Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mabel wasn’t scared of Ford.

There were definitely things she was afraid ofー Claymation videos, losing her brother, Bill’s yellow sclera, a newly developed fear of heightsー but none of these were able to completely debilitate her. Fear wasn’t something that made her pause in whatever it was she was doing, her hands did not take on the tremor that Stan’s did when he recalled something from the decade before the portal took Grunkle Ford from him. She didn’t chew on her fingernails the way Dipper did when he awoke from a nightmare and tried not to wake her tooー but he always did, she was always tuned in to her twin’s distressー and she didn’t pace the halls with hands twisted behind her back like Ford did when distress tried to take him down a dangerous slope.

Mabel didn’t think she was stronger than the other Pines’ men in her family, she knew they had faced some horrifying things that she was fortunate enough not to encounter. She knew she was lucky that they were incredibly protective of her and her peace in a way people would be envious of. Grunkle Stan’s hugs were so tight that it’d take a crowbar to pry her out of them, Dipper had proven he would leap from a cliff’s edge in order to save her and Ford had screamed for her and Dipper as they’d led Bill away.

Was he yelling for you though? Or just Dipper?

The thoughts sometimes came unbidden from the deep recesses of her mind. She had tried to bring them up a couple of times, especially to Ford, as the voice had sounded alarmingly like Bill’s distorted cackles. Ford had originally been panicked at her words but had soon eased, smiling down at her tiredly and ruffling her head as he explained it was just the remnants of a bad dream. Weirdmageddon was bound to affect them each in strange ways but the nightmare was overー she just needed time to let it fade.

That hadn’t made her feel better.

Sometimes she lay awake at night, remembering the way Ford had struck at Stan, his fist striking flesh with a thunderous crack that made her chest hurt. The way the two had wrestled to the ground, her precious Grunkle and a stranger with his face who looked like he was trying to kill him. The way Stan had just taken the hits in stride, like he’d been struck like that before enough times that they didn’t make him pause. 

Sometimes, she had nightmares of Dipper taking Ford’s hand and fading away into blue and white light, a deal struck between a being of infinite knowledge and someone still learning. Her dreams would flicker to that of Bill and a younger Ford but never stayed there, instead focusing on her sitting on a bus ride with her all alone. 

Sometimes, Mabel could feel the catch in her throat when she heard Ford speak, his voice gentle with Dipper. Could remember that same baritone voice with barely concealed anger asking Dipper whether he felt suffocated by her presence. Mabel would then look down at her own scarred hands, knuckles covered in scrapes and burn scars from her own time hunting mysteries with her twin, from Weirdmageddon, and wonder if her trying to keep Dipper’s pace because she loved him was suffocating.

She wasn’t scared of Ford.

She loved Grunkle Ford, knew it the moment he held her hand when they met and he had smiled down at her and said he liked her for her weirdness. Dipper and Stan were weird, sure, but they weren’t at the level of chaos that she was. It was enough to drive off most people she tried to befriend. But then a man was smiling down at her and saying he liked her for the thing others were disgusted by. How could she not love a man, a member of her own family, who liked her for what made her Mabel?

That peace had shattered as he secluded himself away, throwing poorly disguised insults at Stan in the lead up to the end of the world. He’d started letting Dipper in, taking him away slowly and subtly driving a wedge between the two that was scarily similar to the one between Ford and his own twin. It had terrified Mabel in a way she wasn’t sure she could ever recover from. He’d never apologised for it, never even brought it up again once the dust had settled and only Mabel had been left with the gaping wound of the betrayal.

So no, she wasn’t afraid of Ford, even a year after Weirdmageddon. She was just highly aware of what he was capable of, knew there was the ever present danger of another Summer to potentially lure Dipper into leaving her aloneー so alone…

When they’d returned for another Summer at the Shack, Stan and Ford had been there to greet Dipper and Mabel. The two twins had run straight into Stan’s open arms, the older man catching them both even as Mabel leapt high and Dipper had stumbled from the bottom step. He was always good at meeting them both where they were, at whatever point in their journey they were. He’d caught them and held them with the same amount of tightness, pressing their skulls against his own and barely managing to suppress the misty eyes that immediately tried to come forth. 

When they were finally released, Ford had been waiting in the background, smiling softly as he got on one knee with arms held open. He still looked so awkward when he did so, but it hadn’t made Dipper hesitate when he shot immediately from one Grunkle to the next. The embrace was long and tight, Ford smiling from where he had buried his face into Dipper’s fluffy curls. 

While his arms had been out, Mabel had hesitated once Stan had released her and by the time she got her wits back, the hug had already been closed and there was only enough space for one. While Stan had been patient for both twins to be planted, Ford had not, instead settling into a comfortable, warm embrace with his Great Nephew. When she turned her face upwards, her smile wobbly and not yet formed enough to be reassuring, Stan had been staring back down at her with a look of deep contemplation. 

“I’m just tired,” she’d laughed, leaning against his side as she turned her eyes back to the two hugging Pines. It hadn’t made the expression leave his face but he had ruffled her hair playfully, her own shortened brown curls bouncing around her face messily. 

But when Ford had let go of Dipper and he’d turned towards her, his arms beginning to open again to welcome her with a waiting smile, she hadn’t wanted to enter the embrace. They’d talked the entire rest of the year, a grainy video feed linking the boat and the twins' room in Piedmont, and she’d gotten along fine with him then. Sure, she had mostly talked with Stan and Dipper with Ford and, sure, there wasn’t much in common for Ford and Mabel to talk aboutー

Mabel stared at Ford and he back at her, his smile beginning to fade slowly as he saw her hesitance. Dipper was frowning back at her tooー not upset, never upset, just confused as to what his normally friendly sister was doing. 

Mabel wasn’t afraid of Ford.

She shook her head viciously, like a wet dog as she sent curls flying around her face before she plastered a grin upon her face. She took the hand he'd held open for an embrace and shook it in a friendly handshake, blowing a raspberry as she did so. 

“Left my brain back at home,” she giggled, feeling the strain in her grin but trying so hard to reassure Ford that she was okay. “ Doi, forgot we were saying hi. Hi, Grunkle Ford!”

He’d blinked down at her, watching her shake his hand instead of taking the embrace she had been hungry for last Summer. Dipper seemed just as perplexed, shaking his head with a shrug when Ford turned a questioning glance in his direction. 

“It’s good to see you too, sweetheart,” he’d murmured back, feeling the emptiness in his hand when she retreated back to Stan’s side. Stan had laid a heavy hand on her back but she’d refused any further eye contact with her Grunkles, instead wheeling her bag across uneven ground as she dragged Dipper into discussions about everything they were going to do this Summer on the way back to the Shack. 

Mabel wasn’t afraid of Ford.

“Is Mabel scared of me?” Ford asked Dipper one evening as the two of them were pouring over Dipper’s journal. He had been keeping it over the course of the year, a simple blue book with a silver Pine Tree design on the front. He’d been excited to show his Grunkle it when he returned to Gravity Falls, the two talking about it in the lead up of the last few months. 

“Mabel?” Dipper choked, blinking up at his Grunkle owlishly. Ford was suddenly reminded that he should be enforcing Stan’s stringent bedtime for the kids but he’d gotten distracted in his excitement. “Scared? She isn't scared of anything.” He paused after he said this, rubbing at his eyes before staring down at his journal again. “Except claymation. She really hates that stuff.”

“Claymation?” Ford repeated under his breath, not 100% certain on what it was before he threw it to the back of his mind. 

“Why do you ask?”

“Well she’s…” Ford paused as he searched for the word, eyes darting around as if he were physically trying to spot the exact phrase he wanted. “ーDifferent? She seemed bubblier when we talked over video chat. Now it feels like she doesn’t want to be in the same room as me.”

Dipper made a considering noise, another of Ford’s pens suddenly in his mouth as he rolled it between his teeth. Ford was glad he had already packed away his good pens in preparation, Dipper truly was a menace with his pen biting. 

“She has been a bit odd the last few weeks,” he admitted finally, drumming his fingers against the desk. They’d been in Gravity Falls a couple of weeks now and everytime Ford entered a room, she tended to have some reason to leave fairly soon after. The one time they’d managed to be in the same room for more than 15 minutes was during a family dinner and Dipper had walked past the bathroom later only to hear Mabel’s retching. “She was pretty sick after dinner a couple nights ago. Told me her stomach was just hurting.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ford gasped, gaze finding the nearby stairs that led to the main floor of the house. He tried to get to his feet to check on her but Dipper’s hand found his sleeve, tugging him back. 

“She didn’t want you or Grunkle Stan to know,” he said quietly, looking guilty about even mentioning it to start with. “Said she must have eaten something bad last week. She is prone to eating stuff that’s been on the floor so I didn’t think much about it. She didn’t want to worry either of you.”

“Dipper,” he sighed, laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. “It’s our job to worry about you. You’re our niece and nephew, our kids. ”

That made warmth bloom on Dipper’s face and he smiled up at Ford before ducking his head back down. He mumbled something about Mabel being up in their shared room and went back to reading through Ford’s newest journal, making notes in the margins about his own theories. Ford ruffled his hair affectionately and continued on to the stairs, deciding it was finally time for a talk with his Great Niece.

“Mabel?”

The knock at the attic door had startled her out of her current project, a sweater with a goldfish on the front of it. Dipper’s was already finished, folded neatly and placed upon the foot of her bed. 

“Grunkle… Ford?” she called tentatively, knowing it was his voice but uncertain as to why he had ventured up here. He never came up to the attic, not even to get Dipper. 

“Can I come in?”

“Sure…” 

The door swung open with a loud groan, Ford standing awkwardly in the space beyond. He was wearing the sweater Mabel had made him for Christmas, an atrocious pudding design with layers of brown and white on a sickly green background. He was smiling but she could see the strain on his face as he rubbed at the back of his neck, taking a tentative step inside. 

“How can I help you?” she asked, trying to turn her attention back to her knitting. 

The needles clinked against each other, filling the silence. She could do this at quadruple the speed she was currently at but the tension in her shoulders was stopping her, something coiling deep in her chest. She could feel her body getting ready to bolt at the first sign of danger, even if Ford had never given her any reason to believe he would ever raise a hand against her.

…Hadn’t he?

“I just… wanted to check in with you,” he answered softly, taking a seat on Dipper’s bed opposite her. He could feel her eyes watching him despite her downturned face, eyes tracking every movement in case he tried to close the distance. “Haven’t really seen you too much these last couple weeks.”

“I’ve been… busy.”

The excuse sounded weak even to her own ears and she winced, gripping the knitting needles harder. She dropped a stitch and she cursed under her breath, backtracking to pick it back up. When she turned her attention back to Ford, she baulked at seeing his attention fixed firmly on her. 

“...You seem tense around me,” Ford finally said, clasping his hands together in his lap. He ran his thumb methodically over each of his knuckles, not pausing at any of the scars that littered the back of his hand. “I’m not the most well-versed with detecting social cues and tension but I cannot help but feel as if… as if I may have done something to warrant this distance between us.”

“You haven’t done anything,” she quickly reassured even as the voice in her head howled in righteous fury. How he didn’t know the cause of the distance when he had said those things about her to Dipper, she didn’t know. “I’ve just… not been feeling well is all.”

“You used to be comfortable telling me that you were ill when we were video chatting,” he said finally, trying to keep his tone conversational but Mabel could hear his worry beneath the surface. Dipper and Ford may not have been great with detecting emotions and tone, but Mabel was. She had tried so often to not obsess over it when someone’s tone changed slightly when they spoke to her, to no avail. “What’s changed?”

“Being back in Gravity Falls is a lot,” she whispered, feeling the tension leave her hands. She placed her unfinished project in her lap, finding that her enthusiasm for knitting was beginning to sink back beneath the dark blanket of her mind that stole the things she loved. “I just didn’t realise it was going to feel so hard to be normal.”

He gave her a considering nod, letting the silence build between the two of them. She could practically hear him thinking from where she was, the cogs creaking loudly as thoughts layered over each other. She considered starting up her project again but found the idea of continuing was physically sickening, bile biting at the back of her throat as she stared down at her hands. She began packing her supplies away into a box so that they were safe from her snuffling pig. 

“Maybe,” Ford proposed, his eyes tracking her motion like it was some code he needed to crack. “If this is all a bit much… maybe you would be more comfortable returning to Piedmont?”

Her thoughts screeched to a stop, the back of her brain beginning to flash with a warning siren that made every muscle lock up. Her eyes couldn’t be made to turn towards him, instead choosing to fixate on a point in the wall that had a deep crack in it. She felt the tremor begin in her fingers, so similar to what Grunkle Stan’s did, that she instinctively closed her hands into tight fists to disguise it. 

“Obviously we don’t want you to have to suffer through something you aren’t comfortable with,” Ford continued, totally oblivious to the turmoil that seemed to have overtaken Mabel. There was an undercurrent of sadness in his voice but he tried his best to keep it out of his words. “We love having you around but if you aren’t feeling well here, we don’t mind if you return to your parents. Dipper can always join you once Summer endsー”

“NO!”

The shriek that left Mabel’s throat felt almost inhumane with the amount of pure terror in the words. Ford finally turned his gaze to his niece, his heart plummeting at seeing all the colour draining from her face. Her eyes were wide with unadulterated panic and her hands were clutching at her heaving chest, the stitches of her sweater tugging out of their perfect rows from the force.

“Mabel…?” he breathed, dropping to his knees on the floor as he reached for her. His heart hurt at seeing her fear, hated that something he had said had upset her so. 

“ Get away! ” she yelped, scrabbling backwards from him. Her head hit the frame of her bed and still she tried to move further away from him, staring back at him as if he wereー

“Oh, sweetie,” he whispered, leaving his hand stretched in the space between them, this time held out in a beckoning manner. “You’re having a panic attack, it’s okay. It’s just me, sweetheart, just your Grunkle here. I’m not Bill.”

Even saying his name made an acrid, bitter taste flood his senses but he swallowed it down, trying and failing to coax Mabel into calming down. He could practically hear her thundering heart beat from here and it made a deep sadness sink into his bones. 

“Come on, honey,” he whispered, slowly trying to inch himself forward. Her eyes tracked the movement, pinpricked pupils shaking as it went from his face to his outstretched hand. “It’s just me.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” she wheezed, her tears flooding with tears as they stared up at him. Her breath was coming far too quick and he was beginning to become afraid himself, worried about her hyperventilating for too long. “Don’t hurt me please, Grunkle Ford…”

He felt his breath catch in his throat, sudden, painful realisation that she wasn’t trapped in a terrifying memory of a creature he wasn’t there to protect her from. She was well aware of where she was and who her terror was directed at.

Him. 

He reeled back as if shocked, his spine hitting Dipper’s bed as he stared at her in utter devastation at the realisation. There were tears freely flooding down her pale face and he felt his own burning at this terrible discovery. Ford wasn’t good at this, he barely knew how to handle his own emotions and the tricks he used to reassure Stan and Dipper didn’t seem to be working to ease her panic. 

Did he know enough about Mabel to know how to help?

He took one last look at his terrified niece who was staring at him as if he were the boogeyman before he fled, stumbling down the attic stairs on shaking legs. He called to Stan as he went, losing his footing and hitting the wall with his shoulder as he went. Stan was quick to come to his aid, eyes already heavy with concern as he came over to assist.

“Whoa, Sixer, I gotcha,” he murmured, trying to take Ford’s weight but pausing when his older twin waved him off.

“Not me,” he wheezed, laying a hand over his chest where his heart was thundering away. “Mabel she’sー she’s having a panic attack and it’s over me and I don’tー I can’tー! ”

“I think you’re also panicking,” Stan soothed, ducking his brother’s attempts to dissuade him as he pulled Ford into a tight hug. “C’mon, sit down here, Sixer. Can’t have you passing out and hitting your head.”

“Notー not me! ” Ford gasped, the pain in his chest intensifying as he clutched at the back of his brother’s shirt. “No, she’sー Mabel needsー ”

“Stanford,” Stan murmurs, the rough timber of his voice vibrating through his chest into Ford’s. “Breathe. You first.”

When Ford finally managed to suck in a full lungful of air, he immediately choked on his own spittle, the saliva having pooled in his mouth with an acidic tinge. His chest ached as it heaved but he let out a bone-rattling cough, feeling the firmness of Stanley’s embrace. He concentrated on the pressure of it, allowing it to ground him as he sucked in several long breaths and held them in time with Stan’s own breathing. 

After what felt like forever, he finally felt the fog cloud of panic begin to recede, and the black edge of his vision faded. When he finally pulled back from the embrace to look into Stan’s concerned eyes, the tremble in his shoulders was beginning to ease.

“There you go,” Stan hummed, laying a firm but reassuring hand on Ford’s shoulder. “What’s going on, Sixer?”

“Mabel’s scared of me,” he spat out quickly, the words tumbling over themselves to escape before he could properly analyse what he was saying. “She’s petrified and I… I…”

“Mabel,” Stan repeated, one brow tilted upwards as his tone betrayed his incredulity. “Mabel, the God of Chaos whose kingdom we exist in only because she deigns to let usー she’s scared of you? ”

Ford didn’t mean to but he felt himself bristle at his brother’s disbelief, heat flooding his cheeks. “Do not mock me, you knucklehead, she’s… You don’t know how she looked at me!”

“Did anything happen?” he asked, holding his hands up placatingly when he saw the vehemence in Ford’s posture. “Did you sneak up on her or raise your voice or…?”

“I…”

And Ford stops as he runs through everything that had just happened through his mind. He tried to dissect the interaction apart, find what it was that had done it. He knew she was on edge at seeing him but just his presence alone hadn’t warranted that kind of a reaction. He wasn’t good at people but surely if he ran through the scenario once, twice, 10 times in his mindー

His thoughts careened to a stop.

“I asked if she wanted to return to Piedmont,” he said, feeling the tightness begin in his throat again as he turned horrified eyes up to Stan. His brother’s expression was already beginning to pale, the implications of his suggestion hitting Stan faster than it did Ford. “Because… because she’s been feeling ill since she arrived and I said… that we wouldn’t blame her if she wasn’t ready to be back…”

And isn’t it suffocating?!

“I said…”

“What else did you say, Sixer?” Stan’s tone wasn’t accusatory, just tired, as if he already knew exactly what foolhardy thing Ford had said that had set off their Great Niece.

“I said… Dipper would return home at…” Ford whispers, feeling his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach with the force of a lead ingot. “...The end of Summer…”

“...Okay,” Stan breathed, sucking in a long breath before letting it out through gritted teeth. He was upset, even Ford could tell that, but he knew he was making sure it wasn’t directed at him. 

It probably should’ve been. 

“We can have a talk,” he finally said, holding Ford’s shoulders in a warm and tight grip that was meant to ground him. It was workingー Ford was concerned he would float away if Stan didn’t keep a hand on him. “As a familyー that’s what we will do from now on. Get to the bottom of this, work on our communication so we don’t… have these things happen in future.”

“I’m not good at this,” he choked out, forcing down the burning sensation in his eyes at the mess he had caused. 

“We’re still learning, Sixer,” his brother reassured, running a soothing hand through Ford’s messy curls. “Now come on, we have toー”

Crack!

The sound of breaking glass made every hair stand on end for both men. Two sets of heads snapped towards the attic where the sound came from and any worry that had previously lingered evaporated as they thundered up the steps. 

The signs of ageing had hit Stan far harder than Ford but he somehow beat him to the top of the stairs, hurling the door open with reckless abandon. His urgency, his desperation, to claw his way to the door made Ford remember just how much Mabel meant to Stanー a younger version that was so reminiscent of all of the qualities Stan had had beaten out of him as a kid. She had trusted him when no-one else had, had advocated for him against her own brother and had begged for Ford to hear Stan out before he tried to blot him from his life again.

The room was bare, a few spools of yarn resting on the hardwood floor as if they were quickly discarded. The sweater Mabel had been working on, the one with the same insignia on it as Stan’s beloved fez, lay crumpled up against the bed frame from when Mabel had retreated from Ford, forgotten by its maker who was decidedly not where Ford had just left her.

In the sinking light, the open window shone a triangular beam of crimson across the slats. The pane was shattered, the glass shards laying on the roof tiles outside when both men quickly made their way over to check. The breakage had come from inside the Shack and, by the way crimson dripped from the edges of the raw shards, Ford knew Mabel had injured herself badly in her desperation to escape.

“ Fuck! ” Stan sword vehemently, his voice rough with worry as he reached for the edges of the broken window. Ford immediately intercepted him, gripping his hand tightly with shaking fingers. “Sixer, letー”

“You can’t jump out a window!” Ford snapped back, feeling his previous anxiety beginning to rear its ugly head again. His whole body was trembling, the latent adrenaline he had just managed to dispel coming back with a vengeance that made him nauseous. 

Ford’s eyes tracked the obvious trail Mabel had left behind, the blood dripping from her leaving a sickeningly clear path across the roof before dropping sharply off the edge. He couldn’t see any in the grass from this height, as much as he wished he could, but he did catch the darting pink form of his Great Niece as she bolted into the treeline like hell itself were on her heels. 

“Mabel!” he hollered through the window, hoping against hope that his voice would stop her in her tracks. 

“Mabel!” Stan bellowed beside him, reaching again for the sharp edges before Ford pulled him away. “Sixer, I swear to Godー”

“Get Dipper!” Ford hissed, grasping at Stan’s hands as if they were his only lifeline. “Search the woods. Come back in an hour if you haven’t found herー I’m faster, I will go now but we need the eyes.”

Stan’s mouth opened, as if he were about to argue, before he quickly shut it and nodded resolutely. Ford took the nod as confirmation and took off down the stairs, feeling his breath begin to huff in a pattern that had once been as familiar to him as existing. His lungs expanded and compressed in a perfect rhythm, muscles working in a perfect locomotive tandemー not like his days of being prey, having to slink quietly between shadows and pray no-one could hear him. No, he ran like the days when he was the predator, when creatures found him to be the apex and they could only hold their breaths and hope their clumsy escape didn’t leave a trail. Now, Stanford allowed his senses to open, tuning into the trail of metallic crimson that fell in splashesー

Too much, there’s too much blood for this to be okayー

He refused to think about it, he would notー

Your fault! Your fault! Yourfaultyourfaultyourfauー

“Shut up!” he spat, practically feral as he snarled the words to himself. 

If he were in the confines of his own room, away from the prying eyes of his concerned family, he would beat at the metal plate in his own head, growling curses at his thoughts that wouldn’t shut up no matter how he howled and begged for relief. He wanted his niece to be okay, he wanted to not fuck up her life anymore than he already had with his 30 year legacy of fucking shit up. She was good, too good to be dealing with these feelings of fear that had her damaging herself in ways Ford couldn’t even imagine. When he found herー not if, never ifー he’d sit her down and find out why she was so scared of him.

When did I last have a conversation with just her?

That thought had him skidding to a stop, heels digging into the soil as he stood there panting into the chilling air. It was getting dark all around him and he could hear Dipper and Stan worriedly calling for Mabel. 

When had he had a conversation where it was just him and her? There were plenty of times he had spoken to Dipper on video chat, one or the both of them dismissing their respective twins so they could have a moment to enjoy their nerd talks. Heck, there was even some times when Stan had shoved Ford out of their boat cabin so he could have one-on-one time with Dipper and Mabel respectively. But had… had Ford done that with Mabel? Surely he hadn’t been that dense, surely he hadn’t isolated Mabel to such an extent that he didn’t even truly know her?

His breathing was loud now, no longer the sound of a predator pacing out their breaths to ensure they could chase until their prey realised they couldn’t escape. Now he was the one sinking in on himself, the weight of his actions, of his ignorance, pushing in on him. He pushed through it, his hands still trembling even as he moved as if Mabel’s very life depended on it.

…Did it?

“Mabel?!” he yelled, beginning to pick up speed again, his voice warbling with the pressure wrapping around his trachea. He could feel the choking sensation, the burning of his eyes returning as he pushed through the debilitating emotions. He couldn’t afford to feed into themー they were threatening to push him further from the little girl who had once looked at him like he’d held the marvels of the universe in his six-fingered hands. “Mabel! Sweetheart, please come back! I’m so, so sorry!”

The universe mocked him as he trampled through the underbrush, no sign of a pink sweater coming to greet him like it had back when he had stepped through the portal. She had been the first person to look at him with wonder, never once questioning his strange existence, just glad to be a part of his life. He remembered how she had looked at him when he got off of the bus this last Summer, how for a moment, she had been so ready to jump into his arms in greetings.

But then she had hesitated.

He wasn’t like Stan, he sometimes struggled to show love equally at the same time. His hands were so big and yet it sometimes felt like his arms weren’t big enough to hold them both. He remembered being a kid, feeling resentful sometimes of having to share everything with his twin, but he had never thought about what it’d be like to be the twin outside of the embrace. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Mabel watching her hesitance snap up the first embrace of the Summer she had waited all year for. He couldn’t imagine what it was like watching Dipper continuously get something that by all rights should have been equally hers too. 

She used to watch them interact with a content smile on her face, as if she knew something they didn’t. Sometimes Stan was beside her, sharing that same expression before they turned sad smiles to each otherー how hadn’t he realised they were sad at the time? 

She was happy for them, he realised with a start. He had always been bad with identifying feelings and expressions but he could see it now, the content smile as she watched him and Dipper bond. She’d been so happy for them at the same time as being unbearably sad that she had never gotten that same response from him. 

Ford hated knowing he had done that to her. 

“ Mabel?! ” he yelled, feeling the edges of his voice beginning to turn into a terrified shriek. The hour limit he had set was already up and the darkness was sinking into the forest, the shadows stretching out until they swallowed the earth entirely. Still, he didn’t stop moving, didn’t follow his own instructions in his desperation to find his grand niece. “ Mabel, please come out! ”

She was scared of Ford, she knew that now.

It felt silly when she thought about it, how the idea of getting too close, of having to make eye contact with him, made her heart thump uncomfortably quick in her chest. She hated how she acted when she was near him, her charming silliness never making a dent in his unapproachable aura that he only ever opened when it came to Dipper. 

Did she really think he was going to harm her, when she had screamed and he had reached across to her? In the moment, she really had, but by the time her brain had started to catch up to her, panting in haggard, frightened breaths in the abandoned attic, she realised how badly she had ruined everything. He had been trying to comfort her, it wasn’t his fault that she didn’t know what it looked like to be on the receiving end of that from him. She had seen him be violent, had seen him sock her Grunkle Stan in the face harshly with that same handー it had all gotten muddled in her brain in that awful moment. 

The deep shame that had flooded her when she realised what she had done was like a black pit swallowing her whole. Watching Ford stumble from the attic, breaths huffing out in anxious gasps at her rejection, her accusation, had shattered the last of her. She had to escape from the house, had to leave before everything caught up to herー Stan and Dipper would never forgive her for upsetting Ford so badly ー

The stairs were occupied, she could hear them from behind her closed bedroom door, leaving the only escape the taunting triangular window that stared down at Dipper and her when they slept. She had recklessly abandoned any notions of self preservation in her need to escape, slamming her shoulder roughly into the glass pane and falling heavily through the opened escape route. She hadn’t been able to stop her own momentum and she’d rolled down the roof, having mere seconds to brace herself before she was airborne and she fell to the ground from the first floor. 

The wind had been knocked out of her as she hit the dirt hard and the combination of her now aching shoulder and the tens, if not hundreds, of stinging cuts had made the adrenaline rise to a crescendo in her brain. It didn’t matter if she was barely put together, if there was blood sluggishly dripping down her lacerated skin to soak into the fibres of her sweaterー she felt the impending rush of people chasing her and knew she was prey. 

There was something wrong with her ankle, she knew that, but the adrenaline pushed her through any pain that tried to stop her. The first step was shaky, the second more assured, and the third and subsequent steps were like that of a startled hare, driving her ever further forward without consideration of the trail she was leaving behind. She knew her breathing was loud and haggard, that anyone could hear it, but she couldn’t stop to gather her wits enough to pace herself. All she knew was the adrenaline thrumming through her veins, the heat of blood coating her fingers being the only reminder that she was very injured. 

She could hear them calling for her, words jumbling together in her messy, twisted mind as she ran deeper and deeper into the woods. When she couldn’t run, she’d sometimes limp, sometimes find a spot to hide in the crook of a tree or base of a bush. Sometimes they got close to her, sometimes she could hear the echoes of their voices or the sound of their footsteps as they begged her to come back, but she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. She wouldn’t let them find her, wouldn’t let them send her back to Piedmont, banished from the only place she had ever truly felt like she belonged. 

Darkness fell as she kept moving, ever fearful of them catching her. She knew there were monsters out here, and didn't care about the predators that wished to catch and kill her for their meal. If she could somehow make an impact in her life, even if it was just to fill the bellies of a beast just trying desperately to survive like she was, what did she care?

Finally, the blood loss began to pull her down as she moved, many of the wounds having long since clotted but the big ones showed no sign of easing. There was a nasty one on her shoulder, as well as two on her forearm and a large one on the top of her forehead, which just kept bleeding, no matter how hard she pressed the edge of her sweater to it. Her steps became unsteadier as the adrenaline wore off, vision wavering with blackness at the edges as she kept stumbling forward.

The first time she fell was a minor setback, the second and third were inconvenient, but the fourth was like her muscles had decided she could physically give no more. She blinked the blood from her eyes, wiping at her cold and clammy face as she shuffled into a careening upright position. She was at least able to crawl to the base of a nearby tree and rest against it, chest thundering offly in her chest like it was skipping every other beat. Her limbs were trembling and everything was a bit fuzzy, her skin feeling colder than she had ever known it to be. 

The other voices had faded by now, only one remaining as it called for her continuously in a frantic frenzy. She couldn’t tell how far away it was anymore, a subtle ringing in her ears finally intensifying to the point that she couldn't tell left from right. Instead, she focused on her hiccuping breaths, concentrating on slowing her panting down to a rattling wheeze. She tipped her head back, waiting for her vision to stop spinning so she could see the canopy of stars between the pine tree branches. She smiled up at them, happy for the company in this terrifying moment of tranquillity. 

Was Ford still looking for her? She wasn’t sure, she couldn’t hear him as well anymore. She didn’t think she was as worried about being found anymore either, the fear having disappeared into the woods with a lot of her blood, sweat and tears. She let out a tired hum, closing her eyes briefly for a long moment before she opened them at the sound of crunching leaves. 

“ Mabel?! ”

She lolled her head in what she thought was the direction of his voice before correcting herself, eyes blinking up at Ford’s horrified, pale face tiredly. 

“Grunkle… Ford…” she mumbled, lips stumbling over the syllables like they were a foreign language. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, her throat oh so dry and her lips cracking from a lack of moisture. She felt a brief trickle of fear at seeing him but it disappeared a moment later, no adrenaline remaining to flood her system. 

He was rough, that was for certain. His boots were muddied all the way up to the shin and his trench coat had half a dozen near tears from where they had been snatched at by the twigs and stones. His sweater, the one she had made for him, was torn and mud-covered and his face was streaked with sweat and grime, eyes bloodshot as they stared at her in unadulterated fear. His weathered features were pale and he had never looked so old, as if his traipsing through the woods after her had aged him 10 years. 

Ford, on the other hand, had thought he could not be any more panicked than he was after looking for her for so long. Yet here he was, standing over Mabel whose sweater was more red than it was pink anymore. Half of her face was covered in sticky, coagulated blood, while her torn sweater showed a sluggishly bleeding laceration atop a fiercely purple bruise that would need stitches at the very least. There were so many long since dried cuts, the blood leaving crusty rivulets from where they had dripped down her exposed skin. She sat at the base of a tree, her exposed feet and shins bruised to high heavens as she turned unfocused eyes up to him as if she was surprised to see him there.

“Mabel,” he breathed, the immense relief he felt being a momentary lapse from his worry before he was dropping to his knees beside her. She startled at the action but it was delayed and exhausted, her body swaying with the effort and trying to focus on him. “Mabel, sweetie, I’m sorry, this is all my fault.”

“S’not you,” she slurred, blinking up at him like an owl. She reached out a shaking hand, patting the hands that hovered over her hesitantly. “S’me… I’m such a bad kid.”

“ No, honey,” he moaned, wanting nothing more than to gather her into his arms and hold on tight. He was already digging into the wide expanse of his trenchoat’s pockets, searching for the antiseptic and bandages he kept on him for emergencies. “No, you aren’t a bad kid, sweetheart. You’re perfect, I’m so lucky to have a great niece like you in my life.”

The laugh she let out was a mere croak, the sound disbelieving and sad. When he went to grab her arm, to apply sound of the antiseptic to, she moved it away, her eyes watching him with an almost piteous resemblance. 

“Not worthy,” she grumbled, shoving an uncoordinated hand at the wipes in his grasp as if to push them away from her. “No hugs for Mabel. She’s a bad niece, bad… sister… can’t even be happy for…”

“You hush now,” he soothed as best as he could, reaching again for her arm. She slapped out at his hand but it had the same effectiveness as a newborn tiger cub. “Mabel, please, I need to help you. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Dipper can stay in Gravity Falls,” she chuckled darkly, her voice practically a rasp. Ford went deathly still at this, his face not moving but his eyes staring at her with a dawning horror. “With me… gone…”

“You do not ever speak like that! ” Grunkle Ford snapped, his breathing becoming haggard as he gripped her arm tighter than he meant to. She flinched but she barely seemed to register it, her eyes trailing up from where they were touching to finally settle on his face. She finally seemed to register the unbridled worry on his face, the lines of stress that were focused purely on her for the first time since she had met him. “Summer is not better without my favourite great niece! I cannot bear to be in the Shack without you there lighting it up with your smile and positivity! Dipper isn’t better off without you, Stan isn’t better off without you, I’m not better off without you! ”

As he finished, the only sound in the clearing was his heavy breathing. He had paused in his bandaging, shaking hands making the work near impossible as his eyes burned. The idea of not having Mabel around was like removing one of his limbs, like he was expected to walk without aid and without the support of his family. It was only when he started to get his own raggedy breathing under control that he finally heard the sniffle and he stared down at Mabel with the vice tightening around his heart again. 

“I thought…” she whispered, voice breaking in the middle as tears dribbled down her cheeks in waves. “...You didn’t like me…”

And that was it, wasn’t it? The crux of the whole problem. Coldness seeped through Stanford’s body, filling every vein until it reached the tips of his fingers and made them tingle. He looked down at her, his heart aching in ways he could never hope to find the words for as she stared back at him with eyes so full of despair. He had caused this with his unchecked favouritism, with his paranoia, with his projection of his and Stan’s earlier relationship onto her and Dipper. Mabel, looking like Death itself had befriended her and was waiting for her company, had lost any self-preservation purely because she was terrified of him finding her. 

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, feeling himself choke on the word as he reached out for her. She flinched again but this time he didn’t drop it, pushing through his trepidation to lay a shaking hand upon her cheek. It was deathly cold to the touch, starkly pale against his tanner skin that had once been the same shade as her own. “ Honey, I love you like I love the stars in the sky.”

She faltered at this, her breath coming out in a hiccup that sounded painful in her chest. She tried to pull away but he was firm and she was so, so weak from the blood loss. Ford knew he needed to start bandaging, needed to prevent more damage being done, but he knew if he didn’t address this now, the damage it did to his niece might be worse in the long run.

“No, Mabel, sweetpea, look at me,” he begged as she tried to move her eyes from his face, tears blurring her vision. “I love you, I think you are the most extraordinary person I have ever met. You are my great niece, my family, and I could never ask for more in the entire universe.”

“No!” she gurgled, eyes and nose running as she tried to snatch her face back. Ford held firm, making sure she couldn’t pull away even as the moisture from her tears mixed with the dried blood on her cheeks. “You… you don’t mean that. I’m stupid, I’m loud and annoying and that’s why you don’t like spending time with me. Why you don’t like talking to me and why you want to send me home!”

“I don’t want to send you home!” he pressed, tone straining with his desperation for her to believe him. Her eyes still wouldn’t meet his. “I was worried about you, that maybe Gravity Falls was making you sick and I was just looking afterー”

“ Liar! ” she cried, raising a sluggish hand to try and shove him away. It didn’t work, no strength filling her limbs as she turned accusing eyes onto him. “You’re just trying to get rid of the stupid twin! I’m not Dipper, I’m not worth keeping around and I’m just suffocating him! ”

Cold dread shot through his heart as his own words were thrown in his face. “...I… I didn’t know you had heard…”

“ Isn’t it suffocating?! ” she snapped, her breath stuttering as she tried and failed to get away from him. “You only want Dipper to stay behind… You didn’t even think… that maybe we both could have stayed!”

That… had never occurred to him, if he was honest with himself. He hadn’t even remotely considered asking both twins to stay, too busy with his euphoria at having someone understand him like Dipper did and his desire to prevent Dipper going through the same heartbreak he did. If he wasn’t already upset with himself, he would kick himself for his stupidity. 

“Would… would you have liked that?”

“ Yes! ” she said in exasperation, frowning up at him like he had been faking his intelligence all these years. “I didn’t want to leave even before I knew about the apprenticeship! I wanted to stay, I wanted to know you! ”

“I’m a fool, Mabel,” he finally said, feeling the weight of the words reach his niece as her glower began to soften. “I’m an old, broken man who was so fine with breaking other people because it fit the stereotypes in my brain.” She opened her mouth to say something but he ploughed on, running his thumb under her eye to wipe away the sluggish tears there. “You were the first person who had ever looked at me like I wasn’t some freak of nature. You looked at me like… like I was like you. ”

He blinked and could feel the wetness on his own face, tears dripping down his stubbly chin to sink into the dirt below. She was watching him now, the fear and anger warbling behind her gaze and he could see he was starting to make some ground. 

“You’re weird, ” he sniffled, watching as spluttered into a surprised giggle as he said the word. “And I’m weird! And you looked at me like there was nothing wrong with being weird because you were like me and I was like you. I’m so, so sorry I isolated you. I am the adult, I shouldn’t have let my own trauma sink into how I viewed your relationships with those around you and with me.”

She looked so small and hesitant, staring up at him with red eyes and blood covered face. His hand was so big on her face, so large it could almost swallow one side of her whole head. These were the hands that had killed many people across the multiverseー some on purpose, some on accidentー and having the blood of his niece on his hands was just too much. 

“Please, Mabel…” he murmured, reaching for her arm again so he could finally begin wrapping it up. “Please… I love you, let me help you.”

When Ford began wiping at the grime around her multitude of lacerations, she didn’t pull away this time. She watched his every move with the trepidation of a prey animal expecting a predator to take a bite, eyes occasionally darting to his face before returning to watching his hands. He carefully wrapped and disinfected each laceration, hissing quietly to himself when he stopped at the large ones that hadn’t stopped bleeding in the hours it had been.

“These will need stitches,” Ford muttered, mostly to himself as he tightly packed gauze into the wounds. Mabel hissed in pain and he baulked, offering quiet apologies at not warning her before he did so. “I can either take you to the hospital or I can do it back at the Shack… Whichever you would prefer is fine but there’s a lot of blood loss, I think it’s worth going to the hospital.”

“...I trust you,” she whispered so quietly he almost didn’t hear it. When he ran the words over in his mind and registered their meaning, he felt his already full heart swell with affection for the girl. Even when she had gone through intense emotional turmoil at his hands, she still had such a large heart full of trust and love. “Shack, please.”

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised, meaning it with every fibre of his being. Both now and in the future, he would make sure she was well taken care of and he wouldn’t stop even when he had finally won her over. 

When the last wound was covered, he eyed the bruising on her bare feet and cringed when he saw one ankle was more swollen than the other. A sprain no doubt, likely from when she had jumped off the roof in her need to escape. Once more, guilt ate slowly away at his insides but he pushed it away, knowing he had to keep a straight head on. 

“I’m going to pick you up now,” he warned softly, watching as she tensed up suddenly before relaxing. She seemed to be mulling her options over in her head, her feet flexing briefly before she gave a whole-body cringe at what was undoubtedly a lot of pain. When she offered up a cautious nod, he gently picked her up into his arms, offering quiet apologies when she cried out in pain at the jostling. “I know, I’m so sorry, I’ve got you, sweetie, you’re doing so well.”

The trek through the forest was long, far longer than it had felt when she was getting herself lost in it. The longer it went, the more her vision started to waver again, the clarity that came from confronting Ford beginning to wear off. She could feel the wetness seeping through the bandage at her shoulder, even with all of the packing. She tried to keep her head up, wanting to watch the trees pass her as they walked, but she found it lolling against Ford’s chest, his heart thudding away reassuringly. She felt Ford press a kiss to the crown of her head as he hummed softly.

She could tell he was saying something, was aware her ears were ringing and filtering out the words. When she didn’t answer him, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton, she could barely make out that he was looking down at her in rapidly growing concern as her head fell back over his arm. He was calling her name now as her eyelids grew heavier, a sense of urgency in his voice that wasn’t able to sift through the labyrinth that was her consciousness.

When darkness overtook her, it came with some relief, even if the cold terror across Ford’s face made a trickle of sympathy fill her heart. She was so tired after everything, so tired of being awake and scared of Ford. She happily gave into the pull of unconsciousness, the darkness swallowing her whole as she heard her name yelled in grave fear.

“Mabel! ”

When consciousness returned to her, she could smell the heavy antiseptic in the air and her limbs were like weights. She felt more tired than the time Stan had tried to teach her to box, laughing at her weak little noodle arms that ended up hitting him straight in the guts. The pain she remembered was a distant dream, like it was buried beneath a heavy layer of snow that numbed it from registering in her brain. 

Her eyes were heavy and dry but she was finally able to blink them open, gaze swirling with a dizziness that made her nauseous. She registered that she was tucked into a bed, the sheets the dark maroon she knew belonged to Ford’s and smelled just like himー like old books and pine smoke. She made a low sound in her throat as she tried to sit up, but there were quickly hands guiding her to lay back down. 

“Easy, pumpkin,” Stan’s gruff voice came, thick with worry and weariness as his face appeared in her line of sight. His face looked haggard, like he had not slept once since she had run out of the shack. “You’re home. You lost a lot of blood, we don’t want you losing the IV.”

She blinked at this, not quite understanding his words until she looked down at her hand and spotted the cannula inserted into the back of her wrist. It was connected to two hanging bags beside her, one filled with what she could only assume was blood and the other filled with a cloudy white-ish liquid. 

She wet her lips, still feeling the deep dryness on her tongue. “Grunkle… Stan…?” she croaked, coughing slightly and jostling her heavily wrapped shoulder. He slipped his arm behind her back, drawing her semi-upright and shoving some more pillows behind her before handing her a glass of water. She guzzled it down greedily, smiling up at him appreciatively. 

“There we are, kiddo.”

“What happened?” she asked softly, finding that her voice was still not cooperating. She was so very weary, the tiredness having sunk deep into her bones.

“You were pretty hurt, sweetie,” he murmured and she could see the strain in him as he said the words. He looked as if he had aged 20 years in the time she had been asleep. “Ford brought you back, wrapped you up like a mummy and took some of our blood to help. Good thing you have a twin and Grunkles with the same blood type, huh?”

“Did… Did I really lose that much?” she asked, genuinely confused when she looked up at Stan. 

“You lost too much,” he admitted, letting out a deep sigh as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “Dipper was inconsolable, last thing he heard, Ford was going upstairs to talk to you and then he found out you were hurt out in the forest somewhere.” He nodded his head towards the other side of the bed where she realised Dipper was curled up in a chair, utterly dead to the world as he snoozed. “I’m just letting him sleep. Tried to corral him to his own bed but he refused so he’s over there giving himself a sore neck for when he wakes up.”

Mabel couldn’t help but let out a soft huff of laughter, knowing Dipper could be surprisingly stubborn when it came to her safety. She felt guilt begin to trickle into her chest when she thought about how worried he must have been before pushing it to the sideー she had enough she had to worry about in that moment. 

“...Grunkle Ford?”

Stan flinched at that, his eyes darting over to the door before he could stop himself. “He’s on the couch,” Stan admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looked decidedly uncomfortable. “He’s blaming himself a lot for what happenedー I don’t blame him, either. We’re working through a lot, him and I, about how our experiences have shaped our thinking patterns and behaviours. We’re trying not to let it damage you kids but… we struggle a lot with it.”

The show of vulnerability made Mabel’s breath catch in her throat and she immediately reached for her Grunkle, pulling him towards her so she could wrap her arms around him. He held her so tenderly, his normally tight hugs absent as he held her like she was the most precious thing in the world and he couldn’t bear to break her. Her eyes watered but she pushed the tears back, sniffling softly as she patted his back.

When Dipper awoke, he scolded her for her recklessness and for making him worry for so long he went red in the face. Even Stan’s gentle chides fell on deaf ears and he went until he had to suck in a long breath, his wheezing rattle catching in his throat so badly he fell into an intense coughing fit. Even tired from the blood loss, she snickered and patted him on the back to dislodge the spittle. He seemed to realise how weak she was when her normally boisterous pats were little more than the baps of a weak kitten and he immediately apologised for his outburst. 

She stayed in bed for a few days, gradually moving from the IV to iron-rich foods that she normally didn’t like but took because her family looked at her with great worry. After a few days, she was starting to feel well enough for short trips around the house. In that time, the only time she saw Ford was when she was woken gently to him checking over her wounds, the man quickly making himself scarce when he noticed she was awake. 

When she asked Grunkle Stan and Dipper about it, the two looked saddened and sheepishly explained that he was trying to give her space after scaring her so badly. She had tried not to let the sting of his absence hit her but it was beginning to eat at her as time passed and, by the time a week had passed, she found that her enthusiasm to be out of bed had ebbed to the point that the last time she had gotten out of Ford’s bed, it was to painstakingly hobble up to her own in the attic without telling anyone.

It took hours for anyone to notice and, when they did, Dipper and Stan had requested she return to the ground floor for fear of her hurting herself on the stairs. Her only response was to pull the covers above her head and pretend she couldn’t hear them, her stomach twisting at knowing Ford couldn’t even bear to be around her. She refused lunch and dinner that day, followed by breakfast and lunch the following. She felt herself withering and Stan and Dipper’s concerns only grew, the two even resorting to begging her to leave the attic which fell on deaf ears.

It was in the evening when she finally got the knock on the door. She didn’t pull the covers off of herself, the dread having long since sunk deep into her bones and stopping her from facing the people who actually cared about her.

“...Mabel?”

She startled at Ford’s voice, his words tinged with trepidation and worry and making guilt settle around her like a blanket. She could hear him hovering in the doorway, deciding between staying where he was or coming further in. He must have decided on the latter as she heard the door close, his tepid footsteps echoing before her bed dipped as he took a seat near her curled legs.

“Sweetie… can we talk?”

She thought about the request for a moment, a miniscule, vindictive part of her wanting to send him away for continuously doing this to her. This constant push and pull, of drawing her in with his smiles and acceptance before pushing her back when he grew uncomfortable. But another part of her, the bigger part of her that wanted Ford’s affection and warmth rebelled, and she tentatively drew the blanket away from her face.

He was looking down at her in concern, his haggard expression revealing the extent of his exhaustion by the bags beneath his eyes. “You aren’t eating,” he whispered when she emerged, hand hovering for a moment before resting on her cheek. 

“You lied,” she whispered back, unable to find the strength to push him away. She wasn’t sad anymore, she was just tired and disappointed. He frowned at her accusation, opening his mouth to refute it but she barrelled on. “You said you loved me and then avoided me. You lied to me, Great Uncle Stanford.”

He flinched at both the use of his full title and his full name, his haggard expression twisting with pain before he drew his shoulders up. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he argued but she could see the tiredness in him too, the same way it was holding her down. “I thought… you might not want to see me.”

“...I always want to see you,” she admitted quietly, finally allowing herself to lean into the hand at her cheek. His eyes were fixed on her, waiting patiently for her to complete her thought and seemingly waiting with bated breath. “I want you to look at me like you look at Dipper. I want you to see me and smile the way I see you smile at him. I want so badly to be around you the way you… you…”

She felt the tears gather in the corner of her eyes again as she looked up at him, seeing his devastated expression before he quickly drew her into a hug. She felt the tension begin to ease from her body, resting her head into the sweater she had made for him that smelled just like he did. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice full and heavy with the emotions he struggled to vocalise. I’m sorry, I love you, please don’t leave me, don’t hurt yourself like that againー she heard it all in the words he struggled to express. “ I’m sorry. ”

And she forgave him.

It was in her nature to never hold a grudge, to accept the affection others offered her. She grabbed at the back of his sweater, holding on like her life depended on it, and held him as tightly as he held her, whispering apologies under her own breath. When he hushed her, pressing a kiss to her forehead tenderly, like she was the most precious thing in the world, she forgave him for the anguish he had inflicted upon her unwittingly this last year. She forgave him when he promised her that he would do better, that he would spend time with her like she properly deserved and stop shutting her out when life got tough. She forgave him when he reminded her that he had loved her from the very moment she had shaken his hand and grinned up at him. 

When they descended the stairs later, Ford carrying most of her weight, they ate ravenously at dinner under the watchful eyes of their twins. As if the whole house let out a breath of relief at their unity, the tension that had filled the house began to dissipate. 

There were still slip-upsー healing didn’t happen overnight. Ford still pushed her away sometimes, paranoia settling around him like a familiar haze. Mabel still reacted to notions of being cut out with distress, a fear of abandonment making its way onto her list of fears. She sometimes felt the shakes in her hands the way Grunkle Stan’s did when he was stressed, found herself biting at her nails in the way Dipper did after a nightmare. Sometimes she even found herself pacing the halls, her arms tucked tight around herself like Ford did when he had bouts of paranoia. 

At the end of it all though, she always found a waiting body ready to embrace her, beckoning her closer as they soothed away her fears. Dipper would bring her some of her sweaters and the two would make a nest of the soft, plush material, riding the waves of fear out together. Stan would draw her into his lap and hold her so tight, refusing to let the tremors shake her apart at the seams. And finally, Ford had entered the mix, drawing her to his side and holding her hand through the sadness, refusing to let go until she had received the comfort she needed.

So no, she wasn’t scared of Ford.

She was scared of not having Ford in her life.

And she was okay with that.