Work Text:
“Flora.”
Ford was shaking her head no before the word was all the way out of Mabel’s mouth. Her great-niece crossed it off the list on her lavender unicorn-printed notepad with a flourish, frowning thoughtfully and tapping the pink pom-pom on the end of her pen against her chin. “Not Flora. Hmm. What about Frances - no, people won’t get it until they see it written down. Francesca?”
“Mabel, these are all old lady names.” Dipper, lying sideways across the armchair, didn’t even look up from the mystery novel he’d buried his nose in somewhere between Floramund and Frieda.
“Dipperrrrr. Grauntie Ford is an old lady!”
“Yeah, but -” Dipper stuck a finger into the book to mark his page, and shut it, turning to look directly at Ford. “Have any of these names suited you so far? Like, at all?”
Ford considered. “Felicia wasn’t that bad.”
“Yeah, that’s…not what I asked.” Dipper set the book aside, kicking both legs down off the armrest to sit facing both Mabel and Ford. “Were there any that sounded like you?”
This was straying a little too close to uncomfortable old memories, but long years of survival had made Ford very good at not reacting. She shrugged again, turning slightly towards Mabel, away from Dipper’s too-knowing look. “It’s been over thirty years since I could last count on someone understanding me if I gave my name, let alone being able to give it without risking offending someone mortally or giving them absolute power over me. You learn not to get too attached to names.“
"What?” Mabel looked about half a second away from throwing her notepad on the floor in disgust. “You can’t just go around using a dorky nickname forever, like some people.” She crossed her arms and squinted at her brother, who threw up both hands.
“Mabel, would you please just stop pushing it?” Dipper grabbed his book again, swinging his legs up onto the chair again, and Ford was sure she heard him mumble darkly, as he tipped his hat forward and opened the book, “Like Mom and Dad would even let me change it anyway -”
“Pish tosh, brother dear!” Mabel said brightly. “They’ll come around, and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t have a good name picked out ahead of time. Like our great-aunt’s going to!” She beamed at Ford, brandishing her notepad. “Now focus, people! If Grunkle Stan’s going to get his old prison buddy to falsify some new documents for Ford, she needs a name to put on them! And we’ve still got thirty-five pages of Fs to get through!”
…
“Not going so hot, huh?” Stanley asked, half-raising his can of soda as Ford stepped into the kitchen, looking over her shoulder to make sure neither of the children had followed her.
She took a breath, tried to remind herself that it was fine, this was her house and there were other people living in it, she didn’t have to look around doorways before entering and an unexpected person in a room didn’t mean instant death, she wasn’t slipping, she could relax, this was fine. “Your - our - great-niece is…very tenacious.”
Stanley’s face cracked into a huge grin. “Hah! Yep, that’s Mabel.” He took a long swig of soda, making a face, and then spat what looked like a large peach pit into the palm of his hand. “She’s not gonna give up until she finds you something, yanno. That kid’s not happy unless everybody’s happy, whether they like it or not.”
Ford looked down at the pit Stanley tossed carelessly into the trash and mentally filed it away for later investigation. “In that case, maybe we should stop looking.”
Stan stopped with the can of soda halfway to his mouth, his eyebrows rising. “What, so you don’t wanna change your name?”
Before Ford had a chance to protest, let alone begin to sort out how she really felt, Stan had already recovered, shrugging and taking another sip of soda like he didn’t care either way. “Too bad. I thought Filomena kinda suited you, poindexter.”
Ford narrowed her eyes, and Stanley barked out a laugh. He balled one hand into a loose fist, moving to give her a friendly punch in the shoulder, but pulled back at the last second, turning it into a single, open-handed pat instead.
Mabel’s voice drifted in from the living room. “Grauntie Fooooooooooord! Are you almost done getting water?”
Stanley turned to shuffle out of the kitchen, but paused in the doorway for a moment to turn back to Ford, sounding just a little too pleased when he said, “I saw her bringing in six baby-name books the other day. Good luck.”
…
“Florence.”
“I think not.”
“Ooh, how about Fabrique?”
“…again, not for me.”
“Farrah?”
“I knew a Farrah in college! She was a year or so below me - several, if you only consider how far we were into our respective degrees. Nice girl.” Not that they’d ever really spoken, but from what Ford could remember from when their role-playing groups had crossed paths… “She was a bit strange, though. Wore a velvet cloak everywhere for about six months.”
“So, no.” Mabel crossed the name diligently off her list. “Hmmm…Feodora?”
“What?” Dipper uncrossed his legs, frowning at Mabel’s list. “Come on, Mabel, now you’re just making stuff up.”
“I am not, mister know-it-all! Look, it’s right here.” She pointed affrontedly at an entry in the baby name book she had open beside her, and Dipper leaned over her shoulder to read the entry.
“Slavic variation of Theodora, meaning 'gift of God’…huh. You’re right.”
“Am I ever wrong?” Mabel shut her eyes, crossed her arms, and puffed out her chest, a broad, proud smile crossing her face. Dipper looked down at the book and back up at his sister, mouth quirking up into a grin.
“Frequently.”
Mabel cracked one eye open to glare into the face of Dipper’s smile, before leaning over to sock Dipper in the arm. He tumbled over sideways, dramatically clutching his arm, though Ford could tell he was barely holding back giggles.
“Augh! Ow! Geez, Mabel, what do you even put into those fists?”
Mabel looked for a moment like she was trying to be angry, her face doing a series of interesting contortions before she gave up and let a wicked grin settle in in place of her glare. “Mabel Juice, Dipdops! I’m powered by sugar and dreams! ” She threw herself forward, pinning her brother to the floor, and waggled all of her fingers menacingly as Dipper shrieked with laughter.
“Mabel Mabel Mabel no AAAA STOP STOP NO DON’T TICKLE ME -”
Ford sat back uncomfortably as the twins rolled around on the floor, Dipper begging for mercy in between breathless giggles, Mabel screeching “NO MERCY!” in between her own bursts of laughter. For a split second, before she shook the feeling off, Ford found herself nearly overwhelmed by the same aching that had paralysed her when she’d stepped out of the portal into the ruins of what had once been her sanctuary.
If the twins said anything when she straightened up and left the room, Ford didn’t hear.
…
“Grauntie Ford? Where’d you go? I’ve still got three more books!”
Ford threw herself flat against the gift shop wall, ducking under a shelf full of snowglobes that rattled ominously over her head, holding her breath until they settled. She risked a glance back through the doorway, cursing silently when she saw Dipper and Mabel coming towards the gift shop. She had to admit, she was more than a little touched by the fact that the great-niece and -nephew she hadn’t known existed, had only just met, had accepted her so easily and decided to help her without really knowing anything about her (even if part of her did worry that they were too trusting, too naive, too - not weak, they were children, that still meant something here, but vulnerable). But…it was too much, too soon. Not to mention that there were only so many names beginning with ‘F’ a person could sit through and keep a straight face.
Neither of them seemed to have seen Ford yet, though, maybe she could still -
Dipper glanced over, and his eyes met Ford’s. She felt her heart sink in her chest, and turned to face the outside exit, wondering how long it would take her to cross the gift shop and whether it would be faster to punch the code into the vending machine and make a break for the basement. Though there were no other exits down there, she’d be trapped -
Dipper stuck his head through the doorway, looked around, and then backed out again. “Nobody here, Mabel.”
“What? Dipper, let me look.”
“Okay, but there’s no point. Ford’s not in there.”
Ford shrank back from the doorway, but Mabel didn’t step through. “Ugh, don’t tell me she’s down in that smelly old basement again. What is she even doing down there?”
“Well, I’m…actually still not sure, but I know she’d be mad if we barged in without asking,” Dipper’s voice said, sounding a little more muffled than it had a moment ago, moving away from the doorway and Ford. “Come on, let’s go check her room again. She might have doubled back behind us.”
“…okay,” Mabel said, sounding downcast.
Ford risked another glance around the doorframe to see Mabel and Dipper with their backs turned to her, leaving. At the last second, Dipper half-turned, and gave Ford an exaggerated wink.
Ford smiled, and winked back.
She kept watching until the twins left the living room, and then finally let herself relax. And that was when the office door swung open.
Ford threw herself back against the wall, but she’d forgotten about the shelf over her head. There was a BANG, and a sudden sharp pain in the top of her head, and then an ominous rushing tinkling sound as the snowglobes all started to slide. Ford reached up to steady the shelf, sticking out a hand just in time to catch the one snowglobe that wobbled precariously over the edge of the shelf before it could hit the floor, and then looked over to see who had startled her.
Stanley’s handyman was standing in the office door, holding a large cardboard box in front of his ample stomach. When he noticed Ford was looking, he shifted his grip to one hand and gave her a wave with the other. “Oh hi, Other Mr. Pines. Nice catch.” Before Ford had a chance to say anything, the handyman - Zeus? Seuss? - smacked the palm of his hand into his forehead. “Oh, sorry, Mrs. Pines!”
“Just…just call me Ford, please.” Ford looked down at the snowglobe she was holding, and reached up to set it back on the shelf. “For now, anyway.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Ford,” the handyman - Soos! - said, with absolute solemnity and a quick salute. “I think Mabel was looking for you, dood.” He stopped, looking into space for a second. “Is that okay, dood? If I call you dood?”
“It’s fine,” Ford sighed. “Don’t - don’t mention to Mabel that I was here, please.”
Soos grabbed the box with both hands again, hefting it up and starting over toward the counter. “Why’re you hiding from Mabel, Mrs. Ford?”
“I’m not hiding, I’m -” Ford stopped mid-sentence. She wasn’t. She wasn’t - “I have work to do, work that’s much too dangerous for a child.”
Soos shrugged. “Okay, dood. But Mabel and Dipper…they’re pretty hardcore. And they make an awesome team! We fought a pterodactyl together! And Mr. Pines punched it in the face!” He proudly pronounced the ‘p’ in pterodactyl, and Ford sucked in a breath, pressing a hand to the bridge of her noise and shaking her head.
“Of course Stanley would punch an extinct prehistoric creature with the potential to be a font of scientific knowledge in the face. And the 'p’ is silent.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Dipper said that too.” Soos seemed to deflate for a moment, before perking back up. “I saw him beat up some zombies with a shovel one time!” He put the box down on the counter by the cash register, and appeared lost in thought for a moment. “Think I was a zombie, actually. Maybe that was a dream. Like that time a mighty eagle flew down and shot lightning bolts out of its eyes at Mr. Pines.” Soos frowned for a moment, then shook it off. “But you shoulda seen them that time we took down this, like, evil cursed dating sim that fell in love with me. It was like they could understand each other without saying anything, dood. Like some kinda…twin telepathy or something.”
“Fascinating,” Ford said. Honestly, in a place like Gravity Falls, weird dreams were occasionally worth investigating, and she knew she couldn’t rule out Bill’s possible involvement in anything, no matter how seemingly mundane. But somehow, lightning-shooting eagles and…whatever a 'dating sim’ was didn’t sound like her former friend’s style. And she wanted out of this conversation, out of this room, just out. Why had Soos had to bring up -
“Oh, dood. Can you and Mr. Pines do that? The twin thing?"
Ford was certain she was scowling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. "No.” The word came out flat and final, almost threatening.
Soos stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Too bad, dood. That’d be awesome. Point is, Dipper and Mabel are pretty tough. And my dreams are weird. Heh. Did I ever tell you about my British dog-man nightmare? Oh yeah, and that reminds me, there was that time Dipper and Mabel and me fought a -”
“I really do have work to do,” Ford said quickly, crossing to the vending machine. “But thank you…Soos.”
“Anytime, Mrs. Pines. Hey, if you see Dipper before I do, would you ask him if we’re still on for marshmallow chick microwave duels?”
“Absolutely,” Ford said, swinging open the hidden basement door.
…
A vending machine.
A vending machine.
Ford had to admit, for hiding the door to her basement in plain sight, it was an ingenious solution. But the door shouldn’t have needed to have been hidden in the first place, and definitely not from hordes of tourists - !
She tried to shake off the anger, not to acknowledge the hollowness that gathered under her breastbone and filled her lungs under its blaze at the thought of how her home had been invaded, transformed, rendered unrecognisable in her absence. The first things that sprang to mind when she managed to clear the outrage from her thoughts, though, were Dipper’s scowl, Mabel’s insistence, Stanley’s words.
“What, so you don’t wanna change your name?”
Work would help. Work always helped. But even though her priority was, had to be, finding a way to close or destroy the rift she’d - Stanley’d - her mistake had created, Ford found herself, instead, pulling up files she hadn’t touched in more than thirty years. Experiments, observations, a few inventions - things that had been, would have been, years ahead of their time when sh- she’d started to investigate them. She caught herself smiling at the memories that her own words dredged up, the stories she hadn’t recorded, the less-than-impressive accidents that had led to some of her more impressive discoveries (nearly falling headfirst down an alien spacecraft’s airlock while chasing what turned out to be nothing but a local myth wasn’t one of her prouder moments, though searching for the Hide-Behind had ultimately been worth it when she realised what she’d nearly literally stumbled into). For a moment, she let herself bask in the memories, the feeling of absolute wonder at everything the world held hidden and waiting to be discovered.
Now that she knew what she was looking for, though, it wasn’t hard to see the pattern. Shapeshifters, body swap carpets… Even things like the photocopier she and Fiddleford had modified to produce accurate, living test subjects and the various properties of crystals and fungi native to Gravity Falls all came back, in one way or another, to shape and form and bodies. Maybe - maybe she’d already been influenced by Bill, maybe she’d been led towards helping him build his own physical form to bring him into this dimension - but then, all of that research had been put on hold to build the portal, and every time she’d tried to return to it, something had gone wrong with the portal, or Bill had needed her body for something, or…
He’d been keeping her from figuring out how to do anything about her…situation, just like he’d made her terrified to reveal herself to anyone but him, kept her isolated even in this place where she’d come the closest she’d ever felt to belonging. The betrayal was old, but it still burned in Ford’s chest and along the line of the ragged scar hidden beneath her hairline. And with it came a rush of determination, that had her setting aside the old files and older memories. Maybe she’d been an idiot, maybe she’d been blind, but she wasn’t now. And she was going to make Bill Cipher regret he’d ever -
“Great-aunt Ford?”
Ford whirled at the sound, reaching for a weapon she’d half-forgotten she wasn’t carrying no one should be down here no one could be down here an intruder a threat before she saw Dipper blinking in the doorway. She took a deep breath, letting herself relax. “Dipper! What are you doing down here?”
Her great-nephew looked away, rubbing a hand along his arm just above the elbow. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Mabel’s great and she really wants to help but she can be a little…overwhelming sometimes.”
“I can imagine,” Ford said, thinking of Mabel’s pom-pom pen flashing, Mabel shouting, “Hug it out!”, Mabel -
Dipper bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “She was like this when I first told her I was a boy, too.”
“That must have been exhausting,” Ford said, sympathy softening the anger she hadn’t realised had still been simmering in the back of her mind. “You don’t need to change your name - or anything about you - if you don’t want to. And you should tell her how you feel. Don’t hold yourself back just to make her feel better,” she added, with a vehemence that surprised her.
Dipper looked surprised as well, even a little taken aback. “That’s not - Mabel wouldn’t -” He shook his head. “It’s not like that. I wanted to, but our parents…”
“They don’t support you?”
“No, that’s not -” Dipper pulled his hat off, running a hand through his hair thoughtfully before pulling it firmly back on. “They’re worried I’m gonna grow out of it, but that’s not the point. The point is that I know you agreed when Grunkle Stan said it’d be easier to get you a new identity than to try and get your old one changed, but…you don’t have to change your name either. And Mabel would be okay with that if you just told her.“
For once, Ford found herself speechless.
Dipper stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "So what are you working on?”
Ford glanced back at the old files she’d set aside. “Nothing important. I do have a question for you, though. What, exactly, is a 'marshmallow chick microwave duel’?”
…
It was much later, the sun creeping slowly down the side of the - Mystery Shack - in long, red streaks, when Ford ventured out of the basement again. She’d made next to no progress, on either of her projects, and trying to seek out time and space alone, to think, hadn’t been the foolproof panacea she’d always relied on it to be.
But old habits died hard, and Ford found herself retreating to the only other place left in her own house that she still recognised.
There were posters - kittens in boots and tigers leaping through airbrushed flames and a list of advice for what to do in case of zombie apocalypse which, when Ford examined it, was only theoretically sound - tacked over the walls, and someone had moved a television set that looked almost as old as she was onto the dresser, but otherwise the room looked exactly as it had the night - that night.
She wondered, for a fleeting instant, whether Stanley had left this room alone out of some kind of - regret, maybe. After all, it was almost perfectly preserved. For the briefest flicker, she even dared to entertain an impossible hope that it hadn’t been…guilt, or obligation, or pride, or just sheer ridiculous stubbornness that had made him ignore all limitations of intellect, ability, and just plain common sense and recreate her biggest mistake. That despite everything, he’d just wanted her back.
But that wouldn’t make sense. Stanley had never shown a single hint of remorse for what he’d done to her, what he’d done to all of them. And after the things he’d said - they’d both said -
No. He must just never have needed this space for his -Mystery Shack, dismissed it and closed it up and forgotten about it.
The couch creaked in exactly the same way Ford remembered when she sat down and slid into the same old indentation between the springs, sending up a puff of dust and the smell of old couch and new paper. For an instant, it was 1982 again and the world around her was still the same as she’d left it. Nothing had changed, and this place was still her home.
Ford let out a long breath, and shut her eyes, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest, the familiar light streaming over her shoulder and dig of a popped spring into her hip, the same old smell of pine underlying the dust and neglect of thirty years.
Then there was a bang and muffled shouts from downstairs, the twins’ voices rising high and youthful, and the present flowed in around her, soft as dreaming and inexorable as the flood. And it brought with it the bitter aftertaste of realisation. This place wasn’t the home she’d left - she’d lost - any more than any of the dimensions she’d visited were. She didn’t recognise half the things that came out of the mouths of anyone who wasn’t Stanley, and though she could easily surmise from context and simple mechanical knowledge, many of the devices they seemed to take for granted still baffled her. She had a feeling that out beyond the ring of pines that protected her house, things would only get stranger.
And language and technology weren’t the only things that had changed, had transformed completely from anything she might have recognised. Her parents were gone, Shermy disappeared to - California, of all places. Fiddleford had lost his mind long ago, though from what she’d heard he’d deteriorated alarmingly while she’d been gone, and Bill - she didn’t dare even think of Bill. Any other acquaintances she might have had from college, who might have, under other circumstances, become friends, were scattered to the four winds. In a cruel irony, once again, she only had Stanley. And after everything he’d done -
All Ford had had left to come back to was this house, what remained of her work. And Stanley had taken that, had taken her name, her life.
“What, so you don’t wanna change your name?”
She hadn’t just lost thirty years. She’d lost everything.
Three loud thumps on the door had Ford on her feet in an instant, scanning the room for something she could use as a weapon. She relaxed only slightly at the sound of Stanley’s voice from the other side of the door. “Hey, four-eyes, you better be decent, 'cause I’m coming in.”
The door creaked loudly as Stan pushed it in, stepping around it and closing it behind him without taking his eyes off Ford. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie before saying anything. “There a reason you’re hiding up here?”
“I am not hiding,” Ford said, automatically. “And I don’t appreciate the intrusion. Do I have to constantly account for my whereabouts to you now?”
Stan snorted, halfway between laughter and derision. “Whatever. Just thought you might care that your great-niece and -nephew are still waiting for you.”
When Ford didn’t say anything in response, Stan tucked both hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders slightly in clear discomfort as he said, “Look, I know you got big important mystery stuff to bury your nose in, but…they’re kids. And they -” He stopped to cough explosively into one hand, the cough tailing off into something that sounded almost like it might have been 'lookuptoyou’. “Just…just tell Mabel if you don’t want her help, okay? Don’t keep stringing her along when you clearly don’t care.”
“It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just -” Ford stopped, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t think I can - I don’t want another name.”
“Fine! Then don’t change it. I couldn’t care less about what you wanna call yourself if I tried.” Stan thought for a moment. “Sergei might, officials look closer at ID with names that don’t look like they match the gender marker. But I don’t give a - darn. Just tell Mabel and Dipper that! Don’t leave the kids hanging.”
“Fine,” Ford said. “Was that everything?”
Stan gave her a long, hard look that made Ford suddenly remember that he had done time, and then nodded. “Yeah.”
He turned, but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t turn back to face Ford as he said, his voice oddly calm, “You wanna keep your whole name?”
Ford considered, for a moment, but couldn’t see what angle Stanley was coming from. “I think so.” She managed a smile. “I might drop the Stan.”
Stan nodded, still not looking at her. “Middle name and all?”
Ford let her eyes drop closed, taking a deep breath. “So that’s what this is about.”
“Yeah. That’s what this is about.” Stan finally let go of the doorknob, turning back to face Ford again. “But don’t worry, you already told me everything I needed to know. I’ll let you get back to your pity party.”
“Pity party?” Ford bit back the rant that bubbled up her throat, the long explanation of just what the past thirty years had cost her. If her brother didn’t care enough to ask, he didn’t deserve to know. “Forgive me for trying to preserve all that’s left of my family.”
“All that’s - your family is right here!” Stan jabbed a pointer finger down towards the floor before tucking both arms across his chest, straightening up and squaring his shoulders like a bouncer outside a nightclub door. “If you wanna ignore them and avoid them until they give up on you too, fine. Go right ahead. But don’t act like that ain’t a choice you’re making.”
“Apparently I can’t throw you out of my house,” Ford said, fighting to keep her voice level, "but I can - and I will - ask you to leave this room. Right. Now.”
“Yeah? Pleasure’s all mine,” Stan said, wrenching the door open. He stopped on the threshold, though, looking back over his shoulder. “But those kids are worth ten - no, a hundred of Dad, and you know it.”
The door barely had time to slam behind him before Ford yanked it open again. Stan paused, without turning, and then kept walking towards the stairs as she yelled after him.
“It wasn’t just about me! The entire family fortune was riding on that scholarship -”
“Yeah! And how was that fair?”
Ford shook her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Oh, please. Explain how that was so singularly unfair to you -”
“Not to me.”
It was Ford’s turn to pause. Stan had stopped at the top of the stairs, and his voice was strangely soft for all its gruffness. “Look, if I hadn’t busted the stupid thing and you still hadn’t got the scholarship, you really think Dad woulda been fine with that? You think he woulda patted you on the back and said it was okay, better luck next time?”
“I - of course not! Our father had high expectations, he had his own ways of encouraging us, he knew we could do better -”
“He knew you could do better.” Stan snorted out a derisive laugh. “And sure, he had his own ways of encouraging us. You’re still trying to impress him and he’s been dead for nearly twenty years!”
“And I’m supposed to believe there’s something wrong with that? Don’t try to tell me this…this tourist trap isn’t just your way of trying to prove you’re a good enough son after all, even after what you did -”
“You know what?” Stanley interjected, holding up a hand that Ford had no doubt was inches from becoming a fist, index finger pointed at her face like a weapon. “The day we brought you back, Dipper and Mabel weren’t supposed to be there. I was working alone. Like you always did. They found out, found your stupid warnings - and way to go, poindexter, just write the warning that the thing you’re building could tear the universe apart in invisible ink - and tried to shut the whole thing down.”
“I -” Ford started, and realised she had no idea how to go on.
Stan continued, despite her stammered interjection. “They didn’t know! Mabel nearly pushed the button to turn the whole darn thing off. Woulda been thirty years’ hard work down the drain - along with my best chance to see my twin again.” The stare he fixed Ford with seemed to look right through her. “But I wouldn'ta kicked her out on her own for doing it. Or Dipper for asking her to. They’re just kids!”
Ford couldn’t find her tongue. Stan wasn’t looking at her anymore, was staring down the hall behind her like he was looking back over half a century.
“I was just a kid!”
“Stanley,” Ford said, and Stan’s focus snapped back onto her.
“Look. I’m…I’m sorry if I ruined your stupid project. But I didn’t deserve to get chucked out for it. And if you don’t think Dad woulda thrown you out in a heartbeat if he’d ever caught you in a dress, then you’re blinder than me, cataracts and all.” Stan fiddled with the front of his suit for a moment, smoothing it out, before he said, quietly, but in a voice that carried back to Ford with absolute clarity, “Fuck Dad. And fuck you too if you wanna keep defending him. I’ve got all the family I need right here.”
He turned without another word and walked away, down the stairs.
…
To say the couch was uncomfortable would be like saying the Grand Canyon was a hole in the ground. What little stuffing had once graced the cushions had either fled, or settled into a rock-hard mass lurking at the bottom of the couch frame. Springs dug into Ford’s back, jabbed her in the kidneys, stabbed her wherever she tried to turn. Trying to fit onto the narrow seats was nearly impossible, too. Once, in the distant past, she thought the couch had been meant to fold out into something resembling an actual bed (for all of the visitors she’d never had), but in the intervening years it had transformed itself into a metal skeleton that, Ford suspected, had been imbued with enough of the ambient weirdness of Gravity Falls to turn it sentient - and malicious.
She couldn’t sleep.
The moonlight spilled in across the mothball-smelling blankets Stanley had made the twins dig up for her, across the bare floor (and she had to wonder what had happened to her body-swap carpet, hope it hadn’t been unceremoniously thrown away), up the opposite wall and across the dusty cloth shrouding the mirror and glinting steely bright off the glass where the cloth had slipped aside. She’d scared herself with it earlier, coming back into the room after her fight - if it could be called that - with Stanley and catching a glimpse of movement at the other end of the room. Now, she could just see the reflection of the night sky, a patch of stars through the coloured glass of the window. She traced the familiar shape of Cassiopeia before sighing and rolling over again, trying to ignore the symphony of creaks and wails the couch gave out as she turned.
Familiar stars. How long had it last been since she’d been able to look at the sky and name all the constellations she saw?
It even sounded different, now. The room reeked of dust and mothballs and it was too quiet without the hum of the portal slowly powering up running underneath everything. Outside, there were the same birdcalls, insect noises, animal cries, but underscored by more, heavier, sounds of traffic, the rumble of distant trucks on the highway replacing the once-ubiquitous train whistle. But the stars were familiar. These were the same old skies she’d grown up with, and even when everything else had changed, they were still there, exactly as she remembered, to welcome her home.
“…if you don’t think Dad woulda thrown you out in a heartbeat if he’d ever caught you in a dress…”
Ford tucked the blanket a little closer around herself.
Everything she knew had changed, had moved on without her. But then, she had too, hadn’t she? She hadn’t stood frozen until Stanley had turned the portal back on, displaced in time and without a world to come back to. This wasn’t the home she’d left behind, but she wasn’t the man who’d left it, either. Wasn’t a boy so desperate for recognition, for acceptance, that she’d fallen for Cipher’s lies anymore.
And this wasn’t the family she’d thought she’d lost, but…
“You’re still trying to impress him and he’s been dead for nearly twenty years!”
Ford curled a hand in the blanket she held up by her throat, six fingers tightening around a handful of fabric.
She wasn’t ashamed of herself anymore. She’d taken the fear, the shame, that a childhood bully and then Bill had given her, and she’d faced it head-on. Beaten it. What made her strange made her strong, made her special. But…she hadn’t always known that. Hadn’t always believed it.
But she knew someone who had.
“Your family is right here!”
She’d been blind before. She’d been an idiot before. But maybe now she had a chance not to be.
…
“Yes! Checkers champion ten games running!”
Dipper punched the air, Mabel pouting and leaning her chin in one hand, elbow leaning against the table. “Ugh, Dipper, I’m all checkered out.” She brushed an arm across the board, sweeping checkers off the board onto the table. “Can’t we do something else?”
“Yeah, sure. How about a game of chess? Or Scramble? Ooh, or -” Dipper whipped out a flat cardboard box as Ford rounded the corner into the living room. “The classic game of strategy, Frisk!” He stopped, and looked over the box, frowning and raising an eyebrow. “Huh. I definitely remember this game involving less racial profiling.”
“Were you just keeping that under the table until I got bored with checkers?” Mabel complained, and then noticed Ford. “Grauntie Ford!” Her face fell, and she kicked vaguely at the legs of the chair she was perched on top of, turning her gaze down towards the game board on the table. “I know you don’t want my help. Sorry for dragging you into it.”
“That’s not true, Mabel, and I’m…” Ford took a deep breath, managed to dredge up a ghost of a smile. “I’m sorry if I made you think so.”
Mabel’s head whipped up, eyes wide and oh no they were shimmering. “But you kept trying to blow me off!”
“I…” Ford tried to look away from her great-niece’s huge, sad eyes, and found her gaze locking with Dipper’s. He didn’t look angry, just expectant, and somehow that was worse.
“I did,” Ford admitted, turning back to Mabel. “I was - scared. And I didn’t know whether I wanted to go through with this. But I’ve had a chance to think it over, and - I’m not going to change my name, Mabel.”
“So all that was pointless,” Mabel said, to the game board, her long hair falling down to obscure her face.
“Not…exactly. I really appreciated that you went to all that work to try to help me out. Mabel…” Ford took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and shutting her eyes. “Thank you.”
Mabel brushed her hair back behind one ear, looking up with a slowly blooming smile. “You’re welcome,” she said, already sounding a little more like her usual irrepressible self.
The inhabitants of the Mystery Shack mostly seemed to know where the creaky floorboards were and how to avoid them, but it was still impossible to move around the main floor without making a sound, no matter how hard someone might be trying. Ford ignored the prickling sensation of eyes on her back, focusing on Mabel. “Although, I do still need your help with something important,” she said, and Mabel gave her a suspicious look.
“Is it mystery stuff? Because Dipper -”
“Not this time.” Ford paused for a moment, listening to the silence behind her, before she said, “I need someone creative to help me decide on a new middle name.”
Mabel grinned, hugely, leaning forward. “Great! I’ve already got some ideas. What do you think about Tiffanibelle?”
“What?” Dipper interjected. “Mabel, seriously?”
“That…might be a bit much,” Ford admitted.
“That’s fine! I’ve got a whole bunch more!” Mabel reached up under her sweater and pulled out her notepad, flipping through it. “Let’s see…”
Ford turned, but Stanley was already shuffling into the kitchen, giving no sign that he’d heard any of their conversation.
She smiled anyway as she turned back to Mabel and Dipper. “All right. What have you got?”