Arbitrary Love

Setting
This story is set when Phineas and Ferb have grown up a bit, they are sixteen years old to be exact. All other characters will match the age change accordingly. I did this to accomodate my story content; a more appropriate age group. I also assume you know the all the characters and settings when you are reading this.

Chapter 1: Disappointments
A sunny, summer day in Danville. Summer break is under way and Phineas and Ferb are in their backyard hard at work, on yet another amazing project. They have spent a many summer days here in the backyard- inventing, creating, and making memories. For them this was just another one of those days. But today is the day, the day Isabella thought she would tell Phineas her feelings. Little did anyone guess that today would begin a chain of events that would impact their lives and their futures.

Isabella had spent the morning working up the courage to talk to Phineas. She slowly walked up the sidewalk to boys' backyard gate, where she quietly opened it an crept across the lawn. She stood behind the big Flynn- Fletcher backyard tree talking to herself,

"Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, pull yourself together. You can do this." She took a deep breath and walked over to where Phineas was mounting the stationary swash plate to the main rotor mast and said,

"Hi, Phineas. Whatcha doin'?"

"Oh, hi Isabella. We are building a helicopter. We're gonna see all of Danville from the sky."

"Cool," she answered.

Isabella looked down at the ground, desperately trying to pull her heels out, which she had been digging in for the last few minutes.

"Um, Phineas, ca-can I-I...can I talk to you? Al-alone?"

"Yeah, sure Isabella. Ferb I'll be back in a minute." Ferb nodded and waved in acknowledgement. Phineas and Isabella walked over to the big backyard tree.

"Okay, Isabella what did you want to tell me?"

"Well," she paused and then proceeded to talk at a very rapid pace, "Well, we've known each other for a very long time and I've always wanted to tell you this, but I have never gotten the chance before. So here goes, I-I really like you, Phineas." She stood frozen, waiting to see how he would react.

"I like you too, Isabella," Phineas answered with a bewildered look. Her face brightened and she smiled.

" You- you do!? I mean, Phineas, I lov-" But she didn't get to finish, a crash and a bang was heard from the helicopter. Phineas turned around and ran toward it.

"Ferb, are you okay? What happened?" Ferb looked up from where he had been working, covered in grease and smoke residue.

"I'm fine. Not sure, the wire sparked and then the electircal panel blew up."

"Oh, that's not good. Hey, Isabella could you come and help us lift this?" Phineas said as he and Ferb tried to lift some broken pieces off of what was left of the electical panel.

She had not recovered from the shock that Phineas had said he liked her, and that she was interrupted, yet again, from telling him her full feelings. So she stood there motionless for a moment, not sure whether to help them or run home and cry.

"Isabella? Are you okay," Phineas asked in concern.

"I'm fine, the noise just startled me a bit."

In a moment Isabella was over helping the boys.

"Ah, that should do it for now," Phineas said as he wiped his hands on a rag.

Meanwhile, while Baljeet was getting a noggie from Buford, they had both heard the crash and wanted to learn where it came from. Because it seemed to come from the direction of the Flynn-Fletcher home, they figured they'd ask Phineas and Ferb about it.

"What was that loud crashing sound, Phineas," Baljeet asked as he opened the backyard gate.

Buford chimed in, "Yeah, it sounded like when my mom visits with my Aunt Darci. That gets pretty crazy."

"Hi, guys," Phineas said with a chuckle. "Yeah, we think the faulty wire in our helicopter had something to do with it. But Ferb's almost done fixing it. We could use your help, if you want to."

"I'll help if we get a snack break," Buford said as he ate a candy bar.

"I'll help, regardless of whether we get a snack or not, Phineas," Baljeet said, annoyed at Buford.

So after saying "hello" to everyone, the group set to work on finishing the helicopter. But by the time they finished, including a snack break for Buford, the sun was setting and it was too late to fly it. Isabella, though still disappointed about earlier, enthusiatically said,

"We can all come back tomorrow morning and try it out. Won't that be fun?"

Answerd by a chorus of "yes", they, then, all agreed at what time they would meet and said goodbye. Isabella hesitated to leave, not sure if she should reopen the subject with Phineas again. But as he seemed too busy, she dropped it and went home; half excited for tomorrow and half sad about today.

When Phineas and Ferb finally got in bed that night they both lay awake, talking for sometime. Both boys were looking at the ceiling as Phineas said,

"Oh, tomorrow is going to be so much fun, Ferb. I can't wait." He waited a moment as if in deep thought, then asked, "Hey, Ferb, can I ask you a question?"

"Seeing as you already have, what's another," Ferb answered with a laugh.

"You know Isabella wanted to talk to me today, right? Well, when she did she was all nervous and awkward. She said she really liked me. I didn't know what to say, other than that I liked her too. Did I do something to make Isabella not like me anymore and not want to be my friend, because why would she say that? "

As soon as Ferb heard the words "I really like you" came out of Isabella's mouth, his heart pounded and his face flushed. He had secretly "really liked" Isabella for a while now and to hear her say that to Phineas cut through his heart. Ferb stuggled to answer Phineas.

Ferb swallowed hard, " Um-I-I don't think you did anything wrong, Phineas. maybe she was reminding you how great of a friend you are."

"You think so," Phineas said, perking up, "Wow, Ferb, I feel so much better after talking to you, thanks!"

"Boys it's getting late, lights out," said the boys mom, Linda.

"Okay, Mom." Phineas shut the light out, turned over, and closed his eyes. Ferb, however, couldn't sleep. Now he wasn't looking forward to tomorrow and lay there sad for a while, before drifting off to sleep.