This chapter is longer than the others, but I didn't want to separate it up. Also, I'm very lazy. :P


For once, Ford found himself dropping off to sleep in what used to be his old room, his body succumbing to the comfort of the soft cushion and light rain against the window as he read through some of his notes. It was night time, and he figured he'd just take a nap while everything was quiet, lying down on the couch and closing his eyes.

It hardly seemed seconds later that his eyes snapped open, seeing a wide prairie in front of him. His eyes flickered around. To his left he saw an eternally-unfinished boat. To his right, a solitary swing set. He could sense the portal behind him, like an eternal ghoulish reminder of his biggest mistake.

—No, his broken promises to Stanley was his biggest mistake—

—or was it the first dream he ever had—

Ford clenched his hands in his hair, muttering 'shut up shut up shut up' over and over again. He DIDN'T need this internal pissing match again! He grumbled to himself, becoming aware that a wind was picking up across the beige-colored sky that blew the plains back around him. From the air, he could hear laughter.

Familiar laughter.

"I know that laugh…" he murmured, straightening up and looking around wildly. "SHOW YOURSELF!" He stepped back when a flash of light beamed out in front of him, and the amused for of Bill Cipher appeared.

"Well well well," Bill said, hovering over Ford's Mindscape form. "Stanford Filbrick Pines! Arent you a sight for sore eye. Got a little greyer in the hair, didn't ya?"

"Bill Cipher," Ford replied, grimacing. "What do you want!?" He recoiled back when Bill slipped up next to him and slung a spindly arm around his shoulders.

"Oh, don't play dumb, Sixer, you knew I'd be back!" the demon retorted, ruffling Ford's hair. "You couldn't keep ME away forever. I've been chatting with old friends, making deals…" If Bill were capable of smirking, Ford was sure he'd be seeing one right now. "…keeping an eye on your family."

Ford scowled, swatting at Bill. "You stay away from them!" he snapped. "This has NOTHING to do with them, Cipher! This is between me and you!"

Bill laughed. "Oh, you're so naïve, Sixer!" he said, crossing his arms behind his back. "Just like last time. All the pieces are there, but you cant see them right out in front of you." His eye flashed red, the pupil slitting dangerously, holding up his hand and forming an image of the rift in it. "It'll be easy-peasy getting this rift. Sooner or later, my puppet will FINALLY be ready."

Ford paled, swallowing hard. "Puppet?" he weakly demanded. Bill juggled the rift between his hands.

"Oh yeah," Bill replied. "At first, I thought I'd go for Pine Tree. Paranoid, sleep-deprived…just ready and waiting for the picking. Plus, I know his body inside and out by this point." He tossed the rift in an arc over his head, and Ford felt his hands flinch instinctively.

"THEN I thought, oh, why not Shooting Star? That little lump of sugar is ALMOST ripe for doing my bidding." He tossed the rift over his head and caught it with his free hand behind his back.

"But then, why not go for the BEST PUPPET OF ALL?"

He threw the rift to the ground, where it shattered and showed a horrifying image of a fiery tear in the universe. Ford unconsciously backed up, feeling his body shake when a beastly, bloody image of a fully-zombified Stanley crawled out of the rift, all humanity gone with several demonic features making his image all the more terrifying.

"NO!" Ford shouted, glowering hatefully at Bill. "THAT WONT HAPPEN! GET OUT OF HERE! YOU'LL NEVER HAVE DOMINION IN OUR WORLD!"

Bill laughed, hovering over the nightmarish form of Stanley. "Maybe not right now, but things change, Stanford Pines." His body went transparent, melding down into Stanley's body, making it stand up straight, eyes glowing with bright gold dead lights and slitted pupils. A wide, cruel grin spread across his face, showing bloody, sharp teeth.

"THINGS CHANGE."

Ford cringed back, covering his ears as deafening laughter rang through his head, louder and louder and louder—

He jerked upright on the couch, panting and shaking in a drenching cold sweat. He rubbed his face, making for CERTAIN he was actually awake.

A thousand and one thoughts ran through his head, and he fought to focus in on only solutions instead of bad outcomes. He had to make sure that everyone was safe from Bill!


The 'family meeting' was not really up to the snuff Ford had hoped for.

For one, Stanley was absent. Mabel said he was 'out getting dinner', and quite frankly, Ford didn't want any details, especially after the news of Bud Gleeful going missing. Secondly, he learned that Dipper had been previously possessed by Bill, which was especially troubling. Bill hardly ever made open-and-shut deals, and Ford was worried that Dipper's mind and body could still be at risk for possession.

And then there was Mabel. His discomfort around her never faded, and was only heightened after finding that stashaway box in the attic; he didn't know if he could truly trust her with information on the rift. But he NEEDED help in this, and quite frankly, Dipper was his best option.

He pulled out the original floor plans for the house and began jotting down the materials needed to make a 'Bill-proof' barrier around it. There were several methods, granted, but he had an on-the-spot plan for this one.

"…we just need to place moonstones here and here…sprinkle some mercury…" he muttered. "…Let's see, I ALWAYS forget the last ingredient…" He pulled out his first journal and flipped through it. "Ugh," he said, only PARTIALLY pretending to be disgusted. "Unicorn hair."

It was a gamble to be sure, but he was surprised at the spark of genuine childlike interest that gleamed in Mabel's eyes. Dipper just looked dubious.

"…that's not…rare, is it?" the boy asked.

"Unicorns reside in an enchanted glade, and their hair can only be obtained by a pure-hearted person who goes on a magical quest to find it."

Mabel beamed. "Great-Uncle Ford, can I PLEASE go?" she asked, hopping out of her chair. "I am LITERALLY obsessed with unicorns! My first word was 'unicorn', I once made my own unicorn by taping a traffic cone onto a horses head—ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THE SWEATER I'M WEARING RIGHT NOW!?" She tugged at her sweater, which did, indeed, have an embroidered unicorn on it.

"Plus, I'm probably the most pure-of-heart person in this room."

He wasn't about to argue there, right or wrong.

"So can I go on this mission!?" Mabel begged. "Please please please? I'LL GIVE YOU MY BLOOD!"

Ford swallowed, fighting back the guilt he was feeling at having to trick Mabel into going on this quest. He learned the true, horrible nature of unicorns long ago, and hated to have something Mabel was genuinely ecstatic about be crushed. But on the off-chance she DID succeed…

"Very well. Take this." He handed her the journal, the least he could do. "And here." He handed her a crossbow. "You know how to use it?"

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Better than Dipper knows how to handle a shower," she retorted, then pulled out a cell phone, dialing someone up as she hurried out.

Dipper turned to Ford when Mabel was out of the house. "…so what are the odds she succeeds on that bogus mission?" he asked, his voice oddly blank. Ford felt heat in his cheeks.

"…Unlikely," he admitted. "I've dealt with unicorns before, and if I had to describe them in one word, it would be….'frustrating'."

"Mabel's not going to like that you tricked her," Dipper said, slipping out of his chair. "Unicorns are basically her go-to comfort animals. And I haven't seen her so happy about something since…a long time."

Ford winced, feeling a heavier sense of guilt. "I wasn't lying when I said we needed unicorn hair," he said. "It IS a very effective and safe method for protecting this place…and I never said unicorns were nice."

Dipper sighed. "You've never had to argue semantics with Mabel before," he replied. "If you want 'frustrating', you'll get your 'frustrating'." He adjusted his hat. "…So, what do we do while she's gone?"

"Follow me," Ford said, heading to the vending machine, leading the way to the elevator and punching in another code that Dipper didn't recognize. They stepped inside and Dipper looked up when the elevator stopped at 2.

"Welcome to my private study," Ford said, opening the door to show a messy, more elegant office-styled room. "This is where I keep my most ancient and secret knowledge. Even your Uncle Stan doesn't know about this place."

Dipper bit his lip, glancing around. "I wouldn't be so sure," he said slowly. "He DID have thirty years to look this place top and bottom…" He grabbed a cloth covering a portrait.

"Dipper, come along!" Ford called over from the other side of the room. "If we cant Bill-proof the Shack, then the next best thing will be to Bill-proof our minds." He lifted a device from a metal drawer.


The day started out so well for Mabel.

She had one of the journals entrusted to her by Ford, her friends she hadn't seen in a good while, and a mission to find one of her favorite not-so-mythical creatures on a quest of her own.

They found the magical gateway, found the unicorn, and then Mabel practically prostrated herself before the creature. Perhaps, if her heart wasn't pure, her intentions WERE. She wanted the hair to protect her family. That was pure, right?

It was apparently not enough…and it began leaving Mabel with heavy doubts. For the past few weeks, she had empathized heavily with her Grunkle Stan…that the things he did—lying, stealing toxic waste, eating a government agent—was all for his family, to make it whole again, and protect everyone. The things SHE did was for her family too.

Right?

She didn't want her friends to see her begging Celestabellabethabelle as hard as she was going to, so she told them she wanted to be alone, and for them to go back home. Lucky for her, they left her to it, and she went back inside.

The unicorn was reading by the waterfall, hardly looking up when she came back in.

"Please," Mabel said, sitting down and clenching her hands into her skirt. "PLEASE, Celestabellabethabelle, I NEED a lock of your hair!" Her eyes felt watery, and she blinked back tears. "It's not for me, it's for my FAMILY! To PROTECT them!" She sniffled. "I…I know I've done wrong…but THAT was to protect my family too!"

"Those impure of heart are unworthy of my hair, child," the unicorn replied almost flippantly. "An impure heart would taint the magic my hair provides!" She tossed her head, her rainbow-glistening hair fluttering slightly. "I'm sorry, it's not MY fault you're a bad person."

Mabel felt as though someone had pierced her body with an icicle, her hands shaking hard and eyes leaking with an overflow of tears. "I'm…I'm not bad…" she squeaked, her throat tight. "I…I didn't…" She hiccoughed, crying harder. "I DIDN'T DO IT TO BE BAD!" Her sudden increase in vocal volume seemed to startle the unicorn, but she didn't notice.

"He…he was going to do something b-bad to Grunkle Stan…!" Mabel's body shook, her voice almost haunted. "That man…he w-was going to take Grunkle Stan away from me…do something BAD to him…!" Her hands clenched around the neck of her sweater, tugging it up close to her mouth, about 3/4ths of the way into Sweater Town. "I…I didn't know what else to DO…!" She sobbed harder. "PLEASE, CELESTABELLABETHABELLE! I DIDN'T KILL HIM TO BE BAD! I WAS PROTECTING MY GRUNKLE STAN!"

"Whoa whoa, are you kidding me?"

A startled Celestabellabethabelle and Mabel looked up, and Mabel saw two more unicorns trot out from the forest. "Yo, C-Beth, are you SERIOUSLY pulling this pure-of-heart scam again?" one of them asked.

Mabel's jaw dropped. "….scam…?" she said weakly. The other unicorn sighed.

"Look, kid," he said, "unicorns cant see into your heart. All our dumb horns can do is glow, point towards the nearest rainbow, and play rave music." It proceeded to demonstrate with an oddly catchy beat.

"Yeah," the other said, "this whole 'pure of heart' racket is just a line we unicorns use to get humans to leave us alone."

Celestabellabethabelle glanced at them almost nervously. "Guuuuuys," she hissed. "Shut up…!"

Mabel stared at them for a long moment before clenching her hands tightly, feeling a spike of rage inside of her. "…all this time…" she muttered, her voice shaking as badly as her hands, "…all this time I thought I was a bad person…" She jumped up, snarling at the unicorn. "BUT YOU'RE EVEN WORSE THAN I AM!"

The unicorn took a step back, but huffed. "Okay, fine. You learned our secret. We're jerks, okay? We have more hair than we know what to do with, and we keep it to ourselves just to tick humans off. So what are you gonna do about it, huh? Huh?" She leaned down, staring at Mabel smugly. "What are you gonna do?"

Mabel didn't even think twice before she gave the unicorn the strongest left hook she could manage, her fist coming back splattered in a mother-of-pearl sheen of blood. Blood pounded in her ears as she grabbed the embroidered unicorn on her sweater and tore it off.

Celestabellabethabelle snorted out more blood, snarling. "Oh, it's a FIGHT you want? Well, it's a fight YOU'RE going to g—"

She was silenced when an arrow from Mabel's crossbow pierced her neck.

Everything was dead silent for a few beats in time before the unicorn collapsed on the ground, twitching. Mabel glowered at the other two unicorns, who wisely backed away before galloping off.

Mabel walked over to the dead unicorn and grabbed a pair of scissors from her pocket, cutting off nearly everything from the mane, and stuffed it into her bag before pulling the arrow out of the unicorn's neck. Without a second look back, she left the unicorn domain, slamming the gate shut behind her.


Dipper could feel himself close to dozing off as the mind scanner encrypted his thoughts. He yawned, glancing back behind him, fighting back a groan when he saw the scanner was only 15% through. He rubbed his eyes, looking over at Ford, who was dozing off at his desk.

He found his thoughts wandering toward his great-uncle, his naturally-set paranoia making him wonder why the man had to be so secretive about Bill. Dipper had an unwelcomely intimate encounter with the demon, so what else was there to hide? He knew what Bill was capable of; heck, he still had the fork prong scars to prove it! So why skirt around the issue?

'Use the machine!' he thought. 'It'll show you HIS thoughts! The more you know about Bill, the more you can help!'

This was true.

He took off the device and tiptoed over to Ford, putting it on the man's head. "What are you hiding about Bill?" he murmured, turning to the screen, swallowing hard when he saw an image of the demon flicker on.

An overlay of Fiddleford's voice pleading, "Where are these ideas coming from? WHO are you working with!?"

TRUST NO ONE

I'M LOSING MY MIND

CANT BE REAL

"Then it's a deal." Dipper's eyes widened when he saw a younger image of his great-uncle extend his hand out. "From now until the end of time."

"Just let me into your mind, Stanford!" came Bill's voice as his hand too extended, encased in blue flames.

"Please, call me a FRIEND."

Ford's image came up, an inhuman, cruel smile across his face, eyes blazing gold with slitted pupils, laughing manically.

Dipper shakily took a step back, trembling. "F…Ford and Bill…" he stammered, then glanced behind him, seeing his great-uncle stand up and face him.

"…You shouldn't have done that," Ford(?) said, taking off the helmet and shoving it away, the helmet catching onto a cloth on the wall and tearing it down. Dipper felt his body go numb when he saw the walls lined with Bill's image, crystal pyramids decorating stands, and in the middle of it all, a golden idol image of the demon glinting ominously in the dim lighting of the room.

Dipper felt his heart racing, backing up. "Why…were you shaking hands with Bill?" he said, reaching out and grabbing the rift on the table, holding it tightly as he backed further. Ford(?) held out his hand.

"Hand me the rift," he said. "Now, boy!"

Dipper jumped at the sharpness of the command, grabbing a memory gun off the table and pointing it at Ford(?). "GET BACK!" he shouted, the gun shaking in his hand. "I'M WARNING YOU!"

Ford(?) faltered a step. "Just calm down, p—"

"PINE TREE!?" Dipper snapped, his voice going hysterical. "IS THAT WAS YOU WERE GOING TO CALL ME, BILL!?"

"I WAS GOING TO SAY 'PLEASE'!" Ford(?) said. "It's ME, Dipper, it's your uncle!"

Dipper backed up further until his back hit a wall, his pupils constricted in panic and fear. "DON'T YOU COME NEAR ME!" he screamed. "IF I DISAPPEAR, GRUNKLE STAN WILL EAT YOU! HE'LL EAT YOU IF MABEL DOESN'T KILL YOU FIRST! "

"Dipper, PLEASE—"

"Trust no one trust no one trust no one trust no one trust no one—" Dipper mantra'd, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"—HAND IT TO ME!"

Dipper pulled the trigger.

The beam of energy bounced off of Ford's glasses, ricocheting around the room. It almost hit Dipper, but Ford shoved the boy to the ground, covering Dipper's body with his own until the beam smashed into the console screen. When the room went silent, Dipper flailed and struggled under Ford, hyperventilating.

Ford sat up, holding Dipper's shoulders tightly. "Calm down!" he said as calmly as he himself could muster. "Look at me, Dipper! Look at my eyes!" He lifted his glasses. "Look at my pupils! It's me, Dipper, it's me."

Dipper's breathing evened out, but came out heavier as his body slumped. Ford sighed, pushing the memory gun away, looking back at Dipper and realizing with a start that the boy was crying in silent, shaking hysterics. "Oh, Dipper…" He reached out and pulled Dipper to him. Dipper sniffed, clinging to Ford's jacket tightly, his tears soaking the man's sweater.

"'m sorry…" Dipper whimpered, his whole body shaking. "I….I thought…!"

"I know," Ford replied. "It's okay, Dipper…I should have told you the truth about me and Bill. He tricked me once, a long time ago. I found the inscriptions to summon him in a cave while exploring the mysteries of Gravity Falls, and he came to me in a dream. He told me he was a muse…that he chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire…" He swallowed hard. "And I fell for it. I let him have free reign of my mind as he pleased…and he showed me how to make that portal."

He let out a shaky sigh. "…then my partner got a glimpse of his TRUE plan…I found out he lied to me, and that the portal was a gateway to the Nightmare Realm. I shut it down and hid my journals so it couldn't be operational again…but now there's the rift." He glanced down at the swirling vortex in the container. "…To Bill, it's just a game. But for us, it would mean the end of our world."

He heard Dipper let out another choked sob, and winced slightly, sighing softly as he slipped the rift into his pocket and tucked his arms around Dipper's body, picking him up and carrying him out of that room, making a mental note to finally get around to burning the paraphernalia in that room as soon as possible.

Dipper had zonked out by the time he walked out of the basement. Ford carried him up to his room and tucked him in, patting the boy's head before heading downstairs and sitting at the table, putting his face in his hands.

He had underestimated just how damaged that child was when it came to Bill. He guessed now that 'Pine Tree' was the epitaph that Bill saddled Dipper with, and now the boy was triggered by it. The psychological scarring was just as deep as his own. God, what was he going to do NOW?

Ford jumped violently when something slammed on the table in front of him, and he very nearly went for his gun, managing to stop himself as he looked up and saw Mabel standing in front of him, having slammed the journal down on the table. He frowned, about to ask her what that was all about when she reached into her bag and took out an entire mane's worth of unicorn hair and sat it down on top of the journal, her expression oddly blank in silent anger.

He gaped at the sheer amount of hair she managed to get, and turned to give her a genuine shower of praise, but his voice caught in his throat when he saw her clothes splattered with the rainbow-like sheen of unicorn blood, her hand clenched around a bloody arrow. The embroidered unicorn on her sweater was torn off, and he could see tear tracks on her face.

"…Mabel…"

Mabel turned on heel and headed back outside, letting the door slam behind her.

Ford winced, looking down at the unicorn hair, feeling a heavy weight of guilt fall on his shoulders, regretting putting ANOTHER child through pain, and picked up his journal to tuck it away, frowning when he saw something sticking out from the pages. He opened it up to where the item was, and saw that it was on his entry on unicorns.

The entire section was scribbled out in marker and smears of unicorn blood.

LIARS

LIARS

LIARS

LIARS

LIARS

LIARS

The word was scrawled in over and over and over, the bookmark to it all the torn embroidered unicorn from her sweater.

Ford slammed the journal shut and pushed it away from him, feeling a wave of nausea rise up his throat. He crossed his arms on the table and buried his face in them, his shoulders shaking with silent sobbing.