Dory zipped through the pipes until she finally shot out into the dark, empty ocean. Panting, she helplessly called for her parents. "Mommy! Daddy!"

"Um… I… I," said Dory.

Searching for help, she raced up to a nearby fish. "Can you help me? I've lost them."

"Sorry, honey. I can't help you if you don't remember," said the fish, swimming off.

"I've lost… everyone," Dory said to herself. She headed out toward the open water, feeling hopeless and blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong. Her face crinkled as she thought about how she was always so forgetful, and how that seemed to cause all her trouble. And even in that moment, the memories she so wanted to hold on to seemed to be slipping away. "I just forget. I forget… and I forget," she muttered scolding herself. "I've lost… something. Something important. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?"

"Lost who?" asked the fish.

Dory looked around desperately and swam up to every fish she saw, asking for help, but she couldn't remember enough for anyone to offer any assistance. With each fish who turned her down, she became more and more frantic. Finally, feeling like there was nothing more she could do, she began to cry.

Suddenly, Dory stopped. "What would Dory do?" The sound of that phrase made her pause. She took a few deep breaths to calm down. "I would… look around," she said nervously, glancing up and down at her surroundings. "And… um… there's just water over there. And a lot of kelp over here. Kelp is better… Okay." She swam toward the kelp forest. "Okay… now what? Lots of kelp… It looks the same. It all looks the same, except there's a rock… over there. And… and some sand this way. I like sand. Sand is squishy."

She followed the shells, curious, until they led her to a little home made out of an old tire. Paths of shells led out from the house in every direction. "Wow!" Dory said, looking at all the neatly lined paths stretching out, far and wide. She swam into the tire, looking for its owners. "Hello?" she called. She swam around and continued to explore. Then she saw two fish off in the distance. She swam toward them, calling out, "Hello. I'm --" When she got close enough to see their faces, she was speechless. It was her mom and dad!

Something caught her eye. It was a shell. She swam toward it and noticed more shells. They were all lined up in the sand, forming a path.

"You're here… You're really here… You found us… My missing girl… You're here," said Jenny.

"It's you," Dory finally said. "It's really you." She couldn't believe it!

"Dory! Oh, my baby! Let me look at you. I'm never letting you go again!" shouted Charlie.

"I did?"

"What?" asked Dory, trying to stop her tears.

"You found us!" exclaimed Charlie, overjoyed.

"Dory!" they shouted and rushed to her, smothering her with kisses and hugs.

"Dory, Dory, Dory," said Jenny. "Don't you dare be sorry! Look… look what you did!"

"That's right! You found us!" said Jenny.

"Oh, honey, you found us. And you know why you found us? Because you remembered. You remembered in your own amazing Dory way."

The family hugged each other tightly, and Dory burst into tears. Then she began apologizing. "I know I've got a problem," she said through tears. "I know, and I'm so sorry. And all this time I've wanted to fix it, and I can't." Her parents watched with sympathy and understanding as she struggled to find the right words. "And I try -- I try. But my thoughts -- they leave my head and ideas change. And I forgot you… and I'm so sorry."

"But… I thought you were gone," said Dory. "How did you --"

Jenny and Charlie explained what had happened all those years before, after Dory disappeared. They went to Quarantine to look for her, and when she wasn't there, they figured she must have gone through the pipes. So they left the Institute and had been waiting for her to find them ever since.

"My poor little girl," said Jenny.

"Oh, I haven't been all by myself," Dory shouted. "Marlin and Nemo!"

"I did," said Dory. "All by myself."

"Exactly!" said Jenny.

"Shells," said Dory, touched.

"We thought you might come back. And every day, we lay out --"

"Why do you think we never gave up after all these years? And started making paths for you to find? Because we believed one day you'd find us again," said Charlie.

Jenny held Dory's face lovingly in her fins. "And you found us."

"Oh, honey. Really?" said Charlie. "Have you been… by yourself all these years?"