The Pines twins had been at sea for a few months, working hard to distance themselves from a past they would rather forget, while moving towards the future they should have made a long time ago. They traversed the waters, plotting a lazy path to the Arctic, neither of them in much of a hurry anymore and satisfied with the journey itself.
After the events of Weirdmageddon and sending the kids home, it quickly became clear to Ford that his brother had been faking the return of some of his memories, for the sake of the kids. While he did remember the broad strokes of his life and a few details about each of his loved ones, there were still large gaps in the life of Stanley Pines that were like a chasm in his mind. When Ford realized this he ran into the basement, a bewildered Stan left standing in the Mystery Shack gift shop as he tried to remember the code to the basement door behind the vending machine.
When Ford ran back up the stairs he presented Stan with a journal, exactly like his own, but this one blank. Stan took it and turned it over, a shining gold emblem of the symbol on his fez winking back at him from the cover.
"I thought maybe you could use this to write down things as you remember them."
Stan's eyes swam, and he threw his arms around his brother, eliciting an "oof!" from Ford.
Ford patted him on the back. "You're welcome, Stanley."
"Thank you. THANK YOU," Stan whispered, a slight quaver in his voice.
When it came to actually choosing the boat they would be sailing around the world, they of course encountered some disagreement. While Ford was focused on finding a boat that would be physically and functionally sound, Stan was more motivated by nostalgia.
They argued over this boat and that, the merchants at the docks rolling their eyes at these two old men that thought they could become sailors overnight. Ford wanted something with a motor, while Stan would have been perfectly content with a rickety old sailboat like the one they'd rebuilt as kids.
Eventually, they found a boat that suited both their needs: an old trawler, with a sturdy, worn-in motor. Ford insisted it would be insane to attempt to bring a sailboat in the middle of the Arctic ocean. It was a bit old and rickety, which satisfied Stan's nostalgia enough. While he insisted on function over substance, Ford was careful to cater to his brother's needs as well. After all, any nostalgia in Stan was a very good sign, and Ford was disinclined to deny what memories his brother had.
They worked quickly to get ready for their trip, both of them eager to leave the darker memories of Gravity Falls behind in favor of making new memories together. They took turns cleaning and rigging the boat, and shopping for supplies. Neither knew quite what to prepare for, but trusted their guts to figure it out along the way if need be.
They quickly found that they could still surprise each other.
While Ford was stocking the cabin with canned food and dried meat, Stan went into town and brought back a telescope. Ford heard grunts and pounding from inside the cabin, and peeking his head out, saw Stan had climbed onto the roof with the heavy telescope, and was attempting to mount it there.
"Stanley? What are you doing up there?"
Stan jumped, then awkwardly chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
"Oh, I uh…I don't know, thought a nerd like you would like something like that. To uh-" he lost his footing, grabbing onto the telescope and almost landing himself and it in the bay.
"Oh for God's sake…" Ford scrambled onto the roof and righted both the telescope and his clumsy brother. He shook his head, "what were you thinking?"
Stan raised his arms in exasperation. "Oh of course! I do something nice for you and-"
"You could have gotten hurt!"
Stan stopped. "Geez Poindexter, I wanted to surprise you…"
Ford shook his head again, trying to hide a smile.
"You don't like it. It was stupid. Like I know anything about this stuff! I'll just-"
"No! No, I…I love it Stan. Thank you." Ford looked back at his brother and smiled softly at him. Stan returned the smile with a grin.
And that's when the telescope started sliding off the roof again.
They both grabbed at it and hoisted it back on, falling backwards together as they did. Landing on the roof, they both looked at each other and started laughing uncontrollably. They laughed the kind of rolling belly laugh they hadn't shared in years, and once they started they couldn't stop.
They had gotten everything they needed, and were packed and ready to go. Stan was in the cabin, making sure everything was stowed away, and then poked his head out of the door.
"Stanford! What are you doing? Ready to go?"
"Just working on the finishing touch!" Ford called from the side of the boat.
Stan grumbled and walked out onto the deck, finding his brother on his knees on the dock, focused on something.
"What are you doing? We- oh…" Stan hopped off the deck and onto the dock, and saw Ford meticulously painting STAN O' WAR on the side of the boat.
Ford looked up sheepishly, embarrassed to be caught being as nostalgic as his brother. He cleared his throat and looked back at his work.
"I thought it was fitting. Right?"
Stan swallowed the lump in his throat and sat down next to Ford, taking the paint brush from him and painting two vertical lines at the end.
"There. NOW it's perfect."
Ford smiled and raised his right hand, turning to his brother.
"High six?"
Stan chuckled. "High six."
Now that they'd been away for a while, they'd fallen into a bit of a routine. When they weren't encountering sea monsters and the like, they spent a good deal of their time just talking. They sat together in the cabin, or sometimes out on the deck if the weather was nice, passing a flask back and forth and reminiscing. Ford told Stan everything he could remember about Stan's life, and Stan wrote down all the things that he couldn't remember himself.
"Remember when we were kids, and dad put us in boxing school?"
"Yeah…yeah! I do! That was fun!"
"Not for me…you were always the one who was good at punching!"
Stan chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I was."
"Do you remember what you did for me?"
"No? No I don't think so…"
Ford sighed. "I guess I didn't really remember myself until now…one of those things I just…sort of forgot, when I was angry with you."
Both brothers shifted uncomfortably.
"What…what do you remember about those 15-odd years we were apart? I'm afraid that's the one thing I can't help you remember."
"Oh, uh…well from what I remember, I don't want to remember those years too well. It was hard. And lonely."
Ford looked away from Stan and out the cabin window, over the shifting waters as the sun set into the horizon.
"I got into a lot of trouble too, though I guess not as much as you did! Kinda hard to beat unleashing…well, all of that. But there was this one guy I knew…weird guy, Latino, I think we rolled together for a while. He was a nerd like you, always coming up with these inventions for robbing banks…you would have HATED him. I think he helped me out though…at least some of the time."
Stan lowered his eyes, ran his hand across his face to find it wet with tears.
"Stanley?"
"Oh I uh…" he coughed, "just got some salt water in my eyes."
Deep creases formed on Ford's face and a now familiar pain filled him. He could feel his brother's anguish at the loss of so much of himself, and the fear it might never return.
Stan sat up straighter. "So! What was it I did for you all those years ago?"
Ford's expression brightened. "Oh! You uh…well you pretended to be me. At boxing class."
"I did?"
"Yeah! I…I was always terrible at that stuff, and you said you didn't want to see me get hurt anymore, so you pretended to be me and took both of our turns in the ring. I don't know how I ever forgot about that…"
"Hey! You learned how to fight eventually right?"
"Heh. Yeah…yeah I guess I did!"
"Pinned me too, you bastard."
They both chuckled.
"So…what did you get up to during those 15-odd years? I mean, I know what happened in the end but…"
"Well I…I guess I was lonely too. That's why I invited Fiddleford to join me eventually. But I felt like I had a purpose. Like I was doing something important." Ford put his head in his hands. "All that time and money and effort, all for nothing…hell, I almost ended the whole fucking world, all for my…my EGO."
Stan reached out and knocked his brother on the head, a metallic clang echoing around the cabin. Ford looked up.
"Hey. 'Never mind all that, right?"
Ford forced a grim smile. "Right."
Ford also eventually told Stan about what had happened to him in the other dimension over those long thirty years, though he was much less willing to be candid about that than his life in dimension 46'\.
As much as Ford tried to believe that it was all over, and he would never have to worry about that life again, there were still many things he would rather forget. Not to mention, many things he regretted.
One of those things was Bill Cipher, which he made a point to never bring up. He knew Stan remembered most of what had happened during Weirdmageddon, but they both had made an unspoken vow to "never mind all that," as the mayor had said.
During the day, Stan did most of the manual work on the boat while Ford charted their course and did calculations. Where Ford was mostly silent during his work, Stan never stopped talking, humming, or even singing. Ford found, after a time of initial annoyance, that he actually found Stan's gruff bass voice comforting to hear drifting over the calm seas and into the cabin under the boat.
One day he was in the cabin, tinkering with the one of the lights on the boat that had gone out. He was trying to figure out if he had the necessary materials to craft another lightbulb like the one he'd made for the Shack, when he heard a song that made his heart stop in his chest.
Usually Stanley's songs were of the made-up variety, just little ditties he improvised about whatever he was currently working on. But this song. Ford knew this song.
"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again, some sunny day…"
"STANLEY!" Ford scrambled above deck and ran to his brother. "Stan, where did you hear that song?!"
Stan blinked at Ford in surprise, his hands grasping the fishing pole he'd been reeling in.
"I…I don't know. It just sorta…popped into my head I guess?"
Ford stared at Stan, searching his eyes for a moment, then…
"We have to go. NOW."
"Ford? Go…where?"
"HOME. Gravity Falls. We have to go back to the Shack NOW!"
