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Chapter Text

To say Ferb was having a bad day would be a gross understatement.

Everything that you could imagine a bad day to be was multiplied tenfold for what happened to Ferb. It’s almost like the universe was deliberately conspiring against him to make sure that he was having the most miserable time possible.

I now understand how Candace felt that one summer, he had thought to himself.

Christmas was usually Ferb’s favourite time of year. He absolutely loved making eggnog and gingerbread houses; he loved staying up all night watching classic Christmas movies until he fell asleep on the sofa. But most of all, he loved spending quality time with his family, singing Christmas carols until his lungs gave out and pulling crackers at the dinner table to see what awful dad jokes were stored inside.

However, Ferb just wasn’t feeling it this year. His horrible day was really putting a damper on his holiday spirit and he didn’t like it. He was thankful that he was a naturally quiet kid, otherwise, he didn’t think he’d be able to deal with the constant prodding and questions of “Why are you being so quiet today?”

And what exactly had happened that day to cause said bad mood, I hear you ask?

Well, it started in the morning when the hot water shut off just minutes after Ferb stepped into the shower, causing the water to, naturally, turn ice cold. It was a little thing, he knew, but it was something that was always guaranteed to wake him up and it irritated him.

Then he got a call from the Danville Post Office saying that his Christmas gift to Phineas could be coming on Boxing Day instead, which was just bloody useless, he thought. What had he got his brother? A book called The Many Ways to Reverse-Engineer a Submarine. He had seen Phineas eyeing it desperately in the engineering section of the Superduper Mega Superstore and knew that that was going to be his gift. 

Since it was sold out at the Superstore - why, he had absolutely no idea - he had been searching up and down for another copy until he found one from the book’s original publishing site in Australia. Because he knew how unreliable international shipping was, he quickly ordered the present a whole month before Christmas in the hopes that it would get there just in time for the holiday. Ferb had been struggling to get a gift for the triangular-headed teen - after all, what do you get for the boy who has invented everything? - and so was really happy that he got the book for him, and now it won’t even be coming on the day he needs it to?

After that, he got a text from his girlfriend of five months, Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, about how she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it back to Danville in time for Christmas, due to being stranded in the Drusselsteinian International Airport with her father. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, to celebrate Scheiselgümp, the Drusselsteinian equivalent to Christmas, with his own family.

However, none of those tiny grievances compared to the undeniably worst news he had received that day.

Since Ferb was such a bright kid, his teachers had encouraged him to take his final exams early the following academic year so that he could enter university a year earlier. At first, Ferb was hesitant, but with much further encouragement from his family, the British born teen eventually agreed to do it. His dream university, Camford-on-Oxbury, was based in his home country of England and was known as one of the most prestigious, yet most difficult universities to get into not only in the UK, but the world in general.

So it was a massive blow to his spirit once he got this letter in the post that afternoon:

===

23/12/2020

Dear, Ferb Fletcher,

We thank you for your glowing application to Camford-on-Oxbury.

However, we regret to inform you that due to the massive amount of applications coming our way and the limited spaces that already exist, that there is a very high chance of us not being able to accept you. Therefore, you are to be put on a waiting list until further notice.

We will be sure to inform you of any updates to your application as soon as possible.

Sincerely yours,

Angelica Sumpster, Head Administrator of Camford-on-Oxbury Offices

===

After that, Ferb’s consensus on the day was cemented and he was sure that nothing could bring him out of his bad mood.

-:-

“How was everyone’s day today?” Linda asked, once everyone had settled down at the dinner table. The Flynn-Fletcher family were having lamb roast, which was always a tradition on Christmas Eve Eve. It was usually one of Ferb’s favourite meals, but alas, due to his bad mood, he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it.

“I had a great day today, Mom!” Phineas chirped in his naturally cheery tone. “Isabella came home from Mexico early and so she’ll be back in time for our Christmas party tomorrow. Also, my gift to her came a day earlier than expected, and I can’t wait for her to see it!”

Ferb’s expression soured at this. It sounded like his brother had the absolute opposite day to him. Not that he was surprised by this - Phineas’ life always seemed to be going great.

“That’s great to hear, honey,” Linda smiled, before turning to her eldest daughter. “Candace, how was your day?”

“I thought you’d never ask, Mom!” Candace grinned, before going into a huge spiel about how Jeremy had gotten her not one, but two presents this year and how that caused her to panic, before she remembered that she had been stuck between two presents for Jeremy and then decided to buy both of them just to even the playing field. She then went on to say how Jeremy’s band - Jeremy and the Incidentals - were set to play for the Flynn-Fletchers’ Christmas party and were planning on performing a song dedicated to her.

Once again, Ferb’s facial expression soured after hearing this. Candace had long since retired her busting act with the boys, and doing so vastly improved her relationship with Jeremy. The two seemed to be in the best stage of their romance and Candace always made sure to let the family know of that fact. 

And my girlfriend’s not even sure if she’s going to make it home in time for Christmas . . . Ferb thought sadly to himself.

“And what about you, Ferb?” Linda asked her British born son. “How was your day?”

Ferb thought about his answer. His day had not been the best, that’s for sure, but he didn’t feel like going into it, lest it made him feel even worse. So his only response with a quiet, teeth gritted, “Peachy.”

Everyone turned to look at Ferb for a moment, noticing the strange tone in his voice, before shrugging and going back to their food.

“So, Dad, did you get the final decorations for the Christmas party tomorrow?” Phineas asked excitedly, causing Lawrence to chuckle at his son’s eager attitude.

“Yes, yes, I did,” he answered. “It was a bit of a close call, but I was lucky in that I managed to get everything on my list.”

As Lawrence continued to explain how he came to get all the decorations, Ferb found himself glaring at his food. He didn’t understand why it bothered him so much that his family were okay with his answer. He knew he was a quiet kid who liked to keep to himself, but it still affected him a lot more than he would’ve liked to admit. Even though he knew that talking about his horrible day would do nothing to improve his mood, it still somewhat hurt him that his family didn’t seem interested in at least extending their conversation with him.

“Hold on; you mean that’s it?” The British teen suddenly spoke, causing his family to turn to him incredulously.

“What do you mean, son?” Lawrence asked, genuinely oblivious to his son’s plight.

“You’re not going to press me, see if I’m alright?” Ferb asked again, a clear frown across his features. “You just hear ‘peachy’ and that’s enough for you guys?”

“Well, you don’t usually say much in general, so I just assumed that you had an alright day today,” Linda reasoned, only this answer infuriated Ferb even more. He was sick and tired of people always assuming things about him. And it seriously hadn’t occurred to any of his family to just confirm that he, indeed, was okay? At this point, Ferb was pretty sure that he had reached boiling point.

“Maybe I’m not okay,” the British greenette began steadily, though he could feel his anger slowly rising. “Maybe it’s not as simple as me just always being okay. Maybe I’ve had a really cruddy day and I need a chance to vent my frustrations. Maybe I want my family to actually give a damn about my problems, instead of ignoring me all the time and always just assuming I’m okay, rather than checking to see if I actually am!”

And, before anyone at the table could stop him, Ferb abruptly got up and stormed out of the room.

“Ferb!” Linda called, standing up after her son. “Ferb, come back!”

“Okay, what’s up with him?” Candace asked, after a small silence. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry . . . well, ever.”

“Me neither.” Phineas hadn’t taken his eyes off of Ferb’s now empty chair, a look of obvious concern on his features.

“This is completely new.”

-:-

Ferb slammed his bedroom door the moment he had entered the room. He knew it was a woefully cliché way of letting his family know that he was upset - not to mention incredibly childish - but he was too angry to care. He didn’t know why his family’s response to his, what he thought, obvious mood had bothered him so much - maybe because it implied that it wasn’t that big of a deal to them and they didn’t care. And as angry as Ferb was about their reaction - or rather, lack thereof - he was more hurt than anything.

I need to go and clear my head, the British teen thought to himself. He had a lot of thinking to do and he knew he wasn’t going to get it done in his room.

So, after another moment’s hesitation, Ferb grabbed the nearest coat to him, opened the window as far as it could go and jumped out. Then, without looking back, he set off into the night.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Ferb?” came his brother’s meek voice. “It’s Phineas. I don’t know why I’m telling you that, you already know who it is.”

After Ferb’s unexpected outburst at the dinner table, nobody in the Flynn-Fletcher family was sure on how to respond. Ferb usually never got angry, and if he did, he would never show it out loud. It was the family’s first time dealing with the greenette like this, and none of them had any idea of what to do.

Phineas had the idea of talking to his brother first, and the others agreed to it. The two had a bond that was practically unbreakable, so it only made sense that he was the first to check up on him.

“Anyway, I don’t exactly know what’s going on with you - usually, I can read you like a book, but today, I couldn’t pick up on anything.” Phineas struggled to think of what to say next, so settled with,  “But . . . I hope you get better soon. We miss you, Ferb.”

Phineas sighed and leaned against the door. He hated the fact that his brother was upset. But what he hated more was the fact that he didn’t realise sooner. Phineas and Ferb had practically been attached to the hip ever since the latter came to America when he was 4, and even over the years as studies started to take more priority over leisurely activities, the two always found time for each other. 

If I had a nickel for everytime Ferb had helped me out, Phineas thought to himself, well, I wouldn’t know what I would do with so much money!

Ferb had been the one to encourage Phineas to go through with a lot of their more outlandish schemes. He was always the one who helped to put Phineas’ big ideas into reality. He had also been the one to help Phineas finally figure out Isabella’s longtime crush on him and was a big factor in the two getting together at the end of junior high.

Ferb had done so much for not only Phineas, but Danville as a whole, so the fact that he was feeling as though nobody was listening to him made Phineas feel awful and also angry at himself for not being a better brother.

It was when Phineas finally came out of his thoughts that he remembered where he was and that he still hadn’t gotten an answer from his brother.

“Ferb?” Phineas called, rapping on the door a couple more times. “Ferb? C’mon, buddy.”

He frowned at the brown door in front of him. Even if Ferb was upset, usually, he would be more susceptible to talking with Phineas than anyone else in the family. Just how badly was he feeling that he didn’t even respond?

So, the red-headed teen decided to bite the bullet and enter the room, and hopefully wouldn’t be met with a pillow to the face. He cracked open the door a smidge, and his eyes widened in shock and horror.

For there was absolutely nobody in the room.

“Ferb! Ferb!”

-:-

“Mom! Dad! Candace!” Linda, Lawrence and Candace were all clearing away the table, trying to take their minds off of Ferb’s out-of-character outburst, when their attention turned to a certain 16-year-old redhead rushing into the room frantically.

“What’s wrong, son?” Lawrence asked immediately.

“Ferb’s gone!” Phineas cried, causing his mother, father and sister’s own eyes to widen.

“Ferb’s what?!” the exclamation came from Candace, her eyebrows furrowed in shocked confusion.

“Gone!” Phineas repeated, the panicky tone in his voice rising. “I-I was talking to him through our bedroom door, but he wasn’t responding. So I went into our room and he wasn’t in there!”

“Okay, calm down, Phineas; I’m sure he mustn’t have gotten far,” Linda quickly reassured. “We’ll gather up all the neighbourhood and get a search party going right away.”

And she and Lawrence got to doing just that, calling up all their friends, family and other neighbours, as Candace was instructed to console the panicking triangular-headed teen.

“I-I knew he was upset today, but I didn’t think it was this bad,” Phineas murmured, playing with a stray thread on his Christmas jumper as a way to keep himself occupied and take his mind off of his missing brother.

“Don’t worry, Phineas; Ferb’s a smart kid,” Candace said, wrapping a supporting arm around her younger brother. “If anyone’s gonna survive out there, it’ll be him.”

Phineas didn’t say anything, only hugged his older sister. Ever since she had stopped her crippling busting obsession, the three siblings had seriously grown closer and formed a bond unlike any of them have ever known before. 

As for Candace, she wasn’t sure if she had ever seen Phineas so upset. The only moment that came to mind for her was when they had been trying to go around the world in one day for the Summer Solstice and were stranded on an island with seemingly no way off it, and even that paled in comparison to Phineas’ demeanour now.

All the colour had drained from his face and his eyes were wide with frantic worry, with the only thing stopping him from having a meltdown was playing with his jumper’s loose threads. Candace felt awful for her brother, but knew she couldn’t do anything else but hug him and whisper consoling, but ultimately generic, sentences into his ears. She knew he wouldn’t be okay until Ferb was safely back home where he belonged.

Speaking of Ferb, Candace had her own reactions to Ferb’s outburst. The two had never been as close as he was to Phineas - though she didn’t think anybody could ever top the relationship those two shared - but, even so, she enjoyed spending what little time she had with him and he had actually helped her with some of her own issues. He was incredibly wise for his age, and so for that, Candace couldn’t understand why he would think to run away. Did he really feel that unwanted by the family?

Before Candace can wrangle with the answer in her head, Linda had called her and Phineas to get their coats so the family could leave and meet up with the rest of the neighbours that parents had called to help them find their British born son.

“Anyone have anything they want to do or say before we head out?” Lawrence asked, prompting Candace to raise a hand.

“I have something,” the 21 year old stated.

“Where’s Perry?”

Chapter Text

Ferb had gone down to the woods located on the opposite side of the town. It was somewhere he always used to go whenever he needed to clear his head and think. He found himself going there a lot more once he progressed into his teen years and school became a lot more taxing and demanding. There was something about the nature and quiet atmosphere that calmed the greenette.

Because of said quiet atmosphere, this meant that Ferb jumped when he felt something brush up against his leg. He looked down and his fear left him instantly once he saw who the culprit was.

“Oh, hey, Perry,” The British born teen greeted, as the platypus continued to snuggle up against his legs, in an attempt to comfort him.

“I don’t know, boy,” Ferb sighed, looking back out in front of him. “Everyone seems to be having a great life but me. Sometimes,” Ferb found himself looking down at the river below him, his voice dropping to a mere whisper, “I can’t help but wonder why I was even born.”

Perry looked up at Ferb with sympathy, knowing that he couldn’t offer any words of encouragement - both figuratively and literally - to his master, but it pained him to know that Ferb was feeling this way. He wished he could tell Ferb how wrong he was and how much he was appreciated. But, alas, the only thing he could give was a sad version of his signature chatter.

Ferb chuckled weakly once he heard this, picking up the turquoise creature so he could pet him properly. “Thanks, Perry,” he said, “but I don’t think even you can cheer me up right now.”

Perry was about to ‘respond’ to this, when both were pulled out of their conversation of sorts by the strangest, but most familiar of sounds.

“Meap!”

-:-

“Thanks, everyone, for coming out at such short notice,” Linda said to everyone in front of her.

To put it simply, Linda and Lawrence were surprised by the amount of people who wholeheartedly agreed to help the family search for their son. They had expected at least half of the actual turnout, but were blessed with at least twice that. It warmed their hearts to know that people truly cared about the family enough to take time out of their most likely busy, last-minute-Christmas-preparations schedules to lend a hand to the Flynn-Fletchers.

“Right, if we’re gonna find our son before the end of the night, we better get started right away!” Lawrence declared, as he and Linda turned to lead the group down and out of Maple Drive.

Candace was with her brother, who hadn’t spoken a word since the family had left their house, which was very out-of-character for him. Isabella, who was personally asked by Linda to also make sure that Phineas was okay, caught up to the redhead, her face falling at the sight of his miserable expression.

“Hey, Phineas; how ya feelin’?” Isabella asked, before cringing at herself and quickly backtracking with, “Stupid question. Your brother’s gone - of course you’re not gonna be a-okay.”

Despite himself, Phineas allowed himself to smile at that. It was probably the tiniest smile in the entire universe, but still a smile nonetheless. “Well, I feel slightly better knowing that you guys are here to help us find him.”

As the two continued to walk, Isabella watched her boyfriend with sadness. She hated seeing the triangular-headed teen so upset, and especially over something as serious as his brother being missing.

Isabella had never been that close to Ferb, but she was close enough to him to know that he was a truly lovely person, inside and out. Ferb had always been a shoulder for her to cry on, usually whenever she was having grievances about Phineas; not to mention the fact that he was an excellent listener. She really hoped that he was okay and that they were able to find him quickly, for everyone’s sake, but especially for her boyfriend’s.

-:-

“Meap???” Ferb asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Meap, it’s good to see you, but what are you doing here?”

Ferb had never expected to see the alien again after the second time he and Phineas and helped save his planet from Mitch. But there he was, standing opposite the greenette, still looking exactly the same as he had 6 years ago.

“Meap!” Meap gave Ferb a ‘hold on’ gesture, before getting out his translation moustache and putting it on.

“Ferb, I’m here to help you,” Meap announced with his now domineering, deep voice.

“Help me?” Ferb repeated incredulously, arching one eyebrow. “With what?”

“I understand that you’re feeling a little at odds with your place in this world,” Meap said.

“‘A little at odds’?” Ferb scoffed, turning back to the bridge. “Try a lot. I don’t know, I just don’t feel like people care about me as much as they claim to.”

“Go on,” Meap quietly encouraged.

“Well, I mean take Phineas, for example.” Ferb couldn’t help but let a sigh escape his throat once he brought up his popular brother’s name. “Everyone knows him, everyone loves him and everyone respects him. But me? I’m just the useless subordinate clause to his independent one. Nobody really thinks of us as a duo - it’s not ‘Phineas and Ferb’; it’s ‘Phineas . . . oh, and that other guy’.

“It’s not that I hate him - no, quite the opposite - I love him,” Ferb continued. “I just wish people loved and appreciated me as much as they did him.”

Despite the fact it was to the last person on Earth - literally - that he expected to tell this to, Ferb felt thankful that he finally got out this particular frustration. It had been something he had been grappling with for a long time, ever since he and the triangular redhead had started to put their Big Ideas into motion. From people always instinctively addressing Phineas instead of him, to the whole Beak fiasco, Ferb had basically confirmed it in his head that people saw him as a sidekick to his redheaded brother and not an active member of the double-act.

And, of course, he knew that Phineas loved him and he knew that Phineas cared about him. But that didn’t stop him from believing that nobody else felt the same way.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Ferb,” Meap spoke. “When you two saved my home planet - twice - that was a dual effort between the two of you, and I laud both of you for that.”

Ferb smiled wryly at this. “Thanks, Meap, but one opinion isn’t going to make me magically change my mind.”

Meap frowned at this answer. This situation was worse than he thought. I guess it’s time to bring out the big guns.

“Alright, Ferb.” Meap moved so he was standing right in front of the teen. “I’ve been experimenting with some mind bending, VR technology on my home planet, and I think I’ve got just the thing to help you out with your dilemma. Would you like to see?”

“Sure,” Ferb agreed automatically. He didn’t really think too much about his answer. “Anything to take my mind off this.”

“Alright, then!” Meap held out one, tiny paw to the greenette. “Take my hand.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ferb took Meap’s paw and, before he could comprehend what was going on, the two suddenly vanished into thin air.

Chapter Text

As the search for Ferb continued on into the evening, the breeze got colder and the sky got darker. Everyone had torches and was calling out Ferb’s name every so often, hoping that he would come out and join the party.

Linda and Lawrence lead the group, but were not feeling confident despite their leadership role. The two had been trying to keep it together so that the rest of the group didn’t fall into aimless panic, but it proved easier said than done. After all, how would you feel if your beloved child suddenly went missing on a cold, winter night?

“Do you think he’s alright out there?” Lawrence asked his wife, trying in vain to stop the obvious tremor in his voice. “I mean, he just up and left; that hardly means he wanted us to know about it. What if he wants to leave the family? What if he hates us? What if—”

“Lawrence,” Linda interrupted gently. “Getting yourself into a fit isn’t going to help. Believe me, I know. We need to be strong for Ferb and for everyone here trying to look for him. If you believe he’s safe and sound, then I know he will be.”

Lawrence smiled weakly and squeezed his wife’s hand. He appreciated Linda’s attempt to calm him down, even if it ended up falling on deaf ears. 

It had been really hard for the father to grapple with the fact that his biological son had suddenly disappeared without a trace. After his outburst at the dinner table, Lawrence began to wonder whether or not he had been a good father. It was a difficult question to answer in general, but the fact that his son had had such a shitty day and he didn’t even pick up on it made him doubtful of how positive the answer would be.

I should’ve made more of an effort, Lawrence thought sorrowfully to himself, then maybe he would still be here with us.

As for Linda, seeing her beloved husband like this pained her. She got frustrated with herself for the way she responded to Ferb’s anger at the family not asking more about him.

“Well, you don’t usually say much in general, so I just assumed that you had an alright day today.”

Linda inwardly grimaced once she remembered those words. How could she have allowed herself to be so callous towards Ferb? Yes, she had been having a hectic and busy day preparing for the Christmas party, but it was also her job, as a mother, to make sure that all of her children were doing fine, not just the ones that talked a lot more.

No wonder he thinks we don’t care, she thought, when we didn’t make enough of an effort to convince him otherwise.

Despite this, Linda truly hoped that Ferb was okay, at least so she could apologize to him for her thoughtlessness, and help him to see that he truly was loved and cared for by both her and Lawrence.

-:-

“What the hell just happened?” was Ferb’s immediate question once he had steadied himself.  “And where are we?”

The last thing he remembered was taking Meap’s hand, before there was a blinding flash of light. Now, it looked as though the two were in some sort of hospital room.

“Wait.” Ferb stopped, looking around to properly take in his surroundings. He knew this place. “Is this . . . ?”

“St. Agatha’s Hospital?” Meap spoke. “Yes, yes, it is.”

Hearing the name confirmed it in Ferb’s head - of course! How could he forget?

“Is this place of any significance to you, Ferb?” the tiny alien asked, though it was clear he already knew the answer to that question.

“This is the place I was born in,” Ferb whispered. He was shocked, to say the least, for he never thought he would see this place again.

“Would have been born in,” Meap corrected, causing the 16 year old to turn to him in confusion.

“Come again?” Meap only continued to look out in front of him, causing Ferb to follow his gaze until they both landed on a grieving couple - the woman with bright green hair, not unlike Ferb’s, and the man with short brown hair and glasses.

Ferb’s eyes widened once he realised who they were.

“Mum and Dad . . . ?”

“Exactly,” was all Meap said in response.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher,” the nurse said solemnly, “but I’m afraid that we weren't able to save your baby.”

After hearing this, Ferb’s biological mother, Elizabeth, broke down into a fit of hopeless sobs, with Lawrence not too far behind her. 

“Ferb . . .” Lawrence croaked, causing both Elizabeth and the nurse to turn and look at him.

“I’m sorry?”

“We were going to name him Ferb,” Lawrence sobbed, looking down at the ultrasound image in his trembling hands. “After . . . after my great grandfather.”

“Do you understand what I’m trying to show you, Ferb?” Meap asked the British teen, who had been considerably quiet after watching the horrid scene in front of him.

“This is a world where I was never born . . .”

-:-

“Your mother and father had been desperately trying for children for ages,” Meap explained, as the landscape around him and Ferb changed yet again; this time, to a foggy, miserable cemetery. “You would’ve been their first success. However, the distress of coming so close to having a child and then losing it at the final second proved to be too much for your mother. Look.”

He directed Ferb towards one grave in particular, with one man standing in front of it, a man Ferb immediately recognised to be his father. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who’s grave he was standing over.

“Good . . . good evening, Elizabeth,” Lawrence began weakly, unable to stop the tears from streaming down his face. “It’s been a year already since I lost you, but time has completely melded together for me that it didn’t even seem that long ago.

“Words cannot express how much I miss you, Elizabeth. Your smile, your laugh, your spirit - and especially your bright green hair, even though you hated it so. I always told you that if we were ever to have a child, they would undeniably get that gene from you, and you would always turn your nose up at that like it was the worst thing in the world. But I knew that, boy or girl, they would’ve looked absolutely lovely with it, and I wish we had gotten the chance to see that.”

Lawrence knelt down, putting down a single branch of mint onto the tombstone, and Ferb was reminded of how many times his father had told him that his biological mother always had the natural smell of mint about her. “Rest well, my darling,” Lawrence whispered, before gearing up the willpower to walk away. 

“Because you weren't born, Lawrence had no reason to go to America,” Meap said. “Therefore, he never met with Linda and the Flynn-Fletcher family never came to be.”

Ferb felt his heart pang at that. Even though he was still angry at his family for the way they treated him, it still hurt to know that in this alternative universe, the family wasn’t a even a thing to begin with.

“Take my hand again,” Meap instructed, holding out said paw to the greenette. “I still have a lot more to show you.”

Giving his father one last look, Ferb did as told and took Meap’s paw, causing the two to, once again, vanish into thin air.

-:-

The two had arrived in an abandoned alleyway, the type where stereotypical hoodlum hijinks would occur. Ferb instinctively wrapped his jacket closer around him - he knew he didn’t have anything on him and it was unlikely that he was even visible to anyone, but he still felt uneasy in the environment.

Suddenly, a gang entered, looking very shifty, though it’s not like Ferb was expecting them to look squeaky clean and trustworthy. They all had matching hoodies, with aggressive looking bulldogs on the back.

“Ya got the good stuff?” the biggest gang member asked, seemingly the leader of the pack.

“Yeah, I got it; quit stiflin’ me,” another gang member responded, brandishing a bag full of what looked to be drugs to the supposed leader.

Ferb didn’t bother to be shocked at the sight of the drugs, as there was one thing he couldn’t shake off his mind. The gang member who just spoke sounded very familiar - way too familiar to be mere coincidence. He could recognise that gruff and raspy Boston accent anywhere.

And when the gang member with the drugs turned to distribute them to the rest of the gang, it was just confirmed.

“Buford???” Ferb exclaimed, his eyes unable to comprehend what he was seeing. “How the hell did he get into a gang?!”

“Because you and Phineas weren’t there to challenge Buford 6 years ago, his bullying gradually got worse and worse, leading him to eventually, be expelled from school,” Meap said. “Shortly after that, he was approached by a local gang, and the rest is history.”

The two continued to watch as the gang all took turns in taking the drugs, with Buford deliberately leaving himself last. The drugs were snortable, which led Ferb to assume it was most likely cocaine that they were taking.

When it got to Buford, he snorted the white dust, and ended up having a violent coughing fit right afterwards, causing the other gang members to laugh at him.

“Ah, shut ya traps!” Buford snapped, wiping his nose before deciding to give the cocaine another go.

“He doesn’t look very happy,” Ferb noted, his face saddening at the sight of the bully-turned-gang-member.

“He’s not happy, and he hasn’t been for a long time,” Meap agreed. “But you know how gangs work - the only way to leave is through death.”

The two continued to watch as the gang threatened to shoot someone who accidentally walked into the alleyway. Buford was the one who levied the threat, cocking a handgun and aiming it at the passerby, both shocking and horrifying Ferb. He and Buford were never that close - they were frenemies, if anything - but there was still something of mutual respect between them, which made it hard for the British teen to watch how far Buford had fallen.

“You’ve seen enough from here,” Meap decided. “Let’s go.” And before Ferb could say or do anything else, the alien grabbed Ferb’s hand and caused the two to disappear once again.

-:-

Ferb and Meap landed in a laboratory, chock full of books, studies and theses. The two saw someone ambitiously typing away on a computer, a brown-skinned man with short, curly hair. Ferb instantly recognised this as Baljeet.

“He looks like he’s doing okay,” Ferb said, “but if I’ve learnt anything today, it’s that that isn’t always the case.”

“Quite right, Ferb,” Meap said. “Because Buford never bullied him, due to his being expelled, Baljeet became smarter and smarter as the years went on. However, he also let that intelligence go to his head, as you will see.”

The door knocked on Baljeet’s lab, causing him to call out a dismissive, “Come in!” The person who entered had fluffy brown hair and a youthful looking face, and the British teen realised this was Django. How and why Django had given up his passion for art and replaced it with a passion for science, Ferb would never know, but he couldn’t help but notice Baljeet’s eyes roll once he saw the former artist.

“What is it this time, Django?” Baljeet drawled, not even bothering to look at the person he was addressing.

“Baljeet, you’ve been working in this room for the past 16 hours, nonstop,” Django stated, worry evident in his voice. “You need to take a break. Why don’t you go home?”

Baljeet sighed, before turning back to the brunette. “Django, you are a mere plebeian,” he began snidely, “so I am not surprised that you do not understand the value of hard work and dedication, but I will spell it out for you in layman’s terms - do you believe that the great thinkers of generations past got to where they were by constantly having menial breaks for unimportant leisure?”

“Even so, I’m sure you could use the time off,” Django argued, ignoring the many insults to his intelligence. “You could use this as an opportunity to go and see some friends?”

“Do not be so foolish!” Baljeet laughed. “‘Friends’ are a pedestrian concept for people who have not achieved true enlightenment, for if you had, you would know that friends do not last. They hold you back, keep you from making scientific breakthroughs like I am currently doing right now.”

“What scientific breakthrough have you made?” Django asked, though something told him that he would not want to hear the answer.

“You see, the greatest impediment to making astronomical observations, is our atmosphere,” Baljeet explained, sliding over to a large interactive whiteboard on the right of him. “It is like looking through pea soup. So to make our terrestrial telescopes more effective, I am going to take all of the Earth’s atmosphere, and put it on the moon!”

“Uh . . . are you sure that’s a good idea?” Django asked steadily. “Because if you do that, people won’t be able to breathe anymore.”

“Science marches on!” Baljeet announced, before sliding back over to his whiteboard to continue making calculations.

“Wait a minute,” Ferb said. “This is exactly what Baljeet was planning on doing that one summer when we boosted his brain!”

“Precisely,” Meap agreed. “However, since he never came into contact with you guys, there will be no one to stop him when he eventually does do it.”

Meaning the entire world will end up suffocating because of him, Ferb put together.

It was this point that Ferb realised that, despite how strange it sounded, there was a genuine benefit to Buford bullying Baljeet - it humbled him. It reminded him that no matter how smart he was, he could still be overpowered or outsmarted by his peers. Without that, there was nobody to stop his unbridled arrogance and inflated sense of self-importance.

Turning to look at Meap, the two made a silent agreement to move on and Ferb took the latter’s hand, whisking them both away, once again, into thin air.

-:-

“In this universe, Isabella wracked up the courage to confess to Phineas when they were younger,” Meap explained, after he and Ferb had landed in a park. “However, he ended up rejecting her. As you will see here, she did not take it too well.”

To his horror, Ferb saw the members of the Fireside Girls Troop 46231 viciously beating up a man on the sidewalk, said man trying desperately to get the beating to subside.

“I promise, I didn’t mean anything by it!” the man cried. “I was just trying to make her day!”

“Well, did you ask for her consent to do that?” Holly snapped, landing another kick on the man’s torso.

“This is the problem with you men,” Ginger spat, “Always thinking you’re entitled to a woman’s attention.”

“What are they beating him up for?” Ferb asked.

“Complimenting a woman that walked past him,” Meap answered. “I’m not incorrect in believing that some of your Earth women see this as unwanted harassment.”

“Well, yes, but it’s a very radical point of view,” Ferb reasoned. He was about to start another sentence when his jaw dropped at the sight in front of him.

Isabella was walking up the pathway, but she looked very different to the Isabella he knew. She was wearing a deep red tank top with black cargo pants, chunky, black combat boots and a green bomber jacket. Alongside that, she had pink streaks in her much shorter hair and was wearing a very unfriendly frown on her face.

“Oh, thank God!” the man cried out once he saw the Mexican-Jewish girl. “Please, Miss! Help me!”

“And why on Earth should I help you?” Isabella sneered, in a tone that Ferb had never heard her use before. “You’re a man. Men don’t need - nor do they deserve - our help.”

And before the man could react or protest any further, Isabella had stomped her boot into his face, causing him to yell out in pain.

“Wait, Isabella’s okay with this?” Ferb asked, still in complete shock.

“Not just okay with it,” Meap said, “she’s the one who encouraged her troop to do it in the first place.”

“But Isabella is one of the kindest, sweetest, most compassionate people I know . . .” Ferb said, unable to believe the sight in front of his eyes.

“Not in this world, she’s not,” Meap explained. “Because you weren’t there to encourage her to be patient with your brother, she immediately jumped to bitterness and vitriol towards not just Phineas, but all men in general.”

“Great work today, girls!” Isabella praised. “I know it seems small and unimportant now, but ridding the world of male influence takes one, small, but radical, step at a time. Now,” she raised up a fist, “who run the world?”

“GIRLS!” the other Fireside Girls cheered, raising up their own fists of power.

“Let’s go; I can tell you’re beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable,” the alien suggested.

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Ferb remarked, quickly taking a hold of Meap’s paw so the two could continue on their journey once more.

Chapter Text

Ferb and Meap arrived, this time, in a lavish, yellow house, which Ferb recognised to be the house of Vanessa’s mother, Charlene. Speaking of the devil, the owner entered while on the phone to a peer.

“. . . Yes, Vanessa will be here; she’s staying the weekend . . .” Charlene chatted away. “No, no; she’ll be fine - she’s a big girl now, almost 22, so she’ll be quite alright, Larry.”

“What happened to Vanessa's father?” Ferb immediately asked, obviously referring to Heinz Doofenshmirtz. He knew that despite Heinz’s obvious grievances towards him - though he just chocked that up to standard fatherly vitriol towards boys rather than an actual personal grudge - Vanessa cared deeply about her father, and he did for her.

“Ah, Heinz,” Meap said, in an almost pitiful tone. “In this version of events, Charlene and Heinz’s divorce was not nearly as amicable as it could’ve been. There was a bitter custody battle, which Charlene ended up winning. Unfortunately for Heinz, this meant that he was forbidden from seeing his daughter for as long as both parents were alive.”

The greenette couldn’t help but feel bad for the scientist. Yes, Heinz was constantly rude to him and kept trying to break him and Vanessa up, but underneath it all was a genuinely decent guy who just wanted the best for his daughter, and Ferb couldn’t really fault him for that, no matter how unpleasant the man was to him.

“Besides, she won’t be all alone,” Charlene continued to this mysterious ‘Larry’. “I invited Johnny over to keep her company.”

Ferb felt a grimace come to his face the second Charlene spoke Johnny’s name. Despite the fact that Vanessa had dumped the punk teen long before she got with Ferb, Johnny was very unhappy when he found out and was firmly convinced that Ferb was just a) a rebound, b) a tool for Vanessa to exert her rebellious nature to her parents or c) both. Vanessa had always described him as whiny and a sore loser, and Ferb could definitely see why. It was a massive blow to the greenette’s pride to hear that they would still be together in this universe.

“Vanessa, sweetheart, I’m heading out!” Charlene called to her daughter. “I’ve invited Johnny over so he should be here to keep you company!”

“Wait, Johnny’s gonna be here?” Vanessa ran into the room, and Ferb’s heart dropped to his stomach the second he saw his girlfriend.

Vanessa’s chocolate brown hair was messy and dishevelled, a far cry from the usually composed and well-kept head of hair she usually had. She was wearing baggy, grey sweats, which was very abnormal for her, as Vanessa usually preferred clothes that were more form-fitting. Her face didn’t fare much better. She had deep bags under her eyes, as though she hadn’t seen a bed in days. Her lips were dry and chapped, clearly void of the magenta lipstick she was practically married to.

However, the worst thing about her was her eyes. Gone were the deep, sapphire blue pools of joy that Ferb had fell so deeply in love with. Instead, what was left was dull, empty blue sockets with little to no life.

“What . . . what the hell happened to her?” Ferb whispered, unable to look at the miserable shell of his girlfriend any longer.

“In this universe,” Meap spoke, “Vanessa never broke up with Johnny, simply because he wouldn’t let her.”

“‘Wouldn’t let her’? Why?”

“Watch.”

In a literal blink of an eye, Ferb saw that it was evening and that Johnny was now in Charlene’s house. He looked the same as he did the last time Ferb had seen him, only his hair wasn’t as long as it was before and he had gained a bit more muscle. The unpleasant air about him that the greenette had felt since the beginning was still there, however.

Between the young couple was a bitter argument, which only seemed to be intensifying with each blade of insult being hurled at the other.

“Why do you keep disobeying me, Van?” Johnny snapped, taking a step forward everytime his brunette girlfriend took a step back. “It’s like you secretly like it when I get like this!”

“Johnny, what did I do? I just don’t understand!” Vanessa argued, and Ferb’s heart cracked at the clear anguish and helplessness in her tone. “You say you want one thing and then suddenly prefer the opposite! I don’t understand what you want from me, Johnny!”

“You don’t understand what I want from you?” Johnny murmured, his eyes now dark with tranquil fury. “You don’t understand, Van? Well, maybe I should make it clearer for you!”

“No, Johnny! No, Johnny, please don’t!” Vanessa pleaded, instinctively backing away. “JOHNNY—”

Too late.

Johnny raised a hand and struck Vanessa hard, causing her to let out a shriek of pain as she whipped around from the force. She quickly tried to regain her balance, but as she did so, hit her head on the corner of the kitchen island.

THUD!

Vanessa’s body smacked to the ground, lifeless.

The world seemingly stopped for a moment. Ferb’s eyes were as wide as saucers, watching with horror as blood started to slowly pool from the back of the 21 year old’s head.

“. . . Van?” Johnny whispered, after a brief silence. “Van, can you hear me?”

He had killed her. That son of a bitch had killed her!

“Van, quit playing around,” Johnny said sternly, causing Ferb’s fists to clench up. Johnny had the nerve to assume that Vanessa was just pranking him? You just killed her, you stupid asshole!

“Vanessa?” Johnny crouched down to his girlfriend’s corpse, now using her full name. “Vanessa, c’mon! Wake up!” He tried shaking her awake, hoping she would get up with a triumphant laugh, but nothing.

Once it dawned on him what he had done, Johnny looked at his hands in horror, which were now covered in his late girlfriend’s blood. How horrifically MacBethian, Ferb thought.

“Shit,” Johnny swore, as he quickly grabbed his coat. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

And, before anything else could transpire, Johnny had bolted right out of the front door.

“Charlene ended up staying at Larry’s for the entire weekend,” Meap said, “meaning that she didn’t see what had happened to her daughter for another 48 hours.”

“Vanessa, honey, I’m home!” was Charlene’s first words once she re-entered the house. She frowned once she hadn’t heard anything in response, or at least seen her daughter on the couch, listening to some intelligible, hardcore metal band.

“Vanessa, if you have your headphones in, can you please take them out?” Charlene joked, though it was mainly to distract from the feeling of dread and unease that had suddenly swept through her.

After closing the door behind her, Charlene slowly walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where a gasp left her throat and her eyes widened at the truly terrible sight in front of her.

Her daughter was laying, face down, on the black and white kitchen floor. Her skin was pale-purple and the back of her head had dried blood on it, with a dried blood trail flowing right to the front of the kitchen.

“VANESSAAAAAA!!” Charlene screamed, immediately running over to her daughter and cradling her ice-cold body in her arms. “Vanessa, can you hear me? Vanessa! Vanessa!”

Wasting no time, Charlene whipped out her cell phone and immediately called 911, though it took longer than she would’ve liked due to her trembling fingers.

“Yes, I-I would like to call the police.” Charlene’s voice was trembling, her entire body shaking violently from how much she was crying. “I came back home after a two-day trip to find my daughter dead on the kitchen floor!” 

Verbalising what happened to Vanessa caused Charlene to break down into helpless weeps. The operator on the other side of the line tried in vain to calm the distraught mother down, but her efforts proved to be useless. Ferb could feel his own eyes water at the sight of this. The horror of it all had become a little too much for him to handle.

“Can we go now?” Ferb asked quietly, causing Meap to turn to him. This would mark the first time Ferb had asked this of the alien.

“Of course,” Meap agreed, taking Ferb’s hand and causing the two to immediately disappear.

-:-

“You asked earlier about Heinz,” Meap began, as the two touched down in an empty street. “I don’t know if you know this, Ferb, but Heinz likes to think of himself as something of an evil scientist.”

Well, this is news to me, Ferb thought. Vanessa always described her father as ‘evil’ to him, as did Heinz himself, but Ferb had always assumed that this was just an inside joke between the two, or standard father-daughter banter. So the fact he was hearing it from the mouth of Meap told him that this was, indeed, true.

“He had tried his hand at evil schemes for years; the reason you didn’t hear about them is because they were almost always unsuccessful,” the tiny alien continued on. “However, being forbidden from seeing his daughter was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed Heinz over the edge from pathetically evil to properly evil.”

He turned Ferb’s attention to a news report that was playing in a TV shop.

“This is Terri Muller with the latest in Danville News,” the news anchor introduced. “First up, a horrific domestic terror attack in the Googolplex Mall saw a bomb being planted in the fountain. 39 citizens have already been announced dead, with over 300 with major injuries. The person behind this attack? A man named Heinz Doofenshmirtz, a native Drusselsteinian who came to America at the age of 16. Police found Doofenshmirtz attempting to flee the country in a boat; they have arrested him and he is currently awaiting trial. We’ll give you more on this story as it develops.”

Meap turned to look at Ferb, whose eyes were wide and jaw dropped with shock.

“I know, it’s shocking to think that such a seemingly harmless man could be capable of such . . . well, harm,” Meap remarked.

“That’s an understatement,” Ferb replied, managing to snap himself out of his shocked state. “What exactly happened to him?”

“He got sentenced to life imprisonment shortly afterwards,” Meap told the greenette. “It was a very quick and easy trial, due to the fact that Heinz had pleaded guilty from the start. However, despite his life sentence, he didn’t end up serving much of it at all.”

Ferb turned to look out in front of him, and saw that he was now in the Tri-State Penitentiary, a place he hoped he would never have to see.

“Inmate 7021?” the prison guard called, tapping on Heinz’s cell door. “Get up; it’s time for lunch,” 

“Inmate 7021? 7021?” the prison guard repeated, before sighing and taking out his keys. He unlocked the door to the prison cell and the first thing he did was look up.

Because the sight he was met with was Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s lifeless body hanging from the ceiling.

“He . . . killed himself?” Ferb whispered, his eyes unable to tear themselves away from the traumatizing view.

“The despair from losing his daughter, plus the fact he was destined to spend the rest of his life in a dingy, little cell meant that, to him, his life was no longer worth living,” Meap answered solemnly.

“Call in the paramedics, boys,” the prison guard spoke calmly. “We’ve lost another one.”

And, as though he hadn’t just seen someone’s corpse hanging from the ceiling, the prison guard left Heinz’s cell, twirling the keys around his fingers as he did so.

“I still have one more place to show you,” Meap said, snapping Ferb out of his thoughts. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t care where the alien took him, so long as it was away from that prison cell and Heinz’s hanging corpse.

“Please,” the British teen agreed, taking Meap’s paw again and allowing himself to be whisked away.

-:-

As the sky grew darker and the temperature dropped lower, the search party still had no luck with finding the green-haired son of the Flynn-Fletcher family. Phineas could tell that the neighbours were beginning to grow restless, even if they never would explicitly say so. Not that he could blame them; he, too, was beginning to lose hope that Ferb would be found that night.

Just as he was thinking about calling it quits, he heard the quiet pitter-patter of small feet, causing him to look out in front of him. He saw a blur of turquoise getting closer and closer, his eyes lighting up with joy once he figured out who it was.

“Oh, there you are, Perry!” Phineas said, smiling once he saw his beloved pet. Perry, on the other hand, began to chatter excitably, causing everyone’s attention to fall on the platypus.

“What is it, boy?” Phineas asked, before gasping. “Do you know where Ferb is?” Perry, of course, couldn’t respond, so just jumped up out down, still chattering excitably. 

“You do?” Phineas said, mirroring his pet’s own excitement. Perry was already halfway up the pathway, before his redheaded owner could get an answer out of him, but this was all the latter needed.

“Everyone! Follow that platypus!” Phineas called, and the search party wasted no time in doing just that, following the semi-aquatic mammal down the pathway that led to the Danville Woods.

Chapter Text

Meap and Ferb’s final destination was the Flynn-Fletcher household, though it was not the house that Ferb remembered growing up in.

The walls were drab and dreary, with no colours anywhere, the carpets were all the same, dull beige and the lights were all out, making the house feel like it was just a house, and not a home.

“What happened here?” Ferb asked, looking around the house with disbelief. “Why is everything so . . . so dull?”

“This is the result of an indifferent parent,” Meap said. “If you don’t care enough about a house, why bother turning it into an actual home?”

“Wait a minute, where’s Perry?” Ferb queried. He knew it was a cliché, but the turquoise mammal was nowhere to be found, not to mention he didn’t see Perry’s basket or bowl anywhere.

“Because of Linda’s stress, she didn’t see any point to add another member to the family; thus, no Perry,” Meap answered simply.

This fact saddened the British teen. He had become so close to the platypus that he couldn’t imagine that there was a universe where he never came to know him or the Flynn-Fletcher family.

“Linda never really recovered from her divorce and took out all her grievances and frustrations on everything around her,” Meap went on. “Including her children.”

The day was fast-forwarded to the early evening, where both Candace and Linda were eating dinner. Ferb had asked why Phineas wasn’t there to join them but only got a, “Just wait and see,” in response.

After watching his mother and sister for a while, Ferb noticed that the Candace in this world was alarmingly different to the Candace he knew. Like Vanessa, Candace wore grey, baggy clothes that hid her figure. Her cheeks were sunken in and her face was pale, making her look like some sort of ghoul.

“I suppose you’re wondering why your sister looks like that,” Meap said, causing Ferb to be snapped out of his thoughts to look at the alien. “I mean, yes. Yes, I am,” the teen admitted.

“Like Isabella, she confessed to Jeremy earlier on during middle school, only to be harshly rejected by him,” Meap explained. “This caused her to develop severe body image issues. She regularly starves herself, but because she’s naturally skinny, nobody notices.”

Ferb went silent, after hearing that. Knowing that his sister would hate herself so much after what happened with Jeremy that she would want to slowly destroy her body from the inside out over it, made the greenette truly sick to his stomach. And, yes, he knew the irony that sentiment held.

“Mom, may I be excused?” Candace asked.

“But you’ve barely touched your plate,” Linda argued, referring to Candace’s plate which still had at least ⅔ of food on it.

“I’m on a diet,” was Candace's automatic response.

Linda knew that this was the sixteenth time that her daughter had used that excuse. However, she didn’t care enough to pry so just relented with a quiet, “Fine.” 

Having found out the real reason why Candace was being so stingy with her food, it truly pained Ferb to know just how insecure and unconfident his older sister had become. Of course, Candace had never been the most confident girl out there - if her multiple worries and concerns with Jeremy over the years were anything to go by - but she was confident enough to continuously try and bust her brothers, even if every single attempt ended in varying levels of failure. When she believed in something, she really stuck to her guns and pursued that something until the end, so it felt weird, almost wrong, to him to see her as the exact opposite.

“On your way to your room, could you ask Phineas to come down for dinner?” Linda requested. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

“There’s no point in me doing that, Mom; he’s not gonna come out,” Candace remarked, causing Ferb to wonder why the two were talking about his brother in such a peculiar way.

“Don’t argue with me, Candace; I’m not in the mood,” Linda sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“You’re never in the mood . . .” Candace muttered under her breath as she got up to do as her mother said.

She went up to the brother’s dual bedroom - now solely Phineas’ room - and knocked on the door a couple times.

“Phineas!” Candace called. She didn’t get a response, prompting her to knock on his door again. “Phineas! Open up!”

Still no response. The 21 year old heaved a big sigh. Time to bring out the big guns.

“PHINEAS VINCENT FLYNN!” Candace roared while barging into the room, clearly at her wits end with her younger brother.

“WHAT?!” Phineas yelled back, his eyes never leaving the TV in front of him, and Ferb couldn’t help but let out an audible gasp at the sight of his brother.

He was shrouded in blankets, with crisp packets and other junk food wrappers surrounding him in his absolute mess of a bedroom. His thumbs were moving frantically over the games console in his hand, the only part of his body that was actively moving. His bright red hair was wild and unkempt and his blue eyes were bloodshot - clearly an indicator of a severe lack of sleep - and intently staring at the bright screen in front of them.

This was not Phineas, as far as Ferb was concerned, and whoever this was, Ferb wasn’t sure if he liked him.

“Mom wants you to come down for dinner,” Candace stated

“Tell her I’ll come down later,” Phineas answered shortly.

“You say that everyday, Phineas, but you never actually come down.” Candace sighed, going to sit on her younger brother’s bed. “I miss you, y’know. We never see you anymore; it’s like you’re not even a part of the family.”

“Maybe I don’t wanna be part of this family,” Phineas muttered to himself, but loud enough for Candace - and Ferb - to hear.

“What the hell did you just say?”

“I said ‘maybe I don’t wanna be part of this family’!” 

“Phineas, how can you say something like that?” Candace asked, clearly appalled by her brother’s words. “Especially to the people who are just trying to look after you!”

“Oh, shut up and go throw up a meal or something,” Phineas snapped, his tone icy and full of spite. “I don’t need looking after; I never have and I never will. So leave me alone, and tell Mom to leave me alone too!”

“Just because nobody likes you doesn’t mean you get the right to be an asshole!” Candace shot back, but it was clear from the tone of her voice that Phineas’ crass words had hurt her. 

“Whatever!” Phineas sang, waving a dismissive hand at his sister, before quickly gluing said hand back to the console.

Knowing that she was not going to get through to her younger brother, Candace relented and left his room, making sure to slam the door extra loud so Phineas knew how angry she was at him.

“Why is he acting like this?” Ferb questioned. “This is definitely not the Phineas Flynn that I’m familiar with.”

“Your brother - perhaps, the most affected out of everyone due to your not being born,” Meap began pensively. “Since you weren’t there to help develop his creativity, Phineas spends all his days playing video games in his room. Nothing can pull him out of it, whether it’s bathing, eating and the like.”

“But . . . but what happened to seizing the day?” Ferb murmured, his heart falling at the use of those arc words. “And-and making every day of summer count?”

“He doesn’t care for that,” the alien responded. “All that matters to him is finally beating that boss level.”

As Phineas continued to game away, he took a moment to stretch his body, causing the sleeves of his shirt to hike up and reveal lots of deep cuts up and down his arms, much to Ferb’s complete and utter horror.

“What the hell are those on his arms?” Of course, Ferb knew the answer to this, but it was horrifying just to even think about.

“In this universe, Phineas is very depressed, using the video games to shield this crippling problem of his,” Meap told the horrified greenette. “If I were to put it into words, he feels as though something’s missing in his life, but he doesn’t know what that something is.”

After hearing this, Ferb’s heart sank, knowing exactly what that ‘something’ that Phineas felt was missing from his life was. The British teen took a moment to study his brother’s face a little more, and he saw that there was none of that childlike, energetic and enthusiastic spark in his eyes or anywhere else on his face. It didn’t matter the older Phineas got, he still maintained that spark, but it wasn’t visible anywhere on his triangular features. It didn’t take a genius to see that this Phineas was merely a shell of his former self.

-:-

Before Ferb could begin to process all that he just saw, Meap had taken him to a bridge, and Ferb instantly realised that this was the same bridge that he had gone to at the beginning of the night.

“What are we doing back here?” was Ferb’s first question. “Am I back in my universe now?”

“Not exactly,” Meap refuted, before pointing to the left of him.

Ferb followed Meap’s paw and audibly gasped for the second time that evening once he saw his redheaded brother, standing at the bridge looking out. 

Phineas had a look of positive misery on his face, his eyes empty and dull, but also glassy and wet, as though he had recently been crying. He didn’t have a jacket on, so Ferb couldn’t imagine how cold he was probably feeling. Though, it seemed the biting, winter weather didn’t even faze the triangular headed teen.

“I guess I know what I’m doing today,” Phineas muttered with a bitter smile, before getting up to stand on top of the bridge. Ferb’s eyes widened as he immediately jumped to action, now on high alert.

“Phineas! Phineas, no!” Ferb cried, running up to his brother desperately. “Don’t jump! You can’t!”

To his complete and utter surprise, Phineas turned and looked directly at his green-haired brother, a look of what seemed to be irritation on his face.

“And why do you care?” Phineas sneered. “Huh?”

Ferb was so shocked that this Phineas was actually speaking to him, actually acknowledging his presence, that he could not form any words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“You were the one who wished that you had never been born,” Phineas continued, still with the harsh tone of voice. “This is the world you asked for and now you suddenly don’t want it?”

Ferb felt himself slowly become wracked with guilt. He had never thought about it in this way, but ultimately, his brother was right. This was the world he asked to live in and there was no changing that fact.

“I’m sorry, I . . .” Ferb started, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish, for he didn’t know exactly what he was sorry for.

To his surprise, Phineas’ cold expression melted away into a solemn - almost sympathetic - one as he said, “It’s a little too late for apologies, don’t you think?”

And, before Ferb could do anything else or protest any further, Phineas took one step off the bridge and let himself plunge down, down, down, before hitting the oncoming traffic below.

“NOOOO!”

-:-

“Phineas! Phineas!” Ferb rushed to the edge of the bridge, looking over it. Though he couldn’t see the ground as clearly from up on the bridge, what he could see was a collision of cars in the road, as well as a lot of red.

“PHINEAAAAS!” Ferb cried like a man possessed, before he lost all feeling in his legs and collapsed to the ground, weeping and mourning and grieving his heart out.

“Okay, Meap, I get it,” Ferb sobbed, his voice almost intelligible due to his crying. “I understand now; if I was never born, everything and everyone would be terrible - I understand! So, please, please, take me back!

“Take me back to my own universe where I am alive! Take me back, Meap, I want you to take me back!” Ferb pleaded, looking up and all around him. 

But the alien he was addressing so desperately was no longer there.

“Meap? Meap! Take me back! Please, take me back!” Ferb repeated these words over and over until they became like something between a chant and a prayer. The tears seemed endless as the distressed teen kept crying out the same three words over and over and over again.

“Take me back! Take me back! TAKE ME BACK!”

Chapter Text

“Take me back . . . take me back . . .”

Ferb had been murmuring these words under his breath for what seemed like forever now. Opening his eyes, which felt raw from all the crying he had done, he looked around him and saw that the scenario hadn’t changed. The British teen wasn’t calmed by this, as this meant he had no way of knowing whether or not he was truly back home. Not until he heard the sound of—

“FERB! FEEEEERB!”

Ferb sat up, sharpish. He looked all around him, hoping and praying that this was not his grieving mind playing tricks on him.

“Phineas . . . ?” he whispered almost inaudibly. He shakily stood up, his legs still wobbly from what he had just witnessed, and stumbled forwards to the source of the voice.

And to his sheer relief, saw a familiar redheaded boy with a triangle for a head looking for him with a turquoise platypus under his arm. 

“FERB!” Upon seeing his green-haired brother, Phineas’ face lit up like a Christmas tree, putting his pet down and running to Ferb as fast as his legs would take him. 

“Phineas!” Ferb did the same, overjoyed to know that his brother was still alive and hadn’t died a horrible death as he did in the alternate universe. Speaking of which, he realised that he had finally been taken out of, much to his relief.

Phineas and Ferb met in the middle with a tight, heartfelt hug. It was like something out of a cheesy sitcom, but the two brothers didn’t care. All that mattered to them was that the other was safe and sound.

“Phineas, you’re okay!” Ferb said thankfully into the redhead’s shoulder.

“Forget about me! What happened to you?!” Phineas asked immediately, pulling away from the hug. “We were all so worried!”

Ferb looked into his brother’s eyes, only to see that they were sparkly. Was Phineas . . . crying???

“I was taking a walk in the woods, when I got lost,” was his response. Ferb knew he and his brother had seen and done some outlandish things over the years, but he felt like this conversation was better suited for after the chaos of Christmas.

“Ferb, you don’t understand . . .” Phineas croaked, as a single tear fell down his cheek, quickly followed by another. “I was going sick with worry about you - I thought you might’ve been hurt!”

“Really?” Ferb looked down at the snow on the ground. “I . . . I didn’t think you cared that much about me.”

“Ferb, don’t be stupid!” Phineas cried. “Of course I care about you - you’re my brother, for crying out loud!”

When he saw his brother’s face, all he was reminded of was the bitterness on his features when he addressed him in the alternate universe, only for that image to be smacked away by the real Phineas - his Phineas - sobbing profusely in front of him.

Phineas Flynn never cried; it just wasn’t something he did. Optimism ran through his veins so strongly that even in his darkest moments, he would never shed a tear. And, yet, here he was, crying away like a mother sending her son off to war.

To say Ferb was taken aback by this reaction would be a massive understatement. He didn’t know if he had ever seen Phineas so . . . so distraught. And over him, no less. He immediately felt horrible for the way he acted and reached over to hug his brother again.

“I’m really sorry for worrying you,” Ferb whispered into Phineas’ shoulder. “I just wanted to clear my head.”

“Well, next time you wanna do that, let us know first, okay?” Phineas said through a weak chuckle, to which Ferb obediently nodded.

“C’mon, we should go; the others are waiting.” 

“The ‘others’?”

“Yeah, Mom and Dad organised a search party to look for you!”

“They did?”

“Of course they did, Ferb!” Phineas said like it was a no brainer. “They got Buford, Baljeet, Isabella, Irving, Django, basically everyone in our neighbourhood to look for you.”

Ferb was shocked by this, to say the least. His parents were so upset by his surprise absence that they rounded up an impromptu search party for him? And the neighbours all agreed?

I just have to see this, Ferb thought as he let Phineas walk him out of the woods.

-:-

As soon as Ferb saw the search party his parents had created, he was met with a cry of “FERB!” as well as cheers all around.

The first one to hug him was his mother, Linda. She held the greenette to her chest and risked never letting go of him.

“Sweetheart, you’re okay!” the Flynn-Fletcher lauded, before her tone immediately switched to that of an inquisitive mother. “Now where the hell did you go?”

“I just went out for a walk, Mum,” was Ferb’s response, before he was unceremoniously pulled away from Linda, and treated to a punch in the shoulder by his older sister, who looked much healthier with that oh-so-familiar irritable look on her face.

“Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again!” Candace snapped, before suddenly wrapping her brother in a tight hug. “I could kill you for all the worrying you made me do.”

Ferb inwardly chuckled at his sister’s sudden change of mood. Such is Candace Flynn, he thought to himself.

Once Candace had let him go, Ferb turned to address his father and his face screwed up in pain. He didn’t think he had ever seen his father so pale. 

“Ferb Thomas Fletcher, I would ground you right now if I wasn’t more concerned than angry with you,” was Lawrence’s first words towards his son, before engulfing him in the third big hug of the night.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Ferb apologised into his father’s coat, relishing in the wonderful, natural scent of pine and mint. He didn’t realise how much he would miss it.

“If you don’t quit worrying your old man, I’m going to start taking after my father sooner than I would wish,” Lawrence joked, as he tousled his son’s hair.

Ferb knew that he didn’t want to let go of his father, but he felt like he had a duty to address all the people that had selflessly taken the time out of their, most likely, busy schedules to help out his own family.

“I’m really sorry for worrying you all,” Ferb said to everyone. “But I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for agreeing to come out with my parents tonight to look for me. It really touches me, especially considering the time of year that it is. I hope I didn’t disrupt your plans too much.”

This gained a laugh from the crowd, which relieved Ferb to know that all was good between him and them. He was thankful to live in a neighbourhood full of such genuinely kind and compassionate people.

-:-

Ferb let out a sigh of content once he entered the Flynn-Fletcher household, happy to see all the bright, vibrant colours and Christmas decorations, no matter how exuberant and gaudy they looked. It calmed him instantly.

“I truly am sorry for running off like that,” Ferb apologised. “It was immature and it was stupid of me to do.”

He was met with saddened stares by the others in his family, surprising him by just how remorseful they all looked.

“Ferb, the one who should be apologising is us,” Linda admitted. “You were right - we weren’t paying enough attention to you, and you were completely right to call us out for that.”

“It’s just that you’re always so together,” Phineas spoke, “that we end up forgetting that, sometimes, you also need some reassurance too.”

“It’s true,” Lawrence agreed. “There’s no excuse at all for our neglect towards you and words can’t express how much I regret not making it clearer how much I love and appreciate you.”

“And we promise we won’t take your quiet nature for granted,” Candace vowed. “From now on, I’m gonna try extra hard to always make sure that my little bro is okay.”

Ferb was taken aback by his family's apologies to him. He had no doubt in their mind that they were sincere in how sorry they were, which just made the greenette’s heart want to melt.

“All I wanted was for you guys to care about me,” the British teen said, “but I think it’s clear that you already do.”

“Of course we do,” Phineas beamed, wrapping an arm around his brother. “Never forget that we love you, Ferb.”

“And I love you guys too,” Ferb returned, causing the Flynn-Fletchers to join up in a wonderful group hug that only seemed like it could exist in the sappiest of Christmas movies.

And, for the first time that day, Ferb smiled.

Chapter Text

The Flynn-Fletcher Christmas Eve Christmas party was in full swing. There was the natural Christmas hustle and bustle, Christmas songs blaring out of the speakers, multiple finger-foods on the buffet table. Most everyone from the neighbourhood was there, chatting away, without a care or worry in the world. It was clear that the residents of Danville were having a great time at the event. Plus, the neighbourhood wasn’t so sure if they had seen Ferb smile so much.

As for Ferb, Christmas Eve had been going the exact opposite to Christmas Eve Eve. He just felt as though all his worries and concerns had been lifted off his shoulders for the evening and he was allowed to relax and truly enjoy himself. He even got involved with the annual ‘Ugly Christmas Sweater’ contest his father loved to hold, and was wearing a truly tacky bright green and red jumper that had the Queen’s corgi on it, with the words, “Furry Christmas!” Needless to say, he had jumped headfirst into the holiday spirit.

However, the best thing about the day was the way the Flynn-Fletchers had treated him. It’s not like Ferb was the centre of attention - he wouldn’t have preferred that, anyway - but the air around the family was definitely different. A good different. It was clear that Linda, Lawrence, Candace and Phineas were making more of an effort with Ferb and that was all he truly wanted, so that fact alone made him happier than anything.

-:-

It was around 6:00 PM when the doorbell suddenly rang.

“That’s funny, I’m not expecting anyone else today,” Linda commented.

“I got it, Mom!” Phineas called, bounding over to the door in a flash. He opened it and Paul the delivery guy was standing there, with a small package under his arm.

“Package for Phineas Flynn,” Paul stated, smiling once he saw the redhead.

“Hey, Paul!” Phineas greeted cheerily. “Still working on the holidays?”

“No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid,” Paul replied with a knowing wink.

Phineas signed the papers needed, sending Paul on his merry way shortly afterwards. Phineas looked down at the package, a look of intrigue crossing his features. “I wonder what this could be . . . ?”

Wasting no time, the 16 year old opened the package and his eyes widened as he gaped at what he saw.

“The Many Ways to Reverse-Engineer a Submarine?!” Phineas exclaimed, holding the book to his chest with a look of pure, unbridled joy on his triangular face. “Oh, my gosh! I’ve been wanting this for the longest time!”

Ferb’s eyes widened the second he heard the long book’s name. The gift had come in time!

“Feeeerb? Is this your doing?” Phineas asked, turning to his brother with a sly grin.

“I-I don’t understand,” Ferb spluttered. “The post office said it wouldn’t be coming until Boxing Day!”

“Never underestimate the power of Christmas, bro,” Phineas grinned, before wrapping his brother in what seemed to be the umpteenth hug of the night.

“Thank you, Ferb,” Phineas said earnestly, pulling away to give the British teen a glowing smile. “You’re the best brother a guy could ask for.”

Ferb felt his heart swell at that. “You’re more than welcome, Phineas.”

“Well, since I’ve received your gift early, you may as well receive mine.”

“Okay, where’s mine?”

Ding! Dong!

As if on cue, the doorbell rang again, causing the two brothers to turn their attention to the door.

“Right on time!” Phineas announced, pushing Ferb to go answer it. Confused, the greenette did, and was surprised to see that there, on the other side of the door, was his girlfriend, Vanessa.

“Ferbs!” she cheered, addressing her boyfriend with her favourite nickname for him.

“Vanessa!” Ferb barely got out, before reaching out to hug the woman, clearly ecstatic that she was there with him. If the universe had been conspiring to make yesterday the worst day for him, then he guessed today was its way of apologising profusely.

“Hey, Nessa,” Phineas greeted casually as the couple walked past him, causing Vanessa to turn back to him with a grin.

“Hey, Phin,” she greeted back as the two did a little handshake.

“Wait, you two were in on this together?” Ferb figured out, as Phineas let out a little chuckle of confirmation.

“Let’s just say I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy in Drusselstein who hooked the Doofenshmirtzes up with some oldschool Phineas & Ferb technology,” Phineas said with a knowing grin.

“He means that he sent us a transportation device that immediately brought me here!” Vanessa translated. “I know how hectic the Drusselsteinian International Airport gets, especially since it’s in such a tiny country, but it was the least I could do to see you.”

Ferb gave his girlfriend a loving stare, and was about to kiss her, when he remembered where he was. If he kissed her now, he would absolutely never hear the end of it from his family and friends, especially from Phineas. Vanessa, sensing what he wanted to do, giggled, before caressing Ferb’s cheek. “Later,” was all she said, before planting a chaste kiss on his cheek. She left his heart fluttering, before it was quickly stifled by Phineas playfully ‘ooooh’ing in his direction.

“Shut up,” Ferb hissed jokingly, causing his brother to burst out laughing.

“Hey, we don’t have time for all that; we still haven’t done karaoke yet!” And before Ferb could stop him, Phineas had dragged him away to the microphone stands.

-:-

After 3 songs - including a botched attempt at ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ from one Phineas Flynn - Ferb decided to take a moment to himself, sipping eggnog and counting how many stars were beginning to emerge in the sky. Among them, he saw a familiar spacecraft, recognising it as the one he tricked out 6 years ago.

Wait, if that’s there, then . . .

He was correct. The top of the spacecraft came down, revealing Meap. He looked down at Ferb with a smile, before saying something. The greenette couldn’t decipher what the alien was saying, due to his being too far away and on the other side of the window, but he had a very good idea that it was most likely, “Meap!”

Thank you, Meap, Ferb mouthed. He wasn’t entirely sure on how the alien did what he had, but the British teen did know that it was definitely what he needed.

Meap gave Ferb a grin and a salute, before taking off in his spaceship, shooting off into the sky.

“What’cha doin’?” Phineas suddenly appeared beside his brother, snapping the latter out of his thoughts by asking him the now iconic question, a habit that he clearly picked up from his girlfriend.

“Just looking at how beautiful the sky is,” the greenette responded. The two brothers stayed at the window for a moment, watching as more stars began to light up the night sky.

“It’s a wonderful life, huh, Ferb?” Phineas remarked, wrapping an arm around his beloved brother.

Ferb turned back to the party. He saw Isabella performing a special Christmas number with the former Fireside Girl troop, Candace and Jeremy loudly singing along to said number, Buford giving Baljeet a noogie, Vanessa eagerly helping herself to the nibbles on the table and Linda and Lawrence swaying to and fro with the music. Everyone looked to be having a splendid time.

As he took in the sight around him, the sight of pure joy and happiness, a smile came to his features as he spoke his answer.

“Why, yes. Yes, it is.”