Fiddleford pulled into Stanford's driveway, to use the term loosely, on the far side of the two cars already parked there. Two cars. Why in tarnation would Ford have two cars? Maybe if one were a pick-up truck or a van or something of the like that Ford could use to haul specimens or equipment around, but they both looked to be midsized sedans. Not to mention the one of them was bright red and looked to be a convertible, neither of which fit into Fiddleford's idea of Ford's style.

Stanford must have a guest over, Fiddleford decided, though why he would have someone over today was beyond Fiddleford. He had told him he'd be coming up today. Granted, Fiddleford had made uncommonly good time on the drive up from California, and it was very possible Ford hadn't been expecting to see him until later this evening. Or maybe Stanford had gotten so absorbed in work he'd clean forgotten what day it was. Yeah, that sounded like Ford all right.

Well, nothing for it now. Fiddleford would just have to go on in, and hope he wasn't interrupting anything important. He headed up the steps to the front porch, but the door opened before he got the chance to knock. The man standing on the other side of the door wasn't Stanford.

Now truth was, Fiddleford had no real basis for thinking that. The man certainly looked a lot like Stanford. He didn't have glasses on, but Ford might have gotten contacts since Fiddleford had seen him last. Fiddleford had considered getting them himself, but his wife liked him better with glasses, and Fiddleford's mama always taught him not to argue with a lady. The man's hair was grown longer than Ford's had been, but that was what hair did generally. His style was a little different than what Fiddleford was used to expecting on Ford, but it was entirely possible that this small town he was living in out in lumber country had caused Ford to pick up a slightly more casual look. There wasn't anything concrete at all Fiddleford could point to as different that couldn't be explained away by the years it had been since they'd seen each other, but something in Fiddleford's gut told him that this wasn't Stanford. He didn't care how unscientific it was, Fiddleford trusted his gut.

"You aren't Stanford," he said firmly.

Not-Stanford looked amused by his pronouncement. "I would sarcastically congratulate you on your observation skills there, but given how many people I've caught looking at my hands to see which one I am, I think genuine congratulations might be in order."

At the mention, Fiddleford automatically looked down at the man's hands, but didn't understand what he was talking about until Not-Stanford held one up and waggled his fingers, all five of them. "Stanley Pines, though most folks just call me Stan. Nice to meet you." He lowered his hand and offered it forward.

Fiddleford shook it. "Fiddleford McGucket. Pleasure." He remembered Stanley now, Ford's twin brother. "I hadn't realized you and Stanford had made up." The way Fiddleford had heard it, the two of them hadn't spoken a word to each other since high school.

Stan looked at him closely for a minute, then smacked himself on the forehead. "My brother is an idiot."

"That is something I've noticed about him," Fiddleford said.

Stan laughed. "Come on in, Fiddleford. Yeesh, that's a long name. You mind if I call you Fidds? Fiddler? McGucket?"

"McGucket isn't any shorter than Fiddleford is," he answered as he stepped into the house. "They're both three syllables."

"You sure about that? It definitely sounds shorter."

"I do know my own name. I rather not be called Fiddler, seeing as I'm not one, but you can call me either of those other two just fine," Fiddleford said.

"FIdds it is. Go ahead and grab a seat and I'll buzz Ford up from the basement." Stan gestured at the couch and chair before going over to speaker mounted on the wall. He pressed one of the two buttons on the speaker unit, emitting a loud buzzing sound. After a moment he let up on that button and pressed on the other one, leaning in to talk into the speaker. "Hey genius." Fiddleford stifled a chuckle at that. He had his own brother – younger one, not a twin – who had been known to call him genius in exactly that tone. Come to think of it, Fiddleford might have been tempted to use that tone on Ford himself a time or two, though personally Fiddleford was much more like to get straight to the point and just call Ford an idiot. "Your friend is here."

"Now that's a nifty little doo-dad," Fiddleford said, giving the speaker a closer look.

"Ford made it," Stan said. "It comes in handy. This house has three sublevels and a freaking elevator to get down to them; we can't exactly just open the basement door and shout down there."

"We?" Fiddleford echoed. It was possible Stan was referring to the two of them right now, but the way he said it made Fiddleford think he was talking in a more general sense.

"Nope, no way am I depriving Ford of the realization that he didn't tell you anything and has to explain it all to you before I get back. Speaking of which, I gotta go. I'm already running late as it is." That's right, Stan had been heading out the door when Fiddleford had walked up, hadn't he?

"Sorry. I didn't mean to keep you," Fiddleford said.

Stan shrugged it off. "Not like you timed it that way on purpose. You can wait in here and Ford should be up in a couple a' minutes. If he's not up in ten, go ahead and buzz him again. If he's not up in thirty, then I should be back and we can all go oust him from whatever he's working on."

Fiddleford chuckled. "Same old Ford then."

"You got that right," Stan said, rolling his eyes, but he was grinning too. "Okay, I'm going. Make yourself comfortable 'til Ford gets here."

Fiddleford glanced over at the couch once Stan had left, but he'd been in the car driving since before dawn that morning. He didn't particularly relish the notion of spending more time sitting. Instead he wandered aimlessly about the room, stretching his legs and looking around. Not that there was that much to look at – contrary to what Fiddleford had come to expect from his friend, there wasn't much in the way of his work in here. No specimens sitting in glass jars, or half-finished inventions out on the table or corkboards full of notes or anything of the like. That had always been the basis of Ford's decoration sense before, barring a handful of posters of famous scientists, and without any of that, the room was fairly sparse in terms of decor. There was a stuffed bear head above the fireplace, which was such a bizarre choice for Ford that Fiddleford stared at it for what may have been a full minute before moving on.

The next thing in the room that gave him pause was a chest off in the corner. The thing of it was, it looked like a toy chest. But what on God's green Earth would Stanford be doing with a toy chest? Fiddleford was tempted to lift the lid and see what was inside, but he had been raised with better manners than that, so he let it be and walked over to the bookshelf. That only brought up further questions, because while the top four shelfs looked to be the kind of books Fiddleford might expect Ford to have, the bottom two were filled with picture books and the like.

The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway had Fiddleford straightening up just in time to see Ford come through the doorway. "Fiddleford!" he said, then threw his arms around Fiddleford in a hug.

Now Fiddleford had no problem with giving or receiving hugs himself. He'd grown up in a very friendly small town and his parents had always been real big on good ole fashioned Southern hospitality. Giving out hugs was just a neighborly sort of thing to do. Stanford, on the other hand, had not had that sort of upbringing. He never talked about his family all that much, but Fiddleford had got the impression of his dad being a tough, stoic type that thought hugging wasn't the kind of thing men did.

As Fiddleford didn't think it was particularly neighborly or friendly to go around hugging someone who didn't want it, he'd been planning on giving Ford an arm clasp or a back pat or something similar. He certainly hadn't been expecting for Ford to grab him in a hug. But then, it had been an awful long time since the two of them had seen each other; maybe it wasn't that surprising that Ford would be excited enough to be more open to hugging than usual.

"You came!" Ford said grinning, and it really was him this time – Fiddleford was sure of it once the hug ended and he got a good look at him. That was good, because Fiddleford didn't know if he could have taken the sudden appearance of a heretofore unheard of third triplet.

"I said I would," Fiddleford said, but he was grinning too. It was good to see his old friend again. Ford looked good, different in a way that Fiddleford couldn't quite place, but good different.

"I know you did, but now you're actually here." Ford paused and looked around the room. "Where's Stan?"

"He said he had to go somewhere and he'd be back in about half an hour," Fiddleford said.

"Is it that late already?" Ford said, glancing at his watch. "I guess it is. Time flies. Though I have to say, this is still much earlier than I thought you were going to get here. You must have made excellent time on the drive up."

"That I did, and I left real early this morning."

"Well, good time or no, that's still quite a drive. Can I get you anything, something to drink or eat?"

"Glass of water would be nice. Or I wouldn't say no to some sweet tea if you happen to have any," Fiddleford said.

"We have tea bags and sugar," Ford offered.

"That'll suit. So long as you have ice too." It'd be better if he also had baking soda, and it'd be best if there'd already been a pitcher in the refrigerator chilling, but Fiddleford's mama also taught him not to complain about the way anyone else kept house. Besides, even if there had been a pitcher ready he didn't know if he would have trusted it. Both because he didn't entirely trust Ford's culinary skills, and because despite how simple sweet tea was to make, Fiddleford had yet to meet anyone from north of the Mason Dixon that could do it right.

After reassuring Fiddleford that he did have ice, Ford led the two of them down the hallway toward the kitchen. "How have you been?" he asked.

"Oh, I've been just fine, same for the missus and Tate. I'm more interested in what you've been up to recently. You didn't tell me you made up with your brother," Fiddleford said.

"I didn't?" said Ford.

"You didn't. Though I suppose we were both a little distracted the last time we spoke," Fiddleford said good-naturedly. Ford might be worse about it than he was, but there was no denying that both of them could get a little overly focused when working on a project, especially when they were both working on one together.

Ford chuckled. "I suppose we were. Stan's been here about two months now, and we're still feeling some things out, but it's going well. Great. He's agreed to move in on a permanent basis."

"Him and his kids?" Fiddleford guessed. That would explain the picture books and the toy chest.

"Stan doesn't have kids. None that he knows of at any rate," said Ford.

"Then who does all the kid stuff out there belong to?" Fiddleford asked.

Ford froze, one hand on the door to one of the cabinets. He slowly turned around, still holding the box of tea bags in his other hand. "I didn't… I could have sworn I remembered calling you right after it happened. I was going to tell you it was all your fault."

"What's all my fault? Aside from week afore last, when we were talking about this new project, I haven't talked to you since I called you up to wish you a happy birthday three months ago."

Ford put the box down and appeared to be bracing himself. "Stan doesn't have kids. I do."

Stanford had kids? How could Fiddleford not have known about that? He and Ford didn't talk as much as they used to, but they still kept in touch often enough that Fiddleford should have heard that Ford had kids before now, especially kids old enough for some of the books Fiddleford had been looking at. Fiddleford hadn't even heard anything about any kind of lady friend. Not that he'd found that surprising at the time. Ford had always had difficulty talking to girls, and had been far too interested in his studies to make any effort to try. In fact, the only time Fiddleford remembered seeing Ford with a woman at all was that night Fiddleford dragged him out to celebrate getting his grant when Ford had… oh. "Those kids of yours. They wouldn't happen to be about six years old would they?"

Ford gave him a slightly pained smile. "They just had their sixth birthday on the 31st."

"Ah. I see. Let me get my tea first. I got a feeling this is going to be a doozy of a tale."

It was quite a story. Fiddleford suspected there was more to it too, from the meaningful way Ford described the kid's mother as "less than ideal," and from the laundry list of things that Fiddleford was, and more often wasn't, supposed to do around the children. Even just the things Ford did say, or alluded to more like, had Fiddleford half-wishing for something a little stronger. Not that he would so early in the day, even if that weren't against one of Ford's rules.

"Have you thought about pressing charges?" Fiddleford asked after Ford finished telling him about the twice weekly "manliness" lessons the kids had with his neighbor which had gotten started because Ford's son Mason had wanted to learn how to protect his sister from bad people.

"Pressing charges?"

"For child abuse. I can read between the lines of your story here." It made Fiddleford's blood boil just thinking about anyone ever doing that to a child, much less their own mother doing it. Little four year old Tate looked up to his mother as his hero, and the idea of someone turning around and abusing that trust - it was unconscionable.

"Oh, against their mother you mean," Ford said.

"That woman ain't a mother," Fiddleford retorted, his accent growing thicker with anger.

"I'm not saying I disagree with you there. Yes, I thought about pressing charges, but ultimately decided against it. The only tangible evidence I have of anything is the letter she left with the kids when she dropped them off here. Beyond that everything I know is based on inferences on things the kids have said. That means if I did take it to court everything would rely on their testimony, and I won't put them through that. Certainly Steph deserves to face consequences for her actions, but I have to put Dipper and Mabel's emotional well-being first," Ford said.

"Well I can't argue with those priorities."

The sound of the front door opening came from down the hallway, followed by a little girl shouting, "It's my turn to press the buzzer!"

"I'm in the kitchen, sweetheart!" Ford called back.

Two pairs of running feet thudded down the hallway, accompanied by two voices crying, "Daddy!" A second later the twins burst through the doorway and scampered up to Ford. Ford got up out of his chair and kneeled down to hug them both. When he sat back down, Mabel climbed right up in the chair with him. Mason gave Fiddleford a wary look before climbing up in his dad's lap next to his sister and grabbing ahold of Ford's hand.

"Dipper, Mabel, this is my friend Fiddleford. Fiddleford, these are my children, Mason and Mabel."

"Nice to meet you both," Fiddleford said, smiling.

"You're our daddy's friend who's going to come over all the time to help him with work stuff, right?" Mabel asked.

"That's me," Fiddleford agreed.

"But he's not a boyfriend, is he Daddy?" Mason asked.

"No, he's not a boyfriend. Fiddleford actually has a wife and a son, but they stayed back home in Palo Alto," Ford said.

"Okay," said Mason.

"Okay," Mabel echoed. "Hey Daddy, guess what happened in school today?" Apparently Fiddleford was old news now. That was kids and their attention spans for you.

"What happened?"

"No Daddy, I said you had to guess."

Fiddleford chuckled as Ford obliged Mabel by trying to guess what they'd been up to in school that day. Watching the three of them, Fiddleford finally put his finger on what is was about Ford that had seemed so different since the last time Fiddleford had seen him.

"He get you all caught up?" Stan had come trailing into the kitchen sometime after the children had, and was now leaning against the counter looking at Fiddleford.

"He did, thank you."

"It's not going to be a problem for you, is it? Having those two gremlins running around?" Stan's tone made it clear if that was a problem for Fiddleford, then Stan had a problem with him.

"Of course not." This wasn't what Fiddleford had been expecting when he drove up here. He'd been expecting the same old Stanford, buried in his work. Instead he'd gotten a single father raising two children with the help of his twin brother. No, not at all what he had been expecting, but that didn't mean Fiddleford had a problem with the way things were. He was happy for his friend. Because for the first time since Fiddleford had met him, Ford didn't look lonely.