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In the end, she was just stuck with him; albeit happily resigned to her fate. She liked being stuck with someone; having someone stuck with her. Having someone that wouldn't leave. Kinda weird that it turned out to be Vanessa's dad, but that was probably inevitable from the time she pushed that button...
Day one (day twenty-eight): more loops, a repeating pattern in which there were no brothers. Operation: Bust was now Operation: Rescue, if only she had enough time to get their little friends on board with it. Baljeet was always the easiest one to convince, having that satellite-whatchahoosit that told him the space/time continuum was severely unstable. But the loops were getting shorter and there was always barely enough time to convince them. This morning time had looped from the previous (same) day before she'd even had time to begin her usual spiel.
Day two should have been day twenty-nine, but...something was...off. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. The air felt different, less stale than it had for a month now. She bolted downstairs and across the street to grab Isabella and Buford, dragging them over to Baljeet's house. Once there, she began the by-now familiar speech and that's when Baljeet said it.
“You tried to convince me of this yesterday.”
Her blood went cold. Yesterday. When she'd given the shortened speech and time had looped before Baljeet looked at the readings on that satellite-thingy. It took a lot of begging and convincing, but he finally agreed to check the readings if she'd agree to go away afterward. She agreed, he checked and there was...absolutely nothing. No rifts opening anywhere. No proof that something had taken her brothers. Or that she'd even had brothers at all. They were all looking at her like she'd flipped, and Candace hung her head dejectedly, muttering an apology and slinking away back home.
Day three, day four, day five: She made a nuisance of herself to the point that the neighborhood parents had asked that she please stay away from their children, but there were no more rifts. At least nothing else went missing from existence.
So she went back to the source of the problem, that Do Over-inator, only to realize that Vanessa's dad was an absent-minded nitwit who shouldn't have been messing around with the flow of time in the first place; too busy being proud of himself for stopping the rifts to listen to the problem. At least she was able to shake some sense into him, even if it didn't do her any good. That was that; her last option exhausted. Her last hope wasted on an idiot.
But when he called her later, offering to help look for them, nothing had ever sounded as beautiful as that stupid high-pitched squawk of a voice. He tried to keep her expectations realistic even as he measured and calculated, punching numbers into the machine he'd brought with him -and the possibility that they might already be dead certainly hurt- but there was hope. For the first time in days, there was hope.
She didn't fall instantly in love with him then and there, no. It was just nice to be believed by someone, when her own parents were starting to doubt her sanity. While her mother's constant failure to see what the boys were up to was frustrating, this new doubt was terrifying. Instead of a fondly exasperated comment on Candace's overactive imagination, mom had started asking hesitant questions about how long Candace had been seeing these little boys she claimed were missing.
Eventually, she became the liar people believed she was, borrowing bus fare for the library or shopping money (her parents loved to see her acting “normal”), feeling like something inside her was holding its breath until that sign came into view, Doofenshmirtz___Inc. Home away from the home that was becoming a prison. The thought always made her feel guilty. It wasn't fair to compare the two situations when Vanessa's dad had every reason to believe her, unlike her own parents, but even Vanessa helped and she had no memory of the boys, either, only of the time she herself was nearly sucked into a rift. Still, it was more evidence than her family had. The feeling of betrayal lingered no matter how much she tried to rationalize it away.
The day he brought the oranges back, looking worried as he held one out to her, was the day she became truly afraid of what might be happening to her brothers in there. Before, she'd assumed that as Phineas and Ferb they'd naturally land on their feet, but the oranges were just this side of still being good, which meant things could age and die in that gray nothing world he described. Which meant her little brothers were growing up in there, fully aware of it. She couldn't bring herself to even contemplate the full horror of such a thing.
As the years passed, she dwelt on the thought more and more; imagining her baby brothers in that unchanging world with no shelter or food (they sent supplies in on a regular basis, but there were no warm home-cooked meals for them)...she started to push her plates away at home. If Dr. Doofenshmirtz didn't insist on a clean plate before any rifts were open, she'd probably let herself starve to death. She was holding on for them, and he knew it because he'd stopped trying to caution her against getting too hopeful. He didn't need to, anyway, she was doing it herself now.
At some point, her frequent absences had the school calling to tell her never mind about coming back. She shrugged it off; one less thing to worry about.
It probably all started the day he almost disappeared from her life. From anyone's life. First there was an ominous scrapping noise behind her, where she was holding tight to the line and waiting anxiously for a signaling tug since Norm, like everyone else, forgot things as soon as they disappeared into a rift. There was a scrape, and she turned to find a confused Norm sliding forward. Terror pushed her into the corner -forgetting that she could tell Norm to pull the rope, forgetting that she could just turn off the machine because big, solid Norm was moving- folding in on herself and yanking at her hair. She wouldn't disappear. She wouldn't be forgotten. She wouldn't let him be forgotten. None of them. Nothing.
“Spoons,” she whispered to herself. “Tigers. Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Oranges...”
She didn't know how long she crouched there tying herself up in knots, but when his harsh, grating, beautiful voice filtered in through the haze, she acted on instinct and flung herself into his arms. With no one to give the order to Norm, he'd have needed to pull himself back out; fighting the flow of energy to come back into the world. To come back to her. She'd shut down years ago,telling herself to stop crying and start doing. Now, her eyes burned and her breath came too shallow as she tried to force the relieved sobs in her throat out past the lump that held them back.
They had been friendly acquaintances up to that point, age and unfamiliarity helping to set the boundaries and touching had been a casual, accidental thing. Now, Candace took every opportunity to erode said boundaries. There always had to be more touching, more reassurance he was still a solid, tangible presence in her life.
That was when he started shying away from her. When her hand rested on his arm, she could feel the tension in it, and if she should happen to lean over his shoulder he moved forward away from the tickle of her unbound hair. At first, she didn't understand what she could possibly have done to make him not like her. Maybe she was just a silly, irritating kid, but...And then the penny dropped. No. No, she wasn't.
She waited for the disgusted shudder to creep up her spine because eeeew! He was old enough to be her dad! A gross old guy leering at a teenage girl. She was no stranger to that, even with her total lack of a figure there had still been stares. The worst was the guy who sidled up to her when she was trying on clothes, age fourteen, and had stepped out of the dressing room to check herself out in the three-way mirror at the end of the fitting room hallway.
“That's a cute little skirt you have on,” the man purred, eyeing her suggestively. “What say you put on a fashion show for me?”
Candace gulped and retreated into the dressing room to wait for mom to come back from the bathroom.
The thing was, D-Heinz wasn't leering; he was barely even looking. And she'd caught herself looking often enough lately that she'd have noticed if he was looking back. Not that it mattered if he did. She still had Jeremy, and sure they were going through a rough patch (for the past several years), but all couples did and the ones who stayed together came out of it stronger.
About four years after Phineas and Ferb disappeared, and their friends had either forgotten or chosen not to acknowledge those few days when Candace had desperately tried to convince them the group was missing two boys, something happened that drove her into a blind fury. Returning home just in time for the dinner she had no intention of eating, Candace saw Isabella sauntering down the sidewalk hand in hand with Baljeet. They paused at his door, Isabella leaning over to peck him on the cheek and giggling at some remark Candace couldn't hear.
Without pausing to consider the consequences, Candace raced towards them, grabbing Isabella by the hair and shouting at her for daring to forget Phineas. Didn't she remember how hung up she used to be on him? Isabella shrieked as Candace -still ranting- progressed to shaking her like a ragdoll. Thankfully for them both, Isabella was a fighter or things might have gone much worse. Once she got over her initial shock, she fought back and the two of them rolled around on the ground slapping and yanking at hair. Candace had a strong vision in her mind of her hand closing around Isabella's throat, nails piercing the skin...yeah. Really good thing Isabella was a fighter. She put Candace on the defensive and never gave her even a second to get near her throat.
Someone grabbed her around the waist, yanking her away from Isabella -several strands of her hair were still in Candace's hand-, but Candace continued to scream and struggle until it registered that the someone holding her was her father, begging her to please calm down because her mother couldn't stop Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro from calling the police and Candace needed to go quietly when they came.
She went quietly. Quietly seething, that is, as she watched Isabella lean her head on Baljeet's shoulder while Mrs Garcia-Shapiro fussed over her, checking to see how much damage was done. Her own parents were there, just as concerned, and she dimly perceived snatches of conversation: her mother begging, yelling, Isabella's mother firm on her stance that charges would be pressed.
The worst part was when no one came for her. With nothing to do in the holding cell, she laid down on the narrow cot and stared at the wall, sure that one of her parents would be there soon. With nothing do to, she let her mind wander; drifting in and out of a fitful doze that was broken at the slightest noise. All in all, she must have slept five minutes.
It was barely daylight when an officer came to tell her she was being bailed out and no charges were filed. The feeling of relief was tinged with one of betrayal; no one cared enough to rescue her sooner. Heinz would never have let Vanessa stay in jail. Knowing what she knew now, Candace was willing to bet he'd have sent Norm to blast open the walls for her. Her own dad, on the other hand, was waiting nervously for her, shifting his weight and not meeting her eyes.
The ride home was not entirely silent, but only because dad made literal hem and haw noises; something he didn't want to say waiting to come bursting out.
“Whatever it is, can I clean up first,” she asked tiredly when they pulled into the driveway. He nodded and she dragged herself inside to her bedroom for a change of clothes -her phone was blinking a voicemail from Jeremy- before going into the bathroom for the shortest shower of her life. It was enough to wash her hair and let the suds rinse down; the little knot of anxiety in her stomach would only be relieved by quickly finding out what her dad wanted to say. It wasn't going to be good.
Hair hanging damply around her shoulders and teeth brushed, she pulled up the voicemail with a feeling of doom, leaving it on speaker while she dressed. She already knew what Jeremy was going to say, but better to have it confirmed.
“Um,” he laughed nervously, “hey, Candace...” A sigh. “Look, I can't do this. I don't even know who you are, anymore. The girl I love would never have attacked a kid like that. I think it's best if we break up.” He didn't have to tell her not to call back, the message was clear enough.
And that was it. There was a feeling of heartbreak and the ever-present betrayal, but also relief. No more going through the motions for either of them.
Downstairs, she found her parents at the kitchen table, their hands clasped together; drawing strength from each other. The knot in her stomach grew.
“Alright, let's get this over with.” Candace pulled out the chair opposite them and sank heavily into it.
“Ah, well, dear,” her father began, glancing sideways to his wife for help.
Mom took a deep breath. “Candace, you have to move out.”
“What,” she demanded, bolting upright. “You're throwing me out?!”
“Now, don't think of it that way,” dad answered soothingly. “Isabella's mother agreed not to press charges if you'd stay far away from her daughter. Think of it as...we're protecting you.” His tone was questioning and Candace doubted even he believed the words he was saying.
“Fine, whatever. I'll just get my stuff and go find the nearest bridge to live under.”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Mom spoke up, an edge of impatience in her voice as if Candace were the unreasonable one here. “We all talked it over last night, and you've got two weeks. That should give you time to get settled somewhere.”
“Plus, we'll help you with the first month's rent on an apartment, giving you plenty of time to find a job.” Dad was aiming for cheerful, he fell laughably short.
“Great. How generous. Thanks. I'll just go start looking.”
She didn't give either of them a chance to reply, just stood and left the house. Lacking any money and not daring to ask, she walked downtown to her second home. Soon to be her only home, if Heinz didn't let her down. Her damp hair dried on the way and she stopped in the lobby to finger comb it into soft waves.
Heinz was reading the morning paper when she let herself in, and there was weird crunch from under the table when he stood to welcome her. She'd made a study of his face lately, knew every expression that flitted across it, and that was definitely the start of a wince before he caught himself. Weird.
“You're early.”
“I spent the night in jail,” she answered flatly. “And came home to find a voicemail from my boyfriend breaking up with me. Oh. And I'm homeless, now.”
Sitting gracelessly, she glanced curiously underneath the table while he was preoccupied with dipping her a bowl of non-dairy chocolate ice cream. (No one at home had even offered her breakfast before ambushing her.) A crushed pair of reading glasses lay slightly in front of the chair he'd been sitting in. The sight was almost enough to make her smile. She straightened back up quickly before he could realize she was on to him.
“Start at the beginning, sweetie.” He sat the bowl in front of her, careful that he didn't so much as brush her shoulder in the process. Candace wondered if he knew he'd already given himself away twice over in less than ten minutes.
She told her story in a monotone, starting with her attack on Isabella and ending with being thrown out. Pleasepleaseplease, don't let me down, she begged him silently.
“Wanna move in here?”
She gasped, heart feeling like it would hammer out of her chest. Here was that rescue she'd hoped in vain for last night. Here was the someone in her life who wouldn't let her down. She didn't even have to ask, he just knew what she needed. Heinz must have misinterpreted her reaction because he was rambling now, more nervous than she'd ever seen him, but she was bursting with joy and smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. Her face actually hurt from the force of it.
“Thank you.” Candace leaned forward and kissed his cheek, a compromise to hold herself in check when the urge to kiss him properly was so overwhelming. He hadn't shaved yet; his skin felt bristly against her lips. She'd never kissed Jeremy so early in the morning, neither having ever spent the night with the other. Their long-past teenage fumblings had been confined to his car at night and she was always home before anyone could suspect what they'd been up to. This moment was somehow more intimate than anything she'd done up to this point, and she lingered a bit too long while imagining all the mornings to follow where she'd see him just like this
Her parents at least had the decency to help her move, though there were plenty of awkward moments involved once they realized where she was going. Her father and Heinz stared each other down every time their paths crossed; the one suspicious and the other somehow managing to look defensive and sheepish at the same time.
Her mother was a little more vocal about things, but only once. She'd tried privately voicing her concerns about Candace moving in with someone old enough to be her father, but Candace wouldn't hear it and shut her down with the reminder that she wouldn't be there if she still had another home to go to.
Less than a week later, she was living in Vanessa's old room. The wallpaper and overall décor were way darker than her usual sunny aesthetic, but she wasn't really sunny, happy Candace anymore, was she? And what did it matter what the walls looked like when there were still brothers to find? She put her own knick-knacks out, set Mr Miggins on the bed and declared it enough. The photo of her and Stacy came back out only because she felt achingly nostalgic in this place that didn't feel like hers yet. She hadn't had a best friend in two years, now. She could count it only because she had a stack of birthday cards from Stacy, one for every year of their lives, and two birthdays had passed without one. One by one, everyone in her life was slipping away. Everyone except Heinz.
Moving out was a relief in one way. No more awkward conversations with her parents in the middle of the night when she woke up screaming as her brothers were pulled into the rift again, their faces slowly melting like ice cream as they screamed her name, begging for help she couldn't give. On the rare occasion she didn't cry out at the recurring nightmare, her nighttime ventures to the kitchen for chamomile tea -Vanessa had suggested it for her nerves- were bound to wake someone.
The first night she woke, she felt light and free in spite of herself as she made her way to the kitchen. Oh, sure, she was still careful not to wake Heinz, but if he did wake up she could tell him the truth and he would believe her. He would understand. She was quick to shut off the whistling kettle, but he was there seconds later, confused and adorable in his pajamas, blinking in the light as she added two spoons of honey to her tea.
“Sorry, nightmares.” She held up the box of chamomile in lieu of a longer explanation.
Heinz waved off the apology, already shuffling to the cabinets. By the time he'd assembled sugar, coconut oil, corn syrup, and almonds, he was entirely awake and soothing her guilt by talking coherently about his own bouts of insomnia; the reasons behind them. Man, his parents were awful. What kind of people told their own kid he was so awful a monster would take him away, but let the other kid think that same monster would bring presents because he was so perfect? No wonder Heinz didn't like his brother.
Grabbing a saucepan and cookie sheet from the drawer under the stove, Heinz placed the former on the front eye and the latter on the cabinet. Without once relying on a measuring cup or timer, he poured and stirred; measuring with a practiced eye. She sipped her tea and wondered what he was doing, the whole thing like some well-rehearsed dance. At least he wasn't trying to put a musical number to this. He'd tried to cheer her up with those a time or two.
“Be a dear and put some wax paper on that,” he indicated vaguely towards the cookie sheet, "I forgot." Candace stared at his hand and decided she was too far gone to ever come back.
“Oh, uh-” Not yet familiar with the kitchen, she felt silly opening and closing all of the drawers. “Where is it?”
“Third drawer down from the sink.”
Wax paper located, she pulled off a sheet and placed it as instructed. Heinz poured the mixture out and spread it thin with enviable skill, not once having to fight off any sticky clumps, then went to the fridge where he pulled out another tray of whatever it was, replacing it with the new one.
“Almond brittle,” he offered.
“I've never had any.” Inwardly, she was spinning and dancing at this small sign that she wasn't alone in remembering everything gone from the world, that things could be brought back. Outwardly, she waited patiently while he broke the previous night's almond brittle into pieces and hesitantly took a piece. “Oh my gosh, this is delicious!"
Heinz looked very pleased with himself.
It was a ritual, after that. No matter who wound up in the kitchen first, no one went back to bed until they'd made a new batch of almond brittle (Candace was relegated to the role of fabulous assistant, though she was picking up the basic idea from watching him) and eaten the old one. Heinz never made more than enough for one night, the repetition of the ritual helping to lull him back to sleep. It didn't make sense to her, but, after all, while she'd been stuck in her own personal, looping nightmare, he'd been achieving his dreams.
She sat on the counter in her pajamas, finding it odd that she could feel so relaxed and content after a nightmare, eating homemade candy and sharing stories of her brothers. One time, they made winter in the middle of summer. One time, she joined in a giant game of skiddly-whiffers...But they were just little kids, and while part of her knew she was tattling, it was for a good cause. They could have gotten really hurt.
Candace liked the way Heinz watched her while she talked, sitting at the kitchen table with his chin propped in his hand and idly munching almond brittle. But she liked the way he tried not to watch her licking the toffee spoon even more. The first time she'd done it, tongue snaking out to firmly scrape away all the stickiness, his eyes went wide and his face went pale before he looked quickly away. Oh, she said to herself, and made a game of it.
In another time and place, a younger Candace would never have dreamed of flirting and teasing so blatantly. But that was a Candace who was safe and happy, inexperienced and uncertain of having her interest reciprocated by Jeremy. Older Candace had two certainties in life, Heinz would always be there for her and he was painfully obviously interested in being more than a substitute parent to her. She'd only had one boyfriend but she'd learned a great deal about how to wind him up, and she put the knowledge to good use now.
Matters came to a head one night when Heinz made the mistake of touching her. He was always so careful not to, but he stared too long, dropped his guard and Candace pounced. She'd grown tall enough that she didn't have to stretch far to reach his lips, so she fisted her hands in the front of his pajama shirt and closed that short distance. There had been some protesting about his age, but he forgot it quickly enough when the kissing started, pushing her onto the kitchen table and crawling up after her. It was nice to be able to go slow, instead of hands frantically racing to touch all they could before curfew.
When he asked how far she'd gone with Jeremy she nearly stopped breathing, sure that he meant to have her tonight. He would be hers, she would be his and they'd be together forever. He looked disappointed when she said third base, and for a moment Candace felt like a stupid little girl until she realized Heinz didn't mean to stop. Maybe he just had a weird thing about virgins? She shrugged mentally and put the worry from her mind, unable to focus on it when he was doing things to make her toes curl. But when she lay blissfully destroyed, he righted her clothing, helped her up and gave her one more kiss before sending her to bed alone.
Candace slunk into the bedroom feeling utterly humiliated and hurt, curling into a ball on the bed with Mr Miggins hugged to her chest. Had she totally misread the whole situation? Did Heinz not want her, after all? He hadn't struck her as the wham-bam type, but maybe she was wrong about that? No. Wouldn't he have been more concerned about his own wants, if that were the case? Why take nothing and send her away? She would have gladly returned the favor, he had to know that by now. Or maybe Heinz thought she was just a silly little girl with a crush and it was...throwing her a bone, in a manner of speaking? Pun very much not intended. She fell asleep without ever arriving at a reasonable explanation.
The next morning, it took all of her courage to come out of her bedroom; to ever face him again after being so thoroughly rejected. Instead of fluttering about, passing him plates and doing whatever else she could to make herself useful on the off-chance she could find some excuse to touch him in passing, Candace leaned on the counter and continued turning last night over in her mind. Heinz wasn't even looking at her this morning, and it felt like the most ridiculously wasted effort to have brushed her hair before re-emerging today. While he was frying bacon, she screwed up her nerve and just blurted the words out.
“You didn't have to send me away last night.”
She must have startled him. He slipped with the tongs and spattered bacon grease on his hand, letting out the tiniest scream of pain.
“Now, see, this- this is why you and me are a bad idea. I mean, look, it's like...We're like bacon, ok? Really delicious -that came out wrong- but really unhealthy, and someone's gonna get burned. Most likely me.” He shook his injured hand to emphasize the point.
“I see.” She went back to her room without waiting for breakfast. So, it wasn't that he was uninterested, it was that being with her was apparently the worst mistake he would ever make in his life. Lovely. Nothing like being told what a bad choice you were to boost a girl's self esteem.
A few minutes after her disappearance, there was a timid rap at her door, but when she opened it she only found a tray with bacon, scrambled eggs, jelly toast and soy milk cocoa. She wanted to leave it untouched to spite him. She ate it because there were rules: three rifts for every meal she ate.
She barely spoke to Heinz for a week, didn't lean over him when she asked to see the list of places he'd made for the daily rift-openings and restricted the rest of their conversations to asking what supplies she should gather up for the day. After a week of no late nights in the kitchen, Candace was stretched out on her stomach, fully-awake after midnight and no closer to dozing off than she was four hours ago, flipping through The Pirate's Wench and bitterly imagining what it would be like to want a man who was straight-forward and blatant like Captain Grant, not shying away from the idea of having sex with her.
A loud knock pulled her thoughts back into the real world, and she frowned. It was just getting to the good part. Lady Christine was about to be properly ravished on a table. The knock came again, persistent and steady. Grumbling to herself, she got up and wrenched the door open.
“I'm reading,” she snapped.
“Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, I didn't know you were reading, obviously, but I knew you weren't asleep. Look, can you just come out here? Please?”
“Why, so you can tell me what a bad idea I am again?”
He sighed. “No, so I can throw myself out of the frying pan,” he gestured both hands to the left, “and into the fire.” Both hands to the right.
“Nice,” Candace responded sarcastically, arms crossed under her chest. He was not winning any points for what she assumed was supposed to be some big romantic gesture, especially if that was his idea of an apology.
There was no warning when he suddenly grabbed her arm with one hand, dragging her out into the hall while reaching behind her to close the bedroom door. What even?
Her back hit the wall hard. “Alright, what-mmph!” Okay, so maybe he got a few points for the kissing. Her arms crept around his neck even as she tried to ask the question again. “What-” The rest of that sentence, “what do you think you're doing?” disappeared entirely into a whimpering moan when his lips made their way to the side of her neck, teeth scraping at the tendon just enough to be interesting. Oh, she liked where this was going.
She tried to drag him backwards into her room, but he resisted. Great, back to mixed signals.
“My daughter slept in there.”
Ah, okay. Nothing mixed. This was straight up going to happen, just not in Vanessa's old bed. Fair enough. He glanced silently in the direction of his own room, and Candace placed her hand in his as an answer to the unasked question.
She followed willingly enough, but once they were in his room things got awkward as he absolutely refused to give her any direction at all without, in her opinion, entirely too much coaxing. And she embarrassed herself half to death when she blurted out “is that even going to fit,” because a grown man naked was a lot more intimidating than a half-dressed teenage boy. Heinz snorted with laughter, slapping a hand over his mouth too late.
“Shut up,” Candace squeaked, mortified, punching him in the arm.
There was a choked back snicker in response.
“Well, I don't know, do I,” she asked defensively, kneeling on the bed and studying her hands. Her hair had fallen forward, hiding her burning face, and Heinz reached out to tuck it back behind her ear. She glanced up timidly and found him looking at her as if she were the most precious, adorable thing in the universe. Candace had braced herself for an ill-timed, terrible joke on his part, but there was only silent sympathy. Socially awkward as he was, there was no way he hadn't been the embarrassing one, his first time.
“Well, I don't,” she concluded lamely, followed by a nervous giggle in response to the uncontrollable upward twitch of his lips; the ice was broken. And in the end, she still liked being in charge.
The next morning, her first, sleep-muddled thought was why is my pillow breathing? I bet Phineas and Ferb are behind this, then it all came back and she wrapped herself completely around Heinz; hanging on for dear life. When it came time to open the post-breakfast rift, Candace had a sudden, horrifying vision of that day Norm slipped. She saw the rope being pulled forward, Heinz disappearing forever and herself left with the choice of becoming trapped, too, or living the rest of her life with no one. She stopped him before he could activate the rift, pressing a desperate kiss to his lips.
“Be careful.”
“I'm always careful,” he pointed out, holding up the length of rope tied around his waist.
“Be careful,” she repeated, “you're all I have.”
Watching him disappear into the next rift after he almost pulled Norm in was the hardest thing she'd ever done. This was worse. Last night she'd had a taste of what a real future with just the two of them could be like, if they never found her brothers – a future where she could still have a friend and a lover, even if they were only one and the same person- and now she was watching her only security literally walk right out of the world. When the tug came, she pulled so hard her hands bled.
Sometimes, Perry came around wearing a little hat. And while that wasn't the weirdest thing in her life, it was still up there on the list. Heinz greeted him like they'd know each other for ages, an absent “oh, hello Perry The Platypus,” as if it were an everyday occurrence.
“How do you know Perry? And why is he wearing a hat?”
“You know Perry The Platypus?” He tilted his head, puzzled. “All secret agents wear hats, how do you not know this?”
There was a secret agent platypus living with her family? Still not the weirdest thing in the world. She didn't like the way he looked at her, sad and sympathetic, or the way he would always glare at Heinz before he left, pointing two furry fingers at him and then directing them to his own eyes.
“My own platypus doesn't believe me,” she exclaimed after one such visit. It had been a long day, she was tired and crampy and now this final insult on top of everything else.
“We'll find them.” He no longer held back from touching her, and his arm came to rest on her sagging shoulders. “Then everyone will believe you.”
She leaned against him and accepted the reassuring lie.
It was nearly another two years before they found either of them. Panic started to creep in at the edges of her mind when Heinz passed their two minute limit, but Norm was still exactly where they left him, five feet from the gate -she could measure things like that with her eyes by now- which helped calm her though it didn't prevent her from biting the nails of her left hand down to nothing. Then the tug and hope bled in to stifle the panic when she pulled and found the rope heavier than usual.
“Norm, pull,” she yelled.
“Who wants cheesecake,” Norm answered, barely needing to use any of his robot strength to pull two figures through the rift.
Candace quickly shut off the machine, moving on autopilot, only caring that two people had come out of the rift instead of one. She launched herself at them, clinging to her brother before he even had a chance to rise from the ground.
“Uh, Candace, sweetheart, maybe let go of the traumatized boy,” Heinz ventured cautiously, dusting himself off.
Candace stepped back reluctantly. “We'll take him home with us,” she said decisively. Whatever had happened in there, only she and Heinz would be able to help. They alone would believe him.
Her quest had not exactly been a secret all these years. Try as she might, people were bound to notice the two of them opening rifts all over town. How funny that as soon as Phineas came out of one, all that should be collectively forgotten, and a reporter should call up the infamous Candace Flynn to ask about that runaway brother of hers who had mysteriously showed up in the park after so many years. The next morning's paper exonerated her as a loyal sister, the article going on to praise her for never giving up when everyone else did. Heinz looked very put off by the description of himself as an elderly boyfriend, though knowing him it was equally possible the offensive word was 'pharmacist.' He caught her eye over the top of the glasses she'd insisted he replace after she grew tired of watching him squint, his expression sardonic and knowing, fully understanding without words how tragically ironic it all was for her, and she laughed bitterly. There was no mention of Ferb.
Heinz cautioned her against asking and though he refused to say why, it was obvious he knew something she didn't. Best to let this one go, he tried to tell her. She had one brother back, wasn't that good enough? Candace glared at him and went on to what was now Phineas' bedroom; Heinz followed and protested the whole way but she was not to be deterred.
“Where's Ferb,” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed where Phineas lay staring at the wall. He had barely moved since he returned, refusing everything but water. At least she'd kept him fed inside the rift; he wouldn't die from a day or two of not eating.
Phineas refused to answer her so she tried again. He curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his head and suddenly Heinz was there pulling at her arm. She glanced helplessly up at him, but he shook his head. Candace sighed and allowed herself to be lead from the room.
But the need to know remained, and she went back later while Heinz was distracted in the lab. At first, she got nowhere and her heart cracked when Phineas started muttering about hallucinating again, but she persisted and gradually the story came out in babbling pieces that made no sense. She took the story to Heinz and the two of them turned it over until he suddenly exclaimed,
“Oh! So that's what he meant by-,” before thinking better of it.
“Meant by what?”
“You really don't wanna know.”
“Yes, I really do. Heinz, please.” And maybe she used the puppy dog eyes against him, but it was for the greater good.
He sighed. “I think a tiger named Candace ate your brother. It's what he said, when I found him. 'Candace ate Ferb.'”
The brother who came back to her was barely coherent. There was no way he could have coordinated part of his own rescue. He'd had help. She pulled the notes out of the living room desk drawer, going straight for the last one. Danville Park, 5 pm. (The watch they'd sent through still kept time on that side.) The older ones were longer, more chatty and full of morbid jokes about living in Nullville. The last three, collected over the past week, were all the same as the last one with time and place in a hand-written monotone. Ferb was alive last week. Reading over her shoulder, Heinz took a sharp breath and she knew he'd realized the same thing. She stepped away from the hands that closed loosely over her upper arms.
“I have to put Phineas to bed,” she said dully. If she let herself accept any comfort now, she'd break into pieces and Phineas couldn't see that.
The last of her strength was used up to maintain a smile for her little brother, kissing his forehead and tucking the blankets in around him. She stumbled down the hall to the bedroom she shared with Heinz, closing the door quietly behind her and simply howling to the ceiling about the unfairness of it all.
She was dimly aware that Heinz closed his book and got up from the bed, disappearing and reappearing with his tool box, which he set beside her before retreating into the bathroom. Understanding the gesture, she picked up the tools inside and hurled them one by one at the wall. When she ran out of things to throw, she gathered them all up and did it again. It wasn't enough, but the violence of it satisfied her on some deep, primal level. Two more times, and she collapsed on her knees and let the sobs come at last. After so many years of holding them back, the dam was burst and she wondered if it was literally possible to drown in your own tears.
At some point, Heinz came back and helped her up off the floor. Her legs were numb and she leaned heavily on him until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She felt curiously weightless, sitting there and doing the bare minimum to help as he dressed her in his striped pajama top (her sleepwear of choice after that first night) and tucked her into bed as if she were a child again.
For the longest time, she lay staring into the dark, unable to truly process or accept that they could have been so close to saving both boys. Ferb couldn't have slipped through their fingers like that, he just couldn't! Or, rather, he hadn't. She smiled to herself, turning around and poking Heinz in the side.
“Hey, you can do time travel, right?”
“Mmhmm,” he hummed, half-dozing.
Candace pulled herself into a sitting position, bouncing a little in her excitement. “Then we'll just go back in time and save Ferb from ever being eaten.”
“...Wha-? Whoawhoawhoa, wait a second.” More awake, he scooted up until he, too, was sitting, turning towards her. “Start over, I think I missed something.”
“It's perfect!” She clapped her hands together. “You can build a time machine onto the rift-thingy and we'll just go back in time and get Ferb out.”
“Eeesh. Man, I wish I didn't have to say this,” he muttered, “but...I can't do that.”
A needle-scratch sounded in her head. “What do you mean, you can't do that?”
“I mean it's physically impossible.”
“Oh, I see. Opening a rift to a place beyond time, do-able. Going back in time, impossible. That doesn't even make sense!”
Heinz dropped his face into his hands, scrubbing at his skin. “We can't go back in time, when there's no.time.”
He said it like it should have been obvious to her, which made her feel stupid for even asking. “Then we'll just go back in time to before they dis-” But he was already shaking his head. “Why not?”
“Because I'm not evil anymore.”
“So?” She failed to follow his train of thought.
“So, we go back in time, we get your brother. Maybe we even manage to save both of them, who knows.” He shrugged. “But there are other lives to consider, and we'd just destroy all of them. And I'd do it if I was still evil, but...”
He was letting her down. The one person she'd thought would always help her, her knight in a white lab coat, was letting her down. It wasn't fair! She bounded from the bed, pacing and railing against him, the universe, time, and anything else she could think of. It sounded like a different person, accusing him of benefiting from keeping the status quo and she knew darn well what she was suggesting, even if she couldn't bring herself to do more than imply it. He knew, too, and sat frozen, looking as if she'd somehow betrayed him, when he was the one refusing to help save her brother.
“You just don't want me to stop needing you,” she accused, stomping over to the door.
And he'd found his voice at last. “I would love that, actually,” he sniped. “You're always so needy and whiny.”
Candace sucked in a breath, feeling as if he'd punched her in the gut. So, in the end, he felt sorry for her, but still only saw her as an irritating, whiny brat. But he wasn't done hurting her, yet.
“I didn't even want,” he gestured around to encompass the little signs of her occupancy in his room, “any of this in the first place!”
“Fine, I'll start looking for a new place as soon as its daylight,” Candace snarled back.
“Oh, sure, run away like a scared little girl now that you've made this huge emotional mess. I tried to tell you this wouldn't work, but you just couldn't listen! See, what did I tell you? Bacon.”
Instead of replying, she stormed out and slammed the door behind her, nearly tripping over Phineas who was sitting wide-eyed next to their closed door.
“Oh,” she gasped, regaining her balance. “I'm sorry, sweetie, did we wake you?”
Phineas glanced nervously between her and the door. He looked ready to bolt at any second.
“Hey,” she knelt and held out her hand. “It's alright, Phineas. C'mon, I'll get us some tea and we'll go back to bed.”
He let her help him up and followed her quietly into the kitchen. Everything was fine until she went for the honey for her own cup and Phineas was suddenly hyperventilating.
“Phineas? Phineas, please talk to me!” She was close to a panic attack of her own, not able to deal with this tonight. “I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong.” Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She couldn't help him. No one but Heinz could have helped either of them, and in the end he'd let them down.
“Sp-” He tried, breath hitching. “Spoons. Everywhere. Spoons.”
It was enough to know the spoon was scaring him. She quickly put it away. “Hey, hey...ssshh. C'mon, ssssh.” She didn't care whether he was going to allow it or not, she put her arms around him and pulled him against her shoulder. He struggled and Candace thought she might start sobbing again. “Please,” she begged. “Please. The spoon is gone.”
“The spoon is gone,” he repeated quietly, questioningly.
“No spoons,” she said, thinking she might understand. “There are no spoons in the world.”
He nodded. “Only in Nullville.”
“That's right! Good, yes.” Progress. She realized that while reminders of missing things had comforted her, for Phineas it meant he was still in Nullville. “I can work with this.”
In the end, she stirred the honey with a fork, Phineas drank his tea like a good boy and she put him back to bed with another hug and kiss on the forehead. “You're safe now,” she told him, smoothing his hair back. “I'm not going to let you down.”
Candace slept on the couch, waking up as the sun crept over the horizon and in through the giant windows. Feeling dead twice over, she went for a cup of coffee, black because she needed the full shock to her system, and a bowl of cold cereal. Heinz joined her when she finished eating, the two of them pretending interest in the early morning news and their latest, completely inaccurate story about Phineas.
“Sooo...where will you go?”
This was really it, then. “I don't know. Maybe back home to my parents until I can get a job.”
“You know, I used to think about patenting almond brittle as my own thing. I could do it and give you the money.”
He wasn't throwing her out and paying her off like some sort of hooker. “Payment for services rendered,” she snarked, pleased at the way his face reddened. “No, thank you, I'd hate to be too needy.”
“You know what, fine!” Heinz stood, waving his hands in the air angrily. Candace smirked to herself. “I tried. Just throw your little tantrum and go on back to mommy and daddy, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see their public menace daughter and lunatic son.”
Oh, he did not just go there! She jumped up as well, putting herself in his path. “At least my parents always loved me,” she needled, picking at the wounds she knew were still there. “Probably because I'm not some overgrown, pointy-nosed...lawn gnome!”
“That's what you're going with,” he deadpanned. Ok, fair enough, it wasn't her best insult. “Tell me something I don't know, baby.” The belittling tone was too much. She felt the heat creeping into her face as he drew himself up to loom over her, the further mockery leaving her sputtering for a reply. “C'mon, let me have it, but you're gonna have to try really hard to find one I haven't already heard. Ugly, pointy-nosed, parents hate you, failure, blahblahblah. Heard them all.”
“Oh yeah?” Victory was within her grasp; she'd found the perfect way to hurt him. She pushed against his chest, giving herself space to straighten to her full height. She was tall, but he still stood taller. “Here's a new one for you, then. I hate you! You were my last resort in everything,” she raised an eyebrow meaningfully, “but I've never been able to stand you!”
“Okay, ouch,” he grumbled, deflating. Without another word, he spun towards the front door.
That was it, she'd verbally knocked all of the fight out of him with that one. The victory was a hollow one. It was the perfect insult, crafted from the times he told her about how hard he'd tried to earn one scrap of affection from his parents, while Roger had to do nothing but exist, and confided his fear that his marriage had failed because no one really wanted him around when something better might come along. It was too far. She tried to block him.
“I'm-”
“Move,” he said quietly, shrugging off the hand she reached out. Candace stepped aside, letting him pass unhindered to the door.
“Heinz, wait,” she called softly.
He only waved a dismissal without looking at her and left in his pajama pants and robe. She'd never seen him so still and quiet in all the time she'd known him. Even if only his fingers were twitching, drumming boredly on a table, Heinz was a constant source of noise and motion. “I'm sorry,” she said to the closed door, knowing it wouldn't do any good.
Just like that, she had her second break up before she'd even turned twenty-five. Might as well start looking for a place to go. Her parents hadn't called since Phineas was found, but this was a desperate time and she was willing to hold out the olive branch.
“Hi, mom,” she began hesitantly.
“Candace! Oh, gosh, we've been so worried! Why haven't you ever called?”
Really, she asked the universe silently. “I didn't think you'd want me to.” It was a half-truth. She had had absolutely no desire to speak to them. “I'm really sorry about the way we left things.”
“Oh, Candace, honey,” mom sounded close too tears. “I'm sorry, too. I've spent years worrying about what might be happening to you, living there with that guy.” Candace bristled, but said nothing as her mom went on. “I'm pretty sure we dated once...Weird how he ended up living with you.”
She didn't like what mom was implying, that he was only ever interested in Candace as a substitute for Linda. However, now was not the time to fight about that. “Yeah...weird,” she said reluctantly. “And actually, that's why I'm calling.” Let her draw her own conclusions from that. “Phineas and I need a place to stay.”
“Say no more. I'm sure it'll be easy to smooth things over with the neighbors now that you're a local hero.”
Hah. Of course. “Thanks, mom.” She smiled even though she didn't feel like it, just to make the happiness of it translate to her voice. “We'll be there tonight.”
The first order of business was to tell Phineas that they couldn't stay in the tower anymore. Following their conversation, he exuded a wary excitement at the idea of seeing their parents again and Candace wished she could share in it. Phineas didn't have the memories she did of eavesdropping on impatient, worried parents who had finally reached their breaking points and wanted to send her off to the psych ward. She wished she didn't remember that, remember confronting them and playing on their own feelings of guilt about it to keep herself safe until she was a legal adult. They wouldn't remember any of it now, of course. Heinz would. Heinz would remember everything she remembered for the rest of his life, but that door was shut now. She'd slammed it in her own face.
The next thing to do, was to get them both packed. Phineas currently had very little of his own at the apartment. Heinz had gotten him a few changes of clothes and a five pack of underwear, because he was nice and caring like that. There was even a bottle of cherry soda in the fridge. He would have made a perfect surrogate father for Phineas. The three of them could have been their own little family of outcasts and Candace had screwed all of that up. He had done everything she'd ever asked of him, and the first time he couldn't, she showed her true colors. She was nothing but a spoiled brat.
Once Phineas had his few belongings ready to go, she returned to her own bedroom. Their bedroom. Heinz's bedroom. She didn't have any right to it, now. A note wasn't much of an apology for being the terrible person she was, but she left the most heartfelt one she'd ever written folded neatly on his pillow, along with her key. She would have gladly stayed to grovel, but there was a good chance he wouldn't want to see her. At some point as she shuffled around the room, still wearing his pajama top and her Duckie Momo slippers, Candace thought she heard the door open, but when she glanced up hopefully, mouth already forming another apology, there was no one there.
There was still no one there when she shimmied into a pair of leggings, wrapped a plain elastic around her unbrushed hair to secure it into a messy bun, and left with Phineas in tow. She did steal emergency money out of the cookie jar to pay the cab driver who took them home, but she thought Heinz would write the expense off as a useful one, getting rid of the whiny little girl who wouldn't leave him alone.
Mom and dad were appropriately pleased to see them, crowding around Phineas and pulling him into a group hug. Candace hung back, not in the mood for hugging either of them, but after cooing over Phineas they quickly made their way over to her with arms outstretched and she was obligated to return the embrace.
“Have you eaten,” mom asked as dad took their bags upstairs. “We were thinking pizza, to celebrate.”
“Pizza sounds great.” Candace smiled weakly. “I'll just go help Phineas unpack, first.”
Up in the room he used to share with his brother, Phineas looked around in confusion at all the changes. There was nothing to show Ferb had ever been here, at all. He turned frightened eyes to her. “Ferb,” he asked in a small voice.
“Remember, I told you, we can't talk about Ferb here. They don't know he ever existed.”
But Phineas couldn't always remember that rule. Sometimes, she caught him drawing and her heart broke all over again as she recognized the two little boys in the pictures. Those were the most dangerous times, should their parents happen to see him at it. The first time, dad had been largely unconcerned, citing art therapy as good for Phineas, but the familiar house broke what was already beyond repair in her little brother, and the unconcern gradually turned into the same fear she remembered as Phineas began to cover his walls with pictures of Ferb and talk outloud to him. Their parents had forgotten ever thinking of Candace as delusional, only as obsessed with finding a runaway brother who was probably dead, but she remembered and knew exactly how to manipulate those worried conversations to have them shouting at each other and no closer to a firm decision to have her brother committed.
Phineas' eighteenth birthday came as a sigh of relief to Candace. Lacking friends, now, there was no party for him, but their parents at least made the effort to celebrate; baking him a cake and cooking him a fancy dinner. There was a moment of panic when mom, meaning well, had tried to put this Ferb character Phineas was so obsessed with on the cake, thinking it must be from some cartoon she didn't remember and maybe accepting the obsession would help them connect, again. Candace had needed to talk her out of it. She could only imagine how well it would have gone over for Phineas to see someone else eating Ferb, and shuddered at the thought.
Finding herself once more desperate, Candace turned to the only safety she could be sure of. But her calls to Heinz went unreturned and her emails unanswered. It was only what she deserved, true, but this wasn't about her. She would stay and face the consequences of her own mistake, but Phineas shouldn't have to. At least there was a little money for them -if Heinz wasn't going to come through- now that she had a low-paying cashier job at the Food-Stuff Mart. It wasn't much, but if Phineas could get a mental disability check they might manage a small apartment between the two of them.
Home was getting dangerous, however, and minimum wage paychecks are hard things to save when people insist that as an adult you need to contribute to the household bills. It was probably a very reasonable request, but Candace couldn't help resenting how much of her already small check it took to cover a third of lights, water, internet and cable. She had no desire to drive her parents to divorce, but if that was what it took to distract them long enough to make an escape with her brother, she'd do it.
Fortunately, she didn't need to go that far. Someone Upstairs must have been smiling on her, because one Friday, as she stood awkwardly picking her nails, she happened to glance up in search of customers and there was Heinz. She might have even smiled if he didn't look like a cornered animal when their eyes met. Go on, then , she silently dared him, face me if you're so mature. She felt like an elephant was sitting on her lungs when he turned his cart into her empty line, reaching halfway to his glasses and stopping. Candace felt a bittersweet rush of affection, remembering the first time he'd worn the new pair in front of her and how many times he'd started that same nervous gesture in the span of two hours. She hadn't been above a little ego-stroking, telling him how distinguished they made him look and that he totally wore them better than Roger. There might have been some biased opinion in there, too.
“Good afternoon,” she smiled blandly, “how are you today?”
“I've been better.” He rolled his eyes, face twisted in exasperation.
She bristled, gritting her teeth at the obvious implication she'd ruined his day. “Are you signed up for our points program?”
“No.”
“Would you like-”
“No.”
“I need to talk to you.” He was ignoring her. It was blatant and childish. She gave an irritated huff and threw her cards on the table. “It's about Phineas.”
She had his attention at last, but the line behind him was quickly filling up. “I'll call you.” He paid quickly and left.
Four hours later, she sat in her mom's car -borrowed for work- and laughed to keep from crying as she listened to the voicemail he'd left.
“Hello, Candace? It's Heinz. Well, I mean, who else would be calling from this number?...Aaanyway, I just realized I have no idea when your shift ends, but I said I'd call and so...I'm calling, and...Yeah, just call me back. Or don't. But, I mean, you probably will since you asked...whatever. Bye.”
It was so like him. It used to drive her crazy when he rambled, sometimes on three topics at once as his mind latched onto a minor detail and diverted to a completely different subject when she would rather be discussing that day's rescue attempts, but there were times when his non-linear train of thought was the only thing that could make her smile. Not wanting to waste any more time than was necessary in getting back to Phineas, she quickly pressed send and placed the call on speaker while driving.
“They want to have him locked up,” she said as calmly as possible given the way her palms were sweating on the steering wheel. If he said no... “Just like they did with me. He talks about Ferb all the time, and they can't remember-” She felt the catch in her own throat and cut herself off before she could start crying. Hoping he didn't hear it because she didn't want to be that needy, whiny little girl right now. “He needs to come back. Not me, I promise, just him.”
“Fine,” he said grudingly. “He can come back.”
Candace didn't care much for his tone, but it was enough that Heinz would allow Phineas to return.
Of course, it couldn't all be smooth-sailing from there. There was the issue of her parents not trusting Heinz, and Candace didn't want to see either him or herself accusing of kidnapping the mentally ill. She had to tell them where she was taking Phineas.
“Absolutely not,” mom said firmly. “It's just so...creepy, how he keeps letting teenagers related to me move in with him.
“But, mom-”
“Now, Candace, darling, your mother is right.”
Candace refused to cower from the team up, as she would have when lectured as a child. She'd been forced to leave the last of her childhood behind too quickly, and now it was laughable how the same parents who wanted her gone could think they had some right to keep her from taking her brother to the one place she knew he'd be safe. Or that they had some right to pull rank on her when she'd been a legal adult for four years now. And she fiercely resented her mother's continued insistence that she'd made such a lasting impression on Heinz he was now obsessed with her children.
“No, she's not,” Candace snapped, unable to resist the urge to stamp her foot. “Heinz isn't what either of you think.” Not that it helped when she used his first name so casually. “He never forced me to do anything.” They could interpret that how they would. The truth, which is that Candace had thrown herself at him, or they could fool themselves into believing she was still a virgin. She didn't care, as long as they stopped thinking he would ever hurt her or Phineas. She tried softening her tone, a trick she'd used as a child to get her way on those things she considered most important. “I know you're worried, but he understands what Phineas is going through better than you think.”
Lies upon lies. She managed to convince them that Vanessa had suffered delusions as a child, that Heinz had studied psychology in order to help her, and in the end they were persuaded to let Phineas go entirely too easily in her opinion. It was even their idea to have her check up on him. They were both cracking under the strain of their supposedly delusional child and all too eager to give the problem to someone else. Their only complaint was who the someone actually was.
The next Thursday was her day off, and she spent the morning helping Phineas carefully take down every picture he'd drawn of himself and Ferb, placing them into a manila envelope for safe-keeping. He had very little else, apart from his clothes, and those were soon packed. It wasn't long past noon when they were back at Doofenshmirtz___Inc. She felt that familiar loosening around her ribcage as the tower came into view, only to find herself tied up in knots when the door opened. She nudged Phineas forward to forestall any awkward greetings, stopping only long enough to pick up the two suitcases at her feet.
“I'll leave as soon as he'd unpacked,” she promised, turning away from Heinz before she could do something stupid and leading her brother back to his rightful room.
The walls were still as she'd left them. All Vanessa's taste and nothing to mark that Candace or Phineas had ever been there. Pulling a stick of blu-tack from her purse, she passed it to Phineas and set him to work placing the pictures back on the walls. Maybe she should talk to Heinz about getting some new wallpaper in here, let Phineas pick out something to mark this as his new home.
While her brother decorated, she took out two framed pictures and set them up on his nightstand. One drawn by Phineas from memory, the other a memory: a photograph left in her wallet from years before showing both of her brothers in a wading pool. When he finished putting up the drawings, Phineas dug through his suitcases until he located crayons and paper. She couldn't bring herself to resent the fact that he'd stopped helping. Couldn't bring herself to whine and complain as an older sibling ought. Besides, who would she tattle to?
Heinz peeked halfway into the room, but she never once paused in her task. “I'll be gone in a few minutes.”
“Nono, that's fine. There's no hurry. I was just gonna ask...do you want any tea? I mean, you just left it lying around, so...”
“I'd like that.” She smiled tiredly, telling herself that just because he was offering to let her drink tea that belonged to her, anyway, it didn't mean anything.
“What about him?”
“Do you still have any cherry soda?”
“No,” he said apologetically. “Perry The Platypus came by for bowling night and drank it all when I wound up crying on his shoulder. Not literal crying.”
Candace giggled quietly. “That's alright, he'll be fine for awhile with his drawing.” When had Heinz started bowling with a platypus? More importantly, did the metaphorical crying mean he missed her? The smile faded as she followed him to the kitchen, leaving the bedroom door open in case Phineas found himself alone and panicked. Heinz added two spoons of honey to a cup of tea and passed it to her. Inner-Candace thunked her head on a mental wall and begged him to stop being so thoughtful. “Thank you.”
“Eh, it's just tea.”
She watched him make an unnecessary circuit of the kitchen, those distractingly beautiful hands in constant motion. They were probably the most attractive thing about him, taken from a more objective point of view than hers. “No, for letting him come back. You're the only one who could ever understand.”
“Last resort, huh?”
“I said I was sorry about that.” Her eyes stung though no tears fell, thank goodness. Cradling her teacup, she drew a little strength from the warmth of it and looked up at him. Would she be apologizing for that forever? Couldn't he ever let anything go?
He sat next to her and for a moment she thought he might embrace her just like old times. “Drink your tea,” he said instead, making no move to touch her, “you'll feel better.”
That was it? Disappointed, she sipped at her tea and listened to him drum his fingers on the table. For a few minutes, she could pretend that everything was as it should be. For a few precious moments she could be right at home. She tried to make the tea last, but the small cup was empty before she was ready.
“Can I visit him?”
“He's your brother.”
“Will it bother you?”
“I'll go out.”
She sagged in her chair. Of course he'd go out. Was she really expecting him to hang around and be uncomfortable for her sake? He placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a little squeeze.
“Bacon,” she asked sadly.
“Bacon,” he confirmed with a nod.
“Fair enough.”
What had she honestly been expecting? That he'd missed her awesome self so much he would be drawn back to her? She hadn't exactly been the world's greatest girlfriend. Assuming she was a girlfriend when they'd never been on a single date. But saying she wasn't the world's greatest lover made her sound...it made her sound inept in bed, and she wasn't, ok?! The point was, the relationship was all one-sided, based on him always giving and her always taking. Maybe he really was better off without her. Before he had a chance to stop her, she swooped down and kissed his forehead. A fond farewell to her dreams.
“I'll just get out of your hair.” She dug a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket, handing it to him. “Here's his schedule.” Another. “A list of shows not to let him watch, plus what to watch out for in shows he can watch.” A third. “Things that calm him down and what sets him off.” Her brave, adventurous little brother reduced to a list of triggers and coping techniques. It wasn't fair.
She watched him stick the lists prominently on the refrigerator door, then went to say goodbye to her brother. Heinz followed, hovering awkwardly just on the edge of her vision.
“Behave for Heinz, ok, Phineas?” Her voice ascended into the higher register of her teens. “Or you'll be soooo busted.”
“Heinz is in charge?”
“Heinz is in charge. I'll come see you tomorrow, okay?” She directed the spoken question to Phineas, the same one unspoken to Heinz. He nodded, which did absolutely nothing to help with the urge to crawl into bed with an entire chocolate cake. She was still only visiting her brother and he still didn't want her back. Not that she deserved anything else.
“What time will you be back,” he asked when they stood uncomfortably alone at the front door.
“My shift ends at six...call it about seven, if that's not too late?” The awkwardness wasn't unlike first date jitters. Not that they'd ever had a first date, but the tension running through her was the same she felt the first time Jeremy kissed her; albeit doomed to disappointment here and now. Heinz wasn't going to suddenly confess his undying love, or slam her into the wall to make out the way he had the first night they slept together.
“No, it's fine. I can leave about ten minutes before that and we'll just miss each other.”
“That's the thing,” Candace smiled sheepishly. “I don't have a key anymore, remember? Can you, maybe...stay til I get here?”
“Fine.”
She wasn't delusional enough to mistake his grudging tone for enthusiasm. He might be willing to take in Phineas, but he clearly resented her continued presence in his home.
There was a guy at work, Chad, who had his eye on her. The more times Candace went to the apartment after clocking out, the better Chad looked. When Heinz let her in and disappeared straight out the door, she compared it to the way Chad had gone out of his way to help her learn the ropes when she first started and now went out of his way to get near her when they were leaving. When Heinz started cooking dinner for the three of them and staying to eat with her and Phineas, she let herself resent him for being back to mixed signals and compared it to how completely unsubtle Chad's interest was.
Chad finally stopped dropping hints and went for it on a rainy Wednesday. The day was miserable; gray, gloomy and humid all at the same time. Her umbrella currently wasn't doing much good, being safely inside the car while she pushed blindly on the tire jack. It was a simple enough task, dad had showed her how to change a tire when she learned to drive, but she never thought the first time she did so would be in the middle of a monsoon with rain stinging her eyes. Talk about performing under pressure.
She heard the speeding vehicle before she saw it, the roar accompanied by an ominous, rhythmic chanting of 'Pud-dle! Pud-dle! Pud-dle!' Okay, so maybe it was more ridiculous than ominous, but they were unquestionably headed for the small lake that had formed right next to her car. Right next to where she was kneeling. Oh, great. Candace scrambled to her feet barely in time to press herself flat against her own car as a mud-covered monstrosity sped by on over-inflated tires, deliberately hitting the puddle at full speed, the riders whooping as they drenched her and themselves. She shrieked, getting a mouthful of mud for her trouble.
The truck rolled on, none of the idiot herd in the back offering so much as an apology to the innocent bystander who hadn't asked to be included in their stupid game. Shivering now despite the heat of the day, Candace leaned miserably against the car and grasped fistfuls of her muddy hair. This wasn't happening! There was no way she was going back to the Flynn-Fletcher house for an extra dose of walking on eggshells without first going to see the only people who felt like family, but she didn't exactly want Heinz to see her looking like Swamp Thing, either.
“Does the beautiful Miss Flynn require some assistance?”
And now Chad was seeing her like this. Of course. She sighed, pointing down accusingly at the flat. “Please.”
“You've got a great set of lungs,” he teased her, kneeling in the mud and getting right to work. “We all heard you screaming from inside the store.”
“And so you rushed to my rescue.” She smiled, hoping the flirtatious effect wasn't ruined by the mud. “My hero.”
Chad grinned back, his perfect teeth a straight line in his tan face. Total package, alright. Green eyes, wavy black hair, chiseled jaw. So he was a head shorter than her, a non-issue with muscles like that. It was just too bad for him that her current type was skinny, pot-bellied and slouchy with mile long legs. It wasn't really fair to her, either.
“Would you allow this humble hero to escort you to dinner this Saturday, Miss Flynn?”
“I'd like that.” Maybe it was time to move on.
Making a resolution to move on doesn't instantly dissolve feelings, however, and she still faced the looming embarrassment of the ex she still loved seeing her covered in sludge. Twenty minutes late and not wanting to announce her entrance, Candace quietly let herself in and eased ninja-like to the kitchen door.
“I'm using your shower,” she announced, barely sticking her head into the room. Her stomach protested this further delay as the smell of homemade tomato sauce hit her nose.
“Hey wait a minute,” Heinz was right behind her, she quickened her pace in an effort to get into the bedroom before he could see her. No such luck. “I never said you cou- What happened to you?!”
Oh, this was just too humiliating! Brazen it out, she told herself. “Flat tire. Rain. Jerks who like to drive through puddles. I'm using your shower.” She considered a moment, plucking at her muddy shirt. “And your washing machine. Deal with it.”
He conceded defeat gracefully, waving her on towards her destination, but he was laughing at her. Jerk. “We had baked spaghetti,” he called after her. “I saved you a plate.” Fine, maybe not a huge jerk. But still a jerk.
It felt a little weird, undressing in his bathroom when she no longer lived there. And there was something too intimate about using his two-in-one shampoo, but it wasn't like she had much of a choice. The empty shelf where her own collection of girly products once sat was yet another painful reminder that Candace was nothing more than an intruder on his life.
Afterward, lacking anything to wear, she rifled through his dresser while still wrapped in a towel; feeling entirely too exposed and unable to stop her mind from conjuring up a thousand downright pornographic scenarios for what might happen if he should walk in on her like this. She really needed to lay off the romance novels, because realistically they'd probably both blush, he'd apologize and leave the room again.
Her skin was going to be a little dry, but that was another thing she couldn't help with no lotion here. Dressed in a pair of Heinz's boxers and an undershirt, she still felt naked without any underwear and throwing his bathrobe on only helped a little. Wearing his clothes was another pin jabbed into her heart, another reminder that she didn't really have the right to do something so familiar and intimate anymore. The same reason she no longer slept in the pajama shirt she'd stolen, but couldn't bring herself to take it out from under her pillow.
Running her fingers through her damp hair to smooth it out, Candace decided she was as ready to face him as she'd ever be. They were finishing dessert when she joined them after putting her clothes in the wash, sitting down to her own plate and ignoring the pointed looks Heinz kept giving her attire. Phineas stayed while she ate, and talking with him saved her from the confrontation that Heinz clearly wanted to have.
There was no ignoring him when he followed her to switch the laundry over. She was literally cornered, though she doubted that was his intention. This was the part where someone like Captain Grant would lift her onto the washing machine and...yeah, not happening.
“I never said you could wear my clothes, too.”
Candace rolled her eyes. Childish, much? “What was I supposed to wear? Even my underwear was clammy.”
“Okay, ew, TMI.” Heinz held up his hands, a look of pure disgust on his face. And three...two...one... He nearly choked on air. “Wait. Are you saying you're not wearing any...?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying,” she informed him flatly. “And that's another thing you're just going to have to deal with.” Because if she was stuck in this corner, painfully aware that she was literally naked under his clothes, she wasn't going to be the only one suffering. Maybe angry-post-break-up-sex-on-a-washing-machine was out of the question since her little brother was just down the hall, but was aggressive-post-break-up-pressed-against-the-wall-make-out really too much to ask for?
“Did you really have to tell me,” he whined.
“You asked. By the way,” she couldn't look at him for this part. Didn't want to see if Heinz was crushed or elated to hear she was trying to move on, because the idiot wasn't doing anything to fix the former and the latter was going to hurt. Programming the dryer was suddenly the most important thing in the world. “A guy I work with asked me out today,” she said with forced nonchalance.
“That's nice. Maybe you'll have a good time.”
Really? Really? Did he think that tone was fooling anyone? It was way too perky to be sincere. She turned back to face him, disappointed that he'd managed to control his expression, at least. “Kinda hard when I'm still hung up on someone else.” Make a move, genius, she begged him silently. Tell me you miss me. Tell me to come home.
He nodded. “Jeremy. Right. I remember.”
Candace barely restrained herself from facepalming, it would only make the Heinz-induced headache worse. She rubbed her temples. “Sometimes I really can't tell if you're being dense on purpose.” It was possible, she guessed, that he really didn't think anyone would come back to him, but it was equally possible he was trying to ignore what she was saying, because she'd been pretty blatant so far.
He folded his arms. “And what's that supposed to mean?”
Was he seriously just going to take offense to that and not give her any further clues? Fine. Cards on the table. “It means you're an idiot,” she snapped. “I haven't been in love with Jeremy in years!”
Heinz stared. “...You just said the L word.”
“Because I have 'L word' feelings for you.” She resisted the urge to add a 'duh,' not wanting to look like a bratty little girl, but it was all there in her expression anyway.
“That was totally unexpected,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “And wow! I don't think this could get any more awkward.”
Candace watched him expectantly. “This is...kinda the part where you say it back,” she prompted, tugging nervously at her wet hair. Make a move, please!
“Aaaand you made it more awkward.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I'm just gonna go watch tv with Phineas.” Fine then. She'd take the next few days to really get over him, put her broken heart aside, and be all ready to start falling for Chad by Saturday.
Of course he wouldn't leave tonight. Phineas was watching a rerun about the history of -inators, and Heinz latched onto the flimsy excuse to stay and stare at her like a creep. Candace was a little more discreet in watching him, but sometimes the flickering tv light showed the most pathetically destroyed expression on his face. Good. She'd put herself on the line and he'd rejected her flat out. Not her fault if he realized his mistake too late. Not that he was going to do anything about it, anyway. She was so done with his mixed signals.
When the special ended, she fetched her clothes from the dryer and went back to his bedroom to undress in there for what was probably the last time. She left his clothes in a heap on the floor before re-dressing in her own and running a brush through her mostly dry hair. She considered at least putting her borrowed attire into the hamper, but spite made her leave them right where they'd fallen.
She returned to the living room to kneel beside Phineas, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I won't be here Saturday. I have a date, but I'll see you Sunday, okay?”
Phineas nodded solemnly, marking the date on the little pocket calendar he carried now. It was a comfort to him to mark the passage of time. Heinz slouched in his chair and grumbled audibly to himself. Candace shot him a sweetly venomous smile over her brother's shoulder. Put up or shut up. She deliberately exaggerated the sway of her hips when she left, knowing he was watching her and feeling like a femme fatale as she taunted him with what was now well out of his reach. Ex-girlfriend Candace Flynn is out! Peace!
If Candace had thought she was going to snap her fingers and be completely over Heinz, she was sadly mistaken. There were still two more visits to get through before Saturday, and she was dreading Thursday's visit until the moment she entered and he walked straight out the door, informing her the food was waiting on the table and he'd eat later. Guilt for once more running him away from his own dinner kept her from truly tasting anything for two nights in a row. Which was a shame because she doubted many men cooked as well as Heinz.
By Saturday, she'd resolved to enjoy herself just to spite him. Not that he could see her, but she pretended he could and determined to treat Chad like the funniest, most handsome man to ever cross her path. She held onto that resolve for all of fifteen minutes on the way to the restaurant. When he pulled out a pair of reading glasses to see the menu at the cute little French bistro he'd taken her to, explaining with a shy smile that he was far-sighted but extremely self-conscious about wearing them around attractive women, her mind immediately layered another face over his, someone else who was self-conscious about attractive women seeing him in glasses. She decided Chad's nose wasn't really long enough to pull the look off.
Chad's sense of humor was terrible. Absolutely terrible. But in a good way. He was quick to latch on to the potential for a pun no matter what someone said, and Candace did find herself laughing more than she had in months, but her stupid brain had to decide it would be really cute if he rambled a bit more, instead of every sentence direct and to the point. And this was on top of the fact that she couldn't stop her mind from wondering what Heinz and Phineas were doing right now, and whether or not Heinz missed her. Would he be willing to concede defeat now that she'd gone on an actual date and for all he knew wasn't giving him another thought.
To his credit, Chad could tell when he was beaten and didn't insist on lingering once they'd finished eating.
“Sorry if I'm reading this all wrong, but you're not that into me, are you,” he asked with a wistful smile when they were back in the car.
Great, now she felt like the worst person ever for leading him on. “No, I'm sorry. My ex is an idiot, but I'm still not over him,” Candace admitted, smiling ruefully back at him.
“That elderly pharmacist guy?” Chad looked a little creeped out.
She gave a short laugh, more at the ridiculousness of the whole situation than anything. She was seriously comparing the handsome prince unfavorably to the frog. “That's the one. And please don't make that face.”
“I'm not even gonna ask how that happened.”
“You wouldn't believe me anyway.” The words were meant to come out jokingly, but the truth of them hit her hard. Chad wouldn't believe her. She could never truly relax and let her guard down around him, for all that he was perfectly nice, because the minute she forgot herself and started talking about Ferb, he'd give her that look everyone else did and want to know why she was so hung up on her little brother's imaginary friend. That was assuming she could even introduce Phineas to him.
“We aren't doing this again, are we,” he asked sadly when the car stopped at her driveway.
Candace shook her head. “I did have fun, though. Thank you.”
He gently caught her arm, stopping her from opening the door. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “You're gonna be waiting a long time, Chad.”
“You're worth it.”
He released her arm and Candace hurried away from him into the house. A grim future stretched before her, one that consisted of trying to move on only to get stuck at the same conclusion: she couldn't date anyone else, because no one else would ever believe her. Phineas needed both she and Heinz to feel safe and sane; Candace needed Heinz for the same reason. And then she was right back to thinking that she wasn't good enough for him to take back. Because maybe she made him feel a little bit saner by remembering the same things he did, but she had still proved herself to be no better than a bratty toddler who snatched greedily at every toy and piece of cake offered, always demanding more and throwing a tantrum the moment she was cautioned against making herself sick when she asked for too much.
Maybe Heinz shared a little of the blame for that, though? From the very beginning, he didn't stick to his guns the first time he told her it was too dangerous to go looking for the boys. He fixed the problem instead. Granted, resurrecting the dead was an even bigger problem to fix than the first one, but, still...Still the fact remained, she would have mourned, moved on from the old life of having brothers and eventually had a complete psychotic break. So he had no one but himself to blame if Candace looked to him to fix her entire life when it was his decision to swoop in and save her in the first place.
In the end, there was no getting around the fact that she needed him in her life if she was ever going to be happy. Not just in the romantic sense, but literally needed him because at age fifteen she'd messed up her own life too badly to ever include anyone else in it. But she could be a better girlfriend this time around. How many meals had he insisted she eat, saving her from a slow, wasting death? How many times did he listen to her rant about the problem she created and then rip open the very fabric of reality to solve it? And when they were together, how many times did he just hold her when everything hurt too much to even think about? And what did Candace do in return? Kept him on his feet running all over Danville that time he had the flu (at least she gave him medicine, first...that sounded weak even in her own mind), and when he was in a funk, she cut him off mid-rant when she grew tired of wasting time that could be better spent opening rifts (at least she listened to him ramble on and on at night...when she wanted to ramble and it distracted her mind enough to get back to sleep).
Conclusion? She was the worst person ever, screwed up probably more lives than she knew about, and looked to Heinz to fix at least her own while being a whiny, unsupportive...er, shrew. But she would do better. If he would give her another chance, she would do better.
Sunday evening came and Candace felt ready to face him despite the butterflies tying her stomach up in knots. This was it. She would be very mature, state her case and if Heinz turned her down she'd just resign herself to a bunch of meaningless short-term relationships and one-night stands. Which sounded really lonely, so she'd better not mess this up.
“Did you have fun,” he asked snidely when the door opened. Not even a half-hearted 'hello' first.
Well, one of them was being immature right now and it wasn't her. “Tons,” she responded sweetly, brushing past him as if he were nothing. “He asked me out again next Saturday.” Not entirely a lie, there had been a question in his admittance of defeat, one she'd already turned down but Heinz didn't need to know that. So much for her good intentions. They all flew out the window when faced with Mr Mixed Signals.
Dinner was a battlefield. A snarky-to-the-point-of-ridiculous battlefield. Apparently, he intended to stay and fight her instead of fighting for her.
“Hey, can you pass me the salt? I mean, if you aren't too busy thinking about your new boyfriend.”
“I didn't think you wanted anything from me,” she said pointedly, refusing to slide the shaker across the table. “So it shouldn't bother you if I sit here and think about Chad.” She smiled dreamily after the name, just to twist the knife a little.
Phineas quietly reached out and slid the salt over to Heinz.
"Oh, is that his name? Sounds like a lifeguard from the eighties."
"He's got the body for it," Candace replied with that same dreamy smile. Heinz frowned self-consciously and slouched further in his chair. But I'm doomed to want you, she thought, mentally offering the words as a half-apology.
And on and on it went. Every remark a pointed barb, openly seething on his part and taunting on hers. Poor Phineas sat silently whipping his head back and forth to watch them and barely whispered out a request to watch tv when they were finished eating. Candace followed her brother to the living room and Heinz practically fled out the door.
This was no good. He was just as unhappy apart as she was, but for some stupid reason he didn't want to grow up and admit it. Sitting on the couch with Phineas resting against her side as they watched an old Chaplin movie -colorized film and with a backing orchestra because gray and silent terrified Phineas now-, Candace sighed and rolled her eyes. No one on earth could hold a grudge as long as Heinz Doofenshmirtz. All she wanted was the green light, he could have her back like that. She snapped her fingers and Phineas turned to her questioningly.
“I'm just thinking,” she told him and he settled back down against her.
But Heinz was never going to give her that green light. He was going to sulk and make them both miserable, probably out of some misplaced pride, but he was going to have to get over it. Either take her back, or start moving on, himself. If for no other reason than that the constant tension wasn't good for Phineas.
The weight on her shoulder was growing heavier.
“You sleepy,” she asked quietly.
“A little.”
“C'mon, I'll tuck you in.”
Phineas was an adult now, he ought to be thinking about college. Not going obediently to brush his teeth and change into pajamas, then following her to his room to have the blankets tucked in around him because he missed the old mom. Once again, everything was Candace's fault.
After she put Phineas to bed, she lay on the couch in the quiet darkness, curled up and waiting. A bit like a spider, actually. Heinz was a few minutes later than usual returning, and she sat up to watch his outline tiptoeing into the kitchen with a bag. There followed the sound of a cabinet opening and closing, then the refrigerator, and he came sneaking back to his own room, moving silently in deference to Phineas' open bedroom door.
“Heinz,” she called quietly.
“Oh, perfect.”
“Can we talk?”
“Maybe some other time.” He grabbed her arm, trying to pull her off the couch. Candace had always been abnormally strong and she used it to her advantage, refusing to budge. “It's late and I've got a ton of things to do tomorrow.”
"No, you don't. We need to talk.”
He was still trying to pull her off the couch. “There's nothing to talk about,” he hissed. “Get your stubborn heinie off my couch!”
Exasperated, Candace reached up and yanked him down beside her. “Sit your stubborn heinie down and stop acting like a child.”
“Fine.” He righted himself from the heap he'd landed in and sat sulking, facing away from her with his arms folded. “Let's talk about your new boyfriend.”
“You're jealous.” There was nothing accusing or triumphant about the words, only a plain statement of fact.
“What? No, I'm not!" How did he manage to squawk like that while whispering? “Why should I be jealous just because you're dating some guy who's probably, like, half my age and good-looking? There's nothing to be jealous of. I'm not jealous.”
Candace rested her head on the back of the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. “Why are you so good at giving me a headache?” Maybe there was something wrong with her, because that sentence came out more fondly than any sane person would ever say it.
“It's a gift,” he shrugged. “If you don't like it, don't stick around.”
“I never said I didn't like it.”
“Oh, yeah, that's healthy.”
She rolled her neck so that she was facing him. “If you're about to make that stupid bacon analogy again-”
“It's not stupid-”
“Hush up.” She clamped a hand over his mouth and he grumbled ineffectually behind it. “I'm gonna talk, and you're gonna listen. Got it?”
He nodded.
“Alright, I want yes or no answers until I say otherwise. Are you jealous?”
He started to shake his head and Candace shot him a stern look, eyebrow arching skeptically. He nodded, instead, slow and reluctant.
“Do you love me?”
Again the slow nod.
“Do you want me back?”
He shook his head quickly.
Well, this was just completely ridiculous! She was sure she had him there. He loved her, knew she loved him, now the only thing to do was admit that they both wanted to be together. What was the problem, exactly? She moved her hand. “Why not?”
“You called me a last resort,” he muttered.
Still holding that grudge! Let it go, already. “And I've said sorry a million times.”
“But you were right. If none of this had ever happened, you'd be Candace Johnson by now.”
“Does that even matter? I mean, really? I broke the space/time continuum, ruined a lot of lives -including my own- and I'm never going to be the same person I would have been otherwise. You're the only one who gets that.”
“And if you were the same person, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.”
Oh, Heinz. How long have you been worrying about that, idiot, she thought fondly. There was guilt there, too, for her own part in making him do so. “Again, does that matter?”
“Does that-? Of course it matters!”
“Why?”
“Well, because, it- because- It just does!”
“I see,” Candace said, a smug grin blooming on her face. Not a single good reason why a last resort couldn't also be a best one. “Would you have ever asked me out, in that other life?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Don't be weird.”
Gotcha! “Well, there you go. Wasn't meant to happen. Shouldn't have happened, but it did and I'm good with it.”
“That's still not normal, or, you know...healthy. And, yes, we're back to the bacon analogy.”
It was a weak defense, at best, offered up by an adorable idiot who was determined to hang onto to his grudge and his insecurities. “I happen to like bacon.”
“Everyone does, but-”
She covered his mouth again. “Are you going to keep arguing, or are you going to kiss me?”
“Well, if you're giving me the option,” he started when she moved her hand, “I'd say-”
He was almost hers. She could tell by the way his protests were getting weaker. “I'd say you talk too much,” she said quickly, swinging herself up to straddle his lap and bringing her lips down on his before he could get a retort out. Because this was Heinz and he always had something to say.
“Still a bad idea,” Heinz tried weakly when she finally let him talk again.
She gave him a pleased, heavy-lidded smile in return. “You aren't breaking up with me again.” Another plain statement of fact. He'd kissed back and made absolutely no attempt to free himself.
“I'm not?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, well,” he shrugged. “I guess if I've got no choice in the matter...”
“No,” she said cheerfully, reeling him in by the collar for another kiss. “No, you don't.”