Dimension ?, Day ?, 2012

The presence, far away and hard to hear, disappeared all at once. Where there was a sense of a tall, irate impression covered in steel wool gilded with gleaming gold, there was nothing, and his star was shooting away.

Pacifica! Come back!

Mabel, don't go out there!

Ford grabbed the tendrils of color, yanking them back, and he didn't realize what he did until she screamed and he could see the universe.

They hit the next world hard. Ford and Mabel slammed on a wooden floor in an empty room illuminated only by a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. The smell of burnt flesh and hair seared their clothes as Ford's hands blistered and smoke rolled off Mabel's limp body.

"Mabel?" Ford crawled to her, grabbing her sleeve to pull up and check her arm, already spiderwebbed with a lightning tree. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I forgot I—"

"Stop it!" She shoved his hands off her. He recoiled, heart clenching as his hands grasped at nothing.

She was crying, more than he'd ever seen her cry. Even in the dim light, he could see her face blotching and her eyes swelling as her shoulders shook, one shoulder far more stiff than the other.

Mabel liked hugs, but she didn't want him to touch her, so he was back to not knowing what to do with his hands, trying to lace them calmly but pulling at his coat instead. Touching anything hurt his blistered palms, but not as much as her tears did. "Mabel…"

"Why would you do that?" She wiped her tears with the heel of her right hand, but she didn't try to move her left hand. The smoke came from that shoulder. "Why would you ruin our chance to get out? She's going to stop them now!"

"I told you, Mabel. Opening the portal means the end of the world. We can't risk that!"

He held out his weeping hands, begging her to understand, to see that the world was more important and life didn't have to be so bad and did they really leave behind that much anyway—

"What about my world?"

She jumped to her feet, eyes streaming, hands shaking. He wished she would attack him. It would be less painful than watching her cry.

"What about my friends and my family and all those things I can't live without—what about Dipper?" She threw her hand out, but her left arm hung limp at her side. "I'm supposed to be there to turn thirteen with him soon, but instead, I'm never seeing him again!"

"We're not worth the world," Ford pressed. "I never wanted this for you, but this is where we are and we can't keep dwelling on the past."

"My brother isn't my past!" She stomped her foot and the floor creaked. "Is that what you think? That our whole family is just the past?" She grabbed her hair, getting louder and louder as she went. "Don't you ever think of them? Don't you want to see your brother again?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He didn't know what to say. She waited for him, but his silence must have been answer enough. Her tears turned to outrage, her hands balling into fists.

"Why are you like this? What happened to make you not care about family at all?"

A wordless protest rose in his throat, but before he could say anything, she was marching towards the only door out of their room.

"We have to stay together," he said as he pushed himself to his feet.

"I never want to be like you!" She marched out and slammed the door in his face. He immediately swung it open again, but she was gone. The door opened out to a massive expanse of what could loosely be termed a city-sized house, full of different doors and coiling staircases of dissonant styles that led up and down and to nowhere and to banks of doors and into the darkness far below him.

"Oh no." He'd seen worlds like this, worlds that seemed to consciously try to lose people inside of them, and he couldn't see Mabel anywhere. "Mabel?"

There was a big banister along the edge of one staircase. As he started to climb, he peeked over the edge, searching for a flash of color but instead only finding more staircases and doors that gradually led to darkness below. "Mabel!"

He couldn't even be sure that she would answer him if she could. She was furious with him, and he wanted to give her a firm shake. Didn't she understand what was at stake? Didn't she understand that they would just put their family in danger if they demanded that they bring them back?

But how could she understand? She was just a little girl who should have never been here in the first place. He should have been firmer with her, more insistent on making her face reality. He just hadn't wanted to make this any harder on her than it had to be. Stupid, stupid, he berated himself as he climbed up spiraling, rattling metal stairs and down stairs made of marble, in and out of doors that just led to more empty rooms and more stairs. He'd gone soft on her and now she was too soft to handle their situation.

He could hear his father berating him now. That's why I made you and your brother toughen up, Filbrick rumbled in his head. You should have learned from me. What do you know about raising kids?

Filbrick had never had to take care of little girls, Ford weakly countered in his own head. Ford might have been able to toughen up a little boy, but it felt wrong with a little girl, especially one who was as gentle and vivacious as Mabel.

When the world is tough, then the kid's gotta be tough, girl or boy, Filbrick scolded him.

Ford stopped at the top of a gray tenement stairwell, yelling in frustration. He had no idea if he was getting closer to Mabel or further away, and she only had enough food in her bag to last her a day away from him. Why hadn't he put her on a leash? Or at least stick her with a tracker?

This was all Stanley's fault, he thought darkly as he stalked across a catwalk to another staircase made of glass. It all came down to Stanley. If he had just done what Stanford said he should do and sailed away with the damned journal, none of them would be in this mess. But no, Stanley had to get huffy, whining about his own life and all the ways he fucked it up his own damned self. Stanley could never take responsibility for anything, not himself, not his work, not anything, so why Stanford thought to trust him with the Journal in the first place was beyond comprehension. But no, no, it wasn't enough for Stanley to fuck up that simple request, he had to go and turn the world-destroying portal on in what had to be the only fit of remorse he'd ever experienced.

Great timing, Stanley, Stanford wanted to yell. The first time you ever decide to make up for one of your copious mistakes and you nearly destroy the world and throw in a little girl for Ford to take care of. Even when Stanley was a universe away, he was still fucking up Ford's life!

"Wow, thirty years and you're still scapegoating me, poindexter."

Stanford stopped dead at the top of a stone staircase. He clenched one burnt hand on the railing before looking towards the voice, gravelly with too many cigarettes. Stanley leaned on the catwalk bannister like a ghost from thirty years past, greasy too-long brown hair hanging limply past his neck and the awful smell of burnt flesh rolling off of his shoulder, turned away from Stanford. He wore that same dirty leather jacket he had on during their fight in front of the portal, had the same bags under his eyes, had the same bitter smile.

"No," Stanford said before turning away and starting to walk down the stairs. "I am not going to engage with someone who's clearly not my real brother." He stopped at the fourth stair. "And it's not scapegoating if it's true!"

"It's true, is it?" The click of a lighter. The smell of cigarettes. Stan had started that habit in high school. Ford never liked it, so Stan put in the effort not to smoke around him, but that smell had always clung to his clothes and linens, infecting their room. "I dunno. From where I'm standing, it looks like you mucked things up pretty well on your own."

"I mucked it up?" Ford wheeled on Stan (the ghost) and marched back up the stairs. "I wasn't the one who pushed me in a portal!"

"Yeah, but who was the one who made that portal?" Stan still leaned on that banister, the end of his cigarette burning evenly, and Ford knew it wasn't him because Stan would not only be older, but he'd be exploding with rage. He was always so quick to get angry in their fights, but the lack of reaction just made Ford's wrath worse. "And you knew for weeks what it could do. Why didn't you take it apart as soon as you knew?"

"I—" His anger caught in his throat, burning his insides.

"It was his life's work. You don't think he would have ever taken it down, do you?" said someone down the stairs, deep in the black.

Ford looked wildly into the dark, looking for the source of the new voice. "Fiddleford?"

"Riiiiight, you were too proud to deal with your world-breaking work being destroyed." Stanley nodded at the dark below them, like he could see Fiddleford even if Ford couldn't. "And that's why you freaked out when I threatened to burn the journal you wanted me to bury for no one to ever find again."

"You had no right to try to destroy that!" Ford should leave. The conversation was making his stomach twist, and these things weren't really Stan or Fiddleford, so it was better to just leave. He couldn't, though. "You always destroy my things! Just like my science project!"

"Oh, we're going back forty years now." Stanley's mouth twisted, but it was just dark, not angry. The cigarette smoke was sinking into their clothes. "You'll never let that go, will you?"

"Do you have any idea how hard I had to work because of it?" The way Stanley stared him down made his gut squirm, and that just intensified his anger. Where did he get off, looking at Ford like that? Ford didn't do anything wrong. He did nothing wrong. "Do you have any comprehension of all the all-nighters I had to pull, the sacrifices I made?"

"Your life sounds really hard, Sixer." It didn't have any of the venom that Stanley's voice should have, but the lilt of mockery slipping like oil into his ears was somehow worse. "Almost as bad as drug dealing and prostituting to survive."

Despite the burns, his hands suddenly felt cold. Ford dug his nails into his palms, tearing open the blisters until they wept. The air tasted sour. "You don't know anything about Stanley's life." He repeated that constantly in his head. "You don't know anything because the only things you could possibly know are what I know, and I don't know anything."

"No, but you could guess. You could always guess, from that first day I was gone." Stanley shrugged his right shoulder, and a horrible cracking sound came from the burn Ford couldn't see but knew was there. The smell of burnt flesh and infection doubled and made his head spin. The cigarette smoke was only a thin layer that couldn't cover it anymore. "You were sitting there resenting me for all-nighters when you didn't know if I was even alive."

Ford felt sick. He shimmied down the stairs, trying to get away from Stanley, wanting nothing more than to just cover his ears. Stanley's gaze burned him more than even Mabel's could. At first it made him angry, but now he just wanted to get away.

"Would that have made you happy, Stanford?" Stanley stayed at the top of the stairs, but Stanford couldn't escape him. "Would you have been happy if I had died?"

"No, for God's sake." His stomach lurched and his nails tore at his palms. "You're my brother!"

"Really? It would have made life easier for you, and it's not like I would have missed much." He was too calm. It was poison, whatever this thing was. Ford kept walking down, but he wanted to tear the thing apart, to punish it for stealing his brother's likeness and voice. "You wouldn't have to put up with your leech brother and I wouldn't waste thirty years of my life trying to save a man who doesn't give a shit if I live or die."

"Shut up," Ford growled, clenching his teeth and struggling to just put one foot in front of the other rather than run back up the stairs and attack his brother's imposter.

"Maybe it would have been better if you were the one who died. You don't care about anyone but yourself, after all," a new voice said. Ford stopped short. At the bottom of the stairs, Fiddleford McGucket leaned on the banister just like Stanley was at the top. Patches of his old friend's hair was missing, like he'd torn them out, and his glasses were cracked. "Or maybe it'd be better to say that you just care so much 'bout changing the world that no one in it matters."

"Fiddleford…"

"You know what I'm talking about, Stanford Pines." Fiddleford's southern drawl was wrong. Too unsteady, like he was constantly distracted. "How many times did I get hurt in your adventures? How much did I give you, just to be left to rot like an old shoe?"

"You were the one who left!" Ford backed up the stairs again, but that just brought him closer to Stanley's judgment. There was nowhere to go.

"I lost everything, Stanford! My wife, my son, my mind—but that never mattered to you. All that mattered was that I keep working like a piece of damn lab equipment!"

"Or maybe it just didn't matter because he didn't get why losing your family would ever be a problem." Stanley was coming down the stairs. Fiddleford was coming up. Ford pressed against the bannister, searching for any escape. "He abandoned his, after all. Never bothered him."

"I am not responsible for either of you!" Ford shouted, heart exploding, shoulders tensing, ready to attack both of them. "You're grown men and you ruined your own lives! I'm not going to be blamed for your mistakes!"

"That's cold, considering all our 'mistakes' were made for you," Stanley snorted.

"Eventually you gotta see that everyone you ever cared about woulda just been better off if they'd never met you, Ford," Fiddleford said, his eyes burning like brands on Ford's skin.

"I would've inherited the pawn shop. Hell, maybe I'd have a family of my own instead of wasting all my time on you." Stanley was closing in. Ford couldn't breathe with the smell of burning flesh.

"I woulda been with my family working on computers. Maybe I'd've given Tate a little sister by now," Fiddleford said.

"And Mabel would be with her family, where she belongs, and nowhere near any portal you weren't around to make."

It was like a knife cut under his ribs. "I'm her family too!" Just because he hadn't heard from her grandfather since Shermy was ten years old, never met her parents, and hadn't even known she existed until she was already twelve didn't mean he was any less her family. Did it? "And I wasn't the one who turned on the portal when there were children in the house! I'm taking care of her!"

"Taking care of her?" Fiddleford scoffed. "You wouldn't know what to do with a child if it came up and bit you!"

"Alright, mister uncle of the year, if you're such a good caretaker…" Stanley leaned in until they were nose to nose. There was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all. "Where is Mabel?"

A familiar scream tore through the dark below them. "Mabel!" Ford shoved Fiddleford and Stanley out of his way, tearing down the stairs into inky blackness. The screaming didn't stop, leading him to the dark and past door after door, but then it came to a sudden end.

"No! No no no—" Ford slammed through doors, through room after empty room, until he could finally get to Mabel.

He was too late.

In another empty room illuminated only by a bulb, it was like the floor itself had warped to become a spear, and Mabel hung, arms and legs kicking uselessly at the air, dangling as the spear impaled her stomach.

"Oh my God."

Mabel flailed her hand in his direction, choking on her own half-formed words. The spear abruptly pulled back and was swallowed into a smooth floor again. Mabel's body fell. Ford caught her just before she hit the ground.

"Oh my God, Mabel, stay with me, I'll take care of this." They had to get out of this room, just in case it attacked again, but she was bleeding so much, he didn't know a little body could hold so much blood.

He shoved the next door open with his shoulder as he peeled her shirt and sweater back to see her stomach. A hole punched clean through her gut. Organs dangled, torn into pieces.

"Grunkle Ford…"

Mabel's face was completely white. Ford struggled to smile, fumbling inside of his coat for bandages even as his head yelled that there was absolutely nothing he could do. "Mabel?"

She opened her mouth, but all that came out was an awful rattle. Ford sat down next to a wrought iron banister, finally pulling out a roll of bandages, but her eyes were wrong. It was like curtains behind them had closed.

"Mabel?" He patted her cheek before pressing his fingers to her throat. "Sweetheart?"

There was no pulse.

"Mabel?" He shook her, like that would do anything. This couldn't be real. It had to be a trick. Her eyes stared blankly into the distance. "Mabel!"

She's dead, his intellect told him. It's time to go.

For the first time in years, he wanted his intellect to go to hell.

Her blood soaked through his clothes. He carefully nestled her head on his shoulder, cradling her close like a baby. The star braids in her hair were stiff with blood. She had been so eager to have him braid those for her.

She's dead. You have to leave the body and run. They're going to try to kill you too. There's nothing you can do for her.

Ford kissed her cooling temple, only now noticing that his face was wet. "Al molay rachamim, shochayn bam'romim, ham-tzay m'nucha n'chona al kanfay Hash'china, b'ma-alot k'doshim ut-horim k'zo-har haraki-a mazhirim, et nishmat Mabel she-halcha l-olama, ba-avur shenodvu tz'dakah b'ad hazkarat nishmatah."

The darkness was closing in, and he couldn't bring himself to care.

Content warning for violence against children.

Thank you to Eregyrn-Falls for betaing this chapter. Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed. Comments, compliments, and critiques are always warmly welcomed.

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