To this day, Fiddleford struggles to remember.

Some flashes kept coming back, people he cared about that were forgotten every time he put that memory wiper to his temple and zapped. Ever since that day, since Dipper and Mabel had helped him rediscover, he'd been trying to fix it.

He wanted to fix it.

That was one thing Fiddleford was good at: fixing things.

It didn't matter if it was a compact generator or a 50 foot mechanical robot with a rusty hinge, he could fix it. And it shouldn't have been so hard to fix his relationships, right?

Turns out it was harder than he expected.

Fiddleford wasn't sure why this one mattered as much as it did. There were flashes, yes, but that wasn't an answer. He didn't want to mess up his chance to fix it, not when they had been the first ones to agree to sit down across from him and talk.

So there he sat, at Greasy's dinner with a cup of coffee in front of his hands too shaky to pick it up and take a sip. He hadn't felt this nervous since... He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this nervous.

He'd taken his time, trying to ease his appearance after years of being the 'crazy old kook' of Gravity Falls. He'd brushed out his beard, gotten clothes that fit and weren't patched up with rags. He liked to think he didn't look like the homeless man who lived in the dump for over thirty years.

"Fiddlestick..." he muttered under his breath, forcing his hand through his beard to try and hide the tremors taking over his fingers.

It did nothing to hide his nerves.

Glancing up at the door, Fiddleford couldn't help but wonder if they would even show up. Was he worth showing up for anymore? He tried to push that thought away, push away the thoughts that screamed worthless and crazy.

He was supposed to meet up here, and that was what he would do. Fiddleford had always been a man of his word and-

The "Test Your Manliness" machine went off in the corner, and the southerner almost thumped out of his skin. It took a moment for him to calm his racing heart and take a sip of his coffee; his mouth still felt too dry.

They weren't going to come.

He'd gotten his hopes up for nothing.

"Reckon I don't blame 'em," he muttered to no one in particular. "Wouldn't wanna meet me neither."

He took another sip of his coffee as the bell over the diner's door jingled and the waitress greeted the newcomer with a 'Welcome to Greasy's'. Fiddlford glanced up and swore to the devil that his heart stalled in his chest.

It was either shock or a heart attack, he wasn't sure.

But he was wrong.

They showed up.