Oh, wow. This turned out a lot more angst-y than originally planned. I should really write a happy chapter. Give you guys a breather from all the intensity.


Chapter Twelve: Time Heals No Wounds

Gravity Falls, Oregon, 1997

A week.

It had been one week since the fire, and Stan was ready to completely lose his mind.

Echo had refused to tell him what had happened in that fire, and Stan had assumed that she just needed some time wrap her mind around it.

But, after a week, Stanley Pines was done waiting.

So, after Echo got back from her shift - she'd been working as a waitress in Greasy's Diner, because she wanted to make her own money, which he understood completely - Stan grabbed her by her shirt and threw her on the couch. When she cussed at him and tried to get up, he plopped down beside her and grabbed her shoulders, holding her firmly in place and completely ignoring her shouts about harassment.

"One week, Echo," he reminded. She stopped struggling and looked curiously at him. Convinced that she wasn't going to leave and or slug him, he released her shoulders and explained as calmly as his temper would allow. "It's been a whole damn week since that fire, and you still haven't told me what happened!" Okay, so it wasn't very calm at all. Echo suddenly seemed extremely interested in twirling her long white and gray hair around her finger. Stan threw his hands up in annoyance. "My God, woman! You're as stubborn as I am!"

"What happened doesn't concern you."

Stan gaped at her then sighed. "Listen, kid-"

"I'm thirty-one."

"Still a lot younger than me." Dammit, why wouldn't she just look at him already? "Echo, I...I'm worried, okay? Ever since that fire, you've acting like my mom after her tenth cup of coffee. Now, I'm not asking for every detail. I just wanna know-"

Echo turned to him, and if looks could kill, Stan would have been a lifeless heap on the floor. "You just wanna know? You just wanna fucking know?" She let out a mocking laugh. "Pops, trust me when I say that the last thing you need to know is what happened."

"Why? Why are so determined to keep this from me?" His voice was steadily getting louder. He didn't care. "Do you know how scared I was? Dammit, I thought you were dead!"

"I wish I was!" Echo clamped her mouth shut, her skin almost as white as her hair.

Shock and horror overcame his worried anger as her words played through his head like a broken record. Stan's yelling dimmed to a whisper. "What happened?"

Echo leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Stan let her silently mull over what she would tell him. "Mallory showed up." Stan recalled her mentioning Mallory Rogers. (Still couldn't place how he knew the name though.) "I don't know why she was there, and I don't particularly give a shit." Echo huffed a bitter chuckle at a memory. "Bitch tried to convince me that Guardian was the good guy. Then…" Echo turned her head away from him. "Mallory has a special kind of fire manipulation."

"That makes two of you," Stan said before he could stop himself, recalling and cringing at the memory of getting seared with that golden flame. The pain deep enough that it had felt like his very bones were melting. He'd been burned before, and he had the odd-looking brand on his back to prove it, but that day in the forest…

Echo nodded. "Yeah… We were quite literally fighting fire with fire. She threw the first shot. I...I-I should have let her kill me."

Stan couldn't believe his own ears. Where was the strong, unshakable woman he'd come to love like a daughter? "What? Why- You- How could you even think that?"

Echo finally turned to him, tears staining her cheeks and slicing Stan wide open. "That power's called a Shimmer Flame. It's one of the most powerful abilities known to the multiverse. But, it's also highly toxic to the user." She sniffed and furiously wiped at her eyes. "It's addictive, Stan. It's the ultimate high, that power." She blinked in a vain attempt herself of the fresh tears. "I used the power to bring down the forest fire...but I nearly ki-illed you." Stan reached out a hand and wiped at her now-free-flowing tears. "I'm dangerous, Stan. I don't know how you survived, but next time you might not. Use the Shimmer Flame too much, and you're hooked. And, you can't even function without burning something. People go mad from it, Stan." A sob broke out of her. "I-I just wanna die before it gets to that point-"

"Stop it," Stan demanded. "Don't you dare think like that, Echo." He cupped her wet cheeks, forcing her to look at him. "The only danger you possess is being a grade-A bitch."

But, she didn't so much as smile at the joke. "Just throw me out while you can. You'll be safer that way."

Stan's heart shattered completely.

Until you make us a fortune, you aren't welcome in this household.

It had broken him enough when his father threw him out before he'd even finished high school. And, now Echo wanted to get tossed out… No. Never. Stan didn't care if she erupted in flames here and now. He wouldn't become his father. "Echo, you're staying here. I don't give half a damn about how 'dangerous' you think you are. It's not like you asked to be a snark, right? You can't help having some fire-power-"

"I'm not a snark. My parents were snarks, so I have the squirrel-thing and memory erasing, but I'm not classified as a snark."

Stan let that sink in...and it did not make sense. "Kid, you lost me."

Echo sighed and ran a hand through her bangs, a habit he'd noticed. "How do I explain? It's...sort of a mess-up with genetics or something? I-I really don't get the science-aspect of it. It's rare, but sometimes there's some weird thing that happens during pregnancy. No one knows what exactly it is, but it results in a baby that's a different species than its parents. A species referred to as a mutant."

Stan sat back on the couch and crossed his arms, thinking over this new information. "And...you're a mutant?"

"Yeah. The Shimmer Flame is an ability exclusive to mutants. Everyone's afraid of us because of that, and I can't say I blame them."

"Stop that."

"What?"

Brown eyes narrowed at black ones. "Stop belittling yourself. It's…weird hearing someone as badass as you hate on yourself." And, it scared the living hell out of him, but he wasn't about to admit that.

At last - at long, frigging last - Echo smiled. Rolled her eyes and said, "If anyone's weird, Pops, it's you," but smiled.

"Echo, listen to me." Stan put a callused hand on her bony shoulder. "I don't care if you're a snark or a mutant. Hell, I don't care if you're a unicorn, and those things are even bigger assholes than we are." Echo giggled and punched him in the arm, knocking his hand off her shoulder. Stan smiled, the only visible indication that he was relieved to see her back to her old self. "Far as I'm concerned, ya ain't some psycho-bitch. You're just a regular bitch, and I can handle regular bitches far better than psycho ones."

Echo grinned at him, then she tilted her head, observing him. Stan forced himself not to shrink back. The staring made him go from happy to creeped out in less than three seconds. He was about to ask what the hell was so fascinating about his face, when she spoke, her voicing almost longing. "You know something? My dad died when I was a baby, and my mom didn't want a mutant-daughter. She shoved me in an orphanage that sucked balls, so I grew up without a decent parent." Before Stan had a chance to process that, she titled her head to the other side and said, "I bet things would have been pretty great if you'd been my dad instead of whoever actually was."

Stan was floored. Him. She wanted him to be her father. Her childhood sucked more balls than his did, and she thought that he, of all people, would have made it better. His breathing hitched in his throat, and he threw his arms around the girl he wished he could have fathered. He held on tighter and buried his face in her thick hair as she returned his embrace.

"Stan, are you crying?"

"It's d-dusty in here." He sniffed hard. "Don't ruin the moment."

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I think we all know by now that Stan is a closet-sweetheart. Review!