I'm already updating! *feels proud of self* I had originally planned for this to be combined with the next chapter, but this part turned out longer than expected ;P
I DO NOT OWN PHIENAS AND FERB. ANY CHARACTER YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE IS PROBABLY MINE
(Courtney's POV)
Everyone else unanimously blinked. "Really?" Michael asked in surprise.
I nodded. "I... I need to know more about her. I want to see her myself. Also... I think my memory gave me a lead on how to find her."
My mate and his other family exchanged some glances. "If you feel up to it," Michael finally agreed with a grin.
"What's your lead?" Perry asked curiously.
Pixie stayed silent, to my surprise.
"Can I help?" Emily chirped hopefully.
I laughed. "I think that's up to your parents."
Emily looked over at Perry and Pixie with a hopeful expression on her face. Pixie hesitated. "Emily... Melissa's dangerous..."
"Mom, I'm ten years old," Emily reminded with a sigh. "It's only four years until I'm an adult."
"Don't remind me," Pixie grinned.
"Why don't you let us think about it for a bit, okay?" Perry asked. "We'll tell you our answer in a couple of hours."
"Fine."
"So what's your lead?" Perry inquired again, turning back to me.
"In my dream- or memory, or whatever- when Mom left the alley, I saw the address of the building next to it. I think it's a start, right?"
"Yeah," Perry nodded. "As long as it's correct, we should be able to find that alley and look for her. Even if she's not there anymore, we could probably figure out where she went from there."
Pixie hesitated. "Are you sure you want to do this, Courtney? The last I remember, Melissa wasn't much better than Dennis."
Perry shot his mate a look- although I couldn't quite tell what kind it was. "Look, I'm sorry," Pixie defended. "But can you blame me, after what happened?"
I remembered what Dad had told me last night. Perry and Pixie had a surprising amount of history with Mom. I made a mental note to ask one of them about it later. "Pixie, I want to at least meet her," I answered firmly. "See her for myself."
"I understand," Pixie sighed.
"Well, then," began Perry, "we'd better start looking for her."
(...)
Perry and Pixie had gone into another room to talk privately for about fifteen minutes. Probably about Emily.
When they came out again, they exchanged a look before turning to Emily. "Emily, we think you should stay here."
"What?!"
Pixie sighed. "We can't all go, sweetheart. It'll need to be a small team, and we can't leave Dennis alone here." Lydia and her family had left on a trip to her dad's a few days before, so they couldn't keep an eye on the house while everyone else was gone anymore.
"Besides, your mother will be staying here with you," Perry finished.
Now it was Pixie's turn to snap, "What?!"
Perry sighed. "Pixie, you and I both know how you'd react to seeing Melissa right now- way too rashly. And Emily can't stay here and watch Dennis by herself."
Pixie glared down at the ground. "I guess you're right," she muttered finally.
Her mate chuckled and gently kissed her before turning to Michael and I. "Are you two ready to go?"
My mate and I exchanged a glance and nodded. "Yeah. Let's get going."
(...)
We all walked down the sidewalks on four feet, so as to not attract attention from the humans walking all over Danville. Not like two platypi, who look almost exactly the same, and one rabbit walking down the sidewalk together in an organized line wouldn't draw any attention, but it was the best we could do.
I glanced at myself every time we walked past a shop window and sighed. I knew I had been pregnant for over a week now, but I hadn't realized that it was beginning to show. Now when I looked at myself, I saw that my stomach had a fairly large bump on it.
Great. I inwardly groaned. I was excited that I was going to become a mother... I wasn't excited for the looks that came with the pregnancy process. It made me look weaker, and I didn't like that.
Michael must have sensed something about my thoughts because he turned and gently nuzzled me. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I wasn't going to tell him the thought that had been currently running through my head, but there was another big thought I had as well. "I guess I'm just worried about what'll happen when we find Mom."
"Hopefully, nothing bad," Perry replied. "But, then again, knowing Melissa, it's hard to be sure."
I paused. "Yeah... Dad told me you and Pixie have quite the history with her... But he didn't say what it is."
"Well..." Perry inhaled. "Michael, did Dennis tell you the story?"
"Yeah," my mate answered.
"Alright, then you don't have to pay attention if you don't want. Courtney, about fifteen years ago, when Pixie was an Agent in Training, well... Melissa had captured her."
I blinked. "Why?"
"I'm not completely sure," admitted Perry. "I had already started falling for Pixie then- and, as I found out later, vice-versa- so, somehow, Melissa found out she was one of my few weaknesses and captured her to get to me."
"Well... No wonder you sent her to the O.W.C.A-Traz," I blinked.
"Yeah, but... Then I realized that she wasn't a villain. Not really- she was just neutral. Not good, not bad. That was the first time she had really done something that made her seem like she was picking a side. Which is why I'm still confused as to why she really captured Pixie in the first place- she wasn't a villain and didn't want to be one, so why did she act so much like one then?"
Perry sighed. "That's something I'm hoping to find out today."
(...)
I paused and looked at the address of a certain building. "This... This is it," I said quietly, looking over into the alleyway on the right. "This is the place."
Michael nuzzled me again. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Y-yeah."
"Alright, let's go." Michael and I followed Perry into the edge of the alley, where we got up on two feet again.
I gripped Michael's paw as we stepped further in and froze when I heard a sharp, scraping noise. I stared down at the end of the alley, and, the closer we got, I was able to begin to make out a figure, who had been blending into the bricks behind her.
It was a dusty brown rabbit with silver eyes- just like in my memory, just how Dad described her. It was Mom.
And on that bombshell…. xD xD
