The trapdoor to the roof opened, and a second later the head and shoulders of Stan's cashier poked through.
"Oh, there you are. The kids were worried cuz you weren't in your basement of solitude or anywhere else in the house, and they didn't know where you might've gone." She pulled out her phone and tapped at it, then closed it up again.
Ford didn't answer. He continued staring gloomily at his journal-at the words he'd written about Stanley.
Least trustworthy person I know...a thief and a charlatan...perhaps he can yet prove his worth to me...Hero or Idiot?
None of it helped with the ball of shame growing in his stomach.
The section of roof creaked as Wendy made her way across the short distance and sat down next to him, letting her legs swing back and forth for a minute before saying, "...I take it things aren't going well with you and Mr. Pines. He's been crankier than normal all day."
"He believes the change in my behavior towards him is out of a desire to please the children," Ford admitted gloomily. "And I'm not sure how to convince him otherwise. None of my actions or things I've said to him...have been the sort that would point in any other direction."
Wendy nodded quietly. Ford noticed that he could barely sense her emotions anymore; while a part of him was relieved that the potion was almost worn off, the rest was muttering to itself that it had been...useful when it came to interacting with other people.
"Well, have you tried telling him you're sorry?"
Ford glanced at Wendy out of the side of his eye. "Well, I did about intruding into his mindscape-"
"No, I mean about everything else. About punching him the first time you saw him in thirty years, or branding his shoulder, or being a little b_tch to him for ten years before that."
Ford spluttered. "Excuse me?!"
"Chill, man, I live in a house full of dudes and my dad's a lumberjack. I already know all the words."
"No, that's not-" Ford struggled for the right words to adequately express his indignation. "Did the children tell you what happened-"
"Yeah, Soos told me actually, about the incident with the science fair project and junk." Wendy leaned her elbow on her knee. "And yeah, I get it. He screwed up something that was really important to you, and you had a right to be hurt about it. But-" her eyebrows drew into a small glare- "you don't have a right to hold it over his head for the rest of your lives, especially when you ended up getting basically everything you wanted anyway, and he got punished for it by being homeless for ten years. That is serious little b_tch behavior."
"...He never even apologized," Ford finally muttered sulkily, folding his arms and feeling like there was a serious role reversal going on here-he should not be the one being scolded by a teenager.
"Did you ever give him the chance? Or did you just charge into the situation yelling and accusing him and not listening to what he was saying?"
The pause lasted even longer this time before he grumbled, "I was a child."
"So was Mr. Pines. What's your excuse now?"
Ford chewed his lip. "I'm not even sure how to start."
"Well, try figuring out your opener."
Take 1
Ford paced around in a little circle, hands behind his back, and after frowning in thought for a moment, said, "...Look, Stanley. I realize that we both need to apologize to each other-"
"Bzzt." Wendy gave him a thumbs-down. "This is your apology, not his."
Take 2
"Stan, I-when I said I wanted you to put an end to the Mystery Shack at the end of the summer, I wasn't considering-"
"Wait, you said what?! Dude!"
"Ow!" Ford rubbed his arm, amazed that such a skinny young woman had that strong of a punch; she was definitely related to Dan Corduroy.
"You had better take that back-this is the best job I've ever had, and it means I don't have to go to logging camp during the summer, so you're gonna have to pry it away from my cold dead hands-!"
Take 15
"Stanley, please just listen to me for once-"
"Bzzt."
"What did I do wrong that time?!"
"You're still talking down to him. He's not gonna wanna listen to you if you're gonna be a jerk about it."
Take 31
"Stan...I didn't mean what I said about the Shack. I just-I wanted a way to reestablish my identity in this dimension, and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't realistic to expect things to go back to normal after you spent thirty years pretending-"
"Bzzt. Stop attacking him."
"I wasn't attacking him!"
"Yeah, you totally were."
"Well, what am I supposed to do?! Just pretend it didn't bother me?!"
"No, but you can stop turning the apology into an accusation every time-!"
Half an hour later
"This is hopeless," Ford groaned into his hands.
Wendy patted his shoulder, somewhat awkwardly. "You're making progress, dude. You just gotta work at it a little more."
"He doesn't trust me anymore. How exactly am I supposed to fix that, when I don't even know if I trust him?"
"You just gotta tell him what you told me. That you feel bad, and while you don't know how to fix things, you still wanna try."
"You can say it so easily," he half-laughed, half-sobbed.
Wendy gave him a thin smile. "Guess I've just had more practice than you." She glanced at her watch. "I gotta go. Catch you later, old dork." With another, somewhat friendlier punch in the arm, she grabbed onto one of the nearby trees and swung her way down to the ground.
Ford sighed, and went back inside.
Joyful chanting
Wendy-Ford bonding! Wendy-Ford bonding! Wendy-Ford bonding!