AN: This is a poem fic, which is like a song fic, but with a poem. The poem in question, as you may have guessed from the summary, is Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The poem in its entirety is included in the end notes.
Stan trudged along the narrow strip of clear land between the shore of the icy lake and the woods, looking in vain for any sign that one of Ford's other journals might be hidden here. The thin layer of snow on the ground squeaked and squelched with every step as more fat flakes fell from the sky. The wind caught them on their way down, the deceptive gentleness of it sending snow inside Stan's hood and in every little gap and opening in his clothing. He shivered and huddled in closer on himself, stuffing his hands down deeper into the pockets of the new coat he had splurged on. (It wasn't splurging, he had told himself. If he was too cold to think about think about anything but the chill settling in his bones then he wasn't looking for Ford's journals properly. That was the only thing that mattered.)
Without any real intention of doing so, Stan found his feet slowly bringing him to a stop and his eyes wandering away from the shore toward the woods. He tried to tear his gaze away and force himself to keep moving, but his body didn't want to listen. He told himself to stop it, that it made sense to be looking at the lakeside, not in the woods. He had any other time of the year to go traipsing about in the woods, but the dead of winter was the best time to be looking around the lake without much risk of anyone seeing him and wondering what he was doing. Besides, Ford had mentioned the lake a couple times in the one journal Stan had and if he were looking for a place to hide something, the lake would a much easier landmark to find it again rather than some random spot in the woods. The lake was also public property, the woods beyond the lake weren't. Stan thought the Northwests owned that land; they owned half the private property in town it seemed like.
On the other hand, Stan didn't get much impression that Ford was hiding his journals with the intent of them ever being found. And the Northwests lived up in that big house on the hill closer into town; you could bury a hundred books in the woods out here without them ever seeing. It was possible Ford had hidden his one of the journals there. Yeah, that was a good excuse for why Stan had stopped here to watch the snow fill the woods.
The sun must have fallen beneath the horizon some time a while back when Stan hadn't been paying attention. Not that he'd be able to see it anyway with the clouds overhead. Out in the open it was still light enough out to get by, but in the shadow of the trees it was swiftly turning to blackest night. With the snow laying a blanket of silence over everything, the dark spaces in the depths of the woods felt strange. No, not strange, everything in Gravity Falls was strange; these woods felt unearthly. Like Stan might slip in between the trunks and into another world altogether. Like he could leave his worries and cares here on the lakeshore and walk in there and never come out again. He took a step forward.
A chiming cut through the air and Stan's reverie. He glanced down at Ford's weird nerd watch, strapped on his wrist. When Stan had first arrived in Gravity Falls, Ford had had the thing set to go off every hour on the hour all day and all night. It itched at Stan's brain; why had his watch been set like that? What had Ford been going through that had left him a jittery wreck, left his house a mess, and made him feel like he needed an alarm every hour? And what did all that have to do with the portal in the basement? The empty spaces in Ford's house had no answers for him.
Stan had left the alarm as it was for a week. He told himself he was doing it because he didn't want to mess with Ford's stuff any more than he had to, that he didn't want to make Ford angry by turning the alarm off when Ford had it on for a reason. That's what he told himself. Finally, he had to admit the stress of marking each hour that had passed since his brother had been gone was going to break him into pieces, and then would Ford be? It wasn't worth it. Nothing was worth anything if it wasn't helping him get Ford back.
Stan didn't wear the watch any more, but he had put it on this morning and set the alarm to 5:50pm. The time wasn't exact, since he hadn't been looking at the clock when it happened, but he guessed about ten minutes had passed after… after before Ford's watch alarm had gone off at 6pm. That had been a year ago. A year ago today that Stan had failed to save his brother, and a year in which he'd kept failing to save him.
Stan glanced at the woods again. They were lovely, dark, deep. He let himself acknowledge what would really happen if he wandered in right now and got lost among the trees. There was no other world to slip into, just walking and walking until he fell down. Then he'd lie there on the ground being covered with snow until he fell asleep. He wouldn't wake up again. Stan stared into the woods, and for a moment let himself be tempted. Then he turned around and walked back to his car.
It was getting too dark to keep looking; he'd continue in the morning. For now he'd go home and work on the portal some more. And eventually, if it took another year, another ten years, or even another hundred years, he would rescue his brother. "Don't worry, Ford," Stan whispered to himself, his words like a sigh on the breeze. "I'm coming for you."
"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
-Robert Frost