Pearl Krabs opened the front door to her house as slowly as she could, being careful to keep it from squeaking and giving her away. She was home a few minutes later than her curfew—big whoop!—but what worried her more was that she had just been at the Chum Bucket again, and her dad would often freak out when, by smelling her, realize that she had been to a place that sells food that WASN'T the Krusty Krab. (She once spent a full ten minutes convincing him that she only went in the gas station to use the facilities, not buy food.)

Luckily, her dad didn't seem to be anywhere within earshot… or noseshot. Pearl grinned, as much in response to her escape along with her sense of being a rebel. She really wasn't doing anything wrong… but Daddy would kill her if he found out where she'd been! He wouldn't find out, of course, but the very "if" fact made it exciting anyway.

"Pearlie? Is that you?"

Pearl winced. Great, her father was here. And pretty soon—

Mr. Krabs, who had just entered the room, suddenly began sniffing the air. "I smell… what is that smell? It smells like food, but food I've never smelled before!" He glared at Pearl. "Where have ye been?"

"That's none of your business, shell-flint!" Pearl snapped.

"Don't use that tone with me, young lady!"

"Fine then! That's none of your business, shell-flint!" said Pearl, dropping her voice down about two octaves.

"That's better," said Mr. Krabs, nodding satisfactorily. "Now—" He pointed an accusing claw at Pearl. "Where were you eating? It's not a smell I recognize…" He sniffed again. "Actually… it smells like… like… PLANKTON!"

The lights flickered and a bolt of lightning illuminated the room on his last word, even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"Well, of course I smell like Plankton!" huffed Pearl. "I've been eating at his restaurant for a couple of days now! The food's decent, and pretty cheap, too! Not like the prices at your place! …Daddy?"

Mr. Krabs had turned white. Then blue. Then purple. Then green and red plaid.

"Oh, look at the time!" said Pearl quickly. "I'd better get upstairs and work on my homework now!" She ran up the stairs to her room before her father had a chance to go postal on her and slammed the door in about two seconds.

But then, suddenly, she swung the door open to shout out, "SpongeBob was taking me driving and crashed by the Chum Bucket—that's why I started going there in the first place!"

She slammed the door again, leaned up against it with a grimace, and said softly, "Five, four, three, two, one…"

"SPOOOOOOOOOOOONGEBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB!"

O.o.O

Since neither SpongeBob nor Patrick had been seen for those couple of days (presumably they were still in homicidal chaser and terrified chasee mode), Sandy turned to their neighbor with her evidence of foul play.

"And I should care why?" asked Squidward, raising an eyebrow.

"I know you don't care about SpongeBob, but look at it as a bigger problem," said Sandy bluntly. "I think that someone's settin' up any driver who happened to be passin' along for disaster, not just SpongeBob!"

There was a pause.

"Again… and I should care why?"

"It could be you next time!"

"I don't have a boat."

"What if you did?"

"But I don't."

Sandy growled. "Do you ever think of anyone other than yourself?"

Squidward looked honestly confused by that sentence. "There are other people besides myself?"

Sandy sighed. "Alright then, look at it this way. If we figure out what's goin' on here, y'all won't have to put up with SpongeBob's psychotic overreacting anymore."

"Oh," admitted Squidward softly. "That would be a plus."

"And all we need to do is ask SpongeBob about the details about both the accidents, and then we can go with him and take it to the proper authorities!"

Squidward blinked. "But where is SpongeBob?"

"I'm right here," a terrified, muffled voice squeaked from an unknown location.

"You're where?" asked Sandy, scanning the room in confusion.

"What are you doing in my house?!" cried Squidward.

"Hiding from Patrick," SpongeBob whimpered, his whereabouts still unknown.

"SpongeBob, how many times do I have to tell ya, that there's nothing to be afraid of with Patrick?" said Sandy.

"Has Patrick ever done this to you?" cried SpongeBob.

A tiny pen drawer in Squidward's desk, no taller than about two inches, suddenly opened, and out flew SpongeBob's liver, stomach, and two fingers.

"Yeech," said Sandy and Squidward in unison, making faces of disgust.

"How did you get away from him?" asked Sandy.

"And where is he now?" asked Squidward.

"He stopped for a chilidog," said SpongeBob, finally peeking out from the drawer. He looked quite squished and uncomfortable, but twice as terrified. "So I decided to hide while I still could. …By the way, Sandy, where's Morgan Nancy?"

Sandy shrugged. "Right where you left her, I suppose."

"You didn't move her?" cried SpongeBob.

"SpongeBob, I ain't got the keys."

"But she was in the middle of the road!"

O.o.O

The tow truck driver sighed. "Why do I always get the ugly hunks of junk?"

O.o.O

"You might be having to picked up a towed boat, SpongeBob," muttered Squidward.

"I… CANNOT deal with this anymore!" On the word "cannot", SpongeBob tore out of the drawer, sending splinters of wood flying through the room. Both Sandy and Squidward ducked. "You're right, Squidward! I was never meant to have a boat at all! I was NEVER MEANT TO BE HAPPY! I'm going to hide in my house the rest of my life and write dark, depressing poetry!"

"I'd never have to see you again," said Squidward thoughtfully. "Sounds like a good idea to me!"

"Everybody has accidents, SpongeBob," sighed Sandy. "You ain't the first, and you won't be the last. And furthermore—"

The door opened, cutting her off. She, Squidward, and SpongeBob all slowly turned to the door.

It was Patrick.

"I heard the piteous scream of a traitorous friend," he growled.

"YIPE!" screamed SpongeBob.

"Patrick knows the definitions of the words 'piteous' and 'traitorous'?" Squidward asked in shock.

"Where's Morgan Nancy?" asked Patrick, still sounding homicidal.

"I don't know!" shrieked SpongeBob.

"WHERE'S MORGAN NANCY, YOU DOO-DOO HEAD?!"

SMACK!

Before Patrick could rant and rave any more, Sandy had him pinned to the floor. "Ow! No! Let me go!" he wailed helplessly. Finally he began to sob like a two-year-old. "I want my mooooommmmmmmmmmy!"

"Stop being homicidal," snapped Sandy.

"But…" Patrick whimpered.

"If ya do, I'll give you a lollipop."

Patrick's face brightened. "Alright!"

Sandy let go of Patrick, who immediately jumped up and smiled at SpongeBob. "Hey, SpongeBob, buddy!" he said with a totally clueless smile. "How's it going?"

"Patrick, you really frighten me," said SpongeBob, looking only a notch or two more at ease.

"SpongeBob, since y'all seem able to talk coherently again, we need to know the details of your first accident," said Sandy, getting back to the point.

"Why?" asked SpongeBob. "I'd rather not relive that, if that's perfectly alright with you!"

"She wants to compare it to your more recent accident," snapped Squidward rudely. "There might be similarities that could mean something!"

"…oh."

"There's somethin' mighty fishy about you getting into two accidents in the exact same place," said Sandy. "I know what happened the second time, 'cuz I was there. But what happened the first time?"

"Well, Patrick and I were going to Hal's Hotdog Hut… I was thinking about the footlong I was going to get… and I wasn't watching where I was going and I ran into the fire hydrant," said SpongeBob.

Squidward rolled his eyes. "Sandy, that sounds like it was completely SpongeBob's doing. I don't think there's any foul play at all here."

"Hal's Hotdog Hut?" cried Patrick. "Ooh, you shouldn't eat there. The Chum Bucket's dogs are way better!"

"You're still eating there?!" SpongeBob shrieked. "You're a traitor and a—"

"The Chum Bucket has had a lot of customers lately," Sandy reflected. She frowned. "SpongeBob, the day you had your first accident, were there many people at the Chum Bucket?"

"No, hardly anyone," said SpongeBob. "The only person I saw was that traitor over there." He pointed at Patrick, scowling.

"Was that the first day you ate at the Chum Bucket, Patrick?" Sandy asked.

"Mmm, the Chum Bucket!" said Patrick, licking his lips. "That sounds good! I want a chilidog and a free song of my choice on the jukebox! I think I'll go there right now!"

Sandy barricaded the door with her body.

"When you went there the first time, was Plankton surprised to see you there?" she asked urgently.

"Let me go, I'm hungry!" cried Patrick.

"Did you tell him why you happened to be in the area in the first place?" asked Squidward, apparently surprising himself for actually caring about figuring this out.

"Well, yeah, I said that if SpongeBob kept driving people around and crashing his boat there, then he wouldn't need to worry about advertising—"

"I KNEW it!" cried Sandy.

"Plankton set you up!" cried Squidward. "Crafty thinking on his part, I must admit…"

"What are you saying?" SpongeBob asked, his eyes growing wide.

"Your second accident, the one I was there for, wasn't your fault at all!" Sandy hesitated. "Well, actually, it kinda was. But I'd bet my boots that it was Plankton who put all them boxes out in the road that made you crash!"

"But… but why would he do that?" asked SpongeBob.

"To get more people to eat at his place, genius!" cried Squidward.

"And it worked, too!" cried Sandy. "Pearl and her friend decided to eat there after your second accident, remember?"

"Wow, even Pearl's eating there?" Squidward remarked. "Her old man would have a fit if he found out."

Squidward's door suddenly flung open again. There was Mr. Krabs, completely on cue, seething with rage, flames bursting from his body.

Even Patrick could figure out that being in the room at that moment probably wasn't the best idea. "Uh, I'm gonna go to the Chum Bucket now!" he cried, zipping out of the door faster than you could say "avocado".

"…I think he found out," said Sandy nervously.

"YOU POROUS SPAWN OF SATAN!" Mr. Krabs hollered. "YOU'VE TURNED ME OWN FLESH AND BLOOD AGAINST ME!"

"Stop being homicidal… I'll give you a lollipop," said Sandy, trying to hide her fear.

Mr. Krabs immediately relaxed. "A lollipop? If it's free, I'll take it!"

SpongeBob and Squidward stared at each other for a second or two before both their jaws hit the floor with a clang.

"Y'all can't blame SpongeBob completely," said Sandy, quickly handing Mr. Krabs a bright red lollipop. "Plankton's made it so that he, or anyone else driving by the Chum Bucket, would get in an accident and since they're right by the restaurant, they'll want to eat there!"

Mr. Krabs considered this. "It still wouldn't have happened if you could drive decently, boy!" he yelled, pointing an accusing claw at SpongeBob.

"It wouldn't have happened if Plankton hadn't laid those boxes in the road either!" cried SpongeBob.

"Oh, would you two stop yelling?" Squidward shouted in frustration. "SpongeBob, isn't obvious what you should do now? You've got plenty of valid reasons to get an attorney involved here!"

"Sue the pants off of the little mollusk!" Mr. Krabs cried in agreement.

"But Mr. Krabs, Plankton doesn't wear pants," said SpongeBob.

"Alright, the antennae then! C'mon, me boy, I wanna get some money outta this!"

"I don't care about getting rich off of this… I just want enough money to get my boat back and fixed," said SpongeBob, with an apologetic shrug.

"Sue the heck out of him anyway," said Squidward. "Forget about being righteous. And if you don't sue him, I will, because of the misery you've caused me all this time because of his actions."

"And I'll sue him for stealin' me customers!" cried Mr. Krabs.

"And I'll sue him for…" Sandy paused, and her face fell. "I got nothin'," she said abashedly.

O.o.O

"Daaaaaarling! You shouldn't have!"

Plankton smiled at Karen's obvious delight (an emotion that she rarely showed) at his gift for her. "The computer wife of a business tycoon such as myself deserves nothing less," he said.

"Five extra gigs of hard drive space?" she cried. Plankton said nothing, merely continuing to smile and hold the small flash drive in his hands. "You do love me!"

"Anything to stop your nagging…" Plankton mumbled under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Ahem! I said, yes dear, you're ravishing!"

"PLANKTON!"

Four distinct voices shouted his name, causing Plankton to nearly drop his wife's blessed hard drive. SpongeBob, Sandy, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs had all burst into his office.

"Hey, you cretins, this is a private office!" cried Plankton. "You'll just have to wait and order out front like everyone else!"

"Everyone else who got here by your trickery, you porous spawn of Satan!" screamed SpongeBob.

"No, SpongeBob, that was you," sighed Mr. Krabs.

"The only reason you've got the number of customers that you do is because you sabotaged SpongeBob—and probably a lot of other people too!" cried Sandy. "And we got proof of that!"

"And you're going to pay." SpongeBob's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"And I want some of that money too!" cried Mr. Krabs.

"So do I!" cried Squidward.

"So do I, even though I ain't got a claim to it!" cried Sandy.

"But… but… but…" Plankton roared with anger and glared at Karen. "This was all your idea! Look what it's done to me!"

"My idea? You're the one who said that you needed to be diabolical!"

"You evil… little… creature!" SpongeBob spat out, apparently unable to think of anything else to call him.

"She lies!" Plankton spat out. "She's lying to you! Don't believe her!"

"Believe this!" Karen shrieked.

And suddenly, on her screen, was a video of Plankton saying, "I actually feel this big diabolical gap. If I don't do something evil in the next few days, I might just snap!"

"And that evil thing was making me crash my boat again!" shrieked SpongeBob.

"Which is something you should pay for!" snapped Squidward to Plankton. "I'm getting sick of hearing SpongeBob bemoan about his financial situation!"

"How dare you serve me own daughter yer vile food?!" Mr. Krabs spat out.

Patrick suddenly burst in the room. "Plankton! The jukebox is broken! I can't listen to my free song!"

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Plankton threw Karen's extra gigs of hard drive on the floor and ran screaming from the room (and building), leaving a tiny Plankton-shaped hole in the wall.

SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs all turned and looked at Karen.

"Don't look at me! I'm just the computer!"

O.o.O

A few weeks later…

"Hello, Krusty Crew!" Patrick called out cheerfully as he stepped into the restaurant.

An eager yellow face poked out from the kitchen window. "Hey, Patrick! Hey, Sandy!"

"Howdy, SpongeBob!" said Sandy with a wave.

"Are you barnacle brains going to order, or what?" sighed Squidward testily.

"Jus' two Krabby Patties will be fine," said Sandy.

"And a chilidog!" cried Patrick.

"We don't serve those," muttered Squidward, shooting Patrick a glare and ringing up their order.

"So SpongeBob, have ya'll got Morgan Nancy fixed up?" asked Sandy.

"Yep!" said SpongeBob, working on the patties and yet skillfully keeping eye contact with his friends at the same time. "Plankton's made all the payments and Morgan Nancy is mine again! …Now if only the suspension on my license were finished," he sighed.

"Don't worry," said Sandy. "They didn't give you a long one, did they? I mean, it weren't entirely your fault."

"No, just a couple more weeks and I'll be driving again," smiled SpongeBob.

"If you ask me, that's letting you off easy," muttered Squidward.

"I think that Plankton got let off easy," Sandy retorted. "All he had to do was pay for the damages to SpongeBob's boat. I think he should have gotten a harsher punishment."

"Oh ho ho, don't worry about that," laughed SpongeBob cryptically, pushing open the kitchen door with his foot and bringing Patrick and Sandy their now finished patties. "He's getting punished enough as it is…"

O.o.O

"…how dare you try to pin the blame on me—you'd blame me for everything if you could—you think my affections are automatically dispensed—me being your wife is a privilege, not a right, and buddy you've about lost that right—I can't believe you would treat me that way…"

Plankton pressed his hands against his ears (…well, where we can presume his ears are) and moaned helplessly.

"Here we go again."

THE END

O.o.O

AN:

Sorry again for such a long wait! I had a summer job from hell, I went on vacation for a week, I've started making music videos and that's a time-consuming hobby, I've wrote a manifesto for my favorite PPG pairing which took awhile and a lot of effort, my PPG obsession suddenly flip-flopped into a Darkwing Duck obsession and neither of these shows are SpongeBob obviously… excuses, excuses, excuses…

I honestly thought that there would be two more chapters to this story when I updated last, but I realized that I could fit all that I wanted to happen in one—and not drag it out annoyingly long either. Also… I'll admit, I just wanted to finish this darn thing. I have two other stories that need updating too, and I've been hit with an idea for an angsty DWD fanfic with an outrageous pairing, and… this fic was just one hassle I wanted to get out of the way.

Well, not exactly hassle, because, as much time as it took me to write this chapter (and the whole story, for that matter), I really DID have fun with it. :) Like I said in the first chapter, I wanted to just write something silly and fun, and… did I succeed? I guess I'll leave that one up to you.

Thanks to everyone who left a review! I appreciate each and every one of them.

-Commander