Ford woke with a start, blinking up at the dark ceiling. It took him a couple of moments for him to register that there were no gentle rocking, no sea salty smell of the ocean, and no load obnoxious snores that belonged to his brother that he grew accustomed to hearing each night. No, instead he was on something solid and soft, slightly uncomfortable now that he thought about it.

Turning his head slightly, it was the familiarity of the room's contents that it clicked inside his brain. He was back in the shack, the Mystery Shack. Back in Gravity Falls Oregon. Now it made sense. He was back in Gravity Falls to spend the summer time with Dipper and Mabel. A smile came upon his face. It was great to be back and spend some time with his great niblings for the summer. He missed them, even if they had the steady amounts of calling one another over the phone when they were away from each other.

Glancing up at the clock over the bathroom doorway, Ford groaned inwards. 5:27 am. Two hours and thirty three minutes before anyone would start to wake up. Even despite the danger had long since passed, Ford found himself still waking in the early hours before anyone else. Old habits die hard Stan had commented to him one time. That, Ford would agree to. He even caught Stanley wearing his old Mystery Man suit and doing his old routine of swindling people on the first few days of the summer. It was just hard for Stan to stop doing what he had been doing for more than thirty whole years of his life. And retirement was not easy for his brother.

Sure he and Stan finally achieved that lifelong dream of sailing around the world together, and even found some new anomalies that they could hardly ever dream of finding, but as good things were for both of them, age had caught up faster to his young twin and there were moments when Stan would have a memory lapse or completely forget something. And sometimes, he would forget who he even was completely. Ford never forgave himself for those moments or for what he had done to Stanley.

With all the scars that were on his body, erasing Stan's memories and his own self was the deepest and ugliest scar left in Ford's heart. Bill may be gone for good and the looming danger faded away, it didn't stop him from having nightmares that were of a lesser more unforgivable permanent outcome. He could never forget that blank, open, innocent look in Stan's eyes when they had found him in that clearing, when he didn't remember the kids, his life, or even Ford himself.

His own twin.

Stop it! Ford hissed in his thoughts. Stan is fine now! Stan is fine! Right. Stan remembered him. He always remembered. Stanley was just too stubborn just to disappear like that and give up so easily without a fight. It was just who Stan was. And Ford wouldn't have it any other way that he could think of. Stan is fine. Stanley is fine. Stanley is-

It wouldn't hurt to check on his twin would it? Just for the extra reassurance. After all, this was Stan, and Stan did have a bit of a tendency to get himself in a bit of trouble once in a while here and there. Sometimes not on purpose, and a lot of the other times he would do it on purpose! But, that was Stan for you. Always in a bit of trouble no matter-

Okay now he was getting himself worried for his twin. Ford sighed, rubbing his face and readjusting his glasses as he propped himself up on his elbows. Well, since he was up already, he could sneak by Stan's room and check on him before heading to the kitchen to get a snack before trying to get some sleep again. But halfway in getting up, something odd hit Ford. One was the sudden acknowledgement of something notably heavy on his midsection. Something that was small, slightly heavy yet not so heavy that it wasn't uncomfortable for it to be on his midsection.

Blinking, Ford looked down and, blinking again, his brows went up high and his jaw slacked in surprise. Even in the dim lightness of the moon's light, Ford could clearly see the small boy, how he assumed it was a boy was beyond him, curled up on top of his stomach, sleeping soundly with the blanket covering most of his small body. Opening and closing his mouth but not finding his voice to make any sound, Ford stared at the boy in shock with questions running through top speed in his brain. Who was this child? How did he get here? Why was he here? Why was he sleeping on top of him? How did he even get in here without waking him up from his sleep?

Then, it came crashing down on him instantly. "… Oh boy…"

14 hours earlier

3:27 pm

SLAM!

Ford jumped slightly in his seat on the sofa, pulled out of his work with his new journal to look up and see Stan stomping off towards the woods in an angry huff. "Stanley?" Ford blinked, watching his twin storm off. "Where are you going?"

"I'M GOIN' FOR A WALK!" Stan shouted, not looking back as he stepped into the woods. "DON'T BOTHER ME!"

Ford watched in mute surprise as his brother's form disappeared from his sight. He would in the past have told his brother that walking in the woods without any sort of weapon was a bad idea, but given the circumstance of the after effects of weirdmageddon, the woods was, in a sort, no longer such a dangerous place that anyone would have to fear. Especially to the Pines family. It was some sense that they would be hailed as heroes, even if it was sort of their fault in the first place, for putting an end to weirdmageddon and Bill's plans that none of the monsters would ever consider attacking or harming them.

And of course Stan always had his trusty brass knuckles on him. So if there was any danger, Stan was well prepared to pound it to oblivion, even if it wasn't something that had a corporal form to punch at. And ever since that incident with the run in with an enraged manticore spirit that was troubling a local town, Ford was slightly glad that he upgraded Stan's knuckles. So Ford didn't worry to go after his twin and went back to his previous task in working on his journal.

It wasn't until it was around 7:45 that Ford finally finished and snap the book shut that he began to worry. Ford knew Stan had a tendency to fume for a while, but checking his wristwatch, he was surprised that Stan hadn't returned yet. Sighing, Ford got up for the old couch and went off into the woods to find Stan.

It was long till he found him some twenty minutes later by a small pond with a lit cigarette between his fingers and taking a long drag out of it. Seeing Stan with the cigarette had Ford greatly worried. Not only was smoking at their age was a high chance of heart failure but Stan had tendency to smoke when he was really stressed out about something.

"Stanley?" He stepped closer to his twin, startling him enough to drop the cigarette and cough a bit. "Whoa, hey easy there." He went over to him, patting his back and rubbing slow circles.

"Jeez (Cough!) Sixer! (Cough cough!) Ya sure (Cough cough!) sure know how to (Cough cough cough!) how to sneak up on (Cough cough!) on someone." Stan mumbled between coughing, thumping a fist to his chest.

"Sorry." Ford smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean to startle you. But, Stanley what in the world drove you to come out here and smoke?"

Stan took a couple of deep breaths, clearing out the smoke from his lungs before he answered. "Bad memory." He mumbled, keeping his eyes glancing to the side so that he wasn't looking at Ford.

"Of what?" Ford felt bad for pressing, but if it was bad enough for Stan to storm off and resort to smoking, he had to know so that it could be avoided later on in the future.

"… Of pa."

Instinctively Ford's muscles tensed, but he forced himself to relax. "R-really?" He couldn't hide the shaking tone in his voice. Their father was… not the best of dads there was.

"Eh." Stan shrugged, stomping out the death stick under his shoe. "Saw a kid with his pop. Didn't look to happy an'… unimpressed. Kinda reminded me of him… ya know?" He scowled a bit. "He… acted a lot like him. Talked like him too. I, uh, almost snapped an' wanted ta punch him in the guts but um, well…"

"… You stormed out instead?"

"Wasn't much I could do. Not when he acted so much like…" He watched Stan grit his teeth, fuming slightly before sighing and stare out at the pond.

Ford copied his brother, watching the small waves made by the light breeze of the wind as memories of their childhood played in him mind. And old longing to return to those day burned within Ford, but he knew those days were long gone now. "… Our dad…"

"Yep."

"… Sometimes… I wished that… if I was stronger."

"Heh. Same here."

He spared a small smile at his twin, earning one right back. "Come on. We should head back before they send out a search party." He joked, lightly punching Stan which he responded by a chuckle and a punch back. "So, I was thinking that after summer is over we should head over to Hong Kong." He started talking, hoping it would be enough to break the tension that hung around them as they began to walk back to the shack…

Only he was suddenly shoved to the side roughly, landing on his side as he heard Stan let out a strangled yelp and hear something crashing into the water. With years of honed servile skills and worry for his family, Ford jumped back to his feet, twisting around the see the water had been disturbed.

And no Stan was in sight.

What happened next was a rush of blur as Stanford screamed out Stan's name and dived into the pond, finding it to be much deeper than what it appeared to be before spotting his twin struggling with something as he was being dragged deeper and deeper below. Ford could barely see through the water, but he was sure that whatever had a hold of his brother had a glow of bright green that lit up the dark area of the deep pond. Kicking harder, Ford managed to catch up to Stan, seeing clearly now that what had a hold on him were root-like, wrapping and spreading across his brother like the limbs and roots of a tree, growing out and tightening its hold on Stan.

With little time to spare, Ford took out his gun and blasted it at the root that was pulling them down, making a clean cut through. Grabbing Stan, they quickly swam upwards, kicking and pushing their arms as fast as they could. The one thing that they learned about the dangers of the sea, it's that you had to get out of the water pronto.

Ford's lungs felt like they were on fire before they finally broke through to the surface, taking gulps of air and swam for the shore line and running up onto the land. He didn't get far off from the pond before he heard Stan yelp in pain. His instinct took over before his brain could react. Taking the gun, he turned a quick 180dgree, not taking a real aim and firing. It must have been luck that he hit the root-like tendril that had impaled itself into Stan's left leg than hitting his brother. The tendril quickly surrendered its hold on Stan, and yanked itself out of the younger twin's leg, making Ford cringe at the sight of blood coating the tip, and sank back into the pond with a low sounding hiss.

Taking no chance, Ford grabbed Stan by the arm and quickly as he could, he hurried them away far from the pond as possible. He would have kept going, getting them far away from the danger and back to the shack were it was safe, but Stan had collapsed in pain, clutching his wounded leg as blood dripped down onto the ground. After a quickly making sure they were far away from the threat, Ford quickly attended to his brother.

The wound was bad. It was deep enough that it would require medical treatment and at least a few stitches to close it up properly. For now, Ford could only wrap it up and stop the bleeding.

"Sorry." Ford cringed as Stan hissed in pain as he tightened the fabric. "It's the only way to stop the bleeding."

Stan only grunted, biting down on his lip to stop himself from crying out.

"There. That should do it for now." Ford tied the ends together. "Can you walk?"

"On a leg like this? Not properly, no." Stan hissed as he tried to stand up, before suddenly pitching forward and almost hitting the ground if Ford hadn't seen this coming and caught him.

"No, I guess not." Ford sighed, Helping Stan stand up and sling an arm over his shoulder. "Alright, just lean against me. I'll get us to the shack."

Stan only responded with a grunt, but otherwise complied. The walk back was silent, with an occasional hiss of pain from Stan if his injured leg was hit against something. Ford would try to stay positive for Stan's sake, but all that was playing through his head at the moment was trying to find a way to kill the thing that harmed his brother. It wasn't until the Mystery Shack had started to come into view that Ford noticed how much Stan was leaning against him, his movements were slow and sluggish and his breathing had grown heavy and ragged.

That was only the beginning of the problem. Stan gave no real response when Ford called out to him, and when Ford shook him slightly, Stan let out a pained pitiful moan. It was only after Ford noticed how warm Stan felt that he realized that there was something else going on.

Then he noticed that grey hair was slowly turning a deep brown color. And that's when the panic set in.

Present time

"Unbelievable. Just unbelievable." Ford mumbled, munching on the some toast that he made. "Of all the things that we had to run into for trouble, how is it that you've managed to find something that made you revert to a younger age Stanley?" He asked the sleeping form of his de-aged brother curled up against his chest. "It doesn't make any sense. Let alone scientifically impossible, but given our encounters with the supernatural and unbelievable things a wide almost daily basis, it's safe to say that this really shouldn't have been such a shock. Though, now the real question is how are we going to get you back to your normal age, hm?"

Silence was his only answer as Stanley slept on, looking as peaceful as Ford had ever remember seeing him be in years.

Sighing, Ford finished the rest of his snack, wiping the crumbs off and reclined further into Stan's favorite chair, sighing deeply. It was a mess yesterday. Not only did Stan suddenly shrunk down to a small child, but Dipper and Mabel had also caught sight of their Grunkle in his de-aged state, but the wound had also grown instead of shrinking.

Seven stitches. It took seven stitches to close it up properly. It was sure to leave a scar when Stan reverted back to normal.

That is, if he would revert back to normal.

A sigh left his lips as he took his glasses off to rub at his eyes. The tests that he was running in his lab hadn't shown anything yet, so Ford had no clue if Stanley was in any sort of danger or if there was anything to worry about yet. Mabel had optimistic enough to keep everyone at a level head when they saw the shrunken Stan… and took a lot of pictures. Stan's clothes had been a slight problem, but with the quick rescue of Mabel, a deep blue sweater with three sliver fishes on it was provided to cover up the small de-aged Grunkle.

It was a bit big in Ford's option, but it cover Stan all the way down to his feet, so it would have to do for now till they had more proper clothes for him. Right now, they had to make sure that Stan wasn't in any mortal danger, or else Ford was sure to have a mental break down.

He had lost Stan once by his own hand, he wasn't sure if he could handle losing his brother again with the thought of not being able to do anything to help him.

Putting his glasses back on, Ford reached for the remote and turned the TV on, keeping the volume on low so he would disturb anyone from their sleep. His mind was filled with a lot of things right now, and sleep didn't seem to be much of an option now.

Perhaps in the morning things would get a little bit better.

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