Fair warning, this fic is going to be a little mean to Ford in places. Sorry, Ford fans, but he mucked some things up, and I'm still annoyed with him for them. And the lovely thing about fanfiction is that when a character mucks things up, you can address it when you feel like canon hasn't done the job properly.

"Mabel!" Dipper burst into the attic room, overflowing with excitement. "I just had the best day of my life! UFOs are real and there's one under the town and I saved Great Uncle Ford's life and- and…"

He finally noticed that Mabel was lying unnaturally still (as in, lying still at all) on her bed, not acknowledging him. She hadn't even looked up when he ran in. His ebullience began to be replaced by confusion. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Tell me it's not true, Dipper," Mabel whispered. Slowly she sat up. "Tell me you were joking!"

In her hand was the walkie-talkie, still crackling with static.

Dipper gasped; he hadn't realized that it had started working again!

Before he could speak, Mabel went on, "Ford's apprentice? Seriously?"

He sighed. "Look, I've been thinking and...this is a huge opportunity for me."

As he spoke, Mabel huddled in on herself, clamping her hands over her ears like that could make this not real. Then she exploded, with tears in her eyes, "Well it's a horrible opportunity for me!"

Dipper flinched; he hadn't realized that she would get so upset by this. No-she didn't just sound upset. She sounded...betrayed.

"I had the worst day of my life!" Mabel ranted, jumping off her bed and walking away towards the middle of their room. "When we turn thirteen, the summer ends, and I have to leave everything behind!" She whirled on him, pointing. "You're the only person I can count on, and now you're leaving me too? So me and Grunkle Stan are both gonna lose our brothers?!"

"Wh-what?" Dipper blinked. "What are you talking about?"

Mabel sniffled, and wiped her eyes on her sweater sleeve. "I-I-when they were talking after they first came back, Ford told Grunkle Stan that he has to give him the house back at the end of the summer. I didn't wanna believe it-I thought they'd work things out and stop fighting by now. But this-this just confirms it-he's using you to replace Grunkle Stan!"

Dipper's stomach dropped even worse than it had when he'd first seen the drone come to life. "No-no, that can't be right. Great Uncle Ford wouldn't do that."

"Ask him!" Mabel challenged, eyes filling with tears again. "Ask him if you don't believe me!"

Dipper glanced uncertainly over at his backpack, where the rift was.

Ford had just finished setting things up to finish sealing the rift and finally make things safe from Bill (at least until or unless he could design a more permanent solution), when he heard the sound of very young feet walking down the stairs.

"Let me guess," he said without turning around, "Mabel didn't take it well."

There was a brief silence. Then Dipper blurted, "Are you planning to kick out Grunkle Stan?"

The old scientist nearly dropped his equipment, and had to fumble to catch it. He turned around, and saw Dipper standing there with his backpack clutched in his arms, actually looking like a twelve-year-old for once.

For a moment, Ford's thought processes froze, and he was surprised to feel a pang of something that might have been guilt or nervousness in his chest. Either way, he was annoyed by it, and tried to squelch it. But it was hard when the boy was still standing there staring at him, waiting for an answer...and looking increasingly crushed as none came.

At last Ford swallowed and said, "That-I wouldn't put it quite like-that's not important right now. Dipper, I-I need you to hand me the rift so we can deal with this-"

"How can you do that to him?"

Dipper's voice was starting to rise and tremble violently, and his hands were shaking. "And why-you weren't even gonna tell me about that when you asked me to be your apprentice?" Now his eyebrows drew together, and his volume increased. "What, were you hoping I'd be so excited about everything I'd be learning from you that I just wouldn't notice he wasn't around anymore?!"

"No, I thought you would understand that I'm putting an end to my brother's farcical scam that's been going on for far too long!"

Dipper recoiled, looking like he'd been slapped with words.

Ford barely had time to process that there was actual hurt in his nephew's eyes, before he glared, and stomped forward, yanking the rift from his backpack and shoving it into Ford's chest.

"You can keep your dumb mysteries," he whispered venomously. "I'm going back to Piedmont with Mabel. Because yeah, she can be kind of annoying and insensitive sometimes, but she is not suffocating. She's my sister."

And without another word, he turned and rushed back upstairs, slamming the door behind him.

The attic door opened for the second time that evening-but it was a very different boy who came slowly inside, kicking it shut with his heel and letting his backpack slip off his shoulder onto the floor.

Mabel could tell from his expression that he'd just been to see Ford, and what she'd heard had been true. And a nasty, vindictive voice in the back of her mind kind of wanted to say "I told you so."

Except Dipper looked so crushed that immediately she felt bad for the thought, and let it vanish like a wisp of cotton candy in the wind.

She got off her bed and went over to her brother, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"Dipper? You okay?"

His mouth trembled, and he closed his eyes to keep her from seeing the tears starting to form.

Mabel wrapped her arms around her brother.

"Oh man, I'm sorry, Dipper. I know you were excited about the possibility of staying here-"

She stopped talking when Dipper began sobbing, and just began to rock back and forth, trying to soothe him.

*/*/*/

"I can't believe I thought he was so great," Dipper whispered sometime later, moping on his bed with Mabel at his side. "I mean-he acts so cool! He likes D,D&D, we can talk for hours about all the science and supernatural stuff that puts you and Grunkle Stan to sleep, he can pull off wearing a trench coat and turtleneck in the middle of summer-and all this time he was planning on-this."

His shoulders drooped miserably.

"Dipper…" Mabel gave him another hug. "He's still pretty cool. He's just also kind of a poophead."

To her relief, that finally got her brother to laugh a little. But it didn't last long before he was sighing again, and staring gloomily at his knees. "We need to do something to help Grunkle Stan. He's too old to go back on the streets."

She cringed at the very idea of that happening to her favorite (she had decided that right now he was definitely her favorite, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future) grunkle being alone again; because even though he'd claimed he was fine after getting kicked out, something told her that he was lying. And then her eyes brightened.

"I have a brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea!"

Stan came back inside from putting up more signs advertising the Mystery Shack, massaging his back in the spot that always seemed to be getting sore nowadays.

Moses, there were times when he hated being old and decrepit.

With a sigh he headed for the fridge and grabbed a Pitt, wondering if the two nerds were back from their little trip yet. If they'd deign to descend from on high (metaphorically, since their typical meeting place was in the opposite direction-heh, there was some great joke material there) to mingle with common folk like him and-

"Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Stan!"

The chorus of young voices was soon enough followed by just the gremlins he'd been thinking about. Dipper, he noticed, was looking kind of banged up, and he felt his protective instincts bristle.

I ask one thing of you, Stanford. ONE THING!

"What the heck happened ta you?" he asked, looking Dipper over with concern.

And to his horror, the kid's eyes watered...before he lunged at Stan and threw his arms around his waist.

This time, Stan didn't try to make any kind of jokes or write this off somehow. Not when he suddenly felt his shirt growing damp, and saw that his shoulders were shaking. He just looked over at Mabel for some kind of explanation, while putting his hand on Dipper's head and awkwardly petting his hair.

"Hey, what-what's the matter, huh?"

Mabel came and hugged him too. "We know that Great Uncle Ford's gonna throw you out at the end of the summer, Grunkle Stan," she said.

Stan cringed. "What're you-"

"You don't have to pretend," Dipper murmured, voice muffled against his jacket. "He admitted it already. We're so-so sorry."

At last Stan stopped just standing there awkwardly, and put his arms around them both.

When the kids had both calmed down somewhat Stan got them all settled around the kitchen table, with sodas for everyone, and the whole story came out-from the rift created by the portal, to Ford's offer for Dipper to stay. The last one in particular had Stan resisting the urge to bring out his bat and see if Ford could dodge getting it in the teeth (he figured it was even odds; for someone who was supposed to be such an awesome butt-kicking space traveler now, Ford had still needed to be rescued twice ever since he came home, so he wasn't as great as he thought he was). He resisted in lieu of checking the kid over to make sure he wasn't banged up too badly. To his relief, it was mostly just a few scrapes and bruises, easily taken care of.

"...So we came up with a better idea," Mabel said as Stan sat down, and took a gulp of his soda. "We think that at the end of the summer, you should come back to Piedmont to live with us!"

She got a blast of Pitt cola in the face, but Stan was too busy gasping for air to appreciate the perfect comedic timing.

*/*/*/

"Sorry," he said after he got his breathing under control.

"It's okay," Mabel assured him as she rinsed her hair out in the sink, "my soda was empty anyway, I needed a fresh drink."

"Gross, Mabel, that was in his mouth!" Dipper pointed out. "It was probably all full of old man backwash!"

"Hey, watch it!" Stan scolded.

They all laughed, before he sighed and got back to the point. "Kids...I don't think your parents really want a grumpy old codger leaching off them."

"Oh come on," Mabel argued, coming back to the table. "They'd understand! You can tell them that you've retired and want to spend more time with us!"

Stan shook his head. "It ain't that simple, sweetie. Besides, I can handle myself-I've done it before."

"But you shouldn't have to, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel put her hand on his arm. "You're our family, and we wanna help you out."

"Yeah, maybe you could start a new mystery shack downtown!" Dipper grabbed his notepad and pen, and flipped to some pages where it looked like he'd actually started turning this into a plan. "Or a novelty shop-that way you wouldn't be leaching at all, you'd be earning your keep! If you really wanted to, you could just stay with us until you earned enough money to get a place nearby or something!"

Stan...got a little glitter in his eyes again.

"I'll haveta think about it," he murmured.

The kids cheered.

In the gift shop, the secret door behind the vending machine slid shut.