Before The World Was Big

by selkiemilk

After Dippers sophomore year of high school his due to his parent's increasingly strenuous relationship is forced to move back to Gravity Falls after four years of being absent, along with his twin sister Mabel. Wendy has become increasingly bored with what life has to offer, her existence has become stale with her only true friend being her co-worker and best friend Soos.

{Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs}

Wendy's love life has always been turbulent; she always had boys that wanted her, and the occasional girl, but she had never really had strong feelings for any of them, aside from Robbie she had never been in a serious relationship. Going into her senior year she truly felt, alone. Robbie and Tambry were her only friends that were still in high school, but they were busy together and she always felt like she was intruding on them. Lee, Nate and Thompson had moved into early adulthood and were always under the influence of some substance which made her seriously uncomfortable around them. She missed having friends outside of that group, other than Soos who had been her only true friend for the past four years.

She flicked at the blue lip of her cap as she smiled at a customer buying a googly-head with Stan's face on it and gave the woman her change. After sailing around the world and fighting countless dimension intruding anomalies, she was relieved to know that Stan had remained the same when he returned to the Mystery Shack and filled the shelves with 'Miniature but still Handsome Town Heroes' Her thoughts were broken by the shrill ring of the shacks' landline.

"Hello, this is the Mystery Shack, Wendy speaking." she recited for the tenth time today.

A sharp gaspy squeal turned her attention from her nails to 100% the phone. "EEE! Wendy,It's Mabel! Dipper it's Wendy!" She almost didn't recognize her, her voice had gotten so much more grown-up, she wouldn't quite say mature though. "Anyway, I'm calling because after four long years of bugging my parents, drumroll please," Wendy laughed and drummed her hands on her thighs and rested the phone between her shoulder and head. "Okay! Sufficient drumroll! Dipper and I are moving back to Gravity Falls!"

Her head shot up and the phone fell onto the floor as her eyes widened and her mouth hung open, a wide smile creeped onto her face as she hurried to pick the phone back up. "Seriously dude?! Holy shit!"

"Language, dear." Ford calls out but it barely goes noticed.

She notices that the lovely gift shop prowlers are beginning to stare so she bashfully sits back in the chair behind the counter. "When are you guys getting here?!"

"Next week before school starts!" Mabel shrills into the phone excitedly. "Oops, gotta go Wendy, notify the press we're a'comin home!"

The rest of her day consisted of her bouncing her leg up and down smiling to herself and talking way too fast to the customers. As she made her way home her thoughts swirled with excitement she wasn't even sure why. She knew she missed the twins but she didn't think she missed them enough to make her heart swell and prevent her from keeping her cool facade.

Piedmont had become a hell hole. The passive aggressiveness Dipper was constantly surrounded by had begun to eat him up more than he could fully process. Between the awkwardness of girls beginning to like him, and his parents constantly being at eachothers throats for something or another.

Mabel had been blissfully ignorant of her brothers' declining mental state as she had fully embraced the high school life, joining clubs, getting into sports, and had established a solid group of friends that she spent all of her free time around. She kind of made him feel like a loser, sure he had a couple of friends but they were just casual friends who didn't really care about him. They weren't the dynamic duo they used to be, and he really missed that.

He was simultaneously stoked and incredibly nervous to face Gravity Falls again. He was getting really, really sick of Piedmont, he was fucking miserable here, and he really missed everyone and everything in Oregon. He smiled at the brown fur trapper hat hanging on his bedpost. People in Piedmont, especially his peers and oddly enough old people, never really understood why Dipper wore the hat all the time given the constantly mild weather. Dipper never cared though, even though it made him stand out even more than he already did, he didn't care it was his little piece of Gravity Falls, and Wendy, that he could carry around everywhere, all the time.

"Dipper!" Mable sang out as she swung open their door. "Whatcha doin'? Nerd stuff?" She giggled at her little insult.

He lifted his eyes from the comic book he was reading as he let out a little scoff. "Essentially." He said and rolled his eyes though his tone held no real annoyance. Unlike Dipper Mabel seemed to not even have a sliver of nervousness in her about leaving again, which made sense he guessed, she had friends there who he knew she stayed in close contact with due to their loud triweekly skype calls. "Are you, you know, not at all nervous about leaving." He asked.

She looked at the ceiling for a second and thought, and then back at him. "Not really, I'm excited to see Candy and Grenda! And Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford and Soos," She then shot him a teasing look and nudged his shoulder with hers. "And Wendy!" She all but laughed out wiggling her eyebrows at him.