A/N – OK, don't panic, the final chapter of "Rhode Island Fletcher" is coming, I just still have a bit of tweaking to do on it and I need some sleep before I finish it.

Meanwhile, here's another bit of fluff I've cooked up for the Sketchbook. I've wanted for a while to give my take on where Charlene's money came from, and I'm actually setting up a little something here that may resurface down the road. As usual, there are callbacks to others of my stories. I'm working from the premise that Ferb knows – and likes – a lot of different kinds of music. You already know what belongs to Povenmire and Marsh. There will be more credits at the end.

Serenade

Ferb Fletcher inched his classic '50s coupe up the steep driveway, and Vanessa punched the button on her garage door remote. As the door glided up, she noted, "Looks like Mom's still gone."

"You're certain she won't mind?" asked Ferb.

"No, pull on in," Vanessa insisted. "If she gets home before you leave, she can park in the drive."

Ferb felt a little awkward about taking up half of Ms. Doofenshmirtz's garage, but leaving his chrome and steel baby hanging on the side of the hill was too nerve-wracking to contemplate. He had restored and tricked out the car himself, and had been driving it for only about five months. Ferb was the first to admit that he was a somewhat over-protective parent – but what sixteen year old boy wasn't, when it came to his first set of wheels? He pulled in and parked next to Vanessa's beige compact, and they both got out. Ferb grabbed their gear out of the trunk, and followed Vanessa inside.

"You can dump that in the utility room," she offered, referring to the bulky hiking pack. Tossing the smaller sling bag over her shoulder, she added, "I'm going to run this upstairs. I'll be right back."

"Mind if I use the washroom?" Ferb asked.

"Help yourself. And you're welcome to grab a drink from the fridge," Vanessa added, as her voice faded away somewhere above him.

The house, he had noted before, was highly unusual. It was architecturally striking, but not very practical, with multiple levels connected by a ridiculous amount of stairs. Granted, the hilltop perch allowed for a splendid view of the surrounding area, and there were multiple outdoor decks and picture windows to take advantage of it. The gleaming, contemporary kitchen was open to an airy dining space marked by a large, curved window, and Ferb paused there for a minute to see if his house was visible from this vantage point. Giving up, he went to take a look in the refrigerator and spied a case of diet cherry cola, from which he took a can.

"Oh, good, you found it," said Vanessa, coming into the kitchen. "Mom asked me what you liked."

"I noticed some apple juice boxes in there, too," he remarked, with a teasing smile. Several years ago, Vanessa had confessed to him her secret fondness for the sweet drink, and he was amused to see she hadn't yet outgrown it.

"Yeah," she grinned, turning an adorable shade of pink. "Toss me one of those, will you?" Poking around in the pantry, she pulled out a plastic bag. "Want a bagel?"

"No, thank you." Ferb opted not to toss the juice box, but set it on the counter.

"Is there some cream cheese in there?" she asked, while he still had the refrigerator open.

He looked. "Honey Nut or Garden Vegetable?"

"Honey. You're sure you don't want something?" she prompted, taking a plate from the cupboard and a knife from the drawer. "Sandwich, banana, cheese and crackers, bowl of cereal...?"

Ferb chuckled. "No, honestly, I'm not hungry."

"Well," Vanessa noted with a sidelong smile, loading up her bagel with the sweetened cream cheese, "you know what hiking does to my appetite. Here," she reached a tumbler down from the cabinet. "You can at least have a glass and some ice for your drink."

The day trip to Danville National Park had been Vanessa's idea. She had been in Danville all week for Spring Break, and she and Ferb had spent quite a bit of time together. There had been a picnic in his back yard, dinner at her mother's, lunch at Goldie's Diner. There had been a matinee at the movie theatre, an outdoor concert in the park, and a trip to the Super-Duper MegaStore. What there hadn't been was the opportunity for much in the way of genuine 'alone time,' until Vanessa had proposed an excursion to the Great Outdoors. A few hours of communing with nature had turned out to be a brilliant idea, and Ferb was only sorry she hadn't thought of it earlier in the week.

Now, they sat together at the dining table while Vanessa devoured her bagel, and Ferb sipped at his glass of soda. Looking around at the sleek décor, Ferb ventured, "Vanessa… there's something I've been curious about. You're welcome to tell me this is none of my business," he assured her, "but… what, exactly, does your mother do?"

"Well," she wiped a dab of cream cheese from her lips, "she's on the board of the Tri-State Area Arts Coalition, and she helps organize the Danville Literacy Council Book Drive every year, not to mention the cooking classes and the karate lessons and the mah jongg club. But I'm guessing that wasn't the real question. You're wondering where the money came from."

Ferb worried for a moment that he might have touched a nerve, but there was a twinkle in Vanessa's eyes as she said exactly what he'd been thinking, and he admitted, "Well, yes."

"Believe it or not – laundry soap." Vanessa slurped at her juice box before she explained. "She and my dad didn't have much when they started out. He was trying to invent things, and she was working as a secretary when I was little. Dad was always messing with chemicals and blowing things up, and his lab coats ended up with the weirdest stains that would not come out. Mom started experimenting in the kitchen sink, until she came up with this super stain-dissolving formula that worked on anything. Dad wanted to use it for evil," Vanessa rolled her eyes, "or at least package it and start selling it door to door – which is pretty much the same thing," she cracked. "But Mom didn't want to mess with running a business, so she got a patent on the formula and sold it to the KleenStart detergent company. They paid her a bunch of money up front, plus she gets royalties."

"Very enterprising of her," Ferb nodded appreciatively.

"Yeah," Vanessa sighed. With downcast eyes, she said, "That was kind of step one toward the divorce, I think. Not that there weren't issues before that, but…"

"That's when the money battles started?" Ferb surmised. Vanessa had told him, when they had first started dating, how her parents had fought over their finances, and how she feared falling into the same trap.

She nodded slightly, still not meeting his eyes, and Ferb said, "We don't have to talk about this. I didn't mean to…"

"It's all right," she assured him. "I want us to be totally open with each other." Vanessa took another bite of her bagel and munched thoughtfully before she went on. "That's why Dad gets alimony. He argued in the divorce that, if it weren't for him, she never would have thought of inventing the stuff in the first place. He has a point, you know. I feel kind of bad for my Dad sometimes," she admitted. "I mean, I know he's kind of crazy and annoying, not to mention evil, but Mom gets rich, and Uncle Roger gets to be Mayor, and what does he get?"

Ferb was quiet for a minute, searching for a reassuring word. At length, he said, with a solemn face, "He gets to battle a platypus in a fedora. Not many people can say that."

Vanessa gave him her You cannot be serious look, then surrendered to the chuckle she could no longer contain. "Ferb, you always know just what to say." Finishing off her bagel, she invited, "You want to go sit in the music room?"

"You have a music room?" He knew he hadn't seen a lot of the house, but this came as a surprise.

"That's what Mom calls it." Vanessa carried her plate to the sink and dropped her juice box in the trash. "Come on."

The Music Room had an even better view than the dining space, and was dominated by a glossy black grand piano. Ferb let out an involuntary gasp at the sight of it, and Vanessa smiled. "I thought you might be interested."

"Do you play?" he asked.

"Oh, no," she shook her head. "My mother plays a little, but it's mostly just for show. I can pick out a few things by ear. Mom made me take lessons for a year when I was nine, but I didn't stay with it. I got tired of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,'" she grumbled. "I take it you play," Vanessa said, with an encouraging look.

"Oh, I like to mess about a bit," Ferb demurred modestly.

"Mm-hm," she smiled. "I've heard how you 'mess about' with a guitar, and a harmonica, and a few other things. Come on, sit down," she perched on the edge of the piano bench. "Play something for me."

Her request sent a little rush of shyness through him as he sat down beside her. "What would you like to hear?"

"Oh, anything. Surprise me."

Well, that wasn't much help. He started out by making a joke of it. "I'm afraid Scraping Fangs and Cracking Toast don't translate well to the piano." Vanessa gave a soft little laugh at this, and Ferb ran his fingers tentatively over the keys, coaxing forth a few chords, picking out a few threads of melody. He experimented with a few bars of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and the Habanera from Carmen, but he wasn't certain how fond Vanessa was of classical music – a funny thing not to know about her, he pondered, considering how close they had become. She did like his Britishness, as she put it, and this knowledge led him to consider a smattering of "Poor Wand'ring One," or "Three Little Maids from School," but Gilbert and Sullivan seemed a bit too quaint. Of course, there was one British thing, musically speaking, that practically everyone liked, including Ferb, and he finally felt himself growing comfortable as he fell into the opening chords of his favorite Beatles song.

Almost at once, he felt Vanessa leaning closer to him, her head bobbing slightly to the tempo. Only a bit farther in, and he could hear her softly humming along, then the words began to form, and her lovely voice nestled gently into his ear.

"Hey, Jude, don't be afraid.
You were made to go out and get her.
The minute you let her under your skin,
Then you'll begin to make it better…"

Ferb smiled as he continued to play, and Vanessa sang, slipping her arm around him and snuggling against his shoulder. "Come on, Ferb, you know the words," she nudged him. "Help me out, here."

"Oh, heavens," he chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm no Paul McCartney."

"Of course not," Vanessa kissed his cheek. "You're Ferb Fletcher, and I want to hear you sing."

Ferb swore he would never understand why Vanessa thought he could sing. Oh, he could carry a tune, but not with any polish; his singing voice wasn't much different from his speaking voice, and he was far more comfortable lip-synching to a recording, delivering the dance moves and the style while a real vocalist took care of the hard part. He shook his head again. "You're the singer, I'm just the piano player."

In the end, however, she was bound to win. Not only because Ferb could deny her nothing she desired, but because it was impossible not to chime in once it came down to, "Naaaaa na na nanananaaaaaaa – Nanananaaaaaaa – Hey, Jude…" The two of them belted their hearts out as he thundered away at the piano and Vanessa took his shoulders in her hands and made him sway back and forth with her in time to the music. At last, they both dissolved into giggles, then she kissed him, and he got an arm around her and kissed her back, and there was a bit of smooch-and-nuzzle between them before Ferb said, "All right, you asked for this. Give me a little elbow room. And prepare to cover your ears."

He doodled about on the piano for a bit until he was satisfied with the key. With an adoring gaze at his lady love, Ferb announced, "This is a little something just for you, Miss Doofenshmirtz." Then, humming a bit in his throat, he shifted the key one more time, vamped a little longer than he really needed to, and finally plunged in.

"You do something to me,
Something that simply mystifies me.
Tell me, why should it be
You have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live 'neath your spell.
Do do that voodoo that you do so well.
For you do something to me
That nobody else could do."

He finished off the song with a flourish of the keys, and Vanessa, eyes gleaming, breathed out a delighted sigh. "Ferb, that was wonderful!"

Ferb smiled at the rush of joy that coursed through him when her lips found his cheek. "Well," he murmured, "even I can't make Cole Porter sound bad."

THE END

A/N – "You Do Something To Me" is by Cole Porter. It's been used on some recent Oreo cookie commercials, but I knew it before that, and it struck me as perfect for Ferb's feelings toward Vanessa. "Hey, Jude" is my favorite Beatles song, and I think one of the greatest "sing along" songs ever. I hope someone got the joke behind Ferb's "I'm no Paul McCartney" line.