This was-This was-suspicious? No. The truth was, Stanford Pines wasn't completely certain how to describr the situation he was in right now.
He had been doing some work while Bill watched him, and suddenly Bill had told him he had calculated some square footage incorrectly, promptly correcting it. It was 11:36 P.M., so naturally both twins were in bed, and couldn't save him.
So he just watched as Bill, who seemed completely oblivious to how awkward this was, went down the page like a teacher grading homework, marking and fixing mistakes as he saw them. After what was only a few minutes but seemed an eternity to Ford, Bill ran out of math to analyze, and looked up.
"So?"
"So what?"
"Why'd you stop?"
There was a long pause.
"Because you're being weird. Shoo."
Bill pouted a moment, then got up and walked away, leaving Ford to himself.
Mostly.
Juniper watched him, her eyes full of hurt and pain and fear, but aĺso curiousity. She didn't know him, didn't get him or why he did this. She had figured Bill had done something not-quite-right to Ford, but she was unsure of what. She knew he was the Hand. She had met one of them once, and she knew from reading that they were stubborn, intelligent, and oftentimes had some connection to the Mackerel, or had met the Centerpeice before their chance to use the zodiac.
She frowned. Stubbon, inteligent people were the hardest to manipulate. She would not be getting out of her cage easily.
Then Ford turned to her.
She tensed.
"Who are you, really?" He questioned.
She thought of replying like her brother always did-he would have said 'Who are any of us, really?'' Because he was Bill and he was snarky like that when he thought he was in control-but surveying the burns that had slowly crept from her fingers down to her wrists, decided against it.
"I told you who I was."
"Bill disgrees. He says that he was responsible for all the 'amazing, super-cool' damage he'd done, and that you would never come up with it in a million years."
"Bill doesn't know what he's talking about."
"If he knows tough did it, Then why lie?"
"You should be asking me the same thing."
And that, my friends, is how you shut up a Stanford Pines.
He glared at her, then went back to his math.
A machine in the other side of the room beeped.
He looked up.
"Did you hear that?" He asked her.
She nodded.
He stood.
Then time stopped.
Then time restarted.
Later.
Much later.
Yes, I am aware this chapter was two hundred words shorter than my goal. I'm working on the Christmas chapter. Also, spoilers. Sort of. As Bill will pont out in the Christmas chapter, the future depends on the choices we make. Also, they'll travel into the future in the Cristmas chapter. And meet future them. Also, please don't hate me.