Many thanks for the reviews and encouragement. I'm hoping to get one chapter up a day - this will be, in total, seven chapters plus an epilogue.

Phineas stopped pacing and sighed. They'd been waiting about ten minutes, with no sign of rescue.

Isabella looked around. "Okay, then. If they were going to track us immediately, they'd have done it already?"

"Yes, it shouldn't have taken this long," Phineas answered.

"So, since they haven't opened up a return portal, then they couldn't open one right now for some reason."

"Maybe they couldn't pin down when or where we ended up too precisely, or something went wrong with the targeting."

Isabella nodded. "Right. In that case, let's assume we're stuck here for a while. Let's mark the clearing so if they get the location but are off on the time, they can find us, and then we'll head off to that stream. If it's big enough, we can stay there; if not, we can follow it to something bigger. We're going to need water, food, and shelter, not necessarily in that order. Fortunately, we have resources. Fireside Girls are always prepared."

"I've got my multitool. It's got a firestarter."

"Excellent, that'll make things easier. I have my Swiss Army knife that you gave me for my birthday last year. Most importantly, though, I have this." She pulled out the thick book she'd had her notebook on for support - her Fireside Girls Handbook.

"Wow. Fortunately for me, then, I have you," Phineas said.

She gave him a smile like a beam of sunlight, then her face suddenly closed off like a mask. "Yeah, whatevs." She picked up a large stick, scuffed a large flat spot in the dirt of the clearing, and wrote FERB in the dirt, with an arrow pointing in the direction she planned to go. "Okay, let's go find the stream."

They started off, lining up trees to keep in a straight line and marking them with Isabella's Swiss Army knife so they could find their way back to the clearing. "If there are people around, then they're probably near water. But...this doesn't look like there have been people here recently." They caught glimpses of wildlife as they walked - squirrels and rabbits fled from them, as did wild turkeys and smaller birds. A couple straight branches made for impromptu walking sticks. A small bobcat eyed them from a tree branch; they gave it a wide berth. Some small bushes yielded black raspberries, and a low vine had small green tomatoes. The stream was small here, but headed down toward a river they could now see in the distance.

The trees thinned out near the wide river, and plains seemed to stretch beyond it forever. Off in the distance was a herd of large bison. "Okay. Water - this is flowing and there are fish in it, so it's probably safe to drink."

"Fish? Hey, look, you're right!"

Isabella started sharpening her walking stick. "Okay, it looks like we've got about 3 hours of daylight left. Why don't you gather some wood for a fire and to make a shelter from? I," she said, hefting her newly-made spear, "will try to catch us some dinner."

Baljeet ran around the empty spot where the projection had been. "No! This cannot be! Where did they go?"

Gretchen, shaken, said, "I think they got sucked in to...whenever it was showing at the time. I think it looked sylvan."

"Surely they will be back soon, right?"

Buford said, "I don't think so. There didn't look like there were any things Phineas could use to build a time machine there."

Baljeet stopped. "But how can we get them back, then?"

Ferb, silently, started disassembling the portal's control panel. Gretchen came over and looked over his shoulder. "Is it fixable?" He nodded. "Can I help?" He gestured to the seat beside him, and she sat down.

Buford's eyes narrowed. "But if we don't know when or where they went..."

Ginger said, "That wouldn't stop Phineas from finding one of us, in whatever weird time distortion we ended up in."

Baljeet suddenly turned to her. "That is it! We need to find the time distortion that they would have caused at the other end when they arrived! Thank you!" He gave her a quick hug, leaving her stunned and smiling, and grabbed his laptop.

Linda wandered out into the back yard. "Hi, everyone. I brought out some snacks. Where's Phineas?"

"Isabella was showing him something," Buford evaded.

"Oh, really? Well, maybe she's giving up on subtlety finally."