PuddleCat

Candace Flynn was used to the weirdness.

It came with the territory, she assumed, being the sole victim of the mysterious force surely brought a lot of bizarre circumstances her way on the daily basis. Big, obnoxious inventions disappearing in a cloud of smoke, turning into bread or straight up getting up and dancing away.

It's like the universe did everything in its power to keep her mother from seeing what Phineas and Ferb were doing, and it always made sure that she sounded as crazy as possible when trying to explain it.

So yeah, she was used to weird, unexplainable things happening just to spite her.

That's why when Vanessa's dad's weird do-over invention worked and her last day of summer started anew, she didn't even think it was that out of place. In fact, it was one of the greatest things that could've happened to her.

Maybe now she could be the one to spite the mysterious force instead! She had another chance at busting her brothers, all she had to do was avoid her previous mistakes.

And then when that second chance failed, mysterious force coming on top yet again, she somehow got another. And then another. And then yet another.

It must've been almost a month worth of chances by now.

Don't get her wrong. Candace has always been incredibly persistent. She would repeat this day into oblivion if it meant finally busting Phineas and Ferb once and for all. There was only so many ways for the mysterious force to get rid of this one specific invention.

Though sometime around day 10, she started wondering. Even if she finally managed to get their mom to see, would it even matter? Wouldn't the day just keep repeating itself anyway? Would she just have to redo the perfect bust formula until it stopped?

Would it ever stop?

She decided she'd cross that bridge when she got to it.

Unfortunately, when the loop count got to somewhere up in the 20s, her plan got re-routed to another, way worse bridge. Finding out about items disappearing into weird rifts — forever to be forgotten by everyone but her — was worrying enough.

The rifts taking her brothers away was downright terrifying.

Ice cold dread filled her when she heard her mother ask who Phineas and Ferb were. Candace tried to explain it to her, but the woman only laughed at her "creativity", quickly dismissing any of her concerns, making her cringe every time she restated that Candace never had any brothers.

When she went to her dad, frantically screaming about time-loops and fruitlessly hoping that maybe he would come to his senses, the man only gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Ah yes, I remember my first existential crisis," he said, "it all sure feels futile at times, but you shouldn't let the monotony get to you, darling."

It was safe to say that her parents were proving to be very unhelpful.

She needed to get Phineas and Ferb back. She needed someone to help her fix this entire mess before more people got sucked into these rifts. Which was why, as the newest loop started, she was immediately bounding out of her bed, avoiding the little roller skates for the nth time, not even bothering to switch out of her pajamas this time.

Candace spent almost all of the previous loop trying to convince her brothers' friends to help her get them back. Baljeet even believed her too! He was in the middle of a long-winded spiel, explaining all the physics behind the phenomenon and how Candace could be telling the truth, when the day reset yet again.

It really felt like the day was slowly getting shorter.

She definitely had to convince the kids faster this time. Somehow.

Leaving through the front door, Candace slightly squinted at the sun raising over the neighboring houses, which slowed down her steps for just a second. She sprinted out of bed so fast, she didn't really give her eyes the time to adjust to light after waking up.

It was weird to think that she hasn't seen the night sky since the evening before she turned on the Do-Over device. That was a month of constant sunlight, almost as if she was spending her summer in the uppermost northern parts of the continent instead. At this point she longed to see the beauty of a starry sky again. A solid proof of the time-loops ending.

She's done a lot of rash things in her life, but clicking the button on that device must've been in the top 3 at least. She should've listened to Vanessa's dad when he said not to touch it. The man definitely knew more about the consequences of using it. He probably predicted that this could've happened.

Candace suddenly stopped in her tracks, only a few feet away from the Garcia-Shapiro's doorstep.

Vanessa's dad.

He was bound to know his machine best. Perhaps even know how to stop this madness. Not to mention that he built the thing, explaining this entire situation to him could be easier and faster than explaining it to Isabella, Baljeet and Buford.

Taking one last glance at her neighbors' door, she quickly made up her mind and started sprinting back to her garage, ready to pull out her trusted bike and pedal all the way to the city.

Currently this might've been her best bet.

---

The first time Candace came around Vanessa's place and boarded the building's elevator, it kept repeating the bossa nova version of her brothers' stupid one-hit-wonder song. Even though, for her, it happened almost a month ago, she still vividly remembered rolling her eyes and groaning in annoyance.

The music playing now was different.

She would do anything to hear that stupid song again.

She rushed out of the elevator the moment the doors slid open. Approaching the Doofenshmirtz apartment, she tried to slow down and take a deeper breath. She tried even harder to not make her knocks sound too desperate.

It didn't really help much. Candace cringed a bit as her knocking came off more as pounding.

She stood there for a while in anticipation. They had to be home. There was no way she just wasted this loop coming here, only for them to not be home.

Right as she was moving her fist to knock again, she heard a muffled voice on the other side.

"I swear he never came in through the door even once, no one did," someone said and soon the door swung open to reveal Vanessa's dad. His lab coat was stained with something that Candace was almost certain could've been some sort of machine oil. He took a quick glance at her, before leaning inside and shouting. "Your little friend is here, pumpkin!"

"I NEED YOUR HELP!" Candace screamed frantically once she gathered her wits, making the man turn back around to face her with a raised eyebrow. She heard footsteps come from behind him before Vanessa appeared in the door way as well.

"Candace? What are you doing here?" she asked, scanning Candace up and down. "Did you come here in your pajamas?"

Looking down, she realized that she did in fact never change before coming here. She quickly decided that wasn't important at the moment though. She needed help and this was it. This was her moment to explain the whole situation without sounding even a little bit crazy.

Which was definitely something that was very much doable.

Candace took a deep breath, mentally preparing. She had a lot of time to think how to go about this on the bike ride here and she was sure she could pull it off. Yet before she could start her hectic recollection of events, Mr. Doofenshmirtz cut her off.

"Oh, you came because of the time-loop, right?" he asked casually, as if he was asking about the weather.

And that took her by surprise.

"That's perfect then!" the man continued, totally ignoring her confusion and rushing both of the girls deeper into the apartment. "We were just making the Time-Straighten-Out-inator to fix that. The more help the better. We're slowly running out of time."

"What?"

"We're running out of time!" the man repeated. "The loops are getting shorter, I was just telling Vanessa how I could explain it better with a napkin and a hook, but there's no time."

They came into the lab-looking space, the one where Candace first found the Do-Over thingy. The place was totally cluttered, a lot of metal parts, buttons, cables and tools littering the floor. In the middle of it all stood something that looked like a half-finished machine. Must've been what they were working on.

That's exactly when it hit Candace that Mr. Doofenshmirtz was already working on fixing this mess. She felt her eyes sting a little from the relief that flooded her. Knowing she wasn't the only one trying to make things right again surely made a big chunk of the weight come off of her chest.

(She wouldn't let the relived tears fall until she had her brothers safe in her arms though.)

Candace curiously glanced at the man as they approached the machine. He was still talking, hurriedly explaining how the machine was going to work in scientific terms that definitely flew over her head.

But once it seemed like he was done, she couldn't help but ask.

"So, have you been stuck in the time-loop too?"

Because if he was aware of it the entire time, why was he fixing it just now? Shouldn't he, as the responsible adult with scientific background, be doing that from the start? It has been almost a month of constant looping of this one single day.

A bit of dread settled back into her stomach when she realized that the man might've in fact been trying all this time and haven't gotten anywhere yet.

"How else would I know about it?" he asked, but then he seemed to give it a bit more thought. "Okay, well, maybe now with all these rifts and stuff, I could've like… figured it out somehow. But I don't really scan for inter dimensional anomalies on the daily, I don't know who would even do such a thing-"

"Dad."

At Vanessa's annoyed tone, the man paused and sent his daughter a sheepish smile. "Right, right. No time. But yes, I've been stuck in the time-loop too. I was using it to become the Tri-governor, but no worries, I'm trying to be a good guy now, so I'm going to fix it."

"You didn't try to fix it before?" Candace asked, half relived, because it meant this wasn't some unimaginable, impossible task, but also half irritated that he would let it run for so long.

Before Mr. Doofenshmirtz could answer though, Vanessa turned her attention to Candace.

"You didn't come here and ask to fix it sooner either," she said.

"Yeah, okay, fair," Candace sighed, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed and crossing her arms defensively, "I thought this was my chance to finally bust Phineas and Ferb."

Vanessa raised her eyebrow. "Phineas and Ferb?"

"My brothers. You don't remember them, because they got sucked into one of those weird rifts…"

"Man, I wish my brother got sucked into one of those," Mr. Doofenshmirtz cut in. He was already half focused on the machine, fiddling with its wires. "If we had more time I would totally try to make that happen and get him stuck in there forever."

"Dad!"

"I'm just saying!"

Vanessa sent Candace an apologetic look. The gossiper part of Candace's brain was a bit curious as to what the story was with Mr. Doofenshmirtz's brother, but they had no time to waste on that. Her brothers were the priority right now.

"Okay so…how can I help?" she asked, turning to the half finished machine.

She wasn't as good at building weird inventions as Phineas and Ferb, but she sure knew how to handle a screwdriver when needed. Mr. Doofenshmirtz was happy to see that he didn't need to monitor her at all times and could instead focus on the main gist of the machine instead.

So there she was, in yet another weird situation, helping her friend's eccentric dad fix the universe, while still in her pajamas.

And when a few minutes later her pet platypus jumped in through the window, revealing to be a secret agent all this time, Candace thought that this might as well just happen.

Her life was so incredibly weird sometimes.

---

In the end they weren't able to finish the machine in that loop and had to restart again one more time. It did go a lot smoother then, since Candace already knew more or less what needed to be done and could help more efficiently.

They also didn't waste as much time on talking and explaining different things.

Perry was extremely confused the second time around, when he saw Candace in that lab and she only casually greeted him without even pausing the work. It made her snort a little bit as she thought about it now.

She was currently sitting at the window seat in her room, Perry just left her to go sleep in the boys' room. Candace had a feeling he felt horrible for forgetting their existence earlier. He's been glued to their side more than usual ever since they came back from DEI, only leaving them for a few minutes to have a proper conversation with Candace.

That left the girl alone in her room, staring out the window at the stars shining brightly in the sky. Oh, how she missed them.

Not as much as she missed her brothers though, of course. The moment Dr. D's machine was turned on (after Candace pointed out that he needed to plug it in first), she immediately ran back home and squeezed the life out of her brothers.

Apparently they were trying to find a way to get back from within the rift too, she found out. She explained her side of the story as well, apologizing profusely for letting that happen.

(She left out the part about their pet being an agent for now though, per Perry's request.)

They spent the rest of the evening together. Candace was still scared that the day would suddenly restart again, but as the sun set and the evening breeze finally rolled into the backyard, she calmed down. None of the loops ever lasted this long.

She was concentrated on a very flickery star, wondering if it could be a plane instead with how it seemed to move, when she heard a soft knock from behind her.

She turned around right as her mother opened the door, smiling gently.

"It's time to go to bed, honey," the woman said, "you need to be well rested. Remember it's the first day of school tomorrow."

Candace only grinned in response.