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It takes Ford three days to realize something is wrong, and he probably wouldn’t have at all if not for Dipper and Mabel.
One of the problems with starting off on an indefinite boating trip with the brother he hasn’t had a relationship with in forty years is that … they don’t know each other nearly as well as they once did. Yes, some things haven’t changed, but many, many things have. Ford barely recognizes the scrawny, awkward, teenage version of himself he sees in Stan’s photos, and that’s himself. He only has snippets of everything Stan has been through without him.
They’re working through that, of course. Catching up. Telling stories. Stitching their bond back together piece by piece.
But there are some things Ford will probably never tell Stan, and he suspects there are a great many more things Stan will never tell him.
And perhaps some things that, thanks to the memory gun, he won’t even remember.
Their relationship will heal. He’s as sure of that as he can be, if only because he’s not going to stop trying until the day he dies.
But there will always be gaps between them.
He just wishes there weren’t so many now.
It’s November. They’ve been at sea for over a month now, just the two of them, hunting for treasure and searching for anomalies and battling monsters. And it’s amazing. It’s better than anything he imagined, even when they were kids. His world has gotten so much bigger since then, with so many more things to explore.
And he’s with his brother. They’re talking, joking, working together, and that alone is better than everything else combined.
But after a month, he thought he would know if something like this is normal.
Maybe it’s normal for Stan to be snippy in the mornings before he’s had coffee—Ford can be the same way, even if he goes for something sugary just as often as caffeine. Maybe it’s normal for Stan to spend this much time staring out at the ocean or tucked away in their quarters. Maybe it’s the increasingly cold weather, or the fact that they go so long without seeing land and other people.
Maybe.
But maybe not.
It’s that thought that makes him finally reach out to the twins.
It should feel stranger, going to his thirteen-year-old grand niece and nephew for advice about his brother. It does feel strange, which is a relief, when he thinks about how quick he was to literally shove the fate of the universe into said grand nephew’s hands. He’s better than that now. Even if the only reason the twins’ parents still consider him an acceptable caretaker is because they have only the barest idea of what actually happened last summer.
But he’s still got a lot to learn about being a good brother, a good twin, and Dipper and Mabel have already proven themselves far wiser in that respect. On top of that, they spent the entire summer with Stan, getting to know him properly. They know this Stan better than almost anyone.
Perhaps it’s strange, and more than a little embarrassing, but he can’t think of anyone more qualified to go to for advice.
It’s surprisingly easy to sneak below deck without drawing attention. Stan has been fishing for the past hour and hasn’t said a word the entire time, and honestly, that would alert him enough on its own. But Ford shakes that off and pulls out the cellular phone Dipper insisted he needed. He suggested some of the best models, and Mabel explained all the customization options, but still, Ford would gladly chuck it over the side of the boat if it weren’t the only way to talk to the kids without the laptop.
Maybe he should ask Fiddleford if he can build something better.
After three tries, he unlocks the phone and opens the messaging application, with only three conversations: one with Dipper, one with Mabel, and one with both. He taps the latter, hesitates, then opens the keyboard.
The message is only a paragraph long, but it takes him almost ten minutes to put together in a way that makes sense—and doesn’t sound like he’s describing the behavior of some anomalous creature. For a minute after that, his thumb hovers over the send button, and it’s only after gritting his teeth and reminding himself that he’s faced off against the most terrifying beings in the multiverse that he finally presses it.
A whoosh sound plays, and Ford stares down at the phone in anticipation and vague regret.
Less than a minute later, a new message pops up with Dipper’s name.
Yeah, that seems pretty weird. Stan gets moody sometimes, but not like that.
The phone buzzes again, from Mabel this time.
Go talk to him, Grunkle Ford!!
Give him a BIG hug
And some hot chocolate
And another hug after that
Then MORE hugs
Three dots show up—another message in progress, apparently—but Dipper cuts in.
I think he gets it, Mabel.
You can never have enough hugs!! <3
Ford can’t hold back a fond smile. He really does miss these two.
He waits a few seconds to make sure Mabel isn’t going to add anything else, then starts typing his response—slow and painstaking, since he’s still not used to this tiny digital keyboard.
Thank you, kids. I’ll go do that now.
Well, talk to Stan, at least. But he’ll leave hugs and hot chocolate on the table.
Both of them send their good wishes, and Mabel adds five hearts with hers. Ford hasn’t figured out how to add “emojis” to his messages yet, so he just sends back a “Love you both” before tucking his phone into his pocket and looking up at the ladder.
No time like the present.
The cold air feels sharper as he climbs out of the cabin and onto the stern, where Stan is still in his fold-out chair, fishing pole in hand. He enjoys fishing—the kids have confirmed that—but he usually lacks the patience to sit still for this long. Even now, though he’s stiller than Ford thought he could be, he keeps moving the pole, like he can’t decide where the best spot is. Ford thinks he would enjoy the dimension where “fishing” involves chasing the fish—well, fish-like creatures—across whatever body of water they’re inhabiting. It was quite the competitive sport, actually, not that Ford was any good at it the one time he tried.
He can’t remember whether he thought of Stan while he was there, and he hates himself a little for that.
Stan doesn’t look up after a full minute of Ford standing there. Ford is sure he made enough noise coming up, and Stan isn’t exactly easy to surprise. He gives him another ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Still nothing. Stan just sits there, staring out at the ocean with single-minded determination.
Yes, he definitely knows Ford’s there.
Ford hesitates. Then he imagines the kids standing behind him, urging him forward.
He takes another step, leaving only a few feet between him and his brother.
“Stanley.”
He tries to sound gentle, but habit makes it come out slightly more stern. He winces. Stan doesn’t move.
“Eh?”
“Stanley,” Ford repeats, and this time, it comes out as he intends. Still, nothing. Ford purses his lips and reminds himself how far they’ve come, how hard they’ve worked to get here. How desperately he wants to keep this. “Please look at me.”
Stan jerks his head to face Ford, lips pressed into a scowl.
“What, Ford? I’m busy here!”
“Fishing without bait?”
It’s only as Ford says it that he notices that indeed, there’s no sign of bait on the deck. Of course, there’s a chance Stan grabbed one from their stock and stuck it on his line before he came out here, but given Stan’s insistence that he can easily bring in five fish in one sitting, Ford doubts it.
Stan blinks, then looks at the pole, and now Ford is sure.
A second later, Stan glares at him, a flush to his cheeks and even more venom in his eyes.
“So what if I am?”
“Not likely to be very successful,” Ford goes on, even as a part of him screams that this is not what he came out here to do, and criticizing his brother is only going to make things worse, and hasn’t he learned this lesson already? “Especially given that you keep moving the pole. Without bait.”
Stan opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks at the pole. Back to Ford. Opens and closes his mouth again, then makes a sound between a grunt and a growl and jerks his whole body back toward the water.
“Mind your own business, Ford! I’ll fish how I want!”
This … is not going well. At all.
He needs to fix this. He needs to do something else. He didn’t come here to fight, he came here to make things better, he came here to figure out why Stan has been acting so strange and make sure he’s alright.
“Stanley, something’s clearly wrong,” he says, and the second the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s messing up again.
Stan makes another frustrated sound.
“I’m fine, Ford,” he grinds out. “Just … leave me alone.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone when you’re—”
“Why not?” Stan snaps, swinging around to face him again. “You had no problem leaving me alone before! Ten years, you had no problem with it!”
The words hang in the air like smoke, like acid, stinging and sharp and far too fresh. Anger and bitterness built up over forty years.
Ford clenches his jaw, even as the voice in his head shouts at him as loud as it can.
“Are you really getting into this now? I’m trying to help!”
“Great job. Thanks for the help.” Stan grips the pole so tight his hands shake. “Now just let me fish already!”
“Fine!”
Before Stan can turn around, Ford is back in the cabin, climbing down the ladder so fast the metal shakes through his boots.
The second he steps off the last rung and into the galley, he freezes, puts a hand to his forehead, and fights the urge to bash his face into the nearest wall.
He really is the world’s dumbest genius.
But if he’s honest with himself, maybe he shouldn’t have expected any better. Just like Stan has been building up bitterness over forty years, so has Ford, albeit in a different way. Even when Stan was bitter, even when he was betrayed and hurt, he still thought Ford was worth saving. Still dedicated years of his life to getting him back. Ford has spent forty years convincing himself that Stan is a leech, riding off his coattails and dragging him down. That all he would ever do is mess things up.
He’s spent less than three months actually trying to get to know the person his brother really is.
And as much as he hates that he failed again … he really shouldn’t be surprised.
But that doesn’t mean he can just leave things as they are.
He stands at the bottom of the ladder, listening for Stan, but all he hears is the waves rocking the boat back and forth.
He has twelve PhDs, but none of them seem to have taught him anything that matters.
He almost asks the kids what he should do, but before he can even pull out the phone, he hears both of their voices echoing the obvious through his supposedly-brilliant brain.
He knows the answer, of course.
That just doesn’t make it any easier to put into action.
But Stan has suffered far too much on his account already. They’ve both lost so much time because Ford couldn’t swallow his pride and admit his mistakes.
Ford asked for a second chance, and Stan gave it to him.
He isn’t going to waste it.
He does wait a while, though. He might not know as much about Stan as he used to, but one thing they’ve always had in common is the need to cool down after a fight. If he goes back too soon, things are just going to get worse.
If he waits too long, though …
Mabel mentioned something about Stan’s brain being “mean” to him if left to his own devices. She didn’t elaborate, and now Ford really, really wishes he asked her to.
For now, though, he sits down at his makeshift desk to write. He doesn’t pay much attention—it’s just a few notes on the last anomaly they ran across, which Stan insists was a giant squid but Ford is almost certain is some variant of a Kraken. Writing has always helped him process things. It’s what finally convinced him he was ready to invite Stan on this trip in the first place. Maybe that’s why, upon re-reading his third journal, he found just as many notes about his personal life as he did actual research.
Which might be why Dipper seems to have so much insight into things about him he’s sure he hasn’t shared.
After half an hour, he forces himself to close the journal. It’s not going to get easier, and he has to do this sooner or later. And now that he’s waited a bit, sooner is definitely better.
The galley is small, and it only takes a few steps to get him to the ladder, but each one feels like he’s pushing a boulder. He stops in front of it. Breathes in. Breathes out.
He can do this. He needs to do this.
But before he can put a hand on the rung, he hears footsteps above his head.
He looks up, and sure enough, there’s Stan, starting down the ladder. Ford blinks, but steps back before Stan’s foot hits his hand. He stands there, silent, watching as Stan climbs the last few steps, grunts, cracks his back, and turns around.
Then they’re both staring.
They open their mouths at the same time, but neither of them speak. They just look at each other, like they keep thinking the other is going to speak first. It takes a solid minute before Ford clamps his mouth shut, pulling his thoughts together. He can do this. He knows what he needs to do, he knows exactly what he’s going to say, he just has to—
“I don’t wanna do this again.”
And again, Stan beats him to the punch.
Ford blinks. Stan drops his eyes to the floor and scowls, but the kind of scowl that speaks of frustration with himself. Or maybe frustration at the world, or life, or some combination of everything.
“Do what?” Ford asks, unsure whether he should step closer or give Stan the space he might need.
“Fight,” Stan says. Ford winces, and Stan ducks his head a little lower. “We’ve been fighting for forty years, Ford. I don’t wanna … I can’t …”
His voice cracks, and he clamps his mouth shut before he can say anything else.
Ford hesitates, and takes a moment to think through his words. It’s not a guarantee. Being impulsive isn’t the answer, but neither is being cold and calculated. His twelve PhDs don’t help him because this isn’t something that can be studied. There isn’t a book on Stan or the mess that is their fragile relationship. And while the kids have done a wonderful job helping, he’ll have to figure some things out on his own.
And right now, Stan, his brother, his twin, is right in front of him, hurt and worried and … afraid. Afraid of losing everything they’ve worked so hard for.
Everything he’s worked so hard for.
Ford swallows all his grand ideas, takes a step forward, and puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“I don’t want to fight either.”
Stan looks up at him, a crease between his eyebrows, his mouth open even though he doesn’t seem to have anything to say. Ford tries to smile, but it comes out more like a wince, so he lets it drop.
“You’re right. We’ve done that too much already,” he goes on, and it’s easier than he expects, even with Stan looking him in the eyes. Ford takes another deep breath and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “I’m sorry I pushed you. I … I know something’s wrong, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. We can … do something else. Stop in a town for a few days if you want. An … ordinary town, no anomalies. Pick up some souvenirs for the kids, I know you’ve been wanting to—”
“It’s been nine years.”
Ford stops, his mouth open and more words ready to fall out. But they don’t come. Even his brain stops for a few seconds, and he stands there, staring, before he finally notices that Stan is looking back at the floor.
“What?” he asks.
Stan purses his lips, then closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath.
“It’s been nine years today since Pa died.”
And Ford’s brain, just beginning to start back up, stutters to a halt again.
It takes him a solid five seconds to process exactly what Stan said, and another ten to start to understand. The words sit in his head like oil and water, refusing to mix until something clicks and they blend, mismatched and uncomfortable and unwanted, but assimilated nonetheless.
Ford blinks.
“Oh.”
He doesn’t mean to let go of Stan’s shoulder. He doesn’t mean to take a tiny step back. He’s barely aware of his body moving at all.
Dad is … dead.
He’s been back more than three months, and he’s never even thought about that.
But … it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Dad was twenty-seven when he and Stan were born, and fifty-five when Ford fell into the portal. It’s certainly not out of the question that he’d still be alive at eighty-five, but given that he was never prone to the healthiest lifestyle, him dying at seventy-six seems perfectly logical.
It is perfectly logical.
But that doesn’t change the twisting in Ford’s gut.
His father is dead. His father died while he was in another dimension—he doesn’t even remember which one, it wasn’t like he had a proper sense of time in the multiverse. His death is history now, almost a decade in the past, but here Ford is, just learning about it for the first time.
How could he not have thought to ask before?
How could he have gone this long and not wondered?
“Ford?”
Ford looks up—he doesn’t even remember dropping his head. He blinks and takes in Stan’s worried look. He bites back a wince.
“Sorry, I … I just … I didn’t know.”
It sounds as awful out loud as it does in his head. But when Stan winces in return, Ford knows the judgment isn’t toward him.
“Right,” he mutters, eyes falling to the floor. “Yeah. Course you wouldn’t. Sorry—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Ford cuts in, before Stan can launch into full self-deprecation. “It’s not your fault.”
“Uh, it kinda is—”
“No, it’s—”
“Yeah, it—”
But Stan cuts himself off. He pauses, staring at Ford, then huffs a laugh and shakes his head. When he looks back at him, there’s still that old ache in his eyes, but fondness mixes with it, and Ford gets a brief, rare glimpse of exactly how much his brother loves him.
“Look at us,” he says with another breathy chuckle. “Still can’t stop arguing, even now, huh?”
Ford smiles back. It feels as sad as Stan looks.
They stand there for a long few seconds, the air between them more awkward with each moment that ticks by. By sheer force of will, Ford clears his throat and forms his jumble of thoughts into words.
“Is … is Mom …?”
Stan blinks, but before he can ask what Ford means, his eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, she’s still … she’s alive. In a nursing home, back in Jersey.” He glances off to the side, his face twisted into something pained, like he’s lost in a memory Ford will never be able to share. “Haven’t seen her in a while, though.”
“Ah,” Ford manages. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Swallows. “That’s … I’m glad she’s …”
He trails off, and no matter how hard he tries to get them out, his words fail him again.
He doesn’t know how to do this. Is there a way to do this? To talk about parents you haven’t seen in over thirty years, parents who you accepted you would never see again long ago? But that was different. That was when he thought he would never see this dimension again. Now he’s here, he’s home, he’s with his brother living their childhood dream and … his father is dead.
His mom isn’t. That’s good. It is, of course it is, but his stomach still twists, like he doesn’t know what to make of it.
Mom is alive. Dad isn’t.
He can’t even remember the last time he talked to him. And now he never will again.
It doesn’t hurt. Not like he thinks it does for most people. He was never close to his father, in any sense of the word, even when they lived in the same house, and after he graduated college, he can count the times they spoke on one hand. Maybe two. He hasn’t grieved for many people in his life—and his worst experience reversed itself within a few days—and he doesn’t know how this is supposed to affect him.
But it does.
And by the look on his face, it affected Stan, too.
That reminds him …
“So … is that what’s bothering you?” Ford asks. “The … anniversary?”
Stan looks away again and shrugs.
“I guess. I dunno.”
Ford hesitates. But … no. Staying silent isn’t going to help. “Is it something else?”
Stan grimaces. He opens his mouth, then stops and shakes his head.
“I … I dunno,” he mutters. “S’not like it should bother me more now. Old man’s been gone for almost a decade, and I hadn’t even talked to him for twenty years before that.”
He starts to say something else, but stops himself before he can get the words out. He glances at Ford, then away again. Ford waits. He wants to ask Stan what else is wrong, just find a solution so they can move forward, but … his brother isn’t a problem to be solved. This isn’t a subject to be tackled or a new anomaly to study. This is much more delicate, and infinitely more important.
So Ford waits, and after what feels like a full minute, Stan lets out a long, heavy breath.
“I was just … thinking.”
It sounds so reluctant, yet so ordinary, that Ford can’t help a faint smile. “Sounds dangerous.”
He winces as soon as the joke leaves his lips, starts to apologize, but Stan huffs a laugh, and Ford can read him well enough to tell it’s genuine.
But he doesn’t go on right away. He looks back to the floor, eyes boring into it like he thinks he’ll be able to find an answer there. The answer to what, Ford isn’t sure. But Ford gives him time. He lets the silence hang and tries not to focus on how it feels like every second is pulling them further apart.
“Do I really look like him?”
It’s so quiet—especially for Stan—that Ford isn’t sure at first that he didn’t just imagine it. Stan is still staring at the floor, his head too low for Ford to read his face. But with every second that passes, the tension in the air gets thicker, and his brain finally makes the sounds into something coherent.
Ford blinks and frowns.
“Who?”
But he knows. As soon as the word leaves his mouth, he knows. He can hear the words coming out of his own mouth, see his reflection standing next to his brother’s, the first time they looked in a mirror together in forty years.
Stan looks up. “Pa.”
There are many, many things about those first few weeks back in his home dimension that Ford regrets. He could probably fill an entire journal with all the things he did wrong during that time. But this … he hasn’t even thought of this. The words afterward, yes, the ultimatum that Stan could stay until the end of the summer, he regrets that as much as anything, but this offhanded comment, something he barely even thought about …
He opens his mouth, pauses, and searches for words that don’t want to come.
“I … that wasn’t how …”
But Stan doesn’t even seem to be listening. His gaze drifts to a random spot on the wall. There’s something far-off in his eyes, like when he was in the midst of reliving a new memory, and Ford lets his voice die out.
“Y’know, if you’d asked me when I was a kid, I woulda told ya that I could never be like him,” Stan goes on, and Ford can’t tell who he’s talking to. “That I’d never wanna be like him. Even though I wanted his attention, his approval, I never wanted to be like him.”
“You aren’t,” Ford says, because it’s true, and because he thinks that’s what Stan needs to hear.
Stan huffs something that’s not quite a laugh and looks up.
“Ain’t I?” It isn’t a question, and Ford doesn’t know how to respond. Stan shakes his head. “The more I think about it, the more I see how much of the stuff I do is … it’s him. It’s pieces of him I didn’t even realize I was picking up. I didn’t like him, but I … he was still my dad. I still … cared. What he thought about me.”
He purses his lips. Scrunches his eyebrows. Hunches his head down like a child trying to make himself smaller.
“Still wanted him to like me.”
He sounds like a child now, too. His voice is deeper than it ever could have been as a kid’s, he’s so much older, everything is different, but … he’s still the same in so many ways. That same boy who asked him why nothing he did was ever good enough for their father, and Ford … Ford could never understand. As hard as he tried, it was different for him. And they were so young. Their dad was strict and stern and harsh and seemingly emotionless, but he was their dad, and they couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to care.
“And even if I didn’t like him, I never really thought that he was … wrong,” Stan continues, snapping Ford out of his thoughts before he can fall in too deep. “I always thought it was my fault. That if I just did a little better, if I tried a little harder, then he wouldn’t … hate me so much.”
Ford opens his mouth to say that Dad didn’t hate him, of course he didn’t, but … the words die before they can leave his mouth.
He still isn’t sure they’re true. But he also isn’t sure that they aren’t.
And after forty years of mistakes, forty years of seeing things through tinted glasses, he has no room to tell Stan that what he thinks isn’t true.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing he can say.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he manages, and as hard as it is to speak, the words come easily. Because they’re true. “None of what Dad did. That was all on him.”
He expects an argument, a snort, a wave off. But Stan just makes a faint noise in the back of his throat.
“Yeah, I know.”
Ford is so ready to deny whatever he says that he has to pause to process what he actually said. And by the time he does, Stan is shrugging and moving to sit down on the small bench next to Ford’s makeshift desk.
“I mean, as much as I can,” he goes on. “It’s gonna be a while before I really believe it, but I’m willin’ to admit it, at least. I know he screwed up with us.”
He glances at Ford out of the corner of his eye. Ford isn’t sure what he’s looking for, so he just stands there, looking back at him. Stan looks away.
“But … even though I know that, I still thought … my whole life, I thought he was doin’ the right thing. What was best for me. I thought he was trying to make me better, I thought he did make me better, and I was just too stupid to …”
He presses his lips together, shaking his head.
“Hell, I even … even this summer, I was still talkin’ about him like that. Like what he did was for my own good.” He swallows hard. “That’s what I told Dipper. Or … what he saw in my head, apparently. When the murder triangle was rootin’ around in there.”
Ford stiffens. “Bill was in your—”
“Long story,” Stan cuts him off, and as much as Ford wants to hear it, he holds his tongue. Stan looks down at the floor. “I’d been real tough on him up until then. Still was after. Gave him the worst chores, made fun of him, even whacked him with a newspaper like Pa did. I thought I was making him stronger. Thought I was toughening him up.”
Something shines in his eyes, angry and pained and ashamed, and he doesn’t even bother to blink it away.
“Didn’t even think about some of that stuff until we talked a while back.”
The memory comes back to Ford within seconds. He didn’t listen in, but their boat is much too small for one of them to have a truly private call.
He missed most of the words, but he could tell—if only from the volume of the conversation—that for once, Mabel wasn’t there. Just Stan and Dipper. It struck him as odd, but he brushed it off without much thought. Just because Ford never noticed them bonding one-on-one doesn’t mean it never happened.
Part of him wishes he’d eavesdropped, so he could understand what Stan is talking about, but he brushes that thought aside before it can settle in.
Stan huffs a long breath that sounds so much heavier than air and shakes his head.
“He knew I meant well, in the end, but … that doesn’t change it. I still did the same things Pa did. That kid doesn’t deserve that.”
“Neither did you.”
“Yeah, but can’t exactly go back and change that, can I?” Stan asks, bitterness in his voice—toward their dad, toward himself, maybe both at the same time. Then his shoulders relax and his head tilts toward the floor. “But I can change what I do now. Least I can try.”
Ford sits on the bench next to him, trying to get in Stan’s line of view.
“You can change. You already have. Do you really think Dad would have endeared himself to both those kids over the summer?”
Stan winces. “Ugh! Don’t make me think about those kids spendin’ a summer with Pa.”
They laugh, but it’s shallow, breathy, and more uncomfortable than amused.
It feels wrong being glad that their father is dead, but if it means that Dipper and Mabel will never have to meet him …
Ford decides not to think any further on that.
They sit in silence for another couple of minutes, just letting everything said sink into them, breathed in like the salty sea air. Ford doesn’t intend to start speaking, but the thoughts churn in his head until his mouth opens all on its own, and when words settle on his tongue, he doesn’t try to stop them.
“It isn’t just you that picked up some of his habits.”
Stan turns toward him, his face twisted in such incredulity it’s almost funny. Ford doesn’t laugh.
“I mean it. Dad was an idiot if he couldn’t see how great you were, and … I was the same idiot. Even after he was gone, apparently.”
He can feel Stan’s gaze on him, even as he stares down at the floor. He doesn’t think he can meet his eyes right now. He bites the inside of his lip so hard it hurts, then shakes his head.
“He always said those horrible things about you, and I thought I knew they were wrong, but part of me …”
His mouth hangs open for a few minutes, helpless, useless. Stan shifts a little closer and nudges him with his elbow, more like a pat than a jab.
“It’s okay if you don’t know how to say it, Sixer,” he says, then gives him another nudge, even gentler than before. “You never had a way with words.”
Ford huffs a laugh, but shakes his head again. He needs to say this, needs to make Stan understand, even if he’s sure he’s going to make more of a mess out of this in the process.
“I always thought I was so different,” he goes on, and once he starts, the words tumble out like they’ve been waiting for a chance to go free. “So separate. Special. But I still soaked in everything he said. He said I would be worth something because I was smart, and I believed him. He said you were riding on my coattails, and I didn’t think I believed him, but …”
He stops again. He doesn’t look at Stan, doesn’t dare to, but he feels his eyes on him anyway. Feels the stare that he still doesn’t know how to read.
“It still stuck,” Stan finishes for him, voice as unreadable as the face Ford can’t see.
Ford hesitates.
“… yes.”
He waits for Stan to say something, but he doesn’t. He just sits there, looking at Ford, waiting for him to go on. Ford swallows and lets his mouth move on its own.
“I looked up to him, even though I didn’t realize it. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to live up to his standards. And I thought I could, if I worked hard enough.”
Something stings his palms, and he looks down to see his fists clenched in his lap, his nails digging into the skin of his hands. He forces them to relax, splayed out on his legs. All six fingers on display.
He tries to swallow one more time, but a lump in his throat stops him.
“And I guess, after so long of telling myself that … I thought that if he didn’t approve of someone else … they must just not have tried hard enough.”
He grits his teeth.
“I listened to him. I didn’t want to be anything like him, but I still took his word as the law of the universe. I still thought there had to be a reason for what he was doing, because if there wasn’t, then why …”
The bench creaks, and in the order of his eye, he sees Stan scooting closer, just enough so their knees touch. Their old silent way of reassuring each other. Ford tries to remember the last time he did that. How old they were. Where he’d done it. How many “last times” he missed out on because he never thought it would end.
Even though he was the one who ended it.
Even though he was the one who left his brother behind.
His teeth clench harder.
“And even then, that night, I … I should have said something, I should have done something, but I just … stood there, because I was angry, and I thought if Dad did it, it had to be—”
“Hey, hey, don’t … don’t beat yourself up over that,” Stan cuts in, gripping his shoulder, firm and grounding but somehow still gentle. “It was forty years ago.”
Ford huffs another laugh, and his lips twitch up at the corners. It couldn’t feel further from happy.
“I don’t think either of us have much ground to stand on when it comes to holding onto the past.”
Stan doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t drop his hand, and Ford is glad for the silent comfort.
Though part of him wishes otherwise when the next thought drifts into his head.
“You know … that was the first time he ever told me he was impressed.”
He doesn’t mean to say it, but he knows as soon as his mouth opens that he won’t be able to stop himself. And sure enough, Stan stares at him out of the corner of his eye, lips curved into a frown.
“What?”
Ford swallows so hard it feels like rocks going down his throat.
“That day in the principal’s office. When they talked about West Coast Tech.”
He swears half the air is sucked out of the room the moment he says it. Or maybe it’s just him, forgetting how to breathe, even though he’s the one that brought this up, he’s the one digging into something they’ve never really dealt with. They talked about it, of course, when Stan was still getting his memories back, Stan caught between guilt over breaking Ford’s project and anger over being left behind, and all Ford could do was apologize. Apologize for being ready to leave his best friend behind for a shiny new opportunity. Apologize for not thinking about what would happen after he left. Apologize for letting the principal call his brother an idiot, when he knew that Stan would have stood up for him in a second, no matter who was there.
But the wound is still raw, like a bone that healed wrong and needs to be broken again. And it’s going to be a long time before they can talk about it without pain.
Stan doesn’t speak. He’s still looking at him, but he stays silent, waiting for Ford to go on. Or maybe he’s just lost in his own memories, so much fresher since he regained them.
The hand doesn’t move.
Ford sucks in a deep breath and lets the rest of the words come.
“He would nod or hum sometimes if I gave him a good report card or brought home a trophy, but … he never said he was impressed. It felt like … like he was dangling that in front of me as a reward if I met his standards, even though he never told me what they were. Then the principal said I could be a future millionaire, and … he smiled. He actually smiled. And he said he was impressed, for the first time in my life.”
His lips curl up, but there’s nothing happy about it. The movement hurts, like he’s that teenager again, desperate for approval, desperate for the affection of a father who probably wasn’t capable of showing it. He’d smiled then, too. Smiled until Mom broke in and asked about Stanley, her little free spirit, and all he could do was sit there and wish the attention would stay on him, even as he choked on the guilt of listening to the principal talk about his brother like he would never make it in the world.
“That wasn’t all of it, of course,” he continues, stumbling over the words. “A lot of it was the college itself, all it represented, the idea of being a genius instead of a freak, being better than the people who put me down, but some of it …”
He stops. Stan is still sitting beside him, listening to him go on, but … this isn’t about him. This wasn’t supposed to be about him. This is about Stan. Stan is the one who’s suffered so much for his mistakes. Stan is the one who’s carried his burdens for as long as he can remember.
He clears his throat and sits up straighter.
“It’s no excuse, though. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change what I should have done or … not done. Any of it. All of it.”
He turns, searching for some kind of reaction, for a sign of whether he’s even close to on the right track. But Stan isn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes are on the floor, a furrow between his eyebrows. Ford’s heart sinks.
“Stanley?” he asks.
Stan lets out a shaking breath, and Ford curses himself again. Every time he tries to fix something, he just ends up making it worse. He’s no good at this. He’s good at things he can study, things he can read about, but this … this is so much harder than the most challenging concepts in physics, harder than the unsolved problems in mathematics that he spent all night on back in college.
Harder than his perpetual motion machine.
If he had spent half as much time paying attention to his brother as he did on that machine—
“Do you think he would’ve taken me back?”
Ford gives himself a bit of credit that this time, he hears what Stan said right away. He hears it, he understands it, but … it still doesn’t make sense. He runs the words over in his head like they’ll make more sense of he thinks about them, but they remain just as much of a mystery.
Finally, he notices the absence of Stan’s hand on his shoulder, and wonders how he could have missed it falling away.
“Stan?”
Stan winces and shakes his head.
“It’s stupid, I know, it’s not like … not like it matters, hasn’t mattered for thirty years, and he’s dead now, s’not like I can …”
Something clicks in Ford’s head, like the first pieces of a puzzle snapping into place. But he’s still confused, still staring at Stan as he shakes his head again and locks his eyes on the wall opposite him, something vague and longing on his face.
Like the look he gave Ford as he begged for a high six.
“But I always wondered, y’know? Even when I … knew it wasn’t ever gonna happen,” Stan goes on. He glances at Ford, and apparently Ford’s confusion is obvious. Stan drops his gaze to the floor. “He said not to come back until I’d made up the million bucks I cost the family.”
The last piece snaps into place.
Ford can’t breathe.
That whole night is a blur sometimes, but now it’s clearer than it’s ever been. He can almost see himself, stomping out of the living room, up to their shared bedroom, looking out the window just as Dad throws Stan onto the sidewalk. He could barely process that in the moment, barely process what Dad was doing, why he was doing it, because his brother betrayed him, his brother ruined everything, and he wanted him to suffer for it.
And after he closed the curtains, all he could hear was Stan’s muffled shouts about not needing them, about making it on his own. Proving them wrong.
It was just more proof that Stan leaving was a good thing.
Dad didn’t talk about him after that. Practically forbade anyone from bringing him up. Mom cried, Ford knows, sobbed alone in her room, but she kept silent around him.
Ford always thought Stan stayed away out of pride. Because he was fine, of course he was fine, he was Stan, but Ford never heard … never wondered …
His mouth works around at least ten different replies, before he finally swallows and tries again.
“I … didn’t … I never …”
He looks at Stan, not even sure why or what he hopes to see. And Stan looks back, more quietly serious than Ford has ever seen.
A long silence hangs between them. The waves rock the boat, sloshing around outside.
Stan sighs.
“Yeah,” he says, without even a hint of bitterness. “S’what I thought.”
Ford wants to say something, needs to say something, but … there’s nothing to say.
Nothing that will fix this. Nothing that will help.
Stan left—was kicked out—without so much as a high school degree. He had a car and a duffel bag—had that already been packed?—and maybe twenty dollars on his person. At most.
Dad never believed in Stan. Never said a word when the principal said he would be stuck scraping barnacles in New Jersey for the rest of his life.
“Don’t come back until you make a million dollars” was the same as “good riddance.”
Except an ultimatum gave Stan hope.
An ultimatum made him think that, if he couldn’t come home … it was because he failed.
Ford always thought Stan would be fine on his own. Or … well, he didn’t think, he just assumed. Because of course Stan would be fine. He was irresponsible and immature and no good at book smarts, but he had always been charming, and charm could get him places. It would get him places.
But it didn’t.
Not for ten years.
I’ve been to prison in three different countries! I once had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car!
And that whole time, Ford never stopped to think about how his brother was doing. He thought about him, plenty of times, seventeen years joined at the hip were impossible to erase, but he didn’t think …
His lips twitch, then fall back down.
Ironic, that so many of the problems of a supposed genius were caused because he didn’t think.
“Ford?” Stan asks, and Ford looks up, pushing aside all the regrets he knows he’s going to dwell on later. Now is the time for Stan.
“Yes?”
Stan keeps his eyes on him for a few seconds, then averts them. There’s something … not quite embarrassed, but still uncomfortable on his face, mixed with pain and hope and something that has no name.
“Do you think he loved us?”
The question leaves Ford frozen for what feels like much longer than the ten or so seconds it must be. He … thinks he’s asked himself that before. At some point. But probably not so directly, even in his own head. The word “love” wasn’t thrown around very much in the Pines household. Certainly not around Dad. Mom used it a few times, but even that was rare.
But even if it was never said …
Ford opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens and closes it a few more times.
Finally, he lets all his breath out in one heavy sigh.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs, as much to himself as to Stan. He chews on the inside of his lip. “There … there were moments when … it seemed like he did.”
Family dinners where they actually talked. That one Hanukkah before Shermie left home. Movie nights when they all piled on the couch and commented on the movie.
None of them are Ford’s fondest memories. Dad was never warm. Never the sort of person you looked forward to spending time with. But those moments were good. They were comfortable. And if someone had asked Ford then if Dad loved him … he probably would have said yes.
He opens his mouth again, then shakes his head.
“But … I don’t know.”
He remembers those good moments, but the bad ones are right behind. All the times he grunted and said he wasn’t impressed. All the times he smacked them for the smallest apparent offenses. All the times he talked about them like they were assets, investments—or, rather, like Ford was an investment, and Stan was someone he had gotten saddled with taking care of with no hope of a return.
And no matter how hard he tries, he can’t erase the bad things. Or the good things. They’re both there, stuck in his memories, co-existing, even though they’ll probably never get along.
“Maybe he thought he did,” Ford says at last, because that’s the only answer that makes even a bit of sense. “I guess everyone’s idea of love is different.”
Stan hums, maybe in agreement, maybe just in thought.
“Doesn’t make ‘em all right, though,” he mutters, staring down at the floor with a thoughtfulness that makes him look even older than he really is. “Just ‘cause you got one idea of love doesn’t mean it’s the love the other person needs.”
Ford turns to face him, one eyebrow raised.
“That’s … very wise.”
It comes out more surprised than he intends, but just as he’s about to apologize, Stan snorts.
“Don’t worry, I won’t do it too often.”
Ford bumps his shoulder into his, a gesture so old and familiar it actually aches.
“Knucklehead.”
“Nerd.” Stan nudges him back, a little more gently. But he’s smiling, and there’s something warm and soft behind it. Even though he looks so much older than most of Ford’s memories, Ford can see that boy in his eyes, see the friendship that once tied them together despite all of life’s hardships. They look at each other for a long few seconds before Stan huffs another laugh and looks down at his hands. “Those kids taught me a lot this summer. Way more than I taught them.”
“I think they taught me more than they taught you,” Ford says. Then, before Stan can take it the wrong way, he adds, “I had more to learn.”
Stan shrugs one shoulder.
“Eh, both of us were a little behind on some life lessons. Still are, probably.”
Ford smiles, his lips tight. “But we’re getting there.”
Stan turns to Ford in full, stares at him for a long moment, then smiles.
“Yeah. We are.”
He puts his hand back on Ford’s shoulder, and Ford returns the gesture. They sit there, allowing themselves a few seconds of pure, unadulterated sentimentality before they both look away, too awkward to continue. It’s sad, Ford thinks, that they’re still so embarrassed over gestures of affection. Maybe that’s a leftover from their father, too. Or maybe that’s just something they picked up from the world. Maybe he’ll never know.
They’ll get better at it, though. They already have.
They stay there for a minute, their hands on each other’s shoulders, a bit of solid reassurance on turbulent waters. Then Ford clears his throat, and a bit of the ice around them cracks, just enough for him to see that it can.
“So, uh … you never said whether you wanted to stop on land for a while. We’re close enough that we could probably get there by nightfall. I’m sure we could find a good bar.”
Stan snorts. “You, drinking?”
Ford raises an eyebrow. “What? You don’t think they have alcohol-like substances in other dimensions?”
“No, I can’t believe you drank them!”
“Well, not all of them were beverages, strictly speaking … and it wasn’t exactly sensible to be inebriated when I had so many bounties on my head …”
“Sensible?” Stan asks, almost choking on another laugh. “Sixer, you may be a genius, but look at us. We’re coming up on sixty and we just bought a boat to go freeze our butts off looking for magic and monsters and weirdness. Since when has either of us ever been sensible?”
Ford feels his own smirk soften into a smile. Yes, all of this is new and he has no idea how to navigate it, but they’re together. They’ll find a way through it, just like they always used to.
“Good point.” He looks back to the wall in front of them. There’s nothing there, of course, but he imagines that on the other side of the hull, far across the ocean and land, there’s their old home in Glass Shard Beach. Probably owned by someone else now, if it’s even still standing. Mom in a nursing home. Dad in a grave. “You know … part of me wishes he was still alive. I’d love to see the look on his face when he saw us now.”
“Ha!” Stan jerks forward, slapping his free hand down on his knee. “If he wasn’t already dead, he’d probably have a heart attack!”
It’s … morbid, and a little uncomfortable, but Ford laughs anyway. He’s never been much for respecting the dead.
It takes them a minute to stop chuckling, and when they do, the silence feels a little lighter. Still heavy. Still thick with things they haven’t dealt with. They’ll talk about their father again. Maybe with bitterness. Maybe with grief. Maybe with something neither of them have a word for.
They’ve got plenty of time to sort through it all.
Ford squeezes Stan’s shoulder, and they turn to look at each other at the same time. The eye contact is a little awkward, but maybe less so than when they started talking. The ice is thinner, and it’s starting to thaw.
“I know it’s … not the same,” Ford starts, forcing himself not to glance away, even when his cheeks heat up. “But for what it’s worth … no matter what he thought of you as a son, I couldn’t be prouder to have you as a brother.”
Stan stares back for a full five seconds, then blinks once, twice, and jerks his head away. Ford can still see the faint shine of tears.
“Sap,” Stan mutters, then glances back to him, a quirk of a smile on his lips. “You too.”
“What was that?” Ford asks.
“What?” Stan wipes his eyes, doing a terrible job of hiding it, and looks back to him with the worst poker face he’s ever worn. “You must be hearin’ stuff.”
Ford smirks, but doesn’t argue.
He isn’t sure how long they sit there, and he doesn’t try to keep track of the time. The ocean rocks the boat back and forth, and he lets the waves carry them, lets himself sink into the peace of this moment.
It’s been a long time since he felt comfortable in stillness. It’s been a long time since he truly believed that things will be okay.
It won’t be easy, and they have a long, long way to go. But they’re together. They’re moving forward. It’s all he can ask.
Ford’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He doesn’t want to let go of Stan’s shoulder, but his life vest is in the way, and he ends up needing both hands to free the phone. He can feel Stan’s eyes flicking toward him, as he unlocks it, even though he already knows who’s responsible for the five more buzzes he feels before the text conversation slides into view.
Did you talk to him?
Is he still all sad and grumpy?
I can send more sweaters! He says he doesn’t like them but I knows he loves them!!
Or cookies!
Mabel, I don’t think you can ship cookies that far. They don’t even have an address.
You can find a way, right Grunkle Ford??
Ford smiles at the phone, cradling it in his hand like he’s hugging the kids from a distance. It’s been just over two months since they saw them, but it already feels like much too long.
He doesn’t want to think about where he’d be without them. Where he’d be if not for all they taught him, all they’re still teaching him. If not for them, he wouldn’t have his brother back. He wouldn’t be out on the sea, living their shared childhood dream. He wouldn’t have been humbled enough to reach out for help when he needs it.
Dad wouldn’t have reached out for help. Dad would have said it was a sign of weakness.
If Ford can reach out without shame … if he can see that these two thirteen-year-olds are far wiser than he is … then he’s already come further than Dad ever did.
And he’s got plenty of years left to get better still.
“Hey Stan?” he asks, resting his hand—and the phone—back in his lap.
Stan’s attention is already on him, but he lifts his head. “Mm?”
Ford smiles. “Are you up for a video call with the kids?”
Stan doesn’t look nearly as surprised as he otherwise might, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from gleaming.
“You have to ask?”
Before Ford can reply, he’s on his feet, crossing the room to grab the laptop. Ford laughs and shakes his head, but follows his brother without complaint.