Journey Back to Amphibia

Chapter 7: Memory Lane

"Thanks for having us over for dinner," Anne said.

"Well, to be fair, I don't think we could take your friend away from those books," Pacifica said as she sat down, gesturing to Marcy who was reading and muttering to herself. "She's just as bad as Dipper."

"I'm not that bad... Am I?" Dipper looked up.

"Yeah, you can be worse," Mable said.

"Ugh, now there's three Stanford under the same roof," Grunkle Stan said.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Ford smirked, elbowing his twin.

I'm a heart stomper-

Sasha jumped.  "Sorry, that's my phone." Her face went red as she pulled her phone out to hang up.  She paused when she saw the caller.  Her face fell.

"Uh oh.  I know that face," Pacifica said.  "You good?"

"Uh, yes... Just my mom."  She clicked the decline button and muted her phone.  "She'll call back."

Anne gently elbowed Sasha, hoping to distract her. Mable caught on quickly.  "So you said you were in Amphibia for a year, right?  What was it like living with giant talking frogs."

"At first, it misery," Anne admitted.  "But after a few months you get used to eating all the flies.  Unless you're Sasha who showed the toads how to make processed foods.  Now that I think about it, how did you do that."

Sasha shrugged.  "I don't know, actually.  But that's nothing when you had Marcy literally designing half the city of Newtopia."

"I heard my name." Marcy looked up from the books.

"Sasha was telling us how you designed half a city," Pacifica replied.

"Oh, that.  It was just a bridge and some improvements." She waved her hand modestly.

"So why do you want to go back?" Stanford asked suddenly.

"The friends... The family we made while we were there," Anne said.  "Sprig, Hop Pop, Polly the others."

"Grime, Percy and Braddock," Sasha added.

"And you can't forget Lady Olivia or General Yunan!  And I never did exactly have closure with Andrias," Marcy admitted.  "I want to see how everyone has been doing these past ten years.  They had a lot of clean up from the invasion and the core incident."

"What's the core?" Dipper asked.

"A bunch of ancient minds preserved together for centuries.  It wanted to win at all costs and when things didn't go its way, it was willing to take everything down with it," Marcy explained absently.  She held up the first book.  "It was kinda like your Bill Cypher, but very different."

"Amphibia definitely had it's fair share of lows," Anne admitted.

"But without it, we would be very different right about now," Sasha added, pausing when she saw her phone light up on the table.  Her mom was calling again.  She let out a sigh.  "I better just answer it."

"Sasha, you don't have to talk to her now if you're not ready," Anne said.

"Yes, but she won't let it go if I don't.  I'm just going to step out for a minute.  I can always hang up anyways. Excuse me, everyone."

"Ok..." Anne sighed when her friend got up and left the room.

"It's Sasha, she'll be fine," Marcy said, looking back at her book, but she was fidgeting with her hands.

Dipper cleared his throat and started talking about one of his and Mable's adventures.  Obviously, it was to distract the other two from worrying, but Anne's mind wandered in spite of that.  She remembered very vividly the last time she had seen Sasha's mother, and was technically the last time Sasha had spoken in person to her from Anne's knowledge. Her blood curdled at just the thought.

"I'm gonna be right back." Anne gave a big, innocent smile and left the room faster than anyone could react.  She found her friend sitting outside on a bench, staring out into the trees, her hair blowing in the wind.  Anne sat next to her.  "You good?"

"Yeah.  The call didn't even last a minute this time," Sasha chuckled, giving Anne a smile.  "You know, I'm very lucky.  A lot of people don't have friends like you and Marcy.  I'm ready to go back in."

"Sure?"

"Yep!" Sasha stood up and her and Anne returned to the table to find Marcy, Dipper, and Ford nerding about something.  It was almost as if they were speaking another language.

"Anyone keeping up with that?" Sasha asked.

"Nope," Mabel replied.

"I'm used to it but I still can't keep up with it when they're going that fast," Pacifica added.

"Well, guess we can be lost together," Anne said.