Author's Note: I swear each chapter gets longer! I struggled a bit with this chapter but I think I'm happy with the end product. Fair warning, this is a pretty heavy chapter. Much emotions. Such angst.
Chapter 25: Reclaiming Memories
It was a quiet afternoon in Gravity Falls. Dipper was sitting in the kitchen making a snack when Mabel ran in, bouncing up and down with excitement.
"Hey Bro-bro, look what I got!" The colorful girl showed off her find to her brother.
"Oh boy, a filthy green bottle." Dipper said sarcastically.
"Not just any filthy green bottle!" Mabel corrected him. "It's a bottle message from Mermando! Remember him? He was my first kiss, and the only one of my crushes so far this Summer that seemed to reciprocate my feelings and wasn't totally cray-cray! Hey, what if he wants to get back together?"
"Don't get your hopes up, Mabel." Dipper warned her.
"Only one way to find out!" She squealed excitedly and uncorked the bottle. Her face was beaming as she began to read it, but quickly fell as she went on. "It is with a heavy heart… prevent an undersea war… arranged wedding… Queen of the Manatees...I'm getting married!?" She gasped.
"Ok, didn't see that particular one coming." The boy admitted.
"Oh, this can't be happening!" Mabel groaned, looking at the enclosed picture of Mermando's bride-to-be. "And she's so beautiful!"
Dipper put a comforting arm around his sister. "Don't take it so hard, Mabel. You'll get over him."
She groaned. "I know… it's just that," she pulled out her scrap-book, and opened it up to a page titled Summer Romance, "I made this page hoping I'd be able to fill it with epic summer romances, but look what I've got so far: Turned out to be gnomes, child psycho, makes out with his own hands… I just wish I could forget all about them."
"Yeah, my summer hasn't been the most successful either." Dipper agreed. "I spent half our time here trying to figure out who wrote the Journals, and it turned out we were living under the same roof."
Mabel smiled, "I thought that was pretty neat, that it turned out to be Grunkle Ford."
Dipper shrugged noncommittally. "It's cool and all, but it's also kinda embarrassing. I mean, what kind of paranormal investigator am I if the biggest mystery of the summer just slipped right under my nose?"
Their conversation was interrupted as Ford entered the kitchen. He was carrying a bag which he proceeded to fill with canned goods, including a lot of Barron Nyum-Nyum's Baked Beans.
"Hey Grunkle Ford, what're you up to today?" Mabel asked him.
"Putting together a care-package for Fiddleford. It's been a while since my last one, with everything that's been going on." Ford explained.
"Can we help?" The girl asked.
Stanford looked up from packing the bag and put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Well, actually… this is a big favor, but could you two take this to him? I… I have some more work to do with the 'you know what'. Even with all the Journals, I feel like I'm still forgetting something." Not to mention, Ford didn't think he could bring himself to look at his old friend, knowing he was in the process of activating very portal that had destroyed their old friendship.
"Sure, we can do that!" Dipper assured his uncle, happy to have an opportunity to show Ford how responsible he could be.
The young twins took the bag and headed out the door. On their way out they ran into Soos and Wendy, who were arguing about the latest catchy summer rap. Wendy hated it, but Soos wouldn't stop playing it again and again.
"Hey guys, we're gonna bring a bag of food to a crazy old homeless guy, wanna come?" Mabel asked them.
"If it means I don't have to listen to Straight Blanchin' again, then yes." Wendy agreed.
"You four be careful." Ford warned them, "Keep an eye out for anything dangerous or out of the ordinary."
"You got it Dr. Pines!" Soos assured him.
Dipper was deep in thought as they piled into Soos's truck.
"What's on your mind, bro-bro?" Mabel asked him.
"I was just thinking about Grunkle Ford. He's been putting so much work into the portal; I just wish there was more we could do to help."
"Yeah, me too." Mabel agreed. "At least we can help him take care of McGucket though."
"Wait, Mabel, that's it! McGucket used to work with Ford on the portal, right? What if we got him to help fix it now?"
"Uuuh, I dunno Dipper. Didn't that thing kinda drive him crazy in the first place?"
"Yeah, but what if we can help him get his mind back in order? I've got the third volume of the Journal, it's got a few entries about Ford and McGucket working together, and we've got the laptop he built for Ford from the bunker!"
"I thought Bill wrecked that thing?"
"Well, who better to fix it than the guy who built it!" Dipper exclaimed excitedly. "I bet it would help jog his memory!" He turned to the driver's seat. "Soos, wait, I gotta get a couple of things out of my room."
They arrived in the junkyard just as Old Man McGucket was chasing away some punk kids who'd spray-painted "Mc Suck it" on the side of his little junk-shelter.
"Get outta here, ya salt lickin', hornswagglin'... McSuckit. They got me good." The old coot sighed to himself. Then he noticed his new visitors. "Well howdy folks! Come in, come in!" He pulled back a tattered curtain of cloth that served as the door to his hovel.
"Hey Mr. McGucket, we brought you some food!" Mabel handed him the bag full of cans.
"Why thank ya lil' lady, but I don't need no charity from nobody." The hillbilly assured her. "I got everythin' I need right here! I got rusty scrap metal for buildin', plenty of possums for game, an' a fancy tub fer collectin' water in!" He glanced at the tub and caught sight of his reflection. "Hey, git outta my water supply, ya varmint!" He sighed. "Aw, who'm I kiddin'? I never done nothin' worthwhile in my life. Everyone knows I'm no good to nobody. I can't recall what I used to be, but I must've been a big failure to end up like this."
"That's not true." Dipper assured him. "You weren't a failure, you were brilliant! You used to work for our uncle. Maybe this'll help you remember?" The boy pulled out the broken laptop.
The old inventor took the laptop gingerly and looked it over. "I… I don't recall…"
"Well, what about this book?" Dipper pulled out the Journal. "Uh, he just calls you 'F' in all the entries, but honestly, who'd want to write out 'Fiddleford' all the time?"
McGucket took the book and read through the page on the Gremloblin the boy had opened up to. "I told ya, I don't recall. Everything before 1982 is jus' a blur…" He flipped through a few pages and then shrieked when he reached a particular image.. "The Blind Eye! Robes! The men! My mind! They did somethin'!"
Dipper took the Journal from him and saw a familiar drawing of an eye, crossed out in red ink. "The Society of the Blind Eye, of course! They erased your memory just like they did to Ford's! That's why you can't remember anything!"
"Oh, you poor old man." Mabel patted his shoulder sympathetically. "No wonder you're brain's all pbbbbbbth. You've been through even more intense junk than we thought!"
"Guys, this Blind-Eye thing was behind the only two people in Gravity Falls who know anything worthwhile about the portal losing all their memories about it." Dipper observed, "If we wanna help Ford get it working again and save his brother, then we need to get to the bottom of this."
Wendy got down on eye-level with McGucket "Think dude, what's the farthest back you can remember?"
McGucket looked over her shoulder to an old board covered in newspaper clippings. It was a collection of everything McGucket could find about his old life. "This 'un, I think."
Wendy glanced over the article and its accompanying picture. "The Natural History Museum. That's the earliest place you can remember?"
The old inventor nodded.
"Then that's where we're going." Dipper said firmly.
Ford was taking a brief break from working on the portal to get a drink of water. That's what he told himself, anyway. Deep down, though, he needed to step away because he'd come up against a roadblock. The portal was online. It was slowly gaining power. It was scanning the universe for a signal that matched their own universe's frequency. This scan was supposed to get him the coordinates he needed to find Stanley, but the coordinates were all wrong! Every single one came back negative, and the scanner's search seemed to be going in circles! What was he missing?
The old researcher drained his glass a couple of times and placed it in the sink. He'd spend a few minutes with the kids, clear his mind a bit, and then come back and try again.
Speaking of the kids, where were they? They'd left to see McGucket almost an hour ago, surely they'd be back by now, especially since Soos gave them a ride in his truck. He glanced to the tan long coat he left hanging by the door, waiting for his next adventure… or his next emergency.
"No, no, I'm sure they're fine." He scolded himself. "I'll just call Soos to be sure."
When he tried Soos's number, it went straight to voicemail. The same with Wendy's, which was actually normal for her, but the fact that both of them failed to pick up just compounded his fears. He was out the door and pulling the coat on in seconds. It looked like that tracker he'd installed in Soos's truck was going to be useful after all!
The four friends, plus McGucket, arrived at the museum without incident (except Wendy throwing out Soos's CD of Straight Blanchin'). The museum was closed, so they had to sneak in the window. Once through the window, they all stood and looked around carefully for any security guards or other suspicious things.
Wendy spotted something suspicious right off the bat, but it wasn't anything to do with the museum or the Blind-Eye. It was Mabel. She was gloomily following the rest of the crowd, and walked right past a stuffed cougar without petting it.
"Mabel, are you ok?" The teen asked her friend in concern.
The younger girl sighed. "I dunno. It's just that everywhere I go, I find reminders of my old failed romances! Dioramas of old-time courtship, gross hearts saved in jars, even this poster of my last crush!" She tore down an old flyer of Gabe the puppet guy, only to reveal a poster of the boy-band she'd kept as pets, Sev'ral Timez. "Oh come on!"
The friends continued looking around the darkened museum. Soos spied a couple of shadowy figures darting down the hall. They gave chase, but when they should have cornered the mysterious strangers, all they found was an exhibit room, empty except for a collection of different eye displays.
"Where'd they go?" Dipper marveled, "there's no windows or other rooms they would have slipped away into."
McGucket backed into the corner nervously. "I feel like all these eyes are a-watchin me."
Dipper looked around the room, taking in all the eyes and where they were pointing. "Wait, they are! Look!"
He turned McGucket around to reveal a special carving that looked an awful lot like the Blind Eye symbol from the Journal. The boy looked at the carving carefully and pushed it, revealing it to be a hidden switch! The empty fireplace slid aside and revealed a staircase leading down into a secret basement. They snuck down silently, grateful that stone stairs couldn't creak.
As they descended they began to hear ominous chanting. It grew louder with each step as they came closer and closer to the mysterious hidden basement. Finally they reached the bottom, where they found a set of heavy red curtains. The little group of explorers peeked through the gaps. What they found astonished them.
A ring of mysterious people draped in creepy red robes stood chanting around what to Dipper looked disturbingly like an electric chair. There was a poor woman strapped in, and although there was a hood shoved over her head, the boy recognized her at once as Lazy Susan, the lady from the diner.
The robed figures stopped chanting, and one man with an even creepier and more important looking robe stepped forward. "Who is the subject of our meeting?" He asked, pulling away the bag. "Susan Wentworth, what is it you have seen?"
"Speak!" The Society Members chanted.
"Uh, well, I was leaving the diner…" Susan started, surprisingly nonchalant for someone who'd been kidnapped, strapped into a chair, and surrounded by mysterious robed figures. "And I saw these little bearded guys, and I was like 'Whaaaa!?'"
"There, there." The head robed guy said, although his voice was far from comforting. "You won't be like 'Whaaa' any longer." He pulled out a strange device. It looked like an old fashioned gun combined with a fancy lightbulb and a label maker. He turned the dial.
They watched in horror as the leader of the Blind Eye erased Susan's mind with a flash of light.
"It is unseen." The Society Members cried out together.
The head guy unstrapped Susan from the creepy chair and helped her up. She didn't struggle, but she seemed really out of it. She didn't seem to know what was going on.
"Your memories will be safe, here in the Hall of the Forgotten." The leader removed a canister-looking thing from the memory eraser and wrote a label on it.
"Into the Hall of the Forgotten! Into the Hall of the Forgotten!" The Society Members continued to chant.
"Good chanting, guys, have you been practicing?" The leader complimented them. "Unsee you later!"
The rest of the Society of the Blind Eye gave similar farewells and left the room in small groups. Dipper gave a sigh of relief when none of them made their way to the stairs where he and his friends were hiding.
"Oh my gosh, they erased Lazy Susan's mind!" Dipper gasped when he was sure all the Blind Eye members were gone.
McGucket hamboned in shock.
"Did you see that?" Mabel asked, "They recorded the memory in some sort of tube thingy!"
"What if they kept the recording of your memories?" Dipper looked to McGucket, "Or Ford's? If we find those, it would do more than just help with the portal, it could uncover so many mysteries of Gravity Falls! Soos, you, me, and McGucket are gonna go find that Hall of the Forgotten. Mabel, Wendy, you two stay here and make sure those robe guys don't come back!"
"Aw yeah, girl time!" Wendy nudged Mabel playfully.
"Let's follow those tubes, dude!" Soos pointed the way.
Ford followed his tracker to the Gravity Falls Natural History Museum. Soos's truck was parked in front of an opened window. Stanford groaned. He was getting too old to be scrambling through little windows.
The old researcher dropped into the empty museum and looked around. There were a few clues that the kids had been here: a poster had been torn off of the bulletin-board, and there was still a faint unwashed-Dipper smell on the air. He searched more closely, looking for the tell-tale trail of glitter that Mabel usually left. He found a few shining specks headed down the hall. He continued to search, finding more glitter leading down to an unsettling room full of eyes. They were all looking at one point. He followed the gaze to find a carving of a familiar image: a cat-like eye, crossed out with an X.
Oh no.
"Alright, this doesn't necessarily mean the kids are in trouble." He reassured himself. "Just because there's a trail of glitter leading into what appears to be a Blind Eye stronghold doesn't mean the Society's gotten a hold of them." He was being paranoid, as usual.
But then again… he couldn't just turn away and not investigate. There wasn't any evidence that the kids weren't in danger from the Blind Eye, after all. It was better safe than sorry.
Ford inspected the carving carefully and found it was actually a button of some sort. He heard a rumbling when he pressed it. The fireplace at the other end of the room moved aside to reveal a hidden staircase. He took a deep breath. Hopefully his unbridled paranoia wasn't leading him on a wild goose chase, or to his doom.
Mabel had been practicing talking to boys with Wendy when she'd come up with the brilliant (at least in her opinion) idea to erase all the terrible romantic experiences she'd had this summer. Wendy wasn't so sure about this idea at first, but Mabel was pretty sure the teen was reconsidering when she suggested erasing Straight Blanchin' from the redhead's own mind.
The discussion was interrupted when they heard a rumbling from the top of the stairs.
"Someone's coming down the secret passageway!" Mabel gasped.
Wendy shushed her and took a fighting stance just outside of the curtain. She motioned for Mabel to do the same.
"Right before they come out of the curtain, we jump 'em." the teen whispered. Mabel nodded to show she understood.
They almost missed their target. Whoever was coming down the stairs was silent as a ghost. But even they couldn't hide the curtain being pushed aside as they peeked into the room. The girls pounced. Their target put up quite a fight, but it was two against one, and Mabel and Wendy were both exceptionally strong for their age and size. They quickly managed to tackle him to the ground. It was only then that they recognized him.
"Wait, Dr. Pines!?" Wendy exclaimed, "What the heck are you doing here?"
"I could as you two the same question!" Ford snapped back, readjusting his glasses, which had been knocked off in the scuffle. "Where are Dipper and Soos?"
"They went with McGucket to find you guys's memories!" Mabel explained, "Guess what, we found out those Blind Eye dudes have been keeping all the memories they erased in these tube-thingies in some 'Hall of the Forgotten'! Isn't that great! You'll be able to see all the stuff they made you forget before!"
Ford had to admit, it sounded like a dream come true. However… "It's not worth putting you kids at risk! Maybe I'll come back here at some point and try to reclaim those memories on my own, but for now, we need to find your brother right away and get out of here before the Blind Eye finds out we're here."
"C'mon, Dr. Pines, we're already gotten this far!" Wendy protested. "And you can't take on these guys on your own, there are tons of them!"
"So you thought the four of you could do it on your own?" The old researcher asked incredulously.
"Five, if you count McGucket." Mabel pointed out.
How Ford was going to respond to that, they never learned, because at that moment an alarm blared throughout the entire secret basement. In seconds red-robed figures were filing in from every entrance. They had the trio surrounded. Fighting their way out was not going to be an option this time; two of the Society Members were twice Ford's size, and they'd all pulled out memory guns.
Ford's mind was swimming in despair. He'd come so close, and now he was going to lose it all again! How long would it take him to relearn everything about Bill and the portal again? He had all the Journals back home now, surely it wouldn't take too long… but would he even remember what he needed to do with them? Thirty years ago the Blind Eye had tried to wipe his entire mind, would they do the same now? They couldn't, he had a family to care for! And what about Stanley? He'd just be left, waiting forever out in the multiverse. If he was even still alive. If he hadn't already given up hope in his brother a long time ago.
At least this way Ford didn't have to worry about the incredible weight of choosing to save his brother over preventing the end of the world a the hands of a mad otherworldly being of incomprehensible power.
Maybe he could deal with his own loss, but the kids? There was no way he was going to let the Blind Eye mess with their minds, no matter what it cost him.
The trio was brought into a smaller room, where Dipper and Soos were already tied to a support beam.
"Guys!" Dipper cried in surprise, "And Grunkle Ford? How'd you get here?"
"I'd hoped to come and save you, but obviously it's a little late for that." The old man sighed in defeat as he too was tied up.
"Where's Fiddleford?" He whispered to Dipper when the Society Members stepped boy shrugged. Well, at least someone had gotten away.
"You shouldn't have come here." The leader said sternly. "We do not give up our secrets lightly."
"Who are you bathrobe wearing freaks?" Wendy hissed.
"Why are you doing this?" Dipper asked desperately.
"And what's with the British accent?" Mabel asked, "We're nowhere near Britain!"
The leader shrugged "Well, I suppose we're going to erase your memories of this whole incident anyway…." The Society Members all removed their hoods, revealing people the Pines family recognized from all around town. Bud Gleeful, Toby Determined, the bouncer from the Skull Fracture Bar, the crazy farmer Mabel had won Waddles from, the guy who married a woodpecker, and even the soccer mom who was always wearing that blue hoodie. None of them recognized the leader though, except Ford. The old scientist thought the creepy bald man looked vaguely familiar.
"I am Blind Ivan!" The leader declared, "And we are the Society of the Blind Eye. Formed many years ago by our founder… our founder… does anyone remember who it was?"
"We been usin' that ray guy on ourselves an awful lot!" Bud guffawed.
"Wait, you seriously don't remember?" Ford asked in disbelief.
"Why are you so obsessed with erasing people's memories?" Dipper demanded. "What could you possibly have to gain?"
"As you've undoubtedly noticed, Gravity Falls is a town plagued with supernatural unpleasantness. No one knew how to stop the things that went bump in the night, so our founder invented the next-best thing: a way to forget. It became our mission to help the good people of Gravity Falls forget the things that troubled them. And as a perk, we get to forget about things that trouble us! Everyone has something they'd rather forget. In fact, we saw on the security cameras that this girl here was about to use the ray herself. Isn't that right?"
"Mabel? Seriously!?" Dipper asked incredulously. Ford looked like he'd been slapped in the face with this revelation.
"Uh, well, maybe I was thinking about it…" Mabel admitted.
"Don't you see?" Dipper turned to Blind Ivan, "This is ruining people's lives! Old Man McGucket lives in a hut and talks to animals because of you! And have you noticed how spacey the townspeople are here? Don't you feel bad about that?"
"Well, a little…" Blind Ivan agreed, but then he took the memory eraser and fired it at himself. "Feel bad about what? What was I doing? Oh, right." He began turning the dials on the ray.
"Wait!" Ford cried. "I know who your founder is, I know why this Society was really started. Just let us go and I'll tell you!"
"We can't just let you go in exchange for information, that goes against everything the Society of the Blind Eye stands for!" Ivan protested.
"Please, you can do whatever you like with me, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just let the rest of my family go!"
"Oh sure, and then they'll remind you of everything I erased." Ivan said flatly. "I don't think so."
"I'm begging you!" Ford pleaded.
"Oh, quit being so overdramatic, it's not that bad. You'd be thanking me later if you ac-" Suddenly, someone dropped from the ceiling and landed directly on Ivan's shoulders, knocking him flat.
"McGucket!?" "Fiddleford!?" Dipper and Ford exclaimed simultaneously.
"I raided the minin' display fer weapons!" The old coot explained as he cut them loose with a sharpened pick-axe. "Now fight like a hillbilly, fellers!"
They all grabbed various objects to fight with, and an all-out brawl broke out. Soos whacked one guy with a sign about Dysentery, knocking loose a couple of memory tubes with "Stanford Pines" and "McGucket Memories" written on them.
"The memories!" Dipper scrambled after them, but he was pursued by the tattooed bouncer. He quickly stuffed them into a transport tube. "Mabel, catch!" He called out to his sister, who was standing nearest the other end of the the tubes.
It was the world's most intense game of keep-away, as everyone dashed frantically around the room, swiping the memory tubes and slotting them into the next transporter before the Blind Eye members could get their hands on them. Finally, Dipper was distracted by the nasty sight of the farmer losing his robe, and Blind Ivan tried to snatch one out of his hands. The boy tightened his grip just in time, and they were locked in a vicious game of tug-of-war.
"Give me that tube, boy!" Ivan demanded.
"Never! That memory belongs to McGucket!" The boy struggled valiantly.
"The Society's secrets belong to us!" Ivan kicked the kid loose and took out the memory gun while Dipper lay on the floor, the wind knocked out of him. "Say goodbye to your memories!"
"No!" Ford cried out from the other end of the room. He was too far to do anything.
But McGucket wasn't. The old hillbilly jumped between Dipper and Ivan, taking the beam head-on.
"McGucket…" Dipper gasped in awe, "Y-you took a bullet for me! Why?"
"You remind me of somethin'... or someone. An old friend…" Fiddleford smiled.
Everyone stared at him in shock. Ivan fired another ray at him.
"Omigosh are you ok!?" Dipper asked in dismay.
"Ok as I'll ever be!" The old man laughed, shaking off the ray like it was nothing.
"What!?" Everyone was very confused.
Ivan kept firing the memory gun. "Why. Isn't. This. Working!?"
"My mind's been gone for thirty-some-odd-years!" McGucket walked right up to Ivan like the rays weren't even coming. "You can't break what's already broken! Say goodnight, Sally!" He headbutted Ivan, knocking him out.
The rest of the Blind Eye was in such shock, it was easy to turn the tables and tie them all up to that same support beam. After writing on their faces with Mabel's marker, erasing their memories so the Society of the Blind Eye wouldn't cause any more trouble in the future, and giving Blind Ivan the new identity of "Toot-toot McBumbersnazzle", they were ready to finally use those old memory tubes. Or at least, the kids were ready. McGucket seemed a little apprehensive. He was afraid he wouldn't like what he saw.
Ford was apprehensive for a whole other reason. Up until this point, Fiddleford hadn't recognized him today. How would he react when he finally truly remembered who Ford was and what had happened between them? And then there was the question of Ford's own memories. He didn't remember, but he had a good guess as to what kinds of things they might contain. While Ford was eager to finally reclaim his memories, he didn't want to show the kids such horrors.
The old researcher was ripped from his thoughts when Dipper asked him a question. "You said you knew who the founder of the Blind Eye was. Who was it?"
"You'll see soon enough." Ford sighed sadly, looking at Fiddleford as he slotted his memory tube into the screen. Dipper's eyes widened as he realized what his uncle was implying.
"My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, and I wish to unsee what I have seen."
Ford watched his old friend cautiously as the memory played on. He was expecting Fiddleford to round on him at any second and yell at him to leave and never come back. But Fiddleford remained glued to the screen, entranced by the record as his memories trickled back. The kids all gasped when they learned that McGucket was the one to invent the memory erasing gun, and found the Society of the Blind Eye. As the record played on, Ford found his own shock growing as he watched. Sure, he'd already known most of it, and guessed even more, but to watch it all play out before his eyes hurt in a way he hadn't expected.
"Oh McGucket, I'm so sorry." Mabel patted his back sympathetically.
"Aw hush, y'all helped me get my memories back, jus' like ya said." The old hillbilly smiled and turned to his old friend. "Stanford…"
"Fiddleford, I know you must hate me, but-"
"...Can ya ever forgive me?"
"What?" Ford asked hoarsely, "You- I'm the one who should be asking you to forgive me! I'm the reason you did all this!"
"You made plenty o' mistakes Ford," McGucket agreed, "but I didn't have to go an' react the way I did. 'Sides, I know I did plenty to hurt you too. I'm tired of forgettin'; maybe it's time we start forgivein'." He handed Ford his own memory tube.
Ford broke down and embraced his friend. "I'm so sorry Fiddleford! You were right! About everything! I should've listened to you!"
Fiddleford chuckled. "Well I can't argue with ya there. Go on, you got some rememberin' to do."
Ford hesitated. "I don't know if you all want to see this. It's not going to be pretty."
"Grunkle Ford, no one likes bad memories," Mabel reassured him, "But maybe it' better to remember the bad things and learn from them than to go all denial crazy trying to act like it never happened."
"That's some mature junk, right there, Mabel." Wendy complimented her.
"Yep! Miss Mature, that's me!" The girl beamed.
Ford chuckled softly and slotted the tube into the screen. As bad as this was going to be, he knew the kids could handle it.
It started out innocuously enough. A young Stanford was looking over the memory erasing gun with a critical eye. "It's just too dangerous! I mean, what if it fell into the wrong hands?"
"You're one to talk, that's the same kind of thing I've been saying about the portal project!" Fiddleford retorted.
"And even in the right hands, consider the possibility of misuse! What if you made a typo?"
"I won't let that happen." McGucket insisted.
"What if you misfired? The blast shield on this thing is completely inadequate."
"That's why I included the electronic tape, so it can record any memories it might accidentally delete. Although, you do make some good points… I wouldn't want to forget my wife, or my son…"
"Then destroy it! I'm telling you Fiddleford, there's just too much that could go wrong!"
McGucket looked at Ford nervously. "No… no, I still need it." He turned the device on his friend.
Static flashed across the screen as the scene changed to another day weeks later. The two friends were surveying a team of construction workers who were finishing off filling in a large hole in the ground. Ford looked annoyed.
"Fiddleford, what's the point of building a secret bunker with overwhelming security measures if a random crew of contractors knows all about it?"
"Don't worry, I'll take care of them."
Ford laughed nervously. "You sound like a Hitman in one of those mob movies my dad used to watch."
McGucket laughed back "Don't get yer suspenders in a knot, I'm jus' gonna use this." He pulled out the memory eraser.
Ford's eyes widened. "I thought you'd destroyed that!"
"I knew it'd come in handy for a situation like this." Fiddleford admitted sheepishly.
"It's bad enough you'd use this willfully, but on unsuspecting people without their permission!?"
"Stanford, don't worry about it." McGucket used the memory eraser on him again.
The scene changed yet again with a flash of static. McGucket was nowhere to be seen this time. Stanford was standing in the portal lab with another man who looked almost exactly like him. The kids gasped. This must be Stanley. He was obviously mad.
"You care more about your dumb mysteries than your family? Well then you can have 'em!" He shoved a Journal into Stanford's arms, pushing him over the threshold in front of the portal.
Everyone watched in horror as Ford became airborne. As Stan jumped up, grabbed his brother, and pushed Ford away from the portal, propelling himself into it's glowing blue mouth in the process. As Ford desperately scribbled down all the settings the portal had been at when Stanley went through. As he jumped in the car and drove recklessly through a blizzard to get enough fuel to run the portal one more time. As he found himself surrounded by the Blind Eye. As he vainly tried to explain himself to Fiddleford.
"I'm sorry I have to do this, Stanford."
A fight. A flash of light.
"No! Please!"
The recording ended.
Everyone sat in somber silence for a few seconds.
"Stanford I… I'm so sorry, I didn't know." Fiddleford finally said.
"Don't blame yourself, you were just trying to do what you thought was right." Ford reassured him. "Besides, now I should be able to bring him home…."
"Wh-what?" The old hillbilly asked apprehensively.
Ford gave no reply.
"Stanford, tell me you destroyed that contraption!"
The old researcher could only look away in shame.
"Saltlickin' skullduggery, don't tell me you've kept it runnin' all these years!"
"Don't be ridiculous, if I'd been running it all these years it would've destabilized a long time ago, you know that!" Ford snapped back. "I've only been running it for the past couple of weeks." He added sheepishly.
Fiddleford shook his head in disbelief. "Don't ya care about what'll happen to the world!? To yer family!?"
"I'm doing this for my family!" Stanford retorted. "Don't you think I know the risks? I've spent the past 30 years looking for another way! If there was one, I'd have found it!"
"Ya can't actually believe yer brother's still alive! Ya gotta move on Stanford!"
The kids watched them apprehensively as tension rose between the two old friends.
"What if it had been your family!? If it'd been your son you wouldn't rest as long as there was even a shred of a chance to bring him home!"
Fiddleford didn't have a reply for that. He took Ford's hands in his own. "I see I can't stop ya, but please, I'm beggin' ya, as a friend, tear it down."
An awkward silence persisted the entire drive back. Nevertheless, when the arrived home, Ford entered with a grim determination. He made a B-line for the utility closet and started digging around for something.
"We just wanted to help you and McGucket," Mabel finally piped up, "but I feel like we just made things worse!"
Stanford found what he was looking for in the closet and turned to his niblings with a small, hopeful smile. "You did help me! I'm already beginning to remember things I never even realized I'd forgotten. Dipper, may I see that Journal I gave you?"
"Of course." Dipper pulled it out of his vest and handed it to his uncle. Ford opened the book and switched on the thing he'd pulled out of the closet: a black light. In seconds, glowing messages appeared on the pages. "Invisible ink!"
"Yes! And look here!" The old researcher lead the kids into the library and grabbed Journal 1 off the shelf. He flipped through it until he found the page containing the portal's blueprint. The blacklight revealed a hastily scribbled list of settings and coordinates. "This is what I've been missing this whole time! I could potentially bring Stanley home tonight!"
"Let's do it!" Mabel cheered.
Dipper was a little less enthusiastic. He was worried by the other message left in invisible ink besides the portal settings.
It must not fall into the wrong hands! If the clock ever reaches zero, our universe is doomed! Total Global Destruction!
"Not just yet." Ford shook his head. "Fiddleford is right, opening this portal does have the potential to end the universe as we know it. So before I open it, I need to be ready to contain it. I've already got some ideas, it might take a week or two to build, but I know it's possible."
The kids shared a look, and nodded with determination.
"Where do we start?" Dipper asked.
Author's note: Next time I'm adapting Not What He Seems! Woohoo!