The night was dark. Danville was quiet, strangely so. It was almost cliched. But then agin, there was a reason a cliche was a cliche.

That morning Lawrence Fletcher and his son Ferb had entered the family.

And to be honest, he wasn't disappointed. Lawrence was a good man.

But that wouldn't explain why he was out. Any child at his tender age would be asleep, not staring at the moon like some overrated psychodrama.

Ooh, symbolism..

He swung his legs on the porch, and let out a breath through his nose. A thousand thoughts flushed in his head, but none were tangible enough to latch on upon.

"Can't sleep?"

Phineas looked up, meeting his sister in the eye as she moved to sit next to him. She pulled her legs up to her chest and leaned on her kneecaps.

She looked thoughtful.

Phineas didn't answer, merely returned his eyes to the moon.

It was silent, at least, until Candace spoke again.

"So he really is never coming back."

"Candace he never came back."

The girl sighed, her eyes casting down. Phineas continued.

"That's why we used Mum's name after all. The guy married her and knocked her up twice but meet came back for anything. Not dinner. Not holidays. Only came back with more debt and more beer."

Candace sighed.

It was normal for Phineas to go on a tangent like that. Their biological father's abandonment made a young child grow up too fast.

They fell back silent. Phineas' breathing rate had quickened, but it gradually slowed.

"Since Mr Fletcher is now our dad...does that mean that we have to change our surname?"

Candace blinked. She turned to her brother, before shrugging.

"I dunno. I think it's up to Mum."

Phineas nodded.

It wasn't that Lawrence wasn't a good man. The Englishman was more than suitable. In fact, he was perfect. He was polite, romantic, friendly, supporting, everything a father was. Furthermore, he had a son from a failed marriage, allowing him to understand what Linda had went through as a single parent.

But they were so used to living on their own with only Mum.

And maybe, just somewhere there was a prickle of a doubt, like maybe somewhere along the line he would up and leave.

Like their father.

They wouldn't be able to manage changing their name back. Besides, it's way too much trouble to call all the services to change a surname.