Gravity Rises (S3)

TTF: Part Two

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?"