Chapter 2:
Lost and Found
Dipper Pines sat back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. That was it. His last final of his first year of college finished with. He felt liberated. The whole summer was ahead of him.
He already had a job lined up working for a landscaping company, and was hoping to earn enough to at least cover half of next year's tuition costs. He could use what little time he wouldn't be working to try and figure out what classes to take when he returned for the fall semester. He was thus far undeclared, and the pressure to choose a major was starting to affect him.
He passed groups of his classmates rejoicing over the completion of finals as he crossed the small campus of his college to his car, a beat up old thing that had once belonged to his parents. He had a lot of their stuff, inherited it last year after they'd disappeared.
Dipper shuddered. He didn't like to think about it.
He climbed into the driver's side and threw his bag onto the passenger seat, contemplating whether or not he should waste a dollar and go get a soda from the convenience store he passed every day on the way to his apartment. What the hell. It was a special occasion.
He started up the car and pulled into the street. Things were going pretty much the way he expected. He was looking forward to a normal enough summer.
How could he have known that in six minutes his life was going to turn anything but?
Dipper was standing in line with a bottle of soda behind two other people in the store when his phone began to ring. He wondered if it was work as he reached into his pocket to check the caller ID, hoping there hadn't been some complication with his employment. But the number was an unfamiliar one, so he ignored it. He wasn't in the habit of answering his phone when he wasn't sure who was calling.
His phone rang again thirty seconds later. Dipper checked it. Same number. Whoever it was, they were persistent. Sighing, he accepted the call and pressed his phone to his ear. "This is Dipper."
"Mr. Pines?" he didn't know the voice on the other end.
"That's me," Dipper confirmed. "Can I help you?"
"I'm with the police department in Piedmont, and I have some news I think you're going to want to hear." The man on the other end sounded awkward.
"What is it?" Dipper asked. His stomach was starting to twist. What could the police possibly want to do with him?
"We have a Mabel Pines in our custody. She was found today in an alley and… she's not doing well. We'd really appreciate it if you could come down here."
Dipper was rooted where he stood. His heart hurt. His stomach was churning. His sister. His twin sister who he'd given up on ever seeing again years ago. His sister who he'd been certain was dead. "You… you found Mabel?" he whispered.
"Yes, sir. We found her. We found your sister."
"But… is she okay? You said she was found in an alley. Is she in trouble?!"
"….I really think you should come down here."
Dipper couldn't think rationally anymore. He barely registered his surroundings as he bolted to the door and out to his car. It was only later, as he sped down the highway in a haste to get to the police station, that he realized he'd run out of the store still holding the bottle of soda, forgetting completely to pay for it.
Adjusting to life without his other half had been difficult. He'd resented himself ever since the day of Mabel's abduction seven years ago, blaming himself. He could have abandoned his vest in the tree and gotten to her before that man. He could have made sure the branch was able to hold both their weights before they settled onto it. He could have put a stop to their tree climbing game altogether. If he had done any one of those things, maybe she would still be with him.
But he hadn't. He'd only screamed as he watched his sister being stolen from him. He hated himself for it.
The police had been little help. Dipper was questioned three or four times, he couldn't really remember. Questioned about what he and Mabel had been doing, what the man looked like, what Dipper saw. He'd tried to tell them about the black smoke comet, but everyone had brushed him aside until even Dipper didn't believe it anymore. It had to have just been some fear-induced hallucination. After twenty-four hours the questions stopped. An amber alert went out, but the police had lost their steam. A detective had been brought in, but after two weeks with no results everyone seemed to have given up. And while it had torn Dipper's parents apart, they admitted it was almost certain they would never see Mabel again.
It had taken weeks for Dipper to accept that. He'd returned to the park every day, watching the skies for him, climbing the tree countless times in an effort to remember anything about the day he may have forgotten, something significant that he could use to catch Mabel's kidnapper. But eventually, he too had given up hope.
He let his parents move Mabel's things out of the room he had once shared with his twin. Pictures were taken down from the walls that were just too painful to look at. Drawings were removed from the fridge door. Clothes were donated to charity.
After a while it was like they had forgotten there was ever another child in the house. And finally, when Dipper was sixteen, they held a memorial service for Mabel Pines to receive some closure, and Dipper, who had gone completely numb to talk of his lost twin, had given her up for good.
But now she was back. Back from the dead, it seemed to him. There would be so much to tell her. So much to try and get her through.
So much to understand.
And so much to apologize for.
An hour after he'd gotten the phone call, Dipper pulled into the public parking lot across the street from the San Francisco police station and got out of his car, feeling sick. At some point during the drive he realized he was going to have to tell his sister that their parents were dead, and that wasn't helping all the other thoughts and emotions swirling in chaotic turmoil inside of his head and his heart. Mabel was inside. He was going to see Mabel again. He was going to bring her home, and try to help.
But he had no idea how he was going to do any of that.
"One foot in front of the other, Dipper," he encouraged himself under his breath. "You can do this." At an almost painful pace, he made his way across the street and into the station.
As he came in the man behind their front desk casually looked up. "May I help you?"
"I'm, uh… Dipper Pines," Dipper said, not sure what else to do. "I was told to come here as fast as I could."
Immediately, the man's face fell into a solemn expression. "Mr. Pines. Yes. Here," he said, passing a guest pass over the counter. "Go up to social services on the third floor. They're waiting for you."
Okay, I literally made one change in chapter 2 which was probably like 5 words long. So ^ almost full credit to Cantica10. Also if you haven't noticed I'm changing all the names of the chapters.
