Chapter Twenty-three: Lost And Found
Dipper scowled as he lay on Mabel's bed, staring up the ceiling. He'd just blown up at Blubbs and Durland, stomped up here and slammed the door shut. Profile? They knew her! They knew what she looked like! Evidence? How about that no one knew where she was? They'd find her? How could they find her when they hadn't started looking yet?
"Hey, Champ." Stan's voice came. He was standing in the doorway with a sandwich in hand, and decided to approach when Dipper didn't respond. He sat down on the bed and looked at Dipper, who was laying so still he could have passed for a manikin. "Ya holdin' up?" Dipper only shook his head no. "You wanna be alone?" No again.
"We had a fight." Dipper's voice was quiet and blank. "The last things we said to each other were..." Dipper didn't finish, nor did he have to. It seemed that there was some understanding between the two, even if they weren't even looking at each other.
"It's noon." Stan said, looking down at the sandwich. "Have you eaten yet?"
"Not hungry." Dipper answered shortly. Stan frowned, took the sandwich from it's plate, and presented it to Dipper.
"Take it from someone who knows, Dipper." he said "Starving yourself isn't going to get her back."
Dipper sighed as if in annoyance, but he finally sat up, took the sandwich and started eating almost mechanically. Stan looked at him worriedly. Midway through the sandwich, he stopped. To Stan's surprise, he boy gave a small snicker. "She was the first one to call me 'Dipper'." He took a deep breath, as if to force back tears. "She said...there were three Masons in the class, but only one Dipper."
"Well, you are definitely one of a kind, kid." Stan said, and they managed to laugh for a few moments before the melancholy mood set back in.
"Stan?" Dipper asked. "When are we gonna go look for her?"
"We'll head out after you finish that sandwich. See ya downstairs." Stan said as he got up. Dipper nodded while Stan left the room. As he descended the stairs, and heard the conversation between Joe and Ford before he reached the kitchen.
"Ford, there's a killer out there, we don't need something to happen to Dipper, too." Joe's voice came as Stan came into the kitchen.
"You know he can take care of himself." Ford told him. "He's come out of four encounters with Bill -"
"This is different." Kristen cut him off. "He has a knife and...and he might have our little girl...If he got Dipper -"
"The boy'll be with us." Stan said, approaching them. "You know we'll keep him safe."
"How is he?" Ford asked carefully.
"I had to bribe him to get him to eat." Stan reported. "We'll have to get going as soon as he comes down."
"Stan, you didn't!" Kristen said, giving him a light scowl.
"Couldn't get him to eat, otherwise." Stan says. "Besides, I know how the kid feels. If we don't let him come with us, he'll go off on his own to find his sister. It's what twins do, trust me."
"We going?" Dipper's voice came. He had his backpack, which was no doubt filled with all manor of tools to take down anything that might have her. A short golf club and a mirror were sticking out it. Surely, the boy was prepared to fight for his sister.
"Someone's prepared for the worst." Ford said as he stood up and handed Stan his keys. "Atta boy."
As the car rode down the streets, Dipper's eyes scanned the town like a radar. Ford looked at him worriedly. He sighed. "We get it, Dipper."
"Actually, you don't, not really." Stan said. If not for how matter-of-fact his voice was, Ford might have felt like he was just picking a fight, and it made him curious.
"What do you mean?" Ford asked. "When I whipped your memory –"
"I was still right in front of you the whole time." Stan interrupted. "I spent thirty years fixing your portal and...I didn't even know if you were alive." Ford's eyes widened. He'd never considered the possibility that Stan had been worried about him apart from feeling guilty. He looked at Dipper through the rear-view mirror with his own new-found worry; the last time Ford didn't know where Stan was, he was still blinded by his bitterness and probably wouldn't have cared to hear that his brother was dead. Stan was right, he couldn't imagine it.
The rest of the ride was made in silence before Stan had to pull into a gas station. After filling up the tank, Dipper suddenly got out of the car, startling his uncles.
"Dipper?" Stan asked as he and Ford got out to see what was going on.
"This is taking forever." Dipper said. "I'm going on foot, maybe we can cover more ground."
"Dipper, wait." Ford said. "We promised your parents that we'd keep you safe. I'm coming with you."
"You two go look on foot." Stan said, getting back in the car. "I'll keep searchin' the roads." Stan pulled out and got back onto the road and Dipper and Ford were quiet as they took off themselves. It started snowing as they walked down the sidewalk.
"Dipper!" Dipper stopped and turned around to be embraced by Pacifica. As he inhaled the flowery scent of her hair, he saw Robbie and Gideon running up to them from behind her.
"See, he's still here." Robbie said.
"Weird." Gideon said as they caught up to them. "If my peach is gone, why is Dipper –"
"Gideon, we're normal twins, not conjoined or telepathic." Dipper said as Pacifica let go of him.
"Yeah, but you know her better than anyone, right?" Robbie asked.
"I like to think so." Dipper said.
"Oh, we're wastin' time!" Gideon suddenly yelled, spooking everyone, and starting to run ahead of the group.
"Gideon!" Pacifica called, pulling him back by the back of his shirt as he passed her. "We're trying to find her, not scare her away!"
"And just to be clear, you said you'd try to get over her and this whole thing seems to be going against that." Dipper added.
"Yeah, but she's missin' and I'm-I'm...worried." Gideon said and the way his eyes darted from side to side it was clear that he wasn't being completely honest.
"We're all worried," Ford said, "but the kid's right. We're not helping Mabel by just standing around. Let's get going again." So they continued in their small group, Gideon breaking the silence after a while.
"So who's this old man again?" he asked.
"My great-uncle Ford." Dipper said. "He's Stan's brother."
"Stanford has a brother?" Gideon asked.
"No, that's Stanford, Stan's real name is Stanley." Dipper explained. "See, Ford got sucked into this portal thirty two years ago, and Stan felt like Ford was worth more than him or something, so he took Ford's identity and faked his own death in a car crash, so to everyone else Stanley was dead and Stanford was still around."
"Well, my head hurts." Robbie commented. All the public really knew about the whole thing was that Stan was living under his missing brother's name until he showed back up, but no one had known anything about a portal or a car crash.
"Their whole family is full of surprises." Pacifica said.
"Oh, and he's also the one that wrote the journals." Dipper said.
"The journals?" Gideon asked, his eyes widening. "He wrote the journals?"
"Later, okay, kids?" Ford said in something of a dismissive tone.
"Tch." Robbie scoffed. "Surprises. How come my parents can't even be interesting when friends of a friend were leading these insane lives before they even reached thirteen."
"Dipper." Pacifica said. "He's always snooping around in places, and it makes him a magnate for weirdness."
"Hey!" Dipper protested.
"Tell me I'm wrong!" Pacifica challenged.
"Can we just focus on -" Dipper started, but stopped.
"What is it?" Gideon asked.
"Shhh!" Dipper hissed. He heard a voice that sounded like Mabel's. He couldn't make out what she was saying, but he was sure it was her. But...what if it wasn't?
"You guys stay here." he said as he took off his backpack and found a flashlight. "If this isn't what I think it is, I don't want anyone else to get hurt."
"Dipper, what's going on?" Ford asked as Dipper clicked on the flashlight and ran into a brick tunnel he had only recently began noticing – it must have been new.
"Just stay there!" Dipper called as he disappeared from sight. He followed Mabel's voice down the tunnel, hearing it grow louder and louder within a minute. His heart lifted when he saw her and he ran to her with his arms out, ready to embrace her and beg her forgiveness for that stupid fight.
Dipper stopped, taking in her unusual behavior. If he knew her, and he certainly did, she should have been running to him with a huge smile. However, Mabel was walking towards him slowly, and as she got closer, he noticed her smirk. What made him stop, though, was her eyes. They...they looked like Bill, but different. Rather than yellow, her eyes were completely green and the pupils were Xs.
"Hello, brother." Mabel's voice was low and snake-like as she stopped in front of him. His eyes lingered for a moment on what she had in her hand – a switchblade.
"Who are you?" Dipper asked warily, watching his sister suspiciously.
Mabel raised her eyebrows at him, impressed that he wasn't fooled. "Very well, than. My name is Reat, and your sister was kind enough to lend me this body."
"You're a liar." He whispered, now glaring at her. Reat laughed.
"Clever boy." she said. "I have to say, it was quite the toss-up between her and your blond friend, but in the end, her guilt was far fresher."
"And I take it you're from the Nightmare Realm? Same as Bill?" Dipper asked, and received a response he did not expect as Reat's eyes flashed angrily.
"Bill was weak!" she spat. "No self-respecting demon would repeat their own mistakes. He asked for what he got. Underestimating the bonds between siblings for a third time, even with a setup. Tch! How sloppy."
"Okay, Reat. What do you want?" Dipper asked.
"As simple as Bill was, he was an old friend of mine." Reat said in an almost bored tone. "You meat-sacks need to learn your place, and I won't make his mistakes. I am fully aware of how powerful your silly little human bonds are, and am quite prepared to use that strength to my ends." Dipper started towards her, and Reat unsheathed and rose the switchblade to Mabel's throat. Dipper froze and Reat looked dead serious. "Here's the thing, dear boy, I've already told you that I've been watching your blond friend for a while. This body is really no use to me, if she died I could always leave while she bleeds out to look for a new host. You, however, need her badly. So unless who want this blade to kill her, you will back away."
Feeling trapped, he did the only safe option he saw; he complied. Reat smiled at him as he backed up. As she turned and walked back the way she came. Not knowing what more he could do, Dipper watched her before turning around and running back out of the tunnel.
"Fooord! Staaan!" he called, feeling completely helpless.
Regrettably, this is going to be a brief arc, which is too bad because the more I figure Reat out, the more awesome she becomes. I just can't think of any reason Dipper would slack off here with his sister's life in the balance. Review.
19-16-5-3-20-18-1 9-19 2-5-19-20-18-1
Hint: Match numbers to letters