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Dipper tiptoed through the slumbering household, a book clutched tightly under his arm. A thin sliver of faint, orange-gold light beckoned him onward, growing brighter with every step he took toward it. He pushed open the door to the small back room that had been converted to a makeshift infirmary and peered cautiously around the edge. “Great Uncle Ford?”
“Ah, good evening, Dipper.” Stanford’s warm smile brought a reflexive one to Dipper’s own face.
“Good to see you’re still awake,” Dipper said, stepping inside and carefully shutting the door behind him. In a light teasing tone, he added, “I thought you might have fallen asleep over your crocheting before I got here again.”
“That was one time,” Ford huffed in mock annoyance, setting the green skein of yarn, hook, and half-finished scarf onto the footstool in front of his bed and shifting over to make room for Dipper, a soft grunt of discomfort accompanying the action. “Bad enough Mabel got a picture of me like that for her scrapbook. You guys are never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“Not on your life,” Dipper laughed as he climbed up onto the old mattress where his great uncle lay. “Having embarrassing stories to look back on and laugh at is par for the course in this family. So,” he began, tucking his feet under him and wincing as his unhealed scrapes and bruises protested the movement, “I assume by that new pile of doilies and that crocheted AT-AT walker plush Stan still won’t give you your glasses back, huh?”
Ford groaned and buried his face in his pillow by way of response. Dipper sympathetically patted the scientist on his bandaged shoulder, careful to avoid the patches of red that showed through the white linen. “Sorry, man.”
Ford sighed, turning his head to the side so he could speak properly. “I know he means well, Dipper, but I think the boredom is going to kill me faster than ‘overworking my big scrambled brain’ with reading or working on my research would. I had a concussion, not brain damage for heaven’s sake. And I can only make so many scarves before my arm feels like it’s going to fall off,” he added, flexing the fingers of his left hand slightly with a grimace.
“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Dipper said, dramatically pulling out the book he held under his arm. “ Your own personal boredom alleviator, at your service. Though…” He trailed off as his attention was drawn to the bloodstained bandage wrapped around Ford’s forearm and the general pallor of his complexion. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Do you need me to get Stan? You want some more Tylenol? I think we still have some more around here somewhere…” he offered with no small amount of concern. In the relatively short time he’d known the man, he’d noticed that his great uncle had a disquieting tendency to downplay and outright ignore injuries that would leave most people sobbing heaps on the floor, either out of sheer cussed stubbornness or because he was too hopped up on adrenaline or distracted by what he was currently working on to notice he was bleeding in multiple different places until after the excitement died down. Getting Ford to acknowledge if and when he was in pain or needed extra help with his injuries was an uphill battle, but one that Stanley and the kids were determined to win one way or another.
“No, no, it’s alright. No need to give Stanley another reason to worry or drag him out of bed at this hour. He’s got enough of a mother hen complex as it is,” Ford hastened to assure him, a slight, fond smile and an eye roll accompanying the mention of his brother. “Besides,” he added when Dipper still didn’t look convinced, “I’ve had worse. Much worse. So don’t worry about it. The pain’s manageable; I’ll be fine.” Dipper glanced at the many deep scars marring the visible skin on Ford’s arms and torso and not for the first time suppressed a shudder at the thought of what his uncle must have gone through to get all of them.
“But come on, enough about me,” Ford said, wrapping his arm around the boy companionably. “What did you learn today, my boy?”
“Oh my gosh!” Reminded of why he’d come to visit in the first place, Dipper fumbled to open the book with a silver pine tree and golden six-fingered hand emblazoned on the cover and excitedly flipped through the pages. “Just wait ‘til you see this, Great Uncle Ford!” He reached the place he’d left off writing and held the book open in front of him so that Ford would have a clear view of his notes and the photographs he’d attached to the page with some spare paperclips. “Alright, so, remember the Multibear? I think you might have seen him when Stan was carrying you in, but you were also kinda, um…”
“Completely loopy from blood loss?” Ford finished wryly. “Yeah, I don’t remember much from after we defeated Bill to be honest. It’s all a bit of a blur.”
“Right, okay, so this is the Multibear.” Dipper pointed to a photograph clipped to the top of the page, showing the creature grinning toothily with all of his upper heads at the camera. “I met him earlier this summer, and he and I were able to catch up today before he had to go back to his cave. I interviewed him for our journal too, and I got three whole pages’ worth of notes just about his family tree! Oh oh oh, and I got some more good pictures of him for you so that you can sketch him later,” he flipped to the next page, which was covered in photographs of the Multibear in various dramatic poses, “but I also drew you a map up to his cave so that you can go and visit him yourself if you need to once you’re better, see? And just wait ‘til you see the new info I got about unicorn horns…”
Dipper completely lost track of time as he talked, enthusiastically flipping from page to page and showing the photos and crude sketches he’d made, while Ford occasionally interjected a question or observation. Eventually, a soft snore made him pause and look over at his uncle quizzically. Ford had apparently nodded off at some point while Dipper had been rhapsodizing about gnome hats, a faint, contented smile on his face as he slept.
“Come on, Ford, it’s not that late,” Dipper chuckled to himself quietly, setting the journal on the bed in front of him and stretching his arms over his head. “It’s only…” A glance at the old alarm clock on a nearby shelf made his eyes widen in surprise. “2:38?!” He immediately clapped his hands over his mouth after the involuntary yelp escaped him, but Ford thankfully didn’t stir. “Okay,” he muttered sheepishly after the shock had worn off. “Maybe it is kinda-“ A large yawn cut off the rest of his sentence. The thought of trekking all the way back to his bed up in the dark attic suddenly seemed very unappealing, especially considering the fact that Mabel was off spending the night at the Northwest mansion with Candy, Grenda, and Pacifica after the latter had convinced her parents to open it up to those whose houses were still in no condition to be lived in. He didn’t relish the thought of sleeping alone right now. Not after last week.
Just a few minutes, Dipper told himself, leaning back in the crook of Ford’s arm, which was still curled loosely around him, and resting his head lightly against the man’s shoulder. He’d stay a couple more minutes to keep an eye on his uncle, and then he’d suck it up and go to bed. He was almost thirteen and had just survived the literal apocalypse after all; he could totally do this. Yes. Totally. He just needed a couple… more…
…
“Well, well, well, well, well! What have we got here?” Dipper cowered against the cold wall behind him as a large triangular shadow blotted out the sky. “A lonely little sapling who doesn’t have enough respect for fire, it seems.”
“I’ve come to get Ford back, Bill,” Dipper declared, gathering his courage and brandishing a golf club as threateningly as he could while glaring up at the one-eyed being looming ominously above him. You couldn’t have given me anything even remotely more intimidating as a weapon, Grunkle Stan? I know I volunteered to be the bait, but seriously? “So… so hand him over, or suffer the consequences!” Deafening peals of obnoxious, mocking laughter echoed all around him, and he fought the urge to slam his hands over his ears, clutching his golf club tighter in his fists.
“Goodness, you’re a real riot, Pine Tree!” Bill said once he’d sufficiently composed himself, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye. “Hoo boy, I needed that laugh.” Dipper stiffened as that awful slitted pupil fixated on him again. “You know what, kiddo? That actually helped improve my mood a little, so here. You want to see your precious mentor? Here you go.” Bill snapped his fingers and Stanford Pines’ body winked into existence above his hand, blanketed in a familiar, angry crimson glow. “Ta da!” Instead of the gold statue Dipper had expected to see, Ford’s body had been restored to its original flesh and blood state. He hung limp in Bill’s telekinetic grasp, eyes closed, glasses missing, dark bruises standing out starkly against his deathly pale skin. Dipper’s breath caught in his throat as he registered that large patches of Ford’s tattered clothes were stained dark red; the color streamed down the side of his face, trickled from the corners of his mouth, and dripped from the tips of his fingers. For a couple awful, heart-stopping moments, Dipper honestly thought his uncle was dead. Then, he caught the sound of shallow, labored breathing, and nearly sagged back against the wall in relief.
“Ha ha! You should see the look on your face, Pine Tree,” Bill remarked, and there was no mistaking the undercurrent of dark, sadistic amusement in his voice as he spoke. “Absolutely priceless.”
“What did you do to him?” Dipper demanded, relief turning to white-hot rage as he refocused on the being obviously responsible for the state Ford was in.
“Yeesh, you humans, always so sentimental,” Bill said, rolling his eye. “All we did was have a little talk about the force field around this dump. What it’s made of, why it’s there, how to get around it, yadda yadda, you get the picture. Sixer here, though-” He gave Ford’s body a violent shake, like a child gesturing with a broken toy; when the man let out a pained groan at the harsh treatment, it was all Dipper could do to keep from bodily attacking the triangle with his golf club, plan or no plan, “-wasn’t feeling very chatty for some reason. I miiiiight have lost my temper a couple times, but! No biggie. You’d be surprised at how durable you meatsacks can really be when you get right down to it. Like so.” The red glow around Ford abruptly faded, and he plummeted to the ground, landing with a dull, sickening thud. He lay there in a motionless, crumpled heap, with only the faint, raspy sound of each agonizing breath his lungs struggled to take in giving any indication that he was still alive.
“See? Even after all that, he’s still kicking,” Bill observed cheerfully before turning back to the stricken child. “He’s a stubborn nut, I’ll give him that. I’ll crack him soon enough, though, believe you me. You, on the other hand, are amusing, but you’re becoming an annoyance, and I don’t have time to deal with you at the moment.” Blue-tinged fire ignited in his hand. “Competent help is so hard to find these days. You want something done right, you have to do it yourse-”
The world exploded.
The blinding, thunderous maelstrom of noise and light seemed to last for a small eternity. When he could finally think coherently again, Dipper found himself lying curled up on his side in the dirt, arms wrapped protectively around his head. Acrid, foul smoke stung his nostrils, and the roar and crackle of distant fires was the only sound he could hear apart from the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Every inch of his body ached, and all he wanted to do was just lie there and sleep, but he forced himself to uncurl and push himself to his hands and knees. “Did… did we do it?” he croaked, before his small frame was wracked by a violent coughing fit.
As soon as he could breathe again, he stood shakily, peering through the smoke to try to figure out what had happened. “Mabel?” he called out. “Are you there? Did we get him? Grunkle Stan?” Dipper’s watery eyes widened despite the stinging smoke as he remembered. “Ford!” He ran forward a few steps, intent on finding his family, before stopping short in shock as a gust of hot wind dissipated the cloud of smoke obscuring his vision. Gravity Falls had taken a pretty bad beating over the last few days from the monsters rampaging through it, but now it was literally nothing but rubble. The forests around the town blazed, smoke and cinders turning the sky into a roiling black and red cauldron. And there, just a few feet away among the wreckage of the destroyed buildings, were five prone bodies. “No…” Dipper whispered, rooted to the spot, as his mind tried unsuccessfully to processes the sight before him.
Blood and hair mingled on the cracked asphalt under Wendy’s head in a crimson pool, and her green eyes stared empty and unseeing up at the sky. Close beside her, Soos was curled around Stan’s burned, broken body, as if to shield the man from the worst of the blast that had consumed them both. A little ways apart from them, Ford lay where he had previously fallen, completely, utterly still, his blood having turned the earth around him to dark, thick mud. And there… propped up against a nearby broken wall like she had decided to lean against it for a quick nap were it not for the copious amounts of scarlet splattering the bricks and staining her burned, torn sweater… A choked sob escaped Dipper’s throat as his world finally shattered completely. “Mabel…”
Suddenly, a large, black hand closed around Dipper’s torso and squeezed. His breath left him in a strangled, agonized exhale as he felt his ribs crack under the force of those punishing, clawed fingers, and he was snatched off the ground, only to come face to face with an enraged Bill Cipher. The demon’s body glowed a livid red and his eye was narrowed dangerously.
“Did you honestly think,” Bill snarled, his voice multi-toned and alarmingly deep, “that you pathetic,” His hand briefly tightened around Dipper, drawing a breathless scream from the boy, “insignificant,” Another squeeze and Dipper’s vision hazed white, “specks in lower-dimensional space-time could do anything to actually hurt me? I am a god here, boy. And you?” Bill raised his other hand, and ball of white fire like a miniature sun appeared above it. Dipper could feel its heat start to blister his face and exposed skin, and he shut his eyes, whimpering in fear and pain.
“You, Pine Tree, have just earned my wrath.” All-consuming agony exploded across Dipper’s consciousness and-
DIPPER, WAKE UP!
Dipper jerked bolt upright with a gasp, heart pounding in his chest and body trembling from residual terror, the horrifying afterimage of his family’s dead bodies lying at his feet still forefront in his mind. A hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality, and he looked around wildly to find that Ford had pulled himself up to a sitting position on the bed and was looking down at him in concern.
“Dipper, are you alright? You were tossing and turning, and when you started crying in your sleep, I decided I should probably wake you up.” The reassuring weight of the large, six-fingered hand on his shoulder and his great uncle’s earnest, worried voice broke through the numb, terrified pall that had wrapped itself around Dipper’s heart. Without another moment’s hesitation, he lunged forward and clung to Ford as tightly as he could, burying his face in his chest.
Ford made an incoherent sound of surprise and pain as Dipper collided with his bandaged torso, arms instinctively wrapping around the boy as the two of them tumbled back onto the mattress. “Ow! Dipper, what-”
“He hurt you,” Dipper sobbed, belatedly realizing that he was still crying. He felt Ford tense underneath him at his statement, but he pressed on, the words spilling out of him. “He hurt you, and he showed me, and he laughed about it, and then the town was destroyed and everyone was dead. Everyone, Wendy and Soos, and you and Stan, and… and…” The memory of bloodstained brick and tattered yarn forced itself back into his mind, and he couldn’t bring himself to continue, an anguished, keening sob ripping itself from deep inside his chest as he began to cry harder.
“Oh, Dipper…” Ford murmured, sounding suddenly very old. He shifted his hold on the boy and turned onto his side, laying Dipper beside him and cradling the small, battered body close to his chest. “It’s alright, my boy,” he soothed, as the child curled against him and continued to weep brokenly. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m okay. Your friends are okay, Stanley’s okay, Mabel’s okay. You saw her just this evening before she left with the Northwest girl, remember?” He waited until Dipper had nodded hesitantly before continuing. “So whatever you saw, whatever might have happened, it wasn’t real. Your sister is just fine. It was just a dream. It’s over now. He’s gone. He won’t ever be able to hurt any of us ever again. It’s okay, Dipper. It’s okay.”
Dipper let the quiet, comforting words wash over him as he cried, and he tried to stop, he really did, but something had been rattled loose inside him by the vicious nightmare, memories he’d tried so hard to suppress and forget about rushing back to the forefront of his consciousness, and the tears just kept coming. He remembered hiding in a smelly dumpster for hours on end to avoid the eyebats patrolling overhead…
Sharp, aching pain in his stomach as he rooted through a trash can behind an abandoned restaurant, looking for something halfway decent to eat that wouldn’t give him food poisoning…
Cutting his forearm badly on barbed wire as he barely escaped a giant, rabid, two-headed raccoon with just a small package of stale cookies clenched tightly in his other fist for all his trouble…
Staring at the bright orange sludge gurgling out of a faucet in an abandoned backyard, each beat of his heart sending a fresh jab of agony spearing through his temples, trying to decide whether it would be worth it to try drinking from it; he was just so, so thirsty…
Speaking into a silent walkie talkie in the late hours of the night to keep himself sane, to keep himself believing that Mabel was out there somewhere, instead of lying in the woods dead, or turned to stone, or eaten by a monster, or…
Crawling on bruised, bleeding hands and knees through broken glass and rough rocks, pushing through the ringing in his ears and the pain threatening to overwhelm him, his only goal to reach the cracked pink bubble looming in the distance…
The sheer hurt and fury that filled his heart every time he looked at the “new supportive backup brother” his twin had replaced him with (Is this what she actually wishes I was like? Does she really think this little of me?)…
The final, harrowing battle with Bill…
Gentle, calloused fingers threaded their way into Dipper’s sweat-soaked brown tresses, pulling him out of his memories and back into the present. To keep from getting lost in them again, he focused as hard as he could on the solid warmth of Ford’s arms around him, the low rumble of his voice through his chest, the way he smelled of engine oil, pine, and parchment, and gradually, as Ford continued to lightly run his fingers through his hair, Dipper found himself calming down.
“Feeling better?” Ford finally asked, as his nephew’s sobs eased, replaced only by the occasional sniffle.
“Little bit,” Dipper answered, voice thick and hoarse from all the crying he’d just done.
Unable to keep the concern out of his tone, Ford continued. “Are these… night terrors a common thing for you?”
“…Yeah,” Dipper confessed grudgingly. “Ever since Weirdmageddon. Haven’t had any quite as bad as this one before, but… yeah. Normally when it happens I go sleep with Mabel for a bit, but…”
“But she was gone tonight, so you stayed in here instead,” Ford finished knowingly.
Dipper’s cheeks burned in shame as he realized just how childish he must have seemed, bursting into tears and clinging to Ford like an immature two year old that'd been spooked by imaginary monsters under the bed. “I’m really sorry for bothering you like this, Great Uncle Ford. I didn’t mean to stay so long or to wake you up. I know it’s stupid that I keep having these nightmares-”
“Now stop right there, young man,” the scientist interrupted sternly. Dipper shut his mouth, startled into silence by his tone. Ford pulled back and tipped Dipper’s chin up. Dipper averted his eyes, too ashamed to look at him. “Dipper, look at me.” The preteen reluctantly obeyed and tentatively raised his eyes to meet Ford’s. Instead of the condemnation and disappointment he was afraid he would see, however, the only look on his great uncle’s face was one of compassion and sad understanding. “Your nightmares are nothing to be ashamed of, my boy. They’re your brain’s way of coping with what you had to go through during this past week. No more, no less. Everyone gets them from time to time. Even me. So don’t ever feel like you have to apologize for something you can’t control. Least of all to me. Okay?” Dipper bit his lip and nodded, blinking suspicious moisture from his eyes.
“Wait, so you… you get nightmares too?” he asked in a small voice after a moment, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of the confident, courageous Author ever being truly scared enough of anything to have nightmares about it.
“Probably at least once a week,” Ford admitted, a rueful grimace that was probably originally supposed to be a grin twisting one corner of his mouth. “I’ve… seen some things in my time, Dipper. The portal… some of those other dimensions… it was… they were…” He trailed off, a shadow passing over his face at those words. The sudden distant, haunted look in his dark brown eyes made Dipper timidly reach out and put a hand on his upper arm. Ford blinked, seeming to come back to himself, and gave his nephew a small, apologetic smile. “Sorry about that, my boy. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel quite up to elaborating on those years just yet.” Dipper nodded understandingly. “But even before the portal, I wasn’t having an easy time of it.”
“Because of Bill,” Dipper deduced. Ford nodded once.
“When I found out what he was planning, he… well, let’s just say that sleeping became unbearable for awhile. And before I had the metal plate installed in my skull, he would sometimes possess my body at will, to have some ‘fun,’ as he called it.” He reached up and lightly ran the pad of one finger across a linear series of four, small, round puncture scars on the Dipper’s outstretched arm, eyes hardening with subdued, glacial fury as he scrutinized the pale marks. Something in his expression gave the distinct impression that Ford would have given a lot to be alone in a room for five minutes with Bill and a large gun just then. “And I think you know what his idea of ‘fun’ was like.” Dipper’s slight shudder was answer enough. He easily remembered how awful he had felt when he had gotten his body back after Bill had possessed it for just a couple hours. He imagined how terrifying it must have been for Ford, blacking out without warning and waking up who knew how many hours later covered in bruises and cuts and burns again and again, and he impulsively scooted forward on the bed and wrapped his arm around his uncle as far as it would go.
“I’m sorry,” Dipper whispered, pressing his cheek against Ford’s chest, heart aching for what the man had gone through alone all those years ago at the hands of someone who he had once considered a trusted friend.
“So am I.” Ford hugged him back, and if his grip was just a little too tight, or his breathing was a bit more ragged and unsteady than usual, well, Dipper wasn’t going to be the one to mention it.
“Can I…” Dipper began hesitantly after a few moments of silence had passed. “Would it be okay if… ifIstayedherewithyoutonightplease?” he finished in a rush, praying Ford wouldn’t say no. Call it childish, call it cowardly, but darn it, he was emotionally and physically exhausted and he really did not want to go back to that dark, vacant attic right then.
“Well, given that it’s four in the morning, I think that decision’s been made for us already,” Ford said dryly. “Be warned though; if you kick, I might kick back. Years of honed survival habits are hard to break in three weeks.”
“I think I’ll take my chances,” Dipper replied, letting out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in a brief huff of laughter. Ford reached up and tugged the chain hanging from the single light bulb illuminating the small room, plunging the space into darkness, before pulling the soft, worn red blanket that covered the lower half of the bed up around their shoulders. He then settled back down into the mattress and curled his arm protectively around the boy’s small body. Warmth spread through Dipper’s chest at the action, and he nestled back into his place at Ford’s side, giving a faint, drowsy sigh of relief and contentment.
“’Night, Great Uncle Ford,” he murmured, already half-conscious. Just before he slid back into sleep’s welcome embrace, a soft “Good night, Dipper” whispered itself into his ear.
His slumber was dreamless and deep for the rest of the night.