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Stan exhaled heavily as he swung a leg up over the rail of the bridge. The water far below was calm and dark, just like the night around him. He balanced himself into a sitting position, idly swinging his legs out over the water as he took what he knew to be his last few breaths. He had the time; no one was around for miles.
He’d made sure to pick a place in the middle of nowhere—a fitting watery grave for a nobody.
That was all he was, after all. A nobody that had dared try to be a somebody. No wonder it had never worked out for him. His pa had been right about him all along, Stan just hadn’t wanted to believe it. But he was done now. He’d given this “life” thing his best go. It just wasn't something he was cut out for.
No wonder Ford had wanted to abandon him for university. He’d probably seen what Stan was long before Stan had realized it. Stan could only hope that this would be enough of an apology for dragging Ford down all those years.
Not that Ford would ever know. None of Stan’s family had ever cared to try and reach out to him, find out how he was doing. They were all probably relieved he was out of their lives. Probably hadn’t spared a single thought for him in the seven years he’d been gone.
It used to hurt, knowing he meant nothing to them. Now, Stan understood it. How could a nobody ever mean something?
Accepting what he was had been surprisingly freeing. Stan had gone through so many names and identities over the years that it felt good to not have to put on a facade. To not have to remember a backstory or fake details about a fake life. The last few months, he’d been introducing himself as Nobody, and it had been nice.
It had also led him here, because who was Nobody but a nobody? And what right did a nobody have to keep existing, when a nobody’s life was worth nothing?
Stan hadn’t bothered with any sort of goodbye note. What was the point? Who would want to read the last words of a nobody? He’d just left his car unlocked and on the outskirts of the nearest town, and walked all the way out here. He couldn’t muster the interest to care about what happened to it.
It was just the remnants of his nothing, nobody life. The embarrassing, tangible evidence that at one point Stan had tried to be a somebody.
Good riddance.
Stan closed his eyes and braced his hands on the railing, preparing to push himself off. His arms ached with the burden of being Nobody; one slash through his skin with a switchblade for every mistake he had made—and Stan had made a lot of mistakes. Some of them were old scars and some of them were new, but that was okay. He wouldn’t be around to have to feel them much longer.
Stan leaned forward over the water and let go.
He was in motion for only a second when the strangest thing happened: arms wrapped around him from behind, pulling him back.
Stan yelped in shock as someone attempted to drag him off the railing and back onto the bridge. He hooked his legs around the railing as best he could, trying to hold on, but it was tough. Whoever had caught him was strong, the chest he was being pressed into broad and the arms wrangling him sturdy.
“Let go!” Stan demanded, flailing in the stranger’s grip.
“You must be out of your mind if you think I’m going to do that ever again!” the stranger shouted back.
The voice was male, deep, and oddly familiar.
“Who the hell do you think you are?!” Stan yelled, furious that his plans had been interrupted. He attempted to try and hit the man holding onto him. “This is none of your business!”
“You are absolutely my business, have always been my business, and I’m sorry that at one point I decided you weren’t my business!”
What in the absolute…?
The sheer weirdness of the statement caused Stan to falter, and the man behind him used the opportunity to firmly grab Stan’s wrists, crossing them over his chest and pinning them there in a bear hug. With that new leverage, he hauled Stan over the bridge’s rail successfully.
Stan barely noticed. He’d gotten distracted the moment his eyes had registered that the hands holding him had six fingers each.
“What—?”
He was let go of only for a brief moment, whirled around, and crushed into the tightest hug he could ever remember receiving.
“Stanley. Stanley. Stanley.”
The man was whispering Stan’s name into his hair like a prayer, that familiar voice rough with tears.
There was no way. There was no way.
“…Stanford?”
Stan’s hushed question was met with a sob, the man collapsing and bringing them both to their knees, Stan still firmly clutched to him like a favourite stuffed toy.
“I’ve got you,” Ford—it had to be; somehow, inexplicably, it was Ford—murmured. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’re alright. You're alive.”
The words came across in a way that sounded more like Ford was trying to comfort himself rather than Stan.
Ford all but sobbed into his hair. “I finally found you. I can’t believe I found you. I’m so sorry it took me this long. I’ll never let you go again, I promise.”
Stan wondered if his jump had been successful and this was some sort of final moments hallucination. Ford wasn’t making much sense. And how was he even here?
“What’s going on?” Stan asked, trying to pull away from his brother.
Ford resisted him at first, hugging tighter and hushing him, shaky hand rubbing Stan’s back as if to settle him. Stan kept wiggling and pushing though, and Ford eventually let up enough for him to lean back and get a good look at his brother.
“You’re not my brother,” Stan said immediately.
The man was Ford, undeniably. He had Ford’s voice and Ford’s fingers and Ford’s face. But he was not Stan’s brother.
The Ford in front of him looked closer to their pa’s age, with silver at his temples and threaded through otherwise brown hair. Lines and wrinkles aged his face, and he was bulkier than Stan ever remembered his scrawny nerd twin being.
Stan tried to pull away, but the man held on.
“Who are you?” Stan demanded.
“I’m your brother.”
“No, you’re not! My brother should be my age, not old.”
“I’m who your brother will be in twenty years, if you went through with what you were planning to do,” the old Ford explained.
Which really didn’t explain anything.
“What?”
Tears were still streaking down Ford’s cheeks. “It’s me, Stanley. It’s me.” Two shaky hands cupped Stan’s face, holding him reverently. “I’m your brother, just from the future.”
“The future,” Stan said flatly.
“I know that’s maybe hard to believe, but how else would explain my presence?”
Stan sputtered. “Don’t—don’t put the burden of proof on me!”
The guy wasn’t wrong, though. Stan had no idea how else to explain the presence of someone who looked like an older version of his brother. Not to mention the sudden appearance of a person in the area, when Stan knew for a fact he’d previously been very much alone.
Ford had built a perpetual motion machine as a teenager, breaking the laws of physics. Was it really that crazy to believe that maybe his genius brother could also invent time travel?
But it still didn’t explain why Ford was here.
“Okay, let's say I believe you,” Stan said, trying to extract his face from Ford’s clingy hands. “How are you here? And why?”
“Why?” Ford gasped like the air had been punched from him, a wounded sound. “You ask me why when you—?”
He toppled forward into Stan, once again grabbing hold of him like Stan would turn to vapour should he let go. A quiet and pained weeping resumed. Stan couldn’t help the way it tugged on his heartstrings. Ford shouldn’t ever be sad. Certainly not because of him.
If only he’d made it over the railing. Then he wouldn’t have been able to make Ford sad ever again.
“Do you know,” Ford sobbed, “how long I’ve searched for you?”
Stan couldn't say he did. He was surprised to even hear Ford had searched for him. Why would he do something like that? Nobodies weren’t worth searching for.
“Do you know how many years I've looked? How long it took me to find out what had happened to you? To find where? When? To figure out how to fix it?”
Pressed so tightly against Ford it felt like they would meld together, Stan wheezed out, “Ford, what are you talking about?”
He was jerked back to arms length, Ford gripping his biceps desperately, wet but fierce eyes staring directly into Stan’s.
“You died, Stanley!” Ford shouted, shaking him. “On this very night, at this very location. You jumped off this bridge and ended your life!”
That had been the plan before he’d been interrupted, yes.
Ford’s voice cracked with sorrow on his next words. “Five years. It took five years before anyone found your remains. Longer before they were able to identify them. You had been dead for five years and I'd had—I’d had no idea.”
Realization dawned slowly on Stan, as did growing shock. His death… had upset Ford? That… he hadn’t expected that…
“You weren’t supposed to ever know,” Stan mumbled numbly. “This should have made you happy.”
Ford bowed his head, fingers digging almost painfully into Stan’s arms. “How,” he growled out roughly, “should this have made me happy?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Because you’d never have to deal with me again. See me again. Think of me again. You’d be permanently free of me dragging you down.”
Ford snarled, glaring at him, but it was a look that was fuelled by a deep agony, not anger. “It didn’t make me happy.” He spat the last word out. “I’ve spent twenty-seven years without a twin. Fifteen of those trying to figure out what happened, what went wrong. Fifteen years tracking down your last days. Fifteen years searching for a way to get you back. Fifteen years, and I finally—I finally—!”
Stan was yanked back into another crushing hug, Ford’s face buried in his hair.
“I've finally got you,” Ford sobbed. “You’re okay. You’re alive. I saved you.”
Fifteen years. His brother had wasted fifteen years on Stan after his death?
“Ford—”
“I’m so sorry!” Ford interrupted him, practically wailing. “I’m so sorry I never stood up for you when you needed me. I’m so sorry I thought other things were more important than my own brother. I’m so sorry you’ve been alone for so long. I’m so sorry I hadn’t been able to save you back then.”
That was a lot. Stan didn't know how to feel about it. But something warm bloomed deep in his chest.
“I’m here now,” Ford was murmuring frantically in his ear. “I’m here. It’ll be okay. I’ve got you.”
Stan stared across the dark bridge from over Ford’s shoulder, shocked brain putting all the pieces together like a puzzle. “You… you spent fifteen years inventing time travel just so you could come back here and stop me?”
It sounded ludicrous. Why would anyone spend that much time on him?
“Yes,” Ford said breathlessly. “I tried so many different ways to bring you back, but nothing worked. I found myself wishing that I could just go back and stop you from ever dying in the first place. Then I decided to turn my wish into reality. But I'm sorry it took me so long.”
Stan’s mouth twisted. He thought of the silver in Ford’s hair. “You shouldn’t have wasted so much of your life on me, Ford.”
“You’re not a waste,” Ford said firmly. “You’re my brother, and there was no better goal to dedicate my life to. All I’ve wanted in fifteen years is to save you.”
Oh. Stan felt his throat choke up.
“Stanford, I…” How could he say this gently to his brother? “There ain’t somebody left to save.”
“What? What are you talking about? You’re right here.” Ford’s hands patted Stan all over as if checking he truly was there.
Stan didn't want to break his brother’s heart, but he needed Ford to understand the truth. “You should just let me go. I’m Nobody.”
“That’s not true!” Ford denied immediately. “You're somebody to me.”
“I’ll never be anybody, let alone somebody.”
“As long as you are alive you contain infinite possibilities of who you could be.” Ford pulled back enough to press their foreheads together, meeting Stan’s eyes with determination and a plea. “Don't give up yet. Please. I love you.”
“I’m not worth it,” Stan mumbled.
“You are. But if—if you can’t live for yourself right now then live for me. I'll help you.”
Stan’s lips twisted in a humourless smile. “You’ll help me be somebody?”
“I’ll help you see that you already are somebody,” Ford promised with conviction.
Stan was still being held. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him, let alone for this long. He didn’t know if he was convinced, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get Ford to leave. And he knew he couldn’t jump again right now and subject his brother to watching him die.
“So what’s your plan then?” he asked.
Hope entered Ford’s expression. “Well, there’s two options. You can come with me to the future; I promise I’ll take care of you and help you and be there for you. Or… or I can bring you to the younger version of me in this time, where I’ll explain the situation.”
Stan winced. Drop him off on his brother’s doorstep as a problem for Ford to deal with? Yikes.
“I don’t want Ford to know,” he said.
“He deserves to know. If you want to stay in this time then he deserves to know.”
Stan shook his head strongly, pulling away. “I can’t be a burden on him. He deserves better.”
“You’re not a burden, Stanley, you’re his brother. I promise you he’d want to know, and he’d want to help you. I am him, after all, so trust me when I say he loves you. I love you. At no point did we ever stop loving you.”
Inexplicably, Stan felt tears well in his eyes. They’d been dry for weeks, Stan having felt so empty he couldn’t even cry anymore. But now wetness gathered along his lash-line and he fought to keep it back.
“B-But then—” He tried to stop his voice from trembling. “Why didn’t you—? No one… no one has ever looked for me.”
Matching tears filled the old Ford’s eyes again, his face twisting with pain and sympathy. “I know. I’m so sorry. You’re the one who deserves better. You’ve always deserved better. Please believe me, Stanley. Your life is so precious.”
Stan couldn't believe it. He could believe that Ford could believe it, but he just couldn’t. Everything so far in his nothing, nobody life had proved otherwise.
…But he wanted to believe it. He wanted to be Somebody.
“I don’t know!” he cried. “I don’t know what to do, I—” He sniffled. “If… if I go with you, then what happens to my Ford? Won’t he think I’m dead?”
“I don’t know,” Ford admitted. “If you disappear here then I imagine that one day he might invent time travel to come back and try to find you.”
“If that’s the case, then doesn’t that mean this has already happened before? That another me chose to go with a future you and left current you without a brother?” Stan asked.
Ford smiled at him like he was proud of Stan, and wasn't that a strange sight?
“You’ve always been smarter than anyone gave you credit for,” Ford said. “But I don’t know. Time travel is unpredictable; I can only theorize. Either way, don’t let a choice a past you may or may not have made influence the one you make now. This is your choice.”
If it was Stan’s choice, he would’ve jumped off the bridge. But he thought he could see Ford’s point. And being with his brother again, speaking to him, was bringing something up inside him that Stan had long thought dead.
Hope.
He wanted his brother more than death. He just didn’t want to be a burden on him.
“I… I want…” Stan glanced over at the rail of the bridge. He couldn’t feel the call of it as strongly anymore. He looked back at this old Ford, who’d worked all those years and come all this way just for him. “I want to see my brother. My Ford.”
He worried that admitting that would disappoint this Ford, but Ford grinned at him brightly, even if it did seem a little sad.
“Then I’ll take you to him.”
“I’m sorry!” Stan blurted out as Ford got to his feet. “This will leave you without a brother again and you worked so hard and—”
“Stanley.” Ford cut him off gently, helping him up. “All I want is for you to be happy. All I want is for you to stay alive. Knowing I succeeded with my goal is enough for me.”
Stan still worried though. “But what will happen to you? If I never die or disappear, then you have no reason to invent time travel. If past-you never invents time travel, then what happens to now-you?”
“I don’t know,” Ford said again. “But I know that you being here with your brother is a better future for the both of us, and I am content with that.”
Ford offered out a hand. Stan looked to the railing, then back to his brother. Slowly, he put his own hand in Ford’s. Their fingers laced together, six surrounding five in safety and love.
“Come on, Stanley.” Ford began to lead Stan off the bridge. “Let me take you home.”