Starting Over

Chapter 7: Christmas Eve

The trio got to Gravity Falls without anymore incidents. Soos had told them to stay at the Mystery Shack, but they didn't want to take up any more room, since Stan and Ford had also come back and were staying at the Mystery Shack as well. So the trio stayed at the hotel again, but they did hang out at the Mystery Shack a lot of the time. For example, on Christmas Eve...

"DIPPER!" Stan yelled. "HOW DARE YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO BEAT ME AT THIS GAME!" He swept The Game of Life off the table angrily.

Dipper laughed, showing of his stack of money.

"AND TO GIVE ME THE PINK CAR?!" Stan yelled. "THE PINK CAR?!"

Dipper, Stan, Ford, and Soos had been playing, and Dipper had quickly picked the blue car, Ford had claimed the green car before they even started to play, and Soos was always yellow.

"THE PINK CAR?!" Stan yelled.

"It was the only one left," Dipper said, shrugging.

"WE COULD'VE GRABBED SOME MONOPOLY FIGURES!" Stan yelled.

"That is against the rules," Dipper said.

"NO IT'S NOT!" yelled Stan, and stayed silent for most of the night.

Pacifica laughed. She had never had this much fun on Christmas Eve, though it wasn't a shock to her. On Christmas Eve with the Northwests, there was a huge party in which she had to behave absolutely perfectly, or else something very bad would happen. And then on Christmas, she would get a total of one present that cost a lot of money.

"Pacifica, don't move!" Mabel said. "I'm supposed to be painting your nails and if you keep moving, the nails will look like very bad!"

"Sorry!" Pacifica said.

Her nails were being painted red and her toenails were being painted green, the Christmas colors. It was a Pines family tradition. Pacifica always smiled when she thought about how it was a Pines family tradition.

She looked around the room. Melody was painting Wendy's nails, Dipper and Soos were now playing a video game, Stan was sulking by the Christmas tree, Ford was reading a book, and then there was Peter.

Peter was a very handsome man with blonde hair and brown eyes. Pacifica hadn't talked to him a lot, but he seemed very nice and matched Wendy's personality perfectly. They had started dating a few months ago and got along very well. In fact, Dipper had told her that Peter was planning to propose to Wendy in a few weeks.

Peter was eating some Christmas cookies. Pacifica looked over at him and waved. He winked at her, then went back to his cookies.

Pacifica looked back at Wendy, who was talking animatedly to Melody. She had noticed that when she looked at Peter, he always winked. She felt confused, because she didn't know if that was just a normal thing that he did, or if it was something else only did to her.

She rolled her eyes. She was just overthinking everything. She needed to stop making it about her. Wendy and Peter were happy and fine.

Besides, she didn't want to think about Peter. She looked back at Dipper, who looked back at her and smiled. She felt her cheeks go red and turned back to Mabel.

"GIRL STOP MOVING!" Mabel yelled, causing the whole room to laugh, even Stan, who after that, jumped back into the group.


Later that night, after Soos had forced the Pines to stay in the house that night so they could be there for opening presents, Pacifica had woken up and was going downstairs for a drink of water. She had gotten to the end of the hall when she felt a hand grab her and pull her into the bathroom. The person turned on the light, and it was Peter.

"Peter?" Pacifica asked, but was cut off when Peter kissed her. She shoved him away. "What are you doing?!"

"Ugh," Peter said. "I knew that was how you were going to react."

"Excuse me?!" Pacifica asked. "Of course I would react like this! Wendy is a very kind person, and she doesn't deserve a cheater."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Wendy has dated so many cheaters. What's one more?"

Pacifica stared at him in disgust. "I'm going back to my room," Pacifica said.

Peter sighed. "Pacifica, you're being unfair," he said. "I'm hot, you're hot, we'd be the perfect couple."

"Then maybe you should've started dating me before you started dating Wendy," Pacifica said and walked out of the bathroom. She ran back to the room she was sharing with Mabel and locked the door behind her. She walked to her bed and sat down.

What was she supposed to do? Should she tell anyone? How would everyone react when she told them? Would they all blame her? Would Wendy hate her? Would Peter convince everyone it was her fault? What if it was her fault?

She looked around the room. It was the room Dipper and Mabel had stayed in every summer until they turned 18, where they then moved to Gravity Falls.

She sat down on the floor, not wanted to be in comfort, as the wood was very rough. She looked under the bed and saw a journal. She grabbed it and saw it was covered in Dipper's handwriting.

She stood up, unlocked the door, opened it slowly, and looked around. She saw the bathroom light was off so she figured that Peter was back in his room. She tiptoed to the room Dipper was staying in. Luckily, he was alone in the room. She heard his gentle snores and felt very bad when she quietly knocked on the door. The snoring stopped, she heard some footsteps, and Dipper opened the door. He was wearing a white t-shirt and some boxers.

"Pacifica, what's going on?" Dipper asked, scratching his head.

"I need to talk to you," Pacifica said.

"Right now?" he asked.

Pacifica nodded. Dipper looked at the worried look in her eyes and sighed.

"Come on," Dipper said. She walked in and he closed the door and turned on the light. "What's up?"

Pacifica sat down on the extra bed and told him what had happened with Peter. During the story, Dipper turned from being tired, to confused, and finally landed on angry.

"He kissed you?!" Dipper said.

Pacifica nodded.

"Oh, I will kill him," Dipper said and started walking towards the door. Pacifica ran to him and grabbed his hand and pushed it away from the doorknob.

"You can't do anything today!" Pacifica said.

"Why not?!" Dipper said angrily.

"It's Christmas!" Pacifica said. "Do you really wanna ruin Wendy's Christmas by telling her this?"

Dipper looked at her and sighed. "No."

"Then we'll wait til we get back to Emmett and then we can tell her," Pacifica said. "But how would you feel if I told you that I saw your girlfriend kissing someone else on Christmas? Not good, right?"

"Right," Dipper said. "Well, what are we gonna do for the rest of the night?"

"I don't know," Pacifica said.

"Are you comfortable going back to your room?" Dipper asked.

"Maybe... I-I think so," she said.

"Well, you could just sleep in here," Dipper said.

Pacifica raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh?"

"On the extra bed, silly," Dipper said.

Pacifica looked down, embarassed. "Oh, right," she said.

Dipper, too, looked down nervously. "But if you wanna go back to Mabel's room, that's-"

He hadn't noticed that Pacifica had laid down on the extra bed. "Night, Dipper," she said.

Dipper looked up and smiled. He turned off the light. "Night, Pacifica," he said and laid down in his bed. Both of them smiled to themselves and fell asleep.