"Hey, Kid, can you -"

Stan caught himself, and grumbled. He kept forgetting that Dipper wasn't there to order around and hoped that Wendy was too busy texting to see him accidentally talking to himself. (She'd seen him, but she was trying to get out of work. She would tease him about it later.)

"Soos! I need to you hang up these signs!" he yelled upstairs, assuming the handyman was there.

"You sent Soos out to get us burritos, remember?" Wendy commented and then slapped a hand over her mouth, realizing she had blown her cover.

"Then you can hang the signs," Stan said pointedly, shoving the hammer and boards in her arms before she could make excuses.

Wendy rolled her eyes in resignation and stomped outside, leaving Stan alone in the shack. He stood there in the middle of the gift shop, the air static and silent, just as he had always wanted ever since Dipper and Mabel were dropped on his doorstep.

"Ah. Peace and quiet." He breathed in deeply, smiling smugly to himself. "I guess I'll. . . I don't know. Clean up."

Idly he straightened out the Stan bobbleheads and the t-shirt rack, and without thinking too deeply on it, turned on the old radio that only picked up what Dipper called the "lame channels." The static kept cutting into Dean Martin's voice, and that had never bothered him before, but somehow turning on the radio made everything quieter. Ten minutes after turning it on, he turned the dial back, silencing the static and Ella Fitzgerald. He surveyed the room and trudged into the house section of the shack, making a stop in the kitchen.

He paused himself in the middle of opening the fridge, preparing himself for disappointment. The kids always drank all his soda, even when he asked them to save just one Pitt Cola.

He was taken aback that there were still two full cases in the fridge and rubbed his eyes. Then his arms went slack, hit again with the fact that Dipper and Mabel were not there. It strangely stung that his soda was untouched and all his.

"It's all mine," he reminded himself, taking a can out of the fridge.

The two extra kitchen chairs were still parked by the table, one holding a half-eaten bag of gummy koalas. He didn't question himself when he wrapped it up nice and tight with a rubber band. Mabel would be heartbroken if she found out he threw away her candy- even if it was a year old. That is, if he watched the kids next summer.

Stan leaned back in his seat, reeling with the realization that he missed them. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be happy to have his home completely to himself. He never minded being alone before, and didn't even want the kids in the first place until their parents paid him three hundred dollars. The kids had been noisy, obnoxious, and the cause of many headaches. They even intervened with his plans, especially Dipper, who was talented at sticking his nose where he shouldn't. Stan had also just finished the repairs on the windows Mabel had damaged with her grappling hook. And it was nice to not be woken up in the middle of the night by twin shenanigans

Stan scratched his butt and migrated to the living room. "What I need is television to disconnect me from reality." But that too, made him miss the kids, who used to sit cross-legged on the floor beside him.

Summer had ended, and it hit him harder than he had expected. He decided to offer to watch the kids again next summer. Maybe he wouldn't charge this time... but not without haggling about it first.