A/N: Things to note as you read: S3E6 Stranded first aired on May 26, 2005, which is important for the timeline of the story (we'll essentially call that the day they were on the island). Also, Jimmy and Cindy are 11 years old during the official run of the show, and Cindy's birthday is on June 5. Ok, on with it!

After their disaster of a conversation in the hover car, the island sufficed to haunt them both until Cindy's thirteenth birthday. Neither one of them so much as mentioned it for an entire year, and their agreement to forget it ever existed was abided.

But the coordinates were still there on Goddard's hard drive. And the pearl sat on top of Cindy's dresser to serve as a reminder that anything was possible. Every now and then she fiddled with it when she was feeling particularly anxious about something, and the memories it brought back to mind filled her with a sense of calm that helped her to carry on with whatever stressing task had caused her to reach for the pearl in the first place. Those moments became fewer and far between as time went on.

When the two-week countdown to Cindy's thirteenth birthday begun, Jimmy realized he had no idea what to get her as a present. Every idea that came through his mind was overdone and insignificant. He contemplated not getting her a present at all, but that course of action just didn't match up with the…friendship-of-sorts that they'd built.

Since graduating elementary school and moving on to junior high, Jimmy and Cindy had somewhat welcomed the concept of choosing their battles carefully, though not yet retiring them altogether. They were growing up, even if they didn't know it yet. Where their self-control matured, however, their communication steadily declined. It was as if they didn't know how to get their point across to each other without a screaming match. That was troubling to Cindy in particular. It reminded her too much of her parents. The last thing she wanted was to make their mistakes.

The original friend group of five stayed close through seventh grade, going on adventures and getting into trouble just like always. Some things, after all, never change. And as the year progressed, Cindy's memory of the island became less and less painful and more of a means for catharsis. She eventually came to accept that it had served its purpose—and that at one time, although brief, she had experienced the kind of happiness people searched their whole lives to find.

So while closure found Cindy rather painlessly, it evaded Jimmy with a stronger persistence. Being in possession of the coordinates was driving him out of his mind, let alone having the memory of the island without any definite context attached to it. Did he now owe Cindy something because of what they had been through together? An apology? A confession? What was there to confess, anyway?

None of it made sense to him, and that statement alone only intensified the confusion. Why was it so hard for him to comprehend? He was a genius!

The only way he could even begin to understand it was through a scientific analogy. They were the dependent variables in this situation, he and Cindy. The island was the independent variable, and when it was applied to the two of them the result was…

Incredible.

Before the island he and Cindy being anything more than frenemies and intellectual rivals was as unlikely to happen as cold fusion. Now, they had an outlet. They had a judgement-free zone to test the waters. That was all he was willing to admit.

Becoming a teenager was a big deal. This was emphasized by Cindy's parents giving the okay for her to hold her first boy-girl birthday party—a pool party in her backyard. Nearly everyone in the seventh-almost-eighth grade was invited; Retroville wasn't that big of a town, after all.

June 5 dawned bright and warm—Cindy was up with the sun to help her parents set up for the party. Pennant banners in summery color schemes were hung up around the backyard, with the grill set up against the back fence where Mr. Vortex would be in charge of making hamburgers and hotdogs for his daughter's guests (Veggie burgers for Libby, of course). Paper plates, cups and utensils were set out on strategically placed fold-out tables, each one containing different snacks and napkins with XIII printed on them—13 in Roman numerals. That had been the birthday girl's touch.

The party officially kicked off at noon, and half an hour in almost all of Cindy's guests had shown up and were having a blast. Libby had been in charge of the playlist for the party, and her carefully curated music selections were blaring out of speakers near the back door to the house.

"CANNONBALL!" cried Nick before tucking his knees and meeting the top of the water with a huge splash, drenching a group of girls perched on the edge of the pool. Their protests were drowned out by everyone else's whistles and cheers. Kids played volleyball in the shallow end and timed each other to see who could hold their breath the longest. Sheen and Carl challenged one another to a hot-dog eating contest, but Libby cut them both off before a winner could be determined. Carl then proceeded to puke in the bushes by the driveway.

"Great party, Cindy," Brittany commented as she passed the birthday girl on her lawn-chair throne of honor. Cindy, of course, was the center of attention. Her emerald-green bathing suit showed a little more skin than she was used to, but now that she was thirteen it felt like a rite of passage. Gifts and cards were piling up on the table closest to the pool house, and Cindy hoped at least one of them contained an mp3 player (she had dropped several hints to her parents in the last few months).

As the party went on, Cindy realized one of her invitees was noticeably absent. Her eyes had flicked over to the side gate where guests were entering the backyard several times in the last few minutes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the missing individual in question. She had a pretty good view of the gate from her spot in one of the Adirondacks lined up on the lawn closest to the back fence. Libby took note of this, and after the fifth or sixth time Cindy looked over she spat it out. "I don't think he's coming, girl."

Cindy's head swiveled to the side to meet her best friend's apologetic eyes, and her grip on the Purple Flurp can she was holding tightened a little. "It's only been, what, an hour? He's probably tied up in his lab working on another catastrophic failure of an invention, or something equally pedantic and antisocial. He'll probably come later."

But Cindy secretly hoped Jimmy hadn't put his weekly trip to the junkyard ahead of her party. The thought was oddly depressing, and she didn't want to be in a bad mood on her birthday—especially not one that he caused.

The party didn't wrap up until well after sunset, and by the time all the guests had left and the Vortexes were finished cleaning up the backyard, it was after eleven o'clock. Cindy wanted nothing more than to collapse on her bed, but her mother conveniently reminded her of one last thing she had to do.

"Cynthia, take these presents up to your room. I don't want to see a single one in the den tomorrow morning." Cindy rolled her eyes at her mother's back, trudging into the family room to collect all the gifts and cards that had been moved from the table outside.

Even better than an mp3 player was Cindy's mother honoring both her promises during the party. Cindy had only asked two things: stay sober, and stay civil with Dad. And Sasha had done both those things beautifully, much to Cindy's relief. If she had been humiliated at her own birthday party, that would have been the last straw.

Cindy didn't stop to go through any of the presents until she had brought the last of them upstairs to her room. A sizable pile now sat at the foot of her bed. Cindy dropped to her knees beside it and started stacking them up, larger boxes on the bottom and the smallest on top.

It was one of the smaller boxes towards the bottom of the pile that caught her eye a few minutes in. It wasn't spectacularly decorated like most of the others were; in fact, it was just a tiny parcel wrapped in brown butcher paper.

No, it was the stamp on the package that held her attention. A symbol she would recognize anywhere for the rest of her life: an atom with three electrons orbiting its nucleus.

Cindy, suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity, abandoned the task at hand and grabbed the package of interest, tearing a corner of the paper in the process. She hardly noticed, instead going straight for its contents by ripping the rest of the wrapping off in sharp bursts of motion.

As she had suspected, there was a small silver jewelry box underneath the paper. Cindy carefully removed the lid to reveal a piece of paper underneath with tiny print typed onto it. She held it close, quietly mumbling the words aloud.

Cindy,

This is only Part One of your present. If you want Part Two then come to the lab as soon as you can.

Happy birthday.

-Jimmy

Nothing about why he hadn't come to her party. Although, Cindy figured, she could just ask him if she really wanted to know.

She put the card down and lifted Part One, apparently, from the box. It was a simple silver bar bracelet, obviously handmade. Her fingers grazed over a dip on the underside of the bar and discovered there was a tiny circular indentation right in the middle, marked with little computer-chip etchings—weird. But this was a Neutron gift, so it was to be expected.

Cindy admired the craftsmanship for a few moments before realizing something was stamped out on the bar. A set of coordinates, now that she looked closer. Cindy frowned, the number running across her mind over and over again as she tried to figure out what they could possibly mean.

"Zero degrees north…wait, that's on the—" Cindy gasped, her fingers closing tightly around the bracelet. In an instant she was on her feet and slipping out her open bedroom window to avoid detection by her mother, running barefoot across the street and banging on the door of the lab.

It wasn't until Cindy was actually standing in front of the clubhouse that she realized a few important things. For one, she had forgotten to put on shoes, and she was wearing leggings and an old T-shirt. Two, it was almost midnight, and Jimmy was probably asleep.

Having come to her senses, she was about to go back to her own house when the mat suddenly gave way under her. Cindy barely had time to scream before the ground swallowed her up and she was spit out onto the unforgiving cement floor of Jimmy's lab.

The boy genius himself stood in front of Vox's monitor, wearing his baby blue lab coat over a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Cindy picked herself up off the ground, staring at him for a moment before launching into her mostly-unprepared tirade.

"I've got a bone to pick with you!" She said indignantly, walking towards him in purposeful strides. "You were a no-show at my party but decided to ghost-drop a gift anyway and then make me come over here to get the rest of it?" She poked him in the chest. "I can't believe you!"

Jimmy's expression remained calm as Cindy berated him, and when she finally noticed it confused her. She couldn't think of a single time she had baited him for an argument and he hadn't bit. The closer she looked at him, the more defined the dark circles under his eyes became. Hadn't she just seen him yesterday? He didn't look half as wrecked then as he did now.

The anger in her eyes melted into concern as she studied him. "Aren't you gonna say anything?" she asked, her voice softer than before.

"Do you like it?"

The question hung between them for a few moments before she realized he was talking about the bracelet in her hand. Cindy opened it to reveal the silver bar and chain sitting in her palm, and she ran her finger over the engraving. "Yeah…I love it," she said quietly. It was a beautiful piece; simple, yet elegant—just her taste.

He knew her well, even down to the smallest details. And it was simple gestures like this that reminded her of it.

Cindy held the bracelet out to Jimmy. "Would you mind putting it on?"

He caught her eyes for a fraction of a second before reaching to comply, unhooking the lobster clasp and securing the bracelet around Cindy's outstretched wrist. She stilled a little when his fingers brushed her skin. It had been a long time since they were close enough to touch, and the brief whisper of contact left Cindy feeling inexplicably empty.

"There," he said once it was securely fastened. Cindy turned her wrist a few times, noticing that the bracelet fit her perfectly; it didn't slide around or pinch her skin like most of the other ones she had.

"Thanks," she mumbled, suddenly very embarrassed for barging in on him so late at night. Thank God her mom was probably playing bartender right now—if Cindy got caught, she would be nursing a dozen new bruises in the morning.

Jimmy sighed, running a hand through his hair before gesturing over to the sofa (a new addition to the lab since middle school). "Look, Cindy, there's something I've got to tell you, I just…haven't figured out how to say it."

Cindy raised an eyebrow, making herself comfortable on the couch despite the rest of the situation being very much uncomfortable. "Okay…"

Jimmy didn't meet her eyes the next time he spoke. "Did you recognize the coordinates on your bracelet?" His voice was low, careful. The tiniest bit guilty.

Cindy's heart skipped a beat as she reached down to her wrist. A long silence passed between them before she answered. "…it's the equator. Zero degrees north."

"One-hundred-thirty-five degrees, five-point-one seconds west," he finished, almost reflexively.

"Where for?" Cindy asked, and Jimmy finally did look at her, his piercing blue eyes darkened by a mixture of fear, regret, and exhaustion. He said nothing, and neither did she. It was obvious they both knew the answer.

Jimmy was the first to find his words, closing his eyes when he spoke. Like he was crumbling under the weight of her gaze. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I just couldn't do it."

"What do you mean?" Cindy asked, resentment hinting in her words. Her voice broke on the last word. He knew. He knew the whole damn time and he kept me out of it.

"Cindy, I don't want to—"

"Just say it, you coward!" She shouted, and Jimmy instinctively flinched. "You brought it up, not me! You gave me the bracelet, so why do I have to practically pick your brain for answers?"

This time he did bite. "Damn it, Cindy, I'm trying to explain myself! Don't you get it? I made you the bracelet as a peace offering…an invitation to talk about it, I guess." He paused. "We never did talk about it."

Cindy huffed incredulously. "No, we didn't talk about it, huh? That was all you, Nerdtron! I tried to talk about it, remember? And you wrote me off and said to just 'forget about it!'"

"I know, and I was an idiot for saying that. We should have never pretended it didn't happen."

"But we did. So what now?" Cindy asked sharply, crossing her arms and leaning back against the sofa.

Jimmy shrugged. "We talk about it."

She rolled her eyes. "Evidently. Okay, I'll go first. Do you regret it?"

"What?"

"Leaving. Do you ever wish we had stayed?" Her green eyes bored a hole between his as she waited for his answer. She'd give him all the time he needed. They'd already lost a year—what was a few more minutes?

Jimmy played with his sleeve, trying to choose his words as carefully as possible. "Cindy, we never could have stayed—"

"That's not what I asked, Neutron. I asked if you ever regretted leaving. It's a yes-or-no question."

He hesitated. "Fine. Yes. Only one time."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"…can I ask why?"

Jimmy shrugged again, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his lab coat. "Life got me down, as they say. I just wanted a break from it all. And I remembered how…easy it was, on the island. No limits, no critics…just you, and me."

Cindy felt those words at her core, but she didn't dare show it. "Only one time, huh?"

"Only one time."

She sighed, the fury in her eyes replaced by an ache he felt as viscerally as she did. "I kinda took your advice, you know. Forgot about it. I figured if I tried hard enough I really would be able to let it go."

"Did it work?"

She met his eyes again, tears pricking at the corners of her own, but Cindy refused to cry. "I still have the pearl," she said in lieu of an answer.

Jimmy's eyebrows shot up. "You do?"

She nodded. "Like I said that day. It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Jimmy leaned back a little on his heels. He fully expected that thing to be long gone by now. In a way, it only complicated things even further. But she was right; he had started this, and now he had to see it through. It was only fair.

"I didn't know what to get you for your birthday," he started awkwardly, earning another raised eyebrow from Cindy. "I couldn't just buy you something—where's the flair in that?"

Cindy chuckled dryly. "So you decided to create something unnecessarily technical instead?" she guessed. Although, the bracelet didn't seem to meet that description. Part Two, perhaps?

"Well, kind of, yeah. I've had those coordinates since the day we got back. I just…wasn't sure how to tell you after what I said in the hover car." He scuffed the ground with his foot. "Days turned to weeks and I sort of felt like I'd missed my opportunity. I didn't really get another one until now. Your birthday."

There it was: her opportunity. "Why didn't you come?" Cindy asked in a rush, before he could say anything else. "Everyone else did," she added, as though that could somehow influence his reasoning after the fact.

Jimmy shrugged. "Parties aren't really my scene." Cindy's eyes narrowed at him in an I-don't-believe-you kind of way, but when she didn't press it he escaped the scrutiny gratefully. "I was busy working on your present anyway. Wanna see it?"

The corners of her lips ticked up slightly, one tenth of a smile peeking through. "Duh, that's why I came over here."

Jimmy offered Cindy a small smile in return before gesturing towards his workbench. "Over here."

The concrete was cold under her bare feet as Cindy followed Jimmy towards the back of the lab, where an array of tiny tools were strewn across the table on top of a couple different blueprints for some kind of device Cindy couldn't even begin to comprehend. She was brilliant, but Jimmy's stuff was perpetually out of her league. This, she hated to admit.

"It's not going to explode, is it?" Cindy asked hesitantly, her fingers grazing the symbols and notations scribbled around the plans. "Or get us stuck inside a black hole, or disrupt Retroville's gravitational field, or—"

"Do you trust me?" His question broke through her worst-case-scenarios, and Cindy met his eyes in surprise. His inventions were hit-or-miss sometimes, sure—but no one was dead yet. That had to count for something.

"Yeah…" Cindy replied, but she was unsatisfied with the lack of confidence in her voice. "Yeah," she said again, drawing her shoulders back. "I do. Why?"

Jimmy reached for a pair of tweezers amidst the mess on his table, and Cindy watched as he used them to lift something out of a small white box on the back corner of the desk. In between the tweezers was a round, flat chip of some kind, smaller in diameter than a pencil-eraser, and it was glowing blue through tiny veins zigzagging all over it.

Cindy frowned. "What's that?"

Jimmy examined his creation for a moment before answering her. "A teleportation module. Nothing too fancy—it's designed to take you to and from one location, and one location only."

"Me?!" Cindy instinctively stepped away from Jimmy and the potential disaster he held in his hand. "No way—I don't want anything you made scrambling up my molecules and 'relocating' them. Knowing you I'll end up deserted somewhere in the folds of time and space—"

"Relax," Jimmy cut her off, long since desensitized to Cindy's lack of faith in his inventions. "I have one too. Look, it's conducted by my watch." He held up the infamous timepiece he was never seen without, pointing to an identical fixture on the left side to the one he held between the tweezers. "And yours," Jimmy continued, reaching for Cindy's wrist, "was made for your bracelet."

Cindy watched, speechless, as he gently lifted up the silver bar and inserted the little disk into the round notch stamped in the underside, the one she'd found odd at first. Jimmy fiddled with it until he was satisfied, and Cindy stood very still until there was once again a comfortable distance between them.

When she opened her mouth, the only thing that came out was, "…part two?"

Jimmy met her disbelieving gaze with his steady one and nodded. "Part two."

And just like that, the lab disappeared.

It took Cindy several minutes to process her new surroundings. Instead of the cave-like walls of the lab and solid cement ground beneath her, she was now standing in the open air, on a familiar beach in the middle of familiar nowhere. Soft white sand slipped between her toes, and a light breeze gently lifted her hair from the back of her neck, providing some relief from the sticky heat. Contrary to Retroville, the sun had not yet set completely, and the darkening mauve of the sky cast the sea around them in a rosy glow.

Them. Cindy turned her head slightly to the right, and there was Jimmy, watching her with an indecipherable expression on his face. She searched his eyes, but there was no trace of the usual bravado he possessed when showing off one of his inventions.

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to scream at him till her face turned blue, she wanted to find some way to condemn him for what he'd done.

But she couldn't. She wasn't angry. Hell, she didn't know what she was feeling.

Jimmy knew better than to demand a reaction from Cindy right away. He was well aware of the thin ice on which he walked, challenging her patience like this. But he had his reasons. And when she was ready to listen, really listen, he would share them with her.

She never thought she would see it again. From the beach, the island was deceptively peaceful—but she knew the dangers of treading too deep into the jungle. Cindy wondered if the giant spider still called this place home. The very thought of reencountering it sent a shiver down her spine.

She could still picture their treehouses behind her, the palm trunk where she'd carved their initials. If she closed her eyes she could see the two of them holding hands on a log, watching the sun set over the very same horizon she was looking at now. It wasn't that this island belonged to them; it was that they belonged to this island. Or at least, a very significant part of each of them—already more than they could afford.

Cindy walked towards the water, her eyes trained on a point in the distance where the sky met the sea. Jimmy followed her from a ways back until she stopped and sat down in the sand, drawing her knees up to her chest. He sat down beside her, but she still refused to look at him.

"How long have you known?" Cindy asked in a quiet, even voice, still staring forward. This was another question she was sure she already had the answer to, but she had to hear him say it. She wanted him to feel guilty.

"Known?"

"About the island."

"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck, nerves pricking over his skin. "Since the day we got home. The GPS in the hover car keeps a record of all the places it goes. Originally I installed that for scientific purposes; if there's a certain specimen I can only collect in a certain place, I want to be able to locate it again. But it saved the coordinates for the island, too, when our friends brought it here to take us back to Retroville."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cindy asked, her words softened with hurt. "I have as much of a claim to this place as you do. I was the one who wanted to stay, and the one who wanted to find it again. And you acted like it was something you had any right to withhold from me."

Jimmy sighed. "It's not that simple, Cindy."

She rolled her eyes. "Enlighten me, please: what is it about this island that keeps you away? 'Cause I know it's not the spiders." Though the words sounded sarcastic, he knew the question itself was serious. He also knew he had to choose his words carefully; the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally villainize Cindy for something that was entirely his fault.

"I just…wasn't sure what it meant, at the time."

Cindy's steely eyes went numb. He never could provide a simple answer to a simple question.

"What it meant? What do you mean 'it', and what do you mean 'meant'?"

Jimmy waved his hand around, gesturing to the island. "This place, and how it…doesn't fall in line with the social contract we're used to."

"You mean how we're not trying to tear each other's heads off when we're here?" Cindy supplied the layman's explanation. "That had you spooked?"

Jimmy shrugged. "More or less…"

Cindy stared at him, stewing in silent frustration. "So you'd rather we be at each other's throats than actually civil with each other?" Despite the fact that his line of reasoning had led her here, she sorely hoped the answer wasn't yes.

They were growing up, after all.

"Well, no, I mean…I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's easier to fight with you than to…not fight with you," Jimmy stuttered, challenging his mind to form a coherent explanation.

"Is it easier?" Cindy pressed. "Or is it comfortable?"

In reply, she was met with a pregnant pause shrouded by the sounds of the waves lapping the shore.

His eyes would not pivot to meet hers. No matter; she had her answer. Cindy drew the heavy, humid air into her lungs in one long, careful breath, her gaze continually piercing the horizon—tunnel vision. "I don't understand, Jimmy." She spoke quietly, allowing for the rare use of his first name. "Whenever we put aside our differences and actually work together, it's phenomenal. We never fail. I know you know that." Now she finally did look at him, drilling into his downcast eyes with all the inquiries in her own. "So why keep pretending like we aren't a good team?"

Jimmy defeatedly rose his gaze to meet Cindy's. He would never tell her, but sometimes the way she looked at him made it hard to breathe. Like the pressure that closes in around someone who's descended too far under water, when they're seconds away from drowning. The emerald green of her eyes was almost incandescent against the glow of the setting sun, burning hot with all the questions she wasn't asking him. She had let a wall down. He could see how badly she wanted to understand him, and understand what they were doing here.

But what terrified him most was that she had breached a thousand of his own walls—and she had no idea. That he adored her, that he would give her the world if he could. But all he had to give her was this island, this combination-slice of heaven and hell where even the most impossible thing in both their lives had taken form.

The island was more than just her birthday gift. It was his way of letting her know just how much power she had over him. She could strike the match that burned him down. And in the end, he simply wanted to know if she would, or if she wouldn't. Because either way, it wouldn't change how he felt.

Only on this island would that truth see the light of day: the fate of the boy genius Jimmy Neutron rested entirely in the hands of Cindy Vortex.

And that was why he had run scared. That was why he had told her to forget, that was why he had buried the mere mention of this place for an entire year. Lost sleep over it. Because nowhere in the world was he so vulnerable, so fragile and unrecognizable to himself than on this island. It was the most exhilarating and frightening feeling he'd ever experienced. And it was all because of the girl sitting next to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't go to your party, Cindy. I really am."

Cindy met the apology with a small, sad smile and a nod of understanding. As badly as she wanted to, she would not cry in front of him. This was supposed to be their safe place. They were better versions of themselves here. Here, he could trust her. She would prove it.

Slowly she rose to her feet, extending a hand to the boy still on the ground. "Walk with me?"

"So how does it work?" Cindy asked. "The teleport."

They were walking south along the shore, the setting sun at their backs. Jimmy's hands were stuffed in his pockets, and Cindy's were clasped behind her back, lest any unnecessary contact be made.

"Before I even got the idea for your present I had been playing around with a prototype molecular reorganizer, but I didn't think I'd be applying it to teleportation. Basically, the bracelet is designed to contain the function, but everything happens in the chip. It's ten percent GPS, and ninety percent artificial replicator on the atomic level. Because of the law of conservation of matter, it's essentially cut-and-pasting all our atoms from whatever location we're at to this island, and it reverses the process to put us back where we came from when it's time to leave."

"And you're sure we won't end up stranded here again?" Cindy asked, quirking a skeptical eyebrow.

Jimmy smiled nervously. "Every invention has its flaws."

She did not object to his statement.

They walked a little further in silence before Cindy spoke again. "What's the time difference here?"

"Four and a half hours behind Retroville. It's just after midnight at home, so here it's just after seven-thirty." Jimmy held up his watch to show Cindy the time.

She frowned, eyes to the sand. "Think anyone's noticed we're gone?" The image of her mother coming up the stairs to find her bedroom empty sent a hot flash of terror down Cindy's spine.

"Maybe," was all Jimmy said in response.

Cindy swallowed, his answer less comforting than he realized. She'd taken a huge risk by sneaking out tonight—and she couldn't take it back. Everything hinged on her mother being a creature of habit. But Cindy knew better than to trust the odds, even when they were in her favor. She hadn't thought this through, and unless she got extremely lucky, that impulsiveness would come at a price.

More walking. More silence.

"Thank you," Cindy said after a few minutes. "For my present. I don't think I've said it yet."

"You're welcome. And, happy birthday. I don't think I've said it yet." He echoed her words with a smile.

She matched it. "Thank you."

They were almost at the other end of the beach now. The southwestern tip of the island was fringed with a jetty that curved around the shore, where the waves crashed in sprays against the rocks at high tide. Cindy remembered hunting for crabs in all the little nooks and crevices along the jetty, the first time they had spent the night.

Jimmy reached the rocks before her, scaling the first one easily and offering a hand to Cindy. She took it, and from there they skirted around each other in an organic rhythm, hopping from rock to rock until they had reached the largest boulder of all of them, where the end of the jetty touched the open sea. Dusk had covered over the entire island now, the horizon a blurry division between water and sky in the distance.

They climbed to the top of the boulder together, where it was flat enough for them to sit side by side. A warm breeze blew over them like a whisper from the sea, and Cindy pulled her knees up to her chest, drinking it in.

There was really no one out here but them.

"You know," she began, careful not to shatter the moment, "if we're going to share the island, we ought to set some ground rules."

"Good idea," Jimmy said, leaning back on his elbows. He thought for a moment. "Rule number one: never come alone."

Cindy whipped her head around to face him. "Why not?"

"You know how dangerous it is, and if either one of us is here by ourselves and gets seriously hurt, or worse…" he trailed off, shaking the thought from his mind. "My point is, it's a safety precaution."

"Okay, sure," Cindy agreed. She was secretly grateful for the darkness; it made it so Jimmy couldn't see the flush on her face. When he had said "never come alone," safety was not where her mind had gone.

Now it was her turn to contribute a term. "Rule number two: never tell anyone about the island. This stays between you and me." Cindy sucked in a breath, waiting for Jimmy's reaction.

"Right, of course." There were so many reasons to keep the island a secret, but now was not the time to list them all. "I'd like to make an addendum to that rule: never bring anyone else here." He tried to meet her eyes in the dark. "I won't if you won't."

She nodded, and the cool face of the rock beneath her seemed to hum, as if it knew it had just become part of something sacred and dangerous. "Deal."

"And rule number three," Jimmy began, his heart pounding as he prepared to state his term. Once he said it, there was no going back. Cindy locked eyes with him, waiting for him to speak. Jimmy exhaled shakily. "Whatever happens on the island stays on the island."

Cindy never took her gaze off of his. She nodded, her fingers curling into her palms. "Deal." Tentatively she reached out a hand, and he shook it. These were more than rules, and they both knew it. It was an oath. And there would be no second chances given if it was broken.

Jimmy allowed himself one more moment to commit Cindy to memory. Sitting on the rock, tucked into herself, with the salty ocean breeze blowing gently through wisps of hair escaped from her ponytail, a golden blonde that almost glowed in the dark. Beyond them, the moon was rising to take its shift in the ink-black sky.

"Let's go home," he said quietly, and she didn't fight him this time as he engaged the chips on their wrist-wear and the boulder beneath them vanished.

The comparably confining Neutron laboratory welcomed them as they reappeared in the last place from which they had teleported. Cindy landed hard on the threadbare rug by the couch, and Jimmy barely caught himself in time by his workstation in the corner.

Cindy hissed, rubbing her sore hip. "Note to self: don't be sitting down when the transport happens," she muttered.

"You okay?" Jimmy called to her from the other end of the lab. Cindy stood up and brushed herself off, noting her bare feet were still wet from the rocks on the jetty.

"I'm fine," she assured him. "Fine" was, in fact, the understatement of the year. Cindy had not expected teenhood to become so confusing so quickly. This has been some birthday.

But she simply made her way over to Jimmy at the workbench, who was moving things from counters to shelves and vice versa simply so his hands had something to do. He didn't even notice her come up behind him until she was at his side, her finger absentmindedly grazing the coordinates stamped into the bracelet she wore.

"I should be getting home now," said Cindy, her voice barely above a whisper. The wind and ember sun of the island still felt fresh on her skin, and she wondered what vestiges of their little adventure he was feeling right now.

"All right," he said, nodding. "See you at the Candy Bar tomorrow."

It was tradition for Jimmy, Cindy, Libby, Sheen, and Carl to meet at the Candy Bar the day after one of their birthdays for a private celebration, just the five of them. "Yeah, see you tomorrow."

Cindy went out the clubhouse door the old-fashioned way, her steps lit by a lone streetlamp as she crossed over to her side of the street. The front yard was dark, but Cindy was an expert in climbing the front of her house. She fit her feet against the downspout and the window planter box, then launched herself up high enough to grip her bedroom windowsill.

The Vortex house was dark and silent as Cindy swung her legs over the sill and locked the window behind her. The digital alarm clock on her nightstand told her it was a quarter to one a.m. Cindy waited, statue-still, to hear footsteps on the stairs or see a light go on in the hallway.

Nothing.

She hadn't been caught—this time.

Heaving a massive sigh of relief, Cindy flopped over backwards on top of her sheets, suddenly too exhausted to stay standing. The tears started flowing before she could try and stop them, but the truth was she had been waiting all night to let them go.

She fell asleep at some point, but the last thing she remembered was her tears tasting like the salt in the island air.

Sleep would not come as easily to Jimmy. He busied himself in the lab, rearranging tools and blueprints and little harebrained inventions he had started on but quickly forgotten about.

Goddard awoke from his spot at the foot of the lamp in the farthest corner from the entrance chute, meandering over to nudge his master gently with the top of his head.

"Hey boy." Jimmy smiled tiredly at his faithful companion. "It's been a long day."

Goddard whimpered in a "what's wrong?" pitch, but Jimmy hadn't had enough time to think about the question himself, let alone answer it.

They had the island back. A few simple rules to follow. An unspoken understanding or two.

So what was the problem?

Jimmy's own words returned to him in a haunting echo, regret spilling into him like fresh water meeting salt water at an estuary. Two versions of him, colliding, when his only goal had been to keep them apart.

Whatever happens on the island stays on the island.