Author's note: Something to keep in mind when reading this chapter is that all of Ford's characterization is purely from Stanley's perspective. While most of it is pretty accurate, not all of it is. Poor Stanley doesn't understand his brother quite as well as he thinks he does.

Chapter 5

Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up.

They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. - Charles Jones

He was trapped, surrounded on all sides by a thick covering of formless white fog. There was no temperature and no sound. Not even his breathing or the beat of his own heart made a noise in the endless, timeless, silence. He didn't move. He couldn't think. It was as though he had been put on pause; trapped in a moment without any recollection as to how he'd gotten there, or any guess as to what might happen once he got out. If he got out.

Then suddenly, there was a sound. A familiar voice called out to him in the distance, shattering the stifling silence with a reminder of his name. The fog seemed to go on the defensive, pressing in tighter and tighter, a little more reluctant to go. It clung in curling wisps around his head and shoulders, trying to block everything and everyone else out. But the source of the noise was getting closer, and as it did, it kicked up a mighty gust of chilling wind. One that completely dispelled the murkiness in a surprised gasp.

"Hey! Hey, over here!" Stanley turned to see his brother sprinting at lightning speed down the length of the beach, his backpack swinging wildly behind him, and a flurry of glimmering sand being kicked up in his wake.

Stanley cupped his hands over his mouth to shout at the approaching figure, "Took ya long enough sixer. What's with the holdup?"

Stanford skidded to a halt right before reaching Stanley, nearly crashing into him, and spraying a fair amount of sand all over his shoes and ankles. He held up his finger to indicate that he needed a moment, and then put his hands on his knees and started trying catch his breath.

"Sorr- sorry about that. Teach-" Stanford gulped down a few more panting breaths before standing up fully and continuing, "I got something from our teacher, Mr. Castillo. He wanted me to stay behind after class to give me this that way the other kids wouldn't see and get upset. You know, so he wouldn't get in trouble for playing favorites and all. Check it out!" Stanford reached into his backpack and produced a large metal compass from within. It was old and cased in a dirty brass that Stanley had often seen worn by the antiques that passed in and out of their family's small pawn shop. As Stanford rotated the trinket in his hands, which it was almost slightly bigger than, Stanley caught sight of a number of odd marking and symbols that were scratched onto the back.

"Whoa!"

"I know, it's so cool isn't it!" Stanford was nearly bouncing with excitement. "I wonder if it used to belong to an old seafaring captain who slowly went crazy. Or a grave robber who wrote the inscriptions on the back to protect himself from vengeful spirits. Or maybe even an explorer who was using a secret code to record the location of buried treasure!"

"Why'd he give it to ya anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Our teach"

"Oh." Stanford paused a little awkwardly and then shot Stanley an oddly apologetic look, "Well, it's supposed to be a late birthday present. Mr. Castillo brought it back from the trip he took to Oregon over the summer after he found it washed up on the beach. He said he thought I would like it since, uh- you know, since I kind of went twelve pages over the limit on our report about 'Portuguese navigation and exploration' last month." Stanford glanced sideways at this and rubbed the back of his neck; a little embarrassed, but obviously not the least bit ashamed of his overachievement.

Stanley let his eyes fall from his brother's face, and down to the compass being cradled in his hands. A small frown tugged at the corners of his mouth.

It wasn't that he was jealous of Stanford or anything. He was happy that his brother had once again been rewarded for his genius, of course he was. As proud as Ford could be of his own brains, Stanley often had a tendency to be even prouder.

In fact, whenever Stanford was either awarded for his grades, or received a perfect score on a test he'd taken, or was acknowledged for whatever his latest academic achievement had been, it was Stanley who would go out and start bragging about it to whoever was within earshot.

'Hey, Hey! Mrs. Peterson, Mr. Peterson, check out this big shiny metal my brother just got! Aw don't listen to him, he's just bein' humble about it. Yeah, he got first place for the rocket-y thingy you guys saw us carrying to school last week.'

'What's the matter Crampelter? Ya mad 'cause my brother won first place in the spelling bee, meanwhile the only thing you'd ever win first place in, is a big, dumb, and ugly contest. What'd you just say!? I dare you. I dare you to say that again! Ah, Ford let go of me, I need to teach this jerk a lesson!'

'Hey you! Yeah, you. Creepy neighbor who mom says we're not supposed to talk to cause you probably have ties with the mob or somethin'. Guess who just got the best grades in our entire elementary school? That's right, this guy right here! Ow, Ford. Ah come on, he's not that scary. He even showed me how to cheat at dice once.'

Stanford for his part would always act as though he were annoyed whenever Stanley pulled something like this. He would tell Stanley to knock it off, or to stop being so embarrassing, or to stop gloating so much about his 'trivial' achievements. However, the small light that would always spring up into his eyes shortly after the two began walking away, and the blushing grin that would stretch from ear to ear, made his true feelings on the matter glaringly obvious.

That grin was what Stanley lived for. He liked it more than he liked adventuring, or toffee peanuts, or even that one time he'd successfully broken Crampelter's nose after the bully had smashed the lenses of his glasses.

Whenever he saw it, it was like something just sparked inside of him; something that made him want to sprint as fast as he could, and jump up and down, and yell at someone five times his size. A raw, wild, untamable energy would surge through every limb and make him feel completely unstoppable. Like any goal that the two of them set their minds to was achievable. Like nothing in the universe could possibly tell them no, or stand in their way.

Even if the whole world were set against him, Stanley would always have Stanford. And he really didn't want or need anything else.

But still…. there was something about this that slightly bothered him. Something about their teacher only pulling Stanford aside, rather than both of them. A pattern was beginning to develop, and it seemed to be growing more and more prominent with each passing day.

Even if Ford had done most of the writing in the report (Well ok, nearly all of the writing), it wasn't like Stanley hadn't contributed anything to their joint project. He had worked hard on those maps, spending about as much time illustrating the journey of the Portuguese explorers, as Stanford had writing about them. So then, why had Mr. Castillo presented the compass to Stanford alone? It had been Stanley's birthday too, after all.

Something tightened uncomfortably in Stanley's chest at that thought and he quickly tried to brush it aside.

So what if their teacher had only presented the compass to Stanford, it wasn't like that really mattered. He'd probably meant for it to be for both of them anyways. Right?

They were twins. Everyone knew that they always shared everything.

Not really wanting to think on the matter any further, Stanley decided to distract himself with one of his favorite pastimes. The frown on his face was almost instantly replaced by a teasing smirk, and he put his hands on his hips in what he thought to be a fairly good impression of their mother whenever the two of them had done something especially exasperating. He let out a loud dramatic sigh, "Yeesh Ford, what're we gonna do with you! You've transformed from a mega nerd into a full blown teachers pet."

Stanford, who had been busy with his own musings about the markings on the back of the compass, gave a sudden undignified squeak at the remark, "What! I am not a teachers pet."

"Yeah, ya are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"No, I'm not!" At the tail end of this protest Stanley quickly scooted behind Stanford, grabbed his elbows, and began slowly shuffling forward.

"Choo choo! All aboard the nerd train! Next stop Geektopia, so poindexter here can pick out a present for his new favorite teacher!" The two of them only managed to make it a few feet before both lost their balance, tripped over each other, and collapsed into a pile of twisted limbs and giggles in the warm sand below.

"You know,….." Stanford returned between laughs after brushing sand off from his sleeves and righting himself somewhat; a teasing smirk of his own plastered on his face " a thank you gift wouldn't actually be a half bad idea."

"Uh, oh. Looks like your condition's more severe than I first thought it was. But all right, I'll humor you. How exactly does the family genius figure we'd get the money to pay for something like that?"

Stanford put a hand on his chin and gave a smile that he'd probably intended to come across as thoughtful and innocent, but ended up looking a lot more mischievous. "Who said anything about paying for it? I was thinking we could use your skill of 'acquiring' certain items, to help us out here."

Stanley's mouth hung open in mock astonishment as he put a hand theatrically over his heart. Of course, even though Stanford would be the first to chicken out and try to talk his brother out of any 'five finger discounts' whenever Stanley got serious about them, he would always talk a big game when the two were just playing around. "Sixer! You aren't implying that we should steal somethin', are ya? You know, people always assume I'm the bad egg out of the two of us. What d'ya think they'd do if they knew who the real criminal mastermind actually was!"

Stanford responded by giving a pretty spot-on imitation of maniacal, mad-scientist laughter, holding his hands in a raised clawing motion for dramatic effect. Stanley joined in soon afterward, and it only took a few moments of this for the pair to dissolve into another round of helpless giggling.

After allowing himself a chance to catch his breath, Stanley moved to stand up and grabbed the compass that had been accidentally dropped in the sand while the twins were fooling around. Stanford got up too, and the duo began to make their way towards the half-finished hull of the Stan O' War that was sitting by the docks in the distance.

"I was thinking that we could put the compass on top of the bow, or maybe attach it to the mast if you think it would be easier to see it that way. Not that the placement is going to matter too much, seeing as a compass as old as this one isn't going to be a very reliable navigational tool anyways. Hey, speaking of which, did you know that magnetic compasses don't accurately point to Earth's true north. The needle's actually angled because there's a different magnetic variation for..."

Stanley started to tune out by this point. While his brother's ramblings usually started off kind of interesting, it didn't really take long for them to devolve into a mess of scientific and technical jargon, and Stanley just didn't have the attention span to put up with that. Instead he fell a few steps behind Stanford, so his brother wouldn't notice his lack of attentive listening, and decided to take a closer look at the compass that was currently resting in his cupped hands. Particularly the drawings etched onto the back.

Being the twin brother of someone who was practically obsessed with paranormal conspiracies and supernatural weirdness, Stanley had more than his fair share of exposure to strange and unusual symbols. While the characters on the compass didn't really look like anything he'd ever seen in one of Stanford's many, many books on the subject, he couldn't help but feel as though they were familiar somehow. At first glance they had seemed like a kind of foreign writing, but now that he'd gotten a chance to inspect them a bit more closely, he thought they looked a lot more like a series of little pictures. Were they supposed to be constellations, perhaps?

He turned the compass over in his hands again, hoping to find something on the front that might provide him with a clue about the meaning of the odd markings; but what he saw instead almost brought him to a complete standstill. The needle was moving.

It wasn't the usual twitching, jerky movements of a magnetized splinter of metal trying to find the proper poles. No. This was a slow, deliberate turning.

Worried that the instrument had somehow gotten damaged while he and his brother had been playing, Stanley shook it a little and then started rotating it clockwise so as to try and counter the leftward spinning. His efforts were useless. The needle just kept steadily crawling along, completely undeterred by his attempts to 'fix' it.

Eventually it stopped; but when it did, it wasn't pointing northward like compasses were supposed to. Instead, it was pointed directly in front of him, at Stanford's back, at their ship in the distance, and at the titanic expanse blue ocean stretching out to the horizon.

Stanley raised a puzzled eyebrow and cut his brother off mid-sentence. "Uh- Ford, I think your compass is broken or something."

"What?" Stanford whirled around in a half panic and snatched the compass out of Stanley's hands to examine it more closely. "No, it can't be. Not already, I just got it! Wait, where did you say it was broken at? Did something fall off?"

To Stanley's increased bewilderment, however, as soon as the compass passed into his brother's hands the needle once again fixed itself to the north. It was as if it had never moved in the first place. "Huh? I thought… I uh… um… never mind. It musta just been my eyes fooling me. Sorry about that."

Stanford let out a relieved breath followed by a nervous chuckle. "Yeesh. You nearly gave me a heart attack, you knucklehead. If we had broken this already, I would have felt so terrible. I don't think I would have been able to look Mr. Castillo in the eyes ever again."

"Yeah…."

At the mention of their teacher's name, the same uneasy feeling of insecurity that had plagued Stanley earlier began to creep up again from the depths of his mind. On any other day, he wouldn't have hesitated to take Stanford's comment as another opportunity to poke fun at his brother and his habit of 'sucking up' to authority, but right now…..? The time he'd spent waiting alone on the beach earlier had left him unusually pensive, and troubled. It had allowed a tall, grim phantom of fear the chance to dig its claws deeply into his shoulders, and despite his best efforts, he just couldn't shake it off. He could feel its gaze bearing down on him, silently judging every move he made and every word he spoke with a nauseating foreboding. It whispered in his ear. It reminded him of just how badly he hated being shut out, of the way his heart raced at the thought of being left behind.

It didn't really matter, did it? So what if people often found Stanford to be a lot more likable than him. So what if he was their teacher's favorite, or their parents' favorite. So what if he got awarded and acknowledged all the time while Stanley always got passed over and ignored. None of that really mattered. Because in the end he was Stanford's favorite, and Stanley found all the fulfillment he needed in that simple fact.

Stanford didn't overlook him, didn't ignore him, didn't belittle him, or act apathetically towards his hard work and accomplishments. He listened, he cared, he understood; and one day, one day he and Stanley were going to sail far away from this place, and leave all the rest of these losers and jerks behind.

They had the same goal and the same dream. The same promise. Their compasses were both pointing in the same direction.

Stanley was sure of this.

…..

When Stanley opened his mouth to speak again, his voice took on a tone of quiet thoughtfulness; one that no one apart from Stanford ever really got the chance to hear from him. " Hey, Ford. You know that story the two of us were reading the other day? The one where that old sea witch gave the king of the pirates a magic compass, and it would always point to wherever the nearest pile of treasure was."

"Hmm, yeah what about it? Are you thinking maybe the markings on the back mean that this compass is actually cursed like the one in the story or something?" Stanford's eyes took on a sudden ecstatic glint. "I was thinking the exact same thing. Wouldn't that be such a spectacular find! Can you imagine having something that always pointed to whatever it was you wanted the most? We could find all the hidden treasures of the world with something like that!"

"Yeah… but." Stanley paused again. Did he really need to ask this question? Stanford's answer was going to be the same as his. He knew that. It was just… it was… he just wanted to be sure. That was all. " You remember how in the story it didn't always point to buried treasure. I… it's just… if it was that kinda compass, where do ya think it'd point for you?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Stanley gave a halfhearted shrug and looked away, but didn't say anything else. Luckily, Stanford was pretty good at figuring out what Stanley was actually saying, even when he didn't really say anything at all.

"Well… I don't know." Stanford murmured. He turned his head to look wistfully out at the ocean, and his eyes took on a glassy and distant sheen. When he spoke again, it seemed to be more to himself than to Stanley, "I guess … I mean, I want to go somewhere where people will respect me. Where they'll acknowledge me, and take me seriously, and won't look down on me because of my…." Stanford's gaze drifted down to his six-fingered hands, and he fiddled with them for a moment, before folding his arms behind his back and continuing, almost in a whisper, "I'd… want it to point to a place where freaks like me didn't have to worry about fitting in."

Stanley was more than a little confused by this answer. Of course, he'd always known that his brother was a little sensitive about his six fingers, but… a place where he was acknowledged and respected? Wasn't that the case already, and by nearly everyone too? Sure there was always the occasional bully or peer who would make fun of his extra digits, but Stanley always gave those people what they deserved. Besides, most of them forgot about his fingers the moment they saw his award shelf or test scores anyways. Was that why Stanford had always worked so hard on maintaining his intelligence? Because he thought it caused people to overlook his six fingered hands? To help him feel normal? To fit in?

Well that was stupid, Stanley thought. Stanford already had a place to fit in. He didn't need to feel pressured into pleasing other people because the only person whose opinion really mattered didn't care about that at all. The only person who mattered cared about Stanford unconditionally, whether he was smart, or dumb, or a success, or a failure; even if he grew an extra head and a pair of large batwings to go with his six fingers. Neither of them needed to be anything other than themselves or to act a certain way for anyone else's approval. The two of them were a matching pair. They would always fit in together, even if they didn't fit in anywhere else.

"So then… " Stanley trailed on, trying to think of the best way to communicate this obvious truth to his surprisingly clueless brother, "you're saying that it'd point to wherever I was standing, right?"

"Hmm?"

Stanley gave a large toothy smile. "Well, I fit all those criteria ya got, don't I? I mean we're two of a kind. Wherever we go and whatever we do, we'll always fit in together. Right next to each other, that's our place."

Stanford returned the smile, but it was very slight, and it fell from his face rather quickly. He turned his head to stare out at the open sea again.

Dismayed by the lack of affirmation, or the lack of any response really, the smile on Stanley's face petered off as well. He joined his brother in looking out over the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that Stanford was searching for amongst the swelling brine. He saw nothing. They both watched for a long time, for what felt like forever to Stanley. Neither of them moved.

It was deathly quiet. Aside from the low whistling of the wind, there was barely a sound to be heard on the beach. Even the dull roar of the ocean and crashing waves against the rocks and sand was oddly muted. Almost silent.

Stanley wearily reached up to rub his face and was surprised when it felt rough and gritty to the touch. He pulled his hand away and blinked blearily down at the fingers now covered in small flakes of dark red. Dried blood, he noted dully. A white fog began to creep on the edge of his vision.

"Stanley, where are you?" Stanford had turned to him again, but the expression on his face was quite different than it had been before. The look of childish melancholy was completely gone now, replaced by a determined gaze and a tight serious frown. Stanford wasn't here to reminisce; he was all business.

Stanley blinked at him slowly. "What?"

"I'm trying to locate you, but I'm having trouble right now. I need you to wake up."

An overwhelming and inexplicable revulsion sprung up within Stanley, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get as far away from his brother as possible. "Shut up! Go away. I don't need your help."

Stanford's face softened somewhat, and he gently placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Stanley, you're going to die. You need to wake up, you need to live, or else I'll never be able to find you. I need you to help me find you."

Stanley was sorely tempted to try and shove his brother away but stopped himself. He really was going to die, wasn't he? Maybe that wouldn't actually be such a bad thing. Even if he did manage to escape, and that was quite a big 'if', it wasn't like anyone would be waiting there for him once he got out. Was it really worth all that effort, all that suffering, if it wasn't going to bring him any closer to what he really wanted? At least here, though it may only be for a short while, he could still pretend…..

But he couldn't, not really. Even as far back as this, their inevitable split had been apparent. The past was a closed book, written with a terrible foreshadowing that Stanley had only just now caught on his second reading. There was no real comfort to be taken from it. The future, however, was ever changing and full of promise. All Stanley had to do was have the perseverance to see it through to the end. Things would get better. The bond he and his brother shared was worth fighting for. Was worth waiting for.

Even if Stanley forever remained a skeptic in all other areas of his life, he couldn't help but be an optimist here. It was too central to who he was, bound too tightly to the core of his heart, for him to ever truly give up on it.

"The compass." he murmured, "If you're having trouble findin' me use the compass." It seemed like a ridiculous thing to say, and he couldn't help blushing a little and looking away from his brother while he'd said it, but somehow that suggestion made perfect sense to Stanley.

Apparently Stanford thought it was a ridiculous thing to say too if the puzzled tilt of his mouth was anything to go by, "…Ok?" His gaze lowered to the compass in his hands, seeming to take notice of it for the first time.

He looked at Stanley, then to the compass, then back to Stanley again, then back to the compass again. He opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of it, shrugged his shoulders, and then threw the compass directly at Stanley's head. Being practically at point-blank range the projectile had no trouble hitting its mark and did so with a loud, clanging thunk.

"Ahh! Ow. Ow! What the heck was that for!" Black spots swam across Stanley's vision, and his head was aching and reverberating where it had been struck. Pounding.

"Wake up! You need to wake up Stanley. I can't find you otherwise." Stanford's eyes were wide with fear, and he was starting to sound increasingly desperate. "Wake. Up. NOW!"

Stanley blinked again sluggishly, and the bright landscape of Glass Shard Beach transformed into something dim, uniform, and metallic. Stan closed his eyes and rolled over slightly. He was just having a bad dream. A bad memory. He needed to go back to sleep.

All he wanted to do was to just go to sleep.

If he could only….

But he couldn't.

His head was pounding.