Chapter Text
“And for tonight’s forecast, a little cloudy earlier today but breaking as we speak, just in time for the Tri-State Aurora. So if you are making plans to view the aurora make sure to bundle up as it will be a chilly night tonight.” A weather anchor reported into the camera directly pointed at him.
“I know what we’re going to do today!” Phineas, now a 14 year old, said to Ferb as they walked away from their high school.
The final bell of the first half of the school year had just given way to a long winter break for the two prodigal brothers. They had two weeks ahead of them where they could relive the memories of making the most of each day - never letting a day go without a new project on the way. The cold, cloudy day had just given way to a beautiful sunset. There was an endless bound of possibilities ahead of them, but they knew that tonight a once in a lifetime aurora borealis was headed to Danville.
“We’re going to create the best aurora experience anyone has ever had!”
“Come on Ferb!” The redhead tugged on the sleeves of his step brother, urging him to pick up the pace and start running home.
Ferb, still a man of action and little words, followed suit in his brother’s footsteps - phone in hand, ordering all the necessary components needed to pull together a space shuttle for him and the gang. The brothers were planning on giving all their friends a truly unique experience up front and up close. But to truly personalize the event, they knew that they had to go further than that.
In between of his own breaths, Phineas asked, “What if we could make this something truly unique by allowing us to manipulate the aurora based on our thoughts?”
Ferb, also mid his own breaths, gave him a thumbs up.
“This is going to be great! I can’t wait for the guys to see this!”
The two teens continued their run back to their backyard, determined to bring their ideas to life. They ran past several blocks, often being passed by their own supplies that Ferb had just ordered through his phone. “Good,” the two boys thought; there would be no delay in tonight’s plans.
As soon as the two got back to their backyard, they had their supplies waiting for them: rocket boosters, heat shields, reinforced glass, and a ton of metal lay strewed all across their backyard. Also awaiting them were two of their closest friends, Baljeet and Buford. Accounting for all, that group made 4 with one notable exception - Isabella.
“Hey Phineas, what’cha doin?” Baljeet asked, a dissonant violin chord played in the distance.
“Well, you know how the Tri-State Aurora is tonight?” Phineas started, “We are going to create the best aurora experience ever! We’re going to build ourselves a rocket, fly it to the exosphere, and watch them up-close!”
“Oh! That sounds like fun!” Baljeet said, “Nothing says a better time than getting to watch charged solar particles reacting with our atmosphere!”
“Eh, it’s just a bunch of lights. Big deal.” Buford challenged, seemingly changing his tune as he thought about it, “I better see my favorite colors when I’m up there.”
“Oh don’t you worry, we’ll have our own way of making our own lights and patterns! Our mind-aurora remote can convert our own thoughts and emotions into a spectacle of lights!” Phineas clicked on a button embedded on a small prototype device he held in his back pocket. Immediately, a small streak of colors began to extend from his palm - engulfing the kids in a rich palette of colors. Green crossed with violet, blue intermixed with yellow, and small traces of pink created the overall hue of the experience. Just as quickly as the aurora appeared, the surrounding orange sunset hue quickly returned - now darker than before.
“Gentlemen, let’s get to work!”
It was a bit of a race against time. School had let out a little early and the predicted aurora was scheduled to hit early in the night. The group leapt into action, grabbing bolts, cutting metal, and assembling the vehicle. Slowly, as the sun turned the horizon into a lavender sheet as it moved below the horizon, the layers of the ship began to build up and tower over the Flynn-Fletcher residence. A faint, quirky song played in the background as the teens worked on. By the time the clock had struck seven, both the day had turned into night and the rocket was ready to take flight.
“I present the SS Perry-alis! It comes with heated seats, cup holders, Bluetooth, and an embedded viewing port.” Phineas said as he pulled out a remote, pressed a button, and released a massive observatory attached to the ship. At the center of the observatory sat five total seats; each had been designated for each of the individuals of the group by their signature color. Phineas was denoted by his signature orange collared button down, Ferb for his purple vest, Baljeet for his blue button downs, Buford for his newly-acquired black scarf look. The last seat, placed next to the orange one was a pink and violet seat - this was meant for Isabella.
“Why did we add a seat for Isabella? You know that she just hasn’t been around, right?” Buford seemed confused.
Since the beginning of high school Isabella had made a name for herself in the activities she kept enrolling in, starting in student leadership. She had a knack for wanting to help out those in need and naturally found herself on the student government council. Her ambition and her determination to guide the council to what’s right had taken up a significant chunk of her time and away from her constant nagging emotions towards her neighbor next door.
In all reality, it was a saving grace for Isabella. Years of pining over Phineas had taken a good toll on her emotions and confidence. Her overt flirting and signs were just never reciprocated to the point where, in her head, the only natural conclusion could be that he just wasn’t into her. Isabella wasn’t going to force something that just wasn’t there. She had to move on. She had to make some space for that to happen. She had to follow her passions and start to leave the person she loved the most behind if she was ever going to heal.
The two slowly began to drift apart. Phineas noticed the change from Isabella - with her constantly bailing out from walking to class with him and Ferb, skipping out on planned lunches together, and just not having time to join in the afternoon projects. Phineas and Isabella, these two were still friends - though nowhere near the friends they used to be. The constant nagging from her crush on Phineas had forced her to seek refuge somewhere else - no matter how much it hurt her to do so.
“I know she’ll make it” Phineas had been down this path before. He has always made it his mission to make sure that Isabella was included. He was never 100% sure that she’d walk through the backyard gate but he always planned on it as if she was. It pained him to consider the fact that maybe he and Isabella weren’t as close as they used to be.
“ This is temporary. I know Isabella will be here for this, ” Phineas thought.
He deluded himself with these thoughts but couldn’t understand why. She was his best friend, surely this temporary divergence wouldn’t mean the end of that, right? So far, he never went out of his way to call Isabella and invite her over on the project. He never needed to. She had always found a way to make it to him. This time the roles were reversed. The redhead pulled out his phone and scrolled down to see “Isabella” on his contact list. He clicked on it and waited for a gal to respond on the other side.
“Hey Phineas, what’cha doing?”
“Wondering if you’d join us for the aurora tonight? We built a rocket to take us up and witness it up close!”
Phineas asked, “What are you doing?”
“Uhh… well… I’ve been catching up with some things for student government. You know, those new school lunches aren’t going to manifest themselves.”
“Over winter break?” Phineas could tell Isabella wasn’t being 100% truthful with him. “Come on Isabella, leave that behind for a night and experience something really cool tonight!”
“I can’t, Phineas.”
“Please, I’ve even saved you a seat.”
Regardless of the thoughts Isabella had, her logical mind just couldn’t say no to the pleading redhead. She scoffed and gave into her emotions - still lingering at the possibility of making her crush notice her. “Okay, I’ll be there in a bit!”
“Great! I’ll see you soon!” Phineas’s eyes gleamed.
“Isabella joining us?” Baljeet asked as Phineas nodded along, “About time we get the group back together.”
“This is going to be great!” Phineas yelled
Suddenly, the backyard door swung open and revealed the girl in a purple and pink parka, her hair loose and straight - different from her typical summer sundress and braided hair. “Hey guys! Let’s get this party started!”
The tweens boarded the Perry-alis, took their seats, strapped themselves in and began launch procedures.
Take off in 5…
“Get ready guys!” Phineas yelled
4… 3…
“This better be better than my bread bowl hot tub idea.” Buford complained
2…1…
Everyone braced for the thrust upward and before anyone could react everyone was sunken back into their respective seat. The vehicle quickly cut through the few clouds and made its way into the exosphere. At this height and location, Danville’s light pollution just didn’t bode well for a proper aurora experience so the vehicle sped northward towards the Arctic circle. As they sped, the night sky changed from a tinge of yellow, to black, to a soft colorful hue.
“Look guys! Take a peek at the windows around us!” Isabella looked in awe.
The ship had been engulfed in a massive sea of light green colors. Streams of pink and purple interlaced with darker colors. Not a single cloud appeared locally and the surrounding landscape appeared pitch black. The ship’s GPS marked a couple hundred miles from the local land mass.
“I ain’t seeing enough green!” Buford again complained, completely ignoring the massive sea of light green.
“Well, lucky for you, we packed the translators!” Phineas distributed the translators to each of the gang. “Just make sure you’re holding the button as you’re thinking and as soon as you release… voila! You’ll see the light patterns try to mimic your thoughts and play back an abstract of your scene!”
“Let me see that!” Buford yanked a translator from Phineas’s hands. He pushed down on the button and quickly let go. A swirl of brown, blue, and green all came together into a single blob. A picture started to emerge. A bread bowl hot tub. Buford leapt from his seat. “Let me at it! Bread bowl hot tub, how I missed you!”
“My turn!” Baljeet yelled as an odd swirl of pink and blue intertwined before giving way to an orange, blue, and violet. The artful aurora gave way to an orange hat, similar to that of the fireside girls, and a purple headband. A faint outline appeared through the mess of colors, for a watchful eye, one could discern that this was Ginger.
For Ferb, a dark blue, red, and yellow light seemed to converge to a representation of the UK flag with the colors yielding to a dominant dark navy with tinges of violet and yellow. The abstract yielded to a teen girl that no one could quite put their finger on. Familiar but not quite known.
“I guess it’s my turn!” Phineas’s signature orange engulfed the surrounding of the Perry-Alis. Traces of green, pink, blue, and violet all wildly zipped across the orange hue. Unlike Baljeet and Ferb, Phineas’s light show focused less on individuals and more on his own desire to help the gang to seize the day. Inventions came and went in the orange palette, each one of them seeing the four other colors chase after the inventions.
Isabella noticed how differently Phineas’s mind worked compared to everyone else. For everyone, there was a single most important person or thing they immediately thought about - not Phineas. While she loved and admired how selfless he was in pursuing making the most of his day with his friends, there was no evidence that she would break out to be anything more than a small trace in the machine. There was nothing in his head that implied that she would be special.
“It’s your turn Isabella!” Phineas handed over the translator.
“Oh no, I’m okay, seriously!” Isabella blushed as she knew that if she pressed that button nothing but pink semi-circle and orange triangle would appear. She couldn’t reveal this to Phineas especially after seeing his light show. At this point, she was a far cry from the tween Isabella that tried to be overt with her affection.
“Come on Isabella!”
“No, no, it’s really okay.”
“It would be fun!”
“I said it’s okay!”
“Okay… but please help yourself to your own remote.” Phineas said as he laid down the remote he had just used to create his own aurora. He slowly backed away from her, clearly sensing a hint of apprehension from her. “Think about it okay? And if you don’t want me to see it, I can respect that” He turned around and went to check on the other three members of the gang as they had started to wander and stake their claim to the night sky.
Isabella was left alone once again. Alone with her thoughts, she wrestled with the idea of pressing the remote and seeing what the aurora would do to depict her and Phineas. She grabbed the remote and toyed with it in her hand. She pondered their past. Her head raced with the countless moments the two of them shared together. From thoughts of when the two made it back from travelling around the world, her ice cream birthday surprise, and countless times the two gravitated towards each other, she had always thought these were meaningful steps towards a caring and loving relationship. However, here she was four years after that rollercoaster summer and she seemed ready to put it all behind her.
Still, part of her was still curious. Every part of her wanted to relive the innocent young love she had with all the hope in the world. She wanted to feel the warmth that that innocent crush had brought her - a warmth that kept being replaced with a cooler indifference as the days passed by. She looked down at the remote and held down the button tightly. The light show was on its way.
At the same time, Phineas walked towards his own seat, sat down, and pressed the button one more time. He stared upward, towards the near new moon that hid from view. A small orange triangle and pink semi circle twirled right in front of him. They danced together, floating in unison, roughly at the beat of a normal heartbeat. You could tell they were completely inseparable. Another pink burst of light created a small heart between the protagonists. At one point, Phineas wouldn’t be able to tell that the two figures were in love. A more mature, older Phineas, however, knew immediately that the feelings conveyed here were more than just friendly antics. He knew that that was love. But the question in his head was:
Where did that come from?
He looked over at his long time friend sitting alone on one side of the observation deck. She sat there - unknowingly toying with her hair, a small but radiant smile beamed as she stared at something in the distance. He realized that he was memorizing how she looked at the moment - storing all the things that at one point would have gone over his head. He noticed how her bow complimented her jet black hair and how her eyelashes made her eyes pop. He kept looking her way, unable to keep his eyes off of her. Something inside him had gone still, quiet, and warm. He knew that something flipped in his head that made him notice the girl from across the street.
He hesitantly looked away and tried to answer the question in his head. This thought had to come from his own device, it had to be his own deep, buried thoughts. Right? He looked back upwards expecting to see the figures but was disappointed to see that they had disappeared.
Isabella had just put down the remote and shut off her aurora. She was happy to see her emotions appear physically in front of her and to be able to relive them. She shed a single tear - nostalgia and love just barely not overwhelming her. “That’s it Isabella… that was the last time,” she muttered to herself. She took a deep sigh and composed herself before getting up and rejoining the majority group at the center of the observation deck. The only absence being Phineas.
“Hey guys! Time we start to head back? Looks like the aurora is starting to die down.” Isabella asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve had enough of this fake bread bowl. Let’s head back and make the real thing!”
“But Buford, it’s already…” Baljeet looked at his watch, “10:30?!?”
“Uh oh, it’s an hour past bedtime!” Buford mocked, “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Oh right!” As if on queue, Baljeet collapsed and fell on the pillows that Ferb had conveniently placed behind him. A long drool dripped from his wide open mouth.
“Alright, let’s get Baljeet back home.” Buford said, “Someone let Dinner Bell know that we’re heading back.”
“I will! Just get the ship steered back home.” Isabella ordered
Isabella walked over to a clearly distracted Phineas. His head was still in the clouds trying to process what he had just gone through. “Hey Phineas?”
No answer.
“Phineas!”
“Oh? What?” Phineas snapped out of his trance.
“We’re headed back home. Baljeet’s passed out and it’s starting to get late.”
“Oh. Right.” Phineas muttered as his face turned red. For the first time in his life, Phineas could not normally speak to Isabella. He could not find the right words that could cut through the realization that he had just had. Maybe he liked her and maybe he always has but had never realized it until the romantic idea of the two together presented itself right in front of him. In his head, it made sense, he has always looked out for her, centered many of his days around her, and cared for her. His mind raced to the haunted house made to cure her hiccups, the giant marionette doll, and the bio-sphere created for her Desert Tracking patch.
“Yeah… let’s go home.”
“Are you okay Phineas?”
A sense of doubt suddenly washed over him. He liked the idea of the two of them exploring something further, but the thought of something unreciprocated weighed heavily on his shoulders. After all, from his recollection, there was nothing that suggested that she was interested in him. The night of the living pharmacists was the one moment that really stood out, where after all of the worry he had for Isabella once the group was separated was all but scoffed away by her when the two reunited. He had to keep this to himself for the sake of the friendship. He couldn’t let Isabella know what his newfound feelings were.
“Uh… great! Just doing great!” Phineas said as he rubbed his ears and quickly walked away from Isabella and towards the boys, leaving behind the mind-Aurora remote he had just used.
“Right.” Isabella was put off by this response, noting that he was hiding something as the only other time she’d see him doing the same was when he was the Beak. She looked down at the seat that Phineas was on and noticed that remote. She picked it up, placed it in her pocket for safekeeping, and rejoined the boys as well.
The young teenage gang took their seats, strapped in, and had the observatory retracted in preparation for their trip back. Baljeet, of course, had to be carried from the pillows in the observatory, into the cockpit, and onto his respective seat. Buford made sure his friend was taken care of. The ship counted down and accelerated through the skies, forcing each of the passengers against their seats once again. Out of the windows, the colorful night sky turned into a landscape of twinkling city lights and dark grey clouds, clearly getting its faint shade of color from the lights beneath. Inside the dimmed cockpit, a hush quiet settled over the group as everyone was either falling asleep or processing what they had just seen.
Baljeet was still fast asleep. Buford was quietly dozing off. Ferb had his headphones on listening to music and likely also talking to his inner dialogue. Isabella had also fallen asleep pretty quickly into the flight. Only Phineas seemed wide awake, once again, not being able to avert his eyes from the girl next to him. He couldn’t believe that just a couple of hours ago he saw this girl in a completely different light than what he did now. It was only now that he truly noticed her beauty and her sweet personality. It was now when he decided that he will pursue her and one day, once he’s confident enough, ask her to be his. He was determined to make it happen.
Before long, the rocket reached Danville and the backyard that they had used to lift off from was clearly in view. The rocket slowed to a hover and slowly began to descend. The turbulence from the landing seemed to shake mostly everyone awake. The cockpit lights came on and a loud alarm played notifying the passengers of the arrival. Groggy and tired, the gang lined up single file and walked out of the aircraft - with the exception of Baljeet who was still asleep, draped over the shoulders of Buford.
“Thanks for that guys, I’ll see you in the morning,” Buford walked off, still carrying Baljeet.
“Goodnight!” Phineas said as he waved on, “See you in the morning!”
“That was great Phineas!” Isabella said, “Thank you for getting me out here. It was good to take a break from the hustle and bustle of school.”
“No problem, Isabella!”
“Hope to see more of you this winter break?” Phineas continued.
“I’ll try my best,” Isabella promised.
“Oh before I forget, here Ferb, Phineas left this remote behind on his seat.” Isabella gave the remote to Ferb as she stared at Phineas, seemingly making fun of him for being so forgetful. “Thanks again guys, goodnight!”
“Goodnight Isabella,” both Phineas and Ferb said.
Only the last two of the gang remained, with a seemingly large task of cleaning up ahead of them. “Ferb, let’s get this cleaned up.”
With that, Ferb stepped behind the ship and clicked on a button labeled as “Condensed Mode”. The rocket began to fold itself several times, until a tiny cube remained on the floor. Ferb walked up to it and placed it in his pocket. “Well, that made cleaning nice and easy huh Ferb?”
“Yes, yes it did”
“Well I’m going to turn in. Have a lot to tell you in the morning bro. A lot of self discovery up there.” Phineas said, turning towards the house. “Goodnight bro!”
Ferb, left alone in the backyard, looked towards the sky and noticed a break in the clouds. A small steam of color still seemed to poke through. He pulled out the mind-Aurora remote that Isabella had given to him and pushed on the big red button. He waited for something to appear but nothing ever did. The aurora was still out there, the colors were there to be used but nothing occurred.
Ferb thought of something more simple to project. The faint aurora had some red flowing through it. So he tried projecting a small red bird but again nothing happened. Confused, he turned the remote around and opened the battery pack that powered the device. Two empty battery chambers. The remote couldn’t do anything even if it wanted to.