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Here's the thing: trouble follows Stan Pines. It always has.
This is something he knows before he even knows who he is again. Before he has begun to find himself in the void he woke into, before he begins to remember things on his own, before the pieces of his life slowly come back to him like icebergs emerging from arctic fog, there is a black feeling hiding deep in his corners that says this: trouble will follow you. It will come, in time. Things may seem fine now but they cannot remain so.
And he'd like to think he's got it all figured out when they tell him about who he was, about the sort of things he used to get up to. He'd like to think he knows where the feeling comes from when he and Ford sit down together and Ford explains, quietly, about the ruined machines and the devils in their lives, about what Stan broke and what he fixed again. He'd like to think he's uncovered all the trouble in his past by now, because isn't what they told him enough trouble for anyone's lifetime?
But he knows damn well that that isn't true, because there's still that wretched gap. Those ten years that he can see the shape of, like a hole in a puzzle defined by the pieces filled in around it, which no one can fill but himself. He doesn't want to fill it. Nothing he's learned so far makes him think there's anything in those ten years that he wants to know about, that he wouldn't be happy to cast adrift and never see again.
Except that's not how it works. He might not think much of his own intellect, but he knows even he's not that dumb. That gap in his recollection is a blind spot, a darkness in which dangers lurk, ready to pounce when he least expects it. If he leaves that flank unguarded, sooner or later it will come back to bite him. He's already been staggered twice by a memory floating up when he least expected it, both of them unpleasant and confusing recollections.
He knows that darkness is where the feeling stems from most of all, the sense of something waiting for him, that things can never be quite alright. The sense of trouble always being somewhere on the horizon. He has to know why.
One of the memories, catching him suddenly as he bumped into a door and felt an old twinge, was of something needing to be set. Something broken or dislocated, he doesn't know, something that had to be wrenched back into place, something that hurt like fire to do but that had to be done. That's what he knows he has to do now.
So one night he leaves the kids and Ford and Soos to their board game tournament and goes and shuts himself in his room and takes out the box the kids gave him. The box full of his old life, fake IDs and newspaper clippings and memorabilia. He lays each item out on the floor in front of him and looks at them one by one.
The stirrings come slowly, not like the other memories where he had people to describe the details, to draw out the vague feelings into something concrete. These are vague and murky, flashes here and there, a confused mingling of sensations and feelings and thoughts. He looks at one ID and gets the scent of sawdust and motor oil, the sound of a car engine, the feeling of adrenaline rushing through him. Another one gives him the beat of too-loud music, the swaying of bodies against dim lights, a thick smell of beer and sweat.
And then, just as he's thinking that this is all a bit anti-climactic, things start to race away from him. He has just enough time to realize he shouldn't have tried to do this all at once before the memories are rushing him, ten years all at once, and he's drowning--
--selling dodgy products in a backwoods town, fleeing yet again from an angry mob outraged at the shoddiness of his wares--
--hands gripped around a baseball bat, breathing hard, waiting for the men to find him--
--sprawling on the concrete floor of a prison cafeteria and feeling a boot come down hard on his shoulder--
--pasting a cheesy grin on his face and giving a firm handshake even as his chest feels hollow and hot--
--duct tape around his wrists and he can't breathe the air is too hot and too close and he's trapped trapped trapped--
It's this last that has him up and staggering, gasping, and he knows it's a memory but it's overtaking him and he has to get out, has to get away, he can't breathe and his head is spinning and he knows with absolute certainty that he is going to die.
He doesn't leave the room with any particular destination in mind, he just knows that he has to go somewhere. His head is spinning with memories he can't contain and he can't think, he's falling, he's dying, his heart is pounding and--
“Grunkle Stan?”
The kids.
He's standing in the living room, he doesn't know how he got here, and everyone is staring at him, and oh no not the kids, he didn't want to involve them in this, doesn't want them to see him like this. But it's too late now. Mabel and Dipper and Soos are all looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes. He opens his mouth to spit out some lie, some justification, to pass it off as nothing, but the words that would usually come easily to his lips cannot now escape the roiling chaos in his head. He cannot say anything. He cannot even ask for help.
“Grunkle Stan, what's wrong?”
“Are you okay, Mr. Pines?”
“Stan—Stan, talk to me--”
Suddenly Ford's there, eyes tight and worried behind his glasses, and Stan wants to talk to him, he really does, but the words are not there. Instead he lurches forward and reaches out a hand, gripping Ford by the shoulder desperately.
And, thank whatever trickster god has kept Stan alive all these years, Ford seems to understand. He reaches out and lets Stan collapse against him, two fingers gently sliding over Stan's wrist to check his pulse. “Did you remember something?”
Stan manages to nod.
“Something bad?”
Another nod.
Ford lets out a breath. “Dipper, would you go and get my bag, please? And Mabel, would you go to the kitchen and get a glass of water?”
The kids are off like a shot, much to Stan's relief. Ford guides Stan over to his chair, kicking game pieces aside willy-nilly as they go. Stan is distantly aware of Soos hovering anxiously. “What's wrong with Mr. Pines?”
“I think he's having a panic attack,” Ford says as he lowers Stan into his chair. Stan cannot recall seeing his brother like this, calm and caring and in charge.
“What's that?”
The twins come racing back into the room in time to hear Ford say, “It's when something causes the body to activate its fight-or-flight response without appropriate cause. Physiologically harmless, but extremely unpleasant. It must have been triggered by him remembering something.”
“You sure know a lot about this,” Soos says nervously.
“Yes,” Ford says. “I do.”
“Is Grunkle Stan going to be alright?” Mabel asks, and Stan cringes to hear the tears in her voice.
“He'll be fine.” Ford rummages around in the bag Dipper is holding out for him and produces a small plastic pill bottle. He tips out a pill and gives it to Stan along with the glass of water. “Take this, Stan. It'll help.”
Stan swallows the pill with some difficulty. His teeth are chattering.
Ford reaches out and squeezes Stan's hand in his own. “Okay, Stan, I need you to take deep breaths. I know it's hard, but do your best. Breathe in one, two, three...”
Stan feels Mabel take his other hand in hers. He breathes in and out on Ford's count. Gradually his heartbeat slows down and the impending sense of mortal terror eases away, replaced with a shivering aftermath.
“Doing better?” Ford asks, and Stan nods.
Mabel, unable to restrain herself any longer, tackles Stan in a hug. “Grunkle Stan! You can't scare us like that!”
Stan hugs her back, gently. His chest still hurts. “I'm sorry, sweetie.”
Dipper has that pinched, frowning look that Stan has seen on him so many times. “That must have been a really bad memory,” he says.
--crammed in a tight tight place too small to even uncurl his legs and his wrists chafe and sweat crawls down his face—Stan swallows hard and Dipper goes pale. “I'm sorry! Forget I said anything!”
Stan takes a few deep breaths. “It was...a lot of bad memories,” he says finally. “All at once.”
Ford winces. “No wonder you had such an extreme response.”
Soos pats him on the shoulder awkwardly. “It's alright, Mr. Pines. All that stuff is long gone now.”
Long gone? Is it, though? Trouble has always followed Stan Pines, and surely it will continue to do so. With the new weight of those terrible memories on his shoulders, that seems more certain than ever.
But there is something different about those memories and now. Before, he was always alone. Ten years of his life were spent in such a solitary existence that no one but him could recall them for him. Now he sits in his chair surrounded by family, by everything that he lost but ultimately regained, and the monsters of his past lie behind him.
He never thought, not once during those ten years, that he could have ended up here, safe among a loving family.
“Yeah,” he says, breathing evenly. “Long gone.”
Maybe it's time for trouble to stop following Stan Pines.