Dipper arrived at an empty 24 Hillside Avenue. He stood grounded at the driveway's end with Mabel, neither of them taking a step further.

The house was the only one on the block with no lights on. Underneath the September dusk, it jutted out like a sore thumb. Squinting, Dipper made out Dad's sedan on the driveway, a bit more showroom quality and bit less metal skeleton than he had last seen. A trail of power tools and spilled oil connected the project through the garage door to a workstation. Pots of geraniums still wrapped in store plastic sat beside the car, placed before Mom's strictly off-limits flower bed that snaked around the perimeter of the house. They were flanked by an empty stool, gardening tools and sunhat. Hours had passed since the sun was bright enough to warrant headwear.

His gaze swept over the house, then once more because the darkness was setting in, then a third time because he swore there was a figure staring at him through his bedroom window, but realized it was just his desk lamp. Dipper rubbed his eyes. Even in the onset of night, it couldn't have been more obvious the lamp was not some home invader or monster or whatever.

"Do you think they had the same emergency again?" Mabel asked. Her question was fraught with more worry than despair.

Dipper replied with a sigh and let his backpack flop down. Immediately, his shoulders thanked him. It was as if he were Atlas and the world was plucked from his shoulders by a forgiving Olympian. The Speedy Beaver had been kind to him with its leathered seats and spacious legroom; the taxi ride from the bus station had not.

Suddenly, the scene was not so unfamiliar. After all, he'd experienced the unexplained absence of Mom and Dad plenty of times before.

"I don't think, I know for a fact," he grumbled. "You should too."

"Maybe they're out buying us ice cream and chocolate cake for our birthday."

"Mabel, Mom keeps the strictest tab on everything we eat. Counting calories is like a religion for her, remember?"

She feigned a sniffle. "I miss Grunkle Stan's pantry and his barrels of sprinkles already. Speaking of which, I wonder what Mom would say if I told her I ate like bleventeen packets of Smile Dip and you downed three cans of Pitt a day."

"That would be the least of her worries if they knew what we did this summer."

"What do you mean, bro-bro? All we did was make new friends and meet the eighth-and-a-half President and defeat a thirty-foot tall robot and get kidnapped by a cult and… Okay yeah, I see your point," she pouted.

The suddenly cold wind rustled Dipper's hair and urged him inside. He took a step forward, or at least tried to, but his path was blocked by Waddles. He was sprawled out on Mabel's suitcase in slumber, paying no attention to the sidewalk passersby who were probably wondering what the heck a pig was doing in the suburbs. Or perhaps they were asking themselves why the neighborhood's two resident nuisances (Dipper was not oblivious to their hushed conversations) were standing dumbstruck and unmoving in front of their house. Yet no questions came from them, and even if they did ask, Dipper wouldn't have cared to answer.

His thoughts began wandering in no particular direction as exhaustion gnawed at his bones. Perhaps the tiredness egging him for the past couple days decided messing with his mind was more fun, as had been the case when he noticed the peculiar pattern in the attic's window yesterday. He had shrieked like a little girl and blasted a hole clear through with Mabel's grappling hook.

Or maybe it was the eight hour bus ride, where every snow-capped mountain, blue lake, and lush forest that had captivated Dipper three months ago was boring and lifeless this time around, yet the paranoia he'd developed over those months refused to let him sleep. It was surprising how different he and Mabel were when their destination was Gravity Falls in what felt like a lifetime ago. He vaguely remembered them being like the other tourists on the Speedy Beaver, plastered against the window for the trip's duration, snapping pictures of the landscape whizzing by.

"Whoa, Dipper, check this out!" Mabel had exclaimed when they passed through Klamath Falls. "Tell me that isn't the most lake-looking lake you've ever seen!"

He frowned at her observation. Upper Klamath Lake hosted a lazy medley of people paddling canoes on the waters against a backdrop of faraway trees and hills, not unlike the family outings their family had taken when he and Mabel were younger. Picturesque for sure, but something to devote all attention onto? "Mabel, lakes are literally everywhere here in the Pacific Northwest, even back in California. Why don't you check out those mountains over there? We don't see those every day."

"Pfft, mountains are just tall pointy rocks," Mabel said, blowing a raspberry.

Pre-summer Dipper had responded with a playful punch to her arm. However, current Dipper took a single glance at the mountain ranges and concluded they were indeed nothing more than tall pointy rocks. Ones that definitely weren't the Manotaurs' lair and harbored neither mysteries nor answers for him.

In fact, the world appeared through a different lens now. Would Weirdness follow them back to California and rear its unpredictable head again? Nope, they were in Piedmont now, home for more than a decade, where Weirdness ceased to be. Or so Dipper liked to believe. He also would have liked to believe, or rather expected, their parents to be at the bus station waiting for them, Mom's arms open for a hug, Dad shooting them a smile. After all, more than three months had passed. When he had voiced this concern to Mabel, she proposed that Mom and Dad were planning a surprise birthday party at home, and had been imagining this hypothetical party out loud throughout the entire taxi ride from the bus station.

What could Dipper deduce now? Almost nothing for certain, except for the emptiness of their house. Where were Mom and Dad? The possibilities were confined to the night spilling out: endless and formless. Piedmont was supposed to be a safe community, and stores never stayed open this late. Dipper shuddered, yet it had only taken Mabel breaking what seemed like an eternity of silence for him to realize there was only one plausible explanation.

They dragged themselves to the front door with Waddles trailing lazily behind. The lightless house appeared even darker and more foreboding up close, somehow stranger than anything they had encountered in their countless summer outings. Soon, they would be swallowed back into the mundane routine of ordinary life. No, not mundane, that was an understatement. Dad's programming books and sci-fi novels, which Dipper had been reading avidly before the summer, suddenly seemed boring and lifeless. Planting flowers with Mom and Mabel paled in comparison to chasing gnomes through the forest.

A note waited for them on the front door. It was written on Mabel's letter that she'd sent home from Gravity Falls early in the summer, which spoke volumes about how quickly they must have left. Normally, Mom was a meticulous planner who left nothing to chance, but the envelope wasn't even opened.

"Wow, good thing they didn't read that one. In retrospect, doing a science experiment of shoving gummy worms up my nose doesn't seem like such a good idea," Mabel said.

By the light of Mabel's nearly-dead cell phone, they read the note together:

Dearest Dipper and Mabel,

Happy 13th birthday sweethearts! Sorry we couldn't pick you guys up from the bus station. There was an emergency (yes, we'll talk about it when you're older) and we had to leave right away. Dad was in the middle of working on his car, and I was planting my flowers when we got the news.

Great-uncle Stanford called about your pig, Mabel. He said "Waddles" was an indoor pig who only suckled on "the finest of creams", never set foot outside and required coddling 24/7, and his allergies to swine prevented him from having the pig live at the Mystery Shack. I honestly couldn't tell if Stanford was being serious or not, but if that is the case, please don't make a mess of the house while we're gone. Also when we get back, we will definitely have to set some ground rules. Your father is already humming about free bacon.

I can't believe you two have grown up so quickly! Literally teens now! I remember the good old days when I was thirteen, playing outside with my own two hands and running around with my own two legs. Not like your generation , cramped inside with your fancy devices and watching a talking duck on television. Hopefully, you two gained an appreciation for sun and fresh air during your summer in Gravity Falls. I also hope Stanford wasn't too poor of an influence on you.

We can't wait to hear about your summer when we get back! Love you two so much!

-Mom and Dad

Dipper sighed. The night air was loud with cars whizzing past and people talking in their backyards, but he didn't need to hear Mabel to know she sighed as well, maybe with more gusto.

"I guess this officially concludes our summer vacation," he said glumly.

Mabel took much longer than expected to reply. "Agreed, best we've ever had."

"By far. Even with all the almost-dying."

There was a reason why Dipper hadn't talked much about his life back home to his Gravity Falls friends: he didn't have much of a life there to talk about. Who was Dr. Funtimes the mystery hunter before coming to Gravity Falls? Just a loner at Piedmont Middle School. No, "loner" was too kind. More like a social outcast. The more he pondered it, the more unpleasant memories came back. And to think that three months ago, he'd been complaining constantly about being sent up to Gravity Falls to live with weird old Great-uncle Stanford.

The house was just how they left it, yet everything seemed so out of place and foreign. The immaculate wooden floors felt unusually slippery underneath their feet. Odd right angles sharpened every wall and doorway. The fridge and pantry stocked with raw vegetable chips, weird sand-colored dips, and Dad's summer eggnog, making Stancakes seem like a delicacy. Dipper's stomach rumbled; they should've eaten something before leaving. Thus, the raid for decent snacks began. There weren't even leftovers, which was strange considering how much food Mom usually made. Had their parents been in that big of a rush?

It's as if he left a part of himself back in Gravity Falls. In more ways than one, Dipper still had a hard time believing they spent the better part of four days (or had it been a week? Two weeks? Even longer? Time had been as messed up as everything else during Weirdmageddon.) fighting for their lives against an extradimensional space demon. Now they were supposed to just go back to being ordinary thirteen-year-olds? The feeling was raw, creeping, as if every movement he made was wrong. Things that were once second nature now seemed to require an inordinate amount of mental focus; for example, washing his hands after finding a packet of instant noodles in the cupboard.

Mabel stuck her head up from the freezer. Shouldn't have licked his lips that loudly.

"Ooooh," she cooed, "is that Mr. Wong's Extra Nuclear Atomic spicy noodles?"

The flamboyant packaging was peppered with weird Asian characters and badly translated slogans. Dipper could taste the regret burning his tongue.

Mabel sprung up to heat up a pot of water on the stove. Her expression was unusually hard to read, like a mix of challenging him to an eating contest and wondering if garnishing it with plastic dinosaurs was a good idea. No, scratch that. Mabel's expression was exactly what he would have always expected.

"I wonder how these would taste with Grunkle Stan's Brown Meat?" Mabel mused aloud.

Dipper's stomach coiled into a tight knot. Yuck. The name conjured up rather disturbing images of their great uncle inhaling can after can of the sludge, then proclaiming they could survive on the stuff. "You tried Brown Meat before? I wouldn't touch even the can itself with a twenty-foot pole."

"Well yeah, Wendy dared me one time. The stuff wasn't too bad, or so I thought until I spent the next twenty minutes in the bathroom." Mabel said, shuddering.

"Do I even want to know what it tastes like?"

"Of course you do, you're like the nosiest brother ever!"

"Am not!" Dipper laughed.

"It tastes what McGucket would come up with if he were challenged to create a meat product. Without using meat."

The imagery was enough to heat up the back of his throat with uncomfortable viscosity. He grimaced, then saw the water was ready.

They ate, or attempted to eat, in silence. Deafening silence, to be honest. Where were Mabel's weird anecdotes of what she did with Grenda and Candy that day? Or better yet, why wasn't he himself telling tales of whatever weirdness he'd found in the woods? But the ticking of a clock that actually worked and the lack of customers coming in demanding refunds for $50 t-shirts reminded him all too callously of the answer. Funny how those were the two things that screamed Piedmont the most.

Dipper looked up. Mabel looked up at the same time. He sighed loudly, and she mimicked his exaggerated inhale and exhale. He raised an eyebrow. She did as well. He made a funny face. She returned it.

Soon, they were doubled over laughing, just like they'd always done. And it occurred to Dipper that moment, the mental disconnect that kept him from running around the house as Mabel playfully chased him, as they'd done almost daily pre-summer, had disappeared. He meant what he'd said to Mabel in that psychedelic knitted courtroom: they would go home, and grow up together, taking care of each other as they'd done their entire lives.

During the time when everyone had pitched in to build the Shacktron, after a long day(?) of work, he and Mabel were trying to get some sleep. Mabel had broken into horrible, racking sobs of guilt, and told him (but no one else) about Bill tricking her into handing over the Rift. Though at first shocked to learn the circumstances, he'd been understanding. He'd consoled his distraught sister, saying Bill did exactly the same thing to him: coming in a moment of weakness and offering what seemed to be a perfect solution in exchange for something that to him appeared insignificant. That's what Bill had done to Mabel, to Dipper, to Ford, and probably thousands more people throughout history.

"This whole mess isn't any more your fault than it is mine, Mabel. I should have told you and Stan about the Rift, even though Ford told me not to," he'd said to her. "You, me, Gideon, Stan, Ford, Blendin… we all share some of the blame. But do you know who's fault it really is?"

She'd just stared at him, eyes still shining with tears.

"It's Bill's fault," Dipper had said, "And we're gonna stop him."

Mabel hadn't said anything after that, but she did give her first genuine smile since they'd begun work on the Shacktron, before the exhaustion of the day forced them both into sleep.

After finishing their improvised dinner, the twins set to exploring their incredibly familiar, yet somehow still foreign-seeming home.

The first new addition to the house, at least the first one Dipper noticed, was in the living room. The old television they'd grown up watching with its accompanying wooden stand was gone. In its place was a giant flatscreen large enough for Dipper to see his reflection in.

A marathon of new Ducktective episodes was out. Lo and behold, from the shadows of the gambling parlour that the (now reconciled) Duck twins were playing cards in, entered another duck who looked just like them, albeit with a mohawk/crest sort of thing on his head. Another doppelgänger?

Ducktective quacked loudly, his face contorted in what might have been disgusted surprise. Dipper's own expression was much the same.

"Another twin brother?" He exclaimed. "So they're actually triplets? Identical triplets? ...Lame."

"I did not see that coming," said Mabel.

The next five minutes of the newly-reunited triplet ducks playing cards looked a lot more interesting that it probably should have.

He wondered what it would be like to be a triplet. Another Mabel? Or another him? Or maybe someone new with an entirely different personality, likes and dislikes. The question irked him with unusual persistence, until Mabel interrupted.

"Hey Dip, have you ever thought about what it would be like if we were triplets?"

Yes. "No."

Mabel laughed. "Of course you have, bro-bro."

"Yeah, you're right. It's probably how other people think of us. Remember how in school, people always used to ask what's it like being twins?"

Mabel nodded in agreement. "Oh yeah. I felt special the first few times, but then it just got suuuuper annoying. Like they'd ask if we have twin telepathy or if we can feel each other's pain."

Feel each other's pain. Dipper shuddered, thinking back to the day Mabel returned to the Mystery Shack covered in rainbow blood and bruises that should've had her moaning in agony. Instead, she'd worn a grin that stretched from ear to ear. He would not have reacted the same, at least not prior to Weirdmaggedon. "That would be a nightmare. By now, I'd be addicted to painkillers and sit in an armchair all day like Grunkle Stan."

"And I would remain the alpha twin," Mabel giggled, before shooting up on the couch and flexing. "Taller! Stronger! Not sweatier!"

Dipper rolled his eyes., then looked over at the fridge, which along one side was marked in blue and pink ticks: his and Mabel's growth chart. The tick marks were placed at intermittent intervals, from the bottom to about halfway up, but always at the same level. Not anymore, sadly.

"I always asked those annoying people what it's like not being a twin," Mabel said.

"Exactly! Maybe being triplets is like that. A mystery to anyone but them."

The episode concluded with a rival gang of Canadian geese busting into the parlor, brass wing-tips drawn. Dipper wondered why they kept the name "Ducktective" when the creators had clearly demonstrated that they had shifted from attempting to entertain people with witty humour and great mystery elements to milking a once-great show for money. A better question would be why he and Mabel were still laughing and enjoying themselves.

The next episode, continued at Mabel's insistence, focused on a new character named Goose, who was in fact not a winged fowl, but a beaver who reminded Dipper of Deputy Durland. Did Goose even know what her name meant? Clearly not, as Ducktective (or any one of his brothers, he didn't know or care at this point) posed the same question, and Goose answered, while slapping one of them with her tail, that "Goose" was what humans shouted at her at the goose pond she lived in, so it must be her name. She then discovered the duck she was supposed to beat up had no mustache, and proceeded to chase Ducktective around.

So on and so forth, Dad's new plasma TV played the new marathon of increasingly terrible Ducktective episodes into the night. Somewhere between Goose mixing up the duck triplets for like, the tenth time, and kissing the wrong duck she romanticized, Mabel fell asleep on Dipper's shoulder. Since he was already pressed against Waddles on the other side, this left him rather stuck.

Slowly, Dipper's eyelids grew heavy, slowly drifting shut as the hours-long bus ride finally caught up with him. The windows were open, letting in the warm early September air. If Mom or Dad were here, they would throw a fit about wasted power (or at least Mom would). But they weren't, as had been the case more frequently in the last couple of years than at any other time Dipper could remember. He had given up finding out why a while ago, because he knew the time the family did spend together showed that Mom and Dad loved them. Plus, he'd gotten in trouble whenever he'd tried to actually investigate the issue.

Suddenly, Piedmont didn't seem so foreign after all. In Dipper's state of semi-consciousness, the pair of young oak trees in the backyard seemed indistinguishable from redwoods, and the sound of distant partygoers could be easily mistaken for McGucket's nightly banjo solos. It was a strange sort of deja vu, a sensation telling him it's fine to have forgotten that the cold water knob on the bathroom sink took three turns instead of two to get water flowing, that carpeted floors were just as good for playing tag as the splintered planks of the Mystery Shack, and that Trevor the class jerk was nothing compared to a triangular eldritch horror.

And just like that, in his final moments of consciousness, 24 Hillside Avenue felt like a place he could call home again.