Ford smirked as he walked away from his brother's room. He had managed to snatch his brother's medical records just as he was leaving and no one had even noticed.

He had been trying to look at them ever since Stan had awoken and the doctor had made it clear that it wasn't his place to look at him. So what if Soos was Stan's emergency contact, Stan was his brother and he had every right to see what was going on with him. He had no clue if the doctor was even telling him the truth about not knowing what had caused the heart attack since he had been so rudely shoved him out.

His brother was hiding something and he didn't like it.

Ford paused outside of the hospital's small chapel. He paused and gave it a thought before going in. It certainly wasn't for his religion, which he couldn't even remember the last time he had practiced, but no one would probably barge in or think to look for him here.

He settled in one of the small pews and pulled out the records from his coat. He flipped to the most recent pages. He scowled as it basically said everything Strange had told them –

Ford blinked. Under the medications, right next to the ones she had mentioned he'd need for his heart attack, there was one he didn't recognize. He frowned at it as he hadn't even heard it mentioned.

What was citalopram?

For a moment, he felt a bit of panic. After all, what if this doctor was slipping some experimental drug to his brother? Then he noticed the notation next to it.

It's a renewal?

Continuing to frown, Ford began to flip back through the pages to see how long Stan had been taking this medicine, and hopefully find what it was treating. Absently, he noticed different injuries as he went on: strained muscles, pulled muscles, putting out his back (apparently at least twice if the notation was right; then again Ford was going back in time with the records), scratches from something. Then he caught a word that made him pause and the blood drain from his face.

A couple of years ago, Stan had had a stroke.

That was as serious as a heart attack, and his brother had been even younger than they were now.

It was then that it fully hit Ford that everything he had seen in his brother's file so far had all taken place within the last few years. Though surprisingly it seemed this was one of the few times Stan had had to visit this summer since the kids arrived.

Ford adjusted his glasses and looked at the incident more closely.

Apparently, Soos tended to check up on Stan during the winter even though there usually weren't many tourists. One day, he arrived to see that Stan was unconscious and unresponsive. He called an ambulance and it had turned out that he had suffered from a stroke. It was because of this stroke that Stan lost most of his hearing in his left ear, requiring him to wear his hearing aide.

"Huh." To Ford, it looked like the treatment was actually similar to what Stan was going to have to do now. And from the sound of it, Stan hadn't really been doing that in the meantime , as it had probably contributed to his current state.

More curious now than anything else, Ford flipped back further. His brow furrowed more and more as he saw the injuries and illnesses really started to pile up. He couldn't believe his brother had taken such poor care of himself over the years.

He paused a few moments as he came across the burn and infection Strange had mentioned, the one he had caused. He moved past it quickly enough after though.

While flipping through, Ford had taken note of the medicine that had started his search through the files. Apparently it had gone through various different kinds of medicine; notes were made each time one was replaced to serve the same purpose. He continued to follow it though.

Eventually, he found the source. It was records from a prison psychologist. What could have…

A tight grip fell on his shoulder, making him jump. A deep sense of foreboding fell over Ford as he slowly looked up…

Right into the furious face of Dr. Strange.

It was an odd kind of fury, some sort of mix of the disappointment and disapproval of a mother and the rage of a doctor seeing their patient threatened. Whatever it was, it was giving Ford the willies.

Considering where he'd been over the last 30 years, that was a pretty hard feat.

"Enjoying a good read?" Strange asked with a restrained smile.

"Uh…" Before Ford could formulate a proper response, the medical records were yanked out of his hands. "Hey!"

"You know, if I didn't realize it would only take a second for you to escape Blubs and Durland's custody, I could charge you for such a gross invasion of patient privacy." She snapped the files closed with a flick of her wrist.

"Well, you won't tell me anything!" Ford protested.

"Really? That does not explain why you were looking at records from well over 30 years ago…" Her judgmental stare weighed heavily on him, making him flinch again. "If you want to know any more than you've been told, which is basically everything pertaining to the current situation, you should talk to your brother."

Ford snorted, "As if Stanley would give permission for me to look at his records."

"Gee, I wonder why he wouldn't… You seem like such a caring and compassionate brother. I mean, rather than asking permission to look into his private affairs, you immediately steal his records and sneak off." She ignored his indignant squawk with a roll of her eyes. "Seriously though," her tone turning serious, "you should talk to him."

Ford looked away. Strange seemed to be implying that they should talk about more than just Stan's medical history. She was wrong though.

There was nothing he needed to discuss with his brother.

She sighed as if sensing this wasn't going anywhere. "In any case," she said, "visiting hours are almost over and I believe Mr. Ramirez is here to take you and the children home." She waited as he got up and left the chapel before her. "And Dr. Pines," he stopped for a moment, "just consider that maybe you don't want to know what your brother's been through."

Ford glanced back at her. "Why wouldn't I?" He couldn't really think of why he wouldn't.

Her eyes were cold as she stared back at him. "Because from what I can tell, you didn't care enough to know before." With that, Dr. Strange walked towards where he assumed her office was located.

Ford pondered over her words as he collected the kids, while waving goodbye to his brother distractedly, and braced himself through Soos's driving.

It was only as he was putting the kids to bed, at Stan's request, that he realized that he had an untapped source of information. "Kids," Ford asked as he tucked Mabel under her blanket, "do you know about any pills Stanley might be taking?"

"Y'mean besides his happy pills?" Mabel answered cheerfully enough.

"His what?" Ford had never heard of such a thing.

"She means his antidepressants." Dipper rolled his eyes. "He also sometimes takes a pain reliever if his aches are too bad, but those are all stuff you can pick up in the pharmacy aisle." He frowned. "Why do you want to know?"

Ford noted that both Dipper and Mabel were acting like their normal selves for this entire conversation. They actually seemed really nonchalant about the whole antidepressant thing, despite the fact that just the word alarmed him. After all, why would his brother need such a thing? "Nothing," he said, "I just saw he was getting a prescription renewal, and wondered what he might be getting."

"Okay." That seemed to be enough of an explanation for them and they doubled down for the night.

"Good night, Dipper, Mabel." Ford turned off the light and left the room.

As he returned to the ground floor, he thought over what he had learned and the few clues he had gained through his short perusal of his brother's records. It all added up to one thing.

Apparently, Ford did not know his brother as well as he thought he did.

He might have to actually talk to him.

AN: Citalopram is one of the most commonly prescribed anti-depressants. I spent over an hour looking up different medications to try to determine which one Stan would most likely have. Also, the incident that Soos and Wendy kept alluding to earlier was the stroke he had a few years ago. While researching strokes and their treatment, I learned that they're basically heart attacks for the brain and the treatments are really similar.

Now, before I get hate about how Ford totally does care, I already know that. Heck, Ford just stole Stan's records because he was worried about him (and because he's nosy but that's beside the point). I originally had this idea when Ford was still being a butthead though and we all thought it would take something extremely bad for him to pull himself out (which is true).

Plus, it is true that Ford really didn't pay much mind to what his brother had been doing during the 10 year gap. This is pretty much shown in the journal where he would cross out mentions of when his brother crossed his mind (when they were positive) and the only clear things he wrote about his bro-bro before Weirdmaggedon tended to be negative. He cares but he was still hanging onto those petty grudges. Plus, Pines men in their generation didn't talk about anything (hence why they had so many problems).

So like I said, Ford cares, he's always cared, but he has tended to act like a doodoo head and denied it down to his very soul.