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Something was wrong.
It had started off innocently enough. Wendy had just been settling into her shift at the Mystery Shack when Dipper came running up to her, a strange device in hand and an excitable look about his face. At fourteen and going on fifteen, he was older now, taller, pockmarked, with a slightly deeper voice, but deep down he was still the same Dipper that Wendy had come to know and love.
“It’s a handheld version of Great Uncle Ford’s portal machine,” Dipper had explained when she asked what he was holding. “I designed it using his notes. I call it the Transdimensional Universal Relay Device.”
“Whoa, dude, let me get this straight,” Wendy had interjected incredulously. “You invented a device that can open portals to other dimensions…and you called it the T.U.R.D.?”
Dipper had blushed at that. “The…the name’s a work-in-progress.”
“If you say so.”
Dipper had created the device in secret as his Great Uncle Ford had (wisely) forbidden him from experimenting with anything related to dimensional portals following the events of Weirdmageddon two years prior. But Dipper, being Dipper, couldn’t help himself, cursed as he was with both a boundless curiosity and a borderline obsessive personality. As such, when it came time to actually test his invention, Wendy was the only person Dipper could truly ask to help him, considering anyone else would have immediately shut him down.
“Like you even need to ask?” Wendy had answered with a laugh before reaching over the counter and punching her friend in the shoulder. “A chance to hang out with my favorite guy and break some rules at the same time? Hell yeah, I’m in!”
Wendy would come to regret that decision remarkably quickly.
Their experiment had actually started off rather well, with the two of them heading out into the woods with the poorly-named T.U.R.D. as soon as Wendy’s shift at the Mystery Shack had ended. Dipper proceeded to open portals to a dozen different dimensions before Wendy’s eyes, each of them stranger and more bizarre than the last. After taking a few moments to peer into the alien landscapes beyond, the two would record their findings and then deactivate the portal, usually leaving each one open for only a minute or two each time.
“This is so cool,” Wendy had commented after Dipper closed yet another portal, causing it to disappear in a flash of bright light and leaving the distinct smell of burnt ozone upon the summer breeze.
“You have no idea,” Dipper said with a smile, already adjusting the knobs and dials on his handheld device. “Thanks for doing this with me, Wendy. It…really means a lot to me.”
“Of course, dude, you know you can count on me,” Wendy responded with a smile of her own. “Anytime, anywhere. Always.”
“Always,” Dipper confirmed, hoping the darkening sky above would hide the blush creeping up on his face. “What do you say to one more portal before we call it a night?”
That’s when everything went wrong.
Whereas all of the previous portals had opened without a sound, the last portal Dipper created was accompanied by a booming thunderclap loud enough to cause Wendy to cover her ears. Likewise, while the portals before had all been calm and steady, like reflective pools of water floating in midair save for a few surges of electricity here or there, this portal resembled nothing so much as a crackling black hole whose only purpose was to suck in as much matter as it could physically reach.
“Uh, Dipper?” Wendy asked as she felt the tug of the portal grow stronger and stronger still. “Is that supposed to be happening?”
“I don’t think so!” Dipper exclaimed, his eyes wide and frantic as he began pushing button after button on his handheld device. “No, no, no! Come on, you stupid thing!”
It wasn’t long before the portal had grown twice its original size and was beginning to flash a kaleidoscope of colors, all of which made Wendy’s brain pound in her skull. Branches, rocks, and even a few misbegotten woodland critters were lifted off the ground and pulled into the portal, and soon enough it looked like Dipper and Wendy were going to be next. The two quickly took hold of the branches of the closest pine tree, wrapping their arms around their respective branches as they began to lose their footing.
“What’s going on?” Wendy asked as the wind around them grew stronger and stronger.
“I don’t know, I can’t get it to close!” Dipper told her, his voice barely audible over the whirlwind pulling them back. “I must have entered the wrong coordinates and accidentally transferred the relay point to an adjacent area of space-time!”
“What does that mean?!”
“It means the portal is going to keep getting bigger and bigger,” Dipper tried to explain, “and the only way to close it is from the other side!”
At this point, both Dipper and Wendy were hanging onto the pine tree for dear life, having lost their footing as the portal behind them grew stronger and stronger still. Bolts of lightning surged through and around the tear in space-time only a few meters behind them, accompanied by a roaring almost as loud as a jet engine. As Wendy watched with fear in her eyes, Dipper’s grip on his own branch began to loosen, largely due to the fact he was still holding on to the T.U.R.D.
“Dipper, hold on!” she shouted, slowly pulling herself closer to her friend. “I’m coming!”
“No, Wendy, stay back!” Dipper shouted back at her, his eyes wide and his face paling. “I…I have to go in. It’s the only way to stop it!”
“What?!” Wendy exclaimed. “Dude, that’s insane!
“It’s the only way!” Dipper repeated over the roar of the wind. “If my math is right, everything should be fine, and I’ll be right back!”
“And if your math is wrong?” Wendy asked, her legs flying out behind her.
Dipper’s silence was all the answer Wendy needed.
“No, Dipper, don’t do it!” she shouted as she watched her friend begin to let go of the branch. “Dipper, please! We’ll find another way!”
But Dipper either didn’t hear her or wasn’t listening. Wendy heard him speak just as he pushed a button on the T.U.R.D. and then let go of the branch entirely, sending him flying backwards into the portal.
“I’m sorry, Wendy.”
And then he was gone.
There was a blinding flash of white light and then…it was over. The portal disappeared, and so too did the hurricane-force winds and the bolts of crackling lightning. Wendy fell to the ground, as did all of the rocks and branches flying in the air around her. All that was left was a cloud of steam and the smell of burnt ozone. The portal was gone.
But so was Dipper.
Wendy waited for a minute, then two, then three, her breath evening out but her heartbeat only growing faster with every second she waited and Dipper failed to reappear.
“Dipper?” she called out into the night after five minutes had passed.
Nothing.
“Dipper!” she called out again a few minutes later, her voice growing more unsteady.
Still nothing.
“DIPPER!!”
After fifteen minutes had passed with no sign of Dipper, Wendy ran back to the Mystery Shack as fast as her legs could carry her. Through tears, she explained everything that happened to Stan and Ford, both of whom ran out into the woods in search of their great nephew, followed shortly by Mabel and Soos and Melody. The six of them spent the next few hours combing the woods around the Mystery Shack for any sign of Dipper.
They found none.
By the time the sun began to rise, all of Gravity Falls was out looking for Dipper Pines. Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland put out a missing persons report immediately and dedicated the entirety of the Gravity Falls police force into searching for the young man. Rescue parties were formed and led by community leaders like Mayor Cutebiker and Bud Gleeful. Even Preston Northwest contributed by offering a $5,000 reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of his daughter’s little friend.
They found nothing.
Back at the Mystery Shack, Ford and McGucket used their scientific expertise to scan every alternate reality and parallel dimension they could find in hopes of locating Dipper’s bio-signature. Unfortunately, as Ford explained, there were infinite universes, and Dipper could be trapped in any one of them.
“We could spend the rest of our lives searching and never cover even 1% of all the possible universes out there,” Ford had told Wendy a few days into Dipper’s disappearance, his voice ragged with age and exhaustion. “Of course, that’s assuming Dipper is even still…”
He never finished that statement, but Wendy didn’t need him to. She knew what he was going to say.
Days turned to weeks. The rescue parties began to grow smaller and smaller, began to cover less and less ground, meet less and less frequently. Blubs and Durland turned to other cases, found their attention drawn to other crimes in other parts of town. Ford and McGucket developed an algorithm that scanned dimensions remotely from their lab, allowing them a chance to rest.
After a month went by, the town of Gravity Falls all but gave up looking for Dipper Pines. The last of the rescue parties were called off, and those closest to the missing simply had to move on.
The Pines Family and their friends all adapted as best they could to an impossible situation. Mabel went back home to Piedmont, having been picked up by her parents, both of whom had read poor Grunkle Stan the riot act about losing their little boy. Stan spent most of his time alone after that, a weary and defeated old man sitting in front of the television and only moving to eat or sleep. Ford threw himself into his work, as he had always done, sometimes disappearing into his lab for days on end without anyone seeing him.
Everyone found some way to cope, or adapt, or move on. Everyone, that is, except Wendy.
Wendy never stopped looking.
Day in, day out, Wendy searched every nook and cranny of Gravity Falls, stopping only to eat and rest when she found it absolutely necessary. She combed every inch of the forests and woodlands surrounding the town, explored every cave and waterfall, inspected every building and structure in the valley. She adventured into places ordinary citizens feared to tread and interrogated every supernatural being she came across, even fighting some to a standstill just to get a few answers out of them.
Wendy never found anything, of course. But that didn’t mean she ever stopped.
Many tried to stop her, for her own sake. None of them succeeded.
“Honey, I know the Pines kid meant a lot to you, but you gotta see it’s hopeless,” her father had told her after she returned from a particularly long search that had taken the entire night. “I worry about you, Wendy. You gotta move on.”
“I’ll move on when I find him,” Wendy had responded as she went upstairs to her room for a few hours of sleep before setting out again.
“You’re a good kid, Wendy,” Stan had told her one day when she had stopped by the Mystery Shack to search for potential clues. “We appreciate what you’re doing, me and Ford both. I just don’t want you wasting your time.”
“I don’t care if it takes the rest of my life,” Wendy had admitted with a weary smile. “So long as I find him, it won’t be a waste.”
“Wendy, please, you have to stop,” Mabel told her over the phone one day when Wendy had called to check up on her. “I already lost Dipper. I can’t lose you, too.”
“You won’t lose me,” Wendy assured her confidently. “You’ll never lose me. I promise.”
And so, Wendy continued her search. Every day, every night, she was out and about, looking for clues that didn’t exist, pieces of a puzzle that couldn’t be solved. Forests, hills, lakes, caves, underground bunkers, crashed spaceships; she searched everywhere. Sometimes she was accompanied by a friend or family member, but most often she searched alone, with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company.
Specifically, she thought of Dipper.
She thought of dancing with him at the end of the dance party at the Mystery Shack when he was twelve, having been impressed by his bravado, even if his dance moves left quite a bit to be desired.
She thought of playing video games with him at the arcade, constantly beating each others’ high scores before settling their differences with a bout of Fight Fighters.
She thought of long nights spent watching terrible black-and-white horror films until they both fell asleep laughing and chewing on stale popcorn.
She thought of boring shifts at the Mystery Shack that turned into fun-filled summer days when he decided to hang out with her to make fun of customers or else pull pranks on Stan and Soos.
She thought of getting in and out of trouble with him every summer, like sneaking into places where they weren’t supposed to be, or inspecting the supernatural happenings around the town, or taking the Mystery Cart out for joyrides in the middle of the night.
Most often, however, Wendy found herself thinking of all the times Dipper had risked his life to save hers. She remembered how he had faced down the ghosts in the Dusk 2 Dawn all on his own, going so far as to debase himself by performing the Lamby Lamby Dance in front of her. She remembered how he had tried to protect her from the Shapeshifter down in Ford’s hidden bunker and even defeated the creature by plunging her axe into its stomach. She remembered how he had stood up to Bill Cipher when no one else would, not only to save her, but to save the entire town of Gravity Falls.
Most of all, of course, Wendy thought of the last time she had seen Dipper, holding onto the branch of a pine tree for dear life before letting himself fall into the portal of his own making. She remembered the fear in his eyes and, paradoxically, the look of resolve on his face as he plunged into the black hole and disappeared in a flash of white light. He knew, even in his final moments, that only one of them would survive their encounter with the portal.
And, knowing that, Dipper hadn’t hesitated for even a second. He sacrificed himself.
For her.
That’s just who Dipper Pines was, Wendy came to understand; he was the hero. He was always the one on the front lines, standing protectively before his friends and family, ready and willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. He had his own dreams and aspirations, Wendy knew that, but she also knew he had abandoned them time and time again for the happiness or wellbeing of those he cared about.
Knowing that, Wendy could never bring herself to give up. No matter how difficult or how hopeless her search seemed to be, she didn’t quit. Thoughts of Dipper, of the good times and the bad times, but especially the sacrifice he made for her, drove her on. Whenever she became discouraged or found herself overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible task she had set before herself, Wendy would simply think of Dipper, and that would be enough to motivate her to keep going.
Dipper had never given up on her, after all. There was no way she was going to give up on him.
Then came the evening when not even thoughts of Dipper were enough to convince Wendy to keep going. It was the middle of the night, in the middle of the woods outside Gravity Falls, and Wendy was exhausted. Every article of clothing she wore was torn or ripped in a dozen places, and the supplies she carried on her back suddenly seemed heavier than they had any right to be. Her feet were sore, her stomach was empty, her thoughts and vision blurred.
That’s when the hopelessness struck.
Wendy felt it like a punch to the gut, all the weariness and despair and denial hitting her all at once, as though it had been waiting for just the right moment to strike. She found it hard to breathe all of a sudden, hard to think about anything other than the pain in her heart and the pit in her stomach. She tried valiantly to fight it off, to think of her mission, to think of Dipper, but it was no use.
With tears in her eyes and a hole in her heart, Wendy finally fell to her knees and wept.
“I’m sorry,” she said through her sobs, with no one to hear her but the pine trees that surrounded her on every side. “I’m so, so sorry.”
That’s when she saw the flash of light in the distance.
One moment, Wendy was on her knees in the middle of nowhere and ready to give in to despair; the next, she was back on her feet and running as fast as her weary legs could carry her. She made it to her destination in no time at all, practically skidding to a stop in the middle of a grove of unnaturally tall pines, her eyes widening at what she found lying there.
“Dipper!”
The boy looked like he had been through hell, facing upwards as he was and billowing with clouds of steam. His entire body was covered in soot and ash, and his clothes were just as torn and weathered as Wendy’s, if not more so. The T.U.R.D. lay on the ground a few inches away, its lights blinking rapidly.
Wendy was upon him in an instant, trying and failing to identify any sign of life, not because Dipper was dead, but because she was shaking so badly she couldn’t locate a pulse or even notice the way his chest moved up and down as he breathed in and out.
“Dipper?” she asked softly, leaning over him and placing a shaky hand on his soot-covered cheek. “Dipper? Can you hear me?”
For a single heart-wrenching moment, Wendy was truly afraid she would hear no response, that Dipper was gone, gone for good, and his sudden reappearance was nothing more than the universe’s idea of a sick joke.
But then the boy’s eyes began to open, and Wendy finally released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.
“W-Wendy?” Dipper asked softly, his voice raspy and raw. His eyes were unsteady as he looked upon her, as though he was still adjusting to his surroundings. “That you, Wendy?”
“Yeah, man, it’s me, it’s Wendy,” Wendy answered in a rush, tears gleaming in her eyes as she suddenly lost all control of how to properly speak. “Dipper, it’s – you’ve been – you’re back. Dipper, you’re finally back!”
“Of course,” Dipper said, his voice still little more than a whisper as he tried to smile up at her. “Told you I’d be back, right? Anytime, anywhere…”
“Always,” Wendy finished for him, closing her eyes as she pulled Dipper into her arms.
For a few moments, the two of them merely remained there on the forest floor like that, Wendy on her knees and holding Dipper as tightly as she possibly could, rocking slightly as she cried. Dipper, for his part, could do little more than burrow his head into Wendy’s shoulder and slowly begin to hug her back once he managed to gather strength enough in his weary arms.
“I thought I lost you,” Wendy said through her tears, still not loosening her grip on Dipper lest he disappear yet again. “I never stopped looking for you, Dipper. I missed you so much.”
“Missed you, too,” Dipper answered weakly, still leaning into her and returning the hug. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
“Don’t you dare apologize to me, you massive dork,” Wendy exclaimed through her tears, even laughing a little at the absurdity of it all. “Just don’t ever do something that stupid again, okay? Promise me, Dipper. Promise me you’ll never sacrifice yourself like that ever again.”
It took Dipper a moment to respond, and when he finally did, he didn’t say what Wendy had expected (or hoped) to hear.
“I can’t,” he said simply. “I can’t make that promise.”
“What?” Wendy asked almost incredulously, finally pulling back so she could look her friend in the eye. “Why not?”
“Because,” Dipper responded, smiling softly as he looked into her eyes as though for the very first time, “for you, Wendy…I always will.”