Hello, and thank you for choosing to read my story! I am in LOVE with Gravity Falls, it's like my favourite thing ever! But enough of that for now. I want to keep the characters in this story as close to their canon counterparts as possible, however, thanks to a lack of self-confidence and terrible writing skills I want to apologise in advance if I fail miserably. So, if you're still here and I haven't put you off yet, I hope you enjoy! And once again, thank you for reading my story.

P.s. Off to a great start Geo, starting a sentence with 'And' and you're still only on the Author's note!

People always stress over the big things in life, school, jobs, grades, however, people never seem to realise that more often than not, it's the small things that end up changing your life forever. Like if your parents decide to send you and your sibling away for the summer because you could 'do with getting some fresh air', or your great uncle asking you to hang up some signs in the forest or placing your trust in someone in the heat of the moment. Over the course of a few days, a few hours, a few minutes or even a few seconds your life can change, forever. The only question remaining is; how?

"I'll race you!" a 13-year-old girl called out as she sprinted down the street as fast as her legs could possibly carry her, her brown hair fluttering behind her as she ran, on her back sat her school backpack which was heavy with the weight of a years worth of work, doodles, stickers and nightmares. This Girl is Mabel Pines, not far behind her is her twin brother, Dipper Pines. "Hey, wait up!" Dipper called to his sister, sprinting after her, he wore a similar backpack to Mabel and his brown hair was largely covered by a slightly tatty Trapper Hat. The twins had just finished their last year of elementary school and were super excited, tomorrow morning they were leaving their house in California and catching a bus to a small town in Oregon known as Gravity Falls, as far as the twins were concerned, they weren't going on vacation, they were going home. Their last summer had been rather eventful. Following the discovery of an old journal the two had been on countless adventures, they'd defeated an army of gnomes, had a karaoke party literally loud enough to split our skull, inadvertently helped to rescue their great uncle Ford, who's been trapped in an alternate reality for 30 years, and saved the world from a blood thirsty, psychopathic triangle, now that's something to put on your CV! Well, it would be, if they could actually discuss the events of their previous summer with anyone. It turned out that most people didn't believe in Zombies and Eyebats. The twins' parents had put the crazy contents of Mabel's letters home during the summer down to an overactive imagination and the twins decided it was probably best that their parents keep believing that, if they ever found out how close their children had been to dying over the summer then there's no way that they'd ever be allowed to go back to Gravity Falls ever again.

Mabel burst through the door to their house, almost knocking the door clean off its hinges, Dipper followed her closely and the two made a beeline for their rooms. Mabel burst into her room, tossing her school bag onto her bed, she then rushed around her room, stuffing clothes, books, pens, pencils and sweaters into a collection of bags. Then, when she ran out of room, she poured the contents of her school bag onto her bed and started filling that as well. Dipper raced upstairs after his sister and rushed into his own room. He placed his school bag on his bed and started to pack everything he thought he'd need. A couple spare changes of clothes, some pens and most importantly, a small blue and white book with a blue pine tree adorning the centre of its front cover. After discovering Ford's third journal a few days into his summer last year and obsessing over it for the whole summer, as well as reading the first two, he decided to keep a journal of his own. He knew that it wasn't anywhere as near as exciting or interesting as Ford's journals but he still couldn't wait to show his Grunkles.

The evening crept by at an unbearable pace, even their dinner seemed to go on forever. But soon enough, bed time came. Dipper climbed into bed, pulling his covers up to his shoulders and willing himself to fall asleep. He knew it was useless, there was no way he was going to fall asleep tonight, he was just too excited! A few minutes later there was a soft knock at his door. Dipper sat up, positioning himself so he was facing the door, "Yeah?" He called. The door opened a crack and on the other side stood Mabel, she was clutching her pillows and her duvet was trailing across the floor behind her. "Could I sleep with you tonight?" She asked awkwardly. "Yeah! Of course!" Dipper replied. "Here!" He said, sliding across his bed to make room for his sister and patting the space beside him. Mabel dropped her pillows and duvet, leaving them in a crumpled pile on the floor, and slipped into bed beside her brother. The two smiled at each other excitedly. A short while later the door opened again and their mum walked into the room. "I don't think I've seen you both this excited... well ever!" She said with a laugh. "Just try and get some sleep ok?" She said, kissing both Mabel's and Dipper's foreheads. "Goodnight my little angels."

The time continued to crawl past at an unbearable rate. Dipper glanced at his clock, it read 11:37. "Only eight and a half hours until we leave for Gravity Falls." He commented. "Agh! That's toooo long!" Mabel whined. Their thoughts turned to the Mystery Shack, to Soos and Wendy and their Grunkles. They'd waited 261 days to return to Gravity Falls, not that they'd been counting... yeah, they've totally been counting, but finally, their time was almost here!

By the time it was actually time to leave the house to catch their bus, Dipper and Mabel had been pretty much standing, waiting by the door for close enough to an hour. Their parents drove them to the bus station and waited with them for the bus. Once the bus pulled in, Mabel and Dipper stepped on board, waving goodbye to their parents until the bus rounded a corner, cutting them off. The bus was empty except for Dipper, Mabel, the driver and, of course, Waddles. The bus company still had an issue with a pig travelling on the bus, but they kept their issue quiet as everyone was far too afraid of Stanley and Stanford to actually bring it up. The twins could hardly contain their excitement, they were finally on their way back to Gravity Falls! At first, they tried to entertain themselves. They played a good game of bus seat treasure hunt, literally checking each and every seat as the bus was empty. Mostly all they found was abandoned chewing gum or some random coin though every now and then something interesting did pop up, like the driver's licence and the perfectly good unopened bag of sweets, which they quickly demolished between them, waddles helped too of course! After checking every seat, they resorted to eye spy, but soon enough their lack of sleep caught up with them and the twins drifted off to sleep.

Mabel slowly opened her eyes, the steady rocking of the bus as it drove along the road immediately told her that they weren't there yet. But how close were they? How long had she been asleep? She lifted her head from where it had been resting, on Dippers shoulder, and peeked out of the window. "Dipper!" She said in an excited yet hushed tone as she gently shook her brother, trying to coax him from his slumber. "Dipper!" She said again, slightly louder this time. Dipper slowly opened his eyes and eyed his twin. "What is it Mabel?" He asked grumpily, he'd never been the biggest fan of mornings or waking up in general. "Look!" Mabel said excitedly pointing towards the window. Dipper slowly sat up and cast a glance out of the window, as he did his eyes widened and his heart began to pound with excitement. "Dipper, we're home!"

I know it's not huge, and it's not all that great but I'm really excited about this story, I have some plans and really look forward to continuing to write it! I'll try and update it regularly, but I'm not going to give any sort of schedule becasue I am the worlds most unreliable being. I hope you enjoyed and if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! It means a lot! Geo out!