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He walks up the stairs, careful to take his time. His body isn't what it used to be, after all. Once he finally reaches the top, he pauses, holding his back. Damn his back problems! That's one of the many downsides of growing old; especially for someone like him, who hasn't taken great care of his body. Ford is right. He should do more exercises.
(They run away from the buffalos, terrified. They know they can't outrun the beasts forever and they both hope that some miracle will appear to save them and get them back home.
The complete opposite happens.
Mabel trips for a second. Not enough to lose her balance and fall to the ground, but enough to drop the time machine that she's been holding. She watches in horror as it falls to the ground and gets shattered under a buffalo's hoof.)
As soon as the back pain fades away, he continues his walk, towards a closed door. He pauses a moment in front of it, unsure of himself. It's been a while since he's been in this room and even now, so many years later, he still feels like he is intruding in some way - even though this room has been vacant for a long time now.
Finally he gathers his courage and enters.
(Once the two are safe from the animals, stuck in an old covered wagon with a poor family, she panics. She cries. She hyperventilates. She apologizes profusely to her brother.
She breaks.)
His heart breaks all over again as he stands in the middle of the room and takes in his surroundings. For a moment it gets harder to breath. It still looks the same as it did all these years ago. He never changes anything in this room and he rarely visits it, except to occasionally remove the dust or reminisce about the past.
He stays there for a long while, touching the childrens belongings and holding a sort of private reverence for himself.
(They try waiting for help at first. But hours turn into days. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. By the time the next season rolls around, they start to lose that little hope.
The family they're stuck with try their best to feed and care for the two extra children, but it's hard. They don't have enough money. It doesn't take long, before the twins are forced to work for their own meals.)
He waited so long for their return... For answers from the police... For anything... But even today no one knows what happened to them. They just... disappeared.
Stan still blames himself for spending that whole day in his dunk tank, gloating to all his customers, instead of checking up on the kids. If he had been with them that day, maybe they would still be here...
With a sigh he turns around and leaves the room. He slowly makes his way down to the kitchen, where Ford is sitting at the table and eating breakfast, and Stan cracks his first genuine smile that day. At least he still has his brother, even if it took him a few years longer than expected to get that damn portal to work.
(They often miss their family. They can't help but wonder what their parents, or Grunkle, are doing back at home. Even though the family they're living with now tries to care for the twins as if they were their real children, Mabel and Dipper just can't accept those strangers as family, when their real relatives are still back in the future.
It gets easier to accept those strangers as their new family, the more years pass. At the time that Mabel reaches her seventeenth birthday, she finally starts calling her caretaker “mom”.)
They eat breakfast together for a while and talk about various topics, before Stan gets up and starts to get ready to go outside. Ford gives him a weird stare, but doesn't say anything else. His twin brother knows what day it is today: Pioneer day. He also knows that Stan hates that day with a passion and usually prefers to stay inside the shack.
Stan doesn't tell him the reason for why he wants to go outside.
(They never tell their new family where they came from or why they had these strange clothes and gadgets at their arrival, instead thinking up some lie. They doubt those people would've believed them anyway.
Living in the past, with none of the present days comforts, is hard. It takes the twins a long while to get used to it. Dipper, having taken a job as a carpenter's apprentice, finally starts building some muscles over the years and becomes more confident because of it and even Mabel gets somewhat used to her expected role as a diligent, future housewife, if very reluctantly.
But she must be somewhat attractive in her new role, because a tradesman's son starts to lay eyes on her and eventually asks for her hand in marriage.)
Pioneer day is still as annoying and underwhelming as Stan remembers. He watches all the townsfolk prance around in their fancy costumes and rolls his eyes. He never showed any interest in that festival and he doesn't think he ever will.
After all, why glorify the past, when it sucked for everyone? (Living in a car, running from mobsters...)
Why think fondly back on past times, if it just gives you pain? (Faces he will never see again, working for years on that wretched machine...)
The past sucks. And the less he gets reminded of it, the better.
(Mabel shows great reluctance at first, still hoping for a different path in her life. But the family is too poor and the marriage with that tradesman's son would provide much needed resources. Plus no one else in that little town shows any interest towards that weird, eccentric woman, so this might be her only chance at being married off.
The young woman though doesn't want to be married. She still wants to explore herself, her life, her options... She still, against all odds, has that tiny glimmer of hope left in her that rescue might come one day.
But her twin brother doesn't share that hope and her new adoptive family starts to put pressure on her. In the end Mabel gives in and officially takes on her husband's name.
Her glimmer dies that day.)
He finally reaches his destination: The local library. The woman at the desk is already expecting him, having seen Mr. Pines visit this library daily for the past two weeks now, and greets him warmly. Stan greets her back just as warmly and briefly suppresses a grin. He wonders about his brother's reaction, if he ever finds out that Stan actually spends his free time in a library of all places. He can just imagine Ford's face and his playful jabs against Stan, about how he finally decided to educate himself more...
But Stan isn't here for education or to read anything. Instead, he is here for a very special book...
(Mabel begins writing in secret. It is one of the few hobbies that she has left and where she can freely express herself. She never shows her little poems and stories to anyone, except to Dipper. In fact, it's only towards her twin brother that she shows her true self. Only he knows about her real thoughts and dreams and fears. Only he can understand.
The young man tries his best to support his twin sister, but just like Mabel, he too feels crushed under societies expectations. The older he gets, the more is expected from him and the more he has to work. Before he knows what's happening, he too gets tied down with a family.)
He found that book by total accident. He had been hiding out in this library for a few minutes, to have his peace from the ruckus going on outside, when he had seen this book lying open on a table. Someone must have left it there.
At first Stan was just going to ignore that book - after all, he wasn't here to read - but then his curiosity got the better of him. That book seemed to have many interesting pictures inside and he didn't know how to better waste his time, until the ruckus outside finally died down. And so he took a peek.
The moment he looked at this book, he knew that him stumbling upon it must have been destiny or something like that.
After that day, he started visiting the library daily.
(Mabel and Dipper's wife spend a lot of time together, especially after they've both fallen pregnant around the same time. It didn't take long for the two young women to start a friendship and Mabel is glad to finally have someone besides Dipper to hang out with. Dipper's wife is bright and funny and all around a pleasant person. Mabel really likes her.
For a moment, she looks down at her belly. She hopes she can like the baby as well, at least more than she likes her husband. Married life is quite different than Mabel had expected, but she has learned to accept that fact and make do with what she has. After all, you don't have much choice when you're stuck in a place like this.)
The woman at the desk makes sure to wish Stan a good day as he leaves. Stan wishes her a good day in return and hopes that she doesn't notice the suspicious, square-shaped bulge under his jacket. He has been debating with himself for the past few days now on whether to steal that book or not, but in the end his old habits won over.
As he leaves the library, he kind of feels bad that he won't see that friendly woman anymore, now that he finally has that book and thus no reason to visit this place. Oh well, he can still pop in every now and again just to say hi.
He hurries back home after this, glad to leave the town and their pioneer stuff behind. Again his brother shoots him a weird look when Stan just hurries inside the house, not even greeting Ford, and immediately locks himself in his room.
Once he comfortably sits on his bed, Stan opens the book to a specific page and looks at the photo displayed there.
(It's a big day. The day that the two twins and their respective families are gathering together for a big family photo.
Mabel has many troubles getting her two unruly kids under control and it takes several minutes, before the little boy and girl finally learn to sit still. Dipper laughs a bit at that, having himself spend an eternity beforehand to calm his own daughter down.
As the photographer takes the final preparations, before shooting his photo, the twins take a quick, stolen glance at each other. Both of them are smiling tentatively at the other one, their smiles never quite reaching their eyes.
All things considered, it has been a good twelve years, considering the circumstances. Yes, they are forever separated from everything and everyone they know and love, they are stuck in their strict family roles and the future still looks unsure... But they are safe and fed and that's all that matters right now.
It has been a good twelve years...)
He stares a long time at that faded photo. It's showing an old family that lived about 150 years ago during pioneer times. In fact, that whole book is just a collection of old photos and stories about that forgotten era. Not really something he needs in his collection.
But it's that photo that catches his eyes. The way that man and woman stand prominently in the middle, surrounded by their partners and children. The way these two look so similar to each other. (Twins, his brain immediately adds.) The way their faces feel so... familiar to him. Just like two other faces that he lost years ago.
Stan doesn't dwell on the question of why these two long dead people just resonate with him so much or why their faces look so eerily similar to his great-niece and -nephew. But he feels drawn to this photo, so he keeps that book close to his heart.
His eyes stray away from that family photo and land on a little poem right next to it. Apparently, according to the books description, this poem was written by the wife of a certain Mr. Miller, a once successful tradesman, and her son discovered it after her death. Stan takes the time to read it and is surprised at how well it reflects his own feelings...
(Mabel sits at the desk, glad to have some quiet time to herself after her third child, a healthy baby girl, finally fell asleep. She dives the feather into the ink bottle and puts the finishing touch on her newest work. Once she's done, she takes the time to read the whole thing, her eyes shedding some tears while doing it:
Where, oh where, have all the familiar faces gone?
Now that I am surrounded by nothing but strangers?
Even so, I must go on
And face all of these foreign dangers
My final goodbye, they will never hear
Just tell, what are they doing now?
I still hold our memories so dear
Maybe once I am living in heaven, I can look upon them below...)