Work Text:
“Wow a six-fingered handshake! It’s a full finger friendlier than normal.” There’s something strange in the girl’s voice as she says it. Not untruthful, just strange. Unfortunately, Ford’s never been that good at tone, and thirty years alone hasn’t helped. He just grins.
“Ha, I like this kid. She’s weird.” Her smile dips a little but he has no time to question it before the boy behind her (her twin?) is asking about his journals. He puts it out of his mind, caught up with telling a rapt audience his life story and then mindwiping secret service members.
It’s not until that evening, after he’s spoken to Stanley and everyone else has gone up to bed, that he remembers it at all.
He’s come up from the lab to the kitchen (trying to ignore the sideshow that his house has become) to get some coffee when he sees the girl, Mabel, leaning against the counter and holding a half empty glass of water. She jolts when she catches sight of him and flashes him a smile. He doesn’t know how to talk to people, let alone children, and he’s just deciding whether it would be better to continue on upstairs and come back down later, when he sees them.
Five fingers curled around one side of the glass, a thumb out of sight around the other. He freezes and she glances up at him through her bangs.
“…Great Uncle Ford?” How hadn’t he noticed? His mind goes back to when he met her earlier on. Expectant, that was what she had been, the thing he heard in her voice. She had been waiting for him to notice. Mabel sets her glass down and he shakes himself out of his daze as she cautiously steps closer. “Are you okay, Great Uncle Ford?” He smiles down at her, a bit less stiffly than he might have done otherwise. His eyes flit down to her hands again and her expression clears. Mabel holds up her hands and spreads her fingers out for him to see. She grins. “It’s genetic, I guess. Like twins!” He chuckles and brings one of his own hands up to meet hers.
“I suppose it is.” She threads her fingers through his and gives his hand a squeeze. She’s so small, really, he’s almost afraid of breaking her. When was the last time he interacted with a child? His nephew, Shermie’s son, was about her age when he went through the portal, he remembers, but he hadn’t seen him in at least two years at that point. And they were never close. And when was the last time he touched someone else? Willing prolonged contact probably hasn’t happened since… since he was a teenager, he supposes. He’s never really been one for holding hands but he can’t help but notice that for once his fingers don’t cage the other person’s in. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.” He mutters. She giggles at him and drops his hand, reaching back for her glass.
“Well… you did just come through an interdimensional portal!” Her smile softens and she glances away almost…. shyly. He’s known her for less than half a day and yet he can already tell that it’s not a usual expression for her. “I was excited when we found the journal. The hand on the front,” she pauses. “I don’t know, Dipper thought it could have just been something cool but I felt like it was more than that.” He smiles kindly at her.
“Did you really read the whole thing?” She nods.
“Yep! Dipper found it in the woods our first week and it’s helped us out of loads of jams.” She tips her head with a wry smile. “It also may have… got us into a lot of said jams. But it was always worth it!” Ford can’t help but find himself charmed by his great niece. She had already halfway won him over with her very first comment but with her thirst for adventure and their shared abnormality, he can’t help but feel a kinship with her. To think, he almost went upstairs to avoid her.
“Why don’t you tell me about one of your adventures?” She beams at him, showing off her braces and he turns to figure out the coffee machine as she begins to tell him about her altercation with the gnomes. She cuts herself off with a giggle as he curses under his breath at the machine. He’s used things more complicated than this over the last thirty years. She sets it up for him and continues her story and by the time she’s reached it’s peak, he’s ignoring the mostly full mug in front of him to give her story his full attention. She has a gift for storytelling and an innate charisma that he’s always lacked. He wonders if she’s more popular than he was as a child. Ford is almost surprised at the flash of protective anger he feels towards the gnomes as she tells him how they kidnapped her, but it’s quickly replaced with pride at her quick thinking.
“A leafblower? Genius.” Mabel’s smile is pleased and she somehow perks up even more at his praise.
“I thought so! We even added it to the journal.” He had noticed the new additions to his third journal when he checked the three of them over earlier, but he had written them off as preteen ramblings. “We put a lot of our adventures in there actually. Dipper did most of the writing but we were almost always together.” For a moment Ford almost feels like it’s forty years ago. He hears the echo of his brother in her words. She’s smiling at him as he shakes himself out of his memory, although it’s softer now. He clears his throat.
“Yes, well, I’m glad.” He takes a sip of his drink and casts his mind back to the brief glimpses he had taken in of their additions. “Did I see an entry on… living golf balls?” Mabel gasps in delight and leans towards him, eyes sparkling.
“Grunkle Ford, you won’t believe this! It all started when this girl, Pacifica, challenged me to a mini-golf tournament-”
As she chatters on, face alight and arms waving, he thinks he could get used to this.