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The sweater is purple.
It’s not bad - definitely better than the child’s first few ideas. It could have been a much more aggressive purple, but it’s darker, more muted, closer to an eggplant colour than the eye-searing neon Mabel had favoured, and there is no glitter anywhere to be seen.
The legend “World’s #1 Great-Aunt!” springs off the chest in bold white lettering. It’s reversed in the mirror, but that’s never kept Ford from reading anything.
Beside her in the glass, Mabel puts her hands on her hips, proudly surveying her handiwork. “Well, it doesn’t really demonstrate my full range of knitting techniques, or my terrific sense of colour -”
“It’s perfect,” Ford says, pulling the sweater up away from where it lies flat across her chest and wishing her voice didn’t sound that much deeper when it’s choked up.
Mabel beams. “Well, of course! It’s a one hundred percent original Mabel Pines creation!”
“Hmmn,” Ford says, noncommittal, letting go of the sweater. She hasn’t spent this much time looking at her reflection in - a long time, longer for sure than just the thirty years she didn’t have time or mirrors to do so, and she’s starting to remember why. The face in the mirror still looks too, too much like her brother, even more now, as she’s aged, square and solid like the rest of her, even if the scarf she invented has reduced the hair on her face to near-invisible fineness and the mascara Mabel offered really does add emphasis and drama to her eyes.
And before she can stop it, she’s remembering -
…
“WELCOME TO THE MINDSCAPE!”
The little yellow, triangular, cycloptic being - his muse, Bill - throws his narrow black limbs akimbo, gesturing to the chaos of things around them. Ford peers cautiously around him, snagging a book as it flies by and opening it on an equation he vaguely remembers learning, once. “We’re in my thoughts?”
Bill waves a hand dismissively, his body flickering with faint light as his voice grates out of nowhere and everywhere at once. “YOUR THOUGHTS, MY THOUGHTS, YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS DESIRES AND FEARS, THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS OF HUMANITY - IF YOU BELIEVE IN THAT STUFF!” Bill wipes an imaginary tear from his single eye. “MAN, THAT JUNG, WHAT A GUY! REALLY KNEW HOW TO PARTY!!”
He snaps his fingers, and the book Ford had been examining flies out of Ford’s hands, turning into a full-length mirror before his eyes. Ford tugs his sleeves down self-consciously at the sight of his reflection, but he doesn’t have more than about a second to dwell before Bill snaps his fingers again and Ford’s twelve-year-old self is staring back at him from the mirror.
“YOU CAN DO OR BE ANYTHING IN THE MINDSCAPE!” Bill says brightly, snapping his fingers again. The image of Ford in the mirror is older, taller and broader in the shoulders, grey in his hair and along his squared jaw, a determined focus in his expression behind the goggles covering his eyes. Ford feels a pinching sensation around his own head and reaches up, pulls the goggles off. He looks down, sees himself dressed in the same long, dusty coat and worn clothing as his reflection, knows somehow that he’s a little taller than he was before Bill started shifting his shape, can feel the hard-earned strength in his own limbs for an instant before Bill snaps his fingers again.
The Ford in the mirror this time is slim, even more so than he usually is, slender shoulders and the soft swell of hips and breasts visible even under her - his usual turtleneck and trenchcoat.
Ford turns his head, and the woman in the mirror turns hers with him, six slender fingers coming up to brush a hand along her jaw, soft and surprisingly smooth, still strong but without the rough-hewn squareness Ford had inherited from his father. His short haircut looks pixyish and whimsical above her face, visible cheekbones and wide, dark eyes, and there’s something - some kind of softness to her, to her gentle curves and the lines of her face, still so identifiably Ford’s but so different, that makes him think that maybe broad shoulders and rough strength wasn’t what he’d wanted for himself, after all.
Then Bill snaps his fingers again, and grey fur blooms all over Ford with a faint ticklish prickle as he shifts into the shape of a small grey cat. Then with another snap, he’s back to his usual self, feeling a little shaken as the mirror dissolves.
He’s not quite sure how he can tell, since Bill doesn’t have a mouth, but Ford is sure somehow that Bill is smiling when he says, “ALL YOU NEED IS A LITTLE IMAGINATION!”
…
Bill had needed Ford’s body “FOR SOMETHING IMPORTANT, DON’T WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT IT, SIXER!” and left Ford to entertain himself in the Mindscape. And without Bill there, there isn’t much Ford doesn’t already know in the flocks of books that wing their way by or the chalkboards that occasionally breach the surface.
However, there is one thing that the Mindscape has to offer that the real world doesn’t.
“Ooh, Ford!”
The three busty blondes currently oohing and aahing over him are just figments of his imagination, but, Ford figures, this is about as close as he’s ever going to get to the real thing. Girls are terrifying, have always been terrifying, beautiful, awe-inspiring, with their doe eyes and curves and long legs and shining hair, but terrifying. And they never - well, almost never - fall all over skinny, odd, deformed nerds with brilliant minds.
Except here.
“You’re so smart, Ford!” the blonde he has mentally dubbed Debbie coos, draping her glorious golden head across his shoulder, and Ford smiles, puffing up his pigeon chest. “Tell us about your unified theory of dimensional spacetime!”
“Well, I would,” Ford says, “but I don’t think you’d be able to understand it.”
The blondes all sigh in unison.
“Ford is soooooo smart,” Debbie repeats, to the other two blondes, as though they’re not thinking the exact same thing.
“And so successful for someone so young!” the blonde he’s calling Michelle gushes, rubbing his shoulders slowly, meaningfully.
“And she’s so pretty!” the third blonde, the one he hasn’t decided on a name for yet, adds, and Ford freezes. He turns to look over his shoulder at her, and her lips part slightly in magnificent confusion, sharing a blank look with her sister-clones. “Uh. So beautiful?”
“You’re a figment of my imagination,” Ford says, hollowly, and the blonde gives him a sheepish smile. “You came out of my head. You only say what I want to hear.”
“Handsome!” the blonde says, proudly, like she’s just solved a particularly difficult equation.
Ford waves a hand, and all three blondes vanish.
He’s still by himself when Bill returns, knees tucked up against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Bill looks around at the maze of slowly rotating mirrors hovering all around, and says, “OH HEY, YOU’RE ALONE! WASN’T EXPECTING THAT!”
“I’m alone,” Ford agrees, slowly. It feels like unfreezing from long glaciation, and he starts when a hand lands on his shoulder.
Bill looks down at him with an unusually fond expression in his single eye. “NOT ANYMORE!” Bill says, and Ford feels a small smile break across his face.
…
“Bill, I - can I ask you about something…weird?”
Bill stops in the middle of animating one of Ford’s equations. “FINALLY! YA KNOW, I WAS STARTING TO THINK YOU’D NEVER SAY ANYTHING!”
Ford nearly drops the metaphysical concept he’s holding. “You -”
“WE’RE IN YOUR HEAD!” Bill gestures, the chalkboards spinning around them at the movement. “THIS IS MY DOMAIN! I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU HUMANS - ALL YOUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS!” He grins, with no mouth, and Ford feels chunks of ice gathering around his heart. “LET ME GUESS, YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT -”
Bill makes a popping sound with a tongue he doesn’t have, points one finger at Ford like a gun, and Ford feels his body shift. He wraps his coat tighter around himself, feeling stupid, feeling small. “Put me back.”
“YOU COULD DO IT YOURSELF!” Bill observes, tucking both hands behind a head he doesn’t have, and Ford curls a little closer into himself. “YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO!”
Ford doesn’t. He’s come to relish his time alone in the Mindscape, while Bill is out fine-tuning their work on the portal, the brief moments of relief from being clumsy and square and rough and fixed, solid. But this - even with all his clothes gathered around him, he feels more exposed than in any nightmare about forgetting pants at an exam.
“Put me back, please,” he whispers.
“WHY? THIS IS PROBABLY THE ONLY PLACE YOU CAN EVER BE EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO BE! YOU’RE LUCKY YOU CAME TO TALK TO ME INSTEAD OF SOME HUMAN! THEY GET SO EDGY ABOUT THEIR SILLY SOCIAL RULES! MAN, IS THAT EVER THE SIGN OF A MAMMALIAN SPECIES UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THEIR ULTIMATE INSIGNIFICANCE AND TOTAL LACK OF CONTROL OVER THE UNIVERSE!” Bill turns a quick backflip, swooping in to bring himself eye-to-single-eye with Ford. “LIKE I SAID, I’M WELL ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR SPECIES’ DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS, AND TRUST ME, THIS ONE DOESN’T EVEN RATE! BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT ME TO PUT YOU BACK THE WAY I FOUND YOU -”
“No!” Ford tries to swallow the word, swallow his own desperation, knowing it’s already too late. “No. Please, I want -”
He stops. He doesn’t know what he wants.
Bill’s eye scrunches up at the bottom in a smile. “THOUGHT SO! HEY, CHIN UP, KID.” He reaches out and tucks one finger under Ford’s chin, raising Ford’s head. The hateful mirror is back, showing the woman Ford could be, can be, but only in his head, Bill perched on one of her shoulders with an arm genially wrapped around her neck. She’s just as beautiful as the first time Ford saw her, and the gentle press of breasts against the arm he holds wrapped around his front, the soft brush of Bill’s hand across smooth skin as he pats the side of Ford’s face, makes Ford want to cry.
“LOOK AT US!“ Bill says brightly, squishing Ford’s face up against one of his sides. “THE MUSE AND THE BRILLIANT WOMAN WHO’S ABOUT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!”
Ford manages to swallow around the lump in his - her - throat, to muster a watery smile. Bill gives her face another few pats before letting her go.
“WEAR WHATEVER SHAPE YOU WANT AROUND HERE! I WON’T TELL A SOUL!” Bill says, and Ford tucks her coat a little closer around herself again.
“I - thank you.” She meets Bill’s eye, and this time, her smile feels genuine. “I’m very lucky to have you as a friend.”
…
"Bill! You lied to me!”
It’s automatic, now, that the moment Ford enters the Mindscape, she takes the shape that’s started to feel right, to feel like it’s hers. But this time, she forces herself to shake it off, to go back to the body she’s forced to wear in the waking world. Anything Bill gave her could be a further trick, a trap, a - she’d trusted him! She’d trusted him, and - “Where does that portal really lead?”
“LOOKS LIKE MISS BRANIAC FINALLY GOT SMART!” Bill does a double take at the sight of Ford, his eye widening. “OR IS THAT MISTER BRANIAC AFTER ALL?”
It takes two leaping steps from book to floating book to put Ford on level with Bill and the rip Bill’s opened into - some kind of nightmare. She grabs him by the bowtie and drags him forward, forcing him to meet her glare eye to eye. “Why don’t you tell me? Aren’t you supposed to know me better than I know myself? You’ve had all the answers so far.”
Bill has the audacity to laugh. “YOU BET I HAVE! BUT GIVE YOURSELF SOME CREDIT, FOUR-EYES! I COULDN’T HAVE DONE ANY OF THIS WITHOUT YOU!”
Ford’s fist clenches around Bill’s bowtie, and she tries with no success to rip it from his smug face. “I trusted you.”
Bill’s triangular body flashes as he pulls back. “WELL, WE CAN’T ALL BE PERFECT! NOT EVERYONE CAN BE ME!”
"I’m going to stop you,” Ford promises, for once appreciating the throaty growl she can put into her voice.
Bill laughs, again, and whatever is obscenely shifting and pulsing on the other side of the rift he’d been studying laughs with him, horrible static crackles and thick, sticky guffaws and high mosquito whines. “YOU CAN’T STOP WHAT’S COMING! BUT IT’LL BE FUN TO WATCH YOU TRY!”
…
Ford shuts the portal down. She’ll - he’ll give up all his work before he’ll let Bill win, let Bill be right.
It proves more complicated than simply pulling an off switch, and there are whispers in the walls, the walls she - he had built. Bill’s eyes are everywhere, and Ford knows they’re watching. And the dreams come thick and fast, every time she closes her eyes. They’re nothing but reminders, of how wrong her body fits, of how trapped she is, how little she fits into the life she had before. She’s been Stanford Filbrick Pines, good son, unacknowledged genius, for an entire lifetime; how is it that she can’t just go back to the way things were before?
It’s four in the morning the night it gets to be too much. It wasn’t even a dream of anything in particular. She’d just been sitting reading, in the window seat in the attic. But everything had been right. She’d happened to glance down at herself once and seen only what she expected to see, only what she’d wanted to see. Just herself. Just the way she was supposed to be.
She sterilizes the handsaw with a Bunsen burner, numbs the pain with half a bottle of over-the counter painkillers, tapes the wound shut over the steel plate and sterilizes again with half a bottle of rubbing alcohol and then tries not to think, not to sleep.
The dreams don’t stop, but they do slow. And finally, Ford’s mind clears enough to think, to consider what to do next. Bill will just get someone else, some other fool, to fix the portal, to get it back up and running, unless -
Unless Ford gets rid of it.
Unless Ford dismantles or destroys the portal she’s worked so long and hard to create, sacrificed so much for, gets rid of the instructions, destroys the Journals that contain them -
Unless Ford gives up all of her - his, dammit - work.
In the end, it isn’t Bill who calls her - his - bluff. Stanley has hair down to his shoulders and blessedly normal eyes when he finally arrives, and maybe it’s jealousy as much as fear that blinds Ford, makes her try to rush him away again.
She shouldn’t have done that. She should have let the Journal burn. She should have - should have never trusted Bill Cipher in the first place.
It’s cold, in the dark, in the middle of the night, in whatever world she’s found herself in, and the portal doesn’t reopen. She finds a sheltered spot, and curls up as tight as she can, trying to cover as much of herself with her coat as possible.
There’s no point in even trying to pretend anymore. She’s lost. She lost. The portal she built is still operational, and she knows it will only be a matter of time before Bill finds someone else to open it.
But what stings the most, even more than this fresh betrayal from someone she’d already known she couldn’t count on, is knowing that Bill was right about her.
Ford Pines is exactly what every childhood bully has ever said about her. She is a freak, and she is a fool, and she is so, so entirely alone.
…
“Hang on, something’s missing,” Mabel says, stroking her chin thoughtfully as she surveys her handiwork in the dirty, cracked hall mirror. “Hmm…I know!”
She reaches up and pulls off her own headband, purple ribbon, and motions for Ford to bend down. Ford obliges, kneeling so that Mabel can fuss with her hair, tying the ribbon into place. Mabel takes a step back, squinting thoughtfully at the finished product, before giving Ford a smile and a thumbs up. “There! Take a look, and see what kind of magic Mabel’s made!”
Ford straightens up, taking a moment to steel herself before she looks in the mirror.
It’s not the transformation it would have been in the Mindscape, or even a few of the dimensions she’d passed through. She’s still square, broad-shouldered and flat-chested, still blocky and undelicate and awkward. But - the mascara does really make her eyes pop, and whatever Mabel’s done with her hair almost looks stylish, and…
Stanley, shuffling down the hallway behind them, pauses, looks Ford over briefly, and says, “Looks nice, Mabel. You’re getting better with that makeup. Say, you wanna make me a ’#1 Grunkle’ sweater?”
“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel gasps, squaring her stance and putting her hands on her hips. “Aren’t you going to compliment your sister on her makeover?”
Stan looks Ford over again, briefly, before scratching the back of his neck with a slight nod. “Yeah, yeah, you look nice or whatever. Are you two done with all that hair and makeup crap in the bathroom now? Can I take a whiz?”
“Great-Aunt Ford!” The boy - Dipper - speeds around the corner, nearly leaving streaks of rubber where he slides to a halt. “You’ve gotta come see this, I think it’s a new species of fairy, I’ve never seen anything like it before -”
“Dipper!” Mabel protests. “It’s my turn to hang out with Grauntie Ford, you spent all of yesterday playing that nerd game in the basement!”
“It is not a ‘nerd game’, Mabel -”
Ford lets the cheerful argument wash over her, risking another glance at her reflection. The hint of a smile goes a long way towards softening her features, she thinks.
Fool, she may be. Freak, even. But alone?
Never.