Laughter rang throughout the Mystery Shack as the Pines family returned home from week-long road trip. Soos was up in Portland meeting Melody's parents with his grandmother, so he had asked them to manage the shack for him in his absence. Of course they wanted to help Soos out, but the shack wasn't the same without him there, so the logical thing to do was close it down for the week and go on a family road trip.

The Pines were exhausted from all the summer fun, but it didn't seem to bother them. Okay, so it bothered Grunkle Stan a LITTLE.

"Remind me to put all the stops from this trip on my list of places I've been banned from," the old man grouched. "My selection of road trip stops gets smaller and smaller every year."

"Don't forget to mark my name next to the Magicky Palace at Shmisney World! That's the first place I've ever been banned from," Dipper said with pride.

"We're all so proud of you!" said Mabel, hugging him. "But next time, try to get banned from somewhere LESS magicky."

Ford chuckled slightly. "With the kind of places we'll have to settle for next year, that'll be a cakewalk."

After another little laugh, Dipper looked at Ford thoughtfully. "Uh...Grunkle Ford? I wanted to ask you before..."

"Yes, Di- -"

"Howcomeyoukeptyoursweaterontheentirevacation?!" Dipper spoke in one breath.

"..." Ford looked down at his red sweater. It was true. While he'd stopped wearing his lab coat all the time, he would still always have the same red sweater on.

"Sorry to get all invasive about it," Dipper said, a bit flustered. "But you kept it on the WHOLE trip, even when Mabel took hers off. Like at the beach."

"Yeah, and at Splatter Hill!" added Mabel.

"And the nudist beach," added Grunkle Stan.

"Uh, well..." Ford seemed to be searching for an answer around the room. "I mean..."

Dipper crossed his arms. "Come on, Grunkle Ford, you said there would be no more secrets."

"Oh, Dipper...I! Have lots of...science to do!" Quite spry for a great uncle, Ford bolted to the vending machine and started punching the buttons. "LOTS AND LOTS OF SCIENCE!"

Seconds later, Ford had disappeared into the elevator leading below the Mystery Shack. He let out a heavy sigh. He felt awful about hiding the truth from his family again, but this truth was just...too much for him to reveal. They couldn't know. Ever.

The elevator reached Ford's private study and he stepped out. All of his Bill memorabilia had been cleared out and burned, so it sure felt good to be there this time around.

He found himself sighing once more. Bill, his 2nd biggest regret in his entire regret-filled life was gone, but his biggest regret was here to stay.

Ford pulled down the collar of his sweater.

There, just below his jawline, was his true biggest regret.

A tattoo of a doopy little smiling star putting two thumbs up, captioned "Hey Now, I'm An All Star!"

The countless attempts to have it removed proved futile. Ford had theorized that the warrior piglets who'd done the deed put some kind of permanence spell on it. Warrior piglets were...funny that way.

With a final sigh, he covered the contemptuous tattoo up again.

No one could EVER know.


(A/N: Well, that was silly. I don't know why I wrote it, I guess I just felt like being over the top? I didn't spend a lot of time on this, and this is the first time I've written for Gravity Falls, like, EVER, so sorry if this wasn't great.

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