For someone whose personality was riddled with neuroses and insecurities, Candace Four had still clung to a lot of false hopes in her lifetime.

It wasn't even that she hadn't known them to be untrue. Like that hope that if only she used her phone camera, or taken a piece of the Big Idea of the day for herself, or just ran a little faster, her brothers would be busted. She'd always hoped that as a teenager and nothing ever came of it.

Oh, and then there was that hope that if only she'd keep all girls and other temptations away from him, Jeremy Johnson would stick with her forever. And it was better to not get started on the hope that if she just treated Stacy Hirano to ice cream once in a while the girl would forget all the times Candace had stood her up for either Jeremy or busting. Really, she'd skirted so close to a cliff edge when it came to almost losing Stacy as a friend, and that was before the whole 'I'm dating my brother' thing entered the equation.

Looking back with hindsight, it was incredible to realize how relaxed everyone around her had always been – Jeremy, as she'd known at the time, Phineas, as she knew now, but also people like Stacy and her mother. They might get tired of her antics but they never abandoned her, not even over committing incest. (Granted, in Stacy's case the fact that Perry had given her forewarning well in advance would obviously have helped a lot.)

But in spite of that kindness that had been shown to her, there were a lot of false hopes in Candace's life that had backfired spectacularly. And the idea that if only she would get home again, everything surrounding these crazy counterparts of herself would be all right was most definitely one of them.

Just giving all of them a place to sleep last night had been difficult enough, and then, of course, there had been the conversation she'd needed to have with Phineas before going to sleep. She could have seen that one coming from a mile away, and it had even been enjoyable to just be there with her brother, in the warm comfort of his embrace, beneath their familiar blankets and in their familiar bedroom, almost allowing her to imagine that the adventure was over and she was just telling him the most interesting anecdotes. But of course the adventure was still very much on-going.

The morning had gone… all right, all things considered – for one, Five and Seven hadn't made nearly as much of a scene as she'd expected them to. (Or so she hoped, at least. She didn't know what had happened at Flynn-Fletcher Incorporated, and although Phineas hadn't called her or texted her apart from an acknowledgement of her own message about heading over, that didn't prove that there had been no incidents. Especially considering Phineas' character – she was half-expecting to see him with a black eye thanks to Five losing her temper, which he would of course not think was worth mentioning at all.)

But Two's constant paranoia was getting on her nerves, Xavier and Amanda had reported that One was deeply traumatized (and even if she knew that her younger self was never going to take well to her choice to start a relationship with her brother, the fact that Candace One was sodistressed about it still stung) and Kevin, who'd seemed so calm and cool about everything yesterday, had ended up freaking out over Perry and eating meat.

And just when it seemed like Six was the only normal one around, she would do crazy things like not knowing how to read, questioning the year, or even randomly running off.

Four exchanged an exhausted look with Ferb as they walked down the stairs together, having forced encouraged One to walk in front of them so that at least she wouldn't run off too. Ferb might not be the brother she was in love with, but she felt reassured that he was there nonetheless. His utterly unperturbed demeanor made her feel slightly more at ease with the whole situation, even if she knew that deep down he might be freaking out as well. That was the great thing about her stepbrother – unless a situation got extremely serious, it was impossible to tell whether he was panicking.

Before opening the door into Phineas' lab, she took a brief moment to re-evaluate the priorities in her head. Doing everything she could to help Phineas get the others home – very important. Making sure everyone stayed where they were and didn't get into fights – again, important. Figuring out why all these other versions of her were different ages, or why their Phineases had had different educations – not very important (though potentially something she could focus upon just in case a conversation got awkward again). Trying to keep Three away from Phineas so that he wouldn't realize that he could have had someone better…

…well, that wasn't unimportant . Just, you know, not particularly constructive. They really needed Three right now, and Four couldn't help but still feel a little guilty for the way she'd treated the other woman in the non-dimension. Which Three had apparently gotten over completely already, because in addition to all those other traits of Phineas she'd managed to acquire, she had somehow achieved his saintly patience and forgiveness, too. How was it possible for a person - a Candace, even - to be that perfect?

The three of them walked into the laboratory, and Candace Four stopped a few steps away from the entrance to glance over her shoulder. She was… a little disappointed, to be honest. Where she had been hoping that One would look astounded or at least a little impressed at what Phineas and Ferb had constructed, instead she gave it only a casual glance before settling herself in a comfortable chair. Four gave Ferb an almost apologetic look before proceeding.

Phineas and Candace Three were at the corner of the lab next to the room which Phineas had accidentally used to trigger that link to another dimension all those months ago, and they were completely embroiled in a debate about quantum physics which Four listened to for five seconds only to give up on it. Fortunately, the other new arrival did know what they were talking about, and when Phineas made his usual gesture for a screwdriver or a wrench or… whatever he needed right now, Ferb was there to give it to him. Candace watched him use it with a smile on her face.

Five, four, three, two, one…

"Oh, hi Ferb!" Phineas looked up and grinned. "I hadn't heard you come in, actually. And hi, Candace." Her partner gave her a loving smile. "Where are the others?"

"Little me is over there, reading a book" Candace Four replied, waiting a moment for One's inevitable "hey!" before proceeding. "Six saw something outside and ran off after it, and Kevin went after her to get her back. We just walked on at first, figuring that they would come back, but…" She shot an inquisitive look towards the staircase. "I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't have let them run off like that. They could get lost very easily here."

Phineas nodded. "I can't blame them for being curious, but you're right that that's not a risk we would want to take. Maybe we could build something that would allow us to track them down?" Three wordlessly handed him a piece of paper which had been repurposed as a blueprint (although to be honest, that was how all papers in Flynn-Fletcher Incorporated inevitably seemed to end up). "Wow, that's awesome! Did you make that just now?"

Three shrugged. "It occurred to me earlier, actually, but I did write this down just now. I should be able to reconfigure my phone to track down the others, presuming the differences in our quantum ion signatures are not too distinct. Unless you want to make a separate device for it, of course. And it wouldn't work for Seven, given her status as a temporal anomaly."

Four almost instinctively took a step back, especially when she caught Ferb giving her a curious look. Phineas smiled as he turned to his brother, although there was something off about his smile. "Apparently Candace Three here can build the same things we do, from insta-transporters to rollercoasters that go into the fifth dimension – referring to dimensions as pertaining to the more general spatial sense, of course, rather than the ones out there in the multiverse that are perhaps more relevant to our current quest – anyway, all that stuff that we can do, she can do too. It's am – I mean, I think it's pretty cool."

Candace Four caught her brother looking at her, and she attempted to force a smile onto her face while simultaneously sending the green-eyed monster back to whatever place it came from (her heart, probably). In the meantime, Ferb stared at Three and blinked appreciatively.

Three just shrugged. "I didn't think it was anything special until I came here, really" she replied. "I mean, of course it's special, because lots of people can't do it, but it's a special thing that's unique for our family . I did spend some time when I was young trying to bust you guys rather than inventing, but that's always been just a phase for me."

Honestly, Four knew Three probably didn't mean anything with it, but the way Three was saying that was once again making her feel quite insecure about herself, and… resentful. She resented her other self. Which was bad enough, because hadn't Three mentioned all that stuff about withdrawal, and that sounded harsh enough, so even if Three might be better than her in so many ways at least she also had drawbacks to contend with.

'At least' she also has drawbacks to contend with? What do you mean, 'at least'?

Well, you know… it's not exactly fair if she has all the benefits of being able to do everything that Phineas can, and we don't, is it?

I don't believe you! Are you really so insecure and possessive that you're relieved if another version of you, someone who hasn't done a thing to hurt you and who's only been helping you, is suffering ? Phineas loves you, you know – although he might stop doing so if he knew you just thought that!

Hey, I didn't mean it like that!

I know that and you know that, but if that had been a verbal slip rather than a mental one, you would get your comeuppance for it all the same!

Four sighed. Three was probably the most relatable of all these other Candaces, and it simply wouldn't do to antagonize her for something she didn't deserve. She would simply have to cope with it. Maybe talk to Phineas about it tonight, if she could work up the guts for it.

A sudden clamor outside of the room distracted her from those thoughts, as it did with all the others. Even little Candace One looked up as another Candace stormed in through the door of the staircase. Almost instinctively, Four's brain got to work. One and Three were here, Two looked entirely different anyway, Six carried herself differently because she was still getting used to normal clothes, which left Kevin, Five and Seven. It probably wasn't Five, because she was quite familiar with Five's mannerisms by now (far more than she would have ever wanted to be) and Five simply looked slightly different, and come to think of it…

Then the Candace glitched.

Four scowled. Of course the universe had to provide the answer at that moment. She'd been so close to guessing it on her own.

Candace Seven came to a halt in front of Phineas, and Four was about to take a protective step towards him when she saw Three do the same. Fortunately, her mind was able to focus on 'anyone protecting Phineas is good' rather than 'did it have to be Three', so that was progress, right?

Phineas and Ferb just stared at the newcomer, who was giving all of them death glares. If she had been Two, she probably would have slammed her stick against the floor at that moment, but since she wasn't she simply spoke up. "You can build some kind of dimension tracer, right?"

Phineas frowned. "Well… yes? I mean, we've been trying to build a device that will access the dimensions each of you is from in order to help you all get home." He smiled. "I mean, that is kind of the point of all of us being here."

Seven rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant, you dork" she said, and coming from her lips that mild-insult-turned-casual-term-of-endearment suddenly sounded very scathing indeed. "I want to find out whether I'm from the same dimension as any of the others. Because as you might know, I'm a temporal anomaly, and it only just occurred to me that the version of myself that stole my life could be any one of your sister's counterparts. Think you can do that for me, or is it suddenly too hard?"

Although her long-standing rivalry with Five had allowed her to ignore it until now, Four had to admit that Seven was actually even more insufferable than Five was. Even Phineas didn't look unaffected, but he still gave her an apologetic look. "Well, like you said, you're a quantum anomaly" he replied. "That means that you don't show up on any trackers or scanners devised for that purpose, so we can't compare your signature with that of, say, Four or Three."

"And thank heaven for that" Three muttered so softly that only Four, who happened to be standing near to her at the time, could catch it. Now that was something she could agree with her smarter counterpart on. Although it was possible – though not very likely – that the mess in front of them was a direct alternate to either of them, she definitely didn't want to hear it confirmed.

Seven blinked. "What the – that's it? That's all you have to say? Oh, you've got to be kidding me! You have absolutely no trouble breaking the time barrier or accessing other dimensions just to spread more suffering among innocent versions of your sister, but doing a simple scan is supposed to be beyond you?" She clenched her hands into fists and trembled with rage. "You know, if you were only consistent with what you claimed to be able to do, your stories about entertaining people and 'having fun' could sound plausible. But as always, your inventions only end up benefiting you and hurting me – which is, I suppose, what they were designed to do in the first place."

"Okay, that's enough" Four snapped, stepping forwards and blocking Seven from both Three and Phineas – she didn't think Seven was about to physically attack Phineas, she didn't seem the type for that, but she didn't even want her brother to have to look at this woman. "Even if everything you've told us about your dimension is true, and Phineas and Ferb really erased you from existence – something which I strongly doubt, by the way – then that still gives you no right to insult my Phineas like that."

"Did you happen to forget that if anyone caused anybody suffering back in the day, it would have been us ?" Three added. "We tried to stop him from inventing , which to a person like you would have been the same thing as being stopped from eating or breathing. I suppose that wouldn't apply to this Phineas or your Phineas, per se, but even…"

"I don't even have 'a Phineas'!" Seven exclaimed. She paused for a moment to look around the group that had gathered around her, and let out a harsh laugh. "This is just typical, isn't it. You're all jumping to his defense because he's brainwashed you into thinking that whatever he's doing is right – into entering a relationship with him, no less! So I'll insult "your" Phineases in whatever way I want, because even spending five minutes with this guy has taught me that he's not one iota better than the brothers who ruined me! But ooh no, Phineas is so amazing. Look at all these inventions he put together!" She had walked over to the table Phineas, Ferb and Three had been working at until she entered. "Look at this cool gadget that totally won't blow us to smithereens when turned on! Look at all these calculations for a device that definitely won't bring us home because that would be far too easy."

"Actually Three built that, and I know it's not going to be easy" Phineas replied. "But that's life. Look, Candace Seven, I can see that you don't trust me for whatever reason, but…"

"You've never given me any reason to trust you" Seven scoffed. "Not then, and definitely not now. Come to your senses, people! You especially, One! Do you really think that all this is going to help us home?!" She gave the plethora of tools on Phineas' workbench another look and then swept them aside with her hand, causing everything Phineas had set up to fall off the workbench and to scatter on the ground. "It's worthless, it's dangerous, and if it were up to me I'd rather take my chances wandering the world and waiting for the Mysterious Force or Vanessa's dad to somehow drag me back home, because even that's more reliable than the brother who can't even tell me – YAOW!"

It took Candace Four a moment to realize what Seven was freaking out about, but considering that she was clutching the hand with which she had only just been sweeping aside bolts and wrenches on a wooden workbench which had been used hundreds of times and just wound up getting littered with splinters no matter what she or any of the company's employees did… it wasn't hard to guess. Candace Seven grimaced, clutching her right hand with an intensity that could well end up breaking some of her fingers.

Four wasn't impressed.

"Okay, show of hands everyone" she said calmly. "Does anyone here actually feel sorry for her right now?" She kept her eyes fixed on Seven, whose dark glare didn't bother her for one bit. "Put your hand down, Phineas."

"She is definitely… unique in her vigor" Ferb commented.

"It's… will someone do something about this?" Seven whined. "I'd do it myself, except I don't know where any medical supplies are here, so I'm going to need to count on you for help! And I know you won't do it for my sake, but at least you won't want me to bleed dry on your lab floor, will you?"

Four rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen. It's just a cut in your hand, you know."

Seven glared at her. "Does this look like 'just a cut in my hand'?" she whispered, removing her left hand so that the full extent of her injury became clear. Four's eyes widened as she saw the blood that had pooled up and now fell down to the ground. "I'm thrombocytopenic, you know. My blood just won't clot, and if you don't do anything soon I might as well faint. Shouldn't you know that, from your own experiences? And don't tell me you had Phineas fix it for you. If you let him play with your bloodstream…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes returned to a more panicky stance as she just stared at the blood that continued to spill out of her wound.

Even Phineas was beginning to get disconcerted now. "Ferb, get the medical kit" he said, his voice trembling. "I – I don't know… Candace?"

Four opened her mouth and closed it again. It was unusual for Phineas to outright ask her for help – she was usually the one asking him for help – but she had no idea what to say. "I… we've got bandages?" she offered. "If you take some of them and just press them hard enough against the wound, then eventually it would stop, wouldn't it?"

"Of course not!" Seven exclaimed. "Like I said, the blood won't clot , and that won't happen no matter how many bandages you throw against it – so unless you want a lot of soaked bandages, please think before you say something next time so that, you know, you'll actually end up being helpful!"

"I – I did think about it!" Four shouted back, embarrassed. "It's not my fault that I'm not used to people having thrombo… blood issues! I was panicking, okay!"

"Oh, sure, you're panicking, so you have to be excused for everything!" Seven snapped back. "What about the woman right here who is almost bleeding to death? Do you have any pity left to spare for me once you're done whining about yourself, or did all that get stamped out from twenty years of living with Phineas?"

"I…" Four stammered, but she knew that saying something wasn't going to help the situation one bit. Because as embarrassing as it might be to admit, Seven was right. She wasn't helping, and she couldn't help here. And for all that Phineas had to be coming up with seven emergency plans in a minute here, he had no idea either. She – wait! – wasn't this something she could simply look up online? Or ask Seven herself about, of course. Because the woman was apparently too busy panicking to think of the fact that she could well provide the answers. Either that, or she was so self-righteous that she was willing to risk bleeding dry because she simply thought that Phineas and Candace should be able to help her on their own. Four wouldn't put it past her.

What to do, what to do…

"Take this."

Four looked up to see an unusually pale looking (she hadn't had an accident herself, had she?) Candace Three hand Phineas a bottle of sorts. "It's a coagulant" she replied softly. "The specific dosage should be specified on the label. Try to apply it as gently to the wound as you can. I'd do it, but I… I'm not feeling up to it right now."

As Phineas followed Three's instructions in front of a scowling and clearly distrustful Seven, who only reluctantly offered up her arm for the purpose, Four took a moment to wonder why Three looked so nervous and insecure all of a sudden. And come to think of it, why had she had that kind of bottle on her, especially on a day like this when they had all been randomly plucked out of their daily lives without being given a moment's preparation? How could she have known anyone might need it? Unless she had brought it along for herself, of course…

Oh.

Oh.

Seven hadn't made the connection yet. Phineas hadn't either – then again, he was preoccupied, so she could hardly blame him for that – but from the look on his face Ferb clearly had, even if Candace Four suspected that her stepbrother had somehow made the link before Three even spoke up. He was that kind of guy, after all.

"What's happening?" One piped up from behind them. Ugh, this was getting so annoying. Didn't One have any sense for the basic idea of 'not meddling in things that aren't your business'? "Are you okay?"

Seven snorted. "I'll live, kid" she muttered. "If you can call it that. I don't suppose you could use any of the blood I just spilled to track down my inter-dimensional identity, could you?"

Ferb cleared his throat. "Actually, I do not believe that would even be necessary at this stage."

The time anomaly in front of them stared at their quiet brother. "What do you mean?" she insisted. "Oh wait, you've already figured it out, haven't you? Of course you have. Classic Ferb. He knows everything, he can do anything, just not when it's actually helpful , because then he shines through his absence. So, what is it? The fact that I have thrombocytopenia and Four doesn't? I don't see how that's helpful as I haven't seen anyone else bleeding thus far – and unless you two have sunk that far in your desire for experiments, I doubt I'm going to. Three's bottle could run out of juice pretty quickly, and then we'd be in…"

Ah. Now she'd caught on.

"You…" Seven stammered, staring at Three. Her eyes narrowed venomously. "You can't be the only one. There's got to be more."

"Did you first discover that you had this at Stacy's birthday party when you were five years old?" Three asked. Her voice almost sounded calm, but there was something about it that told Four that she really wasn't anywhere near to being calm. "Did you originally feel embarrassed because you'd humiliated yourself in front of everyone, but then Stacy's mother helped you get through it, and Stacy felt so sorry for what had happened to you that it helped you two become friends?"

Seven's eyes widened. She glanced over at Candace One, who shook her head. "Nope. That never happened to me."

"This…" Seven clung onto the workbench to recompose herself. "This doesn't prove anything! There are still lots of versions of us out there, so…"

"There certainly are, yes," Phineas said, sounding fairly cheerful and composed as usual, even though Candace could tell that he was still slightly unnerved. "But - well, I haven't really had the chance to find out anything about your life yet," Seven gritted her teeth, "so correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't have the impression that it was any different - before anomalization, that is - from most of ours?"

"It was fundamentally different" Seven snapped. "I was never like Three and Six and your own pathetic sister in any way - I was happily married to Jeremy, and…"

"Ah, see, that's exactly what I thought" Phineas replied, smoothly cutting off the woman who was already very unhappy with him. (Candace took a step closer to her brother so that she could protect him if that should become necessary, but fortunately Seven stayed put.) "That discounts Two, and Six, and Kevin, given the backstories that Candace - my Ca - my sister Candace told about them. So you can't be any of those Candaces. And the 'thrombocytopenia' doesn't fit with my sister, nor apparently with One, so unless Five turns out to have it…"

"Turns out to have what?" another Candace's voice spoke up. Four reassured herself that she probably would have been able to identify her as being Five even if she hadn't directly replied to what Phineas was saying. "Did you guys take a break from inventing to gossip about me? Figures."

"Actually, we were trying to figure out whether Seven and Three are from the same universe, and if Three is the Candace whose timeline superseded Seven's, causing her to end up as a temporal anomaly" Phineas explained. "I don't suppose you have thrombocytopenia, do you? Trouble with blood clotting?"

"I… no" Five murmured, looking at Seven with an almost fearful expression – well, that was something Four could relate to. From the last couple of minutes it had become clear to her that Candace Seven had a tendency to snap, and even if she hadn't been as outspoken as Five had been for much of their stay here thus far, she was undoubtedly far more prone to saying spiteful and downright hurtful things when she did speak up. "I never had that."

"I'm afraid that makes it almost inevitable, then" Phineas said. "I mean, sure, there are undoubtedly other dimensions out there with other Candaces, but every calculation I've made over the past year pertaining to inter-dimensional travel indicates that even, or maybe especially, when it comes to ostensibly natural rifts like this, it only connects dimensions that are relatively close to each other. I could draw up a chart to prove it to you if you want, but basically what it comes down to is that any other dimension you could have originated from that isn't any of the others' is likely to be so different from the rest of us that the rifts wouldn't have brought you here in the first place." He smiled faintly. "But this doesn't have to be a bad thing, you know? At least now you know more about your past and present, and you don't have to worry about us being unable to track down your dimension because you're an anomaly anymore."

"Not a bad thing?" Seven repeated. "Of course you wouldn't see anything bad in me discovering the fact that someone who ended up in a re-relationship with you , of all people, who ended up doing the exact same crazy things you did… was me! I… I…" She tried to speak up, but apparently this out of all things was enough to make her mouth snap shut. Well, Four reflected, she'd long since started hoping that something would be able to catch the Candaces that hated her off-guard one day. It wasn't Five, but this would do. This was great, even. All the disgusted remarks about the lives she, Six and Three lead, all the scathing comments towards Phineas… gone, right?

Because it was impossible to insult someone for being crazy when you knew that exact same crazy was inside you, too.

Seven just glared at them and stalked into the corner of the room, sitting down heavily in the chair One had previously been sitting in and daring the others to look back at her. From the look on her face, Five was considering whether or not to go after her. Candace Four almost smiled. She knew it was petty and immature of her to do so, but oh, this was just too perfect.

"That was… well, that was largely unexpected" Phineas commented, having apparently moved to stand next to her. "It makes me wonder what I did that earned her vitriol in her timeline, but didn't in Three's. I mean, I could have understood it if it had been a completely different version of me, and I know perfectly well that I've messed up around you sometimes in the past… but it just doesn't make sense to me that if I were the same person, in one timeline I'd practically alienate my own sister, and in another she would agree to live a life together with me and have kids together, just like you did."

Four snorted and put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "You're trying to rationalize someone who isn't rational" she replied. "Seven's whole life seems to be based around spite towards you, and she sees the choices we made as ridiculous ones that she never would have made. Well, guess what? She did. Maybe that'll be enough to finally snap her out of that shell of craziness."

"Maybe you're right" Phineas admitted. "But even if there was just a small chance that my other self was complicit, it wouldn't sit right with me. And if you focus on what she did instead, I understand the whole thing even less. I may have only known Three for a few hours, but she never struck me as the type who would bear a grudge against me quite like this. It… it just seems so inconsistent. Like they are two different people, which I suppose they are, but they weren't once." He smiled. "You know, after about three decades of listening to you open up about the things you worry about, you'd figure I would be able to get what makes you – and your counterparts – tick by now."

"That's hardly something you can blame yourself for, Phineas" Four said with a chuckle. "I guess that's just me being inconsistent. But you're right – I hadn't thought of it from that angle yet, but I can't see Three turning out that way either, no matter what different life choices she made. I mean, I suppose the inventing could have gotten to her head – I think it might well have if it had happened to me – but apparently Seven loathes inventing in general, and she was as surprised by the fact that Three could do all that as we all were, and in any case Three seems to have it all under control." She cocked her head sideways. "Hey, where is Three?"

Phineas blinked, and the two looked around to see that the room was suddenly less one Candace. Seven was still moping in the corner with Five having finally walked over and now trying to offer comfort from a safe distance, giving Candace Four a strangely nervous look as she glanced over towards her. Candace One was standing against a wall looking thoroughly confused. Ferb, being Ferb, had started repairing some of the damage Seven had wrought on Phineas' working environment. But Three was nowhere to be seen.

"Bathroom break?" Phineas suggested. "I don't know how long we've been here exactly, but I know it must have been a while."

Candace shook her head. "No… that doesn't feel right." The bathroom break explanation was the easiest one, of course, but something inside her told her that it wasn't true. "I'll go and try to find her" she added, mentally running through scenarios of why and how Three could have run away. "She can't have gone far."

She walked over to the elevator, only to remember as she pressed the knob to go upwards that it was out of order. This was beginning to get reallyfrustrating.

Entering the staircase, Four looked upwards into the abyss of the seemingly endless spiral of stairs in Flynn-Fletcher Incorporated. "Three?" she yelled, an element of uncertainty in her voice. "Candace Three?"

For crying out loud, why did that woman have to run away now, of all moments? She knew she was needed, didn't she? After everything that had happened, Three would have to be blind not to realize that Candace Four was telling the truth about her inability to invent in the way she and Phineas and Ferb did. As awkward as it felt to admit it, Four knew that Three was someone they couldn't miss on this project. So for her to run off, right after saving the day because she'd been able to do the one thing none of the others could – provide that coagulant for Seven's bleeding issue…

Four felt tempted to kick herself. Of course. She had seen how pale Three looked when handing over the bottle. Three had obviously been very disturbed about the discovery that she could have been Seven if Seven hadn't gone back in time and caused some minor alteration. Logic dictated that that would be why she'd run off, then.

But logic couldn't explain everything. Being Candace Flynn herself, Four could imagine that hearing that she could have been Seven was intensely frustrating and annoying, but it wasn't enough of a reason to straight-up run off when others depended on her. "Three?" she yelled again. Some part of her wondered why she was so determined that Three was still somewhere in the staircase, either huddled down at a quiet spot or continuously walking upwards without thinking much about where she was going.

It was what she would do, for sure – especially as it was a busy day outside, so going outside for a moment of peace and quiet wasn't very practical. Going for a drive would be a too irresponsible dereliction of her duty, not to mention that Three might not be willing to borrow her car without permission anyway. The alternative, of course, was using the insta-transporter to go somewhere distant, but that had never quite been her thing, not to mention that Three's phone wasn't connected to the network, so how…

Right. Three . Candace had no idea why she kept forgetting that her other self was virtually all-knowing. Three would probably be quite capable of getting a teleportation system to work on her own, so she could be anywhere by now. Maybe she was even still here, but in an invisibility bubble. Or a pocket dimension she'd just created here somewhere (or rather, nowhere – wasn't that how pocket dimensions worked?)

Or maybe Three was still in the building and close by. That was an entirely legitimate possibility, for the simple fact that outside of the staircase, Candace Four still hadn't bothered to check.

She walked out on the main floor and headed over to the front desk. "Kirsty, did you see one of…" She hesitated, knowing very well that whatever she was going to say next would sound crazy. "Did you happen to see someone who… who looked a lot like me? Kind of like a clone?"

Kirsty looked up at her and gave her a confused and vaguely suspicious look. "Do you mean one of your cousins, miss Flynn?"

Cousins? That sounded like a reasonable conclusion Kirsty could have jumped to – but Candace Four supposed that it was more likely that Phineas or one of her other selves had simply told her that as an excuse. Probably one of her other selves, because Phineas had always been a lousy liar – then again, if he'd told Kirsty something, she would probably swoon over him and believe him no matter what he said. "Yes! Of course. My cousins." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, have you seen one of them?"

"You're going to have to be more specific" Kirsty replied. For whatever reason, the younger woman looked a lot more confident than she usually did. It was giving Candace a bad feeling, not unlike the way she'd felt when Five had so suspiciously avoided her gaze downstairs. "I heard that there's, what, seven or eight of them?"

Candace grimaced. "I'm asking whether someone came by just now " she specified. "As in, within the last minute or two. And not the tall one in black with the glasses, the one who keeps scowling, the one who occasionally blinks in and out of existence, or the one who carries a gun around."

Phineas' secretary nodded. "How is this still only just in the top three of the weirdest days I've lived through here" she muttered, almost too softly for Candace to catch. "I think I know the one you mean. She asked where she could have some time to herself, so I sent her to the lobby, because it's usually quiet at this time of day. Maybe it would be for the best if you don't disturb her right now. Also, don't you guys use some kind of numbering system to tell each other apart?"

Four frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Two of your cousins came by earlier to ask me for Mr. Tjinder's home address and mentioned various numbers" Kirsty explained. "I don't remember which ones it was, because I have to admit that I can't tell your family apart. It is your family, not mine. Anyway, I called a taxi for them, so they should be at their destination by now."

Well, that was… odd. The only two versions of herself that could possibly have been were Six and Kevin, and Four had no idea why they would seek out Baljeet at all people. Well, at least it meant that they were in safe hands – Baljeet might be eccentric, but he wouldn't let them wander off any further. Right now, she needed to focus on getting Three back. "Thank you, Kirsty." She walked past her nemesis in the direction of the lobby.

"Hang on," Kirsty said, "didn't I tell you that she probably doesn't want to be disturbed?"

Four gave the girl a look. "Like you just said, Kirsty, it's my family, not yours. So maybe you could stick to your own business and let me handle this problem, okay?"

She didn't wait for the reaction and simply walked onwards to the lobby. Sure enough, Three was sitting in a corner, still looking quite desolate. Four stopped at the entrance, unsure of what to do next. Persuading her counterpart to come back sounded easy on paper, but it was likely to be a lot tougher in practice, particularly since she still didn't quite understand why Three was so upset by this in the first place. Not to mention that she knew she was bad at comforting people. Maybe she should go back and get Phineas to do this for her?

She was about to turn around when Three looked up and caught sight of her. The two Candaces just stared at each other for a few seconds, until Four finally sighed and sat down next to her counterpart.

"So, you found me" Three wryly replied. "I…I shouldn't have run off on you like that. Certainly not without telling you first. I guess that's one way to demonstrate that I really am that crazy, huh?"

Four frowned. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "Look, whatever Seven ended up doing with her life doesn't matter. She's insane, and I can see that's upsetting to you because those are choices you could have taken, but it's pretty obvious that you aren't anything like her."

Three shook her head. "That's what I thought at first, too" she said softly. "Maybe it was false hope, but… you know, seeing her made me wonder whether there was really a version of me out there who was weirder than I was. She fit the bill in every aspect – a temporal anomaly, obsessed with Phineas and Ferb to an extent that doesn't just fit with a normal response to incest that normal people would have… but then I find out that somehow, she is me. And that my one hope for relative sanity turned out to be my worst nightmare."

Candace Four was seriously wondering whether Three was listening to one word she was saying and vice versa, or whether they were just having two entirely separate conversations. "You're not we… okay, scratch that, I can't sell that convincingly" she said. "So you are a little weird. So am I. At least you're weird in a good way, because you can bend space and time to your will and that's bound to make the love or your life care for you all the more. I mean, Seven is crazy, but she hates inventing. She hates our relationships with Phineas. You can't possibly connect the two. They're entirely different kinds of weirdness."

"You actually – genuinely – think I'm weird in a good way?" Three looked at her with a mixture of pity and incredulousness. " Phineas is weird in a good way. I'm… just weird. I told you about this before – when I go without inventing for a certain period of time, I get nausea, throw up, and begin to suffer physical pain in all kinds of ways. My whole life is dominated by fear that someday someone out there will find out that Phineas and I are together, and that everyone else I know will abandon me over it. I never expected that there was someone out there who had made the same bizarre life choices that I had, but even though you have… did you see yourself back in the non-dimension? When Five told everyone that we were in relationships with Phineas? I could barely move a limb. I was terrified. You went out there and fought back. I love Phineas, and I'd never leave him, but in that one moment I was embarrassed and terrified that our counterparts had found out that I was in a relationship with him. Because even though it might feel right for me, I knew no one was going to agree with me on committing incest ." She shrugged. "Well, except you, apparently. And Candace Six, even if her life is so different from ours that I wonder whether it counts."

"Okay, I can't even begin to name the things that are wrong with that" Four replied, leaning backwards in her seat. "First of all, didn't you say that Phineas and Ferb had to deal with all the same withdrawal issues that you had? And all those other emotions – you really think I'm any better at dealing with that than you are? Sure, I might have spoken up against Five and Seven, but that was because they were pushing so hard against me and annoying me, and you know what we do when that happens. I worry about people finding out about my relationship with Phineas. I worry all the time. Do you know why we have that bed that you slept on last night? It's for the remote chance that someone walks up our stairs who doesn't know our secret. That chance barely exists , and yet I worry about it. I worry about everything. I'm not as relaxed as Phineas is, and I don't suppose either of us are. But he chose us, and he stuck with us. I mean, he wouldn't have done that with you if you had really been that crazy – and you aren't, not beyond what's normal for him and Ferb." Somehow it felt strange to admit that, as if by openly denying her counterpart's sullen claims of being crazy she was losing a card she could have played – but Four refused to be that cold and insecure.

Three looked at her and chuckled. "No, I suppose Phineas knows what I'm like" she said. "He knows, and he sticks with me no matter how crazy I am. But as you said, Four, Phineas isn't like us, and he's not like other people either. I didn't tell you how I broke up with Jeremy in my universe, did I?"

Four frowned. "No, but it could hardly have been worse than what I did" she replied. "I basically obsessed with him for weeks when he first went to college, until on one night I finally stood him up on our date, publicly admitted how needy I was around him where he could hear me, and got a family member frozen in ice for a while because I thought she was a threat. After all that, it's a miracle he just told me that we needed some time apart – which, of course, ended up becoming permanent in the long run. Jeremy was always far too patient with me. Not like Phineas, but he was definitely a much better boyfriend for me than I ever was a girlfriend for him." She smiled with the fondness that came with recalling a memory of an old lover, one she no longer had any feelings for but about whom she could remember the good times nevertheless. "So, what's your story?"

Three suddenly looked hesitant, and she turned her head down to look at the floor. "I… in order to ensure that he would take in the knowledge I had so that he wouldn't need to expand his hours at Slushy Burger's and ruin my own grand plan for the future, I basically invented something to… I basically tried to brainwash his free will out of him."

Candace Four stopped. Blinked. Then blinked again. "…okay" she said softly. "I can see how that's worse."