A Happier Time
By Aoikami Sarah
Chapter Four
Later that afternoon, Wendy dropped by to check in on 'her peeps' and learned what had happened to Stan at the conclusion of the battle to Take Back the Falls. Though she was horrified, she quickly joined once she saw how well he was retaining the memories being fed to him.
By sunset, all but a small section of roof on the back side of the shack had been repaired and it looked (aesthetically, at least) as good as new, better even than it had before Weirdmageddon began. The Pines family thanked their magical friends and they slipped off into the encroaching darkness.
"Woo!" Mabel cried and dramatically wiped her brow. "I didn't do anything but sit around, talk, and eat all day, but I am beat!"
"I guess we're still recovering," her brother agreed. "Great Uncle Ford's been napping almost all day." Dipped pointed lazily toward the sleeping scientist, curled on his side on the blanket in the middle of the lawn. Dew was starting to form on the grass and Stan nudged him to tell him as much.
"I can't believe we only have one more day…" Mabel hung her head and Wendy hugged her.
"You gotta hold tight to the time you have so you can carry it with you," she said, squeezing her shoulders. She got up and stretched. "Well, I'll see you dorks tomorrow. Get some rest!" As she got on her bike and began to pedal away, Soos lumbered to catch up with her on his way to his truck. Dipper wondered what it was he was whispering to her but was suddenly distracted by his great uncle's shouting.
"Hey, it's ok, Sixer! It's just me!" Stan barked. "Man, you were really gone, weren't ya?" He laughed, but his tone was flat and anxious.
"Stan…" Ford asserted and gawked at the arm that had nudged him, clenched tightly in his grip. Horrified by his own reaction, he quickly released him. "Did I hurt you?"
Stan made a face. "Nah. You just seemed like you didn't know where you were for a sec. Thought that was my job!" he chuckled and kept a steadying hand on his shoulder.
Ford looked up at him and laughed uncomfortably as well. "Right. Sorry, Stanley."
Dipper turned to face his own twin and was not surprised to see her wring her hands as she watched the two old men carefully.
.x.
After a pleasant dinner of delivery pizza (two large pies, one pepperoni, one with roasted red peppers, spinach, and mushrooms with a big salad, breadsticks, and soda-'a real feast!' Stan had barked into the phone at the girl taking his order), the family settled down to bed in their reconstructed house. Dipper and Mabel found that the attic, too, was in almost better shape than they recalled, however, some of Ford's things that Stan had stashed in the corners were missing or broken, and the birds' nests, dust, and moss had not survived the transition from house-to battle mecha-to house again. Mabel was a little disappointed that Daryl, her favorite moldy spot, had been wiped clean by some industrious and well-intentioned gnome. But their beds were repaired and looked incredibly inviting and before long, they were ready to get some rest. Though their bodies still needed it, their minds worked overtime now that the day's distractions were gone. There was one subject neither of them wanted to discuss and any time it reared its ugly head one of them would change the subject.
"I hope I can find all of my stuff…" Dipper muttered as he got changed. His sister brushed her hair, facing the wall. She cringed.
"Dipper, do you think Grunkle Ford has PTSD?" she asked.
He pouted, mulling this suggestion over. "You mean, because he woke up and grabbed Grunkle Stan? I don't know. Probably? I'd be surprised if we don't have it after everything we've been through!" he exclaimed and told her it was safe to turn around.
Mabel laughed. "Yeah, right. Only soldiers get that! I was thinking he got it when he was in the portal."
Dipper sighed. "I think anyone who goes through 'traumatic stress' can get PTSD, Mabel."
"Oh, right…" she deflated and flopped down on her bed. "So, we could be scarred for life, huh?"
"Probably." Dipper shrugged. "Maybe junior high school will be so traumatic we won't even think about the bad stuff that happened this summer!"
"Ha. Yeah," Mabel half-heartedly agreed and looked to the suitcase the foot of her bed, yet unpacked, but waiting. In the scant down-time they had experienced after Dipper, Wendy, and Soos rescued her from her bubble, she and her brother talked about her feelings, about the challenges they had yet to face, and how daunting it all seemed (high school then being the least of their concern), but how they would face any challenges together. They would be ok. She remembered this conversation they had that night while building the Shack-a-tron and it comforted her again. She breathed a calming sigh and snuggled into the covers. "Dipper, do you think they'll be ok?"
"Who?"
"Stan and Ford, duh."
He looked at the ceiling as if searching for an answer. "I think so? I mean, they 'hugged it out' last night, I guess. Stan seems to be getting his memories back pretty well and Ford seems to have reconnected with him. And they were laughing and stuff today."
"Yeah, but they got pretty close to talking about bad stuff and Ford changed the subject."
Dipper rolled over and faced her. "Well, yeah. That's gotta be some pretty personal stuff…"
"But it's stuff we know about. Why didn't he want to talk about it in front of us?"
"I dunno," he shrugged. "Maybe there's more to it."
They chatted a little while longer, trying to decide how best to spend the next day (not once referring to it as their 'last') in Gravity Falls.
.x.
Downstairs, Ford finished repairing a circuit breaker, closed the panel with a satisfying click, and smiled. "This old house'll be ship-shape in no time. I'm amazed at what Fiddleford was able to do on such short notice, and impressed as well, but jeez there's a lot of stuff that needs repairing."
"Yeah. He was pretty great," Stan muttered. "Unlike me…" A memory of his obstenence and hurt feelings that prevented him from helping to rescue his brother from Bill bubbled up and he bit his tongue. 'Not. Once. More,' he thought.
"What was that?"
"Nothin'." Stan shook his head and looked at the clock. It was already well past ten. "Say, uh… Ford. This is gonna sound weird but, can you, uh… sleep with me tonight? I mean sleep in my room! Not, ha, y'know, with me, just I'm still a little shaky on this whole lost-my-memory thing and…"
Ford answered without hesitation. "Of course."
They wrangled a twin-sized mattress and bedding into Stan's room and Stan apologized for having taken his brother's former bedroom for his own, explaining that it was the one with the wood stove in it. With Stan's back turned to him, Ford cringed as his own words of a month prior echoed in his head. 'You give me my house back, you give me my name back, and this Mystery Shack junk is over, forever. You got it?' Perhaps Stan had forgotten that exchange? If he could, Ford would try to make sure he never remembered it. Earlier, they had come dangerously close to talking about 1972-the year their father kicked Stanley out of the house, the year Ford turned his back on Stan and shut him out of his life, believing that he and his intense and forbidden passion for him were holding him back. Three decades living far from a world that shunned such taboos had changed his mind about that, and there were times when Ford ached for his brother's embrace. There were times when he cursed his name, as well. And when he saw the portal open-when he knew what Stanley had done, despite his warnings-he'd been livid and any love he felt for Stan was pushed back down under layers of bitterness and pride. The chance, now, to start over was tempting, and Stan's elevated status to 'hero' had secured his confidence, rendering him positively radiant in Ford's eyes. Despite all this, Ford dreaded opening that door. If he initiated a conversation about their relationship's past and possible future, he invited hurtful memories of the worst kind. Ford watched his brother disrobe and resigned himself. If keeping the truth from him would ultimately make Stan happy, he'd be more than willing to be his brother and best friend, and nothing more.
"The study is fine for me, Stanley. You should keep this room. This is as much your house as it is mine."
"But didn't you…?" Stan wondered, bits of a night not long ago filtering in. He shook his head "Oh, ok, Ford," he replied hazily and unbuttoned his shirt. He watched his brother remove his boots and trench coat. Stan stripped to his usual tank-and-boxer combo and pulled the covers down. "You're not gonna sleep in your clothes, are ya?" he asked him.
Ford shrugged. "I don't mind."
"I probably got something you could wear…"
"I'd rather not," he replied quickly.
"So my duds not good enough for ya?" Stan teased, hoping he'd change his mind.
Ford sighed. "Fine." Stan tossed him a t-shirt that read 'Gravity Malls Grand Opening '86' and a pair of sweatpants, but Ford just stood there and looked away.
"What? You shy? I seen you naked before, Sixer."
"No, I'm waiting until you turn off the lights."
Stan laughed at him. "You want me to avert my eyes? Come off it."
"Damn it, Stanley, I just don't want you to see the shape I'm in!"
"So you got some bruises-can't be nearly as ugly as I look a on daily basis."
"I'm trying to protect you from this."
Stan's brows raised, but he scoffed. "From some black and blue marks? Please..."
Ford's fists shook. "From all of this ugliness! My scars and…all the ugly truths. Keeping these things out of your mind is the only thing I can do to come close to making up for causing most of your misfortunes."
Stan frowned and rolled his eyes. "Oh here we go…" he growled angrily and his brother took an apprehensive step back. "You wanna nail yourself to the cross, do ya? You think you're the only one who hates himself for the things he's done? For the last couple days I been prayin' that half the crap that's been comin' back to me is a nightmare. But I know it's not. It's all real. And it's mine. It's what makes me, me. I know what I am now, but I don't know how I got here. I know I have a family that loves me, but that I didn't get it by default. I know that I earned it. Don't you dare keep a thing from me, Ford. I want it all back so I can make sense of it-own it all-so I can be me again."
Ford took a deep breath. '...eight, nine, ten,' he thought, and was filled with a sense of pride that he had actually calmed himself down in the face of his brother's obstenence. "That's not it. Not entirely. You see, Stan, I've had to be rescued by you so many times that I just wanted, for once, to be the one to protect you."
Stan could have used to count to fifty in his head, but this was not something that had ever occurred to him to do. His face flushed red and a vein stood out on his temple. "Damn it Poindexter, I'll rescue you a million times over if I have to!"
It was as if Stan threw a rock into the still pond of Ford's calmed mind. "You are not listening to me!" he growled and ran his hands through his hair. "But if you're going to use a crucifixion metaphor, I may as well indulge you!"
A moment after he pulled his sweater off, Ford's heart sank with the realization that once again, he'd acted out in frustration and anger and done something terrible that he could never repair. His brother's face fell and he took an unsteady step towards Ford, one hand reaching out, shaking slightly. His mouth hung open, unable to form words. There were bandages wrapped around Ford's wrists and neck where Bill's manacles had burned him. A huge bruise reached around from his back to his ribs where a column had fallen on him on the first day and a plethora of other bruises dotted his skin-his deeply and copiously scarred skin.
"What… happened…?"
Ford tried to look away from Stan's devastated face. He wanted to turn back the clock. He wanted to run. He wanted to die. He managed to choke out three words: "Time. Distance. Bill."
"Bill…" Stan repeated, hazily. "I killed him, right?"
Ford managed to hold back his tears. "That you did."
"Too bad," Stan muttered. "Right now, I wanna murder him." The two stood in awkward silence for several moments until Stan let out a long sigh. "You get the bed."
Stunned, Ford looked up. "What…?"
"I don't wanna hear another word about it. Get some sleep," Stan growled softly and carefully lowered his old bones onto the mattress on the floor. When Ford stammered in protest he shouted at him. "Shut the fuck up and go to bed! You got a lot goin' for you. Always have. The only thing I got is protecting my family. Deal with it." He pulled the itchy wool blanket over himself and turned away to face the door. "Good night!"
In a voice torn somewhere between crying and laughing, Ford replied "good night," and did as he was told.
