Chapter 7, also known as The Reason Why This Story Is Now T.

This chapter is a bit more serious than the others, and there's blood, so... yeah. Don't worry, nothing too graphic. Just putting it out there.

This chapter features Bill's new-found caring side...kind of. Hmm...

Also, longest chapter evah. Word count being about 3,568 rather than my usual 2,300, so prepare yourselves.


Another week went by with Maria wishing that this was all a dream; that she would wake up to find the twins still there and the humanized triangle as nothing more than a figment of her imagination. Sadly, life seemed to be giving her the crystal clear message of You wish!

So to cope with it all, she decided to watch the horror movie marathon that was playing all through Saturday.

After all, those movies can't be any scarier than my own life, can they?

She sat down on the couch in her pyjamas, a blanket on her lap, and a bowl of popcorn in hand. Bill had been surprisingly quiet all day. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of him.

About halfway through 'Friday the 13th' and in the middle of Maria's rant towards 'the ditz who opened the door', she heard loud knocking at the door. Thinking it might have been a door-to-door salesman selling something akin to 'Stan-vac', she ignored it and focused on the movie. A couple minutes later and the knocking was heard once again, louder this time.

Exasperated, Maria got up and checked the window... only to find no one there.

Are the kids around here that desperate for a ding-dong ditch?

She opened the door in hopes of finding the perpetrators, prepared to cast a paralyzing spell. She poked her head out, and with a flash of blue, a screaming head appeared on the ground. Maria screamed and used the spell, freezing the head mid-screech. Her breathing was shallow as she she tried to process what the fudge just happened when Bill's voice was heard from the rafters.

"It worked!" he cried as he jumped down.

"What worked?" Maria rasped, trying to recover from the near heart attack.

"Nothing much." he smiled broadly "Just that I got magic!" Cards popped out of his sleeves like a corny magician.

"What?"

"Yeah, I found out when I was cleaning the yard a couple days ago. There were these little blue sparks in my hand and- Hey, are you okay?"

Maria looked as white as a sheet, her eyes wide with realization and horror. She slammed the door shut and ran inside, hiding in the bedroom closet. She curled up into a ball.

It's all a dream. It's all a dream.

"Maria? Maria!" Bill could be heard searching the house.

She couldn't believe it. After all those weeks... he'd seen all her weaknesses, everything that she'd kept hidden from him... he knew and now he was in the physical realm. He could do whatever he wanted.

"Maria!"

He sounded closer now.

This is how it all ends. You idiot, why did you let your guard down?!

The door opened. "Maria? Mar- Why are you in the closet?"

"You're back..." she whispered.

"What?" he arched an eyebrow, bending down to hear her better.

"You're back and you're in the physical realm and you can do whatever you want." she said as she started trembling.

Bill had no immediate response to that. Sure, he had his powers back, but not all of them. He could only conjure stuff up and maybe levitate a bit, but his magic was still significantly weak compared to hers. And if that wasn't reason enough to tell her what was going on, then the nervous wreck in front of him gave all the rest of the argument needed.

Now I can add guilt to my ever-growing list of emotions.

"Maria?" he called out gently.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Let me thi- Wait, no. Maria, would ya stop freaking out? It's not even real magic." he explained as he knelt in front of her.

"Really?" she looked up at him.

"Yeah, nothing to worry about. At least, not in the way you're thinking."

"You don't have magic?" she asked, her voice small.

"Just a little, and even then its extremely hard to do."

She nodded, getting her thoughts in order. Bill picked her up and took her back to her spot on the couch. He glanced at the TV to see what she was watching.

"Is that a horror movie?"

She swallowed painfully and nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"Wow, look at those effects. No wonder you're so jumpy." he grumbled that last part under his breath.

He sat down next to her and started channel surfing, trying to find something to bring the old Maria back. She was no fun in her current state. He kept flicking until the UTBAHC came up, showing a documentary about the Chupacabra.

"Hey, look! It's Chupie!" he exclaimed fondly.

Maria snorted, getting his attention. "The Chupacabra isn't real."

"Says the witch."

"It's been proven."

"By who? The scientists who don't know you exist?"

She hesitated. "Okay, you have a point."

"And I'll have you know that he was one of my beloved pets. When was the last time I fed him..?" he trailed off, tapping a finger on his chin. "Oh, yeah. Back in the 1800s."

"Why'd you stop feeding him?"

"He got too big, so I let him live in the wild."

"The wild?" she questioned, unimpressed. "Where are Chupacabras indigenous to, exactly?"

"Dimension 32, I think."

She glared at him.

"Okay, I'll admit it's not the smartest move on my part."

"Ya think?"


Maria slept until 11:00am on Sunday. Bill had kept her up late last night when he refused to leave her alone. Becoming more bold with his attachment to her, he had attempted to sleep in her room, only to once again be thrown out.

He got slightly paranoid at one point, believing that Maria might have another horror movie induced panic attack, so he went up to check on her. She was perfectly fine, deep in peaceful slumber. Now that he was there, he didn't want to go back down, so he just crawled under the covers with her.

"Bill?" Maria asked groggily. "Why are you in my room?"

"I came to check on you." He mumbled, concerned.

Maria was pretty used to his shenanigans by now, so she just shrugged and moved over. Bill snuggled up close to her.

"Bill, please move." she said softly.

He moved back a bit.

"Further." she said.

He obliged.

"Further."

He scooted so far back that he fell off.

"That's good." she smiled.

Bill pulled the covers down to wrap around himself. Unfortunately (or good for him, I guess), he pulled Maria down on top of him.

"Oof!" Maria groaned. "Biiiiilll..."

"Sorry..." he mumbled with a smile on his face.

Maria tried to get up, only to get further tangled in the sheets.

"Forget it." she murmured as she snuggled into his chest "I'm sleeping here tonight...*yawn*...I'll just stay right here and crush you in my sleep."

"You know you're not that heavy, right?" he said.

"Not caring... Too busy sleeping..." And with that she fell asleep in her little cocoon as Bill wrapped his arms around her.


When Maria woke up, the first thing she noticed was that she was on the ground. She shrugged it off, thinking nothing of it.

Must have had a nightmare. Stupid horror movies.

Still, she felt like she was forgetting something. She made her bed and went to the bathroom. It was when she was rinsing her mouth did she remember.

Bill's probably hungry.. wait, where is he?!

The blonde had gone to sleep with her and disappeared by the time she had woken up. Maria grew worried. She ran down the stairs in her pyjamas.

"Bill!" No reply.

She checked the basement. No sign of him. She checked the kitchen. Still clean. He wasn't anywhere in the house.

Wait... did he go outside..?

Maria checked the back door and sure enough, it was open. Maria was in full-on panic mode as she ran into the forest, shouting his name. After a while, she found some blood on the ground. It led to a pile of teeth.

Bill...

Maria fell to her knees and started to cry, then she heard some rustling coming from a nearby bush. Fearing it was the creature that killed Bill, she backed away, preparing herself for the worst.

"Maria, what happened?" Bill asked as he emerged from shrubbery "And why are you crying..?"

"B-Bill?" Maria sniffled in wonder "You're alive?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"But the blood... and the teeth..." she glanced at the pile.

"Oh, um... I... uh, went hunting." Bill said nervously.

"What?" Maria asked, confused.

"Well, I wanted some deer teeth and when I tried to conjure them up, all I got was baby teeth. So I went out to get some."

"Are you out of your mind?! That's insane!" Maria cried, now getting mad at him for scaring her.

"Sure I am, what's your point?" Bill said out of habit.

"Do you have any idea what you put me through?! I actually thought you were..." she trailed off, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Bill sat down next to Maria and hugged her in an attempt to calm her down. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. Eventually the sobs died down until they were just hiccups.

"So what I'm hearing," Bill started "is that you would be really upset if something happened to me."

"As if." she sniffled "I just can't stand the sight of blood."

Wait a minute...

Maria pulled away to looked at Bill's pyjamas. He was covered in blood. She checked her own clothes, which were now also a blood-filled mess.

Those stains are never coming out. Rest in peace favourite PJs.

She sighed.

"Where's the dear you killed?" Maria asked tiredly.

Bill stood up and led her to a bush. He parted it to show a just barely alive deer with a bleeding mouth. Maria eyes watered and she immediately threw up.

"What is the matter with you? It's still alive!" Maria yelled at Bill.

Wincing, Bill replied "I guess I didn't hit it hard enough."

"That is awful!" she scolded "Seriously, that is absolutely sick..."

She summoned a hunting knife and gave it to him.

"Just... kill it properly, don't let it suffer anymore." she said, her voice growing quieter.

She looked away as he finished the job.


The two of them had to dispose of their blood covered clothes. Bill changed back into his sweater and jeans. Maria put on a denim jacket with matching pants, a blue-green brown-striped shirt, and a blue-green beanie over her head.

She used the old clothes to wrap the deer while she levitated it. It was given to the Corduroys as a present. Manly Dan had taken it while Wendy stayed outside to talk to Maria.

"So, I don't hear from you for a month and you come back with a carcass?" Wendy said as she gawked at the mutilated animal as it was carried inside.

"Yeah..." Maria shuffled uncomfortably.

"Dude, I thought you couldn't stand blood."

"I can't. Bill did it." Maria replied bitterly.

"Who's Bill?"

"He's staying at my place for a bit."

"You sure about that? I mean, if he did this, don't you think he could do the same to you?" Wendy said worriedly.

"I know what I'm doing. He's a big fat sicko, but he's nothing more to me than a pain."

"If you say so..."

Unbeknownst to them, Bill had been hiding in the bushes and heard every word. A tear of regret fell from his eye.


Maria had given Bill the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. He followed her around spouting apologies, which she pointedly ignored. She continued her chores as usual, not even acknowledging his existence if he tried to stand in her way, simply shoving past him.

By afternoon, Bill had given up. He stayed in the basement, trying to think of some way to make it up to her.

Maria was glad he had decided to leave her alone. She sat in the living room as she looked through one of her spell books, wondering which one she should practice today. She finally decided on teleportation, figuring she needed to perfect it at some point. She gathered her supplies in a backpack and left for her training area.

Upon reaching the clearing, she raised the rock wall and sat down, reading the page over a few times to ensure maximum chance of success.

Ready... 3, 2, 1, jump!

Maria snapped her fingers and disappeared with a puff of purple smoke. She reappeared twenty feet away from where she originally stood and collapsed.

"20 feet," she panted "Not bad."

She kept practicing, jumping from one end of the clearing to the other.


Bill was searching through his memories for some sort of way to sufficiently apologize to Maria. She seemed to hate him even more than before now.

List of things human females..er, girls like:

1. Chocolate

2. Flowers

3. Appreciation

WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE FIGURED ALL THIS OUT EARLIER, YOU IDIOT?!

After sufficiently beating himself up for his stupidity, he decided that flowers were the only option right now, so he went upstairs. Upon leaving, he noticed the back door was unlocked.

Guess Maria wanted some fresh air.


After half an hour, Bill had a cute little bouquet of daisies. His flower-picking had led him to the same clearing Maria had brought him to that first day. The walls were raised and there were faint plumes of purple smoke coming out the top so he figured she must be in there.

He figured he might as well practice what he would say to her while waiting.

"Umm, Maria? I'm sorry.. No, I apologize for upsetting you... No, um, I'm sorry for killing the deer..."


Maria had been teleporting herself for 2 hours in hopes of improving. She now had the assurance that going 60 ft wouldn't be too much of a problem. She started to think about the events of the past few weeks.

"Stupid Cipher."

Snap, jump.

"Heartless as ever!" She stomped around pulling at her hair. "Erghh!"

Snap, jump.

"Why did I believe he would change..?" She sniffled tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

She wasn't properly focusing at this point, so when she snapped her fingers, she appeared in the air, not knowing where or how far above the ground she was.

She screamed, bracing for impact.


"...I didn't mean to upset you? No, umm, how 'bout..." Bill was still muttering to himself about how to apologize.

"Oh, forget it!" he screeched in a fit of anger. He threw the flowers to the ground. He started yelling, hands balled into fists at his sides.

"Why should I care if she hates me? Tons of people hate me! Why should she be any different?!" He was shaking his hands in front of him, almost as if they were the ones he who could answer.

Just then, he heard screaming and barely had time to register it when Maria fell from above and landed in his outstretched arms. She held his neck and pulled herself against him tightly, eyes closed the whole time. His heart immediately fluttered and started beating faster.

Oh, yeah, he thought dryly, That's why.

Maria was breathing heavily, her thoughts racing. The fall had scared her, but on top of that, she had no idea where she was or what she was holding on to. For all she knew, she had teleported herself off a cliff. She had started flailing for something to hold onto. A branch, a rock, something, when she had landed on something. No, more like in something. She had blindly grabbed on to it before impact, gripping it tightly for fear of falling off. She didn't really care what it was so long as she stopped falling.

After a moment, her breathing slowed a bit but her thoughts were still whizzing around in her head. She attempted to get a general idea of her situation.

Breathe... calm down. Take stock. Open your eyes, don't look down.

Maria loosened her grip a bit, but upon doing so, she felt whatever she was in shift slightly. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes, her fear still strongly present.

It's quiet, not too quiet; still in the forest, should be in a tree.

She felt around with her hands a bit. The thing moved again.

Is this hair? What am I holding on to?!

Maria opened her eyes and found herself face to face with none other than Bill Cipher, looking at her with no small amount of apprehension. She grimaced.

"The universe must have a sense of humor," she muttered darkly, and pushed herself away from him.

Bill put her down and Maria found she was only a mere 20 feet away from the clearing. She stomped back, already preparing herself to lower part of the wall and enter. Bill was a bit dazed by what just happened and it took him a while to catch up to her.

"Maria, wait!" he called.

"Go away." she called back coldly, not pausing her stride.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he asked, walking closely behind her.

She abruptly turned around and slapped him.

"What part of 'go away' do you not understand?" she hissed.

Bill cupped his injured cheek as she let herself in. He managed to squeeze through before the opening closed.

"Maria come on, it was just a deer!" he said, hoping she would realize she was overreacting.

Maria froze, back still turned to him.

"Is that really what you think?" she asked.

"Well, yeah." he said.

She turned her head a bit. "That may have 'just been a deer', but you killed it."

"Animals get killed all the time. I don't see what you're getting all mad about."

She turned around, taking an aggressive stance. Flames ignited in her eyes.

"Maybe I wouldn't be so mad if you had shown it some humanity!" she screamed.

Bill took an involuntary step back.

"You pulled the teeth out of a creature that was still perfectly well alive! A creature that could feel the pain of every single tooth being pulled out! I bet you even enjoyed it's misery!" she cried.

He looked down and shuffled uncomfortably.

"And here I am thinking that you'd changed." She spat before laughing bitterly, the flames in her eyes taking on a bluish hue. "What a stupid sap I was, believing that you would- no, could be good. That you could be human. What happened this morning just showed me that I was wrong. Bill Cipher will forever be sadistic torturer we all know and hate."

Bill felt his heart break with how much venom she put into that one word. "Maria, no, wait. I-"

"I actually trusted you! I actually started to..." she trailed off before her fury came came back full force. "I should have known better than to think that someone- no, something that has been living like that for centuries would actually change within a few weeks!"

Maria was crying now, tears streaming down her cheeks. Bill watched as she fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands. He felt his heart break a little more with how defeated she looked.

"What's stopping you from doing it again? What's stopping you from torturing more creatures the same way? I'm sure you'd just love to hear the screams of the townsfolk as you did the same to them. You could just spill all the blood you want with nothing but a rock..."

"You." he stated simply.

Maria looked up through teary eyes.

"What?" she asked, her voice tight with emotion.

"Maria, I've been human for barely a month, but a lot's happened in that time."

He took a tentative step forward.

"I could have killed you in your sleep that first night with a knife from the kitchen."

Another careful step.

"I could have butchered the entire town and felt the euphoria of the blood on my hands as I mutilated their bodies."

He took another step.

"But I didn't... because the thought of upsetting you wouldn't let me."

Maria watched as he sat down in front of her.

"I... I fell for you that first night, both literally and figuratively. Whenever I was around you, and I wasn't feeling fear or adrenaline, I... felt... love."


The chapter is really getting long so I am going to cut it off here.

Is it just me or did I just write a sitcom-turned-soap-opera? Also, wondering if this is a bit rushed, or did I stretch it out? Not really sure...

So I'd really like to know what y'all be thinking, my peeps.