Chapter One

Age Old Issues

As the sun parted with the horizon in the warm summer sky of Oregon, its gentle rays roused roosting birds which began a soft harmony. This was soon accompanied by a soft beat, provided by a group of scattered woodpeckers. A small brook rippled against the influence of the wind, which then met with a creaky weather vane and sent it spinning on its stand. The woodland creatures of Gravity Falls be they squirrel, toad or magical barf fairy all peacefully shared the tranquillity of another early morning. However as a small group of these critters passed number 618 Gopher Road, also known fondly by the townsfolk as 'The Mystery Shack', their quiet morning met an unwelcome interruption.

The sounds of childish giggling and old floor boards creaking filled the Hallway as Dipper and Mabel burst from their attic bedroom. Dipper was still pulling his navy, sleeveless jacket over one arm while calling after a colourfully dressed Mabel. Her wavy mop of brown hair seemed to levitate behind her as she raced to the top of the stairs. It was clear who was the most accustomed to mornings.

"I bet you can't beat me to the kitchen!" Truthfully speaking, he'd probably bet the same wager. But when either of the twins issued a challenge, it was certain they'd end up competing with each other.

"Oh yeah? Bring it sister!" The small boy chortled while flicking off his trademark baseball cap and pulling it down over her head, covering her eyes.

"Waaargh?!" It took a few wobbly steps backward before Mabel regained her balance, she could hear the rapid footsteps of Dipper already half-way to the bottom of the staircase.

Any other sibling might cry 'cheater' or complain, but conflict rarely pressured the relationship of these two. Instead, she gave a raucous cackle and counter-attacked by throwing the offending hat back at her challenger, who was struck in the forehead.

"Ah! Hey!"

They were neck and neck, both grinning and rapidly approaching the kitchen doorway, when a hunched figure cast a shadow across the threshold.

"Gah!"

"Woop!"

"Ah! Sonofanutcracker!"

Despite throwing on the brakes, the rambunctious pair had collided with a pretty heavy obstacle. Their great uncle Stan, still in a white vest and striped boxer shorts, peeled himself off the floor with a grunt.

"Oh man, sorry Grunkle Stan." Dipper still smiled and replaced his hat, while Mabel dusted off her baggy sweater with a joyful yet distant expression. Today's sweater was green and decorated with reindeer shapes.

"Bah! It's too early in the morning to be racing around like idiots." The grouchy elder shuffled in his loafers to the stove. "Now race your idiot butts to the table without breaking anything."

"You got it Stan-the-Man!" Mabel gave a cheerful salute and the two seated themselves for breakfast. They'd quickly gotten used to Stan's grumpiness, besides his demeanour softened when it came to his niece and nephew.

"I honestly don't know where you kids don't get your energy..." Their Grunkle plated up three stacks of fresh pancakes and scratched his curved back.

"Oh Grunkle Stan, I bet you were quite the little rascal when you were our age." Chirped Mabel, impatiently drumming her palms on the table. Sat beside her, Dipper was already engrossed in the daily newspaper and quietly mumbling while stroking his chin.

"Heh, what I wouldn't give to be that young again…" Stan's voice was as rough and gravelly as his skin, which was pretty dense with body hair. He sported two big ears and a reddened nose of equal size, leading Mabel to often compare him to an elephant; a grumpy, sarcastic elephant.

After sloppily laying breakfast and his morning coffee on the table, the old elephant swaggered out of the room with a grumble.

"Gotta hit the can."

Mabel gave a concerned look and proceeded to squirt syrup over her pancakes, drawing a happy elephant who for some reason wore a bow tie.

"Poor Grunkle Stan, if only he were a few years younger." She piped up.

Dipper sniggered from behind his newspaper.

"Yeah, more like a few centuries."

She pouted at him and squeezed the syrup bottle to make a rude sound.

"I'm serious!"

"You're never serious."

"I can be super serious! Like how organised I keep my summer romance scrapbook." She held up what he recognised to be an old notebook, pimped out with colours, stickers and sequins in which she kept pictures to commemorate her previous boyfriends.

"I thought you were done with summer romances?" The thought of dealing with any more of Mabel's romantic escapades was starting to send shivers down his spine.

"Brother, do you know me? I'm not one to quit once I get started!" As if to prove her point, she immediately started shovelling pancake after pancake into her mouth, chewing loudly. He merely raised an eyebrow and watched her, waiting. It only took a few moments before she began spluttering.

"Ugh… must… finish… metaphor." There was a cough and splutter before she collected herself.

"Anyway, who knows? Maybe you'll find a little summer romance of your own now you're past what happened with Wend- " She was cut off by Dipper shoving another pancake into her mouth.

Mabel spouted illegible nonsense, muffled by her floury breakfast when Grunkle Stan re-entered the room.

"Aah... violence and force-feeding, two things I can get behind." The kitchen chair shrieked against the wooden flooring and creaked under his weight when he joined them at the table.

"Grunkle Stan, is being old that bad?" Mabel's head flopped sideways to emphasise the question. She was endowed with a pretty flexible neck.

"It's like waiting for death… only you're waiting at an airport and your flight's been delayed for the past 25 years." He was always to the point, tone flat and dry. "That's why they call 'em terminals."

The newspaper dropped over the table when Dipper finally decided to pay some attention to his breakfast. "Well personally, I wouldn't mind being a little older… or at least bigger."

Mabel held her grinning cheeks and chortled. "Sorry brother, you're still just a little Dipper." Both she and Stan burst into guttural fits of laughter.

"I am not! Besides we're the same age and height."

Before Mabel could reply, Stan joined in the teasing. "Now kid, be the bigger man and stop arguing with your sister…"Dipper pouted and tried to think of a comeback, but he wasn't fast enough. "…If that's not too much of a tall order."

By this point Mabel was holding her sides and kicking her legs under the table.

"You know, I wouldn't mind being older too. Then you really would be my little brother."

"That sounds horrible."

"Hey, quit being short with your sister."

"Bah hahaha!"

After growling under his breath, Dipper decided to go back to reading the newspaper.

-Page Break-

She was in the room; he knew it the moment he heard the fourth floorboard-next-to-the-closet creak in despair. Dipper pretended not to notice and remained lying over the edge of his bed, with the journal suspended above him. It would be more comfortable if the blood flow through his arms wasn't failing.

'Three…two…one.'

"Hey doofus!" Her bright, upside-down face beamed down at him, revealing her braces.

"Here to throw more short puns at me?" He wasn't hiding that he felt slightly winded.

A finger jabbed him hard in the side right as she blew a raspberry.

"Don't be silly Dipping Sauce, I'm sorry about earlier." One thing that was easy to appreciate about Mabel was her ability to admit fault when she went too far. As if they were born to complement one another, he had always been the forgiving type.

"Heh, we're cool."

He felt her weight drop down next to him on the bed, looking up from the book he found her sitting up petting her pet pig, Waddles.

"What do you think Waddles? Would Grunkle Stan be happy if he were younger?" Of course, all Dipper could understand from the reply was a grunting noise. But Mabel either spoke pig, or just heard what she wanted to hear.

"I know right? And imagine if my brother was ten years younger. I'd have a baby brother!" This time Waddles responded with more of a squeal.

"I think I'm cool with us being twins." The bookworm cut in, voice cracking slightly. "It's enough being the exact same age as you, being your baby brother would just be… weird." He shuddered at the thought.

"Aw… But I could dress you up, play silly games with you and make you ride Waddles!" She counted on her fingers with each terrifying idea.

"…Maybe you should focus on Grunkle Stan's aging problem." He wasn't about to let her get carried away with this idea.

Unfortunately, he led her straight into another one.

"Hey! We could use your journal!"

"What?"

"Think about it, there could be something in this journal that'll help us take Stan back a few years." He recoiled when she made a grab at it, guarding it protectively.

"While that may be an idea, should we really be messing with nature like that? Or people's bodies?" His eye twitched. "…Especially Grunkle Stan's…."

Mabel wasn't about to give up, she held her arms out as if to relax him. "It won't hurt to just take a look. Come on Professor Cautious."

'That's a new one.'

Brow furrowed, he pointed a finger at her as if making a demand. "Okay okay, but stop coming up with those nicknames." He gently laid the book between them, pages fluttering as it opened and began flicking through. "I know I've seen something…"

Mabel leant forward and squeezed her grinning cheeks in quiet anticipation.

"Here it is." Professor Cautious ran his finger across the page as he read out loud. "Deep in the Eastern regions of the forest lies a supernatural plant species that has age altering properties."

He was interrupted by a hyperactive cry from his sister. "Pow! I knew there would be something useful!" Her arms waved wildly in the air as if swatting out flies.

He gave her smile and continued.

"It seems the dew of the Tree of Life will bestow youth upon its drinkers, while eating a seed from one of its branches will return a subject to their natural age." He rubbed under his nose, eyeing the following passages with squinting eyelids.

Mabel was already deep into celebration. "It's perfect! Dipper we have to get some of that dew for Stan, it would make him so happy!" The mattress groaned from her excited bouncing.

Dipper didn't feel so convinced and held out an open palm. "I don't know Mabel, the journal says this tree is right in the centre of one of Gravity Falls' most dangerous islands..." He tapped a warning on page, which in red ink said 'DO NOT ENTER'.

Mabel immediately dismissed the notion by blowing a raspberry. "'Dangerous forest'! We've been through worse!" She sulked on with a disappointed look on her face. "You're always going on about what the book says."

Before he could argue, she ripped off his hat and put it on, adopted a stiff posture and waved her arms robotically. This was her best Dipper impression. "We can't Mabel! The book says there're too many variables!"

His eyebrows knitted together. "You realise this journal is what told us about that tree in the first place?" In a swift motion, he swiped back his hat. "And stop pulling that face! I don't do that!"

This was met with a snort and gush of laughter.

"Come oooon, we'll be fine!"

Dipper raised his shoulders defiantly. "Even if we are fine, it's unnatural to just mess with people's ages. Besides I'm just trying to be more cautious and avoid crises like almost getting eaten alive by a giant, floating head!"

A spirit like Mabel's was hard to dampen and she didn't seem any closer to heeding his warning. She simply flashed her braces again. "But we always get out of those things just fine when we work together!" She was nudging his elbow now. "Right, bro?"

Not right.

"Ugh. Look Mabel, I know you want to help Grunkle Stan, but… maybe I should be more declarative. I'm not going. It's too dangerous just for some magic tree dew." It was clear that Dipper was trying to be a voice of reason, but it travelled through Mabel's head like a nagging white noise. Before she was able to protest, he hopped off the bed and gave her a prod in the arm with his ink pen. "And you're not going either, I don't want you getting yourself hurt."

She groaned in frustration. "Ugh! You always ramble on with your big words, babying me and treat me like I can't handle myself. I bet I could solve a mystery and prove that tree is real all by myself…" Her voice had elevated a little, joined by a sharp jab to his chest with her finger. "…without you!" Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but she had turned away, folding her arms defensively.

He gave a sigh, voice slightly shaky from exasperation or hurt, perhaps both. "Well you're not going to… and I don't wanna talk about this anymore."

And with that, she heard the bedroom door swing closed.

The bedroom felt roomier somehow, it left her with a sinking feeling of guilt. Perhaps she'd gotten too worked up. However, thought of being so patronised washed the feeling away and brought on a more determined expression.

"Fine..." She muttered under her breath. "I'll prove I can handle myself."

-Page Break-

"Doo doo doo, stocking shelves." Sang young Jesus Ramirez to no one in particular.

The gift shop looked the same as it always did the morning before opening. Dust filtered through the sun rays that cast a warm glow over the woodwork, leaving him with a good feeling about that day.

"I've got a good feeling about today!"

Jesus, known affectionately as 'Soos', stood large and plush. As always he was wearing his work uniform, formed only of a dark green XXL shirt which bore a question mark, beige shorts and a brown cap.

"Soos, today's gonna be a bad day."

A familiar, gravelly voice put an end to Soos' jolly working song. His gruff, yet beloved boss Stan Pines entered the shop, still tying the collar of his suit. Despite this blunt pessimism being a fitting part of Stan's personality, Soos looked at him with child-like curiosity.

"What do you mean, Mister Pines?"

"I've just had a morning of rambunctious whippersnappers reminding me how much it sucks being old." Stan's mood seemed as irritable as ever. While Soos admired his Boss like a boy admired a father, Stan viewed Soos like a man often views a child; dumb but useful.

His lovable handy-man chuckled. "And I thought Dipper used too many long words."

This didn't seem to raise Stan's spirits; he was now in a heated argument with the eyeballs stored in a jar on the counter. "How come none o' you got cataracts, huh?" His fist was shaking menacingly in the air.

"Hey Mister Pines, my Grandma always tells me age is like, just a number." Soos shrugged at the issue as if trying to comfort him. "Maybe you could, I dunno, try to live more like when you were younger."

To Soos' surprise, Stan actually seemed to perk up. His clouded eyes now centred on him, which only made him uneasy.

"You know what Soos, you're not so dumb after all!" Stan sprang up, a fiendish grin spreading over his craggy face. "Forget work! Let's hit the town, you and me!"