-Meaning is determined by conscious judgement-(Part 1)

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The next morning, Melody brought breakfast up to the two demons, and they ate upstairs. Stan hadn't been all that thrilled at the idea of the two of 'em getting breakfast hand-delivered to 'em, but there hadn't been a better way to handle it, far as he could see. He wasn't gonna lock Ford in his room downstairs. It wasn't long after he finished breakfast with Ford and the kids that Stan made his way upstairs to finally sit down and have a one-on-two talk with their resident demon and his little sister.

(Stan was feeling a little better, because his brother was feeling a little better that morning… sort of. Stan had had the better part of a day to try and calm down, and realizing last night that the kid hadn't eaten had… well, he was still pissed with the kid about that, but he also knew how off the rails the kid's already messed-up thinking could and did get when the kid wasn't trying to get away with skipping meals (let alone adding further bad judgment and literal 'logic errors' on top of that when the kid hadn't eaten anything in too long). ...Stan was at least pretty sure now that he was past the point of not being able to stop from punching the kid in the face at the first wrong word, at least. Finally. He still hadn't really been feeling it that morning, yet; it was why he'd sent Melody up, instead of going up himself earlier.)

Turned out, as Stan's head passed the level of the floor, that Stan still didn't have to ask permission to walk on up and in; he just could. (And he guessed he probably would so long as he didn't take back the kid's blanket permission to sleep in his room downstairs, come in whenever, and all of that jazz. Kid was very tit-for-tat on a lot of stuff with him, so far.) He didn't call out to the kid like he usually did when he came upstairs (because of Ford, he didn't want to risk his brother overhearing him, and what might happen after that), but he did make sure to be his usual noisy self coming up the stairs so the kid could stop him or say something if he wanted to.

When Stan walked in on 'em, they were finished eating, stuff all cleared off to the side by the stairs, and Bill tilted his head at him -- just like he usually did when Stan sat down on his bed, and Bill sat down on his -- the same way the kid always did right before they tried talked things out facing each other.

There were no beds in here, though, so Stan suppressed a groan as he sat down. (He was gettin' too old to sit on the floor if he didn't need to.) Bill and Miz were already seated on the ground right in front of where he'd decided to sit. ...Well, yeah, okay, Bill was seated on the ground, Miz had gotten a pillow to kneel on. (Stan had considered grabbing one of those other pillows off in the corner, but it had looked like too much trouble. ...Eh, it wasn't important.)

"So, you got that emotion thing under control?" Stan asked first off. He figured it was best to get that whole mess outta the way first. Melody had said that Bill had said that Miz did, but he figured he'd better get the whole story outta the two demons himself. Devil was in the details with the kid, so, yeah.

Miz nodded at him, reaching a hand up to her headband, a pale yellow piece of cloth tied around her forehead. (Ugh, why did it have to be yellow? Ford was gonna…) Stan sighed but didn't actually question her color choice. He had other more important things to question, like... "So how's it work?" Stan grunted out at them.

"It shuts off every single one of my senses," Miz said. "And I modified it to allow a few of them back. I can only do three before the spell breaks under the strain."

Stan paused, then frowned. That sounded pretty extreme. "Explain," he said gruffly. She had to be able to see and hear him, from last night at dinner and now, but he wanted the full story here. (Demon. Details.) He watched Miz as she played with the cloth a bit, rubbing at it. "I have the sensation of Touch enabled. So any physical sensations are fine. I can tell how much pressure I'm exerting when I touch and hold stuff. And I can feel pain both internal and out." She placed a hand on her stomach.

Stan nodded. Okay. That was one of 'em.

"I got Sight because I need it to… well, see. But not See. I have my eyesight in this vessel but I don't have my All-Seeing Eye." Stan's eyebrows went up at this, and he glanced over at Bill, who looked… pretty damn uncomfortable. Yeah. This was a big deal.

"And I was going to forego hearing because I'm pretty good at lip reading but I realized I wouldn't be able to hear if anyone said 'No' or 'Stop' which meant I needed hearing," Miz concluded. Stan stared at her, noticing the way she shrank back in on herself a little bit as she talked. "What were you gonna pick, that you wanted more than being able to hear people talk?" Stan asked. It didn't get past him that she'd apparently picked something she wouldn't have otherwise, in order to try and follow an agreement she hadn't even really agreed to yet.

Miz blushed, which confused Stan. "Taste," she said, which confused Stan even more. That wasn't like Bill at all, the kid hated eating as far as he could tell. (Then again, he'd seen Miz eat, and she acted like…) "One of the reasons I take this form--" Miz gestured to herself "--is because it has human-like taste buds," she said. "My triangle form doesn't have taste buds that work like this and everything I eat tastes kinda bland."

She looked down at her hands, playing with her fingers, tugging at them one at a time. "I enjoy taste. It's unfortunate that I had to go with hearing instead."

Stan stared at her. Yeah, okay. That was different. --But who would rather be deaf than unable to taste shit, though? Whole thing here was messed up. Stan shook his head. "Right. But you're sure you don't feed off our emotions anymore?" Miz nodded. "How do you know that?" Stan asked neutrally, continuing his questioning.

They went over how they'd tested it, and the whole thing of whether she'd been affecting them at all in the first place, versus them affecting her, and what was different now. Stan sort of got over the course of talking about it -- with Miz, Bill seemed to be staying out of it mostly except for confirming things sometimes when the kid seemed to think she might need backing up -- that their 'emotional waves' or whatever that came of of them were something that Miz couldn't block out.

So, with what she'd said she'd been angry about two nights ago, of course the topic came up: if Miz could taste emotions, shouldn't she have known Stan wasn't bothered by Ford's comments, known that Ford wasn't trying to hurt Stan, but had been hurting because of what she'd said? The girl looked away, ashamed. "I was projecting, and angry and wasn't… thinking properly. Ford made me upset and I didn't want to let that go. I wanted to upset him back," she mumbled. "I'm going to try and not do that again." She couldn't face Stan, feeling much like a chastised child and hating it. "Is… is Ford… well, I know he's not ok, but is he doing better?"

Stan realized that Miz wasn't lying or just being 'polite'; she was actually worried over Ford's well-being. Huh. Hadn't expected that.

"He's doing better. --Not good, no thanks to you two," Stan told them with a grumpy anger, and he noted the guilty expression on the sort-of dragon's face. She was very expressive and didn't seem very good at hiding her feelings. He remembered what she'd acted like when she'd been here last time with that other friend of hers. She had tried to lie to him, spin up some tale. He hadn't fallen for it.

Her expressions when she actively tried to lie were more subtle, sure, but 'more subtle' wasn't actually subtle. He'd seen that at the breakfast table yesterday morning too, what with lying about the glasses. She hadn't been much better at it then; he still would've caught it, without having actually known what the glasses did before she'd put them on herself, absolutely. The only thing that had surprised him at the time was that she was actually better at lying than the kid seemed to be. (--Well, faster and smoother at it, anyway. He'd never seen the kid try to pull a lie off the top of his head before, and most anything Bill tried to pull with him seemed to be more of a 'leave stuff out' thing, not a 'lie to your face' thing.)

But it was all still pretty easy for Stan to see through, at least for him -- even if she had managed to take the niblings for a bit of a ride on that one. (Had to give it to her, that one had been a pretty good, and pretty harmless, prank to pull.) Stan didn't know how to react to the knowledge that this girl, who was apparently a Bill Cipher from an alternative universe, was still a shitty liar, though. Or, at least, that she couldn't make outright lies that would even come close to fooling him. The only people she'd be able to fool would be the idiots here in Gravity Falls, and maybe the kids again, but only if she caught them in the middle of being excited or something when they wouldn't be really thinking things through. (Not that that couldn't be dangerous enough, though, Stan was sure his brother would be happy to tell him, as soon as he was completely feeling better.)

"Is there anything I can do that might… help?" Miz asked. Bill immediately turned his head towards her and demanded, "--Don't say yes to anything unless I say it's fine!" Miz nodded. "Good." Bill turned back towards Stan and gave him a long look. ...Yeah, the kid definitely didn't trust him with his little sister. Heh. Was almost kinda cute, except for how big a honking problem it actually was. Stan was still gonna try to get as much mileage out of it with the kid as he could, though.

"Help how?" Stan asked her, and Miz blinked at him. "--Oh right! Um, I was gonna ask if it would be okay for me to clear out the termites and the rats. And fix up any damaged wood in the shack, so that its cleaner and sturdier." Miz said, looking up at Stan with a hopeful look.

"Eh." The old man scratched at the side of his face and considered it. It sounded like she wanted to apologize by doing a favor for him. And her suggestion was to fix up the Shack. "Would it interfere with the voodoo barrier?"

"No. I won't be changing anything. Just making what's already here, better." Miz assured him. "Cleaning out insects, mice, dust, dirt and feces… I won't even kill the animals if you want, I can just push them out into the forest or something." She turned a pleading look at Stan. "I just want to do something to help out around here! I… don't want to be a burden while I'm staying here!"

Stan sighed. This junk again. Rate he was goin' he was gonna have to set up one of them halfway houses for Ciphers here, because none of them seemed to get that... "You're a kid--"

"But I'm not your kid. I'm just… staying here, for selfish reasons! Please let me do something to help! Just pretend it's chores but on a larger scale!" Miz begged. She knew for a fact that she would likely eat them out of house and home unless she found another source of fuel that wasn't their emotions.

"Kid," Stan held up a hand before she could interrupt again. "I don't ask Bill to do chores around here. The most he has to go with are penalties-- and I still haven't figured them out yet," he began to say heavily when she looked about to interrupt him again, then lightened his tone when she backed off a bit again. Stan let out another sigh, and rubbed the front of his face with a palm. "Look, let me level with ya, okay?" he said, dropping his hand and looking between them both. "I ain't real happy with either of you two right now, I don't know what I'm gonna do about Ford yet, I just got done negotiating boundaries with the termites for the next year, and I don't need either of you two screwing up anything else with him, or the kids, or anyone else."

Stan took in a breath glancing between them, and didn't see any hard objections yet. --Good. "Your big brother here wants to take on any penalties you might get. After what happened yesterday, I can kinda see why." He glared at Bill. "You are not getting outta any penalties on anything," he told the kid. "I'm pretty sure I know why you rushed out the door with your little sister talkin' precautions now, when Ford started flipping out, 'cause if I understand this whole thing, if he'd started explaining things when we didn't know what was what, the kids would've started freaking out, and Miz would've felt that, and if she'd started freaking out then things would've gotten a hell of a lot worse. I got that right?"

"Yes," Bill said tersely.

"And you were worried what it was doing to her, feeling all our junk, anyway," Stan said. "So yeah, you thought it was more important to handle all that than eat. --But that ain't right, you coulda done both," Stan told him. "You still coulda said something over the phone when you were out there, or called us sooner," Stan told him. "You don't get to be off the hook for that. I've told you about not eating, and what happens when you don't do that, before," Stan reminded him heavily, before he let out a tired sigh. "But…" and now he had the kid's attention. "I didn't check to see if you'd eaten, or if there was any toast in that thing for you," Stan told him. "And I didn't check up on you for lunch, either, and that's one of the things I'm supposed to be doing for you." That was two things out of the whole set of four promises: food and learning. Stan had known that the kid didn't believe him about eating being all that important, yet.

"But you're still going to penalize me twice for that, anyway," Bill said slowly.

"Yeah," said Stan. He pulled in a breath, then made the plunge. "But I'm gonna penalize myself for that, too." Bill stared at him. "You screwed something up twice with the meals, but I screwed up twice with that junk, too. --They don't cancel each other out," he told Bill. "You didn't do anything to undo that, or fix that, and neither did I. So we both get two penalties each."

"Who picks yours," Bill said suspiciously, "Me?" Stan let out a snort. "No. I pick yours, and Ford's gonna get to pick mine, once he's feeling better. And if you think they're not on-the-level with your penalties or whatever, you can complain to me about it," Stan said. "But that doesn't cover what's going on with Ford, after what happened in the woods."

Bill gave him a long look. "...What if I help fix it."

Well, surprise surprise, maybe this would work out after all. Stan had been hoping that he'd managed to set it up right for this, and look at what he got here! "Can't fix it entirely, but you can help. Means the penalty's gonna be a lot less penalizing, if you help make it better than it would have been."

Bill gave him a long stare.

"Starting with tellin' me what exactly you two did, what he did, what the hell happened before we all got out there, and why you weren't even a little bit surprised or worried about it," Stan ground out at him.

Bill stared at him a bit longer, then looked away.

"Right now, or after you're finished with your other questions," Bill asked, finally looking back at Stanley.

Stan pulled in a breath, and he had to force himself to let it out slowly. Practically a whole day, and Ford being at least a little better than he was, and Stan still wanted to haul off and hit the kid.

...not least of which because he was afraid of what was gonna happen when Ford saw the kid again next.

"Fine," Stan said finally. "How bad off is your little sister from what we were throwing at her since she's been here, and from the last time," Stan asked. It got a startled look out of the kid. (...Yeah, didn't see that one coming, did you? Not an idiot, kid.) For all Stan knew, part of why the kid had been so okay with throwing shit to the wind yesterday had had to do with the fact that, technically, they'd all been 'mentally attacking' his kid sister with their emotions every second that she'd been there so far. "Only three senses? For a triangle with an All-Seeing Eye? --She's locked down hard right now. What happens to her when she takes that headband off? And how bad is it for her when she has it on?" He glanced over at Miz. He wasn't stupid, and he'd been paying attention to what little she'd said in the kitchen that morning. "This ain't just a feeding thing, is it. You were still angry with Ford because he was angry, weren't you. You okay? Or aren't you?"

"I'm… ok… sort of…" Miz rubbed her arm "It's just…" Miz sighed and looked down at her hands. "Why're human emotions so much stronger though? I can hang around angry aliens all day and just get irritated…" she mumbled quietly. It took a lot to really piss her off nowadays unless she had multiple days worth of issues stockpiled up. Or if someone did something really awful to piss her off. "And I feel a little… quiet right now, with the headband on. It's like… everything is… less vibrant? A little dizzy sometimes when I realize I can't See and I try to but there's nothing there…"

She glanced up at Stan. "And I was trying very hard not to be mad at Ford anymore during breakfast… but it was kinda… difficult."

Stan let out a long breath and looked over at the kid. Bill didn't look like he was about to have a nuclear meltdown, but he didn't look all that happy about any of it, either.

"You used to be human, right?" Stan asked. "Maybe human emotions just, I dunno, fit better with you. Hit stronger?"

"Maybe? My world's 3rd dimension is still in its early parts of humanity. Like, Egypt just became a thing. And with them, I'm stuck in the Mindscape most of the time unless I'm possessing something… which, funny story, is where the Egyptians got their misconception that the Pharaoh is a living god, they saw me with my eyes all glowy inside my host and started worshipping him…" Miz couldn't help but giggle a little. "It was both funny and exasperating."

Yeah, kid was definitely a triangle demon. She sure rambled away like the one he had did. "Kid," Stan said, looking to Bill. "How bad is it that she's feeling quiet right now?"

"She's lucky to be feeling anything at all," is what Bill told him almost flatly. "She's an empath with no ability to keep anyone else's emotions out of her mind and she's been spending most of her time around people. Most empaths with that kind of problem would have stopped being capable of feeling things themselves within a year or two of that, given her range and how strongly she seems to be picking things up without even trying."

Stan stared. It suddenly occurred to him why Ford might've been horrified in the kitchen, and why he'd looked so grim. Ford had gotten that 'I need to fix this' look that he sometimes got, the one that always, always got him into trouble… but Stan had thought that he'd been thinking about Bill, not the dragon-girl. He'd thought Ford had gone downstairs to that lab of his.

Miz mumbled, "Is THAT why Time Baby put me in solitary confinement after I accidentally laser beamed his courtroom?" Bill turned towards her. "You let him put you in the Infinitentiary?" Bill said with no small disbelief. "Well… I felt really bad about accidentally killing so many people! I didn't mean to do it! And he let me out after a few centuries when he needed help with something anyway…" she mumbled.

Bill and Stan both stared at her.

"Tell me you could have left whenever you wanted to," Bill said, sounding a little odd. Stan glanced over at him. "Yes. They wouldn't have been able to hold me." Miz confirmed. Bill closed his eyes for a moment. Stan realized that the kid was forcefully controlling his breathing. "...Fine," Bill said tersely, then opened his eyes again.

Stan wasn't sure what Bill was about to say, but he decided to cut in with, "Kid. Miz. Don't ever let anybody lock you up, even if you think you can get out later. That ain't smart. You don't know if you'll stay being able to get out again on your own." He didn't care if she was a freaking demon. Prison was hell, and she was still a kid, even more of one than the kid was.

"But… what if I lost control and hurt more people? I… I just felt really bad…" She trembled, remembering how she'd started hurting herself, slamming into the walls and biting herself until she bled everywhere. Anything to try and relieve that awful guilt burning inside her.

"Go someplace where there aren't any people to hurt," Bill told her flatly.

"I… felt like I needed to be punished…" Miz admitted quietly.

Stan frowned. He glanced over at Bill. "...And sitting in a jail cell you could leave, that was near a bunch of other people you could feel but couldn't keep out of your head or whatever, was being punished?" Stan asked her slowly.

Miz looked away. "In retrospect, if you put it like that, it does sound kinda stupid…" She shook her head. "But I'm out now! And it hasn't happened in eons."

"What hasn't happened in eons?" Stan asked her, glancing at Bill again. He had a suspicion...

"Getting Time Baby mad enough he felt the need to lock me up? He's been almost… nice these past few million years, still an asshole, but he hasn't asked me to kill anyone for him in a while…"

...and that had not been it. Stan's eyebrows went up. "--Woah, woah! Asked you to kill someone for him? The hell?" Yeah, 'nice to her'. Sure. Probably happy that he had a Bill Cipher killing people for him whenever he wanted, whoever the hell this asshole was.

Miz blinked. "Yeah. He says that since I'm Destruction anyway, I might as well be used for something. So, sometimes he needs history to happen in the way he wants, he has this whole timeline thing setup you see, and sometimes it doesn't go the way he wants, so he usually sends his police down there to… make sure things go smoothly. But sometimes he needs a more…" She struggled to find a way to put it. "...powerful creature to get things done? So he cut me a Deal, I do a job for him every now and then in exchange for a Favor from him."

...Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This was exactly the kind of thing Stan had been worried about with the kid. This was exactly why he'd wanted the kid to stay here, and not get caught up with who-knew-who that might come back to bite them all in the ass later. ...Hell, and if Miz could get here, what if that asshole decided he wanted to 'get things done' over here, and told her to start killing people over here, too? Only thing stopping that from happening (maybe) was the kid, and would Bill lock his 'little sister' out of anyplace she really wanted to go? Stan wouldn't bet his life on that, or the kids.

Stan turned to Bill. "--Can you get her out of this Deal?"

"...I don't know," Bill said slowly. "First time I've heard of it." Bill had thought, when she'd been talking earlier, about the 'trinity' of Time-Space-Energy that, that had meant they'd mostly been equal, or at least equal-ish. "Can you break it on your own?" was Bill's first question to Miz. His second was, "What were the terms of the Deal -- do you have to kill whoever he tells you to?"

"Well… it's a case by case thing. I only make a Deal for one job at a time." Miz said, not sure why they were staring at her like that. "And each job, deal, I do for him, if I accept the job, he'll grant me a Favor. I've been keeping track of how many he owes me. It's how I keep my friends safe. I trade a Favor for their freedom and the Federation can't touch 'em," she said proudly at this solution she'd found.

Stan glanced over at Bill. Bill didn't look perturbed in the least… at least on the face of things. "Any restrictions on what the Favor can be?" Bill asked of her next. "Scope or duration? Anything?"

"Something of equal value to what my part of the Deal did for him. I tell him what I want, he haggles me down and we come to an agreement." Miz said. "I can have him make the Federation leave my friends alone so long as they don't blatantly break the law where an officer can see, or go on a mass murder spree. If they do break the law and get arrested again, I trade another Favor to get them out." She felt this was fine. She told them to keep the law breaking on the low and they had been behaving themselves.

"Have you ever not taken a job," was Stan's question, because, shit, how deep was this kid already into things, here? ...And what were her 'friends' like? (Yeah, okay, better than Bill's probably, if she usually didn't have to get them out of the clinker for mass-murders. Not that that was sayin' much. Shit.)

"Um… so far no? He gave me a thorough explanation of why he needed who he needed killed, and there was that one planet I had to destroy because it was infected with a very deadly parasite and he couldn't allow it to escape the planet to infect the rest of multiverse…"

Stan took in a deep breath. Let it out again. Turned to Bill and said, "Kid, how would you solve that problem if you didn't want anybody to die, and still not infect the multiverse." And as far as Stan was able to tell, the kid didn't even have to think about it. The kid just rattled off: "Roll back time around the planet. Roll back the entire planet and everything and everyone on it. The whole thing."

"Eh, Time Baby doesn't like it when anyone messes with Time like that. Which I always found kinda stupid… he's the god of TIME for fuck's sake…" Miz grumbled.

"So kill him," Bill said, and Stan had to cover a wince. "But then I'd be forced to take on his job and I had no idea how to do that!" Miz whined. "'Had'?" Stan said, because if this demon was anywhere near as exact with her words as Bill was... "As in, you didn't before, but you do now?"

"...sort of. I kinda get it now, but even if I took over, none of his police are gonna listen to me and rolling back time for the ENTIRE multiverse far enough to put myself as their original god would fuck up the timeline so bad that reality might actually snap…" Miz groaned. "It's just… so many strings and connections and consequences and--"

"So don't let them think he's dead," Bill said. "Put a mannequin in or something you can remote control. Or talk to that chatty 'dad' of yours that seems to like you, see if he'll vouch for you to the rest of reality."

"Eh… dad says I need to learn to get along with Time Baby," Miz said. "Of course he does," Bill said next, his tone dripping scorn.

"And he never talks to the rest of reality, lazy ass…" Miz grumbled. Bill didn't look horribly surprised at that. "Also, I tried replacing Time Baby with a Construct once, I was pranking him by spiking his drink with this super strong alcohol for Crimbo and he got knocked the fuck out!" Miz giggled. "But then Time started falling apart so I panicked and held it together until he woke up because of COURSE he set the damn thing to fall if he was taken out, apparently he sets up an autopilot thing whenever he takes a nap but getting knocked out was… a bit of a surprise-- but either way, I had this fake Time Baby up and running for a little while and it was awful! He just sits in his courtroom all day with all that paperwork and people coming in and out to beg for favors and I tried helping them because they seemed to be in a bad place but there were all these long reaching consequences with a couple of countries never having existed because apparently I fucked something up while helping people and…" Miz paused in her tirade and sat back neatly on her pillow with a blush. "So… I don't think I can replace Time Baby long term," she said meekly.

Stan listened through all this, feeling (as usual) pretty over his head when it was things that had nothing to do with anything here, in 'this dimension', or whatever. All he could think to say was… "You think you could figure out how to set up one a' these autopilot things by, uh, lookin' at it with your Eye or whatever?" Kid complained about his often enough that he had a good idea now what they maybe could do with it.

"My powers don't work the same way Time Baby's does. I've been practicing and observing him but I think this is just something about how his existence is tied to Time and Fate while mine are tied to Energy and Death." Miz said.

"Okay…" said Stan. "But I ain't sayin', 'can you do it the same way?' I'm askin', do you understand how this autopilot thing works. Or why, or whatever." Stan knew the kid could do stuff with 'magic' that worked differently but did mostly the same thing as the kid could do using 'weirdness', or whatever. He figured that maybe the kid's kid sister might be the same way about this, with what this asshole baby-guy could do.

Miz scrunched up her eyebrows in thought. "I… can See the threads of Fate. I could probably make my own version of it, but it would be… different. Might not work the same. Time would move differently." She shook her head. "But disregarding all that, if I killed Time Baby, dad's probably gonna be upset. He might be forced to step in and take over running Time until Time Baby reforms himself." She winced. "And dad would be mad. I think? I've never seen him mad before but I think killing Time Baby might make him mad?"

"I ain't talking about killing nobody," Stan told her. That was well beyond anything he'd feel comfortable telling anybody, especially not a couple of demons who weren't talking about whether or not they could go out and do it, just what would happen if they did. "I'm just thinking that maybe knowin' how to keep time from collapsing if somebody else spikes the guy's drink next time, or kills him, or whatever, might be a thing you might want to have a handle on if you can do it. Sounds like not handling it might ruin your day." Oh boy did it ever.

Miz tilted her head. "I can start working on constructing a Curse that could automate the thing for me? Would probably take a while to program that." She pouted. "I didn't really think of doing that before. Time is HIS thing, not mine."

"Yeah, well," Stan rubbed the back of his neck. "I wouldn't really be thinkin' about how to hold somebody's hat for 'em, if they kept tryin' to get me to kill people for them, and were holding my family or whatever hostage over it, either." Didn't sound like the kid was in a really good situation over there, wherever she was from. Not at all. And he hated to scare her, but… "You got any idea what would happen if you ever tried to tell the guy 'no'?" Knowing how much of a hold this baby-guy might have over her was really the first step to figuring out how bad and how deep she was in.

Miz paused. "Um… I…" She looked down, a worried frown on her face. "He wouldn't be able to do anything to ME, but…" She pulled at her dress (Stan absently noted she must have used magic to change her clothes or something, since this was a different dress from yesterday) and looked uncomfortable. "But he might be… less willing to pardon my friends when they do stuff… I mean, they're usually on good behavior! Xanthar and 8-Ball and Keyhole are the sweetest guys! They wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose! But… Pyronica likes to eat people… and shoplift…" She mumbled quietly, "...and the Federation KNOWS her, they have her profile in their systems…"

Stan sighed. Kids. God, he hated it when the mob or whoever got them early. She thought killing people to get somebody else off for shoplifting was okay? (He could see why Bill thought he'd take advantage of her. Shit.) ...Well at least this one really seemed like she didn't want to run around killing people, if she didn't think she had to. He didn't think she was lying about that. Only reason he was trying to figure a way out of this for her. (Stan figured it would cause less trouble for him, because if she wasn't killing people, then Bill wouldn't be tempted to 'help her out' with the killing. Last thing any of them needed right now.) "Okay. Look. Are there any places this Federation isn't? And who makes these laws? Does the baby-guy have any pull on that?" He probably did, damn it. Stan hated explaining the facts of life to teenagers, he really did.

...Bill was watching him. Something was up, with the kid not jumping in and getting all chatty with him like he usually did on everything else.

"The Federation is a multiversally spanning governmental system whose business model is sending down powerful ships onto a newly discovered planet, asking the inhabitants if they'd like to join them and then force the inhabitants to join them if they refuse. But as bad as that might sound, it's been slowly getting better. I've been working sneakily behind the scenes to try and get some people who aren't shitty to join the council. It's slow going." Miz tried to explain.

Uh huh. Yeah. 'Course she was makin' excuses for them. And starting to get in way too deep, if she knew enough to be trying to change the system from the inside. (That usually didn't go well. That usually just got your own guys killed, or turned. And then where were you? --Running with your name on a kill list for bein' dumb enough to think you could change anything inside the system, that's what.)

"Kid," Stan said, "Let me be straight with you, here. Okay?" Miz looked up at him curiously. "Okay. Look. Guy tells you you're good for nothing but killing? You don't believe 'em, you get the hell out of there and run. That's bullshit. Understand?" Stan grimaced. "And if this guy's an asshole, probably the minute he decided he wanted you to be working for him, was already too late for some things. He knows your people, and he knows how to hurt you through them. That's bad. Means he has leverage. Now," Stan shifted in place. God, his back was not gonna love him tonight. Miz noted Stan's discomfort as he pressed a hand to his back. "It sounds like the guy's not everywhere. And I'm betting he can't get here, so you have an escape hatch. But the only way you can really deal with the bad ones, is to run and stay the hell under the radar until they die -- 'cause they sure as hell won't forget you -- and it sounds like this one dyin' is only gonna cause you problems, which is a mess and a half. So don't go runnin' to him the next time he calls, just don't even answer. Just stay away from him, get you and your friends someplace where this Federation isn't, and… I dunno, just stay out of it. Because if he's an asshole, he'll want you back, and 'laws' can be changed. And that's if you can trust the cops not to decide there's a new law just for you and your friends, because this big-shot baby says so, and they owe him a favor or two. Understand?"

Miz nodded slowly. "Well… a lot of the council members are getting on in years. There are four good people I'm trying to get into a seat of power right now. As for escaping the Federation… we could go to somewhere that they haven't gone to. But that's mainly fringe planets and the few planets I've managed to keep them from getting to. But… I don't want to restrict my friends from going out to where they want to go… even if I'm just trying to keep them safe. And… Kryptos is still in school, and Teeth has his job… and…" Miz seemed to wilt as she thought about it.

"Kid, if these people are okay with you goin' out and killing people when you don't want to, just so they can go places and pull stupid shit whenever they want, then they ain't really your friends," Stan told her heavily.

Miz looked a little angry. "They ARE my friends! And… and they didn't actually know about my Deals with Time Baby until like… a few hundred years ago…" She started out angry and then just looked sad. "I… never told them, explained it to them properly, until recently because I was afraid they'd think I was an awful person for agreeing to work with Time Baby…"

Stan took in a deep breath and let it out again. And this is why he hated the mob: they never really let you go, and just when you think you got out, just about everybody else would toss you back in. ...But sometimes, if you were lucky, 'just about everybody' wasn't everybody, and with this demon-kid... "Okay. I'm guessin' they had somethin' to say about it, if they're still your friends now."

Miz nodded. "They said I shouldn't have to do that for them…"

"Okay." Stan felt a little relieved. "After you told them, did they stop going places as much on their own?"

"...They've been on really good behavior these past several hundred years. We had one rampage, but that one was my idea. The Federation was bombing a rebelling city so I went to get the survivors to safety while my friends fought off the Federation soldiers…"

"So they give a damn about you, and they're willing to help you with shit. That's good," Stan said, glancing over at Bill again, who'd been unnaturally quiet this whole time. "So maybe give 'em a heads-up that you don't want to take that big baby's deals anymore, see what they say. Talk it out with them. Backup plans, what you'll do if you think you need to go… uh, handle one of those evacuation-rampage things again, or if one of your friends wants to do something that'll break one of those 'laws'. How you're all gonna handle that, without you havin' to go begging back to him for another favor or two." Because that would go really bad, once she tried to get out, and stopped taking their calls. They'd just nail her to the wall for good. She'd never get out and away from them again.

Miz nodded but still looked worried. "I feel bad that they'd have to do all this because of me…"

"Yeah, well, don't," Stan told her. "Sounds like these guys are actually your friends, since they're doin' it for you 'cause they want to. Right?"

"I'm already feeling guilty for trapping them with me…" She sighed. "I didn't want to restrict their freedom…"

Stan looked at her, confused. "You ain't trapping them, that stupid baby guy is. And you can always take 'em and leave that set of yours and go someplace else if you have to, right? Escape hatch?"

Miz shook her head, looking strained. "But I DID trap them with me. I made them immortal so they wouldn't age and die and leave me alone!" She looked away.

Stan blinked at her. "Uh… what?" The other stuff, he'd sort of been able to get. Just replace 'mob boss' with 'asshole baby guy' and 'her dad' with 'the other mob boss or whatever that you can't cross', and 'Federation' with 'those countries we own, 'cause we're the mob families who own the place', and 'planets' with 'towns', and 'friends' with 'family', and it all pretty much fell out the same way. Whatever. But he hadn't really been able to wrap his head around the idea of Bill being a trillion years old yet, and it was just a number because the triangle acted like a kid anyway. Stan couldn't imagine living forever.

"When… when I found them… and they actually wanted to be my friends… I was so happy! But, mortals aged and died. I didn't want to lose them! Not when they actually like me! So… I kinda… well, actually it was Pyronica who originally suggested it, but I was the one who added that hidden term to our Deal-- ah, that is… I made a Deal with them to continue being my friends until the end of time and ah… I kinda forcibly made them immortal. They can still be killed, but they don't age anymore…" Miz looked guilty. "So, they're trapped… with me… because who else would they live with once they outlive their families?" She waved her hands. "And I KNOW that was very bad of me to do but I was so lonely and I didn't want to lose them and--"

Stan stared at her. There was nothing about this he understood. ...Okay, the emotions a little, maybe, but...

"--Are they trapped with you, though?" Bill said oh-so-lightly, as he finally cut in. Stan turned to look at him. The kid was looking at his fingernails.

"I felt bad about making them immortal without them knowing, so I told them they were free to leave and do or go wherever they wanted… but it's not like they have anywhere else to live except with me… and I feel bad about that."

"Do they still have Free Will?" Bill asked her, looking her directly in the eyes.

"Yes. I have never messed with Free Will. For a while I was worried that my Deal might have done something to them, to make them like me, but I got Jessie to check them out and they came up clean. So I haven't touched their free will!" Miz said vehemently.

"Good!" said Bill, with a smile. "Then they aren't trapped. You said it yourself."

"But… they wouldn't be able to do things like settle down and start a family. I mean, Pyronica had kids but they're older than she is now, well, older looking at least-- you know what I mean-- and… and they're gonna die someday. And…"

Bill let out a laugh. "Kid, you're missing the point." He spread his hands out to the sides. "You said it yourself. They can die. --If they really wanted out for good, they could just kill themselves," he told her, which had Stan swallowing hard and damn near biting his tongue. "Unless you'd stop them from exerting their free will, and they know it?"

Miz blinked. "...oh. Uh… I hadn't thought of that… ah… if they really wanted to kill themselves, I… I wouldn't stop them…" even if it would break her heart to see them go.

Bill nodded. "And," he continued. "You know how to jump dimensions and pick the time you want to come out at, correct?" She'd indicated so before, last time, to him, when they'd been talking to Seb. "So if they outlive their own race, it doesn't matter. They can go back and visit, find someone, and bring them forward. Or, you can create a new race for them, can't you?" Bill told her. "Or visit a different dimensional set with them entirely. You, and they, have options. No-one is trapped."

Miz nodded slowly. "The time travel thing would only work a few times before Time Baby notices, but I might be able to do the new race thing. I've been messing around with a planet I created and while the 1st generation of life I create are soulless, their children have souls…" That got another long stare from Stan. (Could the kid do that, too?)

"Right!" Bill said, giving her another smile, that was closer to a grin. "And you can always offer the same sort of immortality to others, who might say yes or might say no, if your friends ask you to, if there is anyone they might want to keep around who would want to live that long, too."

Miz nodded. Slowly a smile appeared on her face. "You're right!" She bounced in place. "So… I'm not a bad friend for making them immortal without telling them? Not, entirely a bad friend at least?"

"Mm," said Bill. "Not like most people understand what immortality means until they're a couple million years into it. You left 'em an out already. Is there any other way to break the Deal?" Bill asked her.

"Well, I used the words 'until the end of time' as part of it, so I guess if Time Baby dies they'd be freed from the Deal too. They wouldn't die immediately, but they'd be mortal again and start aging normally until Time Baby reforms himself."

"How long does it usually take your Time Baby to reform?" Bill asked her. "Takes a thousand years here."

"Like, a thousand years as well. Same for ME if anyone manages to destroy me bad enough."

Bill nodded. "So, how long do each of their species usually live?"

"Ah… let's see… 300 for Ronica? Xanthar's like… 500 maybe? Teeth's people only have 98-ish…" Miz mumbled as she thought about it.

"Well, that's a problem if you're stuck having to hold time together while he ain't there, if you don't got yourself an autopilot to handle things for you," Stan pointed out. He wasn't dumb, he could do the math. "If you're stuck holding time together so everybody doesn't kick it because time unraveled or whatever, and your dad don't take over… they still die. That ain't good." He glanced over at Bill, who glanced back at him and gave him a smile. The kid had an odd gleam in his eyes, too, for some reason, which was weird.

"Pfth… I actually boosted their bodies on the genetic level to stop their aging. So, I think their natural lifespans are actually much higher than their species are supposed to have. Not sure how much but I know that for Kryptos at least, he would be able to survive 1000 years, be pretty old but he'd make it."

"Yeah, okay," Stan said, rubbing a hand over his face again. "So, maybe a good idea to, I dunno, either boost it longer or get some cryotubes or something like Ford's got in the bunker," (what did you want from him, Stan was spitballing here), "And really nail down that autopilot thing, even if it will take a long time. Just in case whoever takes out that asshole baby decides they want to go after you or your friends next, so you can be ready there, waiting for 'em, or just grab 'em all and bail."

Miz hummed. "You know, I was wondering about that… Bill killed Time Baby here right? I'm guessing this dimension doesn't have its little pillars of reality directly tied into the gods that run them?"

"No," Bill told her. "Not at all. --Here, there's only one stupid giant Time Lord left, and it's in this dimension, and it's 'Time Baby'," Bill told her, then tilted his head at her. "If you're looking for models of dimensional sets that are set up without needing any 'pillars' in place, this would be a good one to look at, before I start changing all the underpinnings of everything everywhere and it gets a little difficult to tell what it used to be like 'before'!" he laughed out. It'd still be stable when he was done, of course, but getting from here to there was a step-by-step thing, and not just the steps but the order of them mattered. Changing things around in a different order could lead to a large-scale destabilization from a less-stable (or almost unstable) configuration that wasn't corrected in time, Bill knew.

(Stan glanced over at Bill. Oh, he was definitely talking about this with the kid later. First time he'd heard anything about this 'messing around with underpinnings' stuff, and that didn't sound good...)

"I wonder if I could scan what makes this place hold up without pillars and use that to write my Autopilot in my world…" Miz wondered, quite curious at what sorts of systems were in place to automate things in this world. "If your Eye doesn't change what you See, then go for it!" Bill enthused with a grin. He'd made sure observation using his own Eye didn't, at least as far as he knew. He'd tested it as much as he could; he was very sure about that now. The thing he was less sure about was whether his own observations could be noticed; he couldn't exactly try and use his old Eye to try and See his own Eye. He also didn't know enough about other dimensional sets and how differently they might work from his to assume anything about that one. The fact that there were 'pillars' in Miz's was a big hint that the Rules In Play might be vastly different in other sets. They might have learned to See very differently than he had, or his Eye might flat-out work differently there; he just didn't know.

"I would need to take this off--" Miz poked her headband "--if I wanted to take a look."

"Could go out to the lake, take the Stan O' War out with the kid, more than thirty feet out from the shore and the boats," Stan put out there, offering. He'd taken the kid out there before. "Don't think trying that inside here will do ya any good," Stan raised a hand and gestured at the room.

"Mm, starting small might be a good comparison," Bill put out there. "But the lake first, then here, then the lake again, for a good contrast?"

Miz nodded before looking down at herself and shivering as her tail retracted. "Oh, ok. How do I look? Human enough?" She laughed. "I'm joking, I know this looks human, it's what I looked like back when I was human!"

The joke got her a 'heh' from Stan, but the last thing she said got a thoughtful look from him. She wasn't even 5 feet tall. How… old had she been when she'd 'died' and been 'reborn' or recycled or whatever into being a 'triangle demon' like the kid? He suddenly had a sinking feeling about her childish behavior. (...in a lot of the same way he had a sinking feeling about the kid when it came to that, too…)

"Well," Stan scratched the side of his cheek. "Dunno if the kid said this or not, but if you're in trouble, come here." Stan grimaced. He didn't like saying it, but… it'd be better than the alternative. And hey, at least he could keep an eye on the both of them, if they were here. "I'll have to work somethin' out with Ford, once he's feelin' better. I don't like you talkin' with him, but…" He glanced over at the kid. "We can figure somethin' out. Keep you away from each other, if we have to."

Stan wasn't offering out of the goodness of his heart, here. He knew full well now what would happen with the kid if Miz ran into problems. --The kid would either try to leave to go to where she was (and who knew what would happen then), or (if Stan said 'no' to him about helping) the kid would drop everything and host her here himself, the rest of them be damned.

Stan didn't really want her here -- not after everything she'd done already -- but he knew that all he could really do at this point was keep on doing damage control. --She was a kid, yeah, but she'd hurt Ford. Twice. And she'd probably hurt him again. So Stan sure as hell wasn't feeling too charitable on that front about her or the kid right now. He wasn't some bleeding-heart hippie; he didn't go adopting every stray kid he saw out on the street. He was just trying to balance bad and worse, and maybe keep his family intact through the worst of it.

Ford didn't talk about the multiverse or whatever much, and the kid hadn't seemed surprised at any of the shit that the dragon-girl who'd used to be human had been talking about. That meant that the triangle demon had seen all this before, or a hell of a lot out there that was like it. Small wonder Ford didn't want to talk about any of that shit, if it was all like this.

Not that Stan had needed to know all the details or anything, to figure shit out -- he'd gotten a pretty good idea of things during their Weirdmageddon. All those 'demon friends' of the kid's… that was a problem. And Ford was right -- there was nothing stopping them from coming here now, or anybody else. Not after they'd killed Bill Cipher.

What Ford didn't seem to think about was the fact that they'd killed Bill Cipher. And Ford seemed to think for some reason that somehow, everybody out there in the rest of those other universes would know that. --Fine. He wasn't gonna argue his brother on that one. What he was gonna do was think about the fact that there was always somebody tryin' to make a name for themselves, and if people were people -- and assholes were assholes -- then somebody out there, sooner or later, would think that killing the people who'd killed Bill Cipher, the biggest of big-bads around, would net them a hell of a lot of street cred.

And chances were that it'd be one of those unkillable-demons that Ford wasn't nearly so worried about coming here as maybe he should be. --Ford thought they'd come for Cipher? Hell, Stan was surprised they hadn't come for them yet. (...He'd thought maybe it'd be Bill's 'friends' to worry about at first, but after talking with the kid, and what 'friends' were in demon-speak… yeah, no, revenge for Bill dying wasn't on any of their menus, Stan would bet more than just money on that. Technically, he'd been betting on that right from the start, already, in getting the kid not to call 'em or get in contact with them in any way. If the kid found out otherwise later, he'd lose the kid to them right away, he'd have no doubt. But when the kid had talked about them, it hadn't sounded anything like Miz and her friends at all; it was night and day. ...One less thing for him to worry about, at least.)

"Dunno if you noticed, kid, but… you seem to be actin' a lot more human to me this morning," Stan pointed out to Miz. He figured he really ought to bring it up now. If the kid had been acting like this before… okay, well, all the dimension-talk probably would've set Ford off, and the killing-stuff too... but not in anything like the same way as before.

Miz blinked. "Huh…" She tapped the headband. "I don't think I'm acting any differently. But I guess I wouldn't be able to tell?" She turned to Bill. "Am I acting any different? From yesterday?"

Bill blinked at her. "I don't think we've been talking about any of the things you like to do, or find funny or hilarious," Bill told her. Those were the things that seemed to consistently set Shooting Star or Pine Tree off by accident, whenever he got a 'stop' or 'no', as far as he could tell. "And Stanley had a high tolerance for terrible things." He glanced over at Stan, then said, calmly, "Miz, what was the… most-upsetting-to-others thing that you've told Stan this morning?" (Stan looked over at Bill. Was the kid really going to pull a--)

"Uh… he didn't seem to like the fact that I kill people?" Miz frowned. "I mean, most people are upset by murder."

"Which you noticed because of his reaction after the fact, but still said anyway," Bill said. "That's fine, we were having an honest conversation; you did well!" he grinned at her, then looked a bit more serious again. "--What was the next most-upsetting-to-others thing that you said?"

"Ummmmm…" Miz had to think for a bit. "My… friends maybe not wanting to be with me, but still being trapped, because I tricked them into being immortal?" Miz bit her lip. "Because free will is important."

"And the next most-upsetting-to-others thing?" Bill prompted her. Miz said almost immediately, "My friends dying. People dying is upsetting." That had come up a few times.

"And the next one?" Miz thought for a bit longer this time than the last. "...Going to jail when I didn't need to?" She was kind of straining to think about it. Generally, killing people was the worst thing, right? Stan had seemed very upset by this one, though.

"Why?" said Bill. Miz frowned. "I… I don't know? Because it's unnecessary suffering?" she guessed.

"If you didn't know to start with, then why did you pick it?" Bill asked her lightly, not looking at Stanley. Miz glanced over at Stan, though. "Because Stan looked like it upset him? But… not like… 'don't talk about it' upset, just kinda… sad? I'm not sure?"

Bill looked over at Stanley. "Which you noticed after you said something. It wasn't something you thought of before." Miz nodded slowly. She didn't see the problem with it personally, she went to jail, she felt like she deserved it.

"...Well, shit," said Stan after listening to all of this, running a hand over his face. He'd hadn't thought to do that with Miz, but now he was thinking he really should have. --He'd pulled a similar thing on the kid a couple of times before, to what the kid had just done, in trying to explain mental attacks to the kid, and how he just didn't get it. Most of what Miz had been saying that morning so far had just sounded like the same shit he'd seen and dealt with here, just on a much larger scale; Stan hadn't realized Miz hadn't been filtering because she hadn't known that she should filter it. He'd thought she had just been trusting him the same way that the kid did these days.

"Gotta question for you, kid," Bill asked Miz next. "Since you used to be human and all." He tilted his head at her. "Did you ever talk about killing people with your sisters?"

"Like… usually as a joke. My youngest sister was a Gen Z and they're all like 'Death, take me now' and morbid jokes." Miz shrugged. "She would slump over on the couch and beg for someone to just kill her now so she didn't have to do homework anymore. Not seriously though, it was a joke."

"Interesting," Bill said, and he did look interested. "Tell me. Do you remember your youngest sister well enough to know how she might respond to certain things? Or at least know whether you would know or not what she would say?"

"Yeah. I used to sometimes have conversations in my head with her… and then I thought I really DID have that conversation with her. She was kinda upset to realize that, that was the reason why I sometimes spoke with her about stuff that she didn't remember us talking about." Miz said. Stan wanted to ask about the 'having conversations in her head and thinking they were real' thing, but kept his mouth shut and just observed.

"Good!" Bill enthused. "Now. Tell me." He leaned in a bit closer, watching her carefully. "If your sister was sitting right next to you now, and you turned to her and told her that you were killing entire planets worth of people for a favor from someone who wanted them dead 'for reasons', what would she say to you?"

Miz blinked and then looked sad. "Oh… she might… think it was a joke first. And if she knew it was real… she… would tell me not to do that anymore… she…" Miz looked down at her hands. "She… would say that I shouldn't do that. Because it's awful…"

Bill had both elbows on his knees, his hands steepled in front of him, and his chin resting on them, and his eyes were alight in a way that Stanley had never seen before.

"INTERESTING," said Bill. And then he moved his eyes, rather than turning his head, towards Stan.

Stan pulled in a slow breath. He felt like he was skating on thin ice here, almost. Knife at your back, about to get shot… Bill was watching him closely.

Stan still swallowed, took the plunge anyway, and said, "Miz. Kid. Maybe you should think about what your sister would say to you, if she was in the same room with you and you said something to her, first, before you maybe say it out loud to anyone else. Y'know, just in case she might tell you that that thing might be a bad idea to share around my brother, or somebody." Miz nodded slowly, looking like she had never considered that before. Stan almost wanted to punch a wall.

Bill's smile slowly grew.

Bill flicked his eyes back over to his little sister. "It might be sad to think about her, since she's still dead right now, but in the meantime, you can remember her too. So it's almost like she's here with you. Right?"

Miz nodded, tearing up slightly. "I… I miss her so much…" she admitted. "I was the older sister.. I watched her grow up… we shared a room and… and I was always in charge while our parents were away..."

Shit. Stan shifted in place uncomfortably. The hell was he supposed to do here?

Bill watched her for awhile.

And then Bill said, after a bit of thought and some searching through his Seen memories, "Is this one of those times when hugs are supposed to be offered to humans?" Stan blinked at him. The kid was offering to have her come over and grab him up in a hug? After the last time?

Miz sniffled. "Yes."

"Hm," said Bill, dropping his hands to his lap. "I think I will offer then!" Miz looked up at him and wobbled over to wrap her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest as she let out a few quiet cries.

Bill grimaced a bit right when she first grabbed him, unable not to, but he was able to wipe the expression off of his face after some clear effort on his part. It took him a bit longer to raise his arms up and lower them again, one at her back and one on top of her head. Miz was still crying softly into his shirt.

Stan stared and not quite squirmed in place, feeling highly uncomfortable. He was no good with girls crying. What was he supposed to do about a human-demon-triangle-dragon-girl one? "Uh…" he said.

"Stanford likely thinks that he's in a different place at the moment, doesn't he?" Bill said lowly, and it took a minute for Stan to realize that Bill was talking to him, even after he looked over at Stan. "It's likely switching around quite a bit, as he tries to get his bearings. To find something that will fit."

Stan felt a cold chill go down his spine. He also felt a hot anger rise up in his chest.

"I've seen it before," Bill confirmed. "He does this when something he really doesn't like happens. He decides it's not real; it can't be. ...And I used to accommodate that, for him, because I thought we were friends," Bill said almost graciously. ...Scratch that, Stan was hot all over and really wanted to punch him.

"How do I fix it," Stan said quietly. He had to. Any louder and he'd end up shouting at the kid instead.

"You don't." said Bill. "He's just going to have to handle it this time." He looked straight into Stanley's eyes. "Unless you want me and Miz to leave, and never come back, and you all just… pretend this all never happened, and we were never here. That he's misremembering somehow. That he's missing time for some other reason, and none of you know what he's talking about, if he ever brings any of it up -- which he won't," the dream demon told him. "--That ain't happening," Stanley responded angrily. He wasn't about to hand the damn demon an excuse to up and bail on him now! (To run off, doing who the hell knew what. And when the triangle demon came back here, because Stan knew he would sooner or later--)

"Well, then, Stanley, I don't know what will happen next," Bill told him, as he patted Miz softly on the head. "He's never broken this way when he's been awake before, and while he always bounces back, the few times he'd realized that the thing he tried to believe wasn't real did actually happen… he was very unpredictable afterwards."

Miz sniffled as she looked up "Was… this my fault?" She asked in a small voice.

"No," Bill told her. "It would have happened eventually. The barriers between sets are coming down. There's more than one Bill Cipher, and eventually another one will come here." And they probably wouldn't be as docile as Miz was. This wasn't said aloud but Stan heard it clearly. ...And now he knew exactly what had set his brother off.

"Why didn't you tell him there was more than one of you before," Stan ground out.

Bill looked up at Stanley, who was fuming. "I did," said Bill. "Or I tried. I just about gifted him all the underpinnings of the concept. He didn't take any of it well. He knows that demons kill anyone else who happens to have their name because of summoning problems. He knows that new dimensions are created all the time. He knows that multiples of most people exist in other dimensions. He was the one who never connected the ideas together," Bill told him. "He didn't want to."

"You should have told him," Stan repeated directly.

"I didn't know," Bill told him. "Not for sure. Not until Miz and Seb came here; not for certain. Why would I have told him when I didn't even know?" Bill said. Miz commented absently, "There were a LOT of Doors…"

"And as far as I knew until you came here the first time, none of them had ever come here yet," Bill told her, patting her on the head again and smiling down at her. Miz nodded slowly. "That other Bill I saw couldn't open the doors. And Seb only managed to open one while he was with me… I don't know if that means anything or not? Haven't really tested it…"

"WELL," said Bill, with a growing grin. "That's what experimentation is for! --Just remember to bring your supplies and broken-Bill repellant!" he said, patting her on the head again, then not quite flicking the end of her nose (it came closer to tapping it lightly) and pulling his hand back to splay it across his chest. Miz managed a shaky giggle.

"Kid…" Stan said warningly.

"Go downstairs and talk to your brother, and decide what to do," Bill said, not looking up at him. "Just be aware that he's far more likely to start shooting now than he ever was before." Stan struggled to keep his temper down. He shoved himself to his feet slowly.

"That ain't helpful, kid," he told Bill.

"Isn't it?" said Bill, turning an almost-innocent look on him that would probably fool someone somewhere, Stan figured, except that it was coming from a murderous triangle demon that didn't care one bit about any of them. Stan glared at him. "...No?" Bill got a larger grin all of a sudden. "Well, then. I'll just promise you this -- when he sees me downstairs and attacks me next, I won't kill him."

Stan's eyes narrowed. "'When' don't sound like a 'I don't know what he's gonna do', kid."

"I think in the long-term, Stanley; you know that," Bill said, dropping the grin. The kid was giving him that long stare again. "He's going to attack me, and I won't kill him. You shouldn't try to stop him, and I won't hold it against you," Bill told him. "Call it a... 'freebie'."

Stan glared at him for a moment, then turned and stomped his way back downstairs.

Bill flicked the area settings back to one-way audio-in-only again.

"We're not gonna hurt them are we?" Miz asked quietly. "I'd feel bad."

"Humans have a VERY low tolerance for hurt," Bill told her. "But yes, we will try to keep it to a minimum." He looked down at her. "I'd prefer it if you not interfere," he said to her. "And if I tell you to leave the room, I want you to come back up here straightway, straight up those stairs," he told her, gesturing at them. "Can you do those two things for me? No matter what happens?"

Miz nodded. "Ok big brother." Bill eyes were alight. "Good." He smiled down at her. "That will be very helpful!"

He patted Miz on the head again.

---

Stan sighed heavily as he made his way back downstairs. Well… shit.

He scrubbed both hands over his face. The kid was pushing it. This was the second time in two days that he'd talked about leaving the dimension… or maybe leaving the entire freaking set. Damn.

Ford was down in the kitchen, helping the kids make lunch.

"Ah, Stanley," Ford brushed off his hands on his apron, which had been hastily thrown on at Mabel's request. "Good. I think we might need help with this salad." He frowned down at it. "I am not entirely sure of the composition of it. Are most salads these days meant to have fruit and vegetables in them?"

Stan sighed heavily at the happy smile his brother was giving him. So long as no one talked about Bill, Ford would… be okay. Sort of.

...Like that was supposed to be helpful. Yeah, sure. He'd figured that one out from how antsy and downright defensively angry (...and paranoid, and confused...) his brother had gotten at the first mention of the triangle, right at the start, after they'd gotten him back to the Shack. The kids had picked up on it almost as fast as he had.

"What do you need help with?" Stan said, walking on over. "Picking out fruits?"

"Ah, yes." His brother readjusted his glasses almost nervously. "Actually, perhaps you had better take over--" Ford began, starting to back away from the counter, and Stan already knew where that one was going, and put a hand down in the middle of his shoulders and pushed him back into position.

"Nope," Stan said. "Lunchtime. You're helping with the food. No running off in the middle of things." Ford's smile quickly became strained. "I won't be long. I just need a minute-- really, just a moment--"

"Nope." Stan wasn't going to let Ford out of his sight. Especially with the not-quite threat Bill had made. "Kids? You maybe looked up whatever so Ford can figure out what he needs to figure out on this salad, yet?" he asked them.

"Almooooost… --Found it!" Mabel called out triumphantly, lifting her phone and waving it around. Melody had found the recipe and since she wasn't there right then, they had to look it up themselves.