Chapter 11

After Dipper's departure, a grim silence fell over the house. Stan staggered back, broken glass crunching under his feet. The entire place was trashed in a wind that Stan had never truly felt, and the windows were now gaping empty. It had all happened so quickly.

Stan's potatoes were now pitched across the room and cooling on the floor. Chairs were overturned, the curtains shredded. Stan could do nothing more than gape. Distantly he heard the vending machine open, then Ford's racing steps.

"What happened; what did you do?" Ford spat, skidding to a stop in the kitchen.

Stan ran a hand through his greying hair, mouthing words without saying anything.

"The binding circle," muttered Ford, "it's –?" Turning on his heel, he raced out of the kitchen. Stan heard the front door slam, and his brother's horrified cry.

If this was what the Shack looked like, then Stan could imagine that the circle painted by Mabel was now ruined as well. Ignoring the upturned chairs entirely, Stan sunk to the floor.

How could things have gotten this far?

He should never have let Dipper keep his brother's journal. He should never have let Dipper wander alone outside the Shack. He should have put a stop to this supernatural mess before Dipper ever had the chance to get mixed up in demons and deals and –

This place was evil. Gravity Falls was evil. It wasn't made for children, nor for adults. Stan didn't need to know everything about the supernatural to know just the depths of its evil. It had taken away his twin brother for thirty years, and returned a stranger. And now it was going to tear apart Dipper and Mabel. The beautiful twins that had warmed his heart so much when he first laid eyes on them. Seeing them together in their mother's arms, he'd actually felt something like hope. Something proud and happy and beautiful. He saw in their large inquisitive eyes a future that was stolen from him and his twin.

But Stan had been selfish. He'd welcomed them into Gravity Falls, knowing the dangers it held. He shouldn't have let them near here. He should have never laid eyes on them again, because he was a part of Gravity Falls' taint now.

The front door slammed.

Ford came storming in, eyes afire. "You let him loose."

"I should have sent them home the moment they found your journal."

"What happened?"

"I should never have let them come."

"You told him what I told you, didn't you?"

Stan sighed, tilting his head up. God, his brother looked terrible. "The kid's smart as hell, Ford. He'd figure it out sooner or later. He's too much like you. Without all the asshole-ness."

Without answering, Ford dropped down behind Stan. His back reclined warmly against Stan's, comforting aside from the tremors running through him. Stan feared saying anything else, because this was the closest his brother had voluntarily gotten to him since returning from the portal – not including fights. So this gesture wasn't half bad for two aging twins with too much of their lives spent away from each other.

But then Ford whispered softly, like the tenderest kiss of death,

"Bill's reincarnating."

Wind whistled through the shattered windows. The floorboards creaked. Night was closing in.

Ford continued flatly, "Bill is not immortal because he can't die. It's because he always comes back. During the ritual, Bill used the very words Dipper was speaking as a channel to enter his mind – to bind himself to Dipper… or his host, if you prefer that term."

Something icy cold settled in Stan's chest. He wanted to stop Ford from speaking. He didn't want to hear this. Ford pressed on,

"The instant Bill's physical projection was destroyed, Bill fully took over the host body – both physical and mental aspects – until he is able to fully regain his energy. It can take days, weeks, months for him to reach his full potential… but it is inevitable that he will."

Stan tilted his head forward and buried it in his hands.

"Dipper died during that ritual, Stanley." Ford's voice broke at the end. There was a pregnant pause.

"This whole time…" Stan whispered.

"It was Bill. Believing himself to be Dipper, yes. But always Bill. He's… shedding Dipper's consciousness, however. As he gains strength, he is able to shed away the host's attributes and reassume his own."

A fragile murmur, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"At first, I didn't know… And once I did, I was arrogant. I thought I could find a way… but…" The façade Ford carried – the detached scientist's façade – crumbled, and his words choked off.

"How long until…?"

"I don't know."

"Give a goddamned estimate."

"Days, weeks? There's no way to know. Last I saw, he still believed himself to be Dipper, and he's… fighting off his own influence. He's trying to resist his own reclaiming of power."

Stan stood up sharply and stalked out of the kitchen. Ford sat on the floor for a long time after, six fingered hands splayed open under his own lost gaze.

For her part, Mabel did not hear about anything that had transpired that night.

She occupied the evening with musings concerning how one learned how to kiss, fantasies about hunky boys, romance novels, and make-overs with Candy and Grenda that most certainly ended with far too much make-up and hair standing inches off her head. An odd foreboding had settled in her stomach early in the evening and never quite left, but she did her best to ignore it – after all, it was most likely lingering worry about leaving Dipper alone for a day or two.

At around three AM, when the exuberant energy of pre-teen girls finally exhausted itself, Mabel collapsed into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. She struggled to sleep. Something felt off. But she shook away the feeling and eventually slipped into a dreamless sleep.

The following afternoon, Mabel returned to the Shack, still giddy from the sleepover, and itching to share some stories with Dipper (stories that he most likely would try to flee from, but hoo boy he wasn't getting outta these!).

She barely noticed that the Shack didn't have any windows – in Gravity Falls, strange and weird were pretty normal occurrences.

But then Stan met her at the porch and ushered her into the Mystery Shack, his smile too polite and his eyes too strained.

It's the worst feeling in the world when adults know some awful thing you don't, and they don't spit it out right away because they're trying to find the right words and the right time… but you know they're gonna say something terrible, and you know you're not gonna like it. So all you have is the dread of waiting.

Feeling paralyzed, Mabel silently followed Stan into the kitchen, where he sat her down – Ford was already waiting at the table.

"Mabel, sweetie…" Stan said, and Mabel knew she was going to hate whatever he had to say.

"Where's Dipper?"

His eyes looked as though they had aged twenty years. Helplessly, "Mabel…"

"Where is my brother?"

It was Ford that finally released the dam. "Mabel, Stan and I were discussing calling your parents last night. Dipper… heard about this, and didn't take it well. He destroyed the binding circle and we haven't seen him since."

That… wasn't as bad as Mabel had anticipated. A smile quirked hesitantly at her lips. "Well, that's all right, isn't it? He'll come back. He's just gotta be his Dippy self and mope for a bit."

Ford and Stan exchanged worried glanced; Mabel felt out of the loop. "You were gonna call my parents?" she tried hesitantly. Maybe their unease had to do with that? It wasn't really that bad that Dipper broke the binding circle, was it?

"Actually," Ford seemed to leap onto the topic with relative enthusiasm, "we did, Mabel. We have kept this quiet from them long enough, and it was high time that we told them everything that has happened."

Mabel let out a nervous laugh. "What? They're not gonna believe all this demon stuff. What are you gonna tell them?"

"We still aren't sure…" admitted Ford uneasily. "We told them… Mabel, we told them we don't know where Dipper is. They're on the way to the Shack now, and we think they'll want to take you home after all this…"

"It doesn't look good," Stan butted in. "No one outside of Gravity Falls is gonna believe what happened. Far as the outside world is concerned, Dipper is missing and I have no good explanation as to why."

"Whoa whoa…." Mabel let out an uneasy laugh. "Um, why don't we just wait this one out? I mean, Dipper just left, right? He's gonna come right back, and then Ford can fix him up, and there's no need to let my parents in on this like, at all…"

"Mabel, we aren't sure if Dipper will-"

"He's coming back," she crossed her arms. "He's my brother. He'll always come back." Spinning on her heel, she stalked up to her room and slammed the door.

She knelt beside her bed, hands clasped together, eyes closed. She'd never really learned how to pray, not exactly, and she wasn't so sure about that. But if she just thought of it as a conversation with her brother, that didn't make it so weird.

"Dipper?" she said softly. "Stanley and Ford told me about what happened. But I guess you already know that cuz you kinda know everything. Or almost everything. I'm still not really sure which one of those it is." She chewed her bottom lip. "Stop being a stupid butt and come back. I know I can see you without the circle, even if they can't. So just, drop in and let me know you're all right?"

She imagined the cackle of flames, and her heart skipped; she leapt to her feet, a grin upon her face, certain that her brother had come to her summons -!

But when she looked around, it was to an empty room.

Her legs went weak. Tears welled in her eyes. Dipper wouldn't ignore her. He'd come right away. Maybe he couldn't hear her. Did she need to be sleeping for this? She hadn't ever gotten her head around how dream demons worked. But it was true he'd often visited in her dreams.

That was it! She should just wait until he came in her dreams, and they could talk it out! Dipper was probably full of his doubt-y Dipper feelings. Blaming himself or feeling guilty and confused. But Mabel wasn't going to give up, and she was going to show him that he had no reason to fear.

Nodding, Mabel flopped onto her bed. Now… all she had to do was fall asleep. No problem. She never had had sleeping troubles like Dipper. It was just like one, two, three. Several seconds passed. Mabel worried at her bottom lip. Anytime now. Sure, it was midafternoon, and not exactly the ideal sleeping time but still. She could do this.

She glanced over to Dipper's bed. Empty. Made up all neat and tidy, without Dipper's silly ghosty-self floating above it.

"He came back last time," Mabel reminded herself. And he'd come back again. He was her brother, after all, her twin, the other half of her soul. So of course he'd come back.

But still Mabel couldn't find sleep.

Sighing, she slipped off her bed and wandered over to Dipper's; her hands skimmed over his neatly made sheets. He hadn't slept here in weeks – but that hadn't stopped him from staying by her side at every night regardless.

Wait… Mabel tilted her head to the side. Something was crammed between his bed and the bedside table. Mabel dug her arm into the crease, her fingers hunting about until they landed on paper. Was it one of the journals?

Mabel grasped the paper and tugged it out of the crease; the book fell closed in her hand. Unlike Ford's journals, this one was a deep blue similar to the color of Dipper's old hat, although it had some weird creepy black stains on it. So… he'd been keeping his own journal?

It felt sorta wrong to root through his stuff, but at the same time, it wasn't exactly fair that he'd left her like this either. She opened the cover. From the instant her eyes latched onto the first words, she couldn't stop reading – and she read every line of the pen, from the very start My name is Dipper Pines to the very end, the jagged mess of triangles and eyes.

By the time she reached the last written page, tears were plunking down over the journal.

This entire time she'd been marginalizing his struggles. She knew he'd been having a hard time… but she thought if she just stayed optimistic and treated him the same, then he'd get better. Then he'd realize him being a dream demon didn't make any difference. She had never wanted to admit that it wasn't about him being a dream demon. It was about him being Bill Cipher.

And that scared her. All of this had scared her, from the very start. She knew her brother, probably better than anyone else in the world. So it had been glaringly obvious to her when his behavior started changing. From the very first day that he'd returned to the Shack, she'd known that he wasn't like himself. That there was something distinctly, ominously, off. And that it had been getting increasingly worse.

But she didn't know anything really about demons or monsters or those complex theories Dipper always toyed around with in his head. All she knew was that she loved her brother loads, and she wasn't going to let him suffer alone.

And now he was probably scared and uncertain… and alone. Dipper alone was never a good thing.

Snapping his journal shut, Mabel nodded in resolution.

There was one method she hadn't tried, but that pretty much had to work.

Rifling through the room, she salvaged a few crayons, and a couple of scented candles. She hoped Dipper wouldn't mind Pink Hibiscus. Of course, now there was the matter of actually sketching out his summoning circle and chanting those Latin words.

Except she couldn't remember the details. "That's okay," Mabel assured herself, "I can probably do it from memory… probably."

Clearing a space on the floor, she started with the broad circle and sketched Bill in the center. "Then there was little symbols all around… Perfect. Um. Close enough. Right." She stepped back. "Um… I summonus magister mentium! Err. Demonus brotherus come hitherus!" Mabel slumped. "I don't know Latin," she whined at the summoning circle. "Why can't you be easier to work? Like, if there was a electric switch somewhere?"

Unsurprisingly, there was no switch. Mabel sank to her knees. "Dipper? I don't really know Latin, and I don't know all this stuff you and Ford do. But I really really miss you… Stan and Ford are really worried, and… so am I. Please, Dipper. We aren't a family without you."

She didn't expect it to work, not really.

So when the room began to leech into grey, she leapt to her feet, eyes wide."Wohoo! Mabel power, it worked!" But it wasn't Dipper that appeared in the middle of the circle. Mabel recoiled. "Bill!"

"Shooting Star," he greeted with glee, kicking his little dark feet up in midair.

"Bill!" Screaming, Mabel grabbed the nearest object (a lamp resting on the dresser) and chucked it hard at Bill.

The object phased right through him and shattered against the wall.

"Why'd you have to go and do that?" He complained.

"I thought you were dead! You're supposed to be dead! Where's my brother, you monster?" She picked up various odds and ends and chucked them at him – each just as useless as the last.

Until she picked up his journal and threw it.

"Hey!" Bill zoomed to the edge of the summoning circle and caught the journal, curling his triangular body around it protectively. "Mabel, this is mine! You can't just throw it."

Mabel lowered her trembling hands. "D-Dipper?"

"Yeah, it's me! Who else, seriously? Mabel, throwing the journal is not cool. Not cool at all." He snapped his fingers and the journal vanished in a flare of blue.

"W-Why do you look… like him?"

Dipper crossed his little black arms and furrowed his single eye. "Like who?"

"Like Bill! You look like Bill! Dipper, why?"

Dipper rolled his eye. "Wow, Shooting Star. Are you really that dumb?"

"D-dumb?"

"Who else would I look like?"

Mabel sniffled. "L-l-like my brother."

The temperature in the room dropped. Dipper slowly uncrossed his arms. His eye curved down and took in the sight of his own splayed fingers. He let out a single, soft, "Oh."

"I-it's okay!" Mabel rushed to say, because she could see his panic building. Her sweater suddenly wasn't warm enough for the room, and her breath came in little frosty puffs. "It's not big deal! Just, just change back, right?"

"I didn't even realize…."

Mabel fisted her sweater nervously. "It's getting really cold."

"Why didn't I notice…?"

"Dipper, please – mfh." Mabel bolted into the circle and twined her fingers with his. She squeezed his hands consolingly. "Dipper, it's okay…"

All right, it was a little creepy having her brother talk to her through the (literal) shape of someone she really didn't like. But his comfort mattered a little more than hers at the moment.

"It doesn't bother you?" Dipper said uneasily.

"Not at all! Whop!" She poked his bowtie just to prove her point. "No matter what, you'll always be my bro-bro."

Dipper was quiet for a moment. Then, "but what if I'm not anymore?"

"What? Don't talk like that."

"I'm serious, Mabel."

"Dipper, what?"

"I'm scared. I'm really scared."

"There's nothing to be scared of, everything will be f-"

"Stop saying that!" Dipper reared away, fire igniting around his fists.

At her scared look, his fire dwindled and extinguished itself.

"I feel like I'm not human anymore," Dipper admitted.

"Well, you are a half-demon," Mabel said matter-of-factly.

"It's not that, though. Mabel, I'm losing my mind!"

Mabel rubbed her fingers together nervously. "Well, how can we stop that?"

"I don't think we can, Mabel. It's like…. I'm starting to see things all wrong."

"Wrong?"

"People are... weird. Fleshy. I keep thinking my name is Bill."

Mabel gave a nervous laugh, but her eyes were terrified. "You're Dipper. You're my brother."

Dipper curled tighter into himself. "I don't think I can be Bill Cipher and your brother."

"You're not him!" Mabel suddenly shouted; Dipper jumped. "You're not, you're not him! Stop saying that! Stop!"

Mabel rained her tiny fists down on him, though he barely felt the pressure. She ended in tears, her face buried against his bow tie and her shoulders shaking with her sobs.

"M-Mabel…" he whispered helplessly, wrapping his arms around her. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…."

"We'll repaint the binding circle," sniffled Mabel. "We'll convince our parents to let us stay here. Everything will be all right."

"Our parents…?"

Mabel shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Here, I'll get started making a binding circle in our room, just for tonight. Oh, and we better tell Ford and Stan you're back!"

"Wait!"

"Huh?"

"I… Mabel, I don't think I'm really ready to talk to Ford and Stan again." Dipper poked his fingertips together. "I… at least want to be able change back before um. And I need some time to think about some stuff."

Mabel chewed her bottom lip nervously. She would much rather get Dipper settled into the Shack as normally as possible and as soon as possible… but if it made him more comfortable to be away for a little longer, that was okay too… "But I can summon you whenever I want?" Mabel tried.

Dipper glowed a bright yellow that Mabel interpreted as a bit of his old good-natured spirit. "Whenever you want, Mabel! I'm not gonna leave my sister alone."

Mabel offered a watery smile. Dipper just needed some time, that was all. "All right, Dip-dop! Maybe next time you can try out my new cookie recipe!"

"Mabel, I don't eat-"

"But coookiieeesss! Stan won't try them because he thinks they'll give him a heart attack, but you're a dream demon, so I bet you'll be fine!"

"That's not at all reassuring." The worried look was a little satisfying to see in Bill's eye.

Giggling, Mabel scuffed out the circle with her foot and said her goodbyes to Dipper, who promised he just needed a little time in the mindscape before he was ready to return to the Shack.

Mabel returned to her bed and curled up around a pillow.

Her dreams were uncharacteristically dark; twisted distortions of her and Dipper in younger years; of them playing and laughing until his laugh tore into dual tones, and his eyes blazed yellow, and then fire ripped apart their surroundings – even still, she reached through the flames and strained to grasp his hand, but his laughter rang in his ears and he was ever flitting out of her reach.

Mabel jerked awake before daylight, chilly sweat on her flesh and pupils dilated.