Growing Divided

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravity Falls. This impressive series belongs to Alex Hirsch. Most of the opinions expressed in this fanfic (some of them very true in my opinion, others missing the mark by a mile) are not mine either, but belong to the Author of the Journals… my brother.

Author's Note: My first ever fanfic for this fandom, but after seeing some of the arguments dished out about Ford's actions in past, present and future by GF fans I felt the need to write this fic to give my own views on why Ford is the way he is. He's far from a saint, but he's a character who realizes he's made mistakes and who is trying to fix them, and ironically may end up wrecking them even further by doing so but for reasons that he can't all be held accountable for. Anyone who agrees or disagrees can feel free to share their opinion in a review.

Cursed doors… gnomes… the shapeshifter…

Dr. Stanford Filbrick Pines sighed. He knew the chances he had to find something in his old journals weren't very great, but he had to try. The shield they'd set up around the shack should, in theory, be more than enough to keep Bill out – he still couldn't believe Mabel had actually managed to pull off that unicorn hair adventure, and when he had more time he would really have to ask her for the full story – but it never hurt to have something to spare. And to be honest, flipping through his old journal pages again was interesting. There was just so much knowledge he'd forgotten since then, so much information that had long become outdated (he refused to look at the pages on Cipher for longer than absolutely necessary)… and then there was another reason.

Although he'd realized from the start that his great-nephew was interested in his work – and considering the boy's excited reaction at meeting 'the Author', there was no way he could have missed that – it wasn't until he got around to rereading his third journal and saw Dipper's own notes in it that Ford realized the true extent of his nephew's fascination with the supernatural. Dipper was clever, innovative, curious… he'd never seen the boy before his return to this world only a week or two ago, but already he was thinking of him as a kindred spirit. Someone he could relate to. Someone who understood – the first person who truly understood in a long time. Someone he could trust.

There was a knock on the door, disturbing Ford's thoughts. He looked up from the kitchen table and wondered whether the annoyance weighed up to the risks of answering it. After all, as far as the person on the other side of the door would know, he was a non-entity – Stanford Pines was supposedly the proprietor of the 'Mystery Shack', after all. Ford felt anger coming up at the umpteenth reminder of Stanley's takeover of his identity, but he shook it off. Bill was more important right now. He couldn't let anger and emotions cloud his senses, that was more of a Stan thing.

The knocking persisted, and Ford had half a mind on at least getting up to find his brother before a flurry of excitement burst past the kitchen door. The by now familiar high-pitched voice left no doubt at who was answering their visitor. He bemusedly shook his head, leafing his way through the last pages of the journal again, but the background noises were making it difficult to work.

It was only sixty seconds later when the door shut again, but that didn't mean he got any rest. "HEY, EVERYONE!" he heard Mabel yell. "We've got pizza!" She walked into the kitchen carrying the damping box, and grinned as she noticed him. "Hi, Great Uncle Ford!"

Stanford smiled. "Hello, Mabel."

The girl's upbeat appearance changed abruptly when she noticed the journals and parchments that were scattered on the table. "So…" she said awkwardly, putting the pizza on the counter. "You're still working on shielding the shack from Bill, huh?"

"That's right" Ford confirmed. "I need to take every possible precaution to ensure that he won't be able to enter the premises ever again." He noticed Mabel walking over to the window and glancing out towards the unicorn hair. It didn't take a PhD to figure out that she was distressed about something, but Ford couldn't even begin to guess what it was. He simply didn't know his niece's character well enough for that yet. Maybe she was just scared of Bill. Now there was something he could get behind.

"You ordered pizza?" he asked, attempting to change the subject.

Mabel cheered up again. "Yep! One large cheese pizza in six slices – one for Dipper, one for Grunkle Stan, one for Soos, one for Waddles, one for you and one for me! We've got to eat it while it's still hot, but there's still plenty of time to add glitter and sprinkle some Mabel Juice over it! I asked Jake why they didn't sell glitter pizzas at the store but for some reason he thought no one would want to buy them. Guess I have some work to do there!"

Ford nodded. "You knew the pizza delivery boy, then?"

Mabel blinked. "Oh, no, I didn't – but I do now! Look, he gave me his address and everything. We're going to become pen pals!" She waved a piece of paper in his face, and during the rare moment her hand wasn't moving Ford could see that it indeed contained an address and a phone number.

"Mabel! Your brother got himself accidentally wrapped into the shower curtains and can't get out again! Go get my camera!"

Mabel beamed. "Coming, Grunkle Stan!" A bounce in her step, she ran up the stairs, leaving a stunned uncle behind.

Sure, Dipper was a kindred spirit. Dipper was bright and promising. But Mabel was amazing. Becoming pen pals with someone in just sixty seconds? Ford didn't think he'd ever known anyone with that much personality before…

Well, that wasn't true. There was one person.

Stanley.

Stanford hadn't thought as much about his brother in years as he had in the last couple of days. It was only natural – this was the first time in forty years that they'd really interacted and lived in the same house together – but it wasn't just his own interaction with Stan. It was the way Stan had interacted with the kids and the townsfolk around them, and the similarities between them and their niblings that were sneaking up on him against his will, which had really gotten him thinking about his brother's personality for the first time, especially in the aftermath of the glitter pizza they had that night. The main concept he was thinking of was the growing realization that perhaps he'd misjudged Stanley Pines all those years ago.

For all this time, Ford hadn't spared too many thoughts on the incident in which his lifelong friend until that moment pushed himself away from him – remembering it was just too painful, and ultimately futile in the grand scheme of things – but he thought he had a clear idea of what happened. For some reason, Stan had become so possessive about him that he was willing to destroy Ford's entire future just so that he could continue to leech off his older brother. Stanley himself had left no doubt about that at least when he explained the whole story to the kids – "Without Ford I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn't make it out there without him."

It had hurt. There was no denying that. Stanford had thought that seeing his 'muse' Bill Cipher laugh in his face had hurt and it had, no doubt about it, but looking back on it with decades' worth of hindsight, it was clear that Stan's betrayal had hurt worse than Bill's, not due to the nature of what happened but due to the person from which it came. And then there was the fact that he could at least understand Bill's betrayal. Bill had wanted the end of the world, and he'd tried to look for the one gullible human who would be smart enough to help bring it about yet insecure enough not to question Bill's motives until it was too late. That was clear enough – heartbreaking, but clear enough. It was Stan whom he didn't understand.

Why? Why had Stan done it? He… he'd expected his brother to be happy for him, he really had. For all of their childhood Ford and Stan had been best friends, but Stan had been Ford's only friend. His mother preferred Stanley. His teachers gave him the occasional compliments, but they weren't exactly people he was close to. The kids at school didn't notice him, resented him or bullied him for being a freak – he hadn't seen Crampelter for years, but the name still haunted his memories. His father was never impressed with what he'd achieved, no matter how hard he'd worked for it – sure, Filbrick Pines had been even less impressed with Stanley, but Ford wanted just that little bit of appreciation, at least one word that would tell him he wasn't a worthless freak, that he mattered…

And then there was Stanley. And Stanley was different. Stanley was his only friend, the one person who told him that he was going to make it one day. That he mattered, that he was a genius and that someday people were going to appreciate him. And when that finally happened, when he'd finally got the chance to go to West Coast Tech, when he had finally managed to impress his father, he had hoped that Stan would be delighted for him.

But apparently, Stan only wanted the things Ford wanted to happen as long as they also benefited himself in some way. He shouldn't have been too surprised by that, since in Stan's mind they had always been a unit. From the way Stan always forced himself into the rare moments he got a chance to shine and prove his worth to the outside world, to the way he'd justified himself to the twins a few weeks ago. One half of a dynamic duo, indeed. Why was it so hard for Stan to understand that he didn't want to be just one of the Stan twins? That he was Ford Pines, a person with his own separate interests and his own future, and that a relationship between twins should be a strong bond of friendship between two different people, not a suffocating straitjacket in which neither of them got the chance to flourish? The fact that Stan had apparently managed to turn himself into a successful businessman in his absence vindicated his views here. If Stan had apparently thought he'd never achieve something without clinging onto someone who was more successful and that everything was justified if it kept Ford with him, that idea wasn't just extremely selfish, it was also untrue.

For years, he'd thought this was a Stan thing. That it was just something he didn't understand, or that his brother had been faking their friendship or at least the way Ford thought their friendship worked for years while he'd secretly turned into… this. The person who would still share an awkward laugh with him on the swingset and the belief that they would be able to make it work one moment, and who shattered the project Ford had worked so hard on the next. The person who would destroy Ford's one chance at success, at recognition, at making something of himself despite being a freak. The Stan Pines who wouldn't hesitate to shatter people's dreams to get what he wanted, but lied to their faces about it nevertheless.

He had been downright surprised when Stan had perpetuated the lie in front of the kids. Maybe he shouldn't have expected anything less – from what he had found out about his brother when looking for his address back in '81, Stanley had done quite some shady things in his lifetime – but it still baffled him to hear Stan tell the story about giving the table a hit and breaking the perpetual motion machine, profiting from the fact that the kids hadn't been there and didn't know how damaged the machine had been in the morning. And then of course Stan had glossed over the fact that he hadn't called his brother after the machine had broke, or apologized for what happened, or shown any care about the fact that he'd just shattered his best friend's dreams until Dad threw him out and he suddenly needed Ford again, because apparently those were the only conditions under which Stanley Pines was willing to pay attention to him and what he said. It was such a cheap story, the cheapness reminding Ford of what he'd seen in the 'Mystery Shack', the kind of story that wasn't even making an effort to make itself believable. It was almost funny to see how little his brother had changed over the years.

Except it hadn't been funny thirty years ago, when the fate of the world was at stake and all Stan wanted to do was to discuss petty grudges he had no right to hold in the first place. Okay, so maybe he shouldn't have brought up that boat but in his defense, there was no way he could have known Stan would get so obsessed with it. It was simple, right? Stan could get in a boat, hide the journal somewhere Ford wouldn't be able to find it, and maybe then he could come back and they could have a good talk about the whole matter. Ford wasn't sure whether he could have entirely forgiven his brother for what happened if Stan had gone along with his plan, but at least then he would have had a sign of goodwill, a sign that Stan still cared. But Stan didn't care. Not about the fate of the world, and not about his brother either. What had he cared about? About himself. Sure, apparently Stan had had a rough life, and Ford would have probably contacted him if he'd known that but he hadn't known because Stan had never contacted him either, and none of that took away the audacity Stan had to pin the blame on him! Stanley could see the state he was in, and even though in retrospect his paranoia at the time had been a bit much there was no way Stan knew that, but the self-proclaimed 'social twin' should have been able to see that his brother was in dire straits and that this mission was very, very important.

He didn't blame Stan for the act of shoving him into the portal. That was a clear mistake brought on by anger, just like Ford hadn't meant to shove Stan against the sigil on the portal's operating machine. Seeing his brother get burned like that had been one of the worst sights of his life, and it had instantly made him forget all his anger and even some of his concerns about Bill. For that moment, his brother's well-being had briefly been all that mattered to him. But of course Stan hadn't realized that, and although Ford knew he couldn't blame Stan for being angry at him after getting that undoubtedly painful burn mark, he was a little irritated that they had missed the chance to end the fight right there. And the one thing he did blame Stan for was causing the fight in the first place. If he'd just done what he'd been told and showed some maturity and understanding for once, none of that would have happened. But Stan had started a fight with him, and he had pushed him into the portal, and Ford had a right to blame him for it. Thirty years of other-dimensional horrors' right to blame him for it, in fact.

And of course that hadn't been enough. Of course Stanley hadn't been able to leave well enough alone. Like with Stan breaking the perpetual motion machine, it wouldn't have even occurred to Ford that this was his brother's fault if he hadn't seen Stan standing there. All he had had on his mind was that Cipher had tricked some poor soul to reopen the portal after what might have been decades since he'd left Earth, and that he had only a small chance to stop this person and prevent the rift from being created but that he would do it anyway. Stan's presence had momentarily thrown him off guard, but it wasn't long before he had gained enough composure to give the man a well-earned punch in the face.

And honestly, he could have listened to Stan's story – he wanted to listen to Stan's story. He'd known right away that it would have been a lousy justification, but even his low opinion of Stan's self-justification skills hadn't been able to prepare him for the fact that Stan… simply didn't care. He didn't even make up some excuse for why he hadn't read or followed the warnings, he just dismissed them and expected gratitude. Gratitude. For putting the fate of the world at stake. For giving Stanford Pines a few weeks back on Earth before everything went to hell – oh no, not even 'Stanford Pines' either, because apparently Stanley Pines' criminal record had become so clogged up that Stan had seized the opportunity to get a clean slate and snatch Ford's identity so that none of his family even knew he was gone, they simply thought he'd changed into a criminal conman who had a tourist trap which mocked the supernatural, who denied the paranormal, who would probably have put Ford's six fingers on display if he could! Even after forty years' worth of separation, Ford Pines couldn't believe the brother who had once defended him from all the bullies mocking him for being weird and who'd made up the concept of 'high six' to make him feel included could have sunk so low.

His opinion of his brother had thus been clear by the end of that long stressful day, when against his better judgment he'd still gone out and protected his brother from being arrested by those agents, no matter how much he wanted to convince himself he'd only done it for himself, the house and the kids. (And the weird gopher-man.) Stan didn't care about him. Maybe Stan had never cared about him, or at least not since their teenage years. And although he knew he couldn't justify kicking his brother out right now to the kids, not without forcing them to pick a side in their fight, he was entirely fine with having as little contact with Stanley as possible and working in the basement to contain the dangers of the rift for the rest of the summer. And then… well, Ford hadn't yet thought about what he'd do then. One thing was for sure, though – he couldn't just keep Stan here and act as if nothing had happened. Not only did he want to get his identity back, there was too much bad blood between him and his brother for them to live together. It would just get awkward. He knew that, despite all the facts telling him not to, he still cared for his brother, which was probably why he hadn't told him straight-out that he expected him to leave on September 1st, but honestly he couldn't live with Stan all the time anymore, not while he was resettling in his identity at least. He wanted to be by himself again, out here in his log cabin in the middle of the woods, be back to the way he lived here before he'd first encountered Bill. He had the best time of his life alone. He wanted to be alone.

He needed to be alone.

It took less than one day before that conviction started to shake.

Coming up for the occasional meal (and, admittedly, escaped specimens) was unavoidable. Aside from that, however, Ford had fully intended to limit himself to the basement and not satisfy Dipper's apparent strong curiosity. Part of that was because Stanley had asked him to, and although they were on bad terms right now Ford didn't want to antagonize his brother even further. This Stanley Pines was not the person he'd grown up next to, and there was no telling what he would do. Better to comply and avoid awkwardness as much as possible in these remaining months, and show to himself and to the world that he was going to be the adult one in this. And of course, he had another reason as well. Dipper was his nephew, and Ford knew he couldn't let his family get involved with the rift. This was his problem (well, and Stanley's, but he didn't think Stan would have any ideas to solve it and in any case they weren't on speaking terms right now so involving Stan was right out) and he was going to solve it. He'd built the portal, so he would also have to ensure the world was safe from Bill. All his hesitance about destroying his life's work thirty years ago had hardened into a firm determination to save the universe from his mistakes. He dismantled the portal and worked every waking hour to try to figure new ways to contain the rift that had, as he'd feared, emerged from it. He didn't need and couldn't ask anyone else for that.

And then his eye fell on one thirty-eight-sided die, and all those feelings abruptly changed.

Even as he enthusiastically chanted the Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons motto alongside Dipper and eagerly offered to play with the boy, he didn't know what he was doing. He really should be working on containing the rift, he had his responsibilities… but this glimpse of familiarity, of happiness, of someone who understood his love for the game more than even Fiddleford had… they launched into the game right away, and although admittedly they got carried away enough to provoke the incident that unleashed Probabilitor (it was still ultimately Stan's responsibility, though – seriously, had 'making stupid mistakes that doom everyone in sight' become a habit of his over the years?) by the end of that exhilarating day he felt more alive than he had in a long time.

For the first time since Bill and Fiddleford betrayed and left him respectively, he had a friend again. And until that moment he hadn't realized how much he needed one. Wanted one. He needed someone to confide in – and for the time being, that person had to be Dipper. Stan was out of the question for obvious reasons, and there was no one else he could relate to as much as to Dipper. And… well, he wanted to open up to the world again. He wanted to feel the hope that maybe there was someone he could trust out there. And Dipper… Dipper was the first step. A crutch to lean on, but also a creative and fun prodigy whom he developed a real liking to within just that one day. The fact that he was family made it even better. Dipper was a friend.

That was the first thing that had shocked him, and it would have given him enough material to think about on its own, but there had been something else, something more subtle – the strong relationship he'd noticed between Stan and the twins. A warm, loving relationship, one where Ford couldn't deny that his previous belief that Stan just didn't care about anything as long as he had people to leech off just didn't add up. Dipper and Mabel clearly meant a lot to Stan, and he'd do anything for them. Just as they would for him. Mabel had told him about the time he'd saved her pet pig (a tale which once more reminded him how much he would have to catch up to here because when he'd fallen into the portal pigs had most decidedly not been in fashion as household pets) and both she and Dipper had committed themselves to Stan's mayoral campaign with more vigor than he ever could have, even if of course he had given Dipper the mind-control tie to help his brother out because he wasn't going to let himself turn into a total recluse. And of course there had been the incident when Stan had come for him and Dipper when playing DD and more D – sure, he'd been begrudging throughout, but Ford had to admit that he was positively surprised Stan had come for him. He would have probably thanked him too had it not been too impossible to get the words over his lips at this stage. But still, Stan had seemed more… human, relatable, understandable these past few days than he had in a long time. And he just didn't get it.

He didn't get it, because it only brought him back to that same old question – why? If Stanley's character had been what it seemed all along after all, why had he done the cruelest thing Ford could imagine so many years ago, and kept a grudge as if it was Ford's own fault? And perhaps more disconcerting, if what Stan had done wasn't a sign of particular cruelty but a desperate act that even normally good people could sink to when their twin left them…

…did that mean it could happen again?

As he looked through the journals and regularly talked to the boy, Stanford had noticed that Dipper was more similar to him than he could have ever imagined. Dipper was enthusiastic about science and researching the supernatural, and his additions to the journal were honestly quite professional and creative. And Mabel… well, as he'd just realized, Mabel was similar to Stanley. The similarities seemed so obvious once he'd started noticing them that he wondered whether it had ever occurred to Stan to make the comparison. He had to have noticed the fact that Dipper was interested in the supernatural just like Ford, but apparently he hadn't mistreated the boy for it or that would have been obvious in their relationship by now. It was another clear argument for his theory that although still irresponsible and reckless, Stanley wasn't quite the person he had been forty years ago anymore.

Dipper was like him. Mabel was like Stan. And all too clearly the scenario presented itself to him. A pair of twins, growing up together and being a team throughout all of their childhood. Dipper discovering that he had a calling in life and that he had a talent for researching the supernatural, a talent he could explore perhaps at a college or in field study but not with his sister at his side all the time. Mabel being unable to cope with being without her twin, and lashing out with that burst of rage that must have overcome Stan all those years ago, destroying something of Dipper's that she would have never touched if she had been thinking straight. And the result would be yet another happy sibling relationship in shambles.

Part of Ford wished he could talk to Stan about it. He didn't have to notice everything, for crying out loud. He'd only been here for a few weeks, after all, and he was supposed to be confined to the basement. Stanley was the kids' caretaker, and what exactly had he done with them? He'd taught them to forge money, to vandalize, to shoplift… sure, maybe they had fun from time to time and of course that was a good thing, but he just wished Stanley could be a little more responsible. He had to be able to see the similarities between what was happening to the kids now and what had happened then, and that he'd have to gently prepare Dipper and Mabel for the thought that they weren't going to be together all the time forever because if something violently snapped, they wouldn't be together at all anymore. But of course, he could hardly count on Stan to realize that. Hadn't his brother yelled 'it was supposed to be us forever' at him when fighting for the first journal all those years ago?

No, this delicate issue was flying right over the supposed socially cognizant twin's head. Which meant, Stanford realized with a sigh, that he was going to have to take care of this himself.

And he knew just the way to do it.

One of the sorriest conclusions he'd had to draw after his return to this dimension was that although he had toughened up somewhat over the years – it had been more than a little satisfying to be able to best his brother so easily in their fistfight, but then again Stanley was nothing compared to the colorpgons and andarodes he'd had to take on in Dimension 41 – he was growing older. He had still been lost to the portal for thirty years, and although there was still a lot out there to document and a world to protect against Bill Cipher, it was clear that he couldn't do it all by himself forever.

He'd given the matter some thoughts, briefly entertaining the notion of forcing a confrontation with Bill but soon realizing that wouldn't end well. Even if he got Bill to open the rift and then blasted him through it, destroying the immediate danger, then that still left a frustrated dream demon behind that rift whose capacity to trick people was unrivalled. He wasn't sure on whether Bill could be destroyed, and in any case he couldn't risk anything with the kids still here, so that just left protection and delay as his only tools. The house's defense shields helped a lot with that, but he would need someone to maintain it all, someone to train and someone to eventually succeed him in fighting monsters. He needed an apprentice – and frankly, Dipper was perfect for the job.

Dipper was bright, capable, was interested in everything related to the journals and clearly keen to be trusted with responsibility. He was also family and, most important of all, reliable. Because he could trust Dipper, Ford was sure the boy would eventually be able to take over his work and continue it so he could rest easily. Blood was thicker than water after all, no matter how much strife currently existed between him and Stanley. Frankly, he wasn't sure whether that could ever get fixed. Maybe too much had happened between them. And… it was fine, really. They didn't need to get along. It might have been preferable, but they could cope without it. Stanley had flourished on his own, and so had he. It was too late for them to 'hug it out' as Mabel had put it, and that was okay. He could live with that.

What he couldn't live with was his great-niece and –nephew being condemned to the same fate. The more he thought about the apprenticeship, the more he became convinced that this was a good test for his theory. At this stage, Mabel was still a bright and cheerful girl who could make lots of friends easily, as she'd demonstrated tonight. If she learned now that there would have to be a little more distance between her and Dipper in the future, she'd get over it. Five years later, the situation might be entirely different. Dipper's talents would allow him a future no matter at which age he decided to take it. Mabel… well, Mabel undoubtedly had talents, but Ford suspected they were the kind that gave no immediate job opportunities and in the meantime Mabel might very well cling to her brother the way Stan had to him. In that sense, time was of the essence.

He didn't want to jump to conclusions. It was fair to say that he still didn't know the twins too well yet, and it was very well possible that Mabel might never do the same thing Stanley had done. He didn't want to think of his cheerful niece breaking Dipper's heart the way Stan had shattered his, but he knew he never would have suspected Stan to be capable of what he'd done either. Being naïve hadn't gotten him where he was right now, and the similarities were just too clear to ignore. Not to mention that Dipper and Mabel would leave at the end of summer, he still wasn't sure how to solve the Stanley issue except that his lack of trust in any further conversation helping the situation was pointing clearly to one direction, and by this time next year everything could be different. His dimensional enemies could have caught up to him, Bill could have shattered the rift… he had a definite sense of living on borrowed time, and that meant that he would have to solve the matter within the next weeks.

He had no idea what would happen. Maybe Mabel would be fine with his offer. She did have her friends after all. But Ford suspected that she wouldn't be, and that the first signs of an unhealthy attachment could already become visible. His heart contracted at the thought of having to make Dipper an offer that could hurt his niece, but this was necessary. Mabel would have to be told gently that maintaining their sibling relationship simply wasn't an option, at least not in the way it always had been. Drifting apart was inevitable due to different interest. The only thing they could do about it was to manage it so that it wouldn't blow up in their faces like it had forty years ago.

Stanford sighed. He still wasn't sure whether this was a good idea, but he couldn't very well not to do something. This was his family, and he had a responsibility towards them, especially if he had to take care of Stan's part of the ordeal as well. And frankly, he was only exploring the possibilities. He'd just make Dipper the offer and see how the boy took it, and then see how Mabel would take it. It was a matter of testing the waters, although he had to admit that he was really excited about Dipper becoming his apprentice in its own right. It was just so good to have someone around him who understood him. He'd been meaning to take the boy out on a mission over the next days anyway, maybe he would ask him then. He wasn't sure what the expedition was going to be about, but he was certain that something would come up. He'd lived long enough in Gravity Falls to know that, at least.

The future was coming. It was uncertain and it was grim, but Ford knew that he could make sure history wouldn't repeat itself. It was too late for him and Stan. It wasn't yet for Dipper and Mabel. The risks of that happening had become far too clear over the past week or so, and unlike his brother Ford learned from his mistakes. It was his duty as a Grunkle.

Stanley and Stanford Pines had spent forty years at odds with each other. It was going to take some effort and some good skills of persuasion, but Ford was going to make sure that would never happen between Dipper and Mabel.

And then, the future would be safe again.