A/N: Waaagh!

Ahem, I am slightly buzzed out of my mind: we're hurtling towards the finale and I can feel the wheels coming off my own brain as we do so, but I'm hoping that the whole thing won't fall apart before we get to the finish line.

A huge thank you to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited, and followed - you give me the strength to get out of bed in these troubled times.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own baffling theories.

This chapter's soundtrack is Heaven by Thomas Newman


The sense of dislocation was exactly as Mabel remembered it: even after everything she'd been through since the adventure inside Grunkle Stan's mind, that bewildering sensation of being in two places at once, of standing still and yet swan-diving off a skyscraper, was still fresh in her memory. Now she was feeling it again, only this time without the benefit of candles or incantations or anything of the sort.

When the light finally faded enough for her to see where she'd ended up, she found herself standing at a crossroads of three merged Mindscapes, right at the heart of a misshapen-looking road forking off around her. On her left was Dipper's mental world, easily recognized by the mishmash of locations from Gravity Falls on display, along with a few bits and pieces from home; only Dipper could mix the mysterious with the comforting so effortlessly, Mabel reflected with a smile. On her right was Lorraine's Mindscape, and though Mabel recognized almost nothing about the weird house at the centre of it, Dipper had told Mabel a little about his visit to Lorraine's mind, and this place seemed to match his description: a dark and ominous looking house on a lonely country lane, mixed in with odds and ends from all over this madcap dimension; all things considered, it suited Lorraine down to the bone.

Behind her was Mabel's own Mindscape, which Mabel did her best to ignore; from the initial once-over, she could tell at once that it was a patchwork of locations both real and imagined, quite like Mabeland in a way – and yet not so… and that was exactly why she couldn't bring herself to look at it for a second longer. The last thing she wanted was to be distracted by another fantasy world, or god forbid, tempted to stay; she'd learned her lesson from Mabeland all too well: when it came to gingerbread houses, the rule of thumb would always be "look but don't touch."

So, she quickly set off towards the other Mindscapes in search of the inhabitants. She had no idea how she was supposed to get through to Lorraine, or even how she was supposed to start a conversation with her in the dreamworld; after all, Dipper had been the one with real experience talking to people in their dreams, and he was nowhere to be found. However, she was at least mostly certain that actually finding Lorraine would be a good start, so off she went.

Halfway across the mismatched lawns of the two Mindscapes ahead of her, Mabel almost tripped over something lying in the grass just a few feet from Dipper's dream house. At first, she thought it was a mannequin, all dressed up for the storefront before being dumped here in on the lawn, for its skin was chalk-white and the body itself was so weightless that it actually rolled for a couple of feet when Mabel stumbled over it. However, looking closer, she saw that the supposed mannequin was breathing, and though its skin was chalk-white, it was obviously too soft to be plastic… but it wasn't until Mabel turned the thing over that she realized that it was Dipper.

Pale as paper and almost as heavy, he lay unconscious amidst the long grass, his muscles completely slack, his eyes closed. He didn't stir when Mabel shook him, not even when she gently peeled one eyelid open and let the weird daylight of the Mindscapes shine directly into his eye.

"Dipper?" she whispered, almost too afraid to speak a decibel louder. "Can you hear me?"

To her immense relief, Dipper smiled sleepily and mumbled something that sounded like, "Let me sleep in a little while."

"Dipper, you need to get up, now: we're in the Mindscape, and we've got to find Lorraine. I think we're supposed to talk her into stopping the ritual or something like that."

"L'ready tried that," mumbled Dipper. "Din' work."

"Is this why you're like this? Did Auldman do something to you?" Halfway through the sentence, she realized how stupidly obvious this sounded, and amended, "Inner you, I mean, or Dream you, or whatever."

"Mmmfff. B'g'm'n locked me 'way in here. Couldn't control anything. Started getting sick. Got easier to just sleep through it."

"Well you need to wake up now, Dipper."

Dipper groaned, tried to rise, and promptly collapsed backwards into the grass. He tried to open his eyes, even trying to reach up to his face to physically force his eyelids open, but his arms went limp the moment they were raised a foot above ground level, and he eventually went still again. Before long, he was once again drifting back into unconsciousness.

"Dipper?"

"Rgnmnnnmmmm. Lemme sleeeeeeeep…"

Mabel knew the sensible think to do would be to just leave him here to sleep. After all, there was only so much time she could spend trying to wake him up, because as slow as the real world had been moving, there was only a matter of time before the Bogeyman caught up with her – or before the icepick finished its plunge. But at the same time, she couldn't just abandon him: the last time she'd seen him this sickly was the time he'd come down with that stomach virus back in fourth grade, and that had nearly sent him to the hospital; that had been one of the worst weeks of her entire life, in no small part because she'd spent so much of it going to school alone, and even worse arriving home to find him a pale, feverish shadow of his old self, too delirious to even speak. She couldn't just leave him to suffer through whatever Winter had done to him.

Instead, she grabbed Dipper by the arms and hauled him upright; to her surprise, he was so light by now that he could easily be flung over one shoulder like a towel, and so out of it that he didn't even stir when Mabel began carrying him across the Mindscape in a fireman's lift. With precious few ideas on what to do next, she made for Lorraine's Mindscape, Dipper still slung over her shoulder.

Lorraine was nowhere in sight, and the door to her dream house was locked. Of course, Mabel hadn't travelled so far and done so much just to be thwarted by a door: just for safety's sake, she hastily checked the building for open windows (or, failing that, rocks), before striding confidently up to the door and knocking as loudly as humanly possible.

There was a pause, and then Mabel heard the muffled-but-distinctive sound of someone trying to swear as quietly as possible.

"Lorraine?" she called. "Are you in there?"

"Go away."

"Um… it's Mabel. Dipper and I have something really important to tell you. You mind opening the door?"

"Leave me alone."

"This really is important, Lorraine…"

From behind the door, there was another muffled swearword, followed by the distinctive, hollow-sounding thud of someone kicking a kitchen cabinet. "I don't care!" Lorraine hollered. "Dipper already gave me the 'life's worth living' spiel, and while I'm touched that the two of you were willing to make the effort, I'm not interested in listening to anything else, okay?"

Mabel's eyes narrowed. Lorraine's voice sounded very odd to her ears – younger somehow, maybe even a little bit on the teenagerish side. Still, if anything, this only made her job even easier: if she'd been able to lend a helping hand to Robbie, she'd be able to do the same for teenage Lorraine.

"Who said I was gonna say anything about how life's worth living?" she asked innocently. "I just wanna talk about something important: I didn't say it was about living or anything like that. For all you know, I might just be looking for an excuse for some good conversation. Don't you feel like talking? I mean, not to badmouth your choice of Mindscape, but it looks really dark and lonely in there."

"I don't care."

"You don't sound like you don't care."

"Just leave me alone, goddammit! I just want to be left in peace until the apocalypse finally puts me out of my misery, okay? I've already screwed up everything I've ever put my mind to, including death – can't I at least have a chance to achieve a little serenity inside my own head?"

Mabel took a deep breath. This was turning out to be significantly worse than Robbie. Still, even with a ticking clock bearing down on her, she wasn't going to be deterred just yet, and she wasn't going to get mean: after all, Lorraine had been through a lot. So, she counted to the highest number she could possibly reach and tried again.

"Why don't we talk about it properly?" she wheedled. "I can pour you a nice glass of Mabel juice, and we can both sit down and talk about your troubles, and if I don't say anything you haven't heard before, I'll leave you in peace. How's that sound?"

"Piss off."

And if Lorraine had anything else to say, it was lost in the commotion as she stomped off elsewhere, her angry footsteps fading off into the distance a few seconds later.

Bleventeen, thought Mabel with a sigh. Alright then, time for plan B.

Pausing only to gently place Dipper on the ground well out of harm's way, she focussed all her imagination on her fists until they had reformed into a glowing pair of cartoon stars. Then, without so much as a word of warning, she sent them rocketing outwards like missiles, leaving a vapour trail of rainbows as they arced across the porch and slammed into Lorraine's front door with a multicoloured eruption of fireworks powerful enough to blast the whole thing off its hinges.

There was a pause, as the glitter cloud slowly cleared. Then, at the far end of the darkened corridor beyond it, an enraged Lorraine darted into view, now a teenager for some reason. At the sight of her, Mabel couldn't help but smirk: now she knew why Dipper had been so determined to help Lorraine out after snooping around inside her memories, for apart from the dark hair and the waifish build, the girl was a dead ringer for Wendy.

"What… in the hell do you think you're doing?!" howled Lorraine. "I told you to piss off!"

"Sorry, but this really can't wait; we need to talk."

"I told you before, I'm not–!"

Unfortunately for Lorraine, though she was capable of many impressive feats of magic in the real world, she'd clearly never learned how to control what happened inside her own Mindscape, because Mabel's next move caught her completely off-guard. Conjuring a glowing pink lasso in her hand, Mabel flung it over Lorraine's head and pulled it taut around her ankles, whisking Lorraine off her feet with a brisk yank. Pausing only to scoop up Dipper and drape him over one shoulder, she began hauling Lorraine through the door and out into the bewildering concourse of merged Mindscapes.

"I'm sorry, Lorraine," said Mabel, over the shouted obscenities from behind her, "But I needed to get you out of that house long enough to talk. I mean, I wouldn't normally do this, but the universe is at stake right now, so 'needs must' and all that stuff. You just relax and you'll be back on your feet in just a few seconds."

For her part, Lorraine could only scream, swear, and try to undo the knot around her legs – without much success. Mabel knew from personal experience that it was pretty difficult to untie your feet while you were being dragged across rough terrain at high speed (one of the many reasons why Mabel still wasn't allowed to play with mountaineering equipment and golf carts at the same time). Plus, as far as she could tell, Lorraine didn't seem to have any of her powers in the Mindscape, so she was free to continue dragging her onwards without having to worry about getting a bolt of lightning to the back.

Eventually, despite her prisoner's best efforts to cling to the grass, Mabel was able to get her all the way to the border of her own Mindscape before finally banishing the lasso. Immediately, Lorraine jumped to her feet and rounded on Mabel, stopping just short of screaming in her face. "Now listen," she snarled. "I've had just about enough of people trying to drag me into whatever complete waste of time they've decided to inflict on the rest of the world. This is the nearest thing I've ever had to serenity: I've only got to wait another few minutes before the nightmare finally ends, and I don't appreciate being literally dragged out of my mind into… into…"

Lorraine very slowly trailed off as she finally took in Mabel's section of the map.

Even Mabel had been a little taken aback by the sight of her own Mindscape when she'd first seen it. After all, she'd been expecting something like Mabeland – a garish, aggressively-cheerful, mind-tenderizing explosion of plush toys, fast cars, past crushes, imagined entities, and exuberant synth music – and maybe it had once been completely identical to it; after all, there were a few recognizable elements borrowed from it.

But Mabel had grown up a little since the days when Mabeland had been her paradise and refuge from the real world, and her Mindscape had matured accordingly: the colours were still bright, but painfully so; there was still music playing, but at a much gentler volume and with a much broader selection; vividly-coloured flowers still blossomed across the gardens and trees still shaded the pathways, but none of them watched for signs of rebellion; plush toys and creatures she'd dreamed up in her spare time still trundled merrily across the grounds, but without the aggressive, fanatical edge that they'd had in Mabeland. Most importantly of all, the real world had a place here: instead of fairy-tale castle, the centrepiece of her Mindscape was a fusion of the Mystery Shack and her home back in Piedmont – upsized into a palatial mishmash in keeping with the fantastical nature of the place, but still very much an admission of reality. On the bottom half, a cosy suburban house; on the top, the wonderfully ramshackle building with its distinctive triangular attic window – all the comforts of home combined with all the fun and adventure that you could find in Gravity Falls. This wasn't a place where you hid from reality, nor was it a place where fantasy was meant to be ignored: it was a place where both could be accepted.

Looking at it, Mabel couldn't help but feel a tiny bit proud of herself. In spite of the mistakes she made, even though her guilty conscience still jabbed at her, she'd improved herself (hadn't she?); her Mindscape was proof (wasn't it?).

Lorraine's response was a little bit less understated: after staring in open-mouthed astonishment for several seconds, her legs buckled beneath her, and she fell to her knees, her face frozen in a mask of confusion. All things considered, Mabel couldn't blame her: from everything Dipper had told her, Lorraine hadn't lived a happy life and probably hadn't seen anything quite so fantastical even while working for the Council; the most beautiful place in the world to her would have been the glowing cave (Agartha, as the Beeple had called it), and given how much pain her Bee caused her on a regular basis, Lorraine probably hadn't wanted to go anywhere near it unless she had no other choice. Next to all that, Mabel's Mindscape must have looked like a paradise.

There was a pause, and then Lorraine asked – in a voice so small that Mabel could barely hear it over the gentle purr of the synth music – "Can I stay here?"

"For a while, sure… if you're willing to listen."

"Open bribery, then? You'd make a good parent, Mabel."

"Let's just say I learned from the best. Now, listen closely…"


Back in the real world, time was still passing.

Auldman Northwest was still lunging forward, still reaching out to tear Mabel away from the slab.

The blade was still falling, still plunging inexorably towards Dipper's heart.

Lorraine was still acting out the events of that fateful night over thirty years ago, her free will completely subverted, her conscious mind lost in a replay of the story…

…but now her unconscious mind was doing something unprecedented. In the real world, it might not have meant much, with only a second or two to spare before the inevitable finally happened, but across the psychic link, a lot could happen in a few seconds.

In the Mindscape, whole worlds could change in the span of a heartbeat…


Lorraine sighed. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Mabel, but it can't be done. The world's doomed, and there's no point in trying to change my mind about it. We've already lost. I told your brother exactly the same thing when he came in here an hour ago: I can't help you; I haven't been able to help anyone in my entire life, and frankly, I'm a horrible person. I'm the reason why this sacrificial ritual was invented in the first place, and I'm the reason why your brother is about to be sacrificed. Frankly, you'd be better off trying to negotiate with the icepick in my hands."

"But the-"

"I'm going to have to stop you right there, because I know what you're going to say next: even I could make a difference, even if Nathaniel or Auldman or whatever the hell he calls himself could be stopped – which he can't – the Dreamers are still going to wake up eventually. The world's going to end, and there's nothing that anyone on this planet can do about it. Sorry, but that's the truth of the matter, and there's no point trying to hide it. Just ask your brother if you don't believe me."

Dipper, who was still draped over Mabel's shoulder like a ragdoll, mumbled sleepily and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Mabel took a deep breath. This was going to take some doing.

Right now, they were currently soaring through the upper reaches of Mabel's mindscape on the back of a flying carpet being towed by a giant turtle, its colossal shell glittering with sequins. All around them, the corridors of the Mystery Shack had been rendered on a gargantuan scale, so that ascending the stairs would have been like climbing Everest, while the hallways on the upper stories stretched out further than the I-95. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing flight – exactly the sort of thing Lorraine needed to open up.

Alas, Mabel hadn't even found the time to argue her case. Lorraine had been too busy interrupting her to pay much attention, and as civil as she'd been since she'd arrived in Mabel's end of the Mindscape, it was clear that she just wanted to sit back and wait for the end of the world. However, as negative as Lorraine was, Mabel wasn't disheartened: as a professional listener (self-styled, admittedly, but her success rate more than justified the title), she got the distinct impression that Lorraine was just going through the motions without really trying to argue; by the sounds of things, she'd already said everything she needed to say and didn't want to say anything new because her heart wasn't in it… so, if Mabel was to throw the whole routine out the window and say something surprising, it could throw Lorraine off-balance.

"Why do you think you can't stop the end of the world?" she asked, innocently.

Lorraine groaned. "Because Gaia is dying, the Bees are impotent, the Angels don't give a damn, the Gaia Engines are breaking down, the Dreamers are waking up, and Gaia's Chosen are all employed by the Big Three, so they spend half the time stabbing each other in the back and arranging deckchairs on the Titanic… and those are the ones who haven't been locked up in the Hive or worn down to hopeless automatons by years of fighting! And what about the ones who turn traitor? Ever since Gaia started recruiting more chosen, there's been dozens who've signed up with the Orochi Group, the Church of the Morninglight, or even the Dreamers themselves! How is anyone supposed to win when the quote unquote best of us are actually working for the vampire squid gods that are going to wake up and kill us all?!"

"You still haven't told me why you can't save the world."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I mean, you're not employed by the Big Three. You're with the Council – well, you used to be. Now you're on your own, doing your own thing, so you're not busy stabbing everyone else in the back. What's to stop you from trying to save the world on your ownsome?"

Lorraine gave her a look caught somewhere between exasperation and despair. "Because I'm just one Bee, in case you hadn't noticed," she grumbled.

"And? Since when has that ever stopped you? You fought your way through an army to get to Dipper-"

"Not the same thing, Mabel. One Bee-empowered agent against giant God-Molluscs from before the dawn of time and the henchmen they've got scattered over the world? I don't do so well with impossible odds."

"Have you tried?"

"Of course not!"

"Then how do you know it's impossible?" said Mabel, once again doing her best to sound innocent.

"Because… because…" Lorraine paused for breath and massaged her temples. "Christ on crackers, Mabel," she sighed. "You're a million times more annoying than your brother ever got during his little interrogation, you know that? You are more annoying than paper cuts."

"Thank you, it takes a lot of effort to be really irritating in the leadup to an apocalypse. But you still haven't answered my question: this dimension's full of impossible things, and I'm pretty sure you've spent the last few days doing things that the Council didn't think was impossible. I helped stop the apocalypse back in my dimension, even faced down a giant reality-warping triangle and survived. So, why do you think it's impossible for someone like you to stop the apocalypse?"

"Because I'm not good enough!"

There was a pause, as Lorraine appeared to gather herself. "You say that I've done things that should have been impossible," she said bitterly. "So what? I'm still here, right back where I started: back in the Bogeyman's lair, dancing on the end of his string, about to kill another child. What makes you think I'm good enough to do anything right in this world when I can't stop repeating history? What makes you think that I'm superhero material when I'm already beyond forgiveness?"

Mabel considered this. The Beeple had told her a little about this, but they hadn't revealed all the grisly details… and if she wanted to talk Lorraine out of her pit of despair, she'd need to hear the whole story. So, whispering an order to the turtle, she took them hurtling upstairs into the attic.

As with the rest of the house, the room had been massively upsized: Gravity Falls itself could have comfortably occupied the floor, even with the two beds looming over it like sheer cliffs, while the triangular window had been remade into a movie theatre that would have made the screens at Times Square look like a portable TV. It was here that Mabel finally brought the turtle to a halt, guiding Lorraine and Dipper into cosy beanbag seats that had been scattered across the colossal windowsill.

"Show me," she said gently. "Just focus on what happened that night and show me why you think you're beyond forgiveness."

For a moment, Lorraine looked as if she was going to protest. But then she closed her eyes and began to concentrate…


…even as back in the real world, time was still ticking by one painstaking picosecond at a time.

By now, Grey had opened their eyes and was looking on in dawning horror at the sight of the icepick in descent. Somewhere behind those granite-coloured eyes, an identity that hadn't been used in weeks was starting to wonder if their life (such as it was) would really end in such a way. Was it really in the cards for them to die in an apocalypse after they'd been sent here as punishment for nearly causing one? In spite of themselves, they couldn't help but pray for a reprieve…

On the sidelines, Stanley and Stanford Pines could only look on in silence, not knowing just how much time was passing behind Mabel's closed eyes. This was the second time in a month that they'd seen Dipper and Mabel about to die, and this time, there was no chance of tricking their way out. This time, all they could do was watch, both of them hoping against hope that the icepick would never reach its destination…

And not too far away, someone else was watching the picoseconds tick by. Sitting cross-legged on the roof of the House of Horrors, he stared through wood, soil, and concrete, peering into the depths of the basement with growing amusement. Unlike the others, he knew how much time was passing behind Mabel's closed eyes and he could see what was happening inside the Mindscape. Unlike the others, he had no fear or the apocalypse nor need to pray for reprieve. Regardless of what happened next, he was going to enjoy the show…

Next to him, the spectator's companion looked on in despair. He also knew what was happening behind Mabel's eyes, and he knew what was happening inside the Mindscape. He didn't care what happened next: he just wanted it to be over…

And all the while, the icepick was still plunging downwards…


Lorraine showed her everything.

On the giant triangular screen above them, every single moment of that terrible night played out, beginning with the moment that Callum and Lorraine had stepped into Atlantic Island Park for the last time and ending with the murder of Callum. Nothing was omitted, not even Lorraine's internal monologue.

"Now you know," Lorraine concluded. "You can say I was being mind-controlled just like your brother did, but when push came to shove, I made the choice to kill my son of my own free will. Deep down, I secretly wanted to do it, otherwise that last push from the Bogeyman wouldn't have worked. That's why I'm beyond forgiveness, and that's why I can't save anyone." She sagged in her seat, as if revealing the truth had turned her skeleton to jelly. "Well," she said, "now you know the whole story, there's no point in talking to me anymore, so you might as well just send me back to my part of the Mindscape."

And in the silence that followed, Mabel thought very carefully about what she was to say next.

All things considered, she would have been well within her rights to call Lorraine a monster; after all, she'd already called her crazy up until meeting her for the second time up at the treehouse, so it wouldn't have been much of a leap to consider her an absolute monster. And yet, against all expectations, in spite of all Lorraine's efforts to make herself the bad guy in this story, Mabel found her heart going out to her. Back in the treehouse, Mabel had found herself struck by the inexplicable similarities between the two of them and baffled as to why this bewildering woman had seemed so much like her it hurt. Now she knew why: it was all down to one decision in their lives, really, one made under pressure and without either of them had understood at the time, but a decision nonetheless – that and all the regret and self-doubt they'd suffered since then.

Now she understood the Beeple's message to her. They'd said that she'd know how to ease Lorraine's pain – that she already knew and always had known how to do so, and now that riddle finally made perfect sense. She could turn this around, get Lorraine to disrupt the ritual in the real world, even say the day…

…and then the tiny balloon of enthusiasm that had been building up inside Mabel's head began to very slowly deflate as she realized what she'd have to do in order to make this work, and Dipper would be there to hear every word of it. Anxiously, she snuck a quick glance over her shoulder at the other beanbag where Dipper was still fast asleep; he looked a little healthier than he had when she'd first arrived, for even in the dim light of the theatre, his colour was clearly beginning to return and his breathing was deeper than it had been… but would that mean that he might be recovered enough to hear what Mabel was about to say?

But of course, she didn't have a choice: she didn't know how much time had passed in the real world, but the clock was still ticking; it was either this or die in the apocalypse.

So, she focussed her attention on the screen, and began projecting a memory of her own. A moment later, a familiar scene began playing out: a bleak sunset in the final days of summer in Gravity Falls. Before long, Mabel's past incarnation went hurtling out of the Mystery Shack in tears to seek refuge in the forest, too upset to listen to Dipper calling after her, too despairing to realize that she'd left the house with the wrong backpack.

Meanwhile, Lorraine – who'd clearly been expecting to be taken back into her own dark and dreary Mindscape and abandoned there – looked up in confusion. "What's this?" she asked.

"Just making a point," said Mabel, trying not to let her anxiety show in her voice. "It'll all make sense in a minute."

By now, Mabel's past incarnation had taken a seat against a tree and was now disconsolately sorting through the contents of the backpack. Finding that she'd accidentally swiped Dipper's backpack, she only looked even more miserable. "It's not fair," she whispered. "I just wish summer could last forever."

And then the fateful voice of Blendin Blandin said "That might be possible!"

Lorraine blinked in confusion. "Who the hell is this guy?"

"He's a time-traveller from the future," Mabel explained. "I met him twice before – he's actually a really nice guy when he's not holding a grudge or being possessed by interdimensional triangle demons."

"What?"

"It'll make sense in a bit."

"How is your world even weirder than mine?" Lorraine demanded.

"Just watch the memory."

Meanwhile, Blendin was making his sales pitch, conjuring up helpful infographics on his wristwatch and smiling in that ever-so-slightly manic way that should have tipped Mabel off from the very beginning. "Look, maybe it's against the rules, but you once did a favour for me, so I thought I could help you out. It's called a time bubble, and it prevents time from going forward. Summer in Gravity Falls can last as long as you want it to!"

Mabel's past incarnation wiped away a few errant tears and looked up with hope dawning in her eyes. "R-Really? But how does it work?"

"I just need you to get a little gizmo for me from your uncle. It's something small. He won't even know it's missing…"

On the screen, Past Mabel rifled through the backpack, and eventually held out the "snow globe" – what she now knew was the Rift that Grunkle Ford had been trying so hard to keep safe.

"Yes, that's it! Just hand it over and I'll do my thing." Blendin paused for effect, and added, "Unless you're ready to leave Gravity Falls…"

Past Mabel hesitated, her face briefly reflected in the glass of the snow-globe, and in that moment, her helpless expression perfectly mirrored the one that Mabel had seen on Lorraine's face as she'd been manoeuvred into position. From experience, Mabel knew what was going on behind those wide, terrified eyes: she was trying to find a way to say no, to politely turn down the offer and take the Rift back to Grunkle Ford. Past Mabel was looking for an excuse to do the right thing, but every time she tried to think of a reason, all she could think of was the prospect of losing Dipper. It didn't matter that Dipper might be genuinely happier on his own, it didn't matter that there was still a chance to talk things over with Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan, and it didn't even matter that she didn't know if she could ever leave the time bubble; in the moment, all those perfectly sensible ideas were being drowned out by the one thought that had hijacked her brain:

"Just a little more summer…"

As if on strings, Past Mabel very slowly held out the Rift for Blendin to take, her mind going blank even as the time traveller accepted it… and then, with a deliberately fake sounding "oops!" Blendin let the Rift crash to the ground and brought his left boot crashing down on top of it, shattering it to pieces.

As Past Mabel recoiled in shock, Not-Blendin began to laugh, his voice growing higher and more metallic as he removed his goggles to reveal Bill Cipher's distinctive slitted yellow eyes. Horror-stricken, Past Mabel moved to stop him – to tackle Blendin, to try to get Bill out of his head, to try to glue the snow-globe back together again, to do anything that could undo her awful decision – but with one snap of Blendin's fingers, she slumped backwards into the grass in a dead faint.

"The rest of it I didn't get to see in person," Mabel explained. "Dipper told me everything though – enough for me to fill in the blanks."

Back on the screen, Bill Cipher had manifested in all his eldritch glory and was cackling maniacally as he rose skywards. "At last!" he shrieked. "At long, long last! The gateway between worlds has opened! The event one billion years prophesized has come to pass! The day has come! THE WORLD IS FINALLY MINE!"

Behind him, the Rift began tearing its way across the horizon, spewing pure unreality out across Gravity Falls and bringing the full force of Weirdmageddon to the undefended logging town. Time stopped, flesh became stone, bubbles of pure madness erupted across town, water turned to blood and poured uphill, and monsters beyond human comprehension arrived to haunt the once-pleasant streets. People fled in terror, lapsed into insanity, or were reduced to bricks in Bill's growing throne of petrified bodies; those who managed to escape the initial wave were quickly rounded up by the Henchmaniacs, or else herded even deeper into the world gone mad. And above it all, Bill Cipher laughed and roared in triumph, his victory over the world assured.

"That look like the kind of apocalypse you're expecting in this universe, Lorraine? Because that's what we had to deal with because of me: the end of the world – Weirdmageddon."

For her part, Lorraine could only stare uncomprehendingly at the screen, eyes wide with confusion.

"And you know where I spent most of that apocalypse?" said Mabel quietly. "I spent it in a fantasy world just like this one – because Bill knew that's exactly where I would want to stay; I didn't even think of budging until Dipper went looking for me, and even then, I tried to talk him into stay there with me. It took so much effort to make me believe that the real world was worth saving… but at the end of it, I still didn't own up to what I'd done. I let everyone think it was an accident, because I couldn't face up to everything that happened thanks to me."

A quick montage of torment and pain flickered across the screen: people being driven insane, people sitting around campfires in traumatized huddles, people being petrified and made into the throne… and then the personal touches – Dipper fleeing from one of the Henchmaniacs in a blind, sleep-deprived panic, Grunkle Ford writhing in agony as Bill electrocuted him, the other Zodiac being transformed into banners for the Fearamid, and last but not least, Grunkle Stan sacrificing himself to destroy Bill once and for all.

"We saved the world just a couple of days ago," Mabel continued.

"Wait, what?"

"You heard right. Weirdmageddon was cancelled, Bill Cipher was destroyed, and Gravity Falls went right back to normal." Another quick montage flickered across the screen, this time showing the Rift in the sky sealing shut. "Even after it went right down to the wire, we still managed to turn everything around and save the day. And ever since then, I've been keeping all this in the back of my mind, keeping a smile on my face and trying to figure out a way to tell Dipper the truth. Now tell me, Lorraine, do you really think you're beyond forgiveness just because of something you did while you were under Northwest's control? Because I've already forgiven you… and I'm betting that wherever he is, Callum's forgiven you as well."

Lorraine gaped in bewilderment.

"You know why I think that, Lorraine? Because I've done way worse than you, and I wasn't being mind-controlled when it happened; because I know, even after all the crazy stuff you've done, you're still a better person than me. At least you're more honest than me. I let my family down – I let everyone in Gravity Falls down, and if we hadn't been able to stop Bill, everyone in the world would have paid for it. I don't know if I can be forgiven by everyone I hurt… but I'm hoping that my brother can forgive me one day."

Was it her imagination, or did Dipper stir in his beanbag chair at this? Was he nodding his head, or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

Meanwhile, Lorraine was still looking on in confusion as the film finally ran down. "I don't understand," she said at last. "How are you so cheerful, even now? Why are you – why aren't you like me? I mean… if this is true-"

"Just watch the screen if you don't believe me: I'm pretty sure nobody's been able to fake a memory in here."

"But if everything you've shown me is real, you should be a wreck! You should be a guilt-ridden shell of yourself! You should… you should be just like me," she concluded weakly. "I don't understand: how do you still have hope?"

Mabel shrugged. "Maybe it's because I'm too young to know any better. Maybe it's because I've had a happier life than you. Maybe it's because I've fought monsters before, and I know that even the worst of them go down if you hit them in the right way. Or maybe it's because the one time I almost gave up, Dipper was there to remind me that it was okay to hope again. Either way, I have to hope… otherwise what's the point in doing anything? You can learn to hope again, too, you know."

"That was exactly how the Bogeyman lured us in: dangling hope on the end of a fishhook and letting us bite for it, then reeling us in to be gutted."

"Okay, so it doesn't always work out…"

"That's putting it mildly."

"But you have to keep trying-"

"I've been trying my entire life! I've been chasing my own death for these last thirty years because that was honestly the best I could hope for!Haven't I tried enough?"

"Not as long as there's still a chance to save the world. You've got to hope for that much."

If anything, Lorraine looked even more bewildered, and maybe even a little more depressed if such a thing were even possible. "The world is doomed, Mabel. It's been doomed for a very long time, and nothing we do today is going to change that."

"Yeah, that's another point I was getting to," said Mabel, her grin broadening. "Do you really think stopping the apocalypse is impossible, Lorraine? Because my friends and I didn't have any superpowers when we stopped Weirdmageddon, apart from Grunkle Ford's big brain. We weren't magical, not really. We were just… well, everyday weirdos: a couple of crazy kids from out of town, two of my best friends, a rich girl, a teenage lumberjane, a small-town sheriff, a cloned boyband, a multi-headed bear, a handyman, a homeless guy, a bunch of gnomes, a phony psychic, the unluckiest man in town, a con artist, and a genius. So, if people like us could win out against a giant talking triangle with the power of a god, then why can't you? You're the one with superpowers, remember?"

"I… I'm not… that's different. That's… nobody's survived a fight with a Dreamer in history. They don't fight, not really: they just wake up and level the universe. They've done it before – what makes you think they won't do it again?"

"Yeah, but they didn't have you around that time, did they?"

"Stop it!" snapped Lorraine. "Just… stop trying to make me feel better about myself and just give me a simple objective reason why the world can still be saved."

"Well, you're banking on the fact that it can't be done just because nobody's ever had the chance to try. Everyone was saying that it'd be impossible to stop Bill once he got into our dimension, but somehow, we managed it. Maybe you can as well."

Lorraine shook her head… but even as she did so, her hands were almost unconsciously creeping towards her ears, as if she was afraid to hear anything else and wanted to cover them before another word was spoken. Once again, Mabel couldn't help but notice the similarities: scant days ago, she'd had her guards in Mabeland block her ears so she couldn't hear Dipper's arguments. Did this mean she was getting through to Lorraine?

Either way, she had to press on.

"If you never try, Lorraine, you'll never know. Maybe you can be the first person in this world to really take the fight to the Dreamers."

"You've seen my memories and you've seen how I act in the real world, Mabel," Lorraine sighed. "I'm not the kind of person who saves the world. I'm not hero material: I'm a failure as a Council agent, a failure as a human being, and a failure as a mother. I'm sick in the head at the best of times, I can barely be relied on to remain stable unless I've got some ridiculous obsession to focus on, and even then, I've failed at everything I've ever tried. I couldn't hack it as a waitress, much less as a hero – God almighty, I couldn't hack it as an adult!"

"Is that why you look like a kid in the Mindscape?"

Lorraine looked away, but Mabel could already tell that she was trying to hide the fact that she was crying; after all, Mabel herself had used the same trick several times before she'd resorted to Sweater Town.

"When I was little," she began, shakily, "I thought when you grew up, you'd understand how the world worked. I thought the moment you hit eighteen, you'd know exactly what to do, no matter the situation. And then I turned eighteen and realized that as an adult, I was exactly the same as I'd been when I was a kid: I didn't know what I was supposed to do with my life, and I didn't know how I could find out, but I was sure that everyone else had the answers. Everyone seemed to know better than me, but I was afraid to ask what I was doing wrong in case they judged me… and then I had Callum, and they judged me anyway. I… I tried, I really tried, but I just kept screwing up, and I know they were talking about me behind my back, talking about how much of a terrible mother I was, and I agreed with them. I mean, I knew I wasn't fit to raise a child, not after the therapy; the only reason why I kept the baby in the first place was because I didn't want to lose the only thing I had to remember Don by… because I was lonely. I mean, what kind of a mother does that? What kind of human being does that?"

Oh boy. This may take more ammunition than I thought.

"It doesn't matter anymore, Lorraine. What happened to you before… well, it's all in the past. Nobody's calling you a monster or crazy or evil or…" Mabel belatedly realized she'd missed a few steps, and added, "okay, Utterson's guys might be calling you crazy, and people in Kingsmouth might think you're insane, but when you get right down to it, nobody thinks you're a bad person."

"Even though I killed several Council operatives just so I could kidnap a child?"

"Well, they did kill you first."

"Even after what I did to Callum? After how terrible I was as a-"

"Ah-ah! Less of that, thank you very much: I don't care how bad you think your inner thoughts are, Lorraine, you didn't do that. You can't be held responsible for what you did after Northwest was finished making noodle salad out of your brain, okay? But that's my point: nobody's really blaming you for what happened to Callum-"

"Because nobody even remembers him!"

"Okay, that's kind of true, but… I'm betting that if we could make everyone remember what happened to Callum, none of them would blame you. You turned yourself in right away, remember? You wanted justice for Callum and you were ready to send yourself to prison for it. That's who you are, Lorraine, even on your worst days: you've always wanted to do the right thing, and sure, you don't always succeed, but who does? You're not a monster. Right now, the only person calling you a monster is you."

For the briefest of instants, Lorraine's face was a gaping, rheumy-eyed mask identical to the giant face of the House of Horrors.

"You act like I don't have a good reason to," she said quietly, as her teenage image reasserted itself. "I threw you out of a boat at a velocity that could have killed you if you'd landed on the rocks instead of the water. I beat your Grunkle to a bloody pulp and left him for dead. I nearly murdered Utterson – not that I'm guilty about that, I admit. And the only reason why it happened was because I let the Bogeyman pull my strings again, because I wanted to play along with the delusions he put in my brain. You've got to admit, Mabel, I'm not exactly sounding like a paragon of morality, am I?"

"That doesn't matter: what matters is what you do now. I mean, you're a good person deep down, no matter what you think, and just because you were mind-controlled into doing something bad doesn't make you a bad person. It just means that you made mistakes, just like everyone else, just like me. And just because things look hopeless now doesn't mean they are."

"Oh, 'every day will be a little better than the last,' is that it?"

"Scuse me?"

"Just something my husband's ghost used to say."

"Maybe he had a point, you ever think of that? I mean, since I met you, you've already managed to outfight an army and make a new friend. Compared to how you were when we first met, I think things are looking up for you."

Lorraine's brow wrinkled. "Your brother's lying on a sacrificial altar, I'm holding the knife, you're trying to stop me, and the Bogeyman is about to achieve ultimate victory… and you think things are looking up?"

"Exactly. If it all goes wrong, at least you won't be alone this time."

Lorraine's eyebrows crashed upwards into her hairline. "…are you crazy, or am I?"

"Yes," said Mabel gleefully. "But that's beside the point: you've already snapped the leash and escaped the Council; if you really wanted to, you could stop the Bogeyman… and I think, if you tried, you could stop the Dreamers. You've just got to give it a try. I mean, it couldn't hurt, could it? I mean, the chance to believe in yourself again should be a good motivator – the chance to really be happy again, even better."

For the first time since this odd little conversation had begun, Lorraine looked genuinely uncertain. "I don't know how," she said, her voice once again terribly small.

"Sorry?"

"…I don't know how to be happy. I… I think I might have known it when I was little; I might have remembered how when I was with Don, and I tried, I really tried to teach Callum how to have fun, but… but… it just slipped through my fingers."

Mabel smiled. "Maybe I can give you some pointers once this is all over," she suggested.

"…you honestly think we stand a chance out there?"

"I think you stand a chance."

There was a funny look in Lorraine's eyes now, a glimmer of emotion that looked utterly alien to that sad, haunted-looking face. To Mabel, it looked like the beginnings of something like hope,

"I don't know," she said softly. "Maybe I'm even crazier than the doctors believed, but maybe you have a point. It's a very strange point, and I'm pretty sure you were improvising most of it, but it's a point. But as far as stopping the Dreamers goes… I'd need to know it could happen, Mabel, otherwise there's no point in even trying today. I've spent too much of my life chasing false hopes: I need to have something real to fight for."

Mabel thought for a minute or so. She was close, now, so close she could almost touch the finish line… but how could she convince Lorraine that the Dreamers could be defeated except in general terms? She'd just about exhausted her inventory for this conversation, and more to the point, she didn't have anything really concrete to offer.

Then, Dipper shook her arm. To her surprise, he was almost conscious, his stark-white features suddenly animated by urgency and excitement. "Emma wants her teddy bear," he whispered. "Emma wants her teddy bear."

Mabel briefly wondered if Dipper was getting a little loopy under the influence of whatever the Bogeyman had done to him. Then she remembered what the Bees had told her… and more importantly, what they'd given her: the package of information they'd given her was still sitting in the back of her mind, still not making sense to her, just waiting to be used. Was there something in that little datafile that could convince Lorraine that there was hope for the future?

There was only one way to find out…


Closer and closer, now.

Slimy fingers were tightening around Mabel's shoulders, slowly but surely dragging her off the altar, trying to sever the link between her and Lorraine.

Scant inches away, the icepick was still plunging downwards, it's needle-sharp tip almost brushing Dipper's skin.

All around them, everyone held their breaths and waited for the end.


At first, the screen ahead of them showed only a vague grey blur.

Then, from out of the murk, new details began to emerge: a city, all shining towers of glass and steel, studded with garish neon signs and huge animated billboards. However, a huge section of it looked have been walled off, huge slabs of concrete blocking roads and exit routes out of the area; inside the walls, shopfronts had been looted, cars had been overturned, sinkholes had opened in the ground, and ominous looking figures patrolled the shadowed streets. Every now and again, gunfire split the air, and one of Gaia's Chosen went hurtling down the street with several oozing monsters in hot pursuit.

Not too far away from the walled part of the city, a gigantic skyscraper stood on the waterfront: a monolith of tinted glass and polished black stone, it narrowed from its wide base into a blade hurtling into the bleak grey sky, stretching higher and higher until Mabel started to wonder if this thing was even real.

"That's Tokyo," said Lorraine softly. "Kaiden District, by the looks of things. Yeah, that's Orochi Tower right there."

"What tower?"

"Orochi Tower – home of one of the biggest corporations in the world: eight major companies all under one manager. They've got more skeletons in their closets than the Illuminati and the Council put together. Why are you showing me this, Mabel? Come to think of it, how did you get this?"

"It's just something I picked up along the way. I was hoping you could make sense of it for me."

The screen rippled, and suddenly, whatever camera was filming this impossible building zoomed in, fading through the lower walls of Orochi Tower until they were passing clean through the concrete, deep into the foundations of the building, passing dozens of sealed chambers and corridors buried in the earth until at last, they emerged at the centre of a huge basement of brushed steel and gleaming white plastic – an oblong-shaped room that looked as if it could happily contain a couple of aircraft hangars. To Mabel's eyes, it looked like something out of 1950s sci-fi movies, except the robots around here looked way too modern.

And at the very centre of this gigantic room, a gleaming cube bigger than a house floated ominously above the floor, a low bass throb rippling through the air all around it. To Mabel's eyes, it could have been made from pure silver, or it could have been made from granite – there was no way of telling what this gigantic box had been built from.

"That's a Gaia Engine," Lorraine whispered in astonishment. "Where the hell did the Orochi Group get a hold of a Gaia Engine and how did they get one into Tokyo without anyone noticing? And who the hell is that?"

Sitting cross-legged atop the Gaia Engine was a figure almost too small to be seen from the camera's current angle, but once again, the mysterious camera crew drifting closer until the figure was seen. Mabel was expecting someone impressive looking, someone dangerous and threatening, so it came as something of a surprise when the POV came to a stop in front of a girl no longer than twelve years of age, flanked by a small, ragged-looking teddy bear.

Short, skinny, pale, and almost as waifish as Grey, the girl was dressed in a battered white tracksuit hastily pulled on over pyjamas and pink fluffy slippers. Above the ragged collar of her jacket, shoulder-length chestnut locks framed a narrow, sorrowful-looking face, easily distinguished by enormous, eerily piercing blue eyes. Maybe it was just Mabel's imagination, but though her gaze was fixed on the wall several thousand feet away from her, her eyes seemed to focus immediately on Mabel and Lorraine – as if she could actually see the audience.

"That's Emma Smith," said Lorraine. "The Orochi Group's prize test subject. The Council and the Big Three were all looking for her at one point, but they never did figure where she went or why Orochi wanted her. What's she doing here?"

And just as Mabel was about to plead ignorance, the voice of the Beeple thundered overhead. "SHE IS STUDYING FOR A FINAL EXAM."

Instantly, Lorraine froze in terror, clearly expecting another jolt of pain from the Bee inside her.

"BE NOT AFRAID, LORRAINE MAILLARD. WE WILL NOT HURT YOU. PAIN IS NOT OUR OBJECTIVE."

"But… but you… the Bee inside me, it hurt me, it made my head scream, it-"

"ILLEGAL EXPLOIT. WE LEARNED. WE TRIED TO SPARE YOU, BUT… WE WERE TOO HARD ON YOU, AND YOUR NERVES LEARNED TO EXPECT NOTHING BUT PAIN FROM US. WE TRIED TO CONTACT YOU, TRIED TO APOLOGIES, BUT YOU HAD LEARNED TO PERCEIVE OUR VOICE AS PAIN. THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY WE COULD SPEAK TO YOU WITHOUT HURTING YOU FURTHER: A LIVING MEMORY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY OUR MUTUAL FRIEND."

Lorraine gawped helplessly for a moment. "But if… if that's true, then what are you trying to tell me? What's so important about this girl? Why is she here? Come to think of it, why is there a Gaia Engine here?"

"THE GAIA ENGINE WAS ACQUIRED IN ANTARCTICA, BROUGHT HERE AT GREAT COST. THE CHILD ARRIVED HERE ON HER OWN: YOUR FELLOW AGENTS FREED HER FROM LILITH AND THE OROCHI. AS FOR WHY SHE IS SO IMPORTANT… LOOK CLOSER."

As the two of them watched, Emma's brow furrowed in concentration, and the Gaia Engine began to roar to life.

"Wha… she can use the Gaia Engines? She can actually bend them to her will?"

"NOW YOU UNDERSTAND WHY THE OROCHI GROUP WANTED HER SO BADLY."

"Uh, guys," said Mabel, "why is this so important? I mean, Auldman Northwest has control of a Gaia Engine right now. What makes this kid so important?"

"It's not the same thing," Lorraine explained. "The Bogeyman can only tap into the power of a Gaia Engine through his machines, and only once he has a stockpile of energy that can fuel them. The Smith girl's somehow managing to do that through the power of her will alone. I mean, if she can harness the Engines, then-"

The camera zoomed in on the corners of the room. Contrary to first impressions, they weren't perfectly clean at all, but befouled with black, viscous oil… and as the child atop the Gaia Engine concentrated once again, the oil slicks shuddered as if in pain, then withered swiftly away into tiny puffs of steam.

"She can banish the Filth," Lorraine whispered in awe. "She can actually destroy the liquid thoughts of the Dreamers. But how… what is she?"

"SHE IS… THE INHERITOR."

"What?"

"YOU WERE CORRECT. GAIA IS DYING. THE FILTH HAS SPREAD TOO FAR, THE EONS HAVE DONE TOO MUCH DAMAGE… BUT THOUGH THE QUEEN BEE DIES, HER SUBJECTS LIVES ON. A QUEEN BEE IS NOT BORN BUT MADE."

Lorraine's jaw thundered open. "Are you saying… Emma is… is a new Gaia?!"

"ONE DAY. SHE IS STILL LEARNING. SHE IS STILL FRAGILE."

"Well…" Lorraine blinked very rapidly, and behind her tears, Mabel saw that alien look of hope in her eyes. "If it's possible, then… maybe the Dreamers won't win after all?"

"THERE IS A CHANCE. BUT FIRST, YOU MUST SEE. REMEMBER HER NAME."

"I remember her name, you guys. It's hard to forget, given how often people have been talking about it these last few months. Why is her name so important? It's not her real name, as far as I know – just an alias given to her by some firefighter who misheard her talking about Anima."

"ALL NAMES ARE IMPORTANT, EVEN THE ONES WE CHOOSE TO ABANDON, EVEN THE ONES IMPOSED ON US BY OTHERS."

"What do you mean?"

"DON'T YOU FIND IT STRANGE THAT ANIMA WAS NOT CONFUSED FOR "ANNA" OR "AMANDA?" WHY DID THAT FIREMAN GIVE HER THE NAME YOU KNOW HER BEST BY? SOME THINGS ARE NOT COINCIDENCES. LOOK CLOSER."

Suddenly, they were no longer sitting in the bowels of Orochi Tower, but in the middle of a sterile white cell. Here, the girl lay fast asleep in bed, an electrode-studded cap fastened over her skull, near instruments going wild as they took in the child's brainwaves. Around the bed, a small army of teddy bears sat mournfully on shelves, looking down on her like sentinels.

"What am I looking at? What am I supposed to see?"

Mabel was the first to notice it. "There's a spot left empty on that shelf there," she said. "Looks like she's missing a teddy bear – or she's hoping to find a new one to add to her collection."

"So?"

"EMMA WANTS HER TEDDY BEAR."

"…what?"

The POV changed again, and now they were standing outside a burning suburban house as firefighters helped a much younger Emma to safety – probably no more five years old by the looks of things.

Nearby, black vans marked with the Orochi logo were already closing in.

"So that's how they got hold of her," mused Lorraine. "But why is this… hang on a minute: I know that house! That's a Council of Venice property. I helped inspect that place myself about fifteen years ago; Utterson was meant to use it as a safehouse. Who burned it down and what was Emma doing there?"

Once again, their view shifted to inside the building, a few hours before the fire had started. In a tiny bed, the little girl lay awake, giggling as friendly Bees swarmed around her, feeding her tiny morsels of Anima that made her eyes shine like gold. On the fringes of the shot, black tendrils of Filth oozed towards her, whispering in rage and disgust – only to be instantly repelled by a massive explosion from the girl, sending the Filth fleeing and setting the carpet ablaze.

"TO BECOME A QUEEN BEE, A LARVA MUST BE FED ROYAL JELLY. ANY BEE LARVA CAN BECOME A QUEEN… BUT ONLY THE LARVA OF A BEE WILL DO. SO WHERE DO YOU FIND A LARVA WHEN BEES NEVER FIND THE TIME TO BREED? DO YOU SEE?"

"…not really, no."

Then the POV shifted to a reverse time-lapse shot of the house and its inhabitants, the Smith girl, getting steadily younger as the scene shifted backwards through time. Around her, a series of caretakers came and went, all of them gentle but detached, all of them taking notes on her development and never using the landline phone. After a few seconds of time-lapse, the child had shrunk down into a baby and was being carried out of the house in reverse, out to the car that had delivered her to this mysterious safehouse all those years ago – a car driven by men in blue berets…

"What does this mean?" Lorraine whispered.

Another cut, and suddenly they were in another laboratory… except this time, it was a lab owned and run by the Council of Venice. Every door was guarded by men in white uniforms and blue berets, and everywhere Mabel looked, the winged lion emblem glared down at them.

At the centre of the lab, the baby lay in a bassinet next to a recently vacated examination table; despite the technicians busy cleaning the blood off the table, the baby remained fast asleep, only stirring vaguely even at the loudest noises.

Nearby, a familiar-looking figure looked down on her with cold, dispassionate eyes.

Utterson hadn't changed much in the last eleven years: at the time this memory had been recorded, the wrinkles that had gathered at the corners of his eyes were much less pronounce, his face softer, his expression less crabby… but those icy blue eyes were every bit as remorseless and unsympathetic as they were in the present.

"She's ready," he whispered to an assistant. "I want the baby out of this lab within the hour, well away from anyone in the oversight committee."

"But sir, she's perfectly secure in the lab-"

"Not the point. If the rest of the Council finds out what we've achieved, they'll shut us down. We need to keep this child under wraps until we know for sure what she really is… and after those visitations from the fucking Bees, I'd say we need something away from priceless lab equipment."

Another cut. Once again, they were in a lab, but now there was no baby or basinet to be seen… and a quick glance at a calendar on a wall confirmed that this scene was at least nine months prior to the last memory.

Lorraine herself now lay on the table, unconscious and strapped down for good measure.

"What the hell?" Lorraine whispered. "When did this happen?"

"THEY MADE SURE YOU WOULD NOT REMEMBER. THEIR PLAN HINGED ON YOU NOT REMEMBERING."

"What do you…" Lorraine's eyes widened in horror. "Oh my god."

"We are ready to begin, sir," whispered the assistant. "The patient is under and fully suppressed."

"And the surrogate?"

"Standing by and ready to be implanted with the extracted ovum as soon as it's been fertilized. Um… is it worth asking where we got the sperm sample, sir?"

Utterson laughed. "You'd be amazed at the things you can get from the Hive if you're prepared to bribe the guards."

"I'm sorry I asked. Uh… sir, there is one more thing: the doctors are concerned about the consent of the patient. They say they need Lorraine's written consent before they can commence the procedure. It's an ethical matter, sir."

Utterson gave the assistant a look that could have turned the Sahara into a glacier. "Tell them that their payment can be reconsidered," he said in a deathly whisper. "As the head of this section, I am directly responsible for Lorraine Maillard's wellbeing; as she is property of the Council, she has no individual rights, so as far as they're concerned, her consent has already been given. Besides," he added offhandedly, "She's not capable of giving consent anyway: she's a lunatic."

"Sir, as section chief, you have authority in these matters, but… I question the validity of this experiment."

"Believe me, it's well worth the effort. In all the years that Gaia's Chosen have existed, nobody's ever seen what happens when they breed. Just imagine if the ability to manipulate Anima could be imprinted on the genetic level and passed down to one's offspring: we'd never have to bother with recruitment ever again! And Lorraine's barely of any use as an operative – my mistake in recruiting a chronically-depressed waste of skin. Perhaps her children will be more useful…"

Back in the present, Lorraine's face had gone white with shock, her eyes wide and full of tears. "T-that bastard," she gasped, barely keeping her tears at bay.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?" asked the Bees.

"I…"

"EMMA WANTS HER TEDDY BEAR. CALLUM TOLD YOU THOSE WORDS ALL THOSE YEARS AGO; HE COULD SEE FURTHER THAN MOST, JUST AS YOU COULD. JUST AS YOU KNEW OF THE FOG THIRTY YEARS BEFORE IT ARRIVED, CALLUM KNEW OF HIS SISTER BEFORE SHE WAS BORN."

Beside them, Dipper groaned and lapsed back into consciousness. "Remember Don's letter," he muttered. "Remember the baby names he suggested: Callum for a boy-"

"Emma for a girl," Lorraine finished. "Oh my god, my god, my god… it's not possible. It's too much of a coincidence that some fireman would actually give her the name that Don…"

"SOMETIMES, COINCIDENCES ARE ILLUSIONS. THERE ARE CONNECTIONS MADE IN SPACE-TIME THAT NOT EVEN WE CAN FATHOM. SOMETIMES, THE NAMES IMPOSED BY MISTAKE ARE OF MORE SIGNIFICANCE THAN WE BELIEVE. SHE IS ANIMA, YES, BUT SHE IS ALSO EMMA. SHE IS GAIA'S HEIR… BUT SHE IS ALSO YOUR DAUGHTER."

Lorraine was silent, now. She was beyond speech.

"IT IS EMMA UPON WHICH WE BUILD OUR FUTURE. EMMA MAY SAVE US ALL ONE DAY… BUT SHE IS STILL HUMAN FOR NOW. SHE IS STILL VULNERABLE. SHE NEEDS PROTECTION. SHE NEEDS LOVE. SHE NEEDS YOU."

Was it Mabel's imagination, or did Lorraine look ever-so-slightly older?

"Well, Lorraine," she asked innocently. "Do you still think there's no hope?"

By way of a reply, Lorraine smiled – a genuine, jubilant smile that completely transformed her face both figuratively and literally. In a single blink, her teenage self was gone, and in her place stood an adult, identical to her real-world self.

"Let's find out," she said softly.

And then-


Suddenly, time was moving at normal speed – and everything seemed to be happening at once.

Auldman Northwest flung Mabel off the slab with a roar of frustration, simultaneously disconnecting her from the psychic link and sending her tumbling helplessly away. She hit the ground hard, all the breath knocked out of her, too stunned to move… and worse still, she was finally out of Anima: if the Bogeyman wanted to kill her, there was nothing stopping him.

But at the same time, Lorraine suddenly veered away from the slab, her downward plunge spiralling off-course as she flung herself backwards – the tip of the icepick nicking Dipper's shirt as it lurched away from him. A moment later, Lorraine hit the deck with a colossal thud and lay still.

And through it all, Auldman was raging.

"No, no, no, NO!" he roared. "You do not get to sabotage this process just by getting touchy-feely with my participants! Lorraine, get up and start the ritual again: we're going to get this right if it takes the rest of the month!"

But Lorraine didn't move.

"LORRAINE! ON YOUR FEET! MOVE!"

There was an awkward pause, as Lorraine contrived to look as dead as humanly possible.

Auldman let out a low, gurgling snarl. "I really have to do everything myself, don't I?" he fumed. "But then, that's the way it's always had to be. I try to get something done, and I get nothing but obstruction, demands for worker's comp, union involvement, or worse still, OSHA. About the only point anyone in this goddamn town was the slightest bit of help to me was when they started letting their idiot children play in abandoned amusement parks…"

He stormed over to Lorraine's supine body and knelt do – not realizing that the icepick was still clutched in her hand.

"Come on, you useless fucking bitch," he muttered, furiously slapping her across the face. "Wake up and smell the dead roses on your piss-sodden grave. I've got better thing to do than put up with the mangled nerves and ruined muscles of some self-pitying cu-"

Lorraine's arm shot upwards.

There was a muffled squish.

Auldman looked down in astonishment at the sight of the icepick lodged in his goitre-shrouded throat.

Then things got a little complicated.


A/N: Up next... guess.

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