o

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interlude:

these last days

The sun is bright over the north Atlantic, bouncing off the swaying waves. The rippling sheen flickers in the foam and the curling tips of the swells that wash against the side of the Stan 'o War II. Ford stands at the bow, watching as the prow of the ship cuts through the sea, pointing the way home.

He's answered many questions in the past months. He's attained goals he had once only dreamed of, charting anomalous activity in the dimensional membrane with an accuracy achievable only in the new digital age he now finds himself in. It feels like only yesterday that he and Fiddleford couldn't have wrangled the kind of processing power they had wanted even with unlimited funding. These days the phones that rest in most people's pockets are more advanced than the machinery which controlled the portal. Ford witnessed some strange and advanced civilizations in his travels, but it still makes him marvel to see how far his own planet has come in a scant thirty years. A digital revolution, indeed. The Information Age.

Lately, he's been interested in a more personal brand of information, not just the kind that sparks through microchips and writes to new media. Over the course of their months at sea, Ford has sought every story he can from Stanley regarding the twins. He had found himself with new family the second he'd exited the portal and had been surprised at how quickly he grew fond of them. He had been so afraid, at the end, that he would lose them before he really got to know them.

Stan's stories are a delight. It's hard to miss the thirty years' worth of life on Earth—it's too much, too soon. But he does wish he had come back just a little earlier, even if only by a month or two, because with every story and anecdote involving the twins, he finds himself missing the rest of that summer. Stan's retelling of their birth hits Ford especially hard. He should have been there to welcome them into the world.

Of course, for all his reminiscing about his niece and nephew it is his own doing that separates them with endless miles of ocean, he thinks with a slight twist of his lips. He's done his best to stay in touch and he's been successful, for the most part, but he can't help but think that he's allowed his work to come between himself and his family again. It's a divide he intends to address as soon as he returns to the mainland. A day not too far off, if his GPS is correct.

There are other questions he has; ones he hasn't permitted himself to ask. Dipper and Mabel represent his new life, one he's eager to establish. Other questions can only dredge up a past he wasn't there for. He's held his tongue, knowing he won't like the answers.

It's not like him. He prefers the truth, even when it's unpleasant (and it so often is). But so help him, he's always wanted one more day with Stanley without the specters between them raising their ghostly heads. It's been a revelation, becoming brothers again. He'll do anything not to ruin that.

But it's time.

He turns from the view and walks back to the bridge. Stanley is inside at the helm, a cup of coffee in one hand and the wheel in the other. The sea is calm, and their course is set. Ford settles into the second chair.

"What, is it your turn already?" Stan asks.

"No, no. Not much to see at the moment. Clear sailing ahead." Ford rubs at his stubble, wondering if this really is the time. The thought is cowardly, and he quashes it. "Stanley, I wanted to ask you some things."

Stan sighs and sets his coffee mug down. "Yeah, I figured this was coming."

Well, Ford probably shouldn't be surprised. Stanley has become far more perceptive with the decades gone by than he ever had been in youth. "We don't have to if you don't—"

"No, you need to hear it. But it's gonna be hard. You know that, right?"

"I do," Ford says solemnly.

Stan is quiet for a long moment, his distant gaze fixed on the horizon. The rhythm of the waves vibrates through the vessel, along with the steady hum of the engine.

"We lost Mom first," he says abruptly. "That was in '89. Emphysema. You know how she loved those lousy Lucky Strikes."

Ford is thrust into vivid memory: The smell of tobacco on the old plaid couch, the flicker of a match in the dark. Ford and Stan, stealing cigarettes and sticking them behind their ears, convinced they looked like G.I.s, pretend-storming the beaches of Jersey on overcast days. A raspy cough in the morning, accompanying shuffling slippers and the sound of frying eggs.

"The funeral was the first time I'd seen Dad since what happened," Stan continues.

"What did he say?" Ford asks, concerned at how much worse that could have made things between them.

"We didn't talk. I don't think he or Mom ever heard about my fake death. I've had so many other identities that when I 'died' it woulda taken some work to connect the dots all the way to Jersey. When I took your name, I thought I was gonna have to bust out my impression of you on a regular basis, but I guess you didn't talk to the rents much more than I did. Only had to write a few times."

It's true. Ford had been consumed by his studies and then by his research. The phone calls to Mother had become fewer and farther between, the letters less frequent. "Dad and I… Well, things never were the same again after he kicked you out. I know that doesn't make up for—"

"Hey, we got a great thing goin' here," Stan interrupts. "Let's not dig that up, okay? We're good, you and me. Let's stay good."

Ford smiles crookedly. "Of course, Stanley."

Stan takes a long swig of his coffee, as if he's fortifying himself. "…Dad went in '98. Heart attack, but not bad like in the movies, just… He went to the hospital and he never left. Still lived alone in our old place above the shop, right up to the end. Shermie took care of everything, but I went over in '99, just to see the place before it was sold. I thought, I don't know, I might…" Stan shrugs almost angrily, like there's an insect digging at his neck and he's trying to dislodge it. "I don't know. I shouldn't've bothered. Didn't even recognize the neighborhood, all gentrified or whatever they call it. Less character, more coffee shops."

Ford had already been certain there wasn't anything left for him in New Jersey, so the confirmation doesn't come as much of a shock. What comes next probably will. He hasn't heard anything about Shermie since his arrival, but that is, in its way, a form of bad news. All that's left is learning the why and the how.

"And Shermie?" Ford says thickly.

He sees his older brother in his mind's eye. Shermie was tall and boisterous and charismatic in a way the twins never were. He'd been good with people; with women, especially. An athlete, a crowd-pleaser, quick with a joke or a compliment. He'd been the bridge, the voice of reason whenever flare ups occurred between Stan and their father, whenever Ford's introverted tendencies drew parental exasperation. The dynamic of the family had shifted when Shermie moved out. Ford can't help but wonder how things might have ended differently if Shermie had still been around for the finishing catastrophe of Stan and Ford's senior year.

Stan's jaw tightens. This is the hardest one, for sure. Ford honestly hadn't expected his parents to still be around, not after thirty years. He had hoped, but not expected. Shermie should still be here.

Stan stares down into his coffee cup. "You know I avoided him? Shermie woulda seen right through me. He always could tell us apart. Twenty years and maybe ten phone calls, a dozen letters. Some brother I turned out to be." He drains the rest of his coffee in a single swig and smacks it down, hard. "It was '03. He was living in Colorado. Wanted to be closer to his son, I think, just didn't make it all the way. But he was an East Coast kid at heart, even more than us."

Ford needs to know. "How?"

"Car accident," Stan says, and he suddenly looks older, like the memory has settled on his shoulders. "Nothing dramatic. Nobody was drunk, nobody was speeding or yakkin' on their phone. Just black ice and some poor woman with three kids in the back and bad brakes. When she spun out, the tail end crossed lanes and tapped Shermie's rear axle, and that was it. He hit a tree, driver door first. He either died on the way to the hospital or in the ER, I wasn't ever clear on which. I guess it don't matter."

"No," Ford says, heart aching, "I suppose it doesn't."

They sit in silence for what could only be a minute or so, but it feels like hours. Two men, one rewrapping an old wound and the other freshly injured. Ford needs time to grieve. He must absorb a loss that happened a decade ago to everyone but him. He doesn't know how to come to grips with the great weight he's been handed. He can hide behind his intellect, rationalize, minimize, distance and distract himself; it will still be there, waiting.

"Dipper and Mabel don't really remember him," Stan says sadly. "And I don't got any pictures, or at least I didn't find any."

"In my study, perhaps," Ford murmurs, thinking about it. "You didn't have access to the second level, but whatever family mementos I kept would be there."

"Shermie left everything to his son and he had whatever Dad kept, so the kids might have already seen more than whatever we can dig up," Stan says.

"That's something, at least."

"Yeah."

They sit together in silence, ruminating. It occurs to Ford that, as much as they've lost, it isn't as if they haven't also gained.

"I want to see them, when we get back," he says to his brother. "Shermie's boy, I mean. And the twins."

"I figured." Stan blows out a breath and grimaces. "I hope you remember how to drive, because I ain't doing it all myself."

"Oh, I've been behind the wheel of a few interesting machines," Ford recalls. "Some of them bore adequate resemblance to a car. I'm sure I'll do fine."

"Famous last words," Stan grunts, and it probably would have gotten a smile out of them if the news about Shermie wasn't hanging heavy in the air.

That evening, Ford stands at the prow of the boat again. The sun turns the waters orange, dyeing the horizon in its layered, darkening shades. He knows he's looking at the longer wavelengths of color not filtered out at the angle the sun's rays are striking the atmosphere, color made even more vibrant by pollution. Still, the familiar hues of the Earth's sun are comforting after so much time away. Despite all the places he's been and all the things he's seen, Earth still has beauty to offer.

Somewhere to the west—past the curving edge of the horizon, across the vast plains and mountain spines, resting at the far edge of the North American continental plate—lies California, and two people who have become in such short a time so very vital to him. It's been a lifetime since he formed connections like that.

This time, he's determined to never let go.