Work Text:
Ford watched as the kids play in the yard of the shack, a new book in his hands as he wrote in it. Mabel and Dipper were the closest thing he'd ever gotten to having kids of his own. The way they laughed, and how Mabel squealed out of the lazy Saturday afternoon fun filled ford with some happiness he hadn't felt in years. He wondered idly if things had been different, and he had stayed connected to his family when he moved here, if he could've met the twins as infants, and watched them grow up. Had them here in the summers before. But things hadn't been different. Though he was glad that things worked out in the end, and he got to have summers full of family fun and warmth. Dipper still helped him with his research, and Mabel was teaching him how to knit. He sighed softly as he shut the book and slid it into his pocket. Mabel had pinned dipper in a tickle fight she was clearly winning, so Ford decided to come back up Dipper. He crept up behind her with a grin on his face as he reach down and started tickling under her arm pits, her laughing and flailing at the tickles, trying to free herself from the attack.
Ford didn't want summer to end, but he knew next year they'd be back again, and the summer after that. Yes, this was a life he could live with.