It was Dipper who woke up first. And he was none the better for such an achievement. The adrenaline, the exhaustion, the fact his senses were screaming - it was no wonder he couldn't stop trembling.

Curzon was gone. Bill was gone. All that remained was a large, blackened impact mark in the building's fabric that rolled up every single wall, window, wood panel and pew.

His clothes were blackened and scorched in places, his legs slightly bruised here and there - perhaps time he reconsidered wearing shorts for these mystery hunts - But he was fine. He stumbled up to his feet and groaned, rubbing his aching head, trying to calm down his rapidly beating heart and still overbearing feelings of anxiety and pure panic.

He looked around through the still smoke and smogged up cathedral hall - largely due, now, to the smouldering wood, stone and tapestry. The Grunkles were stirring too - though were substantially less dazed. In fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a completely ordinary occurrence for both of them.

Their voices reverberated across the room, disorientating the teenager as he fondled blindly for anyone he recognised.

"Jeez louise, I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Again."

"When have you been hit by a truck?!" Ford spluttered, trying to wipe his glasses clean.

"1982, Sixer. Twice. Same truck." Stan replied - unwillingly doing exactly the same as his brother.

"I'm- I'm not even going to ask."

"I told the truck driver she looked like the possum I kept as a pet when I was a kid."

"I thought I was the only one who remembered that rabid little-"

"Hey. We don't disrespect Shanklin in this family, ya jerk."

Things went silent again as Dipper drew closer to them, his silhouette starting to form in the reeling crowds of dust and smoke. They peered as best they could, narrowing their eyes in the hopes of making out that mysterious, shadowy figure, and evaluating the potential threat at hand.

Ford grabbed one of his weapons cautiously. "Show yourself."

"Guys?"

The worried tone, that puberty pitchiness, the uncomfortable shifting. Oh yes, that was their Great Nephew in the flesh.

"Dippy?" Stan beamed and lifted his Grephew up in his arms. "Dammit kid, you had us worried! Man, you're shaking like my second cousin did during withdrawal!"

Dipper laughed, nervously holding onto his uncle's arms. "Where's Pacifica?"

"Dunno kid, we haven't been awake much longer than you. Probably not a good idea to go wandering."

Ford stood with a grunt and rubbed his chin. "We need to get some fresh air into here if we want to be sure there's no further threat…"

WHAM!

The Cathedral doors suddenly flew open, a blast of air swilling away much of the smoke and clearing a beam of soft, warm, gas fuelled flame through the darkness of the Ciphernaut's cathedral.

Preston ran in frantically, looking around the still smoggy space, with no due care or caution. "Pacifica?!"

A soft, weak splutter rang out from one of the corners. "D-dad…?"

"Oh thank goodness!" Preston grinned and grabbed his daughter, hugging her tightly as the smog excited the room, revealing the most awkward sight Dipper and the Grunkles thought they had ever seen.

Pacifica stood there, frozen, her eyes wide and panicked as she looked at the Pines. It wasn't so much that her father had never hugged her. It was more that it was usually for a publicity event or a photograph.

"You had me worried, daughter! Are you hurt? Oh come, let's-"

He was being as nice as he could possibly fathom, and she was pretty sure she knew why. Part of her felt like slapping him across the face or something. She lowered her eyebrows and slowly - albeit firmly - slipped away from her father's arms, glaring up at him.

Preston froze and raised his eyebrow.

Things fell silent - save the crackling of flames. The man in the cat burglar get-up immediately recognised what had happened. Pacifica had learned. Learned more than he had hoped for.

He moistened his lips as his eyes flitted to the Grunkles and the boy in the lumberjack cap, all of whom were glaring at him with no shortage of very genuine fury. He adjusted his tie and coughed into his hand as the tension grew so thick you could slice it up and serve it to your family on Thanksgiving.

"How much do you know?"

"You tell me." His daughter replied, every word dripping with venom.

"I…"

She rolled her eyes and counted on her fingers. "Susan. Toby. The Diner. Bill. Curzon. Anything else I've missed, father?"

"No, no, that's - that's everything."

"Liar."

Preston froze and stood up straight, his eyes widened. For a moment his moustache twitched as he twisted his lip. "Excuse me?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Pacifica, I-"

She whipped her hair and furrowed her brow, dusting some of the dirt from her sleeves and marching - with purpose - towards the frame that Curzon had opened to her. Preston audibly gulped. He knew all too well what was inside.

"You want to know what I've missed?" She threw the battered mahogany doors open and jabbed furiously at the split vellum family tree. "This. Explain this to me, Dad."

"Pacifica, please don't touch that. It's- it's a very valuable-"

"Don't you DARE tell me I can't touch this stuff, Dad! Explain this to me, right now!" She yelled, poking the bottom of the document, where she belonged.

Despite all of her still smeared makeup, her still red, swollen eyes and her sniffling, Pacifica was now taking charge. She was done. It was, to Dipper and the Grunkles at least, more than understandable. Over what was little more than a few days, her life and her knowledge of her family had been flipped upside down.

This was no longer Pacifica being forced to learn - this was Pacifica demanding to learn. The kid gloves were off. Pacifica was now being about as grown up and as demanding as she could muster.

The old man squirmed, a bead of sweat trickling down his thick brow as the Pines - and his estranged daughter - pierced him with furious, judgemental glares. Every instinct he had was to lie out of it, or flit through the opened doorway and leave it all behind, swear off of it, never say a word…

But then, that had basically been his modus operandi for most of his life.

This was it. It was time for Preston Northwest to accept that, in fact…

His family had made mistakes.

He rubbed his chin and sighed. "Alright. Alright, now listen. I- I believed all of this wholeheartedly when I was young, Pacifica. This was my life when I was your age. I was taught everything that this family stood for and- and I believed in it.

I was all for marrying you off, making deals with Cipher, maintaining the cover up...but after Weirdmageddon and the… unpleasantness with Greasy's Diner, I uh… I started realising I might be wrong."

His daughter remained steadfast. "You tried to ruin my life."

"And I didn't want to anymore. Yes, I've… tried to change the course of things. I was certain it was the right thing to do. For your income, for our image, for our future. I just wanted to make sure you got what you deserved. The life you were raised for.
I could have forced the marriage, you know. I could have forced you home. I could have kept you away from all of this conspiracy and mystery nonsense. I tried to keep you away from the wider family.

There was a reason all of those paintings were kept in a hidden room. A reason I never tried to indoctrinate you into the Ciphernauts. I didn't believe in it. I didn't want you wrapped up in this nonsense. I knew it was wrong. I cared about you. I… I only kept it up because it was my duty as a Northwest."

Stan leaned over to Ford and mumbled in awe. "You'd think he expects a freakin' gold medal for being a barely adequate dad."

"Didn't you try to apply for a grifter award last year?"

"Yeah, but at least I knew I deserved it."

Pacifica was unmoved. Although it was hard to deny it felt a little better to know her Dad had at least one designer leather-covered foot in the realms of sanity, there was no chance she was going to forgive nor forget the sheer horrors that had been hidden underneath her home. Nor was she ever going to forgive her Dad's complicity in it. How could she?

She gestured back to the calligraphic family tree, still speaking with no small amount of barely-restrained anger. This was it; this was the big one.

"And why does it just stop, Dad? Am I not allowed to have kids? Am I not meant to keep anything going or keep worshipping some sort of creepy geometric shape?"

Preston took a deep breath. "The Fundhausers and the Northwests were meant to become ruling families in a post-Weirdmageddon world. That was Nathaniel Northwest's ultimate plan…

The idea was that it was the finale. The final generation of the Northwest's ultimate coup. You take over Weirdmageddon, the rest of our worldwide relations and contacts join in, we profit through selling everything from mutant meat to Dippin' Dots."

Pacifica's eyes widened as she clasped her forehead. She was pretty sure she'd have preferred to be forbidden from ever having children. I mean, what, she was meant to be the CEO of Weirdmageddon? If there was any proof that Nathaniel Northwest was insane - and lacked foresight - it was there, staring them in the face.

She fell completely silent as she tried to unpack that little revelation. She was almost… flattered wasn't the right word. But only a year or so ago she'd have thought that was really damned cool.

Save, y'know, the apocalyptic thing.

Now she was equally concerned about breaking the news to Grenda. What if Marius was still clued in? She knew his Dad was dead, but- could it all be another grand, manipulative way into Gravity Falls? What could they do? They needed to investigate.

But how was one meant to investigate when Summer was nearly over? What if Marius's dad was dead because of-

No. No way. Nonono. She couldn't deal with that idea.

The room's silence was broken only by the cracking of smouldering tapestry that curled around them.

And Grunkle Stan, of course. "What's with the Dippin' Dots?"

"Everyone knows they're about as strange and cunning a business you can get. That and gourmet jelly beans. It would have been an empire."

"So that's why you tried to make a deal with him." Dipper chimed in.

"I uh… never expected Weirdmageddon to take place so soon, and never believed much in it, admittedly, but… more or less correct.

When Bill was there in front of me, it seemed foolhardy not to try and put the deal on the table. Of course, we now know that it was all.."

The magnate touched his nose gingerly as he went through the graphic memory of his facial orifices. It was still a sense of both fury and fear to consider the momentary - albeit terrifying - mutilation at the hand of a creature that was supposed to be his family's friend, benevolent interdimensional god and business partner.

The punctuation of them melting Nathaniel Northwest's statue was the most graphic declaration of the deal being fake that they could ever have.

His face darkened as he seemed to ruminate on it a little longer than expected before mumbling, quietly, "That it was all… A joke. I'm still processing that to this day."

Ford blurted out his very visceral response with no shortage of anger. "Seriously? Seriously?!"

"listen to me, Pines." Preston replied through gritted teeth. "You have no leeway to discuss bad deals. Let's not forget it's your machine that caused Weirdmageddon in the first place."

"And the weirdness bonds…?" Dipper ventured. "You lost your home, but how the hell did that work?"

"Weirdness bonds were a creation of Nathaniel Northwest, too. Sort of a private system on the stock market." The old man coughed and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

"It uh… didn't work out as expected. After all, the Weirdness stayed strictly in Gravity Falls. Who'd invest?"

Dipper raised a bewildered eyebrow. He wasn't much of a businessman but he was pretty sure that entire concept didn't make an iota of sense.

The millionaire sucked air through his teeth. "T-this isn't easy for me, Pacifica. But I want you to know that… I'm sorry."

Pacifica blinked and looked to Dipper and the Grunkles, who only shrugged in response. It was a moment she wasn't prepared for but had always hoped for.

She sobbed and hugged the old man. She wasn't even entirely sure why. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Preston held her firmly and looked at the floor in shame.

They both knew there was no repairing the family's past, nor Preston's own pig headed, often hate filled behaviour. The rot ran too deep.

The horror was too embedded into the Northwest name for Pacifica to ever feel comfortable being part of it.

The war for Preston to take his daughter back to where she belonged was over. He had lost. And he knew it. She wordlessly let go, walked back to Dipper and wrapped her arm around his waist, looking the magnate in the eyes.

He didn't say a word in response.

The family looked up at the burning banner of Bill Cipher as the flames crawled up the antique fabric, turning it into ash and wrapping around that large, glowing eye in the centre. The moment the crawling licks of fire hit, every one of those circuit board veins that led out across floor, wall, and ceiling flashed a bright red before fizzling away into nothing.

Cipher was no longer watching. His grip on the Manor was released in a scattering of blackened, smouldering ash and smoke. His connection was severed.

The triangular Demon was once again resigned to limbo - while it seemed, for now, Pacifica had left her limbo behind and finally gained a sense of closure.