Okay, full disclosure, I overslept today, so I took an old draft and cleaned it up a bit. This one's based on an idea I saw on AO3 that Bill and Stan are the same entity, constantly looping in time, but I decided to run with something a little different...
07/10/18: The Great Chain
"I don't want this. Not anymore."
Stanford Filbrick Pines was a man of action - he did rather than thought, which was a tad strange, considering he was a scientist by trade. When he'd crossed the multiverse, trying to find a way to defeat Bill Cipher, he'd jumped upon immortality. Cipher was eternal, he was simply levelling the playing field. They would fight, for eons if necessary, for the fate of reality. Forever intertwined; hero and villain; Holmes and Moriarity.
Except he hadn't been Holmes, in the end. He'd barely been Watson, or even Lestrade. Stanley had been the hero who vanquished Bill, and he was just… the brother of the hero. And that was fine.
But time went on and on and on and on and on.
He'd offered Stanley the option of infinity, but he'd refused - he'd settled down, found himself a family once again, and he couldn't bear to watch them all die. Besides, he had fifty bucks riding on there being an afterlife, and Stanley Pines never backed out of a bet. He died peacefully at ninety, and Ford mourned. In many ways, he never stopped mourning.
The rest of his family faded one by one. He lost track of McGucket - he left Gravity Falls, said he had to do some thinking. Mabel and Pacifica had fallen in love, gotten married and drifted away too, and it was to his immense shame that Ford fell out of contact with them too. Dipper and Wendy stayed longer, but one morning they simply vanished - a missing time tape gave some clue as to their fate, but that was about it. Soos and Melody lived long lives and had seven children, one to love each day of the week - he'd buried the mechanic, Stan's son, behind the Shack as he'd always wanted.
For a few generations, he'd lived with the Ramirez family, but eventually they'd all moved on. After that, he travelled - and oh, the things he had seen. The first ships taking off from Cape Canaveral to colonise Mars, Venus, Alpha Centauri. The flooded, abandoned ruins of Venice, still beautiful so long after the last humans had left. The final end of the American Empire, and the mushroom cloud rising over New York City. The court of the Mutant Napoleon, the eight dynasties of Evlopea, the rise and fall of the Third British Empire. And eventually, there came Time Baby's eighty centuries of domination.
In time, humanity vanished - not a great extinction event, but the product of mutations, augmentation, migration. The Earth stood deserted, and eventually was swallowed by its own sun. Galactic civilisations rose and fell, heroes lived and died, and eventually, one by one, the stars began to go out.
And now he was here, in the dark void that was once existence, waiting for the next Big Bang and the next universe, and feeling utterly, utterly exhausted.
He wasn't entirely alone, mind. The Axolotl floated with him, beady eyes gazing into him. They were all that was left, aside from him - or perhaps they were just an image, projected into Ford's universe by a creature beyond comprehension. Who really knew?
"I don't regret living this long," Ford admitted, "I've seen so many things, but… I can't do this anymore. I'm… I'm so tired."
The Axolotl blinked.
"I cannot do that, Stanford," they said, "You were promised forever. Forever you will get."
Ford opened his mouth to reply, but the Axolotl spoke again.
"However," they said, "I can promise you something else. A new form, a new identity. The memories and intellect of Stanford Pines, but with a new personality. You would be you, but you would not be you…"
"I could start anew," mused Ford.
He nodded.
"Do it," he said, "Please."
"You may not like what you become."
"I'm prepared to roll the dice."
The Axolotl nodded.
"Very well."
Ford felt a stinging in his forehead, just under his skin - the metal plate, he thought. Perhaps the Axolotl needed to be rid of it, before…
Pain.
Searing, pulsing, throbbing, unbearable pain, so potent he could not even scream.
His body burned like a Roman candle, every aspect of his physical form annihilated in an instant that took eons. His mind ripped and tore like it had been placed in a blender, every memory and thought screaming, shrieking, jumbling up into a totally incoherent mess. Desperately he grasped for something, anything that could provide stability, and grabbed onto a single memory as though it were his only salvation.
"I feel like I should come up with a nickname for you. I mean, Stanley has a hundred…"
"It's fine, Great Uncle Ford - heck, you're the only person who ever uses my real name, so…"
"True, true, good point, Mason. Still, Mabel, I reckon I should think of one for you…"
He… no, they weren't that anymore, felt the pain die down. They didn't have a body anymore, so to speak - they were a single object floating in the gloom, their entire essence encased within. In time, they would emerge - and then they would create others like them…
There was a bang, incomprehensible in scale. The thing that had been Ford watched it in disinterest - it'd be billions of years before anything interesting happened anyway. Better to sleep. Better to wait.
But first, they needed a name.
They thought back to the memory once more - one of millions of Ford's own thoughts, but the only one that still seemed… significant.
"Grunkle Ford, you don't have to…"
"Well, let me think, Mabel. You're bright, friendly, a natural leader… uh… you're the star on the zodiac, so… no, definitely not, that's what Bill called you. Hmm… I've got it!"
The being decided on a name - the same name of the substance that she was now formed from - and contentedly drifted off into unconsciousness.
"I'm going to call you… Starlight."
AN: oh my god he's become david bowie!
no no wait that's starman.
(He became White Diamond, because I'm not sure how clear that is in the text)
