Chapter 12
Of course Phineas opted not to be the one to drive them back home. Instead, he watched in a little bit of uncomfortable awe, as the teenage Ferb skillfully handled the car. When he pulled it into the driveway, the two of them hopped out.
Dinner was strange. It wasn't strange because it was abnormal, in fact, it was because it was too normal. Phineas tried to eat his food as he watched his mom and dad finish theirs. Candace wasn't there, but since Phineas had almost begun to accept that this was really the future, Candace would've been twenty-two and perhaps already left.
But Phineas couldn't take his eyes off of the teenage Ferb in front of him. He was cutting his steak and eating forkfuls like it was just any normal day. But if this was a normal day for Phineas, everyone would be staring at Ferb and wondering why he was a teenager. It wasn't normal for a teenage Ferb to be casually finishing steak at the dinner table.
Phineas ended up not eating a lot of his food, when the teenage Ferb excused them both to go upstairs. Phineas felt compelled to follow him for some reason.
The rest of the night went abnormally normal. But Phineas preferred to just sit in his bed and felt out-of-place. He was having a time travel crisis right here! Why was the world continuing as if it was just any other day?
Phineas couldn't think of anything to do with the evening other than sit and watch the teenage Ferb do various things. A couple of times, as he walked past Phineas' bed, he asked Phineas if he was okay. Phineas was sort of okay.
As he examined each one of that teenager's actions, Phineas couldn't decide if he felt a welcoming, familiar presence about him, or a strange and unfamiliar one. Actually, Phineas felt both, and that confused him. That guy in front of him was both Ferb, and a stranger at the same time.
Eventually it came the hour to shut lights off and hop into bed. Course, Phineas was already in bed, and he didn't want to get out of it only to change into pajamas. He just decided to crawl further under and try to fall asleep right where he was.
The teenage Ferb had gone into the bathroom to get changed and brush his teeth. When he returned, he went straight to his own bed and crashed down onto it. He pressed his face into the pillow and pulled the covers on top of himself.
"G'night, Phin," he breathed, muffled from his squished cheek.
"…Good night," Phineas replied, delayed and softly. Then, the light was clicked off and the room became dark.
But Phineas hadn't closed his eyes yet. Only after the bustling of the day had quieted did Phineas come to realize that he actually wasn't tired. His eyes wouldn't even close if he tried to make them.
So he lay in his bed as the minutes and almost hours passed by. The room was so silent. And dark. Phineas felt an onset of loneliness. He wished his brother were there with him, his ten-year-old brother who had gotten left at home.
They always went on adventures together, the two of them. Now, Phineas was being dragged through time-travel and Ferb wasn't even there by his side. Ferb was back at home in 2008, probably sitting in his own bed, while Phineas was left here alone in the future.
Lots of thoughts were coming out of Phineas' head. He had a hard time sitting still in his bed as his mind turned. Where was his brother right now? He really needed somebody to talk to.
Instinctively, Phineas glanced to his left to search for him by habit. But when his eyes rested on the figure sleeping in his bed, Phineas remembered that this teenager was the only other person in the room.
Though Phineas wanted to turn away and go back to staring at the ceiling, he found that he couldn't. His eyes were fixed on staring at that guy in the other bed. ...Phineas needed somebody to talk to. Sure, his own ten-year-old brother wasn't here, but would the seventeen-year-old one mind terribly to be woken up?
Before Phineas let his brain talk himself out of it, he had pushed his feet out of the covers and set them on the floor. He kept a cautious gaze on the sound-asleep figure, as he lightly moved on his toes to sneak towards his bed.
Reaching out a hand, Phineas placed it hesitantly on his shoulder, but paused for a moment when his hand touched it. One would think that a shoulder would just feel like a shoulder, but his felt... familiar. Welcomingly familiar.
Taking a breath, Phineas began to shake it lightly.
"Ferb..." he whispered. "Hey, Ferb, wake up."
With a little mumble, he blinked his eyes open and stared up at Phineas. After a yawn, he turned to lie on his back and mentioned, "Something on your mind?"
Phineas stood up straighter and looked at him. "Umm, yeah. How did you know?"
"You only ever wake me up in the middle of the night when something is bothering you," the sleepy teenager responded, moving his pillow so that he could sit up on it.
"Oh... Oh yeah, I guess I do," Phineas spoke quietly, a little surprised. He kept looking at him, when the teenager gave Phineas a little grin, and patted the side of the bed.
"I'm listening," he offered softly.
"Well," Phineas started, taking the spot on the edge of Ferb's bed. He sighed greatly and revealed, "I miss Ferb."
With a confused gesture to himself, the teenager in the bed asked, "You miss me? But I'm right here."
"No, no," Phineas replied sadly. "...I miss the other Ferb, the ten-year-old one."
But when Phineas looked up, he saw the teenage Ferb still looking at him comfortingly. He pointed at himself again, repeating, "But I'm right here."
"You don't understand," Phineas moped back at him. "I miss the ten-year-old Ferb. You're the seventeen-year-old one."
Phineas exhaled in a shaky whimper. A tear almost formed in the corner of his eye. "I c-can't... I can't talk to you like I can talk to him. I miss the Ferb who's my same age. I miss the Ferb that I grew up with."
"Who do you think I am?" the teenage Ferb proposed softly.
"You?" Phineas addressed. "Well at first I thought you were a scary terrifying stranger."
"But you don't think that anymore?"
"No..." Phineas started again. "Now I think that you're grown-up Ferb, who's seventeen and lives here in the future."
The Ferb who sat in the bed leaned upwards a bit. Phineas watched him as he lifted off the covers and moved his long legs over the side. They were too long to merely dangle off, and he ended up having to rest his heels on the hardwood floor with his knees bent, as he sat on the mattress.
Then he scooted close to Phineas and sat right beside him. When he was positioned, he put his hands over his lap and tipped his eyes up sideways to show them to Phineas. He spoke quietly yet clearly, "That's not who I am."
Staring back at him, Phineas tilted his eyebrows in surprise. "It's not? Then who are you?"
"Sure, all those things describe me," he answered with a shrug. "But those things aren't who I am."
"Then who are you?" Phineas repeated, putting the same importance on the word that he had seen the teenage Ferb use.
"Who am I?" he started gently. "Well, I'm a lot of things."
He placed his elbows on his knees as he bent forward, turning to look back at Phineas. Then he straightened a finger to point at Phineas' head.
"That guy in your memories? The ten-year-old boy who you're missing right now..." He moved his long fingers to stretch them out and set his fingertips on the top of his chest. "...I'm sitting right here next to you, and I've been here this whole time."
"B-but... I'm the only one who's time traveling..." Phineas attempted to mumble. He reached out a limp finger to try to poke him in the arm. "If you're ten-year-old Ferb, then—then… how'd you get here?"
"You're right, Phineas..." came the gentle reply as he sighed and looked away. "I'm not ten years old anymore, and I didn't get to the year 2015 by time travel. I got here by living through seven years of my life."
At this, Phineas put on a little frown and leaned backwards a bit. The teenage Ferb followed the lean with a hesitant movement of his own, stopping himself after only an inch.
"Yes… yes, Phin. I am really seventeen years old," he tried to explain softly. "But please don't think of me as just some random teenager who looks like Ferb and lives in your house…"
Then he placed his hand back on his chest, this time stretching all his fingers out to press on it with his palm. Then he gazed back up at Phineas with vaguely glossy eyes. "It's me, Phin. It's really me. I'm your brother."
"B-but I… I can't say that you're my brother…" Phineas whispered quietly back to him. "…Because that would be like saying the ten-year-old one back in 2008 isn't. I only have one same-age brother… I can'tve secretly had another one who's also my BIG brother. You're more like… somebody else's brother."
"Phineas…" he started, looking once more to the floor, perhaps seeking words. "It doesn't work if you think of me as two separate people. If you do that, then one of them seems like a stranger. But I'm not a stranger to you."
Phineas kept sitting on the bed and didn't know whether to lean back away from him or forward to investigate him. So he just stayed still and kept watching.
The Ferb that was sitting in front of him saw Phineas' speechlessness, and gave a little sigh. He spoke softly, "You've mentioned it before. There's only one Ferb. But… I'll let you in on a little secret."
When he paused, Phineas opened his mouth in anticipation. "A secret? What is it?"
The teenage Ferb place his hand over his mouth, and gave Phineas a warm grin behind it. He scooted forward enough that he could whisper in Phineas' ear, "Both Ferb's are the same person."
He leaned back and sat straight again as he continued, "But you're time traveling, Phineas. There's only one Ferb, but I'm in two places at once. I exist as your brother when I was ten in 2008. And I exist, here, as your brother when I'm seventeen."
Staring back, Phineas let his open jaw slack a bit. The spoken words had entered his mind and flowed through it, and as Phineas looked at the person sitting next to him, he found that he couldn't mouth anything.
Then Phineas watched as the person beside him took a shaky breath, and kept staring at his feet with his hands clasped out in front of him. "…You don't know how hurt it makes me feel… to know that you won't call me your brother anymore."
He closed his eyes and spoke with wet words, "You asked me a couple of minutes ago who I am. Well… I am the guy who sits across from you in the morning. I am the guy who shares syrup with you when we eat Mom's pancakes, the guy who sits beside you on long car rides to Grandma and Grandpa Flynn's cabin."
Now he was attempting to grin a tender grin up at Phineas, who couldn't help but grow his own wide and bright smile, as he kept staring at him and listened.
"I'm the same person who sits under my welding mask on the wall of some project. I'm the same person who gets clobbered by a pillow Every. Single. Morning. I am your best friend. I am your brother. I am Ferb. The guy whose shoulder you fell asleep on while sitting on the couch, and you were too tired to stay awake anymore."
Hunching under his back, the person who Phineas was staring at went to tipping his nose down to his feet. He mumbled silently and under his breath, "So please look at me, and tell me that you don't see who's really sitting here beside you."
Then he tipped his watery eyes upwards again, to look at Phineas. Phineas felt a jump when he saw them gazing at him, he didn't know what to think about anything anymore.
"All I want is for you to be able to fall asleep on my shoulder again," he mumbled as a drop landed from his nose onto the hardwood floor. His words were almost silent, the only sound in the dark room, as he spoke, "So if you can honestly look at me, and think that I'm not the same person… That I'm not that ten-year-old you know. Just go ahead and tell me."
Phineas felt a pang of regret when those eyes turned away from him, and the figure before him went back to raising his shoulders around his neck, slumped down and staring at his feet. Phineas almost opened his mouth, when he heard one last, muffled, wet, soft-spoken sentence.
"Just go ahead and tell me, and I'll know it to be true."
"F-F-Ferb?" Phineas started, sorting through his churning thoughts to pick out a few words and set them on his tongue. "…I've been missing you all this time…! I've lain awake in bed only wishing that you were here. I've wanted you here by my side ever since I jumped into this future… We always go on adventures together, the two of us. But… there's only one you… and you're right here with me!"
Then Phineas paused for only a moment, as he watched those eyes turn back up to look at him. They were widened a bit as Phineas' words still hung in the air. After a couple of seconds, Phineas saw Ferb's smiling face looking back at him.
"…And I've been here all along," came the cracking voice as he showed his teeth, beaming. "I'm on this adventure with you, Phineas. Though I didn't time travel with you here, and I may look a little older, we're here together as always, Phin."
Phineas felt a huge grin growing at the corners of his own mouth as he looked back at Ferb. Suddenly he wasn't lonely anymore. How could he be lonely? His brother was sitting right next to him!
Laughing softly, Phineas said a bit louder, "You still have your smile, Ferb! You really still have your smile."
But as Phineas looked back at that now-obviously-familiar face, his heart started to pound out of both excitement and sheer wonder. He couldn't stop himself from leaping over and wrapping both his arms around Ferb's neck, squeezing him tight. "I'm sorry, Ferb…! I'm sorry for saying you're not my brother and I'm sorry for hurting your feelings and I'm sorry for being afraid of you and I'm sorry for calling you a stranger…"
"Ph—!" Ferb tried to breathe from his place beneath the two constricting arms. "Ph-Phin…eas…"
Phineas let go in reaction and asked loudly and directly, "Am I allowed to hug you?"
"Yes, yes, of course you are," Ferb answered as he tried to breathe and rubbed his neck. "But you were choking me."
"Oh," Phineas said bashfully as his face grew red. "…I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I accept your apology …Each one of them," Ferb said kindly, and Phineas felt a gentle hand placed on his shoulder. He smiled as he heard Ferb continue, "I'm just glad you can finally see who I am."
