When Fiddleford regained consciousness, it felt like his head had been stuffed with cotton.
Or possibly cotton candy.
One of those things.
"Urrrrgggghhh." He opened his eyes-and immediately closed them again against the sudden blinding agony above his head, whining in displeasure. It was even worse than the first time he tried moonshine, when he, ahem, might've indulged in this newfound pleasure a little too much.
"Take it easy, squints, you're recovering from surgery."
Something familiar was slid over his eyes; Fiddleford hesitantly opened them to slightly-easier-to-deal-with green-tinted vision, and a familiar horsey face leaning over him.
"...Ssss-ssss-sssssSSSyl?" he finally managed to slur out.
She smirked at his voice. "How ya feeling?"
"..." He tried to speak, could only produce more incoherent slurring noises.
"Hold on, Jhes said to give you some of this when you woke up." She pushed on part of whatever he was lying on (a bed? It felt like a bed. And, looking down, he saw that he was covered by a long white blanket, which definitely supported the hypothesis that it was a bed), and it suddenly rose a few inches, until he was in a reclining position. A large cup with a device sticking out of it that looked a lot like a normal Earth drinking straw was pushed under his nose. "Open up."
Fiddleford obeyed, and then took a ginger sip of whatever was inside without further prompting.
It tasted kind of like whatever he'd been given to make him fall asleep earlier, except...fizzy. And instead of making him drowsy, it seemed to clear a bit of the cotton candy out of his head, and made it easier for him to remember how to form words properly.
"...I thought you weren't allowed here."
Syl huffed. "Normally I wouldn't be, but Jhes said as long as we behaved ourselves we could stay and help take care of you, and get our injuries taken care of and junk."
"Tha's awful decent of you…" He looked around the room, and noticed that some other members of the crew were lying in beds that resembled his, looking like they'd been patched up quite a bit. Jheselbraum was standing next to the alien with the missing hand, who had some kind of new fancy-looking prosthetic attached to its stump, pressing on different sections with her fingers and nodding thoughtfully.
When she was done, she looked over and saw Fiddleford; with a smile she made her way to his bedside.
"How do you feel?"
He shrugged. "...Mostly kinda...bleagh." He waved vaguely in hopes that would be sufficient description; she seemed to understand. "How-how'd it go?"
"It was a complete success."
Fiddleford blinked. "...So there's a metal plate in my head now?" Curiously he lifted a fist and knocked it against the side of his head.
Once the searing agony receded and he stopped seeing stars flashing in front of his eyes, he recognized the disapproving look Jheselbraum was giving him.
"And that's why you shouldn't do that until you've given your skull a chance to heal, please. I would appreciate you not undoing all the hard work I put into stitching your head back together."
He smiled sheepishly, and pointedly tucked both arms back under the blanket. "...Sorry."
Jheselbraum sighed, and nodded to Syl, who gave him another drink that tasted like the one from the surgery this time; a minute later he was falling back to sleep.
After another day or so Fiddleford had recovered enough to be more coherent, and to eat something. He was still too weak to sit up on his own, but the crew were more than willing to help him out with whatever he needed.
Syl got him a mirror, so he could see the bandages wrapped tightly around his head where the surgery had taken place.
"Shame about your hair," she said, snickering a little at his aghast expression when he saw himself and realized the implications.
Fiddleford gulped, and tried not to think about the vision Jheselbraum had shown him. "It grows back pretty fast."
He was proven right when the next time Jheselbraum changed his bandages, there was already a thick brown fuzz sprouting up all over his skull, so she was forced to dig through it to check on his stitches. He just shrugged apologetically when he saw how disgruntled she was about it.
She kept using some kind of salve to make it heal together faster than normal for this kind of surgery, but it would still be about a week before he was well enough to travel.
During that time, Jheselbraum decided to tell him about Bill.
"You've met him, more times than you might realize." She placed a thick, heavy book into Fiddleford's lap, with the pages open to a large picture of a yellow triangle surrounded by a circle of weird symbols.
Fiddleford's breath caught. He knew that shape; it had been all over Stanford's house, and occasionally showed up scribbled in his notes-and the first time he'd gone through the portal, he'd seen it. The triangle, looking far more sinister than something so cartoonish had any right to, had been holding a squirming, struggling figure-Fiddleford hadn't been close enough to see it, but he'd heard its pitiful cries for help-clutched in his hand, and had split open right down the middle, revealing-
It was too terrible to describe. But it had devoured the creature, and Fiddleford had been forced to see it happen just before he was yanked back into his own dimension. And as he'd pulled back out of the hellish world...a chant about the Beast with Just One Eye had been whispered in his ears, from unseen sources that didn't sound like anything of this earth.
Even now, remembering the experience made him shudder, and huddle under the blankets a little bit.
"His name-or at least the one he goes by to most people-is Bill Cipher," Jheselbraum continued. Behind her, several of the crew flinched, and made motions that Fiddleford guessed were the equivalent of crossing themselves. "And he is the greatest source of evil ever to threaten your or any other dimension."
"Wh-what does he want?"
She sat down at the foot of the bed. "In essence, he wants to destroy your world. Or just any world he can get into."
"He is essentially an overgrown child who was never told no," she went on after taking a moment to let that sink in. "Thousands of eons ago he destroyed his own dimension over a few minor slights and a thirst for power that he didn't deserve. And ever since then he's been tormenting anyone and everyone he can."
Fiddleford shivered; even though there was no anger in Jheselbraum's voice, the hardness and clear desire to see an end put to this monster required no effort to recognize them.
"Bill and his horde of minions travel into other dimensions whenever they get the chance, lay them to waste, and then travel on to the next one, like wild snarfblatts. They cannot enter under their own terms, thankfully...but they can whenever they are given a gateway in."
A cold feeling rose in Fiddleford's stomach. "...Like a portal?"
Jheselbraum pursed her lips, and nodded with an apologetic glance in his direction. "Exactly. Your friend Stanford is just the latest in a long line of people he has used in his never-ending quest for chaos. He read an inscription that was hidden in a cave near where he lives, and gave Bill access to his dimension, and ever since then has been his unknowing puppet."
For a moment Fiddleford just sat numbly, taking that in, as all the clues he hadn't recognized before fell into place-the dancing around the issue of where all Stanford's ideas had come from, the secrets, the lies, all the triangles he set up everywhere and the calculations that were centuries beyond what even the top scientists of their time were capable of.
Then, suddenly-
"AND HE THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO TRUST THAT MONSTER?! OF ALL THE STUPID, MORONIC, IRRESPONSIBLE-IF I EVER SEE THAT IDJIT AGAIN I'M GONNA KILL HIM, WHY IN THE NAME O' ALL THAT'S HOLY WOULD HE EVER THINK-"
...The tirade went on for several minutes, despite a few efforts to calm him by the others.
Much to his surprise, Jheselbraum made no effort to sedate him like he half expected. She just sat and let him finish, almost looking amused by the strength of his fury.
In the end, Fiddleford was the one who stopped himself, when the throbbing in his skull combined with how hoarse he was becoming worked together to be too much for him. He flopped back against his pillow, still seething but also worn out. He noticed that the crew, even Syl, all looked a little terrified of him now, staring at him like deer in headlights.
"Feel better?" Jheselbraum asked.
"Hmph." He looked down at his blanket, twisting it between his hands and imagining it was Stanford's neck.
"...Try not to judge your friend too harshly. Bill is a master of flattery and manipulation, and Stanford has not had much experience in distinguishing his true friends from false ones." She gave a small sigh. "It's cost him far more than he realizes."
It's also the reason why I'm stuck here.
Immediately Fiddleford felt bad for the thought-but not enough to deny it to himself. If Stanford Pines hadn't built that stupid portal, or had just left him out of the whole mess, he wouldn't be stuck out in the multiverse now with no chance of ever-
He hugged himself around the knees as a wave of homesickness passed over him, before just laying all the way back down.
"Get some rest, Fiddleford," Jheselbraum said. She stood up, putting the book on the table next to his bed, and after checking on her other patients, departed from the hospital wing or whatever this was.
Baldwin sat down in the spot she'd vacated with a concerned frown.
"...Doing okay, squints? You sound...more than a little upset."
Fiddleford just pulled the blanket up higher, and twisted onto his side, before pulling the wind-up robot out of his pocket and staring at it gloomily. "I don't really wanna talk about it right now."
"Okay. But we'll be here if you change your mind."
He looked at the guinea pig, and managed to smile weakly. "I know. Thanks."
Those who weren't actually patients were shooed out, leaving Fiddleford to stew in peace until he fell asleep again.
As Jheselbraum advised Fiddleford not to judge Ford too harshly, I in turn advise you not to judge Fiddleford too harshly. He's had a rough time recently.