A/N: Fanfiction it is good to be back! Hello other Fallers/Fallowers/Fans of the best animated show ever! I stumbled upon this amazing series and awesome fandom when Disney marathoned the whole series right before the finale so this love was fast and hit me hard. This is the first GF story I will be publishing (I have about a dozen that I'm still working on that I will eventually post) so here's my first. Love it, hate, disagree with it, favorite it, the choice is yours!
Stanford Filbrick Pines was sorry. He was sorry for a lot of things and had in fact been spending the days after Weirdmageddon saying those words over and over again. Ford had done and not done a lot of things in his life, both in this world and in others. However, he had discovered in the last few days that he no longer had to have his life piloted by past regrets.
That didn't mean he stopped doing it from time to time though.
Ford sat looking at his great niece and nephew, two amazing children he had only known for a matter of weeks, the young twins recounting the many adventures of their summer, both to test Stan's memory and to let their two men know just how much trouble they had managed to get into while their Grunkle's back was turned.
"So Mabel actually accepted the gnome's marriage proposal!" Dipper exclaimed in laughter, said girl elbowing him in the side as the two Grunkles laughed along.
"And managed to defeat them using the leaf blower thank you very much," she butt in, Grunkle Stan letting out a loud roar of laughter.
"So that's why you gremlins looked like you'd been through a warzone," Stan cracked, ruffling their heads affectionately.
"You betcha," Mabel replied cheerfully, pointing at the pictures in her scrapbook. "And then there was the Gobblewonker, which was actually that monster that McGucket built, and the wax statues you stole from that one guy that were actually living, you remember Larry King and-,"
"Okay, okay kid, I get the picture," Stan said, his tone more concerned than joking. "You guys did a lot of crazy stuff you shouldn't have."
"But it all worked out in the end didn't it?" Dipper inquired, a cheesy smile on his face. "I mean, we're all right, you guys are all right and everything's pretty great now." Stan sent a withering glare his nephew's way but it quickly disappeared with a knowing smirk.
"You got me there, Dipper," he admitted, standing up from the comfortable chair. "Now how's about we make some dinner? Mabel, I'll even let you use the stove."
The three began cheering and the young twins raced into the kitchen. Stan was almost out of the living room before turning around, realizing in their reminiscing a certain Pines had stayed silent.
"You coming, bro?" Stan asked. Ford jerked his attention from the scrapbook he had picked up, a dark look on his face.
"I'll be there in a second," he said gruffly, swallowing the knot in his throat as he gazed down at the pictures.
"Uh uh."
Ford jerked his head back up to see Stan sitting right next to him, the man leaning over to look at the pictures as well.
"What's on your mind, Ford?" he asked, his usually gruff tone gentle as he met his twin's eyes. At such a question Ford couldn't help but let out a laugh, though the sound was darker than it should have been.
"What isn't on my mind, Stan?" he countered, absentmindedly fiddling with the pages, noting that his fingers were getting covered in residual glitter. "I missed out on so much."
"What?" Stan asked, his eyebrows knit in confusion. Ford tore his gaze away from a picture of Dipper and Mabel outside some convenience store, the name Dusk2Dawn glowing ominously, and focused his attention on his brother.
"I wasn't here to see their summer," he continued, flipping the page to see a picture of the Tent of Telepathy. "Here all of you have been, getting to know one another, getting to grow together and by the time I decided to get involved it's too late," he said, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. "It's over."
"Don't think like that," Stan told him sternly, putting his hand over Ford's as he had begun to turn another page. All Ford could do was sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"I can't help it," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. "It's just…this whole world has been going on without me. The mysteries, the adventures, the codes, and I come in at the tail end of it. Heck, I was Dipper's greatest mystery of the summer and I didn't even appreciate what all of this has meant to him." Ford turned the page despite Stan's hand blockade, Dipper's corkboard with all strings connecting McGucket as the author practically mocking the estranged Pines family member.
"The big reveal of McGucket being the author, I wasn't there. To hear all of Dipper's theories and ideas, to see Mabel making friends and winning a pig. That's all over now and I wasn't there to witness it when it first happened. All I have now are their stories, reruns of their adventures and it's just…it's just," Ford couldn't believe it, he was choking up, practically in tears, because of a scrapbook of all things.
"Hey," Stan said, his voice still that soft and gentle tone. "Hey, it's gonna be okay, Ford." Ford felt Stan's arm wrap around his now shaking shoulders and he couldn't help but lean into the embrace.
"It's hard not being there when it happened," Ford managed to mumble, resuming his idle flipping of pages. "Not being there to experience it all with you for the first time." Regret roiled around in his stomach and Ford hated that feeling more than ever. He knew he couldn't change the past, go back to their very first day of summer and be there with everyone else, but he still hated that that was an impossibility. He always did hate when things were impossible.
"Okay, enough with the pity party," Stan grumbled, pulling his arm away from Ford's shoulders and giving him an elbow in the side. "No matter what you think you're here now. So what if you were only here for 'the end'," he said, using exaggerated air quotations that Ford couldn't help but smile at.
"Do you care about the kids?" Stan continued, locking eyes on a picture Mabel had taken of the two, one grinning larger than life while the other tried to hide behind his hat.
Ford too looked at the picture, placing a hand on it. "Of course," he answered, his voice full of more affection than he could ever remembered being capable of having. Stan nodded stiffly.
"Good. And you want to be a part of their lives, right? You want to know about their adventures, reruns or not?"
"More than anything," Ford said, his voice stronger than before as he beamed at the pictures in front of them.
"Then it doesn't matter if you were here from the very beginning or managed to come in at the tail end," Stan told him, his voice loud and cheery as he smiled at his twin. "The point is you're here now and you ain't going anywhere."
Ford gave a short laugh, relaxing once more into the comfortable company of his brother. "I suppose," he replied. Stan shook his head and let out a resounding boo.
"No 'supposes' and 'probablys', Ford," he said authoritatively, his eyes narrowed in seriousness. "You're family. You might not have been here when we made the jokes. You weren't there to put in your two cents worth of crazy theories, even though most of the theories were about you anyway," he joked, giving his brother a cheeky wink. Ford just rolled his eyes and set the scrapbook down.
"If this is you cheering me up, Stanley you're doing a poor job of it," he commented, but the words had no malice or hurt behind them. Not anymore.
"All right, all right, forget my big dramatic build up, Poindexter," Stan muttered good-naturedly, folding his arms in mock annoyance. "The point it that no matter when you came in you managed to stumble on us and we're not letting go. You're picking up on the jokes, you're starting to know us and we'll always be here. And hey," he said, moving to pick up the scrapbook and grabbing a marker.
"Stanley what're you-," Ford began but was cut off with a shush from his twin. Underneath Summer Memories Stan scrawled out a Part 1 with the red marker.
"Just because this summer's over doesn't mean it's the end, Sixer. Months after the kids go home I guarantee there will still be thousands, millions even, still talking about the things we've done this past summer."
"Stanley there are only 2,000 people in Gravity Falls," Ford remarked, chuckling at his brother's antics.
"Dramatic effect, Ford. You seriously gotta look it up," Stan smirked, rolling his eyes at his brother's inability to understand a hyperbole. "There are still theories you and Dipper can share, and memories that you can make with Mabel, not to mention getting to know all the other crazies here. And who knows what is in store for the two of us? This summer's ending yeah, but what we got out of it won't disappear just because we're rolling the credits. Here at the start of the race or managing to make it to the end you're with us now no matter what. That's what matters."
"When did you become such a sap, Stan?" Ford teased, noticing his brother redden and cough self-consciously.
"That's just how I feel. No need for name calling, nerd." Ford held a hand up to his heart.
"Ah, my brother, how your words wound me far more than blade or flame," he said, falling from his seat and landing on the floor in mock agony.
"Oh, so now you pick up a flair for the dramatic," Stan groaned, standing up and holding out a hand to his brother.
"It comes and goes," Ford smirked, taking the offered hand and hoisting himself up.
"Grunkle Stan there may or may not be a fire happening in the kitchen right this very second!" a slightly panicking Mabel called from the kitchen, Dipper screaming in the background.
"Geez, can't leave them alone without something happening," Stan complained and Ford agreed. There were smiles on their faces though and as they raced into the now smoking kitchen Ford felt a little bit of regret melt away.
A/N: there you go folks, me projecting my Gravity Falls experience onto a one of the characters LIKE A BOSS.
Anyway, thanks for reading and if anyone wants to post this on tumblr or on AO3 (I don't have accounts for either nor the time to make them) just PM and we'll talk!
BYE!