I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them.

Yesterday's Tomorrows

(Sunday, August 7, 2016)

Chapter 1: A Long View

Like the cat in the old song, the heat came back, it wouldn't stay away, the heat came back the very next day. That Sunday was sweltering, and it felt as if someone had clapped down a lid over the Valley and turned the burner to "simmer."

In the early afternoon, Teek, Mabel, and Tripper took off for the lake. Lazing on the back porch of the Shack, the air still and breathless, a sweat-sheened Wendy said to Dipper, "Why don't we go see if we can chase down a little breeze?"

"That would be nice," he said.

Breeze-chasing, as it turned out, involved climbing. They went far into the Valley, the road winding as it climbed through hills and then through the low mountains. Well, low for the Cascade range, but tall enough to offer a change in climate for Gravity Falls Valley.

Wendy drove them high up into the mountains, miles from town and not all that far from the encircling bluffs, along nearly non-existent roads and lanes, until the Dodge Dart had climbed nearly as far above the valley floor as the cliff rims. "Snow stays up here until May, sometimes," she said as she parked where the rough track of road just ended on a narrow plateau. They got out of the car. Wendy stretched luxuriously. "Little cooler here, anyway!"

Dipper stood beside the car and took a deep breath. Yes, about ten degrees cooler, and with a nice, light breeze. They stood on the rounded shoulder of a mountain, with the peak rising another hundred feet into the air behind them. "Nice view," he said.

Wendy went to the edge of a precipice and nonchalantly sat there, legs dangling. "Yeah, if it wasn't so hard to get to, it'd be a great spot for a picnic. Come on and sit with me!"

"Um," he said, sounding dubious. Though he wasn't as troubled by heights as his Grunkle Stan or his sister Mabel, flying was one thing. Hiking in the high hills wasn't bad, either. But sitting on a rocky cliff with a six-hundred-foot sheer drop gave him pause. However, he reflected that his Lumberjack Girl would probably catch him if he slipped. He came up, sat, and then inched forward, resisting the urge to look straight down.

"This," she said, "is called Mount Jagged. The peak's hell to climb. You can see it's just bare basalt for the last hundred feet, and slick as ice, they say."

"Ever climbed it?" Dipper asked.

"You daring me?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No! No, I'm not! But, you know, it sounds like—"

She laughed. "Like the kind of things dumb Gravity Falls teens might do? I suppose it is, but me and my friends were more about gettin' in trouble with the law and stuff than trying to set mountain-climbing records. Nope, never heard of anybody our age trying it. Couple of older loggers went up long time back. Nothing to see but rock, nothing to do but climb down again, so it's not a big deal. Why are you breathing so hard?"

"The, um, altitude, I guess," Dipper said, but in truth he had looked up at the spire to their right and then when he looked back out over the Valley, he had a moment of vertigo.

Wendy took his hand. Bothers you, doesn't it?

—Well, being this close to the edge makes me a little bit nervous. But I'm here with you. That matters more.

Thanks, man.

He didn't exactly relax, but he slowed his gasping and took time to appreciate the view, the Valley all emerald with forest and sapphire with lake and diamond-spray with the gleaming, distant waterfall. They could also see, somewhat to their left, the round dome of what Dipper thought of as Spaceship Hill, and past that the hills and part of the little shelf of Lookout Point, and then, surprisingly tiny in the distance, the town and the cliffs beyond.

"It does look little from way up here," Wendy said.

"I was just thinking that—oh." Her hand still rested on his.

Yeah, read your mind, Dipper! So what do you think? After we're married and when we're ready to settle down and all. Would you really want to live in the Valley?

—I think I'd like that. But there'll be time to decide. And I guess it depends on whatever we wind up doing for a living. Like if I became an IT nerd, we'd probably have to live down in Silicon Valley, or close by, the way Dad does.

Mm, yeah, I suppose. Well, that's a good ways off, time to think about it all later. But what about, you know, college? We can't exactly live in a dorm.

—Western has married housing, an apartment complex. I think 120 units. I looked at the floor plans on line. They're tiny, about 400 square feet, just a living room/dining room/kitchenette and a little bedroom with bath. I read the reviews, and the students say they're adequate and . . . cozy. And noisy. So I don't know about that. I kind of think I'd rather rent a place off campus. More room and privacy.

I guess we can look into that. How about Mabel?

—What do you mean?

Dude, she's going to Olmsted for her art degree. Their campus is only three miles from Western. She's gonna need a place to stay, too.

—I . . . kinda thought she'd probably stay in a dorm for her freshman year.

But if we rented a house with two bedrooms, she could take one of them.

Dipper thought about that idea. Aloud, he said, "You know, I never imagined going off to college without her around. I suppose we could still see her sometimes if she was in a dorm and we were renting a place, I mean we'd be in the same town, sort of. But—there's Tripper now, too. She couldn't keep a dog in a dorm. At least I don't think so. I guess we might be able to keep him if we found the right house to rent. And I know Mabel—she'll want to be with her dog. So—if she'd want to, yeah, I'd go for that."

"Two bedrooms with a good separation between them, though," Wendy said. "Like on opposite sides of the house."

"Why would—oh."

Wendy giggled. "Yeah, man, 'oh!' It's cause of all the noise we'd make . . . you know, when we get a snuggled in bed together and . . . watch old movies!"

"Oh, man," Dipper said, laughing. "Are we gonna be so, you know, um, flirty after we're married?"

"We better be," she said. "Otherwise I don't wanna marry you!"

"Don't even," he said. They kissed, and he said, "Another reason for two widely-separated bedrooms. She just might insist on bringing Waddles and Widdles along!"

Wendy laughed at that. "Don't think so. I kinda think they're gonna go live with my Aunt Sallie. They'll have lots of company on her farm, Soos won't have to fuss with taking care of them, and they'll be happy. Sallie's callin' Gompers her guard goat these days!"

It was still too hot to contemplate even a pleasant future, though. Although the refreshing breeze remained, sun still shone hot on their rock ledge, and 88 degrees didn't feel that much cooler than the 98 they'd driven out of down on the Valley floor.

They retreated to the shade of some stunted pines, spread a blanket, and lay back side by side peering up through the boughs at the blue sky. "I am going to miss you so extra bad after your birthday this year," Wendy said.

"It's getting harder to be separated," Dipper agreed. "I'll think of you every day."

She nudged him.

"And I'll think about you a lot more every night!" he added hastily.

Wendy rolled over on top of him. "You better," she said, kissing him. She just lay there for about a minute, nuzzling him, but then she sighed. "This would be so nice if it was about another ten degrees cooler!"

Her soft weight rolled off him again. He yawned. "Want to go to the lake?"

"Too much bother," she said. "My hair's gettin' long again. Takes a lot of time to dry now."

"Movie at the mall?"

"Don't think there's anything on I want to see," Wendy told him. "Guess the hot weather's made my laziness break out again."

"There must be some fun place that's cool," Dipper murmured. "Wonder if the Crawl Space is habitable again?"

"Dunno. Guess we could ask the Gnomes. They'd know. But I'll bet it still stinks like sulfur."

"Yeah, probably. We could go into the cave behind the Falls. That's always cool."

"Yeah, but last time the gelatin monsters that copied us made it kinda uncomfortable for me," she said. "Wonder how they're makin' out?"

"There was a gel Wendy and a gel Dipper," Dipper said. "By now they probably have a family of little dessert molds."

"Lime and blueberry flavored! But let's not go there, Dip. There's other caves," Wendy said. "Want to go explore one?"

"Is it cool?"

"Temperature-wise, yeah, pretty much. If you mean 'cool' as in awesome and exciting, not really. All the legends say the first people—you know, Native Americans—explored it and had a kind of, I dunno, temple or shrine or some biz back in there. One chamber is decorated with their art."

"You ever been?" Dipper asked.

"Me? No. Dad says when he was a kid, that was somewheres you went on a dare. But something bad happened, some kid got lost in it and died or something, and the entrance got boarded up. I think your Grunkle Stanford investigated it, but I dunno if that was before or after it got closed off."

"Huh." Dipper thought back to the Journals. "Grunkle Ford did write about seeing a version of the Cipher Zodiac in some cavern. A petroglyph. And about a Chinook wise man who battled Cipher, but lost the fight and failed to banish him. Could that be the cave?"

"Maybe," Wendy said. "All I really know is that it's a hard place to get to, and then you have to like crawl for a long way underground before the cavern opens out. But there are ancient pictures on the walls, Dad says, and kids used to find stone arrowheads and blades and junk in the sand on the floor. We could go see."

"Or," Dipper countered, "we could go to the Gnomes' territory and check out the Gack of Doom. Haven't been there in a few years."

"Ugh," Wendy said, shuddering. "No thanks. That's where I saw you killed by that snaky dragony monster—"

"The Sentivore," Dipper said. "And to be fair, it wasn't me. It was—"

"Yeah, I know, one of your copy-machine clones. Anyway, I'd rather not. Real or just faked, that was a horrible time for me. And we weren't even in love back then!"

"Speak for yourself," Dipper said, smiling. "I've been in love with you ever since you lent me the golf-cart key the first time."

She leaned against him. "Yeah, yeah. I guess back then I was already head over heels in like with you, anyway. I just know that when it looked like that thing had killed you—I was about to lose it, man, go totally berserk crazy. So, no caving?"

"Spelunking," Dipper automatically corrected. "I don't know—maybe we might visit the cave your dad told you about, if it's not too far and not too dangerous. Don't want to get lost underground."

"Don't know if you could," Wendy said. "From Dad's description, it's a pretty straight shot in and out. But if you don't want to—"

"No," Dipper said, getting up, "let's do it. But we'll just look around, maybe take a couple of photos. No souvenir hunting for arrowheads or anything, and we won't put any graffiti on the walls."

"Deal," Wendy said. "You want to drive?"

Dipper thought of the winding road—whoever drove would have to back the Dodge Dart down about fifty feet to reach a spot wide enough to make a three-point turn, and there would be a steep drop on the driver's side until they reached the turn-around place. "I think you'd better do it," he said. "I'll put my hand on the back of your neck and pick up your skills at reverse driving."

"Is that all?"

"I swear," he said smiling.

"Darn," she replied. And then she sighed. "Well, a girl can dream."