Stan mopped into the bar. Today had been tough. The "Murder Hut" was running just fine, pulling in enough money to keep him fed and warm. The problem was that he'd finally decided that if he was going to take Stanford's identity, he would need to end the name "Stanley Pines" once and for all.
With all the experience he had in cons, it wasn't too hard to fake someone's death. The hard part came when the police had came knocking at his door to "report" the death of Stanley Pines. It wasn't hard to appear sad, Stan just had to project all the guilt and grief about the man whose name he'd just took falling into that thing.
Even though Stan was confident he'd pulled the biggest con of his life off without a hitch it still hurt. He just needed to relax for a few hours, take his mind off of the insanity that was his life now.
Dejectedly, Stan sat down on the stool and placed his face in his hands.
"So, are you gonna order something, or just sit there?" the bartender asked sarcastically, staring over him. She was fairly tall, with startling green eyes. Her brown hair was held up in a bun with a colorful bandana.
"Oh, right." Stan said,"I need something strong, but not too expensive."
The bartender laughed. "Yeah, alright." However she did look through all the options until she found something that at least somewhat met Stan's criteria before sliding a glass of it over to him.
The bartender shortly returned to cleaning cups, but also tried to strike up a casual conversation with Stan. "Are you new around here?" she asked. "I don't recognize your face."
Adrenaline shot through Stan's veins. It's okay. He told himself. Just lie and get it all over with. You're gonna have to lie a ton after this, so get used to it. "Well...um..I've actually been here for around six years. Lived up in the cabin over there." Stan gestured in the general direction of Ford's lab. "Never came down to town much."
The bartender turned around suddenly, her silver green eyes bearing down on Stan. He felt like she was analyzing him, decontrusting him down to his base components. That unnerved him. "No...you aren't." Every alarm bell in Stan's brain went off at the moment, telling him to run. They were so loud, he barely heard her next words. "Your faces are similar, but they have some differences."
"Wha-what do you mean?" Stan wanted to run. To bolt out of the bar and never return, but his feet remained planted on the metal ring around the stool, as his brain raced a million miles faster than his body and his heart pounded away in his chest.
"You have a lot more guilt than him, his was more of a dark underside, yours is more all consuming. You do both doubt your abilities, however he pushed his doubt back. You're also rougher while he was more analytical." she replied calmly. The intensity of her gaze at decreased and Stan no long felt like he was under a microscope.
Well, that made zero sense. Stan's brain knew she was speaking English, but he couldn't string the words together in a way that held any meaning. It was like when Ford was explaining their homework or his perpetual motion machine...that cursed machine.
A quick thumb through of the book his brother left him, the one Ford demanded he take as far away from his place as he could revealed notes and drawing of supernatural monsters, the stuff from stories and folklore. Maybe this girl was one of them?
Well, if he couldn't lie to her, maybe he could reason with her? Reasoning never worked as well as lying for Stan, but maybe this time he'd get lucky.
"Well, you see…" Telling the truth never came easier to Stan. It was much easier to pull a fake name out of thin air and roll with the story that you came with on the spot for him. That was why he did it so much. "Okay, yeah. I'm not him. He's my brother," Stan said, keeping his voice down at a whisper, even though the many different conversations being carried on at once in the building protected the pair from eavesdroppers. "Something...happened to him. If anyone knew...they would blame me, so I'm gonna pretend to be him and try to get him back. I know you have no reason to believe him, but…" He didn't know why he was telling his person...this stranger...so much. He would much rather lie, but sometimes when you had no lie that could work...the truth could suffice.
The bartender studied him for a moment, staring directly into Stan's eyes without blinking. When she was done, she broke eye contact and said,"I believe you. When you speak of your brother, I see no hints of malice, just guilt...it's sad, but I don't think you're a bad person."
Stan sighed. The bartender...he just realized he didn't even know her name. The one person in the world other than him who knew his secret, and his didn't even know her name. "Hey, so, yeah. You'll keep the secret right?"
"Yes." she said as she returned to her work.
"So.." Stan said, trying to work out some smalltalk. "What's your name. I know this is awkward, but..yeah...I don't really know it and I just told you everything."
She turned back to Stan. "It's Sam. Short for Samantha. Samantha Agur," she said, holding out her hand.
Stan shook her hand and replied. "Stan. Stan Pines."
Stan sat in the chair in front of the desk in the basement. The one that overlooked the machine. He was trying to get the wires of the control board to connect properly, that would be the first step. Maybe he shouldn't of been working on it, considering he had been drinking earlier that evening, but the nightmares were so bad...anything was better than sleeping.
In his fatigue, he accidently tried to connect one of the wires onto his finger. Swearing and jumping around, he accidently knocked the journal onto the ground, and opening it to a random page.
As he looked down onto the ground to close the book, the pencil drawing staring back at him was not one he expected. It was a drawing of Sam, her hair was down and she looked a lot less tired, but it was still her. So he was right about her being some supernatural creature. Pushed the tangled wires a side, he grabbed the book and began to read, not an easy task thanks to his figure, his brother's handwriting, and the low light.
'Today I went into town to see if there were any anomalies disguised as humans, living peacefully among the towns folk. Most of the people I interviewed seemed to simply be weirdoes with no special powers(the town has an abnormally high concentration of those). I'll try again tomorrow.'
'Success! I actually found something. After crossing everyone else off my list, I asked some more people about "the weirdest person they know". The only new name on the list was a "Samantha Agur". I was able to speak with her after she got off break from her job. After interviewing her, she seems to be the real deal! She is capable of identifying emotions and personalities based on people's face. She doesn't describe it with actual features, instead a of series of similes and comparisons.
I am sure that she isn't just making up stories for the pedestrians we watched due to the startling assessment she gave of me. She claims she can glean more information the more time she has to watch their face. Her observations(she seemed unable to hold to herself) unnerved me greatly and for that reason I will not record them here. The only reason I scheduled another meeting with her tomorrow at my lab was so I would have time to gather materials to test her for Prosopagnosia'
The rest of the page detailed how Ford had tested her for this "Prosopagnosia"..whatever the hell that was. It seemed to be the ability to recognize faces normally, from pictures. Something Sam failed to do. At least Stan had some answers, but that didn't matter. He was no closer to figuring out how to get this cursed machine working...how to get his brother back.
Dipper pulled Mabel through the woods. The two of them had been excused from their work at the Shack that day. Even though Stan had taken his journal, he hadn't given up. He'd used his free time to comb the woods for the first journal, but he had no luck.
Today he was going deeper into the woods the normal, farther in than where he found the third journal. He convinced(read: guilted) Mabel into joining him for safety reasons. She was wearing a light blue sweater with a pink swirl. An easy design, but not something she was proud of. However it was the only thing she had time to whip up considering she was also planning a grand re-opening party.
"Why are you so obsessed about the journal?" Mabel asked, rephasing complaining about her coming along for the millionth time. "You could defeat Gideon without it? Why do you need another one."
Dipper had learned to just tune Mabel out the first five minutes of their treck, but this time he shushed her. He thought he heard something. Maybe it was a forest spirit. Whatever it was, he didn't want to disturb or startle it.
Dipper stopped in his tracks, straining his ears to see if he could hear something. When he did, Mabel who was mopping along, staring at the ground, almost crashed into him.
She stopped herself just in time and looked up. Staring straight ahead, she nudged Dipper in the shoulder and whispered. "Do you see that?"
"See what?" Dipper asked, but then he followed his sister's line of sight and was able to make out a vague shape in the trees, a very human like shape.
That human-like creature walked out of the foliage, to reveal that she was in fact, a normal human, at least on the surface.
Her gray and brown hair hang loose and was sloppily cut short. A faded, but still somewhat colorful bandana was wrapped around her shoulder. Her clothes were dirty and her face gave the look of someone who didn't always have enough to eat at every meal. She wore a tunic with a large tear in the side, revealing some type of undershirt. A jacket, with leaves attached as a form of camouflage of tied around her waist. The only part of her that was vibrant were here eyes, which shined a silver green. In her hand she held a spear.
"Who is that?" Mabel whispered to her brother.
"I don't know." Dipper replied.
"What are you doing so deep in the woods, children?" she asked.
"We're looking for a secret journal!" Mabel announced proudly.
Dipper glared at her. It was just like Mabel to be so careless. However he saw that the forest sprite, whoever she was, had a much more guarded expression when Mabel mentioned a journal.
"Your shirt is torn!" Mabel said, oblivious to the situation.
The sprite looked down at her shirt, as if just noticing the tear. "I guess it is," she replied, unconcerned.
"I know how to sow." Mabel stated. "I could fix it if you wanted."
The sprite chuckled. "I suppose you could. Hmm, normally I'd warn children like you not to go so deep into the woods, and that's they're dangerous and all that, but you seemed experienced." She looked back and forth between Dipper and Mabel, intently studying them.
Fixing her eyes on Mabel, she said,"You seem trustworthy enough. I don't feel comfortable telling you where I live, or encouraging you to wander the forest alone, I suppose you could leave it at the edge. Someone is bound to see it."
Mabel looked up at this woman. For some reason, her eyes, intently studying her, didn't unnerve her. Maybe it was because she already wore her heart on her sleeve. "Well we're staying in the Mystery Shack...you probably don't know what that is being a forest lady and all...er...Oh. I'm the girl the gnomes tried to kidnap, but I beat them with a leaf blower!" She beamed up at the mysterious forest lady, who smiled back.
Dipper cut in. "We're staying with our great uncle who has the cabin near the woods." When Dipper said that, he was sure she flinched and mouthed something, but he wasn't sure.
"Okay. When you finish repairing my tunic, leave it near that part of the edge of the deep woods, someone is bound to alert me and I'll pick it up." She put her spear on the ground and shimmed out of her tunic, before putting her jacket over her undershirt.
She handed her tunic to Mabel, who took the garment and gingerly folded it, as if it would shatter into million pieces at any moment. She then hugged it to her chest and ran towards the direction of the Mystery Shack.
Dipper turned back to the sprite, to see that she was warmly smiling as Mabel ran into the distance. Whoever she was, she wasn't like any monster he'd met before.
Realizing that his search for today had ended prematurely, he joined his sister one the way back to the Mystery Shack.
Ford walked through the forest at night, his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. Today had been very stressful. He enjoyed it at first as it gave him a chance to have play with his grand nephew, but then it had turned a fun game of DDnmD into a life and death stakes adventure.
Now he was heading out into the deep forest. Even though it was dangerous, even more so at night, he needed to be alone. He would find a clearing, somewhere to watch the stars. Trying to sleep in the basement made him feel trapped and reminded him of Bill, maybe sleeping under the stars would help him calm down. Besides, it wasn't like he was stupid enough to leave the house unarmed.
As Ford walked, making his own path through the less undergrowth heavy areas, he saw a orange light coming from some trees. He paused. None of the species he new of used fire on a regular basis, even in the dead of night. They either hadn't progress that far, or used luminous mushrooms.
Dropping into stealth mode, he pushed through the bushes to come into a small clearing. In the middle there was a fire, with someone sitting by it on a log, stroking the flames. A well made shelter from sticks and leaves was built in the corner. Whomever this was, this clearing seemed to be their permanent home.
Even though Ford was trying to be stealthy, the person by the fire noticed his approach and looked up, staring at him with very familiar green eyes. "Ford, you're back?" she asked.
"Sam?" Ford ventured. He didn't know what his old friend...er acquaintance was doing out in the woods.
That question was enough confirmation of his identity, as Sam simply stated "Wow, you've changed."
"I've changed? You're the one living out here in woods," he replied, taking the opportunity to come closer to the fire.
"You're the one who went missing for thirty years." Same shot back, good naturedly. She shifted over on her log and patted on the spot next to her. Ford took this invention to sit down.
"How do you know I was missing?" Ford asked.
Sam replied, while staring intently at the fire,"I got it out of your brother. Poor guy. His guilt was always so strong, I could actually feel it."
That was...interesting. Considering Sam recognized people off of their personalities instead of their faces, she was the most likely to figure out his secret. The fact she didn't ask for an explanation, even though she'd still be confused even based on what Stan told her was odd, but he hadn't known Sam to ask many questions, just make observations forcing you to explain.
"Alright, what about you? How come you're all the way out here?" She didn't look like she was just camping from how dirty and skinny she was. If anything, she reminded Ford of himself in the portal. The only clean splash of color was a splash of pink thread stitching what was probably a tear in her shirt.
"It's a long story. A couple weeks after I first met your brother, so I'm assuming at you disappeared already, I came into work and my boss just didn't recognize me. All memories of me...just gone." She had dropped her stick and made a poofing motion with her hands. "I tried to get rehired. I showed him my paychecks. His eyes just glazed over. His face, it was like he had a scar on it. Like someone had damaged it. I managed to get rehired, but that only lasted a week. Same thing happened to my landlord a few days later…" Sam started to get choked up and her voice faltered.
Ford reached to put an arm around her shoulder, but hesitated. After his experience with the portal, he'd had a problem with physical contact and didn't want to bother anyone else, not knowing how they felt.
Sam had apparently regain her resolve as she sat up straighter and continued her story,"After a couple weeks on the street, I decided to head out here. You said there were things like gnomes and unicorns out here. Magical stuff. Maybe it would be a place for freaks like me too. Anything would be better than having people forget you every couple weeks."
That stung. Ford had always considered his place his hideaway. Somewhere where freaks could be appreciated. He'd never considered how Sam felt. She come out to a small town in Oregon from Boston as a small town was easier to handle. She still felt guilt when she read hurt and pain from people and couldn't help them without bothering them..at least that's what she told him when they met all those years ago.
Now she was hiding out in the woods, living off the land. And he had a sneaking suspicion on who was responsible. Dipper being able to get his hands on Fiddleford's memory gun even when he'd told him to destroy it. Those Blind Eye people he saw before going into the portal. Now with everyone forgetting Sam, arguably a cyprid in her own right, Ford was almost certain…
"Are you sure you're okay out here?" Ford asked.
Sam turned to look at him, before returning her gaze to the flickering fire. "What do you mean?"
"I mean. You could come live at the Mystery Shack with us? I don't think Stan would mind?" Ford replied, though he wasn't actually sure how Stan would react.
"I actually like it out here. There's not much guilt, I can't read non-human faces. Most of the intelligent life has learned to accept me." Sam replied.
"Well okay. But if you ever need a home…" Ford let the words hang in the air as he got off and left the clearing, back towards the shack.
A/N: Few. I got this out on time. Being sick actually caused be to cut a scene at the end. I may add it in some day. Also if you're wondering why Sam couldn't get her boss to remember, I'm using Artemis Fowl's strong mind wipe rules, that only someone your subconscious trusts can cause you to regain memories. Sam wasn't that well liked or trusted when people remembered her.