freetogoodhome | Foolish Mortals Call Me Out!

[As it turns out, she's not gone nearly as long as she'd anticipated.

The death of her son—the Supreme Leader of the First Order, widely broadcasted to the entire galaxy and beyond—had shaken the movement to its core, and General Hux's charisma (or lack thereof) hadn't been nearly enough to keep them together. It was a shaky win for the Resistance, but a win nonetheless. And with a new crop of leaders put in place, Leia found that, at long last, she could retire. Go home. Not that she'd ever been to a place called Gravity Falls, Oregon. But her home was a person, and that person lived there.

Ford Pines had gifted her with a notebook before they had departed; full of elegantly-scripted equations. Plans for a portal, a far more stable, safe portal than his previous venture. Strong enough to get her safely where she needed to go, not strong enough to destroy universes. Her final order and act as General is to decree that it be dismantled as soon as she's through, though. Just in case. It's hard, saying her goodbyes to Poe, to Finn and Rey and Kaydel Ko Connix, knowing she won't see them again, but she has a higher call, now. Family.

She doesn't take much with her—doesn't have much to take, just a small case of clothes and belongings. The few mementos she does have, from a simpler time in her life. A deep breath, and Leia Organa-Pines steps through the portal, bracing herself—

—and steps out into the front yard of the Mystery Shack, in a much quieter world than she's been on in a very long time. It's early autumn, leaves crunching beneath her boots, and she glances around with something akin to wonder. Immediately, she loves this place. Loves the tall pines, the lush greenness of it, the crisp air. She's reminded inextricably of Endor.

Leia's gaze focuses in on the house, a rambling cabin that just screams Stanley, and suddenly her pulse is racing a thousand kilos a parsec.

No need to be nervous, she reminds herself. This is your husband, after all. You're only coming home. She puts one foot in front of the other until she's up on the creaky wooden porch, and then she's raising her fist and knocking.]

[The sign out front for the Shack has a contracting permit nailed to it, the sign that used to be precariously perched on top of the Shack is gone now, as is the sign over the gift shop. "Mystery Shack" hasn't been erased from over the doorway of what used to be an exhibit hall, yet, but as soon as he thinks of a new name it's going too. It's been slow work, clearing out forty years of deep-rooted memories, like weeding an entire front lawn that had been left to go to seed, and parts of it were cathartic, like throwing out everything that even looked like a triangle, heaping it all in a big pile and burning it at the end of Dipper and Mabel's first week back. And some of it was less cathartic, like the first time he stepped into each of the rooms that had been so much Ford's that he'd barely set foot in them for thirty years (in the end, Dipper and Mabel had to help with that, it had been too much for him to do by himself and it wasn't yet completely done).

It's been hard for Stan. One of the first things he did when he got home, once the kids were safe and he was alone, was to buy a ring that he's kept next to his heart ever since, a plain gold band with a pair of twinkling, asymmetrical stones like stars and the words "True love" engraved around the inside. But even taking it out and looking at it, holding the memory of that shining city and all their friends and family to see, some days it wasn't enough and some days, when he felt truly dark and alone, it was too much to bear because it reminded him that Leia might not make it home to him.

Even though he doesn't live in the Shack anymore, he's been there almost every day, at night going back to the smaller, plainer, less Escher-esque cabin tucked more into the woods that he'd made sure was finished for the start of summer, so that the kids could help him decorate it. But Dipper and Mabel are safely back in Piedmont now, they've started their first year of high school, and he's thrown himself into renovating the Shack to ward off the loneliness.

He's in the middle of screwing new handles onto the re-finished kitchen cabinets, when he hears what he thinks is a knock over the sound of the drill. So he stops, freezing in place.]

Shack's closed!

[He calls out into the empty silence of the house.]

[It's impossible not to notice signs of change, signs of rebuilding, and she scans the building permit while she waits for an answer. An inn. It's not hard to guess where that idea came from. It reassures her, that Stan is staying busy. She'd fretted almost every night over that, laying in bed, worrying over the thought of him all alone like a canker sore.

The call comes from inside, and Leia's heart skips a beat just at the sound of that familiar voice, filling her with sweet warmth from head to toe. She has to stifle a laugh, but the smile is evident in her voice when she yells back through the door:]

I thought maybe you'd make an exception for me.

Edited 2018-03-20 16:52 (UTC)

[Stan's heart skips a beat when he hears the voice through the door, stunned silent in disbelief. There's no way that it's her, it can't be. He'd put his worries about Leia into a kind of mental jack-in-the-box, where each turn of the crank went from "She hasn't been gone long enough to end a war, don't be dumb," "it's been too long, she would have found some way to send word by now," "You'd know if something happened to her," over and around again and again, and when he hears her voice the latch on that little box snaps, wide open, and every emotion he'd crammed into it spills out and into him like a fountain.

What Leia hears, from outside the Shack, is silence for a long, hanging moment. And then a muffled crash, a cut-off whirr, a very loud word that he definitely wouldn't say if the kids weren't gone for the autumn, and some more shuffling and banging.

And then he throws the door open and scoops her up into a hug, spinning her right there on the creaky old porch.]

I can't believe it's really you! You're here!

[He's not crying, you're crying.]

[The space between her call and the crash that sets off that chain of movement inside the house is what you'd call pregnant; there's a brief, but terrifying, moment where Leia's afraid the timeline is wrong, that she missed her mark. That somehow, he doesn't remember her or know her or he's forgotten. But then there's a flurry of sound and movement and her fears are dispelled, because if he didn't recognize her voice, there'd be no call for all that ruckus.

She steps back from the door in anticipation, and then before she knows it she's being swept off her feet, literally, pulled into those strong arms she remembers all too well, and her arms circle his neck just as easily as breathing. She's crying, too, and laughing, breathless and more happy than she's felt in what feels like years. It worked. She's home.]

It's really, really me. I'm here.

[Her voice is muffled into his shoulder, but thick with emotion.]

Edited 2018-03-20 17:17 (UTC)

[Her arms loop around his neck and she's warm and real and alive, and when she buries her face in his shoulder he turns his head to press a kiss against her temple, burying his nose in her hair to just...surround himself with her presence. He sets her back down on her feet but bends to keep holding her, and she can feel the smile he presses against her hair.

Then he pulls back, hands cupping her face to take her in with his old, tired eyes, too.]

How- how did you get here? I thought it was gonna be some kind of big to-do just to get you here.

[She doesn't need much coaxing to look up into his face, the one she's missed so much that she was afraid she'd forget it, but how could she ever? The strong jawline, the nose, the kind eyes behind those glasses. Her fingers move to his cheeks, too, thumbing at his five-o-clock shadow, where there used to be a beard.]

It was actually your brother's doing. He gave me plans for a temporary portal before we left Elysium. My crew assembled it for me.

[She can't resist the opportunity to kiss him any longer than it takes to finish that sentence, so she leans up to do just that.]

[He hasn’t gotten new glasses since the final battle - his left lens still has half a crack jaggedly chipped out of one side. He’s shaved and cut his hair, when he remembers to, but he kept a pair of silver sideburns. The only other nod to his brother he wears with him.

The age creeps back into his face when she mentions Ford. His smile doesn’t fade, but a bittersweetness creeps in at the edges, where it had been just relief and joy.

She kisses him before he can respond, and he pours all his relief at seeing her again into kissing her back, his hands sliding down to her waist to hold her closer.]

I’ll have to thank him.

[He says when they finally part, unable to hide the way his voice gets rougher when he mentions Ford. But then he clears his throat and puts on a big smile again.]

He-hey, I gotta give you the tour! The old Shack ain’t what it used to be, but she’s still got good bones. She’ll be nice when I get her all dressed up again.

[She knows it still can't be easy for him, thinking about his brother. It shows in all the work he's clearly in the middle of, in the sideburns that remain on his cheeks. It makes her wish even more that she'd been able to be here with him. It makes her especially glad, too, that he's had Dipper and Mabel around until recently, or so she can only assume.

Her hands smooth through his hair, petting down over his shoulders like she's reassuring herself one more time that he's real and solid and here, and she nods before she pulls back, taking up her suitcase.]

Please, I need the grand tour. It looks like you're planning on opening an inn, Stan.

[His hair is shorter than she's ever seen it in person, and he smiles softly when her hands run through it, relaxing under her touch.

When she pulls back, he notices her suitcase for the first time and reaches to carry it for her.]

Here, honeybunny, let me grab that for you.

Yeah, it's... Before the manor, I'd actually given the Shack to Soos so I could go sailing. But, y'know, after all that he told me he didn't think he was up to running it anymore, and I sure wasn't about to start it back up again.

[He steps out of the doorway to let her go in.]

We, uh, we got rid of a lot of the old exhibits over the summer. But I decided might as well show off that it's still the old Shack with a new purpose by keeping some as decoration.

[Leia lets him take her luggage, light as it is, not bothering to bite back a smile; she's missed his nicknames. Nobody's called her starshine in months, aside from the one time Poe tried to tease her for it. It...didn't go over well.

Listening still, she steps inside and glances around, at all the signs of change and renovation, the sawdust and bare patches on the walls where there were once signs and paintings.]

I like that idea. You know, I never imagined I'd end up an innkeeper's wife.

[She'd be anything, honestly, as long as it also meant being Stanley Pines' wife.

Her brow wrinkles.]

Where are we going to live, then, if not here?

[He leads her through the museum part of the shack, where the wallpaper has been peeled off and the glue sanded down to the paneling, ready to be painted over. The door to the once-hidden room where he locked the wax figures away is ajar, a shiny new doorknob sitting on the floor still in the packaging (shoplifted, but she doesn't have to know that) and waiting to be installed.]

"Innkeeper" makes me sound even older. [He says, pulling a face.] I was thinking entrepreneur, or hotel manager, or businessman.

[He lets her peek into the rooms as they go; everything that was being kept had been moved into the big event space for the time being, since that was the one room that was going to change the least. All of the rooms that look small enough to be bedrooms have numerous paint swatches on the walls, all at about a fourteen-year-old girl's height, and then one color that's been selected with a bigger circle and an arrow in the same color. The color is different for each room, but Mabel's touch is obvious.

At the first exterior window he can take her right to he stops, looks outside, and then points at a little path that winds off into the woods.]

We can head out there now if you want, I can show you around the Shack later once you've got settled in.

[He feels like a good ten or fifteen years have sloughed off of him just having her there. It makes him feel like he has a future, instead of just setting one up for somebody else. He wants to show her the little cabin. He wants her to be happy here.]

Well, I already knew you were an entrepreneur. 'Hotel manager' sounds very posh, though.

[She lets him lead her through the building, arm looped through his because she's not ready to not be touching him in some capacity, just yet. She smiles at the obvious signs of Mabel's participation, squints every now and again as if picturing what a room might look like once it's finished.

At the window, she follows the direction he's pointing and smiles, looks incredulously up at him.]

You built a house?

[You built me a house?]

I'd like that very much.

[He looks down at her with an “innocent” expression when she gives him that incredulous look.]

Well- most of the building was done by Wendy and her pops, but I pulled my weight. Come on- let’s go look at it.

[He leads her from the window through the back door, locking the Shack up behind them.]

You...You think you’re gonna like it here?

[He's not fooling her for a second, and she feels affection flood her all over again at the thought of him...nesting? Is that the right word for it? Getting ready for the day she arrived, even though he had no idea when it'd be. She could fall in love with him all over again just thinking about it.

Leia nods, watching him lock the door, and wraps her arms around his middle.]

I do. It's peaceful, and beautiful...and it has the added benefit of having you in it.

[He spins the keyring around his finger, sending the keys jingling, and before he can put them back in his pocket she wraps her arms around his waist and he melts.]

I'd get settled in a little bit before you go saying it's peaceful around here. But you're right, it is a sight.

[The trees around the shack are a mix of dark evergreens and deciduous trees that have begun exploding into their annual fireworks of color. But he's not looking at the greenery when he remarks on the beauty, he's looking down at her.]

[She gazes up at him, expression soft and relaxed, and shakes her head slowly. There are so many things she's wanted to say to him since she's seen him last; how many times has she pictured telling him that she felt incomplete without him, lost for the first time out among all those stars. That her heart ached every night she slept alone without the safety of his arm curled around her waist and the sound of his breathing in her ear, without Mabel curled up between them (or, like as not, across them).

But now, actually standing here with him in the middle of the woods? Those words escape her. Or, rather, strike her as unnecessary. After all, she can feel him again. She doesn't need the reassurance that he feels the same way. So she just leans forward and presses her cheek into his sternum.]

I missed you so much.

[His arms settle warm and heavy around her shoulders, one hand cupping the back of her neck, thumb idly brushing back and forth across the soft, fine hair there. With her cheek pressed against his chest, she can feel the way it swells when he sucks in a breath and then lets it go, finding it easier to breathe for the first time in months now that he can hold her again.]

I missed you too, Starshine. More'n anything.

[And if his voice sounds rougher and close to tears, it's just because he dropped to a near-whisper.]

[She stays like that for a long time, listening to his heartbeat until she's reassured that he's real, that this isn't a dream...that this isn't a trap. That he's still her Stan, and he still loves her. When Leia pulls back, it's to kiss him again, slow and steady. After several lingering moments, she rocks back from her tippy-toes to eye him with flushed cheeks.]

Let's go home, honey.

[He leans down to meet her when she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him, savoring her lips on his. He can hardly believe she's real, but even if his eyes have only gotten less dependable his touch has never lied to him.

The flush on her cheeks matches a rising one on his own, more visible now that the beard that hid his face the whole time they were in the manor is gone.]

Can't wait to show it to you.

[He bends down to pick up her suitcase again and gives her a kiss on the cheek as he does, offering her his other arm.]

[There's a brightness in her gaze now that belies the sudden thrumming in her blood, and she doesn't really have to guess if he's feeling the same way, thanks to the flush in his own face. Leia hums, a warm, contented sound, and takes his arm again, letting him lead her toward that wooded path. Once they're in the thick of the forest, she breathes deeply, taking in crisp, pine-scented fall air, savoring the crunch of leaves and dried-out needles under their shoes.]

I can see why you like it out here. The kids must like it, too. They're okay? Mabel, and Dipper?

[It's hard to believe how fall could go from sad to beautiful in a few minutes.]

'Course they love it. You think they just come up here for the summer to hang out with an old man?

[He smiles.]

You missed 'em by a few weeks. They're... 'Bout as good as you could expect. They're tough kids. It was good for 'em to have a few months at home before they came back up here for the summer.

[It doesn't take long for the cabin to come into view. It's small, but two stories, made out of the same wood as the Shack, except it's brand new and not 40 years old. There's a couch on the front porch next to the door that looks ancient but comfortable.]

Well? Whaddya think?

I'm sure that's a big part of it. Those kids love you an awful lot, you know.

[She's sad to know she missed them by such a small margin; it would have been good to get to know Dipper better, to see Mabel again and give her a tight squeeze. But next summer will come soon enough, she knows, especially with work in front of them to be done.

When the house comes into view, Leia exhales a reverent breath, taking it in. It's small, but undeniably charming, and something in the rustic style of it tugs at her heartstrings. Excitedly, she turns to Stan, smiling widely.]

Oh, honey, it's beautiful. It's really ours?

[Next March will come soon enough; the seventeenth falls in the middle of the kids' spring break, and he knows from his nephew that they've already been begging to come back for that break. He doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to guess why.

The smile that Leia beams up at him chases all the nervousness from his body. He'd been afraid it would be too small, too quaint, that she wouldn't like it (even with Mabel reassuring him all summer that she was going to love it because he was there), but the excitement on her face makes her look 20 years younger, and being able to thrill her like that makes him feel 20 years younger.]

'Course it is. I wouldn't pull your leg like that. C'mon, let me show ya around.

[And then he lets go of her arm and switches which hand is holding her suitcase so that he can bend down and sweep her off her feet in a bridal carry, climbing up onto the porch and fumbling a little with the doorknob.]

Uh- kitten, you think you could get the doorknob?

[He should have listened to Mabel, honestly. She hasn't even seen the inside yet and she already loves it because it's theirs. Stan built it for them. She's so caught up in the idea of staying in one place, of resting, that Stan catches her off-guard as he literally sweeps her off her feet. Leia gasps, grabbing for his shoulders, and laughs as she's carried up onto the front porch.]

I suppose I could. [She shakes her head, reaching out and turning the knob to push the door open. In a faux-regal voice, she looks back up at him and commands:] Proceed.

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