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Anna loved Ford, she really did. She loved him to pieces. She loved him to hell and back. But the blister growing on her pinkie toe as they trekked up this mountain trail to heights that just seemed to be getting further and further with each step made remembering that a near-Sisyphean task.
“Watch that rock, my love!” he shouted back at her as he stepped over a stone and continued up the mountain, seeming unphased by the breakneck speeds he seemed hell-bent on the two of them maintaining or the hours of journeying they’d already endured uphill or the heat settling into the springtime weather.
Anna looked at the rock. She briefly considered chucking it at him. But the thought evaporated just as quickly, and she sighed, stepping over it and continuing upward.
Really, this was her fault. When he’d woken her up at the crack of dawn, with a dozen kisses on her forehead and a bright smile saying he had something big planned for her, she’d felt some kind of hope that this would be a romantic surprise. A sunrise picnic with coffee and tea and a homemade breakfast, perhaps? Maybe a visit to the lake? Maybe a trip to that clifftop they both liked, where they could overlook the redwoods.
She knew Ford was often very …. Practical. He was romantic, sure, but it often took a backseat to the research at hand… which Anna really didn’t mind! She loved Ford’s passion for the strange, for the oddities in the woods. Seeing the way he paid attention, the way he could recite details and chemical compositions of the flora, the love he so clearly had for what he did - it was enough to make her fall in love with him all over again most days. She’d told Stan as much the last time they’d hung out, when they were gushing about their respective partners.
But she’d also confessed to Stan, as Stan had confessed to her, that sometimes their partners get so lost in the weeds of their research that they forget to enjoy the finer points of their time together.
So maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised when Ford, instead of asking for a nice Sunday trip with a basket of baked goodies, asked her to accompany him to the barf fairy’s mushroom ring, at the top of the mountain… to collect barf.
“Well, I’ll need a second pair of hands,” he’d said with a wide smile at 6 o-clock in-the-goddamn-morning. “And after all, with all the rain we’ve gotten, we’re gonna see more rainbows, and that means more Leprecorns. And you know those Leprecorns - the barf-fairy barf is the only thing that’s going to keep those annoying little rats at bay.”
Anna didn’t know if it was the warm smile he was giving her, or the hopeful look in his eyes, or his very endearing excitement for barf-collection… but she agreed to accompany him, and here she was, marching uphill on a muddy trail that was just damp and loose enough to be slightly treacherous, with a basket full of fairy nets and glass vials jangling like a tambourine, instead of a picnic blanket and a delicious breakfast spread.
Whether the rainbows were coming this month or not, all the rain was currently doing was making this warm April day twice as humid. Anna felt like she was practically swimming uphill. She had lagged behind a couple times during this journey, and both times, instead of taking a break, and appreciating the scenery around them like Ford might typically do (he had completely ignored a family of shimmering purple mushrooms catching the morning light), he had pulled a spectrometer device out of his pocket, taken some readings, and then insisted they make it to the top of the mountain before sunset, like the barf fairies were going to up and leave if they didn’t. (Still, Anna agreed and continued on, really not wanting to make the journey downhill in the dark.)
He’d actually taken the spectrometer out a few times throughout the journey, paying more attention to the readings as they journeyed uphill than to the beautiful splendor around them. It felt almost unlike him.
Anna paused, hearing a rustling to the left, and a distant clanking sound. She tentatively peered over the side of the trail, which currently was overlooking a cliffside of trees and rivers, all shining with last night’s rain in the sunlight. A gasp left her - the Oregon wilderness was a whole new kind of beautiful this time of year. There were wildflowers growing in a batch on the distant hills, blue jays flitting down from the tippy tops of redwoods to the tops of the birches, all shimmering in the dew and the collected rain. But she caught a different kind of glimmer in the valley spreading below her. A bright purple sparkle - no, not one, several of them! Hundreds of them! And when she saw the source, she smiled brightly, unable to believe her eyes!
“Ford! Ford, come here! The Geodites! They came out from the caves!”
As Ford made his way back around whatever corner of trees he’d disappeared behind, Anna couldn’t help but stare at the glimmering crystals, all grouped together in a clackering huddle at the mouth of the forest cave they’d emerged from. The geodites were one of Gravity Falls’ many unique creatures, a species of geode-like rock critters that live underneath Gravity Falls, with glowing eyes and crystalline teeth. But why had they emerged? Had the rain flooded the cave networks? Had they come out to communicate with Geodites from another cave network, perhaps the one Anna knew resided behind the waterfall? Were they eating the vines that grew outside the cave mouth? Were they just enjoying the sunlight after the long winter?
Ford emerged from around the bend. “Anna, my sweet, we need to hurry. The- wait, they really have emerged! I don’t think I’ve seen them out of their caves before!”
Anna smiled wide. Maybe they could finally stop rushing about, and enjoy this walk. She loved Gravity Falls - she didn’t want this expedition to be a chore. Maybe if they had more chances to appreciate the nature around them, even barf-collection could be fun! After all, how many times would they be up at these heights in the midst of a lovely spring day like this?
Ford looked at the sight with a brief expression of marvel, but it was overtaken with the furrow of his eyebrows as he glanced at the sun.
Anna realized what was coming a second before he said it, and found her smile dropping as well.
“The sun is going to be setting soon, Spitfire. We really need to get going,” he said. He looked at the geodites, almost regrettably, and took out his polaroid camera, snapping a quick picture before journeying upward. “Come along, love! I saw a spike in the readings just north of here. The, er, barf fairies are probably not too far, now..”
He scurried away, before she could get even a word of protest in.
Anna sighed, glanced at the sparkling geodites one more time, admired the curious way they played and rolled around together, a clacking sound echoing up the hills, before she continued upward.
---------
It continued like that for another 15 minutes, with Anna following at Ford’s heels, wondering how bad this blister really was as she marched up (and slid down, before marching back up) the mountain trail. Eventually, Anna heard both of their stomachs rumble and finally had a good excuse to force Ford to sit down and eat the sandwiches they’d packed at the last second before leaving the lab.
He sat on a log next to her, restless and impatient, tracking the position of the sun, stealing glances at the spectrometer he kept shoving in and out of his pocket in between large mouthfuls of his turkey sandwich.
She knew he was just trying to scarf the sandwich down, but she was in no mood to get nauseous - they’d already be dealing with the barf fairies’ barf, she didn’t want to deal with human barf too - so she ate her sandwich slowly, when she saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye.
“Ford. Ford, did you see that?”
“Hmm? See what?” He was barely paying attention, his eyebrows furrowed at the readings he was getting, eyes still glued to that device.
“There! In the bushes.” Anna stood up, nearly dropping her sandwich in her excitement, and she ran toward the rustling she heard. “Whatever it was, it was bright red, and fast.”
“Oh? Did it seem to-” Ford stood up, and his spectrometer fell out of his pocket. Anna didn’t know what the reading said, but she could tell that for whatever reason, it upset him, and his brow furrowed once more. “Anna, the, uh, barf fairies are getting further away. We really need to get a move on.”
Now it was Anna’s turn to furrow her brow. “What do you mean they’re getting further? Aren’t they at the mountaintop mushroom ring?”
Ford paused, and whatever expression he had on his face was hidden when he bent down to pick up the spectrometer. “Well, they’re migrating up the mountain in the warm weather. If we move fast enough, we might be able to catch them before they get too high. And I’d rather collect our sample sooner than later, wouldn’t you?”
Anna trusted Ford. She trusted him completely, with everything she had. But something about the explanation felt off.
Anna thought about pushing back, about telling him about the blister that she was sure popped 10 minutes back. The idea of laying down in bed and just holding him sounded devine, especially when paired with the thought of a long hot shower.
But something about Ford’s expression gave her pause. He seemed to be holding a breath while she mulled it over. He probably just doesn’t want to need to march back up here later in the month when it’s even warmer, she considered.
So, she shrugged and took another bite from her sandwich. “...If you want us to get moving, we can get moving, darling.”
He gave her a grateful smile, kissed her cheek, and continued up the trail without a word.
She sighed. I guess I’m finishing my sandwich on the way…
-------------------
“What’s that spectrometer measuring, Ford?”
“Hmm?”
Anna rolled her eyes, knowing very well what Ford sounded like when he was barely hearing her. She said again, a little louder, “What are you measuring there?”
He turned to her, looking like he was shaken out of a trance. “Huh? What am I - Oh.” He held up the device. “Frequencies. The - uh - the barf fairies’ wings emit a low frequency unlike anything else in the forest. This is measuring those vibrations in the air.” He turned back to the device.
“Are you sure it’s not picking up a hummingbird or a bee or anything?” Anna said, in an attempt at a joke.
Ford didn’t turn. He was clearly immersed in the readings yet again.
It was noticeably less warm, this high up, but no less wet and damp. In fact, as the sun sank steadily lower, Anna could tell that a notable chill was due in the air at any moment. She sighed and looked again over the beautiful views. It wasn’t yet sunset, but it would be within an hour or two, she was sure - but as bright as it was, she could still see the sun sparkle in the Gravity Falls lake. She was fairly certain she could even see the lab from here… it sure was small. They’d been traveling for the entire day, hadn’t they?
In the corner of her eye, she saw something bright blue, almost neon, and smelled something in the air - something sickly sweet. She turned and saw it, and recognized it instantly.
Ford had brought up his theory a month back - Gravity Falls might have its own strain of Venus Flytrap - It’s like… a Jupiter Flytrap, he had said excitedly when she asked him about it. I heard a gnome talking about it in the glen today - said it almost took his arm!
And here it was, in front of her. A huge flytrap, probably large enough to eat a cat if it wandered near.
“Ford! Ford come here!” She couldn’t believe he’d missed it - the man must have been so immersed in his readings that he’d just walked by the very flower he’d spent the last two weeks hunting down. “There’s something you need to see!”
She heard his voice from a distance, and turned to see him half-walking, half-sliding down the hill. “Yes, my dear. Everything alright?”
“Ford, it’s incredible! It’s the Jupiter flytrap! It’s-”
She looked back at the flower… or where the flower had been, and froze, just as Ford arrived at her side.
She whispered, “...It’s gone.”
He stared at the empty space, at what looked like a single blade of grass shaking in the wind. “Darling, what… what am I looking at?”
“It was a Jupiter flytrap, Ford. I saw it. It was unmistakable.”
He looked at the empty spot. “Where, uh, where did you say you saw it?”
“It was right here, Ford! I swear!”
She looked around, unable to find the bright cobalt shade that she’d seen before. She saw it, she knew she saw it. She peered slightly over the ledge, and saw a flash of red scurry into the forest. Her brow furrowed and she leaned a little further.
Ford cleared his throat and put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you… feeling okay, love?”
“I saw it, Ford. I’m not seeing things, it was there! You have to believe me.”
“...But are you sure it was there?”
She stopped staring down into the brush where whatever that red thing was had disappeared and gave him a withering glare. “Yes.”
Ford sighed, and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m not trying to make you doubt what you saw… It’s warm out here, and I think it’s got me in a bad mood. And you’re probably not doing much better in this heat.”
“Are you implying I hallucinated a Jupiter Flytrap in the heat, Stanford Pines?”
He looked sheepish at the very least, and shied a little away from the glare she shot him. “No! No, I’m simply figuring… you’re not enjoying yourself. And today’s been hard.”
“Well yeah! Ford, we’re halfway up a mountain in 80 degree humid weather on a Sunday. I really just want to be home.”
Her moment of candidness had its price. Ford looked a little devastated. He looked over his shoulder, behind himself, at the forest trail. He looked deep in thought for a moment or two, before he said, with a deep sigh, “I really think we’re almost there. If it’s longer than an hour, we’ll turn back. Is that fair?”
Anna hated to hear how defeated he looked. This trip hadn’t just been tough on her, it was tough on him, too. She wasn’t the only one who was hot, sweaty and sore.
“... Thats fair, Ford. And when we get home, we’ll take a hot shower, and have some tea, and enjoy the night together.”
He smiled warmly again, that endearing grin that she knew she would make a hike for all over again if he asked. “Only if you let me rub your feet and make you breakfast in the morning, Honey.”
“You’ll burn the toast, love. But I’ll take that footrub.” She kissed him, and they shared a chuckle.
And with that, he continued upward.
-----------------------------
The sun was setting. Anna was exhausted. And the trail was gone.
There was a massive tree, a redwood about as wide as a semi truck, blocking the road. It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. If there was a God, He didn’t want them to go up any further.
She was tired, she was sore, and her blister was fucking killing her! And worse yet, it was going to be sunset any moment. They were supposed to be heading back downhill by now, but everything had taken longer than planned somehow. The mushroom circle must have been much farther than she remembered - she could have sworn they would have reached it by 5.
But here they were now, at 6 p.m. staring at this giant tree trunk. It might as well have been laughing at them.
“Ford, I want to go back,” she said. She needed to be honest with him. “I know we walked all this way, I know we need that barf, and I know - God, do I know - how much you hate those Leprecorns-”
“More than words could say,” he said with a shiver.
“Yes, Darling, I know, but we need to turn back. This-” she pointed at the giant trunk which, going by the freshness of the wood had not fallen too long ago “-is a sign. And I just… I have a bad feeling. We should turn around.”
Ford looked regrettably at the tree, at the sun lowering in the sky, and lastly - to Anna’s slight annoyance - at the spectrometer in his hand.
“Come on, Ford,” Anna continued, trying to appeal to the doubts she could tell were pulling at him. “Let’s at least sit down, enjoy the view while we think on it? I’m out of sandwiches and I think I need to rest.”
Ford took a deep breath. “I… I think I’m going to trek ahead.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He looked more sheepish, but just shook his head. “Only a little further, I think.”
“Ford, please. I’m not sure about that. Let’s just enjoy the sites. Maybe those geodites are still gathered down there.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.” He started climbing the trunk, standing on top of it and peering over the other side at the trail that Anna couldn’t see. . “I know the or- the barf fairies are right there. I just gotta see, okay?”
“...Okay. If you must.” Anna let out a deep breath, trying to quell the dread she felt watching him climb down over the other side of the trunk. “I love you, Ford.”
“I love you too, Anna. Be right back.”
He disappeared and Anna felt herself deflate a little as she took a seat on the cliff’s edge.
At least the view was nice and she had a moment to rest her foot.
Suddenly, she felt the earth shake. She had just enough instinct to scurry away from the edge as a giant red thing crawled up over the edge, snapping its - were those vines?? - at where her foot just was.
She was too stunned for a moment, watching in terror as it somehow roared from a gaping maw in the middle of its face. It was a giant thorny creature with a 5-foot-wide rose for a head. That rose was currently split in half, ripped wide open, exposing a green vine-like tongue and thorny green teeth as the roar erupted from the monster and shook the landscape around her.
“Oh fuck.” Anna was halfway up that trunk before the curse even left her lips. She’d lived in Gravity Falls long enough to know well that, sometimes, you just gotta start running. She jumped down from the top of the trunk, down to the trail on the other side. She didn’t need to look behind her to know that the monster was scampering up behind her, crawling up the trunk, pulling itself across the foliage and bark with its thorny viney limbs.
She sprinted, her foot protesting in pain - fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. After an entire day of walking on a blister, it was not taking too kindly to her running, and she could feel it slowing her down. It slowed her down enough that she felt the monster gaining on her. She dived to the wall to her left, using the roots emerging from it to climb higher, maybe to push the boulder she could see on the edge down on it. If she only got a little higher, she could- the thought was squashed when she felt a vine catch up to her, and wrap around her ankle.
She shrieked as it pulled, twisting her ankle and knocking her to the floor. She was flipped on her back, and was face-to-face with the giant rose monster. It’s thorny maw wide open.
“Stay away from her!”
The boulder she had seen a second before had been pushed from above, injuring (but not killing) the monster, and she felt its hold on her ankle loosen, and suddenly, Ford was at her side immediately, jumping down from above, pocketknife in hand, stabbing into one of the vines until it let go of her entirely. He scooped her up in his arms and ran.
“Oh my God, Anna, are you hurt?”
“My ankle-” was all she could get out, wincing against his shoulder. “Ford, that thing, it-”
“It’s a Necro-rose. They grow from the roses left at graves in old towns, and grow in the rainy season. They live in caves, and they crave bodily fluids, like blood and pus. Not sure why it’s chasing you - unless you have any injuries.”
“No - I-” she paused. “How big would an injury need to be to matter?”
“Any injury at all, really. They have a very sensitive nose - well, not really a nose, but you know.” He ducked under a branch, zigging and zagging away from the path, hearing the monster in the distance.
The Necro-rose was on its feet again, and taking chase.
“...What about, say, a popped blister?”
He gulped. “Yeah… that might do it. Fuck.”
“Ford, you need to get away from me. Put me down somewhere, it’s chasing me, not you-”
“Are you insane? Did you hit your fucking head? I’m not leaving you behind, Anna. We’re going to get rid of it.”
“You need to- wait. Wait, it's the smell? That’s what the necro-rose is following?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Take off my sock.”
“What?”
“Take off my sock! It probably absorbed most of the gunk there anyways! Take off the sock and throw it over the ledge, Ford.”
He paused. “Anna, that’s brilliant, love.” He set her down and, as gently as he could, took off her shoe and sock. He winced at the sight of the blister. “Why didn’t you tell me about this? It looks like it stings, swee-”
“Ford! Not now! Throw the fucking sock!”
“Right - sorry.”
He tossed the sock as hard as he could off the ledge and held his breath. The necro-rose emerged from around the bend and then, after pausing, scampered down the ledge, taking chase after the sock instead of after them, in the nook by the tree they were hiding behind.
They both let out a deep breath. “Oh, thank God,” Anna said.
“Now… why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” Ford said. He scooped her in his arms again and walked back toward the trail.
She leaned her head on his shoulder, avoiding his gaze. “Ford, you seemed so hellbent on getting up here. And besides, I didn’t know there would be a giant blood-smelling rose monster.”
He kissed her forehead and gave her an apologetic look, but then something caught his eye.
“Oh my god. We’re here.”
She glanced at what he was looking at.
It certainly was not a fairy mushroom circle. It was a pond, surrounded by willows.
The water sparkled in the setting sun. It was a beautiful sight already, but then, just as Anna was taking in the splendor of the gentle ripples shimmering in the sunset, she watched with wonder as several bluish glowing orbs emerged from the depths and danced across the surface.
“Ford… Ford, what is this?”
He gave her a warm smile and set her down on the soft grass, taking a first-aid-kit out of his bag. “They only appear once a year, in the rainy season. They’re orb fairies. They always are there, but there needs to be a high amount of humidity in the air for the light to reflect off their wings at a frequency we can see. And they only reflect visibly in reddish-pink light, so sunset is the only time of day we can see them. … I thought it was something you’d like to see, you know?”
“Oh my God. It’s beautiful.” Anna stared at the beautiful sight as Ford treated her foot and tightly wrapped her ankle, when a realization dawned on her.
“Wait. What about the fairy barf?”
“... We passed by the mushroom glen around 5, close to where the geodites were. I was able to trek ahead and collect the barf around then, and then guide you to the orbs.”
Part of her found it adorable. Another (smaller) part felt like she could throttle him. “Ford… are you telling me that this entire expedition was just for me to see a beautiful sight, when this entire time, I’ve been trying to pause and see beautiful sights?”
“Spitfire, they’re only visible once a year! Twice if you’re lucky! And only in perfect conditions of humidity and light and droplets in the air. And I wanted you to have a special day… but I could see how, perhaps, I’ve had a lapse of judgment.”
“You think? Ford, we could have had a picnic! Or a relaxing evening at home! Whatever made you think you needed to do all this for us to have a nice day?”
He finished wrapping her ankle and sat next to her, putting an arm around her. He sounded a little embarrassed as he said, in a small voice, “...Stan told me that you two were talking about me. And about how… you know… I could be a little more romantic. More… spontaneous.”
Anna shook her head. She’d have to deal with Stan later.
“Ford, we live in Gravity falls. Spontaneity finds us whether we like it or not…. But I cannot deny that this is nice.” An orb drifted close to her, about the size of a dandelion puff. The light was beautiful, as frustrating as this whole night had been.
“It’s a gorgeous sight,” she said, looking at the orb.
“... It really is,” Ford said, looking at her.
They stayed like that for a few more minutes, cuddling on the grass, watching the sunset turn to twilight around them.
---------------------------------------
A few minutes later, a thought crossed Anna’s mind.
“How are we gonna get down? I twisted my ankle.”
“Oh, I radioed Stan and Fidds. They’re taking the road up as we speak in the Stanleymobile. They’ll drive us down.”
“Wait. There’s a road up? This whole time we could have driven up here?”
“... I thought a hike would be more romantic,” Ford said, the realization of how absurd it sounded obviously only just dawning on him.
“... I expect breakfast in bed for the next week, Jersey Boy.”
He kissed her forehead. “Yes, darling.”