Even after they came out of their "metaphorical corners" for Mabel's surprisingly elaborate brunch ("I didn't even know I had strawberries," Ford said looking at the sauce Mabel had made for their waffles. "Or a waffle iron." "You didn't," Mabel cheerfully replied.), Mabel didn't let them talk about anything serious. She opened the conversation with stories of what she and Stan had gotten up to on their way over here. Ford actually seemed interested in listening to it; he was asking questions and making comments anyway. ("I can't believe that worked," Ford said, laughing. Mabel and Stan both gave him a look, and Ford said, "Ah, yes. I forgot who I was talking to.") It was nice being able to talk with Ford like this again. Heck, it was nice talking to him at all, but being able to chat casually and just pal around was more than Stan would have hoped for. They even started talking about some of the ridiculous things Stan and Ford had gotten up to as kids, to Mabel's delight. ("I'm always up for more tiny Stan twins stories! Bring on the Mystery Twins Classic!") Then without thinking about it, Stan mentioned the Stan O' War.
There was a brief awkward silence, and then Mabel asked Ford about a story from his college days. ("You blew up the science lab?" Stan asked, looking at his brother wide-eyed. "I didn't blow the whole lab up, just some of the things in it," Ford replied.) From there they got into talking about what Ford had been up to while off at college. A lot of the smart talk went over Stan's head, and Mabel's too apparently ("Oh, I have no idea what I just asked him," Mabel assured Stan after she'd asked Ford an especially nerdy-sounding question. "I've just been hearing these words for long enough to be able to make it sound like I do."), but Stan could still laugh at some of the crazy situation Ford got into. Even the nerd babble was kind of nostalgic to listen to.
Mabel kept that up all day, making sure they kept talking about lighter things that they could all joke around and laugh at. By the time Stan was settling down to sleep on the couch in Ford's "thinking parlor" – jeez Ford, really? – he was starting to think this was Mabel's plan. She would make them focus on talking about the easy stuff until they could build a new relationship from there. They would paper over all the bad things until they could leave the past in the past, where it belonged.
Looking back on it, that was a pretty dumb thing to think.
When Stan woke up the next morning, Mabel had already passed through his room at some point. He knew because sitting on the sofa next to his head was a neatly folded sweater with a note on top of it.
Grunkle Stan~
When you wake up come out to the living room for brother bonding and fight mediation time. Breakfast will be served. Wear your sweater! And no cheating by wearing a long-sleeve shirt under it, T-shirt only!
~Mabel
Stan picked up the sweater, finding the yarn to be as itchy as he remembered. He unfolded it curiously – Mabel hadn't let him see them while she was working on them, which was actually impressive since she had done it all right there in the passenger seat while he was driving. He knew they were both the same red color, but there had to be something else going on for her to be so secretive about it. Stan saw the back of it first, which was just a plain red sweater, but when he turned it around he saw what it was Mabel had been trying to keep hidden. Written across the chest in yellow-gold letters edged in black was "I AM NOT HELPING." Apparently Mabel was really serious about the no helping thing.
Stan put the sweater on as instructed and walked out to the living room. Mabel was already there, ensconced in a chair made of red leather and elaborately carved woodwork that Stan didn't remember seeing yesterday. It kind of looked like a throne. Appropriate, really.
"Good morning Grunkle Stan! Please help yourself to some breakfast," she said, gesturing magnanimously to the spread she'd laid out on the dinosaur skull that had been repurposed as a coffee table. Ford was going to be thrilled about that. "We have fresh baked muffins, coffee, and Mabel juice."
"What's Mabel juice?" Stan asked.
"Delicious! Like if coffee and nightmares had a baby. I don't use plastic toys in it anymore – mostly – and I stick strictly to edible glitter," Mabel said.
"Where did you get edible glitter?"
"C'mon Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. She pulled a set of keys that Stan hadn't seen her with before – presumably hers. She flicked at an empty plastic tube dangling from the key chain nestled in between a few others that looked full still. "I always keep an emergency supply of edible glitter, rainbow sprinkles, rainbow sugar sprinkles, and mini chocolate chips."
"Of course you do," Stan agreed. It only made sense.
"Can you please get something to eat and sit down? The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll sort it all out and the sooner I can get this sweater off," said Ford, and Stan started. He hadn't noticed him already sitting in one of the two seats opposite to Mabel.
"Good morning to you too, Ford," Stan grumbled, but he wasn't all that upset. He could definitely sympathize with Ford wanting to get out of these sweaters sooner rather than later; they were even itchier to wear than they had been to hold.
"Good morning Stanley," Ford said as Stan grabbed himself some food and settled into the last open chair. "Wait, why doesn't your sweater say you're an idiot on it?"
Stan flinched. "Grunkle Ford," Mabel scolded, "don't call your brother an idiot."
"You called me an idiot," Ford objected. He gestured to his sweater, bringing Stan's attention to the fact Ford's sweater was slightly different than his own. They were both red with the gold lettering, but Ford's read "I AM AN IDIOT."
"I'm not your brother," Mabel retorted. "And when I call you an idiot, I'm saying it with love because I know you can do better. When you say it, it just sounds mean."
"I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trying to call Stan an idiot either, even if he is a bit of a knucklehead sometimes. I'm just pointing out the disparity in our sweaters," Ford said.
"That's because I personalized them. Every Mabel original sweater is personalized," she said. "Yours says you're an idiot because you don't think about how what you say effects the people around you and it makes you do idiot things like accidentally call your brother an idiot. Then Stan crazy overreacts, which definitely doesn't help. It only makes things worse. And that's the real reason you two are fighting."
"That's not why we're fighting," Ford said in blatant disbelief.
"That sounds like an excellent place to start!" Mabel said. "Wait right here while I get my stuff."
She jumped up and ran out of the room, coming back a minute later wearing a pair of reading glasses and carrying a lined notebook, both of which Stan remembered her picking up at one point or other. In her other hand was the leash with Gompers at the end of it. "Therapist Mabel is now taking patients."
"Hey! What did you do to my goat?" Stan demanded.
"Gompers loves his new sweater," Mabel said, patting Gompers on the back right over the knitted purple sweater that read "SHARING GOAT" in bright green letters. Gompers bleated. He was probably agreeing with her, that traitor.
She handed the leash to Ford, who took it, looking confused. "Gompers here is the sharing goat. That means right now it's Ford's turn to share how he feels and we're all going to listen. You can comment or ask questions if you want to, but you can't overreact." She settled back down into her chair, adjusting her glasses and clicking her pen a few times. "Grunkle Ford, while trying not to be an idiot about it, tell me why you think the two of you are fighting."
"Because Stan ruined my life," Ford said waspishly.
"I ruined your life?" Stan said. "What about my life? I-"
"Grunkle Stan," Mabel interrupted. "Grunkle Ford has the sharing goat right now; it's his turn to share. You'll get your turn later. Grunkle Ford, now you're being deliberately mean."
"If I'm going to say the wrong thing anyway, why bother?" Ford said.
"Because you love your brother and you want to make up with him," Mabel replied matter-of-factly, and Ford didn't say anything to that. He didn't agree with her, but he didn't argue it either. Maybe Stan ought to have known Ford was on board with the whole thing, since he was sitting here wearing the sweater, but Stan would take as much confirmation as he could get. And sure, maybe Ford wasn't stupid enough to deny loving Stan right to Mabel's face, but he still could have. Like he said, Stan would take what he could get.
"Okay, let's try again. Grunkle Ford, why do you think you and Grunkle Stan are fighting?" Mabel said.
Ford sighed. "The catalyst would have been the science fair, our senior year of high school. My project that year got a lot of attention from the teachers and staff, and even got West Coast Tech interested in coming out to see it. I assume that I've told you about West Coast Tech in the future?"
"Oh yeah, I know all about those guys." Mabel's smile was one of her scary-sweet ones, not that Ford noticed.
"Then you know what a huge opportunity that was for me. I told Stan about it that evening, and I admit he was less than enthused, but I thought… well I certainly didn't expect what happened. On Friday my project was working fine, then on Saturday when I unveiled the project to the West Coast Tech board it was broken. On the floor in front of my project was an empty bag of toffee peanuts; Stan's favorite snack. I went home and confronted him about it, and he immediately admitted to sabotaging it."
Stan started to say he hadn't sabotaged anything, but stopped when Mabel held her hand up to him. Because Stan apparently wasn't allowed to defend himself because he didn't have the stupid sharing goat.
"Not only did Stan admit to sabotaging it, he immediately tried to get me to agree to go treasure hunting with him." Get him to agree to it? Ford had already agreed to it, Stan was just reminding him that not everything was falling apart, that they still had options, because Ford had a tendency to really freak out when things started to go wrong. "Like he didn't even care that my dreams had been crushed so long as we got to do what he wanted to do." Oh. That. Stan hadn't. Oh. "Then Pa came in, and you know the rest."
"Hmmmmm," Mabel said, looking at her notebook overly intently, especially considering Stan was pretty sure she'd just been doodling on it. She adjusted her glasses again and peered at Ford up over the top of them. "If I could ask for a point of clarification: did Grunkle Stan sabotage your project or did he break it?"
"I'm not sure I understand the distinction?" Ford said.
"If he broke the project that could mean a lot of things. It could mean he broke it on accident and decided to leave it like that. It could mean he broke it on accident and meant to tell you about it, but chickened out. It could mean he broke it on accident and didn't realize it until later when you told him it was broken. It could mean he broke it on purpose for any number of reasons, maybe to keep you from getting into West Coast Tech or maybe because some other time traveler came from the future to warn him that your project had to be broken to keep the world from being taken over by a crazed top hat."
"A crazed what now?" Stan said.
"I thought you agreed not to tell us any more about the future," said Ford.
"Oh that's not something that happens in the future… probably. That was the plot to a movie. I think that was the plot; I might be remembering it wrong. That's beside the point. What I'm getting at is if Grunkle Stan broke your project, then all it means is he broke it. If he sabotaged it, that means he specifically was trying to keep you out of West Coast Tech. So do you think he sabotaged it?"
"He was so obsessed with the whole treasure hunting thing!" Ford exclaimed. "Never mind that it was a completely unfeasible life plan, it's what he wanted to do and he was too selfish to care about what I wanted. He was willing to cost me my dream school so he could have what he wanted."
"I'm selfish? You're the one living it up in your fancy house up in the woods, hoarding all your college money because you only care about yourself!" Stan spat.
"One time I kidnapped a boy band and held them prisoner in my room for three days," Mabel said. That got everyone's attention.
"You did what?" Ford asked.
"I know what you're going to say," Mabel said, holding her hand up. "I'm not supposed to tell you anything else about the future. But trust me, there are so many boy bands coming up, you won't know who I'm talking about until it's already happened."
"I think he was more worried about the kidnapping and holding people hostage thing," Stan said. Yeah, Mabel got up to some crazy stuff, but it was still all legal, more or less. Definitely nothing as extreme as kidnapping.
"I didn't hold them hostage; I held them prisoner – completely different. And okay, I didn't kidnap them so much as set them free from their crazed manager and bring them home with me. And technically they could have left at any time, I just lied to them and isolated them from any outside source of information to convince them it wasn't safe for them to leave. But, you know, we all do stupid things when we're kids," Mabel said.
"You think I should absolve Stan of any wrong-doing just because he was seventeen at the time?" Ford said, and it was pretty clear he did not agree.
"Did I say that?" Mabel asked. "No, my point is we've all done some terrible things, which means we've all had practice justifying doing terrible things. So if I wanted to theorize reasons why Grunkle Stan might have deliberately ruined your project, then I wouldn't have asked you; I could do it myself. What I want from you is to look me in the eye – no wait, look Grunkle Stan in the eye, and tell me whether you genuinely believe your twin brother would intentionally and maliciously try to destroy your dreams."
Ford turned to look at Stan, and Stan really wished Mabel hadn't said that. How was he supposed to look when Ford was looking at him like that? What was he supposed to do if Ford looked him in the eye and said he really believed that Stan would do something like that to him? "I…" Ford said. "I guess maybe; it's possible…" It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no either, and Stan didn't know what to say to that.
"Innocent until proven guilty," Mabel said.
"But he is guilty," Ford objected, tearing his eyes away from Stan to look at Mabel. "He's explicitly admitted to breaking it."
"No one's arguing that," said Mabel. "I was talking about intentions."
"But he did it. His intentions don't change what happened, so why should they matter?" Ford asked.
"They matter to me," Stan snapped. "Just answer the damn question, Ford. I'm telling you it was an accident; do you believe me or don't you?"
Ford hesitated. "When I found that bag of toffee peanuts, I wanted to believe it was an accident or some kind of misunderstanding. But when I got home and you confirmed you had done it… I guess it was just easier to believe it was on purpose."
"It was easier to believe I would stab you in the back?" Stan said. "How is that easier?"
"Because if I was angry at you, then I didn't have to feel guilty," Ford said.
Oh. That. "What did you have to feel guilty about?" Stan asked. For ditching Stan and their boat to go chasing after some nerd school? Yeah, Stan wasn't really happy about that, was angry about it even, but he didn't blame Ford. It wasn't his fault that what he wanted to do wasn't what Stan wanted him to want to do. Or maybe he was talking about when Stan had called out to him from the front stoop and Ford had closed the curtains on him? That one was all on Ford, but he had been pretty upset right then. Stan knew plenty about doing stupid things when you were angry; he didn't blame Ford for that either.
"My twin brother just got kicked out of the house. I didn't know where you were or what had happened to you, but at least I could comfort myself with knowing you brought it on yourself. I'm not necessarily saying you deserved it," Ford said, giving Mabel a quick look, but she seemed content to stay out of it for the moment, "but I could still say it was your fault that it happened, and that was easier. Because if it wasn't your fault, if it was an accident and you got kicked out of the house because of my project, and my dream school, and my hypothetical millions of dollars…"
"I'm going to stop you right there," Mabel said. "It wasn't either or your faults. Your dad is the buttface who kicked Grunkle Stan out, so it's his fault. End of story. If I find out either of you two are indulging in your martyr complexes while I'm here, I will kick your butts. If you try to do it after I leave, then when I get back to the future I will find out, and I will kick your wrinkly old man butts. Got it?"
Stan didn't know what she was talking about "martyr complex," but he knew well enough to agree. "Good," Mabel said. "Now Grunkle Ford I think it's time you handed the sharing goat over to Grunkle Stan. Grunkle Stan, you said it was an accident that you broke Grunkle Ford's machine, so why don't you tell us more about it?"
Stan had already told Mabel all about it two nights ago, but this wasn't about telling Mabel; this was about telling Ford. Good thing he'd already got the crying out of the way then. No way he wanted that to happen now.
"Ford had just finished telling me about his nerd school and I went for I walk. I ended up at the high school and went into the science fair. Ford's project was right there and I got real mad. So maybe treasure hunting was an unfeasible life plan or whatever," and Stan couldn't argue with that or anything, given his experiences with it, but still. "Ford never said anything like that before, so I as far as I knew, one minute we had a solid plan to sail off and explore the world together after high school, and then all the sudden Ford wanted to go move to California and leave me behind to scrape barnacles off the salt water taffy stand in Glass Shard Beach. One minute we were a team, and the next I'm being thrown over because Ford cared less about me than some school he only heard about that day all because of this dumb science fair project."
Stan had to stop for a second then. He had been so mad then, and maybe he was still a little mad now. He just needed a minute.
"Then what?" Ford asked. Well, at least he wasn't automatically assuming Stan destroyed the thing anymore. That was something.
"You know me, I get mad and sometimes I just gotta hit something. But there was nothing around for me to hit, so I slammed my fist on the table. There were vibrations or something, and this little piece popped off, like a vent or a grate. I freaked out and put the piece back on. Everything was still going fine after that so I figured it was all fine, right? No harm, no foul, and no reason to tell you and get you all upset over something that already worked itself out. I didn't even know I'd really broken it until the next day when you came home all mad."
"You still should have told me," Ford said.
"Well, yeah I know that now," Stan said, rolling his eyes. "But like I said, I thought everything was fine. I was already losing you to some school on the other side of the country; I didn't want to make it worse. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what I ended up doing. The screw-up strikes again."
"You aren't a screw-up, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. "But you did kind of mess up there. So maybe you should take a minute to think very carefully about what Grunkle Ford wants to hear from you right now."
Oh hey, Stan knew this one. "I'm sorry."
"Are you? Really?" Ford asked. He didn't sound like he doubted it exactly, so much as he needed to have it confirmed. Which, classic Ford.
"Yeah. I didn't mean to do it, but I did it and I'm sorry." Stan felt good, he felt… clean. There was no way this was going to be the end of it, but it was good to get it out there.
Ford nodded. "Okay. Apology accepted."
"What?" Stan said.
"Apology accepted." Stan kept right on staring at him blankly. Ford sighed, then held his hand out. Stan stared at that blankly for a second before realizing what Ford wanted and handing over Gompers' leash. "Obviously I'm not thrilled about losing out on my dream school, but in spite of what I said, you didn't ruin my life. I've got my Ph.D. and I'm working on a second and third doctorate right now. I have, as you so eloquently put it, my fancy house up in the woods and a grant to study exactly what I want to. West Coast Tech would have been amazing, but I'm still doing well regardless. That's not why I was angry."
"Why were you angry?" Stan asked. The way he'd yelled when Stan first showed up yesterday, there was no question that he had been mad about something.
"I was angry because I thought you'd betrayed me and weren't sorry and hadn't learned anything from it. But you didn't and you are and you have or maybe you didn't need to or… Well, anyway I forgive you and I'm ready to move past it now. I've really missed my brother," Ford said.
"Sap," Stan said, trying to pretend like he wasn't blinking just a little too fast. "I missed you too."
A burst of applause from Mabel. "I'm so proud of you guys!" she said, and she really was tearing up with absolutely no shame. "I barely even had to help you at all once you got started, and you made such good use of the sharing goat. This was so beautiful!"
"Great. So, uh, do you think we can take these sweaters off now?" Stan asked scratching furiously at his shoulder.
Mabel sobered quickly, wiping her eyes dry. "Not yet. First I have something to tell you Grunkle Ford. I know you already forgave Grunkle Stan and this shouldn't make a difference, but I think it might anyway. And if it does, that doesn't make you a bad person or anything, okay? The thing is, I'm pretty sure it didn't matter if Stan would have broken your project or not. Either way, you weren't going to get into West Coast Tech."
"What are you talking about?" Ford said.
"Yeah, Poindexter here is a genius. He would have blown that college board outta the water if his machine had been working," Stan said.
"Of course he's a genius! Grunkle Ford, you're in a three-way tie for smartest person I've ever met in my entire life, and that's only because I know Dipper and Fiddleford. And, you know, maybe that would have been enough for the college board," Mabel said, twisting her hands together. "It's just… okay Grunkle Ford, when I showed you my broken time tape, what did you do with it?"
"I looked it over, trying to figure out what it was, how it worked, how to fix it," Ford said.
"You didn't just see it was broken and decide it was a useless waste of time because it couldn't do what it was designed to do?" Mabel asked.
"No-o," Ford said, his tone changing midway through the word as something seemed to dawn on him.
"And you and Dipper are the science guys, so you'll have to tell me: in science is getting it exactly right all the time all that matters, and are the results the only important thing, not how you got them?"
"No, of course not. An invalid hypothesis can sometimes teach you more than one that was confirmed, and the process by which you get it is an extremely important part of any discovery," Ford said.
"Someone want to explain to me what the two of you are getting at?" Stan asked.
"When the people from West Coast Tech came they took one look at my broken project, then turned and left. They just crossed my name off the list without even asking about the theory behind the machine or my process or anything. They weren't interested in me at all." Ford said, his voice small and lost.
"I'm sorry, Grunkle Ford. We've talked about it a lot and we think that they had some sort of quota or PR thing they were doing. Maybe if the project had been working it would have knocked their socks off, and they would have let you in anyway, but…" Mabel bit her lip.
"Well good riddance to those guys," Stan said, voice full of venom. No one messed with his family like that. "If they're too stupid to realize you'd be the best thing to ever happen to their school, then that's their loss."
"Yeah!" Mabel said. "They're just a bunch of stuck-up, unicorn-hearted jerks and they're going to rue the day they wrote you off. Rue, I say!" Mabel shook her fist in the air.
Ford still seemed a little overwhelmed, but his lips quirked up in a half-smile in spite of it. "Thank you."
"Anytime. You just say the word and Grunkle Stan and I will drive down to Pasadena and punch all those snobby jerks in the face. Meanwhile, we've got one more thing, and then you two can take off your disagreement sweaters," Mabel said.
"What's that?" Ford asked.
"You two broken teacups need to hug it out. That's not just for now either; that's the rule for anytime you want to take the disagreement sweaters off," said Mabel.
Stan stood up. "Better do as she says. This girl is serious about her hugs."
'I've noticed," Ford said, standing up too, and opening his arms.
Stan was worried at first that it was going to be awkward. He and Ford had hugged each other when they were little kids, but they had stopped going in for that so much when they got older. That wasn't how men acted with each other according to Pa, and physical affection had mostly been reduced to shoulder punches and maybe some one-armed shoulder hugs. Stan couldn't remember the last time he had really hugged Ford, but he knew it was longer than four-and-a-half years ago.
Then Stan wrapped his arms around Ford and he forgot what he was so worried about. He and Ford just fit, same way he and Mabel fit, but better. Because Stan loved Mabel because she was his crazy older sister and his adorable little niece all rolled into one, but Ford was his twin. Ford was his twin, and he was here, and they were finally, finally together again.
"I really did miss you," Stan said without loosening his grip one bit.
Ford did one better and squeezed onto Stan tighter. "I'm just glad you finally came back."
