It was Ford who spotted her by the doorway. He checked his watch; it was a little past midnight. With a jolt, Ford realized that his great-niece and great-nephew have been thirteen for several minutes now.
He straightened up in his seat next to Stan and adjusted the glasses on his face. "Come in, Mabel!" he called out softly, holding out his hand. "And happy birthday! Is Dipper there with you?"
"Is it their birthday already?" asked Stan, much louder than his brother. "Happy birthday, Pumpkin! Say, what do you got there?"
Mabel smiled and jumped inside the TV room. Since THAT day, she and Dipper had decided not to interrupt their Grunkles' trip down memory lane. After restoring some of Stan's memories with her scrapbook, Ford went the extra mile and produced some old-timey film reels of them as kids. The kids would walk downstairs one morning and spot their Great Uncles sleeping in their chairs, tuckered out from watching the nostalgia. Mabel could have sworn that Grunkle Stan was smiling in his sleep...
"Thanks Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan," she said brightly. She placed her art supplies and craft paper down on the floor. "I wanted to ask if you guys got the time for one last scrapbookotunity." She looked at them with her best puppy-dog eyes look.
Stan and Ford looked at each other.
"We have time," said Ford, smiling.
"Whaddaya have in mind, kiddo?" asked Stan at the same time, leaning forward to look at the assorted items on the floor.
Mabel looked up at them with a wide, braces-filled smile that nearly blinded her elders as the light hit the metal. She held up a pot of poster paint and a large white craft paper. "HAND PRINTS!" she squealed.
Ford and Stan stared at her for a moment, then smiled.
"Sure!" said Stan, rolling up his right sleeve.
"Absolutely!" said Ford at the same time, rolling up the right sleeve of his red sweater as well. For Mabel, Ford looked less intimidating now that he stopped wearing the tan trenchcoat. She wondered why he still had to wear that turtleneck...
Eventually, the two men were now sitting on the floor with Mabel, picking their color. Ford chose a red pot, while Stan chose green. Mabel took a couple of large paintbrushes and set the paper on the floor. Ford looked at the paper in concern.
"Mabel, are we getting a paper each for this?" asked Ford. "Our hands won't fit on one page."
"And that's the beauty of it!" said Mabel brightly, swiping red paint onto Ford's palm. "Your hands on one page! It shows that you two finally stopped being stupid and made up! You're best bros again!"
Ford stared at her, then looked at Stan. Stan was grinning back at him, his palm already slathered in green.
"High six?" said Stan, slapping his hand on the paper. When he removed his hand, it was set a bit tilted to the left.
Ford smiled. "High six," he said, slapping his hand over the green hand a bit tilted to the right.
Mabel squee'd. She handed them a felt-tip marker for them to sign on the sides of their respective hands.
"This is going to be a great joint birthday gift for Dipper!" she exclaimed, holding up the finished product.
Stan stared at the handprints. "That reminds me of the handprints we have in our room back in Glass Shard Beach," he said to Ford.
Ford looked at the handprints. "Well I'll be. Right down to the colors," Ford murmured, rubbing his chin with his painted hand.
Stan laughed when he looked at Ford and his chin. The rest of the early morning was spent wiping their colored hands onto each other's faces, laughing like a couple of happy kids.