"How are you feeling, mijo?" Valencia asked the next morning. They were about to wheel Mikey in for his first surgery, but the family had asked for a few minutes of privacy. Everyone was trying not to think of it as potentially saying goodbye.

"I'm fine!" Mikey promised with a wide smile. "They have me on these pre-op drugs that got me nice and chill."

"Like marijuana?" Mitch teased. "Dude you didn't save any for us?"

Valencia gave her other son a playful swat around the head, but then turned her tired eyes back to Mikey. "…Seriously though, do you have some to spare?"

Mikey squeezed her hand. "You're strong enough to get by without it, Mom."

She nodded, clearly trying to push down her tears. After a second she whispered, "Te amo, son."

"We both do, Michael," Mr. Stewart said, squeezing his shoulder.

"…And I love you too." Mitch immediately blushed. "Not in a weird way, ya know, in a kind of womb-mate kind of way!"

The last time Mikey had gone into surgery, Mitch hadn't said it beforehand, and he'd spent the whole time haunted by the idea that the last thing he would say to his twin was "Later, dork." Now, though, he decided that screw teenage awkwardness about being mushy with your sibling, he was going to make sure he got the words out.

"I love you guys too…a whole lot," Mikey said. He smiled at them, and had to blink hard for a few seconds.

At that moment, the Pines family came barging through the door.

"Sorry we're late!" Ford apologized. His hair was sticking up with even more floof than normal, and there was a jam stain on the corner of his mouth.

"We like to make an entrance!" Stan joked, turning his fez the right way around before kneeling to tie one of his shoes.

"More like we slept through all our alarms," Dipper muttered. The bags under his eyes were a pretty clear indication of why that might be.

Mabel didn't say anything as she rushed to her boyfriend's bedside. "I'm really sorry…I…I guess I overslept and-"

Mikey grabbed her hand gently. "It's okay, babe…you look beautiful."

Mabel blushed as she worked to straighten her hair. Mikey was quite the charmer, but she was pretty sure the medication he was on was messing with his judgement. She'd only had time to run a brush through her hair a few times while putting on a simple lip gloss, and she was wearing the first sweater she'd managed to grab, which was the one she'd worn yesterday and just thrown on the floor before falling into bed.

"It-It's not quite time yet is it?" she asked, looking at the nurses pleadingly.

One of them looked at her watch. "You have a few minutes."

Mikey squeezed her hand, drawing her attention back to him. "You're fine, baby. In fact, I'm glad you're cutting it close…I want to memorize your face so that I can dream of you while I'm under."

Mabel blushed again, but she leaned in close and kissed him softly on the mouth, not caring that both their families were there to see. "I love you."

"I love you too," Mikey assured her as she pulled back.

"Don't expect the rest of us to kiss you," Stan interjected.

"We do wish you the best of luck, though," Ford said.

"Yeah…kick cancer's ass," Dipper demanded.

Stan clipped the back of his head with one hand, seemingly on reflex; he just rolled his eyes.

"I'll try, I promise," Mikey said as the nurses began to wheel him away.

Before they got into the elevator that would take them down to the OR, Mikey said, "Wait. Just a sec, please."

He sat up enough that he could see everyone else, and lifted his arm, giving them a thumbs up. Everyone, even the receptionist, reciprocated.

Then…he was gone.

Mabel sat as close to the door as was safely possible, sitting curled up with her knees drawn up against her chest. Stan and Ford felt horrible because they knew how frustrating and helpless the feeling was of waiting on this side of the door, but knew that saying as much wouldn't be much help. Dipper tried to distract Mitch by showing him some of the discoveries in his journal, while Stan helped Mikey's parents with filling out paperwork, leaving Ford to watch Mabel alone.

After a few hours he finally swallowed his nerves enough to go sit at her side.

He struggled for the right words for a minute, before finally saying, "You know that the seating in the regular waiting area is more comfortable, right?"

Mabel nodded, without taking her eyes off the door. "I just…I just want to be close to him."

Ford nodded. "I understand, but you know the waiting area also has the phone which will ring to let you know when he's in recovery, so sitting over there would mean you could be closer to him when they call."

Mabel turned and actually managed to smile at him, grateful to hear him vocally reassure her about Mikey's well-being.

She decided on a compromise. "I'll sit over there when it's closer to the time the operation is supposed to be over. In the meantime, you think you could go down to the cafeteria and bring me a slice of that pizza that tastes like cardboard?"

Ford returned the hopeful smile. "I'll even see if they have one of those cupcakes that taste like bran muffins!"

Mabel made a face of disgust that looked so much like her normal happy self that it caused a little glow in his heart.

After the two of them shared a fairly relaxing (albeit not very tasty) hospital lunch, Ford saw Stan heading to the cafeteria. He decided to go join him, with the promise from Mabel that she would join them to wait in the regular waiting area in fifteen minutes.

"You finish the paperwork?" Ford asked his brother when he reached him at the entrance.

"Yep…caught three separate loopholes on payment." Stan made a disgusted sound and lifted his fez so he could run a hand through his hair. "You'd think that they'd make things a little less stressful, but nooooo, they gotta kick people while they're down!"

Ford raised an eyebrow, and then gave a knowing smile. "Mad that you didn't think of it first?"

"YES!"

The two shared a small laugh. Nothing about it was all that funny, but it was better than the alternative.

At that moment Clara stepped into the room, and immediately went to get a large cup of black coffee. She sat down at a table nearby the two men, and began painstakingly adding condiments to the cup; Ford could see that they all seemed to come out of her pockets, rather than the cream and sugar offered by the cafeteria. He thought he recognized cinnamon and nutmeg as part of the mix, but also a few herbs that he wasn't as familiar with at first glance.

Stan looked over at her, and raised his eyebrows.

"Any tea leaf readings on how this whole thing's gonna go?" he called out.

Very slowly, Clara stopped what she was doing, and then looked up at him with a long, pale stare. Finally she said, in a patient tone, "This is coffee. And I haven't actually had any yet." Without looking down she tapped something from a white packet into the cup, and then began stirring it all together with a popsicle stick.

Stan grimaced-until he saw Clara looking into the cup with a troubled frown, and heard her whisper softly, "…Oh dear."

Stan felt his heart drop to his feet. "…Uh, did you see something in there?"

The nurse didn't look at him. She finished stirring her coffee, and took a small sip of it.

After looking agitated for a moment, Stan abruptly got up and marched over to her table.

"Stan!"

Ford's protest went ignored, as his brother slammed his hands onto the tabletop. "Hey! I'm talking to you! Is this gonna go okay or isn't it?!" he demanded.

After a second she lifted her head, and stared intently into his eyes. Somehow it was enough to make the man who'd punched a pterodactyl, some zombies, and a dream demon right in the face back off.

"It will work out how it is meant to work out," Clara said; her voice was as level as ever.

"What is that supposed to mean? Are you implying that a seventeen year old boy is meant to die of cancer?" Ford demanded, surprising Stan and even himself with the brashness.

The pale stare turned on him. "Michael and I talked last night, after Mabel left. He realizes that either way the scales tip, some good will come of it."

"WHAT GOOD?" Stan and Ford exclaimed at the same time.

Clara set the coffee down on the tabletop, hard enough to make it splash a little, and stood up. "Come with me, both of you," she demanded.

Stan and Ford gave each other spooked looks, but followed her nonetheless.

Clara led them briskly out of the cafeteria to the elevator; she pressed a button, and the car rose up a few flights before the doors opened again in front of the last place either of them had ever wanted to return to: the cancer ward. Reluctantly they both followed her down the hallway before she came to a halt.

"That blood marrow drive your daughter worked so hard to arrange has brought in so many donors," Clara whispered, gesturing to a billboard covered in photographs of smiling people. It was also decorated with cards and letters, all of which seemed to be expressing joyful thanks to someone or other. "Now all of these families have hope. Hope that they may not have had without your daughter's determination, and…" she looked like she was hesitating to say this next part, but finally gave a little nod to herself.

"Finding that rare blood for Michael could also potentially save the life of a five year old girl who is next on the list, if he doesn't survive the operation."

Ford felt his heart plummet into his stomach. "You're not saying-"

"All I'm saying is that even when things go wrong, sometimes beauty and goodness can still be found."

Clara looked at her watch. "We need to go back. It will be time soon."