[A/N: I have decided that I torture Phineas and Ferb, ESPECIALLY Ferb, WAY too much...So I've decided to give him something nice, while torturing my own character. I don't own Phineas and Ferb and never will. IMPORTANT PS: This fanfic WILL get progressively darker. There will be (non-graphic) mentions of abuse, as well as mental illness. I don't know the entire history of Dissociative Identity Disorder, nor do I claim to. Please enjoy the story, and don't flame me because you ignored the trigger warning. I'm trying to keep it PC here folk, so please bear with me. -Kaylee]

Preface: Nellie's Poem

The thirteen year-old girl held a small green pencil in the tips of her long, willowy fingers, working late into the night. It was long past the hour of her bedtime, and although she fretted that her aunt would stumble upon what she was doing, the girl cared nothing of the repercussions, instead focusing single-mindedly on her goal like an ant mindlessly slaving for its Queen. What she was working on was her Gorgon's muse, her ugly inspiration. It was the thing that she hated so much to write, that caused her a world of untold pain. And yet, by the unnamed Thing that forces us to stare at car wrecks and prevents us from turning away from the bad parts of the movie, Nellie worked on. Her hand bobbed endlessly, like a boat having a losing battle with a stormy sea, until at last, around two AM, the rail-thin bundle of knees and elbows fell asleep at her desk. Nellie Alder needed her rest anyway. Tonight, she finished her thoughts on this little town of Willow's Corner and all of the nightmares that emanated from it. Tomorrow, her wonderful Aunt Denise and she would start over, destination: Danville.

Three Weeks Later...

The whole incident began around midsummer, when the Phineas and Ferb were walking around town on their skyscraper stilts ©, patent pending. Isabella was using hers to try out a few new ballet moves that she had learned, and Buford was hanging Baljeet from his underpants from the top of a tree, much to the Indian boy's chagrin. Candace, still into her fervent battle to stop her brothers from doing anything she would consider "dangerous" was calling their mother, babbling into the tiny pink cellphone she always held close to her person. All in all, the day seemed perfect. At least it did, until...

"Hey guys! Look!" Young Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, the member of the group with the sharpest eyesight, pointed downward to a slightly run-down house at the end of their street. Normally, it was nothing worth her attention, but today something was different. From up above, the young Fireside Girl noticed porcelain-white boxes, cars or trucks of some variety, moving away from the building like coffin shaped ants.

"What is it, Isabella?" Phineas Flynn peered down, struggling to see what she saw. Due to his being ten or twenty feet higher up than she, it was more difficult.

"I think someone moved in! Can we move down for a closer look?" Isabella's hands were cupped around her face. She had to yell to be heard in the open air.

"Sure! Let me lower us!" Phineas pressed a button on the front of his foot, cautioning everyone to, "Hold steady, guys! We're going down!" Lo and behold, the crew descended to the earth, and also lo and behold, sitting placidly in the brown grass of the yard was a strawberry-blonde wiry bundle of arms and legs with her knees held tightly to her chest, reading a book as if nothing else in the world mattered in the least.

For a while, the girl ignored the group of twelve year-olds, hoping that perhaps they would go away. Of course, this girl had obviously never met Phineas Flynn. The red-headed lad smiled at her, trying to be genteel. "Hi! What's your name?"

The girl shuddered a little bit, looking up at them all with frightened but pretty brown eyes. Freckles dotted her heart-shaped face. Her thin lips quivered a bit as she struggled to find something to say. It was obvious that she, whomever she was, was painfully shy. When she spoke, her voice was low, soft but breathy, sounding the way a moth looks when it flutters toward a light. "Oh, um, hello...I'm Nellie."

Phineas smiled, oblivious to her disturbingly shy nature. "Nice to meet you, Nellie." He pointed to everyone, addressing them by first name only, since Nellie had done the same. "This is Isabella, Buford, the kid with the tree-wedgie is Baljeet, and this is my brother, Ferb. We live just up the street, and when we came saw you, we thought we'd say hello."

Nellie smiled forcibly, out of politeness, secretly resenting the people who had shown up so unannounced to her new house. "Nice to meet you, too." She used as few words as possible, trying to show her distrust.

Isabella waved, smiling in a sweet, patient manner. "Hi, Nellie."

Buford shook her hand violently, causing her to whimper loudly. "S'up new kid?"

Baljeet groaned, "I am happy to meet a new person, but right now I am getting splinters in places that I did not think were possible to splint!"

Nellie frowned, until she looked up and saw the last person, a green-haired boy who did not seem to take it upon himself to be her personal welcome wagon. She grinned lightly. He made no move to ask a question or prod her about who she was or what she did, another thing she appreciated, although the girl swore that she saw the ghost of a little grin on his face. The new girl gathered herself and her book up, standing for the first time. Upright, she looked a bit less gangly and awkward, although she still remained mostly arms and legs. Her ponytail streamed down the left side of her head, next to a very large white square earring. Her book remained in her arms, held up to her chest like a chipmunk. Phineas pointed at it. "What are you reading?"

Nellie's lips pursed; she didn't want to have to be around these people for much longer unless she absolutely HAD to. "This? Probably nothing you would be interested in, just The Complete Annex of Rainforest Insects and Arachnids. I'm all the way into the S section."

Phineas smiled. "Neat-o! So ya like bugs?"

Nellie cracked a little half-grin."I am rather fond of insects."

Ferb, the boy who had as of yet made no move to interact with her, piped up. "I read that book last summer. Quite an interesting read for those fond of the Family lycosidae"

Nellie cocked her head, impressed. Before she had a real chance to respond,a strong female voice from inside the fraying house called out, "Nellie! Come on in, sweetie! You need to unpack your things!"

For some reason, Nellie's pitch changed; her eyes narrowed and er lower lip jutted out. "Oh, great!" Her voice had gone deeper and yet far more childish. "Now I hafta go!"

Isabella thought it was odd how quickly the new girl had changed, however she made no motion to speak. Nobody else seemed to see it. Nellie icily walked inaide, throwing out a hasty "Bye!" before shutting her front door short of slamming it.

The boys and Isabella waved. Phineas shrugged. "She seems nice. A little weird, but nice."

Ferb just shrugged as he normally did. Inwardly, he was recalling the look in the new girl's huge chocolate eyes; a look of isolation. Repression and a muted, haunting look made their domain in Nellie's eyes. He didn't know what about her bothered him so much, so he decided to put the thought on the backburner of his mind. Of course, Nellie's strange behavior was a human Chekov's Gun. Something seemingly irrelevent, and yet what the future would deem dearly important...