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Soos opened his eyes. He was falling—again, why had he spent so much time falling the past few days? He couldn’t exactly remember how he’d gotten there—he couldn’t move, and the world was shaded yellow, and he wanted to scream but his mouth was slack and—
He hit the ground heavily, knocking the air from his lungs and cracking his head on the smooth stone of the floor. Thuds and groans from beside him told him that he wasn’t alone. He turned his head muzzily and caught a glimpse of green flannel. So Wendy was here, and she was, well, as safe as him, whatever that meant. He hoped she was feeling more alert than he was. At this rate, he wasn’t going to be much help if they had to fight their way out.
Before he could get to his feet, he felt the building rumble beneath him and the blocks that formed the walls around him began to shake loose. Beams of light cut down from the ceiling, where what had been a smooth surface was suddenly fragmenting. He gasped and shielded his head with one arm, bracing himself for the blocks to fall.
When nothing seemed to happen, he peeked around his arm. The blocks were falling, but they were falling up.
Well, he thought, that was certainly … better than the alternative. Soos watched the blocks rise, the walls around him splintering as they tumbled into the Rift. Was this some new trick? Had Bill finally gained the power to destroy the world and released them to gloat? He looked around in a panic, but the triangle and his minions were nowhere to be seen. He caught a glimpse of Dipper and Mabel clutching at each other’s arms and looking as afraid as he was, and Stan, who had lost his fez and was facing away from them.
Soos stumbled as two blocks shifted beneath his feet. Had they won? Were they about to die? Both? When he looked down to steady himself he could see the barren plain that used to be the Gravity Falls forest far, far below him.
Then there was a flash of pink light, and the world glitched. One moment he was standing in a giant floating temple, watching it dissolve into the sky, and the next he was standing in downtown Gravity Falls. The sky was blue. The buildings were standing. The trees were green and alive. Around him, other townspeople blinked and looked around with matching uncertain expressions. He jumped at a sudden noise, spinning to face it only to see Rumble McSkirmish dissolve in a shower of pixels.
“Dude.” Wendy’s hand was on his shoulder, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What happened?”
Soos blinked at the clear sky. “Everything looks … fine?”
“I don’t know, man. What if this is all fake? What if it’s Mabel Land all over again?”
“I dunno.” Confused whispers were breaking out around them. “I guess, like, why bother? He had us where he wanted. I don’t think he was, uh, very interested in playing nice anymore.”
Wendy shuddered, and he knew they were both remembering limp limbs and a screaming, golden presence in their heads. “You got that right. I just can’t believe it’s really over.”
She jumped as someone let out a loud whoop. Everyone fell silent and turned to stare at Nate, who had his hand raised in the air. He cringed under their stares, raising his eyes towards the place where the Rift had been. For a moment no one breathed, and then, as the seconds ticked by and he was met by no otherworldly retribution, the murmuring began again, rising in volume. Someone laughed, and then everyone was laughing and cheering.
A slow smile spread across Wendy’s face. “They did it,” she said. “I really think they did it!”
She threw her arms around Soos’s neck, laughing. He got a mouthful of thick red hair as he swung her around. Frankly, it wasn’t as bad as gnawing on the brim of his hat, but it definitely reminded him that if the apocalypse really was over he needed to find some real, non-canned food, something perishable and greasy. He wondered if any of the restaurants would be open.
Wendy let go and dropped to the ground. “Dad!” she yelled, and Soos barely avoided being caught up in a Corduroy family bear hug that he was pretty sure would have cracked several of his bones.
“I’ll come by the Shack and find you later!” Wendy yelled over her father’s shoulder, but Soos had already caught sight of another face in the milling, happy crowd. “Abuelita!” he shouted, “You’re okay!”
He charged forward, catching his grandmother up in a hug that lifted her off her feet. It also, incidentally, knocked the farmer dude whose name Soos could never remember onto the ground, but it didn’t matter. The world was back to normal and everyone was fine, and no one was going to hold a grudge about a little overenthusiastic hugging. At least, Soos certainly wouldn’t.
“I am fine, I am fine. Now tell me what happened? Did you save the world?”
Soos laughed. “No. We tried to do this ancient prophecy circle thing, but it, uh, didn’t work. I don’t really know what happened after that, I kind of got turned into … something. Not stone, I think, but not a lot more fun either.”
“But if it was not you who saved us, then who did?”
“It was the Pines family! It must have been!” Soos scanned the crowd, but he didn’t see any of the Pines, and he was pretty sure that meant that they weren’t there. It was hard to overlook any group that included Mabel. “Listen, I have to go find them! I’ll be home soon!”
He shouldered his way through the rest of the crowd, and then broke out into a run. If the Pines weren’t in town with the rest of them, they must be at the Mystery Shack. He vaguely hoped the Shack would still be a giant robot, although since all the other buildings had reverted to their former states he had to admit that it was pretty unlikely. Maybe if he asked nicely, McGucket would turn his house into a robot! It was definitely worth considering.
Soos walked along the road, marveling at how green everything was. He hated to admit it, but he’d kind of gotten used to the blasted heath of Weirdmageddon. The trees swayed and rustled in the wind. Birds flew past him, singing, and not a single one turned into an eldritch horror.
“Doodly-doo,” he sang under his breath, peering into the woods, “Walkin’ through the pine trees, doodly-doo, looking for the Pines.” He paused a moment and chuckled. “He-heh. Pines in the pines! I can’t believe I never thought of that before!” He would definitely need to tell Mabel once he found her. She appreciated his word play.
During their first week at the Mystery Shack, Mabel had appeared while he was sweeping the gift shop and demanded, “Why do you always sing what you’re doing?”
“Huh?!” he’d responded. He might have managed to be a bit more eloquent if she hadn’t chosen to make her entrance by descending from the rafters on her grappling hook while wearing a camouflage sweater.
“You always sing what you’re doing! Like right now, you were singing ‘Sweeping up the floor, doo doo.’ I’ve seen you and Grunkle Stan and Wendy do it, but no one back home. Is it a special Gravity Falls thing? Do I need to make Dipper start singing all his nerd thoughts?” Her eyes widened. “Are we living in a musical?”
He’d laughed. “Nah, dawg. It’s just a Mystery Shack thing. Mr. Pines always used to do it, and I guess I picked it up.”
“Oooo! A family word-thingy! Hmmm.” She’d stared at him intently for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied, raised her arm and shout-sung, “This is Mabel, grappling away, doodly—WOAH!”
Soos smiled at the memory. Truth be told, he couldn’t remember how old he’d been when he first started echoing Stan’s habit of narrating his life in a sing-song. He just knew that he’d been doing it for so long that now it felt natural and comforting, as familiar as his abuelita’s old armchair or the feel of a screwdriver in his hands.
A squirrel skittering across his path interrupted his reverie. It scampered up one of the nearby trees and chittered angrily down at him. He chuckled and waved. “Hey dood! I promise, I’m, like, super not scary.”
As he lowered his eyes, he caught a flash of blue through the trees. He squinted in the bright sunlight, trying to make out what it was. It looked like—yes, it was the blue of Dipper’s hat! He’d found them!
Soos pushed his way through the trees, huffing as he pushed branches away from his face. As he got closer, he could make out Dipper and Mabel standing together with their backs to him. Dipper had one arm around his sister while she knelt on the ground and leaned into him. Behind them, the older Pines twins were also kneeling, but it looked like Stan had his arms around Ford. Were they—hugging? Soos put his hands over his mouth to stifle a Mabel-like squeal of joy. Finally! As if this not-actually-the-end-of-the-world could get better!
The whole family looked exhausted, though. Soos supposed he couldn’t blame them. Come to think of it, he was pretty exhausted, too. And hungry. Once the Pines explained how they’d banished Bill and they all got back to the Mystery Shack, they could all use a good meal and then a nice long nap.
He rounded the last row of trees and burst into the clearing with a shout. “Kids! Mr. Pineses! How did you do it, doods? You saved the world! I’m so glad to see … you.”
His greeting was met only with ringing silence and four pairs of wide eyes staring back at him. Mabel only met his gaze for a moment before her lips started to tremble and she turned and buried her face in her brother’s shoulder.
“What—” he faltered. “What’s wrong?”
No one answered. Mabel’s shoulders started to shake. Dipper turned and looked pleadingly at Stan.
“Guys?” Had something happened to Ford? He looked fine, a little more vacant than usual, with what Mabel called his scared owl look, but he didn’t look hurt. The fez perched awkwardly on his head was odd, though. “Why are you crying? Why is Ford wearing Mr. Pines’ hat?”
Mabel let out a long, tremulous wail, only slightly muffled by Dipper’s vest. Soos blinked, looking between Stan and Dipper for some kind of explanation. Dipper opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, and now that he was close Soos could see the redness in his eyes and the tear stains on his cheeks. He turned his gaze to Stan, searching his face for something, anything, that would fill him in. Stan seemed barely able to meet his eyes, choking back sobs as he raised a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes.
A hand with six fingers.
Soos’s confusion settled into a dark knot of panic in his stomach. “Doods? What’s going on?”
Ford—it was Ford, now that Soos knew what to look for the cleft in his chin and the stripe in his hair were obvious—took a deep shaking breath. He looked like he was trying to say more, but all he got out was, “Stan’s gone.”
“What? No he’s not, he’s right here!” Soos sank to the ground in front of Stan, confused and terrified, and gripped his employer’s arms. “He’s right here! Mr. Pines!”
Stan didn’t say anything, didn’t even move, just stared at Soos with wide, confused, empty eyes and a blank frown. He looked softer than usual, not the way he got sometimes when he was talking to Mabel and it was like a wave of tenderness had risen up through his usual gruffness, but like a child who hadn’t yet learned to mistrust the world.
Soos shook his employer’s shoulders. “Mr. Pines!”
He was expecting—hoping, praying—that Stan would push him away or smack his hand or quip about how he needed to calm down. But Stan offered no resistance at all, flopping limply forwards and backwards when Soos shook him, his head lolling a doll’s.
“He doesn’t remember.” Dipper’s voice was unsteady. “They tricked Bill into entering Stan’s mind instead of Ford’s, and then they erased him. But they had to erase Stan too.”
Soos shook his head. “No. That—that can’t be right. That isn’t—”
Ford winced. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.
Soos turned his gaze back to Stan. “Please, Mr. Pines, you’ve got to remember something. I know you, you’re always tricking people and pretending you don’t understand things, and … and if this is a trick, or a joke or something, it isn’t funny! You’ve got to be smarter than that dumb triangle gave you credit for! You’ve got to recognize us, please …”
Soos was vaguely aware that he was babbling, that beside him Ford had lowered his head toward the ground, that behind him Mabel was still sobbing, but he kept talking, pleading, hoping that at any minute Stan would shake the vacant look from his eyes and laugh at them all for worrying. He would have done anything for Stan to push him away with his usual gruffness, but instead the older man sat motionless, ignoring the way Soos was clasping his arms. His eyes were wide and confused and guileless and everything about him was wrong.
At last Soos stopped talking. The last word—the word he wanted to say most of all—was caught in his throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to form the sounds. He’d imagined saying it hundreds of times, in his daydreams where Stan adopted him as his heir, and for the last few days he’d been afraid that he might end up whispering it to a gravestone, but somehow this was worse.
Stan’s mouth quirked in a smile that almost looked—bashful?—and he extricated an arm and idly patted Soos’s hand. “Hello,” he said, soft and uncertain, “Um, sir. Can I help you?”
Soos flinched away. Stan had never called him “sir” in his life. Soos was “kid” or “knucklehead” or “my handyman” or sometimes even “oi, you!” but he was never, ever “sir”. And even though running the Mystery Shack involved calling lots of people “sir,” Soos was sure he’d never heard it in that tone. When Stan talked he pandered, he performed, he flattered or insulted. The man in front of him was none of that. He was straightforward. Open. Vulnerable, thought Soos, and it was like a punch in the gut. Often he’d wished that Stan was less closed off, that he didn’t feel the need to surround himself with so many prickery layers of lies and distrust and grumpiness. But those were part of what made him Stan. He would never choose to forego them like this. And that meant … that meant …
Soos swallowed, fighting the lump that was rising in his throat. “No,” he choked. “I don’t think you can.”
He turned away, avoiding Stan’s eyes, which were soft and open and wrong. His gaze fell on Ford, and he blurted out, “But you’re a genius! You can fix it, right?”
Ford shook his head. “The memory gun was designed to be permanent. There’s nothing we can do.”
Soos’s blood was pumping in his ears and his hands were shaking. “No. I don’t believe you! We’ve all done so many impossible things this summer! Stan and the kids saved you from another dimension! They saved me after I got turned into a zombie! They saved each other from monsters and dinosaurs and demons. You just stopped the Apocalypse, and after all that, this is the thing you tell us can’t be fixed?”
“I’m not a miracle worker,” said Ford quietly. “Please, just go back and tell the townsfolk not to bother us for a while. Let me mourn with my family.”
Soos froze. His hands fell to his sides. The air felt thick and heavy and the small forest noises around him seemed to come from far away. He was as immobile as he had been earlier that day when the chaos demon snapped his fingers. Of course Ford hardly knew him. Of course he wouldn’t think Soos meant anything to Stan besides cheap labor. Of course, Soos had probably been foolish to think he did mean anything more. He shouldn’t have come here, he should have stayed in town, he should have stayed in Mabel Land—
A gentle pressure on his shoulder brought him back to reality. “Grunkle Ford,” Mabel sniffed, clutching at the worn fabric of his t-shirt, “Soos is family.”
Ford stared at Soos with an inscrutable expression, then glanced sideways at Stan.
“… Biologically?” he said.
“Emotionally,” said Mabel stubbornly.
Ford shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “There’s so much about his life that I don’t know.” He looked at Stan, who had barely reacted and was staring back at them with the same glassy eyes and small uncertain frown he’d worn when Soos entered the clearing. “That I won’t know. We never talked, and now …”
Ford swiped at his eyes again. Mabel leaned against Soos and wrapped her arms around him. She was still sniffling quietly. Soos let her bury her head into the crook of his shoulder. He couldn’t even cry. He felt hollow inside, as if the memory gun had taken a part of him, too.
“What do we do now?” asked Dipper, his voice still very small.
Ford had managed to control his tears, but his his eyes were heavy with weariness. “We should go back to the Shack. At least he’ll be more comfortable there than here in the woods, and we can decide—we can find a way to look after him.”
Mabel nodded. “Maybe you’ll remember things when we get back to the Shack, Grunkle Stan!” she said, with forced bravado. “Trees all look the same, it’s no wonder they’re not doing anything. The Shack is your home! It’s got to help!”
She darted forward and tugged on Stan’s hand. His arm followed hers limply, and then, very slowly, he toppled forward onto the grass.
“Mr. Pines!” Soos yelled, and he heard Ford shout, “Stanley!” as the two of them crashed into each other in their haste to prevent Stan’s fall.
Ford had managed to catch one arm across his brother’s chest and was struggling to lift him up.
“Is he okay?” asked Soos desperately.
Ford snapped his head up so quickly that his—no, Stan’s—glasses slipped off his nose, and shouted, “Of course he’s not okay! I had to erase his mind to fix my own stupid mistakes!”
Soos flinched away from the intensity of his glare.
“Grunkle Ford,” said Mabel shakily.
Ford’s shoulders slumped and his expression softened. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have yelled. Please … help me get him up.”
Together, they lifted the other man back up into a kneeling position. He seemed completely unfazed. Ford’s hands hovered on either side of Stan’s shoulder, not quite touching him.
Stan laughed, light and carefree. “Sorry, sorry. Guess this is harder than it looks.”
“It’s all right,” Ford assured him. “Don’t push yourself, please. We have time. Just let me know when you think you can walk.”
He picked up Stan’s glasses from the ground and rubbed his thumb gently along the frames. “It might help if I give these back to you. You’re wearing mine.”
Stan reached up to the glasses on his own face, swaying slightly. Soos placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
“What am I wearing your glasses for?” asked Stan, fumbling to remove them. “And are fingers supposed to work like this?”
“Oh, the gloves. Let me—” Gently, Ford pulled the six-fingered gloves from his brother’s hands. Stan wiggled his fingers, looking from his hands to Ford’s. “You’ve got extras,” he said. “That’s cool. What’s your name, six-fingers?”
Ford froze momentarily at the epithet, but when he spoke his voice was calm and measured. “My name is Stanford Pines,” he said. “I’m your brother.”
“And I’m Mabel,” the girl burst in, “and I’m your favorite great-niece in the whole universe, and that’s my brother, Dipper, and we’ve been staying with you all summer and we love you so much, and—” Her voice broke. “Please come back, Grunkle Stan!”
Stan shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who any of you are.”
He pulled Ford’s glasses off and squinted at them. “Did I crack these?”
Ford paused for a second and then shook his head sadly.
“You should … take care of your things,” Stan murmured, as Ford helped him put his own glasses back on.
“I know,” said Ford. “It’s something I seem to have a great deal of trouble with.”
Stan blinked behind the new glasses. “Okay, let’s try this walking thing,” he said. “Hey, uh, Mister, can you give me a hand?” He reached his arm out to Ford, smiling blankly.
Ford froze like he’d been shot, staring at Stan’s outstretched palm.
For a moment the universe seemed to stop. Then Ford swallowed. “Yes, of course,” he said, and clasped his brother’s hand. That was all. There was no blue glow, no crackling of magic, and Soos was ashamed to admit that he’d hoped there would be.
Ford pulled Stan upright, and Stan stood swaying for a moment, his other arm waving as he slowly found his balance. Soos stepped forward to steady him. When his hand brushed Stan’s, Stan clasped it instinctively.
The first steps were the hardest. It reminded Soos of when his baby cousin was learning to walk, except that when Stan stumbled he was a much heavier burden.
It was nearly a mile to the Shack, and it was slow going. Stan’s feet got steadier as they went, but his eyes never lost their glazed look. At first Soos and Ford had to flank Stan to steady him, but eventually he was able to walk on his own. He still looked around as if everything in the world was new, which, if what Ford had said was true, it was. Dipper led the way, and Mabel clasped her uncle’s hand, her small knuckles white as if she was trying to will him back to her.
From his position in the back of the group, Soos could see Ford heave a deep sigh as his niece rambled desperately on. The others, Soos included, kept their eyes on Stan whenever they could, searching for some sign of the man they knew, some hint that he might remember something, even if it wasn’t them. Ford hardly ever looked up, and when he did it was with such palpable despair that Soos turned his face away.
Soos didn’t do much praying. He’d enjoyed it when his abuelita took him to church as a child—the masses were soothing, and it was nice to know that there was at least one Father who loved him—but he’d never really felt the need to bother the Big Dude with his own problems. But now he found himself repeating broken fragments of prayer in his head, always coming back to Please. Please, I can’t lose him. Please, I don’t care if I never fix another thing in my life, just fix this, fix him, please …
There had to be something that Ford was missing. He’d said it himself, he barely knew the man Stan was now. He hadn’t been inside Stan’s mindscape, walked the labyrinth of memories.
As they saw the first signs for the Shack, Soos could feel a tiny spark of hope brighten in his heart. Maybe Mabel had been right. Seeing them in the forest hadn’t helped, but the Shack was different. Stan’s mind was the Shack; its form was the support for his endless halls of memories. Maybe, just maybe, seeing the Shack could fill up some of those empty rooms again.
And the Shack was Stan, was inexpertly-lettered signs and tuneless singing and laughing at bad television, was a showman’s smile and a troubled past and gruff laughter, was creaking joints and sodas after work and impromptu taxidermy lessons, was “Well, you’re my only employee so I guess you can be employee of the month. Not like it matters,” was “Yeesh, kid, it’s the off season, I thought I’d have a few months without you pestering me,” spoken with the door left open. The Shack was Stan, and Stan was family.
They turned the corner.
The sunlight cast dappled patterns across the ruins of the Shack. It sat in a sunken crater in the ground, surrounded by fallen trees. The porch was half-collapsed. The metal awnings were bent and broken. A tree trunk had impaled the roof. What windows weren’t missing completely were crazed with cracks. Fragments of McGucket’s robot littered the ground, mixed with piles of keychains and attractions split along their taxidermy seams. One metal arm reached out toward them with sprawling fingers half-buried in the ground.
In the town square of Gravity Falls, people were celebrating. They hugged and laughed and cheered, walking down streets that bore no signs that the end of the world that had been so narrowly avoided. Broadcasting equipment crackled into life. I’m Shandra Jimenez, and strange as it may seem, it appears the town has returned to normal. As of yet, we have no reported casualties.
In the woods, flanked on three sides by perfectly regenerated trees, Soos stared at the crumbling walls of the Mystery Shack and started to cry.