Wow! Thanks to everyone for the hearty enthusiasm so far! Let's hope that this story actually turns out to be good.
Special thanks goes to:
- Vondrakenhof, for providing me a handy list of all the ridiculous typos I made last chapter. I see that I am still the absolute champ when it comes to inexplicably writing the same phrase twice in a row and not realizing it.
- DeadSNESproject88, who is currently working on the cover art for this story, and
- A second thanks for ddp456, who is still providing some much needed consulting with this story-in-progress.
And as usual, enjoy! - SGA
For years, the sight of the familiar road sign reading "WELCOME TO GRAVITY FALLS" in its large welcoming letters had never failed to energize Dipper Pines. Well, at least it never had until now. As his little sedan passed on by, he noted it with nothing more than a yawn before fixing his attention back to the road.
What made his spiritless reaction even stranger was that he hadn't traveled up here to see family and friends, or investigate any local supernatural happenings. He and his twin were scheduled to kick off a journey tomorrow that would be like no trip he had ever gone on before. Dipper Pines should've been absolutely beside himself with anticipation.
Instead, right now the twenty-two-year-old was only barely keeping awake. Suffice to say, Dipper had become the living personification of the "burnt out." He'd spent most of the last few months buried deep in his studies. On the plus side, he was well on his way to that advanced archaeology degree. That success though had come at a cost. The utterly exhausted grad student had basically let his life compress into all the work he was doing at the university, and very little else. One could see it in the heavy circles under his eyes, or the way his body now instinctively hunched forward, thanks to the countless hours spent pouring over books or bent over a laptop working on various papers.
He tried to psyche himself up for the road trip ahead. This was practically a dream come to life for him, after all. But his efforts quickly failed, just like all the other attempts he'd made ever since he first climbed into his car early that morning. Right now it seemed his only option was to pin his hopes on feeling better once he and Mabel set out tomorrow morning and got up to some good old fashioned investigative work again.
What definitely wasn't helping him was the fact that the bizarre town where he had spent so many summers now felt a little….incomplete. Dipper briefly wondered how a certain someone was doing with her new life in Portland, then promptly pushed the thought from his mind. Nothing good awaited him if he traveled down that mental road.
Thankfully his destination finally appeared just up ahead. He had barely parked before his beaming sister burst out of the Mystery Shack and pressed her face against the window with an excited squeal. "Heeeeey, bro-bro! Guess whoooo?"
"Hey-" Dipper only got one word in before she flung his door open and unbuckled his seatbelt. In no time he was huffing and puffing to keep while as she pulled him around the Shack.
"Come see! It's right in the back!" She whooped. Waiting for them was Stan's old RV, looking simultaneously spruced up yet also like it seen better days. The two elderly twins loading it up quickly noticed their new arrival.
"Hey there, kid!" A craggy smile swept across Stan's face.
"Dipper!" Ford exclaimed excitedly.
"Hey Grunkle Stan. Hey Great Uncle Ford." The young man gasped before he was affectionately attacked with strong hugs and hearty claps on his bony back. The two brothers quickly noticed that his mood didn't match the occasion at all. If they knew Dipper, he should have been almost embarrassingly giddy.
"Yeesh! Why the heck are we sending you two out on a big hunt when it looks like we got a zombie we need to deal with right here?" Stan poked his great nephew's chest.
Dipper went red in the face. While he wracked his tired brain for a reply, another familiar figured exited the Shack.
"Dipper! Hey!" Melody warmly greeted him. The young man gladly accepted her hug and hoped that the interruption would ward off all the concern being hyper-focused onto him. Unfortunately, no such luck. After she gave him a squeeze she took one look at his haggard face and suddenly she looked as worried as a mother hen. "Are you okay?"
"I've…..been better." He weakly relented.
"Dipper, what I have told you? You need to be careful about pushing yourself too hard." Ford watched the young man rub at his bag-lined eyes with a heavy frown.
"Says the guy we won't see for days at a time." Stan felt the need to point out on their great-nephew's behalf.
"Trust me, that's better than I was when I was working on my doctorate. At least now I remember to eat." Ford retorted calmly.
"Yeah, that's progress all right." His brother rolled his eyes. "Anyway, what's with you Dipper? You look like you should be lying in a coffin right now."
"I'm sorry." Dipper gave in with an apologetic groan. "Sorry, I….I guess I've just let myself get a little carried away with schoolwork."
"A little?" Stan scoffed.
"Don't you worry, bro-bro!" Mabel slung an arm around his shoulders. "Because for the next couple of weeks you're done being a library troll. Instead it's going to be the three of us on the open roads, traveling across the country, seeing all kinds of weird and crazy new things and having adventure after epic adventure!"
"Yeah that sounds…." For the briefest of moments Dipper happily grew lost in the mental picture she painted before he had an overdue realization. "Wait….the three of us?"
"Yup! All three of us!" Mabel repeated joyously. Her brother was incredibly confused.
"Uh…..is Ford coming along now?"
"As much as I'd like to, that would essentially defeat the whole purpose of all of this. I just don't have it in me for these kinds of trips like I used to." Ford shook his head, and right on cue something audibly cracked in his neck. "Ow! Oh for God's sake…."
"Um, is it Grunkle Stan?"
"If poindexter here can't handle it, you gotta be nuts if you think I can. Besides, it's peak tourist season. No offense to you kids, but there's rubes to be fleeced." Stan reminded them. As the Shack's official Master of Tours of the past nine years, he still adored few things more than bilking tourists who didn't know any better.
Dipper scratched his head as he thought a little harder. "Is it….Soos?"
"Oh man, I'd be like, crazy honored! But no can do, dude. Mr. Mystery's gotta stay right here." A grime and oil-stained Soos rolled out from beneath the RV and waved. "Oh, and hey Dipper!"
Dipper looked to Melody, who made things easy for him with a quick shake of her head. He turned uneasily to his sister. "Mabel….you're not bringing Bear-O along, are you?"
"Oooh!" she snapped her fingers. "I wished you mentioned that earlier, he would've been the perfect travel buddy. But nope!"
She knocked on the door and signaled to the surprise who had been patiently (and a little anxiously) waiting inside. "Accompanying us on our fantastic journey is none other than the awesome, amazing, one and only….."
Absolutely nothing happened. Dipper looked quizzically to his sister. Mabel cleared her throat and spoke a little louder. "The one and only….."
They heard some clicking, followed by a muffled curse. Mabel coughed and repeated with considerably less dramatic flair, "The one and only…."
Something banged frustratedly against the door, which remained stubbornly shut. Mabel grabbed the old latch gave it a try, and found that it was jammed.
"Um…..introducing the one and only….the….one…..aaaaand…..only….." She kept repeating between fruitless pulls.
The surprise still waiting trapped inside had meanwhile gotten sick of waiting around and charged the door with her shoulder. It swung open wide with a terrific bang. Mabel was sent sprawling on her back while the momentum carried a certain lanky redhead and sent her belly-first onto the ground.
Dipper couldn't believe it"W….W-W….."
Wendy rolled over, blew some hair from her face and grinned sheepishly. "Hey. 'Sup, dude?"
He then stared in stunned silence for a good five seconds before muttering, "You're….y-you're here."
"Yeah, uh….I'm your travel buddy." Now that the grand entrance had been ruined, she opened her arms up and laughed, "So, uh….surprise?"
Completely taken by surprise, Dipper had continued to just wordlessly. Her smile quickly started to falter. "...Dipper?"
Mabel could feel his gut clench up as she rapidly glanced back and forth between the two. This definitely was not going as well as she had hoped. The awkward tension soon became unbearable for her.
"Look! Check it out, Wendy's back! See?" She tried to rouse her brother's excitement. "See?"
"Yeah….yeah, great." He mumbled, followed by a hard swallow. "We'll uh….yeah, we can….catch up and….hold on, I'm going to go unpack first and…."
The flustered young man turned around and hustled off without another word, leaving everyone baffled.
"Uhhh….that went…." Stan grimaced. "Well, it went."
A completely mortified Mabel could feel her heart sink as she watched her twin disappear around to the other side of the Shack. They had just gotten together, and already the grand plan was already crumbling to nothing before her very eyes. She tried calling to him. "Wait, Dipper! DIPPER!"
"Hold on," A grim-faced Wendy put a hand on her shoulder. "Let me talk to him."
"You sure?" Mabel whimpered.
"I got this." The redhead assured before hustling off. At least, that's what she hoped. When she reached him at his car, he was moving like a robot as he unpacked his bags. "Dipper?"
"Hey." He mumbled. "Just a sec."
"Dipper?" She tried again.
"J-just a sec." He repeated. Dipper didn't even give her so much as a passing glance as he kept going. Her patience was quickly worn thin.
"Hey!" She yanked the bag from his hands. "Dude, what's with you?!"
Wendy had seen him take on near-countless horrifying creatures and mind-boggling abominations over all the years that they had known one another. Yet this was somehow the most rattled she had seen him in a long while. Clearly his brain was going on overload while he struggled to process her reappearance.
"...Dipper?" Her tone quickly softened. "You okay?"
"I…I think…." He babbled for a few moments before he dumbly repeated yet again, "Y-you're back."
"Uh….yeah…..and?"
"I….I don't know what to…..I don't know what to say right now." He awkwardly confessed. An agonizingly deafening silence descended on them as he stared at her like she had just stepped down out of a UFO.
"I dunno." She grumbled imaptiently "Maybe like, hi there, or something? Good to see you?"
"Hi there?"
"Yes! Something! C'mon, Dipper-"
"You mean like 'hi, glad you decided to just pop in after forever?" Even Dipper seemed surprised by this snappy eruption, but he couldn't have stopped it if he had tried.
"Hey!" Wendy fired right back with a glare. "What gives?"
"Well, what do you want me to say? Hey, nice to see you spare some time for us? Happy you remembered we were still alive?" Deep down, some strange reserve of frustration that he didn't even know he'd been carrying with him had popped open. Now all its burning contents were spewing out fast.
"Dude!" Wendy growled. "What's your deal right now?"
"What's your deal? Wendy, I haven't heard from you in forever! And then you think after all these months, where you don't call, you don't….don't do anything, and you can just...just…." In no time he had gotten so riled up now he could hardly speak. He needed a moment to pace back and forth a little before he demanded with a furious sputter, "And just…just pop in like this?"
He knew his friend was probably going to blow up back at him (he had never seen the spirited redhead back down from a fight) but right now he didn't care. But contrary to all his expectations, Wendy did nothing of the sort. Instead the young man watched her quickly deflate under the accusation with a sigh.
"It has been a while, huh?" she asked softly. Dipper could see the deep regret shimmering in her emerald eyes clear as the light of day. His temper was doused like a fire under a bucket of water.
"I-I'm sorry, Wendy. I don't know what-"
"No, no." She leaned up against the car. "Dipper-"
"I really shouldn't have-" he tried again when she gestured for a moment of silence with a wave of her hand.
"Look, I definitely get it. Someone does a big vanishing act for most of a year, then tries to stroll right back in like nothing happened? Yeah, I probably would be pretty ticked off at them too."
She let out another sigh as she ran her fingers through her long scarlet locks. Dipper's boiling frustration from only a few minutes ago was now being speedily swamped over with regret.
"Wendy I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"I'm sorry, Dipper." She cut him off with her own blunt apology.
"No, no, you don't have to-" He tried protesting before she interrupted him again.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I kinda do. I mean, dropped off the face of the earth for you guys. And for what?" She sent a rock bouncing a few feet with a frustrated kick. "So I could waste a couple months with some nobody."
"Huh?" Now he had two major shocks so far and counting "Wait a sec….you mean…."
"Yup, that all crashed and burned. I've been living back here in town for a little while now." She gave him a quick and dirty summary.
"Really? Since when?"
"Long enough to give myself one hell of a pity party." As memories of her recent breakup flashed through her mind, Dipper watched her face crumple with pain.
"Oh….oh man…." The guilt welled up fast. "Wendy, I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be. You didn't do anything. I was the one who bailed on you guys for a while."
"Yeah, but…maybe I could have…" Now that he had calmed down, he was doing a complete turnaround. "Maybe I…."
"Maybe what?"
"I could have made more of an effort to stay in touch too." He admitted regretfully. "Probably a lot more, actually. Like, a phone call here and there, or an email whenever I was working on a paper…..maybe even a…."
"Oh dude, c'mon." She pled. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"What else? That thing where you beat yourself up over nothing." She said pointedly. "Just don't, okay? It's not gonna help right now."
"It's not nothing." He stubbornly kept trying to take on some blame "It probably would helped helped you at least a little while you were trying to get through all of that….that….y'know."
He shuffled his feet. "I'm sorry. I should have tried to check in how you were. I….I seriously thought you were really happy there….and with him."
"So did I. And I was….at first." She sighed again. "But then it just kind of turned into nonstop damage control."
"I had no idea. If I knew….." He groaned.
"You might not have called, but it's not like I was leaving messages on your phone every night." She glanced his way and noted the heavy bags under his eyes. "Looks like you've been having a pretty rough time too."
"That's putting it one way. I kind of let myself go overboard with-"
"Yeah, I heard you back there from the trailer." She grimaced as she looked him up and down. Stan hadn't been joking with that zombie remark. This was bad even for Dipper. "When was the last time you took some kind of break?"
"...Good question." He muttered after giving it some hard thought.
"Man." She shook her head. "I should have at least tried shooting you a text or something now and then."
"You didn't-" He instinctively tried to protest.
"No, I totally should have." She mercilessly self-accused.
An awkward silence descended on the two. Dipper chewed his lower lip as he watched his old friend stew in a fresh heap of guilt. "If it helps…..it actually felt like you were still kind of there with me….uh, sort of."
"Huh?" She turned and raised an eyebrow.
Dipper hesitated. But he managed to work up the courage to reach under his shirt and reveal a simple necklace. Wendy instantly recognized the small wooden question-mark charm hanging from it. How could she not? She was the one who had carved it by hand, after all. It had been a present, one of two given to him and Mabel on her first Christmas celebrated at the Pines' Piedmont home so many years ago.
At first she only stared wordlessly. Dipper meanwhile prickled up with fresh anxiety. Had he helped at all, or just made things worse? At first it looked like he had just done himself zero favors when Wendy burst out laughing.
"Okay, what kind of weirdo carries something like that around for this long?" She asked.
"Uh…well you said….if Mabel and I kept ours it...it would be like we're not that…." He hastily tucked it back out of sight. "You know you're right, maybe-"
Dipper probably would have kept on babbling if Wendy didn't give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. After he went quiet, the young woman then put her boot on the side of the car, unceremoniously pulled up one of the legs of her jeans and pushed down the one of her socks. Hidden beneath was a simple snug ankle bracelet with an identical wooden question mark dangling from it.
Dipper perked up with a million dollar smile. Wendy flashed a toothy grin right back at him. "You think this is something, I got a ratty pine tree cap back at home you should see."
"I think your hat's buried under a pile of books somewhere back in California." He confessed.
"Dude, you're probably better off keeping it there." She cracked only half-jokingly. Last time she had seen him wear it was two Christmases ago, and it had looked so threadbare only a few stitches and a miracle were still keeping it together. The two shared a much-needed chuckle. "You'd think between those and us carrying these around…."
She fished his necklace from out from under his vest and put it back in full view. "They would have helped remind at least one of us to send a stupid email or something."
"Yeah, you'd think." He replied. "We've done dumber things…but not much."
"I got an idea. Instead of arguing about who screwed up more here, how about we just say we both suck?" She playfully suggested.
"Fine with me." He readily agreed. "Sorry again for freaking out on you like that earlier."
"Dude, will you knock it off with the stupid apologies already?" She grinned endearingly at her doofus as he wound himself up all over again. "I blew you off for a while, and you were upset. Sounds pretty justified."
"Yeah, but still..." He thought it over for a moment. "You know, I think I would have saved us a whole lot of trouble right now if I had just started off and said that…."
Dipper immediately started having severe second thoughts about where he was going with that. But he was much too late, and Wendy was already all ears. "Said what?"
"Um…" He froze up like a deer in headlights.
"C'monnnn. You know you have to say it now." She declared.
"I just…maybe I…." he tried stalling.
"And no lying. I'm totally gonna know." Wendy wasn't threatening him as much as she was stating a matter of fact.
"Maybe I just should have started off with…I mean, I only got upset in the first place was..." The young man paused.
"C'mon." She definitely wasn't letting him off the hook here. After clearing his throat with a cough, he finally forced it out.
"I...I really missed you, Wendy."
"You dork." She rolled her eyes and snorted. Less than a heartbeat she had swept him up into a crushing bear hug. "I missed you too."
She felt his noodle arms wrap around her, and soon he was squeezing back just as tightly. Dipper began chuckling again, and so did she. Soon they were both flat-out laughing like a pair of lunatics. Each one finally had their best friend back, and the relief was beyond compare.
"How about no more disappearing on each other from now on?" He asked.
"Already working on it. Like it or not, I'm still tagging along with you two for the next couple weeks." She gave him an extra hard squeeze.
"Sounds like a good start." He wheezed as she finally let go. The snickering young woman grabbed his cap (of the classic blue and white variety, courtesy of the Mystery Shack from two summers ago) and affectionately yanked the brim down over his eyes. He replied in kind by flipping a wave of red hair over her freckled face.
"YES! All aboard the Reconciliation Express!" A squealing brunette popped up right in between them. "The gang's all back together!"
"Mabel-" Dipper started, but she knew exactly what he was going to ask.
"Everything!" She told him loud and proudly as she happily squished them into a massive double-hug. "Saw and heard everything. The others too, probably."
"No, it's okay! We only heard like, half!" Soos distantly protested.
Dipper immediately went red as a ripe tomato ready for the plucking. Wendy however welcomed the intrusion with nothing more than a roll of her eyes hearty chortle. "Definitely didn't expect things to get back to normal this fast…."
The crack of dawn the very next day found the old RV completely packed and the intrepid little band just about ready to go. As the early morning sun washed over them, Ford went over a few key details with Dipper.
"I'm going to need you to try and send me an update at the end of each day, alright? I set up a shared folder, so you can just upload everything to-"
"I know, Ford." Dipper chuckled.
"Alright. Oh and also, not just written updates, either." The scientist kept it up with all the reminders. "Pictures too. And video if you can get it-"
"Yeesh, enough!" Stan gave him a shove. "I'm pretty sure they know the protocol already."
"I'm just making sure." Ford straightened his glasses. Stan grinned reassuringly at his great nephew and niece.
"Don't worry. If he gets on your nerves too much, just let me know. I may not know how the wi-fi works, but I know how a hammer does."
"Thanks Grunkle Stan." Dipper laughed as they each went in for a hug.
"Thank yoooooou!" Mabel squealed. Wendy stood back, but was surprised to get a hearty pat on her back.
"Keep on eye on the little gremlins, okay?" He asked.
"No promises." She replied cheekily.
"Good job." He nodded proudly. "Always give yourself an out."
"Take care, dudes! I'll be with you in spirit!" Soos sobbed before charging in and giving everyone an epic hug.
"Don't worry, we'll stay in tou-" Dipper had air was blown clean out of his lungs by the goodbye crush. Wendy and Mabel likewise we subjected to a Soos-style crunch. His wife thankfully took extra care to keep her goodbye embraces nice and gentle.
"Take care, guys." Melody bade them sweetly. "Let us know if you need anything."
"Will do." Dipper nursed his aching sides. "Okay, let's go-"
"Hold on, hold on!" Mabel begged. Everyone watched as she took an empty two-liter bottle of Pitt Cola, waved it ceremoniously and whacked it against the side of the RV. "I christen thee the Lady Mabelton!"
"Nice." Wendy laughed.
"What? We didn't agree on a name!" Dipper protested.
"Too late, it's official!" The giggly brunette herded the other two aboard. "All right, let's mooooove on out! Bye everyone!"
They had to wrestle the ignition a few times, but the clunky vehicle started up. As Dipper slowly steered them off out of the parking lot, the girls popped their heads out the window and whooped like a pair of kids. The others watched and waved them off.
"Oh, nuts!" Soos groaned and quickly fumbled out a chunk of metal from his pocket. The others looked at it curiously.
"Soos? What's that?" Melody asked.
"I was totally planning on asking you guys. I was doing some final tune-ups last night and this thing was left over. You have any idea where this was supposed to go-"
There was a muffled burst, and the RV ground to a halt. Acrid black smoke started billowing from beneath the hood, and a panicking redhead and two frantic siblings hastily bailed out. Melody frantically scrambled over to the disabled vehicle, with Ford following as fast as his old limbs would allow him. Stan stayed put for a moment to give Soos an exasperated stare.
"Nevermind! I think I know now!" Soos dashed off to get a fire extinguisher. The old man looked back to the growing smoke geyser still spewing from the vehicle and just shook his head.
"Heck of a start we're off to here…."