Chapter Text
1-On 4 Wheels
Written for Wendip Week 2022
Though these stories sometimes share elements with my customary AU, they really aren't canon to that series. Each was written as a response to a prompt (the story title) and the conditions were that each story had to be set in 2022 and in some way deal with the past in GF.
(June 2022)
Returning to Gravity Falls after four years of college felt weird. Well, weirder than normal. Dipper, now twenty-two, had last been here the winter when he was twenty. It was just a short visit, squeezed into the long MLK weekend, and he hadn't even stayed in the Shack that time. He only spent one night and then he returned to California and college the next day after Stanley Pines's funeral.
Now, two years and a few months later, he stepped off the Speedy Beaver bus and saw Soos waving at him and giving him his big buck-toothed grin. Around him were kids, a boy who was seven, a girl who was five, another girl who was three. The baby boy was, Dipper assumed, back home with Melody.
"Hiya, dude!" Soos said, cheerfully hefting Dipper's suitcase. "Mabel didn't come with?"
"No," Dipper said with a smile as they climbed into Soos's car. The three-year-old they fastened into the baby seat and the other two were big enough to wear grown-up seat belts. "No, Mabel's wedding is coming up at the end of the month, and you know her. She's deep into planning. She and her new husband plan to honeymoon here, though."
"Sweet!" Soos said. "Uh, mind if I make a short detour?"
"Go ahead," Dipper said. "You're the boss."
"Yeah," Soos said a little sadly.
They stopped at the Catholic church, where Soos showed Dipper a little memorial in the cemetery. "Abuelita's not really here," Soos explained. "She's buried in Mexico in her family's cemetery. But we did this, like, memorial to her. OK, kids, say your prayers."
The little ones clustered around the memorial stone and murmured, "Eternal rest grant unto our Abuelita, Lord, and let eternal light shine upon her." Soos joined in. Then he said, "Good job, kids. Now Abuelita lives with the angels."
From the church they drove straight to the Shack. It was open for business, and Soos said as they got out, "Dude, I have to go be Mr. Mystery. Is your old attic room OK? We, like, cleaned it and all."
"I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else," Dipper told him. They went in by the back way and Dipper carried his suitcase up the stairs and to the attic. The room was a lot neater than it had been the first year he and his sister had shared it, and the beds looked new. Dipper didn't unpack, but he set his bag and backpack down and smiled wistfully at the other bed across the way, still the old one. "Check out all my splinters," he murmured.
He washed his face in the upstairs bathroom and opened his backpack to dig out his old pine-tree cap, a little faded now. Later, he promised himself, he'd go into the gift shop, maybe buy a new trucker's hat if they still sold them, and visit. Not yet. He wasn't up to that yet. A little walk first would do him good.
He left quietly, forcing himself not even to glance into the gift shop. Wendy wouldn't be there, anyway, She had left the Valley, gone to college, then wound up, last he heard, in Portland. She had always wanted to move there some day. He had not heard from her for two years, except for Christmas cards.
Too late to regret, too early to remember.
First he paused at a small, fenced-in spot within view of the Shack. A single grave was there, with a stone for Stanley Filbrick Pines. The inscription beneath was a Psalm in both Hebrew and English: "He heals the broken heart and binds up the wounds."
"Hi, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said, standing beside the headstone and leaning over to place a pebble on it, one among many. People in town remembered him and visited him often. "I'm back for a while. Mabel's going to come and visit with her new husband later in the summer. Your Pumpkin. I just wanted to say thanks for all you did, and rest in peace. Yeah, I'm still a knucklehead."
That done, Dipper walked down the old familiar Mystery Trail to the spot where he and Wendy had sat on a log and had so many talks over the years. There was that time after the Bunker adventure when she'd let him down so gently. There was the time just before she headed off to college.
He sat down on the log, now softened with moss and decay, and talked aloud to the tall redhead now, though she perched beside him only in imagination. "Here I am," he said. "Back because I don't know anyplace else to go. I'm not going to move back in with Mom and Dad. They deserve their retirement and time together. I've got a little bit of money. Well, a lot of money saved up, 'cause when Grunkle Stan died, nobody knew it, but he had about four hundred thousand squirreled away from something he'd found up in the Arctic. He sold whatever it was and . . . just banked the money and left half to Mabel, half to me. No estate tax in Oregon on the amount that came to us, so it's in my bank. I haven't touched it."
He imagined her saying, "Really man? He would've wanted you to."
"Yeah, but the thing is—here I am with my degree. Double major in physical sciences and in video production. And no way of getting a toe in the door of any studio. I just realized the morning after graduation how useless that diploma's gonna be. My science degree would allow me to teach high school, but I'd need education courses, and I'm sick of school right now. No idea what to do with the rest of my life. So I'm planning to spend a summer here, go out and look for mysteries and anomalies, and . . . be a hermit, I guess. Everybody I was close to's gone. Stan. Pacifica off somewhere in the East, with her second husband. Even Mabel's friends, Candy and Grenda, moved away. Ford's down near Cal Tech in an assisted-living place, writing his memoirs. Gonna be lonesome—"
"Who you talking to, man?"
Dipper nearly jumped out of his skin. He scrambled up. "Wendy!"
She stood on the trail smiling at him. Wendy, now, what, twenty-five? Still looking like a late teen, though, tall and lanky and, oh my God, in a green flannel shirt, jeans, and boots! No trapper's cap, but that long, long red hair, those green eyes, the freckles, and her wonderful, sleepy-eyed, crooked smile. She leaned back a little, her elbows crooked, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.
For a long moment he just stood and stared at her, his jaw hanging open. She chuckled. "Hey, I'm gonna hug you, dude, if I won't break you."
She spread her arms and embraced him. Then she stepped back and surveyed him. "You turned out hunky, Dip. Talking to yourself? You sound down, so, friend to friend, tell me what's the matter?"
He shook his head and for a moment could not speak with his throat tight and aching. 'Just—just I've been feeling lost. How'd you find me?"
"Soos told me a couple days ago you'd be coming to visit. I stopped at the Shack a few minutes ago and he said you were out someplace. I kinda guessed you'd wind up here."
"I—oh, Wendy, could we just sit here for a minute or two?"
"Yeah, sit down and scoot over."
She sat beside him. "So you graduated, I guess," she said.
He nodded. "Yeah, few days ago."
She nudged him. "With honors, I bet."
Still feeling dazed by her sudden appearance, he murmured, "Phi Beta Kappa." Then he coughed self-consciously. "What are you doing?"
"Well, I've been workin' over in Portland, hardly anything better than an intern job with a start-up company. No money in it, but I got by. What time is it? Early, but have you had lunch?"
"No, early, like you say. I took the bus up from Piedmont, so, uh. No real breakfast, either."
"Brunch!" she said. "Bus, huh? No wheels?"
"I'm just a ground-walker," he said with a grin.
"Soos will let us borrow his Jeep, I bet."
He did. They could have gone out of the Valley to an upscale restaurant, but for old times' sake—Greasy's Diner. It was early for lunch, late for breakfast, but hey, it was Greasy's. They had pancakes and scrambled eggs, coffee and OJ.
And they caught up. "So what are you up to this summer, Dipper?"
"Not much. Just sort of . . . winding down after college. Wondering what to do with my life and not coming up with any answers. How about you?"
"I got exciting plans for the summer. See, I just recently landed a new job. I mean, a good-paying one!"
"Great," Dipper said. "What?"
"I'm gonna be a TV star," she said. Then, grinning at his surprised, delighted reaction, she shrugged. "Well, I'm gonna host an Internet series, anyhow. At least for the next year. I'm supposed to start next week, and then I'll be on the road for a full twelve months."
"Doing what?" Dipper asked.
"Traveling all over the country. Everywhere except Hawaii, 'cause I can't drive there! But for a start, I'm going to drive up to Alaska and do travel shows on interesting, out-of-the-way small towns and little-known wilderness places all over the USA. One hour-long show every week for forty-nine weeks, one from every state in the continental United States."
"Wow, sounds exciting," Dipper said.
"Yeah, just me and my crew. A writer-camera operator-editor-computer person."
"All in one?" Dipper asked.
She shrugged. "Maybe. Haven't hired them yet. By the way, got an invitation to Mabel's wedding. Typical of her to have it in the Shack! I figure I can come to Gravity Falls that week, record the Oregon show, and kill two birds." She took a long, slow sip of coffee. Then, a little too casually, she asked, "How about you, Dip? Wedding bells in your future?"
He shook his head. "I don't have, uh, plans."
"Yeah," she said, nodding sympathetically, "I know. Mabel and I kept in touch, and she told me you didn't have great luck in the romance department."
"Zero luck," Dipper admitted. "How about you?"
"Nothing crucial," she said. "Sorta in between right now. Never met the right guy. Ready to go back to the Shack? I'd like to show you something."
They drove back to the Shack and Wendy returned the Jeep keys to Soos. Then she led Dipper out to the parking lot and to a remote corner. With a broad grin, Wendy said, "There she is, my new honey. Want the grand tour?"
"Wow," Dipper said. He was looking at a cream-colored RV, over twenty feet long. "This is yours?"
"Well, for now it's the company's," Wendy said. "But I got the use of it for the next year, and then if the show does OK, they may let me buy it for cheap. I'm gonna put the miles on it, doing the video series."
She opened it up, and she and Dipper stepped inside. The compact space looked amazingly efficient: a tiny toilet with a shower and folding sink, a galley with a two-burner stove and microwave, pantry already stocked, little fridge, fold-down table, and all the way in back a bed.
"This is so cool. I'm happy for you," Dipper said.
"Get this." She sat in the driver's seat, turned on the ignition, and moved a control. Dipper heard a low-pitched hum and looked back. About a third of the RV space was moving, stretching out to the left of the driver's seat. "Slide-out. Gives more room. That's supposed to be a single bed, but it's been redone as a work station—digital editing and all that biz."
"Cool!"
"Sit down, Dipper. Wait, I'm gonna slide in the bonus space." She reversed the control, and the extension glided back. The engine purred. Not looking at him, her hands on the wheel, Wendy said, "Yeah, it's cool, but there's still a detail to work out. Gotta hire my crew. Any suggestions?"
"I don't know anybody in town now," Dipper said.
"Well, I got my eye on someone," Wendy said.
"Who?
She laughed. "You, doofus!"
"Uh—"
"Look," Wendy said softly, still not meeting his gaze, "I'm not too old for you now. And as I watched you back over the summers, I kept thinking I needed to give you another chance. Spent a lot of time thinking about you, Dipper. Did you ever think about me? About us?"
Dipper felt his face glowing red-hot, and his tongue tangled. "Um, think? You? I—I, uh. All the time!" he blurted at last. "Like twenty-four hours a day, every day. Uh, sorry. I—I didn't mean to, um—confess, because you know, um, friends—"
She turned toward him and put a finger against his lips to stop him. "I want you, Dipper. It's totally up to you. How about it, man?"
Dipper's mouth still wasn't making words very well: "Are uh, Wendy, are you asking me to—"
"To be my partner." Now she was looking at him, her eyes warm and dreamy. "Writing scripts, shooting video, editing, the computer biz—you got that all knocked, Dipper. I want you if you want the work. You won't get rich, but there's a salary and we get a good per diem for food and so on. Are you willing to go on a road trip with me?"
"For the whole year?" Dipper asked, wondering if he'd fallen asleep on the log and was dreaming. He bit his tongue. Ouch. This was all real.
For the first time Wendy's green eyes looked vulnerable, uncertain. "For a whole year. Or, really, for as long as, uh, you know. You can tell me if you don't want to—"
"I want to!" he blurted. "Oh, God, Wendy, I always—this is—but I don't have a car. I've got some money, I could buy—"
"You don't need a car," Wendy said, visibly relaxing. "We'll travel in the RV. Everywhere. Together. Get it?"
"Yes," he said. "I—thank you, Wendy, this is—I think—I think I'm happy!"
"Good for you," she said, standing. "You get up, too. Now put your arms around me. I'm happy, too. Like I said, I've been thinking about you. About us. So kiss me."
They kissed.
Then she looked him in the eye—he was as tall as she was now. Frowning a little, she said, "One thing, though. I mean, we're partners, that's settled. We'll do the contract stuff tomorrow or the next day, no big rush. I'm happy, too, but we got a problem, man."
"What?" he asked.
She whispered in his ear, "There's only one bed."
"Oh, well—uh."
She playfully nipped his ear. "We'll have to see if we can make it do."
So she drove the RV to a private spot.
They discovered that the bed would do very well.
The End