For the first time ever, Phineas just looked unimpressed with Isabella. He wasn't angry, or excited, or scared, or any of the emotions that Isabella could pick up at an instant. He was just unimpressed. He looked down at her briefly, eyebrow raised, then looked back up at the banner. She could feel her own heart thumping through her chest.

I should never have done this, she thought, as he took a few steps back from her to take in the mass of pink frills and heart-shaped balloons that filled the back walls of the Auditorium. She glanced, panicking, at the doors, where she could see the shadows of her friends watching her excitedly. Adyson gave her a supportive thumbs up, while Ferb just pointed towards the bleachers. She followed his arm to see Phineas sitting on the bottom one, flipping slowly through his notebook. He looked up at her. He still wasn't smiling. Isabella opened her mouth, paused, then spoke. "Phineas, are you…ok?"

He sighed. "You know, any other day this would have been funny. Any other day, this –" he gestured to the banner that hung haphazardly across the sports hall - "might have been Beautiful. But today?" he sighed, "today…I've got nothing Izzy." He turned away from her. "I don't really want to talk to you right now. Just-" he put his head between his knees. "just go away."

One Week Earlier

Monday 7th February

Isabella didn't like Valentine's day. Not because she didn't like romance, or pink, or soppy love stories where the prince comes to the rescue of a damsel. Anyone who knew Isabella could tell you that she lived for those stories. The problem with Valentine's day was her prince. Phineas Flynn, inventor Extraordinaire, with the intellect of a genius and the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old, had been a constant source of intense heartache for Isabella for a small eternity. Of course, there's no point really going into detail on their whole history. It's not like literally everyone in Danville knew.

Well, everyone except Phineas.

Phineas' infamous obliviousness and altruism meant that he spent every Valentine's day helping other people get together and express their love for each other. Last year, he'd helped Django profess his love for his long-term crush Nick by helping him build a massive sculpture of her in the school car park. The year before that, he'd built a system of pneumatic pipes that allowed valentine's cards to be deposited in crushes lockers (admittedly, it had its other uses -it was also a chance to test the system before April Fools', but still). When it came down to helping other people achieve their dreams, Phineas was a master. Helping Isabella? Not a chance. He did care for her, but as a close friend, and thus so did she to him publicly. The picture she had of standing together, smiling, at the top of the Eiffel Tower with his arm around her was just a sign of great friendship. And as far as Isabella was aware, that situation was unlikely to change unless Phineas did something stupid like stealing her diary or overheard her drifting into Phineasland against or suddenly notice that he was spectacularly in love with her. But Ms. Isabella Garcia-Shapiro was not about to give up on her man. He'd realise eventually. He may be a stupid man, but he was going to be her stupid man. Eventually.

This was the state of mind – a sort of romantic siege mentality – that Isabella was in on Thursday morning, sitting her homeroom at South Danville High. Phineas and Ferb, who usually sat to her right, hadn't arrived yet, so she was talking-more reading a book with their voices as background noise-to Baljeet and Adyson, who were sitting behind her.

It wasn't that she didn't like them, but she wasn't quite in the mood for the kind of conversation they were having.

"And then after dinner at The Diner Downtown, the movie theatre down the street is showing all 5 original Space Adventure Films! It will be most enjoyable!" Baljeet said, not hiding his excitement. Adyson raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you sure you're not just planning a Valentines' day surprise for yourself?" she said, leaning towards him. "Are you 100% sure Ginger wouldn't just prefer a quiet dinner, a stroll through the park and then a concert?"

"Well-" Baljeet paused to look at her face. "You are messing with me, Adyson." she smirked.

"Probably"

Baljeet huffed. "That wasn't very nice."

"You kinda deserved it for going on about it for two weeks."

Baljeet shrugged. "Well, the plan kept changing."

"Yeah, what happened to the whole lily garden thing Phineas was going to build?" asked Adyson.

"He said he could not spare the time. Something about having already found a project..." at this Isabella, who had been barely paying attention, bolted upright is her chair, startling both of her classmates. Baljeet gave Isabella a confused look. "He did not tell you?"

"N-No." She paused. "I try to avoid talking to him about Valentine's day. For, y'know, the obvious reasons." Baljeet gave her the same sympathetic look she'd been getting for 6 years now, but Adyson was looking past her. Her usual devious look suddenly had extra malice.

"Why don't you ask Phineas now?" she grinned.

Isabella turned around to see the Triangle-headed boy come through the classroom door, head in his notebook, scribbling madly. It still took a lot of effort not to swoon publicly. Phineas had grown since their youth, and while he was quite skinny for his height, it mattered very little to her. While the pain of heartache had mellowed into a mild irritant by sophomore year, the sight of him still gave her small butterflies in her stomach. The torch she carried for him still burned despite all the bad times. He looked up at her and gave a little wave with his pencil-holding hand before diving back into his notebook, navigating between the tables. Isabella suppressed a sigh in a well-practiced fashion and smiled at him. Behind Phineas came Ferb. A good half foot taller than his brother, Ferb Fletcher was carrying an expression which while to the untrained eye was his usual blankness, but to Isabella said exasperation of a specific kind. She leaned over to him after he sat down.

"What's up with Phineas?"

Ferb adjusted his glasses and went to speak but was interrupted by the Teacher beginning to read notices. Usually, Phineas was one of the few people to pay attention all the way through, but today he spent the tedious time with his head in his notebook, drawing. Isabella tried a few times to glimpse a look, but he was covering the pages quite well. This concerned Isabella, primarily for the fairly obvious fact that Phineas Flynn was physically unable to not tell someone exactly what project he was working on.

So, what was he doing hiding it?

"….and don't forget to get your tickets for the Valentine's dance next week everyone…" said Mr. Compton with absolutely no enthusiasm. She put even less enthusiasm into hushing the loud murmur of conversation that erupted afterward, eventually giving up and just dismissing them. Isabella got up and sidled in next to Ferb.

"What were you going to say?" she asked as they filed out into the corridor. He turned to speak but was interrupted by a large body slamming straight into him, knocking all of them to the floor.

"What'd I miss?" the body shouted.

Ferb nursed his forehead, "Good Morning, Buford."

"Ah, whatever, I'm sorry," snarked Buford, completely unapologetic as he stood up and pulled the other two up. "Traffic was bad."

"Was it," Ferb said dubiously.

"Alright, I might have overslept. Did I miss anything important?"

"Not really, just notices." Buford looked at Isabella blankly.

"Oh hey girly, didn't see you there." His eyes, she noticed, were bloodshot.

"You have a hangover, don't you."

"Who are ya, my ma?" he snorted, before then wincing at the sound of his own voice. "Alright, maybe. It's a free country."

Isabella sighed. "Come on, I think Phineas has some of that anti-hangover potion left in his locker." The three of them shifted through the crowd towards Phineas' locker.

"You guys going to the Valentine's dance?" Buford asked. Ferb nodded. "Really?" Ferb narrowed his eyes and nodded again. "With-" Ferb made a pinching gesture over Buford's shoulder. "Alright, alright I get it, I know not to ask for a Vulcan nerve pinch" he rolled his eyes. He went to ask Isabella but a further look from Ferb silenced him again.

Phineas's locker was a social hub for the group between classes. He and Ferb had taken out the partition wall between their lockers so they could store more stuff. Plus, Ferb's 'British sci-fi' skills had allowed for the lockers to be, you know, bigger on the inside. Thus, they were unsurprised to see Baljeet, Adyson, Django, and Holly chatting by the lockers as Phineas rifled through his. "Hi everyone!" Isabella said, giving everyone a little wave. All but Phineas acknowledged. Her face dropped into a grimace, which Adyson rolled her eyes at. She sidled so she was right behind the redhead, before leaning over his shoulder and going "Watcha doin?"

Under normal circumstances, Phineas would've jumped about 3 feet in the air in shock. However, in this case, he just jumped into Isabella and sent her sprawling towards Django (who promptly caught her and pushed her back at Phineas), while bouncing off her and into his locker. He grinned at Isabella, whose anger at being sent flying for the second time that morning was disarmed instantly.

"Oh, hey Izzy!". He glanced behind her. "Oh, hey guys! How is everyone."

"We're fine," Django said. He went to ask something but glanced at Isabella. "So…P-man, what's the plan for valentine's day?"

"P-man?" Phineas screwed his face up. "way below your usual standard dude."

"Answer the question or it's what we're calling you for a week," snarked Adyson. Phineas threw his hands up.

"Alright, alright." He sighed, and Isabella swore he caught him glancing at her. "I'm already doing a project."

"Who for?" Holly piped up.

"Well- "

Baljeet piped up "Is it for Ferb?" the boy in question snorted. "Well, you're not a ladies man for nothing."

Phineas smiled and shook his head. "It's not anyone here."

"Alright." Holly thought for a moment. "What about Alex in Physics?"

"We hate Alex, remember?" said Adyson tersely.

"What about Anna from the bus, didn't she want to leave Balthazar that scavenger hunt?"

"No, she went for something less grandiose-" Phineas tried to speak through the chatter, to no avail.

"Didn't Neal from Biology say he wanted to do something for what's her name..." Django paused "Sandra?"

"I'm not doing it for-"tried Phineas.

"It's not Sandra." Adyson retorted.

"And why can't it be Sandra?" Django threw back

"Duh, cos' she's gay" Buford shouted slightly too loudly. Django crossed his arms.

"And you know this because?"

"Because I caught her and Adyson snogging at Lunch last week." Most people in the vicinity, who had been listening in as always, went deadly silent. Buford looked confused but came to an immediate revelation when he looked at the subject of his gossip, who looked like she was about to rip off a locker door and beat him over the head with it. "I wasn't meant to tell anyone, was I?" Before anyone could do anything, he had been pinned against the wall by Adyson, who had pulled a ruler out of her bag and thrust it against Buford's neck.

"BUFORD VAN STORM YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T TELL A GODDAMN PERSON-"

"I forget sometimes, it's a failing-" he grinned at her. "You gotta forgive a personality failing, don't ya?"

"IT'S A FAILING?" the ruler jabbed at his neck

"Sometimes I forget instructions if they're not clear enough!" Buford looked around for help, but no one seemed sympathetic. "We have a song about it!"

"WHAT PART OF 'DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE SEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE' IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU NEED A SONG TO REMEMBER?"

"Well, you see- look, it's Sandra!" Adyson spun round to look at the empty void Buford was pointing at. The tattletale took this chance to duck out from her clutches and took off down the corridor, yelling "Sorry-adyson-but-I-can't-be-late-please-don't-hurt-me-bye-guys-see-you-at-lunch"

The gang watched as Adyson gave chase, screaming "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND THEN I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE AND WEAR YOU AS A SWEATER". There were a few moments of stunned silence, then the hallway burst into extremely lively chatter.

"Anyway…." Said Django, "so who are you doing it for?"

Phineas went to explain but caught himself at the last moment. "I can't say." He said. "It'll be really cool. You'll all love it. I promise guys." Isabella was sure he kept glancing at her. "You'll get to see it. Actually, I do need some help with-"he faltered under a look from Ferb. "I'll let you guys know." He grinned again, the spark in his eyes the usual fire that drove invention, but he did seem a little on edge. Phineas liked the spotlight, but not today. "We should get to class guys. I'll see you all at lunch." He closed his locker and began to head to Math with Baljeet and Django.

"You'll tell us more at lunch, right?" Isabella asked as he moved away. He didn't answer. Isabella gaped slightly, but then spun around and fixed Ferb with a gaze. "Alright buster, what's the deal?"

Ferb put a finger to his lips. "Loose lips sink ships." He grinned mischievously and went off to class.

"Oh for Christ's sake."

"What does that mean?" Holly asked.

"It's Ferb. It could mean anything." Isabella scoffed. But really, she was beginning to put the pieces together in her head.

"I mean he obviously knows who Phineas is building that project for," Holly said. "Maybe he's doing it for you."

"That's the stupidest suggestion yet Holly" Isabella looked at her, trying not to look as bitter as she was. "I think I'd have noticed if Phineas came out of the cocoon of being absolutely oblivious about me. It's not like I've been waiting for it for almost forever."

"I'm just sayin'." Holly shrugged. "I mean, it's possible, isn't it."

Isabella didn't reply. It was possible, she thought, but then she shrugged it off. That's not how fate has worked for me.

"If he's gone and fallen in love with someone, I've gotta make sure he doesn't get hurt by someone."

"And you know how love works for Phineas?"

"Thing about love is, no one really knows how it works. However," she reassured herself, "I think I'm probably an authority on everything to do with Phineas and love."

Holly sighed. "This is not going to end well, is it."