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It’s early morning in the Boonchuy household as Anne pours over Marcy’s journal. She’s spent the entire night researching ways to get her frog family home, scouring the web, reading wiki articles, occasionally catching the stray cat video that catches her eye, when finally her eyes land on the backpack laying at the foot of her bed, with Marcy’s journal still inside.
Sighing, she gets up and unzips her bag. Inside, she sees the journal, still in the same condition as when she first put it there, when she was back in Amphibia, back with Marcy. Slowly, she pulls the journal out, and opens it.
The contents are exactly as she expected them. Frivolous notes on the fauna and flora of Amphibia, mindless scribbles on the intensive history of the world, and the occasional sketch recapturing her adventures. She recognizes one sketch, the one of Anne with straws in her nose, affectionately labeled “WALRUS STRAWRUS”, and smiles. She turns the page, expecting more typical Marcy banter, and frowns at what she sees. It’s a sketch of her and Marcy. Presumably, Marcy had drawn it when she and Anne had separated for the night, Anne heading to the hotel and Marcy back to her room in the castle, but that’s not what’s on Anne’s mind. Everything about the sketch is normal, except…
…her and Marcy are holding hands.
Huh.
“Anne!”
She looks up, leaving the page open. Sprig is at the doorway, bouncing his way over. “Hop Pop just found the BEST spot to get ice cream sundaes. It’s–” He stops as soon as his eyes land on the page of Marcy’s journal. Anne raises a brow. Huh.
“Oh. Huh. That’s…something.” He looks at the page, then at Anne, then back down at the page. Not the reaction she was expecting. Suddenly, he turns on his heel, ready to leave, when:
“Sprig.”
He stops. “Yeah?”
“You know something about this?” A hand gestures at the journal, at Anne and Marcy’s intertwined hands.
“Oh! Um.” He thinks back. “Yeah. I looked through Marcy’s journal a while back when she was staying with us at Wartwood. She saw that I saw her sketches of, like, you and Sasha and we talked for a while.” And Sasha? She’s about to skim through the journal to find the sketches of Sasha when she processes the other thing Sprig said.
“You talked with Marcy?”
“Yeah.” He thinks back. “We talked and she told me some personal stuff. I think after the whole Sasha incident though, I shouldn’t spill any more secrets.”
“Wait, what’d you tell Sasha?”
“I didn’t tell her anything.”
Anne blinks at him quizzically, and then returns her attention to the journal. Deciding to hold off on her search for any Sasha sketches, she closes the journal and turns to Sprig.
“Can you…” she takes a breath. “Sprig, can you tell me what Marcy told you?”
“I’m not sure if I–”
“Please.”
Her expression is serious. Carefully, she buries the part of her that tells her that Marcy’s gone, that she’ll never see her again, that this journal is all she’ll ever have left of her. The journal, and Sprig’s conversation with Marcy.
“I, um.” He almost says no, that it’s too personal and that she should wait for Marcy to tell her herself, but then he sees Anne. Her face is scrunched up, brows furrowed, eyes staring at him. She’s holding back tears. Finally, he relents.
“What would you like to know?”
“Everything.”
He tells her what happened in Marcy’s wagon. Him finding Marcy’s sketches in her journal, her freaking out, taking the journal from him, and explaining exactly how she felt about Anne and, you know, to a lesser extent, Sasha. Anne laughs. It’s too short. He tells her Marcy loves her, that she means a lot to her, and stops himself short before betraying too much. Anne lets out a laugh. It doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Good ole Marcy.” She can’t count all the times Marcy’s told her she loves her. Platonically. She sighs, and there’s an air of sadness to it. “Same as ever.”
Sprig frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She adjusts herself. “I don’t know why I expected it to be something.” She bites down a remark. Not now, she thinks. She’s not even here. Besides, she’s already made her feelings clear.
“I don’t get crushes.”
Anne shifts and curls into herself, resting her chin on her knees and looking at a spot on her sheets, not meeting Sprig’s eyes. Sprig looks down, not sure what to say, what could fix this, when:
“Oh! There’s one more thing!” Anne turns to him.
“When she was talking about you, she–” He stops. Is this too personal? Should he even be sharing this? He looks at Anne and she’s staring at him, eyes wide, waiting. He gives in.
“She said she can’t picture herself without you.” She blinks. Huh. That’s…something. Ok.
Stupidly, her feelings for Marcy resurface. Let it go. It’s been years. Her breathing grows faster. Bury it, bury it, she says to herself. She doesn’t feel the way about you that you feel about her. But maybe, just maybe, her feelings are close enough that they could make it work, that they–
She’s gone.
It takes every ounce of her being to not scream. Tears stream from her face. Snot drips out from her nose. Her entire body shakes as she attempts to hold herself together. She’s never been a pretty crier.
“A-Anne?” From her side, Sprig stands awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Inside, he knows he’s partially to blame for this, that if had just kept his mouth shut, Anne wouldn’t have had to think about Marcy, and she wouldn’t be on the verge of a breakdown right now. Oh, Sprig.
It’s not your fault.
She opens her arms and invites Sprig in. Hesitantly, he accepts the offer and slowly settles into the hug. He can’t see her now, but feels her breathing slow and hears her cries grow quiet as she calms down.
“Sorry,” she says.
“It’s alright.” He tries rubbing circles in her back, something Hop Pop used to do for him and Polly whenever they’ve had nightmares about their parents. “Are you feeling better?”
She nods. “A bit.” A sniffle. “I’ll be alright.” Slowly, carefully, they separate and Sprig looks her over. She wipes a stray tear from her eyes and steadies what’s left of her ragged breathing. He can’t help but be concerned.
“Are…are you gonna be okay?”
She looks at him, the little brother she never had and yet somehow still needed, and smiles.
“Yeah.”
They ease into gentle chatter and eventually Anne asks him if he wants to try out the sundae place that Hop Pop had found. An hour later, they’ve found themselves seated at a booth, chatting idly about movie theaters and vets and portals, enjoying two banana split sundaes, and Anne can’t help but to feel the happiest she’s been since she’s arrived back on Earth.
Yeah, I’ll be okay.