Ford was fairly certain that Christmas songs were never meant to be played on a banjo.

Not that he was any kind of expert on Christmas songs but it just sounded a little off compared to what he'd heard on the radio.

He glanced up at Fiddleford who looked back at him innocently but then the music seemed to get louder.

He tried to focus for a little longer then finally set his calculations aside in defeat.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

Fiddleford paused in his playing. "Of course I'm happy. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. And it is Christmas Eve. Plus my son is coming in a few hours. That seems like a recipe for happiness right there. Why do you ask?"

Ford gave him a look. "You know what I mean."

"Well I thought I did but evidently not," Fiddleford said.

"You're distracting me from my work," Ford complained.

"You're distracting me from my playing," Fiddleford countered.

Ford fought a smile. "It's just that one of these things is more important that the other."

"Sure," Fiddleford agreed too easily. "Two things rarely hold the same degree of importance. But tell me, on Christmas Eve which do you think matters more?"

"On Christmas Eve and on all days, the answer is the work that will change the universe," Ford said.

Fiddleford rolled his eyes tolerantly. "You are terrible at Christmas."

"I'm Jewish."

"You say that whenever the subject of Christmas comes up."

Ford laughed. "It's not like that ever changes. I don't celebrate Christmas and, while I don't care what you do with it, it's a bit much to expect me to muster up any enthusiasm over it."

"You made me celebrate Bill Day," Fiddleford said accusingly.

Ford held up a hand. "First of all, I didn't make you do anything. Secondly, Bill Day was a lot of fun."

"Correction: you had a lot of fun. I was being the supportive boyfriend who had never quite realized how many triangles there were in our lives."

"Not enough," Ford said. Fiddleford may complain and mistrust Bill but it wasn't as though he knew him anywhere near as well as Ford did. Fiddleford trusted him and that was all that mattered. If anything, it might be more meaningful that Fiddleford was willing to give him his way on this when he didn't feel it himself than if they were fellow Bill enthusiasts. "I'm willing to humor you about Christmas."

"Humored. About Christmas. Oh joy," Fiddleford said dryly. "And not very much."

"Would now be a bad time to remind you I'm Jewish?"

"It's not as though I didn't offer like four times to try and find some Hanukkah stuff for you," Fiddleford reminded him. "I mean, I don't think Gravity Falls would have anything but I've headed to the city a couple times recently and I could have gotten you something. We could have gone together."

Ford smiled at him. "I know and that's sweet. I just don't really see the point. I'm not much into Hanukkah these days."

"Not into Christmas, not into Hanukkah…I'm starting to suspect that it's not so much you being Jewish but you just not being all that into holidays," Fiddleford said.

Ford shrugged. "That might be true. But even if I were, I rather doubt Christmas and I would ever be happening."

"Why not, though?" Fiddleford asked.

Ford raised an eyebrow. "Do I really need to remind you, for the third time in five minutes, that I'm-"

Fiddleford shook his head. "No, not that part. Although from the way my son goes about it you'd think Christmas was a completely secular holiday. I just don't understand why you don't like holidays. Nobody doesn't like holidays."

"I don't like holidays," Ford pointed out. "Well, most holidays."

Fiddleford rolled his eyes. "Well, yes, but I mean aside from you. It's a little unusual."

Ford held up a hand. "I'm a little unusual."

Fiddleford laughed. "Please do tell me, Stanford, what six fingers have to do with holidays. Were you oppressed by a clear five-finger bias in celebrations as a kid? Did your hand turkey run out of space or something?"

"It's just a…never mind. Maybe something traumatic happened to me on a holiday. Did you ever consider that?"

"That would make sense if it were just one holiday," Fiddleford said. "But would, say, a traumatic experience on Hanukkah stop you from being able to enjoy any holiday?"

Ford crossed his arms. "Don't tell me how to deal with my hypothetical trauma."

"Is it hypothetical?" Fiddleford asked.

Ford nodded. "But you didn't know that."

"Then what is it?" Fiddleford asked.

Ford shrugged. "I don't know. My family was never really the warm fuzzy big holiday type. I don't have a real problem with it. I just don't really get it. It's not important to me."

Fiddleford sighed heavily.

"What?"

"It's just a bit of a letdown, is all."

Ford let out a startled laugh. "What, you want me to have suffered?"

"Of course not," Fiddleford said. "But I was expecting more of a story than 'me, I'm just not into it.'"

"I could come up with a better one," Ford said. "In fact, I really did try to. But you were all 'did that actually happen.' And the answer is no, no it did not."

"You could have lied to me," Fiddleford said.

"I was under the impression that the best relationships are open and honest," Ford said. "I do not want to sacrifice what we have for the sake of entertaining you."

"Well if you want to phrase it in the most dramatic way humanely possible," Fiddleford said, shaking his head. "Though, while we're on the subject, how long did it take you to tell me about Bill again?"

"You know now."

"Not actually an answer to my question. Wasn't it something like eight months?"

"I told you the minute that you asked," Ford protested.

Fiddleford gave him an unimpressed look. "I'd been asking you for months before you actually told me."

"No, you asked me things like 'what's wrong' and 'what's going on with you' and I don't believe my answers to those questions were inaccurate," Ford said. "When you finally asked me where I was getting my ideas and who I was working with I told you about Bill. And he wasn't happy about that, by the way."

"I remember it being a little harder than that to get those answers out of you," Fiddleford said. "And I'll just bet he wasn't."

"Well, it's not hard to understand," Ford said apologetically. "He chooses one human mind to inspire and that person is me and not you. It's really nothing personal. Although the fact that you clearly hate him can't help."

"I would have just thought a muse would be above caring about such things, is all."

"Bill is very sensitive," Ford said.

"I don't want to talk about Bill. It's Christmas Eve."

"Well you did bring him up," Ford said. "But fine. You were disappointed that I have such a mundane reason not to be into holidays."

"It's hard to change someone's mind if it's just that it doesn't interest them," Fiddleford explained.

"And 'my parents died in a car crash on Thanksgiving' would be easier?" Ford asked skeptically.

"It would certainly give me a starting place," Fiddleford said. "And the therapist I'd have dragged you to would have done all the work. And you, I guess. The point was I wouldn't really have to do anything."

"Well now I'm just starting to doubt your commitment to getting me to enjoy holidays," Ford said. "Why is it so important to you, anyway?"

Fiddleford hesitated. "I wouldn't say that it's important to me. It's just that I grew up in a house where holidays were a very big deal. The entire month of December was Christmas. October was Halloween. We started looking forward to the Fourth of July the minute school let out. It was such a happy time and I know you don't always have a lot of happy memories and I guess I just want to share the joy."

Ford leaned back in his chair and smiled. "I understand that, I do. I can't say I think you'll be too successful but it's a lovely thought."

Fiddleford stood up. "Well, fortunately for you I have no intention of giving up anytime soon."

"Fortunately for me, he says," Ford murmured.

"Right now I have to go, though. I need to pick up Tate so it's not too late when we get him back. I'm warning you now, my son cannot be persuaded to wait past six to open presents and he's usually up by four-thirty. I can usually keep him occupied with a gingerbread house but don't expect to sleep in tomorrow."

"I didn't get anyone Christmas presents," Ford said. "I doubt I'll be getting any. Why do I even need to be present for this?"

Fiddleford just gave him a look and headed towards the front door.

"You may think that's a satisfactory answer but I am here to inform you that it is not," Ford called after him.

"Go to bed early," Fiddleford advised. "It's Christmas Eve. And since you're not even looking forward to tomorrow, I doubt you'll have any difficulty."

Once Fiddleford was gone, the house strangely felt colder. It also felt like he was actually able to get some work done so he spent the next few hours doing just that.

He stopped when he heard the phone ringing. He didn't get a great deal of calls and it might be Fiddleford checking in so he answered on the fourth ring.

"Hello? This is Stanford Pines."

There was no voice on the other end of the line. He heard breathing for a few seconds and then abruptly the dial tone returned.

Annoyed, Ford looked at the clock and decided that he might as well have a late dinner. He never had been able to understand why or how that prank caller or stalker or whatever it was had followed him from college up to Gravity Falls. Fiddleford sometimes got the caller, too, but only when he lived with Ford so there was a good chance he wasn't the real target. The not-voice hadn't ever done anything but call every few weeks so he supposed it was probably harmless but he was quickly losing patience with it. What was the point of calling and not saying anything? What did it want?

After he cleaned up, he grabbed the book he was reading and headed back to his chair only to find that someone else was already sitting in it.

The figure looked a little bleary around the edges and Ford automatically adjusted his glasses.

"Dad?" he asked uncertainly. It sort of looked like his father but like he was a lot older. Then again, he hadn't seen his father since he had graduated from college three and a half years ago. That was a long time, wasn't it? Who knew what had happened?

The figure looked affronted. "Dad? Sweet Moses, Stanford, I do not look that much like Dad!"

That left an even more bewildering possibility. If he hadn't spent so much time in Gravity Falls and with Bill and so much time before that preparing for his life here he wouldn't have even dared to ask his next question. "Stanley?"

The figure waved half-heartedly. "Heya, Pointdexter."

It couldn't be Stanley. How could it possibly be Stanley? He hadn't seen his brother in eight years, it was true. He didn't even technically know if he was alive or dead though he always firmly told himself that Stanley was fine because if anything was truly bad he'd at least call or something. Ford couldn't promise anything about how he might react to Stan forcing himself back into Ford's life to demand help after ruining his dreams but he'd at least expect Stan to try. But Ford was twenty-five. Stanley was twenty-five. There was hard living but there was no way that the man sitting before him was anything less than sixty. A very, very badly aged sixty.

"You're not my brother."

The figure rolled his eyes. "I've heard that one before."

"I don't understand. My brother's twenty-five not…however old you are."

The figure rolled his eyes. "Come on, Sixer. Don't tell me that, all this time in this weird town, you can't think of any way to explain this."

"Maybe...maybe accelerated aging?" Ford theorized. There was something familiar about this man.

"Well…yes and no," the figure said. "I mean, I did not age well by any standard but I didn't age quite that poorly that I'm supposed to be twenty-five."

"I don't understand."

The figure rolled his eyes again. "Oh come on, Ford. I thought time travel was supposed to be one of your big nerdy staples! Didn't you see Terminator?"

"I've never heard of a Terminator," Ford said, frowning. "Are you trying to say that-"

"How can you have not seen Terminator?" the figure interrupted. "No, wait, maybe that came out after…"

"So you're claiming to be my brother from the future," Ford said loudly. "Who has somehow found a way to time travel?"

It sounded unlikely in the extreme.

Stan, or at least the figure that looked like Stan, nodded. "What, you don't believe me?"

Ford merely crossed his arms.

"It's not like I had to go and invent a way to do it," Stan said, pulling out a tape measurer. "Some genius or other did that. I just have to know how to work it."

"Alright," Ford said. "Say that I do believe all of this. Why would you come back now and talk to me? Do you want me to reach out to your past self or something?"

"No, I…Wait, no, actually that would be great. You should absolutely reach out to past me. My life is frankly terrible and I never meant to break your project and if you actually knew anything about what happened to me after I was kicked out instead of just hoping for the best you'd insist I move in here with you."

Ford told himself that Stan wasn't right. That Stan just wasn't doing too good or he was lonely and he wanted to mooch off of Ford. Their parents certainly hadn't understood that an academic grant was only to be used for living expenses and studies and had to be carefully documented. They hadn't understood that it wasn't that he was selfishly hoarding his college money but that he could get in a lot of trouble if he gave any to them.

He tried to tell himself that if things were all that dire that Stan would have called and that if he had a little hardship, maybe a dead end job or a crappy apartment, then it was alright. It was no worse than anyone had expected and it wasn't his fault and he had been coasting for far too long.

He didn't know if he believed himself on either of those accounts.

"You said no at first," Ford reminded him.

Stan just sighed and shook his head. "It's like watching a train wreck. Not that I expect my own younger self would be any more reasonable. You just haven't seen the kinds of things that I've seen, the kinds of things that make you realize that all of this is stupid and we need to get past it. Not that even knowing all of that is a guarantee when people refuse to offer you any sort of acknowledgement and just yell at you for devoting your life to save them…"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ford said again.

"Never mind," Stan said.

"But-"

"It doesn't matter," Stan interrupted. "Or at least it won't if you listen to me. You are on the verge of fucking everything up for everyone."

Ford stared at him. "What."

"And, to be fair, other people play their parts. McGucket. That stupid triangle. Mostly him, to be honest. Me. Although I'm a little farther from fucking anything up for anyone but myself since I'm probably still down in Columbia right now. Or was that before? I can't even remember. Mabel and Dipper did nothing wrong and if anyone says otherwise then I am prepared to fight them."

"You're going to need to explain this," Ford told him.

Stan laughed. "Yeah, I could but let's be honest. You wouldn't believe me."

"You don't know that," Ford argued.

Stan gave him a curiously soft look. "Come on, Stanford. I think we both know that it's true."

Ford felt a strange feeling settle into his gut but, for the life of him, he couldn't define it. "Then why even come? If you're so convinced no good could come of it you're not even willing to try then what is even the point? Masochism?"

Stan laughed. "Probably a little bit of masochism, yeah."

"Tell me."

"What would you say if I were to tell you that Bill Cipher is quite possibly the most evil creature that's ever existed?" Stan asked casually.

"How do you know about-" Ford cut himself off. "Right. The future. I'd say you're wrong. Bill is a true gentleman."

Stan looked disgusted. "Yeah, yeah. One of the friendliest and most trustworthy individuals you've ever met. You honestly can't trust him more. Not evil in any way."

"I…yes, actually," Ford said. "I take it you don't agree?"

"Not evil in any way, quite possibly the most evil being around…yeah, I'd say that we've got a definite difference of opinion going on."

"Well I trust him more than I trust you."

Stan paused, let the words hit him. "You are going to feel so stupid for saying that one day. But, fantastic brother that I am, I forgive you. No need to give yourself a hard time. Bill's very good at what he does and he's been targeting you for a long time. And we don't have to let it all end in weirdness. Not this time."

"In…weirdness?"

"I know, I know, I'm not making any sense," Stan said apologetically. "Frankly I don't know exactly how to explain all of it. Not that you'd even believe me and thirty odd years of history takes some doing. Let me just say this. Bill can't be trusted. You don't believe me now but you will. Hopefully before it's too late. Things…right now things are actually pretty okay. Better than I ever thought they'd be even."

"Then why come here?" Ford asked, knowing there was little point in defending Bill. Stan wouldn't understand. He'd understand even less than Fiddleford would.

"Because we wasted so much time," Stan said bluntly. "I've been through hell, you know. I can never quite decide if it was worse the decade I was homeless and in and out of jail in multiple countries or the thirty years that I spent…well. I usually end up thinking it's the thirty years. And my thirty years was a hell of a lot better than yours. Things might be good now but I was given a chance to try and make it better and what else could I do but take it?"

"And…what? You're going to make it better by refusing to tell me anything?" Ford asked skeptically.

"I think things would improve by at least 75 percent if you just stopped trusting Bill and scrapped the portal."

"I can't get rid of my portal!" Ford objected. It was a good sign that Stan had heard of that, wasn't it? It meant that it worked. "It's my life's work!"

"And it's so not even worth it," Stan said. "You really should get more in the habit of asking people why they want you to shut it down instead of just refusing outright."

"But there is no possible explanation that anyone could give me that would convince me."

"What if I were to tell you it's going to bring about the end of the world?" Stan asked rhetorically.

"Something believable," Ford said. "Besides, I think I know why. You just can't stand to see me become a success while you're apparently homeless."

"Seriously, call me. You know that about me now; you have no excuse," Stan said. "And no, that's not it but I am not having this conversation with you. Not again."

"I've never had this conversation with you," Ford said. "I can't help it if you have."

"No but you can correct the imbalance by picking up the damn phone and calling your brother," Stan hinted. "I'm going to get nowhere trying to talk you into this. I know that. But you're going to be visited by three other people who will show you some things that will hopefully get through to you."

"Oh am I?" Ford asked. "No consideration for if I want to or not?"

"You do," Stan said bluntly. "You just don't know it."

Ford felt a familiar spark of anger flare to life inside of him. "Oh, do I? You don't get to decide what I want for me, Stanley."

"It's not a matter of me deciding," Stan said. "I know this doesn't make sense but, trust me, if you had all the information then you'd want to know."

"I thought we established that I couldn't trust you."

Stan swallowed. "Well, you certainly said that, at any rate. Maybe you're right that you can't trust me. But one thing you can trust, for what it's worth, is that while I may fuck things up I always do mean well. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Isn't that almost worse?" Ford asked. "At least if it were on purpose you could stop."

Stan looked down. "It doesn't matter. This is all going to change. Or it will if you let it. I can't stop this, Stanford. Only you can."

Ford felt a flare of irritation. "Of course you would put this on me."

"I'm sorry," Stan said and he did look really sorry. "But that's just how it is. I'm miles away and don't know about any of this. I'm not the one who can change anything. Not until it's too late."

"What are you even talking about?"

"All of our lives are going to be ruined if you stay this course," Stan said seriously. "And it's not your fault, not really. You were tricked and how could you have possibly known? And how could I have known? How could McGucket have?"

"You mentioned him before," Ford said. "What happens to Fiddleford?"

Stan looked like he was debating telling him.

"Stanley!"

"He goes mad," Stan said simply.

Ford felt himself grow cold. "No, he wouldn't…how would he even…no. You're lying."

"You asked. But you can stop it."

Ford let out a somewhat hysteric laugh. "I'm supposed to somehow save his sanity? There was nothing wrong with it when I spoke with him today."

"That's because there's still time," Stan said. "Look, tonight is going to suck for you. There's no way to sugarcoat that. But this is important and this is the only way I can think of to try and fix all of this."

"I don't want this! I don't want any of your future visions and cryptic warnings and telling me not to trust my closest friend!"

"I know," Stan said, bowing his head. "And I wish there was another way but…don't be too hard on the kids, okay? They just want to help you."

"The kids? What kids?" Ford demanded. "What are you getting out of any of this? How do I know this is anything more than you just trying to trick me into letting you back into my life because your life isn't going anywhere?"

Stan forced a smile. Ford had never seen one look so fake before. "You don't. But even after all this is over, if you don't want to see me then that's okay. It will be pretty terrible for me but as long as you make sure to act on the warnings then that's good enough. I understand, even if younger me doesn't."

"You're not a martyr, Stanley."

"I'm not trying to be one," Stan said. "I just know some things and it's like you're mad at me if I want you to call me and mad at me if I say it's okay for you not to. What do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

Stan nodded. "Yeah, that I can believe. I'm going to go now. I can't think of anything I forgot to mention and I don't think we're going to get anywhere else with this."

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't that. "You're just going to go?"

He felt a strange sense of unease at that.

This time Stan's smile was a touch sadder and far more genuine. "You never can make up your mind on these things, can you, Sixer?"

"I-" He couldn't think of anything else to say.

Stan pulled out his tape measurer again. "Try and take your mind off of this. Get some sleep. I think they're coming at one in the morning or something. I mean, I told them that was a lousy time but they wanted to be all poetic and what have you."

"Stan…"

"I know," Stan said which was quite an accomplishment as Ford himself didn't know. "And it really is okay." He pressed a few buttons on his tape measurer and then he was gone.

Honestly, Ford didn't know how he was supposed to get any sleep after that. He was far too jittery, far too unsure of everything. Had that even been real? His senses weren't exactly foolproof these days, what with Bill's powers and the mysteries of Gravity Falls. And even if something had technically happened, what ever made him think it was really his brother form the future? And even if it was, that didn't mean anything he said could be trusted.

One thing he knew was that he wasn't feeling up to facing Fiddleford just then (going mad? He couldn't possibly. Fiddleford was the sanest person Ford knew and if he fell what would become of any of them?) and even less up to facing Tate. Tate was a quiet enough kid but he was still a child and those were exhausting at the best of times.

He headed back down to his lab and tried to ignore all the Christmas cheer Fiddleford had put everywhere.

He didn't even realize that he had fallen asleep until Bill showed up right next to his head. "What are you working on?"

Despite all the worry that he had only just managed to push to the side when trying to calculate complex equations, Ford could feel himself smiling. Fiddleford had only met Bill in passing and forced him to sit down and watch the Exorcist after the first time that had happened. And the second and the third and the point was that Ford had seen that movie so often he had started to think of it as his and Fiddleford's film despite the fact it really was about Ford and Bill. Stan had likely never met Bill or at least hadn't really gotten to know him.

None of them understood. And he didn't blame them, he really didn't. Taken from the outside it might seem kind of strange.

And if Bill were anyone else it might be a little horrifying.

But he wasn't.

"What am I ever working on?" Ford asked rhetorically, leaning back to allow Bill to see his work.

"Do you need any help?" Bill asked.

Ford shook his head. "Thanks for the offer but I think I've got this one." He didn't want Bill to think that he couldn't handle some things by himself or waste his talent on things that, while challenging, Ford could literally feel his brain solving.

"You're always so resourceful, Sixer," Bill said admiringly.

Stanley had called him Sixer. It had been his nickname first, hadn't it? How strange for two people who had so little in common to share that.

"I just don't want to give you a reason to feel like you've made a mistake."

Bill zoomed right in front of his eyes, forcing him to scoot his chair back a little. "Oh, Stanford, I don't think I'll ever think that."

"I don't mean to doubt you," Ford said. "It's just…can you understand why I still have uncertainties?"

"Of course I can. I understand what a big thing this is for humans," Bill assured him. "One mind a century if you'll remember. That's what, thirty minds or so since I've started doing this? But something tells me you're going to go farther than any of them ever did."

Ford felt like he wanted Bill to keep talking and yet to completely change the subject, a pretty common feeling when Bill started to go off like this. "Tell me about them?"

"Them?" Bill repeated curiously. "Oh, you mean the others like you."

"Were they like me?" Ford asked. "They must have been brilliant if you chose them out of all of the people in the world to inspire."

"They were," Bill said. "But I'll tell you a little secret, Sixer."

With Ford being the only human Bill reliably spoke to, every word – no matter how mundane – felt like a secret. Eagerly, he leaned forward.

"It takes more than brilliance. Brilliance is commonplace. Oh, it's not so widespread as stupidity or even normal smartness. Genius is such a small sample of the population but with something like six billion people on this planet right now how many of them do you suppose are geniuses? Even when the population was smaller, how many geniuses do you think there have been since I first decided to come to your people?"

"There must have been a lot," Ford said. "Maybe not billions but more than thirty."

"Way more than thirty," Bill confirmed. "So why them? Why you?"

Ford nodded, trying not to look too eager.

"Brilliance alone isn't enough. I've encountered some of the most brilliant minds I've ever seen content to use their skills to coast in life or to use their power to hurt others."

Ford felt an inexplicable anger rising up in him. Those people were likely dead. A century was a long time for a human. It was just that hearing about coasting had always reminded him of Stanley and how he had enabled his brother to just coast along in school and made him dependent on him until he couldn't understand how to function on his own and had destroyed Ford's dreams. And he had too much experience with the Crampelters of the world to ever be able to stomach the thought of intentional cruelty, even at such a local level. Who knew what damage a genius could inflict on the world?

Bill must.

"Part of it's just a feeling," Bill said. "I can look at someone who on paper looks perfect and just not feel it. Or I could look at someone who might not measure up to my usual standards but there's just something about them and I have to take a chance on them. I've never been disappointed with my selections."

"Was I one of those?" Ford couldn't help but asked. He hoped he wasn't, even if he knew that if that were the case he was at least living up to Bill's faith in him.

Bill laughed. "Oh, no, trust me, you were exactly what I was looking for."

"And that is?"

"There needs to be ambition," Bill said. "What's the point of inspiring someone if they're not going to do anything with it? They need to be open to the idea. Why go to a man who is going to insist he's possessed and go join a monastery? And they need to have some sort of impossible idea I can help with."

Ford frowned. "I certainly had ambition, yes, but an idea? I was completely stuck when I summoned you."

And, despite what Bill was saying to try and encourage him, Ford did have to wonder if there was some sort of connection between Ford being the one to bring him into this world and being chosen.

"Oh, I know that look," Bill said, reaching out and playfully throbbing Ford's nose. "You're wondering if I only chose you out of gratitude for bringing me back to this world."

"Well, I…" There was no point in lying to Bill. He didn't even want to try. "Yes. Yes I am."

"What do you think would have happened if someone else had summoned me?" Bill asked rhetorically. "Say that Gleeful guy. You think I'd have wasted my efforts on the likes of him?"

Bud Gleeful had never struck Ford as being all that impressive.

Ford smiled, reassured. "Maybe not."

"You summoning me certainly brought you to my attention first but I did look all over the world before I was certain that you were the one," Bill said. "There were a handful of other promising candidates but you were already here in Gravity Falls. You say you didn't have any ideas and, no, you didn't think of the portal but you thought of trying to trace the weirdness. You come to a place like this and develop a goal such as that and expect me to just sit by? No, no, no. Trust me, Sixer, I'm having more fun with you here than I have in quite a few centuries."

How was he supposed to respond to that? The whole thing made him feel so warm it was almost like he was burning. How could he possibly live up to that? It wasn't the same for Bill, he was sure. Ford may have him up on a bit of a pedestal, he was self-aware enough to know that, but how could Bill help but live up to expectations? He was some sort of god or something.

"It's just good to hear sometimes," Ford said. "Fiddleford has all these doubts and nobody else even knows what I'm doing. Everyone expected such great things from me and I just feel like I've yet to deliver."

"It may be taking you a little longer than you expected to make your mark but you're hardly flying to the moon or discovering tiny building blocks," Bill said. "You are going to change the world, Stanford Pines. You are going to bring worlds together. They'll see that soon enough and then all doubts will be silenced."

How could anyone listen to this and think that Bill wanted anything more than to encourage and inspire him? That he wanted anything less than the best for everybody? He really didn't know.

Bill drew back, surprised. "There's someone in the lab with you. I don't know them."

"What?" Ford asked, surprised. Who could possibly get into the…maybe it was…

His eyes flew open and he saw a little girl wearing a green sweater that had the words "Happy Hanukkah" on it and Santa Claus's giant head.

"Hi," she said brightly, holding out her hand to shake. "My name is Mabel!"

Almost without meaning to, Ford reached out and took it.