It was a typical summer day in Gravity Falls. The sun was shining, tourists were milling in front of the Mystery Shack as Stan barked out his "No Refunds" speech, and downstairs it sounded like Mabel was choreographing a dance with Waddles.

It was all so natural, it took Dipper a minute to realize it was a dream.

Not that that was unusual. After that crazy summer five years ago, it was only natural that he'd dream about Gravity Falls—what always surprised him was how peaceful these dreams were. It was from the simpler times, before Ford came back, before Weirdmaggedon. He sighed and leaned back in the windowseat, looking outside. Ah, wait, Soos drove a truck, not a sportscar. Better fix that.

"Excellent perception, Dipper." A hand with too many fingers rumpled his hair, and Dipper laughed.

"This isn't in line with the time frame, Grunkle Ford," he warned playfully, still looking down at the scene outside.

"Anything's possible in the mindscape. I thought my brother taught you that much."

Dipper chuckled and turned around to look at Ford. "Well, I guess I couldn't leave out my fav—" His smile died as he saw Ford pointing a huge deathray right at his face. "Gr-grunkle Ford?"

"I know what you're doing." Ford's voice was low, and his eyes were narrowed to pinpoints. "And I'm not letting you back here. Not ever."

"What?" Dipper felt his heart flip in his chest. He sat up and held up his hands. Could he fix this? "Grunkle Ford…it's me, it's Dipper," he said quickly, trying his best to will Ford to see that.

"Don't play this game with me!" Ford snapped, shoving the gun right into Dipper's face.

"I'm not playing anything!" Dipper cried. Ford said nothing, merely aimed his shot.

Dipper cringed away. Would he die? Would he wake up? This had never happened in a dream! As he heard the ray charge and turned to shield his face, he caught his reflection staring back at him.

"No…no!"

Gazing back at him was a Dipper with a too-wide smile and yellow, slitted eyes.


Dipper cried out as he shot up in bed. He gasped in shallow breaths, looking around his room. He swallowed hard, trying to remember Ford's instructions on knowing if you're dreaming:

1. Assess your surroundings—he was in his room, in Piedmont.

2. Look for placemarks, preferably ones set by yourself—his laptop was on his desk at precisely a 45 degree angle, his glasses were propped up against his bedside lamp, and his old "Ghost Harassers" poster was right on the closet door, like it had been since he was ten.

3. Start reading something boring—brains, Ford had said, liked exciting things. If a hardware manual stays a hardware manual, then you're definitely awake.

He grabbed the user's manual for his laptop and focused on reading every word, breathing as evenly and slow as he could. His heartrate slowed, his breathing evened, and the muscles throughout his body slowly relaxed. Once he was calmed down and certain he was awake, he tossed down the book with a huff before he threw himself back onto his pillow. That had been the third nightmare this month; what was happening? Things were changing, yes, but surely not enough for…anyone to start bothering him again. After all, the day had been saved. Weirdmageddon had been avoided.

Bill was gone.

He let out another long breath, wrinkling his nose as he realized he was drenched in sweat, then looked over at the clock. 5:12. There was no way he was getting back to sleep now; might as well start the day.

He got up, stretched, and headed straight to the bathroom. Probably for the best he woke up this early; Mabel was gonna hog it for the whole morning, he already knew, so he could actually fit his shower in before the inevitable primp-fest. As he started the water, he couldn't help his nervous look over at the mirror. Sleep-rumpled hair, gangly limbs (not much better than the noodle arms he had at 12, really)…and normal—if tired-eyes. He went up close to check, just in case, but perfectly average eyes, his eyes, stared back. He let out a sigh of relief.

There. Just a dream. That was it.

He managed to get his shower finished and was halfway through brushing his teeth as rapid-fire knocks hit the door.

"If you're doing anything weird, you need to stop because I'm coming in!"

Dipper rolled his eyes with a smile before spitting out his toothpaste. "Good morning, Mabel."

The door burst open, and Mabel in all her wide-awake glory pushed her way in.

"Actually, it's an amazing morning! And you know why, bro-bro?" Before he could answer, Mabel shoved a mortarboard onto his head. "Because today is the day the Pines Twins graduate! Selfie-time!"

Before he knew what was happening, Mabel, despite being almost a whole foot shorter than him now, had him in a headlock, got her own mortarboard on, and snapped a picture of the two of them.

"Now for a caption…" Mabel chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Maybe…'Graduation? More like Gradu-great-tion?' Nah, that doesn't work. Maybe something simple, like 'Rad Grads'!"

"How about 'I nearly suffocated my brother before he even got to the school?'" he suggested, taking off the mortarboard to put just a bit—a little tiny bit—of product in his hair. Just to keep it manageable!

"Booooo." Her face lit up. "I've got it. 'So long, high school! Hashtag the-college-adventures-of-Dipper-and-Mabel'. It sounds like a movie!"

"Definitely not."

Mabel groaned. "Are you still being weird about your name?"

"It's not really my name. You can't call a grown man 'Dipper'."

"Well, I can still call him Captain Butt-face!"

"Oh my god, Mabel, are you twelve?"

"I'd rather be twelve than the boringest graduate ever."

Dipper rolled his eyes and grabbed his mortarboard. "Don't you have some, I don't know, stuff to put in your hair?"

Mabel gasped. "Oh, my god, you're right! I need to get everything for my hashtag o-o-t-d."

"You do know it's the most annoying thing when you say 'hashtag' out loud."

"Well, you need to hashtag get out!" Mabel pushed him out of the bathroom with surprising force. "I do my best work alone."

The door slammed shut, and Dipper groaned as he heard Sev'ral Timez start blasting from the other side of the door. "Mabel, you know they're clones! You were there!"

"I can still appreciate the art!"

He rolled his eyes again, then looked down at the mortarboard. High School Graduation.

The first step to the rest of his life.


And it was the most boring step ever.

"…Yesinia Marquez…Nathaniel Matteson…Gillian Michaelis…"

Mabel groaned and threw her head back, the mortarboard almost taking off Dipper's nose. "Graduation is the woooorst."

"Shut up, people can still see us," he whispered.

Mabel groaned again, bringing her head back up as they took a step forward. "I thought it'd be exciting. You know, banners everywhere, everyone starts singing and doing an intense choreographed routine…"

"I told you watching 'Musical High: The Musical About High School 3' last night was a bad idea." They took another step forward. "How would we even know the choreography?"

"You just do. It's an innate part of high school!" She motioned to the stage. "This is not."

"It's still better than prom."

"Better than your prom. My prom was one completely worthy of Musical High 2." Another step forward. "I could have called Candy and Grenda down. You could have gone to prom with a girl on each arm."

"Pass. And what did you do differently at prom? You sat with me half the night."

"And the other half was spent dancing with every boy on the lacrosse team."

"For thirty seconds each."

"And each one was magical." Mabel gasped as the Vice-Principal called "Rory Olandu." "It's almost time for us!"

She and Dipper exchanged big smiles as they reached the stairs to the stage.

"Christopher Peters…Mabel Pines…"

Mabel wore a huge grin as she made her way across the stage, stopping halfway to throw glitter into the air. One of the teachers standing behind her let out a scream and covered her eyes. Mabel glanced back, then gave a little shrug as she took her diploma and exited.

At the stairs, Dipper held his breath. This was the big moment, the one he'd been preparing himself for since the start of Senior year.

"…Mason Pines…"

Mason. Mason. A normal, adult-sounding name that didn't require an awkward explanation and even more awkward birth-mark reveal. That was practically the whole graduation in itself. He walked across the stage, head held high, reveling in this new-found adulthood.

"Woooo! Yeah, Dipper! That's my brother! That's my brother! Wooooooo!"

The moment was broken as Mabel started cheering him on from the sidelines. He wanted to tell her to shut up, but…well, she meant well. She always did.

But why was she always such an IDIOT?

Dipper froze on stage as he took his diploma, the thought still echoing in his head. Had…he thought that? Where had it come from? And why did that voice in his head sound…different?

The Principal frowned at him. "Son, you're gonna have to take the paper," he whispered. "We still got 200 kids to go through."

"Huh? O-oh. Sorry." He took the rolled paper and went down the steps, the thought—or, well, the thoughts about the thought—still bouncing in his head, and only stopped when Mabel grabbed him for the photo-op spot just off-stage.

"Say something stupid!" she chirped.

"Something stupid." They said it together, but Dipper's voice was much less…enthusiastic.

Maybe he was just stressed from all the excitement.


Not like there was much. Really, the whole day was pretty boring. Afterparty in the gym—full of congratulations, "We did it"s, and their parents lowkey bragging about Mabel getting into FEDM School of Fashion Marketing in Los Angeles and Dipper ("Mom." "Oh, sorry, Mason.") being accepted to UC Northisland's Archaeology Program—then dinner with Grandpa Shermy and Grandma Ava, then Mabel going out to party and cry with all the girl friends she promised she would be seeing after high school.

Dipper opted for a night-in. He was never much of a partier, and he had things to do. Like…clean his glasses. A lot. Look up UC Northisland's campus…again. Organize his BABBA collection before hiding it under his bed again. Re-sort his…All right, so he was just trying to find things to do until Mabel came home. He wasn't like her; he didn't have friends who wanted to spend all night with him. He helped save the world, yeah, but no one in Piedmont knew that. Here, he was still Dipper with the stupid birthmark, Dipper who was tricked into thinking the middle school janitor was Bigfoot, Dipper who came back from his trip up to Oregon talking about gnomes and aliens and portals.

He huffed and grabbed the acceptance letter from his corkboard. He read it over again; he'd read it so many times it was practically memorized, but it was remarkably good for grounding him.

"Dear Mason Pines,

It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been selected to join the UC Northisland's Archaeology Program this September. Our exclusive program will pave the way for you to join archaeology's best and brightest…"

Despite all of his insistence, it was still weird seeing "Mason Pines" on paper outside of a yearbook. He really had hated it up until a couple years ago, and by then it was too late to ask anyone to start calling him that. So it still didn't feel quite right. But that's…kind of what made it perfect. He had a clean slate now. Mason Pines was going to be an archaeologist. Mason Pines wouldn't be associated with birthmarks or stories no one believed. Mason Pines was…was just going to be a normal guy.

Yeah, sure, sounds thrilling. But I know that's not what you want.

Dipper froze as the thought entered his head. No. No no no. It couldn't be.

Relaaaax, buddy. The only reason you're thinking in his voice is because of that spooky dream you had.

Dipper grimaced. "I don't know that. It could be wrong," he muttered, just in case.

It's not wrong, but fine, whatever. Let's focus on the real problem, though: archaeology is BORING!

"What? No, it's not!" Was he really arguing with himself outloud? Maybe he was crazy.

Or maybe you're bored. Sure, being Professor Mason Pines sounds neat, but you'll go full crazy if you follow that. Besides…I know that's not what you want to do. You've known what you've wanted to do since you were twelve years old, pal.

Without realizing it, Dipper's gaze had turned to the journal tucked in with the other books on his desk, the very top of a blue pine tree poking out.

That's what you wanna do. You wanna be just like Old Ford. I bet your kicking yourself for not taking that apprenticeship.

"Definitely not. I wasn't ready then; I was still a kid."

Well, you aren't anymore. And you can always go back.

Dipper shut his eyes. "I can't."

Well, I guess you could just fill that journal with archaeology notes.

Dipper looked up at the journal again, brow furrowed. He pulled it out and peeked through the pages. Barely ten entries written; the rest was blank.

Come on, Pine Tree, you know what to do.

"Don't call me that," he said sharply to his mind. He must be tired.

Then come on, Dipper Pines. You can't let your dreams get away without a fight.

Dipper let out a breath as he looked down at the journal. Maybe that voice was on to something.


Mabel was a half-giggling, half-sobbing wreck when she was finally dropped off at home. More than that, though, she was exhausted. She pulled herself up the stairs, slowly, wondering why she'd worn heels all day. When she reached down to pet Waddles in the corridor, though, the door in front of her creaked open.

"Mabel…"

She looked up with a gasp, hand automatically clenching into a fist, just in case. Grunkle Stan had, after all, taught her that a lot of things are punchable. She relaxed as the door opened more, the dim corridor light showing it was just Dipper.

"Wow, okay, do not do that. I almost punched you in the face!" she said, plunking down beside her pig. Dipper looked at her for a long moment, then swallowed.

"Mabel, we…we need to go to Gravity Falls."