#headcanon that Stan saw Caryn exactly once before she died

[madbard]

I don’t think anyone was surprised when Stanford Pines cut ties with his family. He was already living on the other coast. His potential to earn the family millions had been firmly squandered; his father certainly didn’t want to see his face after that. Maybe he called on occasion, spoke with Caryn or Shermie. But as he grew steadily more fixated on his work, he didn’t have the time to talk anymore. And the less he picked up, the less they called.

So when Stanford went radio silent, they weren’t surprised. His twin had just died, without them ever having made up. That would change anyone. Caryn likely wasn’t too happy with him after he missed the funeral, anyway. Stanford had been pushing his family away for so long; it was only a matter of time before he finished the job and fully cut them off.

So they called him on birthdays and holidays. Maybe a card, a letter. Sometimes he picked up, but he didn’t talk much. He sounded… different. But then again, they hadn’t spoken in so long. Was it any surprise that he had changed?

When Filbrick died, they let him know. Stanford didn’t come to the funeral. No one was surprised at this point. They knew Filbrick too well for that. They remembered Stanford’s childhood, and imagined that they knew him as well.

It may have gone on like this; Stanford vanishing deeper and deeper into the recesses of memory and quiet resentment. The Pines family may have forgotten their once-prized son.

Then ‘Stanford’ got a call. It was sheer chance that he picked up this time; that he stayed on after realizing it was Shermie. Maybe he just realized it had been a long time since his last call. Maybe he was in an especially good mood, or an especially bad one. Maybe he was homesick.

Regardless of how it came about, the most distant member of the Pines family picked up the phone that day and was told that Caryn Pines, having lived a long life, had finally reached the end of her rope. And before she went, she wanted to see her surviving sons.

It would have been a long drive, the longest he’d taken since the eighties. When he arrived, he would have looked exhausted, suit wrinkled and gloved hands buried in his pockets. The other Pines would have been shocked that he’d actually showed, that the reclusive and elusive Stanford had finally left his cabin. They would have taken a moment to reset their mental images of him. Maybe they would have wondered, dimly, what his twin would have looked like at that age. Then ‘Stanford’ would have entered the room where his mother was resting.

Caryn Pines, the charlatan psychic, would have looked up in that moment. She would have locked eyes with the middle-aged man standing across the room, and for a moment she wouldn’t recognize him. It had been so long.

But after those first few seconds, Caryn would recognize her son, standing there like one of the ghosts she’d never believed in.

“… Stanley? Is that you?”

“…”

“You came home.”