WINTER 2013

Despite it being ten in the morning, the streets of Gravity Rises were deserted.

The townsfolk all huddled in their homes, waiting for the end of the gravitational anomalies that had plagued them through the night. The whole town held an atmosphere of bated breath, as the people waited for the next anomaly, praying that it would never come.

This time, it didn't.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the townspeople of Gravity Rises crept from their homes, finding their neighbors and ensuring the safety of their friends. The terror of the night had officially passed. Their anxieties were over.

But for the Pines, those anxieties had only just begun.

In the basement of the Mystery Museum, they all stared at the strange man from the interdimensional portal. The twins, Mabel and Dipper, stood near each other on one side of the room. Melody Ramirez stood on the other. Stanford, driven to his knees, stared out from the center of the room.

Melody broke her gaze from the stranger and turned it to Stanford. The look on his face broke her heart. Her patient — the man she had promised to protect, the man who had opened the portal, the man who had been injured in the process — had expected a brother. A brother who had been missing for thirty years. And he got this man instead.

Melody wanted so badly to run over to Ford, to hug him, to protect him, but she couldn't move. The entire room was frozen. The man from the portal had cast a spell of horror over the Museum basement, and Melody couldn't break it.

". . . Stanford?"

Everyone jumped. Across the room, Mabel grabbed onto Dipper's arm in shock. The man. . . the man had spoken. That made sense, most people could speak, but — well, Melody hadn't been expecting it, somehow.

This single word broke the spell. Ford got to his feet. The despair on his face flashed into anger, and he strode angrily across the room toward the man. "What did you do to my brother," he said quietly, stringently, his words barely audible over the hum of the portal.

The man's expression was disturbingly blank as he murmured, "Stanford. . . I'm sorry. . . ."

"Where is Stanley?" Ford roared, grabbing the man's tattered clothing and shaking him back and forth. "What did you do to my brother, you—?!"

"Ford!" Melody ran across the room and shoved Ford away from the man. "Stop! This isn't how you get your answers!"

"Get out of the way, Melody!" he screamed in her face. "Don't you dare get in the way of—"

"Of your destructive tirade?" she shot back. The man from the portal looked about ready to fall over. She grabbed him around the waist, lifted his arm over her shoulder, and held him up. "This man needs care, Stanford Pines, and you are not going to hurt him. Do you hear me?"

Sometimes — every once in a while — her firm tone cowed Ford. Not now. His eyes flared with rage, and he opened his mouth to yell at her once again.

"G-Grunkle Ford, p-p-please. . ."

Mabel, sweet Mabel, spoke up from across the room. Her frightened voice calmed Ford where Melody's firm one could not. The anger drained from his eyes, from his posture. The despair swept in again. He looked ready to crumple into a ball and give up hope. He spoke again to the stranger, his voice void of anger but full of anguish. "Fidds. . . Fidds, where is Stanley? Is he. . . is he still in there?" He pointed despondently into the swirling mass of the portal. "Do we need to go in and rescue him?"

So this was Fiddleford McGucket? Melody glanced sideways at the man she supported. A new wave of pity swept through her as she saw, not a twisted or diabolical villain, but a frail old man in need of help. This was the man who had erased Ford's mind, stolen his Journals, and then disappeared?

Fidds rasped something, but Melody couldn't make out words. "What did you say?" she asked. She kept her voice steady and deliberate, though that was the opposite of what she felt.

He tried again, and this time she could understand him. "Not — not in there," he said. "Nothing in there. Nothing. . ." His voice was even weaker than had been before. He seemed to be shutting down.

No. He couldn't shut down. He had to tell them were Stanley was.

"Fidds!" Ford snapped his fingers in front of the man's face. "Focus! Is Stanley in there? Do we need to go after him?"

Fidds shook his head, his long beard swaying on his chin. "Nothing there. No one but me. . ."

"How do you know that?" Ford demanded, desperation leaking into his voice. "How do you know Stan's not in there — I remember him falling in—"

"He's not. . . not in there. Nothing in there. . ."

"How do you know?" Ford shouted. Melody thought she could see tears glistening in his eyes.

Fidds flinched at the volume. He didn't meet Ford's eyes, only stared at the floor. "Stanley's gone," he mumbled. "I. . . I got rid of him."

The basement fell into silence again, save for the whir of the portal. Then, numbly, Ford pulled the lever to shut off the portal, and even that sound disappeared. The light from the portal faded, leaving only the dim lights around its triangular border.

Fidds slumped in Melody's arms, and she struggled to keep him aloft. Then she gave up and lowered him to the floor instead. When she looked back at Ford, he was once again on his knees, with inquisitive words swimming behind his eyes. Those words wanted, needed to come out, but Ford fought against them.

Finally, they pushed through his lips. "Is he dead?"

The words, though the barest form of a whisper, carried more volume than the former rumblings of the portal. Melody refused to consider the implications of what Ford had said, because Stan couldn't be dead. He couldn't. Not after all of this. She held Fidds, kept his head up so he could respond. He was extremely weak; she could see the wakefulness fleeing from his eyes — but Ford needed him to respond. He had to respond.

"Fiddleford," she whispered. "Where is Stanley?"

The man's eyes moved, though with his strabismus she couldn't tell where he was looking. Finally, he forced out two more words.

"Not. . . dead."

Then his eyes closed, and he fell unconscious.

Some of the tension left Ford's shoulders as he breathed out in relief. It wasn't much — he still looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders — but it was something.

"He's out there," Melody said as she cradled Fidds in her arms. A swift touch to his neck demonstrated a weak — but existent — pulse. "Stanley's out there somewhere."

Ford met her eyes. "Where?" he asked helplessly. "I — I remember him falling into the portal — I remember it so clearly — Fidds couldn't plant new memories in people's heads, could he?"

Melody could only shrug, feeling almost as helpless as Ford looked. "We won't know until Fidds wakes up and can answer our questions. He's very weak." She turned her eyes down to Fidds' sleeping face, which was scrunched up and tense despite his slumber. "The way he was talking, it sounded like he's been alone for thirty years," she said quietly.

Ford nodded listlessly.

"Ford?" asked Melody gently. His eyes flicked to her, but otherwise he didn't move. "We need to get this man upstairs. Could you help me carry him to your room? I can tend to him there." She looked to the twins, who had been watching the scene with wide eyes. "We're going upstairs, kids. Grab the Journals and whatever else we brought down here. Hopefully, we're not ever coming back."

She didn't want to be in charge. But someone had to be. With one elderly man unconscious, and another delirious, and two children standing aside, Melody was the only one who could do it. So she shouldered the burden — and Fidds' brittle body — and moved things along as best she could.

"Ford," she said softly, "help me with Fidds. Please. We need to leave."

This time, Ford did as she asked. Together, they lifted Fidds off the floor. Melody did her best to carry more weight than Ford did, as he was recovering from injuries attained less than twenty-four hours ago, but she couldn't carry Fidds by herself. Slowly, strenuously, they made their way out of the portal room, through the control room with its bulky machines, to the elevator. Mabel and Dipper scrambled ahead of them, their arms laden with the three Journals and the tools Ford had brought downstairs. Melody and Ford carefully brought Fidds into the elevator, and the twins followed.

"Do we have everything?" Melody asked.

Mabel and Dipper nodded. The haunted look in their eyes was far too heavy for their years.

"Good." Melody pressed the button to send the elevator upwards. Up to the real world. Up, away from the portal, away from the horror they had just experienced.

She could only hope that the horror would stay in the basement where it belonged.