Yay, suffering!

okay but I hope you enjoy, regardless of-

ahem

trauma

and

angst

<3

-

"we're home."

Sprig looked around in disbelief after the two's girls spoke. "This is your  world? It's so..." he covered his ears, cringing at all of the honking going on around them all. "loud."

"that's because we're on the freeway!" Anne climbed off the car, quickly followed by Valerie and the Plantars. "Move!"

They all panted as they made their way to some kind of alleyway, and Valerie took a moment not only to breathe, but to swallow back her tears. Hold it in, hold it in, hold it in...

She could hear even more sounds of disbelief coming from the Plantars and Anne-- who finally had her 5G network back, yet-- Valerie was confused. They'd all just witnessed Marcy get stabbed, and suddenly because it's a new episode, it's all better?

Not for her. She was angry- and really, really terrified, along with just purely sad.

What if she isn't alive? What if I sealed her fate? what if she-

"Val?"

Anne's voice snapped her out of her thoughts as the girl grabbed her arm. "Look, I get it. It's gonna be hard for a while, okay? so just... we're heading back to my place, we'll sit and brainstorm there, okay?"

A moment of silence.

"...okay."

-

Valerie-- upon noticing that her phone also had service, alike to Anne's was quick to pull it out and check on the abundance of messages and notifications she had from during the period where the four went missing.

There were no messages from her parents, unsurprisingly-- that wasn't a bad thing. Her parents always seemed to know more than they let on, and just trusted the girl could take care of herself-- but if things spiraled out of control, they were there. Always. Somehow.

And then Valerie came to a realization.

Holy shit. I haven't sent Anne a meme in 5 months.

FORGIVE ME FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED.

The brunette chuckled, scrolling through her camera-roll's meme album, clicking on a random one and sending it on her private chat with Anne. There was a ding from the other girl's device (she was also on her phone) and the poofy-haired girl looked up with confusion.

"Valerie, seriously?"

"uh-oh, full name, I'm in trouble."

the brunette smiled at her best friend, who just shook her head disapprovingly, chuckling and turning back to her phone. "You confuse me, dude."

"that's the point of my existence in four words."

Anne sighed, before looking up from her phone with a raised eyebrow. "speaking of confusion; what... was that back there?"

"what do you mean?" Valerie asked back. A lot had just happened, most of it she didn't exactly feel like dwelling on. It took her a few seconds before the gears in her head started turning. "Oh oh! You mean the glowy power thing? with the both of us?"

"well, yeah, I thought that was obvious."

"hey, I'm stupid. Let me cook." The brunette smirked, nodding proudly, despite just calling herself stupid. "well, uh, for you? I'm not entirely sure. But a general explanation-- the stones have powers that sometimes attach to people if they're worthy of the power-- until they're charged, that is. Then the powers basically sucked out of the person. I'm guessing you didn't charge yours properly."

"okay," Anne paused at the group kept walking. "well that answers some of my question, but what about yours? I mean, it kind of looked like you got possessed by a ghost or something."

"Oh! basically there's an entity that lives in my head that oversees everything that happens to everyone and is kind of the reason that everything happens. And she's like-- crazy powerful. It's actually pretty cool."

"woah." There was a pause, before the Thai girl turned back to her phone with a smile. "sick."

However, the happy mood just had to be ruined. Hop-Pop, who had just pulled Sprig out of the sewer, asked a question. "so, you two, what's our next move? Do you think Marcy's-"

"she's alive, Hop-Pop." Anne said, the grin dropping from her face at the mention of the noirette. "She's just gotta be."

"hopefully Sasha manages to heal her up and she turns out okay." Valerie said, crossing her arms across her chest and putting her head down, swallowing back the lump in her throat as it arose again. "Marcy and her are both still in Amphibia, so one thing's for sure, we have to find a way back."

All of the frogs cheered at the idea of finding a way back.

"But before we do any of that," Anne sighed, stopping suddenly, along with Valerie-- the two both recognized the stop at the first of the two's houses.

Sprig got up, looking at the scene in front of him, before gently tugging on his best friend's hand and looking up at her with big puppy dog eyes. "Anne, is this-?"

"my house." Anne smiled. "This is really happening. I'm gonna see my parents!"

Valerie felt herself sigh, happy for the girl-- after all, they'd all been missing their families in different ways, so the fact that one of them was going back to them-- was enough to make her happy.

"Soooo...." Sprig next to her trailed off awkwardly. "It's too early to call them mom and dad, right? Should I call them... Mr and Mrs. Boonchuy? Are they tongue-faced people?"

"not even gonna question that," Valerie shook her head at the 'tongue-faced' comment. "Maybe just let Anne have her moment with them, okay?"

"Yeah, and while you're at it," Anne furrowed her eyebrows and made her way to the bins that were on the curb outside her house, lifting up the lid. "You three should probably hide in here for the time being. I want to ease them into all this... slowly." She cringed, before placing the lid back down. "And when the time is right, I'll signal. 'Caw caw'!"

"Awe, what?" Sprig placed his hands on his hips as the others climbed in without question.

"Sprig," Valerie next to him chuckled, taking in a deep breath. "Me and Anne have been missing for the past five months, and we're about to tell her parents that we've just been in a world full of talking amphibians-- plus with everything that's just happened-- we could be sent to a mental hospital if we don't to this right, so-" she sighed, gesturing to the garbage. "get in the goddamn thing."

"yeah, and don't come out until you hear the signal."

with his head low, the frog boy climbed into the garbage can.

As the two girls started heading towards the door, Anne turned to the frogs that were hidden by the lids. "Oh! and we're not going to tell them that we plan to go back and stop Andrias. Or that Andrias betrayed us. Or that Marcy did, or that Sasha did- And not a WORD about either of our glowy powers."

"If you say anything about any of that, we are 100% being put in a mental institute. Please keep your mouths shut, for our sakes." The brunette next to her added, clenching her fists at the mention of everything that had just happened in the last few hours.

"You can count on us, girls!" Hop-Pop cheered out from the garbage can as the duo made their way to the door.

Anne seemed to stop at her doormat, taking in a deep breath. Valerie next to her smiled a bit, nudging her. "you nervous?"

"Kind of... I just... feel like I haven't been here in years."

"Well you have nothing to worry about. You have great parents- they won't freak out too much... hopefully."

"that's really comforting." The poofy-haired girl snickered as the brunette behind her stepped back, letting the girl have her moment.

A sigh was carried by the wind as Anne turned her back, walking up a little closer to her door and raising her fist. "Okay, here we go."

She knocked a few times-- quite aggressively, too, all of that nervousness that she'd seemed to be feeling just... vanishing. That, or it turned into excitement.

The door was quite quick to open, and Valerie leaned against the front porch's railing as she watched the two have a heartfelt reunion, before being joined by Anne's dad as well. Heck, even the cat joined in.

Then the thought crossed her mind, that maybe, just maybe, her best friend would be able to explain this whole thing on her own-- that way, she could go see her own parents.

As Anne finished talking, Valerie whistled kind of awkwardly, gesturing to off the porch. "I'm... gonna get going. My parents wanna see me too, you know. You'll be able to handle this on your own?"

Anne's parents looked between each other with concern, as if sharing a thought. Mrs Boonchuy sighed. "Do you want to tell her, or should I?"

"no no no, you, you can go ahead." Mr Boonchuy looked away, and Valerie could feel her worry growing.

"what... what's going on?"

"Honey," Mrs Boonchuy crouched down, placing a hand on the brunette's shoulder. "Your parents left town a couple of weeks ago, they said they had some important business to attend to and left you this note." she pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to the young girl in front of her, who took it and put it in her pocket to read later.

"Why don't you stay with us for a bit until they get back?"

Valerie nodded. She'd met Anne's parents quite a few times, and they were always extremely kind to her-- the quartet would usually pick this house as the meeting place-- and so she didn't have a problem staying there for a while. Although, something told her that note may say something important.

It wasn't like anyone in this world had died, at least.

Well that's what she hoped.

As they all seemed to be heading inside, Anne realized that she had put the Plantars in the outside bins, and she was just going to leave them there, so she paused. "hey- wait-"

Before any of them could realize what was going on, a loud bird sounded as it flew past. The two best friend's exchanged glances as Valerie mouthed a swear word. Specifically the word 'shit'.

There was rumbling from the bin as it scooted over to be more directly in the line of sight of the four, Valerie felt her eyes widen as she looked down to the ground, trying to ignore the second hand embarrassment she was getting as they all fumbled to introduce themselves to Anne's parents.

don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact, just don't even think about it.

geez, I'm cringing just watching this go down. Gold replied back in her head.

Never talk to me again, I'd like to go crawl into a hole and die, right about now.

*crawl into a hole and cry.

yes, that too.

-

The group had now made their way inside so that Anne could properly explain what was going on to her parents. Valerie was up their with her too, for good measure, and so that she could act as a witness to everything that happened.

"okay where were we?" Anne asked as she finished drawing on the paper that she was flipping through.

"The third temple." Valerie next to her chimed in, putting her hand out and gesturing to the red speech bubble she'd just drawn.

"Right. So, as soon as we charged the last stone, the music box opened the portal that took us back to earth." she flipped back a page, to the one where it had all of the four girl's faces drawn with their respected colors and stones.

"And that was before anything else could happen." Valerie chimed in, glaring at the frogs on the couch to keep their mouths shut.

The Plantars all nodded. Really convincing.

"yep, but the Plantars got sucked into the portal too. And now their stuck here until we can find them a way home." Anne finished, making her way over to the couch and looking over the frogs. "so yeah! you're pretty much caught up."

Anne's parents seemed both shocked an confused, jaws dropped and eyes narrowed.

"Hold on, back up," Mr Boonchuy said, bringing his forefinger and thumb up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You're telling us there's a whole world full of talking frogs called 'Amphibiland?'"

"It's actually called Amphibia!" Sprig chimed in next to them.

"You made larb with maggots?" Mrs Boonchuy asked, with a raised eyebrow. A pause hung in the air for a second, before she spoke up again. "was it good?"

"This is a lot to take in," Anne's father chimed in once again, looking to the frog family next to him, seeming unsure of what to think. "I wish we could have been eased into it."

The Plantars recieved glares of disappointment from the two girls, although after a minute of glaring, Valerie just shook her head and sighed.

"look, we completely understand your confusion, we had to adjust to it too, at first, but you know. You get used to it." The brunette said, a small smile taking over her face.

"yeah, believe us when we say, we know." Anne nodded, agreeing with her best friend. "but anyway, can the Plantars stay with us until we find them a way home?"

Mrs Boonchuy laughed awkwardly, seeming to think that her daughter was joking. But after a minute of no one joining it, that came to a stop. "Wait, you're serious?"

"oh, mom!" Anne groaned teenagerishly, throwing her head back and arms up in embarrassment. "Dad! Say something!"

"Anne, all of this is crazy." the man chimed in. "I wouldn't believe a word of it if the small frog wasn't kicking me right now."

"New legs, you know how it is." The pollywog chimed in, and Valerie facepalmed. No, Polly, he does not, in fact 'know how it is.'

"The adventure is over, you two." Mrs Boonchuy then made her way over to the two teens, placing her hands on both of their shoulders. "Your home now. The authorities will take care of your friends."

Anne gasped, eyes widening as she seemed to jolt back from her mother. "What, the police? The government?"

"Mrs Boonchuy, if you do that, there's a risk of them being dissected! They're living beings!" The brunette next to her chimed in as her best friend ran over to her frog family and protecting them with her body.

"Anne, don't let them take us! don't let them take us!" The pink pollywog screamed as she clung to the girl's shoe. The other frogs then gathered around, letting Anne hug them tight.

"Don't worry guys, we'll keep you safe. I was living in a cave when you found me, the least I can do is return the favor. Right, Val?"

"Right." Valerie walked forward, crouching next to the group with a determined smile. It wasn't like she hadn't fought off authorities before, so...

She'd missed the thrill anyway.

"okay, they can stay... For now." Mrs Boonchuy said after a moment of consideration. Anne was incredibly quick to hop up and hug her mother, chanting 'thank you' over a few times.

"okay, if we're doing this, we have to be extra careful." Mr Boonchuy made his way to the door, locking it in any way that he could before he crossed his arms. "no one out there can know you exist. You're all on lockdown."

Hop-Pop walked up next to him, arms crossed as well, almost as if copying him. "You heard the man! You're all on lockdown. Got it?"

The two shared an awkward glance before the orange frog spoke up.

"what?"

-

While Anne and the Plantars were off in the house having some 'quarantine style fun', Valerie had finally made it into a quiet room, alone, where she could let everything she'd been holding in-- go.

She was leaned back against the door, head buried in her knees as she sobbed relentlessly. She'd managed to lose the one person that had cared for her truly in the deep kind of way-- the girl that she was sure would be her partner for the rest of her life.

And that King...

He took her in a flash of yellow flames.

Without her there, Marcy would have surely died, yes. But if she was a little quicker, maybe she would have been able to take the stab wound for her. Maybe things wouldn't be so uncertain.

If she could go back, she would change things in a heartbeat. Kill that King, even if it meant screwing up the timeline.

She just wanted her girlfriend back.

She needed her back.

Maybe she wasn't dead. Maybe that blast had actually worked..

maybe.

Maybe when she got back to Amphibia they'd live happily ever after.

or maybe that was just a false reality-- one that she'd come up with to cope.

Maybe things weren't going to be what they seemed, after all.

-

As the last few days the frogs had been running crazy around the house, Valerie had been locked up in her room (or at least, the one she was staying in for the time being), researching for a way to get back. She'd only really talked to Anne in the past few days, and occasionally the girl's parents when she went into the kitchen to make food, but mainly Anne, cause they were both working on a way to get back.

But one thing was for sure-- she was stressed. Actually, that was an understatement.

As she was lost in her thoughts, reading a random book she'd found that she'd hoped would have something on dimension, she heard Anne call from the bathroom, presumably.

"Emergency family meeting! Major boundary violation!"

And Valerie knew that meant everyone, not just actual family, so she was quick to rush down the stairs towards the living room.

-

"Mom, dad, I'm really happy to be home," Anne started, pacing back and forth. "I know it's a big deal since I was gone for so long, and I get that it's scary to think about losing me again. But I need a little bit of space or else I am going to lose my mind. You guys are being way too overprotective."

Valerie put her hand up to speak (deciding to be polite) as she was called on by the girl hosting the meeting. "it's completely valid how you're acting towards anne, Mr and Mrs Boonchuy, but you need to remember that she'd just gotten back from something so unusual, where we were both used to being independent. So if you're going to be overprotective, at least, for the love of frog, ease her into it."

Mr Boonchuy paused, before looking over at his daughter. "Anne, I think you're exaggerating. This is a big house-- we have plenty of space to breathe." Just as he finished speaking, Polly kicked him in the face.

"oops, sorry, just practicing my jump kick!"

the pollywog kicked him again, before stumbling and rolling down the back of the couch.

"okay, I'm listening," the man changed his answer.

Valerie then stood up, making her way to stand next to Anne. "Okay then, let's face it: quarantine isn't a good look on this group. We're two teenagers and a bunch of estatic frogs who bounce off the walls with any means necessary."

"Exactly. Come on, let us all out!" the Plantars came to join them as the girl spoke. "Just for an hour! Me and Val will take care of them, and we won't go too far!"

After a brief pause, and despite the puppy dog eyes the Plantars were giving, Anne's mom still replied with a loud, clear "ABSOLUTELY NOT."

"We can't go out alone for an hour?" Having overprotective parental figures was a weird experience for Valerie, usually her own parent's just didn't care what she did, as long as she didn't get hurt-- which, she rarely did.

"The last time the both of you went out alone, you got trapped in another world for five months!" Mr Boonchuy exclaimed, banging his fist against the couch cushion.

"that's actually a good point-" Valerie replied with a nod. That was fair, even her parents would probably be a little bit cautious. 

"shush." The poofy-haired girl next to her placed a