Time and Time Again 8

Anyway, enjoy~

Perry took only a few minutes to prepare for his trip that day, being mostly ready in the first place. He hardly needed to pack anything, except for some food and water that Vanessa offered him, and aside from that, he only needed his hat and the Disguise-Inator. Soon, he was ready to leave and get started on his new mission.

Vanessa was the first to see him off at the apartment door. She wasted no time in kneeling down to give him a goodbye hug, which Perry was slightly surprised to receive, but accepted nonetheless.

“You be careful, okay?” she told him as she released him from the embrace.

Perry nodded, a confident smile resting on his lips. “I will.”

“Don’t go getting caught or anything,” she reminded him, to which he responded with a second nod. “And keep your disguise on whenever you can. For once, I think Dad’s right; LOVE MUFFIN really is everywhere…”

The both of them glanced around uncomfortably at that, wondering if the organization already knew of Perry’s next move and could possibly be tracking Norm somehow. After a few seconds of silence, Perry decided to ask a question.

“Hey, speaking of that, I was just wondering something,” he said, brows coming together in concern. “If LOVE MUFFIN found me here, then they must know you were helping me. That means they might go after you, too. Will you be okay here with your dad?”

Vanessa exhaled in a slightly worried manner. “Well, if they do come after me, I won’t tell them anything. As for you, just do whatever you have to do.” Perry still seemed worried, but she added in a whisper, “Don’t worry about me. Go find your family.”

Perry gave a feeble smile. “Okay.”

Vanessa stood up once more, smiling now, and glanced around. “That’s funny, I thought Dad would want to say goodbye too…I wonder where he is.”

Perry frowned suspiciously. “Weird. I figured he’d try to wish me bad luck or something.”

“That sounds like something he’d do…” Vanessa agreed hesitantly. “But, you know, he could just be off sulking somewhere because he let you take his car. Or getting out his tools to fix ASA. You never know with Dad.”

Perry shrugged, frowning suspiciously. Well, at least the last statement was true. You never did know.

“You’d better ask him to put some kind of safety restraints on that thing,” he said, with a little smile. Vanessa laughed, but she quickly agreed in earnest.

However, a quick glance at his watch told him that it was nearing eleven o’ clock, and he wanted to be on his way by noon at the latest. So he decided not to worry about what schemes his nemesis might be plotting; for the moment.

He made a small chirp to get Vanessa’s wayward attention, and tipped his hat to her. “Thanks so much for your hospitality, Vanessa. I’m really sorry about your robot, and…” he paused briefly, taking notice of the flyswatter ASA had attempted to use as a weapon, which was now dangling from the ceiling fan. “…and stuff…”

Vanessa waved it away with a smile. “No, no, it’s ok. You did help clean up, after all, and I’ll survive until Dad can fix ASA.” (She didn’t seem to notice the flyswatter.) “In fact, now that I think about it, the thing was probably spying on me for ages, so it might be a good thing that it showed its true colors.”

“You’re sure?” Perry asked, still slightly concerned and more than a little guilty. Vanessa continued to smile encouragingly. Somewhere behind the smile, she was probably worried- but she didn’t let on in front of him.

“I’m sure,” she answered. “Now, you’d better get going.”

Perry nodded, then tapped the green button on the side of the Disguise-Inator. “Default Three.”

Around him, the hologram fizzed to life, creating the image of the lank-haired teenage boy far over his head and hiding his own small form. He flexed his fingers to test it, and the boy’s image emulated the motion exactly. Vanessa raised her eyebrows.

“Wow,” she commented. “Dad really did a good job on this thing, didn’t he?”

“His inventing skills seem to have improved since my time,” Perry answered, the teenage boy’s mouth matching the words instead of appearing to chatter like the real Perry. “It would be sort of alarming- if I wasn’t already sure that his intellect is still the same.”

Vanessa giggled quietly, glancing behind her as if afraid that her father might hear. Then Perry opened the door behind him and took a step backwards into the hallway, still facing the apartment and its owner.

“Thanks again, Vanessa,” he said, by way of a goodbye. “If all goes well, maybe we’ll meet again- and hopefully not with one of us in a jail cell.”

Vanessa grinned. “Hopefully.”

A small, nearly undetectable smile appeared on the hologram’s face. Then he reached up to tip a hat that she couldn’t see, and departed down the hallway.

Vanessa watched him walk away, until he reached the elevator and disappeared behind the doors. “Good luck…”

A few minutes later, Perry had reached the bottom of the building without detection, and was prepared to get started on his trip. As he exited the large glass doors of the tall apartment building, he tightened his grip on the car keys resting in his pocket; Norm’s keys, trap-free and everything. The robot-turned-truck was parked outside the building in exactly the same place he had been before, his smiling robotic face still on the hood like an ornament (no one seemed to notice).

As Perry approached, he wondered why Doofenshmirtz had seemed so content to lend the robot to his nemesis. The other time Perry had borrowed Norm, it was very late at night and the doctor had been tired, so he could understand that. But when he had asked to borrow the robot this time, he was really expecting Doofenshmirtz to say no. Of course, the consequences for this particular scenario would likely have involved him stealing it instead, so he had certainly been hoping for a yes. He just hadn’t expected Doofenshmirtz to give in so easily- the mad scientist usually liked to act all annoyed and crotchety about things like this, unless he had changed drastically during Perry’s eight years of absence. Considering that that scenario was unlikely, Perry felt he had good reason to suspect something was up. But until that something revealed itself, he really only had time to think about getting on the road.

He stepped up to Norm’s driver side and opened the door by pushing a button on the car keys, to which Norm responded with a cheery greeting. “Hello, Perry the Platypus!”

“Shh,” Perry scolded, raising a finger to his lips (er, bill). “New rule- no using my name anymore. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Norm pleasantly. “Where is Doctor D?”

Perry stepped inside quickly and shut the door, afraid of any further comments that might give him away. Once he was fairly sure he was safe, he decided to explain. “Doofenshmirtz has agreed to let me borrow you so I can run a few…errands.” Which was pretty much true. “He won’t be coming along.”

“Why not?” Norm asked.

Perry chose not to answer directly, just in case Norm could somehow contact his human master and convey everything Perry had said. “I’m not doing anything important. He doesn’t need to come.” And with that, he moved on to a new topic, refusing to elaborate. “Okay, before we leave, I need you to cut off all internet or GPS connections. I can’t afford to be detected.”

“Sure thing,” Norm complied cheerfully, and there was a small beep. “All done!”

“Great, let’s go,” Perry replied, pulling the keys out of his pocket. He took a brief look at them, then slipped them into the keyhole and turned on the car; a strange thing to do, as Norm himself was already awake, but necessary to activate the manual controls. The dashboard, he noticed, seemed more advanced than a regular car. Aside from the steering wheel, gas meter, and speedometer, there were two buttons that read ‘AUTOPILOT’ and ‘MANUAL OVERRIDE’, what looked like another eye scanner, and a touch screen accessible from both the driver’s and passenger’s seats. The touch screen had several buttons that read, ‘RADIO’, ‘MUSIC’, and ‘MOVIES’.

Perry took a moment to examine each of the options, then finally glanced down at the gas pedal and brake. At least those hadn’t changed much, although he still couldn’t reach them on his own. Luckily, he had remembered to pack one of his most valuable devices- a pair of stilts of adjustable length with foot-straps at the top, whose purpose was to allow him to reach the gas pedal and brake on any standard vehicle. They had allowed him to take control of many a car and had never failed him- though they did tend to get rather sweaty after a while.

Ignoring that slightly disconcerting fact, Perry took out the stilts from who knows where and managed to slip them on (of course the hologram’s appearance didn’t change at all). He then grasped the steering wheel, positioned one foot over the accelerator, and did his best to recall the directions he’d found to Candace’s apartment.

It was around twenty minutes later when Perry arrived at his destination- a tall, brick-walled apartment building that seemed slightly older than the structures around it. The large red and white sign on the wall read “FOR LEASE”, but it seemed rather weathered and old, much like the building itself. You had to wonder just how long the place had been for lease in the first place.

The parking lot around the back had a dilapidated metal link fence surrounding it, which was partially covered in tall grass in some parts, and the sun-bleached asphalt looked like it was overdue for replacement. All in all, it seemed that Candace wasn’t quite living her dream life, even if she had married Jeremy like she always fantasized about.

When Perry drove into the lot to find a parking space, the car bumped and jerked on the uneven road, causing the hologram to fizz slightly and even disappear once. Even though the parking lot was mostly empty except for a few cars, Perry was rather concerned about this, but on the contrary, Norm didn’t seem fazed at all- he just made comments now and then like, “Whoops-a-daisy! Watch out for that pothole!” or “Careful, we wouldn’t want to get a flat tire!”

Soon, Perry had found a good parking space in the corner of the lot, where he felt Norm wouldn’t attract much attention (when one was driving a robotic truck with a giant grinning face on the hood, one had to be careful). He drove into the space and parked neatly in the shadow of the building, then stopped the car and removed the keys, which he replaced in his pocket. Then he reached up to touch the still-activated Disguise-Inator lightly. Time to switch disguises again.

Back at Vanessa’s apartment, before he left, Perry had been thinking about what he planned to do if Doofenshmirtz actually did decide to lend him Norm. He had soon thought of a snag in his plan- Candace would surely be freaked out to see him again after eight years, especially if he was suddenly standing upright and speaking clear English. And after ASA, he felt it would be too risky to take the Disguise-Inator off much anymore. So, the only option left was to keep the device on, but that wouldn’t quite work either. You couldn’t just walk into a stranger’s apartment and question them about their relatives for no reason, or you’d seem suspicious and probably wouldn’t get any information at all. But if he could only disguise himself as someone close to Candace, then she might answer his questions; and it clicked.

And so he had accessed the LOVE MUFFIN records once more, this time searching for Stacy Hirano, Candace’s best friend since grade school. Apparently, Stacy was still living in Danville, working a job at a local restaurant while she studied at the local university. Using a picture from the file, Perry had managed to create a custom disguise that looked like her, and since it was the weekend, she wouldn’t have classes, so it was the perfect opportunity for Perry to fake a visit from her to Candace’s house.

He cleared his throat once, ready to activate the disguise. “Custom disguise; Stacy.”

Around him, there was a loud buzzing noise that lasted for a moment or so and then died down. Perry stood up in the seat, in order to look into the rear view mirror at himself, and instead saw the almond-shaped eyes of Stacy Hirano, framed by the same dark hair he knew from her frequent visits. Also reflected in the mirror was a blue satin headband and a pair of dangly purple earrings, and had the mirror been taller, he would have been able to see the slender form of the girl, wearing a neatly zipped-up purple jacket over a light teal shirt. The hologram also sported a blue skirt, a pair of clean pale blue socks, and over those, a pair of shiny black penny loafers. Stacy had certainly changed in the past eight years.

He smiled in satisfaction, which the hologram mirrored, and then began to unbuckle his seat belt. As he was doing this, there came a small noise from the backseat- a suppressed chuckle of sorts. Perry paused, seatbelt halfway undone, and stared suspiciously into the back of the car with narrow eyes. He watched the empty seats intently for a moment, during which everything was still.

Nothing moved.

Finally, after he allowed the silence to endure for a few moments more, he decided that the noise had simply been his imagination, so it was time to move on. He reached up to press the purple button on the Disguise-Inator, switching its function back to the translator.

“Custom voice: Stacy,” he commanded, voice switching immediately to a much higher one. Having finished this, he cleared his throat and instructed, “Norm, stay here and try not to attract attention. I’m going in.”

“Good luck!” said Norm, as if Perry was entering some kind of enemy base. Perry dismissed the comment without a response and swung the car door open, then hopped out onto the uneven asphalt. Without a word, he shut the door, locked the car with the keys, and strode off to the entrance to the building, black hair flowing out behind the hologram. Within a minute, he had disappeared around the corner, and Norm was left in the largely empty parking lot, alone.

Or so it seemed.

A moment or so passed before anything happened, but after a few seconds, Norm spoke once more. “You can come out now, sir.”

Part of the back seat suddenly shimmered brightly, and the area which had appeared to be a seat suddenly vanished. Very abruptly, the hologram that had imitated the car so well disappeared, and it became clear that the robot really was not alone.

“Good work, Norm,” said Doctor Doofenshmirtz with a sinister grin, obviously pleased with his scheme. “He almost found out, but I’m still safe.”

“Nice disguise,” said Norm, turning the head on the hood of the car around to smile at his creator.

Doofenshmirtz grinned and tapped a second Disguise-Inator perched on his ear. “I know, right? It’s a good thing I had another one of these lying around, and it has that invisibility function. Vanessa’s probably wondering where I went…hope she doesn’t mind me forgetting to fix ASA.”

He frowned for a moment, clearly not looking forward to Vanessa’s reaction when she discovered he was missing. Then, trying not to think about that, he remarked, “By the way, Norm, great acting. I never knew you could lie like that!”

“I was pretty good, wasn’t I?” Norm replied happily, flashing a few lights on the dashboard of the car to show his pleasure. Doofenshmirtz nodded and patted one of the seats.

“Oh, yeah,” he praised. “Perry the Platypus never saw it coming!” Then he paused and snickered to himself quietly. “Speaking of Perry the Platypus, what’s with that disguise? I mean, really, you have to wonder what he needs it for.”

“Shouldn’t you sneak in after him and find out, so we can tell LOVE MUFFIN?” Norm prompted.

Doofenshmirtz didn’t seem fazed by this. “Ah, Norm,” he drawled, “that’s what you think. See, my objective in following Perry the Platypus is not to figure out where he’s going and tell the board. It’s to keep following him, and then capture him at some point. If I get LOVE MUFFIN in on it, they might not trust me, or let me help. But if I bring him in myself, then I’ll gain their trust again, and I’ll get my membership benefits back!” He grinned, clearly pleased with his own logic and not thinking about how he actually planned to do this. “It’s genius!”

“Impressive, sir,” Norm commented, playing a clapping sound over the speakers. “So what should we do for the moment?”

Doofenshmirtz thought for a second, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not going in after Perry the Platypus, I know that…I guess we just wait here.”

“Okay, then, sir,” said Norm cheerfully. And with that, the doctor settled into the back seat, prepared to wait while Perry ran his errand.

Whatever it was…

Meanwhile, Perry was striding down a red, rough-carpeted hallway that led to Candace’s apartment, glancing at the signs on each door in search of one that said ‘Johnson’. So far, he wasn’t having any luck, but his instincts said he was getting close. And after years of work as a field agent, Perry had learned to trust his instincts.

Although the hologram around him appeared to be wearing shoes, Perry could feel the worn and slightly gritty-feeling carpet underneath his bare feet. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while, and could use a good vacuuming. The clearest thing about the place was that it was old, in stark contrast to Vanessa’s deluxe, high-rise apartment.

At last, he had nearly reached the end of the hall and hadn’t found the right door, and he was beginning to wonder if Candace wasn’t living on the roof. But then, he noticed the second-to-last door’s sign- JOHNSON. He smiled to himself, halfway because his search was over and halfway because Jeremy wasn’t the only one who answered to that name now. He hoped Stacy wasn’t already at the apartment. That would certainly be awkward. Then, crossing his fingers with a preparatory breath, he reached up to the door and knocked sharply.

In the moment of silence before Candace’s familiar voice called out from inside, “Hold on, I’m coming!”, Perry wondered briefly what an older Candace would look like. Would she have changed dramatically? Would he even recognize her? The muffled sound of feet on carpet reached his ears, which stopped for a moment while she peered out of the peephole. Then there was a clicking noise as the door was unlocked, and it swung open swiftly.

The first thing he noticed was that her shoes seemed to be exactly the same as the ones she wore as a teenager- Perry would know, having spent so much time at foot level, pretending to be a mindless pet. But her socks were a much more mature color of magenta. Gone were the white miniskirt and red tank top of her youth, replaced by a cream colored miniskirt and a coral pink tank top. A sudden homesickness washed over Perry as he observed how little Candace had changed over the years, and he began to feel very nostalgic.

Upon seeing the Stacy hologram, her dark blue eyes lit up and she grinned. “Stace!” she exclaimed, spreading her arms to embrace her longtime friend. “It’s great to see you!”

As she reached out to the hologram, Perry stepped backwards quickly, sensing danger if Candace tried to hug a girl who wasn’t really there. “Great to see you too, Candace,” he answered, a nervous inflection in his voice. Pretending not to notice the girl’s slightly confused glance, he spoke up quickly to change the topic. “Uh, how have you been?”

Candace was quiet for a moment, still wearing a slightly put off expression, but then she seemed to brush it off. “I’ve been great,” she replied, perky as ever. “And Jeremy’s fine, too. So how are you? Classes going well and all?”

“Um,” answered Perry, trying desperately to remember just what kind of classes Stacy was taking. “Yeah, they’re going great. I’m definitely learning…stuff.”

“That’s great!” Candace said, smiling brightly now. “Come in, we can talk in here…”

And she opened the door and led him inside the apartment, which was very neat and tidy. Immediately to the left of the door was a small coat rack upon which two jackets hung, and to the right was a door that probably led to the washroom. Up ahead was the living room, where the sofa was positioned underneath the window in a ray of sunlight. In front of it was a small coffee table, and to the left, the carpet changed abruptly to linoleum to harbor a small kitchen. Seated at the kitchen table was Jeremy, looking more mature than Perry remembered and a little worn. He wore a brown jacket over a white shirt, and his blonde hair was a bit messy. Upon seeing Candace and the disguised Perry, he broke into a smile and put down the newspaper he was holding.

“Oh, hi, Stacy,” he greeted cheerily, waving in their direction. Perry smiled and waved back, hoping he didn’t seem suspicious. Then Candace led him to the sofa and they both sat down.

“So, what should we talk about?” Candace asked eagerly, obviously happy to see her friend. “How about you tell me what sort of things you’ve been learning at the university? Oh! Or I could tell you about Jeremy’s new job!”

“Job offer,” Jeremy corrected gently from the kitchen table, looking up from his newspaper. “I haven’t actually taken it yet.”

“Oh, right,” giggled Candace, putting a hand over her mouth shyly. She turned back to Perry and began to explain, without asking for his consent. Well, Stacy had always had to listen to Candace’s various ramblings anyway. It might be a little boring, but at least he would be in character.

“Well, you know what a good musician Jeremy is,” said Candace, flashing a smile at her husband, who returned it happily. “And you know the government doesn’t like music because it makes people too happy, but Jeremy says that to keep the populace from rebelling, they’ve decided to have a concert every month or so. So…they offered Jeremy a job as the lead guitarist and singer in their special band!”

She seemed very happy about this. But at the table, Perry noticed that Jeremy’s expression had a tiny, nearly undetectable note of disapproval, as if he didn’t exactly share Candace’s sentiments. Perry could see why- working with the tyrannical LOVE MUFFIN council would make him look very bad, and it had to be against his morals.

As he observed this, Candace continued happily. “The pay’s good, too. It would be a real step up from his job at Mr. Slushy Burger.”

Meanwhile, Candace’s expression became slightly gloomier and she spoke again. “Although I’ll miss working with him…” She sighed slightly, and Perry realized that she must have gotten a job at Mr. Slushy Burger alongside her husband. No wonder they were living in such a run-down place- two jobs at a fast food restaurant couldn’t pay much.

Meanwhile, Candace seemed to have recovered from her brief funk and was now wearing a stronger expression. “Oh, well. Sacrifices have to be made.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Perry commented passively. He wondered if those sacrifices included working for the very organization which had enslaved them all in the first place.

Candace was quiet for a moment, which was unusual, but she looked back up quickly, ready to chat some more. “Oh, Stacy, did you see the news today?”

Perry blinked, and shook his head. “No, I was out before it came on,” he said, which was true. He hadn’t even considered staying at Vanessa’s long enough to see the news.

“Well, it was interesting,” said Candace, launching into an explanation before you could say ‘gossip’. “They had this story about how one of the government officials went rogue, and he’s supposed to be working with one of LM’s worst enemies. Crazy, huh? Now they’re both on the run, and the government says we citizens should report them if we see them anywhere.” She paused and shook her head. “It’s a crazy world out there, Stace.”

As he listened, Perry had to restrain a tiny smile as he visualized what Candace would say if she knew she was talking to the very agent who had just made headlines. “Wow, that’s pretty wild.”

“You know what’s even wilder?” said Candace, leaning forward a little. She didn’t even give her friend time to respond, which didn’t surprise Perry. “They say this ‘worst enemy’ of theirs is some kind of secret agent platypus!”

At this, she burst out in giggles, and Perry had to force himself to laugh along with her. For the life of him, he just couldn’t understand why humans found it so odd for a secret agent to be an animal. It was rather belittling, come to think of it, to be thought of as mindless by the general population. But it did make a very good cover.

By the time Candace’s giggles had died down, Perry was beginning to wonder how long he would have to wait to ask about the boys. Surely it would sound strange to switch immediately from one topic to a completely unrelated one, but he had to get his answers somehow.

Suddenly, an idea came to him, and he cleared his throat to speak. “Wow, a secret agent platypus. Weird!”

“I know, who thought that up?” Candace laughed, obviously finding the very thought ridiculous.

“Kind of reminds me of your pet platypus, remember him?”

Candace’s last giggles died abruptly. Her smile shifted instantly to a rather sad expression, and she was quiet for a moment before responding. “Oh…Perry, yeah…”

He frowned, realizing that Candace probably wouldn’t want to talk about what had happened to him, forget her own brothers’ disappearance. Very suddenly, just about everyone in her family had all vanished just a few years apart from each other, and knowing Candace, she probably blamed herself in some way. But if he was ever going to find the boys, Perry knew he had to ask. And the only way to get to the boys was to lead up to it.

He gulped and continued. “Didn’t something happen to him? Remind me again…”

“He disappeared, about eight years ago,” said Candace regretfully. “The boys searched everywhere for him. They tried everything. But they never found him…” She clenched her fists and furrowed her brow, seeming frustrated. “I think it was my fault…I was always yelling at him to get out of my room and go take a bath and whatnot…maybe he finally had enough and ran away.”

Perry’s face felt a bit hot. He clenched his fists in an attempt to maintain control and looked away from the dark blue eyes that reminded him so much of Phineas and Ferb’s. Candace thought he had run away just because of her… He had caused them so much grief…

He swallowed hard and forced himself to speak once more. “Th-that’s terrible, Candace…Phineas and Ferb must have been crushed.”

“They were devastated,” Candace stated plainly, the words sounding rather blank. “And then there was the takeover, and they just…” She stopped here, and Perry didn’t need to ask. That would have been the last year Candace saw her brothers, the year they vanished. She probably thought they were dead. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, tell who he was and that his disappearance wasn’t her fault, give her a hug and tell her it was okay. Suddenly, he couldn’t stand lying to her anymore, not for much longer. He’d have to cut to the chase before it started to cut at him.

“Candace,” he started, in a more serious voice, “the boys used to tell you everything…don’t you know anything about where they went?”

Jeremy looked up from his newspaper again, wearing a concerned expression that warned against asking such a thing. Candace thought for a moment, eyes locked on the slightly beat-up sofa cushions. For a moment, Perry thought she might not respond at all. But after a moment or two, she looked back up and said, “The last time I saw them was at Mom’s house. Phineas told me he and Ferb were going somewhere, but he wouldn’t say where. He just told me that if I ever wanted to visit…to just drop by the backyard.” She paused and shook her head sadly. “I’ve never known Phineas to lie to anyone, but you can bet they were never in the backyard. Even after Mom and Dad moved out, I tried to go back, but no boys.”

As she spoke, Perry’s expression turned pensive. He placed a hand on his chin thoughtfully, trying to work it out in his head. He, too, had never known Phineas and Ferb to lie…

As he thought about this, Candace sighed and said, “Sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t some kind of ulterior meaning…”

Perry’s eyes widened slightly. Well, that made sense. Phineas and Ferb would never lie outright for no reason…unless they were trying to communicate something that couldn’t be said outright in public. Perry himself had done this many times (being incapable of human speech prior to the Translator-Inator), so he knew perfectly well that the boys may have done just that. Now the only question was why, and he was intent on finding out.

But first, he couldn’t just distress Candace and leave without a word.

“Hey.” Candace looked up, eyes shining ever so slightly now. Perry offered a comforting smile. “This isn’t your fault, Candace,” he told her sincerely. “If Perry really did run away, which I’m sure he didn’t, it wouldn’t be because of you. And somewhere, somehow, Phineas and Ferb are okay. I just know it.”

Candace smiled back, but there was a note of doubt in her face that said, ‘Thanks, but you’re nuts.’ “Thanks, Stacy,” she said gratefully. “You always know just what to say.”

They were both quiet for a moment, as Perry tried to think of something else to say. But then, he happened to glance behind her at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was getting late in the afternoon; and if he wanted to find the boys as fast as possible, it was probably best to get going before the day was out. He stood abruptly, saying, “Oh, is that the time? I’m sorry, Candace, I should really be going…”

“Oh,” said Candace softly, probably feeling confused as to why her friend was leaving so soon. “Well, okay then…” She stood up quickly and led him to the door, unlocking it so he could step outside.

“Bye, Stacy,” she said sadly, giving a halfhearted wave.

Perry tried not to prolong the goodbyes, despite feeling guilty for leaving so unexpectedly. “Bye, Candace. Bye, Jeremy,” he answered, trying to convey a little hope through the words.

“See ya, Stace,” Jeremy called, walking out to join Candace in the doorway.

Then Perry waved goodbye to the couple and started off down the hallway, looking back only once. He reached the stairs and began his descent, the sound of flat, bare feet replacing what should have been the tapping of shoes.

Back in the doorway, Jeremy looked down at Candace with a comforting smile and put his arm around her. “Are you okay?”

Candace sniffed. “Yeah, I’m just…feeling a little nostalgic…” She closed her eyes and let out a shaky sigh. “I’m okay…”

There was silence for a moment before Jeremy pulled his wife into a hug, which she returned in full. “Come on, let’s go inside…” he murmured soothingly, leading her back inside toward the sofa.

“Phineas and Ferb…” Candace uttered, taking a gasping breath in between her words. “I’m sorry…about everything…I just wish you were here…”

And behind them, the door swung closed, undisturbed, as if nothing had happened at all.