Candace Six was… alright.
That was probably a decent description of it, all things given. For all the craziness that 'traveling to another universe' might seem bring - or had brought, really, because it had been pretty insane there for a bit - it now was seeming like everything might become… alright.
Okay, it was probably never going to be boring , given that there were a lot of barvy and unique things to see, as seemed to be the case with every different planet. Still, the fact that she was alone, that her family wasn't there to join her on what else could have been a grand excursion, really sapped the enjoyment right out of it.
Still, she was alright. Candace and Phineas Four had given her, along with all the other hers, a place to stay, and things to eat, and even things to wear so she wouldn't stand out from the locals so much.
She was still contemplating the idea of ditching the clothes for her own, though. Candace Four's clothes were nice enough, but Candace Six's own clothes just breathed so much easier.
But she really shouldn't be sitting here moping all day. It wasn't going to help anything, anyway, and she was better than that anyway. Moping dejectedly might've been something she'd have done twenty years ago, or fifteen, or even ten, but she was determined to not lapse back into that old frame of mind now. After all, when was the last time in ten years that Phineas had behaved like that? Had he ever done so?
She thought not. So she wouldn't either.
She needed to find something to do, really. At first, she'd set her mind on trying to get the other Candaces to see what they could all have with the Phineases from their own dimensions, figuring that not only would it be a way to pass the time, but also had the chance to be amazing for them, in the way that had been for her.
She hadn't been completely successful with that thus far, though. Sure, she had gotten poor, brainwashed One to at least listen to her, but the girl was still clearly terrified at the thought of seeing her dimension's Phineas as anything but a brother, not realizing that he could help her break free of that dangerous 'busting' obsession that had been drilled into her. And Two had coldly shut her down in a second, refusing the idea not really based off 'incest' or anything, but instead on a more general idea that it was, in her own words, a 'waste of time'.
Candace Six wasn't quite sure what to think about that .
And then there was Kevin, who was apparently happily married to someone else and had also informed Six that she had no intention of leaving that off to take up something with Phineas - her brother. And, of course, Three and Four were already with their own brothers. So that left only Five and Seven. (Thinking of Phineas as her brother like this was kind of weird for her. It wasn't something she did a lot, or at all, really. She'd done it more in the past two days than in the past ten years combined, in all likelihood.)
Candace Six'd been on the verge of giving up her interuniversal matchmaking quests, too, but then she'd had the good fortune to run into Candace Four's two kids, and the conversation with them had rekindled her desire to try and reach out to even the two most generally disagreeable of the Candaces here. After all, before she'd met Phineas, she'd been a stormtrooper, for goodness' sake, and likely pretty disagreeable too.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Phineas might be just what Five and Seven needed to turn their lives around. Of course, there was that whole thing with Seven being Three or whatever? Candace Six didn't quite know how all that worked, but she was pretty sure that even that could be fixed, right? If anyone could fix it, it would be Phineas. Her husband didn't mess about when it came to defying impossible odds.
And she knew that if she could just get Five and Seven to give him the chance he needed, he could do amazing things for them.
So she would! All she really needed to do was find them, wherever they'd gone, and talk to them. She'd never really talked to either of them before - they were mostly shunned by everyone except each other, and they seemed to like it that way - but this was important. It was worth seeking them out, worth figuring out some way fire up a conversation.
She just really wanted the other hers to be happy - as happy as she was. And if there were any of them who were decidedly not happy, it was Five and Seven. So this really would be for the best, for the parties involved, if you thought about it.
Who wouldn't want to be happy, after all?
Of course, the task of finding Five and Seven might be a bit harder than it at first appeared, too. Still, she could do it. In all the years she'd been Phineas' wife, she'd done a great many tasks that had seemed impossible at first glance - and had succeeded. Of course, that had always been with his help, but… she was sure she could manage something as comparatively simple as this. And she was never going to get anywhere if she never started. It was time to get this show on the road.
With that thought in mind, Candace Six abandoned the room she'd been granted to sleep in and set out, hunting for the two targets of her mission of mercy.
It wasn't a very difficult hunt, to be sure. Five and Seven weren't anywhere to be found in any of the ninth floor rooms, and besides from that floor - the quote unquote 'bedroom' floor - the only real place where the Candaces seemed to gather together was the basement. Which was hardly an ideal setup, though, for numerous reasons. Either way, it did come in handy this once, as it pretty much guaranteed that's where those two be. All she had to do was take those flights of stairs… again. Now this was growing to be annoying. She really wished Phineas Four would fix it, but she decided not to bother him with it when he was working on getting them all home.
Besides, after taking the stairs so many times recently, she was starting to get used to it.
She reached the basement floor, and nodded to Candace Two who was, as usual, standing still and silent as a statue outside the entrance, stick in hand, standing guard. Guarding against what exactly, Six still hadn't quite figured out. Robots of some sort, right? Whatever, it wasn't really important - whatever satisfied the glareshade-wearing woman's paranoia was probably what she should be doing.
She walked through the laboratory, checking the side rooms one by one. Candace Four asked her what she was doing, but Six merely waved it off. "Oh, nothing."
Just when she'd about exhausted all the options for rooms people could've barricaded themselves inside, she heard a voice coming from behind one of them.
Her own voice, of course, as she'd slowly begun to expect over the past few days. That was probably going to be a pain to unlearn when she did finally get home… as well as the whole deal with referring to herself as 'Candace Six'? She wouldn't need to do either when she was home, of course. Eh… it was only a minor thing anyway. She could put up with being 'Six' all her life, so long as it meant she got to go home.
But enough dawdling - if she was going to do this thing, she needed to go up and do it. What exactly was she waiting for, anyway? Nothing, hopefully, yet… she still felt oddly unsure about this idea for some reason.
Oh well.
Pushing aside her unconfidence in this place, she walked up to the door behind which Five and Seven had retreated, and then firmly knocked. It wasthem, right? It should be, at least. It wasn't One's higher-pitched voice, and Two was guarding against an invisible threat, and Three was banging out some something with Phineas Four while Candace Four watched. The only person whose location she couldn't immediately recall was Kevin's, but there were clearly two people on the other side of this door.
The voices paused mid-conversation, their owners obviously not expecting to be interrupted like this.
"I'll bet it's him again," someone remarked disdainfully. "Phineas, if that's you out there, you'd better get out of here. No one wants to see you anyway."
Candace Six frowned slightly, but would not allow herself to be dissuaded. After all, when she first met Phineas, she'd not wanted to see him either - well, she had, but only so she could shoot at him, which wasn't much better, to be fair. Either way, these women needed help - help that Candace Six had gotten many time from her husband, help that she knew their own Phineases would be more than willing to provide, if they were even halfas amazing as the man she'd married.
And she was going to be the one to persuade them to give him that chance.
"It's not Phineas," she announced through the wooden panels of the door. "It's Six - Candace Six."
For a moment there was silence, during which she could only just make out some kind of muffled whispers.
At last, however, someone spoke up. "What do you want?"
She reached down and tested the doorknob, and found that it was unlatched. The door swung easily as she pushed it open, revealing a small office interior that was pretty much exactly the same as the interior of the office she'd slept in last night. The only difference, really, was that in here the desk in the middle had been shoved against the far wall, and that there was no viewport, obviously, given that this one was in the basement instead.
Candace Five was sitting on the desk, obviously having been in the middle of some sort of conversation with Seven, who was sitting on a small wooden stool, with her back against the wall.
Both of the others shot her scathing glares as she stepped inside, and Candace Six got the distinct impression that she wasn't wanted here. She instinctively mentally rechecked to be sure she had her blaster on her hip, which she did, as always.
"Get out of here," Seven said, scowling. "Don't you understand the meaning of the word 'privacy'?"
"I'm sorry," Six apologized briefly. She did understand the concept, of course, but she rather doubted that she'd be able to convince Five and Seven of anything from outside the door. Besides, this really was for their own good - it was for the best. She knew that for a fact, which was the other part of her reason for just barging in like so.
"Well?" Five sighed impatiently. "If you're just going to bulldoze your way on in, you can at least give us a reason why."
"Right!" Candace nodded, then hesitated slightly. She needed to come up with a way to bring up the subject, and not allow them any room to avoid the realization that she was trying to induce. But at the same time, she had to be careful, be gentle - to have tact .
It wasn't something that she was particularly good at, really - she supposed that growing up as a stormtrooper had had something to do with that. There was never space for beating around the bush in her childhood. She had been five and six years old, already lugging around lethal weapons and enforcing the rule of the Empire, already used to being one of the faceless many that had devoted their lives to quelling any sort of rebellion. It was all she grew up knowing, and it'd been drilled so far into her brain that it was likely never to be uprooted fully.
But she wasn't dumb . And she'd had many opportunities in the two-and-a-half decades since then to observe the other way of dealing with situations such as these. And she'd tried with One and Two and… well, and failed. But she determined to try again, and she was determined to succeed. It was what her husband would do, and she was going to do it to.
She became aware of the other two simply staring at her, so she cleared her throat awkwardly. "So… how are you two?"
"Oh, please," Seven scoffed. "I know you did not come in here to ask us how we are . You think we're stupid?" She shook her head. "You probably do."
"No, of course not," Six hastily replied. "I was just trying to, uh, start a conversation up. You know, the way you do."
"Well, let's see," Seven groused. "In the past two days I fell through a portal into nowhere, then got to meet a group of brainwashed loony tunes who can't tell stupid when it smacks them in the face, then I get forced back into contact with the only two people that I resolved I would never see nor speak to again? Oh, and on top of all that, they're just as - no, scratch that - even worse than what I expected." She crossed her arms in huff. "I'm doing just dandy, thanks."
"Why do you even care?" Five asked suspiciously. "You're Six , you know, one of… those. What do you want?"
"I'll tell you what she wants ," Seven muttered under her breath.
"It's… it's complicated?" Six grimaced, well aware that she wasn't handling this as well she probably needed to. Maybe she should just try for another tack and go after the situation head on? Not, of course, directly , but more head on than she had at least been doing so far. Which, considering that she'd said basically nothing on the subject so far, wasn't very direct at all. She took a deep breath. Maybe she should just start at the very beginning. "What were you guys' childhoods like?"
"Oh. My. Gosh." Seven threw her head back and heaved a huge sigh. "You do not want to go there. Suffice to say it was a terrible, terrible time of my life that I was eventually lucky enough to realize would never stop unless I got away from the root of the problem."
Six blinked. "Oh."
Five still had the light of suspicion in her eyes but she shrugged her shoulders. "It was… eventful, I guess. There was a lot of crazy stuff going on, like, all the freaking time. I… well, I have to admit I was kinda relieved when everything started finally settling down as time passed. People aren't meant to live like that." She paused. "But why do you want to know, anyway?"
"I… was just wondering," Six replied. "You know, to, uh… compare it to mine? And all that."
Five crossed her arms. "And what was yours like, then?"
Six frowned slightly. "Well…" It wasn't generally something she was super fond of talking about, but an idea had occurred to her. This might be just the opportunity she needed to get through to Five and Seven. After all, once they heard what Phineas'd been able to do for her , surely she could at least persuade them to give him a chance ? It was all she asked, really. She took a deep breath and began. "I was born thirty-nine years ago - 17 BBY - on Tatooine. That… is really all I remember about that part. I had a family that loved and cared for me, but I never knew them, really. Because when I was about, oh I don't know… five or six years maybe, I left Tatooine and joined the Empire as a stormtrooper. No one for sure knows if I was brainwashed or left willingly… and it doesn't really matter in the end. Either way, I left, and that was that. And for the next, oh, about eleven years, that's what I did." She noticed the blank faces on her audience, and shook her head slightly. She - she should have realized this was going to be an issue. "What don't you understand?"
Seven rolled her eyes and scowled. "I shouldn't have to listen to this. You're obviously not in your right mind anyway. For more reasons than one."
"What's a 'stormtrooper' anyway?" Five asked. "I mean… the thing that comes to mind is, like, some kind of soldier? But that can't be - you said you were only six?" She suddenly shifted uncomfortably, as if embarrassed to be caught interested at all. "But I guess I don't really… want to hear about any of that. I mean, look how you turned out."
Candace Six didn't miss the scathing tone in that closing remark, but she let it slide for now. This was for the best, and she couldn't screw up her chances by letting them get under her skin. "No, you're right. That's exactly what they are - what I was." She shrugged slightly. "Nobody really knows why the Empire let us in like they did. I've heard that it was a bureaucratic loophole in some early drafts of paperwork that failed to specify a minimum age? Whatever it was, it was closed soon after, and I - along with two others - was the only child stormtrooper that I personally ever saw, though there could have been more. Either way. I grew from six to seventeen living that life - one in which the only thing I knew was to follow orders, to be loyal to the Empire and the Emperor. And my only desire in life was to bust rebels." She grimaced slightly as she recalled the memories. "You know, I didn't even know how old I was for sure until some years after I got out and we happened to discover an old copy of my Tatooinian birth certificate?" A certificate that had been momentous to discover for a good many reasons, for sure, though that had been one of the smaller ones.
She pulled a chair away from the nearby wall and sat down on it. "To make a kinda long story short, though, when I was seventeen years old, I was stationed on the Dea…" she hesitated, suddenly remembering yesterday morning, in which she'd tried to tell this same story to Four and One and Kevin and how they had gotten all tripped up over not knowing the battlestation by name. How could she phrase it more simply? "On this… giant spaceship with a huge laser on it that was strong enough to destroy an entire planet at a time. The Death Star." She paused, trying to discern if that had been enough explanation, but when no one spoke up, she assumed it had and continued.
She liked this part anyway. It was a story that she simply couldn't get enough of telling. Although her own role in it was somewhat embarrassing and something she could never regret enough, that still paled in comparison to Phineas' part.
"So, anyway, I was there, you know, guarding it and whatnot. Well, not actually - I'd been assigned to go down to Tatooine and get socks for - it's a long story. Suffice to say that while I was down there, I caught a glimpse of some kids with a compact disc of the plans for the station - which had been stolen sometime before. And I tried to catch them, but they got onto a spaceship and got away from me. So I went and got the socks and went back up to the space station and gave them back to my superior." She paused. "Well, I didn't exactly give him the socks but… well, you won't really care. It's not that important anyway."
She stopped to look more closely into the faces of her audience. Seven still had her arms crossed and staring off into nowhere, looking like she hardly cared at all. At least Five looked halfway interested. There was that. Besides, she hadn't gotten to the best part yet.
"So I was ordered to guard this console thing. And I did, but then who should I see, but the exact same kid I saw before, down on Tatooine. And of course, I wanted nothing more than to bust him, because he'd already gotten away from me once and all that. So I ran after him, and he ran away, like you'd expect." She paused and smiled slightly.
"But then, I turned a corner during all that, and there was a sewage spill in the hall for some reason, and I slipped on it. And there just so happened to be a door open right there , a maintenance door that opened out onto the main garbage disposal chute. And I slid through it and only just managed to grab onto the edge of this tiny metal platform to stop myself from falling off. But I was hanging by my fingertips - and I couldn't hang on forever. I tried to climb back up, of course, but my armor was covered in the sewage I'd slid through and it was making it too slick for me to be able to get a grip on anything." She shook her head. "And I yelled for help, even though I knew there was no one around to help me. I thought for sure I was going to die. And then, right when I lost grip and started to fall, someone grabbed ahold of my arm - and who should it be but that exact same kid ." She smiled wider. "And, of course, I was happy to be alive - but I was stunned and dumbfounded and confused out of my mind. I mean, I'd just tried to kill this guy, and then he turns around and saves my life ? And I was like… he couldn't be that bad of a person, could he? Not if he would do something like that, and what's more, immediately turn his back to me and walk off? Like, I could've shot him then, too. But, I didn't of course, because by then I was… just too in awe."
'In awe' had never really ceased being accurate at describing how she felt about her husband. Sure, she'd known him for many, many years now, but she still occasionally got overwhelmed by it all. He had literally plucked her from the jaws of death and, well, risked everything to do it, too. He couldn't have known that she wouldn't shoot him the moment he'd pulled her to safety. And yet… he'd done it anyway. Even so many years after the incident, she still couldn't comprehend.
She liked to think she would be so selfless and caring should a similar situation happen to her , too, but rather doubted she would in reality. That whole… state of mind seemed to be something only Phineas could truly pull off.
"Anyway," she resumed, clearing her throat. "He'd already given the station plans to the Rebels by that point, and the station was pretty much doomed. We saved his brother - another long story I won't get into - and only just managed to get on the last buspod off the Death Star." Of course, later she'd learned that Phineas' smuggler friend had actually gone back for them after that, only to find them already safely gone. She wondered how it might've gone if the buspod had been gone and they'd had to wait for her in the end - but, of course, that was hardly important. Because now she was starting to get the real point of her long, long story: showing by example exactly how much Phineas could do to help these other Candaces if they would just let him.
But, unfortunately, that was never to be, for right about then, she made a fatal slip of the tongue, revealed a crucial detail too early, and the course of the conversation was entirely derailed. The attention she'd managed to get from Seven and Five thus far was probably more due to boredom than to any real interest in her story, and that thin spell was about to be shattered.
"So we were all riding on the buspod to Yavin Four - another planet," she continued. "And I was feeling all jittery inside for some reason. It made me really nervous around him, even though he was nice enough. That's when he told me his name was Phineas and-"
And the deed was done. The words were out and there was no taking them back now, no matter how hard she might hope to the contrary.
"Wait, wait, wait," Seven interrupted. "You mean to tell me that you've been sitting here rambling to us about how you married your brother ? Oh, that'll be quite enough, then. No one wants to hear how that ends."
"No!" Six exclaimed. "I mean, well, yes, but you have to understand: what Phineas did for me was-"
"No one wants to hear that!" Five cut in, making a face. "We all know what he did for you. And nobody, I mean nobody wants to hear it. Trust me, I have had enough of this crap shoved into my face in the past year. You take it and you shove off."
"Please, no, wait," Six tried to reason, suddenly getting exasperated with herself. She'd been doing so good, too, and now it was all coming apart at the seams. She had to get back in control of this thing.
"Wait?" Seven demanded. "Wait for what ? For you to ramble on about how great your brothers are?" She scoffed harshly. "Lemme tell you something - I've been listening to that load of crap my entire life. Those idiots did nothing but destroy my life and everything I hold dear. So you might say I've 'seen the light'. And there's nothing anyone is going to be able to do change that."
"Yeah!" Five chimed in, standing up. "No matter how you think or feel or whatever about it, incest is wrong and it is sick and that is all there is to it!"
"It's not-"
"Didn't you hear her?!" Seven nearly yelled. "We don't want to hear about Phineas and Ferb, we don't want to see Phineas and Ferb, we don't want to acknowledge the existence of Phineas and Ferb. Do you get the general idea by now? Despite whatever they've brainwashed you to think, the world would be better off without them - without any of them . Wouldn't it, Five?!"
"Yeah!" Five agreed. "That's exactly - wait, what?" She paused awkwardly.
Seven turned her head to look back. "What do you mean, 'what' ? You heard what I said, didn't you?"
"I mean…" Five hesitated, seeming to be somewhat at a loss for words. "I heard you, but… better off without them? Doesn't that feel a bit harsh?"
"Harsh?" Seven echoed, as if she couldn't believe her ears. "Are you defending them now?"
This was getting a bit out of control for Candace Six's liking. She didn't know where this conversation was going exactly, but she could tell where it was not going, that being 'where she wanted it to go'. She needed to get this thing back on track as quickly as possible. She could still do that, right?
"Defending them - no!" Five protested. "I mean - what Four and her brother do is awful, it's repugnant, and I think it's about as low as you can possibly get - and that's what I've thought ever since last year I was here, even, but, I mean, my brothers-"
" Your brothers?" Seven scoffed. "They're no better than the rest of them, I assure you. I would think you'd have realized that by now!"
"No, I mean," Five hesitated again. "Look, Seven, I-"
"Hey, guys," Six interjected. "Can we-"
Five and Seven turned to look at her simultaneously. " Shut up !"
She blinked, a bit taken aback by the ferocity of their outburst.
"Oh, oh, I see how it is," Seven spat viciously. "You still can't wrap your head around what's really going here, can you? Or have your preciousbrothers gotten inside your head too?"
"No!" Five shouted. "Listen, Seven, I'm sure your brothers are as terrible as you say, and I know that Four's and Three's and-"
"Oh, but your own brothers are such precious little angels?" Seven retorted. "Did you learn nothing from being struck by lightning as a child? From being trapped in a pocket dimension and left there to suffer? You sicken me."
"Well, I - I don't care!" Five snapped. "For the past two days I've listened to you talking about them, and you may be right about the others, but you can't include my brothers in there! They were annoying and immature, yeah - were . But they grew up and left that kiddy stuff behind them! And they made me suffer and ruined a good deal of my childhood, yeah, but that's over now."
"Oh, is it?" Seven mocked. "If you really believe that, you're an idiot , that's all I have to say."
"I am not ." Five slammed her hand down on the desk. "And maybe my brothers and I have got a lot of issues, but they're workable and I will notagree that the world would be better off without them because, quite frankly, it wouldn't !"
"Alright then." Seven pulled herself up and leered icily in her direction. "If you love your wonderful brothers oh-so much , then why don't you have sex with them, hmm? Why don't you marry them? What's stopping you?"
"I - what?!" Five looked utterly flabbergasted. "I - where would you get the impression that was anything close to what I meant?!"
"Well, you said it yourself in your wonderful little speech about how great they are," Seven snapped. "If you really feel that way, then why don't you act like it?"
Candace Six was feeling increasingly awkward as she sat in the holochair, wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her whole, debating on how subtly she would be able to play off making a break for the door and getting out of here.
"I do not feel that way, I never have , I never will , and I never said anything like that!" Five threw her arms up in the air. "I don't know what's wrongwith you?!"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?" Seven took a deep breath and gestured to her own body as she flickered in and out. "Why don't you take a look ? You know, I thought maybe I'd finally found someone who'd realized that their kind is nothing more than a pestilent plague on the face of the earth, but no - I guess not!"
"I guess not!" Five yelled back. "Because I never felt that way either - or said anything to give the effect that I did either!"
"No, you didn't," Seven responded coolly. "And I thought it was because you were naive and hadn't seen the full extent of the damage they can wreak on innocent lives, but I guess I wasn't right there either, was I ?" She stepped closer to Five, almost getting into the other woman's face. "Instead I get to deal with a lying, scheming, backstabber who might as well be the fourth incestuous freaks because there really is no difference between you and Four and Three and Six at all - you're all brainwashed zombies with no real control of your life, no real choice in your actions, no real effect on your destiny!"
"That is not true!" Five's face was getting very red by this point. "Where does this stupid argument even come from?" She suddenly reached up and shoved Seven, hard, enough to send the other woman stumbling backwards into a bookshelf, knocking a few books off the higher shelves. Six winced as one of them banged Seven directly on top of the head, but the woman didn't even seem to notice as Five continued yelling. "Get awayfrom me! Just because I actually have a normal relationship with my brothers you suddenly assume - assume all that ? What - what even are you, anyway? Whatever happened to you - I'm starting to feel inclined to say you deserved it."
Seven looked up, and the fire in her eyes blazed so hotly that even Candace Six winced slightly. And she was fairly sure that no one - least of all Candace Five - saw the woman, right in the middle of flickering in and out of existence at all, draw back her fist. But she heard the sound of flesh against flesh, and Candace Five stumbled backwards with a yelp. "I'm a temporal anomaly," Seven growled, her voice so filled with vitriol and hatred that it made shivers run up Candace Six's spine. "I shouldn't exist and I don't belong. But I can still you give you a black eye, which is the least of the things you deserve."
"You - you psychopath !" Five exclaimed, covering her left eye with both her hands. "Ugh - I am so done with you! You - you never speak to me again, you hear! Get out of my way!"
The last exclamation was directed not at Seven, but at Candace Six, and Five brushed past the chair she was sitting nervously on and stormed out into the hallway, covering up the side her of face the whole time.
"Well, what're you still doing here?" Seven spat, addressing her directly.
Candace Six almost jumped, suddenly rethinking her original reason for coming in here. Maybe it was for the best that Phineas Seven, wherever he was, never met Candace Seven. It would certainly be the best thing for him, anyway. He would be much happier elsewhere. "Nothing," she said quickly, averting her eyes from the other Candace's burningly malevolent stare. "I'm - I'm gone."
She stood up and quickly darted from the room, through the laboratory, past a stunned-looking Phineas and Candace Four, and into the stairwell. There she finally stopped, and let out a long breath.
Well, that had been a disaster.
There was no way around that conclusion. She'd gone in there to spread her happiness - happiness she got from her marriage to Phineas - and had ended up sparking a vicious argument between the two Candaces she was supposed to be reaching out to, driving them away from each other. She hadn't even said all that much, really - it had all been them.
They'd tried to argue together against her for a minute at most, but it had all come crumbling down far too quickly and now Six was left out of luck. One had rejected her, Two had rebuffed her, Five and Seven and Kevin had all shoved her well-intentioned outreach aside.
Really, it didn't so much as make her upset for herself as for them - for she knew what they would now be missing out on. Of course, perhaps she was being to hard on herself. Kevin claimed she was happy enough married to someone else, One was just a teenager and couldn't perhaps be ready for this kind of thing? It was a big step, after all, as it had been for her. And Two was… well, she ran out of justifications there. Because Two and Five and Seven were obviously not happy and yet… nothing. Didn't they want to be happy?
Was the fact that Phineas was their brother such a huge deal to them? Yes, Candace Six could admit that she'd never looked at Phineas as a brother, or considered him as such, so it was probably easier for her to deal with than, say, for One - who'd grown up with Phineas and had alwaysconsidered him a brother.
And yeah, incest. Candace Six knew well enough. But for her, even when she'd first found out of her and Phineas' blood tie, it hadn't proved enough to separate them. It was just one tiny bump in the path, really, one of the easier ones to surmount.
And of course, again, it would be harder for the ones to whom Phineas was a brother, rather than a complete stranger who had willingly put his life on the line to save hers - for a chance to save hers, even, because there had always been that chance that he would have been unable to hold his grip and would have fallen off with her. But there had also been a chance he could save her, and against all odds, he'd taken that chance.
And he'd done more than that, too - so much more. When she was still growing accustomed to life as anything not a stormtrooper, when she needed help or explanations about a myriad of seemingly simple things, he was there. Always kind, always patient, and always infinitely helpful and sweet.
She'd fallen for him, hard, and although it had been difficult, she had one day confessed her crush and, to her utter joy and a little bit of astonishment, he'd accepted it. And she'd never wanted anything else more than she'd wanted to just be with him, all the time.
Which feelings, as the years slid by and they managed to spend what was left of her teenage years together, had only increased in strength, until she hadn't been able to keep herself from proposing to make it permanent indeed, and they'd been engaged to be married.
When, only months after that had happened, the realization of her and Phineas' family history had dawned upon them, along with all the crazy things that such knowledge must inevitably bring, it had been difficult. But in the end, it hadn't been enough.
The day they were married was one of the happiest days of her life so far, and she would still occasionally look through the holographs of that day, and smile at the memories that had been created - at the family that had been founded.
And that, to Candace Six, was more important that any symbols etched on flimsiplast could ever be.