A Life That Revolved Around You

Cezille07

A/N: Final chapter – Candace uncovers the dark secret to Ferb's 'emotional stability'.


Chapter 3. Truth.

"Ferb! Ferb!" Candace found herself pounding at the locked doors to the memory scanner once she heard a loud thud from inside, which had shaken her from the enchantment of reliving last week's dreadful tragedy. "Open up, Ferb! C'mon!"

At last the metal door gave way. Ferb was unconscious. Candace saw the hideous helmet-like structure jammed onto his head tightly; she dragged him out and fanned his face with her hand. "Please wake up, please wake up..." she whined, and tried to take off the helmet to no avail. "Ugh, don't do this, Ferb!"

He coughed twice, and suddenly his eyes fluttered open. As if disgusted by her proximity, he coarsely raised himself to his feet, removed the helmet, and, throwing it carelessly into the memory scanner, stomped towards the sliding glass doors.

"Where are you going? What happened back there? Ferb, can't you hear me? Get back here!" yelled Candace. Her hands found their way to their usual place on her waist, and the eyebrows routinely fell back into a knit. She cast a glance back at his newest working invention as she darted after him, and decided that busting anyone was going to be the least of her concerns for the rest of her life.


Candace forced her weary eyes open. Five in the morning, not much sleep the night before. But she sat on that old dormitory bunk bed, remembering what took place precisely seven days ago, plus or minus a few hours...in some place almost illusory and nonexistent. She peeked into the next bed; Stacy was still sleeping. Candace got dressed and was boarding the next train to Danville in an eye's blink.

Her classes could wait.

She had used college as an excuse to get out of the house. Promising she'd live with Stacy in a dormitory nearest the campus, she packed her bags and left sooner than Phineas' ashes were handed over from the crematorium. It was that the mood was impossible to breathe in, or that Jeremy had moved weeks ago to get a job in a Mr. Slushy Dawg franchise in that area. Or that Ferb's distance made her more and more guilty—she simply couldn't console him. She had lost a brother too...but she also knew that wherever a 'Phineas' was, a 'Ferb' was there also. The inseparable duo was, for the first and final time, broken apart.

Invisible beneath a thin shadow from their old backyard tree, she stood by the fence, observing how differently the house looked in the weak dawn sunlight. Physically, not much, but there was a pulsating life within, which plainly diminished in logarithmic time. She let out a sigh as Lawrence, carrying a backpack, walked out the front door with Ferb. They would be walking to school, assumed Candace; the car was reserved—Linda was already busying herself with some unimportant errands for the day.

Ferb was looking ahead with a complacent grin on his often straight face.

Candace clearly heard him saying, "Phineas, I know what we're gonna do today..." as they vanished behind the curb.

It was easy to disregard that single overheard line, but when she saw the boys' bedroom, the shock only escalated. Linda had left her a voice message about what happened after she left; it included Ferb fighting almost literally with fire for the rights to stay in his room.

And now she could see why. A week after, none of Phineas' things had been moved at all: even the last change of clothes he wore before putting on the school uniform lay in a crumpled heap on his bed. A tear lingered on the corner of Candace's eyes. She couldn't imagine the mere effort it must take for Ferb to keep going...


She didn't realize that she'd been sitting on the foot of Phineas' bed, hugging his pillow for hours—it was mid-afternoon already. The front door opened and closed in quick succession. Who just arrived home? Candace looked outside the window, and remembered the countless times she saw her brothers in the middle of some ambitious feat... they would always make "awesome" sound painfully ordinary.

"What are you doing?" She saw him tacking oversized sheet of white and blue paper onto a portable corkboard as she ambled towards his work station in the backyard. She stuck a makeshift grin on her face, but Ferb ignored her. "I can't believe this. Fifteen and still working on those summer projects during school. Don't you, like, have any homework?"

Instead of replying, he tilted his head towards the sliding glass door. In plain view, the fridge was covered in neat pieces of pad paper drabbled with thin black ink.

"Okay, so...what is that thing?" Candace gulped, pulling the neckline of her blouse. "Of course, not that I'm still planning on telling mom..."

Again, silence, coupled with the slightest tilt of his head towards the blueprint.

"Fine, not talking to me eh?"

If Linda hadn't appeared in the backyard to distract her, to make small talk about casual visits and dinners and—

Candace heaved a sigh. "So when will you be done?" she asked after their mother retreated indoors. No answer. Of course. She began to pace the patch of grass right behind him, her natural stretch of patience shortening by habit. "Come on, just answer me Ferb. Ferb?"

He didn't even wait for her to finish the tirade. Angrily—angrily! As if he were on the curious end!—he stepped into his machine, and the furious lights show began.


Ferb huffed. He locked the room just in time; within seconds, Candace was banging on the door, yelling, "Ferb! Open up! I want to talk to you!"

I don't think so, he thought, casting the day's millionth glance at his brother's bed. He saw the tiniest new crease on the bed sheets. Ugh! She's been here! She's touched his things!

"Candace, honey, keep your voice down," called Linda, but the daughter instantly refuted, "Not now, mom! Ferb, let me in—"

Ferb threw the door open. "Then come in and shut up!"

Candace was taken aback, and it showed. She bit her lip, stepped inside cautiously. "Ferb, I just want to know if you're alright," she said tentatively as he slammed and re-locked the door behind her. "We're all coping, direly, and..."

He met her eyes with icy blankness.

"I don't necessarily understand you the way you need it, but we're all here for each other, right?" Candace forced herself to say.

"Ferb, what's she talking about?" asked Phineas from the elder's bed.

Don't worry, I'll send her away before she finds out our little secret.

Instinctively, Ferb reached into his pocket, only managing to turn away partially before uncapping the orange, plastic bottle and shaking a fair amount of its contents onto his hand.

"What are you doing, Ferb?" Candace looked over.

And Phineas followed suit, "What's that, bro?" What worried Ferb was the astonishment that accompanied the wide-eyed stare. "Ferb, is that what I think it is...?"

Ferb shut his eyes and walked a few steps away from them.

I'm not coping 'direly', he justified, grinning whilst the bulk of reality faded into the background. The new, ash-filled, porcelain vase on the shelf then disappeared. Their school bags were ready for tomorrow. A monster of an idea for tomorrow's project shone from heaven through the window, a quaint spotlight on his brother, smiling, on his bed.

I call it 'happiness', but the world knows it as 'hallucinogens'.

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END
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A/N: Aha! I know what you're thinking! ...Well, actually I don't. Clue me in and give it a review. ;D