Stan had waited almost his entire life for this moment. The moment Ford returned.
He had thought that he had gotten over the fact that his brother had literally called him to his house just to tell him to leave. He had thought that Ford would be grateful for being brought back from wherever he was. He had thought that Ford had missed him... But since when had Stan thought correctly?
Stan got a chance to get a good look at his brother. Ford was in a very similar outfit to the one he'd been wearing last time Stan had seen him, but minus the tie. Ford had aged really, really, really well. Like, barely at all. In fact, if Stan hadn't known better, he'd say Ford hadn't aged a bit...
"Finally, after all these long years of waiting!" Stan said, stepping past his stunned niece and nephew and holding his arms out towards Ford. "You're finally here!"
Ford stepped towards Stan, and just after Stan called out, "Brother!" he punched him in the face.
"Ow! What was that for?!" Stan called out, right as Ford took a step back, separating the two of them again.
"Seriously Stanley. You had like.. . One job." Ford said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Stabilize the portal... But... Oh my goodness, what did you do to my basement?! Is that duct tape?!" Ford looked around the busted up room, and pointed at a piece of metal, that really looked like it was being held together by tape.
Stan rolled his eyes, "Well... At least I can still count on you for a warm welcome." He said sarcastically, "And no. I'm not an idiot. I welded it."
"Welded?" Ford cried, rushing over to the metal and kneeling next to it. "My expert handcrafting, besmirched!"
He blinked deeply, just like Stan, and then he sighed. "Alright... Our expert handcrafting. I'm telling you, sometimes you can be really persnickety."
Stan stared at his brother like he'd gone crazy. Ford was literally talking to a broken piece of metal. "Ford..." He said, stepping towards his brother, who had stood up and turned around. "Are you talking to a..."
"I know I deserve it." Ford said, seeming to ignore Stan. He was looking to the right of Stan's head, and a small grin was on his lips. "You just have to remember... Oh yeah, them."
Ford blinked again, and his eyes focused on Stan, who squinted one eye at him. "Sorry about that... What did you say?"
"Are you okay?" Stan asked, and Ford's face took on the features of a man caught red handed.
"Um... If I leave would you be mad?" Ford asked, wincing a bit. "Cause I really don't want to have this conversation right now... Would you please be quiet?!"
Ford directed the last part of his sentence to a piece of the floor about two feet away from him. Stan took a step back, and watched Ford grow even angrier.
"Now look, I know we haven't really had much time to discuss this... But I'm in the middle of a conversation!" Ford snapped at the ground, folding his arms and giving it a glare. "Now would you please stop embarrassing me in front of my brother?! ...Yes I know I do a good job at that!"
Ford took a deep breath, then finally said, "Thank you."
He looked up into Stan's super confused face, and sighed again. Stan had practically forgotten about the punch, Ford's sanity was much more important.
"Ford... Who are you talking to?" Stan asked, watching his brother run a hand through his hair.
"I'm... Not going to answer that." Ford said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's just say that my life became interesting once I fell through the portal..."
He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to die.
Okay. Just because you were pre-dead meat didn't mean that you shouldn't be able to see whatever it was that was going to kill you. So Ford reached into his pocket and pulled out a spare pair of glasses.
He was met by a sight that wasn't that much better than the one he'd seen before. Broken buildings, caves, and empty rooms were littered up and down the entire area, at least what Ford could see.
Then his eyes spied Bill, and he tried to force himself not to freak out.
Stan's betrayal stung in the back of his mind. Bill's as well. Speaking of the triangle, he was now floating closer to Ford... Oh man... He was going to die...
"Sixer! Finally I can talk to you!" Bill cried out, holding his arms open wide towards Ford. "I honestly thought I might never get the chance."
"Get away from me!" Ford yelled, kicking his legs like he was trying to swim away. "I'll never join you!"
Bill rubbed his closed eye, "Come on Fordsie, just listen. You don't get it."
"Oh I get it!" Ford answered, "You want to destroy my Dimension! You lied to me! You ruined my life!"
Bill sighed, "Wow. Every word you just said was wrong. Sit down." He snapped his fingers and a chair appeared behind Ford, who sat down on it accidentally.
"But... But..." Ford mumbled. "What?!"
"Hi. Mabel here. What on Earth is going on?!"
Ford looked past Stan, and his eyes rested on Mabel. He adjusted his glasses then stated simply, "Oh my, Shooting Star! I mean... Mabel."
He turned slightly and saw Dipper, "And Pine- Dipper. And Soos! Soooos... Oh man that's so fun to say."
Stan stared at his brother like he was crazy. Ford stepped past him and kneeled in front of Mabel, he extended his hand out to her and smiled at the young girl. "Greetings... Would you knock it off. I thought you promised!"
He shook his head, then pushed his hand a little bit closer to her, "Sorry about that, I'm Ford."
Mabel put her hand in Ford's and responded, "Mabel. And... Whoa, a six-fingered handshake. That's a full finger friendlier than normal."
Ford chuckled, he flashed a dirty look to the right, then smiled back at Mabel. "Thank you Mabel. Not many people say that."
"Well then, they're a bunch of stupid-heads." Mabel said, dropping her hand to her hip, "Cause your fingers are awesome."
Ford was about to thank Mabel again, but he was preemptively cut off by Dipper saying, "You're the Author of the Journals! You... You're here..."
Ford stood up and took a step towards Dipper. "My fellow nerd." He said, holding the same hand he shook Mabel's with out to the young boy. "I've been waiting so long to meet you. My friend has told me about your adventures. I hope you didn't get into quite as much trouble as he told me you did."
Dipper stared open mouthed at him. "You... You know me?" He asked slowly, and nearly fainted when Ford smiled and nodded. "I... How?!"
"Well," Ford said, shrugging one shoulder slightly, "When your best friend can see through time and space, you learn a lot of things. Lots of things. He pays me to say that."
He shoved his left hand into his pocket, and pulled out a five dollar bill. "Aw, I must not have made it sound awesome enough... Here, you want this?" He held the paper out to Dipper, who timidly excepted it, then shook Ford's other hand.
"You... I... Words... Should be coming out of mouth..."
Ford chuckled, "I'm sort of glad to see that I have this effect on people. Don't worry, you'll get used to it eventually..."
"But... But... What about the mystery bruises?!"
Bill had tried to explain to Ford that he wasn't some evil demon, bent on destroying reality as he knew it. But Ford's tiny brain was having the worst time being convinced that that was the case.
"Ford. You're Stanford Pines." Bill said, taking a sip from his glass of cosmic sand, "You've always had mystery bruises, I'm just the one who convinced you to change your clothes every now and then."
Ford blinked, and rubbed under his glasses. "What about the possession?"
"Kid. You literally working yourself to death, I was just getting you to rest."
"What about all the letters you wrote me!" Ford cried, throwing his arms in the air. He stood up and began to try to pace. "What about Fiddleford. You traumatized him!"
Bill let out a long, slow sigh. "Fiddleford literally got his head stuck in here. He also traveled into another Dimension after losing the effects of gravity on himself. He doesn't have your kind of backbone. Also, how I eat can be disgusting."
"And the letters?" Ford asked, he was maybe starting to believe Bill. Not that he trusted him, but what he was saying sounded believable.
"I was telling you to calm down." Bill said, taking another sip, "You were so frightened, and you had blocked me out of your mind everywhere else. I was only trying to help my friend..."
"So... I was wrong... I was wrong in my wrongness?" Ford asked, sitting back down and holding his head in his hand. "Then that means... I was right all along!"
He threw his hands in the 'air', and Bill sighed. "Only you Ford. Only you..."
"Listen to me demon. I want you to enter the mind of Stanford Pines and steal the code to his safe!"
Bill looked down at the small child that had summoned him. The kid didn't 'need' the pentagram, and Bill wasn't a demon, how species-ist.
"Okay." he said, then he turned his two-dimensional body to the right, and began to talk to a lump of grass in their tiny clearing. "Hey... Oh sorry... Yeah, yeah, won't do it again..."
"Wha- What?" Gideon asked, blinking at the triangular creature floating in the air and apparently talking to nobody. "Who... How..?"
"So this Gideon kid... Yeah, Pentagram. He summoned me and wanted me to go into your mind. I don't know why or how, he just wants the code to your safe... Oh of course. Stanley! Yeah I'll go check it out. Bye best friend!"
Gideon looked soooo confused. He stared at Bill, who sighed and turned back to him.
"Anyway, I'll just go get that code, and in return, you can help me with something I... We've been working on. Just shake it." Even though Gideon had little to no idea about what was going on, he shook Bill's extended hand, like he was in a stupor.
What..?
"Relax kid, all I want is a puppet."
Dipper stared at Bill. Could it be possible that the demon (not a demon) just wanted a puppet? It sort of made sense... But almost nothing made sense to Dipper's sleep deprived brain.
"Just one puppet?" He asked,."Okay, fine." He glanced back at the computer, which had only less than a minute before total data erasure.
He put his hand into Bill's, and shook it once. "Okay kid." Bill said, "The password is 'Stanford'."
"What?" Dipper asked, "That doesn't... I don't..."
"Ugh, kid, just let me do this." Bill yanked Dipper's hand, and his 'spirit', Dipperness, came out. Bill-Dipper walked over to the computer. "Let's see... S... T... A..."
"Give me my body back!" Dipper yelled, "You're crazy!"
Bill sighed, "Okay kid. Just go try Fiddleford McGucket. He can help you if you don't want me to..."
"And so I've spent the last thirty years hanging out with Bill. Sure we conquered a few Dimensions, but we only picked the ones with actual tyrants for leaders. Trust me, they're all much better off because of us."
Dipper, Stan, Mabel, and Soos all watched Ford explain his part of the Stans' life story. Ford ran his fingers through his hair, "Yeah, there might be a few ballads about me... Us. And a few ghost stories. But when you and your best friend are immortal..."
"Wait what?!" Stan said, taking a step back and holding his hands up, "You..."
Ford facepalmed, "Ooh... I forgot to tell you... I'm immortal now." Mabel's eyes lit up and she smiled happily at her great uncle. Dipper's eyes were wide and his mouth was open, just like Soos. "You see," Ford said, waving his hand in a small circle, "Bill's immortal, and he's been alone for like, a trillion years. So as you can probably tell he was very lonely. It took him a few years to convince me..."
Stan and the kids stared at Ford, this definitely wasn't the brother Stan was expecting, but he'd do...
"So, I learned these totally delicious alien recipes. Do you guys want to try some?"
Hey guys! It's me again!
So... Credit where credit is due. Gravity Falls was made by Alex Hirsch. The basic idea for this was made by my brother ("What if Bill was good?). And everything else is me!
Thank you all so much for all your support of this fic! I'm always excited to see your guys' opinions about it, and they never disappoint!
Have a great day!
-BrilliantLight