Re-entering the gift shop with Ford and Gideon, Stan watched as would-be party goers had begun the work of reorganizing the various trinkets and baubles available for purchase. Outside, the rowdy crowd had almost entirely disbanded, with only a few remaining stragglers chatting amongst themselves in the parking lot. While Stan had half a mind to burst outside and yell at them some more for completely derailing his day with their cultish nonsense, his attention turned instead to Soos, who was in the center of everything helping to bring some order back to the Shack. He shot a quick glance to Ford, who nodded silently and led Gideon onwards towards the Shack's back office.
"Hey there, Soos," Stan began cautiously, awkwardly clutching his hands together as he approached. Soos turned at the sound of his name, with a faint smile on his face. Behind him stood Melody, beleaguered from the ordeal she had just experienced. Stan wasn't sure if Soos' amiable expression made him feel better or worse about apologizing, but he figured he was already in too deep to reconsider.
"So, the fact is, I really should have handled this whole thing better," Stan admitted, scratching the back of his head while he stared awkwardly at the floor. "And let's face it, you're a better Mr. Mystery than I ever was, and I'm sorry if I made you feel otherwise. I really was just trying to help out."
"Oh Mr. Pines," replied Soos, pulling Stan into a tight hug. "Hindsight is 20/20, dude. It's my bad for assuming you didn't have my best interests at heart."
"Alright, alright," grumbled Stan, squirming his way out of Soos' embrace. "Don't push it, Soos." As Soos released Stan from his hug, Melody stepped forward to speak as well, but Stan shook his head preemptively. "Honestly, whatever you assumed of me, it was probably warranted," said Stan. "You're just looking out for this big goof, and I'd expect nothing less."
"Regardless," replied Melody, "I think once we get things cleaned up, Soos could probably use a bit of help with his hosting duties. He's stretched a bit thin, you know?"
Soos' eyes widened in excitement. "Heh heh, how 'bout it, Mr. Pines? You want to help co-DJ the party with me? Like some kinda, Mr. Mystery Squared?" Soos held out a second pair of headphones with a friendly smile. Stan stared at them for a moment silently, before letting a small grin crack across his face.
"Sure, why not," shrugged Stan, sliding the headphones over his large ears. "The kids of this town could stand to learn a thing or two about real music."
After the short but necessary housekeeping step of brushing the snow off of the old lawn chair, permanently abandoned by Wendy on the roof, Dipper and Pacifica were able to finally take in the beauty of the evening. The view of the forest from the tiny rooftop deck of the Mystery Shack wasn't groundbreaking or show-stopping, but it was still a pleasantly novel view of the snow capped trees.
With a sigh of relief, Dipper leaned forward onto his hands, finally taking a moment to relax. Pacifica cozied up to his right side, laying her head on his shoulder. As the light dusting began to give way to heavier snowflakes, Dipper looked up, watching the flurries reflect the moonlight as they descended. He wasn't completely unfamiliar with snow, having taken winter trips to the Sierra Nevada mountains and Lake Tahoe with his family before. But his usual experience in Northern California was one of fog and muggy weather, not nearly as beautiful as his current fixation.
When Dipper finally lowered his gaze, he found Pacifica looking back at him, smiling fondly at his reaction to the snow. Clearly, as a native Oregonian, getting to see the snow through his eyes was a bit of a novelty. He smiled back, taking comfort in finally finding a quiet moment to share with her. His hand drifted absently to his pocket, where Pacifica's gift continued to wait for him to muster up the courage to present it to her.
"Are your hands warm?" she asked, looking down at Dipper's gloves. Dipper instinctively moved his hand away from his pocket and looked at them closely. They weren't exactly the sturdiest gloves, and probably weren't ones he would have brought from California if he had known just how unforgiving Gravity Falls' winters could be, but as far as he could tell they were doing an okay job.
"I haven't had an issue so far," he replied.
"If you say so," Pacifica insisted. "When we get back down to the Shack, I expect you to help me salvage some of the evening, and I can't have a dance partner who won't hold my hand." She shot Dipper a knowing smirk, leaning slightly closer and taking his gloved hands in hers. Suddenly, Pacifica's eyes shot up to Dipper's hat, and she appeared deep in thought.
"What is it?" he asked, "Do I have something on my head?"
"I want to see something," she replied cryptically, pushing back the bomber cap on Dipper's head to reveal his forehead birthmark. Immediately, blood rushed to Dipper's ears as he felt the cold wind strike his bare forehead, and he carefully studied Pacifica's face to judge her response. After a moment, she simply said, "Huh."
"What?" asked Dipper nervously.
"Oh, I just wondered why you always hid your forehead. Does it bother you?" As far as he could tell, her question came without judgment, just curiosity. He considered his response carefully before replying.
"I guess I've always been a bit self-conscious about it," he admitted.
"Are you self-conscious about it right now?" pressed Pacifica, her expression remaining frustratingly neutral, with only a slight tilt of her head to give Dipper any sort of clue to her opinion. 'That seems… positive, right?'
"Actually… no," replied Dipper. It was true, as unexpected as it was that Pacifica was staring directly at the birthmark he went out of his way to keep covered, he didn't feel at all like it was making her feel any differently about him. As confused as he was about her motives at that moment, he didn't mind at all.
"Good," she replied, pushing his bomber cap back down over his forehead. Despite returning his cap, for whatever reason, she chose not to back out of his personal space. "I'd hate to think you felt the need to hide it from me. And if you really want, I can show you how to use concealer. I'd like to maybe see more of your hair sometime." Maybe it was Dipper's imagination, but Pacifica seemed to be drifting closer.
'There's not going to be a better time than this,' he reasoned.
"I have something for you," blurted Dipper, aggressively forcing out the words to remove any possible way to procrastinate further.
"Oh, really?" Pacifica blinked in surprise, leaning back as Dipper reached down and began to struggle with his pocket.
"Full disclosure, I've been kind of dreading this for days, and it feels like if I don't do it now, I'll never do it," rambled Dipper.
"Wow. You're really good at selling this," replied Pacifica sarcastically, narrowing her eyes playfully. After a few seconds of struggle, Dipper managed to pull the thin jewelry box out from his pocket. He placed it into her gloved hands gently, and as she opened the box, he studied her eyes as they drifted across the simple gold chain bracelet inside, trying to gauge her reaction to it.
"It's…" she began, gently running her finger down the length of the chain as she inspected it carefully.
"I knew I should have gotten something else," groaned Dipper, prompting Pacifica to quickly look up from the gift. "I had this weird idea and it was all metaphorical and I guess it's just kind of tacky when you look at it."
"I mean, I was going to say it was kind of sweet and simple and could go with anything I wear," said Pacifica, "but I don't really get the metaphorical part of it."
"You know, I had called you another link in the world's worst chain," explained Dipper. "And now you're the first link in something new, and I wanted you to have something to symbolize that. Is that weird? It's weird, isn't it?"
Pacifica stared back down at the gold chain in her hands, remaining incredibly still for what felt to Dipper like an eternity. Eyes downward, she blinked hard. She slowly leaned closer to Dipper again, before looking back up at him with tears in her eyes and a small, shocked smile crossing her lips.
"I love it," she whispered.
Dipper's mind went nearly blank, and to his terror, the remaining thought in his head was just one phrase, repeating over and over.
'Kiss her.'
Dipper tensed up at the arrival of the intrusive thought. He leaned away from Pacifica, looking out towards snow covered forest, fumbling with his hands on his lap. Pacifica took notice of Dipper's sudden apprehension, and sighed loudly. When Dipper turned back, she cleared her throat and looked away.
For another moment, they sat silently in the snow together, though now instead of focusing on the beauty of the snow, Dipper was far more concerned with silently cursing himself for hesitating.
A buzz vibrated from Pacifica's pocket. Calmly, she pulled out her phone and checked the messages. For an uncomfortably long time, Pacifica stared at the screen, to the point that Dipper turned out of curiosity. Instinctively, Pacifica maneuvered herself to prevent Dipper from reading the message, and her hand holding up the phone trembled slightly.
"Is something wrong?" asked Dipper. Pacifica placed the phone back into her pocket and stood up.
"Just my father. You know, the usual," Pacifica replied, smiling thinly at Dipper and offering her hand to help him off the lawn chair. "Come on, let's get back to the others."
Reluctantly, Dipper took Pacifica's hand and got to his feet. As he watched her descend back into the Mystery Shack gift shop, he tried his best to accept what he was told as the truth. 'It probably is her father, honestly. And even if it isn't, she wouldn't lie unless she had a good reason. Right?'
As Dipper and Pacifica rejoined the group inside the Mystery Shack's office, Ford sat behind the desk with Gideon's magnifying glass, staring at a page photocopied from Journal 2. Entering the room, Pacifica quickly scanned around the space, noting the occupants. Mabel leaned forward against the desk, studying the same page as Ford, Grenda and Candy sat on the floor slowly reorganizing the scattered print outs of Journal 2, and Gideon sat against the wall, clearly still winded from casting the mesmer spell.
"Um, where did Stan go?" she asked, frowning.
Ford looked up from the page. "I think he's busy helping Soos get the party going again, out in the gallery room. Why do you ask?"
Without answering Ford's question, Pacifica quickly departed the office room. Dipper frowned and watched as she turned a corner through the gift shop and disappeared from sight. An uneasy feeling sank over him, and he wondered if maybe his inability to pick up Pacifica's signals on the roof hurt her more than she was leading on.
"Dipper?" asked Ford, calling his attention back into the office. He turned back around, blinking to try and force his mind back to the moment and out of his anxious ruminations. "We're trying to figure out how we're going to make the effect of the mesmer spell permanent. We've given the town the truth about Weirdmageddon and put the Bill memories to sleep, but there's no way we're going to gather everyone around every few hours and re-mesmerize them. I think that enchantment spell you found would help, but it's not yet clear to me how. Any ideas?"
Dipper walked towards the desk, taking another look at the page for himself. As far as Ford's original research could gather, enchanting an object with a spell could last indefinitely if done correctly, but would be bound to the same limitations as the original spell. "What do we know about how the mesmer spell physically works?" asked Dipper. "Can it transfer through a screen, maybe?"
"I'm guessing not," replied Ford as he shook his head. "The spell forms a kind of link between the speaker and the listener. It would need some way to transfer through the distance physically."
"WHAT ABOUT RADIO?" asked Grenda. As the group turned to face her, she shrugged. "WHAT? A RADIO WAVE IS AT LEAST MADE OF SOMETHING."
"Wait, is that true?" asked Mabel, turning to Ford for confirmation. "I guess I've never thought much about how radios work, anything that came through the air before WiFi just seems like magic to me."
Ford nodded, stroking his chin. "Actually, that's a stroke of genius. Radio waves are charged particles that behave in a specific way based on the way they're broadcasted. If we had Gideon here cast the spell on, say, a microphone, we could create a radio broadcast that constantly blanketed Gravity Falls in the mesmer spell. They wouldn't even have to be listening, the waves would pass over the entire town non-stop, without them ever knowing."
"Hold on," asked Dipper, holding his hands out as he tried to mentally walk through Ford's explanation. "We have to start a radio station?"
"Not necessarily, Dipper. We just need to find one that already exists and cast the spell on their broadcasting equipment."
"We'd just need a radio station that would be willing to let us in," pondered Mabel, crossing her arms in thought.
"Did somebody say radio station?"
Mabel turned to the office door to see the smiling, ever-unassuming face of Tad Strange as he entered. "Pardon me for the interruption, I was just trying to find out where this little guy came from," Tad held up a taxidermy crab adorned with a hat that Dipper recognized as Soos' Santa Crab exhibit, "and couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Here." Balancing Santa Crab in one hand, Tad pulled out a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it over to Ford, who read it aloud.
"Tad Strange, Program Host, Gravity Falls Community Radio," said Ford, nodding along to the text as he read. "You think the Community Radio station would be willing to let us enchant the studio?"
Tad laughed sensibly. "I'm sure they'd let you do anything you'd like, provided you all become sustaining members. As I'm sure you're already aware, we're in the middle of our bi-monthly pledge drive, and ongoing contributions from members like you are what keep GFCR alive." Tad looked around the group expectantly, while everyone else awkwardly shifted their eyes away. "Otherwise, I could introduce you to the manager at the AM talk station. I'm sure you'd only have to buy a few bottles of virility supplements in order to strike a deal with them."
Shuddering, Ford turned back to Tad. "I think we can work something out."
Tad held Santa Crab up to his chest as he displayed a moderate amount of satisfaction. "Wonderful. I'll get your branded tote bags."
With considerable effort, Gideon pulled himself to his feet. Once standing, he collected the Journal pages for the mesmer and enchantment spells and stashed them in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. "I'll go with Tad and get this sorted, y'all. Save the last dance for me, will you, Candy?" He waved in her direction as he exited with Tad. Candy robotically waved back, stopping the minute he was out of sight.
"I will never forgive you for this," Candy muttered darkly, shooting a glare at Grenda and Mabel in turn. Moments later, her face crinkled in confusion, and she turned an ear towards the office door. "Do you hear that?"
The office fell silent, and the sound of a police siren could be heard approaching the Shack. Confused, Dipper turned to Ford, whose expression shifted from one of concern to one of immense annoyance.
"Ironic," groaned Ford. "Not every day that the cops show up to arrest Stanley Pines for telling the truth now, is it?"
The squad car roared through a snowbank and slid to a stop just in front of the Mystery Shack porch. Dipper instinctively took a step back out of fear, while Ford stood stoically in place, having already mentally calculated the probable drift to know he wouldn't be harmed.
'Man, frustrating as he is some times, he's just so cool,' thought Dipper.
From the front seats of the cruiser emerged Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durwin, the latter having already removed his taser from its holster. As they stepped towards Ford and Dipper, a quiet knocking sound from behind forced them to stop in their tracks.
Blubs sighed and turned back, opening the back seat door so that Mayor Cutebiker could exit and stand to his feet. Despite wearing a heavy jacket, he immediately began shivering in the cold. As Dipper's eyes drifted downwards, the reason became obvious - even in the dead of winter, Mayor Cutebiker continued to insist on wearing his cutoff shorts.
"L-let's make this quick, everyone," said Cutebiker, teeth chattering. To his left, Blubs placed his head into his hand in frustration. It was immediately obvious to Dipper that the Sheriff was already tired of the antics of the Cutebiker administration, despite only having been in office for a few months.
"I told you to change," droned Blubs. "We go through this every day with you."
"T-t-these are my best s-s-shorts," insisted Cutebiker, frowning as if he was stating the obvious. "I n-need to make a g-good impression."
"Whatever you say, Mr. Mayor," muttered Blubs, shaking his head.
"Stanley P–pines, you're und-d-der arrest by o-o-rder of city ordinance GF-46.332b, w-w-willful violation of the N-n-never Mind All That directive."
"Well, first off, it's nearly impossible to take you seriously under these conditions," sniffed Ford, derisively looking down at Cutebiker's wobbling bare knees. "And second, I'm Stanford Pines. Stanley Pines is inside."
"W-w-well, what are you w-w-waiting for?" exclaimed Cutebiker, frigidly gesturing inside while turning towards Blubs and Durwin. "G-g-g-git 'em!"
"Before you do that," interrupted Ford, stepping to the side to block the officers as they moved to follow Cutebiker's order, "allow me to say something in Stan's defense. My brother has broken countless laws, some more serious than others, but it's always been in his own self interest. Tonight, Stanley violated an unjust law, a law that never should have been written, as a selfless act of community protection. Think now, do you seriously believe that banning people from talking about a catastrophe is the best way for our city to heal?"
"Well now hold on just a minute," interjected Durwin. "We just enforce laws, we don't do the thinkin' about them. I never woulda signed up if that were true."
"Aw, don't say that," cooed Blubs, placing a supporting hand on his partner's arm. "You do just fine with your thinking and your counting."
"I have been practicing," beamed Durwin proudly, placing his hands on his hips. In the process, he accidentally jabbed himself with his taser, setting the device off. After a startling moment of electro-shock, he collapsed face first into the snow, moaning quietly.
"Well," shrugged Blubs, "he's still pretty good at counting."
"I-I-I don't know, I'm p-p-pretty sure we're supposed to apply the l-l-law to everyone regardless of how j-just it is," said Cutebiker, clenching his fists in a transparent effort to distract himself from the cold. Ford and Dipper exchanged an irritated glance.
"Honestly, Mr. Mayor?" replied Dipper, "The law was a bad idea from the start. Everything that happened this summer is still haunting this town, and it manifested itself as an anti-government cult. If you don't give them a healthy outlet for talking about it, it's only going to end in disaster. Again."
"W-why should I care if people d-don't like the government?" shrugged Cutebiker.
Frowning, Blubs turned to the silly man to his right. "Uh, Mr. Mayor? You are the government."
"C-c-cripes, I k-keep forgetting that," exclaimed Cutebiker. Shaking his head, he sighed. "V-very well, I'll introduce a n-n-new ordinance to roll back Never Mind All T-t-that at the next c-c-council meeting."
With a final shiver, Mayor Cutebiker jumped into the back of the squad car, slamming the door behind him. Blubs stared at the closed door for a moment, clearly relishing the silence. "I miss Befufftlefumpter," he sighed, "Say what you will about his eighteen hour naps, but the man always dressed for the weather." With a grunt of effort, Blubs pulled Deputy Durwin back to his feet and helped him into the passenger seat.
Moments later, the squad car departed the Mystery Shack parking lot, leaving Ford and Dipper alone once again. But before either of them could comment on what had just transpired, the door to the gift shop opened behind them, and Pacifica bounded out onto the porch. As the door closed behind her, the sound of party music echoed from deeper in the Shack, the clearest sign yet that Soos' party was back in business.
"There you are!" she exclaimed, rushing up to Dipper's side. She smiled warmly at him, and as far as he could tell, it was genuine. "What are you two doing out here?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just pondering the weirdest of all the anomalies in Gravity Falls - the fact that it survived this long with such incompetent leadership," muttered Ford. He turned back to Dipper, his face bright with optimism. "But, in any case, with the gag order gone, hopefully a more transparent dialogue about Weirdmageddon will help prevent people from making up stories and spiraling out of control again."
"I guess," admitted Dipper as he scratched at the back of his hat, "though couldn't a conspiracy minded person just reject any story that doesn't match up with what they already believe?"
"Dipper, we can never be completely sure of variables we can't control for," dismissed Ford. "All we can do is administer the best antidote we have for the problem at hand and adjust our response if things change. Now," he added, turning towards the Shack, "I imagine you probably need to blow off a bit of steam after all this. Perhaps a bit of dance therapy is in order?"
Pacifica giggled at Ford's awkward segue. She turned to Dipper, holding out her hand to take him into the dance. Dipper reached out to take it and follow her inside, but stopped short. While he certainly was excited to finally enjoy the party with Pacifica, and was still curious why she had sought out Stan earlier, another thought had taken hold in his mind. One that he knew he needed to sort out before he could truly relax.
"Pacifica, you go on ahead. There's one last thing I need to deal with first." Pacifica responded with a hurt pout, but she could see from the serious look on Dipper's face that he wasn't making up an excuse without reason. Her hand, formerly extended to Dipper, had now become a jokingly aggressive point in his direction.
"You better not take long. I'm getting my dance with you," she mockingly threatened with a wry smile before departing into the Shack.
Once they were alone, Ford turned to Dipper. "Whatever it is, it must be important if you're willing to risk putting yourself within firing range of that kind of temper," he said with a chuckle. Dipper nodded solemnly.
"I wasn't out in the crowd while Stan was casting the mesmer, so it probably didn't affect me, did it?" asked Dipper.
"No, I suppose not," said Ford. "Why do you ask?"
"How did you find out that our memories of Bill were the cause of all this hysteria?"
"There's a device in my lab," replied Ford matter-of-factly. A resigned look crossed his face, as if he understood exactly where Dipper's line of questioning was headed. "it's something I can use to talk to the denizens of the mindscape without having to take the risk of traveling there ourselves."
"Show me," replied Dipper. Ford nodded, gesturing with his hand towards the gift shop entrance. 'I'm glad Ford seems to already understand,' he thought, 'because I'm so terrified that I don't think I could have spelled it out if I had to.'
In the bowels of Ford's subterranean lab, Dipper sat anxiously with the mindscape reader device perched on his forehead. To his left drooled Cooper the bus driver, having been pushed aside slightly to give him more room to sleep. Immediately to his other side sat Ford, adjusting the dials on the mindscape reader as he tried to tune into the correct room.
"I, uh… apologize in advance if I see something I shouldn't while we're searching here," said Ford. His awkward apology gave Dipper no comfort. In fact, he immediately began to wonder what exactly prompted Ford to say it. But he didn't have long to dwell on that thought, because after Ford tuned the dial into the next scene, he rotated the reader to face Dipper.
On the screen, he could see a serene Midwestern field, waves of grain listing lazily in the breeze. Immediately he felt a cold chill, recognizing the scene as the one from his dream that morning. As a wave of anxiety overtook him, Dipper began to second guess his plan. 'Is this really something I should be doing? Am I just provoking him?'
As each question passed through his mind, however, he dismissed them all as irrelevant. The mesmer broadcast throughout Gravity Falls would prevent almost every memory of Bill Cipher from remaining active. But in a few days, he would be traveling back to Piedmont, far from the broadcasting range of Gravity Falls' community radio station. And if he had chosen to live with the demon inside his head for the rest of his life, he wanted to face it. At least once.
Taking Dipper's silence as a sign, Ford handed him the microphone. "The floor is yours, Dipper," he added encouragingly. With a deep, steadying breath, Dipper pressed the talk button on the microphone.
"Bill?" asked Dipper, his voice cracking slightly. He immediately regretted not warming up for a minute before speaking, and he expected to hear a shrill laugh echo through the room in response. But the laugh never came, and instead a defeated sigh vibrated out of the reader's speakers.
"What do you want?" asked Bill, sounding to Dipper's ears as almost… depressed.
"I wanted to make sure you knew your plans failed," replied Dipper. On the small cathode ray screen attached to the reader, the form of Bill rose above the horizon before floating back down into frame. Oddly enough, he appeared to be hunched over, and wasn't looking anywhere in particular.
"You stupid bag of meat, didn't Sixer already explain that I can see everything you do?" complained Bill bitterly. "It's literally one of the only two things I can do in here. You're just here to gloat, aren't you?"
Dipper and Ford exchanged a confused glance, before Dipper leaned in to continue. "No, I'm just trying to figure out what I can expect going forward with you permanently in my head."
"I get it. No, I'm not going to keep torturing you with nightmares. Clearly that's not going to work on you, and all it did was aggravate your anxieties and make the inside of your head extra unbearable. Believe me, you'll never understand how frustrating this whole thing has been for me."
Dipper furrowed his brow, trying to parse what Bill had just told him. 'What does my anxiety have to do with any of this? And 'frustrated' seems a bit tame for Bill, I would have thought he'd be looking for vengeance.' he wondered. Bill paused for a minute, almost as if he was hearing Dipper's thoughts in real time, before turning towards the screen. While the image was chilling, Dipper couldn't help himself from wondering how the mindscape reader actually worked, and if Bill was able to tell that they were looking face to face or not. In either case, Bill let out an anguished scream before continuing.
"Picture a game show. Imagine yourself watching some moron, with a chance to win it all, failing to answer questions that you know the answer to. That's me, Pine Tree. I got to watch, through you, as every other memory of me in this podunk town got a second chance to bring about Weirdmageddon and failed miserably. If they had held off their plans for one more week, or if the idiot in Cooper's head hadn't been cocky enough to tell Sixer the whole plan, this whole thing could have flown under the radar and none of you would have known until it was too late. And then, to add insult to injury, after it's all over, I get to watch you struggle to complete even the most basic of dating rituals with the Northwest spawn. Vengeful Axolotl, Pines, you've condemned me to a fate worse than death. What more can you possibly take from me?"
Bill let out another frustrated yell, balling his fists and falling to his stubby little knees. Ford put his hand over the microphone, pushing it down before Dipper could reply. "Think very carefully about what you say next, Dipper," he warned. "There's not much he can do from inside your head, but remember, he's a master of manipulation."
Dipper gently shook Ford's hands off of the microphone. It's not like he needed a reminder on how dangerous Bill was, after all. "If you're stuck with me for as long as I live, is there any way we can make this… I don't know… less of a hostile relationship?"
On the small screen, Bill appeared to reconfigure into a frown, as if angered by the very concept of finding common ground with Dipper. But despite his angered appearance, he ultimately said nothing, and the look on his face softened into an expression resembling exhaustion moments later.
"There's alarms going off in here, day and night. Literal alarms. If I had ears they'd be bleeding. I can't imagine what it physically feels like for obvious reasons, but I'm losing it, Pines. If this feels anything like what it sounds like in here, get help, moron. Do that, and maybe we can work out some kind of truce."
Dipper leaned back in his chair for a moment, Bill's words echoing in his mind. He had always taken his nervousness and overthinking to be just a normal part of life. Sometimes it had drifted into something more extreme and hard for him to control, but he had often pointed to some external event or stressor as the cause. There had always been a reason, so it wasn't something to worry about. But there was something about the pained look on Bill's face, a face that he had associated with masochism and terror for months, that put everything into perspective. After all, if whatever was going on in his head was having this effect on Bill, what was it doing to his own body?
Blinking, Dipper turned to Ford again, who looked slightly taken aback at what he had heard. "That's… shockingly sound advice for Bill," Ford admitted. With Ford's acknowledgement serving as confirmation, Dipper nodded and raised the microphone back to his lips.
"Okay, Bill," agreed Dipper. "Once I'm back in Piedmont, I'll start taking steps to get my anxiety under control." Bill said nothing in response, but the pained expression on his face slid into something resembling relief.
Dipper opened his mouth to ask one final question but hesitated. Instantly, Bill looked up, listening to the question as it echoed through Dipper's mind, and nonchalantly shrugged in response. Moments later, he sank into the field of wheat, disappearing from view. Ford switched off the mindscape reader, and Dipper removed the crown attachment from his forehead.
"Did you get what you wanted out of… whatever that was?" asked Ford earnestly. Dipper shrugged, continuing to stare at the now blank cathode ray screen.
"I guess the last question I had isn't one that the Bill in my head could answer," replied Dipper.
"You're still worried that we never figured out who the Herald of C was, aren't you?" inferred Ford, to which Dipper nodded. "We hit the most die-hard Disciples with the mesmer directly, and the valley is going to be blanketed in it as soon as Gideon makes it to the radio station. Odds are, we'll never hear from the Herald again, as they'll likely be too embarrassed to come forward."
"I guess," considered Dipper. "But that just means we're never going to find out what their motives were. Or why they were riling up the Disciples. If they even knew who Bill was and what he was capable of." Ford nodded in agreement before letting out a disappointed sigh.
"True. I can't say I'm particularly excited to not have closure on this either. And there's another element to it."
Ford stood up from the mindscape reader and bent over to reach a cabinet under one of his control panels. With a groan, he pulled the large stone carved with the plans for an alternate dimension portal and placed it on the table in the center of the room. "We still don't know who carved this thing, either. While I agree that mind wiping the entire valley would have been wrong, I certainly want to find whoever did this and make sure their memory of this alternate dimension is cleared for good."
Dipper stared at the stone carefully, running his hand over the intricately carved rendition of the portal plans. He couldn't disagree with Ford's conclusion, but given they still had no leads for who could have pulled off such a feat, he wondered if it was even possible to resolve the mystery before his winter break ran out.
"There's something obvious we missed here," said Dipper, raising his hands to his forehead in frustration, "and it's driving me crazy. The Herald posts were so simple, just pictures and a benign invitation to Greasy's. What were the Disciples seeing that we didn't see? What about those posts brought out the worst in everyone? I almost wish we didn't delete the group from Snapagram now, just to get another look with fresh eyes."
Dipper blinked slowly. Even by his standards, he had been awake and active for far too long. He didn't want to immediately contradict himself in front of Ford, but he silently accepted that he was too tired to crack whatever hidden code had been in those photos, even if they were still readily available.
"What's done is done, Dipper," replied Ford flatly. "We can't control that anymore. What we can control is if we spend the remainder of the evening hunched over in an old laboratory, or if we go celebrate this victory with our friends and loved ones. What do you think of that?"
Next to Dipper, Cooper began to stir. Slowly rolling over, he managed to bring himself back upright, before his head rolled like a ragdoll along his shoulders. "My brother is the mayor of Austin," he mumbled, nearly incoherently.
"Sure he is, Cooper," replied Ford kindly. "We can go see him soon." He turned back to Dipper and motioned towards the elevator. "Go. I'll get him back on his feet and out of our hair."
As he stood up to leave, Dipper looked up to see Ford shoot him one last wry grin. "You don't want to keep her waiting, do you?" he teased. With a grin of his own, Dipper entered the elevator, pressed the button for the ground level, and watched as the doors closed on the laboratory in front of him.
While the elevator ascended to the Mystery Shack proper, he found himself alone for only the second time all day, counting his brief moment alone in the hall of McGucket's mansion as the first. 'Well. Not really alone. I guess that'll take some getting used to…' he thought, wondering how often he would intrusively remember his mental roommate.
But considering his original plan for the day had been to sit at home and read, realizing that he had instead devoted his day to unraveling a grand conspiracy left him feeling worn down. While he knew he had to keep his promise to Pacifica and help her enjoy the party, a large part of him desperately wished he could just go to bed.
But that just reminded him of something he had once heard his dad say, something he had never fully understood until now. They had been in the middle of a family road trip to Lake Tahoe that had been packed full of sightseeing, camping, and other adventures. Dipper and Mabel had been more than eager to run themselves ragged, but he had overheard his dad say to his mom in the hotel, "If you don't need a vacation from your vacation by the time it's over, you didn't really make the most of it."
To a grade schooler on a sugar rush and a travel high, it hadn't made much sense. But those words now resonated in Dipper's bones as the elevator doors opened and he re-entered the Shack gift shop. He was earning his vacation from his vacation, and he needed to make the most of the time he had left.
"Dipper!" exclaimed Mabel, running up to him as he entered the gallery room. Between the last time he saw her in the Shack's back office and now, she had fully refreshed her party getup to its original state, and was halfway finished with what was obviously not her first sugary mocktail. Pulling Dipper into a hug, she gestured wildly around the room. "Have you seen this theming! Winterween, Dipper! It's incredible!"
"Yeah, I suppose it's pretty on brand," laughed Dipper, shouting over the pop song blaring over the speakers. While he was glad that Mabel was enjoying it, he honestly wasn't particularly moved by the theming one way or another. Despite Mabel's insistent and aggressive tutelage on the subject, he had never really understood why parties needed a theme in the first place. Mabel broke off the hug, and her smile retreated from an excited grin to a sly, sneaky smirk, Dipper knew exactly what was coming next.
"She's over there," said Mabel, subtly gesturing over towards the dance floor. While Dipper was a bit surprised with his sister's uncharacteristically restrained approach to his love life, he didn't feel like tempting fate by calling attention to it. Instead, he patted her on the shoulder as a farewell and made his way across the party towards Pacifica.
As he made his approach, Dipper passed the DJ booth, noticing Soos looking around the room in confusion. Behind him, Melody was deep in conversation with a woman that Dipper didn't recognize, dressed in a dazzling blue dress adorned in constellation patterns.
"Hey Dipper," Soos asked, "have you seen Mr. Pines lately?"
Dipper frowned, struggling to remember the last time he had seen Stan. "No, not since before he gave his fake Herald speech. Why?"
With a disappointed sigh, Soos held up a pair of headphones. "He said he'd help me co-DJ the party, but when I came to find him, nobody seemed to know where he got off to."
Dipper didn't quite understand why, but Stan's sudden disappearance made him feel uneasy. A second later it dawned on him - Pacifica earlier departure happened after she had asked where Stan was. Another mystery was revealing itself in the Shack tonight, and as confused and intrigued as Dipper was by it all, he was also very tired.
"I'm sure he didn't forget," reassured Dipper. "Just hang tight!"
"Heh heh," laughed Soos. "Not tonight, tonight we hang loose."
Shaking his head at Soos' terrible joke, Dipper continued on through the gallery room. Moments later, found himself directly behind Pacifica as she danced alone. Eyes closed, arms raised above her head, and completely lost in the moment, Dipper took a moment to just watch Pacifica dance. Without anyone she needed to impress, or any unwritten rules of her upper class culture that she needed to obey, she was free to just be a teenager. Free to have fun. Free to be herself.
After a short while, Dipper tapped her on the shoulder. Immediately, Pacifica spun around, delighted.
"Finally!" she sighed in exasperation, but her wide grin betrayed her true excitement to see him. Just as she started to pull Dipper in to dance, however, the loud upbeat number ended, replaced by a lower tempo, quieter interlude. "Ugh. I came here to dance, not to talk!" shouted Pacifica up at the DJ booth, prompting Soos to apologetically shrug.
"Sorry, dude," came the distant reply.
"Ah, we'll get the next one," assured Dipper. Slowly, his brain processed his various questions about Pacifica uneasiness and how it related to Stan's sudden disappearance, trying to find a way to ask her about them in a diplomatic, non-accusatory way. But before he could, Pacifica's face brightened in recognition and she began quickly digging through her purse.
"Actually, it gives me a chance to give you this," replied Pacifica, pulling a small, festive envelope from her purse and handing it to Dipper. While he was surprised to receive another gift from Pacifica after having already gotten several over the course of the break, he was most excited to see his gold chain bracelet already around her wrist as she held out the envelope to him.
"Originally, the idea was to give this to you on Christmas Eve at the top of a ski hill," Pacifica continued, "But you know how that worked out."
"You know, the more I think about it," replied Dipper as he began to open the envelope, "it really wouldn't have been a break in Gravity Falls without some mystery."
Pacifica laughed knowingly. "I mean, duh. Just look."
Out of the envelope, Dipper pulled out four tickets. Printed on them was 'Gravity Falls Murder Mystery Railway,' with the performance date listed as New Years Eve.
"My plan was to give you a bit of mystery," joked Pacifica. "But, you know, in a fun, controlled, date sort of way. But you're a natural magnet for mystery, so I'd understand if you would rather spend New Year's Eve doing something else."
"No, this sounds wonderful," replied Dipper, "we ought to keep at least one part of your plan for winter intact, right?"
Pacifica opened her mouth to retort, but the slow song began to fade into a higher energy pop song. As the dance floor roared back to life, Pacifica's face immediately lit up as she recognized the track.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "I love Llama and the Diamonds! Let's go!"
Without any further discussion, Pacifica pulled Dipper out to the center of the dance floor. Internally, he began to fret about whether he'd be able to dance along to a song he had never heard before, or whether he'd make a fool of himself in front of Pacifica. His mind also flickered back to the many questions he still hadn't gotten a chance to ask her. As she closed her eyes and began to move to the beat, he felt a sudden rush of anxiety that froze him into place.
But around him, he noticed Mabel and her friends, all shooting him encouraging thumbs up from their vantage point near the gallery entrance. Nearby, leaning against the wall near the concessions, Wendy smiled knowingly in his direction, shooting finger guns at him with a wink. Across the hall, he watched Soos revel in the excitement of the crowd, pulling a confused Ford up to the DJ booth and getting him to pump his fist along with the beat. He momentarily imagined his imprisoned memory of Bill, screaming incoherently while forced to endure his inaction in the face of an indisputable positive moment he was sharing with Pacifica.
And then there was Pacifica herself, completely losing herself in the moment and singing along to the song booming through the gallery.
'Time and place, Dipper. Time and place.'
In that moment, Dipper sighed, and slowly began to mirror everything Pacifica did. It felt awkward at first, but slowly became more natural as he stopped caring about anyone else and only focused on the person in front of him. Within moments, he had completely submerged into the music, and when Pacifica opened her eyes, the two of them became lost in a moment in time.
'I'll take the good with the bad,' Dipper thought, his own voice echoing back to him, 'but this moment right now? This is the best.'
As the front door opened, the bell rang. Stan Pines instinctively looked up, despite having heard it a thousand times before. Stomping his boots clean on the welcome mat, he looked around the diner expectantly. Greasy's was still open for another thirty minutes, but he was the only customer in sight. Without the constant clutter and chattering customers, it hardly felt like Greasy's at all. Miraculously, it almost seemed clean. Almost.
"Hello!" greeted Susan, wandering out from the back to address Stan. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Stan. Couldn't get enough Greasy's for one day, huh?"
Stan furrowed his brow in confusion for a moment, before realizing that he had been to the diner twice today. 'Man, I'm gonna sleep for a week after all this…' he thought. 'Two probably, I still have to go back to the Shack and DJ with Soos after I'm done here.'
"Heh, yeah, that's right," replied Stan. "Though I'm just here for a cup of coffee this time. Been a really, really long day, if you know what I mean."
"Tell me about it," laughed Susan. "Take a seat at the counter, hon. I'll bring your coffee right out."
As Susan wandered back towards the coffee brewer, Stan took a seat and began anxiously drumming his fingers on the counter. His eye drifted towards a printed sign next to the register, prompting customers to like Greasy's Diner on Snapagram. He shuddered.
'God, I hope you're wrong about this, Blondie.'
Susan returned to the counter with a full mug of coffee, and Stan immediately took a sip. As the diner was a half-hour away from close, the coffee was understandably no longer piping hot, which encouraged Stan to take an even deeper drink. Setting the mug down, he turned back to Susan, who absently leaned on the counter near her only customer.
"So, Susan," Stan said slowly. "Can't help but notice you've become a real big fan of Snapagram lately."
Susan let out an excited gasp. "It's all thanks to Paz, you know! When she started, she wondered why we didn't have a page, and I told her - I didn't know I needed one! So she taught me everything she knew. She even taught me about this thing called 'influencer marketing,' and that's been fun too."
There was an uncomfortable pause, filled by the buzzing of the aged fluorescent lights directly overhead. Stan took in a measured breath. "Pretend I'm an old geezer who has no idea what any of those words mean."
With a laugh and a dismissive hand wave, Susan continued, "So it's this crazy thing where you pretend you're not doing an ad, but you're really doing an ad! Paz showed me this burger place that wrote mean things all day, and said we could come up with a way to do something similar for Greasy's. I love her, you know, but I thought, 'I don't want someone thinking I say mean things!'"
"No, can't have that," agreed Stan, taking another sip of his coffee. Susan grinned, clearly reveling in a captive audience for her story.
"As luck would have it, I found this crazy group online. They were playing some pretend game about uncovering a mystery, like your nephew likes to do. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to play along, while putting some influencer marketing to work for Greasy's? So I made this account, and I went around town taking silly pictures, and I posted them once a week. And people showed up!"
Stan nodded silently, carefully lowering the coffee mug to the serving platter. "Then what happened, Susan?" he asked quietly.
"The weirdest thing, actually," she replied. "The group disappeared this evening."
"Oh. What a shame," said Stan flatly.
"A shame, or an opportunity? Wink!" Susan manually winked her eye for emphasis.
Stan looked up from the counter, finally resisting his desire to avoid eye contact with Susan. "Uh, what do you mean by that?"
"Well, after the dinner rush I dozed off a bit on my break," explained Susan. Stan's face fell. "I had this weird little stress dream about the group, and how so much of the community would be sad if it was gone. It got me thinking, Stan. I figure if the original group is gone, I can make a new one. A better one, even. I've seen some weird things around town too, you know. Maybe I get some weird photos this time, and give everyone some new fun things to look out for. Everyone can keep playing their game, and I can keep influencing people to come to Greasy's. It's a win-win, don't you think?"
Stan sighed, having heard enough to know Pacifica's fears had been justified. And clearly, given that Susan hadn't been at the Mystery Shack riot earlier in the evening, her mind was completely free from the magic of the mesmer.
Opening his worn coat, he pulled a memory gun from the jacket pocket. He began fiddling with the codex on the side, using it to spell out 'Bill Cipher' on the tiny CRT screen on the back.
"What's that you got there?" asked Susan, peering over the counter at the device in Stan's hands.
"Eh, just a little game, don't worry about it," lied Stan. Once he had finished setting up, he made a quick motion to level the memory gun to Susan's head, firing directly at her forehead. A burst of brilliant blue light filled the diner for a moment, before everything shifted back to the slightly greenish tint of the fluorescent lighting above. Susan stood in place, blinking slowly in a daze, before turning her head to look at Stan.
"S-stan? What are you doing here?" Susan asked cautiously. As she regained her faculties, she began to look around in confusion. "What am I doing here?"
"Just having a bad dream, Susan," replied Stan, once again adjusting the codex on the memory gun. This time, he used it to spell out 'Herald of C.' He looked up from the memory gun back to Susan, watching as she peered curiously out the window.
"Since when did it start snowing in August?" she asked earnestly, tilting her head. Stan winced, realizing instantly that removing such a major event from Susan's memory had taken her mind back to the summer.
'Guess Dipper made the right call after all. Good kid.'
Stan raised the memory gun to Susan's head a second time and fired. Once again, the diner momentarily filled with a bright blue light, only to return to normal seconds later. As Susan blinked in confusion for the second time, Stan stood up from his seat. He walked around to the service side of the counter, reached Susan, and slowly helped her find her way to one of the diner booths.
"Quittin' time, Susan," he said kindly. "It's been a long day. Why don't you take a seat, gimme your keys, and I'll lock up."
Susan looked up from the booth, squinting in confusion at Stan for a moment. But his insistent, toothy grin won her over, and she handed over the keys to the diner.
"I'll be right back, don't go anywhere!" said Stan, wandering into the back of the diner. Slowly, he began ensuring that all of the appliances, griddles, and ovens were for sure turned off, going so far as to unplug anything he couldn't be sure was no longer generating heat. One by one, he switched off the lights, replacing the fluorescent glow inside with an amber one, lightly filtering in through the windows from the parking lot. Finally, he collected Susan from the booth and helped her to her feet, guiding her out the door and locking it up behind him.
"Stan, this really isn't necessary, I'm fine," grumbled Susan, moments before losing her footing on a slick patch of ice. Instantly, Stan realigned his weight, ensuring that Susan stayed upright as he walked her to the Stanmobile.
"Blondie gave me explicit instructions to make sure you get home safe tonight," informed Stan. "Freak August blizzard is going to trip anybody up."
"I guess Paz knows what's best," replied Susan. Stan silently cheered that Susan had at least some memory of her relationship with Pacifica left in her mind as he opened up the passenger door to his car and helped her inside.
As Stan closed the door behind Susan, he looked briefly at his phone. The last set of messages he had exchanged with Pacifica were still on the screen.
PACIFICA: If it's her, please make sure she gets home okay.
STAN PINES: Are you sure about this?
PACIFICA: She texted me asking what happened to the group. She mentioned the posts about Greasy's. I don't know what else that could mean.
PACIFICA: Please don't tell Dipper. Or anyone. I don't want anyone to think she did this on purpose.
PACIFICA: I was the one who told her about Snapagram, is this my fault?
Stan had very little experience with digital messaging etiquette, but the way that Pacifica had sent repeated messages one after another gutted him. She was devastated, that much was clear. When Pacifica had pulled him aside back at the Shack, frantically talking through a message she had received from Susan about the missing group, he made her a promise that, one way or another, he'd put her mind at ease and make sure that everything would be okay.
After all, he knew how important mentors could be to a kid from a dysfunctional home. Neither of them specifically mentioned a memory wipe as the solution, but given their limited options and desire to keep the identity of the Herald to themselves, the implication was clear.
Stan stared out into the cold night, watching as the flurries continued to float down from above. He looked back at the passenger door of the car, and noticed that Susan had fallen asleep leaning up against the window. There'd be some gaps in her memory, he reasoned, but given everything he had learned about their relationship from both Susan and Pacifica's perspective, there wouldn't be any change. Susan had taken a liking to Pacifica from day one. And he figured she'd do it again, if necessary.
He exhaled, watching the wisps of his breath float in the frigid air for a moment before typing a response. This proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated, typing and retyping various iterations of the same phrase, trying to anticipate how the text would be heard when read. He even weighed how to address Pacifica, not wanting to conflate the seriousness of his tone with the way he affectionately referred to her as 'Blondie.'
'Jeez, I can't imagine having grown up dealing with the pressure of sending these kinds of messages. No wonder kids are so anxious these days.'
Finally, he sent the message.
STAN PINES: It's taken care of. Not your fault. Enjoy the party, Pacifica.
As he wandered back around to the driver's seat, trying to remember Susan's home address, a final, inescapable thought entered Stan's mind.
'I hate the internet'
...
Chiming in at the end here to say once again, wow. Thank you to everyone who has read this far into Mystery Twins Hotline. Once again, I'm grateful to all the kind words along the way, and to the regular commenters who've chimed in as the latest installments were published.
There was a much longer gap between Ski Northwest and Herald of C than I originally planned on, but it ultimately was the best thing that could have happened to the story. And it's not because this one was longer, either. The original idea for the story had always been the same, but the order of different scenes/events, some of the interpersonal drama, and the overall framing of it came into focus much more clearly with a bit of time to think carefully about the story I wanted to tell.
And honestly, I should have taken a bit longer - the week lull I took between Chapters 8 and 9 was the direct result of major rewrites I did to the final chapters. Maybe you picked up on it, maybe you didn't, but when I started writing the story, I thought a memory wipe was an acceptable, albeit redundant, way to end the story. By the time I was publishing, I no longer felt that way.
Which I why I'll put it out there ahead of time - there will likely be another sizable gap before the first chapter of Book 3 comes out.
I'm very proud of Herald of C, but it was tiring to write given the inspiration, and making major changes while publishing is underway is something I do not want to go through next time. And the time I spent working on the revisions between the original draft of HoC and the one you just finished reading truly helped to hone the story into something much better than it would have been if I had just gone full steam ahead with the page one version.
So if you haven't already, bookmark or subscribe to the series page so you'll be updated the minute Book 3 is ready to go!
Thanks again for reading!