1961, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey

Stan ran across the beach, laughing. He loved exploring! This beach was bound to be full of secrets! Who cared that they hadn't found treasure any of the (many) other times they'd been there, they were going to find something. He could feel it. They were going to find treasure, and treasure meant adventure, and adventure meant babes.

"Wait up," Ford called.

Stan grinned back at his brother. "Yeah, you should keep up."

"I . . . I can keep up," he defended himself, and Stan's grin only widened. Suuuuuure.

He spotted something in the distance. A whole bunch of boards covering some kind of hole. He and Ford peered in between the cracks at the darkness. It was so cool! This was definitely the sort of place to find treasure.

"Mysterious, boarded-up cave," Ford said, backing up. Stan looked at his brother with a knowing smirk. "It might be filled with lost, prehistoric life forms. Or Mesoamerican gold!"

Stan did a little bow. "Uh, ladies first."

Ford punched him in the arm, but since he was a wimp, it didn't hurt at all. He laughed and retaliated, leading to Ford laughing, too. His brother walked up to pull on the spray-painted boards, but, again, he was a wimp, so nothing happened except him falling on his butt.

He laughed at him. "Ha ha! Good thing you've got your smarts, Poindexter. I've got the other thing. What is it called? Oh, right, punching." To demonstrate his point, he punched a massive hole in the boards. He grinned, enjoying the feel of the wood breaking under his fist. "Cool. Splinters."

Ford turned on his flashlight (of course he had a flashlight, he was Ford) and turned it around the room. "Whoa! It's so creepy in here."

"Hey, don't worry, bro," Stan said confidently. "Wherever we go, we go together." He had an idea and pointed to the wall. "Don't forget to leave our names so they know who owns the place."

His brother pulled out a Sharpie with a smile.

Before he knew what was happening, their names were on the wall, beautiful and claiming the spot. Stanley + Stanford Pines. Content, the twins walked further into the cave to explore. "Pines! Pines! Pines! Pines!" they chanted.

Gravity Falls, Oregon, 2012

"Finally, after all these long years of waiting, you're actually here," Stan said. Camo thought for a moment. Wow. Thirty years, she guessed. He hadn't seen his brother in (at least) thirty years. He walked over to his smoldering brother. "Brother!"

He had his arms wide open for a hug. Ford punched him in the face.

In an instant, she was standing and walking over, glaring at the Author. What was that?! Stan voiced her thoughts: "Oh! Ow! What the heck was that for?"

"This was an insanely risky move, restarting the portal," Ford told him, angry. "Didn't you read my warnings?"

"Warning, schmarnings," Stan said offhandedly, and even though Camo had only known Ford for, like, five seconds, she knew that was the wrong thing to say. "How's about maybe a thanks for saving you from what appears to be, I don't know, some kind of sci-fi sideburn dimension."

Ford looked outraged. "Thank you? You really think I'm gonna thank you after what you did thirty years ago?"

"Whoa, whoa," Camo said, stepping between the two with an annoyed expression. "Cool it. You haven't even introduced yourself. Well, I know, but they don't." She jutted her thumb to the twins and Soos. "Anyway, hello, Ford, pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm Camo." She held out a hand.

Everyone stared at her. "What?"

She suddenly felt very awkward. "Okay, fine, leave me hanging." She pulled back her hand and folded her arms, walking away.

Mabel stepped up. "Hey, hi. Mabel here. Quick question. What the heck is going on here?!"

"Stan, you didn't tell me there were children down here. And some sort of large, hairless gopher," Ford said accusingly.

Camo deadpanned, "You came out of that portal five minutes ago and immediately started arguing. If someone would actually open their eyes for once—"

Soos chuckled. "I get that a lot."

Had she or had she not said anything?!

"They're your family, Poindexter," Stan said, annoyed. "At least, those two are. Shermie's grandkids."

He seemed shocked. "I . . . I have a niece, and a nephew?" He kneeled down. "Greetings! Do kids still say 'greetings'?" He shook Mabel's hand. "I haven't been in this dimension for a really long time."

Mabel looked down at his hand in awe. "Whoa, six-fingered handshake. It's a full finger friendlier than normal."

"I like this kid," Ford chuckled. "She's weird."

Dipper was staring at him in shock that Camo was totally expecting. The Author of the Journal he'd been obsessing over all summer was his grunkle?! What?! That was her interpretation of his thoughts, at least, and, knowing Dipper, it probably wasn't very far off. "I . . . I can't believe it," he said. "You're the Author of the Journals." Yup, he was in freak-out mode.

"You've read my Journals?" Ford pulled out Journal 1 from where he'd put it in his cloak.

"I . . . I haven't just read them. I've lived them! I've been waiting for so long to meet you. I don't know what to say. I have so many questions. I . . ." He was speaking very quickly and walking in a circle, hyperventilating.

Honestly, there was the stages of grief, but there should be a system for the stages of fanboying. Shock, freak-out, excitement, overwhelmed, back to freak-out. Seemed pretty good to her. "I think I'm gonna throw up," Dipper said, keeling over. Maybe she should add nausea as the sixth step. Mabel ran over to comfort her brother. He retched. "No, no, false alarm." He retched again. "Just gotta ride it out."

Definitely adding nausea, at least as a Dipper-stage.

"Listen, there'll be time for introductions later. But first, tell me, Stan. Are there any security breaches? Does anyone else know about this portal?" Ford demanded.

Camo snorted as Stan said, "No. Just us. Also, maybe the entire US government."

"The WHAT?!"

The surveillance showed the tape from just outside the Shack. "Fan out," Powers said. "We're not going anywhere till we find Stan Pines and those kids."

Ford sighed. "Okay. It's all right. We've got a while before they find this room. We just need to lay low and think of a plan." He pulled out Journal 1 and started writing in it.

"Well, it looks like we're stuck down here for a while. Who wants to tell us their entire mysterious backstory?" That was Mabel, obviously.

Ford, still writing, said, "Yes, I have some questions about all this myself, Stanley."

There was a pause.

"Stanley?" Dipper asked.

"But your name is—" Mabel said, confused, however, Camo cut her off.

She sighed. "Yeah, yeah, he's actually Stanley, the new guy is the Stanford but he goes by Ford. Stan took his name. I figured this all out a while ago by a license plate. Anyway, I bet there's a lot of stuff I haven't guessed, so can we get to the good stuff already?"

"License plate?"

"Just how long ago?"

Ford spun around. "Wait, you took my name?" he asked Stan. "What have you been doing all these years, you knucklehead? Also," he turned to Camo with an intrigued expression, "a license plate?"

She waved it off. "I'll tell you later." She did notice that he made another note in his Journal, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't wonder if it was about her.

"Yeah, Grunkle Stan, no more lies," Dipper agreed. "You owe us some answers. What's the deal with this portal? Why did you keep this a secret?"

"And what happened between you and your brother?"

"I know . . . none of those things," Camo admitted. "So yeah, I want those answers too."

Soos rushed up. "I'm hoping all this aligns exactly with my fanfic, Stan." Camo looked up at him with a bewildered expression. She could've bounced her theories off of him instead of off of herself! That would've made things so much easier. "If not, I will be very disappointed."

"Okay. Okay, okay. I know I have a lot of explaining to do," Stan said, holding up his hands in defense. "It all started . . . a lifetime ago. 1960-something. Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. I lived with my ma and pa in the Lead Paint District in the family pawn shop. Dad was a strict man. Tough as a cinder block, and not easily impressed. Mom was a pathological liar, which served her well as a phone psychic. And then there was my nerdy twin brother Stanford."

Ha. She was right about that.

"As if his abnormally high IG wasn't enough, he also had a rare birth defect—six fingers on each hand, which might've explained his obsession with sci-fi mystery weirdness." When she looked at Ford, he'd looked up from his notes to wear an annoyed expression.

Stan continued. "As for me, I had what Mom liked to call 'personality'. But as different as we were, we made the perfect team, and every day, we'd wander the beach, looking for adventure."

Huh. She knew this story. Way back from the day on the lake, he'd shared part of this same story.

1961, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey

Stan and Ford continued down the tunnel. This was so cool! Ford gaped at the interesting rocks on the walls. It was hard for him to tell what kind they were, but he made a mental note to find out later. There were also starfish, and he didn't recognize the species. He was planning to grab a sample, but Stan nudged him, pointing to . . . a ship.

He gaped at it. "A shipwrecked sailboat," he said in awe. "Possibly haunted by pirate ghosts!"

"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen," Stan said, and Ford looked at his brother. "And I once saw a dead rat floatin' in a bucket."

He laughed, though it wasn't really funny, and pushed his brother. "Ew! What's wrong with you?"

Then they both looked up at the boat. It was majestic. He wondered where it was from. He'd never seen something like it before! Did it have anything on it that would tell him? He hoped so. "Huh. You know what this thing's missing?" Stan asked, and Ford looked at it closely. It was missing something, but what?

He figured it out. "Flags."

They exchanged a grin, and they both knew what to do.

Before long, they'd hung their shirts on the flagpole and were pushing the ship out onto the sand, chanting, "Kings of New Jersey! Kings of New Jersey!" He was so sunburned. He really should've thought to put on sunscreen, but oh well. He was as red as a lobster by this point.

He pushed harder against the back of the ship. Not that there was a front. It was just a half of a ship. Still, Stan had the hard part, pulling on ropes out in the front. Man, this was hard work in the sun. Still, it was fun, so it was all worth it.

They found a bucket of paint, and Ford thought for a moment. It had to have a clever name. A pun, maybe? The perfect one came to him. "I dub thee, the Stan O' War." It was perfect. He was reveling in his pride when a rock hit him in the back of the head. "Ow!" He felt at it. That would leave a bruise. "What the heck?"

"Well, well, if it ain't the loser twins," said a familiar voice, and Ford groaned inwardly. Crampelter. "Nice boat. You get it at the dump?" He laughed his awful laugh and high-fived his goons.

Stan came to their defense. "You would know, Crampelter. Get lost!"

"Listen, dorks, and listen good. You're a six fingered freak"—Ford went red and hid his hands behind his back in embarrassment. Why'd he have to pick on his hands? He knew the answer, of course. Because it bothered him. Jerk—"and you're a just a dumber, sweatier version of him. And you're lucky you have each other, because neither of you will ever make any friends."

They left, Crampelter doing his awful laugh. Ford looked down at his hand unhappily. Why'd he have to be so different? He curled them into fists and sadly looked up when his brother put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, don't let those idiots get to you."

"But I am a freak," Ford said, looking down. "I just wonder if there's anywhere in the world where weirdos like me fit in."

His guess was no.

"Hey, chin up, buddy," Stan insisted. "Look." They stared out at the setting sun. "One of these days, you and me are gonna sail away from this dumb town. We'll hunt for treasure, get all the girls, and be an unstoppable team of adventurers."

Ford smiled. "You really mean it?"

"High six?"

"High six."

"Those were the good times," Stan said fondly. "Those bullies may have been right about us not making many friends, but when push comes to shove, you only really need one. Ford's brain seemed to get more impressive every year." That explained all the old trophies from her room, which she was increasingly sure used to be Ford's.

When she looked over to see if he liked that comment, at least, the man wasn't even paying attention. Oh, so he paid attention to insults, but not the compliments, and then got offended at Stan?

"So did our pet project," Stan continued. "Sure, I got in more than my fair share of trouble, but when your brother's the smartest kid in school, you've always got a leg up on the competition. The future was looking bright for both of us . . . till one day."

1966, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey

Stan munched on his toffee peanuts, his feet up on his desk. Honestly, he couldn't care less about anything happening around him. He knew Ford was going to get a good grade, and he was, too, because he copied his work. So, he was just relaxing in the sun from the window.

The PA turned on. "Pines twins to the principal's office. Pines twins to the principal's office."

He glared up at it. What had he done now? And what did Ford have to do with it? Oh, he hoped this wasn't about him cheating. Or not doing the reading assignment. Whatever it is, it was his fault, and they'd know it. He'd make sure they knew it.

"Ah, great, what is it this time?" he asked aloud, and his brother didn't know, either.

They made their way to the office, but the secretary stopped him from going in. "Not you. Him." Ford? They both exchanged an astonished look, since Stan was usually the one in trouble. Still, he plopped down in one of the seats, and his brother continued on in.

That didn't stop him from eavesdropping as soon as he was in there, of course.

"Now, Mr. Pines, I'd like to speak with you very frankly, if I may," came the muffled voice of the principal.

He barely made out Pa, since his voice was so low. "Very frankly is the only way I speak." What was he doing there? Was Ma there too? Just how much trouble was Ford in?

"You have two sons. One of them is incredibly gifted. The other one is standing outside this room, and his name's Stanley."

Stan's jaw dropped. What?! What did he mean by that? That he wasn't as good as his brother, just because he didn't have the weirdo fingers and the crazy IQ? As soon as he had that thought, he scolded himself. Not weirdo fingers. Never think of Ford's fingers like that.

"What are you saying?" asked Ma. So she was there, too.

"I'm saying your son Stanford is a genius! All his teachers are going bananas over his science fair experiment. You ever heard of West Coast Tech?" No. No, he had not. "Best college in the country. Their graduates turn science fiction into science fact! The admissions team is visiting tomorrow to check out Stanford's experiment. Your son may be a future millionaire, Mr. Pines."

Despite the door in the way, Stan already knew Ford's eyes must've been positively sparkling.

"I'm impressed," Pa said, and his jaw dropped. Again. Had he misheard? Pa was never impressed!

Ma brought it back to him. "But what about our little free spirit, Stanley?"

Stan felt his heart in his throat as he waited for the response, his ear pressed against the door. "That clown?" the principal asked. "At this rate, he'll be lucky to graduate high school. Look, there's a saltwater taffy store on the dock, and somebody's gotta get paid to scrape the barnacles off of it." He put his back to the door, sliding down onto the floor. "Stanford's going places, but, hey, look on the bright side.

"At least you'll have one son here in New Jersey forever."

That evening, they were on the swing set at the beach. Ford was looking at that pamphlet thing he'd been given, which worried him. Still, he forced out a nervous chuckle. "Heh. Joke's on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country. Once we get the Stan O' War complete, it's gonna be beaches, babes, and international treasure hunting for us."

Ford was quiet for a moment.

"Look, Stan, I can't pass up a chance like this. This school has cutting-edge programs and multi-dimensional paradigm theory," he said, his excitement clear in his tone. Stan tried not to feel the growing sense of anger in his gut.

He passed it off as annoyance. In a robot voice, he said, "Beep-boop. I am a nerd robot. That's you. That's what you sound like."

Ford chuckled. "Ah, well, if the college board isn't impressed with my experiment tomorrow, then, okay, I'll do the treasure hunting thing."

"And if they are?" He knew they would be.

"Well, then I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country." He punched him in the arm, just as light as ever, and laughed. Stan forced a smile on his face until his brother went away.

What was he going to do?

Stan continued his story. "Without Ford, I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn't make it out there without him. And now, thanks to that dumb college, I was gonna lose my brother forever."

He paced angrily, eating his toffee peanuts. What was he going to do? Ford was going to leave, and he was worthless without his brother! He would end up like that guy scraping barnacles off the taffy shop, wouldn't he?

It was that dumb college! Everything would've been fine if it had just never been brought up! It was all their fault that he was going to lose Ford now, to a nerd school to turn him even nerdier. Who needed a college? Treasure hunting was much funner!

He paused as he saw the perpetual motion machine, humming slightly. Wait, no. It wasn't the college's fault. The college didn't matter! They were only here because of this dumb machine! So, he told it, "This is all your fault, you dumb machine!", since that very accurately described his thoughts, and he threw down his toffee peanuts.

He slammed his fist down on the desk, and there was a horrible sound of something breaking. Smoke emitted from a panel, and his eyes widened in horror. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no. What did I do?" Panicking, not knowing what to do, he put the plate back on and decided to hope for the best. "There. All right. Good as new. Probably." It was still moving. That was a good sign, right?

Still, he put the tarp up, hiding it. Just in case. He also crept out, again, just in case.

The next day, Stan was on the couch, watching TV. "One, paddle-paddle-paddle, two, paddle-paddle-paddle. Man, that Jackie O. What a fox." Ford walked in, and he missed the furious expression on his face when he went right-side-up on the couch. "Hey, what's the word, sixer?"

"Can you explain what this was doing next to my broken project?" He thrust up a bag of toffee peanuts. He felt his blood run cold.

"Okay. I might've accidentally been . . . horsing around . . ."

"This was no accident, Stan," Ford seethed. "You did this. You did this because you couldn't handle me going to college on my own."

He just had to defend himself. "Look, it was a mistake. Although, if you think about it, maybe there's a silver lining. Huh? Treasure hunting?"

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Are you kidding me?" Ford asked furiously. "Why would I wanna do anything with the person who sabotaged my entire future?" He shoved him backwards, onto the couch, and it (surprisingly) had some strength to it.

Pa came in at just the wrong time. "You did what, you knucklehead?!" he asked, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him to stare into his eyes.

Ma came in with the crying baby Sherman. "Stanley, what's going on in here?"

"Wait, no. I can explain. It was a mistake!"

He was thrown out onto the street. "You ignoramus," Pa spat. "Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump. All you ever do is lie and cheat, and ride on your brother's coattails. Well, this time, you cost our family potential millions. And until you make us a fortune, you're not welcome in this household!"

He threw a bag on him. "What?" Stan asked, shocked. "Stanford, tell him he's being crazy." Ford, in the window upstairs, sadly looked down at his pamphlet, then closed the curtains. "Stanford?" he asked, hesitantly. "Don't leave me hanging. High six?"

No response. The door slammed shut.

He felt tears threatening his eyes, and he shoved those feelings away. Don't think about that betrayal. So, instead, he resorted to anger. "Fine! I can make it on my own! I don't need you, I don't need anyone! I'll make millions, and you'll rue the day you turned your back on me!"

He climbed in his car and drove away, shaking slightly.

Don't think about that.

2012, Gravity Falls, Oregon

"Thanks to one dumb mistake, I had no brother, no home, no nothing. But I had a plan to fix everything."

At this point, the brothers were pointed away from each other with furious expressions on their faces. Camo expected herself to be indecisive, but nope. They were both idiots. Stan shouldn't've acted so impulsively (he at least should've told Ford after he did so), and Ford should've stuck up for his brother instead of being a scuffing jerkwad about it. She was covered in her own blood, sweat, and tears, and she couldn't find much sympathy at the moment.

"Oh, this story's so sad," Mabel said, looking upset. "I know what you two little broken teacups need. To hug it out." Ford stopped writing to give her an odd look, and Stan didn't move. "Hug it out," she repeated. Silence. "Hug train's coming in the station. Hugapalooza 2000!"

Stan finally snapped, "Kid, will you knock that off? I'm trying to tell my life story here."

She shut up rather quickly, though Camo did let out a little snort.

Stan continued his story. "I had decided I wasn't gonna show my face at home till I proved I could make something of myself. Unfortunately, the treasure hunting business was slow going. Apparently, gold is some kind of 'rare' metal." At this, he did air quotes and rolled his eyes. "Luckily, I struck another kind of gold. In sales."

He told them about his various cheap items on Stan Co. The Sham Total: It's a total sham! Which apparently had really cheap dye which caused more stains. The Rip Off, a band aid that 'won't give you rashes', which, naturally, gave you rashes.

Apparently, people weren't happy about these dumb things, as they shouldn't have, so he had to make his way all over the country, just due to the states he was banned out of. She tried to imagine a conversation about that. ("Stan, why haven't you visited us!" "Where are you?" "Pennsylvania." "Uh, about that . . .") She snorted at the thought.

"Whoa. So that explains all the fake IDs," Mabel gasped.

"But, wait, what about you?" Dipper asked, gesturing to Ford. "Did you end up going to your dream school?"

Ford looked away and said, "Not exactly. I went to Backupsmore, where they made up for a lack of prestige with mostly bug-free dorms." Camo grimaced and shifted a little away. "In a place like that, I had to work twice as hard. Luckily, that's what I do best. I went from undergrad to PhD three years ahead of schedule, wrote a thesis that was nationally ranked, and was awarded an enormous grant for my own scientific research."

Camo mentally sighed. So, college had only swollen his ego.

"But what to study?" he said thoughtfully, though he'd already figured that out years ago. "My whole life, I'd been teased for my six fingers. But that got me thinking about anomalies. Things that were odd, unusual, statistically improbable. And according to my investigations, there was one place with a higher concentration of these things than anywhere else. A small lumber town in Roadkill County, Oregon: Gravity Falls."

Of course. She totally expected that.

Stan butted in. "Meanwhile, your old Uncle Stan was doing great. I'd come up with a sophisticated new business strategy." Yeah, right. It was probably one of those scratch them for money things. "I was in great shape, living on my own, and the best part was, I didn't need help from nobody." Double negative . . . wouldn't that technically mean he needed help?

Ford made it about him again. "I was heading out on my own, as well. I set to work using my grant money to investigate the strange properties of this town. But what would I find here?" He paused for a second, probably remembering something anomalous, then grinned. "Bingo. I began to investigate at once. I know I'd have to record my findings. I began to keep a Journal."

He was interrupted by Dipper fanboy-screaming. Camo turned towards the excited preteen with an amused smile. He was so cute when he fanboyed! "The Journals!" he exclaimed in a voice higher than usual.

Then he realized everyone was staring at him, all confused sans Camo, who was still watching him being all cute. "Sorry, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Got excited there about the Journals. Keep . . . keep talking."

Camo shook her head and turned to Ford. "I began to keep a Journal," he repeated, and Dipper shrieked again. Ford cleared his throat. "Just going to ignore that.

"There were anomalies everywhere. And the more I looked, the more I saw. It was finally a place where I felt at home, but something nagged at me. Where did it all come from? It seemed to me the answer must lie outside of our world, a dimension of weirdness leaking into ours. I realized the only way to understand Gravity Falls would be to build a gateway, a portal to the source of its weirdness."

She glanced at the portal, now in shambles, though the scientist didn't seem to notice.

"But I couldn't make it alone. I decided to call up my old college buddy, Fiddleford McGucket, a young but brilliant mechanic who was wasting his talent trying to make personal computers in some garage in Palo Alto."

So . . . I'm just going to stop here and make this a two-parter, since otherwise it'll be suuuuuuper long. I know it's not a great place, to stop, but I don't have any better options.

Also, guys, please. I want you to be blunt with me in the comments. Compliments are nice, but I know there are problems with my writing. Point out every little thing I can fix in my writing style. If you don't tell me about it, I don't know to fix it. So, be blunt and point out all my errors or whatever.

(But . . . try not to phrase it in a way to break my soul, okay?)