Chapter Text
The day her mom first brought home Phineas is still fresh and clear in Candace's mind. After three days of anxious waiting, bombarding her babysitting grandparents with questions the whole time, Linda finally came back from the hospital with the newest member of her family.
Linda had opted not to find out Phineas's sex until he was born, leading to Candace debating with herself over if she was going to have a little brother or sister. This internal battle eventually spilled over into the real world, and she ended up betting Stacy all the spoils she'd get next Halloween that her new sibling was going to be a girl.
Stacy, of course, won that bet.
When Linda placed Phineas into Candace's arms for the first time and announced that she had a new brother, she was at first disappointed, but that feeling faded fast, replaced by one of pure joy. Her heart swelled with happiness as she gazed into her brother's eyes, the ones that looked just like hers, and held him tighter. In that moment, she couldn't care less that she wouldn't get any Halloween candy this year—she had something even better.
A couple of years later, she experienced those same amazing feelings again when her family grew some more. Not only was she getting a new dad who was kind and patient and had a funny-sounding accent, but she was getting another brother, too. His hair was green, and his eyes didn't look like hers, but with only one glance, she knew she loved him too.
Harkening back to those important times in her life is nice, but Candace is glad that her family wasn't complete until after Phineas and Ferb were on the cusp of leaving their toddler years. Them being capable of creating groundbreaking inventions in a matter of hours at this age is bad enough, and she can only imagine how they would have been as a toddler duo.
The thing is though, she doesn't have to imagine it anymore.
She doesn't know how they did it, but the boys have managed to turn themselves into babies, and even with photographic evidence, her mom still didn't bust them. She just sent back a text thanking Candace for the "old baby picture".
Seriously? They didn't even know each other at this age. Candace thought angrily to herself, slamming her phone shut. Being at that two-year-old's birthday party must be giving her some kind of second-hand postpartum pregnancy brain.
Knowing she has to do something else to convince her mom to come home and bust the boys, Candace plants her brothers next to each other and goes to fetch a newspaper so she can take a picture of them holding it. Unfortunately, neither of the boys would sit still, and after a few minutes of running around the yard, trying in vain to get a photo of them (or even just one of them) with the paper, her plans were ruined when her phone ended up in a birdbath, courtesy of baby Phineas.
As she watches Ferb shred the newspaper like an overactive cat, Candace swallows her desire to lash out at a pair of defenseless infants and decides that if sending her mom a picture wasn't going to work, she'd just have to bring the babies to her.
After fishing her phone out of the birdbath and shoving it in a bag of rice, Candace locates the old double stroller her parents still kept in the garage and straps in her brothers, both of whom dozed off the second she started pushing them.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Candace started on her journey to the home where the party was being held. Candace had been there a few years ago to celebrate the birthday boy's parents getting engaged, but despite only visiting there once, she still remembered the address like the back of her hand.
The house in question was on the other side of the nearby park, so Candace decided to take a shortcut through one of the park's trails. What she thought would be a quick, pleasant stroll soon turned stressful when Ferb woke from his slumber and began bawling.
"Shhh!" Her feeble attempt to get Ferb to quiet down didn't work, and he just cried louder. To make it worse, everyone else in the park within earshot (including a fucking dog) was now staring at her.
"I didn't do anything! He's my brother, just a baby. They cry, you know," she announced nervously, going around to the front of the stroller to try to soothe Ferb. She picked him up, planning on rocking him back to sleep, but she must have disturbed Phineas by doing this, because the second Ferb was in her arms, the red-haired baby stirred awake and added his own cries to Ferb's.
Great. Now she has to find a way to calm down two upset toddlers before she draws even more attention to herself. It's bad enough that she can still feel the crowd staring behind her, their eyes searing holes into her back like little suns. She remembers in her freshman year, there was a pregnant girl in the senior class that ended up giving birth right before Christmas break. That girl was the subject of awful rumors and gossip in school, and whenever she saw this senior in public with her son, Candace would sometimes see other people giving that girl strange or even judgmental glances. She wonders how often that girl was burned by the scorching eyes of others that were rude enough to stare, but not brave enough to voice their concerns.
The boys' wailing grew louder and higher in pitch, making it harder for Candace to drum up a solution to her current predicament. She wonders if that pregnant girl's son was colicky like this, crying out for hours on end for something his mother couldn't subdue with a pacifier or a bottle or a toy....
Hold on, that's it! She can buy some toys for her brothers! They can distract themselves by hurling them around instead of her phone.
Hurriedly, she straps Ferb back into the stroller and pushes the stroller out of the park towards a busier part of town. She takes a second to frantically look around for a toy store, and her eyes land on a twenty-four-hour place across the street that looks promising. Turning on her vampire eyesight for a moment, she zeroes in on the shop's window and spots a small aisle containing toys inside.
Candace beelines for the store, hoping this will be her saving grace. A man leaving the establishment kindly holds the left side of the double doors open for her, but when she tries to get the stroller in, she finds it's too big. She attempts to open the right side, but finds it locked. She considers using her vampire strength to force it open, but quickly deduces that would be a terrible idea; not only because she'd have to brazenly use her powers in public, but she'd probably break the door and get arrested, too.
"I'll just be a second, okay?" she tells her brothers. "Don't go anywhere." She was reluctant to leave them alone outside, but she told herself that they'd be fine, she'd get in and get out quick.
That assumption went out the window the second she got in line to check out.
Only one register was open, and the man currently being assisted was holding up everyone else because he was certain the coupon he wanted to use was still valid despite the poor cashier's statement that it had expired three days prior. That turned into a big stink, and the manager had to get involved, keeping Candace and the other two people that hopped in line behind her from checking out.
Candace slumped her shoulders and tucked the box of toys she was holding under her arm. Why couldn't this guy have picked any other day to pitch a fit over a coupon? And why is there only one person working on the registers? The store is small, but come on, there has to be more than two employees here. When Candace has kids in the future, she'll have to make a note to avoid this place.
When she has kids.... Is that even possible anymore?
A horrible sinking feeling takes hold in her stomach. She's a vampire now, so does that mean she's infertile? Most vampires in fiction are, and when they aren't, it's usually only male vampires that are able to have kids with human women. Candace can only recall one movie where the lead female vampire had a kid—and it wasn't even with a human! It was with a damn werewolf!
The sinking sensation deepened. One of her major aspirations was to someday marry Jeremy and have at least two kids (she even had names in mind already), but being a vampire threw a monkey wrench into her plans. If she can't have kids, she can't achieve the family life she wants. What was she going to tell Jeremy? Would he leave her if he found out she's most likely barren? Would it make it worse if she paired that bombshell with the truth about being a vampire?
At this point, Candace was fighting back tears. Her hopes and dreams are being crushed right before her eyes, and she can't stop it. That future she got a glimpse of towards the start of the summer is gone. She'll never a that daughter that's just like her down to the smallest detail. She'll never have a son with Jeremy's sparkling blue eyes and soft voice. She'd never have that third kid she didn't plan, but was mentioned by Phineas and Ferb. Hell, maybe they would have more after that. A fourth that looks like a mishmash of the both of them. A fifth that somehow got all their recessive genes and none of the dominant ones. She'll never have that big, happy family now.
The cashier called for the next person in line, startling the teen a little. The angry coupon clipper was gone now, hopefully never to harass another minimum wage worker again.
Sniffling, Candace wiped her eyes and dumped the box on the register's conveyor belt.
"Rough day?" the cashier asked, an exasperated look on her face.
Candace shook her head at her. "You have no idea."
The second she made her purchase, Candace's day went from bad to worse. The store got robbed, her brothers got away again, she had to chase them around a much larger and much more crowded toy store, and when she finally made it to the party, one of those disembodied green lasers zapped everyone in the room (including her mother) and turned them into toddlers as well, leaving Candace and the remaining attendees to tend to a group of over half a dozen upset children.
At this point, Candace thinks this whole day has to be the universe punishing her for what she said earlier about babies. Next time she thinks of saying that toddlers are "easy", she'll keep her thoughts to herself.
Unsurprisingly, the other partygoers soon found themselves overwhelmed by the toddlers (birthday boy included), and by the time the effects of the green laser wore off a few hours later, they were all thoroughly exhausted. No one who'd been turned into a baby remembered anything that had happened when they were in that state, not even Phineas and Ferb, so when Candace made one final, feeble attempt to bust her brothers, Linda didn't believe her. Luckily, the party had quickly fizzled out by then, and pretty much everyone was itching to go home.
"It was great to see you all," Ummi, the birthday boy's mother, said to the Flynn-Fletchers as they were leaving. "And thanks again for your help, Candace. You'll be a great mother someday."
Ouch. Those words stung Candace way more than Ummi could ever know, and it was a struggle for the redhead not to flinch. Instead, she masked her pain with a small smile and bid the tired mother goodbye.
Candace fell right to sleep the second her head hit the pillow that night, and she awoke the next morning later than usual. She didn't really mind though; it was the first time she had gotten some proper sleep without the aid of melatonin or dumb relaxation techniques, and it felt good to sleep like a normal person again. Too bad the second she opened her eyes she could feel the hunger resurface.
She had a simple breakfast that day, composed of a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. It wasn't the holy grail of meals in any sense, but it kept her bloodlust at bay, and that was good enough for her.
"Had a good sleep?" Linda asked her daughter.
"Yeah, for once," Candace told her truthfully. "I think the milk might be going bad—it tastes funny." She stirred the remaining white liquid in the bowl distastefully.
"I'll add it to the grocery list," Linda said, slinging her purse over her shoulder.
"Where are you going?" Candace inquired, shoveling the final spoonful of cereal into her mouth.
"I have a hair appointment in an hour. Maybe I'll grab some milk on the way home."
"Mom, can I come to the salon with you?" she asked. "There's, uh, somewhere nearby I wanna visit."
"Sure, why not?" Linda agreed. "If it keeps you from obsessing over your brothers, I'm for it."
Candace rushed up to her room, forgetting about the bowl still sitting on the table. In a rush, she brushed out her hair (staring at the reappearing eye bags in the mirror as she did), threw on her clothes, and slathered her skin with sunblock all within a couple of minutes.
"That was fast," Linda commented when Candace came back downstairs. "Let me guess.... the place you want to go is the Slushy Dawg down the street?"
She was wrong; that wasn't where Candace wished to visit, but it was a convenient cover, so she nodded.
"Well, let's go then," Linda said, frowning at her wristwatch. "Or I'll be late."
After making sure her mom went into the salon, Candace ventured over to the other side of the road and down a few buildings to the left. Her destination was, funnily enough, across the street from the Slushy Dawg, so when she was finished here, she could probably pay Jeremy a visit at work.
Casting a small smile at the fast food restaurant, she turned away and pushed open the clear door of her desired establishment: the local fertility clinic.
There were only two people in the waiting room: a woman who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, and a young man maybe a decade older than Candace. The woman looked unbothered, casually flipping through a magazine, while the man was fidgeting, wringing his hands while flicking his eyes over to the door to his right every minute or so. He made eye contact with Candace as she was observing him, and the teen quickly averted her gaze.
Candace walked up to the reception desk and glanced at the various brochures set up there. She got the attention of the secretary, a woman with poofy red hair who was too engrossed in the computer in front of her to greet the teen when she'd walked in.
"Can I take these?" Candace asked, pointing to the brochures.
The secretary raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a little young to have fertility issues?"
"No, no I'm not," Candace told her in an offended tone. "Can I take some damn brochures or not?"
The secretary just shrugged and turned her attention back to the computer. Candace decided to take that ambivalent gesture as a yes and grabbed one of each brochure to read. She took a seat two chairs away from the calm woman, not wanting the man's nervous energy to rub off on her.
All of the information in the first brochure revolved around what causes infertility, so Candace tossed that one aside. She already knows why she's most likely sterile, and she doubts the graphic designer who made it knows anything about vampires.
The second one was chock full of information on fertility treatments, which is what Candace really wanted to know about. If she can't have kids the natural way, maybe she can try one of the methods listed here. With the one exception of medication, which is unlikely to affect her vampiric hormones, Candace found most of the listed treatments doable: IVF and/or freezing her eggs can be possible if she still has eggs frozen inside her somewhere, and using a surrogate is an option, too. The part about donor sperm she skimmed over for obvious reasons, but she did look over the bit about donor eggs. She doesn't really want to go down the route of using a stranger's eggs in place of hers, but if that was the only option, she could probably force herself to stomach it. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a stranger; maybe Stacy would be up for it. Or even her cousin Eliza. It would be nice to have a piece of Lawrence's biology in her kid.
Candace's reading was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming open. Looking up, she saw the man shoot up from his chair and rush over to the door to his right that was now being held open by a woman around his age. Her face was marred by a deep, haunted frown, and her eyes shined with fresh tears, giving away that whatever had transpired during her appointment wasn't the result she was wishing for. The man put an arm around her shoulders and led her out, whispering something as he did.
For a second, Candace considered turning on her vampire senses so she could hear what they were talking about, but decided not to. Eavesdropping on a clearly distraught woman in her weakest moment just felt.... wrong.
Instead of intruding, Candace turned her attention to the third and final brochure she'd picked up. This one went into detail about the mental toll infertility and failed treatments can cause and advice on how to manage or remedy feelings of loss, sadness, and disappointment. Candace paid attention to this one, too. If things ever get really bad, she'll probably need the expertise of a licensed counselor.
"What the hell is that?"
Candace looked up, not expecting the sudden question. The source was the quiet, nonchalant woman, now staring outside through the clear double doors, magazine cast aside. Her inquiry didn't seem to be directed at anyone, but Candace got up and walked over to the woman anyway, intrigued.
"What the hell is what?" she asked the woman, peeking over her shoulder.
"That." The woman pointed upwards.
Candace followed her gesture and found herself staring at something rocketing through the city on a long track. She squinted and switched on her super senses, aiming to get a better look. Her heart jumped into her throat when she realized it was her brothers and Isabella cruising along in a custom-made amusement park ride.
"Phineas and Ferb!" Candace screamed, scaring the woman. She pushed past her, dropping the brochures as she dashed out of the clinic and back to the salon. If she can convince her mom to just take a few steps outside and look up, the boys will be busted for sure!
Unfortunately, Linda was sitting under one of those big hood dryers when Candace arrived, and she was barred from dragging her mother out until her hair was good and dry. Growling in frustration, Candace stood off to the side, scowling.
The second the hood dryer was lifted away from her mother's head, Candace grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the building, explaining that the boys had made some kind of theme park ride in the city. But Candace's minuscule amount of luck must have run out for the day, because right before Linda looked up, the long track above the city street liquefied and dropped to the ground, splashing yellow fluid all over the road, sidewalk, and Candace, some of which flew into her mouth. Her mother, on the other hand, came out totally unscathed.
"The boys made.... lemon juice?" Linda asked, baffled.
"Pineapple," Candace informed her mother after tasting the liquid that had invaded her mouth.
"If you've had enough busting for today, you should come back inside with me," Linda suggested, running her hand through Candace's soaked locks. "You shouldn't let this sit in your hair."
"No, it's fine. I'll just shower when we get home," Candace told her, the wind taken out of her sails. "If you need me, I'll be at the Slushy Dawg." She walked off towards the restaurant, cringing at the sound of her drenched socks squelching with every step.
The Slushy Dawg was empty, save for the guy working behind the counter. Candace had seen him before, but couldn't think of his name off the top of her head. His eyes widened when he noticed her, but didn't say anything until she trudged over to the counter and sunk down onto one of the stools.
"Jeremy here?" she mumbles.
The employee shakes his head. "His shift ended an hour ago."
She sighed and slapped a ten dollar bill on the counter.
"Large fry and a jumbo drink," she orders, her voice still a defeated murmur.
"Rough day?" the employee asks. It was the same question the cashier had posed to her yesterday and spoken in the same tired tone that blatantly showed on his face. He probably worked just as much as Jeremy does, if not more.
Candace chuckles humorlessly, grimacing as the gnawing hunger grows more apparent, and gives the same answer she gave the cashier, "You have no idea."
A shower proved to be just what Candace needed. Not only did she finally get rid of the juice in her hair, but it gave her a chance to collect her thoughts and relax. The warm, soothing water helped detox some of the negative energy that had been slowly building up over the past week, and when she finally stepped out of the shower, she felt better. The scent of pineapple still lingered a little, but she could live with that—there are worse things to smell like.
That night, Candace found herself unable to force herself to sleep again, and still without any melatonin, she ended up taking another late night stroll in the city. Like the first time, the streets were mostly silent and devoid of any life, including the old drawbridge.
Truthfully, Candace was disappointed that she didn’t get to see the same man there she'd encountered before. She knew nothing about him other than that he's a smoker, but the more she thought about him, the more she wanted to know what his deal was. She just hopes the gut feeling that told her he'd cross paths with her again pans out. Next time she'll have to remember to get his name (and maybe find out if his fashion style of choice matched his profession).
She went back home when she noticed the first hint of sunlight brightening up the sky and ended up counting sheep to lull herself into a relatively short slumber. Upon waking up, she got ready for the day and headed downstairs. Her nose caught a whiff of a pleasant smell wafting out of the kitchen, so she followed it, thinking her mom was making something good for breakfast.
"Morning, hun," Linda said to Candace as she entered the kitchen. She was standing in front of the stove, stirring a pan with a contented look on her face.
"Mmm, that smells good. I'll get the plates out," Candace said, eagerly walking over to the cabinets to do just that. Not only did she really want a taste of whatever her mom was making, but her thirst for blood was also getting stronger, and she needs something to hold it off for at least another day.
Linda smiled at her daughter. "Well, put out ten, because I was talking to Jeremy's mom earlier, and we thought it would be fun to get us all together for brunch this morning."
Candace frowned and set the stack of plates she'd just taken out of the cabinet onto the counter, her mother's words slowly sinking in.
"Wait, so the whole Johnson family and our whole family, together?" she asked.
Linda nodded. "Yeah."
"Mom, this is the first time both of our families have formally gotten together!" Candace stated, speed walking over to the stove.
"Honey, relax. It's just a casual brunch. No big deal."
"No big deal?! I'm Jeremy's girlfriend! We have to make a good impression!" Candace was almost yelling now, her anxiety levels spiking rapidly. "Breakfast is easy! This is brunch! Brunch! That's so fancy! What does this...." She stopped for a moment to identify the meal her mom was currently cooking before continuing, "Frittata say about us as a family?"
"There's nothing wrong with my frittata," Linda said, completely missing her eldest's point.
Candace opts not to argue with her mother over the culinary value of the frittata and instead rushes around the house to make sure everything is in top shape. Monster truck magazine? Hide it under the one about book reviews. Frozen orange juice? Dump it in a pitcher of water and hope for the best. Drooping eyebags that only get darker by the day? Her mom's concealer can help with that. Phineas and Ferb? They're apparently going to the hardware store, so they won't be around to embarrass her.
As she went down her endless list, she spotted something strange in the backyard. She cottoned onto the fact that it was another of Phineas and Ferb's inventions right away, and after applying a thick coat of sunscreen, sprinted outside.
Candace didn't know what this particular invention was for just by looking at it; with a small ray on top of an octagonal base decorated with various buttons and panels, it could be anything. She took a minute to inspect it and hit the jackpot when she found a label on the back.
"'Anti-gravity Maximus,'" Candace read aloud. There's no way she can leave something like this out in the open for the Johnsons to see. "Oh, I have got to get rid of this thing."
She crouched down and started dragging the invention away, aiming to hide it behind the big tree. It was heavy and had a wide girth, making it cumbersome to move, and Candace had to strain herself to get it to budge.
This would be so much easier if I used my powers. She thought, taking a second to check and make sure Linda didn't have a good view of what she was doing. Normally, her mom seeing something the boys made would be cause for celebration for Candace, but having to expose her vampirism to achieve that goal just wasn't worth the cost.
Candace couldn't spot Linda's position through the back door or any of the windows, so she figured she was in the clear. She readjusted her posture and was about to turn on her super strength when she accidentally pressed one of the buttons on the invention and was zapped in the face by the ray at the top. She blinked at the sudden flash of light going off in her face, dazing her for a few seconds. She sobered up fast when she realized her feet had left the ground and she was rapidly rising up into the air.
Panicking, Candace grasped wildly for something to keep her from floating away. She flew up into the tree, and at the last minute, her hands clamped down on one of the branches at the very top, narrowly saving her. She calls out her brothers' names as she claws her way back down the tree, cursing their need to create crazy things every day. When she reaches the ground, she fumbles around the panels of the anti-gravity machine, desperately searching for a reverse switch.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a reverse switch to be found, and by the time she realized this, she heard the sound of the doorbell ringing—the Johnsons were here, and she was still stuck in zero gravity mode.
"Candace, my hands are full. Could you get the door?" Linda shouted from inside the house, her voice a bit muffled.
Fuck.
"I'm on it, mom," Candace yelled back, mentally on the verge of a meltdown. She takes a fistful of grass in each hand and uses that to move towards the garden hose, which is conveniently lying across the lawn. It's not a very good base, and the only thing that keeps her from floating into the stratosphere is the hose's attachment to the spigot fashioned on the back of the house. Even then, the hose threatened to come off with each movement, and Candace once again thought about using her powers.
She snuck another glance into the house and once again saw no sign of her mother. She doesn't know what the woman was doing, or what she meant by "my hands are full", but Candace decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and snatched up the opportunity.
Keeping her eyes on the still-open back door, Candace turned into a bat and zipped inside, keeping out of sight. Much to her chagrin, the anti-gravity was still in effect, and she really had to flap her little leather wings hard to keep close to the ground. She heard a noise from down the hall and acted fast, zooming towards the front door with as much agility as she could. When she reaches it, she shifts back into human form and grabs onto the door for support before opening it up to let the Johnsons in.
"Jeremy and the whole family, welcome to our humble dwelling," she greeted them formally, hoping that her anxiety wasn't noticeable.
"Good morning, Candace," Jeremy's mother said warmly. "Where's your mother? Oh!" She let out a surprised noise when Candace suddenly wrapped her arms around her shoulders.
"She's in the kitchen, Mrs. Johnson," Candace told her, not even trying to hide her nervousness any longer. "It's right through there." She pointed to the room in question, keeping her hold on her boyfriend's mom as she began walking. It was incredibly awkward, but Candace needed a base to keep her from floating, and clinging onto Mrs. Johnson like a frightened toddler would have to do for now—even if it made her look like a lunatic.
"Okay, here we go." Mrs. Johnson said, giving the redhead an uncomfortable smile. Candace returned it, her own grin no doubt much more strained. Lifting up her own feet to move along was a struggle, and before she even got to the kitchen, she knew this was going to be a long, difficult ordeal.
"Candace Flynn, what has gotten into you?" Linda demands from her seat.
The teen's heart drops, suddenly aware of the position she is in: feet planted on Mrs. Johnson's face and her rare Ducky Momo plate clamped between her teeth. She'd dramatically leaped for it a few seconds ago after Suzy "accidentally" tossed it into the air, no doubt intending to break it. That little bitch had been trying to get Candace to embarrass herself the second she arrived, and it seems like she's finally succeeded.
"I want the truth, and nothing but the truth," Linda stated, clearly unamused by her daughter's behavior.
Candace removed the plate from her mouth and placed it onto the table before shifting her feet away from poor Mrs. Johnson's face. She gripped the table to keep herself from rising up to the ceiling and sighed, feeling herself shrink before the bewildered gazes of everyone else at the table.
Mom is right, I should just tell the truth. Candace thought. Brunch is already ruined.
"Well," she began. "The truth is—"
"I've been trying to make Candace look bad all morning!" Suzy blurted out, shocking everyone in the room.
"Suzy!" Mrs. Johnson scolded her daughter, who looked just as astonished at her own outburst as everyone else.
"I mean, bubble!" Suzy's attempt to save her own skin was pretty pathetic, and her mom wasn't buying it.
"Get over here, Suzy." Mrs. Johnson placed her hands on the little girl's shoulders. "We're guests here, and guests do not behave like that."
"But Mom, Candace floats!" Suzy insisted.
"Oh, and now you're telling lies."
"Uh, Mrs. Johnson, as much as I hate to admit it, Suzy's not lying," Candace confessed. It would have been easy to just let that blonde terror incriminate herself more, but if she can show everyone the results of Phineas and Ferb's invention, she can get both Suzy in trouble and bust her brothers, killing two birds with one stone.
"Phineas and Ferb made a ray that makes me weightless. I might as well show you I couldn't embarrass myself more than I already have," Candace continued, climbing onto the table and doing a half-assed handstand. "Tada!" She lifted up her hands, but before she could float anywhere, she was blinded by a red flash and ended up falling down onto the edge of the table, flipping it over as she crashed to the ground.
Candace groaned as her head smacked the floor hard. Her self-healing would kick in soon, but even though it would take care of the physical pain, nothing could fix the emotional damage this brunch date had inflicted on her. The only thing she can do now is show everyone what the boys made.
Springing up from the floor, Candace pointed out the window and shouted, "Phineas and Ferb's anti-gravity machine is out there." She didn't explain further and just shoved her mom towards the door connecting the dining room to the backyard, her father and the Johnsons following close behind.
The boys were waiting outside, meaning they were responsible for restoring gravity to Candace. However, even though they were present, their invention was not.
"And what am I looking at, Candace?" Linda asked once her daughter was done pushing her like a wheelbarrow.
"It was a machine that made me weightless! It-It...." She trailed off, scrambling to find any kind of proof, and settled on the last person she wanted to speak to. "Suzy, tell them!"
Suzy smiled up at her, and in her sweetest, most innocent voice squeaked, "Bubble!"
"Ugh, you heard her, bubble," Candace conceded. She should have let that curly-haired brat take the fall.
After that failure, Candace, her parents, and the Johnsons went back inside where she helped her dad reposition the toppled table and clean up the dishes littering the floor, some of which were now completely shattered. Once she was done with that, she was approached by her boyfriend, who looked pretty happy, all things considered.
"How much do they hate me?" she inquired, fearing the worst.
"They don't hate you," Jeremy told her. "Dad actually says you remind him a lot of Mom."
"Really?" That made the redhead perk up a little, and she peered over his shoulder at both their respective parents, all of whom were having what looked to be a polite conversation in the living room.
"Yeah. I wouldn't worry about them not liking you. You are the reason our whole family was reunited with Annabelle. There's no way they could hate you after that."
Candace smiled at him sheepishly. The whole "bringing back their long-lost cousin" fiasco was honestly a huge accident, but like he said, it earned her brownie points with his extended family, so she wasn't about to tell him that.
The Johnsons went home around an hour later, and not too long after they departed, Phineas and Ferb came in from the backyard with Perry in tow. The former was talking in a soft, let lively tone, a blueprint clutched in his hand, and Candace eyed him warily. Were they going to create another insane contraption while the sun was still up?
She was about to turn on her vampire senses to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they spotted her beforehand and came dashing to her side.
"Hey, Candace, can we get a sample from you?" Phineas asked.
She balked at his request. "Gross! I'm not peeing in a cup for whatever it is you're making!"
"No, not that kind of sample," Phineas told her. "We need your blood."
"What do you need that for?"
"A possible cure for you," Ferb said.
"What?!" Candace squealed. "Do you think it'll work?"
"We don't know for sure, but we're optimistic," Phineas told her. "We're going to alter a sample of your blood and see if we can find and remove the part that makes you a vampire, then inject it back into you and see if your DNA accepts the cure."
"It's like retroviral gene therapy, but with a supernatural twist," Ferb informed her.
Candace isn't familiar with the concept, but the hope they'd just bestowed onto her was still suffocating. In a burst of glee, she tugged the boys forward into an embrace. She felt the familiar burn of Ferb's silver charm pressing into her skin, and like last time, she ignored it.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she held the boys close, thanking them out loud for their assistance. With them in her arms, she feels like she finally has people who will never abandon her because of what she's become. Even when the day inevitably comes where she outlives them and has to walk the night alone, with no husband and children of her own to keep her company, she can take comfort in knowing that the three of them will always be a family, no matter what.