The Pines twins came back to Gravity Falls the summer they were eighteen. They had officially graduated high school. They hadn't been to Gravity Falls for two years (they snuck out and went when they were 16 and they only got to stay for a few weeks before their parents had found them).
Both twins had really missed their Grunkle, but their parents didn't want them to go back to Gravity Falls. No matter what the twins said, they weren't allowed.
Mabel missed Candy and Grenda despite facetiming them every single night, sometimes twice on weekends.
Dipper had missed Wendy and Soos, but most of all, he missed Pacifica Northwest.
He'd tried to forget about her, but it wasn't that easy. It wasn't like she was the only girl to notice him or anything, either. He'd hit a major growth spurt when he turned fourteen, and grown a few more inches from there. He was a full six feet tall now, and Mabel, the so called alpha twin, was stuck at 5'8. He'd only grown a couple inches since he was sixteen, but he had noticeably grown up in those two years.
By the time he had last seen Pacifica, he was considered a catch at home, or so Mabel said. Only problem was he didn't notice any of it.
He was painfully oblivious.
Pacifica had been stunned by how much he'd grown up in four years. He was equally speechless. She'd cut her hair short, and tended to wear more comfortable clothes. When he'd seen her in an old Mystery Shack t-shirt and torn skinny jeans, he'd been shocked silent. Not to mention she had started doing her makeup to look more natural. She had been pretty when they were twelve, but she was absolutely stunning at sixteen.
They talked every day. Texted when they could. She spent most of her time at the Mystery Shack now, desperate to get away from her parents. When she was at home, she tried to keep quiet, dress like they would want, do her makeup in a way she hated but her mom adored. Then when she got to the shack she would change it all. She even kept makeup and clothes there.
She took her parents' cruel words and almost never cried when they hit her anymore. She was stronger because of the Pines family.
Plus she and Wendy hung out all the time now. It helps to have a close friend nearby.
She'd been terrified when Dipper and Mabel first left and Stanford had still wanted to shut down the Mystery Shack. She had been right there with Stan, Wendy, and Soos in the argument.
It had seemed that Stanford would win, and everything would be different until Pacifica offered to pay for a new shack for him to live in nearby so he could do all of his experiments and nothing would change. He wasn't going to agree, but then she offered to get him all sorts of new equipment. What's the point of being rich if you can't protect the things that are important to you?
So Stanford lives a little way away and only really comes over to do research. When her parents found out that she'd given the Pines money, her father beat her almost as bad as when she let everyone into that party.
She didn't regret it.
As soon as she could she got out of the house and over to the Mystery Shack. Stan and Wendy helped her with the bruises and Soos tried to cheer her up. She'd broken down crying. Stan was furious, but the then thirteen year old girl told him to calm down. If he'd gone to the mansion, everything would fall apart.
He knew what it was like to have your parents turn on you, but not like this. Pacifica had grown up with this. The whole loving and caring family dynamic that the Pines had shown her was all new and there were times when she would freak out thinking she had done something wrong when she hadn't.
Stan had taken her under his wing, and Ford had been kinda thrown off by it. He didn't see his twin as a caring father figure at all.
And yet that's what he had become.
Ford had stayed distant from them for two reasons, he wanted to keep everyone safe and the tight knit family didn't seem to have room for him. Not to mention after 30 years in an alternate universe, his people skills were rusty.