Hand in Hand || Stanford x Reader

Chapter 28 • You

Stanford stared at the memory ray in horror.  "I can't do this.  What-"

I cut him off by grabbing his darn turtleneck and pulled him close, crashing my lips onto his own.  He stiffened, but let himself melt into the sudden kiss.  One arm wrapped around my waist and the other behind my back, clenched hard as if he never wanted to let go. My face burned red as the blood rushed to my face, a sharp contrast to my ice-cold tears. This was the end. This was goodbye.

"Ugh. This may be the end of the world, but get a room, you two." Bill crawled back from his winding corridors, the twins trapped in his fist.

I broke off of the embrace and held my head up to meet his eye. "It's over, Bill. I surrender."

"Good choice." He casually dropped the kids and rubbed his hands together.

"My only condition is that you let the Pines family go."

"Then it's a deal." He held out his hand and ignited it with his signature blue flames. Before I could have any second thoughts, I grit my teeth and shook it.

Immediately, I felt my spirit enter the mental realm with Bill into my mind. The whole place was a flickering grey void, a macabre copy of the Mystery Shack.

Bill looked extremely ticked off by my unorganized mindscape. "Would it kill you to clear out your head every once in a while? It'll take days to find the memory in this mess. Unless, of course, you show me where it is..."

I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow.  "And what makes you think I'll do that?"

"We're in the mind, kid.  I can make anything happen here.  Including a certain alternate reality." 

"What're you-"

He snapped his fingers, and the light bent around us, creating a warm, hazy version of the Mystery Shack.  I stumbled back into the newly formed kitchen counter.  "What?  What's going on, Cipher?"

Bill shrugged and pointed up the stairs.  As I watched, I saw a younger version of myself walk down the stairs, looking extremely tired.  She made herself some coffee and sat down at the table, oblivious to myself and the triangle.  Stanford, in this late twenties, soon followed and pulled up a chair. "Hey, Y/N, are you alright?"

She sighed and ran her robotic hand through her messy hair.  "I'm fine, Stanford, it's you I'm worried about."

I glared daggers at Bill. "Why are you showing me this memory?"

"It's an alternate reality, like I said. Just watch."

My younger self pushed her napkin towards Stanford, with doodled line graph, labeled "Probability of Failure."  It started out as a straight line towards the bottom, but skyrocketed upwards. 

"What do you mean?! The math has been stable all along-"

"The point is, Stanford, it's not stable now.  We skipped over some important things in the beginning of the project, and it's too late to fix our mistakes.  The risk is too high, we can't go through with it."

Young Ford hesitated, then sighed.  "If you're that sure about it, then I'll shut it down."

My counterpart's shoulders sagged in relief.  "Thank you, Stanford.  You don't know how much that means to me."

"But I know how much you mean to me."  Stanford stood up and offered a hand to help her up.  She hesitantly accepted, and he swooped her up and into a kiss, much to her surprise. 

I smiled in spite of myself.  What I wouldn't give to be that carefree girl again...

Suddenly, the image blurred and seemed to fast forward. From the engagement, to the young couple's wedding day, to what seemed like a normal day at the Shack. Stanford gave her a hug from behind, his arms barely covering her swollen stomach.  Wait.  Swollen?!  My eyes bulged. Was that a baby bump?!

The memory stopped at a day not long after that moment.  She - I - was laying in a hospital bed, Stanford by her side.  Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, but she cradled a small bundle in her arms.  I slowly maneuvered myself to get a better look.  A child, no more than a few seconds old, glanced around the world with wide chocolate eyes.  Stanford's eyes.  The infant wrapped her six-fingered hand around her father's pinky, and his face positively lit up.  The infant sneezed, making both parents laugh. 

My double pushed the baby's cowlick out of it's eyes, holding it close to her heart.  "Monique.  Her name is Monique."

I reached out longingly towards the child, but my hand went right through her head, like I was a ghost.  I closed my eyes to try and block out a sudden rush of tears, but it was too late.  Reality crashed down on me.  Gravity Falls was in tatters, and I was supposed to be dead by this point. 

Bill floated up behind me and poked me with his cane.  "So whaddaya say, Y/N?  This is the reality where Fordsie never used the portal.  And I can make it yours with a wave of my hand.  All you have to do is tell me the equation."

I wanted this to be real with a longing I couldn't put into words.  I needed this reality to be true.  I opened my mouth to tell him, but stopped.  "Hold on a minute."

The triangle looked extremely pissed.  "What is it now?  Your dream is one handshake away!"

"You messed with the timeline to distract me.  There's no way in the nightmare realm all that took place in nine months.  It was less than that."

Bill examined his fingernails.  "True enough, it was only six.  What're you getting at?"

"If all that took place in six months..." My head spun as it all fit together. "Then I was pregnant before the portal test."

Bill shot a finger gun at me. "We have a winner! Did you really think that night of fun wasn't going to produce anything?"

With an enormous amount of self control, I managed to ignore his taunt. "Tell me what happened to my daughter, you monster!" I snapped.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Portal causes radiation. Radiation causes death, especially to non-developed humans. But enough chitchat. Is it a deal or what?"

Shoot me already, Stanford! Right on cue, a circle of blue fire encircled Bill and I, fading and blurring out surroundings.  "What the?  The deal's off!"  He desperately changed forms, one monstrosity to another, in one last attempt to escape from my mind. 

A dark anger stirred in me, powerful and thirsty for blood.  "This is for what you've done to Gravity Falls."  I landed a solid left hook on him, and his body flickered in weakness.  "This is for manipulating Stanford."  Another merciless blow.  "This is for giving me cancer!"  I shouted, slapping him hard across the face.  Bill turned away, trying to curl himself into a ball.  "Look at me!  I said LOOK AT ME!"

I grabbed his side and forced him to make eye contact.  "And this is for murdering Monique, you demon from hell!"  I focused all my anger into one final punch, the blow making him shatter like a mirror.  Bill Cipher was dead.

I panted, suddenly alone in the azure inferno.  A lone photograph stood on the table: a shot of Stanford and I in high school, dancing at the Spring Formal so long ago.  I held the picture to my chest as I was taken by the fire. 

"I'm sorry, Stanford."