A/N: This is not the kind of stuff I normally write, but I thought I'd try something different for a change. I was going for "fluff"... not sure how well I pulled it off.

This is based off of a SpongeBob short Nick used to air during commercials. You don't need to have seen it to understand this fic though. But to make things clearer, here's the summary: SpongeBob realizes it's "Surprise Sandy Day" when he looks at the calendar. He goes and leaves flowers and a note telling her she's the "smartest, prettiest squirrel in Bikini Bottom" (or something like that) when she's not looking. She says something like "I wonder who it could be from?" as he prances off. That's pretty much it.

One Year Later

On many days, the first thing SpongeBob did was blast out of his bed face first into a giant calendar and exclaim in surprise about the date. Today he already knew the date, but shot from his bed into the calendar anyway, out of sheer excitement.

"It's Surprise Sandy Day!" he said with a muffled voice, pressed against the calendar. He slid down and landed on his bottom.

SpongeBob hurried to the window and opened it. "Good morning, Bikini Bottom! Happy Surprise Sandy Day!"

Two houses down, a rock unhinged upward. Patrick clung to it with his back. "You too, buddy!" he shouted.

"Can you believe it's been a whole year?!" said SpongeBob at the top of his lungs.

"No! It feels like only twelve months ago!"

"Problem is…" SpongeBob had his hands cuff around his mouth. "… I don't know what to get her!"

Squidward flung open his window. "Can you two keep it down?!"

"Last year I got her flowers in a vase with a small note!" continued the sponge to Patrick, completing ignoring Squidward. "But I have to outdo last year!"

Patrick's mind sputtered. "Um… uh… oh! Then why not get her MORE flowers and a BIGGER vase and note?!"

Squidward growled and slammed his window.

SpongeBob, still leaning out his pineapple house window, looked back at Patrick with a blank expression for a moment. Then he quickly brightened with a smile. "… PATRICK, YOU'RE A GENIUS."

The flower vase was so large that SpongeBob had to balance it on his head to carry it. With a poster-board-sized card tucked under the crook of his arm, he ran the treedome doorbell as fast as he could. Doing so nearly made him drop the vase.

SpongeBob's grin slowly disappeared as the seconds passed. And then the minutes. He kept ringing and peering in, but there was still no answer. Last year he tunneled inside, but the vase was too big to do that this time around. 'It's okay,' he thought. 'I can wait!'

A short distance away, Sandy finished putting the final touches on her newest invention. It looked like a closet sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Actually, it was just that, but Sandy had made some very important adjustments.

She stood back and dusted her hands. "All done! My time machine is complete!" She chuckled to herself. "And they said it couldn't be done."

The door was closed, and at the controls the dial was set for one year in the future. It was the first date that popped in her head. The squirrel took a seat and braced herself.

"Engage!"

The room revved and shook. A strong bolt of electricity coursed through her. But just as quickly as it started, it ended. She was left with a little smoke rising from her underwater suit.

"Shee-oot!" she said. "Didn't know time travel would be so painful!"

Unbeknownst to Sandy, her calculations were incorrect. Instead of functioning properly, the machine had short-circuited. Not even she could solve the mystery of time travel.

The door slowly opened. She glanced around, looking for any differences in the 'future.' Her eyes caught SpongeBob, still standing outside the treedome door. The large flower vase and card caught her by surprise.

'Apparently in the future, SpongeBob has become infatuated with me.' The inner-scientist she was made the mental note in her head. 'Very interesting.'

SpongeBob noticed her spying on him. "Sandy!" he said, his grin returning. He hurried over to her, careful not to drop the vase. "I'm so glad to see you!"

"Me, too." Sandy wanted to pry about their relationship in the future, but she knew she had to be careful not to interfere with it. "So how are things… lately and all?" she asked carefully.

"Great! This is for you!" He lifted the vase off his head and set it between them.

"Aw, that's so—" She was cut off as he opened the jumbo-sized card in front of her. "'To Sandy, the prettiest and smartest squirrel in the entire ocean'," she read.

"That's bigger than Bikini Bottom!" he said, grinning ear to ear.

The key to Surprise Sandy Day was that Sandy didn't know it existed. SpongeBob had made it up. After all, if he told her, it wouldn't be a surprise.

The fear of ruining the future paralyzed Sandy for a moment. She didn't know what to say. Even the slightest interference could cause disastrous consequences.

"Are you surprised?" asked SpongeBob, leaning toward her.

"Huh? Oh, yeah!" She glanced around nervously, wondering if what she'd done already had meddled with the future. She figured it was best to leave now before anything could happen. "We-yell, listen, I gotta go."

"Okay, Sandy!" He turned and waved goodbye. "See ya later!"

"Bye, SpongeBob."

As she walked back to the time machine, she thought about what had just happened: 'Fascinating. Judging from the flowers and card, SpongeBob apparently has a crush on me one year from now. I wonder when that started?'

She entered the time machine and ordered it to return to the present. It obeyed, not unlike last time. Dazed from the shock again, she stumbled out.

Sandy didn't notice that the weather was exactly the same as the so-called future. She didn't notice the slight footprints already in the sand from her own boots. She didn't even notice SpongeBob's gifts sitting on the ground not too far from treedome. Her head was in the clouds.

It was amazing how many clues she had never noticed before. All it took was the scrutinizing eye of a scientist to see what she'd overlooked in the past.