Mr and Mrs Pines were a lovely couple with a fairly normal home in Piedmont. Yes, the household had its eccentricities, but they were the normal kind a happy family typically has, and unlike a certain family in Surry, they embraced those little oddities that made a house feel like a home.

Each notch on a doorway, mark on a wall, and scuff on a floorboard had a memory attached to it. The still sizeable dip in the garden where their children had tried to dig to the other side of the world when they were 6 years old, a discoloured patch in the kitchen ceiling from a homemade volcano experiment that had been a little too successful when they were 11, the strategically placed sunflower painting in the hallway, placed to hide a hole that had been made in the midst of a play-fight at 8 years old.

The couple had never really noticed these things until they sent their children away for a few months to get some fresh air and new experiences. They had enjoyed their time alone together, but quickly began to feel as though the house was far too empty and silent. Soon they were finding and retelling every story they could to each other, they made a game of it to pass the time.

When the pair of kids finally returned (With a pig that they definitely did not have when they left) they mostly seemed the same, but Mr and Mrs Pines were rather perceptive when it came to their children. It was obvious that they had learned and grown a lot over those few months spent in gravity falls.

Mabel had gotten good at card games … suspiciously good (Though neither parent had been able to prove that she was cheating) and Dipper had picked up a hobby of journal keeping, he pretty much had a notebook and pen glued to his side at all times. Past the superficial, Dipper had clearly gained confidence in himself, and though Mabel had always been caring, it was evident she had learned to think of others a little more before acting (not to mention her obsession with getting a boyfriend was far lesser than before). They were altogether more resourceful, caring, and mature.

There were a few things that slightly worried them however (Beyond some of the phone calls they'd had with Stan over the summer. Like the time he said he was sending them home and then retracted it not long after, or when he announced that his twin had miraculously returned from the dead.)

The twins were less trusting, the sound of them waking up from nightmares was a little more frequent, they were more protective of one another. When asked about their summer they would look at eachother like they were silently communicating how much they should say before answering. And that was just what they had noticed, because their children had definitely become better at lying and hiding things from them.

These things were small enough that the parents didn't quite feel it necessary to confront them (Or Stan) about it. But it concerned them enough to keep an eye out for anything else.
Nethertheless, it was a shock when Dipper unexplainably ended up on the roof.

It had been an unremarkable evening full of slumping in the living room doing nothing. When they were watching some silly kids parody of the mafia movie genre a scene in which the protagonist makes a deal with the mob boss made Dipper look rather tense, but that was the only strange thing they had noticed. There was really no indication of anything unusual.

However that night Mr Pines was awoken by the sound of Dipper having a nightmare. He groggily got up, put on his wire framed glasses, trudged to his child's room. He knelt down by Dippers bed, just above him an orange streetlight streaming down yellowish light through the window. It cast a glare across the mirror on the opposite wall. Gently, Mr Pines shook Dipper, coaxing him awake with a soft whisper.

"Dipper, hey bud, wake up, it's me."

His son's eyes opened a little in response, before snapping open. He scrambled up and away from the bed as he stared at Mr Pines with an expression a parent never wants to see- pure unadulterated fear. Dipper spoke in a tight and shaky attempt of calm and measured voice.

"I thought you were gone. We got rid of you."

Mr Pines felt his eyebrows furrow in confusion and concern

"Dipper, it's just me. What is going on?"

He moved to take a step towards him. Big mistake.

For the first split second Dipper's voice was a shout, like he wanted to yell and scream but was only just keeping it in.

"DOn't come closer, I swear I'll-"

And just like that he disappeared.

Mr Pines' head whipped round as he frantically tried to figure out what had just happened and where his son had gone. It was only then that he saw that Mabel was awake, her eyes wide and one fist tightly clenching the duvet like she was just about to throw it off and intervene. There was a moment where they both stared at each other, frozen, before they both moved.

Mabel began tearing apart the room looking for Dipper while Mr Pines rushed out, his socks skidding uncontrollably on the hardwood floor. Now, normally Mr Pines was a fairly jovial and even tempered man, however as he careened into his room at top speeds he was in full blown panicked parent mode.

"DIPPER IS GONE"

Naturally his wife was sat upright and completely awake immediately.

"WHAT"

"I WAS TALKING TO HIM AND HE DISAPPEARED. POOF. GONE INTO THIN AIR!"

(That conversation may or may not have contained more expletives than written here. Such words were made to express extreme emotion and are used to greatest effect in shocking circumstances. In this situation both apply. I am just going to say there were at least two. I will let you decide where they are.)

It took at least half an hour of panicked searching and yelling before they found him on the roof. Mr Pines had to climb out of a roof window and extremely carefully crawl up the roof itself to reach him. Once he got there he took a moment to take a few gasping breaths to refill his lungs and reduce the amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Huh. The roof had a surprisingly nice view. Who'da thunk it?

Once calm and sure that he wasn't about to slip off of the roof he got to the topic at hand

"How did you even get up here anyway?"

"I have no idea. One moment I was in the bedroom, the next I was stood on the roof"

"I'm just glad you aren't hurt. Next time warn a guy before you just go 'Poof' into thin air on him"

He made sure to add the appropriate hand gesture to his 'poof' sound effect, and to let the moment linger before he moved on to the heavy stuff. This was going to need the 'serious and concerned but not judging and ready to reassure' dad face

"What was going on with you in the bedroom anyway?"

"It was nothing, you don't need to worry about it."

Well if that wasn't the most obvious topic avoidance of the century he didn't know what was. Somehow it worried him more than if his worst fears were confirmed.

"You would tell me if you or Mabel got hurt while you were away, right?"

He tried to let the message of 'I trust you, and you can trust me if you need to' carry unsaid. The way Dipper glanced off to the side like he was trying to find a way to respond without lying too much told him that he wasn't going to get the whole truth for a while.

"It was just a nightmare, nothing bad is going on."

And nightmares that bad don't happen without a reason. 'Just a nightmare' his ass.

"Alright, but if you do want to tell me or your mother anything, we are right here."

He clearly wasn't going to get anywhere with this conversation tonight, but hopefully it helped reassure Dipper a little. He had let his words sink in a for little now, but it was time to move on.

"Do you have any idea how to get down? Because I am kind of stuck."

Dipper gave a small smile, but after the events of tonight it was the best feeling in the world to have put it on his face.

"No clue, we may want to call for help."

Needless to say, after being helped down by some very unimpressed firemen, they needed no help getting back to sleep. Questions about how someone could disappear in the blink of an eye, and phone calls asking what the hell happened over the summer could wait until tomorrow. For now everyone was safe and happy.