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Ford Pines is sitting curled on the floor of his second-floor study when Mabel finds him. She was afraid of that, afraid to find him here in the emptied remains of what was once an obsession that ended with too many scars to count. She’s even more afraid, as she steps into the space, of what kind of state of unraveling she’s going to find him in. But the closer she approaches the curled-up figure she finds no tears dotting his eyes or flowing down his face, no tremble in his shoulders. He’s made himself as small as possible, but besides that, there’s an apathy, an emptiness in his stare.
Mabel thinks that may be worse.
She tries to think of what to say, how to announce herself, but Ford beats her to it. Without turning to face her he speaks. “Hello, Mabel,” he says, voice unusually hollow. “Can I help you with something?”
“I was looking for you, actually,” Mabel starts, moving over to sit next to him. She collapses with a little noise, an oomph, that sends the dust on the floor flying.
Ford chuckles, but the sound lacks its usual mirth. “Of course you were. I’ll be up in a minute. I’m sorry if I startled anyone.” He says the words as if they’re a script he has memorized, hoping if he repeats them it will be true. Mabel hates that she knows what that feels like, and hates even more that the people she loves know it too.
“Grunkle Stan said it was going to be ok and that you get scared and act weird sometimes and to just give you space,” Mabel admits, pulling at her skirt absent-mindedly. “But I know when I’m scared like that and I’m alone too long it gets really hard to get out of it. Sweater town should be a temporary stop, not where you live, y’know?”
Ford bites his lip. “I’m ok, Mabel,” he says. “I’ll be fine. You should go upstairs.”
Mabel doesn’t believe him for a second. He still looks so gray, so hollowed out, devoid of his usual color and excitement and that just won’t do.
“You wanna know what I do when I get scared?” Mabel says instead.
“This is different,” Ford hisses, and Mabel scoots back instinctively at how quickly his voice fills with a vicious bite. After a second, Ford deflates again, drawing even closer into himself. Mabel can’t stay mad or scared when he looks so ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. “You should go. I’m not safe to be around right now.”
“Why would it be different, Grunkle Ford?” She asks instead of obeying.
Ford finally looks up and meets her eyes and Mabel considers for a second going upstairs and locking the attic door, hiding away somewhere where the adults in her life don’t have a broken and empty look in their eyes too. Instead, she thinks about how a summer ago she pulled Grunkle Stan from the brink of an abyss she was told he could never escape from, and she plants her feet in resolve.
“Mabel,” Ford finally says after what feels like a very long time. “I hope you never have to understand this…It’s different because you don’t deserve to feel sad. You’re just a child, you haven’t done anything wrong.” But I have , is left unsaid. Still, it echoes.
Mabel is left almost speechless. Almost. “You don’t deserve to be sad either, Grunkle Ford! Nobody deserves to feel bad.” She picks at her sweater for a moment, pointedly looking at the floorboards for a moment. “Besides, I’ve done plenty wrong.”
“No, you haven’t,” Ford says, tired but sure. Like it’s the easiest thing for him.
“I gave Bill - " Mabel starts, but is interrupted by a strangled noise from her great-uncle as the name leaves her lips.
“Don’t,” Ford hisses. It’s the most animated she’s seen him since she found him, and it’s wrong. He huffs for a second, pain and something sharper crossing his face before he deflates again.
Mabel doesn’t know what to say. They sit in silence before Ford finally breaks it. “Whatever he did, it wasn’t your fault. He tricks people, that’s what he does. Did.”
“...It wasn’t your fault either. Like you said, he tricks people.” Mabel replies.
Ford exhales, almost a laugh but still missing something important. He looks up and Mabel can see the ghost of tears in his eyes. “That’s the problem. He didn’t need to trick me - I let him in willingly. I was a fool.” When he speaks again, it’s almost too soft to hear. “I deserved everything that came my way.”
Mabel feels like she is going to be sick. The way her beloved great-uncle was talking was so sad, so terrible, and yet so painfully familiar.
At Mabel’s shocked expression, Ford seems to regain composure, at least slightly. “I’m sorry, sweetie, I shouldn’t talk like that in front of you. Really, I’ll be okay. I just want to sit here for a couple more minutes - ”
“Did I ever tell you about Gideon?” Mabel asks. She doesn’t like the feeling the words bring up in her, but she knows it needs to be said.
Ford frowns. “I don’t think so. That’s the child that represents the star in the zodiac, correct?”
Mabel nods. “Yeah. He had your second journal, too.”
“I don’t think you or Dipper have talked about him much. Come to think of it, neither has Stanley. Did something happen?”
Mabel can’t help but make a face. “Gideon’s better now, but yeah, he did a lot of things. He stole the deed to the shack, he tried to have me and Dipper killed a few times.” Mabel purposefully left out Gideon’s summoning of Bill. Ford had heard that name enough today. “He wasn’t bad in the beginning though. He only got nasty after I didn’t want to date him.”
“Ah.” Ford simply replies for a moment. He drums a six-fingered hand on the floor, and Mabel focuses on the sounds his rhythmic motions make.
“I thought for a while that maybe it was my fault, you know?” Mabel admits, tugging her sweater’s neck so that it covers everything up to her eyes. Her words are muffled but still clear. “Everything would have been better if I just did what he wanted. Everyone important would be happy.”
For a second Mabel thinks that something is wrong. She refuses to look up to help but hears a shuffling still. “I think I do understand,” Ford replies softly. “I just wish that you didn’t.” Mabel looks up to find her great-uncle staring out at the door.
Ford has a haunted look in his eyes for just a moment before he begins to speak again. It’s low, and careful, as if he’s in particularly dangerous waters. “Mabel, people like that are exceptionally good at hurting you and then getting you to apologize for the damage their actions caused them. It’s not your fault if you were targeted. All we can do is try to make ourselves better and keep ourselves safe in the future.”
“He’s better now,” Mabel finds herself saying again, lowering her sweater neck. She doesn’t know why she’s defending Gideon’s actions right now, why she’s letting the conversation shift from Ford’s thinly veiled scars, but the words fall out of her mouth either way.
Ford shakes his head, and for the first time in the conversation, he unfurls completely, searching for a more comfortable position on the floor. “That’s good for him, sweetie, but that doesn’t really change much for you. You don’t have to stick around to figure out how much he’s changed if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”
Ford turns, one more time so that he’s finally facing Mabel. It’s just a normal conversation, she tells herself. She’s getting some of his sad, ancient wisdom, and there is no lump in the back of her throat and neither of their eyes hold back tears and if Ford tremors slightly it’s simply from the draft, why did he make his study so cold -
“Breathe, Mabel, breathe,” Ford instructs, hand hovering cautiously over her shoulder and Mabel realizes she’s hyperventilating. Oops.
“I’m okay,” she says. There’s a hint of a wobble in the words that they both ignore.
Ford smiles a little, and while it’s still incredibly sad it’s also kind. “We can go upstairs,” he says. “Make some hot cocoa. I believe Stanley just restocked the edible glitter, and if not I’m sure it’s a simple recipe for me to synthesize some more.”
Mabel shakes her head. “I’m supposed to be here to make you feel better! Not the other way around.”
“I’m your uncle,” Ford replies, taking a hand and looping it around Mabel’s shoulder when she gives the nod in confirmation, pulling her in. “I’m always going to be here to help you feel better.”
Mabel sinks in, focusing on the six-fingered hand, focusing on the wool of his new sweater as she rubs her face against the fabric, and breathes in the smell of paper and ink, of sweat and a hint of cinnamon. She’s safe, he’s safe, everyone’s stupidly, ridiculously safe.
Maybe it’s the reminder that they’re safe right now, even if it doesn’t feel like it, that has her speak once more. “Do you ever feel…” The words die for a second. Ford hums, a reminder that he’s here and she can continue if she wants or they can leave it be. Mabel clears her throat and starts again. “Do you ever feel like maybe you should be over it by now?”
Ford sighs, squeezing her shoulder a little. “I’ve carried these scars for over thirty years now. It’s all done, it’s been over for more than a year, and yet…”
“It doesn’t feel over,” Mabel finishes for him.
“Stanley says it gets better,” Ford says, but he doesn’t sound very sure. “I’ve been reading some very interesting articles on neuroplasticity and - ” At Mabel’s blank stare, Ford tries again. “There are some theories about grief. That it never goes away entirely, that there’s always going to be that pain, but inherently over time it gets less all-consuming. You heal around it. This, my dear, is simply another type of grief.”
Mabel thinks she can understand that, to an extent. It’s not like anyone’s died, and yet something so small and so huge has changed. She knows that Dipper feels that too, and Stan does, everyone in their own way trying to clean up wounds from last summer and even longer ago that seem to burst open at the most inopportune times. Still, she’s seen the way that Stan and Ford especially have grown in this short time, seen old wounds not necessarily disappear but scab over, and she thinks maybe if disasters that old can find some sense of closure maybe this will pass too. Even if it passes more like a kidney stone than anything else.
“I’m sorry for making this all about me,” Mabel mumbles as she prepares herself to stand up and face the upstairs world again. “I wanted to help you feel better about post-triangle syndrome and all I’ve done is talk about things that aren’t even that bad in comparison. Still selfish, I guess.”
Ford frowns as Mabel moves and his hand falls off her shoulder. “I don’t think you’re being especially fair to yourself,” he says, beginning to dust himself off as well. “What you’ve told me about the situation sounds quite awful, and I’m sure there’s more to it even than that.” Ford runs a hand through his hair, disrupting the curls as he sighs. Mabel stands. “I’m tempted to tell you that my own experiences pale compared to yours, but I’m sure you wouldn’t let me get that far.”
“What?!” Mabel exclaims. “That’s bananas kind of talk, Grunkle Ford.”
“It may be bananas to you,” Ford says, “but it’s truly how I feel. You were so young, and you shouldn’t have had to experience something like that, ever, but especially during a particularly vulnerable time.” He frowns. “I would not want to be a teenager again,” Ford admits.
“It’s not that bad,” Mabel replies. “You get away with a lot of things because of mood swings.”
Ford chuckles in response, standing slowly and shaking his head at the slight crack in his joints. “I’ll give you that, my dear. Still, I think you need to give yourself more credit. You’re very brave.”
Mabel smiles at that, stepping closer and offering her hand, which Ford quickly takes in his. “Thanks. I think you should give yourself more credit too, okay? B - the evil triangle…he did some pretty messed up stuff. Grunkle Stan said that some of that stuff I’m not allowed to ask you about until I’m 20.”
Ford’s face pales for just a second. “Maybe 30,” he suggests. “But thank you, Mabel. I’ll try to be kinder to myself if you try, alright? Perhaps we both deserve a little grace.”
Mabel squeezes in confirmation. She could definitely be kinder to herself for Grunkle Ford, and maybe somewhere along the lines, she would find it to be kinder for herself, as well. “Hot cocoa?” She asks.
Ford smiles. “Absolutely. I should probably let Stanley know I’m feeling better, and perhaps apologize for the…outburst, let’s call it. That just means we have the opportunity to make both our brothers some cocoa, as well. Sounds good?”
Mabel bounces a little in excitement. “Yes! With extra marshmallows. Ooh, we can give our marshmallows faces with chocolate syrup!”
Mabel tugs Ford along and they move together to the elevator. Mabel takes one final look behind her at the empty space that once was a shrine to how far her great-uncle fell. She squeezes his hand, and as she feels him squeeze it in return she turns back to what’s in front of her. They exit the space and move upstairs into the warmth and light of another summer’s day, together.