Chapter Text
Wendy sat up and looked around. Bill was gone! The last thing she remembered, Bill had picked up everyone in the Zodiac except for Mabel and Dipper and the two Stans. After that, it was hazy. Now she was lying on a bed in what she recognized as one of the spare bedrooms at the Shack. She noticed Dipper sitting nearby, looking anxious. As soon as she began to move, relief washed over his face.
"Dipper, wha-" Wendy cut off as she heard her voice. Something about it had seemed… off.
"Wendy, you're alright!" Dipper stood up, but then hesitated. "Well, we still don't know if you'll be completely alright, but at least you're alive!"
"Dipper, what do you mean? What happened?" As she talked, Wendy continued to try to figure out what was wrong with her voice. The sound was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.
"Grunkle Ford theorized that part of what Bill was made of was time itself. Once he was gone, a few beams of time escaped and hit other things, affecting them. We believe that one hit the Mystery Shack, bringing it back to how it was before we turned into the Shacktron, which is good, but we also think…" Dipper trailed off, looking nervous.
"Think what?" A sense of dread began to cover Wendy, and her voice took on an edge of nervousness.
"Well, we think that one of the beams hit you, and reversed your age by several years."
Wendy sat bolt upright. "WHAT? Several years?" Dipper nodded. "How many?!"
"We think between two and three, which would make you right about thirteen."
"Seriously?" Dipper nodded again. Wendy let out a breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding. "Great. Now I get to go through two more years of acne, angst, and pain." Wendy swung her legs out to the side of the bed, sighing as she saw how short they were. She pushed herself up to stand right as Dipper stood up, and she was surprised to find that she was still taller than him. Everything else, however, looked taller than she remembered. Still, Wendy thought, at least I'm not dead or some junk. In a few years, she would be back to normal.
Wendy felt her legs start to wobble and sat back down, making Dipper wince. "Yeah, uh, you might not want to start doing too much physical activity yet. For one, your muscles are back to how they were when you were twelve, but your mind is used to the fifteen year-old ones. You'll have to start building up strength again. Second, you haven't eaten in like two days."
As if on cue, Wendy's stomach rumbled. "Two days? Is that how long I was out?"
"Yeah," Dipper said, walking over to the door. "Everything in the town is back to normal. Well," he said with a small chuckle. "As normal as normal is around here. I'll go see if I can find something for you to eat."
As she heard Dipper walk downstairs, Wendy began to think. What did this mean for her social life? Her group of friends had been pretty chill with Dipper and Mabel, so they would probably be fine with her. What about her family? Oh no… her dad! Wendy began to worry. Did her dad have any idea what had happened to her? He had always been close to his kids… and if he thought one of them was dead…
Just then, Dipper walked through the door, holding a tall glass of water and a sandwich. "We had some BLTs left over from lunch, so I figured you might want one of those."
Wendy gratefully took the sandwich, but before she began to eat, she asked "Dipper, does my dad know about this? If he has no idea where I am, then that really wouldn't be good."
"Actually," Dipper replied, "he's the one that found you. When he saw that something had happened to you, he brought you to us, since he knew that we had experience with stuff like this. He wanted to know if there was any way to reverse it."
Wendy had been just about to take a bite of the BLT, but she lowered it and asked, "Is there a way to reverse this?"
Dipper launched into a whole technical monologue that Wendy tried to listen to as she ate her sandwich, but he quickly lost her. Finally, after she had finished the BLT and drunk the water, he finished with "So basically, short of summoning another demon from the Nightmare Realm, no. There is no way to reverse this."
Wendy frowned. She didn't want to be thirteen again, but two years definitely weren't worth another Weirdmageddon. Just then, Mabel burst into the room, holding a drink of her own. "Don't worry Wendy! Mabel's here! When I heard that you were awake, I whipped a batch of Mabel juice! It even has double the fun!"
Dipper immediately looked concerned. "Double the- what? Mabel, I don't think that that's the best thing for Wendy to be drinking right now."
"You don't know what you're talking about, bro-bro! Mabel juice is the perfect thing for her to be drinking right now!" She strolled over and handed the glass to Wendy, who shrugged and drank it. Her first impression was that it was overwhelmingly sweet, almost like cough syrup. Dipper face palmed and sighed.
After a few seconds, Wendy decided to try standing again. This time, to her surprise, there wasn't even a trace of wobble, and she could walk just fine! "See," Mabel said happily, "that was just what she needed!" With that, Dipper's twin flounced out of the room, a satisfied look on her face. Dipper watched her go and sighed.
Wendy had another realization. "Dipper, you said I've been out for two days?" Dipper nodded. "Dude, don't you guys have a birthday coming up?"
Dipper nodded again. "Tomorrow, actually! After that… I guess Mabel and I have to go home…" Wendy noticed a sad look in his eyes, but she saw it disappear just as quickly as it had arrived. "Unless… Wendy, I have an idea! Be right back!" Dipper practically ran out of the room, hitting his face on a post as he went. "Ow… stupid…"
Wendy got up to go after him and was happy to find that she could walk just fine. What did Mabel put into that juice?
…
Dipper knocked on the door of the attic room that he shared with Mabel, and his sister was quick to respond with "Come in!" Opening the door, Dipper found Mabel sitting on the ground, attempting to make a macaroni face. At the moment, though, she was more occupied with stopping Waddles from eating all of the pasta.
"Mabel, I've been thinking."
"You're always thinking, Dippendots!"
"Yeah, but I've been thinking about what comes next?"
"What do you mean 'what comes next?' Do you mean our birthday party? 'Cause Grunkle Stan and Soos are handling that." Dipper shook his head. "Oh, you mean…" Mabel's face fell. "The end of summer…"
"Yeah, Mabel, that is what I mean. Weirdmageddon made me realize just how much there is in this town we don't know about. I really want to accept Ford's offer," Mabel looked like she was on the verge of tears. "But" Dipper, said, emphasizing the but. "I don't want to do it without you."
Mabel looked up happily for a second, but quickly looked down again. "Dipper, I'm not smart enough to do what you and Grunkle Ford do. You guys are so smart… I don't think I could even get through one day."
"Mabel, I've thought that through too. I would accept Ford's offer with two conditions. One, for any adventures we go on, you would have to be able to come with us. Two, we would have to spend most of our time in Gravity Falls most of the time. That way, you could go to Gravity Falls school, and we could still be together! And if Grunkle Ford says no to either of those things, then I say no to his offer."
When Mabel looked up again, there were tears in her eyes, but they weren't tears of sadness. They were tears of happiness. "You mean it bro-bro?"
"I mean it. I'll go talk to Grunkle Ford."
…
"Grunkle Ford," Dipper said, stepping out of the elevator down to his Great Uncle's lab. "Do you, uh, do you have time to talk?"
Stanford Pines looked up from the calculations that he had been making. "Sure! What is it, Dipper?"
"I think I want to accept your offer of an apprenticeship!"
"Really?" Ford looked quite happy. "That's great? What about Mabel though? Will she be alright?"
"Actually," Dipper said, "that's something else I want to talk about. I'll accept your offer on two conditions. One, Mabel has to come with us whenever we go on any adventures. Two, we have to be in Gravity Falls most of the time."
Ford nodded. "I was actually going to suggest that second one anyways. There are more secrets in this town than even I know about, and I want to explore them. About that first one, though, won't that be a bit of a challenge? I don't think we can pick her up from California every time we go anywhere."
"You're right. I was thinking that maybe she could attend the Gravity Falls school?"
Ford grinned. "Of course! Why didn't we think about that originally? We'll have to let your parents know, though. I imagine having both of their children leave home at such a young age will be a bit jarring for them."
Dipper's face fell slightly. "Yeah, I didn't think about that. I think that if you prove to them that you can give me just as good of an education as the classes at home, they'll be more willing to let us stay."
"Dipper, you have no idea how happy I am that you reconsidered! There are so many places in this town that I want to explore, and having you and Mabel by my side will be phenomenal. I'll go call your parents." The two rode up the elevator to the main floor, where decorations for the party were being put up. "Wait here," Ford said, before walking into his room. As he shut his door to block out the noise, Dipper saw him pull out his satellite phone.
"Boo!"
"AHH!" Dipper let out a shout as he felt someone touch him from behind. He flipped around to find Wendy nearly rolling on the floor with laughter.
"Dude, you should have seen your face!" Wendy managed to get out through bursts of laughter.
Dipper rolled his eyes, but didn't give a response. After all, what could he say? She had gotten him, and she had gotten him good.
"So man, what are you doing?"
"I'm just waiting for Grunkle Ford. He's making a phone call right now."
"A phone call? To who?"
"I can't tell you. It's a secret." Dipper replied. He didn't want to tell anyone about accepting Ford's offer, because he didn't want them to get their hopes up. If everyone thought that he was going to stay, but then his parents said no, then it would just make the goodbye that much more painful.
Just then, Mabel appeared out of nowhere (as usual) and startled Dipper yet again. "Hey bro-bro! Did Ford say yes yet? Are Mom and Dad okay with it?"
Dipper jumped yet again. After Weirdmageddon, he didn't know how much more scaring he could take! "Mabel," he said hurriedly. "Keep it down! Don't tell other people yet!" He glanced over at Wendy and winced.
The redhead's eyes lit up as she put two and two together. "Wait, you said that you were going to try to find a way to stay, and you're asking Ford something. Does this mean that you're taking his apprenticeship offer?" Reluctantly, Dipper nodded. "But wait, Mabel said 'we.' What is she gonna do?"
Mabel, who had grappled up to one of the rafters and was now hanging upside down, answered before Dipper could. "I'm gonna go to school here! It's gonna be great!"
Both twins noticed as Wendy's grin faltered. "Wendy?" Dipper asked. "What's wrong?"
Before she got the chance to respond, Ford opened the door to his room. "Dipper, your parents are coming up. They want to meet me."