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Candace pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head as she looked around the underground room of the OWCA.
Delicate ice crystals twirled in place above her head, the snowflakes apparently immune to gravity. Trees of ice twisted up towards the fairy lights that were being strung along the high ceiling. They have a vague impression of stars against the black. The trees themselves appeared to be acting as room dividers, separating the buffet and dining area from the open space.
Everything was white. Reflecting and bending the bright lights in the room until they were almost blinding.
Candace flicked her sunglasses back down. "Phineas, what the hell is this?"
Phineas dropped from the ceiling, the line of his grappling hook stopping his quick descent before he could hit and injure himself. Seeing this, she made a mental note to remind him that whatever this was, it was not what their equipment was for. "It's a Christmas party. Or will be." He lowered himself the last few feet to the floor, unhooking the safety strap from his black and yellow striped shirt.
Christmas. She remembered that. It was the only holiday Doofenshmirtz hadn't immediately outlawed after his take over. The made-up holidays to celebrate him didn't count. They weren't exactly good memories but it was the one day of the year where the labor camps were empty and the application process for papers was simplified for people to visit their family and friends. He outlawed it around the same time she started the resistance. It may or may not have been connected.
"Why are you decorating for a Christmas party?"
"Oh. After the past, well, several years, Major Monogram thought it would be a nice break for everyone." He glanced around at what they'd done so far, pausing on where Ferb and Perry were putting up 3D wall murals of snow-covered woodland. "Apparently, they used to do this for the agents who didn't have host families or who didn't want to pretend to be mindless on Christmas." His voice softened, losing its confident edge, "Did Perry use to spend it with us?"
The question caught her off guard. Phineas never asked about the time before the takeover. For a while, she'd wondered if he even remembered anything from before it. Both her brothers had grown so pliant to the Doofenshmirtz's laws and rules, that she'd felt it was impossible that they had. She hadn't really expected them to remember Perry beyond the knowledge that they'd once had a pet platypus since they'd had him less than a year when he'd been turned into a platyborg.
Her brothers did seem to like surprising her at every turn.
She looked over to watch Perry hoist Ferb up to reach the high corner of the mural. "Yeah, he did."