Earth, July 25th, 2012

Pacifica was in the middle of working on homework from her tutor when one of the family butlers (she always struggled to remember their names) came to her bedroom. He stood straight-backed just before the threshold of the ornately decorated room (which only contained antique furniture and lacked any of the personal touches Pacifica would like to add). "Miss Northwest, you have a guest."

She dropped her pencil on her half-done Mandarin translation and turned in her plush armchair to frown at the servant. "I'm not expecting anyone. Who is it?"

"That would be Master Pines, miss."

"Dipper's here?" Pacifica hopped off her seat onto the Persian rug covering her entire floor, instinctively smoothing out her designer clothes and checking her makeup and earrings in the vanity. The vanity doubled as a desk for her homework, but she could stand to take a break. "Did you let him in?" she said as she quickly applied a new layer of lip gloss.

"Mr. and Mrs. Northwest has forbidden his presence within the manor," the servant said. Pacifica's face fell.

"Well, that's one way to thank him for helping us with our ghost problem." She looked good. Pacifica ducked around the servant. "I don't think Mom and Dad need to know he's here."

"They have requested that I not bother them with trivialities, and I shall not," the butler confirmed without looking down at Pacifica.

Mental note: give that one a nice bonus.

Pacifica kept herself from looking too excited as she navigated the mansion all the way to the front hall. What could Dipper want? She liked to think that they connected during the party the day before yesterday, but she didn't expect him to be coming to visit her any time soon.

She slipped out of the manor, walking at a clipped pace around the grand fountain, past the warbling peacocks to the front gate, where she could see a familiar capped figure leaning against one of the columns just inside of the Northwest property.

"Hi, Dipper. Sorry the butler didn't let you in; Mom and Dad are still mad about the party."

"Yeah, it's fine."

There was something wrong in his voice. He turned to look at her, and there was something wrong with his face, too. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were drawn in a way they hadn't been just two days ago.

"Hey, is something up?" she asked, concern cutting into her cool girl persona.

"Yes, actually. I, uh…" Dipper ran a hand through his hair nervously, knocking his hat askew. "I need a favor. A big favor. I-I'll do anything you want in return. I'll be your family's ghost exterminator for the rest of my life. I just really need help."

"Okay?" Pacifica crossed her arms, furrowing her brow. "Why don't we hear what's got you so worked up?"

"Mabel's in trouble."

Pacifica's heart sank. "What? How?" Was it drugs? She couldn't imagine Mabel doing drugs, but… maybe that's why she acted so whacky?

"You…" Dipper took a deep breath. "I don't know if you'd believe me."

"Dipper, you do remember that thing where a ghost turned everyone into trees inside my own house, right?" Pacifica forced out a soft laugh. "Try me. Did she get possessed? Orrrrr kidnapped by leprechauns?"

"She got kidnapped by gnomes once, but that's not what I'm worried about." He blew past her attempt at levity, looking a little like a dead body. (Gnomes? Questions to ask later.) "She…" Another deep breath.

Pacifica couldn't bite down her impatience. "Come on, just tell me."

"She's in another dimension. We don't know where, but it's somewhere bad, and the portal she fell through broke."

It took a second for that to process. Well, he said it'd be weird, didn't he? "And where do I come in?" Did he need money or something?

Dipper bowed his head, his cheeks flushing. Yep, he needed money. That was the exact face people had when they were going to her mom or dad for a loan. "I… it's really broken, and some of the pieces need to be totally replaced, but it'll be expensive and we don't have that kind of money…"

If Dipper was stooping to asking her for a loan, she could only imagine what he'd do if she said no. Steal what he needed and go to juvie to rot, probably. It didn't take a genius to see how stupid devoted the Pines twins were to each other.

Pacifica hated it when people asked her for money. Hated it. It was usually kids at school who had been trying to butter her up for a week so they could see if they could get some expensive presents out of her. Given the circumstances? She couldn't be mad this time. This wasn't about Dipper's greed. This was desperation.

"Mom and Dad would never go for it, but I might be able to use my allowance and they don't have to know." Dipper scrunched up his face like most people did when they heard about her allowance, but she breezed past it. "I'm going to need to see this portal and get cost estimates. We can figure out a budget from there."

Dipper's mouth fell open. "Wh—really?"

Pacifica scowled. "You didn't think I'd just leave your sister to die, did you?" She immediately waved her hand and shook her head. "Don't answer that. We'll work out whatever you'll do in return later."

"Oh my gosh, Pacifica." Dipper lunged. She only had time to go rigid before he threw his arms around her. Pacifica's face flushed. "Thank you. I swear, I'll never forget this."

"Okay, okay…" Her face was all red, but it seemed like he hadn't noticed. She patted his back before he pulled away, suddenly a little red himself. There was an awkward silence where they both were forced to silently acknowledge that, yes, that was definitely a hug. Pacifica briefly considered bribing him to keep his mouth shut about it again before forcing her brain back on track. "I just… money isn't magic, okay? And my allowance isn't anywhere near the Northwest fortune. Between budgeting and labor, this might take a while."

"I know." Dipper set his jaw, the red in his cheeks disappearing. "But it will happen. That's all we need."

Dipper adjusted his cap in a way that made him look very official. "Come by the Shack tomorrow. I'll make sure we have cost estimates and you can look at everything. Just make sure you don't tell your parents anything, okay?"

"Are you kidding? I'm not even telling them you came to visit."

"That's the spirit." Dipper's smile made her stomach flip. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"You bet."

Pacifica was definitely going to need to give that butler a bonus.

Dimension ?, July 25th, 2012

"Day one of super cool adventuring…" Mabel had to pause to retch again, but there was nothing but bile at this point. All the seawater that had been in her lungs and stomach was now melting the snow on the ground, and all she could do was stay on her hands and knees while she heaved, "…not off to a great start."

Ford just stayed in the snow, letting it soothe the burns on his face and hands. Eventually, he forced himself onto his knees to survey the landscape. Silvery hair fell off of him onto the ground. He would have to remember to gather it up as a sample before they left. Everything was washed out with a blue sheen—it looked like this world's sun was a far-off blue dwarf. They were in a rolling tundra, and far off was a field of black crystals jutting from the ice that seemed to suck in the light around them and make the world darker. Behind them, there was a massive ice cave, and that promised either shelter or a predator, but he didn't take the time to think about it yet.

"How do you do that?" he asked as Mabel's retching started to ease, her elbows trembling from the strain. Now that he was looking around, he could see bleeding hairline cuts on his hands, crisscrossed over each other.

"Do what?" She scrunched her face at him, looking perfectly pathetic in her sopping wet sweater as her hair froze, but Ford didn't notice because his eyes were immediately drawn to the growing red spot under her leg.

"Mabel, you're bleeding." As Ford moved to look at her leg, Mabel looked back at it and yelped, almost falling into her own sick.

"I think something bit me," she said. "And it took my shoe instead of my leg."

It did look like something with wide-set teeth had started to bite her around the leg just under her knee. It must have been when Ford was dragging her out of the water because the cuts raked all the way down her shin and calf, getting deeper and deeper until abruptly stopping at the ankle. That must have been where its teeth caught on her shoe and took it away.

"You should be fine. Luckily, we're in a place with copious snow." He wasn't actually sure if she would be fine, but he couldn't waste time thinking about it. He packed the snow around her leg to clean the wound and slow the flow of blood, propping her calf on his knee to elevate it. As he did so, it became painfully clear how poorly dressed Mabel was for this environment. The fact that her clothes were starting to freeze on her skin aside, she had nothing covering her legs except a short summer skirt.

"Is it going to scar?" she asked, her teeth starting to chatter. He glanced at her face as he worked. She hadn't even been with him for a day and yet she already looked sick, bluish, and strained. He paused his work to take off his mostly waterproofed coat.

"Yes. You'll have large scars on your leg," he said as he draped the coat over her shoulders. He could immediately tell that was the wrong thing to say because she slumped and her face fell, even as she wrapped his coat tightly around herself and her shivers eased.

"Oh."

She looked sick. He wasn't sure if that was the blood loss or her hurt vanity. She didn't scream or cry, as he might have expected a little girl to after nearly having her leg bitten off, but her slumped shoulders and sad eyes were still enough to twist up everything in his chest. He struggled to think of something, anything, he could say to make her look less unhappy.

"They will be very interesting scars, and you can tell people whatever you want about how you got them." He said the first thing that came to his mind (the sort of thing that would have made Stanley feel better). He didn't know if the relative coolness of a scar would cheer up a girl like it would a boy, but this was the best he could do. "You can tell them you fought against a rock worm, or saved a town from a creeper infestation, or…"

"…Or battled a sea monster?" she offered, looking a little less sick.

"Or battled a sea monster." Her shoulders perked again and she managed a small smile. Thank God she liked cool scars as much as (Stanley) a little boy would. After the snow cleared grit from the cuts, the blood soaked into his pants. He reached into his bag and pulled out bandages, wrapping them tightly around her leg to maintain pressure. "I'll need to carry you until we find another pair of shoes and more sensible clothing, but I have a feeling we'll find somewhere we can get all that soon. We're overdue for a taste of civilization."

His own hand would need some bandages, but the priority was Mabel's leg, and the best he could do was hope that his own blood didn't carry some alien disease she was sensitive to as he tied off her bandages. She was still bleeding through them, so he reached behind her knee and pressed hard on the artery. Mabel flinched, almost kicking him in the chest. "What're you doing?"

"I'm cutting circulation through your popliteal artery. I'm giving you time to clot." The teeth had been too wide and drove too deep. He wished he could spend more time cleaning and fixing the damage, but they were in a tundra and needed shelter. He would have to settle for stopping the bleeding now and tending to it properly later.

Balancing her leg on his to keep it elevated and dry, Ford continually swept fresh snow beneath it, checking to see if any blood dripped through the bandages and marred it. When finally, the snow stayed white, he sighed in relief and released Mabel's knee. "You're clotting."

She stayed huddled under his jacket, staring at him with the naked trust of a child who didn't know how close she came to dying in the snow. "Now you're going to fix your hand too, right?"

"Oh." He had almost forgotten that his hand was still bleeding. "Of course." The cuts the hair had left were thin, but they were deep, and the burns he had gotten in Bill's Realm had gotten worse in the portal. He would need to start wearing gloves before hopping in portals with Mabel.

He wrapped his hand under Mabel's concerned gaze, then he gathered the silvery hair into a glass bottle. He scooped up his niece, who huddled against his chest and wrapped her frosted arms tightly around his neck, and started walking towards the caves. It would be the best place for shelter, so it was the place they were most likely to find civilization. It was possible that they might even be able to find other dimensional travelers, but Ford had been at this for a while and only run into other travelers a handful of times. The network of dimensions was vast enough and the people ready to put up with the treacherous journeys few enough that they weren't likely to meet.

His boots crunched through the snow, slowing his progress and making him wish he had snowshoes. The cold was starting to penetrate his sweater as well, fern frost growing on the fibers, but he hugged Mabel close and kept walking. Even when she wasn't burning everything she touched, she was a nice source of warmth.

"Grunkle Ford?" Her voice was quiet as he trudged through the snow. If it weren't for the way that the landscape sucked up any ambient sound, he might not have heard her.

"Mmm?" he hummed, adjusting his grip on her. Grunkle Ford. He still had to get used to having someone around to even use his name, let alone with a title like that.

"It's not always like this, right?"

He hesitated, staring at the path ahead of them instead of looking at her face. "There are quiet days and some not so quiet days."

That didn't seem to comfort her much. She rested her head against his chest. "Why don't we find a safe place to stay and wait for them to open the portal again?"

Resisting the urge to tell her that the portal would probably never be open again, he said, "There aren't any safe places. Not for long, at least." The caves were getting closer. Inside, the ice glimmered in uneven patterns. He suspected geodes and shards of glittering stone had frozen with the water and snow. "Bill is constantly hunting me, and now he's likely hunting you as well. Besides, it's illegal in most dimensions for foreigners to stay extended periods of time."

He didn't need to look at her to know she was frowning. "Why?"

"Because we don't belong in their dimensions, and our presence will eventually weaken the fabric between their worlds and others as our world futilely tries to pull us back. It's best we only stay a short while and then move on."

She was quiet again for a while. "Does that mean we never stop moving?"

Ford sighed softly. This life wasn't meant for a child. "I'm afraid so."

"Oh…"

This time, her silence stretched, and Ford wished desperately that things were different.

Inside the ice caves, whispers echoed off the walls and ceiling, and lights flickered dimly through the ice. On a hunch, Ford adjusted position to balance Mabel on his hip instead of holding her with both arms (and he was suddenly reminded of doing the same thing decades ago with a toddler, his little brother Shermy who everyone needed to take turns soothing) and pawed through his pocket before he took out a little metal bud.

He placed it in his ear, wincing as it opened up into a disk that covered the inner lobe and burrowed into the canal, but it was worth it. Suddenly, the whispers made sense. They were the echoes of people talking.

Ford let out a barked laugh, making Mabel jump against him. "We're in luck, Mabel! There's civilization here."

She perked up in his arms, and his heart was lighter for it. "Oooh, I can meet aliens!"

"You bet you can meet aliens!" He pulled another bud from his pocket—older model, too small for him but perfect for her—and held it out. "Put this in your ear. You'll be able to understand what they're saying."

"Oooh, cool." She put it in her ear, and instead of wincing when it dug itself in, she just giggled. "It feels like it's trying to eat my brain."

"That it does." There was a new spring in his step as he walked towards the whispers. The further into the caves they got, the more intelligible they were.

"Ten coins? This isn't even worth two!"

"Then why are you talking to me, furball? Ten or nothing."

"Do you have something lighter than this?"

Ah, haggling. It never changed no matter where he went.

Suddenly, the cave ballooned out. Both Mabel and Ford gasped. There were tunnels and burrows and clusters of cells dug out of the ice all around them. Everywhere, four-legged, four-armed beasts covered in thick fluffy white fur milled around with towering spindly insectoids that looked like they were made of glass. Three hearts beat inside the insects' transparent carapaces as they stepped over their furry neighbors. Wares of all sorts were dangling from stalls carved into the living ice as creatures of both sorts hawked them, and towering crystals stood like trees, creating clear paths through the market.

Mabel couldn't contain her smile. "Dipper is going to be so jealous."

Earth, July 26th, 2012

"Oh wow, you weren't kidding."

Pacifica was staring at a giant, broken inverted triangle, nestled in a nest of torn wire and twisted metal. It felt like she was sitting in the middle of a set for a science fiction movie, except a science fiction movie would have a more impressive cast than an old man, a giant gopher boy, and a ginger teenager rooting around its insides to check for more damaged wiring.

"Yeah, it's… pretty banged up," Dipper said slowly, his knuckles white on the big folder he was holding. He stood with her behind a layer of protective glass, but she wasn't sure how much that would do if something happened and the portal's remains exploded.

"Why is this down here? Who built this?" Of all the things to be beneath a kitschy tourist trap, an interdimensional portal was not what she expected.

Dipper worried his lip, drumming his fingers on the folder. The bags under his eyes were darker than they were yesterday. His eyes were bloodshot, too. It didn't bode well for the management of this whole project, and her father would tell her to walk away from anything she didn't expect a return on, but there would be a return. The return would be Mabel's life. Pacifica wasn't going to be like the other Northwests: she was going to value life.

"A great uncle of mine—not Stan—built this a long time ago. I don't know why." Dipper kept drumming his fingers, like he would pass out if he wasn't constantly moving some part of himself. "All I know is that it has to stay a secret. There's no telling what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm paying for it. I don't want anyone to take it any more than you do." She held out her hand to him, snapping her fingers. "File."

Dipper immediately handed it over. Pacifica snapped it open, leafing through each page, recalling the way her father and mother would read through similar files while she sat in their lap as a child. Her father would tell her what parts of the pages he was looking at, the way the numbers added together and what made a good investment or not. Her mother would point out the names attached to different projects and taught her the importance of a professional reputation and contacts.

Dipper was more thorough with the paperwork than a lot of her parents' partners. Some of the more exorbitant price tags in the spreadsheet, written out in blocky numbers, were crossed out with more reasonable numbers written in Dipper's neat print next to them. Stanford Pines had a reputation as a crook, but it looked like Dipper was putting his foot down on any attempt to rip her off.

Pacifica did the math in her head, frowning as the numbers added up more and more before flipping to the page listing the people involved in the project. She immediately wrinkled her nose. "The hillbilly is your engineer?"

"He's the best guy for the job," Dipper said quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets and rolling his shoulders. "He was one of the people who built this thing in the first place."

"Seriously?" Pacifica was now much more concerned the portal was going to blow up. "And it works?"

"If it didn't work, we wouldn't be here right now." There was an edge in his voice, and he wouldn't stop fidgeting. "Just—just trust me, Pacifica. He's a brilliant engineer."

"Ugh. This is a disaster." Pacifica rubbed her temples. Questions, so many questions just dangling in the stale air. It was hard to keep track of them all. "So the hillbilly helped build this giant portal with your great uncle and…" She waved ineffectually at the twisted metal and wires.

"There was… I think there was an accident and Old Man McGucket walked out on it. He's been pretty vague."

"Of course he has. Because he's crazy. Why can't we get the other guy who worked on it? Your great uncle?"

If possible, Dipper's face got even closer to looking dead. His cheeks didn't have color, and his eyes looked away from the glass, away from the portal and all the people working on it. "He… we can't reach him. He might be dead."

He said it with the tone of someone who didn't think there was any 'might be' about it. Pacifica winced, partially because it was obvious she'd stumbled into some awkward family matters but mostly because this meant that the only one who was qualified to figure this thing out was Old Man McGucket. Mabel or no Mabel, Pacifica couldn't see working with a crazy hillbilly as ending in anything but disaster.

But Dipper hadn't steered her wrong so far, and she knew for a fact that no matter how much money she sunk into this madness, Dipper had far more stake in it working. If Dipper thought that McGucket was the best guy for the job, well… "Just make sure he doesn't let raccoons in the lab or fill the portal with beer or something."

Dipper grimaced, like he might have already considered that. "Don't worry, that won't be a problem."

She leafed through the pages again, looking for any other red flags. Not that they really mattered, she supposed. She was already breaking every Northwest rule of business by investing in something she expected no money from. Her parents would be furious if they found out, and the thought still made her stomach tie knots, but Mabel needed help and Dipper had asked her himself and so she had to do it.

"How did this activate if it was all shut down years ago?" That was one thing that didn't quite add up. How did Mabel get in there?

"There was…" Without the file to keep his hands occupied, Dipper started adjusting his hat and pulling gently at his hair. He bounced on the balls of his feet. Normally, a constant source of motion like that should give off the feeling of energy, but it felt more like she was watching a wind up toy's last thrashes before it ran out of any drive to move at all. They needed to get Mabel back. "It was an accident. We found it and gravity was weird and—"

His voice was pitching higher. The bouncing got faster. Pacifica waved her hand. "It's fine, it's fine." The motion slowed down again. He didn't need to relive losing his sister right now. "Nothing else I should know about? No big important things about the portal?"

"…No." The motion slowed down until he was almost still. "Nothing."

A crash rattled the ground as a slab of metal fell from the portal. Stan Pines narrowly ducked away before it smashed him.

"Sorry!" yelled the ginger teenager.

Pacifica let out a long, slow breath. "I'm not paying for it if one of you gets crushed."

"Yeeeaaaaah, I figured."

No warnings for this chapter.

As usual, comments, critique, and compliments are love. Thank you to Tsukara for betaing for me.