Archive of Our Own ^beta

Phineas Flynn has ten fathers.

Ferb is a great listener, but Phineas can't talk to him about this.

His Mom is a great communicator, but she won't talk to him about this.

Father number one: died protecting his daughter and pregnant wife from a burglar. This father arrived when Phineas was very young because of the family tree project in school.

It seemed appropriate to him. Fathers love their families, so of course it was something like that. His dad would be around if it wasn't.

Father number two: a random guy who sold sperm to buy his girlfriend a nice bracelet for Valentine's Day. Phineas was reading about reproduction in the library, alone, and it occurred to him that his dad wasn't necessarily ever in his Mother's life.

Father number three--

Father number three is tricky.

One of Phineas's friends didn't come to school for several days.

They came back quieter and angrier, with a black eye.

Phineas feels stupid and immature and warm all over with humiliation when he remembers: he asked why they were acting so weird all of a sudden.

Father number three gets drunk in the evenings. Father number three gets drunk in the mornings. Father number three was filmed battering his wife by a neighbor. Father number three was arrested the next day.

Father number three was the first father Phineas invented for himself that he wouldn't ever want to meet.

Father number four: a wizard with responsibilities in a magical realm who could not return to his family lest he draw them into the attention of the legendary Dark Lord Wrathsum.

In Phineas's defense, he was bored and on a fantasy kick.

Father number five was taken by the government to invent missiles (Phineas was extrapolating based on the differences between him and Mom, the things she absolutely could not have given him. Then he learned she studied engineering in college and gave up on father number five.) Father number six was invisible and lived in their house (Phineas set an extra place at the table for nearly a month before giving up on him). Father number seven was a therapist (cooler than the one Mom started bringing him to though). Father number eight had fallen into a rift where the sidewalk ends and never come home; it wasn't his fault and he never would have left them on purpose (Phineas is tired of trying to come up with explanations). Father number nine was a space alien long gone from this galaxy and had passed on powers of telekinesis to his children (Candace was firmly disinterested in discovering their magic powers together).

Father number ten once stood next to Phineas's mother, one hand on her pregnant belly, wearing worn loafers and a grey sweater and khakis. Father number ten had posed for a picture in a professional studio. Father number ten was exiled to a dusty pile of papers in the corner of the garage and had been sentenced to decapitation.

Phineas couldn't find his face.

In the end, it only took seven minutes with Candace's help.

It went like this: seven minutes ago, Candace sat on the couch. Six minutes ago, Phineas asked her a question:

"Candy, do you remember Daddy?"

He had waited very patiently and carefully for Candace to emerge from her bedroom and look up from her diary. His sister is prickly by nature, and doesn't have much time for him.

Her face screwed up and she opened her mouth like she wanted to shout at him. Then her shoulders slumped and it was like she forgot all at once how to be Candace.

Phineas had never seen his sister cry before. She fled before he could decide what to do.

Candace doesn't ever tell on him to Mom, so if he messed up he has to figure that out and tattle on himself himself. He was thinking it over when Candace came back with another diary. This was two and a half minutes ago.

"Dad gave me this," she said, thrusting it at Phineas. She took off the bracelet she always wears and gave it to Phineas too; he never noticed the key on it before. "I filled it up around when you learned to talk. You can read it, or don't, I don't care. I'm tired of having it."

Phineas looked down at the book in his hands for several long moments. Two minutes ago when he looked up, Candace had left again.

Father number ten's face was tucked into the diary, which fell open to the entry it marked as soon as Phineas turned the key fifty seconds ago.

His Dad looked tired, but happy. Phineas remembered the gentle way he was posed in the photo in the garage. Why would he go away from them? Why would he go away before he ever got to meet Phineas?

Mommy ripped you out of all the pitsers today Daddy. She cried and cried. I couldint get her to stop and I toald her that I was hungry and it was dinner time but she cried some more only which was good. Stacy and her mom came over with spagetty and Stacy is gonna sleep over even though she talks so much and keeps wanting to know what I think about stuff, I don't really like her but Mommy says I can't tell her to shut up and go away. I wish Mommy would have the stupid baby already so she'd hit somebody else then me.

Phineas closes the diary and locks it shut.

He doesn't want to read that. He doesn't want to read that.

He has the secret of father number ten all to himself. He can hold it in his hands.

He can burn it, he can read it aloud in front of his class, he can fold it up into origami.

He can do anything he wants with it-- except read it. He can't bear to.

That's how it is: Phineas Flynn has ten fathers.

He can't ask Ferb about this. Ferb would want to say something, and that would be unfair to him.

And he already knows that Mom won't talk.

"Mommy," Phineas begins at dinner one night. Candace is at a friend's house so it's just them two. Mom cooked spaghetti. It's really good. Phineas had assumed she was always good at cooking it.

Before his sister shoved his dad into his hands and then fled.

"No, Phineas," she says, because she's learned to tell the tone of voice he uses when he wants to ask about his dad.

"Mommy, Candy gave me her old diary and it says you--"

Phineas stops talking without being interrupted this time. His Mom has frozen with the fork halfway to her mouth. He gapes at her. Her hand trembles.

And then she slumps, lowering her fork back to her plate.

"I was a terrible mother for many years, Phineas," she says softly, voice tinted with hidden tears. "Your father wasn't fit to care for children and your grandparents cut me off. Rightly so. Phin was right to leave me, too. He would have taken you with him if he could--"

"Why couldn't he?" Phineas asks, even though it's not what he's curious about and he doesn't care; it just seems like the question she wants him to ask her.

"He had become very sick," she says. "They didn't know--" she clears her throat. "They didn't think he had very long left."

Phineas thinks about asking if--

"Why don't you talk about him?"

His mom looks horrified at the question. Like she can't even begin to explain. Phineas realises something as he looks at her, and his mouth moves before he can decide not to share it.

"Candy hates you." He hears the realisation in his own voice and sees his mom take the hit. "You should apologise, Mommy."

Now she's looking at him in shock again. Lips parted, just blinking, like he's proposed a way to teleport to the sun and gone in-depth explaining the physics (Mom says she was never very good with outer-space physics in college).

Phineas doesn't think this is very complicated though, or very difficult to understand. He gets up.

"I'm going to bed," he says. He kind of hates his Mom too right now. He carries his dishes into the kitchen and packs up the leftovers; Mom looks too distracted to remember. She comes in while he's scooping the spaghetti into tupperware and takes over for him without a word.

She hit Candy. Who would hit Candy? Not even Stacy hits Candy, and Stacy does it friendly and nice to everyone else she meets.

Phineas goes to bed, but not to sleep.

Father number one and father number ten are pretty similar when Phineas thinks about it. He got it right the first time.

"...and he asked me about-- Candace gave him her old diary--"

His Mom's voice is coming up through the vent. His room is over the living room. She must be on the phone.

"--and he asked-- well-- he didn't outright ask--" she pauses, listening. "I told him, I said I used to be a shit Mom-- no, not with those words. Yes, I know you think it's silly to keep him in the dark about his father. I just-- what would I tell him? That I was obsessive to the point of stalking? Controlling and too quick to get violent? That it was all completely my fault and if fate cared a whit about humanity I'd have been the one ended up getting sick and dying and their father could have--"

Phineas usually likes the way sound in the living room carries up through his vent, because he gets a lot of secrets that way, but he spends an entire long pause in his Mom's speech seriously considering telling her about it.

"You're right, you're right. Better or worse, I'm all they have now. Oh! My mother reached out, very cautiously and liberally snarky, but she wants to know if I've stopped being such a waste yet. I don't know what to tell her, do you think I'm good enough yet to show her? I don't want to lose the kids their grandparents, but-- gosh, it would be so good for Candace, to get to meet them, and I hardly want to wait but what if I'm still just horrid and I can't see it and Momma waits another twenty years to try again?"

Grandparents. That's right, Phineas has grandparents. It never occurred to him to ask.

"That's a good point. You're right, you're right. I also wanted to ask, well... Phineas told me Candy hates me at dinner tonight. Just looked me in the eye and said it, and I think he's right. She hasn't said a thing on the subject, and she calls back I love you when I drop her off every day, but... Well, anyway, Phineas said I should apologise--" a brief pause-- "No, I haven't--" Phineas hates her-- "but do you really think it would mean anything to her? I can't change it. I can never make up for what I did. Why should my apology be worth shit to my daughter?"

Phineas bangs on the floor and calls down through the vent for her to talk quieter.

Her voice still carries up to him, but he can no longer make out the words.

The next night at dinner is different. Candace speaks to them.

The next night is even more different.

Mom is dating someone.

Candace gets up and leaves at the news. She stomps all the way up the stairs.

"He's coming over for dinner tomorrow night and bringing his kid," Mom tells Phineas. "You're in the same grade in school."

The doorbell rings.

"I'll get it!" Phineas calls.

He opens the door.

Father number eleven kneels down to Phineas's height to say hello and asks if he's correct in thinking he's just met the man who will finally invent something better than sliced bread.

"Ferb?" Phineas asks.

His best friend is standing on the porch as well.

Ferb declares them brothers at the wedding, not just stepbrothers. Phineas marvels at his accent.

Candace tests the waters by complaining that Phineas walked into her room without knocking.

Mom turns off her monitor and turns her desk chair around. Candace squares her shoulders. She looks like she wants to step between Phineas and Mom.

Mom's eyes narrow. Candace's hands shake behind her back.

"You know how to handle this," Mom says. "Come back in a half hour if you can't talk it out, and then I'll help you."

Phineas pretends not to notice how tight Candace holds his hand as she pulls him into the next room. He pretends not to notice how hard she breathes once they've left Mom's sight.

Ferb opens his mouth to ask, and Phineas shakes his head without thinking.

He watches Ferb nearly take it personally. He watches Ferb deliberately choose not to.

Ferb nods slowly.

Candace pulls them both into a hug. By mutual silent agreement, neither of them struggle until her breathing returns to its normal rhythm.

Phineas has eleven fathers.

He also has a mom and a sister and a brother and four grandparents and a pet platypus and lots and lots of friends.

Candace's first diary sits locked on his bookshelf. Someday Phineas will open that lock and step inside to meet his tenth father.

But right now, he needs to go help his eleventh replace a fuse.