the woods are lovely, dark and deep,
but I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.
The only bus stop in Gravity Falls lies on the outer edge of town, on the side of the road where there's only a small pullout among the trees to indicate anything at all. Stan picks Dipper up there.
The passenger seat of the old Stanmobile isn't as comfortable as Dipper remembers. Stan picks him up at the bus stop and throws Dipper's bags into the trunk as Dipper folds his grown-out limbs into the low car. Stan has the picture of the three of them on the dashboard where Mabel had stuck it last summer with a rainbow sticker. Dipper's eyes fall on it and he feels an immediate swooping sensation in his gut, like missing the last step in the stairs. In the picture she was happy, smiling, her arm thrown around his neck while she tried to pry his hat off for the picture and he refused to let her, laughing himself.
Dipper feels his throat tighten up, but he doesn't say a word, just quietly peels the picture up and turns it over as Stan crams himself in the driver's seat. So he can't see it anymore. So it isn't staring at him.
"Sooo not much has changed while you were gone." Stan tries to make conversation as he starts the Stanmobile and drives the short trip to the Mystery Shack. Awkward silence. "Yep," says Stan. "Still the same old Gravity Falls."
Dipper stares out the window, at the trees flying past as they gave way to buildings and sidewalks. There's the bar where Mabel once pretended to read a guy's palm. There was the diner where Mabel had accosted the love god. There's the old convenience store where Mabel had been possessed by the ghosts of an old couple, still boarded up and more run-down than ever with half the ceiling caved in.
"So how was your first year at college, kid?"
Dipper glanced at Stan, who tries to hide the worried expression he's been wearing under his smile, but not fast enough for Dipper to miss it. Dipper shrugs. He knows Stan has been worried about him — everyone in his family has, which is why his parents sent him back to Gravity Falls instead of letting him crash at home — but he doesn't want to talk about it. He just wants to be left alone. "Fine."
He knows Stan is taking this seriously when they arrive at the Mystery Shack and he carries Dipper's bag in instead of making Dipper do it himself. Dipper follows him in and upstairs to their old attic.
"I've left everything the same." Stan opens the door. A cloud of dust emerges and he coughs. "...which I now realize was probably a mistake. Gee. I shoulda cleaned up in here or something."
Dipper pokes his head past and looks into the old room where he and Mabel used to stay. Everything's the same, his and Mabel's halves of the room still perfectly preserved, with Mabel's boyband posters and his red-stringed maps on the walls.
"So anyway." Grunckle Stan rubs his head as he watches Dipper drag his bags into the room. "You're, uh, probably tired from your trip, so I'll just...leave you to rest and unpack."
Dipper nods and sits down on the edge of his old bed. "Yeah."
"Alright then." He's almost closed the door when he pauses and turns around again. "Oh, and Wendy and Soos have a hangout planned for you tonight. They said something about 'for old times' sake.' I'll just wake you up when they show up."
"That's fine, Grunckle Stan."
With that, Stan shuts the door, leaving Dipper alone in the quiet and the dust, staring around at the unchanged walls.
Dipper wanders around, running his hands over things, picking things up and putting them back down again. There are the marks where Waddles chewed on Mabel's bed frame. There's the spot Mabel and Grenda and Candy colored on the wall and then tried to hide it with a crude drawing of Dipper in a dress. He'd been annoyed about it at the time, but now it almost makes him smile. Under the bed is one of Mabel's old sock puppets, lost now without its fellows. Dipper picks it up and cradles it in his hands. It's the one she made to look like him, still partly singed from where it caught fire in the explosion. That was when Mabel had let all her plans and hard work go to save him from being possessed by Bill.
Feeling tired all over, his chest aching, Dipper curls up on Mabel's bed instead of his own and buries himself under the blankets, ignoring the smell of dust and the residual glitter that line the sheets. It takes him a long time to drift off to sleep.