Until It's Gone~

Phineas really had no idea what to think. Which was a first.

It was noon and the gang had already been working on their project for a few hours. Isabella hadn't said a single word to the redheaded boy. In fact, Phineas hadn't even seen her at all. He knew that his friend would never just decide not to come over.

From the cherry-picker he was currently standing in, Phineas scanned the yard. He saw no sign of the black-haired girl. Frowning, he motioned at Buford to lower the contraption. "Hey, Buford, have you seen Isabella today?"

"I haven't seen your little girlfriend around," the bully replied.

Phineas nodded, hopping out of the basket and mumbling 'girlfriend?' confusedly. He wandered around the yard, in search of his friend, but it was pretty crowded. At one point, he stumbled upon Gretchen and a few of the other Fireside Girls. They weren't much help. Except that he then knew Isabella was somewhere.

That only worried him more.

Then, he heard it. A phrase he heard leave her lips hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of times. "Whatcha doin'?" Phineas turned, smiling, pleased to have found Isabella. To be in the routine he had grown so familiar with.

When he laid eyes on the girl, he did not find what he expected. Because she wasn't talking to him, wasn't directing that common catchphrase at him. Instead, Isabella's attention was on a different boy. A boy whose hair was green.

He didn't know what to do. For the first time in his life, Phineas Flynn had no idea what to do. So he stood, mouth agape, as Isabella giggled and Ferb, his brother, his confidante, his best friend in the world, smiled that little half-grin of his. The one that Phineas's mom always said would break hearts some day. Anger boiled in the boy's stomach.

That was his. Those words, that girl, all of it, belonged to Phineas. It was part of his day. Something he missed when it was absent. Isabella was as vital to Phineas's day as "Hey, where's Perry?" was. He had never been jealous of his brother or of anyone really. But as Phineas stood watching the simple exchange, that was all he could feel.

Phineas did not move for a few minutes, so taken with surprise and envy and even a little hate. And then a thought, just a small thought, a quick thought, entered the boy's head. And that thought changed everything.

Did she know all that?

He watched his brother walk through the yard with the girl he had forever taken for granted. He was forced to believe that the answer was no.

A/N: This is meant to be read as a companion to my other P&F fic, "Seeing", but I think it stands on it's own pretty well too. Hope you enjoyed it!