Chapter 3

Headquarters, Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D. C.
July 7, 2049

"You told them they were going to be married?" The interrogator shot the prisoner an infuriated look. "That's a serious breach in protocol! You are not supposed to tell anybody important details about their future!"

"Technically, I didn't tell them," the prisoner tactfully replied. "I may have hinted at it, but it was necessary nonetheless. To help them understand the full scope of the situation. I wouldn't have been able to achieve full cooperation without it. And with the assassin still on the loose, it was a risk I chose to take." The prisoner smiled at the memory. "It paid off, too. I talked with the young President Flynn a little while after, and she said that it was inevitable—someone was going to tell him eventually. As a matter of fact, she told me that she didn't see any other way he'd ever come around to noticing her, oblivious as he was to her—charms. She was grateful I told him because she couldn't bring herself to. In that sense, I ascertained their marriage, even if it was by pure luck."

"She told you that?" the lawyer asked over her high-tech audio recorder. "That's very mature for a young girl to say right after the boy she likes finds out about it."

"She didn't tell me that right away," the prisoner recognized, "it was a little later that day. In my defense, I thought he knew that she had feelings for him. Even in the space of maybe a few hours with the two, I already could see that she obviously liked him. You could see it from the way President Flynn was always looking at him, always fixing her hair or straightening her skirt or adjusting her bow. You know how impressive a character Mr. Flynn is; I assumed he'd figured it out, brain like his, and was just too young to know what to do about it. The last worry on my mind was that he had no idea whatsoever!"

"What happened then?"

The prisoner took a sip of water from the glass that had been provided and continued his story.

Danville, USA
July 4, 2014

"If this is a joke, someone please tell me now," Phineas requested, looking at the others.

"Do I look like I would joke about something like this?" PJ asked in a serious tone.

Silence fell. Phineas' eyes darted back and forth from Isabella to PJ to Ferb back to Isabella. She looked horrified, her face pale white, with hands covering her mouth. Ironically it was Ferb who found a way to break the quiet.

"Perhaps we should head back to the park," he suggested.

"Yes," PJ breathed. "Yes we should. C'mon you guys." He led the way out, and they followed him onto the sidewalk. PJ had already assumed his regular crouching stance before they joined him to walk back to the park.

Phineas gave a final look back inside the truck. "Are you coming, Isabella?" he called.

The poor girl stood rooted to the spot, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. She hadn't moved an inch. Now with the others all waiting, she was able to put one shaky leg in front of the other and come to the door. Instinctively Phineas offered his hand to help her down and she took it without thought before dropping onto the sidewalk. Then they both looked at each other, then at their still conjoined hands, and immediately snapped their arms back to their sides before looking pointedly in any other direction.

PJ resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the two deliberately took spots on opposite sides of Ferb and began to walk. It was immensely awkward how they seemed to make the extra effort to remain as far apart as possible, and the blank look on Ferb's expressionless face showed it, forced as he was now into the position of being middle-man. They proceeded silently, each left to their own thoughts. Phineas was trying to use so much space that he was encroaching on PJ's lane of the walkway, and it only got more awkward when Phineas accidentally stepped on PJ's webbed foot. He received a sharp hiss for it, and his reflexive "sorry" was the only word spoken for several minutes.

The uncomfortable march was mercifully short as they hadn't actually covered a lot of distance in the ice cream truck. They found the barbecue in more or less the same shape they'd left it: cheerful, festive, and beckoning for fun. It at least brought Phineas out of his reflective mood. He put on a smile and said, "You know what, guys? I think it's time to kick this picnic up a notch!"

He turned to the others. "PJ, do you want to help us out?"

"Grdrdrdrdrdrd," the platypus responded, looking wary.

"It's alright, Ferb and I thought of that, and we had an idea. Put these on," Phineas instructed as Ferb extracted a fake mustache, wig, and overalls from the space behind his back. "This way you'll have a disguise and nobody will get suspicious, so that you can help us on our project too! Now, we're gonna need a power drill and some pickle juice. Can you handle that?" PJ accepted the disguise in his jaws and pattered away, presumably to change in a more private location.

"Ferb, you grab the wood-and-steel fusing tool and some bobby pins." Ferb exited in like manner.

"Isabella," Phineas said, but as soon as he turned to face her, he deflated. "Um…" She waited for orders, but Phineas couldn't seem to do any more than look at his shoes at the moment. Once he opened his mouth and almost spoke, but he quickly shut it just as fast.

"I'll go get the troops and build a stage," she suggested.

"Okay," Phineas agreed. "You do that."

It couldn't get any more awkward, and when it became apparent neither wanted to say any more, Isabella turned and left. It taxed her to walk away from Phineas like that, but she didn't know what else to do. Lifting her eyes to the sky, a round cloud and a triangular cloud nestled cozily together, immune to all else. Without warning a single tear ran down her face, and Isabella began to sing softly—whether only in her mind or in reality, it didn't matter; she sang.

He knows, he finally knows.
Finally, after all this time,
The truth at last has come out to shine
That the only desire of mine,
Is to be with his unique, sublime
Yet perfect personality so fine.
Yes, he knows.

He's aware. He's cognizant of the fact
That I love him, but does he love me back?
He hasn't said, is there something I lack?
Someone tell me, please, if I'm on the wrong track,
'Cause if he doesn't, maybe I'll have to pack
Up and leave with my lone heart-strung knapsack,
Now that he knows.

Oh, Phineas, is it possible
That you do not share my feelings?
I know your head is shaped like a triangle,
But all I see's a broken heart that's bleeding.
No, I can't give up hope! Not yet,
I still see the light at the end with a wedding.
No matter how hard it gets with life's many regrets
Just talk to me, you can tell me anything,
Because you know.

Yeah, oh yeah, you know!
That's right; he knows.

Isabella assembled her troop, wondering what would happen when she next saw Phineas.

Balthazar Horowitz stood in line outside a row of portable outdoor restrooms. Along came a platypus which entered an adjacent porta-potty; only seconds later an odd looking fellow with teal skin, a fake mustache, an unusual hairstyle, and overalls emerged from the same outhouse. Confused, Balthazar looked up and said, "Hey, why am I waiting in line when there's a vacant one right there?"

When PJ returned, his jaw dropped in astonishment. "What is that?"

"A fashion runway," Phineas declared, pausing to admire the gang's work. He looked back at his new friend. "How's the fit?"

"Well," PJ said, inspecting the overalls, "it's a little hot, and my tail hurts; I don't understand why you humans put up with wearing extra fur. Are you sure this disguise will work?"

Before Phineas could answer, Buford and Baljeet arrived with shovels in hand and hard hats on head. "Who's the new guy?" Buford asked.

"Does that answer your question?" Phineas replied. "Baljeet and Buford, this is PJ; PJ, this is Baljeet and Buford."

"Hello."

"S'up? We finished hardening the cement," Buford reported. "It took a lot of work getting it that hard."

"Buford," Baljeet patiently explained, "I already told you, the cement would have hardened on its own. You did not need to pound on it to compact it any further!"

"You just have to suck the fun out of everything, don't you?"

"That's good news, guys," said Phineas. "Everything's almost ready. PJ, could you come help me with putting in these screws?"

"Sure," said the platypus incognito. He followed Phineas to the back of the stage.

"I just had a hard time reaching the high ones," Phineas said, "and I don't know where Ferb put the ladder. I figured you'd be able to get them if you sat on my shoulders. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," PJ said. "No problem."

"Great!" Phineas bent down and the platypus agilely climbed up.

"How'd you guys build this so fast?" PJ asked.

"Well, we had the parts delivered and then Ferb sorted and organized everything and Isabella and the Fireside Girls pitched in and—."

"Whoa, slow down, cowboy!" PJ cut him off. "I can hardly keep up! I didn't want your whole life story! Screws, please."

Phineas passed them up. "You know, I'm glad you're here to help us build this, PJ. It's kind of like having Perry here. We never get to build stuff with Perry, it seems like he's always off doing whatever platypuses do."

"You and Ferb care about Perry a lot, don't you?" PJ asked.

"We sure do. A pet platypus is a pet platypus, but we couldn't have asked for a better one than Perry."

Phineas paused, for PJ had begun drilling and it wasn't prudent to converse over the noise. After driving as many screws as he could reach, he gestured that he was ready for Phineas to move to the next section.

"So," PJ asked in the lapse in noise, "how are you handling the news about Isabella?"

Phineas looked back at his shoes. "I don't know," he responded. "I mean, now that I think about it, it makes sense. We've been best friends for as long as I can remember." PJ began screwing again, and Phineas used the time to compose his thoughts.

"I guess it's just weird to think about," he continued when PJ had finished the second section. "Getting married is so far away when there's so much to do today! I guess I just never thought that far into the future. Besides, how am I even supposed to know if she likes me? I mean, I know she likes me; I meant, how do I know for sure she likes me? You know, the like that means like; not the like that means like. What if she doesn't like me because she's only supposed to like me in the future and now that we know the future it's going to be really awkward and she won't like me anymore and we don't get married and mess the future up? We are just kids, after all." The drilling platypus didn't have to see his face to tell how concerned he was.

PJ listened carefully to what the boy said before responding. "I'm sorry I put you in a difficult position," he said. "This is why we aren't supposed to talk too much about the future."

"What does being married to her make me, anyway? The First Man?"

"Actually, the husband of the President of the United States is called the First Gentleman. I know it sounds weird, but it's right." He stopped to finish the final section of screws before continuing. "Listen. Even if it's awkward, you're gonna have to push through it and talk to her. For all you know, she's probably just as worried about the exact same things."

"But I don't know what to say!" Phineas exclaimed.

"You said you're best friends, right?" Phineas nodded. "Start with that. Besides, I haven't popped out of existence or anything, so we haven't messed the future up yet!"

The young genius took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, focusing his eyes. "Carpe diem."

"That's the spirit." PJ leapt off the boy's shoulders. "You'll do fine. Trust me."

Isabella had been unusually quiet today, and the girls noticed. Nobody said anything while they finished putting up the curtains for the stage, but when that task was completed their curiosity got the better of them.

"What troubles thee, fearless leader?" voiced Gretchen, and the others quickly gathered to listen and provide support.

"It's Phineas," Isabella confided upon seeing nobody was nearby to eavesdrop. "He finally knows."

A gasp rippled through the group. "The Nose knows?!"

"Don't call him that ever again, Addyson."

"Sorry," the wise-cracker said. "Couldn't pass up the opportunity." A few others giggled.

"So what's wrong?" Milly asked. "Don't tell us he turned you down!"

Isabella sighed. "Well, not exactly. It's more like things just got really awkward and complicated and now he isn't talking to me."

"You mean he's avoiding you?"

Isabella shook her head. "No; he isn't talking to me as in he pulls a Ferb when I'm around."

"Ohhh!" The girls nodded in understanding. All together their countenances went from concerned to relieved. "You actually had us worried there for a second!"

"This is serious!" Isabella chided. "My chance of being with Phineas is in peril! Why are you all acting like you know something I don't?"

A few of the others snickered. "Chief, there's nothing for you to worry about," Gretchen explained. "It's obvious that Phineas is in shock. Love shock."

"Love shock? Did you seriously just call it that?"

"Gretchen's right!" Ginger squeaked. "We learned all about it from getting our 'How Boys Think' Patch!"

"I don't remember getting that patch," Isabella said.

"You were sick that day."

Isabella cleared her head. "Okay. What do I do?"

Gretchen took the troop leader by the arm. "First of all, you have to give him some space. You don't want to be all in his face or you'll push him away, but don't give him too much space either, or he'll get comfortable and never commit to anything. You have to give him just the right amount of space."

"How much is the right amount of space?" Isabella asked.

The girls ignored her inquiry. "The next thing you want to do is never engage him in conversation," Addyson expounded. "He's gonna need time to come to accept you. If you find yourselves together, look for an escape route right away! Prematurely talking to him will only confuse him and make him take longer to sort out his feelings for you. You have to be strong and hold out to the end!"

"That sounds counterintuitive," Isabella thought aloud. "It seems like shutting off communication is the last thing I should do!"

"The last thing you should do," Ginger continued as if Isabella hadn't even spoken, "is talk to him. After you've followed steps one and two, this is the most important and final step! Go talk to him, and he'll be like putty in your hands!"

Isabella looked perplexed. "So what you're saying is, after making an effort to not talk to him, I should go talk to him?"

The girls nodded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Look, all you girls did was give me vague and conflicting advice! That didn't even help me at all!"

"Well, no one said it was an exact science. You'll do just fine, Chief!" Gretchen smiled confidently. Holly gave her a friendly elbow in the ribcage. "Ow!" she yelped, grimacing. "Oh, and one more thing. The troop and I were wondering," she began with an encompassing wave of her hand. The group hunched over in giggly anticipation as she did so.

"Yes?" Isabella prompted.

"The troop and I were wondering," Gretchen carefully articulated, "when you do talk to Phineas, can we—I mean, would it be okay if…" She leaned over and whispered in her ear.

Isabella exploded. "NO, YOU CANNOT WATCH!"

"Okay, okay!" She held up her hands in surrender. "Just thought we'd ask—after all, we could keep Irving away…"

Phineas stood on the fully completed stage with a microphone held to his mouth. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, "Laddies and lasses-ies, welcome to the first annual P-n-F Fourth of July Celebration Swimsuit Contest of Swimwear! Brought to you by Random Swimwear!" Almost instantly, it seemed, a crowd started to gather around the stage to watch.

"Kickin' off this year's contest, we're privileged to have this year's swimwear modeled by none other than—that's right, you guessed it—all forty-three Presidents of the United States!" Someone in the audience questioned him. "That's correct, forty-three; remember, Grover Cleveland was president twice."

Phineas put on an enthusiastic smile. "But before we get to the highlight of our show, we're going to start with a special reading performance. Today celebrates the birth of our independence as a nation, which happened with the signing of the Declaration of Independence July 4th, 1776. To honor that pivotal moment in history, please put your hands together for Baljeet Tjindler, who will be reading the Declaration for us, and for Ferb Fletcher, who will be translating, since nobody seems to understand what it says."

The audience cheered and applauded as Baljeet and Ferb appeared on stage. Phineas placed the microphone on a stand between them, then exited behind the curtains.

Baljeet cleared his throat. "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

He paused, and Ferb translated. "We're writing the Declaration of Independence," he stated.

Baljeet continued. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness."

"People deserve to be free, so we're making our own government," Ferb summarized.

"Prudence, indeed," read Baljeet, "will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

"You have to have a really good reason to make your own government," said Ferb.

Baljeet, who was really getting into it, now read with gusto. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Ferb explained. "We're gonna revolt, Mother England!"

The crowd cheered as if expecting it to be over, and Phineas entered the stage again. "Thank you, thank you!" he said. "Let's hear it for Baljeet and Ferb!" The crowd applauded and whistled.

"But we did not even make it all the way through the second paragraph!" Baljeet told Phineas out of the corner of his mouth as he waved. Phineas shooed him off.

"Now, without further ado, the moment you've all been waiting for is here!" Phineas announced over the microphone. "The fashion show! But before we open up the runway, allow me to introduce the three judges that will be judging our models and their fashion. First up: he's cute, he's tough, he's got an evil alien for a nemesis; can I get a warm welcome for Meap!"

Meap waved from his seat with his ever adorable, "Meap!" The audience cheered loud as ever.

"Our second judge hails from the City Hall where he works as a tour guide to help uninformed citizens in need, but most people know him as Don!"

The second judge gave a fancy twirl of the hands to the audience.

"And last but not least," introduced Phineas, "she's spunky and sassy with a sharp sense of fashion; the self-proclaimed goth, Vanessa Doofenshmirtz!"

Vanessa acknowledged the cheering audience with a simple, "Hey, how's it going?"

"There you have it, folks," Phineas addressed the crowd, "now I'm gonna turn the mic over to our judges; let the contest begin!" The microphone sank into the stage and Phineas departed to the loud applause.

Don the tour guide spoke first as the curtain parted. "Our first model is an animatronic robot of the first President of the United States, the one affectionately called by many the 'Father of the Country,' George Washington. Here comes George down the catwalk now, and it looks like he's sporting the modest gentleman look."

From behind the curtain, the first robot emerged with a long powdered wig and a prominent nose. The George Washington robot wore a loose-fitting tunic of white and gray. The long sleeves had neatly pressed cuffs.

"Wearing a swim garment that literally looks like it's from the eighteenth century," Vanessa took over, "the leg breeches and covered arms bring us back to a simpler age when it was improper to have more than the hands and face exposed and reminds us all why nobody has worn that stuff in over two hundred years."

"Let's hear what Mr. Washington has to say," Don verbalized.

The robot paced the length of the walkway and posed. "I cannot tell a lie, my swimsuit is too bodalicious for you!"

It went quiet briefly as the crowd looked stunned. "I don't know what to make of that," Don commented. "What do you have to say, Meap?"

Meap thought for a moment. "Meap."

"Couldn't put it any better myself," replied Don. George Washington turned and made his way back to the curtain, leaving the crowd cheering. "There you have it, everyone. George Washington! Up next, the great lawyer and statesman from Boston; get ready to have your socks knocked off by our second president, John Adams!"

PJ watched contentedly from backstage with Phineas, Ferb, and their other friends, never ceasing to be amazed. It was a chance to watch history with his own eyes. He'd heard the stories about how they used to seize every day with a new bold project, of course, but he never imagined that the projects they tackled were of this scale. They had built all these robots of presidents past and present along with the stage and organized a fashion show for swimwear—all in the course of an afternoon! What really amazed him is that they weren't doing it to make money, or to show off, or anything like that. They were just having fun, being kids. Phineas was all over the place; now sharing a joke with Ferb who was up in the rafters operating the lights, now helping Baljeet and the Abraham Lincoln robot find a missing sandal, now breaking up an argument between Buford and Isabella regarding whether a lime-green top or a plum-colored top better matched Woodrow Wilson's swim trunks. Under Phineas' leadership, everything went smoothly.

Phineas had led the way in accepting PJ into the circle of friends, too. They'd all accepted him right away; except Buford, who was briefly skeptical when he first noticed the false mustache. ("I don't know any other kids that have a mustache!") Phineas had even given him responsibility over keeping the presidential models in sequential order and final checking that the robots were fully functioning and clothed properly (the James Madison robot had tried to use its socks as a hat) before sending them out on the runway. Despite technically still being on a mission to be protecting them, PJ allowed himself to relax as he worked with the kids; and to his surprise, he discovered that for the first time in a long time, he was having fun.

"Hey, PJ!" Phineas shouted from the opposite end of the curtain, rousing him from his thoughts. "Did you get Isabella's order for three more blue towels?"

"They're on their way!" he called back, grinning at the boy's contagious enthusiasm. He turned back out to watch the robot of John F. Kennedy take the runway.

"And here's JFK," Don the tour guide was announcing, "the beloved president whose time in office ended prematurely at the hands of fate and an assassin's bullet."

JFK the robot strutted before the crowd before pulling its shirt over its synthetic shoulders, unveiling a masculine torso with some rather well-defined muscles. "Ask not what your swimsuit can do for you," the robot uttered, "rather, ask what you can do for your swimsuit." JFK gave a final flex and about faced.

"Are you alright, Vanessa?" Don asked his fellow judge.

"Wha? Oh, yeah, yeah!" Vanessa breathed, putting her eyeballs back while fanning herself with her hand. "That was just a—um, good swimsuit, is all. Very fashionable."

"Meap," Meap commented.

"Well, whatever it was," said Don, looking over the whistling audience, "the crowd sure liked it!"

"So the scuba diver says, 'that's just crabby!'" Jeremy finished, and he joined Candace in a round of laughter.

"Crabby!" Candace repeated. "That is so funny!" The two had been spending the afternoon together; strolling around the park, taking in the sights, participating in some of the games. It had been pleasant, but at that moment Candace noticed the sounds of a gathered crowd. One look was all she needed for her busting reflex to activate.

"Do you see that?" she asked her boyfriend. "Phineas and Ferb must have built that stage, it wasn't here earlier! And what are they doing?"

Jeremy looked. "It appears that they're hosting a swimsuit contest. Cool! You wanna go watch?"

"More like, I wanna go bust!" Candace said, stomping off.

"There she goes again," he said, smiling to himself. "Hey, where's Suzy?"

Meanwhile, Candace already had her phone pressed to her ear. "Mom!" she said loudly, to be heard over the noise of the people in the background. "Are you and Dad at the park yet?"

"Yes, dear, we've been at the pie-eating contest," Linda said, a dreamy look overcoming her face. "So many pies! Blueberry, Raspberry, Apple, Key Lime, Doonkelberry, Cher—."

In a whoosh Candace was already at her mother's side, cutting her off. "You've gotta come see! Phineas and Ferb built a stage and they're holding a swimsuit contest!" She grabbed her mother's arm and began to drag her along.

"But, what about the pie?"

Three rows of swimsuit-spangled Presidents stood on bleachers atop the stage, waiting for the winner's name to be read. Phineas stood at the microphone with an envelope in hand.

"Before we announce this year's winner," he said, "I just wanted to thank you all for coming today! Now, the winner of today's Fourth of July Celebration Swimsuit Contest of Swimwear (brought to you by Random Swimwear!), is—."

From the side, Ferb thumped out a drumroll on a full drumset. Phineas ripped open the envelope and looked at the ballot inside.

"And the winner is—oh, you have got to be kidding me. The winner is President William Howard Taft! I don't know how that man could win a swimsuit contest, but the ballots never lie!"

The Taft robot, standing behind Phineas and to his right, was overtaken with surprise and leapt for joy. "I don't believe it! I won!" The corpulent robot danced exultantly, showered by red, white, and blue confetti. Everyone clapped heartily for a full minute until the curtains closed and Phineas excused the audience.

"Good work, girls," Isabella congratulated backstage, "on yet another successful Phineas and Ferb project."

"Frog alert!" Milly whispered from the rear, frantically. ('Frog alert' was code for 'a boy one of them likes is headed this way!' for, after all, frogs are the symbol of a Prince waiting to blossom with a kiss.) The girls turned and saw Phineas approaching. What was unusual, however, was that Ferb wasn't with him.

"Hey guys," he said a little nervously, with a heavy glance toward Isabella. "Can I talk to Isabella? Um, alone?"

The girls giggled uncontrollably, making the solemn Phineas look even more out of place. Gretchen gave Isabella a soft push to the front and led the rest of the troop away.

"Hey," Phineas said once they were in the clear.

"Hey," Isabella echoed.

"So…" Phineas rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the stage.

"So…" Isabella wrapped a hand around her elbow and looked at the ground.

Phineas snapped to attention. "Did you say something?"

"What? No, I didn't say anything." It went quiet again as the two looked for the words they wanted to say.

Phineas thought hard. What do girls like to hear? Compliments! He should give Isabella a compliment!

"Nice—" he began, looking for something to say, but when nothing came to mind, he panicked. "—Stage. Nice stage." Inwardly, Phineas slapped himself.

"Oh, thanks," Isabella said. "The girls and I are getting pretty good at building them."

"Yeah," Phineas agreed. He looked Isabella over from head to toe, looking for something to compliment. "I like your—" he tried again, holding the 'your' until he had a word ready. He was about to say shoes, but then again, did he really like her shoes? They looked like they were neatly kept and all, but it wasn't like he'd ever tried them, so how could he truthfully say he liked them? His eyes fell upon her hair. Did he like her hair? As much as the next person's, he supposed. It was black, and long. Did he like black and long? Suddenly he didn't know.

Isabella blinked at Phineas' drawn out syllable, it having dawned on her that Phineas was trying to give her a compliment. Oh no! He can't think of anything to compliment me on! I must look hideous from toiling on the project! Isabella made a mental note to check a mirror the first chance she got.

Phineas was running out of time and breath. His 'your' was almost spent. He had to say something! "…Urrrrr—anus. Yes, I like Uranus. A lot." Like an avalanche, the words he'd just spoken came crashing down on him. Oh, no, he thought desperately. No, no, no! Why did that have to be the first thing that popped into my head? I like Uranus? That is literally the worst possible thing I could have said right there!

He moved quickly to clarify his intentions. "The planet, I mean! You know, Uranus—the seventh planet from the sun? It's a fascinating one, made up of mostly frozen ammonia and methane! And its biggest moon is Miranda." As Phineas put on what he hoped was a convincing smile to cover his tracks, he made a mental note to look up whoever discovered and named Uranus so he could know who to blame for everlastingly rendering that planet the "butt" of all jokes, pun intended.

On her end, Isabella didn't care Phineas was tailspinning—she was too worried about herself. She'd inevitably reanalyze every detail of this conversation for hours on end in the near future, deciding ultimately that Phineas' foot-in-mouth comment was cute, but now wasn't the time for that. She couldn't scare him away! Taking a quick moment to compose herself, she calmly responded. "I've always really liked Saturn, myself. It's so pretty, with all its rings. But, I like Uranus too, Phineas."

Phineas' mind was racing. This was turning into a total disaster. But PJ told him he had to push past the awkwardness, so that's what he did. He stood up straight, looked into her eyes, and opened his mouth.

"Isabella, I don't know if you know this or not about me, but I'm not the most—what would you call it?—romantically inclined person."

"No!" Isabella mock gasped.

The boy failed to catch the sarcasm. "It's true," he assured her. "I don't know if you're in to romance and that kind of stuff; but I know most girls are, and seeing as you're a girl, I'm guessing you probably do, you know, like romance?"

Isabella wore a funny look, like Phineas was a small child who had just figured out that two plus two equals four and believed he was actually enlightening her by telling her it was so. "I've thought about it once or twice," she sardonically understated, with a hint of playfulness as she watched her beloved squirm.

"I see," he answered. "I'm not very romantically inclined; I mean, I guess I just said that, didn't I?" Phineas took a deep breath. "Look, Isabella, I don't know how to say this, but—I guess I'm sorry about earlier. I don't even know why I'm sorry, I just am. What PJ said about us just really confused—."

A delightful shiver tingled Isabella's spine as she laid a silencing finger across his lips. "It's okay, Phineas. You don't have to be sorry for anything."

Phineas pulled her hand from his away from his mouth and lowered it to his chest, causing that shiver to linger. "Are you sure? You looked so scared back there when PJ said we were going to be—to be…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word. They were standing so close now she could feel his breath on her face.

Deciding there was no turning back now, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro bravely squared her shoulders. "Married?" she offered. Phineas nodded, then remembered he was still holding her hand betwixt his two. To her delight, he didn't let go. That fact gave her the courage she needed to do what she did next. Timing her movement exactly as he resumed his thought, she gently placed her other hand onto his.

"Even if that really is the future, I just don't want it to—" Phineas had begun. Her touch stopped him. Looking down to see her hands holding his, he paused—as if he briefly lost his train of thought, but quickly regained it. "—You know, affect our friendship." He almost didn't have to finish the sentence. It couldn't be any clearer to the both of them that it wouldn't.

Isabella willed her eyes to remain dry. It wasn't that hard, she wanted to stare into that face forever. She simply beamed at him. "Well, you are acting a little more 'romantically inclined' right now."

Phineas broke into a silly grin. "Yes. Yes, I am." Much more at ease now, he returned her gaze. "I bet someday in the future you'll probably be winning that swimsuit contest," he thought out loud. "You are beautiful."

Blushing, Isabella moved in closer—ever so slightly—as time crawled to a stop.

Most of the audience had departed in search of other things to do. From the sky above, a helicopter dropped a winch, picked up the stage along with everything on it, and flew off. "Thanks for the stage, boys!" a man in khakis and wearing a camera slung around his neck was saying. Ferb appeared at Phineas' side, opposite a bright-eyed Isabella. "Now I can finally fulfill my lifelong dream of taking the first group photo of all the US Presidents together!"

"You're welcome," Phineas waved as the man got on his bike and rode away. "We were done with it anyways!"

Candace appeared as well, with Linda in tow. "Aha! See, Mom? Proof!"

"Hi, boys," Linda said. Obviously, there was nothing out of the ordinary to be observed.

"Hi Mom! Hi Candace!" Phineas greeted.

"But, but, but," Candace but-butted, "but it was all right here!"

"Are you boys having fun with your Fourth of July?" Linda asked.

"You bet!" Phineas answered, and Ferb nodded.

"That's good to hear." Linda turned to Candace. "Now, I am going back to the pie." Candace slouched over in defeat as she walked past.

PJ arrived to stand beside Ferb. "Hey, where did everything go?"

"If I knew," Candace answered despondently, "I wouldn't be here." With that, she turned and left, too.

Phineas' face brightened with a smile. "Hey, there you are, Perry!"

Perry pattered to the spot Candace had been standing on moments earlier. "You've missed out on an interesting day! We were at the parade, riding a float; and all of a sudden…"

Perry wasn't listening. He had immediately spotted and recognized the platypus conspicuously disguised as a kid standing next to Ferb. The moment he caught the other mammal's eye, Perry glared. "Grdrdrdrdrd."

A big thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far!

The-Snowy-Owl13: Those are some interesting guesses! My guess is you'll find out next chapter! And about the ice cream truck lady, I got the idea to have an ice cream truck driver kidnap them after seeing the creepy ice cream truck drivers employed in the city I used to live in. They looked like total serial killers or something, with long unkempt beards and tattoos everywhere - they disturbed me enough to prefer store bought ice cream!

Lmpf: I plan to make it even more exciting, so stick around!

EpicThoth3: I think I answered that in this chapter! It's like I planned it that way...

Platyman: What an epic review! I was pumped to get it! Keeping everyone IC is a goal of mine, so it's good to know I've pulled that off thus far. Isabella to me was always the obvious choice for president. I figured most people would expect Phineas or Ferb to be the president, but honestly Isabella is the one with the better leadership skills. Phineas and Ferb make great leaders among the smartest and most talented, but Isabella accomplishes the impossible just as easily while leading a troop of far more 'normal' kids like the Fireside Girls. Makes a good twist, makes a big leap for feminism, and makes more sense, ultimately. Be patient on the Doof! He'll fit in somewhere... This story is being told by the prisoner, and he hasn't come across our favorite evil scientist yet! Thanks again for the remarkably descriptive and encouraging review!

TheAvatarLordRoku: Should I? Or shouldn't I? Yeah, I'll spoil it. PJ and Perry will be shown more in the next chapter, we'll get to see them interact for the first time! Haha, if you read to the end you'd have already known that! Evil! But anyways, I'm excited too! To write it, that is!