment.

"Jorgen could pwn you all," Buford stated. Another moment of silence followed.

"Alright, moving on…" Phineas broke the silence. "Isabella, hand me the test brush." He held out one hand toward her.

"Test brush," Isabella echoed, handing him one of the two brushes.

"Thank you," Phineas nodded as he plucked one long, orange hair out of the bristles. "Keep your fingers crossed, everyone!" Ferb crossed his middle fingers over his index fingers, his ring fingers over his pinky fingers then hooked his thumbs together. All his fingers were successfully crossed.

Phineas inserted the end of the long, orange hair into a small slot at the top of the device and everyone watched as the tracker sucked the strand in. Once the hair was out of sight, a small green light blinked next to the slot a couple times then remained on.

"Alright! It's working!" Everyone crowded around Phineas to watch as a white map made of green and black lines came up on the screen. It detailed the Flynn-Fletcher yard and the first floor of the house. A small green dot blinked on the screen in the area of the living room chair.

"Come on!" Phineas called and took off for the house. Everyone else followed close behind. They stopped in front of the patio door and looked inside. As the tracker had predicted, Candace was sitting in the recliner, talking animatedly to someone on her cell-phone. As was her habit, she glanced out the glass door to see where her brothers were, and – more importantly – what they were doing. She froze, eyes wide in surprise when she found all five kids grouped around the window, looking in on her with excitement like an exhibit at the zoo.

"Stacy…"

"Yeah, Candace?"

"They're watching me…" Her voice was a tense whisper.

"…Oh…Kay… Who's watching you?"

"Phineas and Ferb and their little friends."

Stacy laughed. "Is that all? I thought for sure you were about to say the FBI or Men in Black or something like that. I was gonna tell you to lay off the blue moss."

"They're up to something…"

"Of course they a—"

"Call ya later, Stacy."

Back out in the yard, Phineas held his hand out to Isabella.

"Now that we know it works, time for the real thing!" He announced. Isabella handed him a smaller brush with a few teal-green hairs clinging to the thin metal bristles. As before, Phineas extracted a single hair from the brush and fed it into the devise. The little green light blinked as it processed the new DNA then remained on. The screen zoomed out to show a map of the city of Danville. Everyone made small exclamations of surprise.

"He's all the way downtown!" Isabella exclaimed.

"Well, he has been gone for over a day now," Phineas reminded them. "Who knows how far he could have wandered in that time."

"I thought platypi were not supposed to do much." Baljeet thought out loud.

Phineas just shrugged. "He must've gotten bored with not doing much." He grinned and pointed enthusiastically in the general direction the little, green Perry-dot showed they should go. "Come on! Let's go find Perry!"

Perry sighed in annoyance and slammed the cupboard door shut. Doofenshmirtz really hadn't been joking when he had said he didn't have much to eat at the moment.

Reaching into the pocket of the pants that had unexplainably appeared on her when she'd become human, Perry fished out the change that was left of the ten Lawrence had given her. She scowled slightly as she counted the money. Four dollars and eighty cents. That wouldn't even get her much at Slushy Dog.

Her mind went to the account her paychecks from the Agency went into, but that could only be accessed from her lair and required retinal and finger-print recognition. Whether her retinas had changed with the species change, she didn't know, but since her fingertips were no longer covered in fur, the finger-print analyzing would most certainly fail.

Which meant she was truly dependent on Doofenshmirtz.

The bump on her head from yesterday throbbed slightly just at the idea of it. She rubbed her head and sighed. What could be more degrading than begging your nemesis for money just to get something to eat? Well, other than relying on him for shelter, agreeing to be his girlfriend, or sleep-walking into his bed?

Wow. It was amazing how low a person could sink in a day.

Two options came to Perry's mind, though she couldn't decide which was worse. One would cause her to sink lower on the scale she was already about to drop off of, while the other would go against everything she stood for.

She made a quick decision based on the idea that the second plan would prevent the humiliating scene of asking Doofenshmirtz for money.

Checking quickly that Doofenshmirtz was still working in his lab, Perry moved stealthily into the "Doctor's" bedroom. She went straight to the nightstand where his wallet sat. She had to hesitate a moment, contemplating again how this went against her morals. The mental image of herself asking Doofenshmirtz for money flashed into her head and she picked up wallet with less regrets than a moment before. She had just managed to pilfer two tens when she stopped dead at the sound of a gasp from the doorway.

"Perry-Who's-No-Longer-the-Platypus! Are… are you stealing?" Doofenshmirtz asked in shock. Perry couldn't get herself to turn around. She was too ashamed and humiliated. The scale had just had to lower itself to compensate for how low she'd fallen.

"Perry… I'm…" Doofenshmirtz stopped and frowned for a moment. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to feel right now. Under any other situation the sight of you stealing from someone would fill me with inexpressible delight. But since that someone you're stealing from is me… well, it's a confusing mix of emotions." He paused again then added, "That seems to be my thing right now…" He waved it away. "Moving on… So, why are you taking money from me?"

Perry had yet to turn around and was still holding the tens in her hand, contemplating doing some fancy leaps and flips out of the room. Her escape plans were called off by her stomach growling loudly. She felt her face heat up a little in embarrassment. But, his question was answered. Perry stuffed the bills back in the wallet, closed it, turned around and held the wallet out toward Doofenshmirtz. She scowled up at her nemesis/pretend-boyfriend.

"You're hungry? That's it?" Doofenshmirtz asked. He gave a little huff. "You didn't have to resort to petty evil – that's my thing anyway – you could've just asked. I even told you before that we could go shopping!" He sighed. "Well, I guess a grocery shopping trip is in order." He brightened suddenly. "Oo! We can go to that little café by the super center! I've been meaning to try it out but just never really had a reason. You're hungry, I could use a little snack, perfect timing!" He paused to give Perry a chance to respond to this idea. She just continued to scowl up at him, his wallet still in her outstretched hand.

"Alright, it's decided!" Doofenshmirtz announced. He took the wallet from Perry and pushed it into his lab coat's pocket. In the same motion, he reached out and grabbed hold of the hand Perry had been holding the wallet in. Caught up in his own plans, he left the room and began down the hallway, drawing an unprepared Perry with him. She stumbled behind him, her eyes caught on his hand around her wrist. She couldn't decide what to do about that. Part of her said to just let it be, while another part told her she shouldn't be encouraging him. She pushed it out of her mind so that she could regain her footing and walk beside him.

"You know, Perry," Doofenshmirtz began as she fell into step on his left. "This will be kinda like a first date!"

Perry yanked her wrist out of his grip.

"We're almost there!" Phineas shouted. Behind him, the others ran to keep up. "He's right around this next corner! Aaaaaand-" He jumped around the corner of a building "Oh, there you a- …Perry?"

The others flew around the corner and had to skid to keep from running into the other boy as he looked around the Platypus-free street. There was a group of people waiting at a cross walk for the light to change, but those appeared to be the only living creatures.

"Well?" Buford demanded. "Where is he?"

Phineas looked down at the tracker again. Sure enough, the dot that marked Perry's location should have been near the group of people by the crosswalk.

"He should be right there," Phineas motioned toward the group. Everyone scanned the feet of the people, looking for the teal and tangerine body that should have been there.

"I see no platypi," Baljeet reported. "Are you sure it was Perry's hair?"

"Of course it was!" Phineas exclaimed. "Who else do we know with teal hair?"

To answer the question, Ferb tapped him on the shoulder and pointed toward the group that had just begun to cross the street. Among them was a teal haired woman walking beside a lab coat wearing man who was complaining rather loudly about cross walk signs that made noise.

"Her! She must have used Perry's brush while she was at our house!" Phineas groaned a little. Isabella made a face at that comment.

"That's just weird." She stated.

"Not as weird as Buford watching The Fairly Oddparents," Ferb reminded her.

...The green light stands for hope. …Yay Gatsby!

Just kidding. It has no meaning. Well, actually, I guess that would make sense in this situation, too.

On another note, I have no idea how Perry gets his money from the agency, I just needed a reason for her to be broke. If she wasn't, she wouldn't need to rely on Doofenshmirtz.

One more note, Doof's apartment/lair seems to change layout with every episode and I've never been sure just how much of the building he uses as living quarters. So I'm just kinda doing my own thing with the spare bedroom and it's relation to his room, the living room, kitchen, laboratory and all else. I'm assuming it's all on the top story with the lab taking up the most space.

Unrelated note… anybody ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? I just read it and there's a character in it briefly named Phineas Fletcher. I wanna say he was kinda like the P&F Phineas, but that could just be me projecting the known character onto Stowe's character. If you don't mind being mad at white people, America, and to some extent Christianity (of which I'm all three…) for a few days, check it out. It was good. Frustrating, but good.