Ford knew later he had overreacted to the robotic cat prowling around his garden. But to be fair, it was the size of a young cougar, and it had gleaming red LED eyes locked on Dipper.

"DIPPER GET DOWN!"

In a flash, the robot's head was blown off in a spray of metal and sparks milliseconds after Ford shot at it. Dipper had reacted immediately to Ford's warning, falling to the ground the second he yelled, and was unharmed but stunned.

The mechanical beast toppled over on impact, its head in broken pieces all over the place. Ford ran over, hardly glancing at Dipper to investigate the robot. Its metal legs still jerked and twitched in an unsettling manner, three jagged blades jutting out of each paw. Its body was an amalgamation of various scrap metals and duct tape. Where its head had blown off, he could see circuits inside lighting up, still attempting to make connections.

Dipper had gotten up and went to stand beside him. "Wow, it's been a while since I've been attacked by a robot. That one looks like shit."

"Language Dipper," Ford reminded him gently, though he wasn't really bothered in this case, the attack droid did look like shit. How dare it attack Dipper. Who could have made this?

Of course this first thought was Fiddleford, but when he last checked, his old research partner was no longer in the business of building evil robots. And there was a symbol etched into its side, an unusual-looking blue hourglass with a name underneath it in bold type…

Before Ford could get a close enough look, a harsh voice yelled, "Noooo! What did you do?"

Startled with adrenaline pumping in his veins, Ford immediately aimed his weapon in the direction of the voice. A woman had come stumbling out of the woods towards the downed robot, but she halted immediately with Ford's gun pointed at her, throwing gloved hands in the air.

She was several yards away towards the edge of the woods, but Ford could see even from that distance that there was a glowing hourglass on each palm of her gloves. The woman was completely disheveled, quite possibly homeless, with long, matted blond hair and wearing a tattered black trenchcoat. A scarf covered the lower half of her face. Frozen, she began stammering in a panicked voice, "Hey calm down, I just want my property back, put that thing away!"

Ford kept pointing his gun at her as he yelled back. "Your robot was about to attack a child. Explain yourself."

The woman's introduction came out in a jumbled rush with occasional interruptions to collect her thoughts. But about halfway through, Ford realized she was lying. "M-my name is Lila, I'm an inventor, I just got into town and I got lost, swear on my life, I don't know why Trinity wanted to attack a child, she's not supposed to do that, she's never done that before, she was hunting for me, not for meat but for y-y-your peppers over there, Oh fuck, I'm sorry ijustwantedsomefreshpeppers, I should have asked instead of sending Trinity…"

Ford and Dipper listened in stunned silence for a moment as the woman tried to explain herself in a plausible way, failed miserably, and then just dissolved into quiet crying and stuttering with her hands still held up in the air. It was so pathetic, Ford felt the need to say something reassuring, but he would not put his gun away until he was positive she did not pose a threat. "I am not going to shoot you. Take a few deep breaths. Take your time. Explain yourself when you're ready. Hands where I can see them."

She listened.

Ford watched her closely as she looked at the sky and tried to calm herself. Yes, she was most definitely homeless, judging by the rips along her coat and pants and the way he couldn't really tell what the original color of her clothes were from the amount of grime on them. And one of her eyes, he could see, was clouded with cataracts while the other was blue. The distinctive hourglass marks on her gloves clearly matched the symbol on her robot pet.

It was scratching something in Ford's brain, a flicker of familiarity he tried to grasp by studying her face. He couldn't get a read on how old she was. She had clearly lived a hard life judging by the various scars on her face, the ones he could see on the top half that wasn't covered by her scarf, but she barely had any gray or white in her hair.

After a while, she turned her eyes downward again in Ford and Dipper's general direction. When she spoke, she sounded much more calm and well-spoken, far from on the verge of a panic attack like she had been a moment ago. "I'm ready now. My name is Delilah Silbergeist. I'm a linguist and computer scientist."

Ford's eyes widened as she admitted her name and the pieces clicked together in his mind. He was stunned enough to drop his gun to his side, even at the introduction of just her name, because he realized he had read about her since returning from the nightmare realm. Silbergeist. Of course. He was positive he had a book of hers back in the basement, something he had grabbed to learn more about the current state of Artificial Intelligence. And the symbol that was on her robot and gloves, it was the logo of the infamous Animus Nova Enterprises that had gone bankrupt around three years ago. Ford wouldn't have remembered this at all if he hadn't read about it while catching up on news and tech he had missed out on while sailing with Stanley, but it stuck in his mind both because of the company's logo and because the bankruptcy was connected to a murder that took place at the same time, a murder rumored to have been caused by an AI gone rogue. And at the same time, the head linguist and AI trainer at Animus went missing, never to be seen again.

Until today.

Delilah was still talking while thoughts spun in Ford's head. "I've been homeless for a while. It's a long story. I just wanted some food. I've been struggling. I probably have scurvy. I'm so sorry my droid attacked your child, she was supposed to target your peppers and I may have messed up the programming because I'm not very good with faces. I was getting desperate and hungry. Please don't destroy her, she's all I have." Her last statement sounded like she might break down into tears again. Her hands were still in the air even though Ford's gun was at his side by now.

Dipper spoke up incredulously. "Your robot mistook me for a pepper?"

Ford saw the woman glance down at Dipper. "Kid, I'm a linguist, not a photographer."

Despite himself, a corner of Ford's mouth almost lifted upward. He called out to her again, "I've actually read about you. Animus Nova Enterprises, right?"

Gloved hands still frozen in the air, the woman's face twitched in what was likely an uncomfortable grimace under her scarf. "Yeah. I worked for them. Turned out pretty great for me, didn't it?" She sounded miserable, but somehow detached.

Ford was beginning to believe she might not be a threat, but he was burning with curiosity. "I'll make a deal with you. Let me study your robot, I'll even fix her, and we'll get you some food."

He thought that sounded like a more than reasonable offer, but the woman reacted as if he had slapped her, screaming back, her voice filled with vitriol. "Absolutely not. I'd rather you shoot me where I stand than let you touch Trinity."

Ford and Dipper were stunned into silence at her reaction. Putting her hands down, Delilah took a step forward towards the robot body, which had by now mostly stopped sparking and twitching, but Ford's gun hand sprang back into position, weapon cocked. "NOT ANOTHER STEP!" He yelled, prepared for anything by now.

Another man's voice called from behind ford, "HEY what's going on here? Sixer, what did you do this time?"

It was Stanley of course.

Stan Pines, with his usual impeccable timing, had just gotten back from town with Mabel to find the stand-off occurring in the Pines family garden over some peppers and a robot cat made of scrap metal. His stomach dropped and he rolled his eyes, of course his whacky brother Ford can't go a day without something weird happening to him, whether it was his own fault or not. Time to step in and use his winning personality to de-escalate whatever the hell is going on today. Shit, he had been in some spicy situations before, but never over some peppers.

"Stay out of this Stanley, I have the situation under control."

Stan cautiously stood by Ford. "Doesn't look like it to me! Damn it, can't I leave you alone around here without you getting into some bullshit?"

Delilah's hands were frozen and trembling in the air again. Her scarf had fallen off her face now so Ford could more fully see what she looked like. The hunger and fear in her eyes made her look like a wraith, a wraith in a dirty trench coat. She definitely had some sores on her face that might have indicated scurvy or hard drug usage. Despite how perturbed he was, he was starting to feel bad for her.

"That robot on the ground," Ford muttered to Stan, "was locked onto Dipper and about to attack him."

"I-It was an accident, I promise you!" Delilah had dropped to her knees now, hands still hanging in the air. Ford kept studying the hourglass insignia on the palms, how it gleamed light-blue in the sun. Something about the gloves worried him on an instinctual level. "I'm just hungry!"

"I need to examine your robot first," Ford stated plainly. "Then we can get you food and I'll let you go peacefully."

Stan turned to Ford. "Isn't this a little overkill, Poindexter? I'm sure I've seen her turning in cans at the junkyard. How dangerous could she be?"

Ford didn't take his gun or eyes off Delilah as he answered Stan. "She's not just any homeless person. She was a renowned scientist a mere three years ago." He didn't mean to, but he spoke loud enough for Delilah to hear. "She was known for pioneering huge strides in human-machine language processing, developing an AI prototype that simulated human creativity and emotion more accurately than any before it. And that prototype is rumored to have murdered someone. So, pardon me for being on guard, Stanley, because that disgraced scientist is with us right now, and her droid nearly went for Dipper's throat."

With a stunned look on his face, Stan glanced between the two of them, Ford with his gun aimed at her head, Delilah sitting on her knees with raised hands. Admittedly, everyone had forgotten about Dipper, but he was still there, not daring to move a muscle or say anything. Then Stan grinned widely, devilishly even. "Disgraced scientist, huh? She'll fit right in."

Ford shot Stan an angry look. "It's not funny, Stan. She won't let me touch her robot. She's hiding something dangerous."

"Of course she doesn't want you to touch her robot, Poindexter, you just shot its head off."

Delilah had overheard the conversation taking place and chimed in, "I don't trust anyone but myself to work on her."

Ford had to admit, he understood that sentiment. "I suppose that's fair," He stated. "But I need to know that your robot won't attack children again once you fix it. Please, let me help you with it."

"I-i just need to find a better facial recognition module," Delilah stammered. "The one I was using, I made myself and I am just… not good at faces."

"I have an idea," Stan interjected. "You give her access to your workstation down in the basement, and she can fix it up however she wants!"

Ford didn't like this idea one bit. 'I don't think-"

"Noooo Ford, you listen to me for once. This way you get to at least monitor what she's doing, and she can fix her robot without you taking over."

"I accept your terms, old man!" Delilah called over without even a second thought.

Ford had to admit, the compromise made sense. As much as he didn't like the idea of sharing his workstation. But, maybe he could just let her take over for a time, find something else to work on, and she'd be out of his hair in a week or something. Finally, he lowered his gun and put it away. Delilah's hands lowered, a hopeful look on her face. "Hey," she said in a shaky, hoarse voice that still trembled with fear and adrenaline. "I may only have one eye, but why am I seeing double?"

Ford had to chuckle glibly at the remark. If the woman struggled with faces, she might struggle around here in general. Now that they had come to an agreement, he was seeing her for what she truly was now; weak, afraid, hungry, and a bit dirty. Feeling bad for scaring her, he crossed the garden and offered her a hand. "I'm Stanford Pines, and that's my twin brother Stanley. I'm sorry for the way I reacted. I have actually read some about you and your work with AI. Maybe sometime I can ask you some scientific questions?"

Delilah took his hand and pulled herself up with it. Although she hadn't been able to see it from a distance, she did notice that Ford's grasp was "a full finger friendlier than normal." She wasn't particularly interested in getting interrogated about her work anytime soon, not when hunger clawed in her stomach so bad she had contemplated eating her own foot, so she ignored his invitation to talk shop.

"Interesting," She muttered, standing in front of him now. "It seems you and I have the opposite problem when it comes to our hands." She removed her left glove, revealing she was missing two digits there, the pinkie and ring finger. Ford smiled, pleasantly surprised. He wasn't ready to let his guard down yet, but he now thought he understood why she wore gloves. "I lost them to frostbite, " she clarified. "I hardly miss them anyway."

As usual, Stan had something to say. "HAH! She's a freak like you, Poindexter!"

Delilah looked slightly offended and slid her glove back on. "I am not a freak. Not for that reason."

Dipper spoke up for the first time in a while, "Don't listen to him, there's way worse around here!"

Ford shifted uncomfortably. "Everyone in Gravity Falls is a little weird for one reason or another."

"Oh I've noticed," Delilah said, but her tone was elsewhere. "So, you said something about food? And a workstation?"

"Yes, let's head inside now."

Delilah spent a moment collecting a few pieces of scrap metal from the robot cat's exploded head, then accompanied the Pines to their home with Trinity's body tucked under one arm. Once inside, Stan indicated for her to sit at the kitchen table while he started preparing lunch. Dipper headed off to find Mabel and fill her in on what she missed. Not really knowing what else to do with himself, Ford sat across from Delilah at the table and watched her out of the corner of his eye.

She examined Trinity's robot body closely, seemingly investigating the damage and what it would take to get it back in working order. She looked intensely worried, almost pained, and Ford felt bad again for shooting its head off, even though he knew he shouldn't apologize for protecting his great nephew. He wanted to ask her more questions about Trinity and her work in general, but he got the impression questions would not be well-received at the moment. But he acknowledged that he felt something in the midst of his suspicion that he wasn't used to feeling; a certain amount of admiration. This person had been developing a field of science he had been missing out on while trapped in the nightmare realm, hell, he had even thumbed through her book quite a bit. How could he not want to ask her questions?

Then it occurred to him, not only did she contribute advancements to a new field of science while he was in the nightmare realm, she was probably born sometime while he was in there, too. It was still hard to tell, but he guessed she had to be in her early thirties at most. His face visibly dropped thinking about how old he was and the time he missed.

But whatever life had thrown at her since her time at Animus had clearly changed her.

Stan didn't put too much effort into lunch, knowing Delilah was starving and wanted to eat as soon as possible. Ham and cheese sandwiches with sour cream cheddar chips, basic but effective. Stan barely got to sit down and hand a plate to Ford before she had devoured the sandwich in a few huge bites, then the chips in a couple of rough handfuls, not even looking up from her plate until she was done. "Oh my gosh, that's the best thing I've had in a while, thank you. "

"We can make you something else if you like," Ford offered.

"Oh no you don't have to worry, but do you have any eggs or fruit?"

Ford nodded. "Help yourself, there should be plenty in the fridge."

Delilah got up with her plate, leaving it by the sink. Then she went to the fridge, opened it, and removed eggs and hot sauce. Then, she got a coffee mug from a cupboard, cracked three eggs into it, beat them with a fork, added an absurd amount of the hot sauce, and drank it down like it was a milkshake.

Stan and Ford watched her do this in silence, quietly worried about the person they had invited into their home, but also, it was becoming more and more clear why someone like her would end up in Gravity Falls.

"Say," She asked after finishing the egg slurry. "Do you have any citrus around here?"

"Just the peppers in the garden right now, I think," Ford answered. "You may help yourself of course. But, in case you're ever lost in the woods again, you should know that pine needles are full of vitamin C. You can eat them in a pinch and avoid the scurvy issue next time."

She frowned and looked a bit disgusted. "Oh, now I learn about this. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Be right back." She walked briskly out the front door towards the garden again. While they waited for her to come back, Stan poked fun at Ford.

"Really, Poindexter? You're schooling a homeless woman on outdoorsmanship? When she's starving?"

Ford shrugged. "She should learn how to forage if she's going to be living in the woods."

"God, you're such a know-it-all" Stan griped, shaking his head. Ford didn't respond, very much used to this kind of thing from him. Delilah soon returned, eating one pepper with two more sticking out of her coat pockets.

"So," Ford finally broke the silence. "Delilah. Can I ask you some questions?

"I suppose," She said between bites of pepper. "But I might not answer."

Ford took a moment to think carefully about what he should ask. "Your robot. What do you use it for?"

"Protection and gathering food."

"And you made it yourself?"

"Of course. And she's a her, by the way, not an it."

"And how long have you been here? "

"A few weeks. My van broke down and I've been trying to get it fixed, but it's always one road block after another."

Stan slapped his hand on the table as something occurred to him. "I knew I'd seen you talking to Old Man Mcgucket at the junkyard."

Ford's face dropped even further at the mention of his former research partner.

"Oh yeah, him! He's been a big help, letting me use some items and tools from the yard. Nice guy once you get past the kookiness."

I wonder if the same could be said for you? Thought Ford, but he knew better than to say this out loud. Now that he realized this strange woman and Fiddleford of all people had been talking, he was starting to get unsettled again. He decided to ask more questions instead of dwelling on the feeling.

"And, I'm sorry if this is a bit forward, but I read that there was a murder connected with one of your old projects? Is this true?"

Stan interrupted before Delilah had a chance to answer, but Ford caught the way her face fell. "Jeeeeesus, let her breathe a while before getting into her tragic backstory."

"It's important for us to know," Ford argued. "She could be dangerous."

Stan leaned over and pretended to whisper in her ear but spoke at a regular volume. "Don't mind him, he spent thirty years in another dimension, he doesn't know how to talk to women. Or anyone for that matter."

"Wait, are you joking?" Delilah perked up, and looked directly at Ford now, her working eye staring so hard as if trying to pry into his soul, or perhaps his mind. "Is that your tragic backstory?"

"Stan," Ford groaned, frowning. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell strangers my business."

Stan grinned broadly and got up from his chair, taking his remaining sandwich with him. "I'll just leave you two to hash this out yourselves. I've got better things to do than listen to two nerds yap all day. Call me if you need anything."

And with that, the door slammed and he had left them alone.

Delilah's gaze fell again, as if she didn't want to look at him. Nor did she say anything, just kind of rubbed Trinity's metal carapace with one gloved hand. .

"So uh," Ford started awkwardly. "I can show you the basement if you like."

She looked somewhat insulted by the suggestion. "Actually, would you mind if I use your shower? And laundry."

"Oh! Of course. That makes sense. Considering…" Ford was about to say something he was sure would make her hate him a little more, so instead he cut the sentence short and stood up. "I'll show you the bathroom, and I'll find you some clothes you can wear in the meantime."

After showing Delilah the bathroom and leaving her to take a shower, Ford realized he really wasn't sure what to offer her to wear, but luckily there was a stash of old clothes in a closet that someone had been meaning to donate. He found that box soon enough and left in front of the bathroom door for her. Satisfied she could find something in there to wear, he decided to hang out in the living room and started researching the stranger he had been forced to invite into his house.

He used a tablet-thing that Dipper had been showing him. He wasn't very good at it, as it had been invented when he was in the hellscape, but he knew he could "Google" just about any person and find information on them, a truly worrying thought the more he dwelled on it. But for now, he was going to use it to his advantage.

He Googled Delilah Silbergeist.

Mostly, he found the things he already knew, such as she had been a major developer at Animus industries which closed after a connection with the murder of a woman, Olivia Wendon. Most of the search results were connected to the incident and bankruptcy of Animus. He got an idea, and put in Olivia Wendon's name.

What he saw made his heart drop.

After some time, Delilah found him in the living room, now wearing an oversized, capital-U ugly Christmas sweater and sweatpants. The sweater was bright green with a hideous grinning elf on the front with huge eyes and missing teeth. Ford wasn't surprised it was supposed to get donated. And of course she was still wearing those gloves, which Ford could now see only came up just past her wrists. The fabric was sleek and black, perhaps silk, and the hourglass insignias on each were no longer glowing.

He had to admit, now that she had showered and changed clothes, she cleaned up pretty well. Her hair was more like honey-blond now and flowed past her shoulders. Her face, although still gaunt with some sores, had some color to it and her eyes looked a little less sunken, but she stared blankly ahead of her as if somewhere else. Ford also noticed that some of the toes on her right foot looked, unfortunately, infected with fungus. But overall, she was looking much better than that earlier that day.

"So…" Ford started, feeling the need to say something, but she interrupted, sounding almost pained. "No. Please. No more questions. I can't take it right now. You can ask me anything you want tomorrow."

Ford reigned in his burning questions, for once in his life. "Fine. Would you like to watch something with me then?"

He caught a tiny smile showing up on Delilah's face. "Sure. Anything. You pick."

Ford thought for a moment, and then put on the Star Trek series he had been catching up on, the ones that had come out while he was in Bill's nightmare realm. He was working his way through Deep Space Nine. She gave a small laugh as it started. "Maybe you're not so bad. Even if you did shoot my robot."

He smiled dryly. "Are you a big Star Trek fan?"

"Haha. Yeah. What about you, who's your favorite captain?"

Ford was honestly still nostalgic about the original series since it was something he saw not long before he went through the portal. "Kirk."

"Ahh. Classic." She fell silent and seemed to become engrossed in the show.

After a while, he noticed her fall into a lying position on the couch, and very quickly after she had dropped off to sleep. Ford wasn't really sure what to do but just let the show play, but he soon lost track of the plot and began writing in his journal, a new one he had started since returning from his sailing adventures with Stanley. He wrote about her.

Today I met a weird stranger with one eye and three fingers on one hand, and a very apparent interest in robotics and linguistics. Might be dangerous, but so far only seems to want to eat and sleep. I suppose I don't blame her. I searched for her on the so-called "Internet," and found, she had been married once. Her spouse was likely killed by a robot of her own creation, but tabloids speculate that she killed her own spouse. I don't know what to believe right now. She told me not to ask anymore questions today, but I will be keeping a close eye on her until further notice. He wrote a couple more paragraphs about her detailing the information she had so far revealed to him, the various scars on her face, the mysterious gloves. When it got dark, he went to bed and left Deep Space Nine on the television for her as she slept.