Years Passing Us By

by White wolf of death

It's been ten years since Anne and the Planters ended up in the human world, Sasha has been dealing with the fighting in Amphibia through those years, trying to gain her powers back and trying to control them better. What happens if Anne finally comes back after these ten years?

4. Through The Temple Feelings Suck

(Alex's Pov)

We searched the walls and my hands were itching to just write this stuff down but without my journal I couldn't do anything. It was frustrating to me because I won't remember much, and if this temple crumbles in on itself like mine did then all this information will be lost.

"You, ok?" Anne asked and I look to her and shrugged.

"Wish I hand my journal." I mutter.

"You keep a journal?" I hear Marcy ask and I nod at this.

"Yea… it uh… it has a lot of information in it… Darcy might use against me but it had some information on the temples." I explained.

"I see the research bug has gotten to you." Marcy says and smirked a bit and I look to her.

"I guess." I say and she looked around.

"Though this is an intriguing simulation." She says and Anne and I look at each other then back to her.

"I mean we are aged up this is so cool, and more puzzles… this is exciting right?" She says as she looked to both of us.

"No, no it's not, this is scary as fuck Marcy, this isn't a simulation this is real, it's been ten god damn years." I say to her and she looked to us and shakes her head.

"I have to tell the core they need to change some things." She says and I hand Anne the torch and I grabbed Marcy by her shoulders making her look at me.

"Marcy, this is real, I am real, Anne is real, we're trapped in you second temple because the core wants you to gain your powers back, how do we prove this?" I asked and she looked to the both of us.

"Marcy… Alex is right, I… you and him have been here for ten years." Anne tells her and she looked to me and I let her go.

"No… no I would know if this was real or not." She says and I rubbed my head a bit at this.

"Marcy, Alex isn't lying, he wouldn't joke about this." Anne says.

"If this was real then why does he have a beard? He's physically changed, they don't have any… stuff here to help with that." Marcy says as she waves her arm up and down at me.

"My temple did this to me… when I went to gain my ability." I tell her.

"Pfft, yea sure." She says and reads the wall and I clench my hands a bit at this.

"Marcy, you have to believe him." Anne says.

"Look I know this is just a new game and all, it's not funny." She says and I rubbed my face a bit.

"Anne." I mutter and she looked to me and sighs.

"Just play along." She whispers to me and I shake my head at this but agreed.

"Sorry for lying Marcy, it seems the core had some issues with us, we apologize." Anne says and she nods.

"It's fine, they just need to charge up or something." She says and I shake my head.

"So, what are we doing?" Anne asked her and I come up and move the torch to shine on some words.

"Hmm this is interesting." Marcy mutters and she looked to the side and presses against the wall a bit and one of the bricks popped out and she pulled it out the wall and then another, and another until she could fit her hand in the wall. She pulled out a piece of paper and it was red.

"What's it say?" Anne asked.

"Nothing… oh wait." She says and looked around the room again. I looked to the walls a bit too and she hurried to another section of the room and pulled down a torch and they quickly turned purple and I cover my good eye a bit.

"Cool, their own version of a UV light." Marcy says excited and I move my arm away from my face and see Marcy reading the paper.

"Oh…" She says quietly and I go over and read the paper.

"'Though I may be gone, my temple will stand, the new owners of the gem beware, to much power can cause some issues, beware the red gem.'" Marcy reads and Anne looked to me.

"Why would it say that about Alex?" Anne asked and Marcy looks at me.

"I use to be an ass; I think Marcy's temple was supposed to be done first." I mention.

"Hu, just like last time." Marcy says and shrugged.

"So, what happened at your temple?" Marcy asked and I looked to the side a bit.

"It… was messing with my head a lot… made me mad at some things and then when I got to the end of the temple it ended up basically stabbing my hand, temple changed from the reddish pink to red, and after I ran out it turned to rubble… next thing I know my voice changed, I was growing a beard, and other things but I'd like to not talk about that." I say to them.

"Hmm, so it used psychological rather than physical, it toyed with the fact that you… wanted to change yourself to what makes you comfortable?" She asked and I nod at this.

"Pretty much." I say and she thinks.

"So, what is this temple supposed to be?" She asked me and I think a bit.

"I don't know, it changed the information on me, last I had written was how it didn't allow foreign bodies in, like… it could tell I wasn't… Sasha?" I asked. I was a bit confused myself and I sighed.

"Or maybe I was stupid and wrote the information down wrong." I mutter and take a seat on the ground.

"Alex." Anne says and I place my hand to my head.

"I don't know what to do… I can't… I just… I can't." I mutter and I set the torch to the side.

"Hey it's ok Alex." Marcy says and I feel her put her hand on my shoulder.

"No, it's not… I thought… I wrote it down right I thought." I tried to say something but couldn't. Why was I feeling like this? I shouldn't be feeling like this.

"Alex it's ok trust me… if this is Marcy's temple it's going to play tricks and games like a puzzle." Anne says and I shake my head.

"But I thought… I thought I wrote it down right." I mutter and look to the ground.

"Marcy, what's going on?" Marcy says and I pull my legs up and my knees were to my chest as I held myself close.

"I thought I had it right… I thought I would know how to get past this temple." I mutter and lean my head onto my knees.

"This temple might be playing with his emotions; you know how Alex thought he had to be right for everything?" Marcy asked.

"I didn't think that way." I mutter. Why was this happening to me, this wasn't supposed to happen, I read the writings on the wall it's not supposed to mess with me. Why was it messing with me?

"I… I don't know what to do I haven't… I don't." Marcy says and I looked to the ground and then to her as she sits on the ground.

"No come on you two… we can… we can fix this." Anne says and I shake my head at this.

"How? How can we fix this Anne? There is nothing we can do." I tell her and I get up from my spot.

"There has to be something we can do." She says and I shake my head.

"We can't if the temple keeps changing, we can't do anything, because it changes." I tell her getting pissed.

"There has to be something though, something that stays constant." She says and I gripped my head.

"If the temple was like the last one maybe…" I hear and look to Marcy and I shake my head.

"Nothing is going to change, unless we all stay here what's going to happen? The stupid core and Andrias are just going to take Marcy away again, you and I are going to get locked up, we're going to lose our friends and I just… I can't do this anymore." I say and sit back down.

"We can change it though." Anne says.

"WE CAN'T!" I yelled and then looked back to the ground. I hear some feet shuffling and I keep my eyes to the ground.

"I… I can't read this." I hear Marcy mutter and I look over to her and then Anne tried to read it to her. Though it seemed like it was hard for her so I get up and sighed as I go over to them and read it.

"It's literal gibberish." I tell them.

"What like random words?" Anne asked and I nodded and point to the words.

"ABXYWN." It's not a real word. I say and looked around some more and noticed that all the words were gibberish now and I rubbed the side of my head careful of my bandages.

"How's the eye?" Anne asked as she came up to me.

"Kind of stings a bit, but it's fine." I tell her and Marcy comes over.

"Mind if I look?" She asked and I look to her and I nod as she moved the bandage gently to the side and she grimaced a bit and I sigh.

"Bad?" I asked and she covers it back up.

"The bruising and stuff, it's going to leave one hell of a scar… did you take a hot knife to it?" She asked and I look to Anne then back to her and I nod a bit. I didn't want her to feel bad for the actions of a delusional hive mind of a bunch of dead guys.

"Yea it was on fire." I tell her.

"Oh man that had to have hurt." She says and I nod at this. I looked around the room and my head hurt a bit at just the gibberish words. It's like if you look at some words for a long time they mix together and it feels like your eyes are crossing but they aren't so your head hurts at this.

"I… why would they send us here if they didn't know how this temple worked? Did they want to kill us this way?" Anne asked and I shrugged at this.

"I have no idea… what the hell was the core saying about you being in a fantasy world anyway Marcy?" I asked and she looked to us.

"You mean like right now?" She asked and I wanted to roll my eye but instead I nod at this.

"Yea."

"Oh well from all I know the core is able to make a simulation of anything you can think of… at first it was all of us together going on adventures never going back home and you two looked like you two were having fun… we all were." She tells us.

"So basically, what you want it to be?" Anne asked.

"Pretty much… though I have no idea why they would make this." She says and waves her arms around. This was all confusing she's working with us but thinks this isn't real.

"What if this was real?" I asked.

"I know it's not, but it's a little confusing… doesn't matter isn't this fun?" She asked and I looked to the side.

"Not for me." I tell her.

"Well, it's fun to me." She says and I glare at her.

"Alex-."

"NO, SHE THINKS THIS IS ALL A GAME WELL IT'S NOT!" I yell at Anne and then look to Marcy as she looked to me in shock.

"I HAVE SPENT THE LAST TEN GOD DAMN YEARS TRYING TO GET YOU BACK AND YOU THINK THIS IS ALL A FUCKING GAME? I DON'T HAVE A LIFE BACK IN OUR OWN WORLD NOW BECAUSE OF YOU MARCY, YOU GOT US TRAPPED HERE!" I yelled. I was angry, I just wanted to yell and scream and punch something and I feel my hands heat up.

"Alex calm down." Anne says as she gets in front of me.

"CALM DOWN?! I WILL NOT CALM DOWN MISS YOU GOT TO HAVE A FUCKING LIFE BACK HOME!" I yell at her and she glares at me.

"YOU THINK I ASKED FOR YOU TWO TO BE STUCK HERE THAT LONG!?" She yelled back to me.

"Guys stop this." I hear and glare at Marcy.

"No fuck you, fuck all of this, my life is completely fucked that I can't even go back home even if I wanted too, my parents don't care about me anymore, I'm not smart like you Marcy…. I have nothing… I have nothing back home." I tell her as I lean on the wall and I shake my head.

"I said I would help you-."

"I don't want you to help me that's the thing Anne." I tell her.

"Friends help each other out." Marcy says and I pull my legs to my chest and place my head to my knees. I keep quiet for a while before I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look up to see Marcy.

"I'm sorry I didn't take your feelings into consideration in this situation… I just don't want to think that this is real, because… I am… I'm scared." She says and I look to the ground and I sigh.

"I'm sorry for blowing up at you… I didn't take your feelings into consideration either." I say and I feel another hand on my other shoulder.

"I think when we can, we can all just talk this out… do you think there is a way to get Marcy out in this temple?" Anne asked and I think.

"I don't think they have any idea where the back entrance could be but even, we don't know where it could be." I explained.

"The main thing is we need to get out of here." I say and the temple glows green and the walls light up with more words.

"Brains though smart sometimes miss the simple things, do you think you learned your lesson?" I read out to them.

"I… yea I did." Marcy says and the temple has a door open from the side and we all go through it and a stand in the middle of the room lights up and Marcy goes up to it. I see some words on the side and I go up to read them.

"The path is quick and easy, for those who think quick on their feet, but take the time to look around and look with those closes to you." I read to myself as Marcy and Anne talk to each other and I looked to the stand as Marcy touched it. It lights up a bright green color and the entire room lights up.

"Oh, this is so cool." Marcy says as she looked around and the temple doesn't crumble like mine did, instead a door opened and I grabbed my sword and went to the door and looked around.

"Wait… dude it's the library." Anne says and I shake my head.

"That can't be." I mutter and rubbed my head.

"Check this out." Marcy says and I look as she pointed to another string of words and I read it.

"The temple has a mind of its own, it changes locations to those who don't know, I made sure it would do this in case of emergency, be safe, be smart, and don't waste this moment the temple will make you back to the beginning." I read and I think as we head out into the library and I look to Marcy.

"It's so cool that the temple could do that, where did yours take you Alex?" She asked me and the door closes behind us.

"Mine turned to rubble." I tell her.

"Rubble?" She asked and I nodded and looked to Anne sadly.

"The core and Andrias still have my journal." I tell her.

"Wait hold on, we need to talk about everything that has happened." Marcy says and I nod and we go and take a seat.

"Ok, so… basically it's been ten years since Anne and the planters had left through the portal, in that time the rebellion and I were fighting Andrias's robots, and the core… they called themselves Darcy when they… were talking through you." I tell her.

"Oh, Dark Marcy… would have come up with something better but eh." Marcy says and I nod and chuckled.

"Anyway, it was a bout five years or so that I had found something about having to travel to a different place… Yunan, Grimes and I stole one of Andrias ships and we found a new continent, and found my temple… it uh… well as you can see it changed me and I didn't… I didn't read something on the walls fast enough but it doesn't matter anyway, my temple is destroyed." I tell her.

"Wait, you got all the toads' frogs and newts to work together?" Marcy asked.

"Well, we have a few people in charge, Ms. Croaker, Grime and General Yunan or Lady Olivia when Yunan is on missions and stuff with me." I explained and I look to Anne and Marcy.

"Oh, how are they?" She asked and I look to her.

"They're together… after all this they said they wanted a wedding, huge wedding." I say opening my arms wide and she laughed a bit.

"Is that because of Yunan?" She asked.

"Oh no… this was Lady Olivia; she wants everyone there… even you." I tell her.

"Really?" She asked and I nod.

"Ok we have limited time." Marcy mutters and thinks for a bit.

"We need to find Anne's temple later." I explained.

"But I already have my powers still." Anne says as her eyes turned the bright blue then back to brown.

"Yes, but if we get you your powers, you'll be a lot stronger it might make things a little easier when fighting." I explained.

"So, you kept a journal?" Marcy asked and I nodded.

"It has notes and other things… personal things." I mutter and looked down a bit and then shake my head. Now was not the time to dwell on things.

"So, we need to get it back." Anne suggests.

"No way we can get it back, once the core has Marcy again, they're going to know what we planned out, they'll even know about what we talked about in the temple room." I tell them.

"Not really." Marcy says and we both look to her.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well from what I know the core was going based of my memories and wants, so let's say if I wanted to hug Anne or you in the simulation it would make either of you open your arms for me because I felt like I needed a hug at the moment… it mostly goes off of what I feel and what I want just to make me happy you know?" She asked.

"So, if you act like you don't care for the temples or anything it wont process it? Or know it?" I asked her.

"Eh it'll know about it, but if I think it was to boring or basically not worth their time, I could make it work… though I was happy to see you two again." She says and I look to the side a bit.

"Plus, I can make some stuff up for them, like a fake scenario where we made a plan, make them panic a bit." She explained.

"But if they panic, they're going to hurt our friends, we need to get to them." Anne says and I nod at this.

"Right, right sorry I didn't know." She says and I look to her as she looks at the ground.

"If you can find a way to get us Polly's bag back that would be great." I tell her.

"Why would you need her bag?" Marcy asked.

"Not important, but sadly you're going to have to be a bit… manipulative." I tell her and she nods at this.

"I can try." She says and then the temple rumbled a bit and the door opens again. We all head through the door and then another door opens and we see Andrias holding the helmet. Anne and I were quickly restrained by the robots and so was Marcy as Andrias placed the helmet back onto her head. The scream and sounds of electric shots made me turn away and shut my eyes tightly. We were taken back to the cells and Sprig and Polly check up on Anne and I just looked through the bars as Darcy walked away.

"What happened?" Polly asked.

"We saw Marcy." Anne says.

"Well duh she's possessed-."

"No squeak toy, we got to talk to Marcy, no core or anything just her." I tell him and he looked to us.

"Oh… I'm sorry." He says and I nod and looked back to the bars and took a deep breath.

"She's going to try her best to help us." Anne says and well all just wait. I knew it would take a long time before we could get out by any means but I was starting to worry after the third day. Polly and Sprig were currently sleeping since it was the middle of the night and Anne and I were the only ones up at the moment.

"Hey you, ok?" Anne asked and I nod and lay on the floor.

"What's this? Alex about to exercise?" She asked and I laughed.

"Nah just… I don't know, I'm worried but I don't want it to show… so I'm trying to relax." I explained and she nods and takes a seat by my head and she covers my eyes with one hand. I was about to move the hand but she stopped me.

"It's more relaxing when you think you're asleep… I mean for me at least… also try having some nice thoughts, you know." She says and I sighed and dropped my hand onto my stomach and tried to think of anything good.

"Remember when we were talking about boys and stuff in school?" I asked.

"Oh yea, you were talking about a huge crush you had on this one guy, what's his name." She says and I chuckled.

"Caleb… mind you, you and Marcy found out how much of a jerk he was… thank god I didn't date him, he would have called me a freak." I say.

"You're not a freak, you are who you are… plus I got to beat up a boy for you, made me happy for some reason." She says and I laughed.

"You want to beat more people up for me?" I asked but she didn't say anything and I sighed.

"While I was back home I just… it didn't feel right without you or Marcy there… I know the Planters were there but I couldn't talk about certain things to them." She tells me and I move my head as if I was trying to look up at her.

"Things like?" I asked.

"Crushes, prom, school… I mean I could have talked to them but… I don't know… I did make some friends but they weren't you guys… I think some of them thought you were made up or I was remembering my old friends who died or something." She says and I laughed.

"Takes a lot more than a stupid salamander to kill me… and Marcy is strong in her own way." I tell her and she laughed a little.

"Tell me about it." She says and then she finally moved her hand away and I look at her. The sad look on her face and I sit up and place my arm around her shoulder.

"I can't get what you said out of my head." She says and I look at her.

"What? What I said at the temple?" I asked and she nods.

"Sorry just… a lot of emotions were going through me and just… it made me mad that Marcy thought it was all a game… that she didn't take into consideration of what would happen to us if we were stuck here for good." I tell Anne.

"She just… I know she didn't want us to separate but we wouldn't have, we could have called or wrote hell even visited, they have video calls these days." I mutter and looked down.

"I know but come on we know Marcy." She says and I chuckled.

"Over achiever, smartest girl in school, could attend any college she wanted, probably solve world hunger." I list off a few things.

"You know that's what the principal said to me… you'd make your way bossing people around and Marcy would solve world hunger…and then there was me… what did I want to be?" She asked and I rubbed her shoulder a bit.

"It took me a while, God I still didn't know what I wanted to do after high school, I had some plans but… I don't know." She says.

"Well, hey look at you, you got a job at the aquarium, you work with frogs and other animals, you probably have a boyfriend or girlfriend back home that you won't tell me about to spare my feelings." I joked at the last part and I ended up getting punched and I laughed a bit and looked to Anne who was glaring at me a bit.

"Come on I can joke a bit." I tell her and she set her arm down.

"Did you want to date people that badly?" She asked and I shrugged.

"Eh, kind of but not really, I joke abut it but that doesn't mean I want to go out and do it… mostly out of fear." I tell her.

"What that people won't accept you?" She asked and I think just a bit and shook my head and moved my arm away from her shoulder.

"Rejection… you know how I told you I had a mando crush on Marcy?" I asked and she nods.

"I felt like she would just… reject me if I told her… that we wouldn't be friends anymore, and that she would tell you and you might have thought it was weird." I tell her.

"I don't think it's weird." She says.

"But at thirteen, would you? You accept it now but what about at thirteen?" I asked her.

"I don't know, I mean I read that lots of peoples soulmates started out as friends, so yea I would have been cool with it, though I might have questioned at the time why you'd like Marcy, and if you two did date why she liked you." She says and I smile a bit.

"Telling me you got a crush on her too Boonchuy?" I asked and she didn't speak.

"Dude don't try and steal my crush." I joked and she laughed a little.

"No… I mean… I did have a crush on her… but I liked someone else too." She says.

"Oh, is little Anne, bisexual like me? welcome to the club buddy though I have to say I will judge you more on your taste of men than women because well… men are gross." I tell her.

"But you're a guy."

"And I applaud you for your detective skills but I'm different." I say in a smug way.

"And why is that?" She asked.

"I know how it feels to be a girl, I know when to leave a girl alone, and I know a girl should be given lots of cookies and cream-based ice cream and chocolate bars, and gummy worms, especially sour gummy worms when they feel down in the dumps." I say.

"You remembered mine and Marcy's comfort foods?" She asked and I look to her.

"How could I forget?" I asked and she shrugged.

"I mean your comfort food might have changed since you eat bugs too." I joke.

"Dang, chocobeatle pancakes sure do sound good." She says and I smiled.

"But the fact that you remembered." She says and I nod.

"I still remember that you like K-Pop, Marcy wanted us to play creatures and caverns she had maps and everything ready for our session… but then I ended up with the stupid stomach bug." I mutter.

"You were throwing up for a week." Anne says and I nod.

"But it gave Marcy more time to work on some things for the game… that we never got to play." I mutter.

"But no, the other person I had a crush on was a girl… well they were a girl they aren't anymore." She says.

"Oh, a fellow transman like me, I should really meet them." I say to her.

"You have." She says so quietly that I almost didn't hear it.

"Beg your pardon?" I asked.

"Nothing, just… yes they are Trans." She says and I nod.

"Do your parents like them?" I asked and she thinks a bit.

"Yea they do." She tells me.

"And do you like them?" I asked. Again, she thought for a bit and nods.

"Yea I do." She says.

"But you still have a crush on Mar-Mar?" I asked and she nods.

"If they're cool with it and so is Marcy why not be polyamorous? I asked.

"It's not that simple." She says.

"I know I know, that's why I suggested asking both of them." I tell her.

"Wait you just told me not to steal your crush and now you're telling me to steal your crush." She says and I nod.

"It's fine… besides I know Mar-Mar likes girls, she wouldn't stop staring at you at one of your tennis matches, I even heard her call you pretty." I tell her and then looked at her. She was looking back at me with some shock.

"Is that why you never asked her?" She asked and I nod a bit.

"A little… besides even if she did like me, she wouldn't anymore… once you guys realized I was just some… jerk who has parental issues, and other problems I can't list right now… why would I make her go through all that?" I asked myself more than to Anne.

"Dang that temple really messed with my head hu?" I laughed and then went back to laying on the floor.

"We should get some sleep." I say and then pretended to go to sleep.

"Oh, um... ok." She says and I hear some shuffling. It was two more days before someone comes down to us and they looked terrified.

"Master Darcy said to let you out." They say as they unlock the doors but we are stopped.

"Under the conditions that you find the final temple for them, do not enter it, and send a fly out to inform them of the findings." They inform us. I looked to Anne as she looked to the newt and she nods and we are let out. I was stopped by the newt and was handed my journal and I look to it and place it into its pouch. They take us to the outskirts of the rubble of newtopia and we see our friends and hurry over to them.

"ANNE, SPRIG, POLLY!" I hear the old frog say as they run up to him and I go up to Grimes and Yunan.

"What is going on, why are we being set free?" Grime asked.

"We have to find the last temple for Darcy, and inform them of where the findings are… or something bad will happen." I mutter and look to him.

"How could you work-."

"We aren't working with them, we don't want to but this is all we got, we can explain more later." I inform them and we all head back to Toad Tower. It took us a while but once there we all went into the tower and took a seat and I think for a bit.

"This is bad." Lady Olivia says and I nod in agreement.

"What do you think they know?" Anne asked as she took a seat next to me.

"If they read my journal, they know that we can't go in without Marcy, your temple actually needs all of us to acess it, or as far as what I had found said." I mutter and showed her that information in my journal.

"But what if it's like Marcy's temple?" Anne asked.

"How do you know what her temple is?" Yunan asked.

"We had to go through it with her… not as Darcy but as herself Marcy, the temple changed a lot and it was confusing, like even now I don't understand it." I tell them and I rubbed my head a bit.

"It was weird, at first the texts on the wall could be read then it was all gibberish to Sasha, and then it changed colors and it just… it was as if the temple wasn't thought out completely." Anne explained and I nodded.

"It was a major headache to say the least." I mutter. I wrote in my journal a bit and looked to the others.

"What about Polly's bag?" Yunan asked.

"Gone, I think Darcy had the chips destroyed but right now I doubt they we start attacking us, especially when they probably want us to find Anne's temple as soon as we can." I explained.

"So, we won't fight as long as we are looking for a temple?" Lady Olivia asked.

"I think if they become too impatient, they might start attacking to get us to look faster." I explained and she nods.

"I think we need to just find the temple, you, Anne and Marcy can make a plan in the temple and attack before they can get the helmet back on her?" Yunana suggests.

"We can try but we don't know how Anne's temple will react… I mean mine is gone, Marcy's is still in the grounds of Newtopia University, and Anne's is God knows where." I explained to them.

"We just have to try something." Lady Olivia says and I nod.

"I think right now you all need to get some rest." I tell them and a lot of the toads, frogs and newts head to some area of the tower and I sit at the table and just write. I don't know how long I had been sitting there but I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look to see Anne as she looked to the maps I had in my book and I rubbed the back of my neck a bit.

"I think you should get some rest too." She says and I shake my head.

"The sooner I find the temple the sooner we can get Marcy back and kick the dumbass king in the face." I mutter as I mark of one area.

"I know but not sleeping… I know you didn't sleep in the jail." She says and I sighed at this.

"I'll be fine, thank you for being concerned." I tell her and I hear her sigh a bit.

"So… about what I said in the cell a few days back." I say to her.

"Yea?" She asked.

"Just forget I said any of that, you know." I say quietly.

"I don't think I can." She says and I look to her.

"I mean you didn't talk a lot about your feelings when we were kids… other than you had a crush here and there… it's something new to know about you… though it's not something I'm going to use against you if that is what you think will happen." She says and I rubbed the back of my head.

"I mean I still don't talk about my feelings much… no point when you're fighting you know?" I asked with a chuckle and she nods.

"I think we should go back to the one cavern you were talking about, with this Mother Olm person." She says and I nod.

"Yea… that would be the best plan for now." I say and marked the area off on the map and I sighed.

"We were so close we could have gone after we left Newtopia." I mutter.

"It's best to get our people away from there than near it." Anne says and I just nod at this. I wrote some more in my journal and as I flipped to the next page, I see some writing and read it.

'Hey Alex, it's Anne, I see you finally got to the secret page, I wrote you another message while you weren't paying attention, you'll just have to find it.' I reads and I look to Anne as she looked to the papers on the side and I feel her move her hand away and I looked to the journal again and flipped to the other page and wrote some stuff down. I have to say we had been up for a good few hours and I decided to take a break as I get up and stretched a bit.

"Want some coffee?" Anne asked and I nod as we go over to Stumpy who was still up and we get some coffee from him. I give him a few coppers and we head up to the top of the tower and I take a seat by the edge and look around a bit.

"You know… when you let go of my hand, I was so scared." Anne says out of random and I look to her and then took a sip of my coffee.

"I was a bit over dramatic." I joked.

"That… didn't seem that way when it happened." She says and I look to the other tower.

"Trust me, I was overdramatic… did I wish grime saved me? no, am I glad he did?... yea… for now." I tell her.

"How could you-."

"Think like that? Easy, when you think you have nothing left… when you think you lost your friends… it makes you feel that way… but again I was over dramatic by letting go… I mean I didn't want you to get hurt either but eh." I mutter and take another drink of my coffee.

"That's just… boy you need therapy." She says and I laugh at this.

"Oh, you aren't wrong…. You are not wrong." I say and looked to my mug a bit and then look to her. She was looking at the wooded areas near Toad Tower and I think about how the Herons had attacked us all those years ago. How Toad Tower had been destroyed by simple boomshrooms. How I let go of Anne's hand and was hoping, hoping that I would just hit the ground. though now that I think about it, it would have been a horrify sight for Anne had I hit the ground.

"I didn't mean to sound like an ass for saying that." She says and I smiled.

"Why? It's true though." I tell her as I keep my eye on the woods. I see her hand move to my bad eye so I turn to her as she moved the bandages and grimaced a bit and I pull back a bit.

"Sorry." She says.

"For?" I asked.

"Not… helping you." She tells me.

"And I know you're going to say that I shouldn't have to, or that it's ok but I could have used my powers to help you, but I didn't." She says and I pat her back a bit.

"I don't expect you to do much for me Anne, it's fine… now Grime and I can be matching… like Toad Dad and Human Son." I say as I point to myself and she looked to me then to her own mug and I drop my hand and sighed.

"Anne, you are not obligated to help me, I could have stopped Darcy myself had I spoke up but I didn't, that is all my own fault, not yours, I am not your responsibility." I tell her and she doesn't look up.

"Anne, look at me." She doesn't and I sighed.

"I could have done something." She says quietly and I take a drink.

"Anne you could have just sent the planters back here, you didn't, you didn't have to come back for Marcy and Me, I get that, you miss us, I really do, hell I missed the hell out of you, but I'm going to tell you this over and over again… I am not your responsibility, you are not my parents, you are not me, I am my own person, I am a grown… adult, I don't need a baby sitter." I tell her.

"I'm not trying to act like that though." She says to me as she looked to me.

"I could have done something but I didn't because I was scared." She says.

"That's normal Anne, you're allowed to be scared." I tell her.

"But I shouldn't be." She says.

"What if I freeze up at my temple, what if I… what if I can't help anyone." She says and I shake my head.

"Anne, you fought robots without an issue, you and I both know that you can fight… you were scared, it's ok to be scared Anne, it's normal." I tell her.

"You don't seem scared." She says and I finished off my drink.

"I'm always scared Anne… I just hide it better." I tell her.

"I had to hide it." I mutter and looked to the woods.

"I'm sorry though." She says.

"Don't be." I tell her and we look to each other.

"Don't be sorry for what happened to me, I could have stopped Darcy but I didn't… that's my own fault… understand?" I asked and she nods.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad Anne, I am just telling you the truth… I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a jerk." I tell her and she nods.

"Alright." She mutters and I take a breath.

"Ok, I'm going to take a nap right here." I tell her and she nods and I set my mug to the side and I place my hands behind my head and laid back and looked up to the sky a bit. I closed my eye and after a few short minutes I had finally fallen asleep.