Chapter Twelve

Lightning struck somewhere in the forest near the Mystery Shack, accompanied by an earsplitting boom of thunder. The lights flickered, as the power threatened to go out. Dipper stood in front of the bathroom mirror, gripping the edge of the sink and shaking. He took a deep breath, in through his nose, and out through his mouth. Everything was too much right now, and his heart was racing as fast as his mind.

When Dipper told her about his dream, Pacifica had quickly dressed and run downstairs to warn Mabel and Wendy of Billy's impending arrival. He told her he'd be down soon, that he needed to use the toilet. That was a lie. He needed to calm his shakes and collect his thoughts in private, without his sister, best friend, and...whatever Pacifica was to him now… worrying about his mental state.

He'd had panic attacks before, so he knew what it felt like when one was coming on. If he was correct in his thinking, there was a good chance he would be throwing up in the next few minutes. Instead of feeling nauseous, however, Dipper began to feel an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, like he couldn't expand his lungs. He kept taking deep breaths, but they didn't seem to help. His extremities started to feel cold, and prickly, like they were asleep. He felt lightheaded and dizzy. He stumbled back into the wall, and slid down it, to sit with his knees pulled to his chest, and his head down between them.

He felt like he was dying.

A blinding arc of lightning lit up the small bathroom window, as simultaneous crack of thunder shook the building, and the lights cut out. Dipper cradled his broken hand to his chest and rocked gently in place, taking shaky breaths as tears streamed down his face.

He didn't want to die.

/

"Perfect weather for you to pull one of your mad science experiments, eh Poindexter?" he said with a chuckle. He was seated in a chair in the middle of a small boat galley that was pitching too and fro, as what seemed like an endless peal of thunder rumbled in the air outside of the cabin.

Ford turned from the porthole. He didn't look amused. "The weather is coincidental. If you'd rather wait, however—"

"No way, you said you had everything ready to take care of my 'situation.'" he said, arms crossed over his chest. "I'd prefer to get it over with, if it's all the same to you."

Ford shrugged. "Suit yourself." He crossed the cabin to a small table, lit a match, and dropped it into a ceramic bowl. A blue flame shot up from the bowl, startling Ford into jumping backward.

"Spook yourself, Sixer?" he laughed.

Ford picked an old, leather bound book up from the table, and turned toward the chair again. "Nearly singed my eyebrows, actually." He placed a finger on the page his book was open to, then nodded to himself. "Okay, the spell says you have to be holding the vessel for this to work. Here you go."

Ford handed him the ceramic bowl from the table, the contents of which were still smoldering.

He scratched his head. "Wait, the vessel is a bowl? How—"

Ford sighed. "I've explained this to you before. The spell creates an impenetrable magical barrier around the vessel. He'll be trapped, permanently. May we begin, now?"

He looked down at the smoking contents of the bowl, and shrugged. "I guess if it doesn't work, we'll still have this nice bowl of cinders."

"It will work, trust me," said Ford.

"I never doubted ya, Sixer."

That elicited a small smile from Ford. He braced himself against the rocking of the boat by taking a wide stance, used one finger to push his glasses up his nose, and began reading aloud an incantation.

/

Billy trembled as he waited outside, under the eaves by the door, for Susan to lock up Greasy's. The storm seemed to have settled over Gravity Falls, and was growing in intensity. He hadn't been in as bad of a storm since… his first clear memory—the boat capsizing.

He swallowed hard, as images of that night flew unbidden across his mind's eye. He still didn't have any memories from before the accident, but he knew—he knew—that Ford was important in his life. And Ford's brother that Susan had mentioned—Stan. He sounded really familiar, but Billy didn't have any distinct memories of anyone before that night.

Another flash of lightning streaked across the heavens, its near instantaneous boom of thunder causing Billy to jump and cover his hands with his ears. He clenched his eyes shut, for good measure. His heart was racing. Ford had died in a thunderstorm just like this one.

He didn't want to die.

/

The wind seemed to pick up outside, and he had to stand, because the boat was rocking hard enough now to tip his chair over. Lightning struck nearby, the crack of resultant thunder deafening. The boat lurched sideways, and he had to hold onto the vessel with one hand, and use the other hand to brace himself against the wall.

He had to shout to hear himself over the storm. "On second thought, maybe we should wait until the weather clears up."

Ford kept reading, and frowned. He shook his head no.

"I'm assuming that means that this isn't the kind of thing you can just stop right in the middle of, huh?" he asked.

Ford arched one eyebrow, still reading, and nodded.

"Fantastic," he grunted to himself.

He gripped the vessel with white knuckles. His chest felt heavy, and he was sweating way more than the situation warranted. The hand he was bracing himself against the wall with began to tingle and go numb. A sharp pain ripped through the left side of his chest, and he gasped, and doubled over.

"Ford!" he called out weakly. He knew what was happening. He knew it.

And he didn't want to die.

/

Dipper's eyes flew open and he blinked, disoriented. Someone was pounding on the bathroom door, but he couldn't hear what they were saying over the constant rumble of thunder. He took a deep, shaky breath, and stood up from the floor. He pulled open the door to see Wendy, holding a flashlight, her other fist raised, ready to bang on the door once again.

"God, Dipper, I thought I was gonna have to bust the door down!" she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she leaned in toward him, shined the flashlight in his eyes, and peered closely at his face. "You look like shit, man. Everything okay?"

Dipper squinted against the light in his eyes, and stood in the door frame, unmoving. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, unsure of what to say. It had been hard enough for him to get Wendy and Mabel to believe that he was seeing through Billy's eyes in his dreams. If he told them that he'd just passed out on the bathroom floor and seen some of Stan and Ford's last moments alive, they'd probably decide he was crazy after all, and try to cart him back to the hospital.

"Dude, seriously," Wendy said, reaching forward to place a hand on his shoulder, "What's wrong? It's about Billy, right? Pacifica told us that you two, uh, fell asleep while meditating, and you dreamed he was on his way over."

Dipper saw an out and he took it. After all, he was freaked out about Billy as well. He didn't need to bring up his dream about the Grunkles.

"Yeah," he said softly, nodding. "I'm worried that when he sees the Mystery Shack, he's going to remember he's Bill, and try and get to the portal. We all know what Bill's capable of if anyone is in the way of what he wants."

Wendy nodded. "Come on downstairs, man. We can all freak out together."

Dipper followed Wendy down the steps. Pacifica and Mabel were waiting for them at the base of the staircase.

Pacifica grabbed Dipper's hand. "Are you okay? You were up there a good while."

Dipper shrugged. "I guess I'm okay as I can be, considering a dream demon, somehow in human form, is on his way to the Mystery Shack as we speak.

"Too bad your spell was a bust, huh?" Mabel said. "Pacifica told us you fell asleep during the meditation part."

Dipper's cheeks grew warm. "Yeah, it was h-hard—" He cut himself off, his eyes darting to Pacifica's face, in a silent plea for a change of subject.

Pacifica glanced around the room, searching for something. "Please tell me you two were more successful than us, and found some good weaponry in Ford's lab?"

"Oh boy, did we ever!" Mabel said. "We brought a box up. It's in the kitchen."

Dipper didn't wait for Mabel to finish talking before he turned on his heel and power-walked into the kitchen. He stared into the musty cardboard box sitting on the table, picked up a futuristic-looking silver gun, and frowned.

"You figured out the problem, huh?" Wendy spoke from behind him. She turned on a battery-operated lantern and sat it next to the box on the table.

"What problem?" asked Pacifica. She looked down into the box. "I see quite a few guns. That's good, right?"

Dipper turned around, carefully holding the gun so as not to point it at anyone, his finger nowhere near the trigger.

"It depends," he said. "What the hell do any of these do? I don't see any ammo. Were any of them labeled? Some look like they might be laser guns… but what's their power source?"

Mabel sighed as she approached the table and peered into the box. "We hoped some of these would be familiar to you, since you were always helping Ford down in his lab. If—" her voice quavered, and she sniffed. "If he were still alive, I'd give him such a hard time about not having anything in his lab properly organized and labeled." She turned and walked over to the window, staring out at the storm, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed softly.

Dipper sat the gun back in the box, and tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. This was the first time since she'd come back to Gravity Falls that Mabel had given any indication that she was still grieving for their Grunkles. Dipper had thought that she had already gotten over their deaths, but it occurred to him that she was probably just trying to ignore her own feelings for his sake.

Dipper jumped as he felt a sharp kick in the back of his calf. "Ow!" he hissed, and turned to glare at Wendy. "What was that for?"

Wendy scowled at Dipper, her arms crossed over her chest, before mouthing quite clearly: COMFORT YOUR SISTER, DORK.

Properly shamed, Dipper walked around the table and stood next to Mabel in front of the window. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her in a side-hug.

"Sorry, Dip Dop," Mabel said, sniffling and wiping her face on her sleeve. "I'll try to get it together."

"Sorry? What are you talking about?" Dipper turned Mabel around to face him. "You have just as much right to be sad about our Grunkles as I do."

"But it's been so much worse for you," Mabel said, her eyes flicking down to the stitches on Dipper's arm. "I don't want you to have to worry about me. You've always been there for me when I needed you—now it's my turn to be there for you."

Dipper smiled down at his sister, and wiped his suddenly leaky eyes with the back of his hand. "How about we both are there for each other?"

Mabel nodded. "Awkward sibling hug?"

"You know it," Dipper said, wrapping his arms around his sister.

"Uh, I hate to break up this adorable sibling moment," Pacifica said, staring out the window, "but I think I just saw headlights turn off the main road, and head this way."

"Shit." Dipper turned to Wendy. "You're the lumberjane/survival expert. What should we do?"

Wendy shrugged. "I mean, grab a gun, I guess? Look menacing? We don't even know if they actually do anything."

"But what should we do?" asked Dipper, as everyone reached into the box and pulled out a weapon. "If he tries to get in, do we just… let him in?"

"That's up to you, man," said Wendy. "This is your house now, and you've been dreaming about this dude… you know how he might act better than any of us."

Dipper bit his lip. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he felt lightheaded again. He reached out and grabbed the flashlight from Wendy's hand and turned it off, then did the same to the lantern sitting on the table.

"Uh, hello darkness, my old friend?" Mabel intoned, confused.

"It's so he can't see into the shack through the windows," Dipper mumbled. He turned to Pacifica, who was still peering out the window. "Do you see anything?"

"Huh," said Pacifica. "Well, the headlights just came to a stop about halfway up the drive, and now they're backing out toward the road. Maybe it's not even him?"

Dipper felt the tightness in his chest again, and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs. He took a deep breath. "No," he said, unable to explain how he knew. "It's him."

/

Gravel crunched under Susan's tires as she pulled her minivan into the drive that led up to the Mystery Shack. "Here we are!" she sang out cheerfully.

Billy peered down the drive, which was illuminated every few seconds by flickers of lightning. He could just make out a dark triangular shape silhouetted against the forest.

"All the lights are off," he murmured.

"Storm knocked out the power, no doubt," said Susan pragmatically.

Billy held out a hand and touched Susan's forearm. "You can stop here."

Susan pressed the brake and turned to look at Billy with her good eye. "Why? It's raining cats and dogs, kiddo! I can drop you off right by the porch!"

Billy shook his head and squeezed her arm gently before pulling his hand away. "I was hoping to surprise them, and the surprise will be ruined if they see your van," he said, hoping she would buy it. He didn't want to have to explain that he was a nervous wreck and needed to throw up.

"Well, okay, Billy," she acquiesced. "Try not to get too soaked! And stop by Greasy's and see me again before you leave town, okay?"

Billy nodded. "I'll certainly try to. Thanks. You've been very kind." He got out of the van and waved at Susan as she backed slowly out of the drive.

The rain wasn't as torrential as it had been earlier, but Billy was quickly drenched. His nausea surged, and he trotted to the side of the driveway, and vomited up the contents of his excellent dinner from Greasy's, suddenly full of regret for asking Susan for seconds.

Billy wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and then wiped the back of his hand on the leg of his jeans. He turned once again toward the dark triangle, and shoved his trembling hands in his pockets as he strode forward.

"Home," he whispered to himself. "Pine Tree and Shooting Star. They'll have the answers I'm looking for." He swallowed hard. "I just hope I don't regret asking the questions."

As he neared the Mystery Shack, a white-hot bolt of lightning struck the weather vane that sat at the top of the roof, and there was no waiting for the thunder to follow. The lightning was the thunder. Billy dropped to his knees, his ears ringing, unable to see anything but the ghost of the lightning bolt superimposed on everything in his field of vision. His heart beat at an unhealthy pace, as he tried to catch his breath.

It felt like mother nature was out to finish the job that she had failed at when Billy didn't drown. The sky was against him.

He struggled to his feet, blinking rapidly to try and clear the jagged outline of lightning from his vision. Mother nature wasn't going to win.

He was going home.

/

The area around the Mystery Shack was suddenly illuminated as with a white, neon light, and the building shook. The roar of thunder nearly drowned out the screams of the terrified occupants of the Shack.

"Holy shit," breathed Wendy. "I think that one actually hit us!"

"I've never seen it storm this bad here," Mabel said quietly.

"Oh, God, you were right, Dipper," Pacifica said, panic rising in her voice. "He's—I see him. He's headed this way."

Dipper stood from his chair, his shaking legs barely able to support him. He crossed the kitchen to stand next to Pacifica at the window, and slipped his hand into hers. It was difficult to tell which of them was trembling worse.

"He looks... determined," said Dipper, watching Billy by the constant flicker of distant lightning. "But, determined to what end?"

As soon as the question left his lips, he gasped. As Billy trudged toward the front door, he slowly turned his head, and looked right at Dipper, as if he could see him there at the window, even with the lights out.

Dipper stared at the hazel-yellow eyes, transfixed by their familiarity.

"Dipper?" Pacifica asked quietly, as his hand which had been holding her own dropped limply to his side.

Dipper blinked and turned to look at her, then back at Mabel and Wendy. His eyes looked haunted.

"Bro-bro, you're kinda freaking me out," Mabel said. "Where—what are you doing?"

He brushed past his sister without a word.

Wendy stepped in front of him to block the kitchen doorway. "Dude, talk to us. We need to know how to handle this Billy situation."

Dipper raised his brow, as if surprised.

"How to handle it?" he repeated. "Easy. I'm letting him in."

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Sorry for the long absence, y'all! This story is nearing its conclusion, (I think next chapter will be the last), but I still have quite a ways to go on my other fic, Gravity Falls: Worlds Apart. If you haven't checked it out, I'd love for you to give it a try. I will hopefully be updating that one soon as well.

Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, or reviewed this fic. I love knowing what you think!

3 MPD