"Did you two sleep well last night?"

Ford's voice was calm and casual, but the way his gaze lingered on each kid's face as he waited for a response suggested that there was more to the question than met the eye.

The three were sitting around the hastily-cleared living room table, all of them nibbling away at bowls of dry cereal, as the milk in the fridge no longer resembled milk so much as cream.

Dipper shoved a huge spoonful of cereal in his mouth and made a show of chewing it slowly, giving a shrug as his only response. But the bags under the boy's eyes betrayed his lack of sleep, though Ford's eyes held bags twice as large.

"How about you, Mabel?"

Mabel gulped down the bite of cereal she'd been working on. "Not so great. I had a weird dream about Grunkle Stan, and after that I couldn't really sleep."

Ford's spoon slipped from his hands and clattered against the bowl.

Ford took a deep breath before speaking. "Oh? And what happened in this dream of yours?"

"...well, we hugged, and he told me everything would be okay, but then I realized it was all a dream and I woke up."

"Did he look... different at all? Something strange about his eyes, for instance?"

Dipper gently set his spoon in his bowl, his gaze darting from his sister's face to Ford's and back again as each spoke in turn.

"It wasn't Bill."

"That's not what I asked."

Mabel slouched down in her chair. "But it's what you meant."

Ford stayed silent for a minute, watching Mabel carefully. "You didn't answer the question."

Mabel sat back up and stared at her cereal, half-heartedly pushing it around her bowl with her spoon. "Yeah, his eyes were weird- but not like Bill eyes, just... dark. I dunno. Must be one of those weird dream things."

"...yes, I suppose so. Just one of those dream things."

Silence fell over the room, and one by one they each resumed eating. A few times, somebody paused and opened their mouth as if to speak up, but thought better of it and closed their mouth without saying a word.

Ford was the first to push away his bowl, though it was still half-full, and after picking away at another spoonful Dipper followed suit. Mabel took a minute longer, her bowl almost clean when she stopped.

Ford stood up. "I'm heading down to the basement- actually, I'll get something for you two to work on while I'm at it, alright?"

Two nods and one mumbled "sure" followed as a response.

"Good. I'll meet you back up here."

As Ford headed towards the vending machine and the door that it concealed, Stan edged away from where he had been hiding on the far side of the doorway and followed his brother.

"Hey poindexter, willing to hear me out yet?

Ford paused in front of the vending machine, glancing back at Stan before touching his watch to move the machine aside. "You entered Mabel's dream?"

Stan sighed. "Guessing that's a no."

Ford rushed down the hallway that opened at his command, his back facing Stan the whole way. "I should have known, really. Just because I knew better than to fall asleep when you're around doesn't mean the children-"

"Wait, are you saying you didn't get any sleep last night? At all?"

Ford jabbed at the elevator buttons with significantly more force than the maneuver required. "Of course not."

"'Of course'- you can't just do that to yourself, Ford! Remember Ms. Pedrotti's Latin test? It's not worth it!"

The elevator doors opened, and Ford swung open the door that lay just beyond its boundaries, revealing a room Stan hadn't seen for years, maybe decades (not since half a dozen searches had confirmed that the second journal and the portal notes that it contained were nowhere to be found inside it). Ford's recent work there hadn't changed it greatly from what Stan remembered; there were lots of dusty books, several stacks of papers that looked as though they would fall over if you so much as sneezed on them... and an oversized white tarp draped over what Stan knew to be a number of large golden statues, icons of Bill, apparent friend turned to ultimate foe.

"It's worth it this time." Ford paused, glancing back at Stan. "Or maybe it isn't, given that you seem to pester me just as easily when I'm awake now."

"Yep, looks like I'm stuck haunting you for all eternity. Just what I've always dreamed of." Stan folded his arms against his chest and rolled his eyes as he spoke the final few words.

Ford wandered over to the nearest pile of papers, but didn't sit down in the adjacent chair. "Even corporeally... a side effect of opening the rift, I would assume, though it's only affected me thus far, aside from that little stunt with the salt shaker..." Ford pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead, resting his elbow on top of the pile of papers, and dug his fingers into his hair. "Though I doubt you'll be the one to shed light on that puzzle."

"I would if I could, but you're the one who usually figures this shit out, not me. Get together some fancy-shmancy experiment and do your thing, smart guy."

"I'm sure any experiment you would agree to is one the rest of us would be better off without." Ford sighed as he hastily gathered together a handful of pens and two relatively clean notebooks, then placed them on top of one mound of paper and grabbed the lot, loose sheets fluttering to the ground as he struggled to hold the pile upright.

Scraps of dirty, crumpled paper fell with every step as Ford toddled to the elevator door and from there back to the Shack proper, the mound shifting with every footstep, Ford using his shoulders and chin as much as his hands and arms to keep the neck-high pile under control. Stan didn't even bother trying to pick up after Ford this time; he was beginning to accept that even picking up a stray post-it note was beyond him now.

At the end of the trek, Ford unceremoniously plopped the pile down onto the table where they had eaten breakfast, only afterwards noticing that the children had moved elsewhere, the remnants of their breakfast disappearing with them.

"Dipper? Mabel?"

The children gave no response, but upon listening closely, muddled voices could be heard coming from the kitchen.

Ford's footsteps as he made his way towards the source of the noise were small and cautious, and his eyes scanned the area repeatedly as he walked forward. Stan, less worried about the sound signifying the presence of some ferocious foe (even if danger did lurk around the corner, what more could it do to him?), floated hastily through the wall and into the room.

Dipper and Mabel were poised over the kitchen sink, one side of which was nearly overflowing with suds. Both children's hands were sopping wet, dripping water and bubbles onto the grimy floor, and Dipper had a mound of suds clinging to his shoulder while Mabel sported an impressive bubble beard.

They didn't notice as Stan entered the room, but as Ford stepped inside, the twins turned to face him, their wide smiles turning to sheepish grins.

"What's going on here?"

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look.

"We... we washed the dishes for you, Great-Uncle Ford." Dipper pointed to a pile of dishes, the edge of a bowl and the handles of three spoons sticking out of the water's sudsy surface.

A wry smile crept its way onto Ford's face. "Thank you, children. Now, I brought some papers up that I'd like you two to look at." His gaze moved downwards, lingering on the children's wet hands. "You... may want to dry your hands first."

A few minutes later, the children, dry once more (though Mabel still had a few stubborn bubbles clinging to her chin and Dipper's vest remained damp around the shoulder), joined Ford over by the table as the floating Stan looked on.

"What isall this?" Mabel gazed up at the top of the papers, which towered above the girl's head.

"These are my old research papers. I haven't had time to go through them properly since I got back, but now they may be all that stands between us and utter annihilation. I want you two to read through them and write down anything you see about demons or the rift- and if you find something that might help us take down Bill, come get me immediately. You know where to find me."

Dipper and Mabel nodded in unison, and the two shuffled around pens and papers as they prepared to go to work.

"Good." Ford nodded back at them. "I'm counting on you."

As Ford turned away, heading back towards the basement, Dipper replied, "We're on it, Great-Uncle Ford!" Mabel mimicked Dipper's statement, doing a poor imitation of her brother's overly-enthusiastic voice; Stan couldn't quite make out Dipper's retort, as he and Ford had already reached the vending machine by then and the walls were muffling the sound, but his great-nephew's tone of mixed indignation and amusement was clear enough.

As the two descended into the basement once more, Stan glared at his brother and asked, "What are you playing at, Sixer?"

"I don't know what you mean," Ford said, his voice even and calm as he unlocked the door, all the while refusing to meet Stan's gaze.

"Don't tell me you suddenly forgot everything about Bill and need the kids to put together the pieces- and without you in the room. There's something else going on here. I'm not an idiot, Stanford."

Ford snorted. "You're not an idiot, yet you apparently expect me to divulge my every thought."

"Yeah, yeah, you're so 'mysterious' and 'secretive' and all that- look, you're trying to bullshit a master bullshitter here, and whatever the hell it is you've been doing for the last thirty years, it doesn't seem to have made your piss-poor lying any better."

Ford sat down, practically slamming a nearby notebook onto the table, hunching over it as he scribbled frantically. "The children have work to do now, work just as important as my own-"

"Bullshit."

Ford continued on as though Stan hadn't spoken up. "-and given that our tasks don't directly intersect, it only makes sense that we work separately to avoid distracting one another-"

"Is that what they are to you? A distraction?"

Ford set down his pen and turned his head to look back at Stan. "What?"

"You don't want the kids around because they might be a distraction to that big old brain of yours, is that it? They're not on your level, so you'll just stick them somewhere out of the way while you do the real work?"

Ford sighed and pushed his chair to the side so that he could see Stan more easily, though his hand still rested atop his open notebook, one finger brushing against his pen. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what the hell did you mean? After all they've done with you over the past few weeks- all they've done for you- you really think locking yourself away in a room is better than letting them actually help?"

Ford stood up and roughly shoved his chair aside, looking straight at Stan, who was floating a head's length above.

"Why do you care so much about what Dipper and Mabel are doing?"

"Why don't you?"

Ford sighed, running his hand briskly through his hair, silence lingering in the air for a long moment before he gave his reply. "...this mess is mine to deal with, not theirs."

"Well, you got one thing right there. None of this is their fault, and if you think it is, I-"

"Of course not! And even if it was, they're twelve, things happen, you can't really blame them..."

Stan was suddenly, viscerally reminded of how he'd seen life when he was twelve- how his mind had been filled not with demons or the end of the world, but with fantastic adventures that he had been sure awaited him (awaited them) in the years to come. He could almost feel the splinters digging into his hands, the sun beating onto his skin until it was tender and red, the grains of sand clinging to the spaces between his toes...

But those days were long gone. That old boat he had (they had) worked so hard on had probably rotted away by now, or been taken apart for scrap.

"What's the cut-off point, then?" Stan floated closer to Ford, who leaned backwards slightly but maintained eye contact. "Sixteen?"

"Wh..."

Some small part of Stan took delight in how his brother trailed off before finishing the word, in how Ford's gaze sank to the floor as he fell silent.

Ford didn't stay quiet for long, though, his voice bouncing back with renewed vigor as he pointed up at Stan. "I am not going to sit here and- and squirm for your amusement, Bill! I've already asked you nicely to leave-"

Stan snorted. "If you're talking about our little chat last night, I'd hardly call that 'asking nicely'."

"This is it, Cipher. If you stay here any longer, I will do everything in my power to obliterate you from existence."

"Gee, great offer there, but you know, I think I've had enough wandering the world for one lifetime." Stan wrinkled his nose. "Er, one existence? One somethin'."

Ford sighed, shaking his head grimly. "That's a no, then. You don't expect me to follow through with it, do you? But that's where you're wrong. I know how to stop you, Bill, and I won't hold back, no matter what face you're wearing."

Stan and Ford locked eyes, and Stan searched his brother's eyes for even the slightest hint of uncertainty or hesitation, but all he could see within them was fire and rage.

Stan wondered what Ford saw in his eyes.

Stan wondered if Ford saw anything at all besides the black and gold.