It was late evening in Gravity Falls, Oregon, and Dipper was nervous. He would be leaving his beloved home dimension in exactly an hour, when the moon was at its peak in the sky. He and Mabel and "Will." Grunkle Ford had built a makeshift one-way portal that he said had an uncalculable chance of landing them in any given dimension.

"Just let me attach the dimensional vortex neutralizer," Grunkle Ford mumbled as he glared at a small black box. He fumbled with it a bit more and after awhile it chirped happily.

"I wish I could just teleport us to the right place..." Bill whispered to Dipper, his lips brushing Dipper's ear. Dipper shivered, then nodded.

"I know, but Grunkle Ford would be even more suspicious of you if you did, and he might not let you go with us." Dipper whispered back, and Bill nodded. They stood closer than they should have, given their secret relationship, but no one seemed to notice. Mabel had been babbling about Justin for the past half hour, and was probably obsessing over him long before that. Grunkle Stan was glancing in between the children and his brother nervously, in a rare show of vulnerability. Everyone was too focused on their respective projects to notice when Bill gave Dipper a small kiss on the top of his head. Dipper blushed and punched Bill in the arm.

"Don't do that! Someone could see us," Dipper whispered and Bill laughed.

"I know, I know." Bill looked at the sky.

An hour later, Ford stood up suddenly. The moon was high above their heads, the stars seeming to shimmer brighter than normal. The darkness was warded off by a sharp blue glow coming from the circle circumscribed inside of the larger, metal triangle. It was fascinating in the way that watching someone get their hand cut of is fascinating.

"I'm done," Ford said gruffly, looking at his creation with furrowed brows. "You won't be able to come back for a while yet, children. Me and Stan will take care of everything while you're gone, so don't worry about this dimension. Focus on getting the Journals. You can fill Will in when you reach the other side. I would tell you to be safe... but that seems silly." Ford looked at the group suddenly and smiled at them all. "Goodbye, and good luck." Stan pushed Ford forward and crushed them all together in a huge hug.

"Don't forget about us! Sixer will bring you guys back when it's time. Goodbye." Grunkle Stan said, and everyone smiled, suddenly tearful. Even Bill's eyes sparkled.

"Bye grunkles! I love you!" Mabel called out, and ran over to the portal.

"Bye Ford... Bye Stan. I'll miss you guys," Dipper said softly, then walked over to Mabel and stood by her side. The portal was making a large wooshing sound, like a car revving, and he couldn't quite hear what Bill said as he hugged their grunkles and waved goodbye, but Dipper was sure it was something special. Something good. The portal grew louder and louder, and right when it was at the loudest Dipper thought he could stand, Ford and Stan were waving at them and Mabel and Bill were clutching his hands tightly and he was clutching theirs and they ran and jumped into the portal together and suddenly the darkness grew blindingly bright and the soft summer chorus of crickets was deafening. Then everything went dark, then light, then silent, then too loud, then they were sliding down on top of a rainbow and Mabel was screaming. Dipper was, too. Bill was just smiling sublimely. Mabel and Dipper landed on the ground with a loud drum-like thump that sounded a bit like thunder, but Bill just stepped gracefully from the rainbow-slide to the ground, still smiling. Dipper stood up, brushed pure white dust off him and nearly screamed. Mabel looked at him, then looked where he was looking and screamed too.

"B-Bill! How are we not... not falling?" Dipper asked after a second of getting his breath back.

Bill shrugged. "I could go into the physics of this place, or I could save you some sanity. If we're gonna travel the multiverse, you need to learn how to take things in stride. The point is, we're standing on clouds and not falling. Lucky for you all, I know this place pretty well and I think once Shooting Star over there gains her bearings, she'll love it." Bill pointed to Dipper's twin, who was licking the clouds. Dipper laughed a little bit and nodded. He took a second to look around him, and be awed by it. After all being surrounded by white was pretty amazing. They stood on clouds, pure white and beautiful like a bed of snow. The sky above them was a light blue, but around the edges it was a little bit red or purple.

"Bill, this place is really pretty," Bill pulled him into a half-hug and nuzzled the top of his head.

"It is, my Pine Tree. I can tell you're being genuine particularly because you have never said pretty to me before," Bill said, laughing a little bit under his breath. "We can even do things now. Freely. It would be a feat of glory if Sixer or Fez somehow caught wind of us out here." Dipper nodded, grinning.

"I was looking forward to that," he said and kissed Bill's chest. Bill laughed.

"Mhmm. Maybe even a little me and you alone time, if Shooting Star would be safe without supervision for an hour or two," Bill said, his right hand crawling up Dipper's side. Dipper breathed in sharply.

"I actually should talk to you about that... I'm not sure I'm ready for your kind of sex again. It was a little... intense," Dipper said. His heart raced. What if Bill didn't want him after he said that? Bill's hand stopped.

"I understand. I think I was in the middle of going crazy that time, but if you really don't want to I can wait." Dipper let out his breath.

"Let me think about it. Okay?"

"Okay."

As fine as Bill looked on the outside, how he never lost his smile and his eyes never stopped looking at Dipper, somehow the boy knew his lover was upset. Maybe because his hand didn't climb anymore, or maybe it was his gait as they walked away from their landing spot, once Mabel finally got her barrings. Maybe it was how he talked, how he just didn't sound like the living incarnation of desire when he talked to Dipper. But Dipper had to set his foot down. He wasn't really okay with what had happened last time, crazy or not, and he was determined to communicate that to Bill. They had been walking for a little bit when Dipper had decided that, and suddenly he was pulled from his thoughts by Bill's hand on his shoulder.

"Pine Tree. Shooting Star. Wait." Bill stood stick straight, which was funny considering his current object of love and lust. He seemed to be staring at something in the distance that neither Dipper nor Mabel could see, however much they squinted.

"What is it, Bill?" Dipper asked, wrapping an arm around his paramour's waist.

"The storms. I forgot about the storms. We need shelter, a town, a cave, literally anything that isn't completely exposed. Now." Dipper swung his head around, searching for some kind of structure, something at all. He didn't see anything. It was Mabel who spoke up.

"I see something! Over there!" She pointed to a large white figure in the distance that Dipper hadn't seen before.

"Perfect," replied Bill. "I just hope we can get there in time."

And then they ran. They ran like something was chasing them, like in a horror movie, because something was chasing them. It was just that only Bill knew exactly what it was. Which made it just a little bit more scary, at least to Dipper. Finally, after the longest run Dipper thought he had ever done, they got to the white thing. It turned out to be a large mass of clouds, what Dipper assumed was a mountain in this dimension. It even had little clouds circling its peak, and that made Dipper laugh. It seemed redundant, but it was the multiverse. Whatever works.

"Come on, up there!" Bill shouted, glancing behind him. He pointed to a small cavity about ten feet up in the mountain and they started to climb. Dipper was reminded of his time climbing up and down the Multibear's mountain and he smiled. "Why are you so happy? We're about to die if we don't speed up a little more."

"The Multibear. I used to climb his mountain all the time. We were good friends, because I didn't kill him this one time." Bill nodded.

After about five minutes of climbing, they had all reached the cave and they stepped inside, Mabel clinging to Dipper and Dipper clinging to Bill. Bill didn't cling to anyone, he just stepped inside. It was a weird felling to be inside a cloud. It was kind of grey all over and Dipper could feel the cold mist that had settled inside the cave already seeping into his bones. He shivered and Bill stepped behind him and hugged him. Mabel danced around the cave, like there was music playing, and smiled at them.

"Boys, I knew it! I got it, I guessed it, I knew it!" She sang, and Bill laughed.

Boom. There was a loud crash from outside and Mabel stopped dancing. Dipper would've jumped if Bill hadn't been anchoring him to the floor.

"Bill?" Mabel asked, her voice trembling. "What was that?"

"That was what we were running from. The storms here are more vicious than any of us would be used to. They can kill you if you're not careful, and they're hard to see because they're seen on the ground until they hit an object, like this mountain."

"Oh, man, can we leave this place?" Dipper asked, and Mabel glanced at him. Dipper, you see, was deathly afraid of thunder and lightning. Neither of them had really grown up with thunder storms, living in western California. Rain, sure, but not much thunder and lightning.

"Not yet. Sorry, but if we're going to find the Journals we have to search every plane we go to." Dipper moaned and walked away, deeper into the cave. He slid down a wall and put his head in his knees. Mabel went over and sat by him, rubbing his back like their mom used to when Dipper would get scared.

"I know you're scared Dipping Sauce, but think about how our dimension needs you. If we don't get these Journals, Weirdmaggedon might happen again, and we might not be able to stop it. Think about yourself, think about me, think about Bill, think about our Grunkles!" Dipper looked up at her, smiling a little bit. "Also think about Justin! If we don't save Justin, I'll never get to have a normal epic summer romance, and think how sad I'll be." Dipper flat out snorted, then nodded.

"You're right. I'll deal with it. I'll be stron-" another big boom echoed and Dipper retreated backwards into the cave more, clouds puffing up around him when he pushed himself into the wall. "I'll be strong right after this storm." Mabel nodded and went to sit by him again, and Bill sat down with him too.

"It'll be okay," Bill whispered to Dipper. "We're here for you."