Eventually Ford could feel that Stan had relaxed against him; the shudders had been replaced by the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders, and the miserable gasps and gulps by soft, wheezing snores.

Giving him a final squeeze, Ford turned Stan until he was able to tuck him into bed, before grabbing a tissue and wiping his face clean of the mess.

Interesting; he actually looked...better, now, less ill than before. Ford put a tentative hand to his forehead, and confirmed that yes, his temperature had gone down somewhat. He wasn't sure if it was the ibuprofen finally kicking in, or...the emotional moment (if such a thing was possible), but either way it made him give a little sigh of relief as he replaced Stan's glasses on the bedside table and slowly got to his feet. All the same, he thought it would be wise to mix up a little medicine for his twin, in order to eradicate whatever illness might remain. He grabbed up the tissue for more thorough analysis, and slipped out quietly.

As he walked along the corridor, he stretched his senses to see what was going on downstairs. There were less clusters of emotion rising up, which probably meant that the tourists had left; good, hopefully that would give him some time to figure out how to cure Stan before the next group came, if, in fact, anymore showed up today. All he could sense now was Soos's warm joviality, Wendy's boredom mixed with dry amusement (probably an indication that she was communicating with her friends via her cellular phone during work time, he'd have to dock her pay for that), and-

Oh.

Oh dear.

He could feel Dipper and Mabel's emotions too, and they were...tense, to say the least.

Both of them were radiating different, yet equally strong, levels of negative emotion.

Mabel's feelings, as loud as her voice and her sweaters, were sizzling with sharp, crackling anger...but underneath that, there was confusion, and just plain hurt.

Dipper, on the other hand, was vibrating guilt and shame, cold and thick and slimy like the dregs of a soup tureen, with a side of uncomfortable helplessness.

Ford's own emotions were reacting in a similar fashion to his nephew's, but he squared his shoulders and headed for the stairs, intending to try to fix this other problem that he had inadvertently created.

Just in time for him to see Mabel coming up them.

For a moment they froze, staring awkwardly at each other. Then Ford sensed, based on the fresh spike of hurt emanating from his niece, that she was about to retreat, and said quickly, "Mabel! I was about to come looking for you."

Her surprise caused both of them to startle, and then cringe at the resulting unease.

Ford pushed his way past it, and said, "I need to make some medicine for Stanley, and I wondered if you would accompany me to the basement? It will go faster if I have an assistant."

He tried to smile in a way that would seem encouraging and welcoming (though it felt more like a nervous rictus on his part).

Mabel's eyes narrowed, in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of their mother whenever she'd caught him or Stanley out in a lie. "You sure you wouldn't rather have Dipper do it?" There was a layer of bitterness behind the question that he'd never experienced from her before, and it hurt more than he had expected.

Ford swallowed. "No, I-I would like to talk to you while we work. Please."

Her emotions did not feel overly appeased, but when he descended and began walking in the direction of the basement, she followed him.

Once they were downstairs, Ford remembered the rift; drawing it from his pocket at last, he made a beeline for the cubbyhole where he had been keeping it.

He heard Mabel shifting uncomfortably when she laid eyes on the rift, and felt her stomach give another unhappy twist; he forced himself to focus on putting it inside and locking it up, before turning around and leading her to a clear spot where he could set up his chemistry equipment.

"The fever has gone down somewhat, but I would like to try and get rid of whatever residual illness might be in Stanley's system," Ford finally said aloud, as he put a beaker and a glass spatula down in front of them; he followed this up with a few pouches o strange ingredients he'd brought back from the multiverse, a microscope, and various other odds and ends which would be more easily described by an actual scientist, instead of a lowly author who probably only passed biology in high school because she was good at the dissection segment towards the end of the semester.

"Fortunately I managed to collect some samples from Stanley-" he produced the tissue- "which should help us to isolate whatever bacteria might be making him sick, and therefore know better what we need to use to counter them."

Mabel didn't react with the same kind of eager fascination (or hundreds of questions) that Dipper would have, but she was more interested than he had expected, looking everything over with curious eyes as he got to work, and providing help when asked.

Just talk to her, Stanford. You already managed to successfully apologize to Stanley-granted, that might have been primarily because he was delirious and half-unaware of what was going on, but still. Talking to a twelve-year-old child should not be this intimidating.

I don't even know where to start.

Remember: figure out your opener.

"I haven't told anyone besides Dipper about the rift," he finally said aloud.

Mabel flinched, and paused in the act of stirring the blend of ingredients, before going back to work.

Ford swallowed. "And I asked him not to tell anyone else, even you."

"Why, did you think I wasn't smart enough to get it?" Mabel demanded softly.

"No! You're a very capable young lady who successfully bested Bill before on two separate occasions, I just-"

Saw that you have a bad habit of destroying snow globes, not to mention taking things that don't belong to you and ignoring basic safety instructions, and wasn't sure if you could be trusted with the responsibility-oh, yes, that would really go over well.

Ford wished he'd taken the time to go over this with Wendy before talking to Mabel. He wished he'd had time to rehearse, or better still that there had never been a need to have this conversation at all.

The problem, though, was that there was, and it needed to be dealt with now before it got any worse, and he was currently, not to put too blunt a point on it, flubbing it.

You've hesitated too long! This is falling apart and you haven't even started yet! You're failing-

Ford forced himself to take a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He could feel Mabel's eyes on him, along with no small amount of perplexedness and uncertainty, and tried to figure out how to put this in a way that she would understand, and at the same time avoid being condescending or accusing.

"I...have not been able to easily trust anyone for...a very long time."

He glanced at Mabel, and saw that she was continuing to look at him with a more serious expression than usual. Somewhat encouraged by this, he went on.

"There are many reasons for it. Among them the fact that, in addition to the...misunderstandings between myself and Stanley-" he wasn't sure if the way his stomach twisted was due to his discomfort, or hers- "I was tricked by someone I once thought was a friend into building the portal, with disastrous consequences." He gestured to the scrapheap that used to be his pride and joy.

"...Was it Bill?"

Ford shot Mabel a startled glance. She just shrugged.

"You said that he wants to use the rift to get into our world. It wasn't that hard to figure out."

He cringed inwardly at the reminder that himself from a few days ago probably wouldn't have considered her capable of understanding that so well.

"Yes," he admitted softly, before adding the next ingredient to the beaker. "My experiences with him have...made it difficult for me to remember how to trust other people, or even give them the chance to earn my trust. And I want to relearn that skill, but…" another inhale and exhale- "...I think I need help." He side-eyed his niece briefly. "Mabel, would you be willing to help me with that?"

She looked down thoughtfully at the table; Ford tried to ignore how his hands were starting to sweat.

If she says no, I won't be surprised. It will hurt, but I won't blame her, not even a little, I don't deserve her help after I so blatantly-

"If I do, can I give you a surprise makeover?"

Ford blinked owlishly; definitely not the response he'd been expecting. Mabel looked up at him with a hopeful smile.

"Um-well-I don't know about-"

He saw her expression.

"...If it will make it more enjoyable for you, then of course."

"Then it's a deal!"

Part of him wondered what he had gotten himself into by agreeing to her request. But the way she beamed at him before going back to stirring the medicine made a little voice in his head whisper, Worth it.

The best part was that I got to dissect a fetal pig, and actually managed to pull the brain out intact. I brought it home and kept it in a glass jar of water in my room, along with other samples from previous dissections. Unfortunately, eventually my sister made me throw them out.

...That was too much information, wasn't it.