Lungs burning and bare feet aching, Wendy arrived at the hatch of the UFO just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. She pulled at the door, but it was sealed shut. She knelt down in front of it and began pummeling it with both fists, worried that everyone would still be asleep. To her surprise, she heard the internal mechanism of the hatch click just moments after she began pounding on it. She scooted back on her knees quickly, as the metal door opened upward with the raspy groan of hinges in need of oil. The upper half of a large person popped up from the entrance like a groundhog out of its hole.
"Dipper, you better get in quick before Ford realizes you were out all nigh—you're not Dipper," Soos said, squinting against the sun that was rising directly behind Wendy. She crawled forward so that her face was inches from his. "You—dude, are you ghost Wendy?" Soos stammered, when he finally recognized her. "Because the spooky stuff is more Ford's area of expertise, and I am unaware of the etiquette involved in human-ghost relations."
"I'm not a ghost, Soos, but Dipper needs help or he might be one soon," Wendy said urgently. "Pacifica sent me. Dipper's hurt, bad. She said for you and Ford to bring a stretcher and neck brace, and also wanted me to tell you to have Melody prep the med bay, because Dipper's gonna need surgery."
Soos blinked as everything she'd said sunk in. "I don't under—"
"There's no time for questions, man, Dipper's gonna die!" Wendy said, louder than she meant to. "Please—just hurry! Get Ford and the stuff Pacifica asked for, and I'll take you to them. Please," she choked back a sob.
"Okay girl dude, but later, you're gonna have to answer some questions. A lot of questions," Soos said, as he began to climb back down the ladder.
Wendy stood and began to pace while she waited for Soos to get help. While she paced she began to think, and thinking inevitably led her to once again question reality. Everything around her felt real, and solid. The thin nightgown she wore fluttered against her legs from a light breeze. The air smelled of damp soil, old campfires, and rotting wood. The sun warmed her face when she turned toward it.
And yet.
She had been absolutely convinced that everything was real, and that Dipper was really trying to rescue her, numerous times before, only to watch him die in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. The only constant in her life for the last three years had been Bill. For better or worse, she knew that Bill was the only person...thing...whatever… that actually existed. Everything else was suspect. Which meant that this reality, where Dipper finally got her out of the Fearamid, must also be suspect.
So if this Dipper died, was he really dead, like Pacifica had said he'd be? Or would Bill suddenly appear, as was his custom, and whisk her away to console her? And if this Dipper wasn't real, then this Pacifica wasn't real either. Was Wendy really even actually outside of the Fearamid? For all she knew, she was still in her room, hallucinating this whole scenario.
"No, no, no, no, NO," Wendy intoned, banging her fists against the sides of her head.
"Wendy? You're really still alive?"
Ford's voice broke through Wendy's internal monologue, and she turned to face him. He and Soos had climbed out of the hatch, and were carrying opposite ends of a stretcher. Ford had a white satchel with a bright red + on it slung over his shoulder.
"I told you so, Mr. Pines," Soos said. "She says she isn't a ghost."
Soos' words bored into Wendy's skull, and made her feel as if she'd had an epiphany of sorts. Maybe she was a ghost. Maybe she was dead, and this was her hell—watching her best friend die over and over, while she was unable to save him.
Wendy shook her head to try and clear it. No. Pacifica had said that this Dipper was real, and if he died, he was really dead. If this Pacifica was even real.
Wendy let out a sharp laugh. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," she muttered.
"I'm sorry?" Ford asked, his brows furrowed.
Wendy shook her head again. "Nothing. Come on, Dipper and Pacifica are this way."
/
Darkness. Darkness and pain. Everything hurt. Not superficial hurting, either. A deep, ragged, raw type of hurting. Dipper didn't know where he ended and the pain began. Sometimes he felt other sensations, like fingers caressing his arm, but it was always accompanied by the pain. He heard voices, as well. Muffled crying. Snippets of conversation.
Dipper's muddled consciousness couldn't identify who was talking, but he could tell the speakers apart by the tone they spoke in. There was the angry voice, the cheerful voice, the brave voice, the motherly voice, and the whisper.
The angry voice yelled things like "...were you thinking?! ...was just...prototype! ...Gideon's...nowhere to be..."
The cheerful voice sounded like it was addressing him directly when it said, "lucky you only...dawg...can live without both..."
The brave voice shook when it told him "did what I could...should live...please wake up..."
The motherly voice sang softly, and was accompanied by the feeling of a cool washcloth on Dipper's forehead.
Then there was the whisper. Soft and desperate, directly in his ear. Despite being the quietest of the voices, it was the clearest. The whisper's words made Dipper's chest ache in a way that was unrelated to his other pain.
"Please, you can't die—not if you're real… I need you to be real, Dipper...can't watch you die again...keeps killing you because it hurts me more than anyone else…you're the most important...if you die for real so will I..."
/
Coming to was like trying to swim through quicksand. Dipper groaned as the ever-present pain in his body settled into his lower right abdomen and back, and into a dull thud directly behind his eyes. He knew he must be conscious, because the darkness was different now. This darkness had a red tinge to it, like there was a dimly lit room on the other side of his closed eyelids.
With what felt like a ridiculous amount of effort, Dipper forced his eyes open a crack. He could tell he was in his bed, because the dim lighting came from the silhouette of a butterfly shining on the steel ceiling above him. Mabel's old nightlight. Dipper never used it anymore, but kept it plugged in for the sentimentality of it.
A small whimper from the other side of the room caused Dipper's heart rate, and the dull thud behind his eyes, to pick up speed. The noise had come from Mabel's bed.
"Who-who's there?" Dipper rasped out. He attempted to turn onto his side, but a sharp, stabbing pain in his lower abdomen indicated that that was not currently a viable option. Instead he gingerly turned his head toward Mabel's bed, where he saw a form curled up in the fetal position on top of the sheets.
"Hello?" Dipper called out softly. Too softly. The form didn't stir. He cleared his throat, which was so dry that it almost felt dusty, and called out a little louder. "Who's there?"
The form whimpered again, and began to uncurl from itself.
"Dipper?"
The plaintive, questioning tone made Dipper's chest ache. It was the whisper. The whisper was Wendy.
She padded toward him on bare feet, clothed in a pair of his boxers and one of his old t-shirts. "You woke up," she said, almost like she was surprised.
"Yeah, I woke up," Dipper said, the corners of his lips twitching upward. "Was I not supposed to?"
Wendy's answer was a choked sob as she launched herself at him and hugged him tightly. The pain was so intense that Dipper's vision went dark, and he cried out involuntarily.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Wendy said, letting him go and jumping back a few steps, her eyes watering over. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!"
Dipper blew out a slow breath as the edges of his vision returned to normal. He held out a hand, and Wendy tentatively took it. He squeezed her fingers.
"It's okay, Wendy, I know you didn't mean it," he said. "What the hell happened to me, anyway? Why do I feel like I'm being stabbed in the kidney?"
Wendy opened her mouth, then closed it. After a pause, she asked him, "How much do you remember?"
Dipper tried to sift through his last clear memories, and he frowned. "I remember that Gideon, Pacifica, and I found you in the Fearamid, and we started running, because Bill was coming to look for you. I feel like more must have happened though, since I don't remember being injured. Judging by my headache, my memory issues are probably a side-effect of a nasty concussion."
Wendy nodded. "Among other things." She patted the edge of the bed next to Dipper. "Mind if I sit?"
"Knock yourself out," Dipper said, gesturing with a hand. Then he chuckled. "Actually, don't knock yourself out. Have done. Cannot recommend."
The ghost of a smile flickered on Wendy's lips, and she sank down onto the edge of the mattress, up next to Dipper's chest.
"Dipper, you jumped off the Fearamid," Wendy finally blurted out, without any preamble. "Pacifica had that bubble gun thing, but it was jammed and she wasn't able to slow your descent until after you'd crashed through the treetops. You were... impaled. You lost a kidney."
Dipper swallowed and managed to lift his head enough to look down at his lower belly, from where the bulk of his pain was emanating. He lifted his shirt, and saw the large, jagged wound that had been sutured shut. He recognized Pacifica's handiwork in the tight, precise stitches.
"Well, shit," he murmured.
Then he realized that his abdomen was also peppered with smaller wounds, some sutured shut, some simply covered with gauze. He held up his arms to look at them for the first time since waking, and saw the same thing. He imagined his legs were in a similar state. He touched his face gingerly, and although he still felt the butterfly bandage over his eye from his fight with the giant Hand, apparently none of the other scratches he could feel had been deep enough to require stitches.
"How long ago—how long was I out?" Dipper asked.
"I think it's going on a week, now?" Wendy murmured with a small shrug. "I haven't really kept track. I was just waiting for you to die—or not."
Dipper paled. "I'm sorry, waiting for me to die?"
"I said 'or not,' too." Wendy sighed and looked down at her hands. "This is the longest it's ever gone on for… All the other times, you never even got me out of the Fearamid before you were killed. S-so, I reckon Pacifica may be telling me the truth, that this isn't all some elaborate trick being played by Bill, but reality. Except that every time you've tried to rescue me prior to this, once I'm absolutely sure it's really you, you get killed in some horrific way. I'm scared that if I accept that this is reality, you're immediately going to die, and everything will reset, and I'll be back in the Fearamid where Bill will—"
She cut herself off abruptly.
Dipper's chest felt tight. "Wendy, what did Bill do to you?"
Wendy shook her head, and her shoulders began shaking, silent sobs wracking her body.
Dipper tried to sit up so he could comfort her, but his pain flared, and he collapsed back onto his pillows with a groan. As slowly and deliberately as he could, then, he inched his way over nearer to the other side of the bed, up against the wall. Every movement felt like he was being stabbed in multiple places on his body, but he was able to scoot far enough that there was space for another person to lay next to him.
"Wendy," he said softly, "lie down with me and let me hug you. Please."
Wendy didn't respond verbally, but did what he asked. She lay next to Dipper and rolled on her side to face him. Her eyes were clamped shut, but tears still managed to find their way out, dripping sideways, down toward the mattress. Her lips were trembling, her breathing shallow and fast with the effort to suppress any audible sobs. Dipper knew what that felt like. It happened to him every time he showered.
Dipper reached out to stroke her hair. "I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about it, Wendy. Just know you're safe now. I'm not going to let anything happen to you again." He moved himself a little closer to her, closing the gap between them, and gave her as much of a hug as he was able.
Wendy didn't move or try to hug him back. She continued to sob silently, her whole body shaking. After a few seconds, Dipper heard a soft hiss that sounded almost like speech. He moved his head a little closer to hers to try and make out what she was saying.
It was a desperate, whispered plea. "Let it be real this time, please, please, please. Don't let this all be in my head. Please, please, please let it be real."
Dipper's chest ached at her plaintive words. "I'm real," he murmured. "This is real."
Wendy stopped whispering, but didn't reply. Dipper continued to hold her as her breathing became slow and even. She'd fallen asleep. He sighed and kissed the top of her head.
"Bill is going to pay," he said softly. "I promise."
/
"Hey Wendy, can you help me change Dipper's band—oh!" Pacifica's voice cut off just as the overhead light cut on. "Wendy, what are you doing in Dipper's bed?"
Wendy jumped out of the bed abruptly. "He asked me to lay with him," she said, sounding defensive.
Dipper opened his eyes and squinted blearily toward the doorway where Pacifica stood, a pile of gauze in her arms.
"Wait, he woke up?" Pacifica said, tossing the pile of gauze onto Dipper's desk chair and quickly crossing the room to his bed. "Why didn't you tell someone?"
"Because it was the middle of the night, and I wasn't in urgent need of care?" Dipper offered, with a small smile. "Hi, Paz."
Wendy stood aside to allow Pacifica to approach the bedside, her arms crossed over her chest, a small scowl on her face.
If Pacifica noticed Wendy's body language, she didn't acknowledge it. She was too focused on Dipper.
"Wendy, can you go find Ford and tell him Dipper's awake?" she asked.
Wendy bit her lower lip, but nodded, turning to walk briskly from the room.
Pacifica's lips trembled when she smiled at Dipper. She reached down and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"How're you feeling, Dip?" she asked softly.
"Oh, you know, awful," he said with a grin. "Almost like I was impaled and lost a major organ."
Pacifica let go of his hand. "So she told you what happened, then?"
He nodded. "Well, to me, at least. I have some missing time, because the last thing I remember is the four of us starting to run, because we heard Bill coming...then waking up here. I'm guessing I have a concussion. Based on the evidence of me being torn to shreds by the treetops, and you and Wendy being...not...it looks like the bubble gun worked for you, at least. But...where's Gideon? Did he have a bubble gun mishap too, or is he okay?"
Pacifica looked down at her hands, her chin suddenly trembling. "Dipper," she said, her voice quavering, "I don't know how to tell you this, but—"
"Gideon is dead, Dipper." Ford strode into the room and approached Dipper's bed, his hands balled into fists at his sides. "Gideon is dead because you made a stupid mistake."
Dipper felt like he'd been punched in the sternum. He couldn't breathe. "What?!" he managed to say, his voice ragged.
"Ford, that's not fair!" Pacifica said, the color rising in her cheeks. "It's Bill's fault, not Dipper's! He's the one who tossed him off the Fearamid."
Dipper could barely form a coherent thought, and even if he wanted to speak, the words would likely not make it past the constriction in his throat. Gideon was dead? He'd been thrown off the Fearamid?
Ford was right, of course. Dipper knew he was at fault—he was the one who had dragged Gideon along on his ill-thought-out recon mission, after all. He might as well have killed the boy with his own two hands.
An argument was taking place at his bedside, but Dipper comprehended none of it. His vision was blurred from tears he wasn't even aware he'd cried, and he was on the brink of hyperventilating. A wave of nausea washed over him, and he sat up abruptly and retched over the side of the bed. His body screamed in pain as soon as he moved, and another wave of nausea tried to empty his stomach of its non-existent contents. He blinked as hands holding a bowl appeared in front of his face. He heaved again, the acrid, foamy yellow bile burning his throat and mouth before landing in the bowl.
There was a hand gently rubbing his back, and a loud scuffle in the background, but Dipper couldn't make sense out of any of it. All he could think of was that Gideon had trusted him, and then he'd gotten Gideon killed. He'd killed Gideon. He didn't deserve to live.
Dipper retched into the bowl again, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. Then, there was a sudden hot pinch in his upper right arm, and within less than a minute, the edges of his vision began to grow dark. The room seemed to spin around him, and he had to close his eyes. The spinning sensation continued, however, and Dipper collapsed back onto his pillows, his ragged breaths coming slower. The world receded around him, and finally he fell into unconsciousness.
/
Pacifica disposed of the syringe, and wiped her hands on her pants, letting out a ragged sigh. "That should knock him out for a couple hours, at least."
Melody nodded toward Wendy, who was back on Mabel's bed, holding her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, tears streaking her face. "What about her? Do you think we should sedate her, too?" She a the bowl containing frothy, yellow bile on Dipper's desk, intending to take it to the kitchen to wash out later.
Pacifica shrugged. "If she wants to be sedated, yeah. She's a good bit more coherent than Dipper was. I've never seen him like that before. Do you think it was a panic attack?"
"I don't know for sure, but probably—that mixed with symptoms of his concussion," said Melody. She turned toward Wendy. "Wendy, sweetie, would you like us to give you something to make you sleep?"
Wendy glanced up. "Will I dream?" she asked, her voice small. "I don't want to dream."
Melody looked to Pacifica with a questioning shrug.
"I don't think you'll dream," Pacifica answered. "This sedative knocks you out, rather than just putting you to sleep."
"Okay then," Wendy murmured with a nod. "Knock me out."
A few minutes later, Wendy was tucked into Mabel's bed, unconscious. Melody returned from the kitchen, where she'd deposited the vomit bowl in the sink and gave it a quick rinse, before hurrying back to Dipper's room.
"I can't believe Ford did that," Pacifica said, sinking down onto the edge of Dipper's bed. "What he said—it was just incredibly cruel."
Melody nodded, settling down into Dipper's desk chair, resting a hand on her lower belly. "I'm glad Soos was able to get him out of here. Dipper had only just woken up, and that was an unnecessarily harsh dose of reality he was immediately met with. While what the three of you did was ill-advised, you all knew it was a risky venture, and went anyway. You can't blame Dipper for Gideon wanting to go locate Mabel. I do really wish you all had told us about her cryo-tube to begin with though. We could have avoided a lot of heartache."
Pacifica looked down at her hands in her lap, shamefaced. "It was stupid of us… Just, with the way Ford's been acting, we didn't think he'd let us try to go find her."
Melody rubbed her belly absently. "It's true, Ford has been incredibly callous and blunt lately. I think losing Gideon must have been the straw that broke the camel's back."
Pacifica nodded, and the pair sat in silence for several minutes, watching their friends sleep. Finally she spoke up again.
"I'm not looking forward to either of them waking up," she said with a tired sigh. "They're both beyond broken. I can set a bone and close a wound, but I have no idea how to fix the kind of broken they are."
With a gentle smile, Melody said, "I don't know if we can 'fix' them. All I know is that when they wake up, they don't need you to be their doctor. They need you to be their friend."
