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Honestly, Ford should’ve come to check on/clean out his bunker a while ago. He had been busy between. . . well, everything , and he had been spending most of his time in the basement. There were many things to take care of, after all. Still, he had put it off long enough.
Mentally cataloguing what he’d need to do first, he almost didn’t notice the disturbed dust as he entered.
Almost .
One hand rested cautiously on his weapon as he continued through the bunker. He punched in the code to disable the puzzle room, walking through to the observation room. By habit, his eyes shot to where Fiddleford’s lab coat hung - in the corner of the room, unused since his partner had abandoned the project, and unmoved since Ford couldn’t bring himself to disturb it.
Except. . . it wasn’t there. And the laptop was missing as well! Oh, that was not good. The laptop contained a lot of sensitive information about his previous experiments, especially -
Ford locked onto the door that led into the caverns. The door where he had housed an incredibly dangerous experiment. The door that stood between the unsuspecting Gravity Falls, and the bloodthirsty Shape Shifter.
The door that was currently unlocked.
Drawing his gun, Ford pulled the door open and entered, feeling chills running up his spine. The Shape Shifter was volatile, and was no doubt after revenge on Ford after he had contained him in cryostasis.
If it hadn’t already escaped and was parading around as god-knows-who -
A breath of relief escaped him as he laid eyes on the active and frozen cryo-chamber. The lights indicated that everything was working as it should be, and the faint silhouette through the frosted reinforced glass told him that there was indeed something contained inside.
He holstered his gun and approached the chamber. His chills started to ebb away, even as the chill from the chamber ghosted over his skin.
The hair on the back of his neck rose. The shadow of whatever was inside that chamber was small. Much smaller than the Shape Shifter’s true form - or any of its preferred forms for that matter.
He raised an arm and dragged his sleeve across the glass, clearing the thick frost and revealing the figure inside.
His heel caught a cable as he stumbled back and he hit the ground, breathing heavily as his nephew’s terrified, screaming, frozen face stared back at him.
“Di- Dipper?” Ford rasped out, despite knowing that the frozen being couldn’t hear him, much less answer. He pulled himself to his feet, looking closer into the chamber. It- It really looked like his nephew.
But that couldn’t be true; Dipper was in the Mystery Shack! He had been the whole time!
Unless. . . Unless Dipper had been in the cryo-chamber for a while and that thing in the Shack wasn’t his nephew. Dipper had the journal that contained the information about the bunker. If he had wandered down to explore, unknowing of what was down there and the Shape Shifter had managed to escape. . .
Ford backed away. Surely, if the Shape Shifter was parading around as Dipper, it wouldn’t have lasted this long without being discovered by Mabel or Stan or- or someone . And why would it have waited this long to do something? To attack Ford?
But the familiar, nauseating fear was creeping over the back of his mind, whispers of ‘trust no one’ hissing through his head, and a burning pain was striking through his right eye.
Drawing his gun once more, Ford turned and stormed back towards the exit. He was going to figure out who - or what - exactly was living in his house.
Luckily, the Mystery Shack had closed, so Ford didn’t have any civilian witnesses around. Unluckily, the Shack’s employees hadn’t yet left, and they - along with the twins - were hanging out in the gift shop.
The redhead - Wanda? No. . . Wendy! - was seated up on top of the counter, with Soos not too far away, sweeping some of the high-traffic areas of the floor. Mabel was petting her pig, giggling with the other girl, and Dipper was just. . . watching them all. There was a content half-smile on his face, but. . . did it look a little sinister?
“Oh, hey, Dr. Pines!” Soos greeted, effectively making his presence known to all of them.
Ford forced up what he hoped was a polite smile, trying to remain discreet. “Hello, everyone.” His gaze flickered to Dipper again, noting the questioning expression. Was he - it? - onto him? “Dipper, my boy, could I speak with you for a moment?”
“Uh,” Dipper exchanged a look with his sister before tilting his head like a curious puppy, “is something wrong, Great Uncle Ford?”
Ford felt his fingers twitch. “I’m not sure yet. I need to speak to you. Privately, if you please.”
“If it’s that serious, maybe we should all know, Great Uncle Ford,” Mabel cut in, her voice light, but her eyes suspicious as her hand came down to gently rest on Dipper’s shoulder. Ford almost lunged forward to jerk her away, but her brother (if it was him) didn’t make any movements.
“Is it a mission?” Dipper guessed, finally moving a step towards Ford. “Or something to do with the journal?”
Ford opened his mouth to respond, to usher him forward and discern who exactly had been living in his house.
Wendy’s arm shot out, holding Dipper back as she pushed herself off the counter, eyes narrowed dangerously at Ford. “If all you want to do is talk,” she started, her voice careful, but vaguely menacing, “why is your gun drawn?”
Every gaze in the Shack - including his - focused on his hand, where it had slipped from the folds of his coat, revealing his tightly-gripped gun. He swallowed, holding both his hands out to show that he wasn’t about to fire. Mabel’s eyes didn’t leave the hand with the gun.
“It’s just a precaution,” he attempted to placate. “But I really must - “
“You need a gun to talk to Dipper?” Mabel asked. Her voice was shaking and her fingers were wrapped tight around Dipper’s shoulder. His face had gone white, but he seemed to be trying to put himself in front of Mabel as much as she would let him, which wasn’t much.
Wendy moved further in front of the two kids, fingers curling like she was wishing for a weapon. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you better back off.”
Panic combined with his annoyance and he didn’t consider his next moves as carefully as he should have. He lowered his hands and started forward. “You don’t understand what I - “
He had just taken in his niece and nephew’s scared and betrayed faces when green flooded his vision and he felt himself shoved back several steps.
“Sorry, Dr. Pines,” Soos grimaced, holding the broom in front of him like a weapon, “but I can’t let you near the little dudes with a weapon drawn.”
Ford stared at him for a minute before moving his attention to Mabel, who was peeking out from around the handyman. His skin was crawling with distrust, a cascade of paranoia writhing underneath his skin. That could be a monster; why weren’t they listening? “Kids, I need you to listen. I need to make sure that that is actually Dipper .”
“ What?! ”
Ford flinched at the exclamation. “You don’t get it! There was an experiment - the Shape Shifter - in a bunker. I went down to the bunker and - “
Realization seemed to hit the whole group at once and Ford trailed off at their expression. Wendy let her defensive stance rest, dragging a hand over her suddenly-exhausted face. “Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“We. . . probably should’ve warned you about that, in hindsight,” Dipper muttered, coming out from behind Soos with Mabel still attached to his arm.
Soos let the broom drop and Mabel tapped her chin. “Oh, yeah! Man, between the whole golf thing and then. . .” her eyes flickered to Dipper for a moment, “. . . I forgot.”
Ford blinked. “You. . . know about it?”
“‘Know about it’?” Soos chuckled. “That crazy Shape Shifter dude nearly killed us! But I got a really cool lab coat and briefcase-slash-laptop thing, so it was a pretty alright day.”
Well, that answered that.
“You all faced the Shape Shifter? And escaped? ” Ford asked, incredulous.
Dipper shrugged. “It was- It was close, but Wendy wrestled it and I hit it with an axe, then we knocked it into a cryo-chamber, and Soos and Mabel froze it.”
“Creep still wanted to get the last word, I guess,” Wendy scoffed, crossing her arms and looking away. “Told him to stop snooping around for the author and turned into him right before it froze.”
“Talk about nightmare fuel!” Mabel chirped, far too cheerful for the situation, but Ford was used to that.
Ford focused on the gun in his hand and the torrent of fear-distrust-paranoia seemed to recede from his mind, shooting clarity through him like a bullet.
Had he seriously gone after his nephew with a gun? Instead of just asking questions like a sane person?
He could practically hear a familiar demon’s cackle in his head. ‘Poor ole Sixer; you’re just as insane as I am!’
“I. . .” he stammered, clumsily holstering his weapon, “I’m so sorry. I don’t- I don’t know what came over me. I wouldn’t have actually . . . I was just being paranoid.”
“It was probably pretty freaky for you to see without an explanation.” Soos rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
Mabel and Wendy seemed to be waiting for Dipper to speak. He visibly swallowed before offering a hesitant smile. “It- It’s okay, Great Uncle Ford. We’ve all done. . . questionable things this summer to get answers.”
“But from now on, weapons stay in the basement or outside!” Mabel demanded, grinning. Her eyes were sharp enough to cut right through Ford and he quickly found himself nodding an agreement. “Good.” She looked around. “If we broke one of Gruncle Stan’s exhibits, I don’t even wanna know what he’d do.”
“Probably make you watch some of his weird old man videos,” Soos commented, earning a shudder from her.
Wendy was still staring Ford down, her jaw set. “We’re not gonna have any more misunderstandings, right?” Her voice was low enough to not catch the other three’s attention.
“We won’t,” Ford promised, hoping he’d be able to keep it.
“Because those two have risked their lives for me,” Wendy continued ominously, “and I’m prepared to return the favor.”
Despite himself, Ford found himself taking a small step back. “Understood.”
She nodded and turned to the other three, her demeanor completely changed. “Nah, dudes, he’d dress you both up in crappy costumes and make you stand in for six hours.”
“I won’t do the pre-teen werewolf boy again,” Dipper stated, his eyes haunted.
Ford took his cue and hurried out without another word. He needed to be away from the kids for a while. And- And he needed to put his gun away. Today could have been so much worse. If he had slipped a little further into paranoia, if he had caught Dipper alone. . .
He shook his head, trying not to think about it. Things had turned out alright. He would just have to be more careful. Think things through next time.
Maybe Stanley was right. . .