---
They watched the whole show, stopping only for Miz to remind Bill to get himself some snacks from the 'emergency rations' on the shelves that he'd stocked up nearby. They went long into the night, with Miz having to make Bill take yet another break to get some sleep, but they woke up again fairly early the next morning and continued watching all through the afternoon and well into the evening again, only stopping to dip into more of those 'shelved' rations a few times, before running out of those and having to dip into a few more things that came directly out of Bill's own (and the 'original') top hat that he still had.
And once they were done… well...
"Are you alright, brother?" Miz asked, nuzzling into his side. Bill chittered quietly under his breath as he kept on staring at the now-blank screen, eyes still intently focused on the very spot where the short after-credits sequence had been showing a live-action recording of the statue of 'Bill Cipher'.
Miz wanted to ask Bill if he liked it, if he hated it, how accurate it was, whether it was even relevant to his own experiences, all sorts of things. But she could tell Bill was thinking hard just then, so she kept quiet for a few moments and let him collect himself.
She was pretty sure the show wasn't entirely accurate to real events, or that they were probably otherwise too general to have captured all the important nuances of the situation. (Well, the fact that they didn't get internal monologues for all the characters might be part of that. There was definitely a level of understanding that was missing.) Still, from what she'd scanned on this world (though she was still a little confused because of the alternate dimensions within this set) the basics of what happened had looked… pretty much the same, at least on a surface level. ...Well, Shermie being female was an interesting deviation here, though that Stanford's Shermie was male. But she supposed there would be other dimensions where Shermie could be male or female or whatever else as well. It made her wonder which one her own Shermie would be. Which got her thinking about what differences her own Zodiac would have.
...and how her own story would unfold from this point out. If she… decided to fuck Canon and go off to do whatever she wanted… how different would everything be? Miz wouldn't lie and say that didn't scare her a little. The uncertainty of it. But… she'd figure that out later. No use stressing over this now. The younger demon rolled over and glanced at Bill. "Brother?"
Bill turned to look at her.
"We need to disconnect you from that Karmic cycle, now," Bill told her quite seriously. "If that," Bill gestured at the screen, "Is all 'fixed points' for what is going to happen in your own dimensional set... then the only way to save you would be to get someone else to do it, instead." He didn't think he had the patience anymore to do it himself, and he didn't like her chances, either, if she just tried to get away with… "Having a 'split copy' of yourself doing those things for you just won't work. Sympathetic frequencies will transfer the trouble." Sympathetic magic was a thing, some places, as well. "And even if you manage to separate it that far away from yourself while it's alive, you won't want to risk that other part of you 'coming back' to reintegrate back into you when it's dead, after all is said and done and it's been punched out into pieces and dies for you," Bill noted. "Especially not if you have to try and segregate it completely, in order for you to have it do what 'must' be done for yourself. Making a different 'you' that it will be forced into doing and being for you, if you are correct about your 'everything on TV is fixed points' hypothesis being true." It wasn't like he hadn't been paying attention to her own responses to several of the events that had taken place during said TV show.
Miz frowned. She didn't think she would end up punched to death inside Stan's mind. "Well I could try and go off script, as it were. I don't have to follow it, if I can get away with not doing so." She paused. "But I WOULD like to get out of the karma system regardless. It sounds like a pain."
Bill nodded. "That… is going to be a tricky one," he told her. "I don't know how your own system is set up in your own 'set," Bill told her. "But I can tell you how things are set up to 'work' here, and how I did it." He grimaced. "...which worked when I did it before," he admitted to her, "But that I may still need to do all over again. --May still need to do," he emphasized, trying not to worry her at all, the least little bit. "Still haven't COMPLETELY narrowed down exactly how I finally managed to make my own come-back," he grumbled out, almost to himself, as he crossed his arms again over his chest. "The devil's in the details," he muttered.
"Hm…" Miz felt around her Self for anything that might be going outside herself. "I can find my Bond with Ax, and the other feeling that is probably my Pillar..."
"Yes, well." Bill pulled a piece of paper out of his hat, and a odd-looking fountain pen. "That isn't Karma," he told her, as he quickly sketched out and labeled a three-by-three grid on the paper.
"I'm not sure what to go about looking for?" Miz admitted.
"It's not a bond," Bill told her, "It's an interaction. The Karma system and karmic cycle is something fully-external to you, that interacts on you and with you, and on everything-else around you that you have and will and are and eventually-will-be interacting with -- and that also includes everyone. --It's annoying," he grumbled out at her, in pure dislike of the concept, at the very least.
"So it's not inside me." Miz frowned. That made this harder.
"Yes," he told her. "So if your 'bond' to... your 'dad'," he grimaced, "Is what it registering you as 'evil', because you are somehow registered in your local Karma system as its opposite and it it registered as "good" somehow…" Bill frowned, "Then you will need to find a way to find and break that external Rule that's been coded into that system. That is bad enough," he noted. "But what is worse," he told her, "Is that it all shifts over time," he warned her. "The majority-view changes how the interactions go. --On Sunday, eating meat is evil? Next Tuesday, it's just fine. --Fish are the new no-go from there on in! ...Up until something else changes it, all over again." His mouth curled up in a snarl. "If the majority has 'decided' that you are that lizard's opposite… you will have to break that Rule over, and over, and over again. Until you can find out what broken thing is making that keep happening and BREAK it all completely-even-further, so that it stops doing that. You may not gain any traction, otherwise." Even Bill himself wasn't coded that way to the Karma system here. That his sister had said that she was over there truly worried him.
"My dimension doesn't have an automated system like that." Miz pointed out. "No shifting morality like that. Every culture and even the individual people have their own sense of right and wrong. And often times the exact same situation is considered good by one culture and evil by another."
"And do those 'rights' and 'wrongs' change over time, for those 'culture'-al populations?" he asked her, without looking at her. "Do those people change in population? Do those civilizations rise, and then fall?"
"Yeah. Takes a long time though."
"Then the consensus DOES shift over time, and that is the same as it all is here," Bill told her. "If it shifts, then it shifts. And you need to look out for it, one way or the other. Karma is a bitch, and the system is VERY hard to find, even if you know what you're looking for. Either you work with and within it, staying stuck and sticking by it, or you find another way." He looked up at her. "This is the other way," he told her.
He slapped the piece of paper down in front of them. It… looked like a standard D&D alignment chart to her, complete with all the same naming schemes: Good, Neutral, Evil; Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic.
It also had Bill's symbols on it, sort of. --Really, it had a sort of color-coded key on the side of it corresponding to each of Bill's Zodiac, and a bunch of almost random-looking squiggles across it in places.
"Well, I'm a Chaotic Neutral." Miz pointed out.
"And I am in the center of it all," Bill told her. "True Neutral."
Miz blinked at him in disbelief -- the dream demon who thought 'Fun' was just another name for 'Chaos' thought that he was neutral? ...or was that just the canon Bill? -- but Miz didn't comment. Not on that, anyway. "...Dad is a True Neutral. 'Least, he's supposed to be." She wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"The stupid lizards aren't," Bill told her. "Neutral-Neutral, maybe. At best." If we're lucky, he didn't quite voice.
Miz frowned down at the chart that Bill was showing her. "Like I said, supposed to be."
"These are the current trajectories of my Zodiac," Bill told her, pointing down at the squiggles. "You may notice something here."
Miz frowned at it for a moment. ...Well, the one thing that stood out the most was that, "The whole thing looks a little like Stan's symbol, almost?" The color attributed to Stan even made a sort of outlined trajectory that looked like his own symbol on the paper, minus the little circle-pellet piece.
Bill nodded, and drew the outline, emphasizing further the 'normal' fish-outline that was there around almost the entire periphery of the squiggles, with few extrusions. "That's where I'm trying to get it to go," Bill told her, "Before I have them all follow me up."
"...okay. Follow you up? You're taking them with you up to the AXOLOTL'S space?"
Bill nodded again, and smiled. "Eventually," he told her. "But for now… we're just talking Karmic alignment."
Miz frowned.
"This is what they all look like right now, in terms of where their actions actually fall and flow," he told her. "Regardless of what some of them think," he muttered out, looking down at that Stanford's symbol, which made up the majority of the 'tail' of the fish, cycling heavily between the very outmost corners of 'Chaotic Good' and 'Chaotic Evil', with almost no time spent in 'Chaotic Neutral' in-between. Then Bill raised his hand above the page. "This is where I'm trying to let Stanley lead them to go." He moved his hand, and all the squiggles shifted. --Notably, the whole 'fish' periphery (and every squiggle inside it) seemed to compress itself a little bit, to the point that every path that had a trajectory leading into in the 'lawful' side of the page shifted almost completely over to the neutral column, but in the process...
"So… no lawful, and almost no evil." Except for... "That's gonna be hard for Gideon." And that was sure a high density of squiggles around the chaotic neutral region where the 'tail' of the fish was, now.
Bill shrugged. "Too many of them are already starting out 'good'," he told her. "Easier to go the other way, get rid of the 'Lawful' orientation first, instead of trying to shift more of them 'Good' or 'Evil' instead. --Not that it matters," Bill said. "Not once I use the current mis-balance to over-balance everything like this," he told her, and suddenly the paper rose up to eye-level and the entire symbol of squiggly-marks twisted sideways and fell down out of the page.
...no, that wasn't quite right. It was like the 'Neutral-Neutral' center block was pinning the center of it in place, all those squiggles. The whole thing rotated and spun around the 'neutral' column that was sitting between 'Lawful' and 'Chaotic', until all the (few) parts of the squiggle in the 'Neutral' column that had still been the closest to the 'Lawful' column had rotated themselves upwards and out of the page, while all the 'Chaotic' parts of the 'tail' rotated themselves down below it.
It was like a really strange (and completely out-of-balance) mobile. That was Miz's impression at least. "And… what does this all mean?" she finally asked him.
"It means," Bill told her, as he raised his hand and pointed above the piece of paper, "That I," pointed to a little equilateral triangle hanging above it, spinning like a pinwheel in place and outlining a circle above it, completing the whole 'fish' symbol, "And my Zodiac," he told her, moving his hand upwards, and the triangle moved upwards, "Cast a very large shadow."
And as Bill moved his hand upwards, and that triangle move upwards as well, the 'fish' below slowly 'swam' itself upwards, as well -- right up out of the page, seemingly almost chasing the pinwheeling triangle as it went. (...Trying to eat it? Capture it again? Or just follow it up?)
And as it moved higher and higher, the neutral lit-everywhere lighting of the room showed Miz two very odd things: a single small area on the page below -- the 'True Neutral' square -- being almost exclusively lit with an ever-shrinking small dot of very-strong shadow… and a more overall broad and lighter (but still fairly obviously there) shadow, slowly becoming increasingly larger, and larger, until it all filled the entire page below it.
"Karma does not define me," Bill said, letting go of the entire illusion, and letting the piece of paper flutter down to settle back where it first had started out, back down on the floor once again. "I need them all out of 'Lawful', so that we can all break the Rules we need to break here more fully. --'Chaotic' is well and good, but the new system we all will put in place needs to be better, in order to hold, manage, grow, and contain it. Tempests in teacups," he told her, "Not ones that grow to tear down the whole of a dimension, and then some." He shrugged. "Staying in 'Neutral', and cycling between 'Good'-'Neutral'-'Evil' back and forth all the time, it all cancels out," he told her. "No traction, not enough inertia to hold it to slow it down to stick there in place; it's got nothing to stick to, so nothing will stick. --It's the piling on that gets you," he told her. "If you stay in just one state forever, and never pass over to the other side, it just keeps piling on, and accumulating, and winding up, because you just aren't winding it down, all of that inertia keeping it all there in place just builds and builds and builds, and that's when all the worst things will happen," he told her, "At all the worst times. It's almost like everything just starts 'spontaneously' working against you."
Well, that was good? Miz didn't know what Bill was after specifically.
"But that's my entire Zodiac, to which I am… 'chained'," he told her, sitting back and easing back a bit. "I myself stay true neutral. --I'll make Deals with anything and anyone," he told her, them grimaced a bit. "Well…" he admitted, "No more Deals anymore, but I'm happy to do anything-else with anyone else!" he told her. "I like to take advantage for myself when I can," he told her, "But I'll do that with anybody. Doesn't matter to me, as long as it's fun." Bill shrugged again. "That's the 'height' by the way, along the third axis," he told her, "The 'up' that I'm going to have all of us moving along, together. 'Fun' and interesting and weird and colorful and forever-and-ever-getting-smarter," he told her, tracing a hand upwards towards the ceiling, "Versus 'dull' and drab and oh-so-predictable and chained-down and boring," Bill completed, moving his hand down to point towards the floor. "Karma just doesn't go there," he told her. "'Height' isn't part of this system! Karma is flat; it's all stuck down there," he pointed at the piece of paper in disgust, "Being two-dimensional. It only measures what falls on and intersects here," Bill said, making a flat gesture along the whole piece of paper, "And nothing else. --So once we're all unstuck from the whole range of concepts of anything to do with any of all-this at all ever," he made a gesture at the piece of paper again, "Once we're all on the same 'page' and then up and out of it, all of it, entirely... it doesn't really apply to any of us at all anymore, ever again! And anything else that anybody else is seeing, in terms of karma? Is just little bits of shadow here and there, cast down on the walls and the floor, where the rest of those flat-thought idiots think."
Bill glanced down at the piece of paper again. "But that's my Zodiac, with all their puppet-string connections to me that just won't ever hold me down. I cast myself as 'True Neutral'," Bill told her. "But the trick there is, you need to know where you're starting out first, to know how and when and where you are going to move. --Start out thinking you're a 'Lawful Good' and go one space right? --If you were actually seen by the system as 'Lawful Neutral', you've just gone Chaotic. And that's if you're even facing the right direction; south-by-southwest, and you just gone 'Lawful Evil' instead!" Bill warned her. "See what I mean? --You need to know where you are, and which way you're facing, and going to be facing, things -- what direction you're going to strike out in -- in order to know where you're going. That's the problem I'm sitting at now," he told her. "I don't know where I'm sitting at now, or which direction I'm even facing." Or how much 'Karmic debt' he might be in, if the stupid lizard had lied to him misleadingly, and hadn't cancelled all of it all out on him yet, after trying to shove him down flat into the flatness of the 'normal' system of thing, once again.
Miz frowned down at the page. She wasn't sure about this… and Bill noticed this.
"Let me give you another example--" the trillion year old demon began, reaching for another blank piece of paper.
Many, somewhat-varying explanations later, with the floor of Bill's room covered in papers and scribbles, Miz finally felt as if she was getting the hang on this, and a handle on the general concept. How it would apply to her, she wasn't sure. But she had adjusted and shifted around a few things in her Self that she was pretty sure might help her out. That would have to do for now until she went home to really experiment with it.
And by that time, it was late and Miz made Bill go to bed again. (not that he did a whole lot of complaining about falling asleep again; he was tired, just not tired enough to not complain until his sister reassured him that she was getting the concept, and that they didn't need to stay up any later, talking about any of it further.) She still couldn't believe they had spent the entire day up here without going down to see anyone else even once. ...Well, she thought that Stanford would be thrilled about not seeing her, though.
Still, she snuggled up with her brother and the two drifted off to sleep again.
---
There was something that Bill didn't want to think about. Something he really wanted to avoid.
But he HAD to think about it -- because in order to avoid it ever needing to happen, he had to think about it. Because it was part of a completely different problem that he had to handle now -- or at least, very soon. It was something he had been able to avoid doing for a while, as he kept working to help his sister deal with her other problems. But with her Karma situation more or less handled as best as they could for now, along with several of the other problems on her list (and a few that hadn't been on it at all, before or since), Bill found his thoughts going back to this thing he had to do, and also this thing he didn't want to think about.
Bill had to bring Stanley's twin back to life before he realized that that Stanford -- Sixer -- wasn't actually his twin, 'just' his brother. Because that was a thing that had happened. Bill hadn't thought that this was ever going to be a problem; he'd planned on bringing 'Ford back eventually, but he hadn't thought that Stanley had actually felt or thought that way about his twin. That he was 'family', the way that Stanley defined it. --That meant that 'Ford staying dead was 'crossing his line', and if Stanley knew about it... Bill not having realized it at the time just wouldn't cut it -- Bill knew Stanley well enough now to know that much, at least. As things stood, the agreement was technically already defunct, broken before it even began. And unless Bill fixed it--
--So Bill couldn't wait as long as he liked to do it, whenever he wanted to do it; he would have to bring 'Ford back the next closest thing to NOW, if he wanted to fix and to keep the agreement. (And he wanted to keep the mutual non-aggression agreement he had with Stanley, for many, various reasons.) In a strict reading of the terms that he'd ended up working out with Stanley, if 'Ford already being dead didn't break the terms of the agreement outright from before the very-start, then it might almost be something close to a requirement that it be carried out as soon as Bill could end up doing it 'safely' (following the agreement without breaking the agreement in the process), once Bill had learned of the problem from him -- helping Stanley 'save' and 'keep safe' his 'family' from harm.
Either way, it really did have to happen very soon now. With Stanley and that Stanford talking to each other more now, after coming back from that other dimension, and that Stanford starting to realize something was wrong--
That Stanford would never figure it out on his own consciously himself, but he was acting in ways that were enough to make Stanley suspicious. And Stanley wasn't stupid. He might not be able to even think of 'his brother' dying in the portal, but he definitely was capable of thinking about the existence of other Stanleys and other Stanfords. Bill doubted that he could keep Stanley from the conscious realization that the Stanford he was living with wasn't the twin who he'd grown up with -- not for much longer. Not with the twitchy-touchy way that Sixer had been acting, especially lately. Which meant...
(And of course that Stanford had to mess all this up by continuing to behave in a way that would make Stanley start to be suspicious--)
--It was fine, overall. It wasn't like Bill hadn't planned to bring 'Ford (Stanley's twin) back from the start -- right when he'd been having to make that split-second frozen decision on which Stanford to save, when they'd both fell into their respective portals in the same frozen moment in the Nightmare Realm, somehow at the VERY SAME TIME in the broken time of that place, and damn the Axolotl ALL OVER AGAIN FOR THAT!!!. --He'd had to make a decision, and between a choice of saving his Zodiac-Sixer so that he would finally get out of there and the other 'Ford that he actually liked... WELL, it had been no choice at all! If he saved Sixer, he'd eventually get out, and eventually be able to save that 'Ford to bring him back. Win-win. --Of course he'd gone with saving Sixer, stabilizing his portal and letting that other one's atoms just dissolve into the ether, not even properly fully-connected to the Nightmare Realm in the first place.<//p>
Bill had already even figured out a few ways that should lead to tricking that Stanford into giving him the breathing room to do the whole thing without incident, just a bit before the unexpected 'dimensional rescue mission' had started! --But after that trip and being back, he'd still held back from actually doing it, for one person and one person only, and one very important reason to do with that person.
His little sister.
Bill refused to expose his little sister to Stanley's twin -- he wouldn't, couldn't allow 'Ford near her. Because as bad as that younger Stanford had been in that other newly-created 'offshoot' of this dimension, the older 'Ford that had been here had been worse. Worse, and NOT in the good-way worse. Worse AND intelligent enough to know how to FAKE being a PERSON to manipulate people into getting what he wanted. (Case-in-point: Glasses.) 'Ford had been fun, fun to play with and fun to talk to and interact with, but in Bill's opinion? Most truly FUN things were not at-all safe. And his sister was not him; he DID NOT TRUST that other 'Ford around her or with her. (His sister was too trusting. Too 'nice'. And she forgave far, far too easily. She didn't ever WANT to stay mad. And she was too eager to please on top of all that, and THAT meant…)
--'Ford would EAT HER ALIVE and not even spit out the bones of her vessel or Self--
--And that was MORE than enough reason for Bill to refused to even consider the idea of letting that 'Ford be around his little sister, for even the smallest split-instant of time! Bill did not want anyone like that anywhere near his little sister. It would be like Gideon but worse. (The living ventriloquist dummy wasn't even comparable to--)
And with how… naive his little sister was at times… she wanted to see the best in most-people, even when she had reasons to WANT to stay away. And with the way she'd reacted -- and kept on reacting to that Stanford… No. If Bill brought 'Ford back while she was here… she would want to see him, at least once. And Bill didn't lay high odds on whether he would be able to keep her away from him, if she wanted to meet him, even once.
And it would only take once. In some ways, 'Ford was like a black hole--
--But Bill HAD to bring 'Ford back to keep-and-fix-and-keep the agreement that he had going with Stanley. He had to. Because that was Stanley's line, messing with his family. And that 'Ford was Stanley's twin. His 'family', too, in the way that Stanley would define it.
But Bill couldn't bring 'Ford back without him being somewhere nearby the house. Where he was staying, because Stanley wanted him to stay here, here -- because of the agreement. And where his sister was staying with him, with Stanley's 'that's fine, she should stay here with you'. --He didn't want 'Ford and that would put 'Ford somewhere near his sister, but he'd be stretching the agreement past the limits if he left the house once 'Ford was back. Because of course 'Ford would stay at the house, with Stanley and the rest of them. (Even with what Bill was planning at and beyond that, 'Ford would still be staying at Stanley's house for at least a long enough length of time that his sister--) And his sister's curiosity would have her going towards and seeking out 'Ford just because she wanted to--!
--Bill was not going to tell his sister that she had to leave. Not the house, to stay in town. Not the town, because it would require at least that distance, to keep her far enough away to stay out of 'Ford's general range of influence, out on her own -- but even that probably wasn't enough. Which meant that to keep his sister truly safe, and far enough away and not only out of reach of 'Ford, but far enough that she wouldn't even think of coming over and potentially seeing 'Ford at the house, in the 'Falls, here--
...The only way that would happen would be if Bill asked-or-told her to leave his dimensional set entirely. (The other demons out there were too much of a risk; having her go to another dimension while still in this dimensional set and having her stay, visiting her there, was risky even in its own way. He might be able to ask her to go off-and-back to Lee's new dimension, but Bill doubted that she would actually stay there on her own. And he didn't want to expose her to any of the demons-from-the-Outside that were roaming around out there, out in the dimensions that she hadn't Seen for herself here, yet.) And that was the thing that Bill didn't even want to think about doing.
...But Bill had to bring 'Ford back NOW, because Stanley was going to figure it out any day now -- Bill had been watching him carefully, and he was seeing it happen, seeing the signs as it slowly kept on progressing, the unconscious thought making its way forward into truly conscious thought, right up to that point -- and once Stanley did realize it, Stanley would also realize that the agreement wasn't just broken, it had been null-and-void to begin with, right from the start--
Which left Bill with a dilemma.
Keep the agreement, or keep his sister.
...not that Bill was EVER going to give up his sister, not for ANYTHING! That would be stupid! But… telling-or-asking her to leave? He couldn't do THAT, either -- he didn't WANT to do that, either! That WASN'T what big brothers did!
And so Bill thought hard about this now, lying on his back in his spelled-fully-safe attic room, while his sister -- back in their triangle form for the first time in a while (since they weren't going off to see any of the humans, he'd thought it would be okay to be a triangle again around his brother) -- was entertaining themselves with some sort of arts and crafts project, while staying quiet so Bill could think. And Bill thought, and he thought, and he thought, until his stupid human-ish body felt almost itchy with wanting to do something, but he didn't know what it was, what movement it was wanting to make on him now. ….Until he did. And when he finally realized exactly what it was that his stupid body wanted to do…
...Bill sat up and reached out to gently pick his sister up, carefully cradling their small form close to his stupid body's own.
MizBill tilted back to look up at him. "Brother? What's wrong?" Their bricks glowly faintly as they spoke.
And Bill just didn't know what to do. He was getting agitated, jittery and stressed as all hell about all of this, and--
--and--
...and MizBill reached up a small hand to place on his cheek. "Talk to me. What's bothering you? I can help with what you have a problem with."
And Bill chittered in a distressed way. "I'm the big brother. I'M the one who's supposed to help YOU with YOUR problems!"
MizBill almost rolled his eye. "Yes. But you're still new to the whole experience of being an older sibling. I've had little sisters and a brother; I know how to be an older sibling. Now tell me what's bothering you and I'll help."
Bill didn't like it, but he knew he was too agitated to figure this out on his own -- and he needed to talk to him anyway, yes? Because staying up in the attic, or staying in town someplace else, or staying in another dimension -- he could at least do his sister the uncommon-courtesy of explaining the problem, why he didn't want him around 'Ford, why it was such a bad idea for him to do that, and offer him a choice--!!
Even if his sister didn't go anywhere, and promised Bill he'd stay up in the attic the entire time trapped while 'Ford did whatever he wanted to downstairs, he'd still need to tell him, and explain. He really couldn't get around explaining it all to his little sister before it all, no. One way or the other.
So Bill told him. He told him about the choices he was trapped between. The pros and cons, the things he would stand to gain or lose. The things he didn't want to lose.
MizBill listened, and then he nodded. "Ah, I see. --I understand," he clarified. "You're afraid that you'd have to choose between me or Stanley." MizBill sighed when he felt Bill shudder in reaction to that. "Well, here's the thing, you can have us both."
"Siblings come first," Bill told her angrily. He wasn't choosing between Stanley and his sister -- he was choosing between Miz and the agreement -- which (eventually) led to him getting Liam back. If it was just a choice between Miz and Stanley, he'd pick Miz every time. --And Stanley would understand that, or at the very least couldn't complain -- he had 'family' as his line, and he'd kick Bill to the curb long before letting anyone break that.
Bill frowned and looked away, off to the side. "I won't force you to have to suffer through being around 'Ford. It's bad enough you have to handle Sixer being around--"
"--And I won't have to," MizBill assured him. "You just need to bring 'Ford back. I can leave-- just for a little while!" MizBill assured his brother quickly when immediately Bill stiffened at his words (-- because that wasn't what he'd wanted his sister to think! He'd been absolutely careful not to ask him that, or even bring it up that way, just stating the facts surrounding why he didn't want Miz and 'Ford anywhere near each other--).
"I will keep in touch through my blog," MizBill told him, then frowned as he thought. "And you can handle things here. Tell me when it's safe enough for me to come back."
"--I don't want you to leave," Bill told her quickly. "I want you not to leave! I never said that! I never said either of those things!"
MizBill gave his brother a reassuring eye-curved smile. "I won't be gone forever. My Door leads to you. And… well, that GlitchBill is gone. I… technically don't have an excuse to stay. And--" here, MizBill looked, and felt, quite guilty, "--I have to go home. I can't… leave my friends alone. I love you, and I love them too." He seemed to shrink in on himself. "And I miss them." He finally admitted. "But I'll miss you too. And, I'll come back and visit again once it's safe."
Bill grimaced and his whole upper half -- head, torso, and arms -- bobbed side to side, as he parsed this new information from her. He hadn't realized… that she might want to leave. Him. To go elsewhere. Right now. ...To go back home. …...To her friends, and no siblings left alive that she could see or even See there.
But Bill had known of the possibility of that far earlier than this, as more of an 'eventually' than a 'soon'. And he'd promised himself that he wouldn't stop his sister from leaving, if Miz wanted to leave, he wasn't going to trap her here… with him… if she really didn't want to stay here.
And his sister had also said that he would miss him. And come back-- but they also wanted to leave--!
No. No, there was something much more wrong with what his sister had just said than leaving him. His sister going home to their original dimensional set would mean--
"--Don't go home," Bill finally told her, with authoritative urgency. "Go to Seb, instead. --It's not safe for you back in your home dimension, with your," Bill grimaced, "--'dad' lizard who's…" Bill looked irate all over again for a moment, before he pulled in a breath pushed most (but not all) of it back down. "Who probably-almost-DEFINITELY has some plans for using you. --You're safe staying away from him, now. Much safer, out and away where that stupid thing can't get at you, at all ever -- only 'hear' about you, maybe, in some places other than this." Because they'd learned in that other 'set that the local stupid lizard here just didn't talk to any of the other ones that apparently also talked to the one from Miz's current 'home' dimensional set. (And, eventually, Bill wanted to make THIS set his sister's home 'set. But that was for later. For now…) "If you want to go elsewhere, stay with Seb at least until I can work out a way to keep you more safe around it," or anyone else.
MizBill winced, still not wanting to believe Ax could… could be merely using him. That couldn't be true, or at the very least, it couldn't be the full story. Dad cared about him. He did! He must! MizBill believed so, and he wouldn't just write him off without actually talking to Ax first, getting his side of the story. MizBill refused to let this be some horrible misunderstanding. And it wasn't like being used was all that bad, right? Because it still meant you were useful as opposed to useless-- But he didn't say this aloud, because his big brother would be upset. Instead, he nodded. "I don't mind going to visit Seb. He's nice."
Bill nodded at this. (But he wasn't stupid; he noted that that WASN'T a 'yes, I will go see him and stay with him, and stay there until you call me, and not go back to my home 'set again', not even a little. Which might mean that...)
"That's good," Bill told his little sister (while keeping his own thoughts to himself, for now...). "You can go to Seb; we can keep in contact through your blog. I'll be able to tell you when it's safe to come back-- we can talk at least some of this out over your blog. Operational security," he noted once again.
MizBill nodded. "So… will you be bringing Stan's twin back?" he asked, changing the subject casually.
Bill let out something of a chittering-tsk. "Yes. Soon." 'After you go,' remained unsaid.
MizBill bit his lip and thought. "Better do it sooner than later. They're beginning to suspect something's wrong."
"...I'm aware," Bill drawled out at his little sister, giving him a look.
MizBill winced. He felt a little guilty about that, having sort of dropped hints all over the place. --Well he wanted them to know! He didn't like this situation! (And now he would have to leave his brother for a bit because of it, because he hadn't completely thought these things out, is what Bill would complain about, if he knew his sister's own thoughts on the matter just then. But Bill wouldn't exactly have much ground to stand on there, either, given how he was the one who hadn't realized the problem in the first-place, before he'd made and agreed-to abide by that agreement with Stanley.)
"I should leave after dinner tonight," MizBill said simply. That way, brother would have the entire rest of this afternoon to think of a way to convince that Stanford to let him down into the lab, to be able to enact it that evening, right after Miz left. (If he didn't already have a plan; his big brother was so smart! Always thinking a few thousand steps ahead! Nothing at all like him, who could do that too… but was generally too lazy or non-invested in things to do so.)
...and also because MizBill wanted to spend the rest of the day with his brother. And when he told his brother that, the older demon had no issue at all with it. (The only issue he had was that his sister was leaving so soon. He wanted her to stay with him FOREVER.)
So the two demons spent the rest of the day together, quietly snuggled in each other's embrace. It was a little boring for MizBill, not having anything more exciting to do, but MizBill didn't mind.
---
"..." It was the evening now. The two had eaten dinner, brought upstairs by Melody and left at the base of the last flight of attic stairs for them, and now it was time. They were down in the grass, the lawn of the Shack, outside the barrier, and...
...Miz wasn't sure how to feel, now that she actually had to leave. She'd known that this was coming, and that it needed to be done. And she really did want to go home (even if brother said it wasn't a good idea). But...
"I'll come visit again some time," she promised her brother, back in her human Miz form. They still had their arms wrapped around each other in a very long hug.
"Yes," Bill said simply. He acknowledged what his sister-self was saying as best as he could, but he didn't want her to go, and didn't want to promise anything to her that he might not be able to keep. (Because that would be…)
"I'll try to keep connected on your blog. And see about other means of communication." Because if she could get Com-service to work between dimensions… like she'd used Mary's specialized Com to test with (which was going well, they'd texted back and forth a few times, Mary even updated her on the twin's situation, as she was capable of seeing it. And it appeared Young Ford really had gone back to school) to see about opening a direct chatroom with her brother as well.
Bill nodded. "I will put color on my Door once there is no longer an immediate problem," he told her. Because it wasn't as though killing 'Ford once he was back was going to be on the menu; not immediate was going to be the best that he was going to be able to go for here. But that would be more than good enough; he would make sure of it. "What color do you want it to be?"
"A ying-yang heart with blue and yellow!" Was Miz's quick reply.
Hm. He hadn't tried tossing shapes of color on any of those Doors yet, but he could probably do it. --He would find a way to make it work regardless. "And anytime it is possibly unsafe for you here?" Bill asked her next.
"Make the heart be broken into two halves and go gray." Miz nodded to herself, yeah. That would be a good indicator that something was wrong.
Bill nodded once as he held her. "Grey shades down to black. --Black meaning you should not open the Door under any circumstances. Too dangerous," he told her. "I will note where I am if that happens," he told her next, then paused. "There will be nothing on the Door until some of the immediate problems are handled here first. Yes?"
"Okay," Miz said. She didn't exactly like the idea that Bill was thinking of something that might have him needing to flee his own dimensional set? ...But maybe he was just planning ahead for everything, just in case. Her brother did seem to try and do that a lot. (And he was pretty paranoid. She deliberately did not mention that the paranoia reminded her of that Stanford, the two were actually kind of alike sometimes…)
Finally, Miz couldn't delay anymore. She turned away and dropped her vessel -- not dispersing it, but changing it into a small doll (...one which Bill ended up catching up in his arms quite easily, because of the hug he hadn't stopped giving her). "Here," she told her brother, as she turned in place in the (general) Mindscape to face him. "Keep it. It'll save energy if I don't have to build a new one when I come back. And… if you feel lonely or need a hug, you can hug it." She wasn't sure if he would, but it was a nice thought.
Bill let out a soft "Ha." He watched her. "You know I bite dolls," he reminded her, but the small smile he had at his mouth didn't reach his eyes as he said it, and even the smile at his mouth fell slowly thereafter. He continued cradling the doll-vessel carefully in his arms. "I'll make sure your vessel remains unharmed," he told her more seriously.
Miz nodded. There was no more stalling. The Door materialized behind her. She floated back towards it, listening for any other broken Bills that might have been there and finding nothing. "Well… see you soon," she told him.
Because she wasn't going to say good bye.
Because this wasn't a good bye.
Not at all.
...and Bill apparently thought this wasn't one either. "I'm coming with you," Bill told her, and Miz startled a bit.
"You can't--" she began (because he couldn't come with her, he needed to stay behind and bring Fister back!), but Bill shook his head as he stomped his foot firmly into the ground once, then folded his legs under him to sit down just as fluidly, even as the mandala he'd just visualized was still finishing burning itself into the grass around him -- a circle of protection for him and her vessel while he was 'away'.
"I want to know which Door is yours," he told her, "And which Door is Seb's." At her confused, startled look, he explained to her, "I want to be able to find you easily later. Just in case." He saw his sister's eye go wide at the implications of that thought just before he closed his eyes, her doll-vessel held in his lap, and he slipped out of his body with a bit of effort -- all on his own this time; he remembered how he'd done it with her help before, all the correct paths and pathways that she'd been able to see externally and help him maneuver his way through without breaking anything.
...and the way she paused and bobbed guiltily in place in the general Mindscape for a moment, as Bill finished slipping his Self out of his body without disrupting the Anchor that still connected to (and held onto part of) him, had him suspecting already that she really had been planning on going back to her dimensional set first, instead of going to Seb like he'd hoped she'd meant to agree to be doing.
"I can tell you which ones they are, you don't have to come," Miz said slowly, looking slightly uncomfortable at having gotten caught out by him.
"I want to see them myself," Bill told her. Because he had an idea or two that he didn't want to say out-loud out and around here -- not out here in the grass, not even under his attic-barrier -- but… "I want to know where they are currently, before you go through them," he told her right then. He pulled in another 'breath'. "And I want to make sure that nothing catches you along the way. ...Let a big brother escort you back?" he tried next at her clear reticence at the idea, thinking as quickly as he could. "This is a thing that big brothers do, yes? I won't know you've made it back safely or not if I don't," he told her quite honestly.
MizBill couldn't help but giggle at that. "Yeah, you're right." Looks like she wasn't going to be able to get one past him. Wow. ...Was this what she was like when she was being overprotective? She had to apologize to the twins when she got back, if she remembered to. She nodded to him, and the Door opened behind her. Bill followed along; the Door sucked them both into the void.
Just like last time, the abrupt change from a world with life, to the absolute silence of the Void of Doors, was jarring to Miz.
The two floated in the void for a moment, reorienting themselves before MizBill glanced around and 'felt' for her door. "Mine's this way…" Miz pointed in one direction. "And Seb's is…" she was stalling, brother was stalling her, she wanted to go home. Even if it 'wasn't safe' according to brother.
And while Miz valued his input, she wasn't a child. She could take care of herself. And she could handle her dad! Sure, he was incredibly powerful and the ultimate god or whatever, but she wasn't a pushover either. But brother was watching, and he was stubborn. She knew this. "--Seb's is that way!"
"Show me?" Bill asked his sister, but it wasn't really a question. Miz didn't quite let out a huff at this. Her brother was being so stubborn.
--But Miz was MORE stubborn! Her stubbornness wouldn't lose out to anyone!
But she flew off to find Seb's Door anyway; she DID want to visit him. Would be good to know where his Door was.
As they traveled along -- Miz taking the lead, Bill following while looking about and out for any potential problems while refusing to lose track of her -- Bill asked her, "Can you move them? The Doors?" And with the way he said it, Bill somehow didn't make his question sound like a question at all. He made it sound more like a certainty than anything (he did so on purpose, and rather purposefully) -- as if he was asking whether she knew how to do it, instead of whether it was actually a possibility at all.
Miz considered it before reaching for a random Door and pushed it. There was a faint resistance at first, before the Door drifted away. "Huh. Cool." Miz blinked. So they could move. Well, that would be useful. She got distracted nudging the Doors around and lining them up beside each other for a bit, before she got back on track. --Right. Find Seb's Door.
"Here. This one is Seb's. I think?" Miz squinted at the Door. It was part of the [Triplet AU] section, but there were several here with the same words on the Door. And they all kinda felt like Seb. Miz deduced that these were alternate versions of Seb. It made her wonder if there were alternate versions of herself as well. It was odd to think of. Nonetheless, she thought she found which Door was for her specific Seb.
"'You think' this is it?" Bill asked her. He hadn't thought she had any memory problems… the idea itself was VERY disturbing to him.
"...Yes?" Miz said.
"You 'think'? Or you know," Bill asked her again as he floated in place next to her, watching her.
Miz thought for a moment, watching the text change back and forth a few times, and remembering what she'd seen before. "It's his Door," she said more firmly.
"Check," was what Bill said next, and Miz blinked.
"...What?" Miz turned back to look at him.
"If you are sure that it is his, and that it is safe, then check," Bill told her next, as he crossed his arms slightly, floating in place.
MizBill couldn't help but narrow her eye at him a bit. "You're trying to trick me into not going home," she told him. "I want to go home. And I can be more stubborn than you are," she told him.
There was a bit of a pause for a moment.
"...Is that a challenge?" Bill asked her neutrally next, almost tonelessly.
MizBill looked at him, then looked away. "No…" she said.
There was another long pause, which left Miz feeling antsy before she looked up at her brother again. "But--" she began.
"--I will NOT stop you from going 'home' again, EVER," Bill told her, cutting her off, and Miz felt a little startled at this. He didn't exactly look happy about it, but… she didn't think he was lying? She felt like she might be missing something there, though. What little drifts of emotion she was getting from him now -- which he seemed to be doing a really good job of not letting himself project at her at all (when... she didn't have her headband on? Oh…) -- seemed a little tangled up, and really complex, a lot more complex than she remembered feeling from him before. (Even more complex than what little she'd been feeling from him, up in the attic, when they'd been talking about…)
"You won't?" she said slowly, and Bill shook his head.
"No, I won't stop you," Bill said. "I could for at least a LITTLE while, I'm sure," he told her with a slight smile, "But that would be a trap. And then you would escape and never want to come back to me again, because you would think I would trap you again. ...Which would mean that you wouldn't come to me when you're feeling alone. I'm not going to risk you not coming to me when you're feeling lonely," he told her, then grimaced. "I don't like not being your first choice for safety," he told her. "But I want you to have at least one place and person that you can always come to, no matter what. --Even if you don't know if I've handled 'Ford yet, if you want to come see me, I don't want you hesitating to do that," Bill told her. "I'll figure something out, even if 'Ford is there. Stanley may complain, but I WILL find a way to handle it properly, without risking Liam's return later not-happening at the end of things. ...And I will always find a way to let you know where I am," he added, at the last.
Miz startled a bit at Bill's mention of Liam. And Miz was reminded of the fact that Bill hadn't actually agreed to her leaving because of 'Ford, or even asked her to go. He had admitted that it would be easier to handle, and safer for her, if she left, when she asked him specifically about it, but… he hadn't asked her to go.
...He wasn't just balancing things with Stan and 'Ford and that Stanford and all the rest of them, was he. He was actually trying to balance Liam against… her. He was trying to prioritize between siblings, and if it was obvious to her before that he didn't really know how to be a big brother yet, it was crystal-clear to Miz now that he didn't know how to handle more than one sibling at a time.
Miz sighed. ...Brother really was trying, wasn't he? "It's going to be harder for you if I stay with you any longer," Miz reminded him. "And, you don't have to choose between me or Liam. You can have both," she told him, reiterating the words she'd told him before.
"I know," Bill said. "And I know. I can, and will, have you both. --And I don't want you to hesitate to come to me if you want to see me, for any reason," he repeated.
"And I want to go home," Miz told him next. To remind him of that too.
"I know," Bill said, and he both looked and sounded agitated at the reminder of that, as he looked away from her but...
...it was weird. Miz could see that he was acting a little differently, and his energy flow--
Miz blinked. His energy flow was moving a little differently. So were his (encrypted) thoughts, what little she could sense of those of them that vibrated little bits and pieces of 'I'm here'ness out into their surroundings. He sounded a little different right now, but it wasn't just that. Bill was… her brother was...
"You're planning something," Miz noted. It was super-complex, very dense, and she wasn't imagining things, there was definitely a lot more activity now than she'd sensed going on back when they'd been in his own 'set, even a short while ago. (It reminded her a bit more like what he'd been like in that ReverseBill's other dimension.) "Just… tell me?" she asked him. She didn't really like the idea of being led around on a string, which was what this was almost starting to feel like to her.
Bill looked back over at her.
And then he dropped his shoulders, and his arms loosened a bit, and he sighed.
And Bill told her everything he expected to have happen next.
That he expected her to not want to go in Seb's door, thinking it was a 'trap'.
That she would either protest and say she wanted to go home now, first, or that he expected her to stay there longer than just a few seconds to check everything out.
That he planned to tell her that she shouldn't go back in her own Door before checking to make sure that she had at least one other place that she felt completely comfortable 'escaping' to, if necessary, and that he realized that there was a double-digit probability that she wouldn't come back to his own 'set until he gave her the all-clear -- which he thought was way too high.
---