One last day of summer, one last day before school has begun. One last day in the sun - let's have some serious fun!

The last day of summer had once more descended upon the yellow house on Maple Drive. The hottest part of the year 2021 was long since over, and the leaves on the trees were already beginning to show signs of the approaching change of season.

And as one might have the expected, the Flynn-Fletcher children weren't about to let such an event go by without making the most of it.

Candace still remained somewhat nervous about last days of summer passing - waking up to them often reminded her of that terrible last day of summer four years ago. The passage of time could only do so much to dull those memories, though it had dulled them a to significant extent after all. Indeed, it was often only a fleeting memory, and a bolt of discomfort tempered with fear, that shot through her mind upon opening her eyes to see the familiar date glowing on her alarm clock again.

She was up early, of course, as they often were on special days - the first day of summer; the summer solstice; birthdays; and, of course, the last day of summer. A hundred and four days was a long time, really, and yet at the very end - on that hundred-and-fourth day - it would seem all too short, like there was no way it could be so close to thirty percent of the entire year.

And yet it was - and it was also over.

Well, not quite yet. There were still fourteen hours before the sun went down, after all.

Phineas had hatched a grand plan for today - a true monument to creativity and to utter defiance of the boundaries of common sense and space-time itself, in more ways than one. Even as she helped draw up the blueprints for the magnificent project - what with the quantum circuitry and rocket engines and steel walls and enormous holographic projectors - she could feel her smile growing wider with anticipation.

Only her brother could have come up with something of this nature. Time and time again, he never failed to amaze them, to the extent that she felt fairly sure he would never run out ideas.

Buford and Baljeet and Isabella showed up right on schedule, with the rest of the Fireside Girls in tow, and even Stacy carved some time of out of her plans for the day to drop by for the festivities, which were going to be out of this world. In some ways, quite literally.

And as she had hoped - and pretty nearly expected - the celebration was a resounding success. Rockets were fired, nuclear material was fissioned, Perry went missing, fireworks were exploded, songs were sung or played from nowhere, the laws of nature were bent out of shape, and in general lots of fun was had.

As the day's project was at last winding down, the Mysterious Force triggered itself off again - although to Candace it almost seemed as if the Force itself was celebrating the end of the season, as she watched the entirety of their creation lift higher into the sky and detonate into an explosion of a million brilliant colors that rained down from overhead.

But the Force's actions didn't quite mark the end of the day for Candace. When Buford pointed out Perry lounging lazily in the grass behind the tree - seriously, did that animal do anything but sleep during the day? - only a few more minutes passed until Linda appeared at the sliding glass door, offering freshly-baked pie to the group of teenagers in the backyard.

And the pie was good, as it always was.

Later on that day, after the kitchen had been cleaned and the dirty dishes put away, and their friends had taken their leave, Candace approached her mother. "Mom, we're gonna go off to the park. That's alright?"

Linda thought for a moment, but nodded. "Sure. You three have fun. Just don't forget that school starts tomorrow."

"We won't," she replied. "See you later."

She returned to the living room to get her brother. "We're good." She didn't really even have to do that - he was ready. Ferb smiled and wished them a good time as they departed.

This wasn't an absolutely foolproof plan, but it was the best one they'd come up with that didn't involve traveling to a distant planet, and it was the one she and Phineas most often resorted to whenever they wanted to go on a date.

Not to the park - no, not even Phineas was quite that oblivious. She hoped - although every now and then he surprised her, which was wasn't always a good thing. There was a short walk to the park under the rapidly setting sun, and once there they stopped.

Phineas grinned and took a tiny object out of his pocket and set it on the ground. "You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," she returned.

He pulled out a small gadget - a molecular resizing ray - and used it to grow the small object from something the size of a toy into a full-sized hoverjet in just a matter of seconds.

"And the ice cream, too," he said. "Can't forget that."

"No, no, you can't." Candace shook her head. "Give me a second."

She trudged away from him for a few minutes - long enough to walk to the other end of the park, where she knew the ice cream vendor had his stand set up. One brief conversation later, and she was on her way back with two small bowls of the stuff in her hands. More than 'small' - they were actually pretty tiny, but the ice cream wasn't really the point of this anyway.

"Awesome," Phineas said. "Come on - let's go."

She followed him in clambering up onto the jet, bracing herself slightly as he fired up the engine and lifted the vehicle into the air. It rose up, up, and up, until the park - no, until Danville itself - was spread out beneath them like a roadmap. The sun was sinking behind the city's skyline, furiously painting the sky with enormous swathes of color, as if the sun itself was determined to make the most of the last summer sunset.

Phineas brought the jet to a halt, leaving it to hover smoothly in mid-air while he left the controls alone. He pushed a button on the control panel to retract the jet's roof and most of the walls into themselves, leaving nothing to hinder their view of the city while they sat together.

"It's nice," she said, feeling as if it was almost the obligatory thing to say.

Phineas nodded. "It is." He took one of the bowls of ice cream from her and sat down, taking a heaping scoopful. "This is also good."

"How come you never get brain freeze?" she asked. "I don't know how you can stand mouthfuls that big."

"Can't say I know," he replied. "Maybe we should try to make something that can cure yours one of these days."

"Sounds like it might be convenient." She paused for a moment. "It is nice, though."

"The brain freeze?" Phineas teased. She shot him a glance and he smiled. "What? Don't look at me like that."

"Alright, then." She sat her now-empty paper bowl on the ground next to her and leaned back into the chair, putting her arm around Phineas' shoulders. "Do you ever think about how weird we must seem?"

Phineas sat his bowl aside and scooted closer to her. "Candace…"

"I know, I know." She sighed. "I'm not going to do anything about it now… I just can't help but wonder sometimes. A lot of the time actually - but this is hardly the place or the time. I shouldn't be spoiling a perfectly good date with this. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," he said. "You know I don't mind. We can talk about it now, if you want."

But Candace shook her head. "No, let's not. For now, we should probably just sit back and enjoy this."

"Fair enough."

A moment of silence passed between them. Candace felt her boyfriend shift under her arm until he was leaning against her. Ah, well, such was the sort of thing that just had to happen when you still had almost six inches on someone. They'd tried the other way around and it just… didn't work. Maybe at some point in the future, if Phineas ever got taller than her - or at least to the same height. Which was still entirely possible. Theoretically.

"It's so nice up here," Candace repeated herself. "I don't know - it just is. I kinda wish this could just… last for awhile, you know? We're gonna get like an hour or so, but I wish it could just be longer. Some kind of temporal distortion effect or something, you know?"

"Temporal distortion effect…" Phineas echoed thoughtfully. "Hmm…" He shifted again, moving away from her and sitting up straighter. "I did leave a toolbox and some spare parts in here last time - I bet with a little bit of work we could totally make a temporal distorter to alter our perception of reality - of the passage of time - and do exactly that!"

Suddenly Candace was thankful for those three years and six inches that were still between them. She couldn't stop herself from smiling, though, even as she tensed her arm in an effort to keep him in the seat next to her. Okay, so maybe he could've gotten up if he really wanted - but her intention was clear.

And she had to give him some credit at least, because despite all his obliviousness, he seemed to get the point.

"I mean." He cleared his throat, leaning back again and shooting her a rather mischievous smile. "What I meant was that - that we could sit here and watch this beautiful sunset."

Candace rolled her eyes, but smiled back.

"Yes, yes we can."

THE END