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For the first time in a long time, Ford slept without dreaming. Only for an hour or so, but still, it was nice.
He forgot for a fraction of a second where he was. Maybe some part of him still expected to be in the Fearamid, or somewhere on the other side of the portal.
No, that was over, and he was back in the living room of the Shack. When he had started thinking of it as “the Shack” and not his house, he couldn’t say. He lifted his head from the side table and stretched. The place was still in shambles, probably too hazardous for two kids and a mentally injured old man to maneuver throughout. It didn’t appear that they had any plans to do so.
The kids were curled up against a snoring Stan on the recliner, still scuffed up and disheveled from the end of the world. Mabel had tucked her arms inside her sweater and rested her head on Stan’s stomach. Dipper was lying rather awkwardly on his right arm. He’d fallen asleep clutching Stan’s suit jacket. They both looked so small.
Shouldn’t you be finding some new way to tear them apart?
Bill was gone, but his voice wasn’t done away with so easily.
Really! I’m sure if you tried you could find something to start another pointless fight over.
A lot of people had a voice like this in their minds, Ford knew. For the kids, maybe it was a school bully.
Go on, make them lie to each other again. Why not give Mabel the catastrophic secret this time? Switch it up.
For Stan, it was probably their dad.
“Stanford, tell him he’s being crazy.” You could have, ya know.
It wouldn’t have done any good.
C’mon, think about it. His genius kid who’s gonna make him a fortune tells him to cool off for a sec, he’s not gonna listen? What, was he gonna throw you out on the street, too?
Or worse.
But you’ll never really know, will ya?
He had to curse his subconscious ability to mimic Bill’s sing-songy taunts. At some point, Mabel’s scrapbook had fallen on the floor, upside-down and still open.
She thinks you hate her, by the way. I mean, you did try to take her brother from her.
He picked it up, only wanting to close it and set it aside, when he spotted the edge of a black-and-white photograph.
Probably hates you, too. Sure, Stan volunteered, but all those kids saw was you pulling the trigger.
He flipped through to find a bright, glittery, nearly overstimulating collage dedicated to him. Most of the photos were taken when he wasn’t looking. Some, he remembered Mabel taking after she called his name from across the room, never waiting for him to register the camera before clicking the button. A few had captions, each written in a different color gel pen, such as, “BONUS GRUNKLE,” or, “ACTUALLY PULLS OFF THE TURTLENECK.”
Her entry from the week he came back was written in her signature hot pink:
Greetings!
…Okay, I tried it, and it is NOT working for me. Sorry, Grunkle Ford.
Turns out we have TWO Grunkle Stans! Ford just got home from a different dimension the other night. Turns out Stan’s been using his brother’s name this whole time, so all the stuff in the gift shop has this guy’s name on it. He was looking at all the bobble-heads and Burpin’ Stanford Pineses and kept using words like “affront,” and “travesty.” He’s hilarious! He still doesn’t get the whole “grunkle” thing, though. He keeps saying it’s not a word and asking why it’s spelled with a K instead of a C. I tried to tell him that it’s a state of mind and not a spelling word. He’ll get there.
In the bottom right corner was a drawing of his handprint as it appeared on the Journals, but instead of a number on the palm, there was a pink heart-shaped sticker. Not an anatomically correct one, of course, but by now you could tell him that Mabel’s heart actually looked like that, and it wouldn’t surprise him.
He’d almost forgotten about the old photo when it fell out of its corners on the next page. His eyes widened as he looked down at himself and Stan at their first birthday party. A photocopy, of course, but that meant someone had the original. Where on Earth was it?
He would ask her when there was an opportunity. He wouldn’t dare wake her now, or interrupt her time with Stan while he was healing. He slipped the copy back into place on its page and read the caption above it:
I looked through one of the old-timey photo albums in Stan’s secret hideout and found BABY STANS! Look how cute they are!!!! I couldn’t even tell them apart if it weren’t for Ford’s extra finger. I bet it gives him some kind of mysterious wisdom or author powers or something. Grunkle Stan says Ford’s dangerous, but the government guys said the same thing about him. Sorry Stan, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
He shut the book and left it on the skull-table. In his most spiteful moments, Ford had a tendency to think of Stan as a squatter. Not just in his house, but in his life. He hadn’t stopped to consider all the burdens Stan must have taken up in his absence. Someone had to clean out the old house after Mom and Dad passed, and Stanford wasn’t banned from New Jersey.
Pop quiz! Which of your parents bit it first? Go on Sixer, give it your best shot. The answer might surprise you!
A small part of him didn’t want Stan to recover that particular memory.
But he didn’t get to pick and choose, so he spent the next few hours in the lab searching for any more photos, heirlooms, anything Stan might have taken from the pawn shop. Eventually he found them in a cardboard box just under his desk. He must have pushed it there at some point just to get it out of his way, not even thinking to see what it was. Before he could get a good look at what all was inside, he heard the elevator doors open.
“Grunkle – um, Great Uncle Ford?”
Mabel came in, bathed in the glow of the flickering control panels lining the walls. She’d been illuminated like this in Bill’s fist. Those minutes moved by in a blur, but he recalled the shooting star reflected in that grotesque eye just as he was about to snap his fingers.
She looked wary now. Ford blinked.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve been here so long that ‘great uncle’ just doesn’t sound right anymore.”
That got her to smile. “What’s in the box?”
He motioned for her to come look. “Your scrapbook did wonders, but if we’re going to get all of Stan’s memory back…”
She gasped in delight and fished out a picture of the boys in little suits at a family wedding. They must have been in third or fourth grade at the time. Ford was obliging the photographer with a smile while Stan tugged on his collar, not even acknowledging the camera.
She held it up to Ford and squealed, “You guys are adorable!”
He laughed. “I don’t think we were ever more uncomfortable.”
She rifled through more mementos and picked up a spool of film. “What’s this?”
“A home movie. Don’t know which one.”
She frowned. “I don’t think this’ll fit in the VCR.”
“I’m sure we can scrounge up a projector somehow,” he said with a shrug.
“How long has all this stuff been here?”
He put a hand in his inside pocket. “No idea, but we’re lucky. If Stan’s ever going to remember past this summer, he’ll need more than this.” He pulled out the picture of them on the beach, standing proudly on the Stan O’War.
Mabel’s eyes widened. “That was in your pocket this whole time?!”
Ford had never admitted to anyone that he carried it, but now it felt natural.
Mabel bounced up and down and poked him in the chest a couple of times. “I knew you two didn’t hate each other!”
“Who said we hated each other?”
Her face fell. That was probably a dumb question.
“Well…no one, I guess. Grunkle Ford?”
He put the photo back in his jacket. “Hm?”
“The night you came back, I kinda heard you guys talking, and…” She tapped her two index fingers together. “You’re not still gonna kick Stan out of the house, are you?”
He sighed. “Mabel, of course not.” He opened his arms and she came in for a hug. He stroked her hair gently. “I’m sorry you heard that. But a lot’s changed now.”
She pulled back and wiped a tear with the heel of her hand. It started to set in what a shame it was that he hadn’t spent more time with her since coming home. He’d have to fix that if the kids came back next summer.
“I guess I haven’t thanked you yet,” he said.
Mabel raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“Dipper told me you were the one who left the portal open. You brought me back.”
She had a curious look on her face as that sank in.
“And now you brought back my brother. I really don’t know where this family would be without you, Mabel.” He took her hand and looked her straight in the eye. “Thank you.”
She smiled the way she had after she’d given him the unicorn hair a few weeks back, and sniffled. “Do you need help getting this box upstairs?”
The box wasn’t particularly heavy. He could probably stack another box on top if there were more down here and still lift them on his own.
“Yes,” he said, “That’d be great.”