An hour or so later, though, Ford's sulk-I mean, important work was interrupted by the sound of the elevator, and then the clomping of feet.

He turned to see the hairless gopher handyman-Soos, his name was Soos-step through the doorway, holding a large plate.

"Uh, hey, Other Mr. Pines!" he greeted him, smiling hesitantly. "I, um, was just wondering if you'd like a cookie shaped like a dinosaur?" He held out the plate for Ford's inspection, allowing him to see that it did indeed contain cookies, which were indeed shaped like dinosaurs. "They're my abuelita's special recipe for helping with sadness."

"I'm not sad," Ford retorted, even as he stepped forward to take a cookie for courtesy's sake.

Soos tilted his head. "Really? Cuz your eyebrows are totally doing the same thing Mr. Pines's do when he's sad." He began scrunching his own eyebrows together, presumably in an imitation of Stanley's.

Ford's hand leaped up to cover his eyebrows…and after a moment of embarrassingly awkward silence, he decided to invest himself in tasting his new cookie.

Based on the colored frosting decorating the outside, he'd expected it to be an ordinary sugar cookie, but to his surprise, instead it tasted of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon, and-were those almonds mixed in? They provided a pleasantly crunchy texture that he hadn't been expecting.

He swallowed the bite when he finished chewing.

"Ahem. These are…very interesting cookies." Then, realizing that might not sound entirely complimentary, he added, "Well done."

Soos beamed at him, in a way that reminded Ford of Mabel. "Gee, thanks, Other Mr. Pines!"

Ford took another bite of the cookie. Then he asked, feeling like Soos deserved some sort of payment for his kindness, "...Is there something I can do for you in return?"

The gopher man frowned in thought for a moment…and then brightened. "Could you make a laser cannon that shoots disco-style lasers?"

The randomness of the request was…unexpected, to put it mildly. "...What on earth for?"

"For parties and stuff, dude! It'd be totally rad-whoa!" He'd lifted his arms to do a dramatic gesture in accompaniment with the word 'rad,' and nearly sent the rest of the cookies flying before he caught the plate, and then set it down on the table.

Ford…was honestly at a loss for a response.

"Just think about it, yeah?" Soos made a finger gun gesture at him, which seemed to be meant out of friendliness, and then smacked into the doorway as he left.

Despite himself, Ford smiled a little, out of amusement at the handyman's antics- and maybe just a little because he was touched by the open friendliness, which was comforting after the morning's disaster.

As he went back to work, he continued munching the cookie, and when he finished it he took another one from the plate.


Stan had eventually been herded by Soos back into the living room, where his handyman settled him in his chair with a soft blanket, a big bowl of ice cream, and the remote (which he may or may not have used to search for The Duchess Approves before settling on some mindless violence), while Soos baked some cookies shaped like dinosaurs in the kitchen as an extra treat.

For a while he lost himself in glorious hedonism…until Wendy came thumping down the stairs from the attic.

"...The kids okay?" Stan asked as she reached the ground floor.

She gave him a flat stare. "Aside from being stressed out and upset cuz their uncles keep fighting and one of them told them to leave if they didn't like it? Oh, they're just peachy."

Yeah, pretty sure I deserve that.

"I told them you probably didn't mean it, though, and that if you did I was gonna kick your butt until you took it back."

"You don't haveta do that, kid."

A tiny bit of tension-or disappointment, knowing her it could go either way-went out of her shoulders. "Good. But they probably still wanna hear it from you."

"I know."


Maybe it was cowardly of him, but Stan finished his ice cream first.

He even took the dishes to the kitchen and washed them.

Then he grabbed a plate of Soos's freshly baked dinosaur cookies, and headed up to the attic, where for once he bothered to knock, before opening the door without actually waiting for an invitation to come in.

The kids were curled up together on Dipper's bed, wrapped in a blanket and clearly snuggling for comfort, with Waddles resting his head in Mabel's lap.

Stan's heart clenched when he saw how they both flinched when they saw it was him-and even more when he noticed the edge of Mabel's suitcase poking out from under her bed.

"Kids…I got something I wanna say to the two o' you."

There was only one way he could think of that might adequately express to Mabel how sorry he was about lashing out at her in a way that she'd understand.

Shutting the door just in case, he set aside the cookies, and after a moment of shuffling awkwardly he began to sing.

"I'm Stan, and I was wrong

I'm singing the Stan Wrong Song…"

He even did the kicks, ignoring how his joints groaned in protest.

When it was over, he hesitantly looked at the kids to gauge their reaction.

They looked at him, then at each other…and then Dipper slowly produced his video camera from under the blanket, grinning.

"That was probably your best take yet."

"Oh come on!" Stan stomped forward, trying to snatch the camera; immediately Mabel leaped at him to protect her brother, and before long all three of them wound up on the floor in a pile of laughter.


"I really am sorry," Stan finally admitted when he'd calmed down a little. The phrase felt foreign, and burned almost as much as 'please' did, but not enough to make him want to take it back. "I don't want either of you leaving, I was just being dumb."

"Thanks, Grunkle Stan." Mabel snuggled into the crook of his arm and munched a cookie. "But you know what would really, really, really help me feel better?"

Stan rubbed his chin. "...A batch of Stan-cakes covered in syrup with glitter in it?"

"Besides that." She sat up and looked down at him with wide puppy eyes. "It would feel great if you'd talk things out with Great Uncle Ford-"

His ebullience dropped away immediately. "Not gonna happen."

Seeing the disappointment in her eyes-in both kids' eyes-hurt.

"Why not?!" Mabel demanded. "Don't you wanna be brothers again? After all your hard work getting him back? Then you wouldn't have to fight over the house, and I could make you 'Best Brother Ever' sweaters, and we could all watch Ducktective and fight monsters together and stuff!"

Stan sighed, and sat up too, running his fingers through his hair.

"...It doesn't matter what I want, Mabel," he muttered. "Cuz it takes two to wanna fix a relationship, and Ford…"

He didn't mean to say it, but it came slipping out in a hollow, tired whisper anyway, just like when he'd had to wear those stupid truth teeth.

"...Ford couldn't care less if I'm alive or dead."

"...Grunkle Stan, don't say that. Don't you say that!" Mabel scolded in shock, shaking a tiny finger at him. "Great Uncle Ford loves you!"

"Yeah? Prove it. Give me one scrap of evidence he's shown ever since he got back." Much to his own disgust, a tiny flicker of hope welled up that she would be able to give him something through the Power of Mabel or whatever.

Mabel stammered, and then frowned in thought.

"Um-well, he-he hasn't tried to-when he needed-Dipper, back me up here!"

Dipper looked the way Stan felt regarding Mabel's optimism, but he gave a similar stammer to his sister's before muttering, "...Maybe he's just really bad at showing it."

Stan shook his head and sighed again, as the flicker faded. "Yeah. Didn't think so."


Outside the doorway, a floorboard creaked.

But the Pines family was used to the house making strange random noises, and didn't notice.


I'm among the probably 5% of the world's population who does not like sugar cookies.

Give me a good chocolate chip or ginger cookie any day. Or a Keebler Coconut Dream. Or a Milano raspberry chocolate cookie.

Basically something with filling that doesn't have frosting on the outside.