fandoms; doctor who + phineas and ferb
notes; so, in this fic, isabelle is nineteen years old, and it's the tenth doctor. this is also my first fic in both fandoms, and my first-ever crossover. thoughts? warning for grammatical errors; this also takes place in the future, with wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, i think.
disclaimer; i don't own anything; all rights go to the producers of both tv series.
kill your heroes
isabella garcia-shapiro
.
I don't believe in fairytales anymore, twelve year-old Isabella thinks, standing over her parent's grey-and-black graves; the grey-eyed morning smiles on the frowning night, checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light.
She is only twelve, but wants nothing more than to escape.
The Flynn-Fletcher walks over, heavy footsteps, without the usual pep in their step, and even Candace looks apologetic at the scene, hands held with those of Jeremy's, and Isabella thinks that it's not fair that everybody gets to be happy but her (but that's just the way life has always been for them). They tell her that she can live with them, until she finds her relatives, and it's just like that.
.
They are a year older now, and the worst of their days are yet to come —
It is a series of struggles; a group of her and her friends stand in front of the looming high school, dauntless. "I can't do this," Gretchen murmurs, and attempts walking in the opposite direction. "We're thirteen years old; well, I'm less than five feet, you guys are fine; I'm going to get trampled by all these upperclassmen, I'm telling you!"
"Me too," echoes Adyson Sweetwater; the rest of the group falls into restless fidgeting habits.
Isabelle taps her highly uncomfortable ruby-red heels (she doesn't tell the other girls that they are ruby-red, because she is as scared as the rest of them, and that if she taps them, maybe by some magical mistake, she will return into the safety of home - she's just better at faking confidence), and smiles, clapping her hands for attention. "Calm down, girls. Have you forgotten who we are? We're Fireside Girls Troop 46321 and we never give up!"
They walk into the depths of the lion's cave, lionhearts embedded within layers of thin garments, matching unsure smiles imprinted upon ivory skinned faces; Phineas waves over at her, and motions for the troop to sit down by him at one of the center lunch tables, and Isabelle thinks that they might just make it through their next greatest adventure like how they've done it in the past —
Together.
.
"He's not really my brother," Phineas tells her; it's as though he expects her to be the one to comfort him, the one to alleviate his despair, and Isabella thinks that it's been quite enough time since she's been the one to take care of the Flynn-Fletcher family (see; Candace, the parents, Phineas, Ferb - she'd even helped Perry the Platypus, for god's sake; but they've taken her in, and they've helped her countless times). "Is he?"
He looks at her as though he's expecting to be relieved after her statements, and Isabella takes a deep breath, and thinks I'll only do this one more time, but she and everybody else knows that she would do anything and everything for Phineas Flynn. "Your family isn't defined by who is biologicaly related to you - the two of you would do anything for each other, and you have, so that's all that matters."
"Thanks, Isabella. You know, you're like my honorary sister too!" Thirteen year-old Flynn Fletcher with the wide blue eyes and mop of red hair that hangs onto his ivory skin forehead says, and she nods and smiles back, brushing away the tears later (sister-zoned, that's what she is; she's a sister to him) and moves on.
.
You should never fall in love with your heroes, she thinks, seven years older; her tongue is as sharp as the swords she had once constructed as a child, crimson red lipstick hastily applied, quickly brushed off (because she is still a child at heart).
She sits in the midst of frazzled college freshmen (it's as though they are at the bottom oncemore, falling from the peak of high school seniors) and focuses her attention on the blackboard, trying to maintain a positive outlook upon college, even if her friends aren't there with her. She'll make new ones - it's possible. It won't ever be the same, but she can pretend it will be. "Good morning, class. I'm Professor John Smith," the man announces, thin-lensed glasses resting upon the bridge of his nose; he doesn't look much older than the college students assembled, but his hardened eyes tell a different story. "I'll be teaching all of you," he looks down at a stack of papers as though he'a unsure of the subject he's even teaching, and Isabella wonders if this is one of those televised pranks and fixes her hair, just in case. "Theater! Oh, theater's wonderful - Shakespeare, Othello, tragedies and comedies; I once met Shakespeare, nasty situation though . . . but it's great, really."
"Excuse me?" One of the students in the front row raises an eyebrow, tapping a pencil. Isabella thinks that this is not what she had wanted when deciding to major in theatre - it had been a vivid dream, exploding like a brilliant, ethereal display of supernovas; there were the carefully placed words that when put together were sort of like ingredients in a recipe. There was no taking notes and having final examinations with multiple choice questions; that was in high school, and she would have liked to leave those days in the past (all that's left are memories).
"You should be taking this all down - you're having a quiz on this tomorrow, you know," the teacher says, nodding in response; a collective series of groans echoes throughout the classroom, and Isabella thinks that this is not the life she had wanted. This is not a fairytale.
.
On the second week of classes, she finds herself back in the drama classroom two minutes after the bell rings —
There is the sound of the low-pitched alarms then, nothing similar to the ones ringing in her ears, high-pitched little things, signaling the beginning and the ends of the everlasting hours. She sees fire on the rooftops - licking ashes burning the trees, glowing embers wrapping their heads around gnarled trunks, destruction in their wake.
(If we are to die, then we should all die together.)
There are scaly creatures climbing down the walls, and Isabella almost expects for Phineas and Ferb to come and save the day, but remembers that this is not a fairytale, and they are no longer children who cling onto dreams and everlasting hopes - this is the real world where the monsters win, where winter whispers its name upon frigid branches, turning the grass into a scaly sheet of ice. The creatures (aliens, she thinks) crash through the windows, and all Isabella hears are the screams of her classmates, and hides underneath the desk (not before seeing the teacher blast out some sort of supersonic screwdriver weapon, as he's talked about it to the class before, somehow making it a prop for sci-fi theatre skits and kills some of the monsters) until the massacre - it is not a war; it is child's play, a bloody massacre like she's read in textbooks, and for a moment, Isabella wonders whether she will one day be on the page of a textbook and knows now that it is but a dream, like her hope to stay alive through this mess).
.
But, there is a chance of hope in the universe and she ends up surviving — Isabella runs from the classroom at top-speed, heels discarded long before, bare feet light on the airy pavement of summers lost. "Who are you?" She asks, breathless, standing in front of Professor John Smith - then again, Isabella reckons that this is not quite his name. Perhaps a pen name, for several plausible reasons - she's a theatre major after all. She knows this sort of information.
"I'm the Doctor," the man simply replies, as though he has nothing to hide, but there is something about the simplicity of the answer that boggles her; then again, only lies have details.
"You're not a doctor. I saw you killing those things, whatever they were - doctors don't kill."
"Have you ever been to war, Isabella?" He asks, leaning against a bright blue telephone box, and Isabella remembers how Phineas and Ferb used to create ancient structures - there is something about this telephone box that is more real, however, as though it was transported from an ancient era - perhaps a heirloom, passed down from generation to generation. The way that this Doctor leans against it shows that it has sentimental value - he's almost stroking it, as though the telephone box is a person, instead of an inanimate object - there are too many questions in her mind, really.
She does not question how he knows her name - the Doctor, or whatever his name actually is, seems to be a God concealed within the appearance of a mortal, a God pretending to be a man. "No."
"You're quite fortunate, then."
"I'm not fortunate - not really."
"You don't seem surprised about all this."
"I've seen . . . impossible things all my life - there were these two boys, Phineas and Ferb; they used to do these wonderful things; it was like magic." It was - when she was a child, and believed in magic. She doesn't believe in magic and fairytales anymore -
"Nothing's magic - it's all science, really. What are you studying?"
"Theater." Isn't he the teacher? She thinks to herself, but brushes the question out of her mind, because there are thousands of questions beating in her eardrums, and this one is not the most pressing.
"Oh, then you should know all about magic! Standing on the stage, saying the right words with the right emphasis at the right time - it's all magic, really."
"What's your telephone box?" She can't resist from asking the question - curiosity will be her downfall, Isabella thinks.
"It's a time machine, sort of like my spaceship - it can travel anywhere in space and time. You could come with me, if you'd like."
There's a moment of silence. "Just one trip. I have school to get back to, after all."
.
"All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere: every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?" The Tardis is something out of dreams, but Isabella's seen a few of the monsters, as well, and still doesn't completely believe in fairytales again (she's getting there though) and believes that it's something more than magic - magic is nothing more than science, the Doctor tells her.
"I'd like to escape," she murmurs; Isabella's not quite sure why but she feels like she can trust the man (boy, they are all boys, running away from home, staying young forever - she thinks he is like Peter Pan, a fairytale boy) and tells him anything and everything.
"You can't run away forever, Isabella," the Doctor says, as though he's been running forever, and his deep brown eyes look a thousand years old, then. "Where to, then?" He repeats.
"Venice," she murmurs; the words are faint on her tongue, and after all these years, she remembers how Phineas (and Ferb) had dreamed of going there.
"Venice, it is." She holds on tight and tries to forget, but knows deep down, that this, none of this, is ever going to be the answer but ignores the truth and faces the world for now.