Chapter Text
Stan tried not to mourn too much when the hug ended. Dipper pulled away, but was interrupted by Ford giving him a much quicker, less intense hug. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Welcome back, kids.” After the initial surprise wore off, Dipper basically jumped from one uncle to the other, pulling Ford into an honest-to-goodness hug.
“I made you both Hanukkah sweaters,” said Mabel. Stan remembered the Hanukkah sweaters that their mother made them. Or, just one sweater, really, since they were so short on funds. He hadn’t minded sharing a sweater with his brother back then, and to be honest, he might not mind it now, but it was still nice to have his own.
Mabel handed Stan a folded up black sweater. When he unfolded it, he saw a blue checked pattern and a dreidel with incredibly detailed lettering, considering that it was woven. The letters on the sweater read that’s just how I roll.
Ford was handed his own sweater, which he unfolded. He laughed and showed the front to Stan. It was a print of a dinosaur with candles up it’s back, labeled menorahsaurus. Stan laughed, too. He didn’t know much about dinosaurs, but he could appreciate a good pun.
“Thank you, Mabel,” said Ford, while Stan was busy giving Mabel noogies, “This is the perfect Hanukkah gift.”
“Oh, this is not your Hanukkah gift.” Mabel’s voice came out slightly garbled from the ongoing noogies. “It’s not even Hanukkah yet, silly. There are eight more gifts for each of you in my suitcase. And you too, Soos. And Melody. And McGucket. Eight gifts for each of you.”
“But we’re not Jewish, and Christmas isn’t an eight day holiday,” Melody reasoned.
“No, it’s not,” said Mabel, “But it could be, if you made it one.”
“Grunkle Ford, have I ever told you that there are dinosaurs under Gravity Falls?” asked Dipper, his eyes on Ford’s sweatshirt.
“I don’t believe you ever told me directly, but I remember reading about it in your comprehensive additions to Journal 3,” said Ford. Dipper smiled at the word comprehensive, making him perhaps the first to ever do so. “Which reminds me. We need to debrief about the adventures of the Stan O’ War II.”
“Give me the highlights,” said Dipper.
Ford grinned. “Werewolf. Ghost ship. Hidden dragon society. Trip to Mars.”
With every point, Dipper’s eyebrows raised a little bit higher. “Okay. Yeah. We definitely need to hear all of that.”
“Dang,” said Mabel, “I’d love to participate in Nerd Time, but I promised Grunkle Stan that I would absolutely trounce him in a game of dreidel, so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”
Stan laughed. “You know, you’re both going to be here for a whole week. Dreidel with me can wait.”
“What’s wrong?” said Mabel, “You scared?”
“Oh, I take it back. It is so on. Right after I put on this lovely sweater you made me.”
“I should do the same,” said Ford, “Fiddleford, would you want to join Dipper and I for some Nerd Time?”
“Just as soon as I finish pickin’ between chamomile and peppermint tea,” said McGucket.
“You should add jasmine to that lineup,” said Ford.
McGucket gasped. “I should. Oh, well, now look at what you’ve done. That adds another twenty minutes to the decision makin’ process!”
~~~~~~~~~~
They chose not to go down to the lab. Fiddleford expressed that he felt uncomfortable in the lab, and Ford, ignoring his gnawing guilt, decided to hold official Nerd Time on the porch, gazing out at the snow.
“So then,” he explained, sipping his peppermint tea, “We convinced William to go home to his family and work things out with them instead of running away.”
“That’s good,” said Fiddleford, “Sometimes… most of the time, actually, the best thing you can do is go back to the people who love you.”
Considering the circumstances, it was obvious to Ford that Fiddleford was not referring to himself or his long-lost family, though whether he was talking about Ford or Dipper, Ford wasn’t sure.
The people who love you. Ford took another sip of his tea.
“Speaking of research,” said Dipper, “I recently discovered that one of our classmates at home is a vampire.” He pulled a leather-bound book out of his jacket, and Ford’s heart nearly stopped. The book was a dark navy blue, the symbol on the cover was silver, and it was a pine tree, rather than a six-fingered hand, but other than that, the resemblances were striking. Ford and Fiddleford met one another’s eyes, and Ford could tell that they were having the same thought.
Dipper opened the book and flipped through its pages. Ford could see that page after page was filled to the brim with text. He handed the book to Ford on a page titled Vampires! The associated drawing was line art of a nondescript preteen boy.
“That’s our classmate Alex,” Dipper explained, “I’m not as good of an artist as you are.”
“Oh, I think this is perfectly… adequate,” said Ford.
“Mabel and I had conflicting hypotheses about him. She thought he was a vampire, I thought he was just emo. I mean, he listens to a lot of My Chemical Romance. Like, a lot.”
“I have no idea what that means,” said Ford.
“It’s a band,” said Fiddleford, “They’re good.”
Dipper continued, “Turns out, we were both right. He’s never killed anyone, though. He just goes around robbing blood banks. He’s a really good guy, and Mabel kind of likes him, so we didn’t report him or anything.”
“Smart,” said Ford, “The only thing better than studying the supernatural is allying with it.” His blood ran cold when his own words reached his ears. He could feel Fiddleford’s eyes on him, felt himself shrivel under the shame of it all. There was one piece of history in this town that he couldn’t bear to address.
“Well,” Ford corrected, “I think we both know that it depends on the circumstance.”
“Of course,” said Dipper quietly.
“And I want you to be careful, Dipper. I mean, all of this is incredible. The notes, the hypotheses, the detail, the calculations, the experiments… you don’t even have the makings of a true scientist, you are a true scientist. I know that you chose to continue your education and stay with your sister over being my apprentice, which, in hindsight, was the right decision. But if you ever feel like you’re in the right place to accept the offer, know that it still stands.” Dipper beamed.
“But listen to me, Dipper,” Ford continued, “I don’t want you to let this consume you, alright? You may want to do dangerous things to complete your experiments. You may find yourself being more dedicated to your craft than to your family. But you need to know where to draw that line. And let me tell you, if a smart, accomplished being ever approaches you and offers you all the answers in exchange for control over your free will, run in the other direction.”
Dipper nodded. “Don’t worry, Great Uncle Ford. I’ll pay attention. I mean, I think we both know that I learned from the best.”
~~~~~~
“Gimmel!” Mabel announced, as the dreidel landed on the little Hebrew character once again.
“Shi–itake mushrooms!” Stan yelled, sending his niece into a fit of giggles. She scooped the golden coins into her folded up sweatshirt, and Stan replenished the pile from Mabel’s promised gelt suitcase. Mabel had brought four suitcases to Gravity Falls for a six day vacation.
“How the heck are you doing this?” Stan’s question went unanswered for a few seconds too many, and he looked at Mabel’s face as if it were a mirror.
Stan grunted and picked up the dreidel. On the opposing side from the gimmel, there was a tiny little patch of gum. Mabel stared up at Stan, waiting for his reaction. He, of course, started noogieing her again. “I am so crazy proud of you, kid! You’re just like your Grunkle Stan!”
Mabel cackled. “Yes!” Stan tried to think back. Had he ever compared someone to himself before? Had he ever meant it is a compliment? Had the person in question ever taken it as a compliment? It didn’t matter now.
“You know what, you can take all the candy, just for that.” Stan pushed the entire wheelbarrow full of gelt towards Mabel.
“I hope you know that I am going to eat all of this today.”
“I’d be worried about you if you didn’t,” said Stan.
Suddenly, Mabel’s expression became more serious. “You know, the last time I tried cheating during a board game, Mom thought it was funny and Dad didn’t. They got into this big blowout argument that lasted all night and took detours through like seven different topics, none of which were related to my mad bamboozling skills.”
The heavy feeling in Stan’s chest did not mesh well with his niece’s use of the phrase mad bamboozling skills. He cleared his throat. “You know you can always call me, right? Whether you want to play a game, or if you just want someone to talk to. I’m always here for you.”
Of course, Mabel had Dipper, in the same way that Stan had had Ford, way back in those days when they kept waiting for their parents’ marriage to fall apart and it never did. But Stan knew better than anyone that a kid needed at least one guardian figure to look out for them. He’d tried his best to do just that for the kids over the summer, and despite the bumps in the road, he thought he did a pretty damn good job. Stan had no problems with keeping it up.
Mabel sighed. “I keep trying to be all optimistic for Dipper, but even I’m running out of silver linings here.”
God, she really was a mirror. So was Dipper, in a way. A mirror to the past. “It can’t all be about him, you know. I mean, you two love each other, in a way that people have killed for. But you need to look out for yourself t—”
The air was knocked out of Stan’s lungs when Mabel wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the sweater she’d made and crushing his ribs. “I love you, Grunkle Stan.”
Stan hugged her right back. “Right back atcha, kid. I love you too.”
~~~~~~~~~
After a dinner that made his stomach grow three sizes like the Grinch, and a late night showing of the Grinch, Stan lay in bed thinking. Most of the town was scheduled to come by the Hanukkah celebration tomorrow – or today, he supposed. It was past midnight. This included people that Stan thought hated him, and people that Stan himself didn’t feel very fond of, like Bud Gleeful and the Northwest kid. None of that seemed to matter anymore, though. Whether or not they’d gotten along with him in the past, they were all coming to his house tomorrow.
He should make some kind of toast at dinner. Something about family and recovery and home, about making mistakes and growing past them. Something about love. Granted, that kind of stuff usually made him want to vomit, but he could make an exception, just this—
“YEESH!” Stan shouted when the lights all went on at once. Ford stood in the doorway, dark against the darkness. “YOU,” Stan pointed at him, “are lucky that I don’t sleep with a gun next to my bed anymore.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” said Ford, “Stanley, could you do me a favor?”
“What is it?” Stan asked.
“Could we go on an adventure together?”
“Now?” Stan checked the digital clock on his nightstand. “Stanford. It’s three in the morning.”
“Right. And I can tell how deeply you were sleeping by the way that you screamed at the slightest disturbance.” Ford rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Uh.”
“It’s okay,” said Stan.
“I know that it’s late, but it’s just… I feel like I need to do something. Or, visit someone, I suppose. And I just got up the motivation to do it. I’m afraid that if I let that motivation go…”
Stan didn’t ask who it was that Ford wanted to visit, because he didn’t have to. He sighed. If Ford wanted company, he would have it. “Yeah, okay. Let me get my boots.”
~~~~~~~~~
Here, at three in the morning, standing by the half-submerged statue of Bill in the forest, Ford was beginning to understand why Stan wanted to visit his own grave. He needed to confront the part of his life that had been taken from him, and he needed to confront the force that took it.
“Huh,” said Stan, “He’s not so scary now, is he?”
Meanwhile, Ford’s hands were trembling. It wasn’t as if he was scared of Bill jumping out at him from the trees; he was paranoid, but within reason. Besides, some part of him, the part that was just like Bill and knew it, also knew that the demon wasn’t going to make an appearance.
Still, it was a lot to wrap his head around. He’d lost friends and one hell of a brother to the life that Bill made him live. He’d gained scars across his skin and a terror monster that squirmed beneath it, nightmares that followed him even when it wasn’t night. He’d made mistakes, and been a fool. And somehow, it wasn’t all his fault. He could still be forgiven. He could still live.
He would never know the man that he could have been if it weren’t for the hubris that had led him straight to Bill. But he could learn from it. He could get up and move on. He had to. There was no other choice, not because anyone was counting on him, but because he deserved to live.
And yet, it could never be that easy. He could repeat it time and time again and never quite get it through his head. Ford was starting to realize that for a scientific, textbook-definition genius, he was, in fact, quite the idiot. He was an idiot who felt like he was being watched.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, maybe it was a trick of his heart, or maybe it was good old post traumatic stress disorder, but Ford could swear that for just a second, he saw Bill’s big, singular eye glinting in the moonlight, as if it was lit up by some joke, something that he knew and that Ford wasn’t privy to. As if he wasn’t fully gone. Bill came to Ford like an echo.
We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. Oh I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.
Then, Ford felt a hand on his shoulder, a careful squeeze. Stan said nothing, but he didn’t have to. It was enough to remember that he wasn’t alone. He looked back at the statue of his old nemesis. The sparkle was gone.
So, yes. Bill had terrorized Ford day and night for years. He’d isolated Ford and torn his life to shreds in a way that he never expected to recover from. And yet, here they were, the two of them. Ford was dressed in a warm coat with his brother by his side, sitting comfortably in a world that had welcomed him back with open arms. And Bill was a rock. That was all, really. Just stone, stretched out and dead, begging someone to take his hand. Stan was right. He wasn’t so scary.
Ford cleared his throat and moved to stand. Stan steadied him as his legs shook. “Old friend,” he said. He turned back towards the Shack and gave the statue one last glance over his shoulder. “Goodbye and good riddance.”