Chapter Text
Eventually the game wound down. The Shack's human inhabitants all went to bed, and Greggy C and Chubby Z slipped away into the night, leaving Wax Larry King alone in the display room to talk to himself.
Dipper let Pacifica take his bed while he made himself comfortable in a sleeping bag on the floor nearby.
They would need to get up briefly at around four in the morning to shake Mabel awake from a nightmare and reassure her that Dipper was safe and that she was in the real world, not trapped in one of Bill's bubbles. But other than that, they slept restfully through the remainder of the night.
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As often happened, Dipper was the first person in the attic to awaken. He glanced over at his bed, where Pacifica was still snoozing, then quietly slipped out of his sleeping bag and tiptoed to the bathroom as quickly as he could.
Dipper stared intensely at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes are normal, he observed cautiously. I'm me. Bill isn't controlling me. He's gone. He can't hurt us anymore.
Then he looked away from the mirror. Last night was real. Pacifica and I are dating now. It still seemed so hard to believe.
He took a deep breath, looked at himself in the mirror again, and smiled. Despite the bags under his eyes, which still hadn't gone away, he looked happy. This is good, he told himself. Things are good. And maybe they'll still be good tomorrow.
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Pacifica woke up about an hour and a half later, and found herself alone in the attic. She climbed out of Dipper's bed and went downstairs, not stopping to change out of her nightgown, where she found a noisy and bustling kitchen full of her new boyfriend's rowdy and lovable family.
She wolfed down some breakfast before finding herself overwhelmed and retreating into the upstairs bathroom, where she calmed her nerves by doing half of her morning self-care routine. Then she came out so that Mabel and Stan could have their turns in the bathroom before she did the other half of her routine.
All in all, it was a strange morning for Pacifica. But she found that she didn't really mind that much.
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Before any of them knew it, Pacifica had packed up her things and called for a pickup and was chatting with Dipper and Mabel near the front door while she waited for her limo to arrive.
She'd just finished adding both twins to her contacts list on her cell phone when Stan came in to interrupt them. "Dipper, Mabel," he said. "Soos says he needs your help with something. He's around the back."
Dipper and Mabel left the room to go help Soos, and Stan sat down and had a rather uncomfortable impromptu staring contest with Pacifica.
"Is, um, is something wrong?" Pacifica asked nervously.
"Not that I know of," Stan answered cryptically. "Let's keep it that way, alright?"
"Um, okay," Pacifica responded in bemusement.
There was another few seconds of silence before Stan finally decided that ambiguity wasn't cutting it. "If you leave Dipper for a hippie, I'll make sure your limo goes over a cliff with you inside."
It wasn't the first shovel talk that Pacifica had received from one of Dipper's loved ones, but it was the most weirdly specific. "Yes, sir," she replied safely.
It was about then that Dipper and Mabel walked back into the room. "Soos said he doesn't need our help with anything," Dipper announced suspiciously. "Grunkle Stan, what's going on?"
"Oops, my mistake," Stan said with a careless shrug.
Dipper looked unconvinced, but he didn't press the issue.
There was an awkward silence, until Stan spoke up again.
"You know," he said to Pacifica conversationally. "I used to think Dipper's type was redheads, but maybe his actual type is girls who blossom early. If you know what I mean." He winked unnecessarily.
"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper hissed angrily, his face beet red. "Shut up!"
"'Cuz I mean, let's be real, Wendy does not look like she's still only sixteen. And you're about the same age as these two gremlins, but I remember noticing when I saw you on Pioneer Day last year that you somehow already had visible curv-"
"Okay!" Pacifica said loudly, somehow blushing even harder than Dipper. "Thanks for the tip! Bye Dipper! Bye Mabel! Gotta go!" She fled outside and closed the door behind her, which didn't prevent her from hearing Dipper's outraged "WHAT THE FUCK, STAN?!?!"
Thankfully, it wasn't much longer before the limo arrived to take her home.
As Pacifica climbed into the vehicle, she noticed that Joan wasn't in the driver's seat. Instead the car was being driven by another member of her family's staff. She didn't know his name offhand.
"Where's Joan?" she asked.
"I'm afraid something came up for her, Miss Pacifica," the driver said. "I was sent in her place."
"I see," Pacifica said. "I hope she's alright."
A moment later her phone buzzed and she looked at it to see a text from Dipper. I'm really sorry about that, it read.
She sent back a reply. Don't worry about it. It's nothing I haven't heard before.
Soon the limo pulled into her new house's driveway. Pacifica got out and walked up to the front door while the driver parked the vehicle in the garage.
"I'm home," Pacifica said as she came inside and took off her shoes.
"Welcome back, Pacifica," came her father's voice. "We have a surprise for you." Pacifica looked up to see that her mother and father were sitting on the futon in the living room, already visible from the front entrance. And standing on the coffee table in front of them was, of all people, Jeff the gnome. Several other gnomes sat on the floor nearby.
"Ah!" Jeff said happily. "There she is! Our bride-to-be!"
Pacifica was so bewildered she was having trouble forming words. "Wha...?"
"Good news, Pacifica!" her father announced, standing up. He was holding a wine glass in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. "You're getting married!"