Stanford Pines pushed his chair away from his desk, the old desk in the lab he'd built underneath what was once his cabin, but was now a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack. On the desk was a blueprint, a design he'd been refining to contain the inter-dimensional issue glaring at him from the next room.

The rift. It was an almost pretty thing, made up of shifting holes punched through reality that glittered with images of cosmic starscapes and shone with iridescent light. It was too bad that the rift was also a weak point between dimensions, a place where a demon named Bill Cipher could, given enough time, force his way into this dimension and wreck utter havoc upon the town of Gravity Falls, and then the world and beyond.

It was a few days after his return to his original dimension, and the rift was still not sealed. It stubbornly continued to exist, a leftover from his brother's foolish and botched attempt to fix his inter-dimensional portal. So far, Bill Cipher hadn't used it to bring disaster upon the world, but the rift was growing. Slowly, but still. Every day it was left open was tempting fate. Who knew when the hole in reality would become wide enough for Cipher himself to step through?

"Stanley," Stanford muttered to himself, "Why did you have to open the portal?" He leaned back in the swivel chair, eyeing the destroyed portal room through the window above his desk.

He wanted to completely seal the thing, but at this point he would have to settle for simply containing it. It was better than leaving the rift as completely unprotected as it was now. Even then, the rift would break whatever container it was held in eventually. With Ford's lab aging and mostly destroyed, he doubted he had anything heavy duty enough to hold up to a tear in the fabric of space and time more than a few days. Maybe weeks. A month, tops.

Ford groaned, running a calloused six-fingered hand through his unkempt hair. He scooted the chair back under the desk and gazed over the schematics for the temporary rift containment device. Temporary containment was the best he could do right now. He lacked the proper resources to properly close the rift, and it wasn't like he could just pop over to the next dimension to grab what he needed anymore. He was stuck here, in this dimension. And from his current position in this dimension, what he needed was practically impossible to get. Maybe once, when he had his grants, and his partner, and his future-

Ford banged his elbows on his desk, violently. He thought he'd put this in the past, but seeing Stanley again had dragged up those long-buried memories.

This sudden burst of anger was exactly why Ford had locked himself away in his former lab. Stanley had been an idiot; he hadn't known what was at stake and had put Ford in a situation where he no longer was in position to take out Bill Cipher. Now, though, he had to focus on stopping Bill, not how furious he was at Stan. It was easier to do that by avoiding the man altogether.

Plus, there was too much different from when he'd last been in this dimension.

Stanley had never gotten older in his mind. Logically, he knew Stanley had aged - thirty years was a long time - but it was still a shock to see his brother with grayed hair and a bad back. He was mad at Stanley for risking the universe, unimaginably so, but he was also afraid of the years together they'd lost, of how much changed while he was gone.

His house was different. Stanley had lived in it longer than he had, and used his identity while living in it for all of those years. Almost every trace of his life those many years ago were gone, and though Ford's memories of his cabin were unreliable and rather faded by this point, he could tell it was really Stanley's house now. His projects and all the familiar things that were his had been cleared out or tucked away, and he no longer was welcome in what was once his own home. Every piece of furniture in the shack was a piece of Stan's life, not his, and although Ford had reclaimed his mostly-destroyed lab and gone to work fixing things up, evidence of his brother's presence still clung to the place in the form of novelty coffee mugs, empty snack bags, and five-fingered handprints in the accumulated dust. Ford kept his labs to better standards than this, even if he didn't always observe lab safety rules. The lab was the part of the shack that was most like he remembered it, but even here Stan had replaced him.

The one change Ford was happy about were the twins. Even now, the thought of Dipper and Mabel warmed his heart. Shermie's grandkids, and his own grand nephew and niece. He never thought he'd see the day.

Ford spun to the left and dug fervently through a box of old supplies. They were all the more reason why he dedicated himself to Cipher's defeat. The world was in danger; he could yell at his brother more after he saved it. For now, he needed to scrape something together in his ruined lab to contain the rift before it was too late. Wait too long, and Bill Cipher would surely take advantage of the weak spot between dimensions.

As if it had heard his thoughts, the rift suddenly jerked violently at the edge of Ford's vision. He twisted around, and watched, horrified, as the rift widened, tore sideways into a ragged line. Ford jumped out of his chair, then swore as the tear became a full, swirling hole in reality itself. The oily rainbow color shifted to eye-burning green, and the galaxies contained within distorted, twisting into spiraling geometric patterns.

Ford gaped for a moment, then clenched his jaw. He was too late to close the portal, but maybe he could slow whatever horrors would come pouring out. Ford's hand went to his laser gun, the weight shifting to his hand a familiar motion. He shoved the door aside and ran into the destroyed room, gripping his gun with purpose. Whatever Bill was going to throw at him, Ford was prepared to act as the Earth's - no, the multiverse's - defender. He would fight Bill and his schemes until the day the demon died.

The portal pulsed, a disorienting movement that no doubt heralded the arrival of demons and monstrosities under Cipher's command. Ford steeled himself, gun aimed to disintegrate the first being that dared to enter Gravity Falls.

The uneven outline of the portal wavered and sputtered, the hole fighting to stay stable as a blurry shadow began to press against it. Vaguely humanoid shaped.

Who would Cipher send first? One of his own henchmaniacs? 8-Ball, Pyronica, images of the various monsters under Bill's command flashed through Ford's mind. His grip on his gun grew sticky and his heart beat just the slightest bit faster. His finger brushed the trigger.

The portal seized, then spat out a boy, battered and bloodied. He bounced once, then thudded solidly on the dirt floor with a groan.

Behind him, the destabilized portal ate away at itself, the toxic color draining out of it until it shrank back into that accursed rift.

Oldish draft I cleaned up and expanded on a bit. I really only have ideas for another chapter or two, but this is the first fanfic I've posted and I felt like I really just had to get something out there. So, uh, have this. Some half-baked idea from two years ago I probably won't finish.