Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dipper, just back away.”

Dipper’s outstretched hand hovers inches above the shutdown button, each one of his fingers twitching with the urge to slam down against the glowing red disk and put an end to Stan’s lies once and for all. 

He doesn’t break eye contact, almost waiting for his great-uncle to finally reveal a tell. A twitch of the eye. A tremble in his hands. Something. Anything.

But, all Stan does is heave, his chest huffing with each mismatched breath. “Please don't press that shutdown button, you gotta trust me.” He inches closer, his hands outstretched, one bandaged hand taunting Dipper with even more untold secrets, more shoddily kept lies. 

And Dipper feels like he’s losing his mind. For real this time. No dream invasions, shapeshifter brawls, or sock puppet possessions could rival the betrayal he feels at seeing his great-uncle, of all people, behind some sort of doomsday device surely predestined to destroy them all. It sits lodged in his chest like a knife, twisting and digging deeper and deeper, pulling tight as Stan’s gaze ever so slightly softens in his direction.

He won’t fall for it this time. “And I should trust you why?! After you stole radioactive waste? After you lied to us all summer?!” Dipper steps forward too, unable to stop himself from gesturing wildly in Stan’s direction. “I don't even know who you are!”

Stan finally comes face to face with them. “Look, I know this all seems nuts, but I need that machine to stay on! If you'd just let me explain—”

He stops in his tracks, his watch letting out a shrill, rapid beeping noise. The ground beneath them begins to shake, almost as if it’s ready to give way and drop them all down into the Bottomless Pit. “Uh-oh, oh, no!” Stan exclaims, his palms outstretched. “Brace yourselves!”

They all scream, their bodies thrown up into the air. Dipper’s hat flies off of his head as he’s sent careening into a wooden post, his cheek smacking hard against the lumber. 

Dipper’s ears ring as he whips around, catching sight of Mabel, kept in place by a thick wire that’s wrapped around her foot. She yells out for him, thick curls flying above her head, an identical expression of fear etched into her features.

His heart flutters wildly against his ribcage. He heaves a breath. “Mabel! Hurry! Shut it down!” he yells out.

Dipper watches as Mabel pulls herself toward the button, wrapping her hands around the cord and using it as leverage. She moves with the same urgency she used when it was her and Dipper plunging off the side of a cliff — her nimble hands expertly reaching for her grappling hook. It isn’t lost on him who the villain is this time, and just how far they’ve fallen since then.

Stan pushes himself off of the wall. “No! Mabel, Mabel, wait! Stop!” he says, swimming through the drafty, electrifying air. He cries out as Soos knocks him away from Mabel, encasing him in a bear hug. 

“Soos, what're you doing?! I gave you an order!” he says as he slams his fist down on Soos’ head.

Dipper can hardly hear the words that leave Soos next, his ears buzzing with adrenaline and blind terror. All Dipper has eyes on is Mabel — almost at the button now. He can’t help but notice how scared she looks. How betrayed. And it’s all Stan’s fault.

He sees red as he throws himself away from his own position, joining Soos and Stan in their moving, sprawling fight. Dipper sends his assaults up toward Stan’s face, paying no mind to the fact that his great-uncle only barely, hesitantly defends himself from them. Instead, Stan keeps his bandaged hand around Dipper’s skull.

He has no time to feel shocked at his own actions, the timer quickly approaching zero. “Mabel, press the red button! Shut it down!”

Stan finally pushes him down by the head. “No you can't! You gotta trust me!”

Dipper grabs hold of Stan’s leg, pulling himself back up. Stan wraps his arm around him instead of fighting, keeping him steady.

“Grunkle Stan,” Mabel starts, finally at the button, “I don't even know if you're my grunkle!” she cries. They all watch as her tears shoot up toward the ceiling. “I wanna believe you, but—”

“Then listen to me,” Stan says, flashing those lying, manipulative eyes in his sister’s direction. “Remember this morning when I said I wanted to tell you guys something?”

Dipper screams as the timer hits twenty seconds, the force of the device shooting him back-first into the rigid, stone wall. He hears something crack, his vision swimming as he tries to find Mabel’s silhouette against the vortex of blues, pinks, yellows, and oranges circling behind her.

Mabel’s hand goes for the button.

“I wanted to say that you're gonna hear some bad things about me, and some of them are true, but trust me. Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!”

Something twists in Dipper’s gut. He pushes it down, his head swimming with anxiety so potent it nearly sends him spinning in a spiral of his own. “Mabel, what if he's lying? This thing could destroy the universe!” he yells. “Listen to your head!”

Lies find purchase on Stan’s tongue, as if it’s their home, leaving his mouth as quickly as thoughts form. “Look into my eyes, Mabel! You really think I'm a bad guy?”

It takes everything in Dipper not to pull bundles of brown locks from his head.

Dipper screams, “He's lying! Shut it down NOW!”

Mabel’s gaze seesaws between them, her eyes wide and… undecided, Dipper realizes with a jolt, dread moving to rest at the pit of his stomach.

“Mabel, please!”

Ten.

Nine.

Her hand pauses over the button, her eyes squeezed shut.

All Dipper can focus on is the countdown — Mabel’s hand frozen midair. It rings in his ears, rattles his body, shakes his disposition.

Tick tock, kid.

A loud, guttural scream tears its way out of Dipper’s throat as he winds himself back, propelling himself off the wall once more, shooting toward Mabel and the portal. 

She won’t do it. He knows she can’t. She’s too trusting. Too good.

“Kid, no!” Stan yells, and Dipper can hear him on his tail, floating behind him.

Dipper’s propulsion lands him above Mabel, floating high above the countdown button. He feels as Stan wraps his hand around his ankle, trying to pull him away from the portal and keep him from pressing the button. Electricity shoots against his back, leaving every hair on his head standing on end.

“Stop!” Dipper yells, kicking against Stan’s grip. “You’re gonna kill us all!”

Stan’s eyes widen, his grip tightening around Dipper’s sock. “Dipper, stop fighting! Get back!”

Three.

Two.

And in his last seconds, Dipper dives. He reaches his hand down, outstretched, pulling Stan up as his feet soar above his head.

He meets Mabel’s eyes as his fingers brush against the tip of the button. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

“Dipper!” Mabel cries.

One.

A sucking sound, a flashing, white light. Two large, warm arms wrapping around him, trying to pull him back and keep him in place simultaneously.

And then, a loss. Like a battle of tug-of-war, the loud, lightning-filled, distended goliath reaches out — winning the match.

Something large and unwieldy smacks him in the temple, the last discernible, identifiable sensation in his body as he feels himself ripping through time and space. Weird, Dipper thinks. He feels weightless.

All he sees is black.

Chapter Text

Consciousness doesn’t find Dipper gracefully. 

Instead, every nerve in Dipper’s body wakes up screaming, sending shocks of adrenaline coursing through his veins. When his eardrums recover from nearly being ruptured by the pressure of being sucked through the portal, he’s greeted by a sound that he’s mostly used to hearing in his nightmares.

He gets the sense that he might even be dreaming now, a thick haze wrapping his thoughts and brain in a heavy, tightened cocoon. 

Before he can even open his eyes, Dipper’s being yanked upward and dragged along, his half-numb legs trembling beneath him as he trips over his own feet. He can barely hear Stan over the echoed cackling all around him, sending the chill numbness up toward his chest. He feels a lot like he did the last time he heard this laugh in real life — petrified, exhausted, and weak.

He finally musters the strength to peel his eyes open, daring to survey their new surroundings for himself. 

Stan is beside him, whispering panicked expletives under his breath as he pulls them along, the top of his fez singed and blackened. His features are awash in a sickly, ever-changing array of colors that hang over their heads like shifting kaleidoscopes and carnival funhouse mirrors. 

Oxygen does not find Dipper easily either, a potent layer of ash and smoke lingering in the air, like the place had recently been set ablaze.

Dipper trips over his feet, stumbling as his vision doubles and somersaults, his brain throbbing in his skull. A hot, thick liquid trails down from the top of his head, not deterred by his eyebrow as it snakes down and pools in his right eye.

To Stan’s credit — not that Dipper’s particularly willing to give him any sort of credit at the moment — he catches on quickly, swooping an arm around Dipper’s waist and pulling him up onto his back. Dipper wastes no time, throwing his arms tight around Stan’s neck and squeezing his eyes shut, desperately trying to expel what he knows must be blood obscuring his vision.

“HOW CUTE!” shrieks a voice Dipper had hoped to never hear again. “IQ THINKS HE CAN TRY HIS SIX-FINGERED HAND AT KILLING ME, JUST FOR FEZ TO COME BUMBLING IN WITH MY SECOND FAVORITE PUPPET! 

“TALK ABOUT SERVED ON A SILVER PLATTER!”

Dipper flinches, hard, though he tries his best to hold onto his tightly wrapped position, almost as if he can somehow blend into Stan and disappear from this reality in the process. He’s acutely aware that his small, panic-stricken demeanor is a far cry from the presence he’s tried to maintain around Bill in the past.

There’s no journal this time. No incantations or laser eyes or kittens for fists. No Mabel to fight beside him. Just a terrified preteen, clinging onto the only ally he has at the moment — a lying, cheating, possibly murderous con artist.

But, Dipper doesn’t really have it in himself to feel embarrassed or weak right now. Because, just a minute ago, he was home, where earlier in the day the biggest threat was wacky board game hijinks or a water balloon to the face. Now, he’s up against Bill for the third time, weaponless, directionless, and fatally exposed.

Bill laughs again, and Dipper finally catches sight of him, perched atop a large, confusingly geometric maze — one that seems to go against all laws of physics. He squints, Bill’s triangular shape shrouded by the blood swirling in his irises. 

“IT’S LIKE IT’S MY LUCKY DAY OR SOMETHING! WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK, FIRST ONE TO BRING ME PINE TREE’S CORPSE GETS THEIR OWN POCKET DIMENSION?!”

Bill’s henchmen — a pink-horned cyclops, a massive-legged purple bread loaf, several floating eyeballs with bat wings, and a bipedal set of teeth — peel themselves off the ground, recovering from some sort of attack, it seems. Stan, for all his bravado, street smarts, and fighting experience, doesn’t engage with Bill or his men at all, beelining it straight toward the flickering beginnings of what looks like a wormhole in the distance.

Bill remains perched atop his fortress. “YOU KNOW, I NEVER THOUGHT YOU HAD IT IN YOU, FEZ! YOU PINES TWINS CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD, I’LL GIVE YOU THAT. BUT I THINK I MIGHT JUST LET FORDSY REBUILD THAT PORTAL TO BRING YOU BACK. AND WHEN HE DOES, THIS INTERDIMENSIONAL PACK OF NIGHTMARES MIGHT JUST PAY YOUR DIMENSION A VISIT!”

Stan’s arms wrap around Dipper’s legs, breaking into a near-sprint before he takes flight, the lack of reliable gravity sending them soaring through open space. The sensation is all too familiar, like Dipper might still be in the Mystery Shack, deep underground, swimming in perpetual weightlessness.

He almost expects to open his eyes and be greeted by the dim, dreary darkness of Stan’s basement, the portal standing tall before them.

“GO AHEAD! ESCAPE!” Bill screams, shattering Dipper’s fantasies immediately, his yellow bricks tinged with a rich, blood-red hue. “I’VE ALWAYS LOVED A GOOD CHASE!”

They plunge through the wormhole.

Stan narrowly avoids slamming into the ground as they’re thrown into a gravity-rich atmosphere, the wormhole’s force pulling back against them as his wing-tipped shoes crash into the dirt. 

The wormhole sputters closed behind them, thankfully, emitting several light-blue sparks as it fades from existence.

Stan keeps himself upright by a stroke of pure luck, huffing a sigh of relief and absently brushing his hand through his newly fez-less hair. Its absence doesn’t upset him as much as it should, being the only thing he has to remember his pa by. Besides, of course, the grimy suit he’s dawned for the past thirty years — the lapels now soaked in his great-nephew’s blood.

He whips around as Dipper’s grip around his neck suspiciously slackens, watching as the kid drops down from his back, trying and failing to gain his bearings on unsteady legs. The kid’s eyes are wide and unseeing, one of his white scleras swirling with blood, trailing down his cheek like tear tracks. The ground beneath them is rough terrain, nothing but dirt and rocks for what looks like miles.

Stan lowers himself to Dipper’s height, resting on one knee. He pulls Dipper in by the vest, gently, his eyes making a frenzied scan over him. He hasn’t gotten a chance to give the kid a full once-over since they crashed through the portal, though the sight of the kid swaying on his feet and bleeding all over himself moments ago is reason enough to be concerned.

“Dipper.” His head spins, their trip through the wormhole still weighing on his aged body, his joints creaking as he leans forward. “Dipper,” Stan repeats, breathless and panting. “Kid, are you okay?”

The tween shakes Stan off, gathering what seems like all of his available strength to push him back. It isn’t quite enough to move him, but Stan relents, sitting back on his heels. Dipper, for his part, goes stumbling backwards, barely avoiding losing his footing and sprawling onto the ground. 

“Don’t touch me! Don’t—”

A thick, distressed sob catches in his throat. “Bill?!” Dipper shrieks, his hands fisted in his hair. “You opened a portal to BILL?!”

The name sounds familiar, but Stan can’t seem to place where he’s heard it before. He assumes from context that it’s probably the name of that isosceles freak back there — seemingly hell-bent on murdering his great-nephew, of all people. But, he has no idea just what it wants. Or what situation Dipper’s gotten himself into where he’s on a first-name basis with an interdimensional, geometric space demon. 

Either way, the kid looks traumatized.

Stan shakes his head, his heart going a mile a minute. “No, kid! I don't even know what that thing was!”

It’s like Dipper can’t even hear him. “Are you— are you crazy?! Were you possessed?” 

Stan stands on creaky bones and steps forward. “Possessed?”

Dipper blanches, clearly having forced some mismatched, paranoid puzzle pieces to connect with each other. “Let me see your eyes, let me see—”

He cuts himself off short, barely able to stay upright as his knees tremble beneath him, a palm going to press against his forehead. He blinks hard and fast, his head wound beginning to bleed anew, scaling down between his panicked, furrowed brows.

Stan’s face goes white now too, haunted by the memory of Ford’s wild eyes searching him from behind a crack in the door, bursting out and demanding to inspect his eyes. He’s noticed the similarities between his brother and his great-nephew before — he’s no idiot — but he hasn’t seen those paranoid eyes staring back at him since the winter of 1982.

His heart sinks.

What has the kid gotten himself into this time?

The image he has of Dipper this morning is burned into his brain, the kid flashing a dopey smile toward the porch, his brown hair drenched with the sun’s golden rays — not his own blood. “Dipper, stop, you’re okay,” Stan says. “Let me help you.”

Dipper shakes his head, shaking as he inches back even more. “No. Don’t get any closer…”

Stan can’t watch anymore. He can hardly stand to watch the distrust grow in Dipper’s eyes, intensifying as time stretches further and further away from the events of the portal. He can hardly watch as the kid curls in on himself, desperate to protect himself from the one person that he should be able to trust to look after him.

Stan only wishes there was a better way to reveal the truth. 

“It was for my brother!”

Dipper freezes, his breath catching in his throat.

“What?” he croaks out, lowering his palm from his head.

Stan lets himself pace, though he tries not to take his eyes off the shell-shocked kid standing in front of him for too long.

“I have a brother… A twin brother. Stanford. He wrote that journal you’ve had your nose stuck in all summer. I messed up, thirty years ago, and he got sucked into that portal. He was working on it and researching the creatures of Gravity Falls for years. Cataloged the whole thing in those dumb books.

“And I’ve been trying to bring him back into our dimension ever since. This was never the plan, kid, please. You have to believe me.”

It’s quiet for a moment, the warm, thick wind howling in the distance.

“The journals?” Dipper repeats finally, his voice hollow.

When he doesn’t say anything else, brown eyes staring almost through him, Stan cocks his head. “Kid?”

Dipper sways again, and this time, he falls back onto the ground, jagged rocks digging into the thin skin of his palms.

Stan jolts forward. “Kid!”

He doesn’t move, staring at a focal point that’s somewhere between Stan and the broader horizon, his eyes glazed over with injury and shock.

“Dipper—” Stan starts, unsure how to proceed. He never considered himself much of a great caretaker under normal circumstances, let alone in a strange dimension with a kid teetering the edge of a complete mental break. He’s spent all summer trying to toughen the kid up, teach him how to fight back, how to stand up for himself.

But he hasn’t taught the kid how to fight back against this. It’s too much. It’s too much for Stan, even, who has both age and the fact that he’s been dealing with some variation of the supernatural for over three decades on his side.

Just when Stan thinks Dipper’s not going to say anything, and is probably so traumatized he’ll never say anything ever again, the kid speaks. “Let me see your eyes.”

“Okay,” Stan says, not fighting it anymore, his hands passively outstretched for what feels like the fiftieth time today. “Okay, kid. Look.”

He removes his glasses, meeting Dipper’s eyes. “Look all you want.”

Dipper’s pupils dart back and forth, scanning his eyes for something that Stan isn’t exactly privy to. He’s not sure how Dipper will react, especially at the results of some test that doesn’t seem to have any logical sense to it. 

To his surprise, Dipper’s expression softens, his shoulders dropping. The kid lets out a breathy sigh, his troubled eyes clearing some. “It’s really you?”

“Yeah,” Stan says with an absent nod. “It’s just me.”

Dipper nods back, though he winces at the sudden movement, his hand rushing to grasp at his head once more.

He takes Dipper’s ebbing anger and paranoia as an invitation to finally jump in and offer some help. “Let me see it, move your hand.”

Stan doesn’t expect Dipper’s goodwill toward him to extend far past this moment. It’s not lost on him that the kid quite literally has to rely on Stan’s support right now, regardless of any lingering resentment. Even so, the kid goes from a hundred to zero in seconds, becoming almost immediately trusting of him as he pulls his hand back, barely flinching at the slicked-red sight in front of him.

It’s a testament to how shitty he’s feeling, surely.

Stan recognizes how detached and disoriented Dipper looks, and how he is becoming rapidly more so, staring at his hand as if it's an object and not a part of him. Stan may not know a lot, but he knows this.

“Looks like my stupid brother knocked you with something real good on the way out.”

Stan brushes Dipper’s fringe away and winces. His birthmark is almost completely concealed with tacky, dark blood that continues to sluggishly seep down from his hairline.

“Brother,” Dipper parrots under his breath, meeting Stan’s chocolate brown eyes once more.

“Look, kid, I’m gonna tell you everything, but you’re not looking too hot and I don’t like being out in the open. You think you can trust me enough to get us somewhere safe until then?”

Dipper nods. That answer seemed to placate him, at least. 

“M’tired.”

“Yeah, figured as much.” Stan frowns. Stupid Sixer and his stupid futuristic gun.

He can’t even begin to think about the fact that the first time he saw his twin in over thirty years was in passing — the glimpse of a figure hefting a large interdimensional weapon over his shoulder, clad in black, bursting through the portal as Stan and Dipper were yanked through the other side. 

He can’t think of a lot of things. Not that. Not the guilt he feels whenever he looks at Dipper, knowing Mabel is all alone on the other side.

He focuses on his hands instead, making quick work of pulling off his string tie and wrapping it around Dipper’s head, applying pressure to the large, thin gash. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot, making them look a lot scarier than they are. Stan knows from experience. It’s the concussion he’s really worried about.

The kid’s eyes seem to have slipped shut at some point during his ministrations, fluttering open when Stan lightly pats him on the cheek.

“No sleeping yet, kid.”

“When?” Dipper asks, ever-so-eloquently.

“That depends,” Stan says, putting up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four.”

Stan tries not to panic. That won’t help anyone. “Nope, try again.”

Dipper squints, focusing. “Three?”

“What's your name?”

“Dipper,” he says. “Dipper Pines.”

He'll let the kid have that one. “When's your birthday?”

“August 31st, 1999.”

Stan pauses, thinking of a harder question to ask. Mostly, he just wants to make sure he’s still able to carry a conversation.

“What sweater was your sister wearing today?”

Dipper’s eyes fall to his lap, like he isn’t sure he’ll be able to answer. He’s quiet for a moment, and Stan can practically hear his tired brain working overtime to find the answer.

He perks up when he remembers. “The pink one. With the key.”

Stan nods, trying to picture it for himself, solidifying the memory in his head. But, as much as he tries to remember anything different, all he can see is her tears and the crestfallen look on her face as she debated pressing that button. He stays there for a moment, remembering her hesitation and the way she ever-so-slightly lifted her hand away from the button in the last few seconds. 

But, more than anything, he remembers her panicked yell as she called out for her twin, like a mirror image of Stan thirty years back, in what feels like another lifetime now.

When Stan comes back to reality, his memories are reflected back at him. Wetness underlines Dipper’s eyes, washing away dried blood and sending lined-tracks all the way down to his neck. He sniffles, seemingly unable to control the tears that continue to flow from his eyes.

He squeezes them shut. “I miss her,” he says, barely loud enough to be considered a whisper.

Stan softens. “I know.”

After a few moments of hand-muffled sobs, Dipper reins his emotions in, sniffling and steeling himself. He’s not sure what’s going on in the kid’s head, but Stan figures he better worry about the physical before they address the rest.

“Alright, Dip,” Stan says softly. “I’m just gonna check your eyes and then you can sleep. Promise.”

“My eyes?” Dipper asks, as if that’s somehow now an insane ask.

“Gotta check your pupils to make sure they’re still dilating. I don’t have a light so we’ll have to improvise. Just keep ‘em open for me, okay, kid?”

Dipper nods, and Stan places one hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun overhead.

He waits a few moments before pulling away, sighing with relief when both shrink evenly in response to this sun’s bright, white light.

“Alright, kid, you’ll live. You can sleep. Just until we get to where we're going.”

“Where’s that?” Dipper slurs.

“I’m not sure yet,” Stan admits. “But I don't want you to worry about that.”

Dipper squints. “Okay, um—”

“What’s your name?” Dipper asks, so expectant and innocent that Stan feels a surge of protection and love for him. It would be a startling, worrying question — especially given his current state — if not for the circumstances and the bombshell that Stan dropped on him today. 

He offers a small smile. “Stanley,” he says. “So, you can still call me Stan, if you want.”

Dipper flashes him a smile too, albeit a much goofier and concussed one. “Okay, Grunkle Stan.”

In his youth, Stan considered himself decently athletic. Not having much going for him gradewise meant that he had to focus on other endeavors. In fact, if you asked his old man, he might have even said it was the only thing Stan had going for him.

He had considered continuing boxing, then. Maybe he’d even get the chance to make it to the big leagues someday.

But, all hope of that was lost in a rush, his pa beating him a new one and throwing a haphazardly-filled duffel bag in his direction, kicking him to the curb in a matter of minutes. He didn't even get to apologize to Ford. Or explain himself.

None of that matters now, Stan thinks, trekking through the hilly mountainside of an unfamiliar dimension, focusing on the sound of Dipper’s soft, breathy inhalations in his ear. He’s not that man anymore. He’s certainly not athletic. Or young. It shows in the way he stumbles over the rocky cliff face, trying his best to climb downhill with an injured child hanging off his back. He curses the years he spent idle, forgoing his health to work on the portal all night or scam tourists all day. He curses the years he spent smoking, filling his lungs with cheap tobacco as he hid from Rico and his goons.

He curses himself for getting them in this situation in the first place. If he had just told the kids the truth from the beginning, or even earlier that day, Dipper never would've gone for the button. They would be together, as a family. Maybe a little rough around the edges, but they’d still be under the same roof.

He hasn’t stopped questioning every choice he’s made since this morning. What he could've done differently. What might have been out of his hands. 

More importantly, the choices he makes now.

For the first time in his life, Stan is completely and utterly lost. Even before, when he was living in his car — siphoning gas out of parked vehicles and running from the law — he at least could be sure that the only life he was ruining was his own. Now, he’s got Dipper’s whole life on his back, literally and figuratively, completely responsible for the way his future turns out.

He shakes his head, trying to push away that train of thought. Bullshit, he tries to reason with himself. If his nerdy, paranoid, nearly-emaciated brother could fend for himself out here for over three decades, Stan has nothing to worry about. He’s Stanley fucking Pines. He’s been to prison in three different countries, chewed himself out of the trunk of a car, outrun state and local law enforcement in nearly all 50 states, and killed a couple dozen zombies with his own two fists.

They’ll be fine. They have to be.

After walking for what feels like miles, lost in his own head, Stan finally reaches the top of the hill, a distant town coming into view. He doesn’t have much in the way of a plan, but at least shelter, water, and medical supplies could be within reach.

Stan approaches the town, surveying the area. It isn’t quite a bustling city, but the streets are lined with structures that stretch into the sky, bathed by a purple sunset. The air is cooler here, carrying an unfamiliar, metallic scent that sticks to the inside of his nostrils.

Stan’s seen a lot of crazy shit in Gravity Falls over the years, but he’s seen nothing that rivals the sight of an alien population roaming a busy street, each one a widely different species — varying dramatically in appearance and size.

Stan scouts his targets — or help, rather — picking his mark quickly. A tall, humanoid woman leans against the entrance of a store-front, typing something into an alien device. Her skin is a light purple, long blonde hair trailing down her back, decorated with gemmed braids. Mabel would love her, he thinks.

“Hey!” Stan calls, making his way over to her. She looks up quickly, eyes widening at the sight of Stan and Dipper. He’s sure they’re a sight for sore eyes right now.

“Hello, ma’am, I- uh, we’re not of this dimension,” he says, slightly out of his element. “But the kid’s hurt real bad and we’re looking for a place to stay for the night. Is there anywhere we could look—”

She interrupts quickly, breaking into a fast-talking, indecipherable alien language. Fuck. He doesn’t know why he thought that would work.

The alien woman cocks her head, coming to some sort of realization when Stan doesn’t respond. She reaches for the black, buckled satchel that crosses over her body, beginning to dig in it for something specific.

When she finds what she’s looking for, Stan stares at it, raising a single eyebrow as he examines the metallic, circular cuff clutched in her hands. When he doesn’t move, she extends it toward him, the device dangling from her outstretched palm.

“What’s this?” Stan says, finally reaching out.

She breaks into charades quickly, her darker, magenta hands beginning at the front of her neck and forming a clasping motion toward the back.

It doesn’t take long for Stan to catch her meaning. He carefully adjusts Dipper’s limp arms, making room to wrap the thing around his neck. He makes a mental note to thank Mabel whenever he sees her again for all those impromptu games of charades she forced on him.

He clasps the thing, finally, a shrill ring filling the silence as it powers on, flashing green from a button protruding from its side. Stan knows he’s being too trusting right now, putting this random device on his body, but it’s not like they have many other options.

“Can you understand me?” the woman asks in perfect English.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“That is a dimensional translator,” she clarifies before answering. “There’s a hostel down that way. But I'm willing to wager you have no units.”

Stan’s cheeks heat up, feeling oddly called out. It seems she’s got him figured out already. “That’d be correct, ma’am.”

The woman pockets the device she had been messing with earlier, completely redirecting her focus on the two of them. She seems to be weighing a decision, scanning Stan’s eyes with newfound intensity.

He doesn’t know what she finds there, but she flicks her gaze over to Dipper, her hairless brow bone furrowing as she regards him.

Finally, she speaks. “I have children of my own,” she says, decisively. “Come with me. You may stay the night in my home.”

“Wow, uh. That's—” Stan starts, completely bewildered at her hospitality. “Thank you. I’m Stan, and this is Dipper,” he says, adjusting his grip around the kid’s shins.

“I’m Ulma. Welcome to Dimension 37/-&.”

“It is not so odd for us to receive interdimensional travelers,” Ulma explains as they walk to what she calls a modest home in the industry district. “There are many weak spots in the fabric of this dimension. I cannot remember a day in the last forty cycles where there wasn't a wormhole pulling in a weary traveler or two.”

While he’s grateful that they’ve winded up in a dimension where their presence is not only accepted, but expected, Stan can’t help but worry about their predicament. If that demonic triangle meant what it said, then those freaks are going to be coming after them. It won’t do them any good to stay in such an easily accessible dimension.

Stan nods. “I can’t thank you enough. Really.” 

Ulma meets his eyes, her lips curving upward in a small, shy approximation of a smile. “Hardly anyone is actually from here. I still remember my first day in this dimension. I would have appreciated the hospitality. And I didn't have a child with me then.”

When they arrive, Ulma ushers them in, guiding them to a spare room. She beelines straight for a drawer, dragging out a medium-sized backpack.

“First aid, rations, and water,” she says, placing it in his hands. “For you and the child.”

Stan shakes his head. “I can’t accept this,” he says, mostly out of courtesy. Part of him screams at him to run, to take this act of generosity and flee before it ends up being too good to be true. Instead, he stands there in place, praying for his instincts to be wrong, just this once.

“It is not much,” she says. “Just enough to find yourselves.”

He nods again, not really sure what to say. “Thank you, Ulma.”

She nods back. “Goodnight, Stan.”

When she closes the door behind her, Stan stares at it in shock. He’s never known people to be good just for the hell of it. If it weren’t for the kid, he probably would’ve been halfway out the door by now.

But he isn’t alone. He moves toward the bed, laying Dipper down on one side of it. The kid doesn’t so much as stir, which fills him with an eerie heaviness that he needs to squash immediately. 

“Dipper, hey.” Stan shakes him gently, frowning when he doesn't show any immediate signs of waking up.

He shakes his shoulder with more force. “Kid.”

Finally, after ten impossibly long seconds, Dipper's eyes flutter open, landing on him. Stan releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Morning, Dip.”

Dipper groans, moving to sit up with little-to-no strength. Stan braces him as he does so, throwing one of Ulma’s throw pillows behind his back.

“What?” He looks around, glassy eyes scanning the walls. “Where are we?”

“Well, apparently Dimension 37 slash hyphen amper-something, I don’t know,” Stan says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “But we're in this alien lady’s house… if that's what you were wondering. You’ve been out for a few hours.”

Dipper shakes his head, unbelieving. “Am I dreaming?” His hands go to cover his face. 

“What is happening, Stan?” he asks, his voice small.

“How’re you feeling?”

The kid shrugs, dropping his hands. “Dizzy. Tired. My head hurts.”

“Yeah. A concussion will do that to you.”

Dipper pales. “That's… that’s bad, huh?”

“You tell me. It wouldn't even be your first this summer,” Stan says, remembering the way Dipper stumbled into the Mystery Shack after his sister’s more-than-eventful puppet show, sporting a nasty goose egg at the back of his head and several rows of puncture wounds that he had no real explanation for.

Dipper makes a pained face at that, his chest heaving as he takes in a deep, startled breath. “Why’d you have to bring that up?”

“You’ll be okay, kid,” he says, patting his knee. “But, now that you’re up, I need you to answer some questions for me. That… that thing knew you. It knew me and my brother.” He pauses, thinking. “What was that name it called you?”

“Pine Tree,” Dipper answers after a long beat, so quiet that Stan almost misses it.

He nods, looking down at his lap. He almost doesn’t want to ask but he has to know. He has to know exactly what they’re facing out here. “This Bill… what is it?”

“Nuh-uh,” Dipper says, gaining intensity despite the exhaustion swimming in his eyes. “I'm not telling you anything until you tell me everything. You have a brother? He wrote the journals? And now we’re in a different dimension? What—”

“Okay, okay,” Stan says, placing his hands on his shoulders, guiding him back down to rest against the pillows before he gets even more worked up than he already is. Stan honestly has no idea how the kid is still able to get this fired up. 

“Lay down, I'll tell you if you relax,” he says, grabbing for the first aid kit to start helping the kid look a little more alive.

Dipper obliges, settling back and watching Stan fumble for the right words.

Stan sighs. It’s going to be a long night. 

"It all started in New Jersey, in a little coastal town called Glass Shard Beach."

Chapter Text

Mabel doubles over on the floor, clutching Dipper’s hat close to her chest. She feels like she drank seventeen shots of Mabel Juice, her heart skipping several beats and threatening to leap out her chest. The sounds she can make out around her are fizzling in and out, though she’s aware of the constant, repetitive way that she sobs out Dipper’s name, almost as if speaking his name into existence will bring him back to her, like some incantation or secret code.

When the portal powers down, Mabel shakily rises, watching a shrouded figure emerge from the same device that took her twin and grunkle. The figure reaches toward the ground, a six-fingered hand splaying across the cover of one of the journals, moving to pocket it in his long overcoat.

The man removes his hood and facial covering, leaving Mabel gawking at a near exact copy of her Grunkle Stan — if not a tad more rugged, fit, and stylish.

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel tries anyway, inaudibly, her throat closing up as she begins to come to terms with their situation. Some deeper part of her knows that it can't be Stan — not even some freakish, parallel dimension version of him. The man in front of her now doesn't carry her grunkle's gruffness or mirror his secret soft side. He looks… reserved, and yet larger-than-life, barely sparing them more than a passing glance as he looks around, scoping out his surroundings with an air of familiarity.

Finally, he approaches her, lowering himself down onto one knee.

"Greetings, my name is Ford," the man says, extending his hand out toward her. His brow furrows as he looks between her and Soos. “Is this… Dimension 46'\?” he asks, unsure.

Mabel allows him to take the hand that’s not currently white-knuckling Dipper’s hat. Confusion temporarily dries out her eyes, already shed tears tacky against her flushed cheeks. “What? I don’t know! My name is Mabel Pines,” she says, letting go of his hand and fisting the lapels of his coat, yanking him forward. “My brother and grunkle were just sucked through that portal!"

The man — Ford, he had said — startles back, though it isn’t her outburst that rattles him. “Did you say Pines?”

Soos approaches from behind, hesitantly so, placing a strong, supportive hand on her shoulder. “Mabel, dog, I don’t know if—”

Mabel brushes Soos off, a sob slipping out as she begins to ramble. “Yes! My brother’s name is Dipper Pines and my grunkle’s name is Stanford Pines. They went through that… that thing! Can you help?! You look like him, my grunkle! And you have six fingers, like the cover of the journal Dipper’s been reading all summer! Does that mean that you’re—”

Ford grabs onto her shoulders, his expression so intense that it ushers fresh tears to her eyes. “Mabel, listen, this is gravely serious. Who restarted the portal?”

“My great-uncle! Stan!” Mabel cries. “Dipper, Soos, and I didn’t even know it existed until today! Dipper told me to shut it down… t-to press the button. But Grunkle Stan, he– he looked so sad, and I trusted him! He said he was doing it for our family and that… he was going to explain…”

Mabel would’ve fallen back down to her knees by now if not for Ford bracing her shoulders and keeping her upright. She sobs, choking on tears. “And you have to help because you’re the ‘Author of the Journals,’ right?! That means you have to know how to power it back on! 

“Right?! Tell me you can power it back on!”

Ford stays quiet, grimacing.

Mabel’s hands shoot toward her hair, Dipper’s hat still clutched in one hand, tugging at her unruly curls. “Was I wrong? Should I have pressed it?”

Soos takes one step forward, his eyes clouded with something pained. He looks to be coming close to something resembling… acceptance.

No.

Even this sci-fi rip-off of her Grunkle Stan pulls back, his no-nonsense expression melting away. “Mabel—”

She shrugs him off, too, beelining for the shutdown button.

She presses it. Again. And again. And—

“Mabel!” Soos says, and now he’s embracing her from behind, trying to guide her away from the button.

Mabel fights back, wrapping her arms around the pole and anchoring herself to the spot. She’ll go down kicking and screaming if she has to. It has to work. She has to bring them back. 

It’s all her fault. If she had just listened to Dipper and shut it down when he first asked, then he’d be here and none of this would be happening. And Grunkle Stan would be here too, even if he ended up hating her for it, and she wouldn't be alone with this stranger who wears his face.

Her hand continues to slam over the button, the light that had once illuminated it now dead and dull. Completely dormant.

Suddenly, the weathered, tense stranger is in front of her, placing his six-fingered hand atop hers, resting over the shutdown button. “Okay!” he says. “I’ll– I’ll restart the portal.”

Mabel pauses, her hand still clutching the device, tears running down her neck. 

“You will?”

“Yes. In time.” His eyes are wide, something vaguely sympathetic reflected in his expression. It’s gone as quick as it came. He removes his hand, stepping away from the button to face Soos, wordlessly declaring him Mabel’s de facto guardian.

“Now, is there anyone else who knows about this portal’s existence?”

Soos fidgets awkwardly, his eyes watery, now, too. “Uh, that depends on if those government guys are still out looking for Stan.”

“Government… Guys?” Ford curses under his breath.

“Yeah! They arrested Stan earlier this morning for stealing radioactive waste! Agents were searching the Shack all day for a ‘doomsday device,’” Mabel explains, wiping her eyes, reinvigorated by her slowly forming plan. 

She can practically feel the gears turning in her head. This man is the author of the journals. He’ll be able to restart that portal in no time. But, first, they’ll need to get rid of those agents.

Ford seems to lack Mabel’s foresight and imaginative mind. She’s already set on picturing all one-thousand ways they can get the law off their back, courtesy of hearing Stan’s less-than-legal stories and unabashed criminal advice all summer, while he still seems stuck on the news of Stan’s arrest. 

He palms his face, sighing heavily. “Dammit, Stanley.”

Mabel cocks her head. “Stanley? My grunkle’s name is Stanford.”

“That’s my name. My twin brother's name is Stanley. I can only assume he took my name and rebuilt my portal to bring me back into this dimension. What I can’t begin to understand is why he brought children down here while doing so. I was extremely clear about the danger of—”

“Twin brother?” Mabel interrupts, gawking.

That seems to get Ford’s attention. “Yes, I—” he pauses, thinking, finally considering Mabel’s relation to him.

They both seem to make the connection at the same time.

“Who did you say my brother is to you again?” he asks.

“My great-uncle,” she says. “Which I guess makes you also… that.” If only Dipper could see her now, standing in front of the author of the journals. Their grunkle.

“I have a niece?” Ford asks, his eyes brightening some.

Mabel shakes herself from her reverie. She can act all crazy and fangirl about it with Dipper when he’s back in this dimension. “You have a nephew, too! He went through that portal, remember?”

She gestures wildly toward the portal, several pieces loosening from their positions and falling to the ground, the whole structure creaking as metal beams destabilize. “Anyone?! Giant portal thing! Took my brother and grunkle! Remember that?!” Mabel shrieks, fisting her hands in her hair again, meeting Soos’ eyes like a rabid, feral cat, or gnome, or something. 

She feels like she might actually go crazy. Like, Old Man McGucket crazy, living in the dump and sucking face with raccoons all day. She can’t have this normal, banal conversation about family trees and whatnot. Not when Dipper and Grunkle Stan could be in trouble. When they could need her.

“I’m trying to understand the magnitude of the situation we’re in—”

“The magnitude is that your family is in another dimension! You were in there, where does it lead? Where are they right now?!”

Ford pales. He doesn’t answer for a long, uncomfortably quiet moment. “They’ll be fine…” he says. He doesn’t elaborate further.

Mabel wastes no time, rapid-firing all of her questions at him. “I have so many questions! Why did Grunkle Stan never tell us about you? Why did he change his name? What were you doing in that portal? Why is it even here?!”

“Slow down,” Ford says, holding out his hands. “Now, I’m sorry you kids got dragged into this, and I will tell you everything you want to know, but we have to find a way to keep those government agents from finding this portal. If it gets into the wrong hands…”

She can’t have that. If Ford is going to help her restart the portal, she has to make sure that no one is around to sabotage it. Mabel thinks, putting Dipper’s hat on her head to free her hands. She paces along the cement, red eyes scouring the ground.

She spots Dipper’s bag on the floor, contents spread across the cement. A glass bulb peeks out at her.

“What about the memory gun?!” Mabel says, running toward the bag. She lifts it up. “Maybe we can make them forget!”

Ford pads over to her, reaching for it. “Good thinking! I don't know how you got a hold of one of these, but this is perfect!” 

He rushes toward the control area, and Mabel is right on his tail, watching his every move.

Mabel peers into the binocular viewing glasses, watching as agents run toward the Shack’s entrance. “Ford! They’re right outside!”

“No matter,” Ford says, gesturing for her to step aside. She moves to his left, watching as he works. “I can just amplify the signal to a radio headset frequency…” 

He plugs multiple wires into the gun, watching as the agents run toward the Shack. “There! Now everyone PLUG YOUR EARS! GET DOWN! NOW!”

Soos, Mabel, and Ford crouch down, palms splayed over their ears as the memory gun’s airwaves reverberate through the atmosphere, the ground shaking beneath their feet.

She presses hard. She saw what the memory gun did to McGucket’s mind. She can’t risk the same happening to her. Or, worse, forgetting Dipper and Grunkle Stan entirely.

It feels like the gun’s shockwaves will never stop, that she’ll find herself crouched down in this small, tight ball for the rest of eternity. But, soon enough, Ford stands up, dusting off his coat as he makes his way toward the elevator.

She releases her panicked hold around her ears. “What are you doing?”

“Getting rid of them,” Ford says, propping his giant, futuristic gun up against the wall. “Stay down here. Guard the portal.”

And, just like that, he’s gone. The elevator doors shut and they’re bathed in perpetual darkness.

“Soos?”

His voice is distant and equally shell-shocked. “Yeah, Mabel?”

She pales, clawing for the trash can underneath the desk. “I think I’m gonna be sick—”

When Ford returns, Mabel ends up speaking first, explaining what she knows of Stan’s life. The Mystery Shack. Mr. Mystery. The fake IDs they found and an article reporting his death. His practically non-existent relationship with their extended family and his oldest brother, Shermie, her grandpa. Visiting him this summer and living in the Shack. Their adventures. The man that she knows, regardless of what those agents or even Ford have urged her to believe.

And after, Ford begins to pace the basement floor, watching as they stare up at him from their seats, mouths agape as he recounts his own life story. He rambles on, almost frantically so, as if he’s searching for some kind of explanation himself. Like saying it out loud will make this all make sense, somehow.

There are times where he skips over large portions of history and Mabel has to chime in with a question or two. Ford responds to them, absently, seamlessly fitting his answers in with the flow of his story, not spending much time focused on them. 

Mabel tries her best not to look at the portal as she listens. When it does capture her attention, she feels as if she’s staring into the jaws of a large beast, one that has swallowed her family whole. Even still, she’s almost expecting Dipper to come barreling out from the other side of it. She imagines he’d be a little disheveled, a little anxious, but would still run into her arms, chuckling with panicked relief.

Nothing a little sleep can’t fix.

She would bombard him with apologies and awkward sibling hugs and never, ever make fun of his stupid books or crazy conspiracies ever again.

And Stan would be tall and sturdy behind him. He’d look like he did the day he punched that dinosaur in the face, angry and determined and strong. He would call her pumpkin and explain his story, his side of things, and Mabel would forgive him in a heartbeat.

“Mabel,” Ford says a tad too sharply, snapping her back to reality, continuing his story when her gaze lands back on him.

He continues. Dream colleges. Broken science fair projects. One twin kicked to the curb. One off to college. Making it to Gravity Falls.

When Ford finishes, Soos and Mabel sport matching expressions of shock. Soos half-heartedly mutters something about a fanfic he’s been writing, wedging a rock into the sole of his shoe.

Mabel rises from her seat. She approaches shyly, feeling small in his large shadow. Muted anger hangs over him like an invisible cloak, sending the hairs on her arm standing on end.

Her voice is small when she speaks, but it’s as sturdy and resolved as ever. “How long were you gone?”

He doesn't answer, suddenly falling silent as he glares down at his shoes as if they're the most interesting thing in the world.

Mabel tries again. She’s not quiet this time. “How long?”

Ford looks up. “Thirty years.”

Mabel steps back, legs trembling beneath her. The edges of her vision darken, like she’s placed a vignette filter in front of her eyes. Her hearing swims too, muted and dull, and she wonders for a second if this is what dying feels like.

Until, two impossibly large hands wrap around her biceps, keeping her upright. The touch grounds her. 

“Hey, hey,” a voice says, guiding her to sit back down. “Mabel—”

Her vision clears a bit and she finds herself shooting daggers into the shoes of the man in front of her.

“I can’t wait thirty years,” she says at a whisper. She couldn’t even spend a night in her own room without Dipper this summer. 

“I’m not saying that,” Ford says, crouching down to her level, refusing to make direct eye contact. “That was Stan. I am the one who made the portal in the first place.”

Mabel sucks in a deep breath, most of her senses returning to her. “So?” she says. “What are you saying?”

“That it wouldn’t take thirty years,” he says, his brown eyes still avoiding hers. “Just give me a little bit of time to figure it out.”

“You promise?” she says, extending a pinky.

He extends his. “Promise.”

The moments after their pinkies intertwine are quiet. Mabel mainly tries to focus on her breathing, avoiding the portal’s gaze at all costs. Her pulse seems to have leveled out, but with the anxiety gone, a heaviness manifests, weighing her whole body down. She feels like she’s just run through the woods, or fought a bunch of gnomes — feeling the aching of muscles she didn’t even know she had.

The adrenaline that had once surged through her veins is gone. Her thoughts trickle like raindrops down a car window, sluggish and directionless. All she wants is to collapse in her bed, to finally let sleep take her, but it feels out of reach. Like Dipper. Like Grunkle Stan.

Ford ends up being the one to break the silence. “In the meantime, you should get some sleep. Both of you. I’ll stay down here and see what we’re dealing with, portal-wise.”

Mabel nods. She looks at the portal again, against her better judgment, finally working up the courage to ask what they all must be thinking. “What are we gonna tell my parents?”

Ford stills, his eyes pensive. He stands up from his crouched position. “We’ll… sort that out in the morning.”

Mabel stands too, grabbing onto Soos’ arm. The handyman places a hand on her back, there in case she needs him.

She faces Ford again, feeling hope surge in her chest for the first time today. This man is her grunkle. And the author of the journals. And he’s promised to help her. To bring their brothers back.

She lets go of Soos, running toward Ford, practically launching herself into his arms and trapping him in a bear hug.

The man makes a startled noise, stumbling backwards a few steps, barely having time to react before her arms come flying around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. For a second, it’s like he doesn’t know whether to push away or return the gesture, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air.

Finally, he relents, exhaling as he embraces her too, his arms wrapping around her.

“Thank you, Grunkle Ford.”

He has a stronger reaction to the name than he did to the hug, his chest stilling as he stops breathing entirely. To his credit, he recovers quickly, pulling back.

He nods, offering her a small smile.

Mabel returns it. She allows herself to slip back into her optimistic side, her brain already going three-thousand miles a minute. She adjusts Dipper’s hat to fit more snugly on her head.

She’s not going to sleep. Not tonight. Not anytime soon. She’ll whip up a couple batches of Mabel Juice. She’ll ask Soos to spend the night. She’ll call Wendy over. They’ll spend the night planning and preparing.

Operation Get Dipper and Stan Back is a go.

She’ll workshop the title later.

August 5,

Against all odds, I’m back.

I never thought in a thousand years that I would hold this book again. The weight of it in my hands and the smell of its parchment whisks my memory back to the tragic incident that forever changed my life.

Although I was not around to record it, 30 years ago I got into a fight with my brother and was knocked through my very own interdimensional portal into a universe beyond imagination.

The last three decades have been frightening, exciting, cruel, and strange, and as I find myself back in my own study, writing in my old journal, it is hard to shake the feeling that I have awoken from a bizarre 30-year dream, only to be plunged into a nightmare instead.

Upon my immediate return, I found myself in the presence of two strangers, a small, unruly-haired child and a being that appeared to resemble one of the hairless gopher people of the dimension Rodentus 7. I was shocked to discover that he is actually a human adult man, and the child, my great-niece. 

With my brother nowhere to be found, I had briefly considered the possibility that I had not returned to my home dimension at all, and that perhaps I had stumbled upon an alternate, parallel dimension mirroring my own reality. In the thick of my interdimensional adventures, I often wondered how I might react if Stanley and I ever reunited, face-to-face. Would my grudges and resentment overpower all logic and reason in the end? Would I punch him? Would we embrace?

The thought-experiment I had tortured myself with all those years proved itself nugatory. Mabel grabbed me by the coat, informing me that my brother (whom she is insistent on referring to as her “grunkle”) and her twin, Dipper, had been pulled into the portal moments before I had exited it. 

It turns out that despite my warnings and the possibility of global catastrophe, Stanley managed to re-activate the portal and bring me back to my home dimension. While his intentions might have been pure, he was just as careless bringing me back as he was knocking me through it in the first place, and he has ruined two more lives in doing so.

He destroyed the portal in the process, though I assured Mabel that it is not incapable of repair. S risked endangering the entire fabric of reality, sucked himself and his great-nephew through, and even found himself the target of a federal manhunt by the U.S. government (a logical progression from his days in the principal’s office).

If it weren’t for Fiddleford’s memory ray, I’d likely be writing from some secret government prison by now. Fortunately, as far as the government is concerned, our encounter never happened. (Trigger and Powers will likely get déjà vu the next time they hear the words “Gravity Falls,” and probably nothing more).

But, unfortunately, a more pressing and salient issue presents itself. My brother seems to have taken not only 30 years in my home dimension from me, but also my name, likeliness, and life. As such, it seems I am the sole party responsible (and liable) for the children. 

Despite my name being the one stolen, I am expected to conduct all future phone calls and interactions using my brother’s personality, voice, and demeanor. The last time I interacted with my brother, he was a grifting drifter, possibly criminally at large. Not eager to portray myself in such a manner, I emulated the Stanley that Mabel recounted to me as I spoke to the twins’ parents. She described my responsibility-averse brother as some family man who made time for fishing trips and weekly phone calls home in-between scamming tourists at what he dubbed “The Mystery Shack,” a crude mockery of my lab and my life’s work. I often forget that Stanley’s lies aren’t apparent to all. Only to those who can spot his many tells.

The phone call to Mabel and Dipper’s parents went about as well as can be expected. 

I am in no way accustomed to dealing with children, but I am especially inexperienced in communicating with parents. The children’s parents were distraught. I remained quiet as I listened to their criticisms, cries, and curses—ones that I could not begin to refute. This is my brother’s doing, but as far as the world is concerned, I am to blame. They have every right to speak those words against Stanley. My only objection is that I stand as the target.

Though, I must take some blame. It was, of course, my deal with Him and my trusting nature that led to the portal’s construction to begin with. My blindy-placed faith in S came over me during those fretful days, when I was at my wits end, eager to have an ally amidst Bill’s threats. In the end, I stand alone, my resolve to defeat Bill all-consuming.

Regardless, Mabel and I crafted a suitable story that should absolve us of criminal fault or suspicion. The local law enforcement of Gravity Falls is, of course, familiar with children, adults, and animals going missing in the unpredictable, unexplainable wilderness, but Mabel’s parents are not as easily assuaged. To strengthen our case, ‘Dipper’ and Mabel’s closest confidants have joined in to corroborate our story—Soos, Shack handyman and my brother’s footstool, and Wendy Corduroy, direct descendant of Boyish Dan. A web was quickly weaved, a story of how Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper went exploring the woods—the boy disappearing under their noses as they were distracted by other pursuits.

A search broke out shortly after our report. I haven’t seen the denizens of Gravity Falls turn up in such large numbers since the last dreaded Pioneer Day. We scoured every square inch of forest for the boy. At the end of it all, days later, I was so exhausted from days of searching and my 30 years of interdimensional travel that I began to nearly expect to find the boy myself, exploring a ravine or scaling a large, spindly pine tree. Regrettably, and obviously-so, no such discoveries were made.

Evidently, Mabel is expected to return to her hometown of Piedmont, California at once. I assured her that I will continue to work on the portal endlessly until she is permitted to return to Gravity Falls. She will discover the truth in time, but at least I can give her time to adjust to her new reality before breaking the news. I cannot and will not let Him into this domain. Not even for Stanley.

I plan on disassembling the portal as soon as Mabel leaves my lab. I know what must be done, though it is my deepest regret that children — my own flesh and blood — have been roped into this. 

Ultimately, the blame is on Stanley S.

I fear the sayings are true. A drowning man will always drag those closest to him down with him.

Chapter Text

“You need to stop for a minute?”

Dipper looks up. His vision swims at the jerkiness of the movement.

He’s been staring at the muddy, patchy ground for the better part of an hour. He doesn’t know where he’s been mentally, but it hasn’t been here, walking beside Stan in this gloomy, desolate forest. His thoughts are scattered like a code he can’t decipher, so he just walks, letting the static in his head run its course. 

He’s felt this way ever since they were sucked through the portal. Like he fell into a hole he can’t seem to claw his way out of. 

Stan says he’s concussed. But he just feels tired.

“No,” Dipper says, meeting Stan’s eyes for all of one second before turning to glare at the dirt again, scanning the ground for sinkholes or branches or camouflaged, venomous creatures lurking in the thick undergrowth. “I want to keep going.”

He doesn't catch the expression Stan makes in response, but he knows what it looks like. He’s seen it flickering in his direction over the past couple of days, the lines by his uncle’s eyes deepening the hollower Dipper’s voice becomes. He thinks he should feel some sort of way about that — at least more than he presently feels — but it’s been hard to muster anything other than blind panic these past forty-eight hours or so.

They’ve been trekking through this unfamiliar wilderness for a while, stopping only to sleep in shifts or share the steadily dwindling rations in Ulma’s pack. They haven't spoken much, besides the occasional ‘how are you feeling’ or half-hearted goodnight, to which Dipper usually responds with a ‘fine’ or stifled grunt, respectively. Stan tried, at first, but now he seems content just to let Dipper tread along in silence.

It feels like it’s been days, but Dipper can’t really be sure. He’s the one who’s been doing a majority of the sleeping, and the night stretches on and on in this dimension, the sun never once peering down at them through the leafy canopy above their heads.

The portion of the sky they can see through the trees is a deep cobalt, swirling with rich violets and oranges, and speckled with what Dipper thinks might be quadruple the number of stars he’s usually used to seeing. And he thought Gravity Falls had an unfathomable number of visible stars, at least compared to Piedmont, with its heavy light pollution and smoggy skies.

It’s reminiscent of one of Mabel’s drawings or half-finished art projects — like she flung a drenched paintbrush at a watercolor canvas. It’s foreign, but if he squints, it almost looks like home.

His admiration for the stars ends the moment he smacks into the backside of Stan, the old man stopping in his tracks for no apparent reason. The impact sends Dipper stumbling back, twigs snapping beneath his soiled sneakers and a potent, white-hot annoyance settling in his chest, surprising even himself with its intensity. 

Before he can let out a complaint, his head pounding anew, Stan throws out an arm, quietly urging him to stay still.

Dipper obeys.

He doesn’t know why he’s still listening to Stan. He doesn't know why he’s entertaining any of this when it’s clear that Stan himself has no idea what to do or where to turn. He doesn’t know whether it’s fear, injury, hopelessness, or some leftover, childish instinct to look to adults for guidance that keeps him tethered to Stan like a lost, beaten puppy.

Stan’s silhouette stands out against the forest backdrop, his posture rigid and tense as his eyes scan the tree line. Dipper does the same, watching as the trees sway and creak with the wind, reaching out for the stars with their long, spindly, finger-like branches.

“You hear that?” Stan asks. His eyes are hard with a seriousness that Dipper rarely sees Stan hold. The man refuses to blink as he watches the bushes for movement.

Annoyance rises in his chest again. “No?” Dipper bites back, having enough sense to keep his voice below a whisper. They haven't encountered a single living creature since they left Ulma’s dimension through another wormhole, and he wants to keep it that way.

The mere thought sends panic clawing its way up his throat, settling somewhere in his chest. The more he looks, the more he begins to make out shadows running in his peripherals or scurrying by his feet. Camouflaging themselves in the night. 

Dipper holds his breath, his chest sputtering with the sudden lack of air. Is the atmosphere thinner here? 

And, now that he’s thinking about it, what are the odds that both of the dimensions they’ve traveled to have had the perfect conditions for human life? The right oxygen levels? A magnetic field strong enough to protect them from solar radiation? 

It’s more than likely that it’s too good to be true, and they’re hours or minutes or even seconds away from this planet’s atmosphere giving out and sucking them out into the cold, unforgiving void of deep space.

And, as much as he hates to admit that Stan’s right, he is concussed. What if his brain is swelling and bleeding internally in his skull and he’s going to die here, right here in this overgrown forest underneath a sky brimming with stars — too many stars, why are there so many stars?

His lungs feel like they might be filling with water instead of air. That’s something that can happen, right? He read somewhere once that a person’s lungs can spontaneously fill with fluid if they travel to a place with a much higher elevation than they’re used to. And, actually, the more he thinks about it, what even is the elevation change when entering an entirely different dimension? If traveling somewhere too high up on Earth is enough to kill an otherwise healthy person, what could happen to them? What are the effects of being ripped out of your home dimension and flung across the cosmos?

He’s only twelve, dammit. He’s only twelve.

His body forces an automatic breath, and he chokes it back, his chest finally rising. Stan doesn't seem to notice his affliction, still making a concerted effort to stare down this bush, his arm still outstretched.

Dipper takes a second to clear his head and focus on his breathing. He swallows back his rising dread, trying to ignore the tingling in his fingertips and the pressure building in his chest. He can’t panic. Not now. Not when there are things in this forest that will kill him long before any random, interdimensional induced medical emergency gets the chance.

He does his best to push it all back — to detach himself from it. It turns into something hot and angry instead.

Stan seems nearly finished fighting his own internal battle. He lowers his arm, looking back at Dipper for a moment before continuing forward as if nothing had happened.

Dipper doesn’t know why that bothers him. Only that it does. 

He ignores the urge to snap, finally gathering the strength to speak. “Are you sure we're going the right way?”

“There's not really a way, kid.”

“So, what, we just keep walking until another wormhole opens up?”

“You got any better ideas?”

Dipper bites his tongue, trying to keep his composure. Stan seems to be adamant on making that nearly impossible to do. “Why didn't we just stay in Ulma's dimension? It at least had a sun.”

He misses her, oddly — as much as he’s able to miss a stranger anyhow. Dipper didn’t even interact with her much, staring stony faced as she threw a few odd chirps and clicks in his direction, Stan responding to them with ease, seemingly unperturbed by her choppy, twangy alien language thanks to that dog collar around his neck.

In his exhausted, disoriented state, he was mesmerized by her eccentric style and calming, motherly presence — like some dreamlike, fictitious combination of his mom and Mabel in the body of one person. Even when Dipper was seeing double, half-convinced that they were in a dimension where things just tend to do that, he felt an indescribable comfort being near her. 

It hits him suddenly how much he misses his mom. He hasn’t thought about her in a while.

“How many times are you gonna ask that?” Fallen leaves crunch beneath Stan’s battered, heeled leather shoes. “It isn’t safe to stick in one spot, kid. Take it from someone whose full-time job was running from the law for ten years.”

Dipper squints, his brow furrowing. “We aren’t running from the law.”

“No,” he agrees, glancing down at Dipper. “We’re running from an evil triangle and its pack of hellspawn.”

Dipper stops in his tracks, dirt kicking up by his feet. 

“You think we’re running from Bill?”

Stan stops too. “Uh, yeah? You heard what it said.” 

He shakes his head, his mouth agape. He knows he hasn’t been forthright about Bill — has actually made it a point to avoid any and all Bill-talk over the course of the past forty-eight-ish hours — but Stan’s obliviousness still manages to throw him for a loop.

“You feelin' alright, Dip?” Stan asks at his sudden silence, his voice returning to that uncharacteristic softness that leaves Dipper unsure whether he should feel patronized or comforted.

“We can’t run from Bill, Stan.”

That seems to confuse his uncle even more. “Sure we can. We just have to keep moving.”

“No, I mean—” Dipper groans, trying to find the words. “We aren’t running from Bill because he can’t chase us. Not physically at least. He doesn’t have a vessel. Out here, he only exists in the Mindscape.”

“A vessel? Mindscape?” Stan repeats, dumbfounded. “Now you’re just saying words.”

Dipper cringes. “He’s not…”

He tries again, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat now. “He’s not a corporeal being. He’s a dream demon. If he wants to interact with our world he has to possess someone. Otherwise he can only exist in our minds.”

Stan levels him with a look he can’t quite make out in the ever-present darkness. He catches a glint of anger in the man’s eyes, his forehead creasing. “He seemed pretty real back there.”

It isn’t lost on Dipper how fast Stan catches on — immediately changing the way he refers to Bill the second Dipper refers to him as a he and personifies him. Credit where credit is due, Stan is a lot more perceptive than he looks. He guesses years and years as a con man and criminal must do that to a person.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s like… his home dimension or something, I don’t know,” Dipper says, feeling wildly less articulate than normal, though he’d say he has a pretty solid excuse. “I don’t think he can leave. I mean, I really, really hope not—”

“Dipper,” Stan interrupts, his tone suddenly very cautious.

“How do you know this?”

Dipper avoids his gaze, suddenly feeling very small. He looks down at his feet, smushing the tip of his sneaker deeper into the mud. “I read about him. In your brother's journal.”

“Kid, I read that thing front to back. There's nothing in it about that thing beyond a few cryptic, crossed-out pages.”

Dipper shrugs. He hopes against hope that Stan can’t see the sweat beginning to bead up on his forehead. “I read between the lines, I guess.”

“He knew you.”

“Stop,” Dipper begs, his right hand finding his left arm with practiced ease, rubbing at a series of puncture marks that have just barely begun to heal, fading from a muted purple to a stark white that pops out against his summer tan.

“I’m not doing this back and forth thing with you anymore, Dipper. I want an answer. He knew me. He knew Ford. He tried to get those things to kill you…” Stan trails off, pinching the bridge of his nose. They've had this conversation ten different ways by now. 

“Did he… did he hurt you? Your sister?”

Dipper squeezes his eyes shut. His earlier panic finds him again, and this time, it feels like he might as well be on Mount Everest, twenty-nine-thousand-and-something feet high, shuddering and gasping for breath as his lungs fill with fluid, stripping his breath away.

Somewhere in there, amidst the flurry of fear, he thinks of Mabel, her body crashing down toward the stage from the catwalk. He thinks of water towers and that dumb, stupid note that kept him up for nights on end after he read it.

He can’t talk about this right now. He won’t.

Dipper pleads. He’ll beg for the rest of his life if he has to. “Stan, please…”

His words fall on deaf ears. Stan looks at him, his eyes narrowing as he seems to come to his own conclusion. For a moment, Dipper thinks he won’t continue, looking conflicted as he stares down at him. 

But Stan has let Dipper avoid the topic for a few days now, and if Dipper knows anything about him, it's that Stan despises being left in the dark — especially when it comes to the twins. The look on his face says it all. Dipper knows Stan won’t be able to let it go. Not this time.

“Who did he possess?”

Hearing it spoken aloud, by someone other than him or Mabel, is enough to steal Dipper’s hearing entirely, the world seeming to tilt as Stan’s voice warbles in and out, continuing to throw out questions that Dipper can't hear over his own pounding heartbeat. 

Hearing it makes it more real somehow. More debilitating.

And, sure, Stan is perceptive, he’s recently discovered, but Dipper wasn’t expecting that. He must’ve been easier to read than he thought he was. Must have been more obvious. He doesn’t know why, but that makes him feel exposed. Out of control. Transparent.

Welcome to the Mindscape, kid! Without a vessel to possess, you're basically a ghost!

He can't breathe. He can't see. He feels a cackle building in his throat as his vision blurs at the edges. He half-expects Bill to take over again, just for the sick, twistedness of it all. Because, honestly, after everything that’s happened in the past few days, it wouldn't even be all that shocking—

He’s dying. His hands are drenched in sweat and he’s trembling, he thinks. Yeah, he’s definitely shaking. But the entire world might as well be shaking too, rolling under his feet. 

He’s going to be sick.

He needs to move, to run, but his legs are locked in place, like roots, planting him to the forest floor. A Pine Tree.

Eenie, meenie, miney… YOU.

Everything falls away for a little while. His limbs feel heavy and non-existent at the same time. He’s distantly aware of a pressure on his shoulders and a hand — his own hand — clutching at his chest, bundled around the fabric of his shirt. His head pounds as he squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to remember the way it felt to be forcibly removed from his body, his soul tearing and stretching and burning and wrong, wrong, wrong — just to be thrown into the frigid attic air, trapped in the hollowness of the Mindscape. A ghost. 

The weight on his shoulders travels to his upper back, and suddenly he’s staring at the ground, his chest pressed against his thighs and his head dangling somewhere in-between his knees. He doesn't know how he ended up on the ground, and that makes him spiral even more, sending him closer and closer to the feeling of powerlessness he felt that day. He’s out of control.

His vision is still dark, worsened too by the never-ending night, but his hearing comes back in waves, a gruff, firm voice beating back against his panic like small ripples against the side of a boat.

“I've got you, kid. Just breathe,” he hears Stan say.

“I- I can’t,” he chokes out, his voice sounding broken and animalistic in his own ears. Like it doesn't belong to him. His body doesn't belong to him.

“Yes, you can. Look at me, Dipper.”

Dipper meets his eyes, each blink an attempt to right his vision as it darkens and spins. Stan’s eyes are steely, though they lack the anger from before — softer, but still determined. 

Protective, Dipper thinks, the word coming to him at random.

“You said it yourself,” Stan says. “He can't hurt us out here.”

Dipper shakes his head. “I don't know that. I don't know anything. He tricked me before, I– What if he comes back? What if he–”

“Dipper, when did this happen?”

“I don't know. A week ago? Two?” Everything has blurred together since then. The still-present ache in his wrist, the nightmares, that time he threw up when he saw one of Mabel’s puppets peeking out at him from inside her bag. Running from animatronics. Exposing a cult. Battling in a futuristic, time gauntlet. Trying and failing and ultimately succeeding at exorcizing a Category Ten ghost. The portal. 

“It was during Mabel’s sock opera. I–” he breaks eye contact, his head falling back down in-between his knees. He squeezes his eyes shut, his heart fluttering and skipping beats.

“Grunkle Stan, I think I’m dying,” he croaks out miserably.

A sturdy hand rests on his back again. “You aren't dying, kid, you’re having a panic attack,” Stan tells him plainly. “You gotta match my breaths, okay?”

He doesn’t bother moving. He’s going to die. “I'm gonna pass out.”

“No you're not,” Stan says, and his voice sounds kind of frantic. Worried, even.

“Look at me.” He guides Dipper to sit up, and it’s then that he realizes that he’s sitting in front of a large tree, his back gently pressing into its bark. He lets his head rest against it as he meets Stan’s eyes, his great-uncle kneeling in front of him.

“Good,” Stan says. “See how I’m breathing, kid? Nice and slow, in through your nose.”

He can’t. The air won’t come.

Stan’s eyes don’t stray from Dipper’s wide, panicked ones. "It’s okay. This’ll pass, kid. Just try. Just a little slower." 

He stays close, without crowding. "In... hold it... and out. That's it, Dip. Again."

The air comes in shaky through his nose, his chest tight, but it’s something. In. Hold. Out. The world isn’t shrinking as fast. 

Stan’s hand has migrated over to his shoulder, a quiet anchor. 

"Good. That’s good. Keep going.”

Dipper nods, trying again. In. Hold. Out. The pounding in his chest starts to ease up, feeling less and less like his heart is about to explode.

When most of his senses have returned to him, and he’s not still gasping for air like a fish out of water, he tries to push away the embarrassment that’s beginning to settle in his stomach. Because Stan isn’t looking at him like he’s disappointed or annoyed or bothered. He looks more worried than Dipper has ever, ever seen him.

“You with me, Dip?”

Dipper nods, still being intentional with the breaths he draws in. “Yeah,” he says. His voice is a little broken, but it sounds more like himself than it has all day. 

Stan reaches in the pack, pulling out a large canteen of water. Dipper takes it, trying not to look so eager. They're almost out.

For a moment, he allows himself to soak up the relief that washes over him — having revealed the truth without having to explicitly say it. He’s caged this secret up for weeks, avoiding it as it’s gnawed and lashed at him, and now it’s finally out in the open. Off his chest.

Kind of, anyway. He’ll let Stan piece the rest together himself until he can get the words out.

When he’s done drinking, a few stray drops dribble down his chin, an apology slipping out of his mouth before he can rethink it. “Sorry.”

Stan shakes his head, shifting in his kneeled position, his joints clearly uncomfortable. “Don't be.” He smiles, an unsure thing. “That's the most I've been able to get out of you in days.”

Against his better judgment, Dipper laughs.

Stan’s smile brightens for a moment, before it disappears altogether. “I'm the one that should be sorry, kid,” Stan says. “I shouldn't have pushed.”

Dipper shakes his head, the tree cold and firm against the back of his sore head. “Not your fault. I should be over it. So much has happened since then.”

Stan looks like he wants to contest that, but decides against it, probably not eager to rehash the specifics of whatever just made Dipper spiral and hyperventilate on the floor of a dark, spooky forest.

“Eh, we can't choose what affects us, kid,” he says instead, with a wave of a hand, as if they’re talking about being a little scared of a thunderstorm and not a trillion-year-old eldritch horror that has haunted his dreams, invaded his uncle’s mind, and took his body on a masochistic joyride. But what Stan doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

“All we can do is move forward, and let other people help us through it. Sound good, kid?”

Dipper nods. “Yeah,” he says, exhaustion and that spacey, checked-out feeling pulling at him again. “Sure.”

Stan’s gaze lingers on him a second longer before he stands up, dusting off his grimy, dirty suit with a few half-hearted swipes. He extends a hand down toward Dipper.

“Alright, Dip, let's keep going,” he says. “You’re right. We needa find some place with a sun.”

Dipper doesn’t sleep for long, this time. He wakes up slowly, feeling warm under the weight of his great-uncle’s arm. His vest is gone, shoved in their pack and replaced instead with a heavier, thicker jacket, thanks to Ulma — one last parting gift before they thanked her and went on their way. 

Before he’s awake enough to remember how conflicted his feelings surrounding Stan are at the moment, Dipper feels safe. Just for a little while. 

When he finally works up the nerve to crack open his eyes, he wishes he hadn’t. Dipper shields them quickly, groaning at the sudden flash-bang that hits his pupils, sending them constricting into tiny pinpoints.

“Morning, Dipper.”

Dipper groans again, managing to peek out at his surroundings through his fingers. “Is that the sun?”

“Sure is, kid. Looks like it found us,” Stan says. “Planet’s got about a sixty-hour night, at least. No telling how long before we got here.”

He drops his hand, his eyes adjusting to the bright light, finally able to see the forest for what it is. It seems to surround them in all directions, tall trees stretching into the pinkish-orange sky, branches and twigs outstretched toward the rising sun, and—

“There’s two,” Dipper says, dumbfounded, squinting as he makes out two twin suns, one seemingly much smaller, or rather, further away, than the other.

Stan squints, peering up at the sky from behind his glasses. “Huh, would you look at that,” he says, absently, rising to his feet. “Well, looks like we’ve got a few days of sunlight. We shouldn’t waste it.”

Though Dipper was practically begging for daylight a few hours ago, and would’ve done anything to get it, he pictures the next three or four days of rampant sunlight and feels the wisps of exasperation furling like a rising smoke. “Yeah, 's'not like that’ll get old fast.”

“Yeesh, kid. This concussion’s making you irritable.”

Dipper scowls up at him.

“What?” Stan says, looking genuinely chagrined. “It was just a joke, Dipper.”

He shakes his head, peeling the thick, winter jacket off of his shoulders, sweat already beginning to trickle down his temple. He shoves it angrily into the pack. “Whatever, Stan. Let's just go.”

His great-uncle remains quiet as they start back down the path, though he reaches out and silently takes the bag from Dipper, settling it around his shoulders instead. In the light, Dipper can make out the silver, thick collar still clasped around Stan’s neck — their only real means at communicating out here. That annoys him too, to be the one without. It’s a reminder of how little agency he has out here. He can’t get home, he can’t leave Stan’s side, and now he doesn’t even really have his own voice to use out in the multiverse.

It’s Stan that breaks him from his thoughts, after a near solid half-hour of self-pity.

“I wasn’t bein’ serious, Dip. You’ve got every right to be frustrated.”

Dipper wishes he didn’t say anything at all. It’s easier to be upset with Stan when he doesn’t know whether or not he cares about Dipper’s feelings. But the care is right there, written all over his face, and it leaves Dipper feeling raw, like the tendrils of some deeper, unidentified feeling are rushing up to beat out all his anger and distrust. And he doesn't want to let it.

He clings on to his anger like a lifeline. “This is just some joke to you.”

“You know that’s not true, kid,” Stan says, sounding miserable.

Something breaks in Dipper’s voice, too. “I don't know what's true with you anymore.”

“You can ask me anything. No more secrets. No more lies. I promise.”

Dipper shakes his head, his eyes finding purchase on the ground once more, though it looks much different in the daylight. The shadows he mistook for predators last night, waiting for one misplaced step to strike, are no longer threats in the daylight. They’re just rocks. 

“I don't know how you expect me to believe that.”

“Try me, kid. Ask me anything.”

Dipper looks over in his direction, and Stan’s eyes are trained on him, soft and expectant and… guilty? His stomach twists.

He squashes it down. This is the same man that stole radioactive waste. Lied to him all summer. Built a doomsday portal straight to Bill’s dimension. And, yeah, maybe all of that was to save his twin brother, his other great-uncle who Dipper has just happened to have never heard about from any of his other family members, and maybe, yeah, he really wants to know more about that, about the author, but—

Mabel. Mabel’s alone, and—

“I don't want to. I don't want to talk.”

He looks away, locking his eyes on the horizon instead. He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing back the hot tears that threaten to pour out.

“Okay, kid.” Stan says. And that’s that.

They continue to walk in silence.

More time passes, only he can’t be sure how long. He lets his mind drift off again, not really settling on any train of thought. Every so often, his brain jolts back to awareness, like it’d been tuned into the wrong radio station, blasting nothing but interference, just to suddenly tune in to something decipherable.

And it’s Mabel. It’s always, always Mabel that he comes back to.

But he can’t think about that. He decides to look over at Stan instead, surveying the man walking beside him. In the daylight, it's hard to miss the rings under his grunkle’s eyes, nearly rivaling Dipper’s own.

He hears the question slip past his lips before he can decide on whether to ask it. “Have you slept at all?”

He's only asking out of safety. Dipper’s not too proud to admit that he’s not exactly strong enough to protect himself out here all alone. Sure, he’s toughened up since June, and maybe he’s even become more athletic — what with constantly running through the woods, fighting shapeshifters, throwing himself off cliffs to fight giant robots, and Stan forcing him to wrangle bats and chop wood all summer — but he’s still just a scrawny twelve-year-old, no matter how hard he tries to forget.

If Stan doesn’t take care of himself, then neither of them are safe. That’s why. He doesn't care. He doesn't. 

“Sure I have,” Stan says with a slight jolt at the sudden question. He doesn’t meet his eyes this time.

“No you haven't. You're lying. Again.”

Stan turns to glare at him. “Fine, you win, I haven't slept much. I'm not going to leave you defenseless, Dipper.”

“I can defend myself,” Dipper argues, and that much is true. He might not be able to make it out here all by himself, but he knows a thing or two about defending himself from monsters and the supernatural and whatever else might be a threat to them out here. He can take care of himself while Stan sleeps. He’s not entirely useless.

“Not right now, you can't,” Stan says. “I know you don't have a mirror on you, Dip, but you've seen better days.”

Dipper’s anger comes crashing to a halt, a protest dying on his lips. He would’ve expected Stan to disagree with him completely. But he didn’t say never. Just not right now. Is that just another lie, or does his great-uncle actually think he’s more than the prepubescent wimp everyone makes him out to be?

He thinks of Stan, closing the hole in his chest before he went back to face Bill. When push comes to shove, I'm actually proud of him.

Dipper squints, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face. “Yeah? You should see yourself.”

“Ha-ha,” Stan says, his lips curling some, too. “You’re probably right, though. What I’d do for a shower and change of clothes right about now.” He looks down at himself and cringes at his dirt and blood-stained suit.

Dipper takes a second to check in with himself for a change. He looks down, finally noticing the tattered holes and large, brownish-red stains splattered down his shirt. His hands are caked in dirt, a black-hue beneath his fingernails that leaves him itching to get clean.

He can't see his face, but he can feel the bruising, and he knows that if he ran one of his muddy hands through his hair he’d feel the crusted blood hiding beneath, just barely scabbing over.

He looks back up, coming back to his original point. “It’s daylight now. You should get a few hours in while it lasts."

Stan shakes his head. “There's something we need to get first.”

“Get? It's not like there's any stores out here. We don't even know if this dimension has sentient life.”

“It does. I saw a clearing of cut trees earlier,” Stan says, jabbing a thumb backward. “Some sort of tracks, too, going this direction. Must’ve been machinery.”

So, that’s where Stan’s been leading them. He thought the old man seemed more sure of his directions.

Dipper scans the ground himself, and there they are, off toward the tree line. Undetectable to somebody not paying attention.

“We can follow them 'n'see if they take us to civilization or something,” Stan continues.

Dipper looks back, gawking.

“Hey, don't give me that look. I've got a little brain up here, too. I'm a Pines, ain’t I?” Stan says. “'Cept they call thems street smarts. You and my brother are more the book-ish types.”

Dipper doesn’t really want to give him an in to start talking about things again — as if everything is normal — but he’d be lying if he said his interest wasn’t piqued.

“You're talking about him now?”

“Well, to be fair, kid, you haven't really asked,” he says with a slight chuckle.

“You don't really want to get me started.”

All traces of humor wash away from his face. “I do, Dipper. I want you to talk to me.”

Dipper sobers up too. He wants that, too, deep down, but it feels completely out of reach. It’s hard to imagine a future where he forgives Stan for this. If he even has a future. 

“Yeah, well. I don't know if I'm ready for that.”

He turns back toward the tracks, seeing them stretch off into the distance, and sighs.

The future, whatever that may be, seems far away. He wishes he could skip ahead.

Stan Pines has never been more angry in his entire life.

He squashes down the urge to do something rash, like diving head first into the next wormhole he sees and marching right back to that infernal cesspit that triangular bastard calls a home. If he ever sees that demon again, he’ll make him suffer for what he’s done to his family. What he’s done to Dipper.

The kid wasn’t exactly clear about the specifics, but Stan’s not too bad at reading people — his family especially. He knew from the second the kid started fidgeting in his spot that he’d had more of a run-in with that thing than he’d originally let on. 

That alone would have been enough for Stan to know something was up. Now take that and the fact that the kid mentioned possession at least twice in the span of two days — and Stan had himself an answer. Only, he wasn’t sure of who, exactly, but Dipper went and answered that for him by hyperventilating and nearly crashing face first into the forest floor.

The rest is easy to figure out. Mabel’s sock opera, the kid said, and Stan’s kicking himself for not figuring it out sooner. He had wanted to assume, as he watched Mabel bash her favorite person’s head in, that their ‘argument’ on stage was just the result of shoddy script writing and a little less practiced fight choreography than he would’ve liked to see. Later, when the kid was all bandaged up and collapsed from exhaustion, Stan had time to piece the day together, and… none of it made any sense.

But every time he asked, Dipper just fed him some bullshit about being sleep deprived, which was true, he’ll give him that. Stan couldn’t even get it out of Mabel, her face dropping into something oddly guilty every time it was brought up. She hid it as best as she could, claiming that it was all a part of the show. That she didn’t know her own strength.

Stan was content to write the whole thing off as a careless accident on both of the kids’ parts. Anything to expel the notion that they might take after him and Ford more than he thought.

But, it turns out the kid was tricked, somehow, and that demon got a hold of him. Hurt him, badly, clearly leaving behind some mental scars with the rest. And it's killing Stan not to grab Dipper by the shoulders and force him to tell him every last detail, down to the exact verbiage of whatever Bill's trick or deal must of been. Stan's conned enough people to know that the fine print has a way of biting people in the ass.

He sneaks a glance at the kid now, worry building in his chest. He seems fine. Ish. As fine as he can be, anyway. He’s not currently bleeding out or having a severe panic attack, so there’s that, a step in the right direction.

Stan wants to wrap him in bubble wrap. To keep him safe. He’s failed him left and right since they got here — hell, since the start of the summer, even. But he can do better now. He has to.

First step is getting more supplies. He doesn’t want to worry him, but at the rate they’re going, they’ll be dead in days. The calorie dense bars Ulma gave them might last them a couple of weeks, but they have enough water for the rest of the day, maybe, if they conserve. In all his years surviving on his own, he has learned that a person can go three days without water. It was something he gave a lot of thought while he was chewing his way out of Rico’s trunk, his mouth filling with blood.

He shudders, trying not to imagine that in any real detail. He’s not gonna let Dipper die like that, succumbing to dehydration and organ failure.

Stan adjusts the pack on his back, sweat soaking through the fabric. It doesn’t help any that they’re both burning up beneath the twin suns. He pulls at his undershirt, one of the buttons flying off, burying itself deep in the undergrowth. Dipper is fairing slightly better, he notices, his shirt and shorts a lot more forgiving in this heat than Stan’s tux. Still, his bangs stick to his forehead, his birthmark peeking out behind damp hairs.

Eventually, after hours, they approach a clearing, the forest around them thinning out, the trees giving way to wide, open space. At the center of it sits a log house, not too dissimilar from the Mystery Shack. It would be a welcoming sight if not for the circumstances.

He stops, placing a hand on Dipper's shoulder to stop him too, the kid too lost in his thoughts to realize Stan’s stopped moving. His eyes scan the place, taking in the details. 

It’s too quiet. No birds, critters, or voices — human or not. The forest feels like it’s holding its breath. 

The tracks they’ve been following seem to veer away from the house, descending deeper into the woods, probably toward a town of some sort. But this will have to do for now. They could keep following those tracks, but who knows when they’ll reach civilization again.

No. They need to do this first.

Stan continues forward.

The kid pulls him back.

“Stan,” Dipper hisses. “What if someone’s in there?”

Stan tugs away, gently, removing himself from Dipper’s grip. He spins around to face him.

“Kid, I’m gonna level with you. We need supplies. We won't last the week without.”

Dipper doesn’t give much of a reaction to that. He’s a smart kid, he probably came to that conclusion himself. “What if someone catches us? They’ll kill us. They’ll—”

“I spent close to a decade without a dollar to my name. How do you think I got by? Asking nicely?” Stan reasons. “They won't see me. You stay here. Hide and keep watch.”

“Stan—” Dipper starts, his eyes widening in response to what he's being asked.

He doesn’t like their situation either, but it’s what’s necessary. “You know, you’re going to have to do whatever you can to survive out here, Dipper. The things you were taught back home aren’t always gonna help you.” 

Stan pokes him in the center of the chest. “I’m going to get you home, kid. But you have to fight now. No matter what happens, you’ve gotta look after yourself. Leave me if you have to.”

Dipper shrugs off his touch, stepping back. “Why are you telling me this? I’m not leaving you.”

Stan sighs, shutting his eyes. “Dipper...”

“No. Stop,” he says, his resolve strong. “Don't say that.”

The voice crack isn’t much, but it’s there, too. “Don’t ever say that.”

He wants to fight the kid on it, to tell him that he needs to hear it, that it might become necessary someday. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but if they’re going to be out here long he needs to come to terms with their situation. Stan will die for him — he’s prepared himself for it — but he can’t protect him if Dipper won't let him.

But he can't say that now. The look on Dipper’s face is nothing short of heartbreaking, and it'd take a soul of pure evil to tell the kid that he might have to survive out here alone someday. He had to get it out there, but he won't press the issue now.

“Okay, okay,” Stan starts, holding up his hands in surrender. “We get home together. But I mean it. You’ve got some fire in you, Dip, you’re just going to have to work on releasing it from time to time.”

Dipper nods. That, it seems, he can accept. “We get home together,” he repeats, if just to hear himself say it.

“Yeah, kid, it's okay,” Stan says.

He steps forward. “So, I’m coming with you.”

Stan sighs again, running a palm down his face. The kid’s harder to manage than he thought. He gets his brains from Ford, but that stubbornness is all Stan. “You’ll wait right outside, kid, final offer. I still want you keeping watch. If someone comes, whistle or yell or something and we’ll make a break for it.”

Dipper’s eyes harden. “You sure?”

“Positive. Look, see those tracks?” he asks, pointing towards what seems to be the house’s driveway. He’s not sure what the architecture usually looks like in this dimension, but those were definitely left by a vehicle. “Someone just left. I’ll get in and get out. Real quick.”

Dipper’s still apprehensive, but he eventually nods in agreement, trailing close behind Stan. When they reach the house, Stan ushers him aside, the kid choosing to wait behind a large pine tree.

Stan steps forward, up the porch, and to the door — surprised to find it unlocked. When he pushes it open, he’s greeted by a dim, warm light, flickering over a modest living room. A mug of dark liquid sits on the table by the door, half-drunk. 

The house is not abandoned, clearly, an air conditioning unit still rattling in the window.

It’s a miracle how quick Stan catches sight of something useful to them — a utility box, left scattered on the floor of the living area. For a logger working out in the wilderness, it’s not so unusual. It reminds Stan of something he might find in Dan Corduroy’s house. 

He crouches down, picking out a coiled length of rope, some matches, and a small flashlight — checking it quickly before tossing it in the pack. He spots a small, black switchblade and immediately pockets the weapon.

He moves into the kitchen next, beelining it toward the sink. Stan hits the tap and nearly cries out at the clear, liquid gold that pours out of the faucet. He fumbles for the large canteen in his bag, unscrewing the lid and refilling the canister as quickly as possible, his hands trembling slightly. He just wants to get back to the kid, now, his own words weighing on him. They’ve got enough for now, and there’s no telling when the owner of this house is getting back.

As soon as he thinks it, as if the universe is set on pulling some cruel cosmic joke, he makes out a muffled yelp outside, branches repeatedly tip-tapping at the cabin’s windows, nearly drowning out the noise. 

It’s so quiet, Stan’s almost sure he’s imagined it. But he figures there’s no mistaking the footfalls that make their way toward the front door.

Without warning, in a split second, the door swings open, crashing against the wall, a broad-shouldered man filling the doorway. He looks almost human, maybe, if not for the unnatural tealness of his eyes, like his irises were crafted with sea glass.

None of that matters to Stan, his eyes focused on one thing and one thing only. The kid clutched in his grasp.

The man steps forward, holding a futuristic gun up to the back of Dipper’s head, his great-nephew squirming and kicking back against his strong grip. Stan’s heart falls to the tips of his winged shoes.

With his other hand, the man holds up a device of some sort, displaying a familiar face on its screen.

A wanted poster. With Ford’s face on it.

“This you?”

Chapter Text

This isn’t Stan’s first time being left tied up in the backseat of a truck, but it’s definitely Dipper’s.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Dipper struggles to free his hands from behind his back, tied together with a thick, industrial rope. For all his repeated failures to break free, Stan has to feel proud of the little squirt for continuing to try.

Stan’s hands are similarly bound, though he couldn’t help but notice the way their captor yanked his extra tight, ignoring his protests that the man he’s after has six fingers on each hand, not his measly five. 

But, it doesn’t work. And of course it doesn’t — because why would it? The world never did seem to work in Stan’s favor, not even in predictable, expected ways. He went his entire life being compared to Ford and othered from him by every adult in their lives. It was always, ‘Stan’s the screw-up’ or ‘Stan’s the stupid twin,’ and for all Stan did or tried to do he would never, ever escape Ford’s shadow. He’d always be the outcast. The mistake.

Even in appearance, Stan was constantly reminded of their differences. They were identical twins, similar in all the ways that mattered, but all anyone could ever talk about was that genetic mutation. Ford was relentlessly bullied in the schoolyard, of course, they both were, but to others, Ford was a marvel. He had his abnormally high IQ and his six fingers and his fancy college schools and all Stan had was nothing.

But out here no one gives a shit, it seems. Can’t even care to notice. The irony practically rears back and strikes him across the face.

Stan makes no move to struggle against his ties just yet, his focus lying on the front seat and rearview mirror, where he’s been taking in every twitch, erratic glance, and tap of the man’s grimy fingers against the steering wheel.

He’s nervous. Clearly hasn’t had much experience in the bounty-collecting department.

“Hey,” Stan says, trying to sound intimidating despite being tied up like a Christmas ham. He thinks he does a good enough job of commandeering attention given the circumstances, his gruff, tobacco-abused voice bouncing off the walls of the truck.

Dipper stares at him with wide brown eyes — like a wild, hunted deer — clearly pleading for some sort of explanation. The poor kid hasn’t been able to understand a word out of that asshole’s mouth, only able to piece together what’s happening through violence. A cold gun against the back of his head. His hands forcibly bound as they were herded like cattle into this vehicle.

Stan’s still seeing red, every last nerve in his body positively seething. He's a force to be reckoned with if anyone or anything dares lay a hand on one of the kids on a normal day, but today he really thinks he might kill a man. If he so much as looks in Dipper’s direction again—

Stan bites his tongue. He’s spent most of his life acting on impulse, landing him in some…sticky situations along the way. He may gain the upper hand here yet, but only if he can keep his composure. He’ll save all that pent up anger and adrenaline for when he’s actually able to use it to his advantage. And that’ll be the second he’s able to get a fist free, probably.

He tries to reason again, “You’ve got the wrong guy. You’re looking for my twin. Not me.”

“What’s a twin?” the man asks as he sends it over a pothole, all color bleeding from his fists with the tightness of his grip around the wheel. It’s the first time he’s actually engaged with anything Stan’s said since he barged into the cabin, his gun flush against Dipper’s skull.

Stan’s brain rattles as the tires hit gravel. His jaw goes tense.

“What’s a tw—” He cuts himself off before he can finish that sentence, shaking his head as he considers it. Do they not have twins in this goddamn dimension? “Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s my brother. We look alike.” 

He cringes only slightly at his language. He’s made it a point to censor himself in front of the kids this summer, but by now, after everything they’ve experienced, Stan seriously doubts a few swears will bother Dipper much. And if they do, he better get over it quick. There’ll be a lot more where that came from.

“Sure.” The man scoffs, picking up speed. He chews at his lip, rolling the bloodied skin between his teeth, the dried liquid a rich blue-green hue. “Now, even if that were true, there’s a bounty on one of your heads, and I need the credits. Don’t matter to me if you’re him or some freak, clone version. I’m sure they’ll take you.”

Stan raises his upper thigh to push at his pocket, trying to dislodge its contents for the umpteenth time. “So what’s the kid got to do with this then?”

Dipper jumps slightly at the mention, his posture going ramrod straight as he shifts his attention away from his bonds and back on the man in the front seat. He stares down the rearview mirror for a moment, his eyes narrowing, almost challenging a reaction.

But when their captor meets Dipper’s eyes, the kid backs down immediately, his eyes settling somewhere near Stan’s lap instead. It doesn’t take him long to notice Stan’s discreet efforts, the handle of a black object just barely beginning to peek out of his right pants pocket.

Dipper looks away quickly, not wanting to draw attention to it. Good kid.

“What’s he have to do with it?” the man repeats, unbelieving, his eyes on the road. “You don’t think I saw the both of you running wild on my land this entire night rotation? My surveillance system alerted me of trespassers and located your bounty after it got a good scan of your face. Large sum, by the way. Whaddya do?”

Stan clenches his teeth. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, right, your twin,” he says, completely butchering the pronunciation again, his translator having no comparable word for it in his own native language. “Was it your twin I caught robbing me in broad daylight? Or was it you two?”

Stan refuses to respond, purposely making a big show of looking away from the front seat and glaring idly out the window. The car falls silent, and Dipper shifts anxiously in his seat, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he’s noticed Stan’s efforts, abandoning his own attempts at freeing his hands altogether.

Stan focuses on his pocket, tensing his upper thigh muscles to dislodge the blade. With one final push, the knife's handle becomes exposed, digging into his upper thigh. He pushes his bound hands to the side, pressed tight against his back, and reaches out with his thumb to fiddle with the handle, mentally sending off a thank you to the universe or fate or whatever stroke of dumb luck led him to pocket the switchblade back at the house rather than throw it in their pack, which now sits in the front seat alongside the man’s gun.

The rough, taut rope scrapes against Stan’s skin as he moves, slowly, trying not to draw attention. Pins and needles shoot all the way up to the tips of his fingers, his hands throbbing with every minuscule movement he makes. He figures he better hurry before he loses circulation entirely.

“The kid normally this quiet?” the man asks abruptly, startling Stan so badly he just barely avoids losing what little hold he currently has on the switchblade. In the rearview mirror, he watches the man squint, flicking his chin upward. “Or just after you beat ‘im?”

Stan draws back. His voice goes dangerously low. “What’d you just say?”

The man shrugs, drumming his fingers on the wheel again, though more cockily than anxiously this time, like he’s caught Stan in a lie. “Just what I’m seeing,” he says. “Your twin do that too?”

Stan takes hold of the blade at the same time he jolts forward, welcoming the distraction as he lets the blade settle in his hands, hidden from view. He doesn’t have to fake his rage, bristling at the implication that he’s anything like his father — that he’d dare lay a hand on the only family he has left. On one of the kids.

“Listen here, you son of a—”

The seatbelt locks, and Stan makes another show of pushing himself back against the cushioned seat in a huff. At the man’s smug, gotcha expression, Stan lets his fuming, quiet anger distract from the way he flicks the switchblade open, beginning to saw at the rope. He decides not to mention that actually, yes, his twin was the one who hurt Dipper, albeit unintentionally. It doesn’t make a difference, anyway. The guilt still gnaws at Stan’s insides. 

He finds that it doesn’t really matter how the kid got hurt. Just that he is.

“I didn’t hurt him,” Stan says after a beat, angling his body to better obscure his movement. “Kid can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Doesn’t have a translator yet.”

He continues to saw, holding back winces when the blade slips and slices at his skin every time the truck lurches or turns. He wouldn’t normally choose to handle a knife so hastily, but Stan would really rather avoid a trip to the multiversal slammer. He can’t imagine it’s much better than Colombian prison.

Stan feels the rope begin to fray under the pressure. He nearly loses his grip again when the man swerves, avoiding a dip in the road. “We’re not from here. ‘Cause we’re not multiverse travelers, and I’m not my brother.”

“So you’ve said.”

With one last swift swipe, the rope finally parts, his hands springing free. He stifles a sigh of relief, tightening his hold on the blade, still keeping his hands out of sight. He doesn’t know what moment he’s waiting for exactly, but he knows the timing matters. It always does with these kinds of things. 

But, when their captor’s eyes flick back up to the rearview mirror, settling on Dipper again, Stan thinks to hell with the timing.

He’s not aware of much besides his blind rage when he releases himself from his seatbelt and practically throws himself toward the center console, but he’s sure he hears a sharp gasp from the backseat and an even sharper one up front. With his hands free, Stan places the switchblade somewhere it can really help them get free, right against the thin skin at the center of their captor's throat.

The truck swerves, the putrid smell of burning rubber filling the air as tires screech against rough asphalt and gravel, skidding to a complete halt in the middle of the empty road.

Stan feels like he might’ve been thrown years into the past, way before the portal and his new life as Mr. Mystery — back to an era he’d really rather forget. He thinks of stripping for drugs in Tijuana and cowering in a beat-down motel with nothing but a baseball bat to defend himself with and ponders the shit show that is his life.

“Put it in park,” Stan growls out. The man scrambles to comply, throwing the gearshift forward.

He tries not to feel too shocked at how easily the old persona washes over him, like slipping his hand into a snug, perfectly molded glove — a shield he hasn’t needed to wield in years.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Stan says cooly, pressing the blade deeper into the thin skin at the center of the man’s neck, not quite drawing blood yet. Still, the pressure behind it seems to be intimidating enough, the man coughing and choking against Stan’s hold. With his other free hand, he reaches over for the man’s gun, gripping it tight as he places it at the back of the man’s neck, letting him feel Dipper’s earlier terror for himself. 

“You’re going to get out of the car and kneel on the road with your hands behind your head. If you move, even an inch, I promise you’ll regret it.”

The man gulps, his Adam’s apple grazing against the knife, drawing several beads of turquoise blood to the surface, coagulating under the blade. “Yeah, right, like I’m letting you take my truck,” he says, punctuated with a nervous laugh.

“Don’t think you’re in the position to make that call, pal,” Stan says, laughing in return, though it’s twinged with a much darker undertone. When the man squirms in protest, Stan puts more force behind his hold, a thin trail of blood snaking down from the base of his throat.

“¿Quieres morir?” Stan laughs again.

Their captor, for all his earlier self-assuredness, is reduced to a trembling mess in the end, barely concealing his fear with tough words. “Whatever,” he spits, the faint, blue undertone of his pale skin tinged a deeper hue — from distress or lack of air, Stan’s not sure. 

“That bounty ain’t worth the hassle anyway,” he finishes, the quiver in his voice betraying the coolness he’s trying to portray.

“Good answer,” Stan says, pushing at the back of the man’s neck with the barrel of the gun, ushering him toward the door. The humanoid man reaches for the handle slowly, opening the door as Stan follows close behind, hopping over the center console with an agility he didn't know he still possessed, tossing the switchblade onto the passenger seat and grasping the futuristic gun with both hands.

He keeps the gun trained on the man as he follows him out of the car, removing the barrel from the back of his head only to allow him to walk the short distance to the side of the road, lowering himself on both knees and looking on with an unbelieving expression, like he can’t believe that he’s been bested by an old man and an injured kid. Stan almost can’t blame him. That’s gotta be one hell of an ego hit.

Stan keeps his grip on the gun, not once shifting his attention away from the man, even in his cowardice state. He settles himself into the driver’s seat, still pointing the weapon in his direction.

He puts his foot on the brake before reaching for the gearshift with one of his hands, pulling it back into drive. 

“Hey,” Stan calls out. The man looks up from the gravel, his mouth puckered in a screwed-up frown. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. No one fucks with the Pines family and gets away with it.”

He doesn’t wait for a response as he lifts his foot off the brake and slams down on the accelerator, peeling out, the driver’s door slamming shut as he deposits the gun on the passenger seat along with the rest of their newly acquired stuff.

When the man is far enough behind them, no more than a speck in the rearview mirror, Stan sighs in relief, running a palm down his face as he slows down his speed, only slightly. “Jesus, fu—”

A small voice picks up from the backseat. “Stan?”

Stan nearly jumps out of his skin. He knew, logically, that the kid was still back there, but he has had little time to think of anything other than what’s been necessary for their immediate survival.

He spares him a glance through the mirror. Dipper’s hands are still bound, his face reflecting a pallor that had to have been born out of sheer terror. “Hold on, kid. I’ll help you get free in a minute. Just wanna get the heck out of here first.”

When he doesn't respond, or make any indication that he’s heard Stan at all, Stan focuses his gaze on the mirror once more, kicking himself again for getting them into another life-threatening situation so soon.

“You okay, Dip?” he asks, cringing.

He braces himself for the kid to start yelling, or crying, even, but to Stan’s surprise, Dipper starts… laughing?

Stan scratches the back of his neck, his other hand gripping the wheel. He’s out of his element again, but he’s more or less expecting that to be the norm from here on out. “Uh, didn’t really expect you to find this funny, kid.”

Dipper shakes his head, tears beginning to form at the corners of his eyes, nearly doubled over in his seat with laughter. “Oh, hah, no, it's…” 

He bursts into fitful giggles again. 

“It's not funny. It’s not—”

As his laughter fully overtakes him, his face flushes pink, like he’s not quite able to breathe through it. It’s disconcerting, Stan thinks, and it nearly makes him want to check the kid’s pupils again, for reasons not immediately clear to the man.

“Dipper?”

He chokes on a few more suspiciously pained sounding laughs before he’s finally able to get out, “Your twin’s a wanted criminal too?” 

Stan bites back his surprise. He shrugs, flicking his eyes toward the road and back to the mirror every few seconds or so. It’s almost dizzying. “I guess so,” he says. “But just so we're clear, I’m not a wanted criminal. Y’can't be wanted if they think you're dead.”

The kid’s laughter doesn’t quite stop, but it subsides a bit, teetering off into short snickers that decorate the pauses in-between his words. “How are you managing to make this worse?”

“I always do somehow,” Stan says, a hollow sort of feeling settling in his gut as the joke falls flat, silence settling between them, Dipper’s muffled, nervous laughter dying off.

Stan shifts in his seat. Despite what Ford would likely say, he has no problem taking responsibility for his actions. He knows that he’s the only one to blame here.

But he can’t seem to live with Dipper thinking that.

“But, hey, I’m not completely at fault this time. That guy thought I was Ford. What was I supposed to do?” he tries.

Dipper’s face hardens, the earlier pallor of his cheeks taking on the subtle pink twinge of frustration instead. “I told you I didn’t want to split up. You insisted, and I got used as a hostage.”

So that’s the part he’s mad about. “That’s… that’s fair, kid,” Stan says. He meets Dipper’s eyes in the mirror and sighs. “I am sorry. You know that right?”

Dipper shrugs, an awkward motion with his hands tied behind his back, and turns away.

Stan takes on their captor's earlier nervous tick, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “Look,” he says, “can I level with you?”

The kid doesn’t budge at first, watching the trees rush by as he chews on his lip. But, it doesn't take him long to give in, and after several painfully silent seconds, he relents, offering a small nod.

He feels grateful for it. “I don’t…” 

Stan pauses, looking back toward the road, unable to keep looking at the hurt swimming in his nephew’s averted eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Dipper. I got it wrong this time. Clearly. And I can’t promise I won’t get it wrong a billion more times, either. But… I’m trying.”

Stan meets Dipper’s eyes. “I’m trying to get us home. And I’m not going to stop trying.”

Another pregnant pause passes before Dipper says, “You got us into that mess. We could have died, Stan.”

Stan nods. That’s fair, too, he guesses.

“But, you also got us out of it,” Dipper continues, taking Stan by surprise, “so…thanks.”

Stan smiles. “No problem, kid.”

Their mutual olive branches hang over their heads for a moment longer, and Stan wonders if he should offer another one, maybe explain himself and his thought processes further, or even offer the kid more of an explanation, more of his backstory—

“You think you can pull over now? I can't feel my fingers.”

“Oh, shi—” Stan scrambles to pull off to the side. “Yeah, yeah, hold on.”

He parks the truck on the shoulder, reaching for the switchblade on the passenger seat and making quick work of hopping out of the truck and heading for the left-side door. When he gets there, he throws the door open, meeting Dipper face-to-face for the first real time since they were in the woods.

“Hey,” Stan offers, lamely.

Dipper smiles, though it's more out of confusion than anything. “Hi?”

Stan unbuckles his seatbelt. “Turn around.”

Dipper shifts in his seat, letting Stan get at the rope wrapping around his wrists. He’s a lot gentler than he was with his own ties, taking care to not accidentally cut the kid with the blade. Stan notices the slight bruising forming around his wrists and focuses on getting him free as quickly as possible.

The rope frays in no time, springing open and falling uselessly to the sides. Stan pulls it all the way off, releasing Dipper’s hands completely.

The kid pulls his hands to the front, rubbing his wrists and rolling his shoulder blades. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Dipper flexes his fingers in front of him, twisting his wrists for good measure, too. He eyes Stan’s hands. “You're bleeding,” he says.

Stan looks down. Sure enough, there are several not-so-small cuts running down the length of his forearm, bleeding too sluggishly for him to care, really. “Yeah. You try sawing a rope in a moving vehicle with your hands tied behind your back.”

Dipper cocks a brow. “How did you do that?”

There’s not really an answer that will satisfy the kid, so he just tells the truth, as boring as it sounds coming out of his mouth. “Got some experience, I guess.”

Dipper’s hands fall back down to his lap. “You were going to kill that guy,” he says evenly.

Stan flinches. Dipper always manages to shock him with how freely he speaks his mind. “No, I wasn't. I was just threatenin’ him.”

“Yeah. Threatening his life.”

“I did not—” Stan’s immediate reflex is to lie, before he realizes just how smart the kid sitting in front of him really is. “How’d you understand that? They start teaching you Spanish in school already?”

Dipper shakes his head. “I figured it out. Morir, you said. It sounds like it originates from the Latin root word mort, which means death.”

Stan blinks. “You know Latin?”

“Some.”

He feels like he’s been thrown forty-six years in the past, listening to Ford ramble on and on about dead languages and cryptids and anomalies. It makes his head spin.

He shakes off the memories. Dipper’s not Ford. Hell, he’s a lot like Stan, in his own way. Stubborn and tough and a little shit when he wants to be.

“Alright, kid,” Stan says, shoving the collapsed knife back into his pocket. “You wanna hop up front?”

“Really?” Dipper’s eyes widen, and Stan feels a weird, nearly painful longing for his adolescence, back when things like sitting in the front seat were still able to draw light and joy into his heart.

“Eh.” Stan waves his hand. “You’re nearly thirteen anyway.” He backs up, holding the door open for Dipper to get out. “Hurry, before I change my mind.”

The kid hops out, and Stan walks back to the driver’s seat, letting his weary bones settle as he slumps back into his seat. He straightens up quickly enough, not wanting Dipper to see just how exhausted he is.

How long has it been since he slept anyway? Nearly three Earth days now, right? Besides the few, short-lived times where he felt himself drift off while taking watch, only to jolt awake again, on edge. He should probably feel more tired than he is, but he guesses adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

“Where to now?” Dipper asks, a slight tremble in his voice. He fiddles with his seatbelt.

“Civilization, hopefully,” Stan says. “And once we get there we better ditch this hunk of junk before it’s reported stolen.”

Dipper shifts in his seat. “Won’t they be after us anyway? I mean, if you were recognized from Ford’s wanted poster out here in the middle of nowhere, where can we go that’s safe?”

Unfortunately, the kid makes a good point. Sixer really made a name for himself out here. “Yeah, well, there’s ways around that, kid.”

“Like?”

“I can get a disguise. Something to cover my face, maybe,” he says. “We’ll lay low in the meantime.”

Dipper huffs. “That’s your big plan?”

“What else is there to do?” Stan says, his tone level despite the attitude in Dipper’s. He’s not eager to jump into another argument so soon. 

“I dunno, maybe he’s only wanted in this dimension,” he adds, more to himself than anything.

“Maybe,” Dipper agrees, losing the bite in his tone. He’s probably growing tired of fighting too. “This dimension sucks,” he says bitterly.

That’s understandable, Stan thinks. The kid hasn’t caught a break the whole time they’ve been here.

“I'm calling it the Twinless Dimension. That idiot had no idea what I was talking about.”

“Yeah, that's the only word I actually understood,” Dipper says. Stan thinks it’s a small miracle, given how awfully he pronounced it — like the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

“What’d his language sound like?”

“Human. Not like Ulma’s,” Dipper says. “It almost seemed like I should’ve been able to understand it, but I didn't. I just kept hearing him say twin in a really weird way.”

“Don't think they have twins here. He didn't have a comparable word for his translator to translate it to.”

Dipper hums. “Kind of strange for a planet with two suns. You’d think there’d at least be reference to twins or the concept of twins in ancient folklore or mythology or something.”

“Yeah,” Stan agrees, though he's not really sure what the kid’s going on about. “But, hey, for a twinless dimension, it’s got half of two sets of ‘em now.”

As soon as it comes out of his mouth, it strikes Stan as being the decidedly wrong thing to say.

“Heh, yeah,” Dipper says, the sheer hollowness of the response suggesting that his brain is quickly drifting elsewhere. He looks kind of stoic staring off in the distance like that, and Stan knows exactly what he’s thinking about. Who he's thinking about, more like.

Stan doesn't want to upset the kid, but it almost feels like a disservice not to acknowledge it out loud. To both Dipper and Mabel. “You thinkin’ about her, kiddo?”

His eyes go shiny, illuminated by the light of the suns, but he doesn't shed tears. “Haven't stopped.”

Stan thinks he can hear his heart shatter in his chest. “I know you don't want to hear this, but I know something about what that’s like.”

Dipper shuts his eyes and sighs, but it sounds more tired than annoyed or angry. “Please, Stan, don't… don't compare it.”

“I won't,” he says easily. Because he won't. He knows it's different. Fuck, he’s painfully aware of just how different it is. They’re kids, for one thing. Stan thinks he would’ve lost his mind if he was in Dipper’s position at his age.

He and Ford were attached at the hip back then, like Dipper and Mabel — thick as thieves. Even though they were estranged, it was an unimaginable pain to lose Ford when he did, and he wouldn’t wish those three decades of pain on his worst enemy. But he knows that it’s different.

Those kids need each other now more than ever.

“I just meant that… you could talk to me about it. That I’ll understand.”

Dipper stays still, his jaw clenched and his eyes watery. He blinks it back, looking down at his lap and glaring almost angrily at his lap, like maybe his shorts have personally affronted him.

“I just keep wondering what she's doing. Where she is.”

Stan nods.

He almost misses Dipper’s next question, with how quietly he utters it. “Do you think she’s okay? With Ford I mean? Do you think he’ll help her?”

Stan…doesn’t know. And that terrifies him. 

When he saw Ford last, he wasn’t in a good state. He was paranoid and erratic and seemingly losing a grip on reality. 

And now? Hell, Stan has no idea what thirty years as an interdimensional drifter does to a person. There’s no way of knowing if Ford’s the same, or if he’s been irreparably changed, somehow.

But none of that matters, Stan thinks. Not really, anyway. Mabel’s a kid. And Ford’s niece.  

It’s been a long time, and they've had more than their fair share of issues, but he knows his brother’s heart. He'd probably make for an awkward guardian, but he’d do it in a heartbeat.

“He’ll help her,” Stan says with a certainty he hasn’t felt toward his brother in a long time. It almost shocks him, with how sure he sounds saying it, but he knows deep down that it’s right. “And she's got Soos and Wendy and her friends and your parents—”

Dipper covers his face, groaning. “My parents…”

Stan cringes too. “I’m sure Ford will think of something—”

He cuts himself off. The kids’ mom would have called for her weekly check-in by now. What in the hell would they tell her? Would Ford lie? Tell them everything's fine while they scramble downstairs to get the portal in working order in time?

That, of course, would depend on how long Poindexter thinks it’ll take to restart the damn thing to begin with.

And how long would that be? Days? Weeks? Years?

Stan can't help but selfishly feel a little grateful that he's not in Ford’s position. Ideally, he'd like to be in no sort of position, at all, but he really, really wouldn't want to be the one to call the kids’ parents and tell them their son might not be coming home by the end of the summer.

Dipper drops his hands from his face, staring idly at his palms, like he might be able to read the lines and better understand his future, that way. “They can't just tell them that I got sucked into a portal. They'll never buy that. I barely believe it myself, and I’ve been into the supernatural my whole life!

“My mom went her whole life thinking narwhals were mythological creatures. Did you know that? Mabel and I had to show her like a billion Nat Geo videos before she was finally convinced that they're real. You think she’d have an easier time thinking I fell into a gateway to another dimension?”

“I don't know, kid,” Stan says. “Maybe it won't come to that. Maybe they’ll get us back in time.”

Stan won't lie and say he wasn't half-expecting the portal to power back on within a day or two. He’d hoped, of course, that it would. Ford knows how it operates best, he made the damn thing, but Stan more than anyone knows that it takes time. 

Maybe not as long considering Ford won't have to teach himself physics, quantum physics, engineering, and mechanics from scratch — not to mention find two haphazardly hidden journals in the woods — but the portal runs on a lot of fuel. And in the form of illegally obtained radioactive waste. Stan knows how gruesome of a process that is.

Dipper doesn't respond, turning to stare out of his side window instead of the windshield. The action feels dismissive, like he doesn't buy Stan's words. Or maybe they both know deep down that it's too good to be true.

The car lapses back into silence, and Stan focuses on the road, grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. Long drives have always cleared his head in a way nothing else can. Probably has something to do with all that time he spent on the road. 

And it’s calming and tranquil enough until Dipper yells, “Stop!” at the top of his lungs.

Stan slams on the brakes.

He huffs, panting on breaths that come too fast. “Jesus— Dipper, you can't do that. I almost had a heart attack.”

Dipper points off into the distance. “Another wormhole!”

Stan clutches his chest, letting his heart rate fall back down as he follows the kid’s pointer finger off to the edges of the forest, where a blue, vibrant wormhole glimmers and ripples in the still air.

Dipper turns back to him, dropping his arm. “Sorry,” he says, “probably could've been less cryptic.”

“Cryptic? Kid, you scared the daylights outta me.”

“Sorry,” he says again. He reaches for the door handle, as if on instinct, before stopping himself. 

He pulls his hand back. “Should we go?”

Stan considers it. “We probably shouldn't stay here. There’s no way that guy hasn't called the cops or whatever they call ‘em out here.”

“Yeah,” Dipper agrees, rubbing his forearm. “But what if we don't like what's on the other side? We have no way of knowing what kind of dimension it’ll be.”

“We didn't the first time, either.”

“Yeah, but…” Dippers trails off. The kid hadn't exactly been firing on all cylinders then. He didn't have much of a say in the decision to leave Ulma’s dimension, and even if Stan had asked his opinion, he was probably too exhausted and concussed to get paranoid about it. Much less start a fight over it.

“I’ll be honest, kid,” Stan says, “I think I’m more worried about what's in store on this side of it.”

Dipper nods. He's sure he doesn't care to spend the rest of their days in a prison cell either. 

Wordlessly, they begin to gather their things — the pack, the man’s gun, and even a few random items scattered around the car. A pack of what looks like chewing gum. A pair of large, slightly worn gloves.

“Here,” Stan says, handing Dipper the switchblade while he takes the gun and pack. “You hold on to that.”

Dipper takes it. “What am I gonna do with this?” he asks.

“Defend yourself?”

The kid looks skeptical, but he pockets it anyway. Honestly, he hopes he won't have to use it, but it makes Stan feel better to know that he has something to defend himself with if it comes to it.

They hop out of the car, and Stan follows Dipper toward the wormhole. He picks up his speed, imagining the frustration and hopelessness he'd feel if it were to shut before they were able to go through it.

Stan adjusts the pack on his shoulders.

“You sure about this?” Dipper asks, staring into the wormhole like it might just spit them back into Bill’s dimension.

“Not really, kid, but I think it might be our best bet.”

He nods, exhaling deeply and steadying himself. 

“You first,” the kid says with another nervous laugh.

He has to shut his eyes when he steps through, though his terror probably would have rendered him temporarily blind anyway. 

He opens his eyes once the world stops spinning, scanning their unfamiliar surroundings once again and wondering whether it’ll be this chronic state of anxiety that kills him someday. The constant pounding in his chest certainly can’t be healthy. Definitely not at his age.

Beside him, his uncle lets out a hearty laugh. Happiness, Dipper thinks, the word feeling more foreign to him than the alien buildings stretching into the sky, towering over them. He’s never been to New York City, but he imagines this might be what it looks like, just minus the tentacled beings and skin tones from all across the entire visible color spectrum roaming the streets. 

“Hah!” Stan says, elbowing Dipper in the side good-naturedly. “Not too bad, kid.”

“A city?” Dipper asks. He fails to see how this helps them in any meaningful capacity. Stan just said that they should lay low, take disguises.

“No, Dip,” he says. “Forget that. You know what I see?”

His uncle is smiling like an idiot, his slightly yellowed, coffee-stained dentures on display. The sight of it lightens some of the heaviness in Dipper’s chest. Maybe because of the normalcy of it, like Stan might just be smiling over at him in the Shack’s kitchen, dumping a Stancake or two on his plate.

Dipper decides to humor him. “What?”

“Pockets,” Stan says. “Lots and lots of pockets.”

He raises a brow. “Pickpocketing, Stan, really? We just got arrested.”

“That was a citizen’s arrest, kid. Or, bounty hunt, if you want to get technical.”

Dipper shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around, watching a family of antennaed insectoids scurry into what looks to be the entrance to a shopping mall. “Yeah, I’m failing to see how that’s any better.”

“Hey, you wouldn’t get caught,” Stan says. “It's like what you and your sister do for Halloween and Summerween. You gotta hit 'em with the cute kid act, and then, boom... where's my wallet?!’” He pats his suit pockets and puts on the same voice he uses when he’s making fun of the tourists back at the Mystery Shack.

Stan looks down at Dipper, gesturing at the sorry state he’s in. He knows just how rough he looks now, having finally seen himself in the truck’s rear view mirror. “Hell, they might just give it to ya. You look miserable, kid.”

“I don’t know, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper says, watching the people around him and imagining digging his hands through their belongings. “Pretty sure our Summerween didn’t include robbing people blind.”

Stan looks around him, surveying the crowd. While he scouts his targets, Dipper dodges the stray elbows and tentacles that strike him as beings pass them by, so eager to get wherever they need to be that they hardly seem to notice him at all — despite him sticking out like an especially sore thumb.

Stan focuses on a creature covered in holographic scales, glistening like the legendary versions of the Monstermon cards Dipper used to collect with the few friends he made in elementary school, their many eyes fixated on a nonsensical map, the words on it clunky and resemblant of a pigpen cipher. 

“Stan—”

“Watch this,” Stan says, Dipper’s words falling on deaf ears as he glides forward, adjusting his steps to mimic the rhythmic hustle and bustle of the crowd.

Dipper watches as his uncle’s fingers probe at the edge of a pouch clipped around the alien’s midsection. His fingers find purchase on the small latch, barely making contact, and with a flick of his scratched, cut-up wrist, the pouch settles in his hands — the alien none the wiser as they shuffle away, following the map’s directions.

“Just takes a little sleight of hand,” Stan says when he makes it back over to Dipper, eyeing the pouch in his hands before meeting him with a smug expression.

Dipper shakes his head. “There’s no way I’m pulling that off.”

Stan laughs, shoving the empty neon pouch into their pack and inspecting the contents of the alien’s wallet. He pulls out a wad of papers and eyes the funny-looking symbols on the yellow parchment. “Maybe not yet, kid, but you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be learning from the best.”

His uncle’s mouth twists in thought. “Any idea how much a Gletz is worth?”

Dipper’s lips tighten into a thin line. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Thought so,” Stan says, pocketing the wallet and the cash in his suit jacket, close to his person. “This actually doesn’t look like a small amount of cash, kid. Maybe we can see how far it gets us today. If that alien’s anything like the tourists at the Mystery Shack, he was probably carrying all his trip money on him.”

“Wow… that’s awful,” Dipper points out. It actually makes him feel a little sick to think about it, taking a potentially substantial amount of money away from another person in an environment that’s foreign to them. Stan and Dipper might be the outsiders here, but Dipper’s starting to feel a bit more like an intruder.

Stan doesn’t seem to understand the weight of what he’s done. “We need it more than him, Dip. Plus, if you’re dumb enough to carry all your money on your back in a crowded city, you probably deserve to get pickpocketed. Just a little bit.”

Dipper shakes his head. He feels terrible, of course, but he knows he’s not in a position to argue. It’s not like he has any other idea of how they can get by. So this is what it has to be from now on. Stan’s way.

As it turns out, a Gletz isn’t worth much. But a whole stack of them? 

It’s enough.

Enough to get them out of their bloodied and torn clothes, eat a decent meal, and afford at least a two-night stay at a worn down hotel on the outer edge of the city. On their way there, Dipper watches as Stan’s grip tightens around the handle of his gun as they cross through dark alleyways, the deeper part of the city more desolate and dilapidated than where they first arrived.

Now, Dipper watches as Stan draws the curtains closed, shading the small, outdated room in a darkness that Dipper can’t really bear to sit in. He does his part by heading over to the light switch. The controls are alien and confusing, but after a few moments of intense concentration, he’s able to figure it out, the room becoming awash with a bright, warm light.

Once Stan seems satisfied with the curtains, he turns back toward Dipper, eyeing him from where he stands uselessly by the wall.

“You want the first shower, kid?”

Dipper nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

He stands there a moment longer, almost frozen in the spot, before he makes it for the bathroom. With him, he grabs a change of clothes from the pile of stuff he got from the store. 

It was hard to come by something in his size, and his species, but he managed to find a pair of long pants, shorts, a t-shirt, and a long sleeve — all in dark, non-conspicuous colors.

When the door shuts behind him, and he locks it with a twist of his wrist, he settles back against it, staring at his disheveled hair, bruised face, and dirt-covered skin.

And, for the first time since he fell through the portal, Dipper lets himself cry. Fully.

The strength of it nearly brings him to his knees, and he has to bite the back of his hand to keep himself from making a sound, tears streaming down his face unbridled. He tries not to let himself drown in it, though it’s nearly impossible with the way his entire body becomes wracked with the pain in his chest — so potent it’s dizzying.

By some miracle, he makes it into the shower. Another miracle later and he’s able to get the water running, watching dirt and blood swirl down the drain. His head throbs as sobs continue to escape him, quiet and muffled and yet wholly overtaking him. He can’t even see what’s in front of him, grasping blindly at the alien soaps as his legs tremble beneath him.

Dipper’s never showered angrily before, but he’s sure this is what it looks like. He angrily washes the blood out of his hair. Angrily scrubs the dirt off his skin. Angrily lets the shower head’s rapid stream hit his bruised face.

He’s not even sure if that’s the right emotion. The one that he’s feeling, anyway. That scares him. Makes him mad. Makes him feel sick to his stomach. Makes him feel devastated.

When he gets out, his hair is a wet mop on his head, water dripping down onto the tile beneath his feet. He feels a little lighter, maybe. A little more real.

He scrubs his face and dries off, throwing on his new clothes and brushing his teeth with the complimentary hotel toiletries. He feels one step closer to being a human boy again.

When he finally steps out of the bathroom, he feels the beginnings of shame and embarrassment pricking at his insides, no matter how hard he tries to push it down.

It’s not like it would be that big of a deal if Stan heard him crying. He literally walked Dipper through maybe the worst panic attack he’s ever had just the other day. It wouldn't even be the first time he’s cried in front of Stan. Not even the first time this week — even if that was a pretty short-lived instance — just after they escaped Bill’s dimension.

But Dipper was hurt, then. He was concussed and terrified and confused and betrayed. Hell, he still is, but it feels a bit more vulnerable to show emotion in close quarters like this, sheltered from the woods and the terrors that face them outside of this hotel. 

Dipper doesn’t want to let him in. Not like that. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

“Better?” Stan asks, a small, sheepish smile on his face. If he heard anything, he makes no indication that he did. 

He breathes a little easier. 

Dipper nods. “Yeah,” he answers honestly. “A lot.”

Stan jokes about hoping Dipper didn’t steal all the hot water, and he laughs even though he feels worn raw, like the shower might’ve stripped away all his strength and left him discarded on the ground, like an earthworm laying out in the rain, hoping not to get washed away.

The entire time Stan’s in the shower, Dipper stares at the floor, his feet hanging off the side of the bed. It’s the first time he’s been in one since that first night in Ulma’s house, and for all he knows, it might be the last one he sees for a while after their short stay. He has no way of knowing.

It might even be the last bed he ever sleeps in.

Chapter Text

Mabel lies flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling and eyeing the peeling corner of one of the glow-in-the-dark sticky stars slapped to the ceiling of her and Dipper’s shared room in Piedmont. It’s losing its stick, bound to fall off on its own one of these days. 

She’ll probably just leave it when it does, and it’ll crinkle up on the floor as it dries out completely, like the dusty remnants of a shooting star.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks about a conversation she had with Dipper some time ago, after he had stayed up all night reading some nerd book he picked up at the school library. Shooting stars aren’t actually stars, he’d said, just some dumb rocks that enter Earth’s atmosphere too fast, leaving behind trails of glowing dust as they streak across the night sky, eventually burning out completely.

In the present, Mabel’s hand twitches around the brim of his hat, her fingers exploring the fabric and the stitching of it. She keeps it close to her chest, her other hand idly tracing circles in the carpet beneath her, soft against her head and fanned out with locks of brown curls that stand out against the grayness of the synthetic fibers.

She can barely make out the muffled, tense conversation that’s playing out between her parents downstairs, but, even from way up here, there’s no missing the choked, water-logged nature of her mom’s voice — like she might be speaking with her nose plugged. The sound fills Mabel’s stomach with a dread that not even Sweater Town could cure, but it’s at least easier to swallow than the wailing that has filled the halls ever since they concluded their six-day search of the woods and returned to Piedmont late last week.

She’s never heard Dipper’s real name uttered this much in recent memory, but her mom’s constant howls of grief at night, crying out for Mason, her baby boy, have been enough to send Mabel to the bathroom to empty the contents of her stomach at least three separate times this week. And it’s only Tuesday.

There’s been a lot of talk about statistics, from her parents and law enforcement both. She knows that’s what they must be talking about now.

Mabel will never be able to unhear the sob that escaped her mom’s lips or unsee the crestfallen expression on her dad’s face as he held her up, having just been told that after the first forty-eight hours, the odds of finding a missing person, a missing child, are hauntingly slim. Less than two percent of children will be missing for longer than a week, so the odds that Dipper will be found after all this time are…

It doesn’t matter. Dipper’s not in the woods. He isn’t lost, and he isn't alone. Mabel knows exactly where he is. She just can’t reach him right now. That’s all.

She wants to get up, to remove herself from the floor and call Grunkle Ford and ask him for updates on the portal, but she can't bring herself to move. Mabel’s not even sure her legs would still work after lying here for so long, withering away on their bedroom floor with all the other shooting stars.

Eventually, the noise downstairs dies down, and Mabel hears the subtle creak of the stairs as a heavy weight ascends them and moves down the hall. She feels the wood paneling beneath the carpet shift against her back.

There’s no knock on the door before it creaks open. Privacy hasn’t really been something afforded to Mabel since the portal. No one seems to know what to do with her, but, apparently, they’ve made the unanimous decision not to leave her alone for long. It’s made for some frantic entrances when they’ve realized they haven’t seen her for a while.

A sharp gasp accompanies the footfalls that rush through the doorway, a result of her dad finding her on the floor, surely. Mabel shifts, lolling her head to the side. She’s not sure why she does it. Maybe to keep him from worrying, from thinking that she’s lost too.

An unsure voice, “Mabel? Sweetie?”

“Hi, Dad.”

Her voice sounds cold.

He crosses the threshold, moving to sit down on the plush carpet beside her. She can feel his eyes on her, but she makes no move to meet them. “Sit up, peanut.”

Mabel sits up, guided by his hand on her shoulder, and he gently removes Dipper’s hat from her grip, placing it on her head and ruffling the top of it.

When she finally meets his gaze, his eyes are red and puffy. It’s a rare sight to see. 

Her mom has always worn her heart on her sleeve, and Mabel's both loved and been overwhelmed by that aspect of her, but her dad has always been more reserved. Not cold — but he hides his feelings behind a wall, the vulnerable spots only revealing themselves when he makes an effort to strip the bricks down. It’s made it somewhat hard to keep tabs on his portion of the familial happiness chart that she keeps up in her head.

But she can see now that he’s hurting, and it’s the most obvious he’s ever been with his pain. More than anything, it makes her want to tell them the truth. It might be the only thing that lessens the grief they’re both feeling.

But there is no way that they would believe her. And her top priority has to be making sure that Grunkle Ford can finish restarting the portal. Nothing can get in the way of that, and that includes her parents.

“How are you feeling?”

All she can do is shrug. For the first time, in maybe her entire life, she’s speechless. Nothing she can think of saying sounds worth it, if not the truth.

He frowns at that. “Are you hungry? You think you could eat something?”

Mabel shakes her head. “I'm not hungry,” she says, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and pulling them close to her chest. There’s an unusual chill permeating the air, like the thermostat might have been set too low. She wonders if her parents can feel it, or if they’re oblivious to that, too.

“Okay,” her dad says, his voice gentle, a flash of helplessness crossing his features. “Is there anything else you need?”

The words come to her quickly. “To go back to Gravity Falls.”

He sighs, his eyes shutting as he wipes a shaky hand across his face. When he speaks, his voice quivers. "Mabel..."

“Dipper is still there,” Mabel interrupts. It’s not the truth, but it’s not entirely a lie, either. Dipper will be there, as soon as they’re able to reopen that portal, and Mabel needs to be there when it happens. “I need to go back. He needs me.”

He’s cautious with his words. “Mabel, sweetheart, they’re still out looking for him. The police are searching day and night, and so is most of the town. Your uncle Stanford promised he wouldn’t stop looking, either.”

The precision behind the words he chooses makes her stomach twist with discomfort. She can’t help but feel simultaneously unworthy and resentful of them.

He tilts his head, his eyes softening beneath the brown curls hanging over his forehead, strikingly similar to Dipper’s own. “There’s nothing you could do—”

“Mom thinks he’s dead,” Mabel cuts him off. “Doesn’t she?”

A bitter look, one full of resentment, settles on his face at the mention of her mother. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared. “Mom’s just…upset right now. We all are.”

Mabel pulls her hands closer to her chest, trying to draw in warmth. “He isn’t. He’s not dead.”

His face falls. Mabel can tell he doesn't believe it himself, but she knows he'd never utter the words aloud. She ends up being right, and his face screws up in a despondent, soul-crushing imitation of a smile, his eyes watering anew as he musters the most convincing tone of voice he can.

“I’m sure they’ll find him, peanut.”

Mabel has the hysterical thought one night — or morning, if you’re the kind of person that considers 3 a.m. morning, anyway — that she’s acting an awful lot like Dipper.

Laid out in front of her is one of her unused scrapbooks, the pages beginning to be filled with observations: not scratch-n-sniff stickers and candid polaroid pictures. She busies herself with the task of documenting everything Ford told her about his and Grunkle Stan’s life. Their history. Ford’s life in Gravity Falls. The portal.

If more pages are ripped out and buried deep in the trash than are filled, it isn't dwelled on for long. She winds up with a small book full of plans, family history, and daily journal entries. She’s not entirely sure who they’re for or how any of this is helping, exactly, but they help her stay sane, if nothing else.

Soon enough, she’s joining daily video calls with Soos and Wendy, discussing their next steps in Operation Get Dipper and Stan Back. 

Wendy thinks they could do better than that name, but Soos likes it well enough. He says it’s simple and to the point, and that's exactly what they need right now.

Wendy's voice crackles through the speakers of Mabel and Dipper’s small, personal laptop. It’s never been used for anything other than school papers and the occasional paranoid health inquiry by Dipper, but today it serves a bigger purpose.

“Wait so why did Stan’s brother have a doomsday device in the basement, again?” she asks for the umpteenth time, though she might actually be looking for an answer this time. At least, she’s not just muttering the question under her breath as she wrings out her ushanka-hat anymore.

Mabel doodles a pine tree in the corner of the page she’s writing in, tracing it over and over, sure to leave an indent on the next page. “Ford and McGucket built the portal ‘cause they thought that Gravity Falls’ weirdness was leaking in from another dimension, and they wanted to unlock the mysteries of the universe or whatever.”

She shrugs, dropping her pen and leaving the pine tree alone. “But I guess McGucket caught a glimpse of what was on the other side and went all cuckoo bananas with the memory gun.”

They all remember that part. They watched it, albeit with a lot less context then. Ironically enough, the image of a once spry, wide-eyed McGucket blasting his brain past viability has been burned into their minds forever.

“Did we ever find out what was on the other side? What McGucket saw?” Wendy asks.

Mabel shakes her head. “Ford didn’t say. Just that he called Grunkle Stan to come hide one of the journals once he realized that the portal ‘could be harnessed for terrible destruction,’” she says, her fingers forming air quotes, her pink-polished nails chipped and bitten down to the nubs.

“So, whatever McGucket saw was enough to convince Ford to shut it down?”

Mabel shrugs. Ford never really said what it was that made him go from trusting the portal to questioning his own sanity. “I guess.”

Wendy shakes her head. “I don’t like this. It feels like we’re missing a lot of information.”

“Yeah,” Soos cuts in, his connection spotty. “If what McGucket saw was enough to like, make him go crazy bonkers and stuff, what’ll happen to Stan and Dipper?”

“Yeah!” Wendy agrees, her eyes widening as she continues wringing her hat. It makes Mabel’s heart skip a beat to see her normally chill, level-headed friend so visibly anxious; it’s so unlike her, it’s jarring. “Are they just out there with whatever made McGucket lose his mind?!”

Mabel digs her nails into her palms, trying to ignore the anxiety spiking in her gut, snaking up her chest and sitting heavy at the base of her throat. Her palms are sweaty — and they’re never sweaty. Dipper’s the anxious one, not her. It must go against the laws of nature for her to be so shaky, so unsure, so…

She doesn’t hear any of the subsequent back and forth between Wendy and Soos, but she does hear the quiet utterance of her name, the unsure, “Mabel?” that follows.

Her hands are tangled somewhere up in her hair now, beneath Dipper’s hat, the rim pointing up toward the ceiling. Mabel’s not quite sure how they got there, her face shielded by her forearms. “Please, stop,” she begs, her voice small. 

She can’t get the image out of her mind — Dipper in McGucket’s place.

Stupidly, until now, she hadn’t considered the fact that the Dipper that comes through that portal might not be the same as the one that went through. She thinks of the couple that was whisked away in an ambulance after peering into the eyes of the Gremloblin, catatonic and shaking with terror. She thinks of McGucket, erasing his entire mind after catching a mere glimpse of the reality that Dipper and Stan have been living in every day for nearly two and a half weeks.

“Hey, Mabes, it’s okay, man,” Wendy hurries to say, backtracking fast. “They’re fine. Dipper and Stan are going to be okay, I promise.” Her voice sounds louder and clearer, like she might have moved right up to her computer’s speaker, close to the screen.

Soos sounds more abashed than Mabel has ever heard him. “Yeah, dude, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“That was totally stupid of us to say,” Wendy agrees. “I don’t even believe it. I was just saying a bunch of stuff ‘cause I’m freaking out, man. I’m just being stupid and paranoid, okay? It’s going to be fine.”

Mabel nods quickly, releasing her hair from her hands and moving to scrub frustratingly at her newly damp face. “Sorry. Sorry, guys. I know you’re just trying to help, I didn’t mean to—”

A sob escapes. She sniffs and tries to brace herself, breathing deeply as she grips the table instead of her hair. “I’m sorry,” Mabel repeats, her fingers trembling. “I just…hate this.”

“We know you do,” Wendy says. “Don’t be sorry, man, it’s totally understandable. You could’ve literally socked me in the face through the screen and I would’ve given you a pass. Soos and I were being idiots.”

Mabel manages a short laugh. “Thanks, Wendy. Thanks, Soos. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys right now.”

Wendy’s hand goes up to the screen, like she might be able to offer her comfort through it. “Of course, Mabel. We’re with you.”

“Yeah, we’re doing this together, dude.”

She nods again, wiping the last of her tears from her cheeks. She sniffs again, and it stutters in her chest, a stray sob threatening to break through again. 

She takes another deep breath.

“How’s Waddles?” Mabel asks as soon as her lungs stop trembling, punctuated by a wet laugh, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes despite her best efforts.

Her parents never would have been one-hundred percent okay with her bringing a pig home in the first place, but with Dipper gone, it was nearly impossible to even ask. After the search, her parents were hysterical, and the hollow pit settling in Mabel’s chest wouldn’t let her work up the resolve to ask their permission anyway.

That first night, after the portal, Soos and Wendy had been there. Wendy let her cry all over her green flannel as she stroked her hair and whispered hushed promises and reassurances into her ear. Soos stayed by her side throughout it all, too, and they refused to leave her, even when her parents showed up and were yelling and screaming and crying and all Mabel wanted was to sink into the floorboards.

When it was time for Mabel to return to Piedmont, the two of them promised to take care of Waddles, the Shack, and even Grunkle Ford, if he ever needed their support or help during Mabel’s absence.

“He’s good. I don’t know much about pigs, but I can tell he misses you,” Wendy says. “He keeps making that little oink that sounds like he’s saying your name. It’s kinda freaky.”

Mabel laughs. “Good… that’s good. Tell him May-May says hi and that I’ll see him soon.”

Wendy frowns. “I will,” she promises. “I can go get him if you wanna see him now. I’m pretty sure he’s in the living room with my brothers. They’re obsessed with him.”

“That’s okay,” Mabel says, swiping under her eyes again. She doesn’t think she could handle that right now without completely breaking down. Not while feeling this raw.

“Okay,” Wendy says. “I’ll call again tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Mabel says. “Yeah, that's okay.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Mabel nearly expects that to signal the end of Operation Get Dipper and Stan back for the night, but no one dares end the call. This is typically how it goes — they all stare at each other in silence after a few hours, no one eager to let their screens go dark and return to reality. A reality of helplessness and inaction, stagnant like a boulder at the bottom of the steepest hill.

They’re all hopelessly lost, but until Dipper and Stan are back in this dimension, there will always be things they can do. Things left unsaid.

Soos breaks their tradition of silence with ease. “How are things at home?” he asks, his eyes slightly shiny.

Mabel sniffs. “What do you mean?”

“With your parents,” Wendy answers for him, not missing a beat. Mabel gets the sneaking suspicion that they’ve talked about this before — just without her. “How are you holding up?”

Mabel shrugs. She watches the door for a moment, confirming that it isn’t about to spring open, and lowers her voice. “They’re taking it really hard. They think he died in those woods, but neither one of them will say it out loud,” she says, her voice trembling as she says the words. “I keep asking them to let me go back to Gravity Falls, but I think they think I’m gonna go in there after him.” 

She leans closer to the laptop, her voice at a whisper. “I need to be there when Ford turns it on. But I don’t know how I’ll be able to convince them.”

“We’ll figure something out, hambone. We always do.”

“Yeah, worst case scenario, Soos and I’ll come and get you. It’s only like a seven hour drive to Piedmont, and Soos can be a speed demon when he wants to be. We’d make it there and back to Gravity Falls before that timer was up, no problem.”

Soos straightens up, nodding. “Yeah, Mabes. No way are we letting you miss it.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel better,” she says, sighing heavily. She takes a second to peer down at her phone, completely idle and silent on her desk.

“Have either of you talked to Ford?”

“No,” Wendy says. “Soos and I still come to work, and he lets Soos run the tours, but I haven’t seen him since the search party. Honestly, I think he’s letting us work just to keep the lights on. I don’t know if he actually understands anything we’re doing up here at all.”

“Oh,” Mabel says, not sure what to make of that. She doesn’t know her new grunkle well enough to be able to tell whether that’s normal for him or not. 

She hopes he’s coming up to sleep and eat, at least, even if she’d personally sell her kidneys and other vital organs to get Dipper and Stan back as soon as possible. A deeper, more selfish part of her wants him to work on the portal nonstop, but she also can’t help but feel worried for this stranger who she already cares so much for.

“He answered a few days ago, and he said it’s ‘coming along,’ but we don’t talk a lot. He’s probably just busy working on it, but it’s already been weeks. It can’t take that much longer, right? He’s the one who built it.”

Wendy twists her lip. “Yeah. Maybe you should ask again the next time you get a hold of him.”

Mabel pulls her hands down to her lap, picking at her fingernails. “Why? You think it won't be soon?” 

“No, I'm not saying that. Just… Soos and I haven't seen the guy leave the basement like… once. It could just be that he's working all day, but—”

“Well, that’s… that’s good, right? Maybe he has everything he needs to work on the portal down there.”

Wendy nods. “Yeah, but didn't Stan have to rob a government facility for a ton of nuclear waste or something?”

Anxiety begins to claw at her stomach again. It feels like she might be living in a constant state of drowning, like she’s floating on the surface and waiting to be yanked back down beneath the waves, every second spent wondering how long she’ll have air left to breathe.

She clenches her fists, her stubby nails somehow managing to leave little matching indents in both of her sweaty palms. “Maybe he does that at night? Or that's the very last step?” she tries.

Soos smiles and cuts in on Wendy. “I'm sure you're right, hambone. I wouldn't worry about it.”

Mabel nods hesitantly. “Yeah, I won't,” she pauses, chewing on her lip. “I'll just call him after this and ask for another update, I guess.”

She breaks eye contact immediately, moving to grab her pen once more, tracing over the same pine tree until part of the page rips, exposing a hole where the blue ink of her pen begins to bleed through, splattering the ivory parchment with speckles of navy, stained like the collars of Dipper’s shirts when he stays up too long obsessing and theorizing.

“Sorry again, Mabes,” Wendy says. Mabel looks up and is greeted by the wince on Wendy’s face as she chews on her lip. “I really don't mean to make you worry more than you already are. I just want to see Dipper and Stan get home.”

Mabel takes a deep breath, blue ink pouring out over her fingers, the pen mysteriously snapped in half. “It's okay,” she manages. “I get it. I want that too.”

Soos speaks up. “You sure you're okay there? You need Wendy and I to come swoop you up early?”

“I'm okay. My parents need me here for now, I think.”

Wendy makes a face at that. “Okay, but make sure you’re taking care of Mabel, too, okay?”

Mabel smiles shyly. “Okay.”

Another week later, Mabel wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of glass shattering downstairs.

She jolts up in bed, hair standing up every which way, Dipper’s freshly washed sheets sticking to her sweaty shins, tangled around her legs. Her head feels foggy and full of static, and her throat prickles with the nascent idea of a sore throat.

There’s a slight fever poking at her, too, uncomfortably warm, like the days following a massive heat wave. 

Maybe she’s coming down with something, she thinks in a daze. 

All of that is forgotten the second the voices downstairs become too loud to ignore, what was once probably a terse conversation morphing into an all out screaming match.

In a blur, Mabel’s scurrying out of Dipper’s bed and rushing out into the hallway, her socked-feet padding against the carpet. She hides herself on the staircase, her fingers wrapping around the white railings with practiced ease.

It isn’t the first time she’s heard her parents fight. Not even the second or the third or the fourth. Before their summer in Gravity Falls, fighting was more or less the norm — though usually limited to passive aggressive comments over the dinner table or relatively hushed conversations in the middle of the night.

Mabel remembers one mid-April night, weeks before they’d been told where they would be spending their summer. That night, Dipper woke up hyperventilating, his cheeks wet and his chest heaving. Nightmares weren’t foreign to him before Gravity Falls, though they were less frequent pre-Bill, but it wasn't often that one would rattle him so severely, then.

He wouldn’t tell her what it was that had him so upset, not even when she begged, and so Mabel concluded that it must’ve had something to do with their parents. 

Dipper would never talk to her about it, as if saying it aloud would jinx it and make his deepest fears a reality, or that maybe Mabel hadn’t pieced it together herself and to make it known would only hurt her in the end. 

So they both brushed it off, afraid to say what the both of them knew deep down was true. Their parents’ relationship was on borrowed time, and they had both privately hoped a summer alone would be enough to mend it, to figure something out.

But, the circumstances are different, Mabel knows. Even if this isn’t the first argument she’s overheard, it’s definitely the loudest.

A thick sob echoes in the kitchen. “How is everything my fault?!” her mom cries, her voice breaking around the words, heavy with despair. It sounds like she might’ve said the same ones before, her tone slightly exasperated despite the sheer grief the words conjure.

“Your fault?” her dad says, his throat sounding thick with tears. “When have you ever taken responsibility for anything?!”

“How can you say that when I’ve been the only one trying to make us work?! This whole time—”

“The only one, really, I—”

“Name ONE thing you’ve done—”

“No, name all the things you’ve done, since apparently you’re the only one—”

“You act like everything is always my—”

“YOU SENT THEM THERE!” her dad yells, the bite in his tone enough to send Mabel flinching back on the stairs, her grip tightening around the banister. “I TOLD you that I hardly know my uncle, that he has no experience looking after kids, and you INSISTED that it’d be good for them, a summer in the woods—”

Her mom cuts in quickly, appalled. “He’s YOUR family, goddamn it—”

“YOU sent them there—”

“We made that decision TOGETHER! Don’t you DARE—”

“My son is DEAD!” her dad yells out, and it’s obvious that he’s crying now, even from way up here. “My son is dead somewhere in those woods and you sent him there!”

Mabel’s not sure when exactly she decided that she heard enough, but before she knows it, her legs are tripping over themselves to race back to their room.

There are tears streaming down her face, she’s distantly aware, and a deadly inferno of guilt and misery fighting for dominance in her heart, stabbing at the fragile, bleeding walls. The door to their room might’ve shut silently, or she might’ve accidentally slammed it. She’s not really sure.

Mabel crashes face first onto Dipper’s bed, her fists curling around the sheets. Each breath feels like a struggle, so she surrenders to hyperventilating and sobbing until every corner of her existence feels worn thin.

This is all her fault.

She should’ve just pressed that stupid button.

At some point, long after the voices downstairs have died out and Mabel has expelled every ounce of water in her body out through her tear ducts, their bedroom door swings open, and Mabel can hear light steps enter through the doorway.

Her mom says nothing as she crawls into Dipper’s bed, the bitter, fragrant tang of red wine hitting Mabel’s nostrils as she wraps her arms around her, her frame shaking as her sobs begin anew. Or maybe they never stopped.

Mabel sniffs, her eyes drying, her head full of cotton. With her mom’s arms wrapped around her, reeking of alcohol, it’s easy for Mabel to let her own thoughts fall by the wayside.

She welcomes the numbness like an old friend. “It’s going to be okay, Mom.”

Her mom shakes her head, choking on tears. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“Forgive me,” she repeats, again and again and again into the crook of Mabel’s neck.

Mabel doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s not the one that should be begging for forgiveness.

The line rings.

And rings. And rings. And—

I'm sorry, the person you are trying to reach has a voice mailbox that has not been set up yet. Please try again later, bye.

She tries again.

“You still haven’t seen him?”

“No,” Soos’ voice comes through on the other line. “Dude’s like a ghost. I’ve even tried knocking on the vending machine when no one’s looking. He never responds. I think he even changed the passcode thingy.”

Mabel chews on her lip, pressing her phone against her ear. “He’s worried someone else will find the portal,” she defends, though she knows Soos isn’t necessarily accusing Ford of anything. 

She slumps down on the floor, her back pressed against her bed and her legs outstretched in front of her. “I’m worried. He hasn’t answered since last week. It’s almost the end of August. It’s almost…”

She sucks in a breath, rolling the thin skin of her lip between her teeth, the sharp metallic bite of copper hitting her taste buds. She hadn’t meant to bring it up, or even allude to it, really.

“It’s your guys’ birthday soon, isn’t it?” he asks with bated breath.

She tucks her knees in toward her chest. “This Friday.”

Soos is quiet for a moment. She can practically hear the gears turning in his head, the steadily forming plans. “Hey, I know it doesn’t change anything, but Wendy and I were thinking, maybe, we could drive down, come see you for a few days. I more than anyone know that you shouldn’t spend your birthday alone, hambone. You dudes taught me that.”

“No,” Mabel yelps, shaking her head furiously. “No, sorry, I mean—” 

She huffs, trying to keep the floodgates back. It’s a nice offer, but…

“You– you guys have to stay in Gravity Falls. What if Ford needs your help? Or those government agents show up again? And, besides, Wendy’s looking after Waddles, and you’re taking over as Mr. Mystery, and it’s just my stupid 13th birthday, anyway, it’s not… it’s not…”

Soos lets the silence hang in the air for a moment, before he probes, “Mabel?”

She’s unable to see past the wetness in her eyes, Dipper’s D&D&MoreD and Ghost Harassers posters blurring together into some unholy monstrosity, mismatched colors swirling in her sight. “I— uh, I gotta go, Soos. Thanks for calling.” 

Mabel hangs up and promptly hurls her phone across the room. It bounces off Dipper’s bed before slamming onto the floor, a sharp crack echoing through the room as it strikes the carpet-covered wood. She never did know her own strength.

With a strangled half-scream, half-sob, she peels herself off the floor and makes her way over to the device to inspect the damage. Standing over it, she can see the hairline fissures that span across the phone’s glass screen, though it still flickers to life, one missed call from Soos lighting up her lockscreen.

She picks it up, and resting beneath it is one crinkly, dusty, neon green star.

Mabel dreams.

Sometimes, she dreams that they’re still in Gravity Falls, waking up at noon and begging Grunkle Stan to let them eat breakfast even though it’s well past lunch by the time they make it downstairs. On those days, in those dreams, Stan obliges, and he lets them play syrup race and stuff their faces full of Stancakes until they’re too sick to peel themselves off of the patio couch.

Other times, she’s sitting on her bed, watching Dipper wrap a piece of red yarn around some haphazardly placed thumbtacks, utterly convinced that he’s on the precipice of some major answer. Or, they’re in the bunker, or in town, or wherever else they might’ve chased down one of his crazy conspiracies. In these dreams, they always find the answers they’re looking for.

One night, she dreams of Dipper, out in the woods all by himself. Freezing and alone, he calls out for help. She dreams that he spends weeks stumbling around in the forest, until the pine trees pile high with powdery snow and the ground freezes over, the forest floor compounded with white, impenetrable ice. 

At the end of it, she dreams that Dipper freezes solid beneath one of the large pines, eerily reminiscent of the Shapeshifter’s final form — a frozen ice-sculpture where her brother once was. In his final moments, the only name he calls out for is Mabel’s own.

Tonight, though, it’s none of the above.

She opens her eyes, greeted by the sight of the portal towering before her kneeling form, sending out violent sparks as its jagged, metallic pieces snap off and break apart, clattering to the floor in an ear-splitting cacophony of metal against stone.

She flinches back, dragging herself away from the wreckage. It sends terror down her spine to see it again, and this close. Her fingers reach out for Dipper’s hat but are greeted instead by the empty, static-charged air around her.

Mabel’s heartbeat pulses in her eardrums, her chest tight.

Suddenly, down becomes up, and she’s crashing toward the ceiling. Before she can hit the new floor, the world rights itself, and she falls back against the ground.

She pulls her arms around her middle, wincing. The pain dissipates quickly, her brain’s foggy, dreamlike interpretation of pain not lasting long.

Mabel cracks her eyes open, and her jaw drops.

“Hiya, Shooting Star!” Bill greets, tipping his top hat once more, sending her up into the air and back down again.

She gains her bearings once more, sitting up on her knees. “Wha– Bill?!”

“The one and only!” he reverbs, shooting her with finger guns, blue flames at the tips of each of his pointer fingers. “My, what a reunion! How long’s it been, anyway?!”

He conjures a calendar, making a big show of flipping through the months, landing on a date in July with a crude drawing of Bipper on the day of Mabel’s sock opera. He materializes 35 fingers on both hands and mentally counts off the days one by one.

When he reaches today’s date, one day before their 13th birthday, he laughs. “Yeesh, that’s a long time, kid. You miss me?!”

Mabel shakes her head. “This isn’t real.”

“Sure is!” Bill says, poofing the calendar out of existence and floating directly in front of her. “As real as the imminent death of this galaxy's sun in the year 5,000,002,017!”

“I don’t get it,” Mabel says, both palms bundling around the yarn at the cuffs of her sleeves. “I’m not in Gravity Falls. How is this happening?”

“I'm a dream demon, kid! There’s nothing in the handbook about where those dreams gotta be!”

Once the initial shock at seeing him wears off, Mabel is standing up, throwing an accusatory finger in that dumb triangle’s direction. “What do you want?! We defeated you! Twice! And I know there's nothing you can do to me unless I shake your hand! And fat chance that’s happening, you isosceles jerk!”

“Woah, woah, woah, kid,” Bill says, floating back and putting up two hands in mock defense. “Getting ahead of yourself there, don’t ya think?”

Bill conjures two enormous, pink bean bag chairs. He snaps his fingers and Mabel finds herself in one of them, despite her unwillingness to listen to a single thing he says, ever. “Go ahead, relax! Take a load off! You've been working yourself ragged, haven’t you? I'd hate to see a protostar like you burn out so soon!”

Mabel shifts in the bean bag. It’s ridiculously large, even by her standards. It feels like she might sink into it, like Alice through the rabbit hole. “I know how to get rid of you, Bill! This is my dream, I’m the one in charge here!”

She snaps, and suddenly Xyler and Craz are by her side.

Bill groans loudly and snaps again, right as Craz opens his mouth to speak, and both boys disappear immediately.

“What the heck?!” Mabel accuses.

“Here I was, playing nice, and then you go and summon those two?!” Bill says with such disdain and vitriol that Mabel flinches back. “You know, you could’ve just sent me through a portal out of your Dreamscape, but I think deep down you know you want to hear me out.”

Mabel shoots up out of the bean bag, kicking it behind her. It barely moves an inch. “You think I'd make a deal with you? After you hurt my brother and tried to kill him?!”

Bill rolls his eye. “Keyword: tried. The way I see it, Pine Tree’s all set to kick the bucket with or without my help now, anyway.”

She crosses her arms and shakes her head, pointedly trying to ignore that comment. “Dipper told me how you tricked him! I’d never trust you, Bill! Not in a million, trillion years!”

“Funny you bring up trust, Shooting Star!” he says, floating up to the wrecked portal and giving it an experimental tap with his cane. “You like the look of the portal here? I think it really brings out the hopeless, gut-wrenching grimness of the place!”

Mabel furrows her brow. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I’ve been keeping an eye on things since you skipped town,” he says, twirling back around to face her. “That new uncle of yours… What’s his name, anyway?”

“For—”

“Doesn’t matter, kid!” Bill interrupts, seemingly disinterested. Below his eye, he manifests a screen on his body, projecting an image of her grunkle hunched over the basement desk, surrounded by torn out journal pages and several empty mugs, a thin layer of dried coffee tacky at the bottom of them. “You’re telling me this meat sack is supposed to be Fez and Pine Tree’s knight in shining armor? Sure looks like he’s hard at work!”

It makes Mabel’s heart skip a beat, even if she knows it’s just an illusion Bill’s creating to convince her to make the worst mistake of her life. Still, she entertains him. “What? He’s just sleeping,” she argues, ignoring the deep, dark bags under Ford’s eyes in Bill’s illusion, and the stressed crinkle in between his brows.

Bill squints. “You’re a tough nut to crack, Star, but something tells me this one’s a bit more damning.”

He projects another illusion, and Mabel watches as her new grunkle physically rips a large scrap of metal from the side of the portal, nuts and bolts loosening with the strain. There’s no audio to Bill’s projection, but Mabel can tell that it is physically and emotionally painful for faux-Ford to do this, hunched over, his six-fingered hands resting on his knees in between tearing the portal apart, his face twisted with a grief so poignant that Mabel feels the vestiges of dread begin to settle over her.

“That isn’t real,” she says as she turns around, refusing to give Bill the satisfaction.

She hears his yellow bricks reassemble as he returns to his original form.

“That’s alright, Shooting Star. You’ll see soon enough, and when you do, I’ll be here, ready to make a deal!”

Mabel opens her mouth to respond — to vehemently refuse — but, suddenly, she’s awoken again, scrambling in bed and kicking up Dipper’s sheets in a fuss.

And to a familiar sound.

She runs her palms down her face, pulling at the skin beneath her eyes and staring at her blanketed legs. There’s no way any of that was real, right? She must be losing her mind. Not sleeping enough. Not eating enough.

Right?

She reaches over toward Dipper’s nightstand, grabbing her glass of water and promptly chugging the whole thing, droplets spilling down her chin. She hops out of bed immediately after, her legs carrying her out of their room and down the hall, as if she was pre-programmed to do so, following the sound of arguing like a moth to a flame.

What she hears stops her in her tracks before she can even make it to her spot on the staircase.

“I spoke with the police department today. They said the balance of probabilities…” her dad starts, his voice thick, as it often is these days. He can’t seem to get the words out.

“They’re stopping the search,” her mom theorizes.

He doesn't have to confirm. They both know it. “It takes years to have things finalized,” he starts again, “but, in lieu of an official death certificate, they said a… service might help.”

“Help who?” her mom cries out, unbelieving.

“I don’t know, Mary, us?! Our daughter, who’s up there every day sleeping in her twin’s bed?! Wearing his hat? Not eating, not sleeping, hardly even talking—”

“You’re telling me this like I don’t know—”

Her dad groans. “I don’t know what you know. You’re so damn hard to reach, I don’t—”

“I lost my son, Michael,” she defends.

“And I didn’t?” he begs.

Her mom doesn’t respond.

“God,” her dad says after a painful stretch of silence, the tick of the kitchen clock doing little to dispel the tension in the room, each tick another second too long, another notch in between them. “What are we doing here?”

Her mom sighs, tired and defeated. “I don’t know.”

Another pause passes, and she can feel the energy shift even from all the way upstairs, the heavy silence morphing into something no less heavy, but a bit more determined. More sure. Mabel would give anything to see the expressions on their faces in those moments, to somehow piece it all together through their eyes.

“We tried. It’s not working. We’re not working. Our son is gone and…”

Mabel steps back, grabbing onto the wall and leaning heavily against it.

“I’m tired,” he continues. “God, aren’t you tired?”

Mabel doesn’t hear her mom’s response, because she’s making her way back to their room again. This time, she makes sure to shut the door quietly, not making a single peep, immediately moving to pull her purple, pink polka-dotted suitcase out from under her bed. 

It’s full; she never bothered to unpack it after Gravity Falls.

After, she beelines it for their closet, pulling out her piggy bank and yanking the stopper out from the bottom, fishing with two fingers for the bills she knows she left in there. Her mom told her to save it for a “rainy day,” whatever that means, but, of all the days, Mabel can’t think of a rainier one.

After shoving the bills into a crossbody clutch, Mabel grabs the largest pillow she can find and shoves it under Dipper’s covers. Then, she grabs a pair of scissors out of her craft supplies and unceremoniously snips off a lock of her hair, positioning it to where it peeks out from under the covers, just enough to convince her parents that she’s still there if they check on her at all tonight. 

Mabel just hopes her mom hasn’t had anything to drink. Or, at least that she waits until she makes it to Gravity Falls.

Chapter Text

It mocks him.

Ford blinks, but the image doesn’t shift, and his sleep-deprived brain refuses to make sense of the sight in front of him — to see it for what it truly is. No matter how hard he tries, the portal’s triangular shape registers as one thing and one thing only, and he has to blink away the searing pain that blooms behind his right eye, robbing him of sight and coherency.

His shoulders are tight and raised, every muscle held perfectly in place as he attempts to breathe through it. When the pain ebbs, he blinks, feeling the familiar tug of exhaustion at his eyelids. It’s a sensation he’s grown familiar with over the years, like they’re being forcibly stretched by the hands of time themselves. 

Ford knows what it’s like to go without. Sleep. Food. Water. Shelter. Even secondary needs — hell, especially secondary needs. Social interaction. Confidence. Family. All of it. If there’s a level or item on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Ford has spent at least a short period of his life learning to live without it.

He’s adaptable. After all, he was forced to spend three decades scraping together any means of survival he had at his disposal — which oftentimes wasn’t much to go off of. Besides, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a bunch of pseudoscience anyway. Ford doesn’t need any of those things to reach “self-actualization.” He’s found discipline, knowledge, and the pursuit of scientific prowess to sufficiently cover his bases.

But, still, throughout it all, Ford’s never quite gotten used to the way his brain plays tricks on him when he’s at the worst stages of sleep deprivation. He’s tried coffee, eyedrops, dunking his face in ice-cold water, pinching his upper thigh. None of that keeps the spottiness from running in his peripherals, like swarms of bugs quickly scattering by, or blocks the shadows that masquerade themselves in the night, gangly figures looming in every corner and at every door.

Ford averts his gaze, reaching for the porcelain mug in front of him and pounding back the acrid liquid inside, the familiar bite of two-day-old black coffee spreading out over his taste buds. There’s so much of the foul stuff already swirling around in his gut that he doubts more of it will accomplish anything other than bringing him just a bit closer to that heart attack he’s apparently destined to have. Though its bitterness does break him out of his reverie, at least.

Beside him, his newly acquired wireless phone lets out a shrill ring, startling him so badly that the mug slips from his hands. It cracks against the basement table, the sound jolting him awake, a better stimulant than the caffeine could ever hope to be.

His great-niece (he still hasn’t gotten used to that revelation) had gotten the thing for him with Soos and Wendy before her parents had arrived. The first thing she’d done before thrusting it in his direction was hastily enter her contact information, punctuating her name with a colon and a close parenthesis, respectively, a rather clever way to show emotion digitally. Although the frown on her face was a distinct contradiction.

“Here,” she had said, twisting her fingers in her hands, an unbefitting action for such a naturally charismatic personality. “Since I can’t be here…maybe we can…talk? I don’t know how much help I’ll be all the way down in Piedmont, but—”

She had shrugged, chewing on her lip, like she was rethinking the gift and her place in the whole arrangement. “You’ll tell me when it’s finished, right?” she asked. “I mean…definitely– definitely restart it as soon as you’re able, but I— Dipper’s going to need me right when he gets back. He doesn’t like to admit when he’s scared, but…

“Just…keep me updated? Please?”

Now, Ford stares down at the screen and that sideways smile and freezes in his spot. Ahead of him, the portal hangs precariously over the room, and he feels like Atlas, bearing the weight of the heavens and shouldering his eternal punishment. 

The phone rings, and he lets it, waiting until the screen goes dark to hold his head in his hands.

In the multiverse, his earthly understanding of the laws of physics, nature, and time and space were not always adhered to. Once, for three weeks, he inhabited Dimension 3^@62, a dimension where time flows non-sequentially. When he first arrived, he lived the last three days of his journey first, only to be tossed back to when he originally stepped through the wormhole, and then back somewhere in the middle again. Oftentimes, he lived full days out of order. The rest of the time, every second was a flicker, each minute a warped, incoherent experience plucked straight out of a time he hadn’t yet reached, and maybe never would, if he couldn’t escape.

It lacked sense. Reason. Comfort. Sanity. It left him gasping on the floor, paralyzed into inaction, waiting for the next horrifying second, minute, or hour — finding himself in places he didn’t recognize, situations he couldn’t recall getting into.

Ford feels a bit like that now. Pulled through time. It’s been thirty years since he fell through the portal — something he didn’t know but had to discover, due to the varying metrics used to refer to the flow of time in other dimensions and on other worlds. They weren’t all extreme cases like Dimension 3^@62, or even the Do Over Dimension, but it’s just as difficult to keep track of trivial things like years passed when the planet you’re on has such a long rotation around its sun that its inhabitants base their months and years around familiar weather patterns and the condition of the crops rather than trips around it.

Ford doesn’t feel any less disoriented now. Surprisingly, being back in his home dimension doesn’t help. It’s been so long that it may as well be any of the other dimensions he encountered during his travels. He’s been expecting the rush of familiarity, the sense of home that’s supposed to banish the longing that he’s carried all these years, strapped to his back, but it never comes.

He sleeps during the day and floats around the basement at night. One night, Ford finds himself on the second floor of the basement, one hand wrapped around the neck of a whiskey bottle and the other hand clutching his blaster, shooting large craters into his Bill memorabilia, filling the air with the putrid stink of burnt polyvinyl chloride as the canvases tear and blacken. In his drunken stupor, he stumbles back into the elevator and goes to face the portal, finally working up the nerve — or the liquid courage — to disassemble it.

There are better ways to do this, Ford thinks in the moment, the tips of his fingers bloody and worn, scraps of metal creaking and warping against the strain. He huffs, salt on his tongue and an unfamiliar burning sensation in his eyes. It’s not the sharp, grating pain behind his right one that he knows so well — a chronic side effect of Bill’s prolonged possession of his body — but a softer, more human sting that trails down his cheeks, wettening his skin and rolling onto his lips.

He tastes salt water taffy and the ocean breeze.

Ford winces at his headache as it pulls him out of the nearly unsurfaceable depths of sleep, his back pressed against a hard and unfamiliar surface. Behind closed eyes, he stifles a laugh, some deliriously giddy feeling rising at the thought that his newest affliction could’ve been caused by several things. His overconsumption of Cosmic Sand last night and the freshly inserted shield of metal around his brain being the top contenders.

He finds nothing more to laugh about when he sits up and realizes that he’s all alone in an entirely different dimension than the one he was in the night before. His new friend is gone too, almost as if she had disappeared in a puff of smoke, distorted by mirrors. He would consider the possibility that she might have been nothing more than a figment of his imagination if not for the metal plate in his head, his fluffy Pines curls shaven haphazardly, thick stitches lining his scalp.

Anyway, he hardly needs physical proof to remember the way she looked at him last night before the partying and drinking began. Her seven eyes explored his body, his fingers, his stature — not in a scrutinizing way, like he’s come to expect from prying eyes all his life, catching sight of his “deformity” — but in an objective, matter-of-fact kind of way, like she might’ve just been studying him like he would study the creatures of Gravity Falls.

Finally, she settled on his face. She blinked, all of her eyes shutting in perfect synchronicity.

“You have the face of the man who is destined to destroy Bill Cipher,” she said, her voice even as each of her eyes peered into his, as if she could see Cipher’s demise swimming in them or perhaps even etched into his irises like the rings on a tree.

Ford couldn’t help the large grin that stretched across his face. Feeling a little bit lighter than he had all week, or since he first stumbled upon those ancient incantations and summoned Bill back into this world, he settled back against the wall, content to let relief and pride wash over him at her words.

Jheselbraum the Unswerving, “the Oracle,” she had called herself, responded in turn with a slight uptick of the corners of her mouth. When he suggested they celebrate, she raised her glass, containing the unbridled juice of the cosmos, and smiled — clinking it against his.

“To the end of Cipher,” Ford had said, a hot flush quickly rising to his cheeks.

“To the end.”

Ford jolts awake, caught on a startled gasp, his sweater unbearably tight around his neck. He grabs at it, drawing in a deep breath. 

He almost doesn’t recognize where he is, but the crick in his back from falling asleep on the stiff couch in his study is a hard sensation to forget, even after spending decades sleeping on tree roots and in drafty caves. 

He’d honestly rather be in a cave now, or resting beneath the large pine-like trees that lined the forests of Dimension 89*3, eyes shutting and opening to what felt like an eternal night. More than anything, he’d rather be in the Nightmare Realm, finishing what he started.

Anywhere. Anywhere other than here.

He peers around the room, trying to catch sight of something familiar, and sets his sight on his old Electron Carpet rolled up in the corner of the room. His old portraits are still here too, as are the art pieces he hung up to make his lab feel just a little less sterile. 

He’s hardly used to a blank canvas. His pursuit of knowledge has been anything but clean and orderly, and despite his best efforts, Ford’s never been able to master the type of lifestyle that lends itself to calmness and togetherness.

As a child, he and Stan had plenty of things slapped on the walls or hung from the ceiling or scattered about on the floor: handprint posters and UFOs and Fort Stan and treasure maps. His college years were more or less the same. Posters and sticky notes always littered the walls of his and Fiddleford’s shared dorm room, covering nearly every square inch of real estate, until their decorations were practically touching, blending together into one cohesive unit.

Looking around at his stuff doesn’t help him feel any more at home, especially when he catches sight of the layers of dust covering much of it, but he’s at least a little grateful that all proof of his prior presence in this dimension hasn’t been entirely stripped away in his absence.

He pulls his weary bones off the couch and allows himself to drift toward the vending machine. The one in his house, of course, because apparently Stan thought ‘why not?’ and decided to go full tilt in transforming his home and lab into an all out tourist trap, fit with fully functioning secret vending machine doors and all.

In the elevator, Ford leans heavily against the wall and allows the cool metal to bear the weight of his body. He hardly notices when it reaches the ground floor, his eyes shut behind closed lids, only snapping open when he hears a familiar shrill ding.

Ford steps out and makes his way toward the portal. The lights buzz around him, bathing the jagged, broken down hunk of metal in front of him in a sickly sort of light. He eyes the parts of the portal that were directly destroyed by him, as well as the parts that were destroyed due to its use earlier this month, and winces, a heaviness sitting at the pits of his stomach.

He can hardly breathe around the lump in his throat, a concoction of dread and fear and guilt blocking his airways like a clump of tar. He imagines it spreading, thick black goop that runs through his veins until every last organ is overtaken by it, the darkness coating him like an oil slick. He blames his clinical lack of sleep for the uncharacteristic dramatism of his thoughts.

Though, Ford’s not sure if he can write off his next train of thought as a result of his exhaustion. He thinks of Stan, for the umpteenth time this week, admittedly, and all he can picture in his mind’s eye is a 12-year-old boy running around Glass Shard Beach, his front-toothless grin unwavering and framed with sun-scorched cheeks.

He imagines another boy with him, faceless and blurry. Maybe it’s Ford, or maybe it’s Mabel’s twin brother, less enthusiastic but still along for the ride, content to trudge along on Stan’s heels.

The stinging in his eyes returns. He walks back to the table and pulls out a globe, locked behind thick glass. It’s safe here with him, though he could stand to reinforce its containment. Find something stronger to keep the apocalypse at bay.

Ford stares into the rift, eyeing the hairline crack down its side, inky blobs of blue-black morphing and taking shape behind the glass. Speckled swirls move without purpose, taunting him as they careen toward the sides, as if saying hello.

The pit in his stomach lessens as he peers into it. A narrowly avoided disaster — the proof at his fingertips.

To the end, she had said.

His third journal sits in front of him, the thing practically destroyed by now, pages torn out and scribbled over with new splotches of bright red blood staining the parchment, his fingertips worn raw and throbbing with every brush against his pen.

The latest page is little more than the ramblings of a mad man. On it, there’s a half-finished sketch of a transdimensional portal gun that was hastily scratched over once Ford concluded that the equation isn’t and could never be mathematically or scientifically feasible. In theory, the concept could work, but it doesn’t hold up when factoring in the sheer quantum instability of interdimensional boundaries. Harnessing the kind of energy to narrow down any being’s precise location would be next to impossible, especially using a device small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. 

The whole thing crumbles under the weight of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, where the coordinates of any portal’s exit point would remain probabilistically smeared across countless possible outcomes like quantum alphabet soup. Even if the energy requirements were met — which alone borders on the absurd — the collapse of coherence within subatomic particles at the interface would render any traveler atomically scrambled, their existence more quantum static than living human being.

And that’s too great a gamble. He crumples the page and tosses it over his shoulder, scrapping the idea altogether.

When Bill helped him construct the portal, he had secretly configured it to open a gateway directly to the Nightmare Realm. Being a mismatched and unstable realm with a paper-thin dimensional veil, it served as a good enough port authority for Ford to hop to other dimensions through once he arrived — wormholes appearing at random as the Nightmare Realm morphed and crumbled under the weight of its own happenstance. It doesn’t belong in this reality and neither do its inhabitants, so it seems that every known force is constantly trying to jumpstart its inevitable collapse.

Its improbability and randomness makes it the perfect candidate for an interdimensional gateway. Its instability allows for travel to other dimensions straight from the Nightmare Realm — not that the portal itself allows the traveler to travel anywhere at their own whim. In his travels, he himself got a hold of a wormhole gun, able to conjure wormholes whenever he pleased, but he was never in control of his destination. Ford’s only ever seen one transdimensional device that allowed such a feat in real life, and his shoddy attempt at it has been put to bed.

Ford’s never coped well with failure, so he sets about to get his hands dirty elsewhere, to maybe end this three-day stretch of wakefulness doing something useful. There are things he should do, like seeing if he can obtain some unicorn hair or retrieve some alien adhesive from Crash Site Omega. Or maybe even calling Mabel back…

He returns to face the portal, standing before its wreckage with a twisted frown.

He can’t say he’s surprised when it happens. If he was a betting man like his brother, he honestly would have bet on it happening sooner.

Ford wakes in a field, air-swept wheat swaying and tickling his extremities, an eerie orange sun hanging above three of his largest albatrosses: his and Stan’s most frequented childhood swing set, the portal, and a large sailboat representing a future he once entertained — practically shipwrecked now.

He ponders it all for a moment, his index finger resting against his five o'clock shadow, before the wheat paves way for a trail that leads directly to him. It splits suddenly, wheat stalks collapsing against the dirt and leaving behind a crop triangle. When the flattened earth beneath him begins to glow, a chilling cackle fills the desolate and barren wasteland. Ford startles back, unsteady on his feet.

"I know that laugh," he mutters under his breath, before calling out, "Show yourself!"

Ford whips around, wind picking up the tail end of his trench coat as Bill rises from the ground like a phoenix from the ashes, pulled up by a beacon of light. There's a flash, and then there he is in his complete form — splitting into three, then five, and finally seven.

“Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well!” he says, all seven Bills forming a ring around Ford, rotating in a clockwise direction, effectively trapping him in his spot. “Aren't you a sight for sore eye!” He pulls his hands into a clasping motion, feigning fondness. “Stanford Filbrick Pines, my old pal!”

“Bill Cipher,” Ford spits. “What do you want from me?”

One of the copies of his old muse wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close with a half-lidded eye. “Oh, quit playing dumb, IQ!” Another copy ruffles his hair and flicks his nose. “You knew I'd be back!”

The copies merge to form one large Bill, hovering above him. His top hat is gone, replaced instead with his dad’s old fez from the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel, blackened with soot. He recognizes it both from childhood and from the many pictures he’s seen around the Shack of Stanley, the old thing apparently as much a part of his Mr. Mystery charade as any of the other fraudulent, half-baked lies lying around the tourist trap.

“And, hey,” Bill starts, catching on to his train of thought, “you like my new look? Guess I’m the new Mr. Mystery now, eh?” He flicks the fez’s singed tassel for good measure.

Ford ignores the tightness in his chest at seeing the fez in his possession, brandished like the head of a hunter’s latest kill — a trophy. He throws his arms out in front of him, crossing them sharply downward. “I won’t fall for your trickery any longer, Cipher! Nothing you say will convince me to rebuild that portal. I'd die before I let you into this dimension!”

Bill shrinks back down to his normal size. “Oh, that old thing? No need, Fordsy! I’ve been having my own fun on this side of things,” he says, removing the fez to reveal his top hat before burning it to a crisp. “You know, it’s nice of you to finally introduce me to your family, face-to-face. That great-nephew of yours sure takes after you. He even makes for a great puppet on this side of the portal!”

Ford pales fast. “You’re bluffing.”

“Could be!” Bill swirls his cane by his side like a pinwheel. “Maybe they escaped, or maybe they’ll spend an eternity as my personal playthings! Isn’t not knowing so much fun?!”

“You wouldn’t,” Ford says, trying to keep strength in his voice, but he knows that he would. He would if he could. And he can. He might have.

Bill cackles, his yellow hue taking on a nightmarish tint, his normally echoey and nasally voice dropping several octaves. “You always did love Schrödinger's cat. Is it dead? Is it alive? Both?! Do you wanna open the box and find out, Sixer?”

He seems pleased with himself as he morphs back to his natural state, his eye scrutinizing Ford where he stands. Bill doesn’t even seem perturbed by the fact that Ford isn’t responding, his taunting undeterred, like he’s proud that he’s rendered him speechless.

“I’d bet you’d know a lot about what it means to be both alive and dead simultaneously. You’re the spitting image of the walking dead as it is. You should get a good look at yourself! Here!”

Bill thrusts a handheld mirror in his direction. Ford flinches back and walks right back into Bill, his former muse teleporting right behind him, reflected in the mirror. “Has anyone ever told you that you have your brother’s eyes? It’s like you can see every selfish deed reflected in them! Though, I’ve gotta say, Sixer, I think I prefer yours yellow.” 

Ford pushes himself forward, smacking the mirror away and walking several paces away from Bill. He doesn’t dignify his threats with a response, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to will away both the dream and the image of Stan and his faceless great-nephew, undergoing constant torture at the hands of Bill and his men. Playthings.

“Don’t think I didn’t see your pathetic attempt at a portal gun. Bet you wish you would’ve asked your old friend how he did it when you had the chance! You may be a brainiac, Sixer, but you’re no Sanchez.”

That sends him over the edge, and he can’t keep his words from bubbling over at the confirmation that he’s being watched, that Bill is still keeping an eye on him even now — back in his home dimension where it all started. “Get out of here! You have no dominion in this world, Bill!”

“Maybe not right now,” Bill admits, “but things change, Stanford Pines.” He floats down, and Ford gazes upon his own face as reflected in Bill’s large eye, ascending up into the portal. “Things… change.”

Bill laughs as he exits, leaving Ford within a ring of fire. Several images flash into his consciousness at once, his hand, a neon green star, and those ten symbols that Ford has become weirdly, distantly familiar with since he first stumbled upon them.

He jolts awake suddenly, finding himself slumped over his basement desk, journal pages stuck to his stubbly cheeks and chin. He pants, adjusting his glasses as he makes out a shrill sound to his left.

His phone rings and rings and rings, vibrations sending the thing off the desk to clatter unceremoniously to the floor.

Long after the noise above ground has died down and Ford has watched the handyman’s pickup truck peel out of the front yard, he decides to venture back upstairs. With a full day’s sleep under his belt, though not without the usual night terrors, he feels sharper and more alive than he has in weeks. 

The brightness of the Oregon night sky bleeds in through the windows, guiding his way through his lab. He drifts around with no specific destination in mind, ending up in the living room and peering in on a space that isn’t his. There’s a chair he’s never sat in resting in front of him and a television set that may or may not be his directly in front of it, though it’s definitely old enough to be his old one.

In the dead of night, with the Shack’s usual guests and workers gone, Ford feels more like a ghost haunting his former life than he does a part of it. Of course, he feels like that during the day too, overhearing muffled conversations upstairs even when only half-awake. Sometimes he’s the subject of their musings, or the object of their searches — loud knocks against the vending machine and clicks of the buttons as they attempt to enter. 

The intrusion and lack of privacy would anger him under normal circumstances, but knowing the reason behind their urgency is enough to keep him quiet for now. It’s part of the reason why he’s let his sleeping schedule get so out of hand and why he’s allowed business to continue as usual upstairs. He’s not sure what to say to them — to any of them — so it’s altogether easier to hide away until he can figure out a way to strip his life back and reclaim what was taken from him.

Though he can’t say he’s looking forward to “figuring it out,” whatever that means in his case. His grant money has all but dried up, and he doubts Stan has kept up a clean record even with his new life and name, absolving him of the crimes of his former grifting years. With that, he doubts his brother has any savings either, and Ford isn’t sure he’d feel comfortable dipping into them anyway, no matter how much he’d have the right to.

Plus, no matter how much he personally blames Stan for all of this, he can’t exactly report him for identity fraud. He imagines how well that would go, how absurd and unbelievable it would sound to anyone who gave him the time of day. What would he even say?

“Hello, sir, you see, my twin brother stole my identity thirty years ago, and he’s the cause of all of my criminal activity and my crippling debt. Where is he? Well, there’s an interdimensional portal under my…”

The whole thing is headache inducing. If Ford was anyone else, he’d laugh in his face. 

He spends the few hours of night and early morning he has before the Shack reopens to take care of things above ground. He showers, finally, even managing to grab a bite to eat before he ascends the basement steps once more, taking the elevator all the way down. 

He spends hours looking back over his old notes on Crash Site Omega and revisiting his journal pages on unicorns and the properties of their hair, making a mental note to complete one or two of those tasks in the coming days, knowing that there’s no shame in taking multiple precautions against Bill, even with the metal plate in his head. 

The rift will need to be contained regardless, and if there must be outsiders in his cabin, then it follows that they should be free of Bill’s influence too. Especially considering their close proximity to the rift — even hundreds of feet above ground.

Though, no one but him will be able to touch the thing with a ten-foot pole if he has anything to say about it. Changing the vending machine’s code was his first safeguard against that.

Not long after he makes it back downstairs, Ford finds himself slumped over the basement table again, exhausted even with a full day’s worth of sleep, no matter how fitful it was. His spine aches and the chronic crick in his back protests as he assumes the sleeping position he’s found himself in every day for the past few weeks, not including the occasional bouts of sleep he’s gotten in his old room upstairs.

It’s hard to say how long he sleeps this time before he wakes to a loud clanging upstairs, as if someone — a very small someone — is repeatedly throwing their entire body weight against the door of the vending machine.

He startles awake, papers rustling as he sits ramrod straight, his brain foggy and sleep-addled. The banging continues undeterred, the sound of fists and shoulders and other parts slamming against the machine, ear-piercing even from all the way beneath ground. Accompanying the racket, though lost to the intensity of the warping of the machine’s plastic shield, are two voices, trying to sound soothing even as their pleas fall on deaf ears.

Ford stands. His brain swims even as his eyes begin to sharpen with clarity, alarm bells ringing in his ears before he even gets the chance to consider what this might be — who it might be.

“Grunkle Ford!” a voice he knows somewhat well by now calls out, choked and quite obviously distressed.

Before he can rethink it, Ford rushes toward the elevator and slams down on the button. He enters quickly, his shoulder slamming against the side door in his haste. He bites back the pain as he hits the top floor button, his brain racing now that it’s more than half-awake, running through the possibilities of why she might be here. 

What could’ve gone wrong? Or, the question should really be, what else could’ve gone wrong?

When he reaches ground level, he rushes up the stairs, not giving his actions any real thought as he pushes open the vending machine door, facing the Shack’s inhabitants for the first time since the portal. Since the search. He blinks, and in a turn of events he hadn’t considered until thirty seconds ago, he’s face-to-face with his great-niece.

“Mabel?” he asks, cheeks flushing slightly at the hoarseness of his voice, clear to all that he hasn’t used it in a while. As soon as her name is uttered, he’s reminded of the fact that he’s left all of her calls unanswered this past week, and a wave of guilt and apprehension rocks into him, nearly sending him retreating down the stairs and shutting them all out once more.

Wet, red-rimmed eyes shift upward, her frozen fist still prepared to hit the vending machine again, Soos and Wendy clinging onto both of her biceps, having tried and failed to hold her back. The Shack has cleared out, or maybe no tourists have shown up yet, the morning still young and the sky outside gray and dim.

“Mabel, I—” he stammers. “How– What are you doing here?”

“I caught the ten p.m. bus,” she says simply, a hint of pride in her voice as she shakes Soos and Wendy off and straightens up. For a moment, she does nothing but stare deep into his eyes, scrutinizing his gaze, before her lips curve downward into a hard frown.

He doesn’t know what she sees in them, if maybe Bill was right and she saw every selfish deed he’s ever committed, but before he knows it she’s brushing past him, skipping multiple sets of stairs as she races downstairs, making it to the bottom before he can even register what has happened. With one entry of an elevator password — that he’s just now realizing he never got around to changing — she’s gone, headed straight for the basement.

Ford’s blood runs cold. He turns on his heel and rushes downstairs to follow her, practically flinging himself down the stairs.

The elevator takes far too long to respond to his call, and he bites back a curse when it comes up empty. Ford curses himself freely in the confines of the elevator, hearing Soos and Wendy begin to ascend the stairs themselves, their protests flying toward him.

And he thought he would’ve had more time to think about things and to find some way to break the news to her. Like a fool. Honestly, with the way he’d been avoiding things, he thought he had all the time in the world. But by the time he reaches the basement, he knows that all pretenses have to be thrown out the window now. He’s too late to do this on his own terms.

Mabel stands before the portal, her fists clenched and trembling at her sides, a worn-out baseball cap sitting atop her unruly Pines-inherited curls.

“What is this?” she asks as he steps behind her, her voice entirely hollowed out and devoid of the high-energy, endearing charm she carried the day he met her. Deep, dark circles are more than prominent against her ashen skin, her red-rimmed eyes filmed over with that glossy sheen that only ever appears in the eyes of someone who isn’t sleeping or meeting many of their basic human needs.

She’s a far cry from the girl who tagged her name with a smiley face emoticon and whipped up several pitchers of a glitterified energy drink chock full of plastic dinosaurs in his kitchen. Ford looks up at the portal — or at least what is left of it — and can hardly muster the sense of security and pride he felt after he’d effectively disassembled it weeks ago.

He gulps, somehow finding his voice despite his own hollowness. “What do you mean?” he asks and regrets immediately.

“I mean what is the portal doing half gone?!” Mabel asks incredulously, sounding more frantic and anguished than any child has the right to be.

“Mabel—”

“You haven’t been working on the portal at all, have you?! You were going to dismantle it?” she asks, waving her hands in front of her, her eyes widening as she takes in the full state of it. “You did dismantle it!”

His tongue untangles itself, a justification resting at the tip of it, but the words catch in his throat when she whips around, facing him with an expression that goes far beyond betrayal. It’s a glare that rivals the way he looks at Bill, even.

“Mabel, opening the portal is far too risky,” he defends, finding his voice again. He can’t have her looking at him like that. She’s a smart girl, he’s deduced already, she will come to understand this in time. He will help her come to understand it. “There are grave threats waiting to enter our world. Do you have any idea what kind of danger lies on the other side of it?”

“No,” she argues, “because you’ve been lying to me this whole time! You told me that Dipper and Stan would be fine! You told me you would restart it!”

Ford sighs, running a palm down his face. “I shouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry,” he admits. “But I can’t risk what might enter this dimension if that portal were to open, Mabel. Our world as we know it—”

“I don’t care!” she interrupts, stepping backward toward the portal and shaking her head with fervor. “I don’t care about a world without Dipper in it! Without Stan!”

“Mabel,” he pleads, liquid ice shooting through his veins. It’s not that he isn’t sympathetic, really. He understands, but someone has to be the one to make the hard decisions. No matter how unfavorable they are — no matter how much they keep him up at night, plagued by images of a faceless child being forcibly puppeteered throughout the Nightmare Realm, or his brother, burnt to a crisp like his fez, over and over and over again for all of eternity. Or at least until the Nightmare Realm finally collapses, extreme gravitational forces stretching their bodies into long, thin strands, tearing every single one of their atoms apart.

He chokes on his words, his voice breaking. “This is about more than just what you want or what I want—”

“My parents are getting divorced!” Mabel yells out over him. And, with that, all of his arguments die on his tongue, sizzling at the back of his throat. 

He blinks, stripped of breath. “What?”

The tears come unbidden now, snaking down her cheeks. “They– they had problems before. They always have. But now that Dipper’s gone they’re blaming themselves for his disappearance, and Dad– Dad blames Mom for sending us here, and Mom blames him for being ‘the reason’ she pushed us to come.

“And the police keep telling them it’s likely that Dipper– with the cold nights, and– and the…” She can’t finish the sentence, her breaths heavy and sporadic. Ford’s not one for comforting others, but he’s suddenly awash with the urge to console her, to reach out and offer something, but she continues before he can convince himself to do it, her words keeping him frozen in his spot.

“They want to have a funeral, Great Uncle Ford. I can’t– I won’t go to my brother’s funeral when I know he’s on the other side of that portal waiting for me.”

She walks forward, catching sight of a broken picture frame resting on the floor, having shattered against the ground when gravity reactivated itself. She bends over to pick it up, running a finger over half of it with reverence, despite the cracks, small pieces of glass sharp and unassuming. “I know it might be dangerous, but look—”

Mabel thrusts the photograph in his direction. “This is Dipper! He’s thirteen now. He loves mysteries and cryptology and monsters and ghosts and books and science and math and videography and he couldn’t wait to figure out who you were this summer,” she says without taking a single breath. “He takes himself super seriously, even though he’s memorized every single BABBA song forward and back! He can be shy, sometimes, and a little awkward and sweaty, but he’s also really, really brave. But, he’s also anxious, like, constantly, and he gets stuck in his head way too much. That’s mostly because he’s really smart. So smart that he’s never even gotten anything below an A minus in school, Great Uncle Ford! And now he’s living in that thing!

“It’s our birthday today,” she continues, choking on a sob. “Did you know that?”

Meeting her gaze, he feels like he might be looking at a young Stanley, exuding a passion and a bullheadedness that Ford himself never had at that age, especially toward adults, but was so prominent in his brother. Even her sheer faith in her twin was something that Stan had waved around back in the day, unmatched no matter who might’ve challenged it.

And he wants to help her. Wants to help himself. He really does. 

But he can’t. He’s powerless. His hands are tied. 

And, apparently, feeling powerless makes him lose the ability to think before he speaks.

“Mabel, I’m sorry, but that portal leads straight to a place called the Nightmare Realm. Home to a being named Bill Cipher—”

To his surprise, and to his dismay, which takes several hours after this point to develop into something more concrete and evidence-based, Mabel reacts to the name. Strongly.

Her entire face washes itself of color, as white as a sheet. “Bill?” she repeats, her breath stolen from her. “They’re with Bill?”

Ford steps back, the action more instinct than conscious choice. “You– you know Bill?”

A shaky hand flies up to cover her mouth, the nubs of her nails bloody and worn, same as his own, though for decidedly different reasons, her not having spent the past two weeks tearing apart a portal.

When she doesn’t answer, he steps forward. Whether to get her to calm down, offer her an explanation, help her gain control of her breathing, or prompt her to answer his question — he doesn’t know — but he doesn’t get the chance to pick one before she’s bolting away from him again, headed for the elevator.

He’s quick to follow this time, and though he doesn’t reach the elevator doors before they close with her inside, he makes up for it with the way he races up the stairs and out the ajar vending machine door within seconds of exiting it, Wendy and Soos to the left of him, clearly dumbfounded.

The Corduroy girl snaps out of her shock quickly, a large but slender hand wrapping around Ford’s forearm, stopping him in his tracks.

He sputters, trying to pull away, but her fingers practically force his radius and ulna to touch, her bruising grip as hard as her dark green eyes. 

“I’ll– I’ll bring her back,” he gets out. “I’ll fix this. I promise.”

She lets him go with a slight shove. “I saw her run off into the woods,” she says, her voice cold. “You better fix it fast.”

Ford feels himself nod, and then he’s off, racing out the front door and crossing the stretch of lawn to reach the tree line. The smell of the woods fills him with nostalgia immediately, the wind whipping early morning mist in his face, the air thick with fog. It hangs heavy over him, shrouding the terrain and making it hard to see what isn’t directly in front of him.

“Mabel!” he yells out, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Mabel!”

His call goes unanswered, and he continues onward, peering around trees as sweat beads on his forehead despite the chill. It’s the second time he’s gone searching for one of these twins in the woods in the past month. He just hopes that he’s actually successful this time.

His earlier words, just minutes ago, come back to mind, eating at him. Why he thought it was appropriate to even insinuate that her twin might not be safe, let alone by dropping the bomb that he very well may be in a dimension called the Nightmare Realm, of all places, is beyond him. Except, she hadn’t reacted to that part, exactly.

No, it was the name. It was Bill. 

Mabel knows Bill Cipher — or has at least heard of him. She could have remembered the name from his entries in the third journal, but that doesn’t explain her reaction and the expression on her face when he’d said it, nearly ready to faint at the thought of her twin and grunkle being with him. 

That kind of reaction requires more than just some summer reading to muster up.

“Mabel!” he calls out again, his voice echoing around him, a squirrel startling and scurrying out of a bush by his feet, clawing its way up a nearby tree.

Ford startles, his nerves practically shot, his version of self-care admittedly lacking the past few weeks too. All this Bill talk isn’t doing him any favors, either. He begins to ponder how Mabel might’ve become familiar with him, and he can’t shake the steadily forming image of his great-niece wrapping her hand in his, her eyes slitted and jaundiced. Could he already be too late?

He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the thought away.

“Mabel, dear,” Ford calls, “please come out. I’d like to speak with you!”

Ford cringes. I’d like to speak with you? He really has no idea how to interact with children, especially distressed ones. Any attempt to sound comforting and he’s falling flat on his face, eating his own words half the time. He’s already screwed up on an astronomical level, and he has no earthly idea how he’ll be able to fix this, despite what he told the Corduroy girl. He’ll probably wind up needing to enlist their help, and she’ll snap his old bones in two, making good on her wordless threat.

By some miracle, he spies a piece of purple yarn dangling from a thorny branch, protruding out of a bush, and he hurries forward. He sets his mouth in a thin line as he scans his surroundings, trying to catch sight of the purple-sweatered teen, more than likely panicking somewhere if her reaction is anything to go by. Ford recognizes the knee-jerk instinct to flee when panicked, and he sympathizes with the urge, even if it means he has to pick over every square inch of these woods to find her.

Of course, finding her isn’t bound to be his biggest hurdle today. He’ll have to convince her that he was wrong, that Dipper and Stan are safe, and that Bill isn’t a threat to them.

Except, that’s not the truth. It hasn’t been the truth since they were first sucked through the portal, and Ford knew that. He didn’t need Bill to come into his dreams to threaten him to know that Stan and Dipper being in his possession was and is a very real possibility. He’s almost ninety-nine percent certain that Bill is just goading him, hoping he’ll cave and restart the portal, but he really has no way of knowing. He’s entertained the thought about a trillion times by now, and, really, Bill’s right. It doesn’t matter if they’re with him or not — with the box closed, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead, its fate quantum in nature, perpetually existing in both realities.

With the portal dismantled, they’ll never know, and Dipper and Stan will always be just that, both alive and dead.

Ford groans — a half-yell, half-cry — as he reaches up to tug at his silver tufts. “Mabel?!” he shouts, a little more desperate now, his voice faltering.

He makes a sharp right, breaking away from the yarned-bush and continuing in the direction he thinks she was the most likely to run off in. He keeps quiet, hoping to hear a rustle or even a muffled cry at this point, terror running through his own veins at his horrifying stream of consciousness.

Mabel’s description of her twin sticks with him. Ford doesn’t think he’s reading into the similarities between him and his great-nephew, whom he’s never met, apparently a kindred spirit in his love of the weird and all things unusual in nature. It must be a family trait, he thinks, thinking of Mabel’s own acceptance of his six-fingers, not seeing them as anything more than evidence that he must be the ‘author of the journals,’ a title they apparently used to describe him all summer as they attempted to uncover his identity and the journals’ origin.

Her twin even bears a striking resemblance to him and Stan at that age, and Ford suddenly has a face to catalogue all of his recent nightmares and distracted musings. It doesn’t make it any easier. In fact, it makes it all far, far worse.

He even makes for a great puppet on this side of the portal!

Ford huffs, picking up speed, unable to shake the image of this fresh face with yellow eyes, bathed in the sickening light of the Nightmare Realm, the atmosphere thick with the scent of burning hair.

Maybe he should restart the portal, if just to go back and finally kill Cipher once and for all. To make him pay for all that he’s done to him and his family, still pulling the strings thirty years after their deal. He shouldn’t be able to rattle his psyche this severely. Ford promised himself that he would never let Bill have him in his grip ever again, and he swore that part of his life was over. He’d never let himself feel that out-of-control ever again.

He wants to take the Quantum Destabilizer straight to the backside of Bill. He wants him to never see it coming, to never get the chance to wonder how Ford managed to do it before he’s completely eviscerated, his atoms shrieking in and out of existence, yellow mist the only thing left behind.

Ford thinks of the Oracle. “You have the face of the man who is destined to destroy Bill Cipher,” she had said, possessing the gift of Sight and yet failing to sense the cowardice within him.

What has he done?

“Mabel,” he yells, “Ma—”

His shoe hits an unmoving roadblock and he stumbles, a single “oof” escaping him as he tries to right himself on two feet. 

The roadblock in question ends up being his great-niece, he observes, sitting beneath a tree, curled into her purple sweater that’s stretched out and covering her knees. Her face, up to the beginning of her hairline, is hidden by the fabric, her white and blue pine tree’d hat resting on her head. Her arms cling tightly around herself as she rocks back and forth slightly. 

She seems altogether unaware of his presence, despite him having knocked into her. “Mabel?” he says again, quieter this time, his voice hushed and unsure.

Mabel lets out a small whine, rocking harder as her grip tightens around her shins, her nubby nails digging into the skin there. She shakes her head. “Go away.”

Ford doesn’t respond, nor does he go away, choosing instead to sit beside her. He crosses his legs and looks down at the crown of her head, one much shorter piece of hair sticking haphazardly out of the side of her head, nearly as curly as her pig’s tail.

She peers out of her sweater, one eye visible. It’s redder than before, blessedly not yellow or slitted, though it’s pretty clear that she has just finished crying. Hard. “Mabel’s not here right now,” she says.

Ford manages a small, sad smile. “She’s not? Where is she?”

She sniffs, her voice taut. “Sweater Town,” says a small voice as she retreats into the yarn, sniffling continuing once more, bordering on quiet sobs.

He hums in acknowledgment. “Okay,” he says, trying to ignore the voice in his head that’s telling him that he’s doing this all wrong, that he’s only going to make it worse, that he should just let her cry it out by herself. The voice sounds suspiciously like his dad, so he tells it to fuck off.

“Is Sweater Town accepting calls? There’s someone there I ought to talk to, and it’s pretty urgent. I haven’t been very good about answering her calls, and there are some things I’d like to say. To make it right.”

It’s quiet for a moment, her cries stopping completely.

“I can take a message.”

Ford sighs. “Well, first, I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have said that back there.” He rubs the back of his neck, fingers meeting the fabric of his turtleneck, feeling more constricting than usual. “I wanted you to understand why I did what I did, but it was tactless. That couldn’t have been easy to hear, and I’m sorry for the way I said it. Those are our brothers, and…

“I’m sorry,” he says, unsatisfied with the words but glad they’re out in the open.

Mabel squirms, peeking out of the top of her sweater, her eyebrows and eyes the only features visible to him. “He’s not dead,” she says simply.

Ford blinks, surprised. “I– I know. I don’t think he’s dead either,” he says, though he isn’t actually sure. He hopes he isn’t. He hopes they aren’t. He would put his entire life on the line if it meant making that statement a fact and not just a shot in the dark. He would, wouldn’t he?

She stares back at him, the fabric dropping, falling back down to rest over her collarbones. “He isn’t,” she repeats.

He nods, resting his palms over his knees, staring down at them. “He isn’t.”

Ford can feel her gaze on him, piercing, and so he looks back up, meeting it. “I’m his twin,” she says. “If he was dead I would know it. I would.”

“Twin ESP?” Ford asks, trying for a lighter segue. The desperation in her eyes is difficult to ignore, and up close he’s extremely concerned with both the pallor of her skin and the darkness beneath her eyes. This is someone who needs help, he thinks, and though he’s not confident that he’s the best choice here, he’s willing to try. “Stanley and I used to think we had that, back in the day.”

She shakes her head. “Not exactly. I just…” She bites her lip. “I mean, don’t you ever feel like…if it happened…you’d know? Somehow?”

Ford mulls it over. It’s not a phenomenon that is backed by any science, but he can find some relatability in it, no matter how morbid. Even before the portal, when Ford had no idea where his brother was or what he possibly could have been up to, he never questioned whether or not he was alive. Even when he wasn’t seeing Stanley pop up on his television set on the random occasion, selling the next product or two bound to receive a class action lawsuit, Ford knew he was out there somewhere. 

And now? Ford’s not sure, but he thinks that maybe he can feel that old tether, that distant awareness of his brother’s presence — like a blanket keeping away the draft from his dad’s pawn shop downstairs. It feels like waking up at three a.m. in a cold sweat, plagued by nightmares and yet keenly aware of his brother sleeping in the bunk bed directly beneath him. That feeling has never gone away. Not really.

“Yes. I do.”

Mabel sniffs, finally breaking her intense eye contact, staring off at the horizon as the sun dips behind the clouds again, the sky overcast and dull. 

Ford follows her gaze, settling on the tree in front of him. Only it isn’t really a tree at all, he notices, familiarity rushing to meet him. Funnily enough, it’s the artificial tree he constructed to hide the third journal. 

“Can you tell me more about him?” Ford asks, curiosity and sympathy fighting for dominance in his brain. Also, a longing for normalcy, for a world where none of this happened, where he could have left the portal and rejoined his home dimension with Stan and Dipper still in it, the worst of the damage being a rift that he’s managed to contain well enough for the time being. He knows more about sealing rifts than hearts. “About Dipper?”

She perks up, hope gleaming in her glossy eyes. “Y–yeah. What do you want to know?”

He thinks for a moment. “Well, you said he couldn’t wait to figure out who I was? Were you both reading my journals? How did you get a hold of them?”

“Oh,” Mabel says. “Well, we really only ever read the third one. Grunkle Stan had the rest, which we didn’t know until… you know.” Her shoulders droop at the memory, though she continues on anyway. “I wasn’t there when Dipper found it, but he said he found it when he was out in the woods hanging signs for Grunkle Stan. That you hid it in a tree made of metal or something?”

Ford nods, pointing ahead of him. “That one.”

Mabel’s eyes widen. “Really? Well, he was pretty excited when he found it. We used it all the time to defend ourselves against monsters, even though most of the weaknesses you wrote were written with invisible ink or kind of misleading, no offense. Dipper and I made a few of our own discoveries too. We wrote them down. Did you see them?”

Ford allows a laugh. “No offense taken, though I will say I never intended my journal to be used as a guidebook to the supernatural, only research. I am glad you found some use for it anyway,” he says. “And, er, no. I haven’t…gotten the chance.”

Because you were too busy making sure her twin and great-uncle had no possible way to be brought back from a fate likely worse than an eternity in Hell.

He shakes the thought off. “If you’d like to show me, I’d be interested in taking a look at your entries. I’m sure the forest folk have evolved a lot over the years, and science is always best repeated and reexamined by fresh sets of eyes.”

Mabel nods, not much excitement reciprocated back, but he far from expected that. “It was mostly Dipper’s thing. He got himself all wrapped up in the mystery of it. Him and his conspiracies,” she muses, fondly. “You should’ve seen our room in the Shack. He had this giant corkboard full of theories and observations about who you were. He’d be super embarrassed that I’m telling you this. He’s pretty obsessed with you.”

Ford’s cheeks heat up. When he was going about the painstaking process of hiding his life’s work, he had all but resigned himself to the fact that it was all for nothing. That it would never be read. He’d never expected it actually would be, and by children, no less, obsessing and theorizing over it. He’s a bit embarrassed himself.

“You think he was surprised to find out?”

Mabel positively beams, and Ford wonders bitterly how long the adults in her life have been throwing around the word “dead” and referring to Dipper in the past tense. Of course, her parents are working off of completely different information, but the sheer happiness reflected in her eyes at him talking about her brother as if he is still a living, breathing person is nothing short of agonizing to witness.

“Definitely,” she says. “I wish I could’ve been there to see the look on his face whenever Grunkle Stan told him. I bet he freaked out.”

Ford laughs. “You don’t think it’d be a little disappointing? It kind of disproves the whole conspiracy nature of it.”

Mabel laughs too, short and sweet. He’s never been happier to hear someone laugh. “Are you kidding? I think finding out that he’s blood-related to the author of the journals would be, like, a fever dream for him. He’s probably still pinching himself.”

Her smile drops a little at that, probably realizing that her twin is likely trying to pinch himself awake for other reasons right now, but she recovers quickly. “He’d definitely be bombarding you with questions, that’s for sure.”

“Ah, a true scientist,” he says playfully, though he means it. He sounds remarkable, just as interesting and intelligent as the girl in front of him, who has already managed to capture his good graces in such a short amount of time. He tries to choose his next words carefully, to vocalize what he’s decided on in just the past half-hour alone.

He still doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what the right choice is, just that he’s done letting Bill ruin all that’s good in this world. He wants to be the man that the Oracle saw when she looked into his eyes. He wants to be the man that his great-nephew admired, even from afar. He wants to be who Mabel wants him to be — who she needs him to be.

“Look, Mabel,” he starts, drumming his fingers against his knee, the sun peeking back up over the clouds and shining down on them, “I can– I can promise to stop dismantling the portal. I’ll call your parents now, let them know you’re okay, and see what we can do about letting you stay here while they get things sorted. Then you and I can see what we can do about bringing our brothers back, okay?”

Mabel shoots up, sitting up on her knees. Her brown eyes are wide and full of life, the first sign of it he’s seen in a while. “Really? Do you really mean it, Grunkle Ford?”

He nods, though he holds up a hand. “Yes, but you’ve got to give me some time, and you need to start by telling me everything you know about Bill Cipher, even the things you think aren’t important.”

“I will,” she says, nodding frantically, “I promise.”

“Good,” he says, her non-confused acceptance of his Bill-specific terms leaving a bad taste in his mouth, but he ignores it for the time being. It’s not the time. 

“Now, these past few weeks, though I was dismantling the portal, I was also working on a prototype for a handheld device capable of opening a transdimensional portal to a destination of our choosing. I deduced that it wouldn’t work, but there’s one thing I think I can still look into…”

“What is it?” she asks, bouncing on her shins.

He meets her gaze, admittedly reinvigorated by her energy himself. “If we can pick up on our Dipper and Stan’s atomic signatures, unique to our dimension, perhaps using harvested DNA, there’s a possibility that I can reconfigure the portal to pinpoint their specific location in the multiverse. It would require a significant amount of energy, and the possibility of it not working and still opening a portal to the Nightmare Realm is still a real risk, but it’s an avenue worth exploring.”

It might not work, but he might as well try. He’ll just have to use every safeguard he possibly can against Bill. If he can prevent the portal from opening to the Nightmare Realm and send it directly to Stan and Dipper, then the risks nearly dissolve. All risks besides possible rifts that may occur as a result, at least. He’ll have to prepare for that too.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Dipper and Stan are in the Nightmare Realm, which would render their efforts moot anyway, but Ford has to try. He has to.

“I’ll help. It won't take as long if you have help, right?”

Ford shakes his head. “Mabel, I can’t ask you to do that. It will be grueling work. It’s a lengthy process that requires both physical and—”

“I’m helping,” she interrupts, firm in her decision. “I want to help.”

He almost refuses again, headstrong in his decision to keep her as far away from the portal as possible, but he relents. After all, he lied to her about it for weeks, so it follows that she’d want to be there to monitor its progress and ensure that it’s completed as soon as it possibly can.

“Okay,” he agrees. “You can help.”

“Really?!” she asks again, shifting off her shins and throwing herself at him, wrapping him around the middle. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Grunkle Ford! This is the best birthday gift ever, thank you, thank you!”

The hug startles him, not having expected it, but he finds it easier to accept this time. “You’re welcome, Mabel,” he says, the bill of her hat pressing against his cheek. “Happy birthday. I’m sorry it took you coming here for me to be honest with you. I didn’t— I didn’t know what to do.”

Mabel nods in his shoulder, a slight wetness soaking through the fabric of his sweater. She pulls back, a slight smile on her face as she rests back on her shins, vibrating with energy. “I didn’t either,” she says. “But I’m here now! And we’re going to bring our brothers back.”

Ford nods, a more determined feeling washing over him. To the end.

He slaps a palm against his knee as if declaring the decision final. “Then we’ll get started tonight. But, first, when’s the last time you ate? Slept?”

Mabel shrugs, still bouncing with newfound adrenaline that keeps her heavy eyelids peeled back, a far cry from their prior droopy nature. Okay, Ford thinks, he knows this, he can work with this.

He uncrosses his legs, peeling himself off the forest floor and offering her a hand. “Come on, let’s go. We have some brothers to bring back into this dimension, hm?”

Chapter Text

“Now, just aim…”

Dipper shifts. His palm is sweaty against the gun’s grip, and he’s too afraid to let his index finger relax and rest atop the trigger guard, a prickling sensation starting at his wrist and spreading down to the tips of each of his fingers.

“Stan, you have no idea how to use this thing either.”

He sniffs sharply. Evidence of Stan’s earlier test fire still permeates the air, the smell of burnt wood sending noxious fumes up his nostrils. The proof of it is right in front of him in the form of a blackened fir, circularly scarred like the unnecessary giant black holes children add to their drawings of trees.

“I own ten guns, kid, I think I know what I’m talking about.”

He lets out an unbelieving “pfft” sound, shuffling his feet against the gritty dirt beneath them, new black boots grinding against coarse earth. “Yeah, and none of them are ray guns,” he argues, glaring at the large fir in front of him, marked with a huge “X” that Stan carved in with their switchblade as he rapid-fired gun safety rules at him.

The makeshift target taunts him. Between the two of them, Dipper’s sure he’s not the only one certain he’ll never hit it. He’d be lucky not to drop the thing accidentally and shoot his own foot clean off. That seems more likely than him hitting the target anyway.

“Eh, guns, schmuns. Same outcome.” Stan shrugs, the motion pushing his dark gray scarf upward, the thick fabric pooled around his neck. “Look, we talked about this. Safety. Trigger,” he points out.

The hairs at the back of his neck stand up. He’s painfully aware of both the lethal weapon in his grasp and Stan’s eyes on him, zeroing in on his posture and his grip and his confidence. Which is near zero itself, if anyone’s asking. 

“Keep your finger off it until you’re ready to shoot.”

He doesn’t need Stan to remind him of that. His finger is far from the trigger as it is, still not even resting atop the guard. He shakes his head. “Got it. Not touching it. Not ready,” he says matter-of-factly.

Dipper keeps a tight grip on the weapon despite his apprehension, eyeing his target and holding the ray gun steady. His shoulders are hard, his knees locked out. 

Now that he thinks of it, he probably shouldn’t be standing like that. Isn’t that what everyone says? He quickly decides, yes, they do all say that, but makes no move to bend them, content with the rigid stance if it helps him feel more on guard.

Stan seems to key into his anxiety. “You’ve got it, Dip. Just focus.” 

He sucks in a breath, his finger finally coming to rest on the trigger guard. It’s not the trigger like Stan wants, but he’s trying to take his time. 

He did say not to touch it until he’s ready. And he’s not.

Dipper doesn’t think he’ll ever be, but he can still stand to calm down just a little more before shooting. He doesn’t know much about guns, but he knows enough about himself to know that he probably shouldn’t give it a go until his heart stops slamming against his chest.

To his credit, it only takes him a few more minutes to pull himself together. He finally settles his finger over the trigger, shoulders tensing as he goes to press down on it.

When he does, a bright flash of blue light flies out of the barrel, skyrocketing to the left of the tree before careening into a nearby branch and exploding it on impact. Dipper finds that he doesn’t actually see it happen, his eyes screwed shut and the gun still pointed out in front of him.

“Okay, don’t— Never shut your eyes when you’re handling a gun, Dip,” Stan says, a nervous laugh punctuating the light reprimand. “Not bad for your first try though. You wanna try again? With your eyes open?”

“Yeah,” Dipper says, the adrenaline rush a little dizzying. “Sorry." 

It actually wasn’t that bad. The recoil wasn’t as big as he expected, and it really wasn’t that hard to get the blast to go where he wanted it to, despite clearly missing his original target. He’d expected the thing to be more uncontrollable. That’s part of the reason why he’d unwittingly squeezed his eyes shut, half-expecting the gun to misfire and send lethal light energy straight in his direction.

Dipper nods, slightly familiar with the weight of it in his hands now. “I’ll try again.” 

He drops his shoulders and unlocks his knees, relieving the tension in his body. He chews on the inside of his lip, not breaking eye contact with the mark. He steels himself and draws his finger back on the trigger.

The same lethal light shoots out, the sound deafening as it pierces through the cool morning air, smacking the bottom left corner of the etched mark and sending wood chips soaring. The blackened hole splits all the way down the middle, down to the dirt.

Dipper’s eyes widen as he takes in the damage and then the smoldering gun itself. He sucks in a breath and turns over his shoulder at the exact second Stan lets out a surprised, proud hoot.

“Look at you, kid! You’ll be a sharpshooter in no time.” Stan goes to slap his shoulder but quickly thinks better of it, probably not wanting to startle him with the gun still in his grip, the barrel still hot and the safety very much off. 

“Doubt it,” Dipper says, less confident in his abilities but still brimming with adrenaline, his skin buzzing like there might be bees burrowed beneath. “I barely even hit the target. This thing doesn’t require much accuracy.” 

He keeps it pointed toward the tree as he inspects it, admiring the craftsmanship of the weapon, its finish sleek and dark. It’s altogether pretty similar to an earth gun despite its propensity to shoot light energy instead of bullets.

“Yeah, uh, we better make sure to only use this one long distance, huh?” Stan remarks. A small fire begins to smolder at the base of the tree, and Stan quickly hurries to stomp it out. Dipper flicks the safety on and lowers the gun, finally gaining control over his racing heart.

When he returns, Dipper passes over the weapon and watches as Stan holsters it after double-checking the safety. The old man reaches over for their original pack, lying in the dirt, and settles it over his shoulders, devoid of his usual suit and clad in a long sleeve and coat instead, warm enough to keep out the morning chill but light enough to not feel too burdensome in the heat of the afternoon. 

Dipper’s attire is not much different — long sleeves and pants meant to keep alien suns from scorching his skin, his nose and cheekbones already covered with more freckles than usual this time of year.

They begin to move in tandem, grabbing their things and preparing to continue trekking through the valley. Dipper retrieves his own pack from the ground, filled with clothes, his own water canteen, matches, a flashlight, and two of Ulma’s high-calorie ration bars, sure to last him another two days if he decides to really ration them. 

That all depends on whether Stan makes good on his threat to test him on that fishing “lesson” Stan gave all of them back when they spent that day at the lake. Dipper was only half paying attention then, torn between posing for photos for Mabel’s scrapbook and trying not to seem too enthused about any of it. He did end up catching a pretty decently sized fish, though, even if he did end up tossing it back out.

Dipper hopes it doesn’t come to that today. He’s already been pretty anxious thinking about eating anything that’s been alive. He’s not sure if his human stomach and intestines will be able to handle anything as foreign as alien fish. They’ll have to find out eventually, he thinks bitterly, already mourning the day. He’ll miss the bars and the security of having something to eat every day without having to hunt or scavenge for it.

He tries to find a bright side. At least he won’t have to put up with the way they coat the roof of his mouth like semi-dry cement paste anymore, their flavor reminiscent of dried rice patties and protein powder, unbelievably salty and gritty.

It’s been about three weeks since that first night spent under Ulma’s roof. Maybe two since they finally left the comfort of that run-down motel in Dimension 60%7, spirits slightly elevated and old wounds closer to being healed.

Physical ones, at least. The bruises that marred his cheekbones and forehead weeks ago have mostly cleared by now, the much larger ones leaving behind a slightly yellow tinge that fades more day by day. Inches from his hairline, the large gash that took several days to stop bleeding entirely has completely closed, the only evidence being a pinkish tint to the skin, hard to make out beneath brunette tufts. Much like his birthmark, his hair keeps it hidden from the world.

And, Stan has been, well, Stan — and that makes Dipper want to scream and curse and run away most days, but he’s also been a relatively calming presence despite it all. Much to his annoyance. 

He seems to have Dipper’s moods mostly figured out by now, either ignoring it when he snaps or responding kindly, leaving most arguments dying on his tongue, blasts returning to sender. Even on the days when Stan’s patience is worn thin, he doesn’t engage no matter how badly Dipper’s looking for a reaction. He just trods along beside him and shoots him confusing looks that are full of all kinds of guilt and sympathy. It infuriates him like no other.

But today is…today is good. Stan’s been pushing him to practice shooting with the only gun they have, “just in case,” and today Dipper felt okay entertaining him after weeks of shutting him down. He’s not sure what changed, but it may be in small part due to the large leech-like creature he saw crawling out of the river last night, its oil-slicked skin glistening with the light of their dwindling fire, smoke furling and rising and giving away their position. 

Dipper watched it squirm away as he bit down on the sleeve of his jacket, not daring to make a single peep or move a single muscle, forgoing even shaking Stan awake like he should’ve. He watched in silence as its muscles contracted against the dirt, inching its slimy body downstream with its mouth full of teeth, before slinking back into the raging river.

He remembers feeling his fingers itch for something to protect himself. The switchblade in his pocket felt more silly than intimidating with that thing in sight. It would serve him better as a paperweight.

So, it’s nice to know how to use it at least. If a situation ever arises where he’s not as lucky and fate brings a similar creature to him instead of sending it back into whatever depths of hell it rose from, he’ll know what to do.

Beside him, Stan fiddles with the scarf around his neck, loosening it and pulling it up to shield half of his face. It’s not really necessary out here in the middle of nowhere, but they both know what happened the last time they let their guard down. And they were kind of in the middle of nowhere then too. 

Though they’re really in the thick of it now, surrounded by fir trees, a roaring river, and a large mountain range that spans across the entire horizon, filling the pale white sky.

“You sick of this place yet?” Stan asks, the sound of the rushing rapids a backdrop. The bags beneath his eyes are lighter, steadily fading since that first night at the motel. He had slept so long Dipper was beginning to worry he might be dead.

He shrugs, smacking a winged insect that flies too close to his face for comfort. “Beats jail.”

Stan hums, the sound slightly muffled given the thick scarf and the noisy river. “Yeah,” he agrees. “We don’t have to stay here though. We can leave whenever you want.”

Stan half-motions toward his pack, but he doesn’t have to. Dipper’s been thinking about that wormhole gun ever since he saw it dangling from the belt of that off-duty cop back in Dimension 60%7.

They learned from locals that there are people across the multiverse who devote large periods of their lives trying to understand the finicky world of wormhole travel, discovering ways to travel to and fro dimensions at will — as if taming a large beast to allow them to ride atop its back.

They say a small few are able to work out the precise timing and coordinates, opening a wormhole with a specific destination in mind. But, a lot of people consider it fiction, believing there to be no true way to control your final destination at all. Many see it as a status symbol, mainly — a person wealthy and powerful enough to punch a hole in space-time at their own discretion. 

And who in their right mind would want to leave their own home dimension with no promise of return?

Well, Stan and Dipper, that’s who. Because they aren’t home, and most dimensions either want them dead or imprisoned, likely. Upon discovery, his great-uncle wasted no time trying to nab one for himself. And right off the holster of some space cop, Dipper bemoaned.

They had to hightail it through the city immediately, dodging elbows and spikes and tails and tentacles as they forced their way through the crowd. Finally, Stan activated the wormhole gun, a bright blue vortex opening and closing for them, their pursuer left behind in the dust.

Dipper wanted to complain, he really did, but even he couldn’t deny the pricelessness of the item. Ideally, he’d like to stay somewhere for longer than a couple of weeks, but they can’t afford that kind of lifestyle right now. With Ford’s bounty on Stan’s head and their lack of stable, long-term shelter — bouncing between dimensions is really all they’ve got. 

Something that makes that possible is probably the most important thing they could own. He made himself get over his irritation at Stan quickly that time, happy to be in a new environment with no vengeful cops or storefront owners or pickpocket victims on their tail.

And he’s more than happy to have the option, but this open wilderness has been their home for two weeks now, the longest stretch of time they’ve spent idle since they fell through the portal. It’s been…nice. Almost.

“I don’t know,” Dipper says. He doesn’t particularly like it here, with the giant leech monsters and stark white skies, but he’s always pretty apprehensive hopping into wormholes with reckless abandon. It strikes him as a decision they should be putting a bit more thought behind. 

Sure, they have a way to willingly enter and exit random dimensions at a whim, but does that mean that they should? Especially when it isn’t urgently necessary?

“It’s not so bad here.” The mountains offer some protection. They aren’t completely exposed to the elements. And it’s not like Dipper would recommend sleeping in caves, but it hasn’t been an awful experience either, kept warm by their thick jackets and the fires they’ve lit each night. 

“Why leave when we don’t know if we’ll find anything better? It’s not like we can just come back.”

Stan clicks his tongue. “It’s been two weeks, Dip. I don’t mind the occasional camping trip, but this isn’t the kind of place I see us settling down in.”

Dipper bites his tongue. He can stand a one-off joke here and there, but he really hates when Stan tries to belittle their situation. But that’s just what happens when they have a good day like today. He takes it as permission to say everything that comes to mind, no matter how infuriating, and Dipper will be made to feel bad about reacting to it when Stan acts innocent.

“Yeah, well, this is just our life now,” he mutters under his breath, kicking up pebbles by his feet. This is all there is. Rationing cubed nutrients and shooting ray guns at trees and running away from giant leech monsters in his stolen boots with his stolen backpack wearing his clothes bought with his stolen money.

This is his life, because Stan stole his other one.

“What’s that?” Stan asks, yanking the scarf down to expose his face, pooling at the base of his neck. He really doesn’t need it out here anyway, which is part of the reason why Dipper wants to stay. “You can’t mumble like that, kid. These hearing aids don't work like they used to.”

Dipper abandons his train of thought, thinking of what Stan said about settling down. He’d meant it as a joke, but it’s something he’s been meaning to bring up. Where will they go? How long does Stan really think they’ll be out here? 

He lets his main question slip, the one he’s been pondering since their conversation in the truck, “Why are we still here, Stan?”

“Uh… here?” he asks, a puzzled frown working its way onto his face as he points down at the dirt. “Because you want to stay?”

Dipper groans. “No, why are we still here, as in the multiverse? Where’s Ford?” He stops in his tracks, gesturing around them, feeling a little crazy as he does it. He hates feeling like this. Like he’s the only one actually thinking about anything real. “Why has it been weeks and the portal still hasn’t been activated?”

Stan’s face falls, coming to a standstill himself. “I– I don’t know, kid,” he admits. “I thought it would’ve fired on by now too. I know it takes time, though, and barrels and barrels of radioactive waste.”

He gazes off to the side, eyeing a bush full of dark, plum-colored berries. “The whole U.S. government was onto me. Maybe he just needs more time to work around that. They don’t exactly leave the stuff sitting out back.”

Dipper seals his lips shut. He guesses he can accept that. Those agents were pretty determined. 

“Are we sure he even made it through?”

Stan raises a brow as he turns his gaze back toward him. “The portal? I saw him make it through. He was carrying some giant futuristic gun on his back. It’s what hit you.”

He grimaces, last week’s splitting headache still sharp in his memory, the after-effects of his concussion rearing back to deal him one final blow a week after the fact. He updates the mental image he has of Ford by adding a large gun to the mix. When he puts it all together, he imagines someone who looks very much like Stan, only more portal-torn and weary.

They’ve only been here a few weeks, but he and Stan are starting to fit that description themselves. His great uncle’s 5 o'clock shadow is hitting somewhere closer to midnight now — less shadow and more the real deal. Even Dipper’s nearing the time his mom would be dragging him out of the house to get his back-to-school cut, his hair far shaggier than normal. If they were still at the Shack, he bets Mabel would be threatening him with scissors.

Stan pulls him from his thoughts. “Look, Dip, if my brother doesn’t find a way to bring us back, I will.”

“How? If there's a way then why didn’t he just come back himself?"

He makes a face. “First off, I’m plenty capable of discovering things Ford hasn’t,” Stan argues, picking up an oddly defensive tone when Dipper only meant it as an observation. “Second, we didn’t end things on the best of terms. Maybe he wasn’t trying, I don’t know.”

Dipper surveys his great uncle's face. It’s set in a deep frown; he can tell how badly Stan wants to reject that second theory. “You said he was acting weird?”

His frown deepens. “Erratic and paranoid. Hadn’t been sleeping much, I think. Why?”

Dipper shakes his head, deep in thought. He strikes off several of his own theories before they’re fully fledged out, the corkboard in his mind filling quickly. “And he wanted you to hide his journal. So that no one could start it.”

There’s a realization to be had here, if only he could reach it.

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t listen to him. He was spewing out all this scientific, mumbo-jumbo nonsense that I didn’t understand a word of, and then he was shoving a random book at me and tellin’ me to get lost.

“I should’ve made him tear it all down and sit and talk to me, but when Ford gets like that it’s impossible to get through to him. I– I wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk out what he was telling me to do either.”

“What’d he tell you again? About why the portal’s so dangerous?” Dipper asks, trying to clear away the haziness that surrounds his memories. He’d been so concussed and exhausted then, near comatose as Stan told him his life story, difficult enough to follow even without talks of a trans-universal gateway. “He said what we read in the journals, right? That it could tear our universe apart…”

“Yeah, and that it could be harnessed for terrible destruction or something. Right.”

Dipper scratches his chin. “That doesn’t make any sense. So then why build it?“

Stan shrugs. “To unlock the mysteries of the universe or something, I don’t know. I wouldn’t bother trying to make sense of what Ford does. I never understood what he was trying to prove. Can’t being the only kid going to college be enough? Why’d he have to go and try to solve all the universe’s mysteries too? Show off.”

He squints. But what was he unlocking, really, besides a gateway to Bill’s dimension? None of it makes any sense.

Dipper has come to terms with the fact that Stan had no idea where the portal really led when he decided to reactivate it. He’d thrown the whole idea of Bill and Stan being in cahoots out once it was clear that Stan had no idea what Dipper was talking about or who Bill was.

But, he hasn’t really allowed himself to consider why the author, his other great-uncle, would knowingly construct a portal to Bill’s dimension. Sure, he wrote in the journal that he was deceived and that it was too late to reverse the damage, but he never said how.

Or by who, Dipper realizes.

It seems so obvious to him now. He palms himself in the face, groaning internally even as fear strikes him, turning his blood to ice.

Ford must have been tricked by Bill and that’s why the portal leads straight to him! It isn’t his most far-fetched theory, and, hell, Dipper was tricked by Bill once too, he knows how it works. 

He knows how it works, he thinks, the air knocking out of his lungs.

“I’m so stupid,” he says under his breath, feeling the blood run from his face.

“What?” Stan asks, clearly taken aback by the leap in Dipper’s thinking, not able to keep up.

Doesn’t Stan see? It’s all so obvious now. “Ford made a deal with Bill! That’s why he built the portal! It was Bill!”

Dipper paces to the right, staring into the depths of the roaring river. His fingers curl into fists by his sides. “It’s been Bill this whole time!” he spits. “He’s always two steps ahead, Stan, he’s probably still pulling the strings. If Ford made a deal with him—”

Stan interrupts quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Okay, no, stop. Sit down.”

Dipper shakes him off, earlier adrenaline coming back full force. “What? No, I’m not sitting, I–”

“Sit. Now. That’s an order, kid.”

Surprised by his curtness, Dipper moves to sit down on a rock behind him, close to the river’s edge. Stan hasn’t used that authoritative tone in a while. The last he remembers hearing it was back when he snuck into his room and phoned those agents on the night of the Mystery Shack’s grand reopening. 

It should annoy him, but it weirdly doesn’t. In fact, the suddenness of the command pulls him away from the edge, not entirely keeping him from falling into his panic but still managing to lessen its blow. He curls his knees toward his chest. Not because he needs to or anything but because it feels natural, his heels digging into the mud at the base of the rock.

Stan moves to sit on the rock beside him, his height making for a more uncomfortable seated position. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” Dipper argues, sending a glare Stan’s way.

“No, you’re too busy sassin’ me. Now breathe, Dipper, I’m not gonna tell you again.”

He takes in a large breath, playing it up. The exaggerated nature of the inhale makes his head spin, so he cuts it out, quickly shifting over to a more normal pattern. He finds that it actually helps slow the racing of his heart. He hadn’t even realized how close he was to the edge. 

It’s been harder to tell lately. Usually, Mabel’s able to snap him out of whatever this is — this clawing, coiling trepidation — far before it even gets to this point.

“Now, look, I’m not gonna call you paranoid or anything, kid, but it’s clear this triangle guy’s been weighing on you,” Stan says, choosing his words carefully this time. “And I know I don’t know a fraction of what you know about him, but there’s no point working yourself up about something you don’t have the facts to back up, right? So let’s talk it out. What’s been eating at you?”

Dipper sucks in another breath, meeting Stan’s soft, concerned gaze. He lets some of his frustration toward him ebb away for the time being, content to have someone to bounce his ideas off of instead of letting them crash against the walls of his brain. 

“What if Ford isn’t Ford? What if he made a deal with Bill, and that’s why the portal opens straight to his dimension? He could’ve been possessed, Stan.”

“Okay,” Stan says simply. “So, say that’s true, and Bill’s got a hold of Ford. What would Bill do?”

“Whatever he wanted,” Dipper says, horrified. “He’d hurt Ford’s body and– and Mabel too, oh, god—”

Stan snaps his fingers near his face. “No, don’t go there, Dip. Take a second.”

Dipper sucks in a breath. “He’d– I don’t know. He said something about rebuilding the portal when we landed in his dimension, right? I can’t– I can’t remember.”

“Yeah, he said he was gonna let Ford rebuild the portal and bring us back. So he could ‘pay our dimension a visit.’ That mean anything to you?”

He gulps, palms pressing against the rock in an effort to ground himself. “He wants into our dimension? That could be why he tricked Ford into building it. To have a way in.”

“Maybe,” Stan says, drumming his fingers against his knees. He looks down at the ground and ponders something himself. “But if Bill had control of Ford now, he would’ve wanted the portal open, right? So, it not being open yet isn’t proof of anything.”

“Or maybe it already has. You said Ford said it’s a– a punched hole through a weak spot in our dimension. What if it has opened, but it's right where we left it, in Bill’s dimension? If Bill has control of Ford that’s exactly what he wants. We’d have no clue ‘cause we’re here and not there.

“We don’t even know how long it’s really been, Stan! Three weeks? More? We’ve just been guessing this whole time, waiting to be brought back! But it doesn’t—”

“Dipper—”

“I don’t see how this goes our way,” Dipper continues. “If Ford is Ford, then there’s no way he’d open the portal back up if it led straight to Bill, right? Assuming he knows how dangerous he actually is now and that’s why he wanted you to hide the journal. And if Bill has control of him then that’s exactly what would happen and we wouldn’t even know it!”

“Ford was able to go through,” Stan points out. 

Dipper shoves his face in his hands again, shielding himself from the world. “Because he was there, which makes even less sense!”

“Ford knows how the portal works. I’m sure he’d find a way to get us where we’re at.”

He lifts his head. “He wouldn’t if he wasn’t Ford.”

Stan ducks his head to look more directly at him, exactly at eye level. “Dipper, you have no way of knowing if any of this is true. You’ll make yourself miserable trying to think up worst-case scenarios like this.” He clears his throat. “Even if Ford wasn’t, y’know, Ford when he built it, it can’t– Bill couldn’t actually take control of him again, right? Once the deal is over it’s over.”

Dipper blanches.

“Right?” Stan asks, a little more urgently now.

He takes in his uncle’s wide-eyed stare and blinks. He looks away, the pleading, worried look on Stan’s face doing nothing to quell the anxiety mounting in his own body. “Probably.” He stands, dusting the dirt off his pants. “Yeah,” he amends, more decisive. “You’re right. I’m just being paranoid.”

But he’s not being paranoid. He’s not. It’s like Stan said, he knows Bill. He might not understand everything about him and what it is exactly that he wants, but he knows enough to know that this is a real possibility. Dipper got lucky with his deal, and Bill hasn’t come back since, but others might not be so fortunate. Ford included.

Sometimes, he wonders if it’s too good to be true. How Bill left his body so easily.

“Dipper—”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. “Seriously, Stan. I’m fine. It’s…it’s fine. It’s stupid and I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s just go.”

Stan looks up at him from his seat. The wrinkle between his brows is more prominent than normal. “Don’t shut me out, kid.”

He shakes his head. Lying is easier, he decides. Stan doesn’t need to know everything that’s on his mind anyway. “I’m not,” he defends. “You’re right. He’s probably just getting radioactive waste or something. I’m just being…y’know, Classic Dipper. Paranoid just like I always am.” He shrugs, lacking the mirth for playful banter right now.

Stan grabs his wrist. His soft, concerned gaze settles into something more determined. “You know I’d never let him hurt you again, right? And Soos wouldn’t let Ford or anything pretending to be him hurt Mabel, either. She wasn’t alone when we left her, kid. She’s safe too.”

Dipper swallows, trying to ignore the tickle in his throat. He told himself that night at the motel that he wouldn’t let himself break down like that again. That was his one chance — his one opportunity to let everything he was feeling loose before slamming the door shut on them.

Stan wouldn’t be able to stop Bill if he ever managed to find a way to take over his body again, but it helps, a little, to know that someone’s at least keeping an eye out.

“Okay,” he says, dropping some of his act. Stan really has a way of bringing it out of him sometimes. “Okay– that’s…yeah. Thanks.”

Stan drops his gentle grip and stands too, tousling Dipper’s hair on his way up. “Yeah. It’s okay, Dip. Why don’t you let me handle the worrying for a bit? I’m the responsible adult around here.”

“Pfft, responsible’s a stretch,” Dipper jokes, unable to keep himself from leaning into Stan’s touch. Just a bit.

“I’ll stick with fun uncle. Now—” Stan claps. “What do you wanna do? You wanna shoot some more stuff?”

Dipper shakes his head, falling in stride with Stan as he continues walking upstream. His thoughts are still eating at him, but he decides to drop it. There will be time to stress about it all later. Probably during the hours and hours he’ll inevitably stare up at the ceiling of their cave later tonight, unable to shut his brain off.

“I was actually thinking… Could we– I don’t know.” Dipper shoves his hands in his pockets. The cool breeze lifts the hair covering his forehead, a sharp gust of wind kissing his birthmark. “I don’t really want to do anything, but I don’t wanna go back to the cave either. So maybe we can just walk around for a bit? It’s kinda nice out today.” 

Stan smiles. “Sure thing, kid.”

Dipper jolts awake, his own scream echoing in his ears, raw and trembling. A pathetic and strangled sound follows the ear-piercing shriek, snatching the air from his lungs and catching painfully in his throat. He sits up, half-slumped against the jagged wall of the cave, a small stalagmite digging into the small of his back, and claws at his chest through the mountain of layers covering it.

When he finds air, his breaths come quick and fast. Memories of his nightmare begin to fade like the dying embers of their fire, the cave practically pitch black. It doesn’t help him feel any more awake. Not when he can’t really tell if his eyes are open or closed, the stars outside dim and faint on this planet. 

He misses the comfort of the stars. Of home. He thinks if he went outside and gazed upon them he wouldn’t be able to pick out a single familiar constellation. He doesn’t even know what galaxy he’d be looking up at. If it even exists in his own dimension.

Dipper half-unzips his thick winter jacket, the confines of it grating and suffocating. But it’s also freezing and the fire is dead and it’s pitch black and his brain keeps conjuring images of his body being puppeteered by Bill like flashes and flickers of photos on a vintage slide projector, popping into his head as he squeezes his eyes shut against them.

It doesn’t help. It’s dark. It’s dark and cold and his vocal chords feel shot and there is a phantom pain in his wrist, practically throbbing even though whatever Bill did to it is over a month in the past now.

His heart pounds in his ears as he reaches over for his backpack, shoving his good arm — ugh, they’re both good arms, why is this happening, he’s fine — into it, fingers clasping around a cylindrical object. 

He yanks it out. He flicks the flashlight on and fixes his wide eyes on the opposite end of the cave, trying to imagine the beam of light as the rising sun, carrying away the nightmares and the cold and ushering him gently into another tepid morning. But none of that happens, of course. 

Instead, Dipper drops his gaze down to his right and promptly freezes. “Stan?” he calls out, two delayed realizations settling over him.

One, Stan isn’t taking watch. He’s asleep and the fire is out. Which isn’t like Stan to do. Not in the last couple of weeks, at least. The fire has only ever gone out once, and that was because Dipper had fallen asleep on the job, unable to resist the early morning’s cruel pull on him.

And, two: he didn’t wake up to Dipper’s nightmare-induced scream of terror. Stan’s a heavy sleeper, for the most part, but surely not that heavy. 

“Stan,” Dipper says, trying to be louder this time. He tries to prevent his panic from slipping into his voice. He probably won’t be able to hide his nightmare from Stan, given that he’s waking him up in the middle of the night, but he can always try playing it off. Maybe he’ll just offer to restart the fire and take watch while he sleeps. He might as well. He’s definitely not getting another wink of it himself.

Dipper shifts his flashlight beam to shine directly on Stan. When he doesn’t stir, his scarf pulled up over most of his face, Dipper feels terror wrap around his stomach, clawing at his insides. 

“Stan!” Dipper tries again, unable to curb the panic rising in his voice as he moves to shake his great-uncle awake instead. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.

Relief floods in when his uncle instantly shoots up, waking with a startled gasp. Dipper exhales, settling back down on his heels as Stan throws up a hand to shield his eyes from his flashlight beam. He takes the hint and lowers it, settling it near Stan’s chest instead.

“Dipper?” His eyes are still bleary with sleep, his voice a groggy, startled thing.

Stan drops his hand from his face and quickly moves to mess with something in his ear. He goes to hit the side of his head with a splayed out palm, his eyebrows knitting together, the crease between them sharp and dark. He makes a sort of humming sound, and then another, and another.

He snaps by his ear once. Then twice.

“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath. Dipper flinches, white-knuckling his flashlight and trying to keep from hyperventilating. Something’s wrong.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Stan’s eyes drop from Dipper’s eyes down to his mouth. “Kid, I– I can’t hear you,” he explains, his hand moving back up to fiddle with something at his ear, his voice much louder than normal. “Don’t freak out.”

“What?!” Dipper shrieks. “W-Why?!” And how is he supposed to not freak out about that?

He sucks in a breath, clearly trying to calm himself down in the face of Dipper’s panic. “Hearing aids are dead,” he says simply, able to make out his question either from the movement of his lips or from the panicked way he says it, one unoccupied hand shooting up to tug at his unruly hair. Dipper feels a little stupid for not considering it sooner. Hadn’t Stan mentioned they’d been finicky earlier today?

Dipper drops his hand and rubs furiously at his tired eyes instead. He’s too disoriented for this. He’d fallen asleep thinking about Bill and woken up thinking of him too. It’s not so easy shifting gears over to brainstorming mode, but he does his best, taking it upon himself to rack his brain for any possible solution.

“Okay. Okay, it’s fine. Just– I’ll just open another wormhole. Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do,” Dipper says. He’s aware of the fact that Stan can’t hear anything he’s saying but is physically unable to stop rambling. “What do they need? Batteries? I mean, there’s probably nothing compatible, but—”

Stan rests a strong hand on his shoulder, not for the first time today. “I said don’t freak out.”

Dipper’s freakouts apparently transcend even the need for spoken word, evident in the way he rambles on and on, lips moving speedily and his heart even speedier. “Can you charge the batteries? Oh, god, but with what?!”

Dipper’s not too proud to admit that he’s out of his element here. He’s not a tech-wiz. He has no earthly idea what their options are. His dad might know something about this, a computer scientist at work and tech junkie in his spare time, but Dipper never actually paid all that much attention to any of his long-winded rants. Mabel had gone to one of those bring-your-daughter-to-work type days, coming back with slightly more tech knowledge and a floppy disc t-shirt that she now wears exclusively to sleep every night, but Dipper himself is utterly useless in this situation.

“Okay. Okay.” Dipper squeezes his eyes shut. The river directly outside the mouth of the cave roars on, and he has to physically shake away the image of the leech monster crawling out of it and into their shelter. “You can’t hear me so I’m just talking to myself, but…”

He trails off, trying to calm his breathing. Stan’s right. Freaking out isn’t going to help anyone. He can figure this out on his own. He’s gotten himself and Mabel out of worse scraps this summer.

Stan squeezes his shoulder again, not removing the grounding touch. “I have an idea,” Dipper says. He stands and adjusts his flashlight beam, flashing it over toward the cave’s entrance and nodding his head for Stan to follow.

His uncle gets the hint and peels himself off the floor, leaving the small warmth conjured by their dying fire to join him at the entrance. When they reach the cave entrance, Dipper sits down where rock meets mud and crosses his legs. 

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the switchblade.

Dipper meets Stan’s curious gaze and nods toward the ground. Finally, Stan sits beside him, watching carefully as he begins to carve into the mud. It takes some precision, but Dipper manages to scrape the word “wormhole?” into the damp earth. It’s sloppy work, but he shines the flashlight down on it anyway, illuminating the mud for Stan to see.

His lips twist. “I dunno, kid,” Stan mumbles, sounding unsure. 

Dipper meets his eyes and then runs a palm over the mud, erasing his canvas like one would shake an Etch-A-Sketch clear, forever removing the word from existence. He stabilizes the switchblade in his grip once more.

Once he’s finished, Stan glances down at the word “charge?” and sighs. So, he doesn’t know if that’ll be a possibility either. That’s reassuring.

“We have to try,” Dipper says to himself. They definitely can’t stay here anymore. Not in this overgrown wasteland with seemingly nothing but large river monsters and giant bugs living within a ten-mile radius. Not when Stan can’t hear him.

No matter how badly Dipper has wanted Stan not to talk to him this week or has longed for some semblance of peace and quiet to get his thoughts in working order, this wasn’t how he envisioned it happening. He’d take passive aggressive silence over this in a heartbeat.

Dipper goes to stand up but is stopped by Stan’s hand. He grabs his shoulder again and guides him back down to the ground. “Wait. We have time, Dip, I’m not gonna die or anythin’,” Stan says. He searches his eyes for something. “You OK?”

He huffs and nods quickly, even though the part of his brain that’s constantly screaming out that nothing will ever be anything remotely close to OK ever again is as loud as can be tonight.

“You sure?”

Dipper turns away and shoves the switchblade into his pocket, unwilling to spell out whatever he’s feeling for Stan to decipher. What would he write anyway? Yes? I’m fine? Bill’s back and he’s torturing me in my dreams again like he never really left at all?

No. Stan doesn’t need to know what has him so rattled tonight aside from the obvious. It’s a small blessing that his great-uncle hadn’t heard him scream himself awake, no matter how unfortunate the circumstances have panned out to be.

They might be screwed, but at least Dipper has been spared some embarrassment tonight.

Illuminated by the light of the subtle night sky and Dipper’s erratically placed flashlight beam, he watches Stan’s face fall in his peripheral vision, the creases by his eyes deepening. Dipper knows he’s been chipping at their fragile, steadily growing relationship by shutting him out and refusing to let go of his anger, but no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t. He can’t diffuse any of what he’s feeling. This is Stan's fault, and every fiber of Dipper’s being knows it.

Stan wouldn’t tell the truth when it mattered, so why should Dipper be expected to?

Dipper shrugs off Stan’s grip and stands, making his way back over to their pack. He ignores the stinging in his eyes as he reaches into it and pulls out a sleek, silver device. It looks and feels similar to the checkout scanners cashiers equip at grocery stores — the barrel slender and flat. He reaches down and grabs his backpack, settling it over his shoulders.

Stan stands, crossing the short distance of the cave quickly. He reaches out, extending an arm toward the gun in Dipper’s grasp. His great-uncle looks shocked when he pulls back, hugging the wormhole gun close to his chest.

“Hand it over, kid. We aren’t going.”

Dipper raises his shoulders, shaking his head. “Why not? Why should we stay here?”

Stan’s gaze hardens. “If you’re asking why, it’s because I said so. Now give it.”

He steps back, clutching the thing even tighter. Stan was the one who suggested finding somewhere else to go only hours ago, and now the second Dipper wants to find a dimension where they can fix things, he wants to refuse? Why are they never on the same page? Why is Stan always the one calling the shots? 

Dipper steals a quick glance at the wormhole gun. They’ve had pretty decent luck finding the types of dimensions they have these past few weeks. At least, they haven’t winded up back in Bill’s dimension, a fear that has stuck with him ever since they left it and had to blindly navigate their way through the multiverse.

Dipper’s fingers twitch around the gun. He thinks of those people the locals talked about like legends. Dimension surfing. The power of manifestation. Something about the right place and the right time.

Before Stan can stop him, and before he can rethink it, he lifts the gun and shoots over his shoulder. An iridescent, rippling portal tears through the dark, dim cave. 

Dipper backs up, lips sealed shut.

Stan grabs his own pack immediately, clearly already aware of what Dipper is planning and wanting to be ready to hop through it after him if necessary. Still, he says, “Don’t you go in that portal…”

In a brave act of defiance that Dipper hadn’t previously thought possible for himself, he bolts through the wormhole, hoping against hope that Stan is following closely behind. He feels the familiar pull of his body and the simultaneous feeling of everything and nothing at all as he warps through time and space.

Usually, Dipper will find himself upright on his feet, though he wasn’t so lucky last time. Nausea slammed into him like a freight truck, his head spinning and his stomach performing multiple barrel rolls in a row. He’d ended up on the ground, sucking air into his lungs and trying not to dry heave all over the grass.

He prepares himself for that feeling this time, just in case, but it doesn’t come. There’s only the feeling of weightlessness and the sensation of cold, dark wetness clinging to every part of him, pulling him down. His clothes are heavy and he’s sinking, reflexes forcing him to suck in a breath that isn’t air.

His eyes widen as his lungs spasm. He thrashes upward before feeling two arms begin to wrap around him. It’s then that he remembers the wormhole gun. He lifts his own arm and shoots another portal directly in front of them, bubbles racing upwards as they swim toward it.

Stan does most of the work getting them through, and Dipper feels himself being pulled between dimensions once more. This time, when he hits solid ground, he doubles over on his hands and knees, vomiting out water and coughing until his lungs feel like they’ve been wrung out and hung to dry.

Stan’s hand splays across his back, as if to help him breathe easier. He didn’t know that could happen, Dipper thinks dumbly as he stares down at the dirt, his eyes stinging as he continues to hack out water like a drowned cat.

Once he’s satisfied that all of the water has been sufficiently expelled from his lungs, Dipper lifts his head to survey his surroundings, wet hair flopping aimlessly over his forehead.

He immediately pales when he sees it — a large, four-legged creature stalking toward them, its fur as black as the night sky. Ivory teeth gnash together loudly as foam seeps from the corner of its mouth, bright red eyes surveying them hungrily. 

The canine snaps its jaws shut, licking its lips as it approaches, and Dipper scurries back.

Stan is quick to act, whipping out their ray gun and shooting a beam at the creature. The blast sends it flying back several yards, twitching for a few moments before falling still, unmoving. The air reeks of burnt flesh and hair.

Dipper coughs again, clutching at his chest to keep his heart from leaping out of it. With his other hand, he aims the wormhole gun and blasts a new ripple through the fabric of this dimension, immediately throwing himself through it.

When they land in their new dimension, Stan wastes no time either. He grabs Dipper by the back of his shirt and lifts him into the air like a newborn kitten. He fights back against it, kicking the air as he tries to escape his grasp.

“Kid! You’re gonna get us killed!” Stan yells. He’s just as sopping wet as Dipper, their clothes and hair and belongings positively drenched with seawater. With his other hand, he rips the wormhole gun out of Dipper’s hands.

Dipper's face burns red. “I’m gonna get us killed?! Me?! That’s rich coming from you! You’ve practically killed us already!”

Stan groans, tucking the device away. “I still can’t hear anything you’re saying!”

He lifts his arms for emphasis. “That’s exactly why I brought us here!”

But, where’s here anyway? Stan drops Dipper back onto his feet, and he quickly begins scoping out their surroundings. The red glow lighting up his cheeks deepens once he notices how not alone they are for the first time in weeks. They’ve gained the attention of several onlookers, semi-humanoid individuals pausing their interactions to watch Stan and Dipper’s loud, one-sided argument.

Vendors line the narrow streets of the cyberpunk-esque city, neon lights bathing them in a bright blue, purple, and pink hue that drenches every corner of the alien flea market. Otherwise, the square is seedy and dimly lit, people packed together like sardines as small children sprint in between the legs of unsuspecting patrons. 

There’s a wall completely covered with graffiti to the right of him. Dipper can’t make out the foreign words without a translator, so he focuses on the wanted posters littering it instead. They’ve all been defaced either by paint or from being physically scratched and torn, as if someone wanted them gone. He immediately gets the sense that there’s not much rule of law in a place like this. 

He can’t help but feel smug. Sure, they almost just died, and his chest feels like there might be an elephant sitting on it from his earlier coughing fit, but he did it. He got them to civilization in only two tries. Someone in this hyper-futuristic city ought to know how to power some dead hearing aids. 

Dipper ignores the chill steadily creeping into his bones, his wet clothes and hair clinging to his skin — an abrasive sensation that is hard to ignore. Still, he tries his best to put it all out of his mind, spinning on his heels to face Stan, the beginnings of a plan steadily taking shape.

He motions toward his neck before pointing at Stan’s translator. “I need that,” he says. It’s something he’s been wanting for weeks, and now he really, actually needs it.

Stan raises a brow. Dipper meets his nonplussed expression with a hard glare. Dipper has been forced to trust Stan after everything he’s done, so it’s really only fair that he returns the favor. He can do this. He can. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to make sure they get home, and he needs Stan beside him doing the same, no matter how untrustworthy. He can’t do this alone, so he’ll put this universal translator collar around his neck and attempt to talk his way home if he has to.

Stan unclips the device and passes it over with some reluctance. Dipper adjusts the fit and clips it around his neck, a loud ringing escaping it as it responds to the change in wearer.

Suddenly, and almost painfully so, understanding slams into him. The bustling, crowded street noise becomes decipherable. Dipper’s eyes widen as he listens in, catching stray bits of conversations over the muffled clamor. After weeks of silence, he’s finally understanding words that aren’t Stan’s. 

For some odd reason, it makes him feel like crying.

Stan shoots him a thumbs up that’s meant as a wordless question. Dipper nods his assent, blinking back the sudden wave of emotion as he tries to find someone to talk to. He makes a quick scan of the many different vendors lining the street and peels himself out of his heavy winter jacket, spinning his pack around to the front and shoving it inside. Stan wrings out his scarf before settling it over his face once more.

Dipper makes a decision easily, setting his sights on a vendor and beckoning Stan over to the table. She’s practically the only vendor on the whole street who isn’t swarmed with customers, idly reorganizing her set-up as she waits for business. 

He approaches hesitantly, Stan on his heels. “Excuse me? Hi. Do you– Uh, is there, like, a gadget repair shop or something around here? I need something… fixed. Something electronic,” he asks dumbly. He’s not sure how to begin explaining his situation when he’s not sure how similar this dimension is to his own. The dimension they left two weeks ago didn’t even have twins. How can he be sure this one will have anyone who knows how to charge two dead hearing aids?

The woman blinks. Her skin is speckled — dark skin covered with darker spots. One of her eyes is a bright blue, the other a muted orange. “There’s a cybernetics mod shop that way.” She tilts her head to his right, long black hair shifting on her shoulders. “That what you need?”

Dipper blinks back. “Uhm, sure,” he says, though he doesn’t really know what that is. It sounds techy enough, so it’s worth a shot. “You said down this way?” He points down the street.

“Yeah. It’s about ten or so shops down,” she explains, pointing a bionic arm down toward the way he came. She eyes the translator around his neck and comes to some sort of realization. “It’ll have a bright yellow sign. The word will look something like this.”

She holds up her index, middle, and ring fingers with her cybernetic hand — placing her flesh index finger behind them, cutting through the middle. It looks like the letter “W,” only cut in half.

He nods quickly, meeting Stan’s eyes and then peering down the street over his shoulder, wondering if he’d be able to spot it from here. “Thanks,” Dipper says before grabbing Stan’s hand again and dragging them through the busy crowd.

“Good luck getting your ‘something electronic’ fixed!” she yells out after them.

Dipper huffs out a laugh as he pulls them along. “Kid, where are you taking us?” Stan asks, nearly tripping over his own feet. 

He points at his ear and then mimes a hammer repairing something. He probably could have done better, but he thinks it’ll get his point across. Stan has had to make sense of several of Mabel’s occasional impromptu bouts of charades, so he doesn’t entirely lack faith. She once insisted on spending an entire day using charades as her only method of communication. That’s just Mabel for you.

Stan says nothing, but his lack of a response tells him that he understood him well enough. Dipper counts the buildings as they pass, clinging onto Stan’s hand and keeping his bag close to his chest, continuously reminding himself to be aware of pickpockets. Really though, it should be everyone else clutching their bags around them, he thinks.

He abruptly stops when he sees it. The yellow, glowing “W.”

Dipper drops Stan’s hand before pushing the door open. He’s greeted by a metallic scent and the subtle sting of antiseptic permeating the air. It’s a bit disconcerting for what he had expected to be a repair shop, but he eyes the man at the front desk and immediately puts together what the business truly is.

The man seated in front of them is almost entirely composed of inorganic materials, every visible part of his body replaced with some sort of cybernetic, aside from some of his face, which is still covered with skin. Even his eyes glow unnaturally white and bright, piercing Dipper’s own. 

The rest of the shop is more or less the same, glass boxes showcasing cybernetic options for customers to choose from, Dipper concludes. If they were here under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed scoping out the tech and figuring out how it all works.

“Hey,” the man says, taking Dipper aback with how natural and human his voice sounds. Even more so with the lazy, bored, casualness of his tone. He taps the shiny mini tablet in his hands and gone goes the holographic screen that was in front of him moments before. “Just letting you guys know, I’m not doing any more mods today. There’s some open spots tomorrow if you’d like to book an appointment.”

“Hello,” Dipper says, approaching the desk. He eyes the man’s name tag but comes up with nothing, the large glowing font depicting an alien word that Dipper can’t read. “No, we’re not here for that. I– uh, I don’t actually know if this is the right place for what we need.”

“Shoot.”

“Right, uh, my uncle’s hearing aids are out of charge and we aren’t from here. Like from this dimension,” Dipper explains, tapping his foot anxiously against the tile. “We need to charge them or replace the batteries somehow, but I don’t actually know if there’s anything, y’know, compatible.”

“Yikes. Tough break,” he says, drumming five cybernetic fingers against the counter. “You guys didn’t think about that before coming here?”

Dipper sighs. “We weren’t really trying to come here. There was a portal and a wormhole and… I don’t know. We’re here now. And he can’t actually hear anything, so…”

He raises an etched brow. “Let’s see ‘em then.”

“Right. Um.” Dipper turns back toward Stan. His great-uncle is right where he left him, gazing between the man and Dipper with a wary expression. Despite his intense glare, he hasn’t bothered interjecting his thoughts into the conversation. Though, it’s not like he’d be able to hear their response if he did, or what the conversation even is for that matter. 

Dipper points at Stan's ear and then to his hand. He’s got about a hundred percent success rating as far as charades go today, and he’s quietly satisfied with himself when Stan immediately catches his meaning, reaching up and removing both devices. He does so hesitantly, but he eventually hands them over and deposits them in his right hand. Dipper cringes only slightly before pawning them over.

The cyborg takes one look at them and nods, setting them down gently on the table to examine them closely. “External hearing aids aren’t really in much use these days,” he explains. “People usually opt for a more permanent fit, like an implant. I collect retro and archaic tech as a hobby though, and I’ve tinkered with similar devices. Shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.”

He grabs a mini toolbox from beneath the desk and looks between Dipper and Stan. He points at the box and then at the hearing aids. “Can I?” he says, miming screwing them open.

Stan looks down at him. Dipper nods and perks up when Stan nods back. His great-uncle is letting him decide. He doesn’t know what to make of that. It feels strange.

With their joint permission, the cyborg begins to inspect them closer. He ends up not really needing to screw or pry them open, using a small tool to open the battery door in lieu of natural fingernails to aid him. He peers inside the hatch of one of them, a subtle stream of white light pouring out of his eyes as he scans the device.

He turns the disassembled device around in his hand. “You guys take a swim or something? Internal circuitry’s looking pretty fried.”

Dipper cringes. That one’s on him. “Uh, yeah. Not intentionally.”

He spares him a glance. “A lot of things happen to you by accident?” He shakes his head, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face. “It’s fine. I can fix that too. After that I'll retrofit them with some qartor batteries and maybe get you going with a solar-paneled charging case. That’s probably your best bet, but it’s not gonna be cheap.”

“How much?” he asks, leaning some of his body weight against the desk as he inspects the devices from afar.

“For the internal repairs, battery reconfiguration, and charging case? It’ll run you about 1,325 flinns.”

Dipper twists his fingers to keep them busy. “Is that a lot?”

“It’s about 1,325 flinns,” he deadpans. “I don’t know interdimensional currency exchange rates by heart, kid, but I’ll tell you: that’s a fair deal. I charge fair. It’s the only way to get any kind of business out here. Stars know people are scraping by as it is. I’m not the kind of guy who gets off bleeding ‘em dry even more.”

Dipper nods. He and Stan are two of those sad saps, so he thinks he might’ve come to the right place. Only he has no idea how he’s going to come across that kind of money in only a couple of hours.

He’ll figure something out. “Okay.” Several water droplets race from his hair down his back, and he fights off the chill it sends through him. “Thanks.”

The cyborg raises an etched brow. “You gonna scrape up that kinda cash?” He seems amused.

Dipper spares a glance at Stan, his uncle waiting more or less patiently behind him. The same man who couldn’t even find it in himself to say please when there was over half a million dollars riding on it. “Yeah. Yeah, I will,” he says.

He snorts. “Look, I'm not gonna ask how. Do what you gotta do. Just bring the money by closing and I should have it ready for you.”

“Okay. Thanks. I will,” Dipper promises. He tilts his head as he surveys the man’s inconclusive name tag yet again. He probably should be referring to him as something other than 'cyborg man' in his head. “Uh, what's your name?”

He moves to point at his name tag but stops himself short, lips twisting at the sight of Dipper’s clunky translator. “Acksyien,” he says. “And yours? Just in case I got to hunt you down and collect my money?” he jokes.

“Dipper. And this is Stan. We’ll be back. We literally have no other option, so we’ll definitely be back. I swear.”

He nods. “Alright, little man. I believe in you. See you soon.”

Dipper offers him a small smile before turning and exiting the shop. Once outside, he settles his pack more firmly on his shoulders and squares his jaw. Stan steps out behind him, grabbing his shoulder and fixing him with a hard stare. Dipper can tell it’s not one that’s meant to intimidate.

“What now?” Stan says, his own apprehension seeping onto his face. Dipper hasn’t really stopped to consider how he must be feeling during all of this, how it must feel to not be able to hear anything that’s going on. 

He sighs. He wishes he had something to write with. But he doesn’t. Instead, he relies on his main method of communication. It hasn’t let him down so far. He mimes rubbing his fingers together, the universal symbol for money.

Stan cocks a brow. “How much?”

Dipper shrugs. He wishes he knew. All he’s got is some arbitrary number and the name of a currency he’s never heard of. He’ll have a better idea once he sees the money in his hands, he hopes.

He looks around, eyeing the crowd. Somewhere in this dimension, among the thousands of vagrant criminals like them, down on their luck, there has to be someone who will take pity on him.

He sighs. It’s going to be a long day.

Chapter Text

Stan ducks under another brightly colored hanging textile, trying to trail close behind Dipper as he weaves through the market square, dodging fruit stands as he speeds ahead. He watches the kid manage to stumble over his own two feet for the umpteenth time today and wonders, not for the first time, what the hell is going on.

He hasn’t really known since the kid shook him awake this morning, illuminated by the flickering light of his flashlight, his great-nephew’s panicked face shadowed by the light source clutched in front of him. All Stan has known for certain since then is that he can’t hear much of anything, and, obviously, that fact hasn’t changed over the course of the day. 

The only sounds he’s been able to make out have been the loud crack of the ray gun when he shot that large beast and the occasional rumbling shout from Dipper’s mouth. But even without sound, he’s spent enough time around Dipper to be able to tell where he’s at mentally. 

He’s clearly stressed out of his mind.

Dipper turns in his direction for what feels like the hundredth time and angrily mutters something under his breath. Under the city’s harsh blue fluorescent glow, the bags beneath his eyes look more hollow than usual, even for him. Stan doesn’t bother reminding him he can’t understand a word of it. There’s no point. He’s been doing this for hours. 

Stan isn’t about to make things worse for him, even if he is being a little shit today. And yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that one, too.

Most days, really.

Though it's not like Stan is winning Uncle Of The Year anytime soon either. Dipper has every right to be pissed off and frustrated and upset or whatever. That giant head of his is bound to be chock-full of turbulent emotions at the moment — none of them particularly favorable toward him. It’s what he gets for not telling the kids about the portal that morning, before those agents had shown up. 

Honestly, he really should’ve told them about Ford the second they got involved in any of this to begin with. Probably the moment Dipper trusted him enough to show him that “journal he found out in the woods.”

Instead, he laughed in the kid’s face and mocked him for it. Even though his stomach was churning and every bone in his body was vibrating with the need to race downstairs and compare its innards with the other two journals. He finally had them all — right down in the basement.

But, all that said, he’d be lying if he said the whole thing isn’t wearing real thin, real fast. Stan might deserve all of this, but things between them have been insufferably hostile for weeks. He would do just about anything to have the kid on his side again. 

He sticks to biting his tongue in the meantime — which is a feat in and of itself. Stan’s stubbornly defensive nature does not mesh well with Dipper’s habit of uttering argument-provoking comments at random throughout the day. It has made for some awkward silences, Stan fighting every single urge to take the bait and fight back. 

Way to go, he thinks on those days, you’ve managed to not let a twelve-year-old goad you into an all out screaming match today. Just barely.

Hell, Dipper’s been giving him whiplash every other hour. One minute, he’s laughing at Stan’s jokes and pointing out random interesting things he spies out in the woods, and the next, he flips a switch and he’s back to hating Stan’s guts again. His whole shtick these past few weeks has been testing how fast he can turn on a dime. Stan never knows what kind of day they’re going to have. 

That's partly the reason why he’s kicking himself now. They were actually having a somewhat decent day yesterday. Dip had asked him over breakfast — which was really just one ration bar split between the two of them — if Stan would make good on his promise to teach him how to shoot, and he agreed immediately. His great-nephew actually seemed excited about something for the first time since they’d left their home dimension. Nervous and scared out of his mind, maybe, but excited nonetheless.

He ended up not doing a half-bad job at that. Stan was proud of him. He is proud of him. 

And, sure, there was that whole triangular dream demon freakout coming back to rear its head again, but Stan isn’t complaining about that. Just a few weeks ago, Stan never would’ve expected Dipper to willingly confide in him about anything ever again — though there hadn’t been much of that over the summer, either. 

If Dipper’s been tearing himself apart thinking about this whole Ford and Bill thing, then Stan one-hundred percent wants to hear about it. Even if the thought of it makes him want to hurl the near-negligible contents of his stomach. He wants the kid to trust him. He wants him to want to tell him things.

They spent the rest of the day exploring the valley. Dipper talked his ear off about some alien river lilies and how the white hue of the sky might be caused by an intense cloud layer rather than an inherent trait of the dimension’s atmosphere. Stan pointed out a few things himself, though admittedly less astute, listening in horror as Dipper explained that the oddly shaped tracks Stan pointed out in the dirt were the result of a giant leech monster he’d seen crawling out of the river just the night before. And hadn’t told him about.

And then he woke up and everything fell to shit. He couldn’t hear anything the kid was saying, and Dipper had that look on his face that made it clear that he was quickly approaching his limit — whatever that even was these days. And that was before Stan had even dropped the “I can’t hear anything and have no idea how to fix it” bomb on him.

Stan was at a loss. He had no idea how to help. Not even when the kid was using that too-large brain of his to come up with extremely smart ways to communicate like etching words into the mud outside of the cave.

He panicked when Dipper traced that one-word question in the dirt. He’d been ready to kiss the wilderness goodbye earlier that day, but in their siloed state, cowering in the darkness of their shared cave, Stan couldn’t muster the same confidence. The night was heavy upon them, and all Stan could do was look around at their dreary makeshift shelter and imagine what it might feel like to occupy an even worse one. He couldn’t imagine trying to navigate another dimension without the ability to hear. Even if it was their only option.

He’d never forgive himself if something went wrong. He doesn’t care if he never hears another peep again — if Dipper got hurt, none of that would matter.

Or worse, killed.

That’s more than just a possibility out here. It might even be likely. For both of them. 

Of course, he’d never tell Dipper that. He promised there’d be no more secrets between them, but that’s a thought he doesn’t mind keeping to himself. He lets it marinate in the darkest recesses of his mind, deciding to only let it see the light of day if absolutely necessary.

Frankly, Stan felt more willing to hunker down in whatever safety the dismal cave could provide for a few more days while he worked it all out in his head. Probably at least until they ran out of ration bars. Maybe even longer, if they could stand the hunger.

He even briefly entertained the idea of walking Dipper through tying a fishing line with a few pieces of the rope in their pack if worse came to worst. He wouldn’t actually be able to hear the kid’s questions if he had any, but he’s sure he’d be able to swing it. 

They could stay there. Maybe even months.

And, yeah, maybe he wouldn’t be able to hear the kid’s voice for a while, but it’s not like he’s speaking to him much anyway. What would he be missing out on anyway? A bunch of insults, sass, and sarcasm muttered under his breath?

No, he can live without the kid talking to him all the time! Yapping his ear off about his observations and theories. Prattling on with that effortlessly sarcastic tone of his. Making him laugh…

Okay. So he probably should’ve trusted Dipper more. But Stan also wasn’t exactly wrong in the end. Nearly drowning and having to slay a giant hellhound wasn’t really what he had on his itinerary for that early in the morning. 

He spares a glance at Dipper now. The wet mop on his head looks almost black under the city lights, buzzing neon bulbs the only light source to guide them through the throng. Stan’s shoulder clips the side of a wiry man as he marches forward, but he pays little mind to the collision, both of them unwilling to comment on it.

Frankly, Stan’s a little worried about the state of the kid’s lungs. He’s no doctor — hell, he can hardly afford one as it is — but he knows it’s no good for anyone to breathe in that much water, and he wasn’t in great shape when they came through the wormhole. Also, if his clothes are anything like Stan’s, then they’re probably still soaked too, and it’s not exactly warm in this dimension.

He can’t help but think about all the ways that he’s failing him. Again and again and again and again and—

He shakes the thought away. He’s fine. He hasn't been coughing or showing any discomfort other than anxiety — though that on its own seems to be rattling him enough. Stan has to remind himself that Dipper is a Pines first and foremost. Resilience is in his genes.

“Hey, Dip,” Stan says, deciding to check in anyway. He still hasn’t gotten used to not being able to make out his own voice when speaking, only able to hear the muffled rumbling of it. “You OK?”

Dipper glances over his shoulder. His shoulders are drooped, his pack hanging low on his back. He barely misses a step, nodding curtly before whipping his head forward again, dismissing him like he might just be a ball and chain dragging him back. Stan catches his lips moving as he mutters something to himself, but he can’t make out what. He doubts Dip meant for him to, anyway.

The kid has been trying to schmooze up every alien that has thrown so much as a pitiful glance in his direction, but his efforts have garnered little luck overall. Stan’s seen a couple stray bills and coins tossed his way but nothing that comes even close to what they need. Most people just shrug him off. 

It hurts to see Dipper rejected like that — like he once was — ignored and discarded like some piece of litter on the side of the road. It makes his skin crawl. 

He hadn’t realized how fresh that old wound still was. It reopens far too easily, almost as if the last thirty cushy years might have been part of some fever-induced dream, and he’s been asleep at the wheel of the Stanmobile this whole time, shivering in the cold confines of his convertible coffin.

Stan finds his own method of payback to make up for it. He slips a hand into the pocket of the next schmuck that brushes Dipper off and relishes in the quiet satisfaction that fills him when he’s able to slide the sad sack’s wallet into his own coat pocket. It helps him squash some of that helplessness that he’s been trying to take in stride, even if he can tell from the feel of it that it isn’t likely to hold more than a few bills.

He exhales sharply through his nose. The slight weight of the wallet weighs down his coat, the fabric damp and heavy against his shoulders. The frigid air wisps at silver tufts of hair, officially uncovered by his fez for the longest time in recent memory. It’s an odd feeling. He feels laid bare. Even with this stupid covering on his face, he feels more exposed than he ever has.

The scarf clings to his stubble, wet and damp against his face and mouth. Damn, Stan thinks as he trudges along, wincing at his discomfort. He really wants a smoke.

Of course, he’d decided to quit cold turkey sometime after his nephew called and practically begged him to take the kids in for the summer. He and Mary had apparently talked about it in length, at least weeks before Michael’d even bothered to ask Stan if it was alright, agreeing to take the summer to see if there was any part of their marriage worth salvaging. 

He’d said something about couples counseling and not wanting the kids to be around for that. That, if a divorce was inevitable, they wanted time to figure out the best way to break the news to the kids and work out a custody plan that kept stress at a minimum for everyone involved.

Stan called bullshit even then. Parents underestimate the intelligence of their children nine times out of ten, and he personally just didn’t buy the whole “the kids don’t know” act. 

Stan had spent that night out on the front porch contemplating his own shitty childhood and wondering how he would manage to be even a halfway decent caretaker with all the other shit going on in his life.

But no kid should have to spend their childhood pressed up against the bedroom door of two screaming parents, half wanting the marriage to end and half living in constant terror of just that happening, Stan decided. 

He didn’t know to what extent the kids were aware of the whole thing, but it wasn’t all that difficult to come to a decision in the end. The kids are twelve, not infants, he thought, so how hard could it be?

They’d be fine running around in the front lawn and playing hopscotch or whatever it is kids these days do for fun when they don’t have their sticky little fingers tapping away at some screen or their noses inches away from the television set. He’d make it work, even if it meant more sleepless nights hunched over the basement desk and more mornings shrouding his fatigue with the old curmudgeon act and a cup of joe every hour on the hour.

Stan came to a decision that night with his lips wrapped around the cap of his final Montecristo. If letting the kids stay the summer meant keeping them from witnessing the dissolution of their nuclear family, then they probably ought to not have smoke fillin’ their lungs either.

So he hasn’t smoked since. But no amount of fabricated parental responsibility or moral high horse keeps the cravings fully at bay. What he’d do for just one more Montecristo right about now. He’d even settle for a Quorum or one of those other shitty gas station brands.

Stan reaches up and fiddles with the thick scarf, making sure it’s doing its job and concealing his face. He comes out of the haze of his thoughts just in time to catch Dipper heading toward an older woman. She hastily shoves some change into her bag, metallic bionic arms clutching a bag full of miscellaneous fruit. Atop her head sits a technicolor scarf, wrapping around her hair and trailing down her back, falling just above her hips.

When she spots Dipper, she visibly reacts, startling backward slightly. When she takes him in fully, her eyes soften and she kneels down to meet him at his level. 

The kid’s a pitiful sight, wading around in sopping shoes and drenched from head to toe. She seems to agree, lips tightening into a thin line as she scans him up and down.

Stan flinches when she reaches forward, but all she does is squeeze one of the kid’s cheeks, her lips making a strange movement that looks almost like cooing but not quite. She looks up at Stan and tilts her head, lips moving faster and choppier, her tongue flicking with reckless abandon as a question escapes her. The funny thing is, even if he could hear her, he still wouldn’t be able to understand a lick of it without the translator.

Dipper mutters back an answer of some sort, one eye twitching slightly as metallic fingers pinch his pink-tinged flesh. It’s obvious that he wants to pull away, but Stan knows that he won't, especially if he thinks she’s planning on giving them money.

Suddenly, something seems to shift in him. His discomfort visibly ebbs, replaced instead with childish desperation. He effortlessly adopts the puppy dog eyes that are more often seen on the face of his sister, particularly when she’s trying to convince Stan to get them ice cream or some other unholy, diabetes-causing equivalent. Stan blinks, surprised by the change.

The boy says something, gazing up with those watery, semi-convincing eyes as he turns to tug at his coat tails. Stan’s got to hand it to him — he’s managing to make himself look even more miserable and pathetic than he already did.

Stan says his line, flicking his gaze down at Dipper and back to the crestfallen woman, her sights set squarely on the kid. “What?” Stan asks, raising his voice more than what’s necessary, catching on to Dipper’s act. It doesn’t take a genius or someone of perfect hearing to tell that he’s using him as a free pity token.

It’s not like the kid is lying, per se. Just playing up the truth. Stan makes a note to himself to coach Dipper more on that later. He’s got the right idea so far. The best lie is the one that’s half-baked in the truth.

Something tells him the kid won't exactly appreciate being coached into how to tell a better lie. At least not so soon. He’ll have to come back to that.

He watches as the woman’s face crumbles into a million little pieces, one of Dipper’s hands still clutching the fabric of his damp coat. Her fingers rush to dig around in the dark pit that is her purse, eventually pulling out a large wad of cash.

Right when Stan thinks that she might just up and give ‘em the whole clump, she straightens out the papers and plucks out a few bills. He doesn’t know much it ends up being, or what in Moses’ name a freaking flinn is, still, but he recognizes the irritated tick of the kid’s jaw when she slides the money into his palm and turns away.

Dipper remains still long after the woman is out of sight, staring at the discarded money in his palm. 

Eventually, he crumples the crinkly bill in his fist and shoves it into his pocket unceremoniously, leaving it to sit with the rest of the petty change he’s collected.

Stan twists his lip. He knows the feeling well. 

Of course, the stakes were usually higher than just a couple of hearing aids back then. It’s not like anyone will come stalking them with a crowbar, ready to bust out their kneecaps, if they don’t up and find the cash they need by a certain deadline. 

At least, he doesn’t think so. The kid’s stressed, but he isn’t “I might die or be gravely injured if I fail” stressed-out.

The half-machine, half-man employee that helped them seemed like he might’ve been some alternate version of Wendy or Soos. His demeanor was oddly calm and casual for a sterile place like that. He couldn’t hear any of their conversation, but he saw how much calmer he became when talking to him. 

He’d even smiled at one point, something that’s difficult for Stan to get out of him on a good day.

So that rules out bodily injury or death. Stan couldn’t say the same for when Rico and his boys came knocking, but it’s not like this situation is ideal either. Without those hearing aids, Dipper is practically on his own. At least until they’re able to work out some method of communication that’s better than charades. Pen and paper, maybe? 

Could they last like that however many hours, days, weeks, or months it’ll take for Ford to restart the portal? 

What is taking so long, Poindexter?

Stan inches forward, careful not to set off the little firecracker, and kneels down to his height. He wants to console the kid anyway he can, but what could he say? Maybe it’s time he takes charge and tells Dipper to drop the whole thing. They can figure something else out.

He rests a gentle hand on his shoulder, lips parting to tell him just that, but the kid jerks away and rips his shoulder from his grasp before he can even get a word in edgewise. Dipper steps back, rubbing furiously at his eyes, his chest rising and falling sharply as the sting of rejection and failure settles heavy in the air around them.

Dipper drops his hands. He turns away from Stan for a moment and glares off into the distance before he whips around again without warning. With a flushed face, eyes glistening with frustrated tears that still refuse to fall, he shouts something in Stan’s direction. Again.

“What?!” Stan asks, yanking his scarf down toward his neck, not particularly caring at this moment if anyone sees his face. “Dipper, it’s gonna be OK, kid. We’ll figure it out.”

Dipper shakes his head furiously. He holds up a shaky palm, and Stan screws his lips shut.

It’s quiet between them. For both of them, this time. He shuts his eyes, trying to pull himself together.

Stan lets him. The kid’s chest continues to sharply inflate and deflate, but he watches as he slowly but surely calms down. His face retains that subtle pinkness, but his eyes are clear and bright when they reopen, some sort of clarity coming to him that he didn’t have just a second ago in the height of his anger and frustration.

In the sudden silence, Stan makes another decision. He has let Dipper take the reins all day. It’s time he takes over. “We’re gonna take a break.”

Dipper sniffs, running a sleeve-covered wrist beneath his nose. His eyebrows furrow, and his lips move to form the word, “What?” followed by a few more words that Stan can’t make out but assumes are part of some sort of stubborn protest.

“Break,” Stan repeats, wasting no time reaching for Dipper’s wrist and pulling him through the crowd. It says a lot about his current frustration that he lets Stan guide the way without tearing himself out of his grasp or otherwise trying to make a break for it. 

He’s clearly exhausted. Being in charge is hard work, and Stan would bet any amount of money that Dipper’s quickly coming around to that realization. 

He’ll have to teach the kid some of his skills. He would’ve done more to help by now himself, but his hands feel tied. He nearly snuck off and pickpocketed some more dumb tourists about seven times over, but with his current hearing loss and the nature of this dimension, Stan’s a little apprehensive about the whole thing. 

They’re more vulnerable here, and the last thing he needs is to get himself into a situation where he’s caught and he doesn’t have the ability to talk his way out of it.

But Stan is far past caring about what ifs at this point. He still doesn't know what to do, but he figures it’s better to not know and still act than it is to sit around and twiddle his thumbs all day while the kid figures it out all by himself. Sure, he’s incredibly, freakishly intelligent for a twelve-year-old, but that doesn’t mean he’s got to go at it alone. 

If only Ford could’ve seen it that way, then maybe they wouldn’t all be in this predicament to begin with, he thinks, almost out of nowhere. He bites down on his tongue. Hard.

He pulls the kid toward a seating area just off to the side of the street, nestled between more storefronts and the smallest patch of nature Stan has ever seen. Surrounded by machinery and neon lights and digital billboards and giant metallic structures that rise high into the sky, Stan looks down at the small shrub and single flower peeking out of the concrete and wonders how something so natural could be made to look so artificial in comparison.

Dipper sits down on one of the benches and pulls a knee up to his chest, leaving the other foot on the floor. He drums his fingers against the table as his tired eyes flick up to meet Stan’s, his mind clearly still left elsewhere.

He’s still brimming with energy, from the looks of it. Stan half-worries that he’ll sprint off and try to continue his little fundraising scheme elsewhere. 

It warms his heart to know that Dipper’s still anxious to help him with this despite all they’ve got going wrong between them. It gives him some hope that they can get past this. Dipper might not forgive him, but maybe getting along isn’t entirely off the table in the future.

Stan sits across from him, keeping an eye on him since that’s basically all he can do. Dipper pulls the bills out of his pocket and tries to count them off. 

On the parchment, Stan spies some symbols and funny-looking pictures but sees nothing that’ll clue him in on how much they actually have. Dipper seems to have at least figured out that it’s not enough and maybe isn’t anywhere close.

In his own pocket, Stan fishes out the loose paper from the wallet he stole and passes it over. Dipper cocks a brow before adding it to the stack. He lets out an inaudible sigh as he reinspects the pile with the new, meager addition.

Stan’s seen enough. He reaches forward and places a hand over Dipper’s to put an end to the obsessive shuffling. “Stop. Forget the money for a second,” he begs. He pulls his hand away and reaches into his pack as the kid reluctantly tucks the money back into his pocket. “You need to eat something.”

Dipper rests his chin on his knee. He eyes the ration bar in Stan’s hand and sighs. “Not hungry,” he mouths. Or at least Stan thinks he does.

Regardless of what he does or doesn’t say, he makes no attempt to reach over and grab it, which is answer enough for Stan. “Come on. I didn’t let you and your sister rummage through my cabinets and steal all my food all summer for you to quit on me now.” He shakes the bar, rattling it in front of his face. “Eat up. You’re a growing boy and all that.”

Dipper raises a brow back but finally accepts it, lifting his head off his knee. He turns the bar over in his hands with a grimace and rips it open.

He splits it down the middle and extends one half to Stan, flicking his chin toward him.

Stan shakes his head. They don’t have many left. They’ll be out by tomorrow, if not later tonight. He ought to let the kid rack up the pounds now. “I’m not hungry, kid. You eat.”

Dipper blinks, dissatisfied. He deposits both halves of the bar back into their wrapping and moves to shove it back into his bag. A hunger strike? Really? Kid’s stubborn as hell. 

“Fine, Dip, sweet Moses. Give it.”

A smug look falls on Dipper’s face as he passes Stan’s half back over to him. He’s got him wrapped around his little pinky finger and he knows it.

He takes a bite as half-heartedly as he can, but it’s his first time filling his stomach with something since yesterday morning. He swallows the whole thing down embarrassingly quick.

It’s not like it’s much to get down, either, but it is rich and hearty and expands in his mouth to an uncomfortable extent. He knows it’s because an entire bar is packed with enough nutrients to nourish an average human — or bipedal, humanlike being, at least — for a full day. So he really shouldn’t complain.

He won’t, anyway, but Dipper will. The kid cringes around a mouthful, half of his half still untouched. He swallows and then goes to finish the bar, teeth angrily gnashing at the chewy, grainy rations.

His head continues to move on a swivel, still scouting for someone, anyone who will help them. Just one generous soul.

Stan knows better. “Dip,” he says, catching the kid’s attention easily, his nerves frayed. “Askin’ nicely isn’t working.”

Dipper shrugs. He knows it too. He pretends not to as he nonchalantly crumples the empty wrapper and shoves the trash into his bag. 

“Neither is the sad kid and poor old man act,” Stan continues. “That lady seemed fooled, but this kind of place…” 

He shakes his head. He wishes it were different. He wishes everyone was an idiot that left their money sitting in their back pocket or a rich philanthropist that gave out spare cash to miserable-looking kids and their miserable-looking great-uncles.

“People know better. They probably see that sort of thing all the time.”

Dipper nods, his eyes slipping shut as he sighs another deep sigh. It’s altogether too many sighs — way more than he’d care to see coming from his nephew. 

Stan doubts any of this is news to him. Given his current attitude, it’s probably been shouted in his face about a hundred times today. “You think you’re ready for Plan B?” Stan asks.

He peels his eyes open and shrugs again. “How?” he mouths, flicking up his palms for emphasis. And clarity, Stan surmises.

It’s a good question.

Dipper’s tired.

He can’t keep from dragging his feet across the concrete, the ground beneath his boots rubbing angrily at rubber soles. He recognizes an apathy settling in him that doesn’t come around often.

It feels like he’s been run dry, the seemingly endless reserves of anxiety that usually churn within him now tapped out — like someone has been drilling into them for weeks, siphoning every last drop. All he can bring himself to do is watch as Stan sidechecks a random stranger, playing up a frazzled apology as his right hand slips into their satchel unnoticed.

An unclasped watch here. A wallet there.

Dipper isn’t much help. He keeps his hands to himself mostly, pocketed fists clenching around the money he did manage to get on his own. Money he got trying to make people feel bad for him enough to give away their hard earned money.

He's got to hand it to Stan. It’s harder than it looks convincing a load of strangers that you’re not some scam artist. And Dipper wasn’t even really scamming anyone — unlike his great-uncle’s line of work. He’s just a person that could use just one kind gesture at this point.

It didn’t work. Turns out saying, “I promise I’m not lying,” isn’t the kind of thing that inspires confidence in a group of strangers.

So here he is. All of that effort led him straight back to square one, following Stan around as he robs more unsuspecting people blind. Turns out he was lying to all those people. Too bad he can’t even reach that familiar guilt that found him so easily just the other week.

He’s tired. He misses Mabel.

She would know what to do. She’d be able to get Stan to understand exactly what she’s feeling or planning or trying to communicate without the need for words. And she’d understand Stan right back. 

She wouldn’t have held an unshakable grudge toward their great-uncle for weeks, constantly icing him out and pushing him away when he tried to help or annoyingly make things right. She wouldn’t turn her back against him in that dark cave and count stalactites night after night instead of confiding in him after a nightmare or a rough day.

They’d work well together. They’d probably be in some cozy, warm lodge in a dimension full of good-natured people and marshmallows and hot chocolate and fireplaces, and Mabel would’ve talked their way into shelter and a decent meal and a shower. She probably would’ve convinced the mayor or president or prime minister or whatever to let them stay wherever they’d like, whenever they’d like, and in her efforts also manage to convince them to make Mabel Juice the national beverage or something.

Mabel has a way with these kinds of things. She wouldn’t be soaking wet and freezing and miserable, failing to an almost pathetic level at finding a way to get Stan to hear again. She wouldn’t have almost killed them both in an attempt to prove that she’s worth anything at all — that she actually knows what she’s doing. That she’s more than some twelve-year-old kid who no one takes seriously and everyone makes fun of and bugs everyone with his stupid conspiracies and no one really wants around anyway…

Dipper squeezes his eyes shut. He’s projecting. But it’s true. Stan would be better off with just about any other person by his side right now. 

Who was Dipper kidding anyway? It doesn’t matter what Mabel said. He’s no good without that journal. Gideon was right. Every brave, heroic thing he’s ever done has been with that journal in his hand.

And if not the journal, then definitely with Mabel by his side. Dipper can’t do anything by himself. He couldn’t save the Shack. He couldn’t figure out who the author was. He couldn’t keep a dream demon from possessing his stupid body. He couldn’t trust Stan. He couldn’t shut down the portal. 

He can’t even collect 1,325 stupid, freaking flinns to help his uncle hear him again.

And even if he did, then what? Since when did their biggest obstacle become money, food, and shelter? Since when was the goal survival and not getting home?

Survival, jeez, they really are going to die out here, aren’t they? 

And there it is — his anxiety. It’s never really gone for long, though, is it? Great. Now he gets to be some apathetic, anxious mess while Stan does all the hard work getting them the money they need.

Just what he wanted. Way to not be entirely useless, Dipper.

Since pulling him away from his efforts before, his great-uncle has wasted no time trying to take matters in his own hands. But — regrettably — Stan was right. The people in this dimension are cautious, and Dipper isn’t banking on there being much cash in those wallets or much worth in those pieces of jewelry Stan keeps nabbing, much less a place nearby where they’ll be able to sell them in time.

No. He needs to do something. He needs to make himself useful for once.

It isn’t hard to slip away. Not when Stan can’t hear and is several paces ahead, eyeing down his next target with the intensity of a hawk glaring down at a field mouse. 

Dipper surprises himself with his resolve. But he’s tired and exhausted and there’s little to nothing he wouldn’t do at this moment to move on and put this whole mess behind them. He wants to go home, but he’d even settle for a particularly comfortable tree root at this point.

What’s hard is managing to sneak into the vendor part of the strip undetected. He keeps his chin held high and straightens his posture, trying to look like he belongs amongst the crowd. 

This isn’t so abnormal — trying to belong and not stick out like a sore thumb. He does it all the time. At school. In Gravity Falls. In his own home, sometimes.

He approaches an unattended stand, recognizing it as the one he went to earlier to ask for directions. The woman from before is nowhere to be found this time and, from the looks of it, business is still slow.

Dipper peers around the corner and searches for her. He spots her just around the corner, lips wrapped around the end of some sort of electronic cigarette. She puffs a cloud of pink smoke and leans the entire weight of her body against the building behind her, one bionic leg lifted up to rest against the wall, too.

He pulls his head back behind the wall again, letting his head fall back to rest against it for just a second.

His heart pounds as he steps toward the stand. From around the corner, the woman coughs after another hit from her pen. Dipper glances at her work station and spies a lone cash box sitting unattended. He could take the money he needed. She wouldn’t even notice until he was gone. It would be easy. Too easy.

Why is he even pretending to think about it? That’s what he came here to do, right? He came here to finally be useful and return with the money shoved deep in his backpack and never give this situation another thought. He can’t show up empty handed. He can’t watch as Stan fails to do what he couldn’t do, either.

His stomach churns. He might actually be getting sick. He has been walking around in the cold wearing the same set of wet clothes since before the sun even rose. Well, if the sun rose. It would have if they were in the same dimension they just spent the past few weeks in, he thinks bitterly.

Dipper sucks in a deep breath and tries to consider his options. But what options? He doesn’t have any other options. This is it. He’s out of ideas. Dipper Pines, soon-to-be teen conspiracist and paranormal investigator, is officially out of ideas.

He ignores the way his guilt slams back into him, nearly sending him toppling over. His vision feels fuzzy and staticy, but he pays that no mind either, as he does most physical manifestations of his anxiety. The rapid racing of his heart is another familiar sensation. He ignores that too.

Dipper’s almost embarrassed at how quickly his nerves overtake him, but he’d be more embarrassed if he didn’t know where it came from. It’s good that he feels this way. It’s good that he feels bad about this. 

No matter what happens, he doesn’t want to lose sight of that. He doesn’t want to forget this feeling.

He clings to it, in-tune with the way the claws of shame sink into his flesh, gripping him and refusing to let go. Don’t do it, every part of him screams out as he slips past the small, swinging door and into the shop area. His hands tremble as he reaches for the box. 

He could take the whole thing. It’d be easier. Quicker. But it’d also be a thousand times worse, somehow. Take what you need. No more, no less. 

He remembers the childhood rule and feels a little sick at the thought of a younger version of him learning it. How maybe it was taught to him when he was first learning how to share toys at recess. 

Now, here he is, seven-or-so years later, debating whether he should steal all or part of an innocent person’s cash. 

He gulps. He wills his fingers to stop shaking and twists the key that still sits in the box’s keyhole. It unlocks with a soft click, and his breath catches in his throat.

He doesn’t let himself attempt to count or hesitate. He just grabs a blind stack of bills and shoves it into his bag, quickly shutting the cash box and twisting the key to lock it one more, leaving it just as he found it.

He hears the vendor cough again from around the corner — and nothing short of sheer panic slams into him as he stumbles back, legs moving of their own volition, without so much as a conscious thought from him.

Dipper lets them carry him away from the stand and back into the crowd. His face burns with shame, but he feels the weight of the money in his pocket and feels lighter than before. 

He starts in a full-blown sprint before he can think better of it.

As he runs, he tells himself that he’ll pay it back, but the promise feels hollow. He knows that’d be a long shot. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have the funds to replenish what he just took, not to mention whether or not they’ll even be in this dimension tomorrow.

He keeps up his pace, listening to the blood pumping in his ears and the sound of his feet slamming against the concrete. He tries to forget about the whole thing. That’s what Stan does, right?

He doesn’t stop running. He doesn’t look back.

Dipper clenches his jaw as he weaves through the sea of alien creatures, falling into a steady jog before slowing down completely. He stops in his tracks, trying to extend himself on his tippy-toes to see over the crowd. He can’t spot Stan anywhere, but he’s not really in a hurry to get back.

He wants to get this over with, but he’s struck with the sudden urge to keep running and find some place to hide. He won’t, of course, but that doesn’t stop the feeling from sticking around. At least he won’t have to find the words to explain himself when he meets up with Stan again. Not right away, at least. He’ll have some time before they head back to Acksyien’s shop to find his voice again. Right now, it’s lodged somewhere in his throat.

It turns out he doesn’t have to search for Stan long.

“Kid!!” Stan comes barreling toward him, grabbing him by the upper arms and ushering him into a nearby alley. His fingers slide from bicep to forearm, as if some hidden injury might not be visible by eyes but by touch alone. 

“What the hell were you thinking? Where’d you go? Are you hurt?” he asks as he scans him, quickly checking the boy for bullet holes or stab wounds or the like. 

Dipper listens to his rapid-fire questions and alternates looking between each of Stan’s wild, fear-stricken eyes. He thinks of a way to answer any of those questions without words and settles on a shake of his head. He’s not hurt. Physically, at least. He shoves his pack at Stan’s chest and hopes the contents inside will be answer enough for the rest.

Stan fumbles to take hold of the bag. His trembling fingers curl desperately around it, his eyes still wide and…slightly glassy, Dipper notices.

Another wave of guilt suddenly rocks into him. It hits him so forcefully that he feels inclined to step forward and help. Before he can rethink it, he moves to unzip the bag in Stan’s hands himself so he can look into it without having to open it himself.

A rattled, breathy sigh escapes his great-uncle when he sees the money. “How? You were gone ten minutes, kid,” Stan asks, though he’s not really looking for an answer this time. He better not be. Dipper’s played enough charades for one lifetime, thank you very much.

He meets Stan’s eyes and offers a crooked, closed-lipped smile. It’s the least he can do for scaring him so badly.

That realization settles oddly in his chest, too. He knew on some level, at least since they infiltrated Stan’s mind, that his great-uncle cared about him. But he guesses it took seeing him like this, reduced to tremors and shaky breaths that come too fast, for Dipper to realize how much.

Stan offers one back as he manages to zip the bag closed. He keeps it close to his chest, securing Dipper’s loot like it might be a newborn baby. “That’s it then?”

Dipper shrugs. He thinks so. He hopes so.

It better be. He’s tired and guilty and sorry and terrified and he hates how the look on Stan’s face is making him feel right now.

But he has no way to communicate any of that so he reaches for Stan’s hand and allows him to take it before pulling them back the way they came.

When they make it back to Acksyien’s shop, Dipper pushes open the double doors and stalks in, trying not to let guilt read too heavily on his face.

The cyborg springs to attention, quickly shutting a glowing panel on one of his cybernetic arms. “Wow. You actually came back. Kinda figured you wouldn’t and I’d be stuck here with some random old guy’s hearing aids.”

Some of the tension in him ebbs. He feels safe in here — isolated from the crowd and the ever-present night. He allows his shoulders to drop. 

“I thought you said you believed in me,” Dipper deadpans.

“I’ve said that about a lot of people who ended up screwing me,” he says, waving a hand around carelessly. “Glad you’re not one of them.”

Dipper spins his bag around to the front and unzips it, unceremoniously dumping the money on the table. It’s a bit anticlimactic. It doesn’t feel anything like how he thought it would’ve. Like how it looks in the movies. 

The stack of bills sort of just plummets down to the table, smacking loudly against the surface. “Does this cover it?”

Acksyien does a quick scan, his eyes shining like a beacon as a stream of light bathes the pile of brightly colored parchment. “Fifteen hundred. You’re a bit over. Not a bad problem to have.” 

Dipper cringes. He wishes he felt the same. Acksyien passes over his change, or at least what he thinks is his change. Dipper’s not really sure. It's not like he’d be able to tell if this guy was ripping him off.

But he guesses Acksyien also could’ve lied straight to his face and told him he had the perfect amount. But he didn’t — so Dipper doesn’t mind trusting him just a little bit.

His milky eyes flick toward the front door. “Anyone follow you?” he asks ominously.

Dipper whips around toward the entrance. The view from outside the front window is little more than empty street — bathed by the light of a few flickering street lamps. “What?!” he says, turning back to face Acksyien.

The cyborg levels Dipper with an incredulous look. He seems almost surprised at Dipper’s confusion. “You don’t get this many flinns in that short of time without pissing some people off.”

“Hey,” he protests, “I thought you said you weren’t gonna ask.”

“Trust me, kid, I’m not. But if some nutcase comes in here wanting vengeance then that means I won’t get paid and I’ll have to spend the rest of my night bleaching organic bioflesh off the walls.”

Dipper pales. “Man, that’s awful. Wow.”

Acksyien shrugs. “Guns have gotten sophisticated as fuck these past couple years. You’re better off at the other end of one. Anyway, here,” he says, dropping a small case on the table in front of Dipper. “Have him test them out. I’m gonna lock up the shop. It’s nearly after hours anyway.”

He reaches for them and turns toward Stan. His great-uncle turns around to watch as the cyborg begins locking up the doors and meets Dipper with a suspicious, sideways glance. He reaches for the case and opens it.

Dipper peers inside with him, eyeing the fresh, new devices. They certainly look more sophisticated than before. Acksyien really made it worth their while.

Stan plucks both hearing aids out of the case and fits them into each respective ear. He waits for a moment, tapping at the side of one of them.

“Stan?” Dipper tries nervously, twisting his fingers.

“Yeah, I can hear you,” Stan says, voice leveling out to normal volume. “Shit. Finally.” 

He drops his hand back down to his side and kneels down, resting it on Dipper’s shoulder, over the strap of his bag. “Thanks, kid.” Stan sighs. “I owe you one. Really.”

Dipper screws his lips shut, bottom teeth scraping over a small open cut at the inside of his lip. His mouth tastes like he might’ve licked a penny. He nods and offers a small shrug. “Didn’t really have any other choice.”

Stan nods absently. “You okay? I know I’ve asked a million times but I think I’d like to hear you say it.”

Relief floods into him and pricks at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah. I am now,” he says, trying to be honest this time. He really wasn’t okay, was he? He’s only now realizing it — nearly ready to collapse with relief as most of his anxiety washes away in one fell swoop. 

Stan opens his mouth to say something else but doesn’t get the chance to before Acksyien returns. “Alright, shop’s closed and panels ‘re up. You’re probably safe.” 

He points at Stan and snaps, metallic appendages producing a shrill, clanging ring when they meet. “How’re those working? All good?”

Stan stares blankly at him. He straightens back up but keeps his eyes on Dipper. “Uh…”

“Oh,” Dipper says, feeling slightly dumb for not considering it sooner. “He still can’t understand you.”

He reaches up, fingers curling around the sleek metal around his neck, already mourning the loss of language comprehension that’ll fall upon him the second he removes the translator. “Here,” Dipper says, his voice cracking slightly. The grief surprises him — catching in his throat.

Acksyien audibly gasps. “Wait, you guys are sharing that piece of shit? Oh, man.” He shakes his head, glaring at the cuff. “Hold on. I actually might have another one of those things in the back, but I feel like I can't let you guys out in public like this in good conscience.”

“What do you mean?”

He considers Dipper for a second before turning to meet Stan’s eyes. “Wait here,” he tells him. “He should probably be able to listen to this part. I don’t always do things up to code but I probably shouldn't offer a modification to a kid without some parental consent.”

“He’s not my– Wait, did you say modification?” Dipper calls after him as he disappears around the corner.

Dipper doesn’t get quite enough time to freak out about that before Acksyien comes barreling back toward them, a new translator cuff dangling from his open palm. He hands it over to Stan without much fanfare or hesitation. It’s clear that he doesn’t see much inherent worth in the things. He’s all too ready to give it out.

Stan doesn’t waste time questioning the gesture, snapping the collar into place as soon as it’s in his grasp.

“Can you understand me?” Acksyien asks after a moment.

“Uh, yeah,” Stan says with a surprised blink. He doesn’t know if it's because of the distinct contradiction between the cyborg’s smooth, conversational speaking voice and his appearance, or because Stan is unused to hearing voices after a day of silence.

“How are those treating you?”

“They work. Better than before even. How’d you do it?”

“Ah, right.” He meets Dipper's wide eyes. “He missed my spiel. It’s, uh, just a standard battery retrofit and some tweaks to address some of the water damage. But you shouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. They’re completely waterproof now, so if you want to take more impromptu swims, feel free.”

Stan grimaces. “Probably’ll avoid that, but thanks,” he says gruffly. “What about when they die again? Assuming these new batteries don’t last forever.”

“No, yeah, haven’t quite figured out how to construct a perpetual energy generator yet,” he jokes. He pulls out a charging case. “But this case is solar-paneled so it might as well be. Most light sources will work, even on your typical low-light planet. The case itself can hold a charge so you’ll be fine even if you end up in a pitch-black dimension or something.”

“Those exist?” Dipper asks, his anxiety finding another thing to hyperfixate on besides the hypothetical modification he may or may not be getting.

“If you can think it, there’s a dimension for it. Probably.”

Great. He’ll have to keep that in mind the next time he decides to throw himself into a wormhole. “Can we go back to when you were offering me a modification just a minute ago?”

“Oh, yeah,” Acksyien says, snapping again. “I'll throw in two translator implants. On the house. You guys really seem like you could use some charity.”

It’s Stan’s turn to gape at the man. “Sorry, did you say implants? I heard that right?”

He points at the cuff around Stan’s neck. “That thing’s not gonna last you too much longer, especially if you’re gonna keep dunking it underwater. Besides — it’s a little clunky, don’t you think?”

Dipper looks down at his neck. It’s uncomfortable, that’s for sure. He feels like he’d freak out if he had to wear it 24/7. He's not really sure how Stan had managed to wear it for nearly three weeks straight, only taking it off occasionally when he slept. Dipper’s not really sure why he even wore it for so long when it was just the two of them, but he supposes Stan might’ve been anticipating running into some native inhabitants of the planet at some point.

“And this way you’ll be able to read most written languages too,” he continues, tapping at a fleshy part of skin beneath his right ear, mere fingertips away from his carotid artery — assuming he even has one. “External translators can’t get in contact with your optic nerve the way internal implants can. You’ll be better off. Everyone across the interdimensional highway has one.”

Dipper lifts a hand to rub at his neck, fingertips ghosting his pulse point. “Is that safe? Shouldn’t that be done at a hospital or something?”

“Translator implants are tier one cybernetic modifications. I've worked with just about every mod you can think of.” He flicks his chin toward the door. “Half the people out there have gotten something repaired, implanted, or installed by me. I've probably inserted a couple thousand translators over the years. It’s like piercing an ear. Which I also do, if you’re interested.”

“I don’t, uh—” Dipper looks to his uncle for help. “Stan?” he prompts, voice sounding a little desperate.

To his complete and utter dismay, Stan seems to be considering it. “Is some alien government gonna be able to track our every move with this thing or something?” 

Dipper can’t even find it in himself to be shocked. Of course that’s his only reservation about this whole thing.

Acksyien seems to take offense to the insinuation. He leans back against the table and gestures around them. “I don't know, man, take a look around. This look like the kind of place that deals out government surveillance devices? I look like some kind of fed?”

Stan lets out a hearty laugh. “Hah! I like this guy! We’ll take ‘em. You said they’re free, right?”

“Are you– You’re serious?! That’s all it took to convince you?” Dipper steps forward and grabs Stan by the lapels. “You're gonna let him stick something in your neck? By your brain?”

Stan glances down and twists his lips. He looks back up at Acksyien. “You said it's safe, right? No weird side effects or risks?”

“Oh, no, yeah. Super safe. You see anyone else out there with the kind of translator you’ve got on? Everyone’s got an implant. They’ve been approved for nearly every species. It’s really no big deal.”

Stan looks back down and flicks an outstretched palm toward the cyborg. “You see, kid? It’ll be fine. Don't you want to understand stuff?” he asks.

Dipper sighs. He does want that, but he wants to live to see Mabel and his parents and his friends in Gravity Falls more. And he won’t be able to do that if this random, half-human, half-robot guy misses and accidentally pierces his artery or something. 

“What am I gonna do when we get home and I still have this thing in my neck?” he asks, because that’s definitely a concern too.

“How long’s it last?” Stans rephrases the question for him.

“They’ll need annual updates. Whatever that means for you but typically it's four-hundred or so Galactic Standard Days on average. You can get that done at pretty much any cybernetic or translator shop. It's just a simple scan. Won't have to get it removed or anything.”

“And if we don’t get it updated? Like if we go home to our dimension which does not have any of that?”

“It’ll be obsolete.” He shrugs, probably not having to talk many people into modifications these days. He’s right about everyone outside having one. Dipper doesn’t think he’s seen a single person outside today that didn’t have some sort of visible modification. 

He wonders just how many more people have invisible ones too — like the ones they might get in just another minute.

“Won’t hurt to keep it in but it’ll probably stop functioning at some point,” he finishes.

Stan nods. “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” he asks Dipper, nudging him softly in the side.

Dipper keeps his eyes on Stan — admittedly still wide with fear — and tries to telepathically communicate his distaste for the whole idea to him. But if telepathic communication was possible, he would’ve been saved a lot of headaches today. 

Regrettably, his silent, internal pleading goes unanswered.

He sighs. Dipper’s not stupid. He knows he needs to do this. Getting home and surviving means doing things he doesn’t want to do, right? That’s what Stan keeps saying. That’s what keeps happening.

“You know, you’re going to have to do whatever you can to survive out here, Dipper.”

He’s trying not to make a habit of listening to Stan, but there’s a severe shortage of role models out here in this post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk wasteland and he’s tired of thinking himself in circles. He straightens up and tries to strengthen his resolve.

“Okay.” He gulps. “Can we just get it over with then?”

Stan laughs and pats him on the back. “Atta boy.”

They follow the cyborg to the back of the shop — squinting to see in the low light, the shop’s lights automatically dimming now that it’s after hours.

Acksyien heads over to the light switch and has to manually adjust them to override the automatic shut-off feature. When he returns, he begins setting up his station, sanitizing his metal appendages and the tools and the rest of the sharp, pointy objects resting on the sterile tray. Dipper feels weak looking at all of it.

The cyborg sneaks in a glance at them as he sets up. He considers something for a moment before finally giving voice to it. “Does your species have a vasovagal response?”

“What?” Dipper and Stan ask in unison.

Acksyien blinks. “Nothing,” he says, dropping his gaze and ripping open a tool that is wrapped in plastic.

Dipper chews on his lip as he watches the man work. “You go first, kid,” Stan cuts through his thoughts. “It’ll be easier if you don’t have to watch me first.”

“I don’t know about that, but okay.” He hops up onto the large, black reclining chair and kicks his heels against the base of it. He feels his face flush as the reality of what is about to happen seems to settle in.

He wipes his hands against his pants, but they remain just as clammy as before.

He turns to look at the tray of silver blades and pointy metallic doodads and gulps. He feels the color bleed from his face as he imagines one of them sinking into his flesh. 

“I'm probably gonna pass out,” he says plainly. He already feels sick and they haven’t even started yet.

Acksyien looks up, fingers wrapped around a thin, cylindrical tube. “Yeah, that’s what I was asking about.” He reaches up with the other hand and unlocks the external translator around Dipper’s neck, pulling it all the way off.

“Why didn’t you just say that then?” Stan asks as Acksyien drops the old translator onto the ground and begins wiping an alcohol pad against the side of his neck. He directs his attention toward Dipper — that odd, concerned look finding its home on his face again. “You serious, Dip?”

The astringent smell jolts him out of his dazed reverie. He bites his lip. “No? Yes? I don’t know.” He sucks in a breath, steeling himself.

He drums his fingers against his thighs. He refuses to look at Acksyien. “I’m fine. Just…be quick? Don’t tell me when you’re doing it. I don’t want to know, so don’t count down or anything— OW!”

Acksyien finishes smoothing a piece of gauze over the puncture wound and sits back, dropping the device back on its sterile tray. “Done.”

Dipper reaches up and presses down gently on the side of his neck over the gauze. “What the heck, man?!” he accuses as Stan moves to pat him on the back again.

“Easy, right?”

“No! Not easy! That hurt!” he says, dropping his hand when the throbbing pain lessens some. 

Acksyien smiles. “Well, if you're responding, I take it it's working well.”

Dipper frowns and furrows his brow. He gingerly stretches his neck to the left and tries not to cringe when he hears a slight pop. Jeez, he’s tense.

He glares at Stan, as if he’s personally responsible for all of this, and can’t help the devilish grin that slides into place.

“Your turn.”

When Stan and Dipper leave Acksyien’s shop, they’re about 1,325 flinns poorer, one-hundred percent more literate, and at least nine times less stressed than they were before entering it.

Dipper even managed to regain the slight spring in his step. He’s already looking marginally better than before, his hair completely dry and the color bleeding back into his complexion. The white gauze beneath his ear is stark against his tan, freckled skin.

“You really couldn't hear anything?” the kid asks as they march down the street, away from the vendors and the crowd and the anxiety of the day. Stan’s more than happy to leave it all behind them.

He rubs at his own bandage and winces at the sting. He doesn’t know why he keeps doing that; it doesn’t hurt any less the fifteenth time he pokes at it. 

“I’m hard of hearing. Not entirely deaf — otherwise these things wouldn’t work at all,” he says, gesturing up at the new devices nestled in his ear canals. “It's kinda like I’m hearing everything from underwater without ‘em,” he explains. 

He sighs. “But, no, I couldn't hear any of what you were saying.”

“Anything else I should know about? You have a pacemaker or something that’s gonna stop working?” the sarcastic little shit asks as he pulls another one of their ration bars out of their pack. It’s their last one, Stan’s pretty sure, but he’s so weirdly, infinitesimally happy that Dipper’s appetite is back that he chooses not to comment on it.

“Nah. Probably’ll suck going without my heart medication though.”

Dipper’s hands still as he goes to split the ration into two. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Relax, kid. I'm in my early 60s, not senile.” He accepts the half as Dipper hands it to him. “Most of my hearing loss is—” 

He doesn’t really know where he was headed with that. He doesn’t think the kid needs to hear the gory details right now. “Well, let’s just say I got into some scraps when I was out on my own.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really. Just some people who wanted your grunkle dead. That’s all.”

Dipper scoffs. “See, when you say things like that you give me more questions than answers.”

Stan looks at him, unimpressed. “I’m trying to save you from knowing what it’s like to live in your car for a decade. There’s not much to say about that life besides that it wasn’t pretty.”

Dipper chews on that — and on another mouthful. “Your dad really wouldn’t let you come back? Did he know you were living in your car?”

Right. That. Stan kind of regrets telling him that part now. “Yeah. He knew,” he answers, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Dipper doesn’t need his anger, either, even if it isn’t directed at him.

“His decision was always the same. Don’t come back until you make a fortune. But it's not like I would've come back even if he'd said so.”

“And your mom?” Dipper asks.

Stan shrugs. “I guess she knew too, but I always kind of sugar-coated things. She didn’t have much say in the matter, but I remember she used to send these envelopes full of cash when she had an address to send it to. And I know she didn’t make much as a phone psychic so she had to be dipping into some of my old man’s money.

“She’s part of the reason I thought to do the whole Mr. Mystery thing, y’know,” he says, trying to change the subject. “Sometimes people aren’t looking for the real thing, they’re just lookin’ for something to distract them from all the messed up crap they’re dealing with in their real lives,” he adds, trying to shove down the soul-sucking grief that comes when he thinks about his mom for too long. 

Despite his best efforts, he always ends up picturing the look on her face when she stared down at his empty grave.

Dipper chews on his lip. “But…all of that because of an accident?”

He forgets how loved these kids are. He’s glad neither one of them has ever had to worry about being booted out of the house at the drop of a hat. 

And even if they had, they’d always have a home with him as far as he’s concerned. “That’s my old man for you. He was pretty much always trying to get rid of me. Once, he made me stand outside for three days with a sign that said ‘extra Stan’ or somethin’ and tried to pawn me off for three bucks.”

Dipper goes slack-jawed. “What? Why would he do that?”

It’s probably a bad time to take a bite of the ration, but he does anyway. “I dunno. I failed some dumb test or something,” he says around a mouthful. “Tried to copy off Ford’s but that’s when I started needin’ glasses and everything just looked like squiggles.

“Trusted him enough to copy down what I saw anyway, I guess.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Pa always thought I was jealous of Ford. Just like everyone else.”

Dipper looks nothing short of appalled at hearing all that, but he continues on with his questions anyway. “Did Ford think that?”

“I think he thought I sabotaged his dumb science thingy so he’d have to sail around the world with me like we’d planned as kids.” 

A pregnant pause passes between them before Dipper asks, “Did you?” in the smallest voice Stan’s ever heard.

“What?! No!” he exclaims, vehemently refusing the idea. “I didn’t want him to go, but I didn’t want to stand in his way either. If he decided to stay I wanted it to be because he wanted to, not because I purposefully messed up his future.”

“Okay,” Dipper accepts easily, shoving the wrapper into a trash receptacle as they pass it. “Didn’t you tell him that? He didn’t believe you?”

Stan stops for a moment so Dipper can keep up. “I tried. Pa didn’t really let me get in a word in before I was kicked to the curb.”

“He didn’t follow you? He let your dad kick you out?” 

“He was upset. Accident or not, it cost him his dream school.”

Dipper shoves his balled-up fists into his pockets, staring down at his feet with a puzzled look. “Yeah, but you were seventeen. Without a job or a place to live. I don’t think there’s anything Mabel could do that’d make me sit back and watch that happen.”

Stan looks down at him. Dipper’s looking up at him with such earnest eyes that it sends a pang of grief to his chest. He remembers when Ford used to look at him like that — once upon a time.

“Yeah. You’re a good brother, Dip,” he says, ruffling his wild, air-dried curls. He shrugs again. “I thought about that a lot, trust me, but once our old man got an idea in his head there wasn’t much you could do or say to stop it from happening. I don’t know. Maybe Ford could’ve convinced him but…I don't know, kid. It just didn’t happen.”

Dipper hums. “Did Ford ever reach out? After you got kicked out?”

Stan lets out a self-deprecating laugh. He hasn’t heard Dipper talk this much in weeks. But, out of all the possible conversation topics, he resents the fact that it has to be this one. “What's with the third-degree all of a sudden?” he asks.

“You told me I could ask you anything,” Dipper reminds him.

“Well, that was weeks ago. Offer’s up,” he says as he finishes his ration bar — mostly just to give him something to do besides explaining the fucked up whirlwind that is his and his brother’s relationship. He swallows down the gritty mush. “You also told me you didn’t want to. What changed?”

“I'm tired of not talking.” He removes his hands from his pockets and rubs at his upper arms as a gust of wind blows through them. “Aren’t you?”

Stan knows he doesn’t just mean when he couldn’t hear, and the subtle admission kills him. Dipper doesn’t want this either. He’s been waiting for that — for that in — but he wasn’t expecting it to break his heart when it came.

He sighs. He’s got him there. It’s been weeks. Dipper could ask him for his social security number and to be named sole beneficiary in his will and he’d probably say yes at this point, if just to be on good terms again.

Dipper: One. Stan: Zero.  

He sighs. “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” he continues on with the explanation, squinting against the bright stadium-type lights on this side of town. “I don’t really know. I didn’t always have the most reliable contact information. Sometimes I’d hoped maybe the radio silence was ‘cause Sixer didn’t have my number or something.

“That’s probably just wishful thinking. Doesn’t matter, anyway. I heard from him ten years later, so he figured out a way when he wanted to,” he says, unable to keep some of the bitterness out of his tone this time. He thought he was over this petty bullshit.

“Are you– are you mad at him for it?”

Stan looks over at him. He doesn’t really know. He hasn’t allowed himself to think about how he still feels about any of it in any real, meaningful way. It feels like a lifetime ago now. 

“No? I don’t know. Maybe.” The second Ford was sucked through that portal, every single ounce of harbored anger and resentment went with him, it seemed at the time. But he doesn’t quite know if that’s the entire truth. He’s sure it’s still there — maybe just buried deep down. “I stopped caring about all that over the years. I just wanted him back.”

Dipper meets him with those sad eyes and nods. “That makes sense.”

Whatever expression finds its way onto Stan’s face must be more revealing than he means for it to be — because the kid’s face crumbles even more somehow. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. I don't know what I'd do without Mabel for that long.”

Stan hums. He’s tried reminding Dipper that he’s not alone in this feeling, but he never thought to consider the fact that the reverse is also true. The kid understands better than anyone else how he feels. Stan hasn’t been able to say that for a long time. 

“You won't have to know. Not if I have anything to say about it. Okay?”

Dipper keeps staring straight ahead, but Stan catches his thick gulp and the way he blinks rapidly against developing tears. There’s been a lot of that these days. He knows better than to comment on it.

“And I won't be the only one with a say in it, either. I bet Sixer’s been working nonstop. He’s an insomniac like you,” he says with a wistful smile. “The trait must’ve skipped a generation, unless your dad’s secretly one too.”

Dipper snorts, sniffing and looking back down at his feet with a sheepish smile that seems to help him fight back against his tears. “No, uh, pretty much just me. Dad and Mabel could sleep through an apocalypse.”

Stan laughs and a chuckle from Dipper follows closely behind.

“Do you always call him that? Sixer? ‘Cause of his six fingers?” Dipper asks, more curiously than accusingly — though there is an air of it.

Stan is quick to shoot down the insinuation, but he gets it, and he thinks he can understand why a kid like Dipper might want to clarify that sort of thing. From the sound of it, he’s experienced his fair share of bullying back home. It’s one of the main reasons Stan was so hell-bent on toughening him up this summer.

“Hey, it was an endearing childhood nickname,” Stan defends light-heartedly. “We all call you Dipper,” he feels the need to point out, nudging him as they walk side-by-side.

“Right.” He blushes, realizing his hypocrisy. “You got me there.”

“Don’t worry about it. Mason,” he adds under his breath, because despite all the parenting he’s been doing, he’s still an uncle and his sole purpose in life is to poke fun at his niblings basically whenever possible.

You’d think the word was an activation phrase for a sleeper agent, the way Dipper’s eyes dart up. “You know my real name?”

Stan lets out a short, loud laugh. “Are you serious? You didn't think I knew? I was there when you were born.”

“I knew that.” He nods quickly, face completely flushed now. “I guess I just kind of forgot people other than Mabel and my parents knew. I’ve been Dipper for so long…”

The reaction confuses him. “You do like Dipper better right? I haven’t been callin’ you the wrong name or something—”

“No!” Good, that would have made for an awkward conversation. “No, yeah, Dipper’s good. Dipper makes sense. Mason’s a dumb name, anyway.”

Stan bristles at that. He can’t help wondering if that’s an opinion the kid made himself or if someone else got into his head about it and gave him some sort of complex. “It’s not dumb, kid. You plus dumb are two words that’ll never fit together, so knock it off, will ya?”

Dipper’s mouth opens slightly, as if he wants to protest that — or maybe just out of plain shock — but he presses his lips together and nods instead.

“But I get it. You’re a Dipper.”

“And you’re a Stanley,” Dipper remarks. “Weird. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

“Yep, my dad was creative all right. Found out he was having twins at the last second and decided one name tweaked into two would work fine.”

Dipper grimaces. “I don’t think I like your dad very much.”

Stan smiles. He feels sort of vindicated hearing him say it. “Join the club, kid. Consider yourself lucky you’ll never have to meet him,” he tacks on because — despite the subtle sting of guilt he feels while saying it — he’s extremely grateful his nephew and niece will never know the wrath and disinterest of Filbrick Pines.

“Wow,” Dipper laughs awkwardly, boots crunching as they reach the outer edge of the city, concrete giving way to loose gravel. “That’s morbid.”

“Dead dad jokes, kid. You better get used to ‘em.”

He shakes his head and spares him a sideways glance. Despite his disapproval, his lips can’t help curving into a small smile. “That’s horrible, Stan.”

“Really? ‘Cause there’s more where that came from. That and pretty much all the jokes from my joke book. Got 'em all stored up here.” He taps the side of his head.

“Oh, great,” Dipper says, sarcasm thick in his tone. “Really looking forward to hearing them, then.”

“OK, smartass. Careful.”

Dipper laughs and Stan laughs back and the two of them lapse into some sort of comfortable silence. It’s weird. Silence and comfortable aren’t really two words Stan would have associated with each other before today, but it seems a lot of things have changed.

This is good. This is easy. It’s what he wanted. But when he looks over at Dipper, he knows they aren’t quite where they need to be. There are things they haven’t settled and about a million things that were left unsaid today. It’d be impossible to cover all of it, even if they started talking now and never stopped.

He figures the kid might need some prompting. “Okay, kid, what is it?”

To Dipper’s credit, he seems genuinely confused. He's probably trying not to dwell on it much himself, either, though whatever it is reads plainly on his face, down to the way that he holds himself as they walk along the path. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something else on your mind. Spit it out.”

“No there isn’t,” he argues, kicking a rock with the tip of his boot. Stan can’t help but notice the forceful way he does it, like the rock might be the cause of all of his problems.

“Come on. Might as well tell me while we’re talking.”

At that, Dipper gives him a weird glance that he can’t really figure out but looks vaguely like guilt. He tries not to beat himself up too much for it, mostly because he doesn’t understand it. 

“I guess there is something on my mind,” he admits. “Sorta. But I wasn't really planning on bringing it up.”

“You think it’ll help to get it off your chest?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. Maybe?”

“Shoot.”

The kid chews on his lip, rolling the skin between ivory teeth. “It’s just all kind of weighing on me, I guess. The stealing and the lying and the threats and the…”

Dipper sighs. He’s finding it hard to find the words. “Just… Were we in the wrong?” he settles on. “I mean, we took that man’s truck under threat of violence. We just stole from all those people. I stole from one of the only people willing to help me all day—”

“Wrong, shmong, Dip,” Stan interrupts, not willing to hear him beat himself up any longer. Especially not when most of that stuff wasn’t even his idea. “No one’s gonna make you take a morality test after this.”

“I don’t care about what people think after this. What about me? How am I gonna look myself in the mirror today? What’s Mabel gonna think?”

“You know what I see? I see a kid who’s doing whatever it takes to get back home to his family,” Stan says, stopping in his tracks and urging Dipper to look him in the eye. “And as for Mabel? You’re talking about the girl who had a smile on her face when she was painting blunt bangs on counterfeit Benjamin Franklins. Mabel’s not gonna think anything. She’s gonna think about how happy she is that her brother’s back, kid. That’s it.”

Dipper wraps his arms around himself, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t recognize myself anymore, Stan. I want to go home.”

“I know. Me too.”

“I don’t wanna die,” he says quietly. Stan’s heart shatters for him again.

He makes sure his voice is strong when he says it, but the thought of it rattles his vocal chords. He'd nearly thought he lost the kid for a second there today. He’ll never forget how terrified he felt in those few short minutes. “You’re not gonna die, Dip. Get that out of your head.”

“I might. We might.”

“No. Stop. Forget it.”

“Stan—"

“Get rid of it. Not happening.”

“But—"

“I’m not letting you die,” Stan repeats. “Besides, we’ve made it this far. What’s it been? A few weeks now? Just a little longer till we’re home and can put this whole thing behind us.”

Some of the anxiety on his face gives way for an amused and puzzled quirk of the brow. “We’re gonna put it behind us? How?” he asks, unconvinced.

“Well, I’m pretty sure Mabel will wrap us both in sweaters and attack us with hugs the second we make it back through the portal. We won’t have time to dwell on anything after that.”

“That sounds pretty nice. I’m freezing.” He rubs his thin sleeves.

Stan curses himself for not noticing sooner. “Jeez, kid, why didn’t you say so? Where’s your jacket?”

Dipper blinks. “Soaking wet in my bag.”

“Here.” Stan peels his long overcoat off, handing it over. “Take it. Don’t argue with me.”

Dipper accepts it, putting it over his shoulders. It’s ridiculously long on him, but he wraps it around himself graciously. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He holds on tight to the jacket, trying to keep the warmth in as they continue on down the path. “So, then what?”

Stan blinks. Was that helping? Did he find something that helps? “Well, uh. Ford would probably be frazzled out of his mind, seeing as he had to turn the portal back on, but he’d probably thank me up and down for saving his life.”

“You think?”

“Oh, yeah. He’d wanna get to know you too, but he’d have to wait ‘cause Mabel’d be glued to your side. Probably at least for the next six months.”

Dipper nods, and a soft laugh moves past his lips, caught on a breath. “We’d celebrate our birthday together. It’s next week. I think. I don’t know. It might’ve already passed.”

Stan frowns. “Well, we’d finally have a calendar and a normal freakin’ planetary rotation to figure it out. If we missed it, we’d have to do a redo,” he says. “And Mabel’d make it the biggest one you’ve had yet. I bet the whole damn town would come.”

Dipper frowns again. “It’s a nice thought.”

“What? You giving up on me, Dip?”

He shrugs. “We aren’t getting home by next week. If it hasn’t happened yet…”

“We don’t know that.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Doesn’t change the fact that I’ll probably be spending my thirteenth birthday alone. So will Mabel.”

“Hey, you’re not alone,” Stan says. “I know I’m not the greatest company sometimes, but I don’t want you feeling like you’re alone in this. Capiche?”

Dipper offers him a soft smile. “I know,” he says. “And you’re not so bad.”

“Yeah?” Stan asks, unable to help the wide grin that stretches across his face.

“Yeah.” Dipper shifts his gaze toward the floor, not willing to make eye contact for this. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll be better.”

Stan shakes his head. “Screw that, Dip,” he says. “You’re a human being. Worse. You’re a teenager.”

Dipper laughs. It’s a wonderful sound.

“Just promise me you’ll try talking some more? You don’t have to forgive me or anything, but all you’ve been doing is hurting yourself. You’ll go crazy if you stay stuck up there in that huge brain of yours.”

He nods in shy, unsure agreement, and a weight is lifted from Stan’s chest. Moving forward, he thinks. It’s all they can do.

Chapter Text

Mabel has walked this exact path through the woods hundreds of times over by now, but it’s the first time without Dipper by her side.

The absence may as well be a phantom limb. She feels the repetitive urge to reach out for him and prod him in the side or poke him in the cheek, something she’d often do whenever she got the feeling that he was stuck up there in that stupid, worrying brain of his.

But there’s nothing there when she does reach. For every instinctual search, she’s greeted instead by dead, empty air.

Ford is a quiet and unobtrusive presence aside from the thick squelch of his boots as they sink into the mud. It’s been less than an hour since Mabel shoved her way through the Shack screen door, clearing out the entire gift shop as she slammed the entire weight of her body against the vending machine, and already he is profoundly different from the man who greeted her then.

And not just because he’s no longer trying to defend his month-long decision to tear the portal apart and condemn her twin and grunkle to an existence she can’t even begin to wrap her head around. Not even because he’s finally given her the direction she’s waited so long for — weeks and weeks of staring at a cluttered scrapbook and researching theories on multiversal travel finally giving way to something more concrete, more doable. They’re going to restart the portal. And Mabel’s going to help.

No, it’s not just that. She’s also noticed some similarities between her present company and the one she’s known since the womb — even if what she finds could never measure up to what she’s lost. No offense, Grunkle Ford.

They’re incomparable, but Mabel’s not afraid to compare apples to oranges. Sure, they both have distinct flavors, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t recognize their sweetness alike.

For one thing, her new great-uncle and her brother both have that uncanny ability to radiate their anxiety off of them in waves, able to catch her by surprise with the intensity of it. It’s more than just chewed ballpoint pens and gnawed t-shirt collars. She feels it in wayward glances and the foreboding silence of words left unsaid. 

She feels something at that. Not comfort. Not even normalcy. Just some innate understanding that ripples through her all at once. 

It’s easier to accept this new presence when she can view it through the lens she has so often used to understand her own twin.

And then there are the obvious attempts to avoid her gaze when she catches him staring. Which, she’ll have you note, has been near-constant since they peeled themselves off the forest floor and began to head back to the Shack only minutes ago. 

Dipper is never subtle with his worry either.

When she finally wills herself to look over at him, she can’t help but notice the way his eyes are clouded over with the same fatigue she sees staring right back at her when she looks in the mirror. Like a thick veil, it’s large enough to hang over the both of them.

You’d think by looking at them that she’s some kind of flight risk or something, given the fact that he refuses to step anywhere further than two feet to her left. She guesses she can’t really blame him. If there was ever a time to run away, it would be now. 

She’s managed to run this far, why not run some more? Just a few miles into the woods to distract herself from the thought that she really should’ve just thrown herself into the portal the second Stan and Dipper disappeared through it.

She really is tempted to bolt back into the thick of the trees and never be seen again. And she really might do it — if just to avoid the inevitable wrath of her parents when they realize where she’s gone and how she got there. Which, judging by the time her bus arrived in Gravity Falls and the position of the sun in the overcast sky, must have been several hours ago, at least.

Mabel had plenty of time to consider their reaction on the bus ride over, and she came to the conclusion that it couldn’t possibly be anything good. Potential consequences weren’t on her mind when she pulled her suitcase out from under her bed and gave herself an impromptu haircut, snipping the strand with the same nonchalance that she’d shown her dolls growing up, but it’s all she can think about now.

When they get here, there’s no doubt in her mind that they’re going to drag her straight back to Piedmont. Maybe even by that very strand of hair.

Well, that might be overselling it. Out of all possible reactions, that’s probably the least likely. They’ll drag her back to Piedmont all right, but they won’t do it with much anger. She’ll be begging for it, internally, but that’s an emotion they won’t let show. Just another thing she wants so desperately but won’t get anytime soon.

And, oh, does she want it. Deserves it.

She can see it now. Her mom will probably cry until she can’t breathe and her dad will look at her through the rearview mirror with an expression that Mabel won’t understand and maybe never will. And she’ll sit quietly in the backseat the whole drive home, gulping down unbreathable air while her fingertips ghost around the hand of that phantom limb.

She shivers. She can’t go back to that. She loves her parents — she really, really does — but she can’t go back. She won’t.

Ford frowns when he notices the tremble. She hadn’t meant to make it so obvious, but she doesn’t feel particularly in control of her body right now. Really, it feels like she might be somewhere else instead. 

And not even in the fun way — like when she avoids her schoolwork in favor of daydreaming about the cute boy from gym class or what it’d be like to have a tiny chinchilla in her pocket that she could pet whenever she wanted.

“Are you cold, Mabel?” Ford asks, wrinkles deeply set on his forehead. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he strips himself out of his coat. It’s a beige, long thing — devoid of stickers or patches or color. “Here.”

She hesitates, fingers brushing against the hem of her skirt. She has half a mind to reject his kindness, but her great-uncle looks oddly expectant standing there, all six of his fingers clutching the bundle of fabric as he dangles it toward her. Watching. Waiting.

When he makes no move to pull it back, she accepts it and tries to look grateful. And she is, but it’s difficult to muster up a halfway decent way of showing it right now. The supposed thirteen or so facial muscles that it takes to work up a smile must have atrophied by now. She can’t seem to get them to cooperate.

She doesn’t bother to mention that she’s not even particularly cold. She just can’t keep from shuddering as she imagines being back in her and Dipper’s shared room, curled up in a ball as she tries to fight back against her constant despair and the house’s rampant chill both. You know, nothing major.

“Thanks.” Mabel pulls her arms through the sleeves. It’s loose over her arms and torso, but it keeps in the warmth of her sweater well enough. Its length also helps protect her bare legs from the dewy morning air, her skirt not doing much to fight back against the wet chill spreading out from the droplets that cling against her skin.

Okay, so maybe she was cold. She hadn’t realized. How crazy is that?

Ford nods but doesn’t turn away. He’s more obvious with his staring this time. He barely takes a millisecond to watch where he’s going, and she half-worries that he’ll crash straight into a tree or something before they can make it back to the Shack. 

She pictures it in her mind, but her brain decides that the image is more Dipper-like if anything. It leads her straight back to square one, her brain trapped in that constant, whipping whirlwind of thought that is Dipper, Dipper, Dipper, Dipper—

An outstretched hand quickly stops her in her tracks, her nose inches away from smacking into a large aspen tree. Hysterical laughter bubbles in her throat as she stares at it. So she was the one who nearly ended up receiving a mouthful of tree bark. Funny how that works.

But her teeth and braces will live to see another day. Hesitantly, Ford’s hand settles on her shoulder, and she finds herself boring holes into the bark with her eyes alone. The tree stares back — an unsightly scar resembling a half-lidded, slitted eye.

Her eyes begin to blur with some hot, fiery wetness, and for a second, she swears she sees it blink. 

“I’m okay.” She stumbles back on her feet and avoids Ford’s gaze, hands clutching twin bundles of coat sleeve fabric in lieu of digging her nails into the thin skin at her palms.

Ford doesn’t seem to agree. He kneels down and meets her eyes behind large frames that are eerily similar to Stan’s own.

She allows her vision to blur completely, picturing for one selfish moment that the man in front of her really is her Grunkle Stan. Maybe Dipper’s even around the corner. Wouldn’t that be something?

She feels awful for it, but it helps fill that grunkle and twin-shaped hole in her heart for just a moment. And she’ll take all the moments she can get, thank you very much.

“You really haven’t gotten much sleep, have you?” not-Stan asks. Ford, Mabel. It’s Ford. Her other great-uncle. Whom she happens to like, dislike, trust, and not really trust at all — all at the same time.

It’s complicated. Maybe more complicated than family has the right to be, but that’s never stopped the Pines family from being their authentic, complicated selves, has it?

She’s not sure how she feels about him as a whole, but she can at least recognize that she likes this version of her grunkle. The one who gives her his coat and promises her things that she can tell he wants to keep and listens to her stories about Dipper and doesn’t tell her that he’s dead or conspire to plan a funeral for him behind her back.

But he’s still the same grunkle that lied to her for weeks and only moments ago told her that he may have knowingly left them in a place called the Nightmare Realm, a dimension that is home to Bill Cipher, the same demon that invaded her uncle’s mind and nearly killed her brother in the span of a couple of weeks.

She decides that it doesn’t matter what grunkle he is right now or even whatever grunkle he ends up being in the end. Because he’s right. She is tired. So tired that she can’t really begin to grapple with her trust issues toward him at the moment. 

She shakes her head in confirmation. She wrings her hands and winces at the raw, bloodied nubs at her fingertips when she makes contact. “I didn’t sleep on the bus. I didn’t want to miss my stop.”

Ford blinks in surprise, like he’d forgotten she wasn’t just here all along or maybe only blocks away. She wonders if he truly understands the lengths she had to go through to end up in front of him now or if she was just out of sight, out of mind for him this entire month.

That has to be it. He was probably so lost in his own battle of mental tug-of-war that she was just as much a figment of his imagination as the other half of her who’s currently stuck between worlds. They are both strangers to him after all. Mabel knows that. It hurts, but she thinks she understands that well.

All that aside, the disbelief he feels is mutual. Last night was a fever dream she isn’t convinced she woke up from. Even she can’t really believe she managed to get here all by herself. It almost feels like she didn’t.

She would have laughed straight in your face if you’d told her a year ago that she, Mabel Pines, would end up doing unthinkable things like run away from home to go work on a transdimensional portal with her estranged, disaffected great-uncle. But she doesn’t think she knows which Mabel she is right now. She’s definitely never been this one before.

“And before that? Were you getting much sleep then?” he asks. 

Mabel cringes and rubs at her eyes. She slept a little bit last night before she hopped on that bus, but she knows that isn’t saying much. What good is a Bill-infested night's sleep anyway? “I don’t know,” she answers honestly.

Ford gives a short nod, settling something in his mind with a tick of his jaw. “Okay. Here. I’ll carry you the rest of the way,” he announces awkwardly with his arms outstretched, like he’s reciting the next step in some sort of lab experiment. 

Mabel stares back at him. She’s never refused a piggyback ride before, but there’s a first for everything. “I don’t need to be carried. I can walk. I’m fine— 

“Hey! Put me down!” she demands as she’s suddenly lifted off of the ground, Ford gently taking her and her coat-covered body into his arms. She squirms and tries to plant her feet back on solid ground, but he doesn’t listen. He carries her further down the path, away from the tree that almost wound up splintering off into her rosy, flushed cheeks.

Just once, Mabel would like for someone, anyone, to match her in feeling and expression. Would it kill the earth to stop spinning and the sun to stop setting for just a second?! Instead, Ford’s voice is infuriatingly level when he responds, all the while her heart pounds wildly against her ribcage.

“You won’t be able to help me with the portal if you walk into a ditch, Mabel. You have to take care of yourself too.”

She huffs, going limp and surrendering herself to his hold. That was a low blow, but he has a point. She’s reminding herself of Dipper before her sock puppet rock opera, and everyone knows how that ended up. And with Bill backstage, shadowed in the wings, she better start shutting the curtains, so to speak. 

If he is going to continue sneaking into her dreams and taunting her with apparently true but definitely manipulative insider information about her Great Uncle Ford, then she better start working on putting her guard back up. 

What guard, you ask? Touché. She guesses she never really had much of one to begin with. Again, there’s a first for everything. It’s never too late to be more serious, right? Less silly. Take things a bit more harshly. Trust no one?

She should probably still try trusting Ford. Probably. Maybe. At least until they get back to the Shack and she can start working on Step Two of her foolproof two-step plan. 

Step One was to get to Gravity Falls. And Step Two is… 

Still in the works, apparently. She hadn’t really thought this far ahead. She hadn’t thought she’d get this far ahead.

For now, she lets her mind go blank as she reluctantly rests her chin on Ford’s shoulder, his turtleneck sweater tickling her skin — the yarn a familiar sensation.

And as she is carried away from the forest where her brother’s memory has been laid to rest to everyone but her, she closes her eyes and selfishly imagines that the warmth and comfort of the large, burly arms that hold her are the arms of Stanley Pines.

“I’ll help you get your things upstairs,” Ford says, staring down the singular suitcase Mabel brought with her as if it might be a ten-thousand pound anvil and not a lightweight polka dot carry-on. “The attic should be the same as you left it, but we’ll probably have to get you some fresh linens.”

Mabel finds her balance on shaky legs once he sets her back down on the floor. The banality of the statement makes her skin itch. “But Great Uncle Ford, I can’t sleep.”

Ford pulls the screen shut behind him, rattling a closed sign that’s been hung on the door. She didn’t even know Stan owned a closed sign. “Why not?”

Is it not obvious? How could she? “I have to help you convince my parents to let me stay.”

Ford regards her plainly, and Mabel can read every subtle expression on his face as if he were an open book. Or journal, she muses with admittedly less joy than the wordplay calls for. “I said I would talk to them. I don’t intend to go back on that.”

Not that she would know what promises he decides to keep and which ones he doesn’t. “You’ve gotta do more than talk to them. You have to beg! Plead! Bribe! Threaten!” Mabel says, squeezing her coat-covered arms around herself. The fabric reeks of coffee, but it’s an odd comfort anyway. Maybe because it’s Stan’s old blend — a brew that always ended up resembling tar and smelling like burnt tires when he got a pot going in the morning.

“I can’t go back there. I have to stay and help. I have to be with you and Wendy and Soos and Waddles,” she says with finality. “Okay?! There’s nothing left for me in Piedmont. I can’t be there without Dipper, Grunkle Ford. Please. Don’t make me go back. Don’t let them take me back.”

“Mabel, breathe,” Ford interrupts. The wind pours in through the screen door, leaving the Shack just as cold as that suburban two-story home back in Piedmont. 

Mabel has been told to breathe before, but never like this. It’s always an exasperated, “Mabel, dear, breathe,” when she’s barreling through a story about a particularly vivid dream she had, or, “Honey, take a breath,” when her mom asks over the phone how her summer’s going and she can’t decide what to share first. 

But she hasn’t experienced this — this frantic concern that makes her feel like a basket case or a ticking time bomb ready to go off. And, oh, is she ready to go off. 

Jeez, is this what Dipper feels like all the time?

He lowers himself down to her level, his large frame blocking some of the chill from reaching her through the doorway. He seems to take a great deal of time considering his next words. Another notch on the Dipper and Ford similarity chart, then. 

“I’m not going to let them take you back to Piedmont without a conversation first. Now, I can’t promise you I’ll be able to convince them, but I’ll certainly try my best to reason with them. How’s that sound?”

“Bad,” Mabel deadpans once she’s able to get her heart rate back down to a Mabel level and not a Dipper one. “It sounds bad, Great Uncle Ford. My parents are not reasonable people.”

Ford quirks an amused brow. “They’re not?”

She shakes her head. “No. Do you know how many times I had to beg to go back to Gravity Falls before I had to take matters into my own hands?”

“Uh, a lot, I reckon?”

“Your reckoning is right. A lot. They aren’t going to let me stay just because I ran away and you asked nicely.” If anything, both of those things will probably have the opposite effect. They’re not particularly fond of Ford right now.

She’s not stupid. Or naive. She knows exactly how hard it will be to convince them. She knows they partly blame ‘Great Uncle Stanford’ for Dipper’s disappearance. Probably not as much as they blame themselves, but not an unsubstantial amount either. Probably a good 60/40 split, if she had to guess.

She’s heard it all: he should have kept a closer eye on them, he never should have let them run off into the woods in the first place, he should have known better.

Ford nods. “Maybe not. But I wasn’t planning on just asking nicely. I’ll have you know there are many reputable, peer-reviewed studies that suggest that children who are exposed to domestic disputes in the home are at higher risk of—”

Mabel interrupts with a loud and fake yawn, though it might be more the-real-deal than she cares to let on. “Boring them to death isn’t going to work either, Grunkle Ford.”

Ford’s lips flatten into a tight line, but Mabel can tell he’s amused deep down, even if he isn’t showing it. “Okay. Then what do you suggest?”

She hums and adjusts the cap on her head. “You have the right idea, but your execution’s off. They don’t care about studies,” she says before remembering the obsessive way her parents have been surfing the web for information on missing children statistics these past few weeks. “Or maybe they do, I don’t know. But that shouldn’t be your main angle.”

He offers a sharp nod as he pushes the frames of his glasses up on his nose. There’s a slight pallor on his face, like he might already be dreading the conversation and all it might bring. “I may have to enlist some help from those friends of yours. The redhead…” he pauses, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Remind me again what her name was?”

“Wendy?”

“Yes. Wendy,” Ford parrots. “She rather, uh… enthusiastically defended you back there after you ran off. It might be nice to have someone like that on my side when I speak with your parents.”

“Good call. Wendy’s good with that kind of stuff. Soos too. They're people-persons.” She tilts her head. “People-people? Person-peoples?” 

Mabel groans. They don’t even sound like words anymore. “You get what I’m trying to say.”

“I do. Though I must admit, I’m not much of a people-person myself.”

“I think you do fine. Well,” she pauses, waving a careless hand around, the end of her coat sleeve flapping in the air, “when you aren’t spending weeks and weeks underground like a mole person, at least." She squints as she pictures it. “Wait. Is that a thing, Great Uncle Ford? Do mole people exist?”

Ford tilts his head. “Likely, yes,” he answers without skipping a beat. Still, a concerned expression flits across his face. “Mabel, I really think you should consider getting some sleep.”

Just as Mabel opens her mouth to protest, a calm, even voice sounds from around the corner. “Don’t worry, man. That’s just Mabel. She’s always like this.”

Mabel perks up, bolting toward Wendy as she emerges from the shadows like a creep. Her green flannel is haphazardly and unevenly buttoned — enough so that it exposes bits of her white undershirt beneath. Mabel practically launches herself at the teen.

“Woah,” Wendy says with a chuckle, so full of mirth that it fills Mabel’s cold, stuttering heart with something more tangible than it's felt in weeks. “See? Just Mabel.” She ruffles the top of her head, strands of tangled hair shifting beneath Dipper’s pine tree hat.

“Wendy!” Mabel says, bear-hugging the lumberjack. Boy, is she happy to see her. “I’m sorry I didn’t really get to say hi earlier.” 

The first thing she’d done when she’d made it to the Shack after the lengthy trek from the bus stop was head straight for the vending machine. At the time, she’d hardly been able to process Wendy and Soos’ shock as they held her back. She feels kind of bad about that now, even if she doesn’t regret the outcome. 

They’re bringing their brothers back. Ford said so. Wendy and Soos will understand.

“Don’t worry about it, man.” She huffs out a slight, almost-melancholic chuckle. “And, hey, happy birthday, Mabes. The big one-three. Officially a teen,” Wendy muses, hugging her just as tight. 

She even goes as far as to pat her on the back. They aren’t Awkward Sibling Hug caliber pats, but Wendy’s hugs are pretty good too.

“Yeah. Right. Birthday.” She’d nearly forgotten. Without Dipper here, it feels like any other Friday. Not that she’s been keeping much track of things like days of the week lately. 

Though, if she’s honest, she hadn’t really kept track of that before the portal either. Mabel only ever really knew what day of the week it was when she was dating an entry in her scrapbook (or the journal, occasionally) and pondered the question aloud to Dipper, receiving a distracted “Tuesday” or “Thursday” or whatnot in response.

But he isn’t here. And this Friday might as well be a Wednesday or a Monday or any other day of the week because it sure as heck isn’t their birthday. Not without Dipper.

Mabel pulls herself out of the hug, even though she’d much rather hold on forever. The mention of their birthday gives her reason enough to retreat. She wraps her arms around herself instead.

Wendy frowns. She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Hey,” she starts softly, “you know we’re gonna celebrate for real when Dipper and Stan get back.”

The redhead pauses to consider it. She steals a hard glance at Ford. “Hey,” she barks out. “When’s that gonna be?”

Ford trips over the words long before they even leave him. “I– uh, I plan to get started immediately.”

“Get started?!” Mabel catches the fire passing through Wendy’s eyes as they widen, as red-hot as her vibrant locks.

Mabel is quick to position herself between Ford and Wendy. She tugs at her flannel to get her attention and to hold her back. “Wendy, everything’s fine now!” she hurries to say. “I’ll explain later! Okay?” 

She tugs again, gentler this time, and hopes that Wendy gets the hint. She doesn’t want them to fight. She doesn’t think she could handle it if they did.

After a few moments of terse staring, Wendy deflates, and Mabel lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

Her relief doesn’t last long. It’s hard to feel better about anything when she watches every ounce of fight bleed out of her friend at once. 

If Wendy’s emotions were a roaring, passionate fire — then Mabel must be the wet blanket that put it out.

Guilt tightens its grip around her insides, coiling like a snake. If everyone around her wants to fight, then who is she to stop them? Maybe she should’ve just let them yell it out. All of them.

They have every right. They lost Dipper and Stan too. Because of her.

Wendy gulps and steps back a hair. “You sure, Mabel?”

Mabel nods quickly, filing the thought away for later as she focuses on the now. “Yeah. Besides, Great Uncle Ford needs your help.”

“My help? Why?” she says, clearly unable to conceal her distaste. It seems Wendy is a fire that even Mabel can’t put out. Not entirely, anyway.

“We need to convince my parents to let me stay in Gravity Falls. You talked to my parents earlier. My mom trusts you. She believed our story, and I think it’s because of you.”

And it’s true. Her mom had practically fallen to her knees begging to hear the full story from Wendy after they’d finished speaking with the police. The teen had relayed the story they’d rehearsed for hours as Ford tested them each on their side of it.

“It’s vital that we get this right,” he had said, obsessively clicking his pen. “If our story isn’t consistent—”

“They’ll suspect you,” Wendy said, staring deep into her great-uncle’s eyes. Hesitantly. Distrustingly.

“They’ll suspect Stan,” he corrected. “Which does not bode well for me, or them, yes. So what’s the story?”

Convincing. The story was convincing. Especially when Wendy was doing completely out of character things like crying when she spoke to their parents, apologizing over and over and over again for her part in an event that didn’t even really happen.

Wendy was convincing. Tear tracks stained her pale, freckled cheeks as she hiccuped, a stuttering breath blowing past her lips. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been paying more attention. I should’ve protected him better, Mrs. Pines, Mr. Pines, I’m sorry—”

Mabel was convinced. She could imagine the whole thing herself, down to the exact tree he would have veered off toward. The supposed fork in the road. The distracted gait of his walk as he ventured off into the dark recesses of the woods in search of a mystery that was just out of sight.

The ravine he could have fallen into. The predator that might have got him. The cliff he must have accidentally careened over.

Wendy breaks her from her thoughts. Her cheeks are no longer stained with grief, but there is a similar something laying dormant in her green eyes — not quite dissipating even now. “I don’t know. I mean, I can definitely try. Are they on their way?”

Ford answers this time, looking marginally less apprehensive with Mabel situated between them. “Not yet. I should probably go ahead and call them now,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his throat. He throws a questioning look at Mabel. “Will you be okay here, Mabel?”

“Yes,” Wendy says immediately, settling a hand on her shoulder. “She’s fine here.”

Mabel gaze alternates between Wendy and Ford, eventually settling on her great-uncle. She nods. “Yeah. They’ll probably want to talk to me, though.” Unfortunately.

Ford seems to read her mind. “Would that be alright? If they ask?”

Mabel shakes her head. “I’d rather not.” She looks up at Wendy. “Is that bad?”

“Not one bit,” Wendy says, kneeling down and ruffling the top of her head again. “And you won’t have to yet. Ford’ll just tell them you’re asleep. Right?”

Mabel can’t see Ford’s expression with her back turned to him but, as the teen pulls her into another embrace, she can hear the gulp caught in his throat. “Right.”

She spends too much time perched on staircases.

Her parents had probably defied all known traffic laws to get here in under six hours, she knows that much. And here they are. In Gravity Falls. Again. Using those same tense, hushed voices that toe the line between civility and hostility.

Though, this time it’s not so much arguing she’s listening in on so much as a hushed conversation that's all to do with her. 

Which might even be worse. She almost wishes they’d go back to fighting about the divorce. Everyone knew their marriage was bound to fall apart at some point. At least then she could keep up with the illusion that the arguing wasn’t entirely her fault. 

Now, there’s no hiding her part in this, not even all the way up here in the shadowed darkness of the attic stairwell. The rift between them all is apparent, and she’s the one to blame.

She’s thankful for Wendy’s presence by her side, the teen rubbing soothing circles against her back and listening with matching intensity. She hasn’t said much since her parents burst through the door with Mabel’s name on their tongues and a mutual, frantic desperation that lit the Shack up with the intensity of a hundred fireflies trapped in the same mason jar, but her silent support is all Mabel really needs or wants in this moment.

Wendy’s gangly legs are pulled flush against her chest, her chin resting atop her knees. There’s a sharp crease between her brows as she works on her bottom lip with her pointy incisors. Mabel doesn’t know how or why she feels this way, but she gets the sickening sense that Wendy is a kindred spirit in this. 

Maybe she hasn’t experienced this exact situation exactly — though that’s obvious (she’s pretty sure she’s one of the only people in the universe who’ll ever have to experience the uniquely awful horror that is losing your twin and grunkle to the vast, infinite multiverse) — but there’s an unspoken something that settles between them as they listen in. It’s clear that they’ve both had to sit with that universal pit of despair that all children who are privy to conversations not meant for younger ears are familiar with.

When the voices teeter just a bit too far over the edge, Wendy sits up, back going ramrod straight. “You want me down there yet?” she whispers. She shifts, and her stair rings out a haunting creak.

Mabel shakes her head. “They’re not going to say yes to anything right now. We should give them more time to cool off.”

Wendy nods, and the two lapse back into silence. Mabel clutches Waddles close to her chest and strokes the soft spot behind his ear that he loves so much. She thinks he can tell that she’s anxious, soft little oinks peppering the space around them as he tries and fails to look back at her, his chubby, non-existent neck not quite allowing him to comfortably.

“We want to see her,” her mom interrupts loudly over overlapping voices, her waterlogged voice sounding more resolved than it has in weeks. “This isn’t like Mabel. She’s only twelve years old and she’s running away from home?!”

“She’s thirteen—”

Mabel cringes. Her mom never did like being corrected. “Don’t you dare start, Stan. She’s still a child. How’d she even— You said she took the bus? How’d she afford the ticket? How’d she know the schedule?!”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have time to ask. Mabel is— She’s exhausted, Mary,” Ford says naturally. If Mabel wasn’t so familiar with the subtle nuances of Stan’s voice by now, she might’ve even found herself convinced by it. “It’s clear that she hasn’t been sleeping or eating or taking care of herself.”

Her dad lets out a long sigh. “Uncle Stanford, please don’t. Don’t insinuate—”

“I don’t mean to,” Ford reassures them, sounding genuinely abashed. “ I really don’t. Look, we both want what’s best for her, right?”

Her mom makes a sound that’s halfway between a sigh and a sob. “Of course.”

Her dad quickly agrees. “Of course we do. But you’re telling us what’s best for her is to stay here with you, away from her parents and her friends and her entire life back home. You couldn’t have thought we’d just agree to that—”

“No way,” her mom interjects in frantic agreement, as if the very thought of it is too horrible to bear hearing repeated. “I can’t believe Mabel would ask you to ask us this. She wants to stay? I mean, we knew she wanted to go back to Gravity Falls, but—”

There’s another muffled sob, but this time there’s no mistaking it for anything else. “It’s because she heard Michael and I arguing last night, isn’t it? About the divorce? And the funeral, oh, god, I– I need to talk to her, Stanford, where is she?”

There’s the abrupt screeching of a chair as it’s dragged aside, pulling across the floor like nails on a chalkboard. Their voices rise like the world’s worst symphony, and Mabel scooches back on the staircase, releasing Waddles from her iron grip and watching as he trots to the side and stares at her with beady eyes that seem to dig into her soul. Her world tilts a bit at the repeat mention of the funeral, and she looks around her for a good place to flee. Straight down the stairs and out the door maybe? The attic window? Sure, there’s that one-story drop down to the front lawn, but she’d probably be fine. 

Now, if she could just find her grappling hook—

Wendy shoots up in her seat, eyes laser-focused as the shadows downstairs shift and the voices she’s been so desperate to avoid migrate closer. “Mabel?” 

Her eyes are pleading and her breathing is heavier and more sporadic than she’d realized. She shakes her head rapidly. “I can’t. Wendy, I can’t—”

Breathe. She can’t breathe. 

Mabel, dear, breathe.

Take a breath.

Take a—

“I have to get out of here,” she finds herself saying. She reaches for her chest and grasps at it, fingers clutching the shooting star emblem sewn into it as she tries and fails to take meaningful breaths.

Wendy springs into action, situating herself in front of Mabel in the stairway. “Hey, you’re okay,” the teen says placatingly, though her words don’t match anything else about her. Her eyes widen and continue to dart downstairs, waiting for her parents to make themselves known. “How about we go to the roof, yeah? Get some fresh air?”

No. It doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere she can go. Nowhere she can escape to get rid of the image that’s swirling around in her brain, and maybe has been since she first heard the word “funeral” fall so casually out of her parents’ mouths. She imagines an empty, small casket and has to fight the gag that threatens to sneak up on her.

She doesn’t want to think about the real reason why it shakes her so badly. She might be able to go to a service for Dipper and bear the whole thing, knowing that he really is out there somewhere, not in that empty casket but scouring the cosmos with Grunkle Stan right by his side. But that’s not it. No. 

The real reason for her grief is sick. 

Stupid. Not true.

But it sticks. The truth doesn’t matter, because Mabel doesn’t actually know anything. And, really, when has she? She didn’t know if her parents were going to be together when they arrived back in Piedmont after the summer. She didn’t know when her own twin brother was possessed by a murderous geometric space demon for the better half of a day. She didn’t know if Stan was telling the truth when she refused to hit the button despite Dipper crying out for her to press it. 

She doesn’t know if Dipper is alive out there somewhere or if that empty casket will remain empty while his body is left to decay out there somewhere in the cold.

She doesn’t throw up, but she comes close to it, doubling over and squeezing her arms around her knees and bracing herself against the uncomfortably warm, dizzying wave of nausea that strikes her. She lets her head dangle between her knees, half-remembering seeing Dipper do the same thing whenever this has happened to him.

This. Whatever this is. This sick, nauseating nothingness. She hears someone reach the foot of the stairs and wraps her arms around herself even tighter, staring down at the cracks in the wood paneling as her vision sways and doubles. She honestly doesn’t think she could lift her head if she wanted to, her ears ringing and her head oddly heavy as she sits there, preparing herself for what’s next.

She doesn’t really expect what’s next to be losing all of her senses completely, her ears ringing and then deafening fully as her vision fades to black, but she does so with an abrupt careening forward as she crashes into Wendy’s hesitant but open arms.

The darkness is oddly inviting.

She comes to in her own bed in the attic, something that she hasn’t been able to say for several weeks now, both because she was in Piedmont and because her own bed hasn’t really been a place she’s fond of, no matter where. There’s a cool washcloth draped over her forehead and someone has taken the liberty of peeling her out of her overly warm and overly dirty sweater. 

She notices all of this before she even works up the strength to open her eyes. 

When she’s finally able to peel them open, the first thing she spots is Dipper’s slightly sun-faded cap resting by her feet, illuminated by a ray of sunlight that pools through the triangular window behind her bed. She nudges it gently with her blanketed foot and tries to fight back the tears brewing in her eyes. She might be able to blame it on the dust; it’s enough to trigger her mild allergies as a cloud of it swirls visibly in the afternoon light.

“Mabel? Sweetie?” says a voice to her left. She flinches wildly at the sudden noise. Beside her, she finds her mom and dad, sitting there in two chairs that Ford or Wendy or maybe even Soos must have dragged upstairs.

She wonders how long they’ve been sitting there watching her. It makes her feel a bit uncomfortable to be caught in their gaze like this — which is weird, because they’re her parents and that sort of thing has never felt uncomfortable before. But she guesses a lot of things have changed recently. Mostly for the worst. 

Her mom’s eyes are watery when she meets them, and her dad has this expression on his face that looks like defeat, or at the very least, resigned acceptance. There’s a strong air of guilt wafting throughout the room, and Mabel isn’t even sure who it’s coming from anymore. They all reek of it.

“How are you feeling?” her mom asks, reaching out and removing the washcloth to smooth back some stray pieces of hair from her forehead. It’s mostly just damp now, so she deposits it onto the nightstand instead.

Mabel sits up even though she doesn’t really have the strength to. Despite being wholly unwilling to sleep only hours ago, it’s all she can seem to think about now. All she wants to do is to roll back over and shut the world out for a while.

She shrugs. Everyone’s been asking her the same questions, and she never really has an answer for them. How is she supposed to feel?

“Tired,” she admits as she plays with a loose thread on her blanket, wrapping it around her finger to the point where it nearly cuts off her circulation completely. This whole time, she’s been lying about everything to save face and keep her parents from finding out the truth, but she doesn’t think she has it in her anymore. 

She only has room for one lie, and she was never good at hiding her feelings from her family, anyway.

They don’t need to probe further. All it takes is one look at their sad, confused eyes for the dam to burst and the truth to rage on. It builds in her chest, the all-consuming anxiety she’d felt before she’d blacked out coming back to find her. Or maybe that giant ball of anxiety, rage, and guilt that she’s been harnessing deep inside her for weeks just finally, finally picks a suitable target.

“I– I miss Dipper!” she cries out as the tears roll down her face, no longer able to be blamed on the dust or even Daryl, her favorite moldy spot on the attic’s ceiling. “I– He’s not dead! I don’t care what you say! I’m not going to his funeral, and I’m not going home, and– and all you do is fight, and I’m tired, Mom, I’m so tired—”

“Okay, okay,” her mom rushes forward, practically flinging herself onto the bed. She instantly wraps Mabel up in her arms and, for the first time in weeks, Mabel lets herself lose herself completely. She sinks into her mom’s hold and sobs into the crook of her neck.

“He’s not dead,” she sobs out, tears dampening the material of her mom’s fleece-knit jacket. It smells like wet towels and the bottom of the laundry basket.

Her mom squeezes tighter and rests her lips on the top of Mabel’s head. “Okay, baby. It’s okay.”

She isn’t listening. “He’s not dead, Mom,” she cries out again.

She strokes Mabel’s hair, overgrown gel-polished fingertips combing through the tangles frantically, as if just now realizing how bad things have gotten. A stilted sound of grief and guilt dies in her mom’s throat, traded instead for silent hushes and more firm kisses pressed to the top of her scalp. Several wet, stray droplets hit her hairline.

Mabel presses on. “Say it. Say that you believe me.”

“I believe you, honey. He’s not dead,” her mom croaks out miserably, continuing her ministrations through the lengths of her hair. She pulls back and lets one of her shaking palms rest against Mabel’s cheek, cupping it tenderly in her large, slender hand. The band of her wedding ring is cold against her face.

“Dad?”

He’s quick to join them, as if he had been waiting for permission the entire time. He sits beside her mom and immediately begins swiping at the wetness beneath Mabel’s eyes with a quivering thumb. She shuts her eyes against it.

She opens them with more difficulty than she’d expected. Her dad’s eyes greet her and what she sees in them is clear. For the first time since they got Ford’s call about Dipper, his attention is solely on her. Her mom’s too. It’s strange to have it.

“He’s just lost,” she explains. They couldn’t possibly know the truth in that statement, but it’s the least she can say, so she has to say it. She owes them that — the tiny flicker of hope that she herself has begrudgingly begun to cling onto again. “He’ll come back. I promise.”

She doesn’t care if they’re both just placating her out of concern or fear or some frantic mix of the two, because the quick nod of his head as he wraps her into a hug of his own feels like someone’s taken a pick to the impenetrable sheen of ice around her heart. It’s nice to feel warmth again, even if it’s temporary.

“Okay,” he says too. “You’re okay, peanut. We’re all going to be okay. We’re going to get through this. As a family.”

Mabel nods and pulls back, wiping her wrist under her nose. She sniffs and meets their eyes, letting her mom pet her hair and her dad rub soothing circles across her back. It feels good. She doesn’t deserve it. She needs it.

They sit there for a few minutes, just like that, and Mabel does her best to breathe normally again. After a short while, her mom cautiously breaks the silence.

“Honey,” she starts, her thumb brushing against her cheekbone, “your dad, Stanford, and I have been talking, and we agreed, if you really want to, you can stay here in Gravity Falls for a little while. Nothing is set in stone yet, so I don’t want you to worry, but there are things your dad and I need to sort out, and it might be… better… for you not to be there when it happens.”

Her dad nods, and Mabel is half-surprised when he doesn’t just up and burst into flames the second he has to agree with something her mom has said. “You shouldn’t have to worry about these things, peanut,” he says. “We haven’t done a very good job protecting you from it, or helping you through any of this. We know. We’re sorry, kiddo.”

“I’m sorry, Mabel. Your dad and I love you so so much. You know that right?”

Mabel nods furiously. “I know. I love you too,” she says, and she means it. Her bleeding heart throbs just a bit more at their words. She’s been grieving them too, in a way. Who they were before all of this. 

She can almost see them now, the parents she remembers growing up with. It feels like she might be peering in on them through a fogged up window, like someone who’s spent weeks in the cold staring longingly at a lit fireplace as it flickers invitingly at them — its warmth just out of reach.

It’s a nice reminder. She loves them. She misses them. 

She’ll miss them even more when she makes a decision, but she knows it’s the one she has to make.

“I– Is that okay? If I stay?” she asks hesitantly, feeling a more familiar brand of guilt sneaking up on her. “I’m sorry for running away. I didn’t want to, but I needed to come back here. I lost Dipper, and I– I couldn’t lose everyone here too. My friends and the town and Grunkle Stan—”

A stray sob makes way. “I love you. I love home, but—”

Her mom is quick to hush her, a soothing sound that is more motherly than demanding filling the space between them. “We know, Mabel. You miss your brother, sweetie, and we haven’t—”

Her mom gulps, dropping off in the middle of whatever she was about to say. “I’ll always be your mother. First and foremost. Losing… losing Dipper has been impossible. As a mother, it—” She blinks away the wetness and squeezes her eyes shut. Mabel can see how hard this is for her, and this time, the sudden onslaught of emotion pouring out of her mom doesn’t overwhelm her. She understands it. 

She’s able to sympathize with it, knowing for once that her own emotions aren’t being overlooked or overshadowed in its wake.

“I lost sight of that. You both are my life, Mabel. Raising you both has been the greatest joy of my entire existence, and I don’t say that lightly,” she says with a wet chuckle that’s more devastated than joyful, though that is sprinkled in there, too, behind that wall of grief. “I know you deserve better than how we’ve gone about things these past few weeks. And if you want to come home with us now, if you’ve changed your mind, then we can work things out. Things will be better. But if you’ve got your mind set on staying here for a while…”

She sucks in a breath. The speech seems rehearsed, definitely during that short or long period of time she spent unconscious, Mabel isn’t sure, but she knows these aren’t her mother’s words entirely. “...then we can see about enrolling you for the school year. Your father and I will visit you on weekends, maybe more, and we can call every day. Reconvene soon and see where we’re at with things. Your Great Uncle Stanford, he has seven phDs — for the life of me I can’t figure out how — and he’s offered to tutor you, help you get along with your studies where we can’t.”

“Really? Mom, you mean it?!”

She nods and continues to stroke her hair. “We want to look into getting you to see a counselor, or maybe someone you can talk to about all of this. Would that be okay? I’ll have to see with Stan. Maybe he knows somebody,” she rambles on, moreso getting her own thoughts in line. “We just want to make sure you’re okay up here, sweetie. That you have someone to talk to if you start to feel this way all the time.”

Yes, fine, okay, whatever. She’ll talk to whoever if it means she gets to stay in Gravity Falls and help Grunkle Ford with the portal whenever she pleases. Day and night even — to heck with sleep.

Though, she can see in their eyes that they’re worried, and she can’t really blame them. If she cared about anything other than getting Dipper and Stan back, then she’d probably also be worried about her mental health’s swift and complete utter nosedive. They did just watch her have a panic attack and pass out from exhaustion and terror and probably nearly crack her head open on the staircase, so she probably could stand to take care of herself at least a bit more. For their sake. Not to mention the portal’s sake, too.

Plus, Ford seems like the kind of great-uncle that wouldn’t mind vouching for her and assuring her parents that she’s seeing a therapist when really she’s rebuilding her mental health with a blowtorch and a hammer and some sleepless nights here and there.

Okay, so she’s realizing now that she has no idea what rebuilding the portal actually entails, but that’s fine. She’ll have plenty of time to learn.

She nods, agreeing easily.

The rest of the day passes more or less uneventfully. Mabel spends a lot of the day dead to the world, face smooshed up against Waddles’ cheek as their combined drool pools on her pillow.

When a particularly awful nightmare wakes her, which was to be expected, come on, she peels them both out of her bed and pads over to Dipper’s, curling herself up in the fresh sheets that Ford dredged up from downstairs at some point today. 

She hasn’t seen much of him after the chaos that amounted when her parents rushed through the door, but she knows he’s downstairs working out the logistics for her to stay. Here. With him. That helps to solidify some of the big decisions she’s spent most waking moments pondering.

Whether or not to trust him, being the main one. 

At one point, well into the evening — when Ford and her parents are busy downstairs talking about dumb, boring adult stuff like social security numbers and birth certificates and health insurance and school enrollment and probably another couple thousand useless conversation topics that Mabel doesn’t and won’t ever care about — Wendy and Soos come upstairs to visit her.

They push the door open quietly after she gives them the okay to come in, and Soos comes barrelling in first, a smoothie and a plated bagel in each of his respective hands.

She has to hope they went grocery shopping. Judging by the looks of it and from what she’s heard, Ford hasn’t left the basement, let alone the house, in weeks, and anything bought by Stan has to have spoiled ten-times over by now.

It looks fresh enough, so Mabel accepts it when Soos hands it over to her with a smile. “How you feelin’ hambone? You, uh…sleep okay, dude?”

These past few hours have felt less like sleep and more like her body finally rebelling and giving out on her, but she figures that’s not a useful comment to make right now so she seals her lips shut. She takes a poorly timed bite of the bagel, which she has to admit is a weird choice for dinner, even for her, and avoids their eyes entirely.

Eventually, she swallows and nods, watching Waddles quickly gobble up some of the stray bread crumbs that fall from her hands. “Yeah…” she says, trying for a laugh. It sounds wrong. “I’m okay. Guess that was pretty embarrassing, huh? I, like, totally freaked out for nothing.”

Neither one of them laughs, but that’s to be expected too. Instead, Wendy springs past Soos and sits on the bed, and Mabel abandons the plate and smoothie on the table, out of Waddles’ reach. She picks at her fingernails instead.

“Embarrassing? Mabel that was terrifying. I thought you’d died on me or something. Never do that again.”

She chances a quick glance at Wendy and is surprised at what she finds there. Her eyes are rimmed-red and softer than Mabel’s ever seen them. 

She guesses she shouldn’t really be surprised. Mabel trusts her, and she knows that they’ve been good friends this whole summer. But there was always a small part of her that always assumed she was closer with Dipper, at least after they got over the whole crush and creepy whispers under his breath thing. 

She was never jealous of it — Dipper never really did have many friends to call his own back home. Besides, Mabel and Wendy didn’t need to hang out every day and watch horrible movies on Gravity Falls Public Access TV to be close. She’s always viewed Wendy as the cool older sister she never had. But she never really stopped to consider how Wendy viewed her in return.

And, now, looking at her normally cool-headed friend reduced to tears on her behalf is…telling. It warms her heart and tears it into a million little pieces all at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” Mabel says. She didn’t mean to make everyone so upset.

“Jeez, dude, don’t apologize.” Wendy punches her lightly in the shoulder. “What just happened was mad stressful. I don’t blame you for reacting how you did. They’re not even my parents and even I was holding my breath.”

Mabel sucks in a breath. “They told me I can stay. I said yes.”

Wendy nods. “I heard. Your mom talked to me about it after…y’know. I won’t take all the credit, but I was pretty convincing. Guess who’s gonna be walking you to school every day?” she says with a smile.

Mabel blinks. Going to school hadn’t really crossed her mind until today, and now the whole thing seems crazy. None of it feels even remotely real. She’s staying in Gravity Falls. She’s really, actually staying. “Wendy, you don’t have to do that.”

“Are you kidding?! I want to. The middle school is on the way, and the guys would love having you tag along. They pretty much always stop off there anyway before homeroom to chuck eggs at the vice principal’s car,” she says, drumming her fingers on her upper thigh. “But, quick heads up, Robbie also takes that route. You’ll know he’s close when you hear Pierce the Veil blasting out of his cheap, knockoff headphones.”

She pats her knee. “But your mom didn’t need to ask, man, I was planning on it anyway. You’re my friend.” 

“Thanks, Wendy,” Mabel smiles sheepishly, averting her gaze and staring back down at her lap. She wasn’t really worried about abandoning all her friends back home when she’d agreed to stay in Gravity Falls (Dipper and Stan are way more important — it wasn’t even a question), but she has to admit it’s nice to know that she has them here too. And such great ones at that. 

She already feels closer to them than she does to the droves of casual friends she has back in Piedmont. Here, she has a Grenda and a Candy and a Soos and a Wendy and a Pacifica, even (when she isn’t being a total snob). They don’t make friends like that outside of Gravity Falls.

Mabel sniffs, looking back up at the two of them. “So, what happened?” she finally asks. “After I passed out?”

Soos’ eyes widen, and Mabel feels bad for not really even remembering if he had been there when things got hectic. She thinks he was somewhere downstairs when it all happened. Probably busying himself with straightening the non-crooked snowglobes for the billionth time while he listened in, waiting for a good moment to insert himself in the conflict. Earlier, he’d seemed pretty convinced he could get her parents to let her stay. 

“Oh, yeah! Ford was like a hero, dude!” he says excitedly. “He knew exactly what to do. It was crazy, he started barking orders at us and he swooped you up and then—”

“Wait,” Mabel interrupts. “Ford did?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I may have been kinda-sorta eavesdropping when we heard, like, a crash upstairs, and Wendy started freaking o—” He stops when Wendy levels him with a semi-terrifying stare and redirects himself, trailing off. “Anyway, he didn’t hesitate, and then Wendy gave them all an earful.”

“You did?” Mabel asks in awe.

Her pale cheeks flush the soft peachy hue of embarrassment. “Well, yeah. They shouldn’t have been talking about…” 

She shakes her head, obviously not wanting to think about it. Mabel can’t blame her. “They were being stupid, man.” She glances at Soos. “And don’t expect me to say anything nice about Ford, but he handled things alright, I guess. I think your parents were less freaked out about you staying here after seeing his reaction time to the whole thing. I mean they had no idea what to do. No offense.”

Mabel shrugs. Her and Dipper weren’t all that hard to raise. They didn’t get into too much trouble at school or otherwise. Mabel occasionally got sent home with a note about being “easily distractible and distracting of others,” whatever that means, and Dipper was one more nightmare or panic attack away from being sent straight to the psychiatrist, but her parents never really had anything major to handle, all things considered.

It’s easier to parent a chatty kid and a moderately anxious one than it is raising one who runs away from home, won’t eat or sleep for weeks, and has just about one more parental fight left in her before she has a complete, self-shattering nervous breakdown. If that hasn’t already happened.

“I really am sorry guys,” Mabel says. “You both got roped into this. It’s my family and the situation’s gone from worse to worser and everything got so messed up, and I– I didn’t know what to do. I should’ve told you guys what I was planning.”

She shrugs, feeling dumb and worn thin and everything in between. “Running away was stupid and it just made everything horrible.”

“Hey, Operation GDASB, remember? We’re in this together,” Wendy reminds her. “And, dude, you literally couldn’t have done anything more fitting on your first day as a teen. I probably shouldn’t condone this, but I’m, like, super proud of you. You’re probably the coolest thirteen-year-old there is. Plus, everything sorta worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

She nods. Wendy has a point there. If she hadn’t left, she never would’ve figured out that Ford dismantled the portal, or been able to convince him to reconsider. She suppresses a shiver as she imagines months and months going by without a word from Ford, still half-convinced that he was doing everything in his power to restart it while she was back in Piedmont turning into a husk of her former self.

Soos cuts through the unwelcome thought. “Oh, dude, I just thought of something. Let’s get SAD. Get it? Let’s get Stan and Dipper, but also we’re—”

“Yes, Soos, we get it,” Wendy deadpans, not amused. “We aren’t calling it that. That’s depressing.”

Mabel snorts. She doesn’t know why she finds it funny, but she does. Maybe because she’s sick of everyone walking on eggshells around her but smashing the eggs to smithereens when they think she’s not listening. That and it’s virtually impossible not to laugh along with Soos.

Wendy looks between the two of them, unbelieving. “Really?” She reaches over and ruffles her hair, laughing semi-uncomfortably but still genuinely. It’s the kind of laugh you share with the person next to you on a plane when the turbulence gets really bad. “You liked that?”

She shrugs. “It’s pretty accurate.”

Soos laughs too, and Wendy shakes her head. “Come on. Finish your bagel. I’ve already told those losers downstairs that we’re going out for some fresh air and to get something better for you to eat if you’re up for it. We can get SAD when we get back.”

Her mom and dad leave the next day with a promise to be back soon with more of her things and the documents Ford will need to hold onto while she’s living there.

Something more palpable than relief settles in her when she watches them drive off in the family car they’ve driven since her and Dipper were only toddlers. The feeling is more complex. More potent. It’s something like the realization that nothing will ever be the same again. That there’s no going back. 

Everything is different now.

When it’s just her and Ford alone in the front yard, watching the dust settle, she half-expects him to turn around and descend back into the basement without her. 

Instead, he clears his throat and shifts on his feet. She turns around and watches as he pulls his six-fingered hands behind his back and clasps them together. “Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?” he asks, semi-awkwardly.

Mabel nods and follows him inside without much preamble. They descend the stairs in quiet harmony, and Mabel sees a glimpse into her near-future. She commits the walk to memory, truly inspecting the space around her for the first time since she discovered there was an elaborate laboratory under her great-uncle’s tourist trap.

When they reach the bottom, Ford leads her to the front of the portal. He looks back at her expectantly, watching her as she eyes it in its entirety.

As she stares into the mouth of the chasm that consumed her two favorite people in the whole world, she’s overpowered by a hatred so strong it would be impossible to pinpoint whether it came from her or if it was her. Still, she’s pleased to find it in better shape than it was only yesterday morning.

“I reassembled a lot of the bare bones last night,” Ford explains. “I know it was risky coming down here and working on it with your parents here, but I thought you might appreciate it if it were a bit more…” He winces, clearly ashamed. “...put together?”

He presses on. “It will require new components, of course, and we might have to tear down large parts of it again in order to alter its original function, but with enough trial and error and innovation, I think we stand a fighting chance, Mabel.”

He begins to prattle on about quantum doodads and neutralizers and dimensional vortexes without missing a beat, his eyes not wavering from the massive, triangular beast hanging in front of them. She looks up at him as he lights up, his eyes gleaming with a distant spark she’s never seen in them before.

She doesn’t know where his motivation’s coming from, or what his muse might be, but she finds something in herself that wasn’t there before. All at once, she understands Dipper’s reverence for him — this figure, this force who is larger than life itself. The Author.

She realizes in that moment that she would follow him to the ends of the earth.

For Dipper. For Stan.

Chapter Text

Stan swings his pack around to the front and digs around inside of it, finding the handle of the wormhole gun easily. He tries not to think too hard about how that has started to feel more and more like instinct lately.

Dipper is quiet beside him, and has been ever since they shared their first real conversation in weeks, but it’s a comfortable silence, one without that angry, resentful tension that has followed them since the portal. It’s replaced by something new altogether. He’d maybe even call it familial.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d miss the warmth those brown eyes held throughout the summer until they were shooting nothing but iciness at him. But it’s back, however small, and Stan feels like he can almost, sort of breathe again.

Dipper watches with anticipation as they reach the seedy underbelly of the cyberpunk city, practically overflowing with anxiety and excitement at the promise of escaping to another dimension. He’s been itching to get out of here since he stuffed his pockets with some lady’s hard-earned cash, Stan knows, and it’s clear in the way his eyes dart around them periodically, as if she might be just around the corner taking another drag of her electronic cigarette.

For what it’s worth, Stan doesn’t think he particularly dislikes it here — even despite the shit day they’ve had. It’s got the perfect mix of lawlessness and civic responsibility that has him feeling brave enough to break a couple (dozen) laws while not being all that afraid of the consequences. But it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. If the kid is feeling anxious about the whole thing, then he’s got no problem cutting his losses and getting the hell out of Dodge. 

That, and the garish neon lighting is starting to give him one hell of a migraine.

The decision is unspoken, but it’s made unanimously. It’s maybe the only time they’ve actually been on the same page all day.

“Hold your breath,” Dipper jokes, and Stan blows an amused huff of air out of his nostrils. The kid’s awfully quick, and it still manages to catch him by surprise sometimes. 

He readies the gun and settles the pack back on his shoulders. The joke was just that, a joke, but the truth in it is too real to write off. They don’t know what dimension will be awaiting them when they step through it. He’ll do more than hold his breath. 

He ushers Dipper behind him as he lifts the wormhole gun, maintaining whatever contact he can on the kid’s upper arm. He’s not letting him out of his sight again. There will be no more drowning in ocean dimensions or winding up face-to-face with canine monsters or running off in cyborg cities to commit petty larceny. Not without him. Not anymore.

It’s not happening. That’s behind them.

“You got your knife?” he asks over his shoulder. He’s feeling some of the kid’s anxiety rising in his own gut, and it’s a decades old sensation. It’s always strange to experience anxiety in the way that human beings were biologically meant to. Not in sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, wondering whether or not the IRS would eventually find out about his lifelong habit of tax evasion or his more recent act of prolonged identity fraud, but in the adrenaline-chalked, endorphin-filled terror of a prey animal escaping its predator. Of survival, in the purest and most visceral meaning of the word.

There’s a soft rustling behind him, and Stan turns around to face it. He finds the teen behind him peering down at the knife and scoffing at its small blade.

It is a pretty lousy excuse for a weapon, Stan has to admit. It might work on douchebag bounty hunters who have no fucking idea what they’re doing, but they’ve both seen enough now to know what lies out there in the multiverse, and they’ve hardly even scratched the surface.

“Never mind,” he says before Dipper can get a word in. He reaches into the bag to pull out their ray gun and passes it over to him as casually as possible, trying to reconcile with the fact that he’s handing his kid nephew a fucking gun. “Take this.”

Dipper, for his part, accepts it with all of the grace and poise of a bomb squad technician, fingers trembling and stretching around the circumference of the handle. He immediately pales and extends it back toward him with both hands, shaky as they are. “Uh, Stan, I don’t think I want this.”

“Relax, kid. You probably won’t even hav’ta use it. And you did just fine with the tree. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” He laughs hysterically, though he aims the gun downward and double checks the safety anyway, just as Stan taught him. “You really, really shouldn’t.”

Man, he’s really got to help the kid with his confidence. Or lack thereof. “You rather find out what it’s like to wrangle a monster with nothing but a three inch blade and your wits? Take it from me, Dip, you’re gonna want the gun.”

“Then why don’t you take it?”

“Someone’s gotta open the wormhole.” He waves the gun around for emphasis, completely abandoning his own rules to make the gesture. “And it’s not going to be you after what happened today. You’ve got bad luck, kid. Remind me to never let you pick the lottery numbers.”

Dipper’s lips flatten into a thin line. “It’s the multiverse, Stan. There are literally infinite dimensions we could’ve wound up in.”

“Yeah, there’re probably infinite land-based ones and you still managed to find one where we nearly ended up swimming with the fishes. Literally.” 

He does a quick scan of the kid again. There’s an errant curl threatening to poke out his eye and an overall damp sort of look about him that permeates his clothes and is responsible for that odd squelching noise in his boots when he walks, but it’s not something you’d notice if you weren’t paying attention. 

“Uh, that reminds me…” Stan says, suddenly awash with a sense of apprehension he can’t begin to describe. The anger between them was normal. Expected. To stray from it feels like navigating uncharted territory. Like sprinting straight across a minefield. “Your lungs okay there, champ? Even deaf I could practically hear you hacking one up earlier.”

“What?” Dipper asks, surprised. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I think.” He rubs at his chest absently. His cheeks take on a subtle red hue, as if embarrassed. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Stan nods, accepting the answer even though it’s probably mostly bullshit. But this is Dipper, he reminds himself. He’s stubborn, sure, but not stubborn enough to keep something as serious as not being able to breathe right from him. Hell, the kid nearly chokes on air every day and Stan’s quick to know about that. 

It doesn’t keep him from worrying though. Weird how that works.

“Right. Well, good,” Stan says gruffly. He turns around and stares out at the unrippled air in front of him, clenching his fist around the handle. He thinks his own hand might be shaking a little too, but he’s quick to write it off. He’s tired. It’s fine.

Everything’s fine.

He’s got it under control. Which is why he presses down hard on the trigger and leads the way through the swirling vortex in front of them without so much as a hitch in his breath. 

Everything’s fine. Even when Dipper crashes to his knees to dry heave all over the pale pink sand dunes that roll off into the distance and stretch out for miles and miles like a vapid and merciless sea. The ray gun sits forgotten in the sand as the kid clutches his abdomen, his other palm sinking down into the sun-warmed sediment.

Stan’s lips twist. He can hardly hear himself think over the strain, even with the hearing of a twenty year old thanks to HAL 9000 back on Dimension Cyborg. “You good, Dip?” he asks, crouching down to meet him on the ground. His knees sink into the sand, the warmth tunneling around his aching joints.

Dipper gulps, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth as he lifts his head, curly tufts of hair hanging miserably over his forehead. He nods frantically. “Yeah. False alarm.”

Stan nods. It certainly didn’t sound like a false alarm, but the kid’s fine, and honestly, he’s feeling a little queasy himself. It’s something he’s come to expect with wormhole travel — made no better by the fact that they’ve entered and exited multiple portals today alone. That and had their necks injected with something about the size of one of Mabel’s knitting needles less than an hour ago. 

He’s honestly surprised Mr. Perpetually Car Sick over here didn’t end up spewing it all over the sand for real. “Alright. Just take a second.”

Dipper sits up and wipes some newfound wetness away from beneath his eyes. After a few moments spent sucking mismatched breaths into his lungs, he exhales shakily and scans their surroundings. “Well,” he deadpans, squinting. A shaky laugh blows past his lips. “This is a no-go, right?”

Stan offers what he thinks is a sympathetic wince as he pats his back. Scouting the terrain himself, he notes the never-ending sand dunes and the blazing sun — thick, humid air surrounding them on all sides — and comes to a quick decision. He can’t say he likes the look of their chances out here either. “Oh, yeah. We’re getting out of here. Soon as you’re ready for another.”

The kid nods, managing to find the ray gun with a stray, wandering palm. He goes to stand and Stan is there, ready to support him when he does. He wavers slightly on his feet, but as the dizziness fades with every passing second, so too does his unsteadiness.

Stan watches him closely, waiting for another “false alarm” or whatever he wants to call it. When it doesn’t happen, he asks, “You ready?”

“Depends. Will you be mad if I throw up on your new boots?” He snorts and stands up straighter, rolling his shoulders back. “Kidding. I’m…fine. Open it.”

Stan squints. He’s not sure he believes him, but he does as he’s asked. Better they get out of here and out of the heat as soon as possible. Nausea be damned.

“You better not. I was lucky to find something in my size. It was these or those weird tentacle boots.” He shudders. That’s something he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to seeing.

Dipper nods sagely, all traces of sickness ebbing the longer they stay put. Stan feels like the worst de facto guardian in the world, sending him through another one so soon. “Yeah. Pretty sure these were made for someone with fewer toes.” He rolls his left ankle experimentally.

His throat closes up a little bit, and Stan has to bite back the emotion that wells up in his throat lest he let on how profoundly this casual banter is affecting him. He missed it. He missed Dipper. He wants to cling onto this and never let go. 

He clears his throat. “Eh. Just gotta break ‘em in,” he says. He doesn’t wait for a quip or cheeky response from the kid before he fires another wormhole through the thin dimensional veil. 

Or, at least that was what he aimed to do. Instead, he watches turquoise sparks sputter uselessly out of the slender barrel, sending small patches of sand plummeting into miniature voids that open and fizzle out on the ground.

Stan blinks. He tries again.

More sparks. He pulls the gun in toward himself and gives it a few experimental taps.

Dipper’s just about done shifting on his feet and staring out into the horizon when Stan levels a much harder smack against the side of it, trying not to let his frustration get the better of him so soon. He eyes him warily. “Stan?”

Stan shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, uh, people don’t usually say that when there’s nothing to worry about.” He makes his way over to Stan’s side, inspecting it with a hard gaze. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” he says with more force than he means to. “It just needs a second to warm up.”

“It’s never needed a second before,” Dipper says. He goes to snatch the gun out of his hands, and Stan lets him, the beginnings of a cold realization settling in his gut.

One of Dipper’s shaky arms raises the gun and fires, and he’s met with the same sobering, downward firework show. It fires to life once more in his grasp, more and more of their hope sputtering uselessly to the ground.

And again. And again. The kid looks up, palpable anxiety radiating off of his small, short frame. “Why isn’t it working? Is it broken?!”

“I don’t know!” Stan exclaims, flustered. It can’t be broken, right? That would just be too much, too soon. A cosmic joke. “It was working just a second ago!” 

Dipper tries it again, eyes widening into twin saucers as they both watch small piles of sand tunnel into miniature blue vortexes. “This isn’t funny, Stan.”

He bristles at the insinuation. One step forward, ten steps back. “I’m not laughing! What, you think I rigged it to pull some prank on you?! How would I even do that? Why would I do that?!”

“Shit—“ The word slips out, and Dipper is quick to seal his lips shut not a second later, as though he hadn’t meant to say it at all. Not that Stan gives a shit. The kid’s earned the right to a swear word or two. “We’ve been treating this thing like it’s got unlimited charge, haven’t we? Of course it’d need fuel or juice at some point, what were we thinking?”

The defense comes before Stan’s able to consider what it implies. “We? Kid, I’ve barely touched it!” 

The argument resurfaces somewhere deep down in the depths of that hollowed-out spot in his chest, where remnants of broken science fair projects and ruined futures and rusty swing sets and powered-down portals have been left to sit and rot out his insides. It stings like the smoldering mark on his shoulder, branded into his skin like a promise, and it screams out defend, defend, defend.

But Dipper doesn’t meet him with a counter argument like that old wound from childhood has conditioned him to expect. Instead, his face practically crumbles in response, and Stan can’t help but distantly wonder if he’d find himself face-to-face with Filbrick’s disapproving gaze if he had a mirror on him.

The sudden silence that falls upon them is jarring. “Kid?”

“You’re right,” says the smallest voice he’s ever heard. And it comes right out of his curious, smart, brave, witty great-nephew.

“What?”

Dipper’s grip on the ray gun falters, and it plummets to the ground, bringing up a small cloud of pale pink dust. “You’re right. It’s my fault.”

Stan starts forward. No. He hadn’t meant it. “Kid—”

The kid takes a half step backward. “I used it too much, and– and I should’ve known better. I mean, seriously, we got a freaking gun capable of tearing wormholes in the fabric of reality itself, and I didn’t stop once to consider if it had limited uses—“

He shakes his head. He hadn’t meant to make the kid spiral. Hell, a day ago Dipper would’ve just thrown the blame right back at him without so much as a change in tone. “Wait, Dip—“

“Clearly I can’t be trusted to make choices because I just– I keep messing up. I don’t– I don’t actually know anything—”

That again. Stan urges him to stop with two large, portal-calloused hands on each of his shoulders. He hopes the touch is familiar by now since nothing else out here ever will be. “Stop. It’s not your fault, Dipper.”

He barks out a sharp, quick laugh. It holds anger, but it isn’t aimed at him this time. It honesty makes him feel a little sick to hear it. “Isn’t it?”

“No. I wasn’t– I wasn’t saying that, kid,” he pleads, but it’s a bold-faced lie. He did say that, just a second ago. Not that he meant it, of course, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t say it. “I’m the one who’s been working on a portal for thirty years. If anyone should've realized portals need power, it’s me.”

Dipper shrugs off Stan’s grounding touch, taking his face in both palms as he stumbles backward. “Please. Don’t remind me.” He groans.

Stan blinks. That reaction is new. “What?”

He ignores him, seemingly, his expression hidden from Stan and from this harsh, dusty world. “We’re stranded,” he mumbles into his hands. “We’re stranded, and it's all my fault.”

Stan is careful with his words, feeling uncomfortably close to how he did when he’d have to talk a young Sixer off the ledge, back in the day. “It’s fine. We can do what we did before, wait for another wormhole to open on its own…”

Dipper lifts his head and turns to stare up at the lilac sky for an answer that neither one of them has at the moment, that red flush reappearing on his face. Stan has one of those weird out-of-body moments as he watches him do it. He takes in the alien world and the sand and the sky and his nephew in the long, black trench coat that he had lent him, and he struggles to wrap his head around any of it.

None of it feels right. They shouldn’t be here, and there’s nothing he can say to make that better. Not really.

“No,” Dipper says. Stan can hear the grief stuck in his throat and the tears threatening to break through, despite his valiant efforts to hold them back. “You don’t get it!”

Frustration rises in his own chest. He doesn’t know how or why they’ve reverted to yelling at each other so soon, but he’s finding that he doesn’t really have the wherewithal to stop it from escalating this time. “So, then help me get it, Dipper!”

Dipper groans, an angry and devastated sound, and spins around to look out at the dunes. With his back to him, Stan can’t make out the emotion that flits across his face, but he can’t imagine it's anything good. This whole thing has already gotten out of his hands so quickly. “Forget the stupid wormhole gun! I mean here. Here, Stan, all of it. I–” 

He laughs again, and this time it’s just pure, unadulterated anguish. He spins on his heels, and Stan’s heart drops at the sight of tears streaming down his face. “It’s… it’s my fault! Okay, Stan?! Are you happy? It’s my fault, not yours, it’s—”

Dipper stops on a sob, covering his face in his hands again, and something crumbles in that old, crippled heart of his. “Hey.”  

The kid goes to protest some more, but he falters again, stuck on a half-gasp, half-sob, his throat closing up and vocal chords stuttering. It’s the only invitation Stan needs to rush forward and take him in his arms.

He knows he’s not the most affectionate caretaker in the world, maybe not even above average in that category, but he’s willing to change all of that in a heartbeat for the sobbing kid in his arms, practically collapsing into the embrace. He gets the sense that this is something he should’ve done sooner.

He hides his face in his shoulder, and Stan’s heart continues to break into little pieces. This isn’t the muffled sobbing he’d heard coming out of that motel bathroom, or the cries of the terrified and traumatized child that had bled all over himself in Bill’s nightmare dimension. They’re the tears of someone who’s been pushing something awful down — the kind of self-hatred that is so crushing you can’t even bear to give it a name.

The admission continues to seep out, unfettered by the crying or the shame or any outside force in this humid, windy wasteland. “It’s my fault. It’s mine, Grunkle Stan. It’s—”

“Shh.” Stan’s hand trembles at the back of his head, though he attempts to smooth the curls there regardless. It’s disconcerting to see Dipper like this. “It’s not.”

“I’m sorry,” he sobs into his shoulder, voice cracking in that familiar way that usually elicits a laugh from whoever’s around to hear it — the hallmark, awkward signs of puberty descending upon him. But he can’t seem to find the same humor in it now.

Stan can’t bear to hear any more. He’d rather the kid hate him for the rest of his life than endure any more of this. It’s too close to how he felt about himself only years ago — hell, maybe even how he still feels. He doesn’t want to let him give it another second of attention. 

“Stop, kid. It’s not your fault. It’s mine, okay? Be mad at me. Blame me.”

Dipper shakes his head, his forehead pressing hard against the bony part of Stan’s shoulder. “I don’t. I–”

He stops on another choked gasp. “I– I should’ve–”

“Shh,” Stan says again, running a hand through his hair as soothingly as possible. He feels a bit like his Ma as he does it, attempting to channel what he can remember of her comfort, as rare as that was, even. “Deep breaths.”

He sucks in a breath. “I should’ve trusted you and– and Mabel. If I did then none of this would’ve happened, and we’d be safe at the Shack, and– and you’d be with Ford, and—”

He sobers up a bit, sniffing hard. “—that book said to trust no one, and I listened to it. You were all just trying to do what was right, and I was too freaking paranoid to see clearly. Mabel probably hates me. She’s the one person I said I could always trust and I just– just completely went against her judgment and messed everything up.”

Stan frowns. Dipper’s definitely screwed up if he thinks a person like Mabel is capable of hate. Especially toward her twin — her favorite person in the whole world. Still, he understands the feeling uniquely well.

“The only person I shouldn’t have trusted was myself. If I had just left that stupid button alone…”

He shakes his head. “Don’t go there. Don't do this to yourself.”

Dipper pulls away, shaking his head. The tears have ebbed somewhat, but his eyes are still red and full of it — that self-hatred that runs so deep. “But it’s true. Mabel's going to grow up all alone and… with our… our parents… and– and you're going to spend even more time away from your brother, and we're going to die out here because I was too stupid—”

“Enough, Dipper!” Stan says, trying to will away the emotion brewing in his own eyes. “We aren’t going to die. We're going to figure it out. It's not your fault. I'm the adult. I restarted the portal. It was my mistake in the first place.”

He meets his eyes, hoping his message comes across clearly. “Don’t blame yourself. Hate me instead.”

“I don’t. I don’t hate you, Grunkle Stan.”

Grunkle, that’s another thing he didn’t realize he’d miss until it was gone. He takes a second to breathe it in, to see past the guilt blinding his own eyes, like the sun’s sharp glare in a rearview mirror.

“I’m sorry, Dipper.” Has he said that yet? He knows he is — fuck, all he is is sorry — but he doesn’t know if he’s really articulated as much to Dipper in so many words. “You know that, right? You know I’m sorry?”

Dipper’s looking anywhere else now, his glossy, red eyes trained on the sand. He sniffs hard and wipes a forearm across his face, trying to regain his composure, like maybe they can pretend it never happened if he can get rid of the evidence quick enough.

Stan doesn’t want to pretend anymore. “Hey, kid, look at me.”

Guilty eyes rise up from the sand after a pregnant pause, the kid’s sharp sniffling a backdrop to the howling desert wind, sandstorms picking up in the distance. Stan clears his throat and blinks, trying to clear the dirt in his eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

Dipper nods, quickly wiping away more of the tears before they get the chance to fall.

“I want to hear you say it.”

He groans and looks back down at his feet, stray teardrops crashing toward his too-small boots. “Come on, Grunkle Stan,” he protests, lacking the energy to be anywhere near convincing.

“I’m being serious,” he says. “It’s not my fault. Say it.”

“What’s saying it gonna do?”

“Say it.”

“It’s not my fault,” he mumbles.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear—”

“It’s not my fault!” Dipper barks out, looking back up from his feet. The guilt is still there obviously, Stan can see it, but his frustration seems to push everything away for a moment. Stan tends to have that effect on people. At least this time it was intentional.

Stan shoves affectionately at his shoulder. “Hah! There we go. That’s better.”

Dipper shakes his head, a small smile flitting across his face, though it’s still strained. Stan can’t help but feel slightly proud of himself for making it happen. Progress. “You’re insane.”

“Yeah, maybe, kid,” he says. “You feel better though?”

“I mean, not really?” He huffs. “We’re still stuck here. And I’m not entirely convinced it’s not all my fault.” He sniffs, wrapping the coat around himself even though it’s hotter than H-E-double-hockey-sticks out here. “But I think I got it out of my system. Thanks. Sorry.”

“No problem,” he says, following his lead and letting Dipper steer them away from this rare moment of vulnerability. Though, Stan guesses it isn’t so rare these days. Not like this summer — when the kid was apparently too afraid to come to him after he’d been fucking possessed.

“But if you want to thank me, you can start by not apologizing anymore.” Stan shrugs, trying to muster up the illusion of casualness. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, kiddo. Maybe this all happened ‘cause a bunch of freak things lined up and created the perfect storm.”

Dipper blinks. “Like the butterfly effect?” 

“Uh, yeah. Sure. That. Like, maybe if I snoozed my alarm one more time or wore a different pair of shoes then none of this would’ve happened.”

He sniffs. “Isn’t that just blaming yourself with extra steps?”

“Nope,” Stan says, popping the p. “But if that’s too close to home, then maybe it’s, I dunno, Toby Determined’s fault or something. Maybe if he hadn’t stayed ten minutes past close that one time counting loose change out of his pockets at the register, then I wouldn’t have had to leave later than I’d planned to, and I wouldn’t have been caught with the radioactive bins on those security cameras.”

Dipper squints. “Or if I hadn’t talked to those agents like you’d asked me to then they never would’ve been surveilling you in the first place.”

“No, see, now you're doing it the opposite way you’re supposed to. You're using it to blame yourself again.”

“Are you really saying I should use a thought experiment to avoid taking responsibility for my own actions?”

“Yeah,” Stan says, “that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when ‘your actions’ are just normal kid things like wanting authority figures to respect you and not trusting your weird, estranged great-uncle with the box of fake IDs in his office.” He shakes his head. “Sheesh, kid, saying that out loud, I’m proud of you. I’d’ve been worried if you had trusted me after that.”

“Mabel did,” he says almost bitterly, but Stan knows his ire isn’t aimed at his sister. It never is.

“Yeah, well, Mabel trusts people, that’s kind of her thing. She also didn’t have her eyes glued to my paranoid brother’s journal all summer. That’ll mess anyone up, trust me, kid, I know.”

Dipper scoffs, a self-deprecating kind of noise. He bends down to pick up the ray gun, half buried in the sand, and shoves it into one of the large pockets sewn into Stan’s trench coat. “Yeah. I guess.” He sniffs again, squinting against the bright, white light, the sun high in the sky. 

He’s quick to change the subject, embarrassment and shame and probably a billion other emotions fighting for dominance in his head, none of which Stan knows how to even begin to address. “So, now what? Any bright ideas?” he asks, voice still small and slightly broken.

Stan wants to erase them all for him, to rid him of all his guilt and fear and whatever else might be keeping him up at night, but that isn’t possible, obviously. So he’ll have to settle for abrupt changes of conversation instead.

Except he’s got absolutely nothing when he looks out into the vast desert ahead of them. He grimaces, a heavy sort of feeling overtaking the lightness he’d felt at finally being back on speaking terms with the kid. 

Because, between the two of them, they’ve got nothing but a canteen of boiled lake water and zero ration bars to go off of.

Fuck. That wormhole really can’t open soon enough. 

There’s nothing unfamiliar about the sharp sting in his gut, surrounded by a dull pain that bleeds throughout his midsection and spreads out behind his ribs. It greets him like an old friend, one that has been both unintentionally and intentionally — if not just carelessly — invited into his life over the years.

Hunger. It has a funny way of making everything else feel laughably insignificant.

But what isn’t insignificant is the kid beside him, eyes slightly glazed over as he stares into their makeshift fire, small wisps of smoke rising into the desert air. He sits with a certain hunch of his shoulders, as if unconsciously trying to curl in on himself. It’s got to be something like three in the morning, or at least Stan’s circadian rhythm seems to think so, and yet he’s wide awake. They both are. They have to be.

It makes for a combination of shitty sensations that makes Stan’s trigger finger itch. It’s really a shame he doesn’t have any of Sixer’s old Beethoven records out here with him in the middle of nowhere. His old habit of skeet shooting shit he’d dredged out of dusty boxes found up in the attic maybe wasn’t all that healthy, but it sure as hell could be cathartic in a pinch.

As far as guns go, the wormhole one sits heavy in his discarded pack, lying in the sand beside him, feeling more like an if than a when at this point. Luck has not been on their side, and Stan doesn’t really know why he ever expected any differently.

He pulls it out anyway, purposely ignoring Dipper’s sideways glance as he smacks a splayed out palm against the side of it. He can’t find it in himself to be surprised when several more of those stupid fucking sparks shoot out of the slender barrel. He feels oddly jealous of the small patches of sediment that collapse between dimensions like the sand in an hourglass. At least something gets to leave this place.

Dipper raises a brow. “You think it’ll work if you try a hundredth time?” 

He doesn’t know whether he should feel proud or annoyed at the cheeky quip. It’s a good sign at any rate that the kid’s able to find humor in this. “Ha-ha,” Stan mumbles, smacking it again. It’ll work. It has to. “Maybe the ole girl just needs some encouragement.”

When Dipper doesn’t answer, he frowns and hits it again, even harder this time, determined to make something happen. “Y’know, when the Stanmobile acts up on me I just give the starter a good jab with the end of a rake and she’s good to go. She’s never purred better.”

The kid stares blankly ahead as the flame lifts its blue, flickering arms up toward the stars. His sarcastic tone gives way to something decidedly more flat. “It doesn’t need a smack, Grunkle Stan, you’re just gonna break it.” He pulls his shoulders backward in a stretch and the small crack that follows blends in seamlessly with the crackle of the fire.

Stan frowns and drops the useless device into his lap. Stupid electronics and their stupid inability to function without energy or fuel or batteries or radioactive waste stolen from government nuclear waste facilities.

“Doesn’t matter, kid. You know what I always say, when one door closes, choose a nearby wall and smash it in with brute force!” He laughs, throwing another frayed piece of rope into the fire as kindling. “Come morning we’ll stumble across another wormhole. You’ll see.”

Dipper’s glassy, hungry eyes still manage to carry a bit of humorous disbelief in them. “We’ve been out here nearly two days. We’ve never had to wait for a wormhole this long. Even before.”

Stan’s heart falls into his aching stomach. The kid is right, but he won’t let it show. It’s something new he wants to try — keeping Dipper’s spirits up at all costs. “Well, then we’ll just have to see what this dimension has to offer.”

“More desert, probably.”

“No. There’s got to be more out here. I can feel it.”

Dipper exhales sharply through his nose, the closest either of them has come to a real laugh in days. “How about a waterfall? Can you feel one of those?”

Stan wishes he wouldn’t have brought up water. The lack of it will be what kills them first. 

It’s the only thing of significance lurking in the shadow of his hunger — the last of their supply gone just last night, passed back and forth under the moonlight, their lack of shelter making for a lackluster sleep. They’re nearly through another one of those tonight.

“I’d even settle for, like, a small cactus or something.” Dipper pauses, chewing on his chapped lower lip. “Can you drink the water in cacti? I can’t remember.”

“Don’t think it matters if you remember or not. This isn’t Earth. Even if there were cactuses on this planet, we’d have no way of knowing if they were full of water or poison.”

Stan stares down at the discarded wormhole gun in his lap. “But if you’ve gotten used to the Gravity Falls tap then you’re probably used to drinkin’ poison by now.”

He’s met with another sideways glance. “The plural form of cactus is cacti. I literally just said it.”

“Oh, sorry,” Stan says, stretching out the syllables. “Three time Piedmont Middle School Spelling Bee finalist. I forgot who I was talking to.”

Dipper gasps, genuinely startled. He angles his body away from the fire to face Stan more directly. “Who told you that?”

“You.” Stan snorts. “You wrote it in the journal, remember? It was one of the first things you wrote.”

He cringes. “You read my entries?”

Stan shrugs. “Portal building ain’t as exciting as it sounds. Once I got all three journals and the portal schematics worked out, I had a lot of time to kill before it was time to power it on. It beat sitting around twiddlin’ my thumbs, so I read the first couple’a pages. Sue me.”

Dipper groans again. He buries his feet in the sand, picking up a mound of pink sand that falls over the tops of his boots. “So you read the bits about you, then?”

He barks out a laugh. If he’d read Dipper’s entries at the start of the summer, around the time he’d overheard the kids asking some dumb, gimmicky toy if they should hightail it out of Gravity Falls the first chance they got, he might have had a stronger reaction to some of the harsher sections of Dipper’s scrawl. Reading it a couple of weeks back though, he’d actually found himself smiling at the words. They were reductive and vaguely insulting, sure, but he’d chosen to portray himself as some penny-pinching curmudgeon at the start of the summer. They understand each other better now. They’ve come a long way since then.

“I really don’t think you’re in a position to say anyone else smells bad, kid. Pot, meet kettle, or however that phrase goes.”

Dipper cringes again. He doesn’t even seem to process Stan’s insult, or at least doesn’t care to object to it. “Ugh, I’m sorry, Grunkle Stan. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Hey,” Stan chastises. “What’d I say about apologizing? Anyway, it was pretty tame, kid, don’t worry about it. I was more focused on the shenanigans you and your sister were getting up to behind my back.”

Dipper turns completely away from the fire now, looking up at him with some desperate look that seems to be pleading for something Stan can’t name. He winces. “How much did you read?”

“Enough to figure out I gave the talk to the wrong kid.” It’s his turn to cringe. He’d meant to apologize to Mabel for that, but he’d never gotten around to it, and frankly the idea of having that conversation makes him want to dig himself a hole to lie down in somewhere. He probably never would’ve gotten around to it even if he’d had the chance. “And something about you and your sister both kissing some fish-boy, I dunno. I didn’t really wanna keep reading after that.”

“Oh, god, Stan, that is not what happened.” He rubs at his eyes, as if that might be enough to wipe away the memory forever. “I knew I should’ve ripped that page out,” he mumbles, more to himself than anything.

Stan laughs. He’s glad to see him embarrassed instead of just starving and sullen. “Oh, man, should I have kept reading? Was there more blackmail material I missed out on?”

Dipper’s hunger-stricken face pales a bit further, but he seems to maintain that shy, humorous smile anyway. “Uh, I think it generally gets more horrifying than funny, but you probably could’ve found something in there, yeah.”

He arches a brow. That’s not at all ominous. “Horrifying?”

“I mean,” he starts with a small gulp, “we wrote about it. Some of it. Well, Mabel did. I wrote about the other thing, about him and you, not that you know what I’m talking about—”

He cuts off the nonsensical rambling. “Yeah, kid, I really don’t.”

“Right. I kind of forgot I said I’d explain…um…”

Oh, he thinks. Bill, then. Stan shakes his head. He’s pretty sure keeping his spirits up doesn’t include making him talk more about the one thing that is guaranteed to make him spiral every time it’s brought up.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Dipper. We’ve got enough to deal with right now,” Stan admits. He doesn’t think it hurts to acknowledge it. They’re both lethargic and tired and hungry and probably rapidly approaching dehydration. It’d be shitty not to acknowledge that.

Dipper turns away to gaze back into the fire. “You should probably at least know about what Bill did inside your head.”

That gets his attention. “Sorry, what?!”

Dipper winces, avoiding Stan’s gaze at all costs. “Remember when Gideon stole the Shack?”

Stan nods. “How could I forget?”

“Well, before Gideon blew a hole in the Shack, he summoned Bill to dig around inside your Mindscape while you were asleep so that he could get the code to the safe and steal the deed. We used one of the incantations in the journal to follow Bill inside your mind—”

“Wait, Dipper, what? Slow down. You’re telling me you were inside my head?”

“I’m sorry,” the kid says quickly, having the decency to look pretty ashamed. “We didn’t see anything if that makes you feel better. Not really. Everything was pretty…boarded up.”

“Yeah, that’s how I like it, kid,” Stan says gruffly. But he’s not angry at them. “Now, who’s we?” he asks, not sure he wants the answer. But he thinks he has the right to know who else was rooting through his memories while he was none the wiser.

“Soos, Mabel, and I.” He drums his fingers against his thighs. “And Bill,” he adds. “It’s not like we wanted to. But we couldn’t let Bill go in there and help Gideon steal the deed without trying to stop him.”

“Did you? Stop him?”

Dipper nods. “It’s pretty easy fighting in the Mindscape. You can do whatever you want, if you can imagine it.” A smile ghosts his face. “Actually, you taught me that.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Well, Mindscape you.”

“Oh, heh.” It feels like he’s hearing about something he did in somebody else’s dream rather than something he did in real life, even if it was just his brain’s manifestation of himself. He would’ve thought the kid might’ve just dreamt this whole thing up, triangle demon and all, if it weren’t for the physical proof of Bill’s stain on his life. On all of their lives. 

“Well, glad I could help. And thanks for getting rid of the triangle guy. I’ve got enough crap going on up here as it is. Don’t need a demon running around too.” He raps at the side of his head.

Dipper nods solemnly. “That’s pretty much it. We threw him through a portal out of your mind and didn’t see him for a while after that.”

Yeah, a while. Mabel’s sock opera. Weirdest fine he’s ever had to evade. And he’s still getting letters in the mail. Guess that’s Sixer’s problem now.

“That was the first time you had’ta deal with him, huh?” he asks. He doesn’t want to ask, and he still doesn’t want to push, but his concern is still there, palpable as ever. What's a responsible guardian to do in this situation?

His own Pa would’ve forced it out of him, no matter how much mental distress it caused. Then he would’ve smacked him upside the head with a newspaper if he dared cry about it, calling him a sissy or just about any other insult under the sun.

Fuck that, he thinks.

“Yeah,” Dipper says. “The second time… I mean, you kind of already know enough about what he did to me. You were there.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, kind of. Y’know, afterwards…”

Stan can’t help but take the bait there. It’s difficult not to let weeks-old frustration take over. Because, despite everything, he still doesn’t actually know anything.

That whole puppet show saga was the first time Stan felt like maybe he’d bitten off more than he could chew, taking the kids in for the summer. A close second was when Gideon stole the deed to the Shack, but there was something uniquely awful about having to floor it all the way to some crappy emergency room out in Bend for his great-nephew. 

And while neither kid was all that willing to tell him what really went down that night, Dipper had looked and acted like he’d been on the wrong end of a boxing match, and Stan knows from experience that’s not the kind of thing you let go under the radar. 

Hell, even if he hadn’t known how serious unchecked head injuries could be, the look on Mabel’s face after Dipper nearly collapsed walking off the stage would have been all the convincing he needed anyway. And so ER it was.

“You mean when you’d told me you’d ‘fallen down the stairs’ and I had to relay that not-at-all-suspicious excuse to three separate night nurses in the span of fifteen minutes? I’m lucky no one called Child Protective Services, kid.”

Dipper shrugs, brushing off Stan’s slightly accusatory tone. “It’s not like telling them the truth would’ve been less suspicious.”

He guesses he’s right. Telling them the kid had been possessed by a demonic triangle probably would’ve brought CPS to the door in seconds. He wonders if the Bend Emergency Department is familiar with the denizens of Gravity Falls popping in with non-specific excuses for their injuries, or if most people are comfortable nursing their giant vampire bat bites and third-degree Scampfire burns in the privacy of their own homes.

“Yeah, well, why not me, kid?” he asks, not able to keep the slight twinge of hurt out of his words. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I’d be angry at you or something?”

He lets the question hang in the air for a moment, the warm wind blowing tufts of their hair up toward the night sky. “I was afraid you’d take the journal away,” he admits after a beat, a bit more fidgety than normal. “I guess it seems pretty stupid in hindsight, but finding the author was important to me. I didn’t want anything to jeopardize that. Especially not my own dumb mistake.”

Just another way his lies hurt the kids. Not only did his secrets land them both here, but Dipper spent the entire summer letting himself get beat up left and right in pursuit of answers that Stan could have just as easily given him in the safety of the Mystery Shack.

Stan sighs. Now isn’t the time to beat himself up about it. Besides, he thinks he can hear that underlying self-hatred seep back into the kid’s tone. It’s probably not a good time for this conversation, but when will there ever be a good time for something like this?

He offers the kid a half-smile even though he’s positively seething on the inside. Without asking the kid to go into detail about the whole thing, he can only imagine the things Bill did to Dipper’s body while he was inside of it. And Stan had seen the damage himself, his own flesh and blood suffering in silence for weeks afterward. Suffering even now.

“You told me you wouldn’t go looking for trouble.”

Dipper smiles back, but it’s shaky. “In my defense, I didn’t really go looking for it. I mean, I guess I did. We found a laptop…which…now that I’m thinking of it, that was definitely Ford’s laptop, wasn’t it?” 

A wave of disbelief passes over him. He shakes it off. “Anyway, the trouble kind of found me this time. I was staying up, trying to figure out the password, and he came to me to make a deal.”

Dipper blinks. He rubs at his forearm, the thin fabric of his long sleeve shirt pulled up past his elbows, the night akin to a warm summer evening, the fire hot against their skin. “I was so sleep-deprived and desperate that I fell for his lies.”

There’s another incentive for Dipper to be less trusting, he thinks but doesn’t say. But since they’re talking about it anyway, Stan feels the need to ask. “What was the deal?”

“He phrased it funny. He said he would give me the answers I was looking for in exchange for a puppet, except he was looking right at Mabel’s sock puppets when he said it.”

He laughs, a twinge hysterically. “Never would’ve guessed he’d choose me, but I probably should've asked him to clarify before shaking his hand, huh?” 

Stan frowns. He can’t really find anything meaningful to say. He brought them into this mess. Him and Ford, really. “I’m sorry, kid.”

A pregnant pause passes between them, and Stan lets him take it. He’d let him take all the time in the world if he asked for it. “I did fall down the stairs if that makes it any better,” he says eventually, that semi-humorous, semi-self-deprecating tone slipping back into his voice. “That wasn’t a complete lie. I just wasn’t in my body for it.”

He tries to shake off that mental image before it gets the chance to stick around. “No, that doesn’t make it better, but I appreciate your use of a half-lie, kiddo.” He reaches over and ruffles his hair. “Not bad.”

Dipper shies away from the touch but keeps a small grin on his face as he ducks his head, his hand still tracing the indented edges of the rows of scars littering his tan forearm.

Stan takes a second to get a good look at them. They’d been deep and bloody and crusted over when Stan saw them last, and he’d tried not to think too hard about how Mabel spent way too much time washing something oddly tacky and red from his cutlery later that same evening, after their chaotic trip to the ER. Now, the scars are a bright white, slightly indented into his skin and surrounded by a purple-ish tinge at the outer edges. 

Those are fork marks. That fucking demon stabbed his nephew with forks.

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Dipper admits quietly. 

Stan gulps, tearing his eyes away from the marks to meet the kid’s eyes. “I didn’t want to lie to you either, Dip.”

“Hah. Guess we both kind of broke our promises then.”

No more bombshell secrets. Right. “Yeah. I was crossing my fingers, though. Sorry,” Stan admits.

Dipper laughs with disbelief. “So was I.”

“Of course you were.” Little shits, the both of them. What is he going to do with these kids when they really become teenagers?

Yeah, that’s right. Them. Both of them…

“What did you expect?” Dipper asks, interrupting his train of thought before it gets the chance to spiral into something uncontrollable. “It’s Mabel and I. Not looking for trouble isn’t really something we know how to do.”

“Clearly,” Stan says, and Dipper lets out a big yawn, rubbing his eyes harshly. Stan bites one back too after seeing it, his exhaustion virtually contagious. It appears to seep out of him under the harsh glow of the moonlight, shadowed circles staining the skin beneath his eyes, his shoulders sagging downward.

He doesn’t look all that different from how he did that day: a shell of himself, practically primed and ready for something nefarious to take over in his stead.

He watches the kid stare into the flames, face half-darkened by shadows, and clears his throat. “You should get some sleep, Dip. It’s been a rough couple’a days.”

There’s an unsettling sort of emptiness in his eyes. It’s like he’s not quite all there. Tired, maybe. Maybe something more that Stan can’t name. 

He shakes his head. “I won’t be able to.”

Stan frowns. He wants to argue with the kid, but it’s hard to blame him. He can’t say he'd be eager to curl up on the sand and try to get some shut eye right now either — even if he hadn’t resigned himself to taking watch until they find some half-decent shelter.

“Alright. No sleeping, then,” he accepts easily. He shoves the wormhole gun back into his pack, mostly just because he wants to find something to do with his idle hands, and pulls out more of the rope while he’s at it. He yanks out their blade and cuts off a bit of the end, throwing another frayed piece into the fire over the mass of kindling to feed the flames.

How they managed to find enough flammable shit to fuel a fire is beyond him, but he’s grateful for it. He takes a second to warm his hands over the mess of dried, shriveled plants, old ration bar wrappers, dry sticks, and pieces of rope.

He eyes the rest of the rope, about a yard’s length, and fiddles with it in his hands. “Hey. You know how to tie a clove hitch?”

That sparks the kid’s attention. He breaks his thousand yard stare and settles his gaze on the rope in Stan’s hands. “No,” he says. “What’s it good for?”

He makes quick work with his hands while he talks, crossing the end of the rope over their flashlight. “It’s a pretty universal knot. Used mostly for rigging tarps or tents or gear or whatever. Climbing, even, but you could probably stand to use a more secure knot for that kind of thing.”

Dipper watches closely, scooting closer to his side. “How’d you learn that?” he asks.

Stan shrugs, finishing off the knot. He unties it and passes both the rope and flashlight over to the kid. “I’m an old man. You run out of options for hobbies when your body starts crapping out on you. That, and half the attractions at the Shack need some sort of knot to keep them from falling apart.”

Dipper laughs, accepting the rope and the flashlight. “Okay. How do I do it?”

“So hang it over the flashlight there,” he says, guiding his hands. “And then loop it around, yeah, just like that. Then you’re gonna wanna wrap it around and thread it behind the rope there. Okay. Now, pull to tighten.”

Dipper yanks it as tight as it can go. He tilts his head before looking up at Stan. “Like that?”

“Yeah, just like that, kid. Nice work.”

Dipper hums before untying it and passing both back over to Stan. “Got any more?”

Stan racks his brain for a minute, mulling over the options in his head. He doesn’t know many, but the ones he does remember seem to stick. “You ever heard of a double constrictor hitch?”

“No. What’s that one?”

“It’s a variation of the single constrictor knot. Good for binding stuff. Fishers use it for securing poles and stuff. Sometimes it’s used for medical purposes, but I’ve only ever used it to tie things together.”

“Cool. Can you show me?”

“Only if we never want to use this rope again. It’s pretty much impossible to untie. You only want to use that knot if it's one you don’t want coming undone.”

“Ah,” Dipper says. “Probably not then. I’d like to actually keep the few things we have.”

Stan nods and tucks the rope and flashlight away. It’s strange feeling oddly reverent for things he largely takes for granted back home, but he’d risk his life for some of the things in that pack of theirs. Mostly because those things are all that stands between them and their untimely deaths. 

“What about you, kid? They teach you anything useful in those fancy Californian schools of yours?”

Dipper scoffs. “It’s not fancy, Stan, it’s public school.” He shifts, trying and failing to make himself comfortable on the sand. “And, no, not really, not unless you can find some use for the quadratic formula out here. Or a bunch of random facts about the mitochondria for some reason.” 

He zones out a bit, forearm wrapping lightly around his lower abdomen. Hunger. It hurts more for Stan to see it reflected in Dipper than it does to feel it.

Dipper snaps himself out of it, looking up at the stars. “I’ve researched a lot of useful things on my own, though. I’ve gotten pretty good at astronavigation, but there haven’t been any familiar constellations in any of the dimensions we’ve traveled to. So, probably not all that useful, then.”

Stan blinks. Of course he’d know some crazy shit like that. “You taught yourself astronavigation? At twelve? Why?”

Dipper shrugs. “When you have a literal constellation on your forehead and everyone at school calls you stuff like Star Face for most of your life, you kinda start developing an interest in that kind of thing.”

Stan can’t help but think of Ford’s own obsession with anomalies and statistical improbabilities, sparked by his six fingers and the constant teasing that followed him throughout his life. “Yeah, I guess that tracks.” 

He tilts his head back to look up at the constellations himself, and lo and behold, they are vastly different from the ones he recognizes back home. The Big Dipper specifically is nowhere to be seen — the only one he can actually point out in the night sky.

“Think you can try leading us anyway?” Stan asks, mostly joking. “With what you know?”

Dipper thinks for a moment, curls fanning out as he looks up, the Big Dipper constellation revealing itself to Stan once more. “Well, early travelers used to look toward the North Star for navigation. Not because it’s the brightest or anything — it’s not — but because it’s the only one that appears stationary in the night sky. It’s directly above Earth's axis of rotation, so it’ll always point north.”

He continues, shiny eyes scanning the alien constellations. “It’s at the handle of the Little Dipper. In Arabian mythology, it’s said that it’s an evil star that killed ‘the great warrior in the sky,’ or the Big Dipper. They thought the Big Dipper’s quadrangle represented a coffin and the handle stars were the warrior’s daughter and son, Mizar and Alcor.”

“I don’t know, Dip, I think I need a visual,” Stan says, reaching over and flipping up the kid’s fringe. Dipper shies away with a laugh that actually sounds genuine for once, but he doesn’t protest too much when Stan lightly jabs one of the points. “Which one’s Alcor? This one?”

He moves away and ruffles his hair back into place. “Grunkle Stan, quit it!” he protests, soft, amused laughter escaping him despite his feigned indignation. He continues to smooth his hair as he settles back into navigation mode. “So, I guess if we want to pick a direction to go in — north or south or whatever, depending on this planet’s axis of rotation — then we should follow whatever star doesn’t move. Assuming there is one.”

“Hold on. You want to follow the star that famously kills you?”

Dipper laughs again. “It’s not like it’d actually be the North Star. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time I’ve followed something that’ll probably try to kill me.”

“Guess you’re right,” Stan says. He claps his hands together. “So, it’s settled then. We’re following the death star come sunrise.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We won’t be able to see it in the day, Stan,” he says with that deadpan tone of his, and Stan barks out a laugh.

“Following a star we can’t see on a planet we can’t name. Sounds like a plan to me.”

Despite trying his best not to fall into the clutches of sleep, Dipper wakes with his face pressed against Stan’s upper back and his arms draped around his neck, trudging along in the sand at Stan’s slow, heavy pace. With his eyes shut, he only has the feel of Stan’s gait to clue him in on where he is and what he’s doing.

He peels his eyes open, surprised to be moving when he could’ve sworn they had just been sitting around their fire a second ago. At least it certainly feels like a second ago.

He can’t remember falling asleep, but he knows without a shadow of a doubt that Stan hasn’t slept a wink. The last thing he remembers is his eyes growing heavy, his head even heavier, and maybe a soft, yet gruff voice urging him to shut his eyes. Just for a while.

Dipper still can’t help but feel bad for falling asleep on him — literally and figuratively. Their collective hunger is hard to sit with, and it’s infinitely harder to ignore while awake. Leaving Stan to sit with that alone feels almost evil, like some irredeemable sin.

Though, he has to admit, it felt nice to let it all slip away for a little while.

But nothing good ever lasts long out here. It’s just as hard upon waking, maybe even harder after a short reprieve. A sharp pang comes to cramp and gnaw at his insides, and it’s all he needs to lift his weary head off of Stan’s back and fully return to the waking world.

He immediately winces at the even sharper headache that throbs at his temples and slightly blurs his vision. He swallows, trying to ignore the rapidly worsening dryness in his mouth and throat. “Stan? S’what time is it?”

Stan’s voice is clear as day when he speaks. “No idea, kid,” he says. “You sleep okay?”

He shrugs. “Lemme down,” he says, not feeling too articulate at the moment. Stan obliges, and Dipper rubs at his tired eyes once he’s placed back on solid ground, hearing a soft rumbling in his ears as he does so. “When’d I fall asleep?”

“Also not sure. My internal clock sucks. Kind of feels like forever. But the sun’s not too high in the sky yet so I’d say a couple of hours. Three or four, maybe?”

Too many words, Dipper thinks. Those were too many words in response to a normal question like what time is it. But that’s not Stan’s fault, so he just nods, content with the only explanation that gives him a sense of something as incomprehensible as time out here in the multiverse.

“Have you been walking this whole time?”

Stan shakes his head, and Dipper takes the lull in conversation to survey their surroundings. It looks more or less like the part of the desert he’d fallen asleep in, but there’s an unfamiliarity about the whole scene that makes him feel slightly on edge, like the feeling he gets when he wakes up in the morning after accidentally falling asleep on the couch.

“Just an hour or two, maybe. Maybe less. Decided to try my hand at that astronavigation stuff. Jury’s still out, but you see that there? Right there?”

Dipper squints. It’s hard to make out what Stan’s pointing at with the bright sun quickly positioning itself overhead and the pink sand picking up through the air, but he eventually spots it — the change in terrain about a mile ahead, at most.

“S’that a road?” Dipper asks.

“Looks like it,” Stan remarks. “Wasn’t sure if I was just seeing things at first, but if you’re seein’ it too then that’s a good sign.”

Dipper nervously shifts his weight, his shoes sinking deeper into the sand. They won’t make it much longer out here, especially without water. He’s already feeling weaker than he did just last night, and they’ve only gone about a day without. Food, even longer.

He knows what they have to do. They both do. But he can’t say he’s too eager to show face in public again. Hitchhiking, even less.

But there’s not really a question to be asked here. Any apprehension he feels is quickly tapered down by the persistent hunger pangs in his abdomen and the choking thirst clawing up his throat. He’d run straight into the fiery pits of hell if there was a bottle of water and a half-decent meal waiting for him. 

He’d do the same even if it meant he had to suck the last droplets of Pitt Cola straight out of the pit itself.

He wastes no time. He finds himself pleasantly surprised when Stan doesn’t skip a beat either, willing to walk into hell with him, standing side by side.

They arrive at the road sooner than expected, and Dipper all but collapses on the asphalt’s edge, sinking down into the sand with his legs stretched out onto the road. He offers a small smile when Stan plops down beside him, gazing down the windy path, stretching off into the unseen distance, shrouded by pale pink dust clouds.

His great-uncle pulls the scarf around his neck up to shroud his face, and he feels some of the fear coiled in his gut begin to come untethered. He’s glad to see him taking this seriously after weeks of feeling like he was the only one looking out for their lives out here. Though, he hadn’t really realized until he was falling apart in Stan’s arms how much of that anger was just misdirected guilt, aimed squarely at the one person closest to him.

Stan had been the perfect scapegoat. It had been all too easy to pretend like the guilt festering inside him was anything but. And it isn’t gone, not really, but he’s got to admit that his great-uncle has a point.

It was the perfect storm. A storm he had a hand in helping create, but a storm nonetheless. Uncontrollable. Forceful. Predestined.

He’s not sure how long they sit there, side by side, but it’s the longest stretch of silence between them since Dipper still felt like he might have hated him — back when it seemed like he’d never think any differently. 

That was only days ago, but everything feels different now. Almost like they’re at the start of another road, one Dipper can’t see the end to either.

It isn’t long until they hear the distinct thrum of a car in the distance, but it might as well have been a lifetime. They both shoot up, pulling their packs up and settling them back around their shoulders.

As Stan runs into the middle of the street to wave down the car, Dipper runs the pad of his thumb along the collapsed edge of the switchblade in his pocket and tries to ignore the way his hands tremble when the driver comes to a screeching halt.

Stan walks back over to Dipper’s side, and the driver rolls down their window on the passenger side. Sitting behind the wheel is a four-armed man, two hands on the wheel, one on the window switch, and the other resting over the gear shift.

He blinks, all four eyes shutting in unison, and clears his throat. “You fellas okay?”

Stan looks back at Dipper for a second, eyes widening slightly for emphasis, before he turns back around. “Hanging in there, I guess,” Stan says as kindly as his gruff, dried vocal cords will allow. “We were actually hoping to get into town. Uh, if there is one.”

The man looks down the road, considering. He nods. “I’m headed into the city now.”

Stan hesitates before asking, “Mind if the kid and I hitch a ride?”

“Hold on. Let me see, uh—” He reaches into his pocket, and Dipper flinches for a moment, expecting the worst. What he doesn’t expect is for the man to pull out a silver coin, flipping it into the air before slapping it onto the back of his palm. He lifts his hand off of it and studies the face of the coin for a moment. 

“Alright. Go ahead and hop on back. City’s not too far from here.”

Dipper’s confusion and curiosity gets the best of him, and he finds himself asking, “Why’d you do that?”

Stan nudges Dipper’s side in warning, but all the man does is tilt his head slightly, his sharp nose pointing upward. “Do what?”

“The coin,” Dipper points out. “What was that?”

The man laughs. “Oh. That’s my way of deciding. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t have my dice on me, so coin it is. Heads. Lady Luck’s on your side today, fellas.”

Dipper doesn’t think so, but he guesses he’ll take this guy’s word for it. He follows Stan into the backseat and doesn’t protest when Stan reaches over and clips his seatbelt in for him. 

Stan clicks his own seatbelt into place and meets the man’s eyes in the rearview mirror, his own curiosity getting the better of him. “So, you flip a coin to make every decision?”

“Or roll the dice. That’s the way it’s got to be, of course,” he pauses. “Are you two foreigners?”

Stan barks out a laugh. “Guess you could call us that, yeah.”

“Well, welcome to Lottocron Nine. May Lady Luck guide your hand.”

Chapter Text

Mabel tries not to flinch when all three journals clatter to the floor, followed by a bunch of loose scraps of paper that float to the ground like the first leaves of fall, dead remnants of something once infinitesimally more beautiful and promising.

And it’s all just around the corner now. She’s already noticing the trees beginning to dehydrate, an orangey-red hue seeping into the outer edges of the leaves, ready to shed any day now. 

Soon there will be nothing left to remember the summer by.

She leans her full weight against the basement wall and watches Ford pull out a new journal, noticeably devoid of his signature six-fingered emblem. He sits and flips it open to the first page, immediately filling the parchment with his loopy, cursive scrawl. She knows she’s witnessing something that would have left Dipper just as starstruck as if he were watching the painting of the freaking Sistine Chapel, if not more so, but she just can’t seem to muster the same enthusiasm.

But that doesn’t mean she’s entirely lacking in feeling. She’s full of feelings, really. Hers are just a wee bit closer to dread than excitement — like she’s suiting up for war or something equally as terrifying and permanent.

She can’t help but feel sort of useless hanging over by the wall, so she pushes herself off of it and heads over to stand behind him, eyeing the words as they bleed out across the page. He's in the middle of stringing a sentence about quantum entanglement together when he looks up at her, thick brows knitting into one.

“Sorry. Got a little carried away,” he says, glancing back down at the page. He seems to mull something over in his head for a few moments, eyes fixated blankly at his words, before he drops his pen and turns to face her directly. “I know this isn’t the most exciting, Mabel, but I assure you, this step in the process is just as important as actively rebuilding the portal.”

She shrugs, trying not to let the words sting too much. “I don’t need excitement.”

He makes a noncommittal noise, a mix of abashed and distracted, and returns to it. She can’t even find it in herself to be too upset with him for it. The work he’s doing is important. Right now, he’s deliberating over quantum physics, making sure the new portal doesn’t tear Stan and Dipper apart, atom by atom. 

Best leave him to it, she thinks, working on her bottom lip with her teeth, her brackets rubbing uncomfortably against her gums.

“Okay, then,” she says, feeling slightly awkward waiting around for something that he doesn’t seem to be readily offering up. She pulls at a loose thread of yarn that dangles from the corner of her sweater and imagines the whole thing completely unraveling, leaving her standing there in her undershirt instead. Cold. Maybe a little less Mabel than before.

“I, um– I think I’ll just be upstairs. I need to feed Waddles and check in with my parents. I know it’s only been a day, but Mom worries, so…”

Ford politely waves a hand through the air, though his eyes don’t drift from his work. “Take your time, Mabel. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

She nods sharply and turns on her heel, heading straight for the elevator and hardly even blinking when the doors shut with her in it. Her body goes on autopilot as she climbs the stairs and drags herself into the Shack’s kitchen.

Swinging the fridge door open, predictably wobbly at the hinges, Mabel reaches into the far back for the water pitcher and is unfortunately not all that surprised to find it empty. Without Dipper here to complain about no one ever filling it, it’s got nothing more than a couple of drops left to spare. She shoves the whole thing into the sink and switches on the tap.

Slow, methodical drips of horrible tap water seep through the filter, and her patience lasts all of two seconds before she thinks to heck with it and places a glass directly beneath the faucet. She’s even quicker to send it down the hatch, notes of copper and old pipes coating her tongue, the foul act of chugging it made all the worse by the scratchiness at the back of her throat.

The rapid assault on her taste buds is urged to a pause, a hand coming to rest over hers. She’s similarly not all that surprised to find Wendy at her side — and wearing that familiar concerned expression that she never really seems to leave the house without these days.

“Woah, Mabel, slow down, yeah? It’s not going anywhere.”

Wendy looks at her kind of funny. “You feeling OK?”

Mabel wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and switches off the tap, the pitcher steadily dripping as the chamber pours out. “Fine. Just thirsty.”

“I can see that,” she deadpans, grabbing one of the yellow chairs and flipping it around to sit on it backwards. She drums her fingers against it as Mabel pulls the quarter-full pitcher out of the sink and onto the counter. 

“Hey, so, what’s Ford got you doing down there?” she asks, phrasing it like an afterthought and not the sole reason why she came in here to begin with.

“Staring at the wall, I dunno. Nothing. He’s writing.”

Wendy’s jaw ticks. “Writing?”

“No, I mean—” Mabel says, quick to undercut her rising anger. “It’s important writing. Plans and blueprints and stuff.”

“Oh,” she says, but that tense energy doesn’t quite dissipate. It hangs around in her shoulders, her posture rigid and tight. She’s been this way for a while now, maybe ever since she and Soos called her that night, after the portal, Mabel in tears and Soos somewhere close behind. 

And it’s only gotten worse since Mabel revealed what she found down in the basement yesterday. Or what she didn’t find, more like.

“Well, maybe it’s for the best that you sit out of the portal stuff for a few days. You need to take it easy, man. I’m sure Ford would be fine with it. Just yesterday you could hardly, like, walk in a straight line.”

Mabel scoffs, suddenly unable to think of anything other than what Bill revealed to her in her dream two nights ago. She thinks of Ford, all twelve fingers hard at work ripping apart her brother and uncle’s only chance at life. Of coming home to her.

And to think she thought it was just another trick. 

In her defense, she can’t say she ever expected Bill Cipher to be the only one actually willing to tell her the truth. Someone should check Hell, maybe, see if it's frozen over.

“Of course Ford would be fine with it,” she says, unable to help the bite in her tone.

“Woah, okay. Sounds like someone needs some roof time.”

“What’s it with you and the roof?”

“Roof time heals, man. And we never got to do it yesterday. Now stop asking questions and come on.” She stands and spins the chair back around, pushing it under the table.

Mabel nods tightly. She’s spent the past twenty four-ish hours alternating between the attic and the basement, one room filled with dust and mold and the other with possibly radioactive elements. Some fresh air might actually do her some good.

When they enter the gift shop, Mabel pointedly ignores the tourists that are just starting to file in. Soos must have just gotten finished with the afternoon tour, and unfortunately for Mabel that means she’ll have to stand here and try not to shrink in on herself when she catches them staring. 

Okay, so they're probably not staring, not at her or for any specific reason, but it’s hard to be sure. She can’t help but feel like an exhibit herself; the tour’s sad and anticlimactic conclusion.

Mabel’s already seen several articles about the Californian boy who went missing in the Oregon wilderness, and she does not want to know how many of these tourists might be here because of it. She wonders how many of them have heard about what may or may not be lurking just beyond the tree line, coming to see if they can get close enough to snap a photo. Maybe even solve the mystery themselves.

The twisted irony of it all is that she can’t even be reasonably angry with them for it. Hadn’t she and Dipper been into the same thing? Unsolved mysteries and missing persons and uncharted woods and creatures hidden in the dark? 

Dipper would get a kick out of it, she thinks, knowing he became his very own mystery without even trying. 

The slight tremor in her knees worsens with each step up the ladder, her newly acquired fear of heights apparently here for the long haul. She sighs with relief when they make it to the top and she can sit down and pretend they’re on ground level again.

Wendy takes a seat beside her and immediately begins to rummage through the cooler. The can of Pitt that she passes over to Mabel is slick and wet, and she gathers from the sloshing noises that they’ve been floating in melted ice water for a while now.

The teen grabs a second can for herself, and it’s no real shock when she also reaches back in to grab a third. It’s a habit more than a conscious decision at this point, but the sight of that unclaimed soda robs Mabel of breath anyway. 

Wendy’s hand stills around it, only halfway pulled out of the cooler, and quivers slightly as the realization settles over her.

“Wendy?”

She drops it back in with a thud, shutting the cooler and cracking open her tab in one fluid motion. Mabel follows the path of her eyeline out into the woods and watches as she takes a lengthy swig, very deliberately avoiding her gaze. 

But it doesn’t matter. Whatever just happened, happened — and Mabel doesn’t want to pretend that it didn’t.

She wishes more than anything that Dipper was here to drink that stupid soda.

“So.” Wendy clears her throat, her voice tight. “Spill. What’s got you so pissed?”

“I’m not…pissed,” she tries, rolling the word around on her tongue. It feels strange. Even stranger to have no one around to lightly scold her for it. 

If Dipper were here, he would’ve given her a light shove paired with a look that said: 'Are we doing that now? I didn’t know we were doing that,’ and told her to knock it off in that tone of voice he uses when he doesn’t really mean it. Then, they would’ve sat up in the attic long after the summer sun dipped below the horizon, taking turns listing off every word they could think of over a bowl of burnt microwave popcorn.

But he’s not, and it hurts more than anything that she has to keep reminding herself of that.

“I’m not mad at Ford,” she tries again, the words feeling awkward and clunky. “Not anymore. It’s just… I know it's only been a day, but he made it sound like rebuilding the portal would be this super dangerous thing. But all he’s been doing since yesterday is writing. And I can't help him write.”

She takes a sip. It’s warm. “I can’t do anything.”

“Did he give you a timeline?”

“No. He doesn’t know. He says we can’t rush it. Otherwise Dipper and Stan could die, or worse.”

Wendy makes a strangled sort of noise. “What’s worse than dying?”

Mabel snorts, but not because it's funny. If only she could travel back in time to when she was just as blissfully ignorant. “Something he calls Molecular Dissemination Inception. Basically their atoms would be torn apart and reassembled over and over and over again, like, infinitely or something.”

There’s that strangled noise again. “Ford told you that? Why would he tell you that?”

“I asked. I wanted to know all the risks.”

“You’re telling me there’s more? Riskier than infinite dying?”

Mabel ignores the tightness building in her chest. “Yeah, but it’s…” She peers back at the ladder entrance behind them, half-expecting to find Ford there eavesdropping, maybe waiting for another reason to abandon the portal altogether. “It’s mostly Bill,” she whispers.

“Bill?” Wendy asks, much louder than Mabel would like her to. “Why is it always Bill?”

Mabel blinks. There’s an unexpected answer to a question she’s had for a while now. She’d been secretly wondering who else knew about their last Bill-related encounter — what she has since dubbed The Sock Puppet Incident — but it hadn’t felt right to ask.

Or bring it up. Or talk about it. Or even allude to it, really.

Pretty much ever since that day, Bill had been officially lumped into their collection of Forbidden Topics, like their parents' imminent divorce or Dipper's birthmark when in the presence of non-family members (or Wendy, apparently, since he decided to make exceptions this summer for redheaded lumberjack crushes). It was mostly unspoken, but Mabel prides herself on knowing her twin better than anyone. If there was ever a conversation to avoid in order to keep them both sane and not worryingly sleep-deprived, it was Bill.

Dipper had been open to talking about it in the immediate aftermath, but he’d pretty much shut down the second he read that note she tucked away in the third journal. He’d taken her up on those ice cream sandwiches, but he made no mention of anything regarding demonic possession in the week leading up to the portal.

But he didn’t have to. Mabel knew. She might not have noticed that her brother wasn’t himself that day, but she sure as heck noticed afterward. Dipper didn’t stumble down into the kitchen and chug Mabel Juice before the sun rose before. Dipper wasn’t reduced to trembling sobs and sickness when he saw puppets before.

He was different after. Kinda like how Mabel feels a little different now, too. How they’re all a little bit different.

Sock Puppet Incident aside, Mabel knew they’d told Wendy about Bill’s excursion into Stan’s head shortly after it had happened. She’d been there and answered all ten-thousand of the teen’s questions herself.

Mabel crushes her can slightly inward, leaving matching indents on both sides of it. “I’m guessing that means Dipper told you about it then.”

Wendy doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. She peels the tab off her can and aims for the totem target, frowning when she misses spectacularly. “Willingly? Nah. I forced it out of him.”

“How’d you manage that? He went all, like, Fort Knox after.”

“Pfft, you guys aren’t exactly subtle. I knew something was up with how skittish he was at movie night. But even if I hadn’t, you think I wasn’t gonna ask questions? You two spent half the night bashing each other's heads in and the other half in some emergency room way in the hell out of town.

“Also, Dipper was being really weird that night. He kept calling me stuff like Red and toots and asking Soos if he wanted to know when he’s gonna die. There was no way I was letting him off without explaining all that.”

Mabel frowns, the pressure of her fingertips still warping the aluminum. “At least you noticed something was up. He was asking for my help all day and I didn’t listen. I didn’t even realize my own twin wasn’t actually my twin.”

But you said you were going to help me today.

He's lying! Shut it down NOW!

She swallows the lump in her throat. She didn’t listen. She never listens.

Wendy shrugs. “It’s not like I actually did anything to stop it. I just thought it was sleep deprivation or post-rejection awkwardness or something.” She runs the pad of her finger lightly across the sharp top of the can, right where the missing tab metal juts out. “And any one of us could’ve noticed it wasn’t Dipper in there. It wasn’t just you.”

“That makes it worse, I think,” Mabel admits. She taps her heels against the side of the Shack. It’s hard to keep her mind from wandering. “Do you think he hates me for it? For not listening?”

“Aw, Mabel. Hate you? I don’t think that’s possible. Besides, this is Dipper we’re talking about. He probably blames himself.”

That does sound an awful lot like Dipper. “Not that. I mean, kinda that, but I meant the portal. Dipper knew how dangerous it was. He was telling me to shut it down and I didn’t listen.” 

And now he’s stuck out there, for who knows how long, and Mabel’s pretty sure this one is all on her this time. “I think I really screwed up, Wendy. And I’m not sure if there’s any fixing it.” 

She pulls her legs up from over the edge and hugs them tight against her chest. “Dipper’s gone and Ford’s writing and I’m scared that it’s going to be this way forever.”

Wendy chews on her lip, setting her can down with some note of finality. “It won’t be,” she says like it’s a promise. “And it’s not your fault.”

Mabel hums, only half listening. The other half of her brain is too busy remembering the expression on Dipper’s face when she’d betrayed him and picturing what it might have morphed into when he found himself trapped in his worst nightmare, face-to-face with the demon that nearly killed them both. That he couldn’t even bring himself to mention by name in the week following.

She digs her fingernails into her shins and holds on tight, feeling for all the world like she might fall off the face of the Earth if her grip loosens, even a smidge. How is that not her fault?

Wendy seems to read her thoughts. “I’m being serious, Mabel. What happened to Dipper and Stan was not your fault. You guys were put in an impossible situation, and neither one of you asked for any of this, okay? It was a freak accident, and– and he wouldn’t want you to be blaming yourself.”

The words sound well-rehearsed. Remembered. Internalized.

“You’re Mabel freaking Pines. You’ll figure it out. You guys always do.”

She sniffs and nods tightly. Maybe, she thinks. Maybe Ford will come up with something down there with that giant author brain of his and this will all feel like a horrible dream in a week or two.

She’ll wake up in her own bed, with Stan nearby and Dipper even nearer, and her vocal chords will unravel. The tightness in her chest will loosen. She won’t need to make sense of it — to figure out where the guilt starts and where the grief ends. 

She can just be Mabel again. And Dipper will be Dipper. They won’t need to give any thought to what they have become.

“Yeah. We do,” she says, running cold palms down her shins in an effort to warm them up. “Thanks, Wendy.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, reaching over to ruffle her hat-covered hair. Mabel ducks slightly, smiling sheepishly at the affectionate touch.

“Now, what’s this thing with Bill?”

“Hey! Asshat!” Wendy yells, fire lacing her words and trailing behind her, auburn locks flying upward as she charges through the elevator doors. Mabel is hot on her heels, long past the point of trying to douse the flames.

She regrets telling her. She really regrets telling her.

Ford’s gaze immediately shoots up, his glasses slightly askew. His grip around his pen falters. “What—”

“You left them there?! You left your brother and a twelve year old to sit in Hell with the freaking devil?!”

Mabel tugs at the back of her flannel. “Wendy, come on.”

More loose papers sprawl off the table as Ford rises abruptly from his seat, careless in his haste. It doesn’t matter what name she uses. He immediately understands. “You know Cipher? How? Mabel, who else—?”

“Hey, no, I’m talking to you.” Wendy steps forward, shoving a pointer finger into his chest and sending him stumbling back. He’s unsteady on his feet. “You knew they were stuck there with him, and you left them there. This. Entire. Time.”

Ford pales, holding up twin hands in defense. It’s clear he wasn’t expecting to have to offer another explanation so soon. “Now, hold on, there’s no telling if they’re there or somewhere else in the multiverse. The Nightmare Realm is porous. It can conjure thousands of wormholes in a single minute. They could be anywhere!”

“Or they could be with Bill. Right?”

“I—” He cuts himself off and steps back, pressing his lips into a thin line, something steely quickly overtaking his shock. His tone is nothing but firm when he speaks, and he sounds more like the man who first walked out of the portal than he does the one who carried her out of the forest yesterday morning.

This Ford radiates urgency and commands respect. “Again, I ask, how do you know Bill?”

But Mabel has spent enough time around Wendy and her friends this summer to know that Wendy and respect don't really go hand in hand. Especially when demanded by authority figures. 

“No,” the teen puts it simply, voice trembling ever so slightly. “How do you know Bill? What is he? Why did you build a freaking portal to his dimension, and why the hell has he been terrorizing these kids all summer?!”

Something shifts, and her uncle turns to look at her with fresh eyes, as if settling on a horrible, unimaginable truth. 

A shudder runs its course through him, the basement air seeming to drop several degrees in temperature. “Mabel? Is that true?”

She looks nervously between the two of them. She’s used to fighting, but it's not often that she’s directly involved, much less asked a question. “It was a couple of times, yeah.”

“Of course it’s true,” Wendy says, words dripping with venom, spitting like a cobra.

Ford strikes back. “Enough. Look, the fact that you dealt with Bill is gravely serious. You want answers? I intend to give them. But senselessly yelling at each other won’t do us any good to defend ourselves against his threats. Cipher will stop at nothing to wreak havoc on our world.”

Wendy crosses her arms. “Pretty sure lying to everyone isn’t a great foundation for defense, either.”

“Keeping my work a secret was a necessary precaution, I’m afraid. At least where Bill is concerned. But if you’ve dealt with him—”

“See!” Wendy says, gesturing wildly at him. “You only want to tell us crap we’ve already half-figured out or dealt with ourselves! But, guess what, asshole? These kids spent this whole summer getting torn down trying to pick up pieces you left behind thirty years ago.”

Wendy steps back, shaking her head fervently. The fact that her trapper hat has managed to stay put is nothing short of a miracle. “And they still are. They know and understand a hell of a lot more than you’ve given them credit for.”

She whips around, and Mabel notices it just then, the thick, hot tears that threaten to spill out across her reddened cheeks. Her heart stutters in her chest at the sight of it.

Words catch in her throat, not able to escape before Wendy beats her to the punch. The redhead sniffs harshly and blinks the tears away, trying her best to appear menacing as she does so. She shoves her trembling hands into her pockets. “You better give her some answers, man. Or I’ll personally see to it that you do.”

Ford, for his part, seems to be beside himself, woefully out of his element. His mouth falls agape. “I will,” he says after a beat, a mix of earnest and cautious, as if afraid she might immediately make good on that threat. “I said I would, and I meant it.”

“Great.” She nods. “Good.”

It’s silent, then, the teen coiling back into herself, seemingly ready to bolt back up the stairs. Mabel understands, maybe better than anyone, but it’s hard to imagine a person like Wendy as anything other than coolly contained or free and fiery. 

She’s often free-flowing. Wild. Stuck is not a word she would use to describe Wendy Corduroy, but it seems to be the only one that fits.

Mabel finds her voice, jolting her friend out of her thousand-yard stare. “Wendy?”

“Y’know, I— uh, I have to help Soos. With… a thing. A Mystery Shack thing. I’m still technically on the clock, so…”

She steps forward. “Wendy…”

“Just get Soos and I up to speed later, alright?” she says, settling those watery eyes back on Mabel. She shoots her some kind of look that she can’t quite read but she’s pretty sure is urging her to do something, as if it might be her only chance.

Wendy’s gaze lingers on Ford when she finally goes, stepping backward before turning and rushing toward the elevator, quickly out of sight as the doors shut.

The ding of the elevator jolts them both out of their own trance, once again alone in the darkness of the basement — just them and their partially reconstructed portal to keep them company.

Mabel clears her throat, something like awkwardness taking center stage. “I should probably go check on her.”

She’s half-embarrassed and half-sympathetic and about a million other half-emotions that probably won’t ever see the light of day. All she knows is that she wants to run back upstairs just as much as she wants to lock herself down here and never resurface.

He rests one of his large hands on her shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “How about you give her some time to cool off? Tensions have been high these past few days.”

Mabel nods tightly, grateful that he’s seemingly willing to brush the whole thing off. She decides to take his advice, mostly because she’s tired of making her own decisions. She always seems to choose wrong.  

“I’m sorry, Great Uncle Ford,” she says, apologizing before she can really decide what it is that she’s apologizing for. But it doesn’t really matter. They both know it’s an empty platitude anyway. “She’s not usually like this.”

“Something tells me she might be,” he says with a sideways smile, slightly melancholic in nature. “You know, she’s a lot like her father.”

Mabel thinks of Manly Dan, smashing a pole to smithereens with his own two fists. “Hot-headed?”

“Strong-willed. You’re lucky to have a friend like her.”

Mabel hums. “Yeah, Wendy’s pretty great.”

Ford’s sideways smile levels out. “Look, Mabel. I realize we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot as far as trusting each other—”

“More like haven’t gotten off in the first place.”

“—but I’m prepared to change that,” he finishes, probably only pretending not to be amused. “If you’ll let me try, that is. I was waiting until it was ready, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to lay all of our cards on the table now.”

Mabel looks over his shoulder, straight into the eye of the portal, and chews on her lip. 

She finds this decision not particularly hard to make. 

“Waiting till what was ready?”

Ford nods grimly. “Follow me.”

Mabel’s own shadow greets her when the elevator doors slide open, stretching skyward in the dark, dimly lit room. Like the basement floor, Mabel never knew of this room’s existence in the Shack before; concealed like a leatherbound journal sitting alone in a crude mechanic imitation of a tree.

It doesn't feel like a great loss to not have known it until now. The room smells like carcinogens and dust and she’s probably only a few deep inhales away from having a full-on allergy attack.

“Welcome to my private study, a place where I keep my most ancient and secret knowledge.” He steps into the darkness, hands tucked into his coat. “Even your uncle Stan doesn't know about this place.” 

“Woah,” Mabel says, catching sight of a canvas with a distinct gold trim, a smoky crater blasted into the center of it. Whatever art was on it before is long gone now, the thing coated in a thick film of dust and ash.

She runs her finger along the edge of it. “It’s, uh…nice.”

Ford’s eyes darken as he takes in the destroyed artwork himself. “Excuse the dust. I haven’t really had the chance to tidy up.”

He clears his throat, beckoning her over to some kind of contraption, several large screens looming over them. She blinks up at them as Ford bends down to pick up a helmet covered in exposed wire and metal.

“Early this morning I began working on a way to Bill-proof our minds, and this is the way to do it. A machine I call Project Mentem. As of now, the mechanics are…finicky.” He pulls it slightly further away from himself as he peers down at it. “Probably wouldn’t recommend putting it anywhere near your face.”

It produces a spark, as if on cue, and he’s quick to set the contraption back down on the table. “Evidently there are still some kinks that need to be worked out.”

Mabel does her best to process everything he’s saying as quickly as possible. Here he is, the man who felt so comfortable telling her absolutely nothing for a month, sharing his work with her in its infancy. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to that. “So you’re saying if we put that thingy on our heads, Bill can’t mess with us anymore?”

“That’s right. We would be completely free from Bill’s influence. The machine is designed to scan your mind, bioelectrically encrypting your thoughts so Bill can't read them.”

“That– that’s good. Wouldn’t want that.”

He nods resolutely, jaw squared. “It should be ready in just a few days. Until then, there are other ways we can protect ourselves against Bill. It may seem redundant, but he’s as relentless as ever, and Wendy’s right. Bill has been known to prey on those in search of answers.”

Ford sighs, as if re-realizing the error of his ways. She can’t help but feel a little vindicated. “It’s time I offer some answers of my own. From now on, no more secrets between us, Mabel. If we want to keep Bill from entering our world, we will have to be vigilant. Any slip up and he gets what he wants.”

No more secrets. It should be easy, she thinks. Cards on the table.

But she was never the one keeping them in the first place. She wasn’t the one promising she’d be only a phone call away while Ford sat up late at night in an empty room, debating whether a crow or a pigeon would make for a better messenger bird.

It’s hard to say why she does it. She crosses her fingers behind her back and feels her chest swell with something unidentifiable. “No more secrets,” she says. “Scout’s honor.”

Ford nods, pulling up a chair and taking a seat. “Yes, well, any questions you have would be a good place to start. I have a few myself, but those can wait.”

She finds a small stool to sit on and lowers herself down onto it. Questions? She’s been full of questions since June, pretty much the second she and Dipper stepped off the Speedy Beaver.

Why does Grunkle Stan smell weird? How long would it take them to walk from Oregon to California? Where’s that trusty Magic 8 Ball of hers?

Why is Gravity Falls so weird? What else is out there in the woods? Are there vampires? Werewolves? Other hunky supernatural creatures she can sink her teeth into?

What are her parents doing right now? Is she a good person? Were all those summer romances a bad idea?

Is Dipper OK? Who is the Author?

Is she a good person?  

“What does Bill want? What is he?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer.” He reaches into a cabinet and hands her a manila folder labeled The Cipher File, stamped in blood-red ink. “No one knows for sure. Accounts differ of his true motivations and origins. I know he's older than our galaxy and far more twisted.”

She flips open the folder, making a quick scan of the words. She settles on a folded piece of parchment that opens up to reveal a diagram of Bill’s varying stages of corporeality, from their world all the way to the Nightmare Realm. “Without a physical form, he can only project himself into our thoughts through the Mindscape.”

Ford shakes his head. “But that isn’t enough for a being like Bill Cipher. He’s been searching for a way into our reality for eons, with the sole purpose of unleashing unbridled chaos the way only he can. The portal was his magnum opus, his way of turning our reality into his very own Nightmare Realm.”

She folds the paper back up and sets the folder on her lap. “But… you built that portal. Why?”

“He tricked me. It's the biggest regret of my life.” Ford rises and heads over to one end of the room. Without any warning, he yanks a sheet from the wall, slightly yellowed from age, and reveals a series of tapestries, similarly torn and blackened like the canvas from before. Illustrations of Bill line nearly every square inch of the room, meticulously and faithfully hand-woven. Unfortunately, Mabel’s got to give it up for the craftsmanship.

“Bill wasn't always my enemy, Mabel. I used to think he was my friend. Long, long ago.”

He pinches his upper nose between two fingers and begins to pace. “I had hit a roadblock in my investigation of Gravity Falls. Until I found some mysterious writing in a cave. Ancient incantations about a being with answers. It warned me not to read them, but I was desperate. I read the inscription aloud. But nothing happened. Until later that afternoon, when I had the most peculiar dream.”

Bill’s eye seems to stare directly into Ford’s — the tapestries menacing, twin flames erupting from each of his hands. Ford blinks up at them. “He told me he was a muse. That he chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire. What a fool I was. Blinded by his flattery and games. He became my research assistant. He was free to move in and out of my mind and body as he pleased. We were partners.

“When he told me that I could complete my research by building a gateway to other worlds, I trusted him. He said this was the way genius happened, with a little help from a friend. It seemed that I was on the verge of my greatest achievement. Until my partner got a glimpse of Bill's true plans.

“I’d been betrayed. I shut the portal down. I had to hide my instructions — my journals — so no one could ever finish Bill's work. But Bill's been waiting for the gateway to reopen ever since. All he needs is for that portal to restart, to slip into our dimension and take hold. To Bill, it's just a game, but to us, it would mean the end of our world.”

Mabel gulps. “Oh, man.”

“Yes. Oh, man, indeed.”

He heads back to his seat, pacing forgotten, and sits directly in front of her. “I know it doesn’t excuse my actions, Mabel, but I hope this at least explains my hesitance to reopen the portal.”

“Yeah,” she says lamely. She just wishes she’d known all this sooner. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to convince him, but she’s beaten Bill before, right? Outsmarted him? Who’s to say she can’t do it again?

“But the new and improved portal wouldn’t give Bill a way in, would it?”

Ford shakes his head. “It wouldn’t, if constructed properly. But that won’t stop Bill from trying to interfere any way he could. He'd try any dirty trick in the book. Possession. Manipulation. Bribery.”

Silence settles over them like oil on water, suffocating and thick. “Mabel,” he starts, a shudder passing through him once more. “Wendy said Bill’s been… tormenting you this summer. I need to know: has he made himself known in any way since the portal? Said anything to you? Offered any deals?”

“No,” she says, the lie quickly slipping out, surprising even herself. “But it’s pretty much been radio silence ever since…”

She trails off, suddenly unsure if even she cares to talk about it. Maybe Forbidden Topics stay forbidden for a reason. Maybe not bringing it up wasn’t just to protect Dipper’s feelings after all.

Maybe she’s been protecting herself, too.

“Since?”

When she doesn’t respond, twisting her fingers, he tries again. “Mabel?”

She winces. “Do you have the third journal on you?”

He’s not really sure what he’s looking at, at first. 

His lab has cleared out by now, Wendy and Soos and the Shack’s tourists all long gone, the bulb over the dining table the only visible light in the entire house. Ford watches as his great-niece takes a seat, twin cans of Pitt Cola sitting between them, and expertly flips his third journal open to a very specific page.

It’s all unclear, at first, but thirty odd years ago he trained himself to find those yellow eyes and slitted pupils with practiced ease. He finds them as easily as he finds air to fill his lungs. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been colored in with lemon and black licorice scented markers, respectively. He’d know those eyes anywhere. 

He takes the journal in both hands and drinks in the words, the image, the hastily scribbled note taped to the other page. Dread quickly overtakes him.

There’s that face again. His great-nephew’s. The resemblance is more than striking this time. There’s no denying it anymore, no distancing himself from it or saving himself from the pain of witnessing history repeating itself. It’s not his tree that the apple fell from, but the fruit might as well have rolled up the hill and found itself at the bottom of his anyway, only inches away from the decaying, withering bark.

That great-nephew of yours sure takes after you. He even makes for a great puppet on this side of the portal!

Mabel’s been speaking, he realizes, only he’s missed about half of it. “—and Dipper’s usually pretty skeptical. Bill caught him at his worst. He didn’t know what Bill meant when he asked for a puppet until it was too late.”

Her eyes join his over on the other page, transfixed by that damn note. “Most of the time, Dipper’s too smart for his own good, and, yeah, Bill tricked him, but I think his quick thinking really saved him this time. If he hadn’t figured out that he could possess one of my sock puppets…”

It takes every last ounce of Ford’s resolve not to immediately tear out the note and rip it to shreds. He thinks of a series of sticky note messages written back and forth, one set a frantic scrawl, triangle-dotted punctuation marks posited at the end of thinly veiled threats, and clenches his fists.

“Do you think Bill actually would’ve done that, Great Uncle Ford?”

That? Throwing Dipper’s body off the water tower and framing it as a suicide? Threatening Mabel with the same and possibly even succeeding by luring her into making a deal to save her twin posthumously?

Likely. He still recalls not being able to remember his own name, clawing at the corners of his brain to try to scrape it up, Bill severing neural pathways that were never meant to be touched. He remembers the terror of coming to on the roof of his lab, bloodied knuckles freezing over as his figure swayed with exhaustion, wondering when Bill would finally grow tired of the games and throw him off of it.

“Bill is capable of many terrible things, Mabel. You were lucky to stop him when you did.”

Mabel frowns. “What did he want from us? I mean, why Dipper?”

Ford has similar questions. He also has answers. Some helpful, some…not. It probably wouldn’t do Mabel any good if he told her that Bill might very well have done this just to spite him.

But if Bill was thinking strategically, planning for the day, then that’s another thing entirely.

“It’s difficult to say. How Bill’s mind operates is one of the greater mysteries of my time. But my best guess is that Dipper’s curiosity surrounding my existence and the secrets of this town made him a threat. If Bill thought for a second that Dipper might stand in the way of the portal opening, then he would have taken any measure possible to keep him from finding out the truth and interfering.”

Mabel fidgets with a short piece of hair jutting out of the side of her head, curling it around her index finger as she chews on her lip. The reaction doesn’t particularly surprise him. From what he’s gathered, that was exactly what Dipper tried to do. 

Smart boy. It’s hard not to feel some sort of pride for this nephew he doesn’t know. Ford wishes he’d been more like that when he was young. More skeptical. More committed to the truth.

Still, he’s let them both down, and looking at this single entry is proof enough of that. He could have killed them both this summer without stepping a single foot through the portal.

It’s why he’s decided to seal the rift away — both physically and mentally. He promised Mabel no more secrets, but this is different, he decides. 

He has the fate of the world locked away in his basement, a thin glass receptacle the only thing separating reality from never-ending chaos. Though they may be on the front lines, it’s not just his family’s fates at risk.

Mabel will be safer not knowing. She’d be safer five-hundred and something miles away, back in Piedmont, but if she’s going to spend her days down in the basement, working on an interdimensional gateway at just thirteen years old, he figures some distance is permitted. Distance from the world-ending orb locked away in a flimsy case just beneath their feet. 

He clears his throat. Those scented marker colored eyes keep piercing his, and he finds that he has to look away to maintain his composure. “This was recent?”

Mabel looks away too, glaring at the base of her soda can. “About a week before you got here.”

“How did you beat him?” He somehow doubts there was a metal plate involved. Mabel seems loyal enough to equip whatever tools she has at her disposal to help her twin, but he thinks even a free spirit like Mabel would draw the line at at-home brain surgery.

She flicks the aluminum can and shrugs her shoulders slightly. “Dipper was pretty exhausted trying to figure out the code to the laptop. He hadn’t slept in days. That, and Bill really messed with his body.

“There were tickles involved. Pretty sure we just tired him out. I mean, Dipper's body wasn’t even a comfortable place for Dipper when he got it back.”

Ford blinks. Bill never willingly left his body when he’d been at the end of his rope, fatigued beyond comprehension and falling apart at the seams. Nor was he ever able to force him out. But he also never found his soul ripped out of his body completely, left to float around in the Mindscape while Bill took his body on a joyride. 

Frankly, the idea sounds absurd. Violating — in an entirely new and twisted way.

Excruciating, even.

He’s more familiar with that sensation of falling asleep, only to wake up and find himself somewhere altogether different, his body worn and damaged in ways he couldn’t remember, could only ever imagine.

“I’m sorry, Mabel. This was entirely my doing.” He forces himself to look down at the drawing once more. “I was the one who brought Bill into this world. And beyond that, I should have left better warnings, taken better care to hide my journals somewhere no one could find them.”

Mabel perks up a little at that. “No way, Great Uncle Ford. Dipper and I would have been toast long before Bill showed up without that journal. You saved us more times than I can count.”

“Really?”

Mabel nods. “Yeah! I mean, sure, we got into plenty of journal-related misadventures, too, but half the creatures in that book we would’ve gone toe-to-toe with anyway. Only, without the journal, Dipper and I would’ve had to get a lot more creative.”

Ford huffs a laugh, remembering something he’d seen scribbled on one of his prior entries. “You mean more creative than…” He runs his finger along the pages until he settles on one of his first entries: Gravity Falls’ gnome population. “…leaf blowers?”

“Ugh. Don’t get me started.” She shakes her head with distaste, cringing. “But that’s a good example. The gnomes probably would’ve ended up forcing me to marry them and be their gnome queen if that journal hadn’t gotten Dipper all riled up about spookums and scareums enough to come after me.”

“Sorry, did you say their gnome queen?” Ford sputters. “Was Stanley looking after you kids at all this summer?”

She waves it off. “What Grunkle Stan doesn’t know won't hurt him.”

“Well, gnome nuptials aside,” he says, moving on from that horrifying piece of information. “You kids never should have gotten this close to Bill in the first place. This could have ended very badly. Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t.”

Mabel gulps, her eyes widening slightly as she takes in the ever-interesting table. “Yeah. I kinda am too.”

He studies her for a moment, unable to make out anything as clearly as he can make out her obvious guilt for the situation. Maybe for the multiple other situations they’ve found themselves in, too. 

He shuts the journal with a thud, splaying his hand out over the cover. He’s unwilling to let her give that entry another passing glance. She’s probably tortured herself with what-ifs enough, exhausted every possible outcome.

Mabel’s head jerks up at the noise. She takes a few seconds to compose herself before she asks, “Did you mean what you said earlier? Do you really think Stan and Dipper could’ve escaped Bill’s dimension?”

He isn’t sure, but he thinks Bill would do a lot more than goad him with hypotheticals if he actually had Dipper and Stan. Bill’s not above playing mind games, but he’s also not one to conceal a winning hand when he has one.

“It’s a possibility. A very good possibility. The Nightmare Realm is unstable, and when I left it Bill was… preoccupied. It would have been relatively easy for them to travel through any of the wormholes that were undoubtedly opening at the time.”

He pulls the journal back into his coat and gazes up at the ceiling in thought. The wallpaper is practically peeling off the walls. “The real question is where could they be? The possibilities are infinite.”

“But we can find them, right?”

“For this to work, they would have to be together. If they're separated—” 

He pauses, careful with his words for once. “If one of them is in a different dimension…”

“No, no way,” Mabel says, quick to interrupt. “They won't be. Stan wouldn't leave Dipper.”

“What about your brother?”

“What about him?”

He drums his fingers on the table. “Well, you said he wouldn't leave Dipper. Is there any chance your brother would leave Stanley?”

Mabel shakes her head resolutely, as if the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. "No. No way. I mean, Dipper was pretty upset with Stan that day. He didn't trust him, and he wanted me to press the shutdown button, but I—"

She gulps. "But he loves Stan. And Stan loves us. I'm sure they worked it out. All Dipper wanted was the truth, anyway. I'm sure Stan explained everything, same as you."

“You sound so sure.”

“Yeah, well… It's Stan.”

Ford hums, mulling it over. Those two words have carried a different weight for him over the years. There was a time, long ago, when he’d held the same confidence in his twin. 

He remembers those years when his brother felt like another piece of him, a part of his soul that could never be severed. He remembers sprinting across the beach, small fragments of glass poking the bottoms of his calloused feet, and practically vibrating with excitement at meeting Stanley at the rusty swing set after he’d finished helping his Pa in the shop.

‘It’s Stan!’ he’d think, peeking his head down at the bottom bunk, hanging over the ledge, frames slightly askew on the bridge of his nose. At two in the morning, he’d often still be wearing his glasses, a mystery book or two lying face down on his wrinkled covers. 

It’s Stan. He would tell him anything. He did tell him everything. Oftentimes, he found himself excited at the prospect of telling him every last one of the thoughts that buzzed around in his head.

But now?

He clears his throat. “Good, then. So long as they’re together we should be able to calibrate the portal to open a gateway to whatever dimension they’re in. There are many factors we’ll have to consider: any potential dimension-hopping, coordinates of entry…”

“And Bill?” Mabel interrupts, balling her fists in her oversized sleeves. “You said there are other ways to protect ourselves from Bill, right? What are they?”

A-ha. Smart girl. “Yes,” he says with a sheepish smile. “That will have to take precedence. There’s one other way to shield us from his mental tricks. A way to Bill-proof the Shack itself.”

He racks his brain for the memory. “Last I checked, it will take moonstones, some mercury, and…unicorn hair.” He groans, always somehow managing to forget that last part.

Mabel sits up straight, nearly knocking over her soda with her balled sweater hands. “Sorry, did you just say unicorns?”

“Yes, but it's practically hopeless. Unicorns reside deep within an enchanted glade, and their hairs can only be obtained by a pure good-hearted person who goes on a magical quest to find them.”

He looks up, startled by Mabel's sudden silence, her breath catching. “Uh, Mabel, dear?” he asks, testing the waters.

He doesn't think he imagines it when his niece lights up, this sudden, new energy a stark contrast to the dullness hanging over her like a dark cloud, snuffing out her spark. It seems to clear for a moment, letting in a rare ray of light.

The corners of her lips curve upward, almost suspiciously-so. “Oh, we’re getting that hair.”

Chapter Text

Dipper reaches for the journal in his vest and is quickly reminded of the fact that he no longer has either. 

Well, he does have his vest, but it’s buried beneath his other jacket and covered with dried blood and soot. He’s toyed with the idea of tearing it apart and using the fabric as rags or something practical like that, but he figures he’d just miss it when he got back to Gravity Falls.

A sudden laugh bubbles out of him at the thought, escaping as a puff of air out of his sand-coated nostrils, and he quickly muffles it with the thick sleeve of his shirt.

Returning to Gravity Falls. The thought is both morbid and comedic, given he’s sitting in the backseat of a four-armed alien’s four-door sedan about a trillion miles from home. He wonders how long he’ll be able to convince himself that there might ever be anything other than this.

How long can he justify clinging onto mementos of a past he can never return to? How long till he dumps his vest and all other evidence of his past life into some dumpster somewhere? 

How long until all he has left are memories?

Dipper sighs. He’s had a lot of time to think about pointless stuff like alien dumpsters and vests — mainly because they've passed about ten dumpsters on their way into the city, and he's starting to feel a little chilly with the air conditioning blasting as high as it is. It’s not so easy acclimating to the abrupt shift in temperature after spending days in the thick desert heat.

He takes a moment to study the alien in the front seat and finds himself distracted instead by the singular button he keeps pressing near the radio, the stations chosen at random with every click. Eventually, the man seems to grow frustrated with it and lowers the volume several notches, the backseat speaker going from being heavily bass-boosted to lightly thumping against the side of Dipper’s calf.

Stan’s eyes are anywhere but the front seat. From this angle, Dipper has the perfect view of the back of his fezless head, his great-uncle’s face practically smushed up against the side window. He can’t really blame him. There’s a sea of colors in the outlandish billboards and highway markers that they pass by along this windy, desolate desert road, and it’s the only sign of life either one of them has seen in days.

He rests one of his palms over his abdomen, wincing at the sharp ache as it slams into him again. The promise of food and water is only miles away now, and his stomach won’t let him forget it. 

It’s funny, almost, how hope makes the present pain worse. 

A few more minutes speed by before the man pulls over on the side of a busy road, rolling up along the curb like he’s a taxi driver and not just some guy who flipped a coin and wound up chauffeuring two aimless drifters into a bustling metropolis. He presses the full weight of his foot against the brake and the car jerks to a stop. 

Stan straightens up in his seat, shifty eyes flicking toward the front seat, and Dipper takes it as his cue to start gathering his things. He peels himself out of his seat and follows Stan out of the car, his uncle having to duck significantly to avoid smacking his head against the roof. Dipper cringes at the sand they managed to leave behind on the leather interior and makes short work of brushing it off his seat.

When the sand is sufficiently strewn around, he stretches his back and adjusts the straps of his bag to sit more firmly atop his shoulders. “Thank you, uh…” he starts, cringing again at the hoarseness of his voice. “I don’t think we got your name. Sorry.”

“Tavarious,” the man says simply, tapping his steering wheel. “And, it’s really no problem at all. This is where I’m meant to be.”

Whatever that means. He nods once, too lethargic to really care much anyway. “Dipper.”

He nods. “And you are?” he asks Stan.

“Uh. Count Lionel,” he says quickly, coughing loudly to drown out Dipper’s quick, startled burst of laughter.

Tavarious’ eyebrows pinch together as he resumes his tapping, all twenty fingers occupied with the motion. “Nice to meet you Dipper. Count. It’s always nice seeing some new faces around here,” he says, pulling a phone-shaped device out of his pocket and attaching it to his dash.

He taps at it, pulling up an application that proceeds to select his next destination at random, coordinates flickering wildly on screen. 

He shifts the car back into drive and bids them farewell with a two-out-of-four-armed wave. “Now, try not to spend all your winnings in one place!”

Dipper feels himself nod as the car peels out, and he takes a half-step back onto the curb once all that’s left of Tavarious is the smell of burnt rubber and a pair of skid marks on the hot asphalt. 

“Uh…”

Stan ushers him further away from the street with a palm that rests on the square of his back. “Yeah. No idea what just happened there, kid.”

“Count Lionel?”

“Don’t ask.”

Dipper nods and turns on his heel, his curiosity no match for the sight beholding him now. Stan follows suit and gawks up at the gold-encrusted skyrise building along with him, tilting his head backward to observe the many floors, windows on windows littering every side of it. 

It stretches up for what looks like miles — far up into the yellowed break of day.

When he looks back over, the first thing he notices is Stan’s starstruck eyes, sparkling even more than the frankly gaudy sign that’s perched above the revolving glass doors.

Dipper’s translator implant helps him understand it as The House of Luck.

A hand comes to rest on the crown of his head. “Sweet Moses…”

On the day of his 13th birthday, Dipper Pines finds himself seated in front of a slot machine.

Only, he doesn’t know it’s his birthday. Nor does he recognize the significance of turning thirteen — an infamously unlucky number — in the House of Luck of all places. A place that very famously does not have a thirteenth floor or any thirteenth rooms.

All of that is lost on him. Lost, like the fifty Lottocron dollars he just fed into this machine and promptly sacrificed with just a few presses of some stupid red button. He barely finds it in himself to resist smashing it so hard it could never hope to be pressed again.

He’s too busy letting the ‘zero credits remaining’ pop-up burn a hole through his retinas to notice Stan saunter up from the blackjack table he abandoned him to find not that long ago. When he does, he’s unsurprised to find a devilishly devious grin stretching across his grunkle’s face as he leans up against the side of the slot machine, his scarf momentarily pooling around his neck.

Stan peeks his head around the side, undoubtedly trying to check out Dipper’s winnings. Or lack thereof. “Hey, how we doin’ over here, Soprano?”

Dipper sinks into the chair and tries to make himself smaller. “You know I don’t understand your old person references, Grunkle Stan.”

“Old person references? That show ended in ‘07, kid, who’re you calling old?”

Dipper shrugs as Stan continues to peek over at the screen, as if he can’t hear the obnoxious buzzer noise that sounds every few seconds, goading Dipper into putting more of their hard-earned dollars into the machine.

He decides to say it before Stan can. “I suck.”

“Eh, these things are meant to bleed you dry. Don’t sweat it. We’ll get the big bucks at the tables.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Does that mean you won?”

“Of course I did. But I don’t know if that’s saying much. There was an honest to god five-year-old at that table.”

Stan makes a lukewarm effort to lower his voice, resulting in more of an obnoxiously loud whisper than anything. “That, and I was countin’ cards.”

Dipper hisses. “God, Stan, shh. You’re gonna get us kicked out.”

He turns over his shoulder and quickly scouts their surroundings, deflating slightly once it’s clear that no one is around to report them and have them forcibly removed from the only stable shelter they’ve had in weeks. In fact, the only person somewhat within earshot is hopelessly transfixed by his own game, pausing occasionally to flip a coin to decide if he should continue placing bets.

Dipper blinks. This dimension’s whole thing is making his head spin. 

“So you’re starting to like this place? Don’t tell me the gambling addiction’s genetic.”

“No. Still hate it here,” Dipper says matter-of-factly. He leans back in the rigid seat and breathes in the stench of cigarette smoke and regret. It seems to cling onto every square inch of this place. “But I'm pretty into having a roof over my head.”

“Fair enough, kid,” Stan says, punctuating the words with two taps against the side of the machine. “Now, come on, I wanna show you something.”

Dipper nods. He doesn’t need any more convincing than that, all too happy to let Stan drag him away from the vicious dopamine extractor he’s parked himself in front of for the better half of an hour. He hops out of his seat and trails closely behind as they begin to venture deep into the darkened heart of the casino. 

In the smoke-filled, drunken haze, he squeezes past a woman in tears, hollering as her slot machine sounds an alarm and a Rolodex of numbers spins wildly on screen. He hardly even blinks at the scene, far too used to loud exclamations and the grating, artificial jangle of falling coins to pay it any real attention. 

He’s built up a slight tolerance to it all after three days and two nights, every second not spent sleeping or eating spent spending money in order to win more money that they can spend on even more days and nights they’ll spend spending.

Okay, so maybe he’s not all that used to it. But can anyone really blame him? He never expected his life to come to this. He’s willing to bet no one did.

Even Mabel’s Magic 8 Ball (which he has on several occasions been semi-convinced might actually be capable of divination) failed to foresee that he and his great-uncle would become career gamblers this summer when it told them not to leave Gravity Falls.

Well, its exact words were ‘Reply hazy, try again,’ followed by ‘My sources say no’ after another shake, but still. This dimension feels like it exists solely to test his patience. Honestly, he’s pretty proud of the way he’s been able to detach himself from the whole thing. 

Stan slows his pace, checking over his shoulder to make sure he’s close behind, and Dipper hurries to meet him. He follows him straight up to the front of a large wheel, the word Roulette a bright red, menacing glow that threatens to burn a hole in his pocket already.

Stan fishes for cash in the depths of his own pocket as Dipper inches closer to the machine. He tracks the white ball inside the glass chamber and grows a little dizzy watching it spin and spin and spin.

“This isn’t a table,” he points out.

“No,” Stan agrees, pulling out a crumpled bill. “But it’s close enough. Pick a color.”

Dipper snorts. He can’t be serious. “What?”

“What, you need some new hearing aids too? I said pick a color.”

He looks up at the wheel again and feels his brain begin to short-circuit. “I don’t know, Stan. I have terrible luck. And what’d you make at that table, anyway? You sure you want me to lose it all now?”

Stan takes a seat in front of the machine and tugs at the scarf around his neck. He pulls it up to conceal half of his smug face. “Jeez, kid, fine. Pick a color, and I’ll pick the other one.”

Dipper squints at him. He’s pretty sure that still counts as choosing, but entertaining Stan in this dimension has become par for the course. 

This place is like heaven on Earth for him. Too bad the distance between them and actual Earth is infinite and uncountable. Probably.

Dipper gives in with a heavy sigh — because of course he does — and begins to make some quick calculations in his head. With eighteen black and red spaces, and two green ones, his odds are slightly less than fifty-fifty if he places a bet on colors alone.

Slightly less than fifty-fifty are fine odds. Better than if he chooses some number or row at random.

“Alright. Red, I guess,” he says as he steps behind Stan’s chair, glaring down at the betting screen. He looks back up at the glass-encased roulette wheel and promptly chokes on his next breath when he sees Stan put eighty whole Lottocron dollars on black out of the corner of his eye.

“Stan!” He surges forward, splayed out hand ready to stop him, but he’s too late. All he can do is watch with bated breath as the orb shoots across the spaces, his clammy hands gripping the back of the chair.

After several painfully long seconds, the ball comes to a stop and buzzes in place as it settles on slot thirteen. 

Black. Stan leans forward to get a closer look and bellows a hearty laugh. 

“Nice one, kiddo! You got it!” He scratches the back of his neck. “Well… kinda.”

Dipper releases an exhale he didn’t know he was holding in and sags the full weight of his body against the seat. “No. Not kinda. I didn’t get it. We would’ve just been out eighty bucks.”

“And that’s exactly why we didn’t pick red. Now we’re up eighty.” His eyes flood with greed as he turns back toward the screen. He claps once and rubs his palms together. “Alright, champ. Pick another.”

Dipper shakes his head. Once is enough. He’s putting his foot down. “Stan—”

“Relax, Dip. Just choose.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Red.”

“Black it is,” Stan says as he places another bet, putting another full eighty on black. 

They watch the ball skid around in the chamber once more, and it’s no real surprise when it settles in place on slot number four. Black.

Stan claps him on the back, and Dipper practically jumps out of his skin at the unexpected contact. “Alright, now we’re talking! Not bad, kid.”

He shakes his head, slowly but surely easing into the flow of the game. “Okay. It really has to be red this time, right? So I’ll pick black and you pick red.”

“Nope. That’s cheating. What do you think it is?”

“Red. It’s gotta be.”

“Then I’m going black. Double or nothing this time.”

“Stan, are you serious—?”

He is. Another opposite bet and the ball goes soaring. This time, it comes to a screeching halt on six black.

Dipper stares at the ball for several painful seconds before Stan simply shrugs. “I can’t even be mad at this. You’re making us some serious money, kid.”

Dipper chews on his cheek. “One more?”

“Alright. Let’s hear it.”

“Black.”

Another eighty on the line. The ball shoots across the wheel. 

Nine. Red.

His shoulders drop. There’s unlucky and then there’s this. “This is humbling,” he deadpans.

“Well, getting it wrong that many times has to be some kind of record, so there’s that, at least.”

He’s not sure how that’s supposed to make him feel any better. “Not funny.”

“Hey, it’s not like we’re actually losing anything. Maybe you’re not unlucky. You’ve just got to turn that luck around.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah? How?”

“Walk me through your process first. What’s going on in your head?”

“What? I don’t have a process,” he says, sadly not all that shocked to learn that Stan might have some sort of secret gambling process. “But statistically speaking—”

Stan groans and snaps twice. “This is a game of chance, Dipper. Forget the statistics. What's your gut sayin’?”

He rolls his eyes. “Recently? I’m starving, mostly.”

“Hey,” he protests. “I’ve been feeding you. You’re fed.”

Dipper huffs a laugh. Stan isn’t wrong there. The second they shoved their way through those revolving casino doors, they became vultures. Dipper knew his great-uncle meant business when they raced past a poker table and he hadn’t so much as glanced in its direction.

He nearly cried real tears when he ate his first meal that wasn’t gritty ration bar paste. 

But all of this could be gone in a heartbeat. He knows how fast things can change out here, like shifting odds, constantly resetting themselves. Their entire future might as well be riding on a coin toss. Or a haphazardly placed roulette bet. 

“Yeah, well, neither one of us will be if you let me place the bets for real.”

Stan pokes at his forehead, disrupting the brown tufts of hair that fall haphazardly over his birthmark, freshly washed with casino shampoo and conditioner. It at least beats the 3-in-1 stuff that Mabel always gets on him for using back home. “Forget the betting, kid. You need to learn how to trust your gut. You’re stuck in that big head of yours too much. That’s your problem.”

“What if my gut isn’t telling me anything?”

“It is. You’re just not listening.”

Dipper scoffs. Trust his gut?

For the record, Dipper trusts a lot of things. Mabel mostly, but also his own judgment. He can think himself out of situations most twelve-year-olds only encounter in their wildest dreams. 

He knows he’s smart. He knows he’s capable when he wants to be. 

And, while his brain tends to create about as many problems for him as it does solutions, he’s pretty positive his gut didn’t make any major contributions when he was trying to string together the identity of the author. Or when he spent entire nights of his life trying to figure out the code to the laptop. 

It also didn’t have much to say when he decided to make a deal with Bill. Or when he was choosing whether or not to trust Stan.

Well, maybe that last part isn't entirely true. 

Maybe there was an inkling of something more innate than logic when the portal was activated, a tiny part of him deep down that might have been trying to tell him something that his brain wasn’t. 

It might have even been screaming.

“It’s about confidence, kid,” Stan presses on. “Knowing when to tell your brain to shut up and let intuition take over.”

There’s an idea. “I don’t know if my brain’s capable of shutting up.”

In fact, his brain hasn’t shut up since the days before his first panic attack. He had been something like six years old, and Mabel had been rushed to the hospital after eating three whole sheets of scratch-and-sniff stickers.

Stan chuckles. “Yeah, maybe not completely. But I know you can start trusting yourself more. It might not have seemed like it, kid, but I was payin’ some attention this summer. I know the kinds of things you and your sister are capable of. 

“You’ve got all the right pieces, Dipper, I’ve seen it. You just gotta put the puzzle together or whatever.”

Dipper blinks. He feels a sudden pang in his gut, funnily enough, as he makes sense of Stan’s words. 

“Nice metaphor.”

“Thanks, it felt clunky, but you get the idea,” he says, his hallmark Mr. Mystery bravado slipping for just a moment. “Confidence, kid. Take it from me, you just gotta fake it till it feels natural.”

“You just dropping life advice at random now, old man?” he jokes, dutifully ignoring the vulnerability that’s clawing at his ribcage like a starving, caged cat — leaving him feeling raw and exposed more often than not these days.

Stan flicks his head in the direction of the wheel. “Kid, you keep winnin’ us big bucks like that and I’ll be a damn fortune cookie.”

“Ugh, no, anything but that,” Dipper groans. “I hate the ones that tell me what to do. Whatever happened to the fortune-telling part of fortune cookies?”

Stan laughs and Dipper feels a smile begin to form. He guesses some vulnerability is warranted. “But, um…thanks. I think I needed to hear that.”

“No problem, Dip.” He pokes his shoulder. “Now quit stalling and pick another one.”

He stares at the wheel again. This time, he lets the warm fuzzy feeling he feels in his gut guide his choice. 

There’s no pressure here.

Well, there’s some pressure. There’s always pressure. There’s always winning and losing and Dipper’s pretty sure he’ll always find himself stuck with the latter.

But there’s some comfort in the randomness. There’s nothing he can do to change it, so maybe there’s no sense trying to control it, either.

Maybe it’s red. Maybe it’s black.

Or maybe it’s neither. 

“Green. Double zero.”

Stan barks a laugh, his grin large. “Sure, why not?”

He throws another eighty down, but this time he selects Dipper’s choice, settling back in the ratty, pleather seat like he owns the place.

“Wait,” Dipper says before he can confirm the bet. Their odds are less than six percent now. “Are you sure, Grunkle Stan?”

Stan meets him with an expression that he can’t make heads or tails of before turning back toward the machine. Dipper cringes as he watches the numbers tick down and the wheel begin to spin.

There’s a stretch of silence as it ticks. Then, the screen flashes and their winnings overtake the screen, the ball settling in place one final time.

Double zero. Green. Thirty-five times their bet. 

Stan claps him on the shoulder once more, and Dipper thinks maybe it’s not too late for a reversal of fate.

Mabel,

I’m writing this to you from a hotel room in an actual alien casino. Well, I guess Stan and I would be considered the aliens in this dimension, but you get what I mean.

I think you would’ve liked to see all this. Under different circumstances, obviously. But then again, you’ve always been better at adapting to things in your own way. Finding the bright side when it feels like there isn’t one.

I’ve been trying. I really have. I never thought so before, but I think maybe I’ve got some of that too, deep down. I mean, we’re twins after all, right? Made of the same stuff?

I don’t know. It might be too late for me to become an optimist. But I feel it sometimes. I think about stuff you’d tell me if you were here, and it helps. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Anyway, hey, guess what? All those forced family fun poker nights this summer actually ended up paying off. We’ve spent the past few days gambling pretty much nonstop so we can afford to keep staying here. We made enough for the rest of the week, if not longer. I’m kind of to thank for that. Turns out I’m not half bad at Roulette.

These past few weeks have been awful rough. But don’t worry too much, things are getting better. It’s been nice sleeping in an actual bed again. I never thought I’d miss that rock-hard mattress in the attic so much. I even miss all those times we’d accidentally fall asleep on the living room floor watching one of Stan’s horrible old-timey movies.

Oh, Stan taught me how to shoot a gun. A real, actual gun. Can you believe it? I thought I would end up shooting my hand off or something, but it ended up being fine. Stan’s a surprisingly okay teacher. He tries too.

It’s nice having him here. I think I’ve learned more about him these past few weeks than I did all summer. Did you know he sometimes talks in his sleep? He also has a twin brother we never knew about, but obviously you know that now. It’s weird not being able to talk to you about that. The author of the journals is our great-uncle…

Whenever you end up reading this I’m sure we’ll have a good laugh about some of this. The multiverse is weird. Especially this dimension. Yesterday, Stan spent a whole hour teaching me how to rig a dice roll, and I almost pulled out a piece of paper and started taking notes. The crazy thing is that it made perfect sense to me. Knowing something like that might just save our lives out here.

Life feels different right now. The stakes are higher.

I wonder what we’d be doing if none of this ever happened. What week is it? What month is it?! Would we even still be in Gravity Falls? Where are you??

I miss you. I don’t really know what to do about that. I don’t really know what to do about anything, but especially, especially that. I miss you so much it hurts.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this if you’re never gonna

Dipper drops his pen.

The kid perches off the side of the bed, two fists rubbing furiously at his eyes, still heavy with sleep.

They’re the same fists that woke Stan up something like ten minutes ago with a sudden assault on his ribcage, Dipper jolting himself out of some nightmare that he’s currently refusing to talk about.

It’s a morning like any other.

A couple of nights ago though, Stan found himself waking to a different kind of confusion altogether. It was his first time waking up in an actual, honest to god bed after weeks of sleeping on rocks and dirt — all proving detrimental to the state of his aging back — and he’d found himself coated in sand, having been too exhausted from their days in the desert to shower or change before crashing. 

He was even still wearing his boots, for Moses’ sake, tangled up in the linens and painting the white fibers with the colors of weeks and weeks of interdimensional travel. 

But he’d had a stomach full of cheap casino bar food and enough water to kill a full-grown horse, and that’s more than he could’ve said before. That, and there was a twelve or thirteen-year-old kid sleeping next to him, soft inhalations sounding less strained than they had the night prior in the desert heat.

So maybe some discomfort wasn’t the worst possible thing. Not even now, sitting in a plush hotel chair with bruised ribs and slight irritation at Dipper’s avoidance of talking about the things that are bothering him. 

Maybe it’s something he can get used to.

The kid breaks him from his thoughts, lowering his bony fists from his eye sockets. “So, what’s the plan today?”

Stan raises a brow. “Plan?”

Dipper shrugs, avoiding direct eye contact. “Yeah. We have enough to stay here for a while, don’t we?” he asks, though it’s phrased more like a plea than a question. “Were you planning on betting more today, or—“

“We can take a break, kid,” Stan interrupts, quick to reassure him. To be honest, the whole thing is starting to wear thin for him too. There’s a reason he didn’t stay in Atlantic City long. “I think we’ve earned it.”

“Yeah,” Dipper agrees, sinking slightly with relief. “So, then what?”

Stan considers it. They haven’t had a day they could plan since they were back in Gravity Falls. The multiverse has proved far too unpredictable for that. “I don’t know. I didn’t really think that far ahead.”

“Me either,” Dipper admits, tapping his heels against the side of the bed. “It’s weird having nothing to do. I don’t think we’ve gone this long without something awful happening.”

Stan winces slightly, though he tries his best to hide it from the kid. He’s too familiar with the unusual not to feel at least a little bit nervous at Dipper flat-out jinxing them. 

But that’s just his brother and his weird, neurotic paranormal superstitions talking. He guesses reading his paranoid ramblings every day for thirty years straight has irreparably changed him in that way.

He shrugs the feeling off, not unlike the way he’d often turn a blind eye to all of the oddities in the thick Oregon wilderness, pretending the noises he’d hear in the bushes were just unusually rowdy squirrels. “We should take it easy. While we can.”

Dipper offers his own tight nod. Clearly whatever anxiety his nightmare left behind is still lingering, and it’s painfully obvious in the rigidness of his posture, his fists clutching the sheets. “Okay, but shouldn’t we also be figuring out a way to get home?”

If there is one, Stan thinks, immediately feeling guilty for it. He decides to ignore that feeling and shifts his attention over to the room service menu instead, laminated in cracked, worn plastic and lying atop the singular table in their room. He holds it two inches from his face and waits for his translator chip to begin making sense of the alien language it’s written in. 

It’s near-instantaneous, but it gives him a moment to figure out how to respond, at least. “Yeah, uh, we can do that, kid.”

He rereads the same breakfast option several times — trying to figure out what in the hell a Roasted Tun Nit is — until Dipper’s silence starts to feel a little less than comforting. 

Stan lowers the menu and finds himself met with the kid’s unimpressed glare. He’s got to hand it to him, it’s even fairly intimidating.

“What?” he defends, lowering the menu the rest of the way down to his lap.

“Why’d you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

Dipper shakes his head, brows pinched together. “Like it’s not going to happen.”

“That’s not how I meant it to sound,” he answers honestly. He really didn’t, even if he secretly is starting to feel that way, somewhere deep down. “I told you I’d find a way to bring us back, kid.”

“Okay,” Dipper says, some of the bite bleeding out of his tone, like venom from an open wound. “So, then what?”

Well, to be frank, Stan has no idea what they’d even be looking for. He’d thought he’d done his best with the wormhole gun, except it can’t actually send them anywhere they want to go and it’s no better to them now than a paperweight. All of his ideas have been completely useless up until this point.

He wouldn’t even know where to start. Is he just meant to ask random strangers if they’re familiar with interdimensional gateways? If it was that easy, he’d have tried that thirty years ago.

“I’m thinkin’ we give Ford some more time. It’s only been a couple of weeks. Maybe we just hold out a little longer.”

Dipper lets up on his grip around the sheets. “I think it’s been more like a month.”

“Well, that’s subjective, kid.”

“You really think they’re looking for us?” he asks, voice soft.

Stan nods once, choking up slightly before he can piece together why. “Sixer knows where that portal leads. He’d want to get us out,” he says, and then the reason behind the tightness in his throat is clear as day.

He glares back down at the menu, suddenly far too interested in those roasted tun nits to make proper conversation. But he finds it hard to take in the words, and his concentration quickly ebbs.

“I know my brother,” he finishes eventually, not too keen on leaving the kid unanswered these days.

There’s another beat of silence — a short stretch of time where Stan can feel Dipper’s eyes on him, quietly assessing. The physical space between them is large, but they’ve never been closer, Stan knows. And the kid is only growing smarter day by day. There’s no doubt in his mind that he can see right through Stan and his stupid, plastic shield.

“Why’d you never talk about him?” Dipper asks, hitting the nail head-on.

Stan peers up at him. Dipper’s feet are flat on the ground now, perched precariously off the edge of the bed. “What?”

“Ford.” The kid shifts somewhat nervously, but he doesn’t relent. “I mean, I guess I get why you kept the portal a secret, but you never mentioned you had another brother before. You could’ve told us that at least.”

Stan shrugs, half wondering whether or not this conversation is bound to lead to another argument. But he gets the feeling that it’s not what the kid’s aiming for this time. “What was I meant to do? I was supposed to be him, remember? As far as the U.S. government’s concerned, Stan Pines is dead.”

“Okay,” Dipper accepts easily. “But then why did our parents never mention you? I think I even asked once if there were any other twins in the family. No one ever mentioned a Stanley.”

He tries not to feel too strongly about that. It doesn’t really matter much to him, anyway. As far as he’s concerned, the extent of his family is currently divided between this room and the Mystery Shack. He doesn’t need anyone else’s approval. Certainly not the kids’ parents, with as many issues as they’ve clearly got themselves.

He also doesn’t feel like telling the kid that it’s likely no one would’ve mentioned him anyway — fake death or not. And that’s not even the really fucked up part. The fucked up part is that he can’t even blame them for it. 

It’s probably not the best idea to tell a couple of kids that they have a complete and utter failure of a great-uncle rotting in a motel somewhere, lying around in his own filth and waiting to die.

Hell, the Grim Reaper probably would’ve paid him a visit a long time ago had Ford never sent that postcard.

“I don’t know, kid. I don’t know about them. I just know I had to keep him a secret. It was the only way to make sure I could bring him back.”

“You convinced everyone that you were him.” The disbelief is apparent in his tone. “For thirty years?”

“Yep. I do a pretty good impression of my brother. Had them all fooled. It must be an identical twin thing. It’s like our superpower.”

“So you mean to tell me you were doing an impression of him all summer?” he asks with mock skepticism. “I don’t know, Grunkle Stan, I think Ford might’ve absorbed your half of the superpower in the womb.”

“Ha-ha, real funny.” He tosses the useless menu back onto the table, and it hits the surface with a loud slap. “The impression thing didn’t last long. After our parents went there was no one besides Shermie that really knew either one of us very well anyway. Ford never looked back after he went off to college, and I was off doing my own…thing. Extended family only really knew Ford as the reclusive genius with twelve PhDs and me as the screw-up.”

He shrugs, trying to distance himself from the sting of the memory, of looking down at his own closed casket. “All it took was showing up at my own funeral with a pair of six-fingered gloves with the extra finger stuffed and that was good enough for most of ‘em. I pretended real good around Mom and Shermie, but other than that, being Ford kind of meant whatever I wanted it to.”

Dipper frowns. “Grandpa Shermie never noticed?”

“Shermie wasn’t around much when we were kids,” he explains with a shrug, remembering the day they had all sat around the TV, waiting for them to start the Vietnam lottery draw, equally shocked and terrified when Shermie’s birthdate was called. 

Hell, he wonders if they’ve got something like that here in this dimension. 

“He was drafted around the time his girl got pregnant with your dad. By the time he got back, I was long gone. Probably off selling the first edition of the Stan-Vac. Growin’ up I hadn’t really seen him much outside of photographs. 

“Hell, kid, I think I’d seen more of your dad in the few months Ma’d taken after him than I had Shermie. Michael was a crier, I’ll tell you that.”

“Oh,” Dipper says, and Stan can practically hear the gears turning in his head. He’d often felt the same way when he was a kid, equal parts confused and enthralled by the stories of what came before him. “So, then what was Ford like? The real Ford.”

Stan huffs. There’s that curiosity again. He wonders where he was hiding it until now. Maybe he’d smothered it down, way down, right next to his guilt and nightmares and all things associated with that triangular spawn of Satan named Bill Cipher.

“You mean when we were kids?”

He shrugs, feigning casualness. It strikes Stan as ironic that he’s choosing to act indifferent about it now, despite his summer-long habit of threading together outlandish conspiracies in an attempt to gain even a mere glimpse of what the holy, mighty, and all-knowing Author’s life was like before. “I guess, yeah.”

“Uh, I don’t know. It’s hard explainin’ a person. He was…”

A giant nerd? A know-it-all? Simultaneously the thorn in his side and the tweezers that yanked it out?

Everything? 

Stan swallows roughly. He’s half-tempted to just put an end to the conversation now. Can he do that? Can he end a conversation?

“He was my brother, I don’t know, kid,” he says, unsure where exactly the defensiveness is coming from. 

But it seeps out of him all the same, and he thinks maybe it’s because he’s not sure anymore. Maybe because all he has left are distant memories, lost and wisping in the sails of ghost ships that drifted from the harbor ages ago.

Because who is Ford, anyway? Does he even know anymore? Can he claim to really, truly know his brother after everything he’s done? After everything he’s managed to fuck up?

After all the years he’s missed? After losing him?

He decides to shift course. “How’d you explain Mabel to me? If I never knew her?”

Dipper’s shoulders drop, yet a small smile manages to cling to his melancholic face. He lets the question hang in the air for a few moments. 

“Yeah, I guess it is kinda hard,” he says eventually. “I don’t know if there are enough words.”

He looks down, his smile fading as he fidgets with what sounds like a loose scrap of paper in his pocket. “She’s my best friend. Was Ford yours?”

Stan nods, frowning. “Yeah, kid. He was.”

It ain’t Vegas, but it’s something close.

The streets are just as packed and hectic, and the air has that same quality that makes everything feel as if it’s been steeped in the pungent, sharp odor of booze and smog. It seems to seep out through the cracks in the sidewalk, along with the small, persistent weeds that have somehow managed to rise from the concrete to bear witness to the light of day.

Stan steps on one of them as they make their way through the crowd, his face prickling with sweat beneath his scarf, trapping the heat inside. He’s never had to dodge these many limbs before either, but he guess it’s inevitable in a place where the dominant species has more arms and elbows than they probably know what to do with.

His poor, old, bruised ribs have taken more hits in the past twelve hours than they had in the entirety of his childhood boxing career.

Beside him, Dipper quickens his step, ducking beneath a large commercial ladder that juts out into the middle of the sidewalk. Construction is heavy in this part of town, and Stan watches the man at the highest rung of the ladder hang a comically large LED ‘happy hour’ sign on sparkling glass panes.

It has its desired effect on him, and he stops at the promise of food, his stomach growling as he slows his pace, waiting for Dipper to catch up.

“You hungry, kid?” he asks once the kid joins him at his side, glaring angrily back at the hunk of metal blocking the walkway.

He nods. They don’t really have much else to do, and Stan’s sure neither of them are eager to feel the sharp pangs of hunger return so soon. “Pretty much always. Why, you see a place?”

He flicks his head in the direction of the happy hour sign and leads them into the bar without much fanfare. 

And, sure, maybe taking his great-nephew to a bar probably isn’t something a responsible guardian should be doing, but he’s long past worrying about that kind of thing when Dipper has seen far worse than a couple of drunks and some greasy bar food in the past few weeks. What’s a bar in comparison to a literal hell-dimension, he thinks as he takes a seat at one of the high-top chairs, Dipper having to jump considerably to reach his own. 

Stan greets the bartender with a short nod and a half-assed wave — a sprightly, middle-aged woman with bouncy ringlets that kiss the sharp edges of her bony collarbones, all four of her eyes beady and black, like a shark’s.

“Is it alright if the kid sits here?” he asks, though he’s ready and willing to put up a fight if the answer is no. In his old age, he doesn’t plan on getting up for at least thirty minutes once he’s sat.

“Don’t see why not,” she answers dismissively, one cold shoulder poking up toward the ceiling with a shrug as she scrubs two pint-sized glasses dry, all four arms occupied with the task. Her tone confuses him just as much as it triggers that part of him that he prefers to keep hidden — the part that’s always ready to jump into a fight: verbal or otherwise. 

“What’s the drinking age here, anyway?” Stan jokes, mostly to diffuse his own tension.

Instead of a laugh, like he’s half expecting, she stops in her tracks, two white rags freezing in place on impeccably clean glasses, like twin flags of surrender. “Drinking… age?”

Oh. “Got it,” Stan says, clearing his throat, somewhat bewildered by the way Dipper perks up beside him. “Well, none for us, thanks. We quit. We’ll take two of your bubbliest sodas. On the rocks. And two plates of the greasiest, most filling bar food you’ve got. Surprise us or flip a coin or whatever. Thanks.”

To no one’s surprise, she nods and fills their glasses with a random selection on the soda stream, sliding them over and muttering something about their food being out in some measure of time that Stan doesn’t understand but hopes means just a few minutes from now.

When she disappears around the corner, Stan looks to his right and follows Dipper’s gaze out across the bar. 

“This is weird,” the kid remarks as he watches two aliens that look to be around his age suck on some sort of citrus wedge, empty glasses knocked over in front of them, a thin layer of tacky, navy blue liquid leaking out onto the varnish-stripped bar top.

Stan has to agree. It’s the kind of place he would’ve drooled over as a teen, bored half to tears out in the middle of Nowhere, New Jersey — desperate for any sort of entertainment. Oftentimes, that meant drinking himself into a stupor, and hanging out in this place definitely would've beat his habit of filling his pa’s old stash up with water after taking a few straight pulls from the bottle. 

“Welcome to Sin City, kid,” he says, pulling his facial covering down and slurping his soda. It smells sickly sweet and tastes vaguely like dates.

“They actually do call it Cynn City. But with a C-Y,” Dipper says. “I saw it on a sign earlier. I think that’s what they call their central government or something.”

Stan shoves a straw into his drink. “Weird.”

“Yeah,” Dipper agrees around the rim of his glass, taking a baby sip and clicking his tongue in an attempt to decipher the flavor. “It’s weird how most dimensions seem to parallel ours, right? Do you think our dimension is the blueprint, or do you think there’s a universal standard that keeps certain phenomena constant?”

“Kid, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dipper raises his brow. “Hm,” he huffs, staring into the depths of his drink, ice cubes clinking together as he swirls the effervescent liquid around. “I don’t believe you.”

“What? You don’t believe that I don’t understand? That’s a first.”

Dipper shrugs. “I think you’re a lot smarter than you let on.”

“You sure about that? I was a high school dropout. Never even passed a class I couldn’t copy off Ford in.”

He takes another small sip and lowers the glass back down onto the condensation ring he’s left behind on the bar top. “Didn’t you rebuild his portal from scratch? You had to have had a basic understanding of physics and mechanical engineering for that, at least.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Stan argues, suppressing the shiver the words bring. The memories are still fresh, and he doesn’t expect that feeling to change anytime soon. “I was mostly just shoving bits and pieces together, tryna get something to stick. It’s a miracle the whole thing didn’t fall apart the second I powered it on.”

“Weren’t you just telling me I need to be more confident? Don’t you think you’re being a bit hypocritical?”

“Fine, I’m a genius. There. That make you happy?”

“Hm, I don't know,” Dipper says, smiling around the edge of his glass. “That might be pushing it.”

Stan shakes his head, unable to keep the smile off his own face. That smile is practically contagious, he’s come to realize. “OK, you little—”

Dipper ducks to avoid it, but he’s helpless to escape the affectionate noogying that follows. Stan succeeds in ruffling his hair out of place and in making him laugh. 

That’s two points for Grunkle Stan, he thinks, even if no one’s keeping track.

Their joint laughter dies out the moment the food arrives, and Stan goes ahead and tacks a few more points on his side of the chart for managing to score them a decent meal. One that they’ll actually be able to pay for this time. Hell, he might even be able to tip the broad.

They eat in content silence, and it gives Stan time to think logistics. He promised Dipper a way home, and he intends on finding one.

Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing he could talk to Ford. For just a minute, even. It’s a want that has lingered for so long it’s practically embedded in every fiber of his being, straight down to the bone. 

Just one minute. He’d like to see him one more time — not obscured by a facial covering like he’d been in the split second Stan had seen him on his way out of the portal. Not shutting their bedroom window in his final goodbye, back when things were at their worst but were still painfully simple; back when college and science fair projects were the highest stakes they could face.

He’d like to erase his memory of Ford’s terrified yell after he’d shoved him straight into the mouth of the portal, gravity weakened and electricity crackling all around them.

He’d like to un-know that pain. He’d like to forget it all long enough to feel even a single second of the weightlessness they’d known as kids.

He tries to picture Ford now. Tries to imagine him interacting with Mabel. Working on the portal. Walking around the Mystery Shack. Looking in on the life that Stan worked day and night to build — so that he could fix even just one of the copious mistakes he made in his youth.

And it all feels…

Impossible. 

Hard as he tries, he can’t seem to wrap his head around it. He can’t imagine a world kind enough to let him get his brother back and save his and Dipper’s lives in the process. That’s just not how things go for people like him.

But he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

He pushes away those thoughts as he stuffs his face, trying his best to focus on the now. He shakes some miscellaneous, salt-like seasoning on top of his food, shaky hands spilling some of it onto the countertop. 

He brushes it off with his hand and slides the shaker back toward the bar, slamming back into reality when he notices a prominent and large figure rushing by in the corner of his eye.

The sight immediately fills him with dread, his mouth stuffed with something greasy and filling, as requested. He directs his attention to the looming figure and promptly looks away when their eyes meet.

“Grunkle Stan? I think that guy is staring at us.”

He’s proud of the kid for being so observant, even if a half-second late. “Yeah. I noticed,” he says, dutifully avoiding looking back up at the man.

“What do we do?” Dipper whispers, following suit and ducking his head.

Stan continues to stare down at his plate, stuffing his mouth with more carbs. He ignores the dread that settles in the pits of his stomach, twisting and churning like a scrap metal compactor. “Nothing yet,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Maybe he’s just got a staring problem.”

“He’s looking at you,” Dipper says, shifting his nervous eyes upward. “He looks angry.”

“Stop looking,” Stan orders, immediately going against his own command to scope the man out for himself. Sure enough, the shadowy figure seated across the bar is leveling him with a glare that’s nothing short of murderous, his palms perfectly flat on the table top — a superfecta of limbs. It’s enough to send shivers down his spine.

“Should we run?”

He scoots closer instinctually. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe he’s harmless.”

Dipper shifts in his seat, prepared to bolt. “Do you think he knows Ford?”

Shit. The fabric around his neck sits heavy and useless, and he curses himself for letting his guard down again. “Starting to think that’s a real possibility, yeah.”

As if on cue, Stan catches the man’s quick movements in his peripheral vision, and he shoves the kid down under the bar not a millisecond after their observer pulls something out of his waistband.

It all goes to shit with the sound of a gun going off, glass shattering and raining down over their heads, clinging to their fluffy, overgrown hair.

His heart thuds wildly in his ears as Dipper clutches his chest and meets him with the widest eyes he’s ever seen, mouth gaping as he tries to find the words that are already rushing out of Stan’s.

“Run. Now.”

Dipper doesn’t need to be told twice. They make it to their feet clumsily, and Stan blocks the kid with the width of his frame as they make it for the front door. He feels something white and fiery skirt across his upper arm, the pain slamming into him and sending him stumbling over himself as he pushes them both through the narrow exit doors.

He curses as the doors slam shut behind them, glass rattling as they skirt past the construction workers and duck once more underneath the lengthy ladder that obstructs their path.

Stan nearly trips over his own feet as he looks back over his shoulder. The man is hot on their heels, tucking his gun into his waistband as he sprints straight towards them.

“Stanford Pines!” he barks out, practically foaming at the mouth with anger. Stan recognizes it as the face of a man scorned. Cheated. Likely — out of money.

Shit. Really, Sixer?

“Does he have a gun?!” Dipper’s voice cuts through the calamity, piercing the wind, and Stan practically lifts him off the ground as he ushers him forward. A path magically clears for them at the kid’s loud, startling shriek of terror.

Stan can’t get the words out past the golf-ball sized lump in his throat, so he just continues to serve as the kid’s human shield as he pushes them forward, pointedly ignoring the sharp ache that rattles through him from his bicep down to the tips of his fingers. It’s a graze, probably, but getting shot at is getting shot at. There’s never a good way to get shot. “Stay in front of me. Don’t look back!”

It’s a small miracle that the man is too focused on catching up with them to brandish his weapon once more, probably less confident with his aim now that he’s out of range.

Dipper breathes in sharp, mismatched gasps as they race around the corner of a building, and he quickly pulls his bag around to the front, shoving a hand into it and reaching into its depths. 

It slows down his pace far too much for Stan’s liking, and he nearly reaches down to scoop the kid up in his arms until he sees what it is that he was reaching for.

It all happens in a flash, and Dipper pulls out that sleek, metal ray gun in record time, brandishing it and firing a single blast toward their pursuer in the few, short seconds it takes for Stan to turn around and see it all happen.

The beam goes soaring, careening through the air, and it misses the man by mere inches, smacking against the bricks beside him. It seems to do the trick, though, sending bits and pieces of hardened clay up into the air, shooting off in every direction like sharp, explosive projectiles.

The blast itself rivals the brightness of this dimension’s afternoon sun, and it stuns the man immediately. He rocks wildly on unsteady legs, sagging heavily against the side of the desecrated building, gray bricks crumbling with him.

Dipper lowers the gun, brown eyes wide with something far beyond terror as he watches the stunned man sink into himself. His hands tremble, his grip around the weapon faltering, practically frozen in the spot.

This time, Stan does scoop him up, continuing onward in a dead sprint. It’s all he knows for several painstakingly long minutes, bolting through the streets like a bat out of hell.

He doesn’t know how long he runs for, but he does until he can’t anymore, old, weary legs zapped of all adrenaline. His left arm, currently busy carrying one shell-shocked kid through the city, feels like it might have a swarm of fire ants living inside of it, using his veins as waterslides or something equally as excruciating.

Stan finds his own wall to sag against once the coast is clear, the only darkness behind them now being their own shadows. He settles the kid back down on his own two feet and catches his breath with two palms splayed over his knees, trembling like a leaf as he attempts to gain his bearings.

Dipper begins to pace immediately, the gun quickly deposited into his bag as if it might just spontaneously combust if he keeps it in his shaky grasp.

With the way things have been going, though, Stan wouldn’t really be all that shocked if it did.

Dipper covers his face with his hands, breathing in deeply, inhales stuttering in his throat. “What the hell?” he gasps, losing his breath around the words.

“Breathe, kid,” Stan hears himself say, his own breaths wild and uncertain. There he goes being a hypocrite again.

His words send the kid into a tailspin, and all of his festering anxiety starts pouring out. “You got shot!”

He sneaks a quick glance at the wound, noting the tear in the fabric of his jacket and the thick stream of red that’s emanating from it. “It’s just a graze, Dipper—”

“W-we have to get out of here, Stan! He’s going to come after us again! I missed, I missed— I shot at somebody—”

“Kid, it’s fine, we’re going to figure this out—”

“You got shot! We can’t stay here!”

“I know we can’t—”

Dipper drops his bag onto the floor and drops down onto his knees with a thud that succeeds in making him wince, rummaging through the pack with reckless abandon.

Stan half expects the kid to reach for the gun again, but he finds himself genuinely shocked when he does pull one out, only not the one he expected.

He pushes himself off the wall at the sight of it. “What are you doing?”

Dipper palms the wormhole gun and promptly smacks it against the ground. “It’s gotta work. It just needs some encouragement, right?”

He gives it another hard smack against the concrete.

The sight breaks his heart. “Dipper, quit it. That’s not gonna work.”

“Why not?” Dipper argues, shaking the gun once and tapping it repeatedly. “Why? Because nothing ever works? Because we can’t get one second of peace… ” He hits it again. “Ever?! Because we got comfortable?”

He hits it twice as hard, and Stan swears he hears the metal crack. “Because we’re never getting home?!”

“Kid—”

Dipper points it at the ground and hits it once more, finger coming to settle over the trigger.

He’s not sure what happens first, but he knows that it happens fast.

The trigger being pulled. The sparks spewing out of the barrel.

The giant, flickering, unstable wormhole opening directly beneath him.

He’s not sure what happens first, but that’s hardly important. He feels the skin at the tips of his fingers tear and separate, raw and bloody as he scrapes at the concrete to open up the ground again, to rip apart the atoms and the molecules and the entire fucking universe.

Because Dipper is gone, and there’s nothing remaining but a defunct wormhole gun lying immobile on the rocky cement, the sickly scent of copper and smoke lingering in the still air.

Chapter Text

Mabel doesn’t stop searching when the footsteps get closer. She tucks her head away beneath the attic table and continues to dredge through a pile of sweaters she hasn’t had a chance to put away yet, the wool fibers clinging onto her cracked, dry palms.

It’s gotta be in here somewhere. She tosses one llama-fyed, yellow sweater over her head and shoves another bundle of assorted sweaters off to the right as the steps come to a halt behind her, heavy and gentle and patient. Even still, she feels the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end.

“Mabel?”

Her hands freeze around a sunset-striped sweater, adorned with a pink unicorn with a tenderly stitched heart-shaped cutie mark. The sight of it doesn’t amuse her as much as it probably should, but she finds it fitting enough for the occasion. 

She pulls it on over her head and finally glances behind her. In the doorway, Soos is clad in black, wearing a poorly tailored suit that hangs awkwardly around his soft frame. Even his bowtie has been tacked on like an afterthought, like he’d forgotten it originally and decided to hastily put it on at the very last second.

She wonders if it’s one of Grunkle Stan’s. It certainly looks like it anyway, but without the fez, she thinks he looks more like a funeral guest than he does Mr. Mystery.

She greets him before turning back to face the mess she’s created. “Hey, Soos.”

His steady footfalls close the distance between them as she continues to dig through the mountain of fabric. “Hey, dude. What’re you looking for?”

“My grappling hook. Have you seen it?”

“No, sorry, hambone. What do you need it for?”

She takes a large portion of the pile into her hands and rises from the ground like a newborn foal, half-numb legs leading her to her perfectly made bed where she lets them all rain down, glaring down at the unholy amalgamation of colors with furrowed brows and pursed lips. With the space more or less cleared, it’s obvious that it’s not here. 

She snorts. “It’s gonna sound crazy.”

“Heh,” Soos chuckles, crossing over to sit at the edge of her bed. Her sweaters pool around him like a black hole, ready to envelop him from beneath. “I don’t know about that, Mabel-dawg. Nothing’s really all that crazy to me anymore.”

Mabel snorts. That’s what he thinks. 

“Ford and I are going on a magical quest to find some unicorns and prove we’re pure of heart so that they’ll give us some of their hair, which we can use to protect our minds, the Shack, and the portal from Bill.”

Soos blinks. “Uh, never mind, that’s pretty crazy, dude,” he decides with an amused snort of his own. “You need your grappling hook for that?”

“I need my grappling hook for everything. I never leave the Shack without it.”

She knows how it probably sounds, but in all honesty, the idea of going on this quest without it is starting to make her feel a little nervous. Maybe it’s just because it’s her first one without Dipper, but it’s also true that her grappling hook has come in handy in some hugely non-negotiable ways this summer.

“Smart,” Soos says with a sage nod, and Mabel is reminded yet again of why she should never, ever doubt him. It’s rare that Soos doesn’t understand the importance of stuff like this. 

She tilts her head and watches as he wipes his clammy hands on his dress pants, the late summer sun still sweltering as it seeps in through the aged wood paneling. She resigns herself to giving up the search, at least for now.

“Are you working today?”

Soos’ face falls, and the reaction says more than she thinks words ever could. “There’s another tour at noon.”

His disappointment should probably come as more of a shock, but like Soos, she finds that nothing feels all that crazy to her anymore either. Becoming Mr. Mystery might have been his dream, but there’s no doubt in her mind that it has become more like a nightmare now. 

Mabel frowns. “Well, do you want to come with us? Close the Shack early?”

Something like want flashes in his eyes, and he squints as if considering it. She doubts he’s ever considered closing the Shack early before.

“I don’t know, dude. Midday tours during the week aren’t that busy, but what if there’s more than usual today? Or those government guys come back while we’re gone, or—”

Mabel quickly cuts in. “Soos, Soos, it’s okay. Just take the day off.”

He deflates. “Yeah? Are you sure?”

She nods, remembering those few short days she spent running the Shack this summer and feeling oddly nostalgic for it, even though she was pretty much ready to pull her hair out by the end of it.

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure, Soos. Come. It might even be fun,” she says, the words tasting sour. They pair quite nicely with the fake, happy-go-lucky smile plastered on her face.

“OK, OK, you got me. I’ll be there. When are we leaving?’’ 

“Less than an hour from now, probably,” Mabel says, chewing on her lip and tearing the smile apart. “You think Wendy would want to come, too? I don't know if she wants to…y’know…be around Ford, but—”

“Oh, no, she’d definitely want to come. There’s no way she’s passing up on unicorns, dude,” he says, pushing himself up and off the bed. “She’s off today, but I’ll call her. And close up the Shack.”

Mabel nods, spinning on her heel to do another quick sweep of the room, pointedly avoiding looking at Dipper’s half. His bed is still unmade from when she jolted out of it earlier this morning, and it’s a painfully familiar sight. It’s not like he ever made it this summer, either.

“Okay, well, I still need to find my grappling hook. Will you keep an eye out? I’m gonna go look downstairs.”

“Sure thing, Mabel-dawg,” Soos says with a tight-lipped smile.

She offers one back and quickly races downstairs, skipping several steps at once but somehow still managing to land awkwardly on one of the broken ones. She crosses over into the living room and finds Ford in the same spot he’d been in a couple of hours ago, perusing some of his old notes and entries on unicorns and the properties of their hair. 

He pauses, pushing his glasses up to fit more snugly atop the bridge of his nose, and studies her for a moment, straightening the painful-looking curve of his shoulders. “Did you find it?”

Mabel shakes her head. “Nuh-uh.”

“Ah.” He clicks his tongue. “I’m sure it will turn up. But, regardless, I won’t let you go empty-handed.” 

He reaches into his bag and pulls out a full-length crossbow, handing it off to her with little fanfare. “Here. I haven't been in this dimension for a while. It's okay to give children weapons, right?”

She shrugs. “Probably. But do you really think we’re going to need all this stuff, Great Uncle Ford?” She takes the weapon in her hands and fiddles with the string. “They’re just unicorns. Don’t you think this is a little excessive?”

“Hardly. I've dealt with unicorns before, and if I had to describe them in one word, it would be... frustrating,” he says with a shiver. “Getting a hold of their hair won’t be easy.”

“Yeah,” Mabel allows, “but you said it yourself, right? One of us just needs to prove we’re pure of heart. Besides, I know unicorns.” She begins to count off on her fingers. “My first word was unicorn, I once made my own unicorn by taping a traffic cone to a horse's head.”

She gestures half-heartedly at her sweater, pulled on over staticky, disheveled hair. “Are you even looking at the sweater I'm wearing right now?”

“You’re right, Mabel,” Ford says with a tired smile, reaching over to ruffle her hair back into place. “We’ll be an unstoppable force against them.”

“Ah, ah, ah, Grunkle Ford. Not a force. A team,” she corrects.

She doesn’t miss his subtle wince. “Right. A team. No force required.”

“Right,” Mabel repeats, and the single word is punctuated by the sound of a loud, unexpected knock at the front door. “That’s probably Wendy. I’ll get it?”

“That might be for the best.”

“Alright.” She drops the crossbow down onto the table for the time being and twists her fingers in her hands. “I’ll be right back, Grunkle Ford.”

Ford’s short-lived smile falters slightly. “I’ll be downstairs in the basement. I need to check on some things before we go,” he says, shutting the journal with finality. “We’ll leave on the hour?”

She hums her assent and heads straight for the door, shouting a quick and slightly strained ‘coming!’ to Wendy as Ford slips into the backroom. 

With her back turned, she allows herself to cringe. The tension that’s brewing between them is hard to miss, and Mabel feels slightly guilty for having let it go on for so long. After all, Wendy’s only really trying to protect her. 

Maybe she should have said something before it got to this point, but in her defense, it hasn't been easy convincing the people around her that she doesn’t need protecting. Sure, she’s been a bit off, maybe a bit of an Unstable Mabel recently, but she doesn’t need Wendy to fight her battles for her. 

What she needs is Dipper and Stan back, and that’s not happening until they can find a way to work together. That’s where she fits in; it’s her job to make sure they all get along. It’s time they get their heads on straight. She’s not so sure they’ll be able to focus on interdimensional gateway reconstruction with the sheer amount of The Authentic Housewives -esque drama filling the Shack these days. 

Besides, she knows what it’s like to live in a broken home, and she won’t do it anymore. Not here. Not now. Not when she’s so close to making her family whole again.

By the time she makes it to the door, she’s already mentally prepared herself to do just that. Only, she’s faced with something slightly more unexpected when the creaky wooden frame swings open. 

Mabel stops in her tracks. 

“Pacifica?”

She pushes the door the rest of the way open and is greeted by the sight of Pacifica Northwest on her front porch, devoid of the headscarf she had worn last time, embarrassed at the notion of being seen at the Shack willingly. This time, she looks like she might have run here — her usually perfectly combed hair in disarray and her effortlessly powdered, porcelain skin more dewy and bare-faced than Mabel’s ever seen it. 

Mabel takes a half-step onto the porch, well aware of the fact that she’s gaping like a fish but unable to do much about it. “What are you doing here?!”

“Have you found him?” Pacifica blurts out, shifty on her feet. She whips her head over her shoulder like a prey animal, fearful of what may be approaching from behind. 

Mabel cranes her neck to take a look herself, but sees nothing out of place. Just the same stretch of dead grass that’s always there waiting for her.

“What?”

“Dipper,” she says, slightly out of breath. “Have you found him?”

Mabel’s heart plummets into her stomach and then twists for good measure. “No? Wha– Did you come here just to ask me that?”

“No. I came here because I got kicked out.”

“Kicked out?” Mabel presses the door shut behind her. “Pacifica, what’s going on?”

Pacifica looks behind her again, as if she’s expecting her parents’ limo to come rolling into the parking lot at any moment. “I might have accused my parents of murder.”

Mabel blanches. Of all the things, she really wasn’t expecting that. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to explain a lot more than that, sister. Murder? You think your parents killed someone?”

“Not someone. Dipper.”

“O-kay,” Mabel says slowly, feeling as if most of the air has been forcibly pushed out of her lungs. But she’s a lot more worried about her half-friend, half-enemy than she is upset by her words. Mostly because they’re so obviously misguided. 

She allows herself to laugh, semi-awkwardly. A lot nervously. “How about we sit down?” She motions to the Shack’s shut front door. “Have a glass of water?”

Pacifica shuffles backward, manicured brows furrowing with some faraway, watered-down imitation of anger. It’s a reflection of a pain Mabel has been feeling in stride. “Mabel, I'm being serious.”

“If this is you being serious, then I definitely don’t want to see you when you’re joking.”

The blonde bristles. “Don’t you find it weird that the night before Dipper goes missing, he’s helping me expose my family and open the party gates?” she argues. “My parents were livid, Mabel. They wouldn’t let me leave my room for weeks! I didn’t even know he went missing until last night! Why were they keeping it from me? I–”

“Pacifica, stop—”

“A month?” Pacifica lunges forward and places two firm hands on each of her shoulders. Her blue eyes are wide and unbelieving, framed by bare lashes, and Mabel feels her own brow furrow in response. “He’s been missing for a month? Mabel, are you okay?”

“No! Obviously, I’m not okay!” She quickly frees herself from Pacifica’s touch as something hot and angry begins to work its way through her core. “My brother is gone, and now you’re here telling me you think he was murdered by your parents, Pacifica, what the heck?!”

The space between them goes deafeningly quiet, but Mabel has the sound of her blood rushing in her ears to fill the silence. With the silence comes muted resignation, and Pacifica’s arms fall limply to their sides, Mabel’s anger quickly subsiding.

Wow, she thinks, her anger molting off of her like a second skin. Maybe she needed that more than she thought she did.

Pacifica seems to have a revelation of her own. She takes her face into her palms and breathes out an impossibly shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Mabel. I– I don't know what I was thinking. I just…”

“Think your parents are capable of murder,” Mabel deadpans. “Got it.” 

She brushes past Pacifica and moves toward the Shack steps, making sure to avoid the rusty nail she knows sticks out of the side of one of them as she takes a seat.

Out in the thick of the forest, the branches sway with the wind, and Mabel reminds herself for the umpteenth time that Dipper isn’t out there among them. She knows that better than anyone, and yet the feeling still sits in her hollowed-out chest, like maybe he might be, if she only commits herself to the search.

After a few moments, she snorts, suddenly unable to keep herself from picturing Pacifica’s mom with the murder weapon in hand, perfectly blown-out curls fanning out flawlessly across her shoulders. 

On second thought, they’d probably have the butler do it. “Jeez, Paz, that’s really bad.”

Pacifica slumps down next to her, practically sagging toward the earth. Mabel doesn’t think she’s ever seen her without perfect posture before, and the sight is weirdly uncanny. She would’ve thought her spine was permanently fused ramrod straight, whether naturally by birth or some elective surgery reserved for only the richest twelve-year-olds in the Pacific Northwest.

“You think I'm crazy, don't you?”

Mabel huffs. “If you’re crazy, then so am I.”

She lets herself really consider it then, from Pacifica’s perspective, and she has to admit that the whole thing seems a bit off. If she didn’t know the truth, she guesses it wouldn’t sound too far off base. 

“The timing is kind of spooky, I’ll give you that.”

“I also considered maybe ghosts having something to do with it,” Pacifica admits with a shrug, suddenly looking abashed, as if embarrassed that she stooped to their level and entertained a supernatural explanation.

“What’s it with you two and ghosts?”

“It was just the once,” Pacifica defends, nose wrinkling. She straightens up slightly and softens her gaze. “You seem pretty confident that my theories aren’t true. Why?”

“Why, what? Why do I not believe your horrible theories? Uh, because they’re horrible and they suck, for one.”

Pacifica nudges her shoulder. “No. Why aren’t you doing that thing where you come up with explanations and theories and follow the clues or whatever? Don’t you two call yourselves the Mystery Twins? Whatever happened to that?”

Mabel glares down at the ground and digs into the dirt with the tip of her shoe. “Well, I like to think Dipper’s the conspiracist, whereas I'm more of the comic relief sleuth with a dream and a heart of gold.”

“You’re acting weird.”

She sighs and presses her eyes shut. She is acting weird, for obvious reasons, but for reasons more than just lying, too. “My brother’s missing, Paz, how am I supposed to act?”

“I don't know,” Pacifica says cooly. “Not like this.”

“I was with him, and he got lost. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“You didn’t see where he went? Which way he turned?”

She rubs her palms back and forth across her thighs, but it doesn’t help. It never does. “I got distracted.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t believe you.”

Mabel snorts again. “Sorry?”

“I don’t believe you. You guys don’t do that. You don’t leave each other behind.”

Pacifica stands abruptly, suddenly towering over her like she had that night at her parents’ mansion in her custom, crystal-studded Louboutins. “You know, all summer I thought it was the creepiest thing. Tiffany used to call you guys conjoined twins because we hardly ever saw you leave each other’s sides.”

Right. Mabel remembers those friends she used to drag along everywhere. She hears the not-so-subtle bitterness in Pacifica's tone and wonders where they’ve gone. She can’t help but notice she isn’t showing up at their doors asking for favors and telling them her parents probably murdered their brothers. What gives?

“You don’t leave each other,” she repeats. “Besides, that dork knows these woods. Probably better than any of the sad saps who’ve lived here their whole lives. They were pretty much his only other friend all summer. There’s no way he’d get lost, just like that.” 

She cocks her head, piercing Mabel’s eyes with those sharp baby blues. “I think you know what really happened to him.”

Mabel’s heard enough. “Pacifica, I can’t do this right now. Ford and I are leaving soon, and I can’t—”

“Ford?” Pacifica quickly cuts in. “Who’s Ford?”

Mabel sucks in a breath, cursing herself internally. “What? I didn’t say that.”

“Yes,” she says, and the look on her face — like she’s caught her in a lie — irritates Mabel to no end. “Yes, you did. You said you and Ford.”

“Oh.” Mabel waves a flippant hand. “Yeah. Stan. Stanford. Ford. They’re all the same name. We like to switch it up. We’re big on nicknames, us Pineses.”

Pacifica blinks. “Okay… so you and… Ford are going somewhere? Where?”

She quickly thinks up a lie, hating the way it comes so naturally to her and the fact that it doesn’t really bother her all that much anymore. “We’re going to get some unicorn hair. It’s gonna help us find Dipper. There’s mystical… searching properties to it or something.”

“So you’re still looking for him then?” she asks earnestly, her hard, accusatory gaze flooding back with hope.

Mabel pretends the question doesn’t pierce her like a knife in the side. The implication that she might be perceived as the kind of person who would ever stop looking for her twin, her favorite person in the entire multiverse, is sickening to think about, even if it’s only Pacifica.

“I never stopped.”

Pacifica exhales heavily, and every ounce of fight left in her is cut off with a short laugh. “Okay, screw it, then. I’m coming.”

“Pacifica…”

“I’m helping,” she says, pinning two locks of pin-straight hair behind each of her ears, pierced with diamonds so large, Mabel has to squint to keep them from reflecting the full force of the sun back into her eyes. “Don’t try to argue with me. You’ll lose.”

“You just don’t want to go home,” Mabel points out.

“And face my parents? Yeah, no, definitely not.”

Mabel sighs. “You don’t have to help, Paz. It’ll be me and Stan and Wendy and Soos. I know we’re not really your crowd.”

“I don’t care. Someone competent has to help you find that nerd. I’m coming.”

Mabel takes another deep inhale and suppresses a groan. 

Candy and Grenda will never let her hear the end of it if she brings Pacifica along and not them, though she had hoped this would be a short trip, quick enough to get the hair, see a couple of unicorns, and race home to fortify the Shack and start working on the portal before nightfall.

But nothing really goes to plan anymore, anyway, does it?

She gives in. “Guess I’m calling the girls.”

“You sure it’s okay that the girls come along, Great Uncle Ford?” Mabel asks as they trot along, the man in question clinging onto his journal like a priest clutching his rosary.

Ford looks up ahead of them — long enough to watch as Pacifica accidentally steps into a mud puddle and screeches, sending nearby birds flocking away in terror. The rest of the girls throw their heads back with laughter, and Mabel feels her gut churn with something too close to jealousy for comfort.

“It’s more than alright, Mabel. In fact, a larger ambush might just work in our favor.”

She presses her lips together. She’s not sure she likes all this ambush talk he’s been using. “Why are you so anti-unicorn again? Did something happen, Great Uncle Ford?”

Ford breathes out a deep, tired sigh. “Not exactly. From what I remember, they don’t take kindly to humans encroaching on their space. Or inspecting them up close.

“Granted, it’s been a long time since I last encountered a unicorn.” He cringes slightly, lowering the journal finally to meet her gaze. “It’s possible that I was a tad overzealous in my early years as a researcher. Unicorns aren’t the only mythical beings wary of humans in this town, and my approach was not always the most tactful. I know better now.”

Mabel nods. She remembers a time or two when Dipper got a little too close for comfort for some supernatural creatures. A certain encounter with “Lefty” and some little green men comes to mind. 

She wonders if Dipper ever got around to burning that tape.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Besides, I’m sure they’ll give us their hair once they know why we need it, right? It is for a noble cause.”

“Maybe,” Ford allows. He glances back down at the journal, and Mabel privately wonders why he’s even bothering. She’s not convinced he doesn’t have it memorized front to back by now. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. They take that pure of heart ritual seriously. There’s a reason I was never able to obtain a sample of their hair before.”

“What?” she gasps. “You aren’t pure of heart?”

Ford smiles shyly, and it’s the first real, natural smile she’s seen from him since they met. “Does that surprise you?”

“I don’t know,” she admits softly, suddenly awash with an unfamiliar feeling that’s somehow both heavy and light. “I don’t really know you.”

His smile wobbles, and she feels her heart twist in her chest. “Ah, I guess not.”

“But I don’t know,” Mabel says, quick to offer up something better. “I’m no unicorn, but I’d say you’d gotta be about… 85% pure of heart. At least.”

“Eighty-five percent?” he says with a quick burst of laughter. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugs again. She’s not really sure she has a satisfying answer. “Eighty-five is a good number. There’s room for growth.”

“That there is,” Ford says. “I’ll take it. But something tells me 85% won’t cut it. It’s a good thing you’re here.”

“Really?” she asks, her own smile faltering. “You think I’m pure of heart?”

“I’d say you have better odds than any of us here.”

Somehow, she doubts that, but it’s not like Great Uncle Ford would know any different. “How can you be so sure? You don’t really know me either.”

He shrugs and waves his journal idly with one hand. “I’ve studied the creatures in these woods for a lot less time than I’ve known you. I’m used to making snap judgments,” he jokes, or at least Mabel thinks he’s joking. “I’ve seen enough to know.”

Mabel feels herself nod, dutifully ignoring the feeling that sneaks up on her. It’s that same icky feeling that used to come around whenever she was forced to tell a lie.

Ford doesn’t notice her affliction, or he at least pretends not to. Either way, she’s grateful. “Now, come,” he says. “We’re approaching The Enchanted Forest.”

She follows closely behind as Ford quickens his step, meeting back up with the rest of the group, restless and loud, only several paces ahead. Mabel sticks to Ford’s side, though she listens in on their conversation as they join them.

“—you kids from walking into a bear trap,” Wendy finishes. When she notices Mabel, she greets her with a large grin, reaching over to ruffle the top of her head. “There she is!” 

Mabel’s hair flies every which way, her head devoid of Dipper’s cap for the first time since she picked it up off the concrete that night in the basement. Right now, it’s lying on his bed in the quiet, empty attic, and Mabel feels a little sick to her stomach at the thought of it — unworn for the first time since he picked it out in the Gift Shop.

She regrets not wearing it, which strikes her as an odd feeling to have since it’s sweaty and unwashed and basically a Shack health code violation waiting to happen.

“Do we know where we’re headed?” Wendy asks, chopping a low-hanging branch with her axe.

“Technically, we’re headed nowhere,” Ford says. “But we’ve reached the magic part of the forest, so now we must summon the unicorn by bellowing an ancient chant, droned only by the deepest-voiced druids of old. Only then will the unicorn realm be visible to us.”

Wendy throws a glare at him over all of their heads. “Unicorn… realm?” she asks slowly, her grip tightening around the handle of her axe, swinging imperceptibly at her side. “You sure we should be conjuring realms? Is that safe?”

“This realm is Earth-bound,” Ford explains knowingly, not pretending to misunderstand. “Consider it a magical safeguard, a way for the unicorns to hide away in their own enchanted glade, free from human intervention. The chant makes this realm accessible to us, but I assure you, they’re of this dimension.”

Pacifica looks between the two of them and whispers in Mabel’s ear. “What are those nerds talking about?”

Mabel claps, and Pacifica flinches away at the sudden noise. “Okay! Who’s chanting?”

“Any of you girl-dudes know any druids?” Soos asks.

“On it!” Grenda says before anyone can respond in the negative, yanking the journal out of Ford’s hands and rushing toward the center of the clearing. She brings a fist to her mouth and clears her throat before bellowing the chant.

It’s a concoction of deep, undecipherable sounds that rumble in Mabel’s eardrums. It all just sounds like noise to her, but it seems to work well enough, and the ground begins to shift beneath their feet at once.

She can’t help the startled gasp that escapes her as she stumbles back into Ford, her great-uncle stepping forward to put distance between her and the rock formation that begins to rise from deep within the earth. She clutches onto his coat and allows him to guide her behind him.

When the rumbling stops, she peeks around his side and gawks up at the golden, glittery arches that stand before them. Her friends gasp as they approach it, but Mabel stays mostly quiet, in awe of the sheer size of it. Seeing it there, large and looming, reminds her of the unfinished portal waiting for them back home, and it only strengthens her resolve. 

She steps in front of Ford as Wendy joins her at her side. “What the fu—“

Pacifica grabs two fistfuls of hair and screeches, “Did that just come out of the ground?!”

Candy breathes out an awed sigh. “I did not think that would work.”

Soos, back in his Shack handyman attire, is the first to approach the front gate. He pokes it once before looking back at all of them with an astonished gleam in his eye. “Really? I totally knew it would. Wendy owes me ten bucks.”

Wendy groans, and she leaves Mabel’s side to shove Soos towards the entrance. “You weren’t supposed to bring that up, man.”

“You didn’t think we’d find them?” Mabel asks Wendy, mostly teasingly. “Oh, ye of little faith…”

Pacifica is quick to cut in. She clutches her necklace for comfort and backs as far away from the gates as possible, which so happens to be behind Ford, who is frozen in his spot, staring inquisitively at the structure. “Yeah, I can hardly blame her. What is that?”

“I hear if you lick a unicorn’s neck, it tastes like your favorite flavor in the world,” Candy says under her breath.

Ford shakes his head, shocked out of his stupor. “Hold on, girls. We don’t know what to expect when we walk through those gates. Keep your guard up. With unicorns, anything goes.”

“Grunkle Ford…”

“After me,” Ford interrupts, and Mabel frowns. Still, everyone obeys the command, and they file behind him as he stalks toward the entrance.

All except Wendy. “What’s his deal?” she whispers to Mabel as Ford inspects the golden arches, acting for all the world like they might just spontaneously combust at the slightest touch.

Mabel shrugs. “He’s got something against unicorns, I guess.”

“How can someone have beef with unicorns? That’s like having something against stuffed animals or, like, fuzzy ducklings or something.”

Mabel agrees with a short hum as Ford makes to push open the gate. When he does, they’re immediately greeted by a swarm of colorful butterflies, and Mabel feels the soft, gentle flutter of wings graze the side of her cheek.

Sure enough, at the center of the glade sits a lone unicorn, resting in front of a glistening waterfall with its tail tucked between its legs. Its multicolored hair cascades down its back, mirroring the raging waters behind it, and Mabel feels the inexplicable urge to reach out and run her fingers through it.

At their arrival, the creature shakes its mane in the wind, opening its sparkling eyes to gaze in their direction, and Mabel bites back a small, stunned gasp.

“The paintings airbrushed on the sides of vans were true!” she says, unable to contain her excitement, even given the circumstances. She’s dreamed of this day since she was a toddler.

And, sure, maybe it’s selfish to feel joy so palpably when her twin brother is probably off facing unimaginable horrors in some other dimension, but she can’t help it. Liking unicorns is in her nature. It’s practically in her blood.

The unicorn neighs loudly, watercolor hair settling in place as it finally turns to face them. Directly in front of them, a wide-eyed faun blows into a funny-looking flute instrument, serenading their entrance into the glade.

Mabel doesn’t miss it when Ford brushes the gun that rests at his hip, as if reassuring himself that it's still there. She rushes forward to meet him at his side, just in case he decides to pull it out.

“Hark! Visitors to my realm of enchantment!” says the unicorn, its glowing horn the only indication that the voice belongs to it at all. For a moment, Mabel can’t tell if she’s hearing it aloud or if it’s all happening up in her head telepathically.

She ignores it when Grenda collapses after inhaling a stray butterfly, quickly scooching past Ford to make herself known. “Hi, hello, unicorn? Big fan,” she says, trying and failing to contain her excitement. “I–” she starts, struggling to find the words. “I’m Mabel. What’s your name?”

The unicorn rises from its perch and shakes out its long mane once more. “I am Celestabellebethabelle, last of my kind. Come in, come in. Just, take off your shoes. I have a whole thing about shoes.”

Mabel, Grenda, Candy, and Soos are already halfway out of their shoes and stepping further into the glade when Celestabellebethabelle shoots a menacing glare at Ford, Wendy, and Pacifica. 

“Ah, ah! I'm talking to all of you!”

Wendy slips out of her shoes with little effort; meanwhile, Pacifica groans dramatically and plops down onto the grass, beginning the arduous task of yanking her feet out of her boots with both hands.

Ford doesn’t break eye contact with Celestabellebethabelle as he removes his. “I presume you know why we’re here.”

“Grunkle Ford,” Mabel admonishes, elbowing him gently in the side. Or at least she thinks so, even if he does let out a breathy groan when she makes contact. “Celestabellebethabelle, we have journeyed far and wide—”

“About an hour!”

“On a mission to save and protect our family with your magical hair,” Mabel says, hoping that the small tremor in her voice doesn’t undercut her message. Celestabellebethabelle has to know how important this is; she has to know what’s at stake.

Mabel nearly misses seeing Candy attempt a stolen lick of Celestabellebethabelle’s neck, distracted by the racing of her pure — or not pure — heart.

“Very well. To receive a lock of my enchanted hair, step forth, one of pure, perfect heart.”

Mabel looks around, wishing deep down that someone else would offer instead, but of course, no one does. Instead, Ford ushers her toward Celestabellebethabelle with a palm at the square of her back, and she stumbles forward, stepping into the beam of circular sunlight that pours in through the trees.

“Um, I guess that’s me,” she says, clearing her dry throat. Under Celestabellebethabelle’s watchful eye, she feels her heart skip a beat, as if it’s protesting being on trial. She looks down at herself and pulls her sweater down for visibility when it bunches at her waist. “Presenting… Mabel!”

Celestabellebethabelle blows a dramatic puff of air out through her nostrils and neighs. “What? You?”

Mabel shifts awkwardly, hyperaware of the way her uncle jolts behind her, already prepared to act. “Uh…”

“A unicorn can see deep inside your heart, child,” Celestabellebethabelle says, pointing at Mabel with her horn and projecting a shadowed heart at the center of her chest. “And you have done wrong. WRONG I say!”

Mabel gasps and clutches the spot, trying to will it away. 

“Your bad deeds make me cry,” says Celestabellebethabelle, a single tear falling from her eye, immediately wilting a flower on contact, and Mabel bites back a cry. “Come back when you're PURE OF HEART!” 

Ford brushes past her, but Mabel’s already hearing static running through her eardrums, the sound of her heart racing making her feel like she’s been yanked underwater. Celestabellebethabelle is saying something about shoes again, Mabel thinks, and Ford’s right hand is becoming familiar with the handle of his gun, but she doesn’t care about any of that.

Because she’s right. Her heart is tainted, and why she thought she’d ever be able to protect the family that she tore apart is beyond her.

She runs out of the glade barefoot, ignoring the calls of her friends behind her as her feet slam into the earth. 

As the wind whips against her face, her hand remains on her chest, clutching the wool that covers up her disgusting, impure heart.

He supposes he could shoot this mythical creature, steal its hair, and finally be done with this arduous day, just like that, but he left that life behind him for good when he came back through the portal. That whole shoot first, ask questions later life was never meant for him. He just did what he had to do to survive.

Besides, he’s not so sure killing a unicorn in cold blood would be much of a comfort to his great-niece. Even if said unicorn really, really deserves it.

At some point, probably in the short period between Mabel running out of the glade and him brandishing his weapon, he’d allowed Wendy to drag him out of the glade by the wrist — if just to avoid certain, imminent bloodshed at his hands. And so here he stands, cursing Celestabellebethabelle and the forces at be that decided unicorns are worthy-enough creatures to roam this earth.

Wendy anchors her axe into the dirt. “What the hell does that thing know? Mabel’s the sweetest fucking person on this earth.”

Ford wonders if children used to swear this much before he left this dimension, or if that’s a more recent development. Or maybe even just a trait unique to this specific child. 

“Yeah,” Mabel’s deeper-voiced friend agrees, as does the one with glasses, who shakes her head emphatically at her words, “what was her deal?”

“I wouldn’t trust a horse that wears makeup. Mabel shouldn’t take it to heart, it’s obviously bullshit.”

She shouldn’t, but Ford isn’t surprised that she is. He never should have included her in this expedition in the first place. It should’ve been him, and him alone.

He never should have told her about the unicorns, not to mention their pure-of-heart ritual. Great idea, he thinks, taking your fragile, grief-stricken great-niece to have her goodness and purity questioned and demolished by her favorite mythical creature while she’s already facing immense guilt for her twin and uncle’s fate.

Really, what was he thinking?

“Mister, uh, Mr. Pines, sir?”

He looks up and is suddenly face to face with the Shack handyman: Soos. “I think you should go after her.”

Ford clears his throat awkwardly, hyperaware of the lump that’s lodged in it. It’s one of the more pesky manifestations of his chronic consternation — one of the ones he was never able to snuff out entirely. “I– uh, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“Why not?” Wendy asks, the bite in her tone lined with something a little unlike her usual casual cruelty.

Why? Ford can think of an infinite number of reasons why he shouldn’t be the one to comfort her. “I’m not good at this,” he says, and it feels more shameful admitting that than he thought it would. “I wouldn’t know where to start. I shouldn’t have let her do it. We should have found another way.”

“Look,” Wendy lowers her voice, mindful of the three clueless girls behind her. “I’m not your biggest fan; you know that. And if it were up to me, Mabel wouldn’t be touching the things you’re working on with a ten-foot pole. But she needs you right now.”

She lowers her voice another notch, but it's not enough, and Ford takes careful note of the way Mabel’s blonde friend perks up, not-so-subtly craning her neck to hear them better. “She still thinks everything that happened is her fault, and she needs to hear from you that it’s not.”

Him? He’s reluctant to think that he should be the arbiter of morality here. He’s made innumerable wrong moves since meeting Mabel, and he’s sure he’s only bound to make more, if he isn’t actively making them already. “Me? I– I don’t think she needs that.” 

He doesn’t think anyone needs that.

“I don’t think you understand,” Wendy says. “You don’t know Mabel. Not really. Before you got here, she was way different, man. Any given second she’d be bouncing off the walls and slapping stickers on your face. This Mabel… I’m really worried about her. She looks like a ghost. 

“Dipper's gone, but I think she's about to disappear too.”

She grabs the handle of her axe and pulls it out of the ground, as if settling on a decision. “Today was the first day I saw some of the old Mabel peeking through, and I’ll be damned if I let that stupid horse shove her back down again.”

Ford frowns. There’s truth to the teen’s words — more than he’s wanted to admit until now. For whatever reason, his great-niece has been looking to him for guidance a great number of times in the past twenty-four hours alone, and so he supposes the onus is on him to give it. 

That, and he’s not ashamed to admit that he’s developing a rather large soft spot for this child, though he’d never thought he’d find himself in a position to be saying such a thing, never having wanted children of his own before. But, here he is, carrying an unfamiliar heaviness in his chest at the thought of his great-niece beating herself up somewhere in these woods, yet again, because of the words of some pretentious, haughty mare.

Ford nods. “Alright. I’ll talk to her,” he agrees, though he still has his doubts that it will be of much help. “In the meantime, and I don’t mean to suggest you all go back in there, but—”

“You want us to beat it senseless?”

He chokes on his surprise. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

The blonde one — the Northwest — arches her brow. “But?”

He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. These children might possess even more bloodlust than he does. “But… I suppose you may use whatever tools you have at your disposal to get that hair.” Ford lowers his voice. “Mabel wouldn’t like it if I advised violence, but…”

“We need that hair,” Wendy says. “Don’t sweat it. Leave it to us.”

Unlike last time, Ford doesn’t have to wander long before he finds her.

He walks for no more than ten minutes before he finds her standing in a literal fork in the road — idle between the two paths.

With her back facing him, he can’t make out the expression on her face, but he can tell by the sound of her breathing that she’s crying, or at least has been.

“Mabel?” he calls out, straining his eyes to see past the sun’s blinding rays.

Mabel’s voice is thick with tears when she speaks. “I didn’t know where to go,” she says quietly, and it’s almost lost to the subtle drone of the woodland creatures that inhabit this part of the forest.

“That’s…that’s OK.”

She spins around, her lip wobbling already, and he rushes forward immediately. The whole thing is weirdly instinctual, and he finds himself kneeling down in front of her in a matter of seconds.

She sniffs, her next breath stuttering wildly in her chest. “Do you think I’m a bad person?” she asks, tears rolling down her flushed cheeks.

“What? No, of course not.”

“Celestabellebethabelle—“

He reaches up to squeeze her shoulders. “Is wrong.”

Mabel shakes her head fervently and frees herself from his grasp. “No. No, I don’t think she is, Grunkle Ford. I used to be one of the sweetest people I knew. But now?”

She plops down onto the floor, right in the middle of the diverging paths, and squeezes her eyes shut. “I lied to my parents. My friends. Everyone thinks Dipper is dead, and no one knows the truth. 

“No one knows that it was…me.”

“Mabel.”

She opens her eyes, staring up at him through wet lashes. “It… it wasn’t you,” he says simply.

Mabel shakes her head. “Have you ever made a mistake so horrible, you start looking at yourself differently? Like, you don’t even really know who you are anymore?”

Ford takes a seat next to her, paying little mind to the dirt that muddies his pants. He ponders the question, already thinking of too many examples to name. “Many, in my lifetime,” he answers honestly.

“I wish I could take it back, Grunkle Ford. I should have listened to him, but I didn’t, and now he’s going to hate me forever. If he isn’t already…already…”

He can’t say he’s eager to imagine that himself. “Dipper’s fine, you said it yourself, remember? You can’t let yourself think this way,” Ford says. “Neither one of you knew what the portal was capable of.”

She lets out a small whimper, and his heart twists for the umpteenth time today. He’s sure she understands the fortuity of what happened by now, so he struggles to think of anything else that will help ease her conscience. He thinks he can understand a thing or two about blaming himself for things that were largely out of his control, but he’s never found a way to keep that guilt at bay.

Not to mention, this whole thing was really Stan’s fault. But Ford somehow doubts saying that will make things any better. Also, the thought of giving voice to that opinion hits him squarely in the chest, tugging at his heartstrings. The feeling annoys him to no end. When it comes to him and his brother, he had thought himself incapable of feeling anything more about it by now.

“Mabel. Look at me,” he says, urging her to meet his eyes. When she does, he makes sure to convey a sense of urgency and sincerity in his own. “So, you think you made a mistake,” Ford says. “That's debatable, but say you did. I hardly think Dipper would hate you forever for that.”

She sinks under the collar of her sweater. “You still hate Stan.”

“I– Hate?” Ford sputters. “Well, I—”

She cuts in, saving him from the nonsensical stammering that was sure to follow. “You haven’t said one good thing about him since I met you. If Dipper wasn’t able to say anything good about me, then…”

She trails off, the thought likely too horrible for her to dwell on further.

Ford sighs. “Mabel, what happened between Stan and I was different.”

“How? Something I did directly helped send my twin to another dimension. How is that different?”

Ford shakes his head. He supposes it isn’t all that different in a manner of speaking, but it’s also night and day. For starters, Mabel didn’t physically shove her twin in the direction of the portal. “I don't know your brother, but if he’s anything like you say, and has a heart that’s half as good as yours…

“Well, then I know he’s not angry with you. Stan and I are stubborn old men, set in our ways. We've been burdened by these things longer than we haven’t. It's been a long time since I've been on good terms with my brother. Our problems predate any of this.”

Mabel frowns. “Dipper is good,” she says. “And I think you’re good too, Grunkle Ford.”

“I– Thank you, Mabel, dear.”

“And so is Grunkle Stan. He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you.”

Ford hums. Somewhere deep down, he knows that much. Still, you can hurt people without meaning to. He knows that maybe better than anyone.

Randomly, Fiddleford comes to mind, and he decides to shove that train of thought into a small box to chew on later.

Mabel wraps her arms around her midsection, shielding the unicorn patch on her sweater from the light of day. “I didn’t press the button because I– I’ve never seen Grunkle Stan look like that,” she says smally. “He was just so desperate and sad, and… and he said please. He never says please. But he did, and he said he was doing it for family.”

She turns to him, something wild and soft reflecting in her eyes. “He meant you. You’re his family, Grunkle Ford.”

Ford exhales heavily, trying to breathe past the sudden feeling of the air being knocked out of his lungs.

He doesn’t want to think about that. He hasn’t thought of things like having a family in decades. For years, it’s been just him and the narrow spaces between dimensions and the predictability unpredictable multiverse to keep him company. He had his mission to complete, and for three decades there was nothing more important to him in this entire universe than to see Bill Cipher eradicated from existence.

But he has it now, in some small form, and he thinks maybe he can admit to himself that he wants it. That he missed it.

His priorities haven’t changed. He won’t rest until Cipher is dead and buried, but maybe there’s no shame in entertaining what was missing from his life all the while. Maybe Cipher’s end will bring more than just universal stability. It can’t hurt to admit that, right? To dream of two things at once?

“Well, thank you, Mabel,” Ford says. “Admittedly, it’s hard for me to view Stanley in that way, but I–”

He flicks his gaze between the two converging paths and sighs. He wonders if they meet up again down the line, or if they’re destined to continue off in two directions for the rest of time. 

He wonders where they end up.

“But I can try,” he continues. “To see the Stan that you knew. And who knows? Things could be very different soon. Thanks to you.”

Mabel curls in on herself. “I don’t think I deserve any thanks.”

“Nonsense. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in the basement dismantling a portal instead of saving our brothers. I’d say that certainly deserves some thanks, Mabel.”

“Well, thanks to me, we won’t have any way to keep them or us safe from Bill,” Mabel says, tracing a triangle in the dirt before promptly wiping it away. “Celestabellebethabelle will never let us have her hair unless one of us becomes pure of heart all of a sudden. And we’ve already established that my heart is tainted and black.”

Ford frowns. “That's not true.”

Mabel whines into her knees.

“Someone with a tainted heart wouldn’t put the needs of two stubborn old men above their own,” Ford points out. “They wouldn’t care so deeply about their family. Their friends.”

Mabel shrugs, and so he decides to try a different route. He nudges her in the shoulder softly with his own. “You know, I’m no unicorn, but I'd say you’ve got to be around… 95% pure of heart. At least,” he says, trying for some levity.

She extracts the lower half of her face from her sweater. “Ninety-five percent? That’s a whole ten percent more than eighty-five.”

“You’re right,” he says, tapping his chin. “That’s much too low. Ninety-eight.”

Mabel giggles, wiping her wet eyes with a sleeved wrist. “Grunkle Ford…”

“Ninety-nine.”

She drops her sweatered hands at her sides and stretches out her legs. “Okay, fine, I get it.”

He sobers up slightly. “I never learned what metrics the unicorns use to determine pure-heartedness. For all we know, accidentally stepping on an ant might disqualify you,” Ford speculates. “After all, if being pure of heart were common, they’d have a lot less hair to spare…”

He freezes. Of course.

Now that he thinks about it, there’s little difference in the interactions he’s had with unicorns in the past and the actions of Celestabellebethabelle today. Down to the precise language used, even.

It takes a will of titanium to keep him from palming himself in the face once it all becomes clear to him. “Oh, those hooved basta—“ he says, biting his tongue sharply to keep the curse from slipping.

That gets Mabel’s attention. “Grunkle Ford?”

He stands. “Forget everything I said, Mabel. Your heart is whole. One hundred percent. It’s hers that won’t be when I'm finished with it.” 

Ford disappears into the woods, and it’s the first opportunity Wendy’s had all day to really think.

Well, she’s always thinking — she’s never been able to completely stop the whirlwind of thoughts that constantly zip around in her head — but she’s felt especially discombobulated today. She’d been deep in sleep when Soos called her this morning, and she’d hesitantly agreed to come along once it became clear that, despite her insistence that unicorns are not and have never been real, he wasn’t planning on taking no for an answer.

Since then, she’s had her hands full with three kids and one Soos, who can be equally as difficult to corral at times. Not to mention this self-imposed burden she’s assigned herself to eavesdrop and monitor Ford and Mabel’s conversation at the back of the group all day — practically a full-time job in and of itself.

So, yeah, she hasn’t really been firing on all cylinders today. But with Ford gone, there’s at least slightly more space up in her head to focus on other matters.

Realistically, Wendy knows she needs to lay off Ford a little bit. But it’s not her fault that he’s set on making that a Herculean task. He’s stubborn and a know-it-all and he’s constantly lying about things that none of them really even understand — and that makes him dangerous.

He wasted weeks lying to them when they could have been working on bringing Stan and Dipper back, deciding instead to knowingly leave them in Bill’s dimension, where they very well might still be. And for what? Because he retroactively decided that the portal he invented, the one that caused this whole mess to begin with, was too dangerous? Because of Bill? Because of some stupid, petty argument that happened between him and Stan over three decades ago?

It doesn’t matter what led him to make that decision, Wendy decides. What matters is that, for whatever reason, Mabel has already seemed to regain her trust in him. And even though it’s just because she has to — if they want his help rebuilding the portal — she still doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t deserve it. That lie might have killed Dipper and Stan already.

But Wendy doesn’t like to think about that. In fact, she’s been dutifully avoiding everything to do with that since yesterday’s outburst in the basement. 

Instead, she decides to take this brief moment in time to think about something more practical and useful. She thinks she can find it in herself to surrender some control and let Ford handle things with Mabel. Maybe just this once.

So, action. She promised him unicorn hair, and she intends to get it. 

Pacifica cuts in through some of the noise, and she resurfaces from the depths of her mind like she’d been dunked into an ice bath. “She thinks what happened to Dipper is her fault?”

“What?” Wendy asks before remembering what she and Ford had been discussing. 

Damn, she really hadn’t meant for them to hear any of that. “Oh. Uh, yeah.”

Pacifica covers her face with her hands. “Oh, god,” she groans, sounding genuinely abashed. “I’m the worst.”

Grenda jumps in. “Yeah, Mabel never told us that. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Yeah, Mabel never tells us anything,” Candy agrees. “Did we do something wrong? Why won’t she talk to us?”

The girls’ rhetorical questions rise to a clamor, and Wendy jumps in front of them, hands outstretched. She’s heard enough negative self-talk from Mabel — she’d really like to avoid stirring it up in anyone else.

“OK, no. Everyone calm down,” she says. “This is what that stupid horse wants us to do: beat ourselves up for not knowing exactly what to do and say all the time.”

Soos tilts his head like a lost puppy dog. “Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to. It’s obvious,” she says, squeezing her axe tight in her fist. “I don’t know about you guys, but Mabel is the best person I know. If she’s not pure of heart, then we’re all just fucked. So I say we quit while we’re ahead. We tried getting that hair the good way, now it’s time we try the Wendy way.”

“Are you suggesting violence?” Grenda asks. “Sabotage?”

Candy winces. “Mabel’s not going to like that.”

“Mabel doesn’t need to know. Look, it’s time we stop trying to be so ‘perfect’ and be who we really are. We’re crazed, angry, sweaty animals! We’re not unicorns, we’re WOMEN! AND WE TAKE WHAT WE WANT!” 

She slams her fist into the nearest tree as something fiery swells in her chest, the three girls’ loud cheers still ringing in her ears. It’s enough to rile something up in her, to shove down the nagging voice in the back of her mind — the one that has been feeding her worst-case scenarios and pessimism all week long. The one that keeps telling her that this is all pointless.

“Uh—”

“And Soos!” Wendy amends, wrapping an arm around Soos’ shoulders and drawing him closer. “Women and Soos!”

Soos squeezes back. “Heh, yeah! Girl-dudes and Soos!”

She draws them all into a huddle. “Listen. Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

The last thing Mabel wants to do is face Celestabellebethabelle again, but she knows she has no choice. She cares more about Dipper and Stan than she does the state of her heart.

Besides, even if her heart is impure and corrupt, she’s sure someone who’s truly pure of heart would be the kind of person willing to face moral condemnation if it meant protecting the people they love.

And maybe she isn’t one hundred percent that person, but that might not be entirely her fault. After all, half of her heart is a trillion miles away, stuck in some unknown dimension parallel to this one. She’s starting to come to terms with the fact that she might not recognize the face she sees in the mirror on most days. Or the person in her head.

Ford, for his part, doesn’t seem to be coming to any specific terms. He’s been muttering angrily to himself ever since, and as he marches back toward Celestabellebethabelle’s mystical glade, Mabel sees his palm come to rest over the handle of his gun several times, at least. She thinks a pure-hearted person might try to stop him, but she’s not sure such a feat would be possible in his current state. She’s never seen him this angry before.

When they reach the golden gates, Mabel does everything in her power not to immediately draw in on herself. Somehow, she thinks she might even be dreading facing her friends more than she is Celestabellebethabelle. But her embarrassment melts away practically the second she peeks into the unicorn’s realm, the scene in front of her escalating rapidly.

“Hey, listen here, you horse-faced freak of nature,” she hears Pacifica say before she sees her. When she does, she watches as her small hands ball into menacing fists, shaking with rage by her sides. “Mabel is the sweetest, weirdest girl I know. There’s not a bad bone in her entire body. You better take it back.”

Celestabellebethabelle laughs, pointing her horn toward Pacifica’s chest. “Your heart, child, is as impure as they come. I can feel it, too.”

Pacifica scoffs. “Oh, I know I’m not pure of heart. I’m rich. And that means I have no problem snapping that stupid horn clean off your head and taking what’s ours.”

“Damn!” Wendy hollers. “Tell ‘em, Pacifica!”

Mabel pushes past Ford and rushes toward the girls, desperate to put a stop to what she knows is coming, knowing them. “Wait!” she says, putting herself between Celestabellebethabelle and Pacifica, ignoring the shocked expressions on all of their faces. “This isn’t right, girls. We’re better than this.”

Celestabellebethabelle turns her nose upward. “Are you?”

“That’s quite enough,” says a familiar, menacing voice, causing Celestabellebethabelle’s mane to stand on end. It turns out she’s right to be fearful, and as Ford moves closer with his steady and purposeful gait, he lifts his gun and aims it directly at her.

Mabel throws her arms outward. “Grunkle Ford, wait!”

“She’s lying,” Ford says cooly, his eyes steely as he aims the barrel of the weapon in her direction.

“What? What do you mean?” Celestabellebethabelle asks, eyes shifting nervously to her right. Mabel follows her gaze and spots an unusual sight — two unicorns trotting over toward them. Weird, she thinks, she thought she was supposed to be the last one.

“You’re lying. Tell them or I shoot,” Ford barks.

“I– I–”

“Tell them,” Ford demands.

“It’s the truth,” Celestabellebethabelle doubles down. “She is not pure of heart!”

Then, as if on cue, the two male unicorns reveal themselves from behind the forage, meeting Celestabellebethabelle with matching expressions of exasperation. “Woah, woah, woah, you gotta be kidding me,” one of them says.

They all turn to face the new arrivals, and Ford lowers his gun, squinting apprehensively at the two.

“Yo, C-beth, are you seriously pulling this pure-of-heart scam again?”

The other unicorn jumps in. “That is messed up, man.”

“What?” Wendy asks, dropping the handle of her axe to rest against her shoulder.

Mabel frowns. “Wait, scam?” she says. “So, Grunkle Ford was right? It wasn’t true?”

One of the unicorns scoffs. “Kid, unicorns can't see into your heart. All our dumb horns can do is glow, point towards the nearest rainbow, and play rave music,” he says, a short burst of house music emanating from his horn for show.

“Yeah, the whole pure of heart racket is just a line we use to get humans to leave us alone.”

“Guuuyys,” Celestabellebethabelle says, wary of Ford’s gun, which rises once more to point straight at her. “Shut uuupp.”

Mabel can hardly muster up the same disapproval she’d felt at Ford’s anger before. With the blood rushing in her ears and her fists clenched by her sides, all she can focus on is her own anger, nearly bubbling over now.

It was all a lie. Another lie that she fell for — immediately. Without question or hesitation.

She lowers her outstretched hands. “All this time. All this time I thought I was a bad person,” she says, her voice thick with disbelief. “But you're even worse than I am!”

Celestabellebethabelle turns her snout to the sky. “Okay, fine. So you learned our secret. We're jerks, okay? We have more hair than we know what to do with, and we keep it to ourselves just to tick humans off.

“What are you gonna do about it, huh, huh?” she mocks. “What are ya gonna DO?!”

Mabel feels her fist smack into something muscular and bony before she even knows what she’s doing. When she pulls her fist away, it’s bruised and throbbing, coated in a viscous liquid that shimmers translucently under a rainbow sky.

Adrenaline courses through her veins, and she hears the sharp gasp of her friends behind her, muted slightly by the sound of her heart throbbing in her heaving chest.

“Wooo, Mabel!” Wendy hollers.

“Join the dark side!”

Celestabellebethabelle wipes her hoof beneath her bloodied nose. “So, it’s a fight you want. Then it’s a fight you’ll get!”

Everything descends into chaos after that, Ford rushing forward and blasting a ray toward the unicorns.

One of them hits, and Celestabellebethabelle is temporarily overwhelmed by the shock — a non-lethal result of Ford’s futuristic gun. He continues to make use of it, blasting rays toward the mares as they charge.

Wendy, Soos, Pacifica, Grenada, and Candy might not have weapons — save for Wendy’s lone axe — but they seem to hold their own, and when Mabel chances a look over, she sees Pacifica nearly gouge out the eyes of one of the unicorns.

She’s forced to look away from the sight when she’s met with a hoof to the side of her face, but she finds herself smiling anyway.

Mabel’s not sure how the fight ends, but she knows they come away from it with their pockets full of unicorn hair and gold and other shimmery, glittery objects that they have no real use for.

By her side, Ford rambles on about the rarity of the hair, practically beaming as he inspects it in his hands, and the careful, considerate planning she sees behind his eyes fills her with so much hope, it’s nearly blinding.

Hope. She forgot what that felt like. But she feels it now. It feels like knowing the next steps ahead — plans of barriers and protection spells and portals.

It feels like seeing her friends fight her favorite childhood mythical creatures right by her side, relentless and rabid and strong and together.

Wendy laughs beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders right as Soos takes a crack at another well-timed joke about Celestebellabethawhatever, and Mabel decides it doesn’t matter who she is to anyone else. 

The only opinions that matter are the opinions of her family, and she’s got a good chunk of it right here, rallying beside her. 

And, for now, that’s a good enough start. 

“Thanks for sticking up for me today, Great Uncle Ford,” Mabel says, sitting criss-crossed on the lawn, watching as Ford smooths out a particularly long strand of unicorn hair across the perimeter of the Shack. Seeing the fruits of their labor is cheering her up more than she thought it would, and she gets the sudden sense that they’ve taken a leap over the largest hurdle they’ll have to face. 

With the threat of Bill out of the way, she has faith in Ford to make this happen. And hopefully sooner rather than later.

At the other side of the Shack, Mabel can hear Soos, Pacifica, and Wendy fill the evening quiet with the sound of droning voices, blending in seamlessly with the vibrant chirping of crickets. They’re busy at work too — burying moonstones — Pacifica not wanting to go home and Soos and Wendy practically living here anyway. It’s a comfort to have them all nearby, and Mabel finds herself already mourning the moment they all decide to go back home for the night.

“Ah, it was no trouble,” Ford says.

She peels herself off of the floor and joins him at his side, reaching out to grab some hair to help him set the perimeter. “I guess I got kind of crazy, letting Celestabellebethabelle get to me like that,” she says, testing the waters. She’s far enough away from the events of today that the feeling doesn’t feel so earth-shatteringly terrible anymore. The strongest feeling she feels now is something like embarrassment, like she’s been laid bare for all of them to see. Vulnerable, for the millionth time this week.

Ford shakes his head. “It’s more than understandable, given what you’ve been through recently,” he says. “But do you think you feel better? After our talk?” 

If Mabel didn’t know any better, she’d say he almost sounds insecure. She shrugs, gluing down a piece of hair. “I guess. I don't know. I don't really want to think about it anymore.”

Ford hums. “You won't have to. With this unicorn hair barrier, we’ll be able to keep Bill out, and he won’t be able to possess or manipulate anyone within these walls,” he says. “You’ve protected your family today, Mabel. You’re a good person.”

Mabel offers him a shy smile. “Thanks, Grunkle Ford, but today I learned that morality is relative.”

He chuckles before solidifying the last strand of hair necessary to activate the forcefield. When it does, the Shack appears to be surrounded by a blue, opaque half-dome, glinting in the sunlight for a few moments before fading from her eyesight entirely, as if it was never there at all.

When it’s all said and done, Ford ruffles her hair, looking just as proud of her as he says he is.

Pure or not, Mabel’s heart swells.

Pacifica is the last of her friends to leave the Shack, and Mabel sees her out the same way she saw her in.

“Am I really the sweetest person you know?” she asks as she presses the Shack door shut behind them.

“Maybe,” Pacifica says, wrapping herself up in the llama sweater that Mabel lent her, the summer sun dipping below the horizon and bringing a slight chill to the air. “But it’s not as if the competition’s fierce. The people I know suck.”

Mabel laughs. From what she remembers of Pacifica’s party, they really do. “Yeah, that checks out.”

“You know, today was probably the weirdest day of my life by far,” Pacifica says.

She shrugs. This summer, she and Dipper have had Tuesdays more eventful than today.  “Eh, I’ve had weirder.”

Pacifica snorts. “Of course you have.”

“Careful,” Mabel warns, chuckling anyway.

This is nice, she thinks. And although she’d be happier about the promise of a friendship with Pacifica if the circumstances around it were better, she’s more than happy to take what she can get at this point.

Then, she remembers what Pacifica is about to go home to, and it snuffs out all traces of humor and gratitude near-instantaneously. “Are you sure you’ll be okay going home to your parents? Y’know, after the whole accusing them of murder thing?”

Pacifica shrugs, too cavalier about the whole thing for someone who genuinely thought their parents murdered their half friend, half sworn enemy only hours ago. Mabel wonders how much she might be shoving down. 

“Dinner might be awkward, but it’ll probably be fine,” she says. “I've accused them of worse.”

“What's worse than murder?”

“Buying fake fine china. That one bought me three months.”

Mabel snorts. Why is she not surprised? “Sounds about right.”

“Yep,” Pacifica says, popping the p. “Anyway, I should go, your servant offered me a ride home and he’s waiting in the car.”

“He’s not our servant, you know that right? But, yeah, I’ll see you later, Paz.”

Pacifica turns to leave, heading out toward Soos’ truck, before whipping around suddenly. “Oh, but, hey, Mabel.”

Mabel raises a brow.

Pacifica tucks her hair behind her ears as she walks backward, careful with her steps, her boots sinking into thick mud. “When you’re ready to talk about what really happened, text me.”

Mabel’s mouth falls askew.

“And tell hotter Stan I said bye, and thanks for the unicorn fight!” she says. “It was weirdly cathartic.”

Chapter Text

It’s about a ten-foot drop down.

The shock of slamming chest-first into something he can only describe as bone-chillingly freezing is all-consuming, and he’s not given nearly enough time to process what in the hell just happened before his brain short-circuits entirely, trying and failing to draw even one halfway decent breath into his lungs.

He’s not sure how long he lies there, breathless, but it’s long enough that the tips of his fingers start losing all sensation, sunken into deep, powdery snow. When he finally finds the strength to push himself upward, he’s surprised to find himself surrounded by it.

“Stan?”

Dipper curls into himself and pulls his bright red hands close to his chest, though it does little to block out the chill. The loneliness strikes him like a bullet, and he knows in his gut that he’s alone — that Stan didn’t go through the portal with him.

Stan didn’t go through the portal with him.

He shoots up, losing what little ground he has atop the mound of snow and sliding down the side of it, plunging down again onto uneven terrain. Still, he’s on his feet in seconds, settling his backpack on his shoulders and whirling around to make sense of this new dimension.

The air is thick and pungent, surrounding him on every side and wafting a sickly, pungent smell, like someone left a glue gun unattended on shag carpeting. The sky is a whirlpool of colors, molting and shifting like a borderless lava lamp.

The realization hits him harder than the fall.

He doesn’t have to wonder where he’s ended up for long. He knows exactly where he is, and it feels like he’s back at the top of the highest mountain on Earth, heaving and choking with fluid-filled lungs.

“Oh, man, oh, man,” he panics.

Dipper tugs at his unruly hair, his fingers thawing slightly in the warmth that lingers there, the phantom kiss of Lottocron Nine’s sun still soaked in his curls. 

When it fades, like the rift that zipped itself shut above him only moments ago, all he has left is the vacuum-sealed hollowness of an unstable, decaying dimension to keep him warm. 

He doesn’t need to know it by name to know that he’s landed himself in Bill’s dimension, with absolutely no way to get back.

The terror claws its way up his throat and escapes as one forbidden syllable. 

“Fuck.”

It isn’t until his fingers are raw and bloody, dribbling down his wrists, that Stan finally peels himself off the concrete, clutching the broken wormhole gun tight against his chest.

Smacking it against the ground has proved useless — trying to rip open an interdimensional rift through a crack in the cement even less so — but he has close to zero options, and nothing in the world makes more sense than to tear the entire world apart to bring the kid back.

He smacks one of his bloodied palms over the hole in his arm instead, the sensation of his own life force bubbling out of his bicep like a half-plugged geyser only mildly nauseating. It’s more of an annoyance really, on the same level as his raw vocal chords, which he has worn to the absolute brink in the past few minutes alone.

“Dipper!” he cries out, and it sounds like there might be something rabid inside him, trying to claw its way to freedom. “Kid!”

He wraps both of his hands around the gun and aims it downward. Another couple of smacks is all it needs, he’s sure. Then, he’ll be back at the kid’s side, and they can finally start figuring out a way home. Just like they planned, just like Stan promised—

Stanford, come back! I DIDN'T MEAN IT!

I just got him back! I can't lose him again!

Stan tries again, smacking the gun with all the force he can possibly muster. But this time, instead of bright, blinding sparks that billow out the side of it, the entire thing heats up in his hands instead. 

His raw, torn hands are no match for the intensity of it, and he loses hold of the gun as the surface of the smooth metal rapidly rises in temperature.

When it hits the concrete, it doesn’t release a cacophony of sparks or even explode and send him careening through time and space like he had hoped. Instead, it lies there, motionless, emitting nothing but a single stream of black smoke that rises up into the sunset-streaked sky. 

He feels similarly on the inside — defunct, worthless. He yells out again, kicking the gun with his ridiculous, oversized shoes that aren’t meant for him or his species. 

It slides several feet across the cement before crashing into a small rock, looking no more useful to him than the rocket launchers the kids had been playing with that morning — the last good morning that Stan can remember, the last one he’ll probably ever experience again.

I tell ya, it's unnatural for siblings to get along as well as you do.

Except he fucked that up, too, didn’t he? Just like he fucked up his relationship with Ford.

He saw something good, something decent, and he infected it, like he always does. He must be some fucked up, twisted version of Midas, robbing worlds and entire dimensions of the last bits of goodness that are somehow decent enough to agree to linger in his shadow, only to be snuffed out by his worthless, miserable touch in the end.

He’s nothing but a fuck up, and this was his biggest one yet. One final, catastrophic mistake to finish it all off.

And it will be the last. Because he won’t survive this. He can’t. He won’t survive the guilt of letting two family members slip through the cracks, lost to the cosmos. 

And the kid. Especially not the kid.

Stan was supposed to protect him, but he thinks he marked him for death instead.

He doesn’t have much in the way of a plan when he sprints off in the opposite direction, pushing past the few strangers who have chosen his misery and grief as their pre-dinner show, leaving behind a trail of blood that leads straight to the defunct portal gun.

He leaves it where it lies, pressing one trembling palm over the hole in his arm. He staggers about as far as he’d run before, and feels the rampant churning of his gut when he spots their pursuer right where they left him, clutching his midsection and doubled over in agony.

Before he knows it, he’s shoving him against the wall, grabbing him by the lapels, and hoisting him into the air. 

The man gasps at the sudden movement, a stream of violet blood trickling down his forehead from a particularly gnarly gash at his hairline.

“You did this,” Stan says darkly, his fists curling around rough, scratchy fabric. 

The man gurgles low in his throat. “What the fuck, man? You’re crazy!”

He shoves him against the wall again, with triple the force this time, and his ears are blessed with the sound of a sickening crack as skull meets brick.

The man groans weakly, squinting to shield his eyes from the subtle glow of the street lights, shining down on his bruised, bloodied face. Dipper’s shot must have been more concussive than he’d thought. “You stole from me, man! You owe me this bounty!”

“Fuck your bounty,” he spits, jostling him roughly. “Why did you do it? What did you want from us?!”

“What?—”

“How much was it?! How much money?”

How much money was worth Dipper’s life?

“You… I–” The man cuts off abruptly when he meets the wild, dark look in Stan’s eyes, and his anger washes away all at once. It replaces itself with a terror-filled confusion instead.

“You aren’t him,” he says, sounding even more frightened than before. “Are you?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he throws him to the ground, not at all phased by the rage he uncovers inside. 

He might be the one at fault, the one responsible, but this man is the one who made it happen. He’s the one who took Dipper from him.

He takes his first punch, and the familiar satisfaction of landing a perfect right hook floods back into him the second he makes contact.

It feels right. It feels—

His satisfaction dampens as the novelty fades, and he finds that by the fourth, fifth, sixth punch, he’s mostly just going through the motions, his conscious brain slipping into the far recesses of his mind.

Stan doesn’t know how much time passes before someone intervenes — an urgent set of hands roughly wrapping around his arm. The free-flowing wound on his bicep screams in agony as whoever it is throws him off of the man, restraining him and holding him back.

Stan sees red.

On his fists. On the ground. All over the man’s face — the twisted, slightly askew knot at the center of his face gushing and dribbling down his chin.

With Stan off of him, he peels himself off the floor, looking semi-conscious and only barely managing to stumble upright. 

“Hey, no, man. Sit down,” says an unfamiliar voice, owned by the alien that makes her way in front of him.

Their pursuer shakes his head wildly as he regains his bearings, promptly turning and stumbling down the alleyway, using the brick wall to help him keep his balance when he occasionally careens into it.

The alien lowers her passively outstretched hands and turns to face Stan as the man quickly flees the scene. She looks down at him, quietly assessing, before meeting the gaze of whoever it is that’s restraining him.

“Let go of me,” Stan says weakly, struggling against the hold.

There’s a deep, authoritative voice in his ear. “Are you kidding? Tell me you’re kidding.”

“He’s been shot,” says the one in front of him, and it’s said casually, like it doesn’t actually matter. 

And he guesses it really doesn’t. Not even he thinks so.

The more Stan struggles, the tighter the alien’s grip gets. Still, it wouldn’t be too difficult to escape, if he had the strength. But he’s never felt this defeated in his entire life. Even sitting upright feels like an impossible task. 

He wishes the ground would open up and swallow them all whole — that it would just let him in.

“I noticed. What do you want me to do about it, Cardea?”

The alien woman seems unimpressed, and she crosses two of her four arms across her chest. “Didn’t they teach you about gunshot wounds in your training?”

“Not ones with actual bullets,” he says. “Who even uses bullets anymore, with plasma rifles available? They're so impractical. A plasma beam would’ve blown this arm clean off—“

He meets Stan’s eyes, only slightly loosening his grip. “—which would’ve been horrible. So glad he used bullets, right? We can figure out bullets.”

He tries slightly harder to shake the alien off of him. “I don’t need your help. I need to find my kid.”

The woman — Cardea, he figures — raises her brow. “Your kid? Is that who you were screaming about down the block?”

“There's no kid, man, you're delirious.”

Stan shakes his head, finally managing to shake the alien off of him and spinning around to face them both. He rises from the ground and straightens out his sore, old body. 

“He was here,” he pleads. “My nephew, he– he fell through a portal just a few minutes ago. He was trying to get away from that asshole you pulled me off of—”

“Portal?” Cardea quickly interrupts. “But there aren’t any naturally-occurring rifts in this area.”

The man scoffs with some measure of fondness. “Cardea’s the expert around here. She knows everything there is to know about wormholes.” 

He lowers his voice to a whisper, as if she can’t hear them, standing right there. “They call people like her portal wayfinders, just like they talked about in the old legends.”

“Am not,” she says. “Those don’t exist. I just know where to be in order to be in the right place at the right time. You'd be better at it if you gave a shit, Janus.” 

She inches closer to Stan. “Where was the threshold?”

Threshold? Stan shakes his head. “What? No. No, we– we had a gun. A wormhole one. But it broke—”

“A wormhole gun? No way you got your hands on one of those,” she interrupts again, a glint in all four eyes.

Stan reaches for his throbbing bicep again, feeling a familiar warmth beginning to spread throughout his body. It’s a sickly, feverish sensation that has never boded well for him before, and it sets him even further on edge.

“How’d you get it?” Cardea asks.

“I stole it.”

“I'm sure you made that person really happy.” Janus laughs. “Do you even know how much those go for on the underground market?”

“I don’t care,” Stan says, and he really, truly doesn’t. But these are also the only people he’s ever talked to that seem to know anything at all about interdimensional travel, and he’d be damned if he ran away from that.

“We don’t have to help you, you know,” says Janus, finally standing up. He flicks his gaze over to his partner, looking for her support in the decision.

But when Stan looks over at her, she seems to be lost in thought, that spellbound gleam not once fading from her eyes.

“There’s a twelve-year-old kid stuck in another dimension. All alone,” he begs, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of it. It’s enough to bring a hot sheen of wetness over his eyes. “You have to help me. Please.”

“Man, you just tried to kill someone with your bare fists right outside of our shop. We don’t have to do anything. Right, Cardea?”

When he gets no response, he cranes his head to the left, trying to meet her eyes.

“Cardea?”

She looks up, but her eyes are only for Stan. “Where’d you leave the gun?”

The wind whips him hard in the face, like stone-cold daggers skirting across a sheet of ice, but he has nothing better to do than to carry on.

And so he does.

There was something his parents told him once, when he was much younger. Something about staying put if he ever got lost, and he can vaguely remember a time when he put that lesson to good use.

Maybe it was a grocery store. The mall. An amusement park. 

He can’t really remember the details, especially not now, walking against the full force of this dimension’s solar wind, but it begs a question in his brain that he doesn’t have the answer for.

Because Dipper can’t stay in place. 

Assuming Bill doesn’t already know he’s here, he has to hide, and fast. And not just from Bill, but from his henchmen, too — the ones that Bill ordered to find and kill him only weeks ago.

No, he has to keep moving. Stan will just have to find him where he’s at. 

Thing is, Dipper’s not an idiot. He’s already fit most of the pieces of this puzzle together, and he knows enough about the way things work out here to come to some particularly frightening conclusions. But he’s not letting himself think of any of that. 

He’s not thinking about what this says for him and the rest of his (likely) very short life. He’s not even thinking about Bill all that much, lurking somewhere in the greasy underbelly of this decaying dimension, biding his time, watching, waiting—

Dipper quickens his step, breaking out into as much of a running pace as he can handle right now, treading knee-deep through dense powder. There is ice coating his lashes and frosting the tips of his curls, and he can feel his nose starting to run along with him, aching and burning at the center of his face, but no amount of discomfort would be enough to keep him still at this point.

Moving is good. Moving feels safe. 

He runs for what feels like miles and miles on end, chest heaving and burning, until he spots a faint light in the distance, and it feels like time comes screeching to a halt.

For a moment, he slows his pace just to stare at it, and he makes out what looks to be a cave, lit up by a warm, violet glow. It sits right at the edge of the universe, solid ground giving way to empty space — iridescent bubbles and warped asteroids scouring through a decaying void. 

It’s tucked away in the mouth of the mountain — facing the beginning of chaos and marking reason’s end, and like a moth to a flame, he’s drawn to it.

He lets his weary legs lead the way, more than relieved when he finally reaches it and slumps at its entrance, able to make out nothing but a dim, purple glow that emanates from inside.

Dipper lowers himself into a crouch and tries to take a peek inside. From what he can tell, the source of the glow seems to be a modestly-sized fire, and surrounding the glittery flames sits a group of icy, wounded aliens.

They talk in low and purposeful whispers to one another, until one of them, a creature that looks to be more rat than man, flicks up a single, pointed ear.

Dipper flinches and shoves himself back behind the rockface, trying to gain any sort of control whatsoever over his breathing.

He can’t. Of course he can’t.

They sniff sharply and then call out, “It’s alright, child, you can come out.”

Dipper’s racing heart promptly bottoms out, but he does as he’s told. Mostly because sitting around an oddly tinged fire and potentially getting murdered by a group of strangers is the favorable option when the alternative is freezing out in the cold, getting caught by one of Bill’s hellspawn, or being discovered and tortured by Bill himself . 

Knowing Bill, it might even be a sick, twisted combination of all three of those things. 

He peeks around the mouth of the cave and steps inside.

“Ah,” says the Rat Man, clicking his tongue. “Come join us by the fire, boy.”

“Um. Okay,” Dipper says, walking further inside.

When he makes no move to get any closer, the Rat Man scooches over on his log, patting a spot for Dipper to sit. He almost doesn’t, but the promise of warmth and a moment to rest his weary legs is impossible to pass up.

He sits, and the Rat Man asks, “What’s your name?”

He shifts uncomfortably and rubs the back of his neck, his fingers searing with the discomfort of the temperature change. “It’s, uh– Dipper.”

“Welcome, Dipper. I’m Riggs, and this is Frezia and Pascian.”

To his left, Frezia offers a toothy grin, flashing razor-sharp teeth that leave him questioning how their mouth hasn’t been completely torn to shreds by now. Though humanoid in nature, their skin is clearly reptilian, and their forked tongue is a testament to that.

Pascian sits to Riggs’ right, offering no more than a slight nod in acknowledgment of his presence. They look mostly human except for their long, feather-like hair and sharp, angular features — like a bird’s.

“Hello,” Dipper says to them both, dropping his hands to his lap and squeezing them together, like he’s trying to capture the fire’s warmth for future use.

The cave gets quiet suddenly, and he clears his throat, glaring into the fire. “I– I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, I—”

“Nonsense,” Riggs interrupts. “There are no intruders here. Just lost wanderers in need of sanctuary from this cursed realm.”

Dipper nods and looks up. “Were you lost here, too?”

He nods sagely. “We were great adventurers on our homeworld, tasked with exploring the cosmos to seek out our planet’s new frontier,” he explains, tapping the nametag attached to his worn space suit, which Dipper has somehow only just now noticed. 

Sure enough, his translator translates the foreign scrawl as Riggs. “A few months ago, our rocket ship was sucked into a wormhole shortly after we left orbit, and we’ve been trapped here ever since.”

Riggs glances at his partners and sighs. He grabs a long stick from the ground and begins to poke aimlessly at their dwindling fire. “Lost things in the multiverse have a habit of winding up here.”

“Here,” Dipper parrots. “Where’s here?”

“Dimension 0,” Frezia says with a flick of her long, forked tongue. “But he calls it the Nightmare Realm.”

Of course he does. “Bill, right? Bill Cipher?”

Their gasps ring out in the small cave, reverberating off the sides of the rocks and echoing in his ears. Dipper gulps.

Riggs blinks. “How do you know that name, boy?”

“I, uh–” He twists his hands in his lap, staring angrily at them. “Bill’s been tormenting my family for a long time, I guess,” he explains, still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing himself, still not even knowing what Ford’s history with Bill even was. “But I was here, I think, in this dimension. A few weeks back.”

“And you escaped?” Riggs asks, shocked.

“Yeah, my great-uncle and I went through a wormhole,” he explains with a frown. “Is Bill… How much of a threat is he out here?”

Dipper doesn’t remember much of the few short minutes he and Stan spent here — in the Nightmare Realm, apparently — so he’s not sure what Bill is capable of in this realm. On Earth, he needed a vessel to possess in order to physically interact with their world, but here?

“Us refugees live in fear, hidden away, but he does not usually concern himself with us,” Frezia says, hissing around the syllables, as if projecting a curse onto Bill. “But to the multiverse? Bill Cipher is one of the most feared beings in existence.”

Riggs nods in solemn agreement. “We live with the hope that someone will do something about that triangular demon someday, so that we might leave this place and return home.”

“Axolotl-willing,” Pascian whispers under their breath, like a prayer.

Dipper sucks in a deep inhale, trying to steady his nerves. “Why not escape now? If he doesn’t bother you guys?”

Frezia blinks, slow and lazily. “We may not be what he’s after, but his dominion over this dimension is never-ending. He and his Henchmaniacs treat this decaying realm like their own playhouse, and if any of us were to interrupt the party, or be seen, well…”

“Certain death,” Pascian mutters.

“Yes. Certain death.”

Dipper steels himself, not sure he wants to hear the answer to his next question. Still, he asks, “What is Bill after?”

Riggs sighs and pokes at the fire some more. “No one is sure. But sometimes, late at night when the music stops, we can hear his demented screaming, even from all the way out here in this zone,” he says, sounding more tired than afraid. “We don’t know what for, but he’s often calling out for something named Sixer.”

Dipper feels a sense of coldness wash over him that’s not due to the conditions outside or the chill that’s still aching his bones. It’s the same feeling he got when he felt his soul being forcibly ripped out of his body by Bill.

Sixer. He knows that name, too.

“Dipper?” Riggs prompts at his sudden, panicked silence.

“I need to find a way back to my great-uncle,” he gets out quickly. “Can you help?”

“Where is this great-uncle?”

Finally, something he knows. “Lottocron Nine.”

Riggs exhales, and it sounds too much like defeat for Dipper to stomach. “Other travelers have spoken of wormholes in the area,” he says. “Though we have been too frightened to leave our shelter, we know of there to be many in this dimension.”

“There is only one that leads straight to Lottocron Nine,” Pascian says, breaking their bout of stoic silence, their feathered hair standing on end.

“Great,” Dipper says, except judging by their solemn tone, he guesses that it’s about to be followed by something not so great. “Where is it, then?”

Frezia winces. “At the other side of the Nightmare Realm. You would have to trek for hours through a physicsless landscape, heavily monitored by Bill’s Henchmaniacs.”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Riggs says.

There it is. 

He rolls his shoulders back and stares into the glittering flames, feeling like he’s at the start of something bigger than he realizes. There’s dread in his gut, but there’s also some weird, eerie version of nostalgia for what’s about to happen there, too.

He’s reminded of something Soos told him this summer, before he fought Rumble McSkirmish.

Don't fight him, man! That guy's got like a black belt wrapped around his black belt. You could get killed!

He has to. He got himself into this situation the way he always does, by panicking and looking for the easy way out, and now it’s up to him to fix it. The way Dipper sees it, he can either sit here in this stuffy cave, waiting to be discovered by Bill or one of the abominations he calls his friends, or he can die trying.

You sure you wouldn't rather hide like a wimp?

Dipper stands and faces the stranded astronaut, human-animal hybrids, pondering another version of things where he stays here with them for the rest of his days, cowering in purple-lit darkness. He can hardly blame them for choosing that life themselves, but maybe, just maybe, they can all someday exist in a universe where Bill Cipher doesn’t rule their lives.

“How soon can I get there?”

Fight like a man it is.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Janus says. “We’re not doing shit until we get that bullet out.”

Stan groans and pushes past him, intent on getting this Cardea woman to use her portal wayfinding skills or whatever to take him to the kid as soon as possible. 

“It’s fine. S’just a graze.”

“He’s right,” Cardea says, like a traitor. “You really should let him take a look. It’s bleeding pretty bad.”

He grits his teeth. He’s fine. If he completely dissociates from the sharp, near-excruciating burning, it’s not that terrible. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Right, right. The kid,” Janus says. “Well, your kid’s gonna be stuck in another dimension and missing an uncle if you don’t let me help you.”

Stan exhales sharply, and he feels a painful hitch in his breath when the slight movement jostles his arm. 

Maybe he’s got a point. Still, he doesn’t care for the idea. Dipper could be anywhere by now, and the thought of leaving him alone out there, wherever he is, is killing him inside.

But he knows he can’t help him if he winds up lying in a pool of his own blood somewhere, so he relents. 

Hell, he couldn’t help him regardless — traumatic blood loss or not. He’s kind of relying on these people to help him find a way to traverse time and space. And unfortunately, that means following their every whim until that happens.

“Fine. Make it quick.”

Cardea nods and ushers them to follow her into their shop, which looks just as nondescript on the inside as it does on the outside. Despite their constant blabbering about him disrupting their business, he still can’t figure out what in the hell they’re even selling.

He lets himself be led into a backroom, where loads of boxes and painting supplies sit half-opened on the floor, piled all the way to the ceiling in some corners. Everything reeks of paint thinner, and it only strengthens the intensity of the nausea rolling in his gut.

As he takes a seat, he lets his curiosity get the better of him.

“What in the hell is this place?” he asks, wincing only slightly when the fabric of his coat resists being yanked off — hot, thick blood practically gluing the fabric onto his skin.

“Our shop.”

Cardea shakes her head. “Smartass,” she says, folding her arms again and taking a seat directly in front of Stan. In the meantime, Janus gathers supplies. Presumably to dig around inside his arm with.

“We’re craftsmen. We make and sell dice, cards, casino chips, whatever,” she explains, looking around at their collection of stuff herself. “Odds are, if you’ve gambled at one of these casinos nearby, you’ve played with something we’ve made. We’re the number one distributor out here.”

Stan hisses sharply when he feels the warm latex of a gloved hand begin to poke at his upper arm. 

“Graze, my ass. The damn thing’s still in here.”

Stan grits his teeth. “Just yank it out.”

“No shit, I plan to. But I’m not exactly a healer yet, and your species’ anatomy is unusual.”

He scoffs, frustration building. “My anatomy is unusual? You’ve got four arms for fucks sake.”

“That’s three more than you’ll have if you don’t hold still.”

He stands abruptly, ready to bolt, and the two strangers keeping him company sit up at attention. Screw this, he thinks. What the fuck is he even doing here? Is he really that out of options?

“I don’t have time for this. I need to find the kid.”

“There’s still a bullet in you,” Janus points out, oh-so-helpfully, and it takes every last ounce of strength left in him not to reach over and throttle him.

“Not your problem,” Stan shoots back.

Janus yanks him back down, and it must say a lot about his current state that he simply lets it happen. “You made it our problem when you tried to kill a person outside of our shop and drove away all our customers screaming like a madman. Forgive me if I don’t let you die here too.”

Cardea cuts in. “Death’s bad for business,” she explains. “Lots of superstitious folk around here. Most Lottocronians wouldn’t choose to buy their kid’s first set of dice from a couple of death harbingers.”

He inhales deeply and waits a moment for his wave of frustration and anger to pass him by. His anger won’t help Dipper, and his self-flagellation surely won’t either.

He holds still and lets Janus resume poking at his throbbing, angry wound.

“You aren’t one of them?”

Janus huffs. “Us? One of them? No way.”

“You look it.”

Cardea turns her nose upward, seemingly insulted by the insinuation. “In species maybe, but the resemblance stops there. We aren’t from this dimension.”

That piques his interest, and is at least somewhat relevant to the situation at hand, he guesses. “No? How’d you get here?”

“What do you think? Wormholes. And lots of them,” Janus says. “Now, hold still.”

“I am holding still,” Stan bites, wincing when he feels cold metal begin to cut into his skin. He meets Cardea’s eyes and squints. “Why’d you leave?”

“Because we could.”

“Seems like a roundabout answer.”

She shrugs. “I’m a roundabout girl.”

Stan resists the urge to lash out with physical violence when he feels cool metal plunge past his epidermis and then out again, hot blood spilling down his arm and the clink of a lone bullet being placed onto a tray ringing out around them.

“Fuck!”

“And there it is. Primitive piece of shit,” Janus says, leaning down to inspect the bullet with awe. “Good news is, the wound’s mostly superficial, so you’ll live. But we’ll have to flush it out. Infection’s the silent killer.”

He bites his tongue to distract himself. It doesn’t do much. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Do what you have to do.”

Cardea sits up straight and watches Janus work. Her eyes carry a sort of glassy, faraway sheen, like she’s lost in deep thought. He doesn’t know how he knows it, but he gets the feeling that she hasn’t stopped thinking about the wormhole gun he left discarded outside.

She ends up being the one to bring it up first, and as she watches Janus use a bottle of astringent antiseptic to clear the clots and dirt and debris from his wound, she begins to ramble. 

“You know, the people here think everything’s left up to Lady Luck, but there’s a science to wormhole travel. It’s not all random.”

“Yeah?” Stan gets out through clenched teeth.

“Wormholes are just rips in the dimensional veil. Certain locations tear in the same spot every day, like clockwork. Once you know which wormholes those are, and when they open, you can usually get to where you want to go, no problem.”

Stan remembers hearing about people like her, back when he and the kid first got a hold of their wormhole gun, and he’d been ready to write the whole thing off as a bunch of hogwash, no more real than the stories he made up to tell tourists before bleeding them dry in the Gift Shop.

He doesn’t know what he thinks now. All he can do is hope. “Do you think you can help me find him?”

“That’s harder to say. If you knew exactly which dimension he ended up in, I might say differently, but there’s no way to be sure.”

Stan senses a but. Or maybe he’s just desperately hoping for one. “But?”

“But,” she continues hesitantly, “you said he got sucked into the rift when the gun went haywire, right?” 

Stan nods, barely acknowledging it when Janus begins to sew up the flesh wound. 

Cardea grimaces. “Then there’s a good chance he’s in Dimension 0.”

“Dimension 0? What’s Dimension 0?”

Janus and Cardea exchange nervous glances, and Stan feels like a powder keg ready to go off.

“What? What’s Dimension 0?”

Dipper’s been doing a whole lot more running than fighting, it turns out.

Frezia’s warning about the physicslessness of other zones in the Nightmare Realm ended up being dead accurate, and since leaving the safety of the astronauts’ cave, everything has started to feel closer and closer to what he experienced when he first found himself here.

Lapses in gravity are among the worst of them, but the lack of physics in the physical, living creatures occupying these zones might just be the worst.

He’s never been much of a runner, but after a solid hour of fleeing from eldritch horrors like floating eyeballs with bat wings, he thinks he might just become a track star.

All at once, gravity gives way again, and Dipper’s legs are given a short break from sprinting through the terrain when he’s sent into flight, careening toward the stars. A colorful bubble passes beneath him, shrieking and morphing into something altogether nonsensical, and he watches it leave with horrified fascination as he soars above it.

Thankfully, this lapse doesn’t last long, so it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly when gravity rights itself again and he crashes back toward the ground.

Still, nothing about falling repeatedly in random bursts feels good. He lifts himself up halfway with his forearms and stretches out the crick in his lower back.

He gets back up again and continues to move across the foreign terrain. The ground beneath him is neither hard nor soft, an odd, cosmic sludge that makes it feel like he’s walking on an ultra-firm memory foam mattress. Well, if they were black and gooey and prone to becoming sentient and screaming at random intervals.

Dipper’s pretty sure nothing is following him now, so he comes to a crawling pace, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking around at the scene around him.

It’s beautiful, in a way — the enigmatic, foreboding kind of beauty that demands acknowledgement, like the sky before a lightning storm or smoke clouds billowing over a forest fire. He can’t help but stop and stare as quantum stars fizzle and snap above him.

He doesn’t give himself long. He can stop and smell the roses when he makes it back to Lottocron Nine. Until then, he knows he has to keep pushing forward.

Dipper doesn’t know when he started humming, but he can’t stop once he notices it. He feels just a bit more normal quietly singing to the tune of Disco Girl under his breath, and it’s soothing to think that there’s a place outside of this one where good things still exist. 

Like top 40 hits. Like BABBA.

More than that, though, he does it because he’s scared.

That’s okay to admit, right? He’s taking a page out of Stan’s playbook, trusting his own gut and all that, and his gut is telling him one thing and one thing only. 

He’s terrified.

He has no idea what to do. No idea if the loose coordinates the astronauts gave him are accurate. No idea if he’s headed in the right direction. No idea if Bill knows he’s here. No idea if Stan will even be there waiting for him on the other side. No idea if he’ll make it across this absurd dimension by the time the wormhole is supposed to open, in roughly thirty hours’ time.

Dipper has no idea if he’ll even be alive in thirty hours.

But he can’t think about that. Instead, he tries to think about more things. Things that are good.

Ghost Harassers. Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. Pitt Cola. Chipackerz.

The smell of grass after it's been freshly mowed. Breaking the spine of a well-loved book. That feeling he gets when he knows he’s on the verge of a big discovery.

Mabel.

Mabel’s good.

That train of thought throws him off course, and he struggles to see past the tears brewing in his eyes, the already confusing landscape in front of him morphing like nonsensical shapes and colors in a kaleidoscope. 

He misses her, and now he misses Stan, too.

Dipper groans. He never should’ve messed with that gun. 

He wishes he didn’t always let fear get in the way of every good thing in his life. ‘Cause that’s what he did, right? That’s what he does.  

Dipper overthinks stuff. He gets scared. And he messes it up.

And now he’s alone. 

He shuts his eyes against the feeling for a moment, only to open them with a start not half a second later, a sudden snap ringing in his ears.

He looks down and finds his left foot resting over a broken twig, nestled over firm, root-covered dirt. That alone wouldn’t be strange under normal circumstances, but Dipper could have sworn he wasn’t in a forest just a second ago. 

Dipper looks up and, sure enough, he’s surrounded by nothing but trees. They stand sturdily in place, though they jut out of the ground like one-way tire spikes, leaning heavily to one side.

“What the?” he mumbles.

He snaps his head to the right when he hears something rustling, more snappy twigs and crunchy leaves calling out to him from the darkened corners of the forest.

He almost calls out back before thinking better of it. The noise only grows louder, and that’s when he sees it, a large, gangly figure shadowed on the horizon. 

Dipper runs. He throws himself behind one of the horizontal trees, trying to get himself as flush to the ground as possible. 

On the floor, he balls his fist and brings it to his mouth, biting down on his knuckles to keep quiet.

There’s another rustle that approaches, and Dipper shoves his face as close to the dirt as he can, clenching his eyes shut and digging his teeth into his skin. There are two bodies nearby, and he hears it when they come to a halt just a few trees away from his impromptu hiding place.

“What's the hold up?” asks a feminine voice, sounding annoyed and bored. Dipper peeks, but he can make out nothing but a pink glow that seems to overtake the darkness. “Boss wants you to tap the Cosmic Sand keg this time. I said I could kick it in one go, and he wants to see if I’m bullshitting him.”

The next voice is gravelly, like rocks through a garbage disposal. “Hold on. I think I saw the kid.”

Dipper’s blood runs cold. He bites down harder.

“The who?”

“The Pine Tree kid. The one Boss told us to kill.”

“Oh shit,” she says, pink fire wisping up into the night sky, visible even from his prone position. “He’s here? Does Boss know?”

There’s more rustling, and then, “Well, technically I haven’t seen him yet. But I was going to see him—”

“Ugh, this eight seconds into the future thing, again?”

“I was going to see something! I’m not even sure it was him, but it looked human.”

She groans in annoyance. “Not every human is one of them, you know.”

“I know,” says the garbage disposal. “But still…”

“Besides, I already told you this. If we see the Pine Tree, he’s mine. Boss likes you enough. I’ve got some kissing up to do since apparently it was my fault we didn’t catch Sixer,” she says, her tone suggesting air quotes.

“You were kinda close to him.”

There’s another rustling noise. Then, a slap, maybe. “Oh, fuck off, Eight.”

He groans. “I don’t care. You can take credit. I just wanna eat.”

“I knew it! You glutton!”

“I like what I like.”

Dipper’s fist has shifted over from his mouth to his ears at some point, as has his other one, both hands splayed over his ear canals in an attempt to block out their conversation. He’s heard enough, and he thinks the best thing he can do to keep quiet at this point is to not listen in on how badly one of them wants to eat him.

When some of his blind terror ebbs, he lessens the pressure over his ears. “Well, come on,” she hums, like a siren song. “We’ve got some Kalaxian Crystals back at homebase that have your name on ‘em. You won’t be able to think about human flesh after a few good bumps.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Dipper can hear more rustling, like they’re searching the treeline one last time.

It stops as quickly as it starts.

“Fine, Pyr. But then we hunt?”

“Fine.”

The rustling starts up again, but he waits until it fades this time — and then a good half hour more — before deciding to move again.

He pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, and promptly heaves all over the forest floor.

“You don’t understand!” 

He marches forward, like a missile with an autolock, and curses steadily under his breath. His freshly stitched arm throbs with each movement, but he doesn’t care.

It’s not important. 

“So, help us understand,” Cardea says, trailing closely behind him. The defunct wormhole gun swings by her side, held tightly in her firm grasp, and it’s another thing Stan doesn’t care to hold on to. He was quick to give it to her once she gave him the coordinates to the wormhole. That’s all Stan needed.

Because Dipper’s there. He’s there with that thing.

“The kid– he can’t be there,” he chokes out, barely aware of the two strangers still trailing behind him, following him to the wormhole Cardea told him about. The one that leads to the revolting, unnatural space between spaces.

The Nightmare Realm.

He almost makes himself sick thinking about it. Being there once was enough to figure out what kind of place it was, and while Stan doesn’t consider himself religious in any sense of the word, he thinks it's maybe just about as close to hell as you can get.

Stan knows Dipper can handle a lot. The kid’s a fighter, whether he knows it or not, and he’s certainly leagues above his peers at this point. But even after everything they’ve been through, Stan seriously doubts his ability to be in that place for long. 

Not there. Not with Bill.

“He can’t,” Stan repeats, though he’s not sure to which of them, exactly. “Bill will be after him.”

Cardea jogs to catch up, tucking the gun into her waistband. Stan knows that the gun is what she stuck around for, but she hasn’t made any move to leave since telling him where Dipper likely ended up, sticking around to witness his quick and speedy regression into hysterics instead.

Janus stays, too.

“Hey, we– we don’t know for certain that he’s there. It’s just our best guess.”

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is,” Stan says. “Either he’s there with that demon, or somewhere completely random that I can’t reach. Are those really my only two options?”

“What makes you so sure Cipher will be after him?” Janus asks. “What’s a multiversal, demonic warlord want with a twelve-year-old, anyway?”

Warlord, that’s a new one. And another question he doesn’t have the answer for but is constantly on his mind anyway.

What does Bill want with them?

Sixer would know. Of course, he would — he’s likely the one that got them into this whole mess in the first place by literally befriending a demon — but he’s also always been the more resourceful of the two of them.

Sure, Stan had his own bouts of ingeniousness as a child, like tying a kitchen knife to the back of the occasional possum, for instance, but Ford’s always had his own way with things. He could find the answer to a problem before you’d even realized you had one, could invent a problem and have the solution figured out by dinner.

Ford would know what to do. Meanwhile, Stan knows nothing.

He grunts in response, not having the energy to relay his lack of knowledge. Instead, he carries on despite what he’s just been told only several minutes ago.

Cardea makes it hard to forget. She reminds him, “The wormhole doesn’t open for—”

“Thirty hours. I know.”

“30 hours, 23 minutes, and 37 seconds.”

Stan shakes his head. They don’t have hours. They don’t even have minutes. 

He doesn’t want to let Dipper spend another second in that place, let alone more than an entire day. “Fuck that. I’m finding another way.”

“This is the one and only rift that leads to Dimension 0, and it just so happens to open once every 57 hours,” she says flatly. “You can either be here for the…” She glances at a small pocket book, riddled with frantic scrawl, notes, and coordinates. “...ninety-two seconds that it’s open, or you can waste more time trying to find a quicker way. Which doesn’t exist, by the way, if I didn’t make that clear.”

Stan stops in his tracks, whipping around to face the two transplant Lottocronians. Their eyes are soft and pleading when he meets them, and it frustrates him in a uniquely confusing way.

He squints. “Why are you still here? Why are you helping me?”

Cardea fidgets with the book in her hands, and, strangely, it reminds Stan of the way that Ford held onto his own journal all those years ago, like a frightened child finding comfort in a favorite blanket. 

She frowns and clutches it close to her chest. “Because it’s Cipher, and he’s just a kid,” she says. “I’ve got a soft spot for kids.”

“Yeah, we’re not monsters.”

Stan sighs. “You don’t have to come with me. I can figure out my own way there.”

She gives him a strange look before opening her bag and shoving her journal back inside. She pulls something else out instead: a black, box-shaped device.

“Fine. Then take this, at least.” She tucks the device into his hands and closes his fist around it. “It’s a GPS. An expensive one, too. Consider it a trade,” she says in reference to the wormhole gun.

Janus coughs. “Hardly a fair one, Cardea.”

“Shush.” 

A series of shapes on the dimly lit screen jumble around before righting themselves, his translator unit morphing the alien symbols into numbers. She points to it. “Here are your current coordinates. I’ve locked in the wormhole’s coordinates already, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find.”

He palms the device and frowns. “Thank you,” he says. “You did all of this for us, and you don’t even know our names.”

Cardea quickly covered her mouth with all four of her hands, looking thoroughly chastised. “Oh, man. We never got your name,” she bemoans. “We’re the worst.”

Stan shakes his head. He doesn’t think so. He’s gotten more kindness out of these strangers who don’t know his name than he did from the person who named him. “No. I owe you my life.”

She shakes her head back. “You can keep it,” she says, dangling the wormhole gun in the air. He doesn’t know how she’ll fix it, but he thinks she’s the best person for the job. “This’ll do.”

He nods, and Janus approaches from behind her. He says nothing at first, simply handing over a singular, custom-made poker chip with a golden key emblem etched into the center of it.

“Here. It’s my lucky chip,” he says. “I think you might need it more.”

Stan doesn’t doubt that. He tries to work up a smile as he tucks it into his breast pocket, for safekeeping. “I’ll take it. Thanks.”

“Just don’t get shot again.”

Cardea elbows him roughly in the side with both of her left arms. 

“Goodbye… uh…”

“Stan.”

She offers him a shy smile as a final parting gift. “Goodbye, Stan. Bring him home.”

Dipper doesn’t see either one of Bill’s Henchmaniacs again after that. 

Granted, he spends a lot of time cowering behind trees and flinching wildly at the faintest of noises, so it’s not like he sees much of anything other than dirt and fallen leaves for a long while after.

He gives himself more time than he should to regain his bearings before continuing onward.

He’s not really sure how much time has passed since he first started heading for the wormhole, and that worries him. The refugees had stressed he get there before it opens, because once it does, he’ll have just a little over one minute to cross the threshold before it closes again. 

Which would mean certain death. 

Why is it always certain death?

The closer he gets to it, the more the energy around him begins to shift. And not just his surroundings, constantly altering to fit whatever nightmarish reality this dimension wants to be in that moment, but also in the way that he feels.

The wormhole opens at the other side of the Nightmare Realm, and Dipper doesn’t think he’s given himself enough time to consider what else might be occupying that zone.

Honestly, he doesn’t want to think about it.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he knows that it hasn’t been long enough. Though, going off the quickly descending coherence of his surroundings, he figures it won’t be much longer until he finds out what’s waiting for him on the other side.

He’ll have time to kill until the wormhole opens.

It feels a little bit like he’s watching paint dry, if the outcome of said paint job was somehow also a matter of life or death.

It’s tear-jerkingly boring. But it also just so happens to be the most important thing he’s done in his entire life.

Stan stares out across the empty horizon and looks for a sign, any sign, that the atoms in front of him are rearranging themselves to tear open a hole in the fabric of reality, but so far there’s nothing, and he knows there won’t be for a long time. Too long.

He’s early. He’s early, and it’s killing him.

The waiting makes him anxious. Maybe because he keeps thinking about the kid, stuck in some lawless dimension, possibly facing a chaos demon, but also because of how eerily similar things feel to that day.

The only thing he’s missing is a countdown timer.

That day, when he’d been busy punching FBI agents and getting his face pummeled into the grass outside of the Shack, he’d found the time to wonder what he would say to Ford first, when he eventually got himself back to the basement in time for the portal’s opening.

He could never think of the perfect thing to say. He still struggles with the idea.

Now, Stan imagines what he’ll say to Dipper when they reunite. Until now, he’s had little time to think of anything other than getting him back. He hasn’t had a second to piece together any of his emotions — other than the terror and regret kind.

Now, all he has is time, and all can think about is whether or not he’s ever said it. 

Has he? He can’t remember, and it’s killing him.

He can’t remember if he’s ever told Dipper that he loves him.

He does. He loves both of those kids more than he ever thought possible. After Ford, Stan had just about come to terms with the fact that he'd never have a family ever again, that his stupid life wasn’t worth living, never was, and never would be. But now he has it, and he loves those kids like they’re his own. 

Sending them back home at the end of the summer was already set to be the one of the hardest things he’d ever have to do. Losing them like this never occurred to him as a possibility.

He won’t recover if he loses Dipper. It’ll kill him.

He stares ahead at the empty skyline in front of him and, for the first time in he-can’t-remember-how-long, Stan cries.

Dipper waits.

It feels like ages. He’s not completely ruling out the possibility that he walked through a time vortex at some point and missed the wormhole opening by five or so years.

But his voice still squeaks and cracks when he mumbles quietly to himself, so it’s probably safe to say that he’s still around twelve or thirteen years old, and that it’s been no more than half a day.

He fills the time as best as he can. He finds new and creative ways to camouflage himself from the eye-bats, makes a shelter out of an immobile, crash-landed asteroid, and stares at the empty void where the wormhole is supposed to appear about a thousand times per hour.

At one point, he begins to drift off, so he stares up into the unnatural sky and counts each decaying star, over and over again, pinching his upper thigh when his eyes grow heavy.

The next thirty hours are some sick, tedious combination of those things. Over and over.

It feels like an eternity.

But time does what it always does, and just when it feels like his upper thigh has gone numb and his eyes impossibly heavy, he gets his second wind when he notices a flickering beginning to form in the not-so-far distance.

Dipper jumps up, shitty shelter forgotten as he sprints toward the steadily forming wormhole. It ends up not being where he expects it to be, but instead sitting flush against the ground, yet another hole planning to envelop him from beneath.

It sure takes its precious time forming, the edges of the opaque, oblong shape crackling like Pop Pebbles on someone’s tongue, atoms fizzling and interacting in strange ways. 

He steps back and stares at it in its entirety, willing the atoms to do whatever it is they’re doing, much, much faster.

Eventually, it forms, and Dipper finds himself peering down through the rift like Alice and the rabbit hole, trying to make sense of the modest drop into what looks to be an overgrown meadow.

He crouches over it, staring down. 

But no one is there.

Stan isn’t here. He isn’t—

“Dipper!”

A laugh bubbles out of him. “Stan!”

Stan rushes forward, staring up at him from below, and Dipper continues to chuckle with relief. It’s good to see him. He’s never been more happy to see anyone in his entire life, maybe.

“Kid! Are you OK?”

He nods frantically. He’s been better, really, but there isn’t enough time for that, and he knows they have little time before the wormhole shuts again. Maybe just a little over a minute now.

“I’m okay,” he gets out quickly, already trying to think of a way down. The drop isn’t that far, he tries to rationalize, weighing the consequences. A sprained ankle if he lands weird, maybe, but nothing more.

He’s about to ask Stan whether or not he thinks he can catch him when he hears it.

There’s that familiar rustling again, something large and determined shifting behind him, but he isn’t fast enough to see it before he feels it.

He’s quickly grabbed by the upper arm and hoisted above the portal by a creature much larger than he is, green, 8 ball shaped eyes staring inquisitively into his. He immediately begins to thrash about, kicking and screaming as he’s lifted higher, right into the direct eyeline of the creature.

He looks away, refusing to look into its horrible eyes for long, choosing instead to stare down at his dangling legs and the horror growing tenfold on Stan’s face below him.

Dipper attempts to rip his bag off his shoulders to pull out his ray gun, but 8 Ball is quicker, and he loses the ray gun and his bag to the rift when 8 Ball’s jaw unhinges.

His throat gurgles involuntarily when it happens, and he knows nothing but agony when 8 Ball lifts him higher, sinking his sharp, thick canines into the delicate mesh of arteries, muscle, tendons, and bone in his lower leg, shifting and screaming out as the pressure clamps tighter and tighter, like a bear trap.

He thinks he screams, but he can’t be sure. Something other than words bubbles up in his throat, tasting of copper and iron, and the amount feels like enough to asphyxiate him on the spot.

The unmistakable green glow of his 8 ball eyes stare deep into his as his vision starts to fade and darken, the Henchmaniac’s jaw still locked around his leg, growling like a dog with a bone between its teeth. 

There are screams ringing out in his ears, but it all sounds like static. 

He nearly loses himself to it before something bright cuts through the nothingness. 

A flash. A loud, projectile booming sound that hurdles past him, hitting the creature behind him with a concussive force that sends his own ears ringing and deafening.

Then, a feeling of momentary relief, the pressure around his shin ebbing as ivory canines slide out of flesh and bone like a knife through butter.

Dipper feels himself fall, and the last thing he hears before the lights go out is a sickening crunch.

Chapter Text

The moon bores a hole in the night sky like the light at the end of a crescented, waning tunnel. 

Crescent or waning? He was never sure what to call it. Both? He’s pretty sure they mean the same thing. 

But it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Maybe that’s all that matters.

He coughs and feels a slick wetness trail out of the corners of his mouth. His chest spasms again, and he watches the red, thick liquid spray into the air, bubbling down his chin. It takes nearly every ounce of energy left in him to keep from choking on it.

The large, unwieldy rustling to his left makes him flinch. He blinks, hard and fast, nearly in perfect harmony with the rapid pulsating of his left leg, several inches below the knee.

He doesn’t realize how muffled the world around him is until everything comes crashing back into focus.

There are hands on him, large ones that seem to be assessing a very large amount of damage in a very short amount of time. They hesitate for half a beat before beginning to subject the excruciating pain in his lower half to an even worse one, somehow, the sensation of every nerve ending tearing and burning and ripping apart at the seams consuming him entirely as something wiry and taut wraps around the limb.

He knows deep down, logically, that he isn’t being ripped apart, that the sensation is a rope, or something like it, at least — he can’t really think straight right now — but he imagines the pressure tightening and tightening until it merges with the bone itself, and he can’t help the wet, choking cry that gurgles in his throat in response.

The rope is yanked tighter, and Dipper screams, feeling something shift that certainly isn’t meant to, not like that. Thick, hot blood pools in his throat, though the pain in his chest is nothing compared to the raging inferno setting his leg ablaze.

“No, no, no, no—” he cries, the words sounding detached as they leave him, like they’re coming from someone or something else. 

His head lolls back against the dirt, thrashing wildly as the hands approach him again. 

Get off. Get away.

This time, they don’t aim to hurt. “Dipper,” the voice says. Or maybe it’s been saying that this whole time. He isn’t sure. “Kid, stay awake, you’re going to be fine.”

Of course he’s going to be fine. Why wouldn’t he be? He just needs a second. To lie down. To shut his eyes. To keep some of the pressure off his leg.

He just can’t figure out how he got here — lying flat on his back with an anvil sitting on his ribcage and a hacksaw sawing its way through his shin, but it feels like he might’ve been here forever. 

Maybe he was born here, right here on the soil, never knowing anything other than this pain for his entire existence. Because how could he not have?

It’s all-consuming.  

It’s forever.

It’s agony. It’s torture.

It’s…

His eyes must flutter shut at some point, because there’s the hand again, frantically tapping at his cheek before slipping down to the side of his neck. Two firm fingers press against the tender flesh there, to the left of his translator implant.

“Dipper, kiddo, can you hear me?” the voice prompts, and it sounds watery, like whoever it is must be choking on something, too. “I’ve got you. You just needa stay awake. I’m gonna figure this out, I’m gonna—”

It fizzles out. And so does the pain. The–

The trees and their leaves swirl in tune with the waning moon, hanging over the crescented tunnel of the sky, branches beckoning him toward that inviting light. 

It’s beautiful. It looks like home.

He blinks.

There’s a funny-looking critter perched atop one of the spindly branches, watching over him with a passive sort of knowingness as it blinks its beady little eyes back at him, as if the scene in front of it…

Just… is. Or maybe always was.

There are two familiar voices ringing in his ears when everything goes mute.

When he cracks his eyes open, he finds himself surrounded by an unnaturally glittery, milky white void, the air streaked with clouds colored with hues he can’t name but can only observe.

Time stops.

“Where am I?” he muses aloud, though he thinks he knows.

His question is answered by that familiar voice — an otherworldly murmur that seems to ebb and flow like whale song from the ether, and he finds himself moving closer to it, as if on instinct.

“You are in the time and space between time and space,” the voice says, echoing. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

He shifts in place, and it feels like he’s standing atop a cloud, the ground sinking with each of his movements. Like memory foam, he finds himself sinking down with it, and it takes more effort than he’d like to admit not to fall down and let himself be taken by it.

“I’ve been here before,” Dipper says more than asks.

“Come,” it beckons, “the bean bag chair is right where you left it. Still infinitely comfortable.”

He moves toward it in a haze he can’t describe and sinks into the plush chair. He finds himself riddled with memories he was unable to reach until now, and it all washes over him at once.

“I- I’ve been here before. Haven’t I?”

“We met once before,” the creature confirms. “You and your sister came here. Do you remember?”

“I-I don’t know. Yes? No?” He shifts in the chair, resisting the urge to pull his legs toward his chest and curl up in the fetal position. “Was that me? I remember it, but the memory doesn’t feel like mine.”

The creature blinks, its black, beady eyes piercing his soul. “Does it matter?”

“Kind of?”

It blinks again. “It is an idea. It is remembered, so it is true.”

This time, Dipper does pull his legs toward his chest. He wraps his arms tightly around them, but he can’t seem to feel his own touch. It all feels like static.

The creature moves again, whipping its tail and twitching its frills. “I am the Axolotl,” says the Axolotl. “But enough about me. You have found yourself here again, so you may ask more questions of me. No limit this time.”

Dipper blinks. “Another poem?”

“If the answer lies in poetry, then yes.”

“Am I dead?”

The creature seems to smile. “No.”

Strangely, that brings him little comfort. He squeezes tighter. “Am I dying?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I don’t want to die,” he says, his voice cracking. He can find none of his usual embarrassment in it this time. 

“What do you want?”

Dipper looks up, meeting the Axolotl with the firmest, most serious expression he can muster. “I want to grow up. I want to be with my sister. And– and my grunkle, and—”

He stops himself, swallowing the nonexistent lump in his throat and trying to find the confidence to go on. “How does this end?” he asks. “Can you tell me that?”

The Axolotl ponders the question. Then, their eyes begin to glow, and it speaks:

Binary stars stretched beyond the bounds of time.

All will face an uphill climb.

A burden shared to bring chaos to end.

Only then will old wounds come to mend.

The darkness seeps through His chasm untethered.

Weirdness will reign and the world become weathered.

The End is certain, the endings still varied.

Only one will ensure that Chaos is buried.

Dipper blinks. “I guess I should’ve expected that.”

“You won’t remember this.”

He should’ve expected that too. “Then what was the point?”

“If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?”

He huffs. “That’s the question.”

“And you’ll know the answer. In time,” the Axolotl says with a wink. 

“You might just not remember it.”

Chapter Text

Stan has seen men bleed before.

Friends. Enemies. Himself. 

Doesn’t matter. He’s seen it all. Gruesome things. Things that would make a grown man heave all over his dress shoes and then try washing his own eyes out with bleach.

Cellmates shanked at mealtime. Heads blown off by loan sharks. His own cavity-ridden, cavernous teeth crumbling out of his mouth — the flesh of his gums stretching and tearing around a mouthful of jaded, rusty metal.

But he’s never seen anything like this. This is the worst thing he’s ever seen.

This is his kid. It’s Dipper.

He plummets through the rift like a puppet with its strings cut off, and Stan watches as his wide, brown eyes roll into the back of his skull moments before he hits the ground, hard, with nothing to cushion the blow.

Stan cries out, a guttural, inhuman sound that ricochets out of him as he fires a few more blasts through the closing rift, the smell of smoldering monster flesh the last thing to escape through it.

He sprints and crashes to his knees not a second later, the smoking blaster slipping out of his hold. It still feels like too long. When he reaches Dipper’s side, his face is already ashen and stripped of life. It’s nothing like what he remembers last, only thirty-two odd hours ago.

Worse is the blood that begins to seep from the corners of his mouth.

For a moment, he freezes. He watches with bated breath as his chest rises and falls, slowly and heavily, a rattling, raspy sort of sound escaping him that fills Stan with nothing but unadulterated dread.

But everything stops — his heart, his breath, his thoughts, the world — when he decides to pull the kid’s legs out from underneath him. It’s enough to drag him back to the land of the living, and Dipper jolts into consciousness with an agonizing gasp, the sound of a drowning man yanked ashore.

It’s when he coughs, spraying a lungful of blood into the air, that Stan finally thaws out.

He fumbles with his pack, dumping it out on the grass and rummaging through its contents for that bundle of industrial rope he knows they still have. When he makes contact, he quickly unravels it, suddenly more than grateful that he decided against teaching the kid the double constrictor hitch that other night in the desert, though he wishes more than anything that he didn’t need to use it for this.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the kid for long. He scans his condition again, trying to grapple with many compounding things in a very short amount of time.

He makes the decision easily, ignoring for the meantime what it’ll likely mean for the kid in the end. 

Stan takes the rope and wraps it around his shin, just above the wreckage that is his lower leg. He didn’t use the knot that night, but he’ll have to make quick work of it now.

Dipper’s left leg, from the knee down, is practically torn to shreds, gushing out blood like water through a sieve. Jutting out from the side of it, at an angle Stan can only describe as uncanny and nauseating and inhuman, is a large piece of bone that’s practically been severed in half.

No. Not a bone. His bone. Dipper’s fucking bone.

The whole thing is hanging on by a thread, an oozing mess of torn flesh and muscle that’s expelling more blood out of his body than he has to give. Stan yanks the makeshift tourniquet tighter.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The kid writhes, screaming out in pain and muttering nonsensical pleas under his breath, muffled by the liquid life still bubbling in his throat. 

This is bad. 

It’s more than bad. This is the worst day of Stan’s life. 

There’s nowhere he can touch him that won’t just put him in a world of hurt, or at least more than he already is, if that’s even possible, but he knows that his options are pain or death. He double-checks and then triple-checks the tightness of the tourniquet — not particularly caring how much blood flow he’s cutting off to the carnage that is left there — and settles back on his shins.

He doesn’t know how much hurt a simple touch might bring him at this point, but he decides it’s a risk he’s willing to take, if just to make sure Dipper knows he isn’t alone. He reaches forward to smooth back his sweaty bangs and rubs soothing circles on the frigid skin of his upper arm.

He needs to keep him awake, or at least in whatever awake-adjacent state he’s in right now. He knows that much. “Dipper,” he says, tapping his cheek when his eyes go heavy and distant. “Kid, stay awake, you’re going to be fine.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He’s going to lose that leg, isn’t he?

The kid’s eyes are wild, roaming all over the night sky as they flutter, occasionally shut, and momentarily roll back every few seconds. He doesn’t seem to see Stan at all, might not even be anywhere near conscious at this point.

Eventually, they shut entirely, offering no signs of opening back up again, and Stan’s hand finds his cheek quickly. He taps the side of his face with slightly more urgency this time and tries to squash the blind panic that’s unfurling inside him. 

For several seconds, he gets no response. But when those pupil-blown eyes greet him moments later, he lets his index and middle fingers slip down to rest against the side of his neck.

Tachycardic? Is that the word?

Doesn’t matter. Fast. His pulse is way too fast.

Dipper’s breaths come frequently and raspily, chokingly, and blood dribbles down his chin the more he tries to cough it up to grant air safe passage to his lungs. Stan catalogues about a billion possible internal injuries from the fall alone.

Broken ribs? Definitely. What they managed to puncture? That’s the question of the hour.

“Dipper, kiddo, can you hear me?” he asks, keeping his fingers where they’re at. “I’ve got you. You just needa stay awake. I’m gonna figure this out, I’m gonna get us some help...”

The kid is out before he even finishes his sentence, and Stan makes the stupid decision to forgo everything he’s learned about moving an injured person to gather as much of the boy in his arms as he can without jostling his leg. He ends up with about half of him stretched out across his lap, chillingly pliant in his arms.

Stan cradles him as close as he can, his blood-soaked hands trembling around him as the bridge of his nose presses against the crown of his head. He’s still cold from his time in that nightmare dimension, and it clings onto every square inch of him — a hollowness that latches on and refuses to let go.

He cries, and it’s hard to breathe through. These are the hardest breaths he’s ever had to take.

Stan shakes with the force of his sobs, struggling to think of a solution beyond sitting here and keeping Dipper as still as possible. He knows that isn’t an option. Not for long.

But he also can’t move him. Not like this. Not with an open fracture and broken ribs and whatever else might be happening internally that Stan doesn’t know about yet.

He also knows he doesn’t have a choice. 

“Okay,” Stan mutters into his curls, slightly damp with tears, “Okay, kiddo. We have to move.”

Dipper doesn’t respond, head lolling forward as he gently pulls him closer, and Stan’s heart twists violently at the sight.

He chances a glance at his handiwork and blanches, shocked at the sight of the injury despite having been up close and personal with it less than a minute ago. Looking at it is no better the second time around. If anything, when he has the chance to look at it objectively instead of frantically trying to staunch the bleeding with a makeshift tourniquet, it looks much, much worse.

Forget the leg, Stan thinks. Dipper might just lose his life.

He chokes on another sob and begins the difficult task of gathering more of him in his arms, trying to figure out how in the hell he’s supposed to lift him in this condition. The idea of moving him now and risking worsening what is already probably the most gruesome-looking injury Stan’s ever seen up close makes him feel irrevocably sick to his stomach.

And then there’s the trek back into the city to think about. It took Stan hours to get here by foot. Dipper doesn’t have hours. 

Hell, Stan’s not even sure he has minutes.

He doesn’t get much time to contemplate that horrifying thought before he becomes aware of a strange flickering in the empty air next to them, warping and popping as atoms begin to rearrange themselves. He finds himself shielding Dipper’s shut eyes from the light as it brightens and sharpens into something more tangible.

Stan flinches, and though he struggles to think of anything worse than this, he still fears for it.

The atoms collapse in on themselves, and a strikingly blue portal cuts through the evening air to take their place, smelling of ozone and faintly of citrus. He clings onto the kid tighter and is surprised when, instead of a gargantuan, fanged creature hellbent on revenge, a hooded, seven-eyed alien woman steps through the rift.

She immediately pulls down her hood and tilts her head at them, assessing the scene in front of her with quiet contemplation. Her silence fills him with unease, as does her inquisitive and curious stare.

The shake in his voice betrays the protective front he’s hoping to maintain. “Who the fuck are you?”

She steps out of the light and into the meadow, long grass kissing her ankles as a strong breeze flutters past. 

The portal remains open behind her. “My name is Jheselbraum the Unswerving,” she says softly, somberly, even, her eyes trained on Dipper already, “but most know me as The Oracle.”

Stan doesn’t care who she is, but she appeared out of thin air and looks sort of like an angel — the rift backlit behind her like a gleaming halo — so he’ll take it. He’ll take just about whatever he can get right now.

She’s quick to kneel beside them. She lets her hands hover over Dipper’s still form, her brow furrowing at the sight of his injury. “Blessed be the Axolotl. He doesn’t have long.”

Another stray sob breaks free. “What?” he asks, his voice breaking. He angles the kid slightly out of her reach and jostles him as gently as he can. 

“Dip, hey, Dipper. Wake up, kiddo,” he urges, frowning harder when he doesn’t respond in the slightest. “You’re okay.”

Jheselbraum rises to her feet with finality. Even kneeling on the floor, Stan can tell that she towers over him. 

She focuses intently on him, as if noticing something other than Dipper for the first time since stepping through the rift.  She tilts her head and gazes deep into his eyes, where something seems to click.

She takes pause. “Ah. That face.”

“Huh?” Stan asks as he readjusts his hold around Dipper.

She looks away quickly, physically shaking her head clear of it. 

“Nothing. We must be quick. Can you carry him?” Jheselbraum asks, nodding over to the rift.

His sobs break away into quick bursts of agonized and astonished laughter. She wants him to follow her into the rift. She wants him to bring Dipper.

“Wh–who are you?” he asks again. “How did you find us?”

“Consider me a friend of your brother’s.”

Stan seals his lips shut, and the silence is overtaken by the worst thing he’s ever heard in his life, the harrowing and infrequent sound of Dipper’s strained breathing. He quickly abandons his confusion, as does he his distrust. 

Maybe he doesn’t have to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. It’s only fair that Sixer gives him something to work with out here, when all his reputation has brought them so far has been bounty hunters and hitmen. Why not a benevolent, divine being that appeared out of thin air to help them?

“I– I can, but I don’t know if I should,” he answers finally. “His leg—”

Jheselbraum suddenly pulls off her cloak, and it flaps in the wind like drapery, soft as silk. She lays it down on the pillow-soft grass beneath them and beckons Stan to lie Dipper down on it.

“Hurry,” she says, and he does.

Stan has a laundry list of questions to ask this stranger as they race through this strange new world, carrying the kid to who-knows-where on her makeshift cloak-gurney, but they’ll have to wait.

After stepping through the rift, he has little time to consider the mountain shrine that they wind up in. His head spins with the elevation change, though he keeps up with her as they run straight for a room that’s tucked away in the corner of her sanctuary.

She pushes through the doorway, and the first thing Stan notices is the ajar window, misty and oxygen-rich air seeping in through a narrow crack in the large glass panes. He gives their view a fleeting glance and realizes just how high up they are, overlooking the clouds and the peaks of nearby lesser mountains.

They quickly set Dipper down on a twin-sized bed at the center of the room. Stan stands by as Jheselbraum turns away and begins to clear space for him on a remarkably ornate table.

Once she finishes, she motions for Stan to help her move Dipper, and together they lift him onto it.

“What are you doing?” he asks when she darts away again. He brushes the kid’s hair back with one hand and desperately clutches the side of the table with the other. 

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she returns to the table with an armful of supplies and drops them onto a side table with a clanking clatter.

Frustration bubbles in his chest. “What is this? We have to get him help. At a hospital.”

Again, Jheselbraum doesn’t answer. She pours a foul-smelling antiseptic on her hands before encasing them in tight latex gloves.

Stan exhales, eyeing her array of tools and realizing belatedly what she aims to do. “What the fuck?” he says, raw fingertips digging into the wood. “Just– just wait one second. Are you a doctor?! A surgeon?”

She pauses, one hand already wrapped around a pair of trauma shears, and blinks at him.

“I am guided by Sight. The child is meant to live and to bear witness to Cipher’s end. My hands will be guided to that End.”

Stan’s mouth falls agape. There are no words for what he feels inside. “What? The fuck does that triangle bastard have anything to do with this?!”

Jheselbraum starts to answer, but then quickly seals her lips shut with a hard frown.

They’re crazy, she and Ford both. “And– and what does that even mean, guided by sight? What, you’re gonna use your psychic powers to cut into my nephew?! No. Not happening.”

“It will if you want him to live,” she says firmly.

Stan pales. 

She offers him kinder eyes, though any softness they carry is then immediately negated by the sharp tool clutched in her grasp, hovering directly over Dipper. “If it’s any comfort, it will not be my first operation. I put a metal plate in your twin’s head.”

A small sob escapes him, and his hand goes still in the kid’s hair. “What the fuck? Why?”

“To keep Cipher out,” she says, like it should be obvious. “He no longer reigns over Stanford’s body and soul. He’s been banished.”

Oh, of course. Makes perfect sense. 

Having someone hack into his skull to insert some kind of demon shield seems like exactly the kind of thing his brother would do, but he doesn’t know what it says about this stranger that she would willingly participate. Probably that she’s the kind of person he shouldn’t be entrusting with the kid’s life.

But they're at the end of their rope here. Literally, even, but Stan doesn’t want to think about that. He can only hope that he knotted it tight enough. 

“OK, just do it,” he decides. “Whatever you have to do. Just save him. Please.”

Jheselbraum nods and shuts her eyes, greedily inhaling the mountain air.

She stands with her back ramrod straight, the kid’s raspy breathing rattling in the hush, and her eyes begin to flicker under closed lids.

Then, they open — each one of them alit with a milky, almost pinkish glow.

“The Axolotl shows me,” she announces.

His confusion has morphed into something a little closer to hysteria now, and he does nothing but watch as she begins to cut into Dipper’s clothes. But he doesn’t like feeling useless or passive; he never has. It makes his skin itch.

“How can I help?” Stan asks, feeling a strange sense of calm that only comes over him when things get really bad.

Her eyes continue to glow, and she wastes no time plunging a long, thin needle into the kid’s chest. Stan hisses loudly, and it drowns out the similar sounding noise that escapes the needle.

She holds it steady. “Off to your left, on that back table, there should be a tin. Grab it.”

His hand slips from his hair, and he rushes away from the table. He’s quick to grab the tin, but he frowns once he pulls off the lid and sees nothing more than a few dried-up sprigs inside. 

“What is this? It's just full of dead leaves.”

Jheselbraum adjusts an oxygen mask over Dipper’s face, and it’s the last thing Stan needs to see before his brain catches up and comes to terms with what the rest of him already knows. He would’ve thought exposed bone and needles rammed into his chest would’ve been enough for reality to settle in, but clearly not. 

A small, child-sized plastic mask is more than enough to shatter whatever illusion his mind was shielding itself with until now.

“They’re potent herbs,” Jheselbraum explains, already preparing to put the kid through what’s likely another horrendous procedure. “Grab a sprig and put it in his mouth. He doesn’t have to swallow it.”

Stan obeys, lifting the mask and slipping the fragrant herb past his lips. Only after he does it does it occur to him to ask, “What does it do?”

“It’s a potent sedative and anesthetic. I imagine you don’t want him waking up during this.”

She’s already skewered him once with no reaction, so Stan’s pretty confident that he’s not waking up any time soon. But, still, he can’t argue with that, even if he doesn’t care for the idea of drugging him with some intergalactic hippie plant.

“What’d you do to him?” He hovers over the kid again, his skin itching as he stares down at the thin needle pierced into his skin.

She looks up for a brief moment, and the sight of her unnaturally bright sclera startles him. “Needle decompression. He has several rib fractures causing hemopneumothorax and a severe pulmonary contusion. I’m removing air from his pleural space, but he’ll need a chest tube to drain the blood—”

He pales. “A what?”

“Stanley,” she says firmly, as if attempting to calm a startled horse. She begins to poke and prod at his ribs already, trying to locate the spot where she intends to place a fucking tube, apparently. “I need you to grab some more things. Can you do that?”

He nods quickly, and that’s how Stan ends up running around a small, stifling room, handing off supplies for procedures that are taught to her through some freak game of psychic telephone. He tells himself that the reason he so readily leaves Dipper’s side is because he wants to make himself useful, but he knows that’s only half the truth. The other half of it is that he’s too much of a coward to bring himself to watch any more of this up close.

Finally, after an impossibly long time spent rooting through unlabeled drawers, she says the first thing to him that isn’t a dumbed-down description of some medical tool. 

“He needs blood. He’s lost too much.”

Stan hisses and quickly returns to the table. Dipper doesn’t look any better than he did a few minutes ago, but now there’s a narrow plastic tube jutting out of his skin through the side of his ribs. The sight of it does nothing but make him feel sick, and he questions for the umpteenth time since coming here whether or not he was right in trusting this stranger to help them.

“That’s why we should be at a hospital.”

“They likely wouldn't have the kind of blood he needs either, Stanley,” Jheselbraum snaps. It’s the first semi-loss of composure he’s seen from her, and it immediately aggravates his frayed nerves. He can’t have that. He needs her to keep it together for the both of them.

Stan bites his tongue. Hard. 

“So then give him mine.”

She immediately stops what she’s doing. Her eyes seem to glow even brighter, as if a beacon for whoever or whatever is guiding her. “Do you know his type?”

Stan roots around in his brain for the short medical history their parents gave him before the summer, and he’s satisfied when it comes back to him quickly. 

“He’s A positive, and his sister’s O positive. No known allergies, but he used an inhaler when he was much younger, and—”

“OK,” she interrupts his useless rambling. “What are you? What’s yours?”

Stan blinks. He comes up blank. “I– I don’t know. I have no idea.”

She frowns, but she shakes it off quickly, her eyes igniting furiously.

“Universal donor,” she says after a moment of psychic consultation. “Give me your arm.”

He doesn’t even get a chance to remember which one that is before she’s grabbing his forearm and prodding his seaweed-hued veins, standing out against his pallor. Then, she glances at his bicep, where the pain there registers as no more than a dim phantom ache.

“What is that?” she asks, semi-accusatorily.

Honestly, he’d forgotten about the injury entirely. It could have happened in another lifetime now. “Nothing.”

“You were shot?”

“Barely.”

She clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “Two pints max,” she says, sticking one needle into his arm. Then, to Stan’s horror, she gingerly tilts the kid’s head to the side and plunges another needle into his jugular.

“Thirty minutes. That’s all.”

Sure, whatever. He’s not planning on keeping time. Dipper can have it all as far as he’s concerned.

The time passes.

Stan doesn’t watch. He feels a light pressure in the crook of his elbow, but other than a fleeting awareness of that dull sensation, he gives little thought to the tube that’s feeding his blood straight into Dipper’s veins. He doesn’t know how much he’s given, but he can only hope that it’s helping.

Or that, if it doesn’t, he at least loses enough to follow the kid into whatever eternal darkness is waiting for them at the end of this.

Stan’s only got eyes for him. Not the tube or the scalpels. Not even Dipper’s leg, which has barely been given much more than a once-over by Jheselbraum since she started, her main focus being on stabilizing him since they stepped into the building.

It’s the elephant in the room. The giant, protruding, sluggishly bleeding elephant in the room.

Stan’s head spins from blood loss or adrenaline as he teeters on his feet. He should probably sit, but he would hate nothing more in this exact moment than to be still.

He’d rather stand here by Dipper’s side, watching over him and serving as his personal blood bank. It’s the least he can do.

Finally, he decides to take his chances and glances at Jheselbraum’s progress. She is focused intently on his chest tube, where a rather startling amount of blood has been drained. Still, she seems satisfied with her work.

She seems to sense his gaze without looking up. “His vitals are keeping steady for now,” she says. Stan has to take her word for it. The only proof of that lies in her psychic connection and the steady thud beneath Stan’s fingertips when the terror in his chest blossoms anew and he feels the need to check for himself.

“For now?” he asks, not particularly caring for her phrasing.

“Yes. For now,” she says. “His body’s in shock, transfusion can only accomplish so much—”

Stan can’t take it anymore. He has to ask. “What about his leg?”

“What about it? The tourniquet will hold.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

Jheselbraum shakes her head. “His condition needs to stabilize further before we decide how to proceed.”

“How to proceed? What do you mean?” 

He shakes his head before it all becomes clear. He let her glowing eyes and her calm demeanor distract him from reality, didn’t he? The reality being that neither one of them has a fucking clue how to deal with this; they’re just blindly grasping at straws.

 “Oh my god. You don’t know what to do, do you?”

She squares her jaw. “The Axolotl will guide me.”

“The what?” Stan asks. “The Axolotl?”

The Axolotl shows me, he remembers her muttering, and he can’t find it in himself to ignore it this time. Not with the kid lying here, half-dead, still with half of his leg torn to smithereens. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve been taking orders from a fucking lizard.”

“Careful, Stanley.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing? What’s it saying?”

“It’s…” she frowns, and Stan just now notices the infrequent flickering of her eyes, the glow held in them coming and going at a whim. “They are quiet.”

“What?”

“It is quiet,” she says, her psychic connection fizzling like a bad telephone signal. He imagines half-hysterically that there’s a discordant, busy signal buzzing in her ears — the line otherwise occupied on the other end. “The Axolotl is making us wait.”

“What?” he hisses again. He decides to put a pin in this particular conversation. It doesn’t really matter who’s helping her, just that they are. “What do you mean, making us wait?”

“I don’t know. I—“

She freezes and then jolts, refocusing on the kid. Her eyes fade back to their natural hue, and Stan finds himself missing the uncanny light immediately.

“What’s happening?”

She exhales sharply. “His heart—“

Stan doesn’t need to hear the end of that ugly sentence. He reaches back down to feel his pulse for himself and chokes when he feels nothing but a weak, stuttering flutter, his skin still cold to the touch.

“Dipper?” he calls out, tapping his cheek again, though he knows that it won’t rouse him. “No, no, kid, come on. Come back, kiddo.”

Jheselbraum’s eyes continue to flicker wildly, but she does nothing. 

“What happened?” he cries out, because he can’t understand this. He reaches back up to cradle his head, like he’d done when his mother reluctantly let him hold the twins on the day of their birth.

Dipper had been blue then, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. There’s a faint twinge to his skin now, too, and Stan fails to see his battered chest rise and fall to remedy it.

“Do something!”

He can’t understand any of this. How the kid could be missing one second, and then found the next. Fine one second, and then not in the blink of an eye.

Alive, and then…

Stan pounds his fist against the table. “Do something, dammit!”

“Enough!” Jheselbraum yells, but she’s already in motion, attaching two padded electrodes to his chest. Stan can tell from the color of her eyes that these steps are unguided — no psychic link to walk her through saving Dipper’s life. 

“I need to concentrate. I need focus,” she says harshly, reaching up and removing the IV from Dipper’s neck. Stan does half her work for her and rips out his own from his inner arm, barely feeling the sting.

She shoos his hand away.

Stan has lost the remote during enough Gravity Falls Public Access TV medical drama marathons to know why. He reluctantly removes it from Dipper’s hair as she readies the device. 

Then, she activates the charge, and the kid jolts, the first sign of life he’s seen from him since the rift. Though Stan knows it’s only an imitation of it now.

He grips the table. It’s impossible to tell what’s happening without a cardiac monitor, but he’s gotten somewhat used to reading her by now, and he can figure out Dipper's condition from the look on her face alone. 

“Do it again!” he demands.

She activates the device again, but the empty hollowness on her face remains even after the second try. 

And, again, it lingers after the third.

But then, something changes, mercifully, and she seems to snap out of it. Even the glow in her eyes returns.

“He’s back,” Jheselbraum says with a deep sigh, her entire body sagging. “They let him go.”

Relief floods into him so forcefully that he doesn’t even process the absurdity of that statement. He tries to see past the tears in his eyes as he reaches back down for the kid. 

He’s never letting go of him again.

Evidently, Jheselbraum has other plans. 

“Stanley. I need you to leave,” she says, her tone both level and saccharine. Though there’s an inherent iciness to the request due to the nature of it.

He doubts that’s how she means for it to come off, but there’s just no good way to ask that of him right now.

He shakes his head, snaking his trembling, bloody hands through Dipper’s curls. He hopes they’re soothing motions, even if they’re unlikely to reach him. “What? No.”

“I need to focus,” she explains, finally glaring down at the torn flesh below his knee. “And you don’t want to be here for this.”

No. He doesn’t. But he can’t stand the thought of leaving Dipper. Especially not after whatever the fuck just happened, the kid’s heart nearly giving out on them.

He can’t leave him. “No. No, I need to stay.”

She presses her lips into a thin line. “Stanley, I’ve already lost connection once. If you want for me to save his life, then I must work alone.”

Stan chews on his lip. He watches Dipper’s broken chest rise and fall and feels his own heart twist with anguish. He’d take all his pain away in an instant if it were possible. He would do anything.

It scares him. What he’d do. Make deals with gods. Sell his soul. Whatever. He knows he’d do it.

He’d do anything for Dipper. That’s his kid, dammit.

“What are you going to do?” he asks, his voice small.

Jheselbraum seems pleased by the subtle, stoic change in him. “Everything I can. Stanley, I need you to trust me.”

He glances back down at Dipper's leg. When he does, he sort of wishes he hadn’t. 

“Everything you can, right?”

She follows his gaze and nods, understanding the unspoken request. She grimaces. “I will try.”

He nods, but even he doesn’t dare to hold out hope for that. He knows that salvaging what’s there is a long shot.

“And if anything changes?”

“I will fetch you.”

He nods and smooths Dipper’s curls back again. His eyes trace the lines of his birthmark as he thinks back to that night in the desert, when the rope that is now tightly wound around his leg was in his hands instead — lively and warm and curious under a foreign, speckled sky.

Stan sits outside on the cool loggia floor and descends into a state of shock. 

Time settles over his shoulders like a tattered blanket, and he wraps himself up in it, simply letting it pass as he stares into the middle distance. His own blood loss leaves him trapped in a half-haze.

Dipper consumes his thoughts entirely. 

The mountain air, once oxygen-rich and appealing to him, feels more like a curse than a blessing now. Each breath feels like he’s inhaling several miniature knives, piercing his heart and leaving him aching all over. 

He watches a cloud pass beneath them and thinks about Dipper some more. He struggles to understand what happened, even now, with time to reflect. He doesn’t know where that 8 Ball-eyed abomination came from, only that it did, and that Dipper suffered for it. 

Those kinds of thoughts pass quickly. Mostly to make room for new ones. 

His brain is already hard at work rewiring itself to make sure he remembers in vivid detail the way the kid had looked when it tore into his flesh. He even thinks he can remember the cracking and crunching of bone when it happened, but it’s also possible that his brain conjured up that imagined detail just to torment him.

He has a new one to add to the collection: Dipper’s heart fluttering to a standstill beneath his fingertips.

Stan’s vision goes. He doesn’t really miss it. All he could see before was sluggish clouds and misty mountain tops, but it’s not much better looking out at them through water-filled eyes. His brain is busy screaming at him to do something — get up, help Jheselbraum, demand to be let back in the room, dammit — but his body hasn’t quite responded to any of its desperate pleas.

The sun is already low in the sky when she comes out.

She steps outside onto the loggia, her eyes now a pleasant shade of brown. Gone is the haunting white glow that only reminded him of how far out of his depth he is. There’s not one speck of blood left on her turquoise skin, either, and Stan’s glad for it. 

He’s still got the proof of it beneath his fingernails. He doesn’t think it’ll ever wash away.

Stan stands. There are a million questions he could ask, but his voice is gone and might never come back. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to find it. “The surgery was successful. He will recover in time.”

Stan stumbles back against the pillars and takes his face in his hands. His whole body trembles, and he thinks his knees might buckle beneath him, but somehow he pulls himself together.

“I need to be with him,” he says. It’s the only one of his thoughts that he can seem to hold onto long enough.

“Yes. That is also what he needs.”

“He’s not— he’s not awake, is he?”

She clicks her tongue sadly. “No. He won’t be for some time.”

He figured, but still, he’d hoped she wouldn't say that. “How long?”

“That will be up to him. His injuries were severe. The amount of blood lost was critical.”

She leans against the pillar across from him and meets his gaze with unmatched intensity. “If not for your quick thinking, he would have been dead long ago. Maybe within seconds.”

That’s something else he hoped she wouldn’t say, but even he’s pieced that together by now. Still, Stan can hardly feel proud of himself for it.

He knows that he’s fundamentally failed Dipper somehow, only he’s not sure if what he’s feeling is guilt so much as it is responsibility. He has no idea what he could have done differently, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.

She seems to read his thoughts. “You saved his life.”

He chews on the torn inner flesh of his cheek. 

Dipper’s alive. And that’s enough — really, it is. 

But still, he has to ask. 

“Did he lose it?”

Jheselbraum’s eyes lower to the ground, and he suddenly has the answer to a question that’s been haunting him for however many terrible hours it’s been since they met up at the rift.

This time, he does sink to the ground, and he takes his face into his shaky palms on the way down.

She continues on anyway. “The trauma to his leg was extensive,” she explains, letting a short stretch of silence glide by with the infrequent mountain gusts. “I tried, Stanley. But some damage is beyond repair.”

He’s only half-listening. Now, all he can seem to think about is that fucking tourniquet, and he finds one decision he can pick over obsessively, at least. But it’s not as if he can think of anything he could’ve done differently either.

Which is weird. It’s not often that he thinks back to a situation and doesn’t come away with a whole list of things he regrets.

But it’s not so great this way, either. At least then he had something to blame. Now, he feels entirely helpless.

When he lowers his hands, he finds Jheselbraum’s pitiful gaze on him. She steps forward and extends one hand down to him. The wind blows through her freshly laundered gown, cool misty air descending upon them, and Stan accepts the help she offers.

He stands. 

Already, he finds himself making several promises to himself that he could never hope to forget, bracing himself for the start of a long and arduous road ahead.

It doesn’t occur to him until he sees the kid, heavily bandaged and sedated and yet very much alive, that he had already begun to mourn him in some strange way.

That revolting half-haze washes away immediately, and he comes back to himself the second he sees Dipper. Fear and apprehension and terror and protectiveness surge in him, and the numbness that had overtaken him out on the loggia is left behind, locked outside in the cold where it belongs.

“Kid,” he says under his breath as he settles down in a chair beside him. Jheselbraum was thorough in clearing the space of all evidence of before. If there ever were a complicated and messy operation in this room, it bears no sign of it now.

The only thing that lingers is the stench of blood, though that could just be coming from him and his stained hands. He’s the least clean thing in this room by far.

He reaches out with those same hands and grabs one of Dipper’s own, peeking out of the covers. It’s the only part of him that isn’t covered up by the sheet Jheselbraum so thoughtfully draped over him, and he makes no attempt to change that. He keeps his gaze on the kid’s face, which almost looks peaceful, barring the total lack of color in his cheeks. Stan can almost pretend for a second that nothing has changed.

It’s one thing to know of their new reality and another thing entirely to see it and to accept it as truth. He isn’t ready for that. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be.

But he will have to. By the time Dipper wakes up, he will have had to come to terms with this entirely. He’ll give himself these next few hours or days to freak out, and then it’s over. He’s done. He won’t let the kid see anything other than a brave face.

But right now, he’s about two seconds away from completely losing what little composure he has left. 

He squeezes the kid’s hand.

“I’m sorry.”

The silence that follows is nauseating, but he doesn’t find it all that hard to fill it. He’s desperate to talk to him.

“I lied to you again, kid.”

He rubs his thumb across the back of his hand and tries to clear the lump in his throat.

“I lied to myself. The truth is, I don't know what to do. I never did.” 

He removes his glasses, wiping his hand across his face. “I spent all that time trying to bring Ford back, following all his dumb notes, and I couldn't even do that right.

“I'm scared too. I'm scared I'll never figure out how to get us back. I'm scared Ford might’ve just locked the basement doors and thrown away the key.”

He chokes a little. The lump in his throat is here to stay.

“But nothing scares me more than losing you,” he tells him. “You're not allowed to go anywhere. It's just you and me now, kid. That’s how it’s gotta be.”

Of course, he doesn’t answer, but Stan's okay with that. He can take all the time he needs.

“We’ll figure this out, too. The same way us Pines men figure out everything else. Pure stubbornness,” he says. “We’re way too stubborn to just lie down and die, right, Dip? Even when it feels like that’s what the universe and everything in it wants us to do.”

This whole time, it’s felt like every force in the multiverse has been conspiring against them. Maybe it’s all some cosmic punishment for the sin he committed thirty years ago. Maybe they’re living on borrowed time already. 

But it’s not as if Stan actually believes in any of that karmic bullshit. Still, he’s coming to recognize a pattern that makes the future seem bleak. The idea that they might ever see home feels slim. Those just aren’t the kinds of cards they’re dealt.

They were never going to figure it out, were they? He was never going to be the hero.

And now it’s too late.

He feels Jheselbraum’s presence in the doorway before he sees her. She steps into the room and lingers behind him. Stan peers over his shoulder and finds her standing there with both hands clasped in front of her, gazing down at Dipper with a sad, yet fond smile, like she understands something that Stan doesn’t.

It pisses him off.

Her smile fades when she looks at him. “You are somber.”

“You think?” he says, but he can’t quite muster his usual snark. “What do you want? A smile? A kiss on the cheek?”

She moves further into the room, taking a seat beside him. “You have a sharp tongue. Sharper than your brother’s,” she says. “Though he was no less quick to anger.”

Unexpectedly, Jheselbraum reaches forward and tenderly smooths out a wrinkle in the kid’s linens. Stan’s heart makes another wild lurch in his chest. 

Something about her demeanor makes him take pause. There’s no reason for strangers to keep showing them as much kindness and humanity as they have, and yet he keeps receiving it from them anyway. 

Those are some good cards. It’s possible that he’s only been looking at half of his hand.

“Sorry,” he says with a shake of his head. “I'm just trying to figure out how this isn’t a death sentence for him.”

“How would that be the case? I said he would recover.”

“Sure. Recover,” he says, and he can’t help phrasing it like it’s some dirty, ugly word. “I guess that leg is supposed to just grow back then?”

Saying it out loud rocks him wildly, and he nearly misses the hard gaze that Jheselbraum sends his way. 

“He will recover.”

He forces down the sudden onslaught of emotions overtaking him and raises a brow. “This another Sight thing?”

She hums. “I know that you are no stranger to adversity, Stanley Pines. You know that there are ways to beat even the most insurmountable of odds.”

Right. And what great odds he’s had. “You got anything else for me besides empty platitudes?”

“You will see soon enough. He is strong. Like his family. Have faith in him.”

He frowns. 

He does. God, of course he does.

Dipper is strong. Stronger than Stan had been at that age. Hell, at any age, even. 

“You are welcome to stay here while he recovers. As long as he needs.”

Jheselbraum smiles sadly. “As you need.”

The night is long.

Stan stares at his reflection through the glass panes. The room is warm. Maybe it’d even be comfortable under different circumstances.

At the center of the room, Dipper sleeps. Stan had spent hours by his side, talking to him and making even more promises he probably won’t be able to keep, but he’d run out of things to say and it became painfully obvious that none of it would ever get through to him anyway. Besides the blood loss and traumatic injury and amputation, the drugs Jheselbraum gave him are more than enough to keep him in a state of oblivion far beyond what Stan can reach.

There’s no portal gun or rift that can take him there. Time is the only form of transportation they have.

Jheselbraum reenters the room as promised, and she greets him by handing him a glass filled to the brim with an unknown, inky substance, swirling with specks of white.

She lends him an innocuous gaze, and Stan raises a brow. “Something to take the edge off?”

“Something like that.”

He takes a lengthy sip. It’s what he imagines licking a car door would taste like if it were left baking in the sun all day. Also overripe raspberries.

He sets the half-empty glass down on the windowsill and enjoys the static that fills his brain.

“Why were you there?” he asks suddenly.

She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “My Sight told me that I would find a fallen pine tree in the meadow,” Jheselbraum puts it simply. “I See many things. Some important, some nonsensical. But I know Lottocron Nine well, and the only tree root that burrows in that soil is of the giant tunia oak.

“I figured it must be something else. It felt like one of the important ones.”

He nods. “You knew my brother.”

“Yes,” she answers softly.

“You put a metal plate in his head.” 

“To keep out Cipher. Of course.”

Stan laughs harshly, but there’s no humor in it. “So he let the demon in, then? They made some kind of pact?”

“Stanford was deceived by Bill, and he was made a pawn,” she says, not at all cryptically.

That explains a lot. Ford’s state when Stan first came to Gravity Falls included. But, still, Stan feels like all he has is a pile of puzzle pieces, some pieces belonging to another freaking puzzle entirely, and no way to sort through them. Short of hearing it from Sixer himself, he doesn’t think he’ll ever make sense of the story there.

He got tricked by him. That, at least, he understands. If the thought of it weren’t so terrible, he’d maybe find some humor in the fact that Ford, for all his genius, let himself get outsmarted. Say what you will about Stan being the dumb twin, at least he knows a scammer when he sees one. 

“Sounds like my brother,” he sneers, though he doesn’t mean it. Not really.

Jheselbraum frowns. “He is not the only one in your bloodline to be tricked by Bill. You know of this, right?”

“What, you mean the kid?”

“Yes,” she says. “He is marked by the demon.”

At that, Stan feels nothing but pure, undying rage. He has nowhere to put it, so he narrows his eyes and scowls in her direction. “You aren’t putting shit in his head. Don’t get any ideas.”

She’s quick to shoot down the idea. “I wouldn’t. He has the mark of Cipher, yes, but he is only a child. That intensive of a surgery with the rest of his ailments is ill-advised, and he isn’t yet done growing.”

“Great,” Stan deadpans. “Glad we agree.”

“There are other things we could do, of course.”

Stan huffs, but his rage settles down to a light simmer. “Do you people ever talk about anything other than Bill? You got any hobbies?”

She doesn’t seem impressed. She lifts her own glass to her lips. “I lead a full life. But I won’t deny that much of my time is spent preparing for the Day. I have seen it.”

“The day?”

She stares out into the inky black. “The sky will be bright and the birds will sing,” she says with a sad, longing smile. “All will watch the sun rise on a Cipherless multiverse.”

She meets his eyes. “Until then, I wait. And See.”

There’s a certain knowingness in her eyes that leaves the hair on his arms standing on end. He turns around to lean back against the glass, clutching his space liquor close to his chest.

He takes another lengthy sip and watches the kid. He looks slightly better than he did only hours ago. At least now Stan isn’t terrified that he might drop dead at any moment.

“You said the kid would be there?” he asks. “To… bear witness?”

He has no earthly idea what that means, or if she even knows, for Moses’ sake, but Stan figures it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to put up some safeguards against Bill. Especially if they’re fucking prophesied to encounter either him or his henchmen again.

For their sakes, they’d better start putting up safeguards against him. Stan’s already spent an ungodly amount of time imagining all the ways he can tear that 8 Ball monster to shreds.

“What kind of things are there?” he asks.

“Stanford permitted the demon to take over as he pleased, so prevention required more drastic measures,” Jheselbraum explains.

“Yeah. Brain surgery.”

She nods firmly, her drink dribbling over the side of her cup with the abrupt movement. “Most are familiar with the efficacy of a fence, but sometimes a well-placed keep out sign works just fine,” she explains. “A sigil.”

“A sigil? Like, a tattoo?”

“Something like it,” she says. “But forged in blood, not ink.”

He doesn’t like the way that sounds. The back of his shoulder burns and stings at the thought. “Is that really necessary? I mean, the deal’s off, right? He can’t come back.”

“If Cipher had access to him, you’d likely know it, yes,” Jheselbraum says. “But a sigil would be an additional precaution. Best to seal any loopholes before he gets the chance to exploit them.”

He can’t argue with that. 

Besides, he said he’d do anything to protect the kid, right? 

“You seem to know a lot about Bill,” he says, because remaining suspicious of others is a good place to start, protection-wise. “How can I trust that you aren’t… one of them?”

She shifts behind him and steps forward, her hands clasped behind her back. At his words, her attitude seems to shift. 

She blinks slowly, her eyes pensive as she stares daggers at the floor. 

“Because I was,” she says finally.

“What?”

“I used to consider Bill a friend,” she says, shutting her eyes as if in pain. “The Henchmaniac who did this to Dipper, I considered him one, too.” 

Stan stiffens.

She continues on despite his rising tension. “We were comrades, all of us. It took me some time before I discovered Bill's true plans and vowed to put an end to his reign of terror. Too long.”

She catches his gaze. “Could you forgive me for the sin of naivety?”

“I–” he chokes, stopping himself before he can say something stupid. 

He mulls it over for a moment. Every part of him wants to hate her for it, but he can’t find it in himself.

Hell, Stan might be able to spot a con artist, but he’s no stranger to fraternizing with people he shouldn’t, either. Hadn’t he once considered Rico a friend, before he spent months hiding from him and his men in dodgy motels with nothing but a stolen baseball bat to protect himself? 

Eventually, he finds the words. “You didn’t know,” he decides.

She lowers her head in silent gratitude. Then, she seems to read his mind. “You understand what it’s like to have a troubled past.”

“That a question? You say that like you already know.”

“Maybe. But I’d like to hear it from you, if that’s alright.”

Troubled. He almost laughs. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

She hums thoughtfully. “I am not that person anymore,” she says. “Neither are you.”

Then, she looks toward Dipper. “None of us are the same as we were. Not even him.”

She’s right. And not just in the most recent physical sense. Stan didn’t need to toughen him up this summer; he grew into the strong, whip-smart kid he is now all on his own.

His thoughts drift back to Dipper. “Thank you,” he says, because he’s not so sure he’s said it yet, and goddamnit, does she deserve to hear it. “For saving him. You— I– I don’t think I can ever repay you for all that you’ve done. Truly.”

That same shy, knowing smile graces her face, and she takes another thoughtful sip of her drink.

“You don’t think highly of yourself, do you?”

What’s with these questions? 

“Does anyone?” he says with a snort.

“I do. You should.”

Stan feels his cheeks heat up. He feels weirdly scrutinized under her gaze, like a microorganism pressed against the glass beneath a slide, but it isn’t an unwelcome feeling. The look on her face holds a warmth that doesn’t feel deserved, yet she offers it so willingly.

He wonders how much she must have known about him already. What Ford might have said. What she might have Seen.

“What exactly was your relationship with my brother?” he asks dumbly, not able to help the slight infatuation that slips into his tone as he looks over her, still looking as much of an angel as she did when she first appeared.

She shakes her head with an unbelieving grin as she heads for the door, giving Dipper one last fleeting glance on her way out.

“Goodnight, Stanley.”

Chapter Text

The second Dipper was sucked through the portal, and Stan with him, the Earth stopped spinning on its axis, coming to a complete and total stop.

Entire cities were wiped out by tsunami-like waves. Global winds stripped the terrain bare, leveling mountains. Everyone on the planet was flung at lightspeed toward the nearest immovable object.

The Earth stopped spinning. 

Or, at least, it should have.

Mabel grabs her backpack, a faded purple thing, and pulls the straps over her shoulders. Inside of it lies several empty notebooks, a pack of scented markers that have long since lost their scent, a couple of unsharpened number two pencils, an assortment of animal-themed eraser heads, and a copy of Quantum Physics for Doofuses that she nabbed from Stan’s collection of books in the basement.

Today, the Earth still spins. 

Today, Mabel has to go to school.

She takes the basement stairs all the way down, her ballerina flats scuffing against the hardened floor. Ford’s nose is pressed in the hollow of a book when she gets there, practically merging with the pages themselves, and it makes her wonder if his prescription is the same as it was when he first began traveling the multiverse. If he’s anything like Grandpa Shermie, some replacement lenses are probably long overdue.

She peers over his shoulder and eyes the contents of the page, her heart making a wild leap for joy at the sight of it. Accompanying the lightly traced illustration of his plan for the new and improved portal is a list of necessary portal components, bulleted out like the world’s most unattainable grocery list.

Mabel understands the importance of math and science as much as the next girl, but she’d be lying if she said all of the equations he’s been scribbling into his journals weren’t making her head spin. This is much better. Gathering parts is good. It means they’re one step closer to actually building it. 

Besides, Mabel’s a crafter by nature. She’s good with her hands. How hard could it be to assemble what’s already been built once before, only with a few choice tweaks? 

It’ll be a cinch.

Ford chuckles softly and lowers the journal, angling it to give her a better view. She doesn’t give it much more than a once-over. She hadn’t really wanted to read it. Strangely, it’s a comfort just to be close to him.

He shuts the book once it becomes clear that she’s not interested in reading about superconductors. At least not this particular morning. “You sure you couldn’t use a lift?”

Mabel raises a brow, thinking of the Stanmobile collecting dust out front. “Do you know how to drive?”

He taps his chin amusedly, feigning deep thought. “Well, it’s been some time, but I’m sure muscle memory would serve me. Besides, I’ve driven much more sophisticated vehicles in the past thirty years.”

“Space cruisers?”

Ford chuckles. “Something like that.”

Mabel decides to abandon her curiosity for the meantime, but she hopes he doesn’t think she’s letting him off that easily. She’s fully planning on getting that story out of him sooner or later. 

There’s a lot she wants to ask about the time he spent between dimensions, but she thinks there’s also a not-so-insignificant part of her that’s afraid to know what lies outside of this one. 

“Thanks for the offer, but it’s fine,” she says. “Wendy’s supposed to meet me. We're gonna walk together.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” She rubs the back of her neck awkwardly. “Grunkle Ford, do I really have to go? I mean, you have, like, a gazillion PhDs, right? Can’t you just teach me all your smart people stuff so I don’t have to go?”

He releases a deep sigh, as if he had been weighing the same question himself. “If it were up to me you wouldn’t be wasting your time in public school,” Ford says, pressing his journal shut. “You’d be better off under my tutelage, but this was the agreement your parents and I settled on.”

Mabel crosses her arms over her chest. If Mom and Dad knew their little compromise was keeping her from working on bringing Dipper back, she’s sure they’d have a change of heart. Then again, Mabel is the one keeping that from them, so maybe she deserves the cruel and unusual punishment that is being shipped away to public school without him.

She feels a briery chill run through her at the thought. This time, there will be no comparing maple syrup-covered schedules at the breakfast table, bemoaning over a mouthful of pancakes the fact that they’d be in different math and science classes again this year, much to Dipper’s distaste and Mabel’s indifference.

There’d be no overcrowded bus ride to campus, Dipper focused on next week’s homework or a crossword puzzle or a mystery novel or even his Game Kid on the mornings he was able to sneak it into his backpack without their parents noticing.

Instead, there’d be a long walk through the misty morning air, what little warmth left of a summer in Gravity Falls quickly bleeding dry. Her schedule is buried at the bottom of her bag, too. She’ll have to fish it out later to find out where her classes are and what she’s taking. 

In another life, the idea of going to school in Gravity Falls would have been something like a dream. She feels next to nothing about the whole affair now. It’s just another box to check off in the pursuit of much more important things.

“Right,” she says, because even Mabel knows there’s no getting through to her parents. Honestly, she’s gotten away with more than she ever expected to already. She’d better not try her luck.

She squeezes herself tighter as she looks out at the portal zone through the glass. They haven’t made any improvements to its structure since putting up the unicorn barrier a few days ago, but Mabel isn’t worried. Ford has just about finished wrapping his head around their next steps forward, and for once she has total faith in him to follow through. There’s a spare bundle of unicorn hair that she may or may not have yanked straight out of Celestabellebethabelle’s mane hidden away in his desk drawer, and she knows he plans to secure it around the base of the portal’s structure soon. 

He’d said doing so would be like slapping duct tape over a bowling ball-sized crater in the hull of a ship, but Mabel thinks the idea sounds promising enough.

Ford follows her gaze. He contemplates something for a moment before he begins to root around in that same drawer. Eventually, he finds what he’s looking for, and he extends the undisclosed object to her with an open palm. 

Mabel takes it and turns it around in her hands. It’s about half the width of her palm, easily concealable. “What’s this?” 

“It’s a two-way communication device, capable of sending alphanumeric messages instantaneously,” he explains. “It’s similar to a pager, but its range extends far beyond the capabilities of your standard model. This way, we can have a direct line to each other no matter the distance.”

He looks at the portal again and winces. “Within reason.”

Mabel’s unable to hide the grin that stretches across her face. “Grunkle Ford, you know a cellphone can send written messages now, too, right? They’re called texts.”

Ford frowns. “Texts?”

She very nearly facepalms, then thinks better of it. She has her work cut out for her in more ways than one. “Remind me to give you a crash course on everything you missed in the last thirty years. Oh, man, do you know what a GIF is, Grunkle Ford? What am I saying? Of course you don’t. I’ll show you.”

He seems mostly confused, but he chuckles at her enthusiasm regardless. “Alright, alright. You can teach me about these jiffs when you return. In the meantime, the pager should work fine if you need to reach me. For any reason.”

Mabel cocks a brow. “Any reason?”

“Well, emergencies, preferably. I have much work to do.”

“Okay. Emergencies only. Got it.” She clutches the thing in her palm. Unlike her phone, it actually promises direct communication with Ford, and she’s happy to have a way to contact him that doesn’t remind her of the weeks of radio silence and dial tones that she was met with whenever she tried before. 

That, and it shouldn’t be that difficult to hide from her teachers. Its ancient design makes it look like a miniature calculator.

“Thanks,” she says.

He ruffles her hair, a bit awkwardly, and Mabel beams. Some of the darkness that had threatened to swallow her up and sink her into the floorboards this morning seems to ease up in her grunkle’s presence, beneath the sleepy warmth of the basement overhead lights.

She’s sure that coziness won’t last, not down here, but she struggles to think of anywhere else she’d rather be in this moment. But, like most mornings before school, she’ll be expected to leave all traces of comfort behind for the day. Similar to the awfulness of having to peel herself out of the warmth of her bed back home in Piedmont, she’ll have to leave the enclosed mildness of this basement and step out into the unknown today, too.

Ford nods toward the door. It’s late already, and Wendy’s likely already waiting for her out on the front porch. “Alright. Off you go. You know how to reach me.”

She waves the pager once in acknowledgment and tucks it into the shallow pocket she sewed into her skirt. “What will you do while I’m gone?”

Mabel hopes he isn’t planning on sitting in this exact spot and obsessing over the same page in his journal for six hours, but she doesn’t doubt it either. And, sure, she wants him to stay focused, but she doesn’t like the idea of him working himself to the brink all alone either. She’d much rather they both work themselves into equal levels of exhaustion, together, as a team.

“It’s time I figure out how to pinpoint Stan and Dipper’s unique dimensional frequencies across the wider multiverse. We don’t want to accidentally pull two alternate versions of our brothers into this dimension, and it’d be reassuring to know where they are, at any rate.”

“There’re other Dippers and Stans?” she asks, her jaw dropping. She guesses she knew that, with Ford’s continual usage of the word “our” when talking about bringing Dipper and Stan back, but it’s more than strange hearing it confirmed aloud. 

Funny. Her head is already reeling, and she hasn’t even made it to math class yet.

Ford blinks. She can tell by the look on his face that he regrets opening that can of worms now. “I’ll explain all that later,” he says. “For now, worry about getting through today. This work will be in good hands with me.”

It’s a sharp autumn morning.

Well, autumn isn’t technically for at least another couple of weeks, but she struggles to find any remnants of a typical summer morning. Wendy seems to agree, and she adjusts her ushanka to fit more snugly over her reddened ears. 

Robbie, Tambry, Nate, Lee, and Thompson are just ahead of them, absorbed in an argument over which one of them would be the first to die in some apocalypse-type scenario. They’d all unanimously agreed that it would be Thompson by default, probably due to his accident-prone nature rather than the actual world-ending event itself, but who would be next is this morning’s hot topic.

Lee thinks it's Robbie. Naturally, Nate agrees with Lee. Robbie chooses Lee, probably mostly in retaliation, and Tambry affectionately teases him for it. 

Thompson just seems happy to be there.

Thankfully, they leave Wendy and Mabel out of it, though she’s sure no one would dare suggest that Wendy would be the first to go. She’s pretty clearly the most capable out of all of them. 

And Mabel’s low-hanging fruit, to pick her would just be cruel.

“They’re so dumb,” Wendy muses with a fond shake of her head, her breath visible in the cool morning air. “They do this all the time. I think they just like hearing themselves talk.”

Mabel snorts, and that’s visible, too. She’s glad she decided to wear one of her thicker sweaters this morning. 

She stares ahead at the friend group that Dipper had been so deadset on weaving their way into this summer and finds it strange that she feels closer to them now than she ever did before. There’s been an unspoken shift, maybe born out of pity, but a shift nonetheless. Mabel knows that any one of them would welcome her as part of the group if she’d only ask.

“I wish I could just go with you guys,” Mabel says, goosebumps peppering the skin of her arms, nestled inside their yarned tombs. “Another year of middle school sounds…”

Wendy sucks air between her teeth. “Oof.”

“Yeah. Oof.”

“Middle school sucked,” Wendy agrees, a certain haunted gaze behind her eyes. “But at least it was over quick. High school is a drag. It goes on and on and on.”

“It’s felt quick, but I’m not so sure it will this year.”

Wendy lowers her voice, mindful of the group ahead of them. “Do you think you’ll stay? Once we get Dipper and Stan back?”

Mabel shrugs, wrapping the end of one of her backpack straps around her index finger repeatedly. She hasn’t really thought about it much. “I don’t know. I still need to figure out what we’re going to tell our parents,” she says. “With any luck, they’ll let Grunkle Ford homeschool us the rest of the year, and we can all stay in Gravity Falls. Y’know, until Dipper’s ready to go back to school.”

“Yeah, man. You both deserve a break after this.”

Mabel chews on her lip. Maybe she’s being idealistic, but she won’t let herself worry. As long as Dipper’s with her, she’s sure they’ll be able to face whatever it is. Together. 

“Maybe Dipper will think of something,” she says after a moment.

Wendy smiles sadly as she kicks an unsuspecting pebble in her path, and the two of them watch it skitter across the cement. It tumbles somewhere out of reach, and she leaves it in the dust.

“Yeah,” she says after a moment, shaking herself out of it. “But whatever happens, you’ll have this entire freakin’ town rallying around you. Elaborate plan or not.”

It’s a nice thought. “You really think so?”

“I know so. I think I saw Blubs and Durland cruising around the perimeter of the forest late last night when I was gathering firewood for my dad. People care about you guys, you know? You’ve got that effect on people.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty lovable, aren’t we?” Mabel says, only mostly joking.

Wendy ruffles her hair, careful not to mess up her carefully placed headband. “The most lovable,” she corrects fondly. “This town didn’t know what hit them when you two showed up.”

Mabel smiles, but the sight of the middle school straight ahead immediately snuffs out any of the joy she’d been starting to feel inside. She feels like the last dead match in a matchbox, failing to light when struck.

Wendy notices immediately. “Hey,” she says, taking a knee. She puts a hand on Mabel’s shoulder and meets her gaze with a sudden intensity. “You got this, man. How many cryptids and monsters have we beat the shit out of this summer?”

Mabel pauses to think about it. “Is that a real question? Because there were the gnomes, a bunch of wax figures, Bill, a horde of zombies, the shapeshifter, the Lilliputians, Bill again—”

“A lot,” Wendy interrupts with a large, knowing grin. “You’ve faced bigger and badder things and made it out okay. What’s middle school in the face of all that?”

Gravity Falls Middle School probably has fewer kids in total than her entire seventh grade class back in Piedmont. Everyone here seems to know everyone, and it’s something that Mabel never really experienced back in California. 

For better or worse, it was easy to get lost in a crowd there. Here, Mabel sticks out like a sore thumb. A brightly colored, sweatered sore thumb.

She normally wouldn’t mind. In California, large class sizes and crowds meant that she had to stick out somehow, and neither she nor any of her friends were ever afraid to deviate from the norm creatively and artistically. She’s always worn her heart on her sleeve, and she’s never received anything but praise for it. 

Standing out isn’t so bad; she’d take that kind of attention any day.

But this is different. She could leave the hushed comments that have followed her in her wake all morning, eyes seeming to track her down the halls of Gravity Falls Middle’s strange indoor campus. She can’t help but feel claustrophobic here. Back home, her school was outdoors, with large quads and meticulously planted trees surrounding her classes, not clustered groups of threes and fours watching her every move.

The worst of it happens sometime in the middle of third-period English. Mabel aimlessly scribbles spirals in the corners of her notebooks and shrinks under the watchful gaze of the girl to her right, unable to ignore the clicks of her tongue as she smacks on a wad of minty gum.

The girl taps her mechanical pencil against the scratched varnish of her desk and tilts her head. “Hey,” she says, two more idle taps hitting the laminate.

Mabel looks up, her grip around her own pencil becoming tense. She hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone this morning, but she’s not in the business of ignoring people. She manages a small smile, her fingers already itching for the pager in her skirt pocket. “Hi. Luna, right?” she asks, vaguely remembering her name from roll call. “I’m Mabel.”

“I know,” Luna says, tucking some of her pin-straight hair behind her ears. “You live at the Mystery Shack, right? The old tourist trap?”

Part of her bristles at the phrasing. She knows what Stan’s business is to the locals, but the Shack is more than that. “Yeah,” she says, ignoring the strangeness she feels at finally saying it out loud. She lives there; that’s not something she ever thought she’d say. “Have you been?”

“A few times when I was younger,” she says idly, clearly uninterested. “Hey. I’m sorry about your brother. I never met him, but my mom works for the Department of Forestry. She helped organize the search.”

“Oh,” Mabel says. She swallows the lump in her throat and stares down at the scribbles in her notebook. “Yeah, um. Thanks?”

Luna nods. “She said her whole unit spent weeks looking for him, but they haven’t been able to find anything.”

Mabel’s pencil falls to her desk. She sits up straighter. “Find…anything?” 

The statement reels her so badly that she almost forgets that Dipper isn’t lost out there in the woods somewhere, presumably and probably even legally dead at this point, according to the State of California. She knows better, of course, but she can’t help where her mind goes. 

These past few weeks, whenever she’s thought of Dipper — which has been near-constantly — she hasn’t been able to imagine anything other than him trekking through a dim, darkened forest.

The girl blinks, and for a second, Mabel thinks she might backtrack, realizing how insensitive she sounds. But, of course, she doesn’t, and she carries on anyway, “Yeah. They usually find something by now. Usually clothes or, like, shoes at least, if not the person.”

Mabel squares her shoulders as the hot, coiled ball of anger that’s been permanently fused to the depths of her gut winds itself tighter. “Maybe they haven’t been looking in the right places,” she says flatly.

Luna frowns — molars still gnashing — and looks at her with an expression that’s chock-full of pity, cloying and dripping with hollow saccharinity. Mabel’s stomach feels how it did when she was six and scarfed down three whole sheets of fruit-scented scratch-and-sniff stickers. 

This girl thinks her brother is dead, and her mom and her entire stupid department were scouring the empty woods for a corpse. Or a corpse’s clothes.

Mabel turns away, cheeks flushed with frustration. She begins to scribble in her notebook with newfound intensity, finding nowhere else to place her anger and desperation.

At lunch, Mabel sits alone.

She wants to be unbothered by this. She wants so badly not to care, but, deep down, she still finds remnants of the Mabel that cared about things like making friends and being liked — even if all she really cares about now is saving her two favorite people in the whole world.

She wishes she could just stop wanting things, but she can’t help it. She stares out across the lunchroom, longing for about ten separate things and realizing all at once just how alone she really is.

Mabel flinches when a tray is dropped down onto the yellow metal table in front of her. The food atop it barely moves an inch, resembling pieces of flattened cardboard in texture and appearance.

Her eyes widen when Pacifica takes a seat in front of her, baby blue eyes boring holes into the cheap plastic tray. She says nothing as she makes herself comfortable at the bench across from Mabel.

“Wha– Pacifica? I didn’t know you went here.”

Pacifica finally looks up, sneering already. “I don’t.”

All it takes is a single arch of Mabel’s brow for Pacifica to give in, releasing a drawn-out sigh. “I didn’t,” she amends. “My stupid parents enrolled me here for the year as punishment.”

Mabel frowns. Seems like a lot of punishment for something as small as letting the townsfolk join in on one stupid party, but Mabel knows that her disobedience likely signifies more than just that to them. Knowing Pacifica, it was probably the first time she’d ever truly defied them.

And then there was that whole accusing them of murder thing. She can’t forget that.

“Another punishment?” she asks.

Pacifica shrugs, face twisted in disgust as she pokes at the thin slice of pizza on her tray. Mabel doesn’t know what’s not to like. Sure, calling it pizza might be a stretch, but the sauce is sweet and tastes like candy — her all-time favorite food group.

“More of the same. They said if I want so badly to ‘fraternize with common folk’ then I need to get used to ‘walking among them,’” she says with two curled fingers in the air. “I don’t know. It won’t last. They’re probably more embarrassed at the idea of me being here than I am actually being here.”

Mabel shrugs. “Public school’s not so bad.” She stews on that for half a second before thinking better of it. “Well, it’s not so bad if you aren’t Dipper. He had it pretty bad.”

“What, you’re telling me Ghost Harrasser Jr. couldn’t harass some bullies?” She inspects her acrylic nails, the polish slightly worn around the edges. “He seemed confident enough standing up to me this summer.”

Mabel squints. “Are you calling yourself a bully?”

Pacifica is silent as she pushes the food around on her plate. She pops an unripe strawberry in her mouth and chews on it with more force than necessary.

Mabel doesn’t push. Dipper told her the kinds of things Pacifica said that night at the party and, honestly, Mabel’s been waiting for this moment since they met. She's always been willing to let bygones be bygones. She just needed Pacifica to get there first.

Maybe she’s too forgiving, but she’s never been able to hold a grudge. Dipper’s always held onto them for her.

She moves on. “It was different back home. Those same kids messed with Dipper his whole life. It’s easier having a fresh start.”

“Yeah, sure,” Pacifica says, looking around at their empty table. “Easy.”

Mabel blows a puff of air out through her nose. “Hey, it’s not your fault. You just chose to sit with Miserable Mabel. My patheticness trumps your popularity.”

“That’s not true.”

At that very moment, straight ahead, a group of eighth-grade boys turn around to stare at them, whispering loudly amongst one another. In another life, Mabel would have jumped at the opportunity to introduce herself to them, but she can't find it in herself to revel in their attention now. She can’t think of anything as disinteresting and irrelevant as boys and summer romance now.

Mabel tilts her head in their direction, not caring to warn Pacifica not to look. The blonde does so, whipping back around quickly when she accidentally makes direct eye contact.

“Okay. So maybe it’s a little true,” Pacifica allows, wincing. “Where are Candy and Grenda?”

“Grenda’s off with Marius on his boat, and Candy’s at music camp. They’re missing a couple days this week.”

Pacifica lets out a soft hmph and tilts her chin upward. “Well, there’s three people who aren’t scared off by your patheticness.”

Mabel cocks her head. “Three?”

“Well, duh, I’m here, aren’t I? You guys need someone to help you survive this place,” she deflects, her cheeks reddening.

“Ha, thanks, but I don’t really care about popularity,” Mabel says honestly. “You’re not the only one here because your parents are making you. I just want to find Dipper.”

Pacifica pauses, weighing her words. She keeps her chin tilted upward, looking awfully self-assured for someone in her position. Maybe they’re both way in over their heads that way. “Well, you know what? If my parents are making me go here, then I'm not going to follow any more of their dumb rules while I do.”

Mabel swallows a mouthful of dessert pizza. “What are you saying?”

“I'm going to help you get that dork back. Once I make you tell me the truth.”

Mabel groans. She’s not going to let this go, is she? “You know the truth, Pacifica.”

“Sure,” she says with an eye roll, “the unicorn hair and moonstones we placed around the Shack are going to guide Dipper out of the woods. Honestly, how dumb does your family think I am?”

Mabel’s got to give her that. Pacifica’s many things, but dumb isn’t one of them, no matter the kinds of facades she’s put on in the past. “Fine,” Mabel allows. “There's some stuff you don’t know, okay? But I can’t talk about it right now. I can't talk about it ever, but especially not right now.”

“So, later, then.”

“Pacifica,” Mabel warns.

Pacifica throws up her hands in surrender. “Fine! Fine.”

A stretch of silence passes between them, both girls chewing at their cheeks.

“I knew there was something.”

“Pacifica!”

“Okay! Sorry! Sorry! I'm done.”

The day drags on.

Mabel fiddles with the pager in her pocket as her science teacher drones on and on about the Law of the Conservation of Mass. After about fifteen minutes, she wishes the law would make an exception for her so that she could be destroyed. Anything to escape this torture.

When the lesson shifts over toward quantum physics, she perks up, just a bit, eager to ask about some of the concepts annotated in the margins of the dog-eared pages in Stan’s books. But her verbose teacher isn’t quite as eager to provide answers when somebody else is asking the questions, and her peers conceal quiet groans with their chin-bearing palms when her hand shoots up into the air for the third time.

She doesn’t mind so much when neither she nor her questions are taken seriously. It helps her enough just to ask them, to know that back home, just a few floors beneath her bed at night, there’s someone who will know how to answer them.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

Mabel chose her favorite spot for any mathematics class: tucked into the rightmost corner at the very back of the room, far enough away for her to stare at the indecipherable chicken scratch on her tests in peace, unbothered by the teacher’s pets in the front row who would race to the front to drop off their exams long before she’d even finished the first page.

Everyone knows that the first day of class is usually just classroom expectations and painfully awkward icebreakers, and Mabel has had enough of that kind of thing today. The latter has been particularly hard to stomach. She’s not sure how many more stares she can take from her classmates when it’s her turn to tell the class about her summer break.

But there’s an exception to every rule, and today Mabel’s math teacher decided that a baseline pop quiz was in order. That’s how she finds herself sitting in front of a blank page, eyelids growing heavy as the parallelograms and triangles merge into incoherent black blobs.

She blinks, finding it increasingly difficult to keep them open. Admittedly, she’d been too anxious to fall asleep last night, and she’d ended up nodding off for a short time after several hours spent rereading some of Dipper’s old entries in the third journal. She’d woken up with her face stuck to his page on the Society of the Blind Eye, a small streak of drool smudging his doodle of McGucket’s spectacles.

She shuts her eyes for a moment, but she finds no real rest before she’s jolted awake by a shrill and familiar cackle.

Mabel scrambles from her desk, papers flying every which way as she lands harshly on the fibrous carpet. She pulls her knees against her chest as the scene in front of her shifts, the decorated, LED-lit classroom darkening and bleeding dry, colors fading to greyscale.

Her blank quiz sits in front of her, one of the isosceles triangles now glowing a bright yellow. She promptly crushes the paper in her hand and rips it to shreds, blind fear surging in her.

“Get out of my head!” she yells out, knowing exactly what’s coming. The silence surrounding her threatens to swallow her up, her heart pounding in her ears. Beside her, Mabel’s classmates still fill the room, slumped over in their seats like Victorian porcelain dolls, their frozen figures a lifeless, gray hue.

Mabel gasps as the ripped paper pieces slowly inch toward each other, as if being pulled by an invisible thread. Mabel scooches back, palms rubbing harshly against the rough carpet as she watches the pieces reattach themselves. 

The paper glows anew, and out pops Bill like a triangular block that has been forcibly shoved through the wrong hole in a shape sorter toy. Mabel stares up at him in horror, the dark room engulfed by his headache-inducing glow.

He says nothing, fiddling with his bowtie and adjusting his top hat instead, and one of her eyes twitches at the sight of him. She sputters. “I– Bill?”

Bill glares down at her quiz, sights set on the isosceles triangle that is front and center on the page. “Boy, that isn’t the most flattering depiction of me, is it? They’ve got the angles all wrong! I’m not that obtuse.”

Mabel holds herself up with her splayed palms as she gawks up at him. Bill floats around her, paying no mind to her stupored state. “Anyway! Looks like you finally left that old hovel, kid! Perfect timing, too! You’re just the meat puppet I’ve been dying to see.”

She shakes her head and tries to force herself awake. She squeezes her eyes shut in three quick bursts and pinches the thin skin at her wrist, holding it there. “You– you can't be here. I’m not making any deals with you!”

“Sure you won’t,” he says, almost bored. “But that’s a given, kid. You aren’t that selfless.”

“Selfless? You make bad deals! I’d never trust you!”

Bill laughs. “I’m hurt, Star, but I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re just not the self-sacrificial type. Not even for your brother,” he remarks casually. “Begrudingly, maybe, but your track record’s not so great.

“Gotta say, though, I really thought you’d put some of that selfishness on hold this time, considering the stakes.”

That’s not true. She would do anything for Dipper. This is just what Bill does, right? This is how he tricked Dipper.

She won’t let him get her with that. “Dipper would never want me to make a deal with you! Never, ever!”

Bill taps the spot where his chin might be, if he had one. “Hm, sure wish we could ask him!” He snaps once. “Oh, right, how could I forget? I see everything. You wanna see what Pine Tree’s been up to? Tunia trees are a lot like birch trees. Lots and lots of eyes.”

Mabel sputters on her exhale, something like blind hope unfurling within her, but she refuses to let Bill be the cause of it. She can’t trust him, no matter what he offers. No matter how tempting.

No matter the fact that she would do anything to see Dipper again. Even for just a second.

She breathes out. “I– There’s nothing you can say that will make me make a deal with you,” she says, though the words come out less certain than she meant for them to. 

It’s not so easy covering up the tinge of hope in her voice. She’s sure Bill noticed it too.

He cackles with glee, his form flashing bright yellow. If nothing else, that at least sounds real. “If you say so, kid!”

Mabel grabs her knees and frowns. He’s a liar, and she can’t trust him, but it can’t hurt to at least hear him out, right? It’s not like she’d ever actually believe any of it, and she’s not so bad at getting information out of people, either.

It’s worth a shot. “He’s not there. You don’t know where he is, because they aren’t in the Nightmare Realm, are they? They escaped. I know they did.”

“Please, Shooting Star, your brother’s making an eternity in that wasteland sound like paradise. I think he’d be better off!”

Her frown deepens. It’s clear that she doesn’t hold the power in this conversation, despite her best efforts. She can hardly keep herself from taking the bait.

“What do you mean?”

He seems pleased with himself when he morphs his form to make space for that stupid screen again. 

“How about I just let Fez speak for me instead?”

Mabel sits up straight, power dynamics and half-baked strategies quickly forgotten.

“Stan?”

Her brow furrows as Bill suddenly projects another image onto his body, the image fading in and out of focus like binocular diopters. She crawls toward the screen on all fours, already entranced as the image flickers to life, vibrant colors stark compared to the dreariness around her.

It’s hard to make sense of at first.

There’s a field full of tall grass, swaying in tune with what looks like a light breeze, eerie amid a darkening sky. It should be peaceful — painted by the glow of a crescent moon — but there’s something unnatural at play, and its gloominess casts its shadow across the entire landscape.

When she sees it, her blood immediately runs cold.

Pictured, Stan is cradling something close to his chest, tears streaming down his face as he rocks slightly, his entire frame overtaken by gut-wrenching sobs. She’s never seen him like that, never ever, and she tilts her head to better see what it is that he’s holding, to better see the cause of his anguish.

Mabel stops breathing.

It’s not a something at all. 

It’s Dipper in Stan’s arms, unresponsive as their grunkle sobs and mutters his name repeatedly into his outgrown hair, a thick stream of red seeping from his still, parted lips. Still, they’re almost completely shielded from her, nestled in the thick of the field.

Her limited view makes the rest difficult to make out, but the blood dribbling out from the corner of Dipper’s mouth and trailing down his ashen face is enough. It’s clear what Bill’s trying to show her.

She feels the overwhelming urge to dry heave, sickness pooling in her stomach and threatening to make a quick escape, but out of everything, that’s the one thing that doesn’t seem to be possible in the Mindscape.

Her phantom nausea overtakes her, and she can’t do anything but soak it up like a dehydrated sponge.

“That’s not real,” she says immediately, frightened by the hollowness of her own voice. Still, she’s unable to look away, her eyes burning.

It’s a trick. 

It’s a trick. Dipper’s fine.

“Funny, you said the same thing about Fordsy, didn’t you? And we all saw how that panned out!” he says, clasping his hands together. “Oh, that betrayal, kid! Soap opera material, I tell ya!”

Mabel shakes her head. “That’s not real,” she says again. It’s a trick. It’s just a trick. “Dipper’s not dead.”

“Maybe not yet, Shooting Star,” Bill says, his eye morphing into a ticking clock, the hands racing toward midnight. “But time’s ticking, and it doesn’t look like Ford is going to figure out that portal anytime soon. Not before Pine Tree scores a field goal with that bucket of his, anyway.”

He snuffs out the image and reverts back to his natural state, and Mabel’s left staring at his nauseatingly yellow form instead. “Well, kicking’s probably off the table, but I’m sure he could still give it a good slap!”

“Dipper’s fine,” says Mabel, her throat tightening. She tries to make her words sound as convincing as possible, pushing down the doubt that begins to fester inside. “Ford’s going to figure out how to activate that portal, and you won’t be there when he does!”

Bill huffs. “You know, I actually feel sorry for you, Star. That uncle of yours gave you the run around, didn’t he? Robbed you of your capacity to trust. You can’t even see that I’m trying to do you and Pine Tree a favor here.”

She swallows down the lump in her throat, her hands sweating an awful lot for what are supposed to be noncorporeal, dream hands. “Why would you do us any favors? Grunkle Ford told me what you want. You just want me to make him open the portal to the Nightmare Realm, don’t you? Isn’t that what this is really about?”

“Sixer has no idea what I want,” he says darkly. “But when you get tired of watching that old hack sit on his thumbs and decide that you’re ready to save your brother, maybe I’ll still be here. If it’s not too late.”

Mabel scuffles her flats on the asphalt and ignores the dull pain of sitting on rocky cement, feeling the familiar thrum of the Stanmobile before she sees it pull into the bus loop.

She peels herself off the curb and heads straight for the backseat.

She freezes when Ford cracks open the passenger side window. “You can sit up front, if you’d like,” he says.

Mabel blinks. Right, she thinks as she heads for the passenger door instead. She’s thirteen now. She’s been waiting to be able to sit in the front seat for as long as she can remember.

She slides into the unfamiliar seat and drops her backpack to the floor. Mabel had entirely forgotten about this milestone this time around. She’d forgotten to feel excited about growing up.

“You came,” she says, clipping in her seatbelt.

“I– Well… yes. You called.”

She holds herself back from reminding him that she’s tried that before, to no success. Things have changed, and she’s becoming more comfortable relying on him to be there when she needs him to be.

She nods absently. “This is Grunkle Stan’s car,” she points out. 

Ford blinks. He looks around the cabin, as if truly seeing it for the first time. “Yes. I’m… familiar.”

“You’re driving it?”

“I didn’t see another option,” he says, the Stanmobile jerking forward as he shifts it into drive. “I’m sure Stanley wouldn’t mind us borrowing it. All things considered.”

Mabel nods, feeling his gaze on her as she turns to stare out the front windshield. She barely flinches when he peels out of the lot, wrapping around the loop and making a quick and probably illegal maneuver back toward the Mystery Shack.

His eyes flick back over to her momentarily, already surpassing the speed limit as they hit the dirt road that leads to Gopher Lane. It’s a good thing the Stanmobile’s used to it. Stan’s always seen the speed limit as more of a suggestion anyway.

Ford attempts to break the silence. “Did you learn anything new today?”

It’s not particularly funny, but the casualness of the question nearly makes her laugh out loud.

Bill Cipher just infiltrated her Mindscape in the middle of eighth-grade math class and tried to trick her into making a deal by showing her a false illusion of her twin in some sort of horrific accident. She’d run out of class and out the school doors with tears in her eyes, fingers already swiftly typing out a message to Ford to come and get her. 

And now he’s here, asking her questions about school like they don’t have a portal in their basement and two brothers fighting for their lives in another dimension.

She holds her laughter back. “Um, we’re supposed to be learning about linear equations in Math 8 Core,” she says, her voice breaking only slightly.

Ford taps his fingers rhythmically against the wheel and squints. “Math 8 Core, what is that?”

“It’s pre-Algebra. Dipper was supposed to be taking Algebra this year, but Mrs. Snyder said it was too advanced for me. I’ll be taking Algebra next year, in high school.”  

“That’s ridiculous,” Ford says, eyes breaking away from the road momentarily. “You should be in Dipper's class.”

“I don’t know. I’m not as smart as Dipper.”

He sputters, fingers tightening around the wheel. “What? What makes you say that?”

Mabel shrugs. “I dunno. He’s the straight-A student,” she says. “I’m just…average, I guess. Mom always says that Cs get degrees, but I don’t think that applies to middle schoolers.”

Ford frowns. “You’re a smart girl, Mabel,” he says resolutely. “You’re just in need of a good teacher. It’s hardly your fault the curriculum is so needlessly convoluted.”

He comes to a decision quickly. “I’m calling the school in the morning. You’ll be taking that Algebra class.”

She blinks, unsure of when exactly this conversation took so sudden of a turn. She still feels like she’s got one foot in the Mindscape, and her wandering mind is finding it hard to keep up with him. “Woah. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Grunkle Ford, but are you sure I’ll have time for that? Math class is the last thing I’m worried about right now.”

“I know,” Ford says sympathetically. “But your studies are important, Mabel. Besides, a baseline understanding of the fundamentals of mathematics and physics will be useful when we begin to reconstruct the portal.”

Finally, she thinks, at least one real-life use for math. “Have you started building it?”

He hums, staring out at the stretch of road. Ahead of them, a gnome scurries out of the street and back into the woods. “Well, the actual building itself will have to wait until we have the necessary materials, but I spent some time examining its structure today. The foundation seems sturdy enough to begin adding some of the upgraded components when we’re ready. I was thinking we could head out to Crash Site Omega this week for parts.”

Mabel nods, chewing on her lip, her mind already beginning to drift elsewhere. For weeks, her thoughts have been of the woods — of pine trees and shrubbery and two bodies weaving through the dense thicket. She doesn’t like where it goes now.

She thinks of the meadow again. The bodies there are still.

Ford glances her way again, and she’s not sure what he finds there, but he’s quick to offer more. “I think I’ve figured out how to locate Dipper and Stan,” he says softly. “I was able to scan their DNA using samples from around the house. It only took a few strands of hair.”

Mabel thinks of Dipper’s hairbrush, hardly ever used, still sitting in the bathroom drawer. She sniffles then, unable to think of anything other than Stan’s anguished face, pressed into Dipper’s thick, unruly curls. 

She covers her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater, but she’s unable to keep a rising sob from bursting out of her.

“Mabel?”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, barely audible as fresh tears begin to fall down her face.

He pulls into the Shack’s lot just then, quickly shifting the car into park. He turns in his seat to face her, that same, concerned expression meeting her again. Mabel thinks she should feel guilty about that, too — for making him worry so much — but she can’t seem to direct her mind elsewhere. Not even her guilt is strong enough to pull her away from the meadow.

“Why are you sorry? What’s wrong?”

“I lied,” she says quickly. “I lied, Grunkle Ford.”

She covers her face, suddenly aware of the horror of it all and just how deep of a mess she’s gotten herself into this time. Why did she think she could keep Bill a secret from him? How did she think she could handle this alone?

She’d stupidly thought herself immune to his tricks. Knowing what Bill is capable of should be enough — seeing firsthand what his deal did to Dipper even more so — but, strangely, she finds that it doesn’t help.

It’s not enough to know that he’s tricking her. The real trick is that she doesn’t know for certain that he isn’t.

“When you asked if Bill tried to contact me after the portal. I lied,” she admits. “He did. Twice now.”

Ford blinks fast, taken aback. He looks around, as if he might be able to see Bill’s watchful eye staring them down, and quickly unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Come,” he says seriously. “We should talk inside.”

Mabel nods and follows him out of the car, shutting the passenger door and allowing him to usher her past the unicorn barrier and into the Shack. Swiftly, he seals the door shut behind him, pressing his back against the door and gaining the attention of Soos and several confused and intrigued tourists. 

“Everyone out,” Ford demands. “Shack’s closed.”

Mabel doesn’t know what Soos finds in Ford’s stare, but if it’s at all similar to the sternness of his voice, it’s likely convincing enough. 

He straightens up and faces the tour group, squaring his shoulders. “Thank you for visiting the Mystery Shack. Feel free to take a, uh, free bumper sticker on your way out!”

The tourists file out, soft murmurs following them as they collect their souvenirs and children on their way out. Ford locks the doors and draws the blinds when they leave, blocking out the sunlight and cocooning them in their newly Bill-proofed home.

Mabel has to admit, for all his concerning paranoia, she does feel safer than she had just a minute ago.

“Mabel,” Ford starts, already beginning to pace. “What happened? I need to know everything.”

“I– I fell asleep in class today,” she says, making brief eye contact with Soos, who has already devoted his full attention to her, a soft, worried frown falling onto his face. “And Bill was in my dream.”

Ford nods quickly, having likely already pieced that together himself. He makes it halfway across the Gift Shop before he stops in his tracks, looking ready to pull his hair out from stress already. “And not for the first time?”

Mabel shakes her head. “No,” she admits quietly, staring down at her flats. She presses the tip of her shoe against a loose wood panel and frowns. “It’s happened once before. Right before I left Piedmont.”

Ford looks at them both, astounded. Then, he focuses on Soos.

“Has Cipher visited you in any capacity since the portal?” he asks him directly.

Soos shakes his head. “No,” he says nervously. “I haven’t seen that dude in forever. Not since he invaded Mr. Pines’ mind, probably.”

“What?” Ford balks, eyes widening. “Cipher was in Stanley’s mind and none of you thought to tell me?”

Mabel keeps her eyes averted, suppressing a wince. Honestly, she hadn’t meant to keep that one a secret. But she figures “it didn’t come up” isn’t a good enough excuse in this case. She keeps her lips sealed.

“When was this?”

“Before the puppet show,” Mabel says. “Before we knew how dangerous he was. I’m sorry. I should have mentioned…”

“You should have. You all should have,” Ford says, palming his tired face, his shoulders drooping. “But it’s pointless to dwell on it now. Go home, Soos. And tell Wendy to keep her guard up too. 

“Cipher’s playing a game, and until we know what it is, we have to be prepared for anything, unless we want to end up as one of his pawns. Watch out for strange dreams and any sign of Bill’s presence. Eyes, greyscale, the feeling of being watched. He’ll be after all of us now that he knows our plans for the portal.”

The basement feels colder than it did this morning. She pulls her knees toward her chest in the chair across from Ford and dutifully avoids his pointed stare.

He’s not angry. But maybe he should be.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone sooner?” Ford asks softly, the third journal splayed out in front of him. She’s not sure how many blank pages are left in it, but she’s sure he intends to fill the remainder of it soon. He’s already scribbling the occasional sentence or two when she speaks, transcribing her recent experiences with Bill as she remembers them. 

“I thought you might change your mind if you knew,” she admits, squeezing her knees tighter. “You said Bill was too big a risk. If you knew that he was trying to make a deal with me, then maybe you wouldn’t want to open the portal anymore.”

Ford sighs. “Mabel. Keeping this a secret was incredibly dangerous. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice quiet. “I’m sorry. Really.”

He drops his pen and faces her directly, dropping his elbows down to his knees to better position himself in her eyeline. Even considering everything they've been through, it’s easily the most serious she has ever seen him.

“Mabel. You didn’t, did you?”

“No!” she’s quick to exclaim. She drops her feet to the floor and unravels herself. “I saw what his deal did to Dipper! I know better than to trust him.”

“Good. It’ll do you well to remember that. All of you. Bill will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As long as he’s around, you’re all in danger,” he says. 

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And if anything happened to you, that would be on me. I would never forgive myself if Bill got to you, too.”

Mabel swallows. There’s a fuzzy feeling that spurs in her chest at that, and she musters as much intensity and sincerity as she can into her next words, “I will. I’ll remember.” She shifts uncomfortably. “I thought it didn’t matter, anyway, because I’d never believe a word he says, but…”

The tears come back unbidden. “Grunkle Ford. I– I don’t. I don't trust him, but he– he showed me something.”

“Something to do with Dipper and Stan?”

She quickly wipes her tears, desperate to will them away. She won’t let them fall. Crying makes it true, makes it real, and it isn’t. It can’t be.

“Stan was h-holding him. He was hurt. Really badly, I think,” she says. “Grunkle Ford, that can’t be true, can it? Tell me it was a trick.”

“Oh, Mabel. It was. It was just another trick,” Ford says vehemently. Then, he sighs. “I should have been more honest myself. Just last week, Bill appeared in one of my dreams and tried to convince me that he had both of them trapped in the Nightmare Realm. 

“Seeing as he tried something different with you, I think it’s safe to assume he’s grasping at straws. He knows he lacks true bargaining power, so he’s throwing tricks at us and waiting to see what sticks. 

“He knows you’d do anything for your brother, and he’s using that against you.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. He knows our weaknesses, Mabel. He sees more than you know.”

Mabel sniffs sharply. “He said something like that. About seeing. Something about tunia trees having lots of eyes?”

Ford’s eyes light up with recognition. He sits up straighter, curiosity piqued. “Tunia trees?” he asks. “What else did he say? What did he show you?”

She wipes her eyes again, trying to remember anything other than the gruesome sight Bill had laid out for her.

Of course, that is what’s front and center: Stan clinging onto Dipper in a field of tall grass, her brother afflicted with some unseeable, grisly injury. 

A meadow. A meadow with large, looming trees. Trees with eyes.

“Um,” she starts, “Stan was– was there. He was crying, and– and Dipper wasn’t moving, he– he was bleeding. Out of his mouth.”

She sobs, and this time she doesn’t attempt to hold it back. There’s no use. Illusion or not, she’s never seen anything more horrific in her entire life.

“I couldn’t see anything else,” she says. “I don’t– I don’t know what was wrong with him, Grunkle Ford, but he– he looked dead.”

Ford rushes forward, and Mabel takes the invitation easily. He takes her into his embrace and Mabel cries loudly into his shoulder, pure dread snuffing out any of the embarrassment or guilt she knows she’d likely feel any other time. 

“Was I wrong?” she asks desperately. “Everyone’s been saying it. Maybe… maybe, I–”

“No,” Ford interrupts. Then, he pulls back, meeting her with that same, unmatched intensity. “This has all the hallmarks of a trick. An indiscernible injury in an unclear, vague location?”

Ford offers her a small smile, though it’s tight. “Mabel, our brothers are fine. I’m certain of it.”

Mabel blinks, her eyes burning with tears. “How can you be sure? The first time, he showed me you. Tearing apart the portal. I thought that was a trick then, too, but…”

He shakes his head. “Mabel. I’m so sorry.”

“What if he isn’t lying this time either, Grunkle Ford?” she asks. “What if Dipper really isn’t okay?”

“Come with me. I want to show you something.”

She does her best to avoid looking at Ford’s old Bill paraphernalia as she follows him into his private study. There are craters blasted in the centers of their dusty, scorched frames, but she knows what was depicted on them before, and that’s enough to worsen the nausea that has lingered since she ran out of class.

It’s almost as if she can feel his presence lingering behind the blackened canvases. Actually, the entire floor feels haunted by him — like a permanent tomb where the memory of Ford and Bill’s twisted partnership has been laid to rest. 

If these walls could talk, she’s sure they’d echo.

Ford fiddles with the machine he had been working on before to Bill-proof their minds. Now, the only evidence of the project is a discarded helmet, collecting dust in the corner of the room.

“I disassembled Project Mentem. We won’t be needing it with our surplus of unicorn hair.”

He presses a few buttons and his study is lit by a bright blue screen, the words Bloodhound Protocol appearing on the monitor. 

“I was able to rework the project into this.” He stares up at the machine, two fists resting on either hip. “An interdimensional tracker. This device will tell us where they are, though I’m not quite sure of its accuracy yet.

“Perhaps likening it to nature’s finest tracking animal was premature, but it should be able to give us a suitable approximation if nothing else.”

It’s everything she’d ever hoped for these past few weeks. It’s not as if she’s familiar with the multiverse, but she thinks even the knowledge that they’re somewhere identifiable would be enough to keep her going a little longer.  

Mabel frowns. Still, there’s something safe about ignorance. “Will it… If they aren’t—”

Ford understands immediately. “The device tracks their genetic and dimensional signatures. That’s all.”

The screen burns a hole into her retinas. “Dead or alive then.”

He turns away from it, frowning. “Mabel. I don’t want you to think about that.”

It’s impossible not to. The device might tell them where Dipper and Stan are, but it might also tell them where their corpses are.

She shudders on an inhale, her knees wobbling slightly. “Okay,” she says softly, agreeing easily. She doesn’t need to be told twice. Really, she doesn’t think she can handle another thought like that if it does come. “And if they are in the Nightmare Realm? What then?”

Ford sighs. His eyes darken at the thought. “Then at least we’ll know what we’re up against,” he says, sounding grave.

“Will you still help them?”

Ford turns back toward the machine and studies the words. He weighs his answer for a moment, but his voice is steadfast when he makes up his mind. “I won’t let Bill win, Mabel. I won’t let him have them.”

Mabel sniffs, then readies herself, balling her fists at her sides. Whatever it is, wherever they are, she’s determined to bring them home. Knowing that Ford is too gives her the strength to face it.

“Okay. Okay, do it.”

He reaches for the controls, hesitating before activating the switch. “It takes an incredible amount of energy to activate the tracker,” he says, brows furrowing. “After this, we’ll need to conserve what little radioactive waste we have for when we activate the portal, and we’ll likely need a lot more even then.

“This will probably be the only time we can track them until we activate the portal. Do you still want to see?”

Mabel nods. She wishes they could do it multiple times. To see them move — to see any sign of life at all — would be a relief. But this is better than nothing. “Please.”

Ford nods seriously and goes to activate the machine, and Mabel watches two biometric scanners light up on the desk, Stan and Dipper’s hair strands glowing simultaneously. Then, the machine whirs loudly, a steady thrum.

The screen goes dark, and all the lights go dim, flickering unstably. With one last, final click, the machine uses its last reserve of energy to power on again. 

The monitor lights up.

Mabel steps closer to it, meeting Ford by his side. She waits with bated breath for his verdict — for him to make sense of it for her.

The words blink back at her, written in green font over an inky black screen, like a monochrome monitor.

Dimension 52.

The screen goes dark. Everything goes dark.

Still, Mabel can feel it rippling off of him, and she watches as Ford rolls his shoulders back, almost determinedly.

Even peppered by darkness, she can still make out the wide grin on his face.

“What?” Mabel asks, pulling at his overcoat. “Where is that? Grunkle Ford?”

The lights flicker back on, and Ford kneels down. His grin is undeniable now, and Mabel has a hard time keeping it off her own face, too, his sudden optimism snuffing out her confusion and fear immediately. “Mabel, this is a very good thing.”

He laughs, and Mabel lights up, too. “Whatever Bill showed you was a trick. Tunia trees, they’re native to a dimension known as Lottocron Nine.

“They aren’t there,” he says encouragingly. “I think our brothers are with an old friend of mine.”