"You need to leave."

"You first."

"My family owns the property."

There had been thirteen people in the room. Billy had been sent off to Hell or something, and had dragged nine of the Holy Mackerels with him. That left Ricky alone with two men who he had left out for some reason. Then the Russian left, but not before having some kind of heated discussion with the other. Ricky did not listen. She didn't have the energy.

At this moment she was sitting on her hip, her legs parallel but sprawled out, propping herself up with one hand. The other man had moved to the bar and was helping himself to a shot of scotch. He was on his fifth shot.

He narrowed his eyes and regarded Ricky. "That's why your face looks so familiar. You're Parsifal's daughter, aren't you?"

Ricky frowned as he said her father's name and looked up to the place in the air where her father, Billy and eight other men disappeared. She finally got up and brushed off her skirt. She went to the bar, which the man was behind, and sat down. He poured her a drink.

"Can you tell me what just happened?" She asked. "I mean...where did my father go? Did you guys send Billy to Hell or something?"

The man shrugged "It's something like that. Not exactly though. We sent him to a place that can contain him- a place where his powers are minimized."

"And where is that, exactly?"

"Another universe. One with only two dimensions."

Ricky's brow knitted "How can a whole universe have only two dimensions?"

The man sighed, "I'm not as smart as many of my colleagues. But as far as I know some universes are very small indeed. Some are just a single room with no windows or doors. Some universes are like a sheet of paper- they go on forever, but only in four directions. Left, right, up and down exist, but that's it. No north and south, no in front of or behind."

"But...what would a universe like that look like? Like piece of paper?"

He shrugged "From the outside, maybe. From the inside? No one knows except for Triangulum."

She narrowed her eyes "So, my father is trapped in this, weird paper universe?"

He laughed darkly "Oh no, child. Your father is a creature of flesh and blood and bone- not magic and thoughtstuff. Mortal beings like us cannot survive in Triangulum's prison realm."

Ricky clutched her glass, drew her finger around the top "So, what happened to him?"

The man frowned and gazed at the amber colored liquid in his own glass. "Have you ever put a penny on the railroad tracks?"

Ricky let out a tiny, horrified gasp, put her hand on her face and stared turned her head. She stared blankly into the corner of the room, her mind suddenly filled with images of her father, flattened and warped horribly, and stretched to fit on a piece of paper as long as the eye could see. No tears came to her eyes this time. Tears wouldn't help, anyway.

Instead, all she could feel was rage.

Her father had warned her about Billy Mischief. Shouldn't that had been enough?

Ricky had been having flings with boys ever since she had been thirteen. Never had her father stepped in to try to separate the two of them, though he would ask his daughter questions about how she felt about whoever she was dating at the time. He told her never to let any of her suitors boss her around, and made her promise to tell him if any of them hurt her in anyway. They wouldn't have dared anyway- every boy in Gravity Falls knew it was insane to mess with the Northwest family. She and her father had had a very open relationship back then. He gave her something a lot of girls didn't get- his trust, and only asked for honestly and candidness in return.

Her father had never told her who and who not to date. He had only asked her to be safe, and to not have sex. When Parsifal had suddenly approached her and told her to break it off with Billy Mischief, she should have listened. She should have known the man had good reasons to be so concerned as to request this, but by that point, Ricky had been so head over heels for the magician that his demand shocked and appalled her and just pushed her further into Billy's arms.

And now, she had certainly paid the price. Not only did she not have a boyfriend, she didn't have a father either.

Billy really was just as bad as her father had tried to warn her.

She closed her eyes and thought of the little moments. The times when Billy had made her feel special. Made her feel loved- not because she was rich, not because her family was famous, not because was popular. It didn't matter to Billy that she was America Norhwest. Billy loved her because she was Ricky.

Or at least, that's what Ricky had thought.

He doesn't love you. He only wants to use you.

Use her. For what? To be close to her father? Her father...his enemy. The enemy of his true, demonic self. So was that it? Was killing her father the plan the whole time?

Ricky didn't know what to think.

The man on the other side of the bar stumbled, and took a hold of the wood to steady himself. "I think you've had enough," Ricky said "you're drunk."

"That's kind of the point of drinking, isn't it?"

Ricky shrugged, and held out her empty glass. Boy, had that shot hit her hard. She could see now why liquor had been so popular before it had been illegalized- why it still was now. She felt half numb to her twisted and painful emotions already. Maybe she could become fully numb if she drank another glass. The man obliged.

It occurred to her that this Mackerel might be trying to accomplish the same result. "What do you have to be miserable about?"

The man raised an eyebrow "Really? Do have to ask? How about finding out today that my son lost his life? How about being responsible for my brothers dying at the hands of a demon?" There was a little liquid left in the bottle, and the man drank it, putting his lips right on the rim. Ricky frowned.

"That's my father's. He paid for it."

The man shrugged "Then have me arrested."

Ricky's nostrils flared. Of course she couldn't do that. Possession of liquor was a crime, and Sheriff Blubs was very serious about prohibition. Ricky wasn't even sure if the fact that he was a Northwest could save her father's name from being marred, and she didn't want her father name marred.

"Your son was Billy, wasn't he?" Ricky asked "You sounded just like him, right there, when you gave me sass." She pointed out. He even had a similar nasily twang to his voice but just, gruffer. Older.

The man smiled sadly "Bill didn't get his rebelliousness from me. He was unique. I'm usually very quiet, very humble. Very cautious. But now," he shrugged "I have nothing to lose." He glanced at Ricky "You were seeing him, weren't you?"

Ricky nodded slowly.

"Tell me. What was he like...in the end? He was so angry with me. Shut me out. Was he happy with you? That's all I would want for him."

He started to weep drunkenly. Ricky stared at him, unable to make herself feel sad for the monster known as Bill Cipher. Unable, even, to offer this suffering man some kind of comfort. Nor could she do the opposite. She couldn't tell this man how she really felt about Bill when he was in such obvious pain.

So she got up. Maybe, maybe under different circumstances, she would have demanded that he leave. Maybe she would drag him out to protect her family's secrets and liquor supply. Maybe she would attack him for daring to bring Bill Cipher into the world. But right now, Ricky was drained. She was drained emotionally, left with an aching bitterness and apathy. Let them find out her father had had a bar under the Gravity Falls Costume Mart. Let this man go on a drunken spree. She didn't care. She didn't care. Her best friend was gone. Her father was gone. Her boyfriend was a monster- in both senses of the word. She didn't care. Let it all go to waste.

"He's gone."

The young Gleeful was so sure that she was going to die that, for a moment, he believed that the words were for himself. Like the voice belonged to kind of magical narrator to his life and that he had never been aware of, but now that he was dead and his story was over, he was allowed to hear the narrator talk all about him.

It took Gus several seconds to realize that he was alive.

He opened his eyes. He was still in the same place- still in the on the ground in the pine forest at the base of the mountain. He was still in his knees and elbows. His body still hurt. His hands and arms were still bleeding. But he was alive.

He was alive, right? He wouldn't be forced to walk around lost in this forest, bleeding, for the rest of eternity? Gus knew what happened to people's souls when they were responsible for the deaths their best friends.

It hurt him to do so, but Gus moved. He pushed himself off his elbows, feeling lightheaded when he did. When he sat up, his legs gave out from under him and folded into a double kneel. He looked around himself.

Multi-Bear had sat down a few yards away. Its various heads were looking around boredly, one of its claws scratching at an itch in the space between two necks.

Gus gasped "Or maybe...my divine punishment is to be chased by you for eternity!"

The main head- the head that was the largest, and had a ring of other heads on it's ruff- like the most horrible and garish fur collar Gus had ever seen- turned to him. Gus deflated into his own body. Dead or no, the young man was still too tired to get up running again.

"I have no desire to chase you." The main Multi-Bear head said.

Gus wasn't sure why he was surprised that the Multi-Bear spoke. He knew the Multi-Bear could talk. Billy had bragged him up after creating him. Gus supposed that he was more surprised by the monster's diction than his ability to speak. His voice was gruff, but still strangely pleasant, his words clearly pronounced. He sounded educated. If this was a voice Gus heard on the radio, he would never in a million years think it belonged to a monster.

"And I won't kill you either." The Multi-Bear said, answering Gus's unspoken question "Didn't you hear me? My Master is gone."

"Your master?" Gus asked, tasting the word. He was getting uncomfortable with the kneel so he sat cross-legged on the packed dirt ground. "You mean Bill?"

"If that's what you call the-" he gestured with a paw, which looked kind of ridiculous. It seemed Multi-Bear didn't really have a word to describe what Bill was.

"Demon?" Gus suggested, and the Multi-Bear nodded.

"Demon." Multi-Bear put his paw down.

Gus leaned back, and found a truck of a tree to lean on. If it hadn't been there, he would have laid on his back on the ground. Gus was beyond caring about whether this was a good idea or not- weather he might get bugs in his hair or get his clothes dirty or anything like that. He was just too tired to care.

"What do you mean, he's gone?" He asked matter-of-factly. Had Bill been killed again somehow? If he had, Gus didn't even have enough energy to feel sad about it.

Multi-Bear shook about half of his heads "Sent away...for a long time..." he sighed "I am eight bears. Most of my selves have lived in the forest surrounding Gravity Falls all our lives. I do not have the knowledge to put where he went into words. All I know is, he does not have power over me any more. I chased you because he wanted me to chase you. But now he's gone so I've stopped."

"Oh. Sent away. So maybe he was like, banished, then?" That's what usually happened to demons. But who would have banished Billy?

"Perhaps this is the right word." Multi-Bear said.

"Well, thank you, for not killing me." Gus said.

"Don't thank me. I already ate today. Two hikers from New York City. I was more than full. Do you have any idea what it's like to chase someone when you're painfully full?"

Gus frowned, trying to ignore the comment about hikers "I know I don't want to move when I'm like that. I'm sorry, Multi-Bear."

"It is not your place you apologize. You didn't want to be chased any more than I wanted to chase you."

"Bill made you do it."

Multi-Bear nodded its main head.

Gus leaned his head against the tree, looking up into the sky- clear with only a few puffy white clouds. Gus found it funny. Bill was dead and he hated Gus even from beyond the grave. Didn't the clouds know that? Didn't they know that it wasn't appropriate to look so happy?

"He's not that bad you know." Gus stated.

The Multi-Bear chuckled- a deep, growling sound from three heads "That is a funny thing to say, given what he just put you through."

Gus glanced at his burned hands. They hurt tremendously but the boy was too tired even to care about the pain. "Really," the boy said "I get it now. I understand that he was a demon his whole life, and not just a hapless vessel. And I know what demons are. I know they are a part of hell. I've been taught they aren't like us at all- that they live to make people hurt and that they are incapable of love." The boy closed his eyes.

Would person incapable of love trudge out all the way into the forest in the dead of winter just to get Gus the ingredient in the medicine he needed? Would he sequester himself in a cave across the lake, even while in incredible pain, because he didn't want to hurt anyone? Would he devote so much time and energy into creating and promoting a store that sold Gus's garments, just so the boy could pursue his dream?

Bill may have hated him, but Billy was Gus's friend. He wasn't the nicest guy, and he always played pranks, but he told Gus often that the boy was smart and talented and good fellow. It would be selfish to agree with him, but Gus was glad Billy told him these things and meant them. And from the time Gus had told him about his phobia to the moment he had entered that fatal circle of chalk, Billy had never once levitated him.

'You're my best pal. And you were...really upset. It's- it's different.'

Tears came to the boy's eyes. Unwanted, but there anyway. Billy wasn't bad. He wasn't a saint, but he wasn't like the demons Gus had learned about. He used to care about Gus, and Ricky too, and had wanted them to be happy.

Gus was the bad one. Gus was the one who had betrayed Billy out of sheer jealousy and fear that his life would change. There had been a seed of concern for his friend, and Gus had told himself that was his main reason, but really Gus had only wanted to see Billy brought down to his level. He honestly had not wanted Billy to die. But Billy had died, because Gus had done a selfish thing for a selfish reason.

Gus looked up. Multi-Bear was still looking at him with one head, only slightly interested. Gus sighed, "Yanno, I don't think I really know anything about demons."

"He was- I believe the word is- your friend?"

Gus nodded.

"Bears don't have friends. We are alone. Sometimes we mate. The females love their cubs. When we are cubs, we love our mothers and our littermates. But a bear is alone."

"Oh," Gus said, with a frown "but don't your other heads keep you company?"

Multi-Bear snorted, and Gus realized he was annoyed "Honestly, human, I know your ears are small, but your brain is large. Certainly you can hear what I'm saying clearly! A bear is alone. We do not desire the company of others. I fight with my heads over food, over a where to sleep in the cave. When we were eight bears and the manotaurs controlled us with sound, we hated sharing space with one another. Now we share a body, and it's far, far worse!"

"Oooooh," Gus frowned even deeper "And I guess Bill wouldn't be able to change you back, now that's he's been banished."

Multi-Bear shrugged many of its shoulders "Master is unwilling. And on top of that, he has made us unable to die as well."

Gus looked at Multi-Bear in surprise, and the monster huffed, "I think I shall move out of the cave I took from the manotaurs. This part of the forest is too trafficked for my taste. I shall move higher up the mountain."

Gus shrugged "If that's what you want. I suppose a guy as big as you can live just about anywhere he wants."

Multi-Bear chuckled again. It was an oddly pleasant noise.

"Multi-Bear, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"You already have been asking me things." Multi-Bear pointed out.

"Oh, right." Gus said, bit his lip for a second, then went for it "Multi-Bear, how is it that you're so smart?"

"I am eight times a bear," Multi-Bear said this rather slowly, like he speaking about an incredibly simple concept to someone who was too stupid to understand it "I am eight times larger than a bear. I am eight times faster than a bear. I am eight times stronger than a bear. A black bear, anyway. Grizzlies are different. I am also eight times as smart as a bear."

"So, I guess you have human intelligence now?"

The monster glared at him with five faces "I am eight bears. There's nothing human about me."

"Except the way you talk." Now only the main bear head was looking at Gus, and the pale haired boy went on "I never met a manotaur, but I've talked to plenty of people who have. I'm pretty sure you don't talk like one of them. You sound- cultured."

Multi-Bear shrugged "Seven of us were born to regular mothers and lived regular bear lives. The eighth was taken and raised in a human home for some reason or another. I must remember the words the Eighth Bear heard in that house. They meant nothing to the me at the time, but now that my intelligences have been combined, I can speak English."

Gus's eyes widened. A bear raised by a human family? He remembered when something like that happened. It was another quaint, country happening for Gravity Falls- another story from his childhood. Said bear had been part of that family- until the day it attacked their dog. Then it was shot in the head- or so Gus had heard.

"The Bratsman's bear! You're Blackie!" Gus liked the Bratsmans. Mr. Bratsman was a pianist, and every year for the big events he would play and sing for the townsfolk- right up until arthritis made it painful for him to play. Gus remembered the Bratsman house to be always full of music and song.

Multi-Bear huffed, annoyed "No, I'm Multi-Bear. The monikers you humans give me mean nothing."

Gus was about to argue that, since Billy had been human at the time, wasn't Multi-Bear just a human name? But the monster looked up, perking eight sets of ears. "And I don't care to be seen by humans either- present company excluded." He got to four of his feet. Gus had to wonder about the other four, which sort of dangled uselessly on its back. What was the purpose of those? "Goodbye," Multi-Bear said, sounding annoyed.

Gus heard it after Multi-Bear left- the ringing voices of two men, laughing with one another in a jolly manner. Gus blushed a little, because they were telling dirty jokes. He was so embarrassed that, for a second, he didn't realize his opportunity. But when he did, he started to yell.

"Help me! Help, please! I can't walk!"

Seconds later, one of the men came crashing through the woods. For a second, Gus seized up, thinking he was looking at a gnome. But it was only an unusually large and hair human- Ray Corduroy. The man was striking with his large hat and flannel. His green eyes opened wide when he noticed Gus.

"What was it?" Another voice yelled behind him.

"Here," Ray called, and another man pushed aside the brush to come into the clearing. Boundin Determined, another lumberjack with hulking muscles and a face only a mother cold love. And Mrs. Determined, of course.

Gus must have been a sight, with his many cuts and bruises, and all the dirt all over him, but he held out his burnt and bleeding arms anyway "Can you help me get home?" He asked.

She did not to go to her family home, where her father had lived, or the Shack, where Billy and Gus had lived. It would seem that, out of those choices, going to the mansion would be much less painful, but if she went there, she would have to explain to Yukon and the staff what had happened to her father. She didn't even know how to start. There wasn't even a body left behind.

So she walked the town, in sort of a daze, until someone tapped her on the shoulder. When she looked up, she had wandered over to the Gravity Falls Elementary Schoolhouse. She looked down at her feet and saw sand, and looked behind her and saw that she was sitting at the corner of the sandbox.

She had come to the place she had dreamed about. This was a place where Gus and she used to have talks- especially after both losing their mothers. That year had been bad. They had spent a lot of time just talking- the fifth grader and the second grader.

She looked up at a sky that was blue, with puffy white clouds. She hated the clouds. Didn't they know that her whole world had just crumbled into bits? What right did they have to be so cute and happy?

The person tapping her on the shoulder was Jersey Corduroy.

"My dad found your friend in the woods."

Ricky glared at the red haired kid, not comprehending. "My friend?"

"Angus Gleeful."

Ricky's eyes flicked. So did someone want her to identify the body or something? Ricky felt like she might throw up.

"He's at the clinic. His arms are really bad, and he's dehydrated, but he wants to see you."

Ricky turned to the boy slowly "He's alive?

The last day of June was sunny and balmy. The boy wiped his brow, clearly hot in his gray suit jacket. Ricky felt bad. She didn't believe he had to wear it, but Gus was self-conscious and didn't want to be in his shirt and suspenders alone.

Gus looked at the end of his left arm. The double hooks of the prosthetic moved apart slightly. What Ricky couldn't see was Gus flexing his right shoulder. He relaxed his shoulder, and the hooks closed in on each other. It looked eerie, like it really was a part of him. Of course both teens knew better. Hidden under his sleeve was and the base and straps of the prosthetic device.

The doctor she had personally called in from Portland had explained it very clearly: Gus's right hand had second-degree burns. His left hand had third-degree burns. His skin on that hand had burned through, leaving a white, hard gash. After the skin around the gash began to die and turn gruesome colors, amputation had been the only option.

"Gus!" Ricky nudged his right shoulder. A part of her was curious to see if the motion would cause the prosthetic to open again. "You've been out of the doctor's care for an hour and you can't stop looking at that thing!"

Gus smiled up and her and tried to pull his sleeve over his hook "I just don't want other people looking at it."

"Well they're all looking, Gus," Ricky informed him "because you can't stop looking at it. Why don't you just act natural?"

Gus put his left arm behind his back bashfully and smiled up at Ricky, saying nothing.

The two teens walked quietly. They were on Main Street. Town Square and the place where Parsifal had wanted a statue of their celebrated ancestor erected loomed ahead. Ricky looked at the oncoming square dourly. She turned to her right, and saw the Gravity Falls Costume Mart. Like it's competitor, the mart had not been in business since June 18th.

Ricky sighed and sat down at a bench on the sidewalk. Gus joined her.

"How have your dreams been, Gus?" She asked, her voice soft.

The pale haired boy looked away- east up Main Street. Ricky frowned.

"Still not good?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, Ricky."

"Why not?" The girl asked "They can't be so bad that you can't talk about them!"

"Ricky, please!"

Gus didn't raise voice to often. Ricky bit her lip and looked away. She hated to think about Gus having those dreams every night and her not knowing exactly how bad they were.

She felt sick again- a feeling that had been haunting her since June 18th.

"Gus, let's get outta here." She said suddenly.

"Okay," Gus replied, "you wanna go to our swimming hole? I feel like I haven't done anything that was just fun and stupid and what a kid otta be doing in an eternity."

"Well, you did spend the last week in the hospital, getting all your wounds taken care of. There's nothing fun about that." Then she went on "I don't want to go the swimming hole, Gus. I wanna get outta here."

"Okay. So where, then? I don't suppose you want to go to the Shack, do you? I haven't been there since...the eighteenth."

Ricky nodded grimly. June 18th was always going to be a bleak anniversary for them. The day everything had changed.

"No Gus...I can't bare to stand foot in that place any more than I could a week ago. My family owns the property now. I've asked Yukon to put it on the market. What happens to it now, I don't care."

She sighed, and reached over for Gus's hand. She had made sure to sit in such a way that he was on her left so she could hold said hand. It wasn't that she disliked the hook, just that she was still in a very fragile place right now, and craved human touch. Her father wasn't around to give it to her, she couldn't make her brother understand her grief, Bill was a monster and she had no one else but Gus. She squeezed the hand lightly and he squeezed back, finally looking at her to ask a question with his eyes.

"Gus, I wanna get outta here. I wanna leave Gravity Falls."

"You wanna take a drive to Portland or something?"

Ricky shook her head "Further than Portland. Gus, I'm talking about forever."

Gus's periwinkle eyes opened wide, and he watched the girl face for changes, curiously, but not judging, until she began to speak again.

"I literally feel like every second I spend in this town is killing me. There isn't a single place I can go to around her that doesn't remind me of father," she nodded to the empty Town Square "or," she said, looking at the door to 13 Main Street "him." She swallowed "Bill." She said in a strangled whisper.

Somehow, it was easier just to call her former boyfriend Bill now. Billy wasn't appropriate. That had been the name of someone she loved- someone who would never hurt her. "And besides that...He's here. I know he is."

Gus frowned and looked at his hook, idly opening and closing it. "I know what you mean," Gus said "I constantly feel like I'm being watched. Constantly."

A heavy silence sat between then. Gus looked at the ground between his feet "I don't hate him, you know. I'm just...I wish things could have gone better, in the end."

Ricky shook her head "Ever all he's done to you, you still feel that way?"

Gus just gave Ricky a sad look "I don't think it's that simple." He shut his eyes and leaned back on the bench "Yeah, he hurt me a lot. But I think it was because he got scared. And I- and I was supposed to be his friend. But I betrayed his trust." He opened his eyes "That must be a terrible thing to got through, and then die." He looked Ricky "If there was a way I could help him change back, I would."

Ricky just shook her head, slowly "Your capability to forgive is greater than mine. I'll never forgive Bill. He took my father away from me. He hurt you. Badly. He made you lose your hand, and you're still having those dreams. He's a monster. Only monsters kill people. Only monsters make people go through that kind of pain."

Ricky looked at the space behind Gus, as if expecting to find Bill there. "He's not dead." She said, "He's not dead, but he's not alive. And my Father and the Mackerels banished him, but he's still here. Watching us." She shuddered "I feel like he's a part of the town now. Like he's become one with it. This isn't the Gravity Falls I grew up in. This is Bill's place, now." She looked sadly down at Gus "I can't live with my father's murderer all around me. I can't see the tiredness in your eyes and look at what happened to your hand and stay here. I have to go."

Gus gave Ricky a pained look. "Okay Ricky. I respect that. But this time, Ricky, can I come with you?"

Ricky gave Gus a hug, tears in her eyes. "Of course Gus. I wouldn't dream of leaving you here. I just want to get as far away from this town and this state as possible."

"Really?" Gus asks, then "Well, I have an aunt in Florida. Is that far enough?"