Within the nexus of Cygnus A, stars mucked about at their stations, the bustle of the network bright for all to see. The millennium had been productive, successful; fulfilling, even, or as fulfilling as work could be for a creature with billions of years to live. Very few celestials had gone into supernova, meaning the rates were higher than ever and the disruption of the Time Police remained an issue that was easily managed. The relief from Time Baby didn't go unappreciated by those in the Time Upkeep department.

Time – it was difficult to keep track of, unless one checked the calendars. When Weirdmageddon had started, when they'd received an alert for it, and when it had been brought to an end? Merely minutes on Jerry's papers. Bill Cipher's revival had been just as flash, second to the arrival of Axolotl to the galaxy. They avoided Cygnus A as if it were a plague; something to do with the sheer amount of cumulative energy. Their frills were sensitive, Jerry had heard.

A burst of his energy shot forward, lapping lazily at the file. He'd read Bill's an immeasurable amount of times. Multidimensional nuisance with a guilty pleasure that involved murder and more than the recommended amount of escapism. The other investigators didn't find him all that appealing, but Jerry picked up the dusty file with vigour when Axolotl had requested a private task take place. Bill managed to tip-toe the line between total unpredictability and laughably predictable. He was creative – and so, Jerry was creative, too.

"Jerry!" A bulbous mass of fire red and static energy ploughed over to him. A high-ranking star, spherical form taking up much of the doorway it hovered through, blustered its way into his office. Six Million Seven Hundred And Forty Three Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty Four – or, Big Red Bastard, in Jerry's mind. Big Red for the public. The numbers of the stars had reached their limit, and he wasn't eager to spend hours trying to pronounce one name.

He kept an air of innocence about him. "Yes?"

"Did you plan on telling the others that you had sent a familiar down there? Or were you waiting for us to find that out ourselves?" Big Red spat a flame to his papers. They remained unperturbed.

"Aw, c'mon. He's just a widdle guy," Jerry cooed, shuffling the papers aside. "A widdle guy who needs a widdle buddy!"

"You are not serious, are you?" When Jerry gave no reply, it sighed. "You are insufferable." The lack of a certain miniature galaxy didn't go unnoticed. Big Red's suspicious were felt in full force, long before it had begun to verbalise its question. "Where is the stubborn one?"

"Oh, you mean the completely unrelated familiar that was hanging around?" Jerry dimmed his blue light, feigning a lost composure. "It went missing a while ago. Almost like it just… fell through a wormhole. Right into Gravity Falls."

"Jerry."

"Please. Grumpy little familiar that won't bond with anyone, meet grumpy little triangle that wants to kill everyone." Jerry pulled a file into the air, flipping through its contents and landing on an unflattering image of the triangular entity in question. "Doesn't he look like he needs a friend? I can think of a certain big red star that could say the same..."

Big Red's core brightened, sparks dancing along its surface, only to die down in exasperation as it exuded a small puff of air. "At least tell me you prepared a disguise prior? We can not have small galaxies roaming the dimensional scapes."

Jerry stacked the file back neatly under the others. "Of course I did. I'm not an idiot." He projected an image into the air; a small grey cat with green eyes. "It's a cat."

"A what?"

"You know, the little furry things that lick themselves until they excrete their interior contents."

Big Red's size decreased. "That is not helpful." Abandoning the topic, it levitated the microphone sitting at the front of Jerry's desk, twirling it in the air. "It is unfortunate I did not get to hear your speech. There is speak of you using your name to fill an empty space."

Jerry snatched the microphone away with a lightning-like tendril. "Yes, because that guy has the attention span of a black hole and he's not going to listen to me list every number in the entire universe just to tell him about someone who does resource management."

Big Red tested the waters, prying at the microphone again, then pulled its energy away when Jerry refused to budge. "Axolotl instructed that you were to make it intimidating. I do not believe your name would strike fear in the core of anyone, let alone a sentient shape."

"Correction: they said to make it pressuring," Jerry said. "As if I'm gonna scare someone with more escapism issues than I have mild supernovas everyday. I did a good job of making us seem all high and mighty, didn't I? That's what gets him."

That coaxed something of a chuckle out of Big Red. "I do hope you are aware of what you are doing, Jerry. You are early on in your cycle. Should you make a mistake now, the road ahead lies grimly."

"Relax with the gloomy metaphors! I've got it all under control." Jerry summoned an opalescent portal with a crisp pop, the contents of the small orb peering into a small shack. "Have a look for yourself. He's smart! He'll get things moving before the humans decide to stop their little estivate."

"Do not speak so soon. It would appear that he has trapped himself," said Big Red, spinning the portal sideways to give Jerry a better view. Stuck was an understatement – there Cipher was, poking at the confines of his cerulean imprisonment. Jerry had given him the benefit of the doubt, thinking he would tip-toe more carefully around the Pines, but his overzealous nature had taken over, and he couldn't say he was surprised.

He blipped away the portal. Esprit de corps kept his faith from wavering. "Still according to plan! The closer he is to the Pines, the better."

"If that is what you must tell yourself." The deign that oozed into Big Red's tone wasn't difficult to catch, but Jerry kept his glow just as bright as the sprinkled red of his counterpart. "The levity of your methods is not without a certain... charm. Needed, even, for a case like Cipher's. But you will need to contact him eventually. Axolotl or not, we will have little choice but to step in when the time comes that he continues his cycle – which he will."

"He –"

"A creature that has spent trillions upon trillions of years doing the same thing is destined only to repeat that process. Do you think he is going to break his cycle in light of some unfortunate circumstances, or a familiar?" Any muted amusement, any hint of pity for the fool, melted away from Big Red, supplemented with a seriousness Jerry was all too familiar with. It neared the door, preparing to slip through into the moving corridor. "We do not have Time Baby to rely on at this time. He has been a mark on our records for longer than I have existed. That will not change in the glow of a star like you, Jerry."

With Big Red whisked away, he was alone again. That was fine; his files were all the company he needed.

"Go on, out you get."

Stanford all but threw the wriggling cat to the backyard dirt, his heels touching the bottom porch step as he took a step back. Disgruntled, Cat flashed two sharp eyes his way, before the glare settled over his shoulder to the figure looming behind.

Bill shuddered when Stanford passed through him. The door clicked closed and it was just the two of them, one feline and one woefully trapped dream demon. He lowered himself to its level and offered a cynical, mouthless smile. "Thought you could charm your way into being pampered?"

Cat's whisker twitched and the upper part of its lips furled up in a mock snarl. Never serious, he'd learned – he wasn't sure if there was anything in the world that truly angered the silly animal. Except when he suggested suffocating the Pines in their sleep. Admittedly, it wasn't the most graceful of methods. He hovered ever so close, pulling back only when a distant pain stirred from its light slumber.

Cat looked him up and down. The way it scrutinised him felt something like the oversized toddler had the day they'd first met. Judgemental, but in a disgustingly pitiful way, followed by a compunctious expression and the turning of a back, back to the barrier made for only him. His upper eyelid twitched and he reached forward with claws, only to have them fall stagnant within Cat's abdomen.

Another look. This time, more questioning.

"You spend all this time following me around, and you're just gonna leave?" He pulled his arm back and lifted himself up, leaning over Cat. After a pause, he said, "We've got a thing going here, pal! You're not backing out now!"

It lowered its head, a playful bow, and continued its path back to the forest. Halfway through the barrier wall, Bill called out. "What do you want?"

Cat turned its head back, eyes half-lidded.

He closed his eye, pinched the covering, then ground out his next set of words. "What can I do to make you stay?"

Crawling back with lackadaisical steps, Cat took a belly-down position on the blank grass below him and tilted its whitened nose up. Though it conveyed little language, the glint in its eyes told him all he needed to know. It pointed its nose up to the shack's attic, laid behind a Victorian-esque window. Its ears perked at the sounds of conversation inside.

Bill stared at it with a wide eye. "Absolutely not."

Cat blinked once. It glanced back to the barrier. Bill resisted the urge to curse at it; he wasn't in the mood for its attempts to swindle him! Without his puppet or not, the barrier would break. He just had to wait it out. Then, he'd show it who was in control of the partnership.

He waved his hand. "Fine. Leave. I'm sure I'll find another glorified hamster to carry me around!"

The corners of Cat's mouth quirked up into a smile as it lifted itself from the ground and padded forward, onto the porch, and leapt up onto an old grey couch to make itself nice and cosy. It closed one eye, keeping the other open a crack to stare at Bill.

Three days. That was the amount he was willing to give the barrier. Its energy wasn't as strong as it had been the first time he'd encountered it, and he couldn't imagine the dolts finding the time to beat up another group of unicorns for their hair in the time they'd been back at the Falls. Cat appeared to find it behoving to linger around the outskirts of the shack like a bad smell, disadvantaged by its own ability to perceived. No such disadvantage existed for Bill, who resigned that peeking in on what the twins were doing was better than the taunting stare he was receiving.

He wouldn't contact them. He wouldn't. They couldn't know he was around – everything depended on them assuming he was predating around the town, blocked out by the barrier.

He phased through the window to see Dipper hunched over a book, Mabel poking his shoulder. "Hey. You wanna know what Pacifica told me now?"

"Not now, Mabel, I'm –"

"What did I say about worrying?" She tilted her head to the side, allowing thick locks of dark hair to pass over her shoulder and becloud the pages. "C'mon. It's exciting! And I only just remembered it now so I'm probably gonna forget in the next five minutes if you don't let me tell you!"

Dipper groaned, met her eyes, and from the angle he turned towards, Bill caught a good look at his face. The wrinkle of his eyes was one of the best things he'd seen all day; like the puppet show all over again! Sure, the kid had gained some height and had less spaghetti-thin limbs than before, but the subdued terror in his eyes was all the same.

"Fine," Dipper conceded.

Mabel whooped, then leaned closer, almost nose-to-nose. "You remember the journals?"

Bill resisted a morose sigh when the terror deliquesced, Dipper's eyes now present with a curious hope as he said, "You mean the journals?"

"Yeah, the journals! It turns out they came back when the whole crazy apocalypse ended!"

Bill flew closer to the conversation, near enough that he could catch the corner of a page. Something black, thin; above, some text, 'THAT'. That what? He reached to move the hair, unsuccessful as his hand phased through – right. No longer physical. He directed his attention back to the conversation.

"Weirdmageddon," Dipper corrected, voice hushed for the one word. He furrowed his brow. "And Pacifica was the one who told you?"

Mabel nodded. "She works at the diner with Lazy Susan now, and Old Man McGucket is a regular there! He mentioned his son found one of them all washed up when he was visiting the lake." When Dipper opened his mouth, she held up a finger. "It's fine. The water didn't hurt it or anything."

"Do you know which one it is?"

She tapped her chin. "I think it was the second one, but I'm not sure."

Dipper grabbed her by the shoulders. "Mabel, we have to get that journal. That's the one that has Bill's incantation! And if he's out there..."

The rest of the boy's words went unheeded, as well as Mabel's wide eyes, as Bill pulled himself out of the room, back down to the couch where Cat continued to lay. He'd been so focused on the third journal he'd forgotten about the others – if one was around, the rest would follow. Better it be in the hands of some dopey idiot and his father than the two petulant children, or worse, their uncles. Still, it bothered him that they were in anyone's hands.

Cat pulled its head from the tucked position between its paws and trilled to him.

Bill grumbled. "Don't act like you didn't know what they were saying, puss. Those satellite dishes can hear from miles away."

For once, he didn't get a droll response or a gaudy show of disapproval. Only a shared moment of quiet.

To be trapped with your greatest enemy was a bittersweet sentiment. On one hand, he had direct access to their every move. On the other, they were unfathomably annoying. And while it was not news to him, Cat proved to be rather irritating as well. It wisely kept to itself, something Bill exploited by spending more time dwelling in the shack than outside, but every so often it would peep its head over the windowsill and stare at him.

He had expected the twins to go out on their escapade within the first hours of its mention, but they stayed locked up tight with their uncles. Their activities ranged from comparing their new heights – which always ended up with a tantrum – trying to see who could lick their way to the center of a lollipop first and, for whatever reason, placing the stickiest glue they could find on doorknobs. The extra years hadn't served them well in terms of maturity, Bill thought.

It was the second morning, the second day, after a long night of debating on the risks and rewards of giving the whole household nightmares. He ultimately decided against it, and though he'd attempted to prod into Cat's mind to release a few, it was shut as tight as a bank safe. Unfortunate, though he wasn't sure what nightmares he'd give a cat anyway. Stanford was ever the hermit, and Stanley was fast asleep in his bed. The morning was quiet; too stagnant for him to handle.

Bill was interrupted from his fresh routine of flying idle circles around the living area by quick footsteps, growing louder as Dipper passed through the doorway and fell forward onto the couch, appearing to tap at a game on his tablet. The zeitgeist of the era was technology, it seemed. On the screen was a simple platformer, a blackened knight being chased by a blackened dragon in a sordid and shadowy world. One tap meant a jump, two taps meant a double jump.

He wouldn't say it was entertaining, but he did want to see how far Dipper would get. Bill never made a habit of counting time – it was bad for the mind, and anything that wasn't in the trillions wasn't worth noting, but he possessed enough sense to tell that it took Dipper thirty minutes to reach some kind of final battle. Some slow reaction times and countless deaths later, the dragon's head popped off under a flat sword and Dipper pumped his fist in the air. Then, as if he'd finally realised what a waste of time it was, he laid the tablet flat on the armchair and rushed out of the room.

Bill's eyes trailed his movements, then looked down to the screen. There was a scene playing out.

Past the dragon's corpse, another character entered from the side of the screen. An old, grisly looking man with a long beard and a hat that pointed straight to the sky. He hobbled over on a cane, and a black box faded into view at the bottom of the screen, small clicks rattling away as text began to form.

'WELL DONE, FAIR KNIGHT! YOU HAVE VANQUISHED THE BEAST AND FULFILLED YOUR DESTINY. WHEN YOU ARE READY, WE MAY RETURN.'

So it was one of those stories. The hero's tale – Bill's least favourite. The gratification was due and he couldn't have been less interested.

The knight fell out of its habitual animation and flipped to face the man. 'RETURN WHERE?'

'HOME, OF COURSE! THOUGH THE DRAGON HAS BURNT MUCH OF THE LAND, YOU WERE ABLE TO QUELL THE FLAMES OF ITS HEART BEFORE IT COULD SPREAD TOO FAR.' The text seemed to appear slower and slower with every word he read. 'YOUR CASTLE STANDS AS TALL AS EVER! DO YOU WISH TO VISIT IT AGAIN?'

A pause, allowing the intrepid pixel soundtrack to fade out to a more relaxed tune; a gentle piano.

'WHY… YES. YES. I THINK I WOULD LIKE TO GO HOME.'

...Home.

The screen faded to black, and with it came a gruff shout that tore Bill's eye from the screen. He moved to the source of the noise – it was Stanford, clad in his usual trenchcoat, who'd crawled out of the basement in a dreary haze and moved to open the back door. His hand was stuck tight to the knob. Bill chuckled with each fruitless tug he gave his arm.

Dipper appeared at the base of the stairway behind them, stifling his own laughter as he rushed over to help. "I'm so sorry! I forgot to tell you about that. I was hoping I'd get Mabel instead."

The glue wasn't anything hot water couldn't dissolve. Bill delighted in the red tone of Stanford's hand once free. He would've lorded over it had it not been for the chilling feeling he got whenever he lingered too close.

Stanford shook off his hand and regarded Dipper sternly. "I know you two need to entertain yourselves, but do things that aren't going to get someone hurt."

"It was Mabel's idea!"

"I don't care whose idea it was, I don't want to see it happening again."

Beguiling, it was. Stanford had never cared about his family before, not in a way that truly mattered. That was what separated him from the others – his need to feel smart. Exploit that and he'd drop the strict parent act in a heartbeat. Bill had done it time and time again. The simple reminder was enough to lift his mood, though his disinterest prevailed and he dismissed the scene by pushing himself through the ceiling, up to the second floor.

A distinct lack of unhealthy sounding snores told him Stanley had woken up. He was the most difficult to come to terms with. Being trapped with the twins would be inconvenient, trapped with Stanford irritating but useful; Stanley, however? Something about the man would've made his skin crawl, had he any. Instead, it made the crevices between his bricks itch.

That feeling was no less salient when Stanley rounded the corner from the bathroom, wearing an unflattering bathrobe and holding a cup of coffee. Bill was on the way to questioning why exactly he'd bring coffee into a bathroom, but the startling feeling of eyes beyond the mindscape shrivelled the thought to nothing before it had begun to shape itself.

Stanley blinked, raised a brow, took a sip of his coffee. When he levelled the mug back with his waist, he smacked his lips.

"Well, that didn't work. Not a hallucination then."