Summary: Every doorway that leaves something behind is also the doorway to something else new. When Dipper and Mabel Pines left Gravity Falls, they thought that their lives of danger and adventure were over. But Gravity Falls changes a person, and none moreso than Dipper. So when, years later, he gets a message from Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan, asking for help on a new and exciting adventure, an extremely dangerous adventure with very little chance of any of them making it out alive, how could he possibly refuse? Join the Pines family and friends as they journey to Ancient Incan temples, encounter dangers from spirits, demons, and mercenaries, and discover a secret so huge that it could change the world as we know it.

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls in owned by Alex Hirsch and Disney. I own nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Pairings: Dipper x Pacifica, Mabel x ?, Soos x Melody, some references to Robbie x Tambry.

Prologue: Bored

13 years old. Life outside of Gravity Falls was exactly as Dipper remembered it being. He went to school. He caught up with his old friends. He briefly considered telling some of them about what had happened over his summer up with his crazy Grunkle Stan in Oregon, but he decided against it. It's not like they would believe him anyways. Didn't stop Mabel. She told everyone. No one believed her, but none of them had the heart to tell her that she was crazy. When asked, Dipper would chuckle and tell them that they had some crazy adventures up in Gravity Falls and left it at that. Dipper returned to being the straight A student he had always been, exceeding every expectations of even his harshest teachers. His parents were thrilled with how much more active he was than he had been before leaving for the Summer. He still spent a lot of time reading, but a lot of his video games had been replaced by going outside. His father had been surprised when he had asked to learn self-defense and join the High School wrestling club as well as a dojo that practiced a few different forms of martial arts. He wasn't very good at it, but he had put all of his effort into it.

Winter rolled around and he and Mabel had asked if they could go back up to Gravity Falls for the Christmas break. Their parents had refused, stating that it was important for the family to be together during the holidays. They had gotten Christmas cards from Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford as well as Soos and Wendy. Candy and Grenda had sent a card each for Mabel, as well as one from Gideon which Mabel had hesitantly opened and then disgustedly tossed in the trash. To Dipper's great surprise they had also each received a card from Pacifica, which she appeared to have tried to make herself as it had the appearance of someone who tried extremely hard to make it perfect but who had never done anything like that before.

Along with these came a gift for each. Dipper was astonished to find a restored copy of the 3rd Journal, while Mabel had gotten some knitting yarn which, according to Grunkle Ford, came from the 17th dimension.

When School started again, it wasn't long before Dipper realized he would finish his first year of High School with the highest grades that Piedmont High had ever achieved in the history of the School. Mabel had gotten mostly B's with a few A's, the occasional C, and one D in History (she had insisted that there had been an 8th and a half president).

When Summer rolled around, the twins had again asked to return to Gravity Falls. This time they would not take no for an answer. Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan returned to Gravity Falls, taking a vacation from their vacation, to look after the technically teenage twins. Everyone had been happy to see them. Soos had almost broken down crying.

And it was exactly as Dipper had remembered it, and it was perfect. Admittedly there were some changes. No mysteries quite so enormous. No murderous dream demons or chaotic apocalypse. The paranormal inhabitants of Gravity Falls had begun to interact with the people more often. The Gnomes were still trying to find a queen, and Dipper occasionally had to put them in their place. The Manotaurs held wrestling competitions (although they had calmed down somewhat as apparently their leader had been kicked out for screaming like a girl during Weirdmageddon) which Dipper had entered and badly lost in his first round. The Unicorns were hated by everyone.

Robbie had astonishingly matured (slightly) and was still going out with Tambry. Gideon had attempted again to win Mabel's heart with no success. Wendy and Dipper were still cool, and had traded hats back for his duration in Gravity Falls. Again Pacifica surprised them all by hanging out with both twins quite frequently. It seems that they were the first friends that she had that liked her and not her money (the two that she used to hang out with had abandoned her when her parents had lost most of their fortune). She had also grown a bit of humility now that she was no longer the wealthiest girl in town. She was still closer to being rich than being poor, and her father had begun to recount some of his losses, but they were no longer multi-billionaires. This lead to a much more open and friendly relationship with the twins. The two who had probably grown up the least were Grenda and Candy, who would probably never really change, but who still spent as much of their time as possible with Mabel.

And then their 14th birthday rolled around and they were back to Piedmont again.

And so the years went. Summer in Gravity Falls with their Grunkles, the rest of the year in Piedmont. Dipper continued to learn as much as he could. At age 15 he officially began to become taller than Mabel. He continued to break records at his school. He continued to explore and learn. By 16 he had earned himself a black-belt in two different martial arts and become the most skilled wrestler in Piedmont High (what he lacked in weight he made up for in speed and technique). He still never beat the Manotaurs when he returned to Gravity Falls, but he couldn't be said to have pool noodle arms anymore.

Dipper got over his infatuation with Wendy as well, which frankly was a very good thing as it allowed them to hang out much more comfortably. They were just about the best of friends, and Wendy even began to try and get him dates with some of the other girls at Gravity Falls. Being the local hero, he had many takers, but he turned them all down. It seemed childish to him. Not that he was above infatuation, but with all that he had done, casual dating just didn't excite him.

Mabel on the other hand had probably a dozen boyfriends every year. A few girlfriends even. She fell into and out of infatuation so easily that Dipper found it a full time job just making sure that she was safe (thankfully there were no more Gnomes and no more Gideons). Gideon attempted to ask her out several more times over the years, always without success. As Mabel grew, she never really lost her unique Mabel-ness but she did gain quite a bit more self-control. Once she did, her own grades began rising tremendously. While she wasn't breaking any records like Dipper, by the time she was 16, it was almost unheard of for her to get anything less than an A in any class. She was happy wherever she was, in Piedmont or Gravity Falls, although Dipper did occasionally find that she went to the beach and would spend a great deal of time staring wistfully out into the ocean and grumbling about stupid, beautiful manatees.

Dipper however, found that he was not so happy. At least, not in Piedmont.

It crept up slowly at first. When he was still essentially a child and could find ways to distract himself, he didn't feel it as strongly. There was a reason that he did things like learn self-defense and focus so intensely on his studies. It was successful at first, but as the years went by he found himself less and less interested in such things.

It didn't take a super genius to realize what was going on.

Dipper was bored. Life outside of Gravity Falls just didn't interest him. He craved the mysteries. He craved the paranormal and the supernatural.

Maybe if he had never known these things, he could have gone on and been perfectly content just playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons (not that he didn't still enjoy this), but now that he knew, and now that he had done and seen so many amazing things, regular life was like watching black and white television when he had already seen the world in high definition.

Although his parents had high hopes for him, he had planned on skipping Collage after graduation and moving up to Gravity Falls permanently. He would be an adult and it would be his choice. He needed it. He could get a job. Hell, he was the hero of the town, he could get any job he wanted. He could run for mayor at 18 and would probably get the job. There was nothing stopping him.

Nothing except for a letter from West Coast Tech offering him a full ride scholarship. Even this he would have gladly turned down if he had not received a phone call from Grunkle Ford, sounding more excited than Dipper could remember ever hearing him since his first year at Gravity Falls, congratulating him on his accomplishments and making him promise to tell him everything that happened.

Dipper hadn't the heart to deny his Grunkle this, so he had bitten his own tongue and gone on. He could survive a few more years.

Or at least, he thought he could, until he realized that his scholarship depended on him continuing his classes non-stop, including during the Summer semester.

4 years he would be away. 4 years of grueling studies and pushing himself further than anyone should reasonable push themselves while still attempting to stay in reasonable shape.

In that 4 years, Dipper Pines had nearly earned not one, but 2 Doctorates. He had insisted on a Doctorate in archaeology, a decision that WCT had not been happy about, being a science and technology based university. However they had agreed to allow Dipper to enroll in their archaeology program so long as he agreed to simultaneously go for a degree in quantum physics. No other student would likely have been able to get away with it, but with his scores, even WCT was willing to bend over backwards for him.

He kept up with Wendy and Soos, Pacifica and of course Ford and Stan, but he rarely saw them anymore. Not since he was 18. Now he was 22. In two weeks he would present his Doctoral thesis on the possibility of particles to move faster than the speed of light if they were made to exist in two dimensions at once. He didn't even care if the board rejected him. He was leaving this place.

He was done being bored.

Dipper cracked his neck as he sat down at his laptop and scanned over another theoretical paper. What was this one about again? Something about how how gravitational waves could potentially prove the existence of other dimensions or something like that? In truth, genius though he was, Dipper was taking in very little of it. He supposed that was what happens when you have been awake for...

How long was it again?

He glanced at his digital watch and saw the numbers 3:00am flashing back at him. That would place him at about...67 hours without sleep.

Even so, he had to get as much of this done as he could. In all that time he had read 14 published papers, and only 2 of them had been filed away as citations for his thesis. His damn, stupid, totally pointless thesis.

It impressed the brains at WCT though, and the sooner he finished this enormous pain in his neck, the sooner he never had to see this ugly place again or ever deal with academics or citations ever again.

Dipper tried to continue reading the paper. He eventually gave it up when he realized that he had read the same paragraph nearly a dozen times and had not actually taken any of it in.

He would get a few hours rest and continue in the morning.

With an almost painful shove, the 22 year old pulled himself out of his chair and hobbled over to his bed. Frankly, he was too tired to change into pajamas, and found it far easier and more satisfying to simply face-plant into the bedsheets. The bed groaned under his weight and he nodded his agreement with the sentiment into the pillow.

He would drift off to sleep now. Glorious sleep where he could dream of his adventures in Gravity Falls and all the things that he missed there. He would be there soon. He would see Mabel and Soos and Wendy and Pacifica and Stan and-

*Ding!*

Was that his phone?

*Ding!*

That was definitely his phone.

*Ding!*

That was the alert from his personal e-mail. The one that he used only for communication with his home. No one other than the people of Gravity Falls and Mabel had that e-mail.

*Ding!*

Why on earth were they e-mailing him at 3am?

Dipper raised his arm and lazily grabbed at his phone, missing it entirely a couple of times before his hands wrapped around it. He glanced at the screen.

'4 new E-mails from PFOEXLP BHUE!'

Grunkle Stan, Dipper recognized almost immediately, as soon as he remembered the code to his Cipher.

What was Grunkle Stan e-mailing him for? He had never known Grunkle Stan to use e-mail in his life.

"Hey Mr. Bigshot collage kid." the e-mail began, "Look I know I haven't seen you in a couple years and I know that your real busy trying to make something out of your life, but I need you to get your ass up here to Gravity Falls as soon as you can. Me and Ford are looking into something and Ford insists that we can handle it on our own, but frankly neither of us are 60 any more and if this is going to be as dangerous as I think it is, then I'm not sure how well I can protect Stanford. I can't trust this shit with anyone except you and Mabel. I think that my enormous dork of a brother might have bitten off more than he can chew. I need you Dipper. Ford needs you too."

Dipper re-read the entire e-mail twice over to make sure that he wasn't missing anything. Stan and Ford were looking into a mystery? Something potentially dangerous? There seemed to be a lot of information left out here.

He opened the second e-mail.

"Also, don't contact Ford. He utterly refused me when I suggested to bring you in on this. He says we can handle this ourselves, but I know that he's just as worried as me. Damn idiot just doesn't want you to risk your fancy Doctorate. He still thinks that this is as important to you as it was to him."

That made sense, and answered several of Dipper's questions. He quickly opened the third e-mail.

"We'll be long gone by the time you get to Gravity Falls. Ford wants to leave in the morning. I'm leaving all the information you'll need to follow us behind, as well as some tools to help you out on the way. Don't worry. Your Grunkle Stan still knows a bit about what he's doing when it comes to this stuff. Bring anyone whom you think you can trust and can't be easily manipulated, but no more than 3 or 4 people. Anyone more than that will attract attention."

So whatever is going on, whatever mess the elder Pines twins had gotten themselves into, it wasn't in Gravity Falls? Somehow that both disappointed and intrigued Dipper. Where would they go other than that? There was one more e-mail.

"Listen Dipper. We haven't been totally honest with you, me and Ford. We've told you all that we were just out travelling, seeing the world and catching up these past 10 years. The truth is, we've been doing a lot more than that, and I think we might have gotten wrapped up in something bigger than either of us expected. Maybe even Bill big. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but I'm telling you now. I won't give you all the details in an e-mail. They can be hacked. Please come."

Dipper suddenly found that he was wide awake, his mind going a thousand beats per minute. Now, after 4 years of extremely hard work, Grunkle Stan was messaging him out of the blue to ask for his help on something that sounded like it would be extremely dangerous.

What was the word he used? Bill big? What in the multiverse could possibly be "Bill" big? Especially something that was not in Gravity Falls?

Of course, if Dipper went, it would make the last 4 years in vain. Unless the entire event took less than a day or so, he would lose his scholarship, he wouldn't have time to finish his thesis, and he would be dropped out of his Doctoral program. WCT would never let him back, no matter how good his grades were, after leaving in the middle of everything. He would be giving up on everything that he had worked so hard for. Even if he hadn't particularly wanted to go to this prestigious college, leaving two weeks away from his final presentation after 4 years of work...no sane person would ever do that.

Dipper jumped out of his bed and sat down on his laptop. Within seconds he was checking prices on the first flight to Oregon.

Hey everybody! I know that it has been a long time since I've posted anything on . And I'm sorry for that. College is a killer, and I just find that I have less and less time to do things like this now. That being said, there are several of my old fics that I'm going to drop, and maybe a few that I will try and pick back up. I just felt compelled to write this however after the end of Gravity Falls, which in two seasons has become my favorite show bar none. I hope that it is appreciated by the fans of the show, and fans of my older work as well. Given College and everything, I can't promise that I'll have a new chapter every week, but I do hope that I wont go into a multi-year long hiatus again. So enjoy.