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The summer of 2013 couldn't have arrived so quickly.
As soon as Mabel and Dipper arrived at that old broken shack in the woods Stan shoved all of the incoming tourists to the side to squeeze them in his arms, almost making them unable to breath. Stan had even opened the front door for them to let them inside.
Ford had been standing awkwardly to the side as he watched Dipper and Mabel sprint towards Stan and attempted to say hi. Ford may have spent a bit of time with both Dipper and Mabel last summer, but Stan was always going to be the one they ran fastest towards.
"Goodnight goofball one and two, don't steal snacks at 1 in the morning like ya used to do." Stan said as he ruffled both Dipper and Mabel's hair the night they came.
Dipper and Mabel got up from their bed and went to him and squeezed him, trying to squeeze him the same way he did to them.
"Ha, good try kids! Packing a bigger punch? Least Dipper has a bit of muscle now."
"Hey!" Dipper playfully punched Stan and both siblings nestled up in their warm covers in bed.
Dipper and Mabel's soft and silly smiles that were staring at Stan were amusing to Ford.
Ford peered through the door, then popped out of it and went in the middle of Dipper and Mabel's room. "Have sweet dreams, and if... you ever need me, or Stan, just wake us up alright?"
Dipper and Mabel smiled and waved to him.
"Good night Gruncle Ford!" Good night great uncle Ford!" They both said at the same time.
Ford cracked another smile. "Good night children."
Ford left their room and sighed glumly in the hallway. "No hugs for me I suppose." He thought to himself.
"Kids will come around. Try to spend time with them." Stan said to him as he hugged Ford and slowly walked back to his room.
Ford waved to Stan, "Thank you, I'll try... Good night, I love you."
Stan stuck his tongue out and smiled. "Good night, love you too."
Ford walked towards the hallway towards his room. He looked at a small picture frame of Dipper and Mabel that was nailed on one of the walls. He looked at it for a bit with curiosity, eyeing Mabel who is making a silly face with her tongue out.
Ford had hung out with Dipper, played D,D,&MD, and went on monster hunting adventures, but Mabel he hadn't really begun to talk with. He knew her personality, sure, and she had made his hand into a turkey one time, but Mabel was a mystery to Ford.
...
"What would Mabel like?"
The front door creaked open as Dipper stepped out of the mystery shack with a bag on his back, looking to be stuffed full of traps. "Hey Mabel, I'm going out with Wendy and her friends to go on a monster hunt, wanna come?"
Mabel turned off the T.V with a phone in her hand. "Oh, I would, but I'm hanging out with the girls today! Good luck on your monster hunt or whatever! If you have one I'll join tomorrow!"
"Alright, have fun! Don't make a mess!"
"I won't!"
Mabel pressed Grenda's phone number. It rang and rang until the familiar deep, loud, and raspy voice picked up.
"HEY MABEL, YOU'RE BACK!"
"HEY girlfriend! I was gonna invite you and Candy over to the mystery shack do you wanna come!?"
Grenda hesitated for a second to talk, and then cleared her throat.
"Oh um, no. Sorry Mabel! Maybe in like 2 days? I've actually been sick with the flu! "COUGH" And Candy can't come either because she's been at her grandparents house and shes coming back by plane today!"
Mabel frowned and put her knees up to her chest. "Awww man! Really? I have to wait two more days!? I miss you guys..."
"Sorry Mabel, bad luck! We'll still see each other in a couple days, so don't worry!"
Mabel stared at the phone and sighed.
"Okay... feel better, bye."
Mabel hung up the phone and grabbed the remote.
"Back to watching ducktective I guess."
Ford came down the stairs of his room and entered the kitchen. He opened the fridge to find a whole blender with a pink juice with plastic dinosaurs inside, with the blender being labeled "Mabel juice" in front of the eggs that Ford was going to make.
Confused, he grabbed the blender and went to the living room where he found Mabel blankly staring at the television screen.
"Uh... Mabel, what is this?"
Mabel turned to him with a sad face. "Oh, that's Mabel juice. Can you give me some please? I'm having kind of a rough day."
Ford frowned. He grabbed a cup and held the blender of Mabel juice and sat down on the living room rug. "What's wrong?"
Mabel grabbed a cup that Ford was holding and poured it with Mabel juice. She chugged it down and then hugged a pillow.
"Well I haven't seen Candy and Grenda in months after last summer, and I wanted to see them today! But Grenda said that she's sick and Candy's still coming back from her grandparents house, so I still have to wait a couple more days to see them! I just miss my friends."
Ford hesitantly patted his hand on top of Mabel's head, trying to give her comfort. "I'm sorry. I'm sure it's hard wanting to see friends all year long and then when you finally have the chance you still have to wait."
Mabel thought for a moment. "Hmmm..."
Suddenly bursting with excitement, Mabel shouted "Hey Gruncle Ford do you wanna hang out with me!?"
Ford flinched from the sudden loudness of her voice and took his hand off of Mabel's head.
"Oh, well I do have some work to do unfor-"
"Oh what some nerd thing? Come on Gruncle Ford, come and hang out with your great niece! Besides, if I were Dipper, you would be okay with it. What about me?"
The voice in the back of Fords head recalled something he said out loud about 2 days ago; "What would Mabel like?"
Ford stretched out his arms and then sighed. "Yes, you're right, I should try to spend some time with you. I suppose it is foolish to only know Dipper."
Mabel jumped up and put her hands on Ford and shook him. "Really, you will? Awesome!! Well lets get started then!"
Ford smiled hesitantly and stood up.
"Well, what do you want to do?"
Ford cringed. "Do you think there's anything else we can do?"
Mabel smiled and ran to the table. "Come on! Painting nails is a certified bonding experience!"
Mabel peered at Fords fingers. Gasp "I can paint your nails rainbow!"
Mabel pulled up a chair and sat Ford down. Mabel opened a fanny pack that was wrapped around her waist and pulled out red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple nail polish.
She started with red, painting it onto his thumbnail. She smiled at him, her legs rocking back and forth while Ford was straining his smile.
"So, what's the goss?"
"The goss?"
Mabel leaned a bit forward. "Yeah, the gossip!"
Ford raised and eyebrow. "Uh, well I wouldn't say there's any gossip to talk about. Would you like to hear about me and Stans adventures on the sea?"
Mabel grinned while moving on to Ford's pointer fingers.
"Yeah! What did you guys get up to? What anomalies did you find? How many fish did you get? How many times did Gruncle Stan get arrested? Did you guys find LOVE!?"
Ford laughed and peered at Mabel curiously. "Your mind is so energetic, it's fascinating."
"Well, to answer those questions, we found lots of anomalies. We found a seal pup that had colorful spots that spelled out what would happen the next day, we found a bee with a lion as a face, we found a giant squid-"
"THE KRAKEN!?" Mabel exclaimed. From her excitement she shook the table and spilled the green colored nail paint all over the table.
"Aww man!"
Mabel ran towards the kitchen to grab some paper towels. Ford lifted his hands off the table and sighed.
As Mabel was wiping off the nail paint, she looked at Gruncle Ford and frowned.
"I'm sorry Gruncle Ford. I'm really impulsive, I just got too excited... I feel like such a screw up sometimes-"
"Don't say that."
Mabel peered at Ford who looked at her pitifully. "Please don't say that."
Ford put his hands out for Mabel to wipe the bit of paint that got on his hands. He smiled at her and then opened up the next color of nail polish for Mabel to use.
"You know, whenever I talk about my adventures, or the next creature I have researched or caught, you're always so excited. Gets me excited! And I've been doing this for 40 or more years! You might have spilled some nail polish on the table, but I promise it's no big deal; in fact, the table looks more colorful now, like a pretty green clover."
Mabel grinned and then looked down at the table. The paint had gone into a spiral pattern, the center of the table now pretty with green.
"Woah, you're right Gruncle Ford, it looks so pretty!"
Mabel stared at the table and then thought for a moment, a new idea brewing in her mind.
"Gruncle Ford, after I paint your nails, could you get some glitter? And some other paint!?"
Gruncle Ford tilted his head. "What do you need those for?"
As Mabel painted the last of his nails with purple, she looked up and then stepped back to get a better view of the table.
"I want to decorate the table! What's good of a nail spill if you can't decorate it after? Then it will look better! Maybe it will attract the leprechauns too!"
Ford lifted his hands from the table and put them on a paper towel. "You have a very creative mind! I can see why you and Dipper get along, reminds me of Stanley and me when we were your age."
Mabel blushed and smiled widely. She ran to the other side of the living room and got out paintbrushes big and small, tons of glitter, and all sorts of paint colors. She set them down on the chair of the table and then ran up to Ford, bouncing up and down.
"Thanks Gruncle Ford. Now lets get painting :D!"
Dipper, Pacifica, and Wendy walked into the living room from the hallway, with branches, scrapes, and mud on their faces.
"That was awful. I am never doing that again."
Dipper smiled smugly. "Oh come on Pacifica, I know you had fun."
Ford ran to them and grabbed a towel.
"Children, what happened!?
Ford began dabbing their clothes and faces and wiping their clothes.
"We tried to climb a rock looking for the electric hawk, but it ended up being a bear." Wendy said.
"Well, at least we got revenge on the gnomes!" Dipper pointed out.
Mabel ran towards Dipper.
"You got revenge on the gnomes!?"
Dipper put his hands on Mabel's shoulders.
"Yeah! Jeff the gnome was being a total creep to you last year, and when we saw them harassing another creature we thought we could give them a taste of their own medicine."
Pacifica sprayed herself with perfume to get out the mud scent from her clothes.
"Well, at least I looked pretty beating them up, you know, before the bear got us."
Wendy took off her boots, that should have been taken off in the main entrance, and put them to the side. She strolled towards the living room and stopped suddenly.
"The real story is why this table looks so different! What happened to it?"
Mabel ran towards the Table and shouted across the room. "Oh yeah! Hey Dipper and Pacifica, come here!"
Dipper and Pacifica walked over to the living room table, with Ford following behind. Ford went over to the Table and held out his hand for Mabel to come.
"Mabel wanted to hang out with me today because her friends unfortunately weren't available today, so she painted my nails!"
Mabel lifted up Ford's hand to show the group his nails, which were painted rainbow.
Pacifica smiled and put her hands in her pockets. "Wow Mabel, you're actually... not that bad at painting someone's nails."
As Mabel grinned back, she looked at the table again.
"Oh yeah, I forgot!"
Mabel sheepishly smiled and blushed. "I... accidentally spilled all of the green nail polish on the table, but it ended up drying in a really pretty shape!"
Ford patted her head and then picked the 13 year old up.
"Gruncle Ford stop it!" She said as she laughed.
"We ended up decorating the table spill and making it more pretty. I haven't really done art in a while besides the occasional sketch so it was actually pretty entertaining! Mabel has a very creative mind."
Mabel tried to scramble out of Ford's arms like a toddler and a mother, but Ford hugged her hard, almost like she couldn't leave.
"You're trapped, you can't escape!"
Mabel laughed and squeezed back.
"No!!! Help me Dipper I can't get out!"
Dipper, Pacifica, and Wendy all laughed and smiled.
Mabel smiled and then looked up at Ford.
"I love you Gruncle Ford. Thanks for hanging out with me today, even though I'm a bit annoying."
Gruncle Ford smiled. He lifted Mabel up a bit to give her a small kiss on the head.
"Any time my dear."
...
...
...
Bonus:
"Wait, wheres Gruncle Stan?" Dipper said.
Suddenly, banging came from the walls. You could hear a muffled echoing raspy and old voice from the vents.
"Hey, could you guys get me out here? I tried to catch the raccoon in the vent but I got stuck. I've been here for 5 hours and just got near a room.
...
HELP ME!"