Three hours, endless dances, and way too much punch later, Mabel sat on the couch (which they'd dragged from the living room to the gift shop) and let out a deep, contented sigh.

The last of the guests had just left the party. Melody was putting her DJ equipment away, and Dipper was gathering up what was left of the food. Mabel had been put in charge of pulling down streamers and bunches of balloons, but she needed a moment to rest first.

The party had been pretty fun. Robbie brought all of his friends who brought all of their friends, so there were a lot of high schoolers, but there were a fair amount of middle schoolers too. Mabel had mostly stayed near Dipper, who was always with Candy and Greyson but also made time for his other guests. At one point, though, Robbie had called her over, and Mabel had actually gotten to dance with teenagers. It was terrifying. And amazing. And exhausting.

"Tuckered out?"

Mabel opened her half-closed eyes to see Ford looking down at her. "Yeah," she said. "I don't know how you guys are still on your feet."

Then again, Ford hadn't done much dancing. Or any, really.

"I'm going to go start cleaning up our ghost mess before Melody sees it. Come find me when you're done in here, alright?"

Mabel was surprised. Based on all the cleaning she and Dipper had done, on top of the work Melody did to keep the Mystery Museum running, she had assumed Ford had never lifted a spray bottle in his life.

"O-oh, um, I made the summoning circle. I can clean it up."

"No, it's alright. Stay in here and help Melody and your brother."

"Okay."

Ford left, and Mabel sat on the couch for a few more minutes before forcing herself to her feet and starting her chore. It was already late, and the clean-up took another hour (with some of the mess still left when Melody declared them done for the night), but Mabel soon felt wide awake as she remembered what came next.

Answers.

Once the twins were released from their chores, Mabel grabbed Dipper by the arm and raced to the door. "Come on, come on, come on! Ford's finally gonna tell us!"

"Woah, Mabel, wait a sec!" Dipper twisted out of her grip. She looked back at him in confusion; he ignored her and turned around. "Melody, Ford agreed to tell us what the whole basement thing is about. Come here!"

A minute later, Mabel, Dipper, and Melody all sat around the fire in the living room, waiting for Ford's explanation.

Ford took a deep breath.

"To begin," he said, "I hope you all understand why I've been so reclusive these past few days. Before Mabel returned my Journal to me, I had. . . forgotten much about my past. All I knew was that I was in a backwards town with a plethora of things to research, but no interest in researching them. It wasn't until this week that I remembered why. And so I needed a few days, to remember, and to process everything. I wasn't sure if I could trust any of you with this information, but. . . now I have reason to believe I can."

"It's okay, Grunkle Ford," Mabel said. "I shouldn't have been so impatient about it all."

Ford accepted her apology with a nod, and then continued. "I care about all of you. I want to keep you safe." His tone was smooth and level, but Mabel had a feeling the words were hard for him to say. She cherished them because of that. "But after what happened with Pacifica Pleasure, I'm not sure if my vain attempts to keep you safe will have any effects. Just know, however, that I've lost much because of my own folly. I've taken risks I shouldn't have taken. And I don't want to repeat those mistakes with all of you."

So what's the thing in the basement? Mabel wanted to say. But she didn't rush him. He had to tell the story at his own pace.

"Thirty-six years ago," Ford said, "I arrived in Gravity Rises. I studied the paranormal here for six years. I wrote three Journals full of my discoveries. But that wasn't enough for me. I wanted to figure out where it all came from. So I decided to build an interdimensional portal."

Mabel gasped. "The triangle thing! With the hole in the center!"

Ford nodded. "The construction went along fine, but then it came time to test it. My assistant and I—"

"You had an assistant?" Dipper asked. "Is that Lee?"

"No," Ford says. "I. . . I don't recall much about my assistant. He's in my Journal."

"The guy you just called F?" Mabel asked.

"Yes. I don't remember his full name. I didn't even remember his existence until reading the Journal again. A lot of things are still. . . still hazy."

"Why do you think you forgot so much?" Melody wondered.

"I don't know," Ford replied. "But there are some things I do remember. My assistant F and I were doing just fine on the project, but then something happened. I don't remember what. Something happened that made me lose trust in F. I needed someone else. So I called my brother, and begged him to come to Gravity Rises."

Silence.

"You have a brother?"

Dipper was the one who actually said it, but they all thought it in that exact tone of shock.

"Had," Ford said.

And that's when Mabel realized why Ford had been crying that night in the basement.

"His name was Stanley," Ford said. The room was more hushed, more subdued, as Mabel, Dipper, and Melody all listened intently. "Sometimes I called him Lee for short. He was my twin."

Mabel gasped softly.

"We hadn't seen each other in years. But he came. Despite it all, he came." Ford took another deep breath. "That day, when we tested the portal. . . something went wrong. We weren't cautious enough, the portal wasn't stable yet. But we — I — was so impatient that I took the risk anyway. And that day. . .

"That day, Stanley fell into the portal."

Nobody seemed to breathe.

Ford's voice trembled as he continued. "Stanley fell into the portal, and then it shut down. It wouldn't turn back on. And the next morning. . . if my fuzzy memory is correct, the next morning F was gone, and so were my Journals."

Mabel's eyes widened. "He stole them?"

"I don't know. Maybe. It's possible he and the Journals didn't disappear at the same time." Ford grimaced. "I hate being unable to trust my own memory, but it's not clear enough to be sure."

"And that's when you forgot everything?" Dipper asked.

"Yes. My memories clear up after that. I remember being alone in my home, depressed and wondering why I ever tried to study the supernatural. And. . . after that, I never gave another thought to my Journals, or to the portal, or to F, or. . . or to my brother. I built the vending machine in front of the entrance to the basement, I turned my house into a tourist trap because the grant money I'd gotten from college was running out. I. . . I lost myself. I lost myself, the day I lost my brother."

The room was completely silent after that. A heavy weight had descended on Mabel's chest. She felt like she couldn't breathe.

Ford had a brother. Ford had a twin brother. Ford had a lost twin brother. Ford had a twin brother, and he lost him.

Mabel was suddenly very, very aware of Dipper clutching her hand.

Ford noticed it too. "So you see," he said quietly. "That's why I want to keep you safe. I couldn't bear to see one of you lose their twin too."

Mabel wanted to cry, but her eyes remained dry. She was too horrified to cry. If she cried, it meant she could imagine losing Dipper in the first place. And she couldn't.

"That won't happen," Dipper said. "We won't let that happen. Right, Mabel?"

"Right," she said. Her voice was shaky.

"Ford."

They all turned to Melody.

"Ford," she repeated, "if your brother is on the other side of the portal, isn't there a chance he's still alive?"

Ford sighed. "I don't know. We didn't know what was on the other side of the portal. He could be alive and healthy, or. . . Well, who knows what has happened in thirty years."

"There has to be a way to turn on the portal again," Dipper said. "There has to be a way to get Stanley back! Right?"

Mabel frowned. Something stirred in the back of her mind.

"Do you think you could fix the portal, Ford?" asked Melody.

And then it clicked.

Mabel gasped. "The Journal!"

She pulled it out from her jacket and slammed it onto the ground, flipping through the pages so fast she got a paper cut. "Here!" she exclaimed, jabbing at the page with her other hand while sucking on her cut finger.

The page she was pointing to showed an enlarged diagram, like it had been cut out of a larger picture. A large half circle sat on the top half of the page, surrounded by strange symbols and futuristic-looking lines. A path leading from the circle opened out into another shape, like an arrowhead jutting up from the bottom right corner of the page.

"I couldn't figure out what this was," Mabel said, "but now I can see it. This—" she pointed to the arrowhead "—is part of the portal, right? The top corner?"

Ford nodded. "I spread the instructions for the portal out between all three Journals to keep the information safe. But I can't remember any of it on my own, and we don't have the other two Journals."

"Then we just have to find them!" Dipper said. "They've gotta be around town somewhere, right? Or maybe they're hidden in the forest too!"

"Maybe," Ford said. He sounded doubtful.

Mabel frowned. "Grunkle Ford, why do you seem so hesitant about this? We might be able to get your brother back!"

Ford turned his sad gaze to her. "I. . . I appreciate your enthusiasm, kids, but. . . taking unnecessary risks is what got my brother on the other side of that portal in the first place. Who knows where the other two Journals are or what perils we'll have to go through to get them? Who knows what we'll find when we reactivate the portal? Who knows if Stanley is even on the other side?"

"We won't know any of those things if we don't try," Mabel said. "Please, Grunkle Ford, this is a necessary risk. If — if Dipper was on the other side of a portal and I didn't know if he was — if he was dead or alive—"

Dipper put an arm around her, as if to remind her he was still there.

"—then I would be doing everything I could to get him back, risk or no risk. If you don't try to get your brother back, who knows if it would have worked?"

"Yeah," Dipper said. "You can't just abandon hope, not now that we actually have some! Last week you couldn't even remember Stanley. Now we have a chance at getting him back!"

Ford looked at the twins, a pained expression on his face. "Melody?" he asked.

She started. "Oh. I agree with the twins. I think you should try to get Stanley back."

They all waited as Ford thought.

"I want to see Stanley again more than anything," Ford finally said. "But I could never live with myself if I lost one of you in the process of getting him back."

"We'll be careful," Mabel promised.

"We've made it through tough situations before!" Dipper pointed out.

"And," Melody finished, "we've done it together."

Ford gazed around at all of them, and Mabel realized he'd made the decision long ago to try to rescue Stanley. He just needed his family to confirm he was doing the right thing.

"Alright," he said. "We'll do it."

Dipper cheered. Melody clapped. Mabel just smiled.

"We'll find the Journals," Ford said, "and then activate the portal again. We'll get Stanley back, or at the very least we'll find out what happened to him." The more he spoke, the stronger his voice got.

"And we'll do it together," Mabel added. "We'll trust each other."

He looked at her.

"Yes," he said. "Together. With trust."

And at that moment, with the three Pines and their honorary fourth member all together in one room, united by a common goal, Mabel suddenly felt so full of love she could burst.

So she grabbed Dipper's hand one more time, to remind herself that she was there. To remind herself that he loved her. That she loved him.

That they were going to reunite another set of twins, and they were going to do it together.