Summary: After falling into another dimension, Ford is rescued by a kindly mutant. Having no one else to turn to, he is forced to trust her. But, that doesn't mean he trusts the two dream demons that she's been traveling with.

Final part of the pilot episode. Be ready for angst, romance, demon antics, cryptograms, and Bob. The last one will make *cough* slightly *cough* more sense in context.

Chapter Three: Trust No One (Part Three)

Ford didn't know how long they sat there, but he didn't care. He was too busy being entranced with his sketch. He eventually finished and paused to admire his work. Then, just as quickly felt embarrassed by it.

"It looks just like me."

Ford jumped at the voice. He swallowed, his face inflamed. He immediately regretted capturing her smiling face on paper. "Have you been watching me?"

Nadia's carefree smile never wavered. "I've just never really watched someone work before. It kind of makes me wonder if I look that focused, when I'm making my own artworks." She took the pad and pen from him. She smiled at the sketched portrait of her - one that, Ford realized, had nothing on her actual profile - before flipping to a new page. "Now, I'm feeling inspired. Do you mind if I draw you?"

Ford started at the request. "I-I suppose not."

Nadia grinned, and Ford could have sworn his stomach had turned inside-out. The mutant began her portrait, and Ford found himself observing her. The way her small hand seemed to glide over the paper, the way her brow pinched in concentration, the way her smile morphed into something a bit more determined. He briefly wondered if he had looked like that when he was drawing her.

"I think you do," he stated.

Nadia didn't stop working, as she asked, "Do what?"

"Look as focused as me, when you work. I think you probably do."

Nadia stopped drawing and looked at him, her expression unreadable. Ford wondered if he had said something offensive. Then, she smiled softly and returned to her work. Ford released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Their peace was interrupted by the sudden appearance of two dream demons, both looking more than a little freaked out.

Starclops smacked the pen out of Nadia's hand and exclaimed, "Cut the romantic crap! We've got a mob after us!"

Nadia clutched the sketchpad to her chest and visibly paled, though it was unclear if it was because of the bad news or the phrase "romantic crap." "I-I beg your pardon?"

"The townsfolk gathered in the form of an angry mob stereotype," Tad explained a lot more calmly, but it was clearly forced. "Starclops and I managed to elude them, but they burned our camp."

"Those guys have definitely heard of Bill Cipher," Starclops added.

As he and Nadia got to their feet, Ford couldn't help commenting, "You know, this seems kind of unfair. Call me a hypocrite, but it doesn't seem right for people to judge your entire species based on the knowledge of one of your kind."

Starclops crossed her arms and squinted at him. "Oh? What's your excuse, Dr. Hypocrisy?"

Ford looked away in guilt, especially since he still wasn't sure what to make of Nadia's friends. "Point taken."

A commotion was heard was the bottom of the hill. Ford and Nadia turned around, and the latter drew in a sharp breath and pulled a hand over her mouth in shock. A horde of faceless people, carrying pitchforks and torches - so they were an angry mob stereotype - was getting dangerously close to finding them. One of the members pointed to them and shouted something Ford didn't understand. Whatever it was, it certainly got the rest of the mob riled up. They headed toward their targets.

"What do we do?" Nadia asked, though it was unclear whether or not she expected an answer.

Tad gave her one that wasn't very helpful. "I don't know! It's not like we can just beat them up for trying to protect themselves."

Starclops nodded in agreement. "Yeah, even if they are all idiots for just," she passed Ford a pointed look, "assuming we're evil. Hint, hint."

Ford frowned, knowing that she was right (and feeling like total crap because of it). Just because she and Tad were Bill's species didn't mean they were like him. He looked down at the mob, who were about to ascend the hill, probably aware that their targets would have no safe means of escape, given the cliff. Although, it may not have dawned on them that Tad and Starclops could just teleport themselves away.

So, why weren't they doing that now?

The answer was obvious, Ford realized. Tad and Starclops were floating protectively in front of him and Nadia. They were trying to protect them. Maybe they weren't like Bill.

Ford pushed past them and made his way toward the crowd below, ignoring Nadia's cry of, "Ford, what you doing?"

He stopped at the base of the hill, and the faceless mob stopped in front of him. Before he could second-guess himself, Ford cleared his throat. "Okay, um, does anyone here speak Eng- Er, the universal language?" About half of the crowd raised their hands, none of which had any fingers. Ford briefly wondered how they were able to hold their pitchforks and torches, as their weapons seemed to merely stick to the ends of their...probably-hands? "Alright. Please, translate for those that don't. Now, I'm sure that this is all just a big misunderstanding. I had a similar first impression of them, but it's clear to me now that these dream demons mean you no harm." Nadia, Tad, and Starclops came down to stand beside him. "The mutant with them is also very kind and friendly. Now, what's say we all drop the pitchforks and put out the torch fires and start over?"

The silence was unbearable. Ford wished that the populace had faces so that he could see what they were thinking. Nadia put her hand on his shoulder and flashed a grateful smile. He looked to the other side of him. Starclops gave him a thumbs-up, and Tad literally glowed in approval.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Kill them all!" then repeated herself in the native language.

"Well, that didn't work," Starclops commented. She pushed them all away. "Let's bail!"

They ran. Well, Ford and Nadia ran. Tad and Starclops just flew along side them. The mob stayed hot on their tail.

Something occurred to Ford. "Can't you guys just teleport us to safety?"

"We tried teleporting with a partner once," Tad answered. "Let's just say, the guy was seriously messed up from it."

Ford didn't ask what that meant. Nadia tripped and fell on top of him, sending them both to the ground. Ford lifted his head, spat out a mouthful of grass (which felt strangely similar to carpeting), and rolled Nadia off of him. The two dream demons magicked them to their feet.

"Hey, isn't that the guy we teleported with?" Starclops wondered.

Ford followed her gaze and nearly fell over again. The giant head looked perfectly human and so did the arm. The problem was that the arm was coming out of the top of the head, and there were no other body parts. It was using its huge hand to drag itself around.

This was what happened when dream demons teleported with people!?

"Excuse me." It's voice was loud, deep like a man's, and disturbingly human. The mob stopped dead. The creature pointed to itself. "Will one of you please get in my mouth?"

The mobbers screamed and ran, their mission apparently forgotten. Ford didn't know whether to be relieved or run away with them.

"See why we don't teleport with partners?" Tad asked casually.

Starclops waved happily at the strange head-creature. "Thanks, Bob!"

The bizarre creature - with a bizarrely normal name - dragged itself toward them. "Perhaps one of you would like to get in my mouth?"

Nadia used the hand that wasn't clutching her sketchbook to pick a rock up off the ground and threw it. "Leave us alone!" The rock hit Bob in the forehead - or maybe the armpit - and fell harmlessly in front of him. "Why did I think that would work?"

Bob glanced down at it, unfazed, then looked back at them. "Seriously? That's just rude. Now someone get in my mouth."

"Zap!" Starclops shouted, as she fired a mint-green beam from her finger. Bob cringed in pain as more beams it him. "Zap! Zap! Zap!"

Bob scowled. "Fine! I can take a hint! I'll find someone else to get in my mouth!" With that, he dragged himself in the opposite direction, muttering about how he would complain to his mother about them.

After that...experience was over, the four of them eventually found an uninhabited cave and decided to make a new camp there for the time being. Tad snapped his fingers, and a red fire blazed in the center. They all sat around it and didn't speak for a while.

Eventually, Ford cleared his throat. "Well, now that we have some time, maybe you all could answer a few questions for me. First off, where exactly are we?"

"In a cave," Starclops said.

Ford rolled his eyes. "I realize that. I mean, what is this area called? What's the name of this dimension?"

"Well, I can't help you with the name of the dimension itself," Tad replied, "but the town's called Xytophsky, and the natives are called Twileens."

Ford nodded. "Okay, now what in Hell's name was that...head-thing?"

Starclops laughed. "'That head-thing' is the reason we don't teleport with people. Poor Bob. We messed him up good! Before we got to him, the last thing he was interested in was eating people!"

"And, he looked like...the way he looks, even then?"

"Yeah, totally. But, he wasn't nearly as cranky."

"Uh...yeah. And, what exactly are you all doing here, anyway?"

"We're DHs," Tad answered.

Ford raised an eyebrow. "DHs?"

"It stands for Dimension Hoppers. We wander a dimension until a rift opens up, then we move on to the next place. We hop through dimensions. Dimension Hoppers. Get it?"

Starclops rolled her eye. "I guess the guy who named it thought it was funny."

Ford took a moment to process this information. "And, do rifts open up often?"

Tad nodded. "Oh, yeah. Natural rifts, usually. But, on very rare occasions, we stumble across a synthetic rift, like the one you came through."

Natural rifts. Synthetic rifts. Could these have been the cause of all the unusual creatures in Gravity Falls? If so, why Gravity Falls? Why not Glass Shard Beach or Paris or some other part of Earth? Ford glanced over at Nadia, who had been quietly drawing away in her sketchbook. This close up, he could see just how deeply her cheek had been cut, but he didn't want to make her uncomfortable by asking how she came to receive such a scar.

"You seem awful quiet," he commented instead.

Nadia didn't look up. She spoke so quietly, Ford almost didn't hear her. "I trusted the Twileens."

Ford felt a pang of sympathy. He thought back to the way he'd trust Bill.

"Bill! You lied to me! Where does that portal really lead?"

"You can't stop a bridge between our worlds from coming, but it would be fun to watch you try. Cute, even!"

Ford forced the memory to the back of his mind. Tad and Starclops were busying themselves with what appeared to some sort of game, involving black blobs of floating...things and making them...fight or something. Ford scooted closer to Nadia and watched her draw. He blinked. So, she had decided to draw him. The sketch depicted him with a furrowed brow and a determined smile. Assumingly, he really did look as she did right now, when he was focused on something he liked. But, now, her expression had a darker undertone to it. Ford knew why.

"You know, I know what it's like to be betrayed," he told her.

She stopped drawing and looked skeptically at him. "Oh?"

Ford sighed. Should he tell her? It seemed too late to back out. Especially, now that Tad and Starclops had magicked away their game pieces and were currently looking at him expectantly.

He decided that he didn't have much choice. "You see, back on Earth, my home-dimension, I worked as a paranormal researcher. I was studying certain creatures in a town called Gravity Falls."

Starclops groaned. "Apparently, someone thought that was also funny."

Tad ignored her. "What kind of creatures did you research?"

"Ones that were unusual for my dimension," Ford replied. "Ones that were only told of in legend or weren't even heard of at all. Up until today, no one on Earth, as far as I know, had ever even heard of the occurrence of natural rifts, so no one knew where these creatures were coming from. I suspected that these creatures had come to Earth from another world." He looked meaningfully at the dream demons. "That's when I met Bill Cipher. He came to me in a dream and told me that he chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire." He groaned and ran a frustrated hand over his face. "I can't believe I was dumb enough to consider him a friend. Anyway, he tricked me into building a portal that would open a gateway between dimensions."

"So, a machine that would produce a synthetic rift?" Nadia guessed.

"Exactly. Long story short, I discovered that Bill wanted the portal for something much more sinister. I'm not entirely sure what his plans are, but I knew then that I had to shut down the portal, thus severing the link between our worlds."

"But, if you turned off the portal," Tad said, "how did you end up here?"

Ford bit his bottom lip.

"Stanley, you don't understand what I'm up against! What I've been through!"

"You think you've got problems? I've got a mullet, Stanford!"

"I'm giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life, and you won't even listen!"

"You care more about your dumb mysteries than your family? Well then, you can have 'em!"

Starclops conjured a large white hand and used it to slap him in the face. Ford yelped and rubbed his now-stinging cheek. "Ow. Seriously?"

Starclops laughed. "You were zoned out for so long, I couldn't resist. Now, how'd you end up here?"

Ford adjusted his glasses and looked away. "That's not something I'm comfortable answering."

They sat in awkward silence for a minute, then Tad tapped him on the shoulder. "So, what are you gonna do now?"

"What do you mean?" Ford asked.

"Do you have anywhere to go or anything?" Ford's frowned deepened. His silence was all the answer Tad needed. "In that case… Well, I've been thinking, and I'm hoping the girls here will back me up on this, it was pretty brave of you to stand up for us. We're usually the misfits with no friends besides each other, so it was a nice change." Misfits with no friends… Ford glanced sadly down at his six-fingered hands on his lap. "And, you're obviously pretty smart. Also, you seemed pretty calm about being apparently-forced into a foreign dimension. Most people would have gone insane within the first hour." Fiddleford McGucket came to mind. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you don't have somewhere to be or anything, maybe you'd like to travel with us."

Ford blinked in shock. Travel with them? Even though it was clear that none of them wanted to hurt him (probably), the idea was completely ludicrous. They were two dream demons with physical forms and a mutant with healing properties. He was a powerless human with little-to-no knowledge of other dimensions. What use would he be?

Starclops must have felt the same, because she started laughing. "Him? What good would he be?"

Tad shrugged. "I just have a feeling about this guy." He wrapped his arm around her. "Remember when I had a feeling about you? Everyone told me not to trust you, but I didn't listen, now did I?"

Starclops didn't respond, but the look in her eye said that she didn't have an argument.

Nadia smiled at the human beside her. "Well, I think it's a great idea."

Ford shook his head. "No, Starclops is right. All I'd do is slow you guys down. Besides, I'd like to return to my own dimension at some point."

"Which only gives you incentive to be a fellow dimension-hopper," Tad pointed out. "Natural rifts are unpredictable, but if Bill does need a synthetic rift to get to your dimension, then maybe natural ones are your best bet. Plus, there's safety in numbers."

Tad had a point, but… Ford sighed. "Can I think about it?"

"Sure. We'll probably start rift-hunting in the morning, so take some time to think, 'kay?"

Ford couldn't sleep. Too much had happened that day. His mind was racing from the portal-incident, his dream about Bill, having a run-in with an angry mob, that big...head...thing. And, of course, Tad's offer. It was a good offer. Ford didn't know how to get home without going through a rift, and the demon had brought up some very good points. Still, Ford couldn't let go of the nagging feeling that at least one of the three was hiding something. He sighed, giving up on sleep.

Tad and Starclops were supposed to be on lookout duty; apparently - although, unsurprisingly - dream demons didn't need sleep. However, as Nadia had explained to him, they were more likely spying on other people's dreams. It made sense, given their species. Ford looked over at Nadia.

She had been whimpering in her sleep for a while and muttering something in her native language ("Sohdvh vwrs... L fdq'w khos lw…"). She was obviously having a nightmare. Ford wanted to wake her up, but he knew from experience that doing so could scare her even more.

However, when she started screaming, "Qr! Vwrs lw! L kdwh brx!" and clawing at the wall of the cave, Ford knew he had to do something.

He all but leaped to her side and shook her shoulder. "Nadia! Nadia, wake up!"

Nadia's eyes shot open, and her hand glowed pale blue. She threw a blue orb - Ford barely dodged it in time - and it landed on the wall a short distance away, huge ice crystals in its place. Ford made a mental note of her abilities: healing and now ice. What more was this woman capable of?

"Ford?" Her frightened squeak brought him back to the present. It hadn't been a trick of the light, before; her eyes really did glow in the dark. Night vision, perhaps? Only, now they held a watery sheen. "Oh, no... A-are you okay? I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to-"

Ford held up a silencing hand and offered a comforting smile. "It's alright, Nadia. What I'd like to know is, are you okay?" He looked down at her hands in alarm. "You're-You're bleeding!"

Nadia stared at her hands - bloody from clawing at a stone wall - and balled them into fists. They glowed white momentarily, and then her hands looked as they had before they'd been injured. She didn't look up. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"I was up, anyway." Ford placed a gently hand over one of hers; were her hands small, or were his just really big? "I don't know if your kind do this, but humans, like myself, usually feel better if we tell someone about our nightmares."

Nadia tried to play it off like she was brushing hair from her face, but Ford knew that she was really brushing tears from her eyes. His heart broke for her. "I don't remember what it was about." It was one of the least convincing lies Ford had ever heard, but he knew better than to push her to tell him. She finally looked at him. He pretended not to notice how sad she looked. "Why were you awake?"

She was purposely changing the subject. Ford allowed it. "It's been a hell of a day, Nadia. As you can well-imagine, I've got a lot on my mind." Nadia nodded in understanding. She seemed relieved that he was playing along. "Tell me, Nadia, how do you feel about traveling through dimensions with Tad and Starclops?"

Nadia smiled, this time genuinely. "It's amazing! I've seen so many species, learned so many things! Sure, we've had some tight spots, but we always have each other's backs." She looked outside, at the colorful night sky, a contented sigh escaping her lips. "I don't know much about Bill, other than what you told me, but I know he's different than Tad and Starclops. They're the best friends you could ask for." She looked back at Ford, who couldn't help being borderline-hypnotized by her the glow of her eyes. If her nightmare hadn't been forgotten before, it was forgotten now. "I'm not going to make you come with us, Ford, but I think you'd really like it."

She looked back outside, and Ford gazed at the lights with her. If Nadia noticed that his hand was still over hers, she didn't comment or pull away. Not that Ford minded.

The both woke to freezing cold water pouring over them. Nadia cried out in shock, and Ford yelled, "What the fu-"

Starclops was doubled over in laughter, as she magicked away a now-empty bucket. "Holy crap! Were-Were you two ha-having fun, last night?" Whatever else she was trying to say was lost in a fit of insane laughter.

Ford and Nadia both blushed as it dawned on them what happened. Apparently, they had fallen asleep next to each other. They simultaneously protested that they didn't do anything, but Starclops was too busy laughing to pay any attention.

At least, until Tad smacked the back of her head. "Knock it off, Star," he chided. "They're fully clothed, aren't they? I'm pretty sure all they did was sleep."

If Starclops had a mouth, she would have been grinning madly. "Oh, I bet they slept real good!"

"We didn't do anything," Nadia muttered, as she and Ford stood up, their faces still burning with embarrassment.

Tad made a noise that sounded like a tongue clicking. "So...uh, Ford. You, uh, have you thought about my offer?"

Ford nodded, grateful for Tad's diversion. "Yeah. If you'll all have me, I suppose I could join up with you guys, for a while."

Starclops giggled. "Yeah, you wanna join all of us. Sure." Tad smacked her head again. "Oh, I'm kidding. Lighten up, Stranger."

Ford chuckled at their antics. He had a feeling that he'd have to get used to that. A pang hit him, when he realized how similar Starclops was to his brother… He forced the thought out of his mind.

"You'll get used to them," Nadia said. She was already wearing the backpack Tad had conjured for her last night. "I'm glad you decided to stay."

Tad nodded. "We have a lot of fun. You'll have a great time."

"Hey, doofuses," Starclops said, looking at something nearby. "Check out this brand of perfect timing."

They all followed her gaze. Not far from the cave, was a glowing white light. It's shape morphed nonstop, its outline moving in a circular motion. What was it?

Tad must have sensed Ford's confusion. He gestured to the shaped and explained, "That, right there, is a rift. You can tell it's naturally occurring, because it has no definite shape."

Starclops started towards it. "Well, let's get a move on, then."

The others followed. Ford asked, "Where will it take us?"

Tad shrugged. "Heck, if we know. Like I said, these things are unpredictable."

"But, the randomness only adds to the excitement," Nadia added.

Ford took a deep breath, steadying his rising nerves, and followed them into the rift.

Did you all like the first episode? I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it...which is a lot. Now, I want you guys' opinions. I plan on making this into three seasons: one for each decade Ford is in the portal, each focusing on a different sort of plot (probably). What I want to know is...should I make a separate story for each season, or should I just stick them all in one story? Please review, then vote on my profile.

Also, if you have an idea for an episode, please let me know. If I like it, I just might post it!

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