SPOILER ALERT FOR LATEST SEASON 2 EPISODE! AAAAAAAAAAH GRAVITY FALLS, Y U DO DIS!
This is obviously all taking place before "Not What He Seems", but of course, as knew information becomes available I try and weave it in, all the while not trying to speculate about anything that might happen as I want the story to still flow with the series itself...so...I hope this all makes sense. Anyway, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for at least two more chapters xoxoxo

Stan sat on Mabel's bed, leaning his head on his hands. Across from him, Dipper lay still, except for his blankets rising and falling with each ragged breath. The constellation birthmark on his forehead was peeking out through sweat-damp hair, and his eyebrows were knit in pain. Stan sighed wearily with his memory, which seemingly filled the fever-warm room.

Stan had been ill much like Dipper was now. It had been thirty years ago, and Stan had been alone in the building that would eventually become the Mystery Shack. He remembered the solitary woods, the empty, creaking shack, the books haunting his every moment. No matter how well he hid it, he would come too after a restless sleep with the book in his lap. Stan remembered waking up, more than once, wracked with fever and not being able to move from where he had fallen on the floor. His nightmares were unbearable. Black triangles with unblinking eyes, and skeletal hands clawing at him from the mists. There had been six-fingered hands, a face not-unlike his own vanishing and reappearing, and a young boy. The young boy, about twelve, smiled at him, and held hands with two very young toddlers, a boy and a girl. They faded in and out of the trees, their laughter not quite reaching his ears, until the sky suddenly turned red and black, clouds clutching the sun and everything being consumed by fire and flood. The laughter had turned to blood-curdling screams, and no matter what Stan did, he could never reach them. Stan would wake up screaming, throat dry, muscles aching from seizing in his body's own heat. He wasn't sure how long it had gone on, but he knew it was at least a week. How he survived, he wasn't entirely sure, but one day he found the strength to stagger into the woods and bury the books. He could only hope that they were far enough away from the Shack that he would be able to race back before the Forces consumed him to remember and find the hiding place. It had worked, and after Stan painfully recovered, he only had enough broken memory to locate the first journal. He hadn't seen journal's number two and three until that summer. He had hoped the Forces had lost Their hold on the books, Their will to find its secrets in favour of some new plan of assuring Their surivival, and for a time, it seemed, Stan was right. At least, he had thought so, until Dipper had succumbed. Stan felt pangs of guilt as Dipper wracked with a cough that sounded like gravel scraped with sandpaper. He should have known...he should have protected him.

"...Mabel..." came a hoarse whisper. Grunkle Stan winced, and waited, but there was no more sound from Dipper. Stan freshened a wash cloth and pressed it to Dipper's cheeks and forehead and neck. He thought of the child in the dream...his nephew had been a newborn at the time, but it was him. And although Stan hadn't known it at the time, the two toddlers whose hands he held were that of his future children. Stan was grim. That was his family, his family's future, and the Forces were threatening it. Stan could only imagine what Dipper was dreaming of, how painful the connection he had with his sister could be if abused the right way. It made him want to take the books again and throw them in the lake...but he needed them. And Dipper would need them too. And Mabel. Some small thing gave the old man comfort as he tended to his incapacitated great nephew...the idea that the young boy had someone who loved him enough to go through Hell for him, just to save him. If Stan had had someone who had been there for him at the time...well...maybe things would have turned out differently. For everyone.

"Mabel, psst, wake up..."

Mabel rubbed her eyes and sat up, the scratchy fabric of the armchair leaving an impression in her ruddy cheek. Wendy and Soos were standing over her, with Soos gently shaking her shoulder. The rain still dripped faintly outside, the clouds turning inky with the encroaching night. Waddles had curled up at her side, staring at her blankly.

"Mabel, what's going on?" Wendy asked, holding the journal, wrapped in an old plaid shirt, tightly to her chest. "Stan called me...us...and told us to come back. What's with this thing? And Dipper...is he okay?"

Mabel groaned. "No..." she said, sadly. But she looked up at her two friends and told them the events of the afternoon, and what was wrong with Dipper. Soos looked petrified and Wendy pursed her lips tightly. Mabel explained the way the journal was affecting him, and what she had to do.

"Mabel, that is crazy dangerous!" Soos exclaimed. Wendy nodded grimly, but stood up and started heading up the stairs.

"I know, but...what choice do I have? He's my brother."

Soos and Wendy exchanged a worried glance, but they knew she was right. They climbed to the attic and slipped in through the curtain into the bedroom. Mabel instantly ran to Dipper's side, but he remained unconcious. Stan took the book from Wendy and unwrapped the shirt. Soos pulled up a couple of old boxes and he and Wendy sat at the foot of Dipper's bed, nervously tucking their hands under them, Waddles grunting at their side. Dipper, in close proximity with the book, began to moan softly, face tightening. Mabel looked from him to her great uncle, and steeled herself.

"Do...do you think that if I go in the dream, I'll look like I do right now?" she asked. Grunkle Stan looked perplexed, but nodded and shrugged simultaneously.

"I don't know...maybe?"

Mabel nodded, and ran to her pile of folded sweaters on a shelf on her side of the room. She tugged until a bright pink one was released from the multitude of colourful layers. She pulled off her rumpled striped sweater, and pulled the pink one over her head. The sparkly shooting star emblazened on its front glistened, and Stan couldn't help but think it looked like a crest...his great niece's own personal heraldic symbol.

"This one's Dipper's favourite," she said, keeping her voice flat to stop it from shaking. Wendy gave her a sympathetic smile. Mabel gave Dipper a quick kiss on his clammy cheek, and whispered into his ear. "Watch for it, 'kay? I'm coming for you...I promise..." Dipper clenched his teeth. With a final nod to her friends, a pat for Waddles, and Grunkle Stan, Mabel lay on her bed.

"I'm ready," she said. She hoped they didn't see her grip the blanket until her knuckles were white.

"Mabel," said Grunkle Stan, "whatever happens...it's just a dream. If you can wake Dipper from the inside, the Forces will lose Their grip...but don't let them get you, too. They'll try everything, but you gotta resist. Be strong in there."

A lump in Mabel's throat robbed her of her voice, so she merely nodded. With a final glance at Dipper, suffering in the bed across from her, she nodded. Stan placed the book between the two beds and opened it to a page scrawled with numbers and symbols. Dipper stirred. Mabel closed her eyes, and waited. She tried to match Dipper's increasingly frantic breathing, and felt her heart thudding in time with her twin's. After a few long moments, the pages of the journals began fluttering in a ghostly breeze. Stan, Wendy, and Soos looked on as the light contorted around the two twins, bending and flexing in an unsettling way. Strange whispers began to echo throughout the room, and Soos hid in his hands. Mabel kept her eyes tightly closed. The wind in the room, its origins unknown, piqued and swirled. Papers blew around and the window groaned with the force of it. Wendy called something, but Stan couldn't hear her. He shut his eyes against the wind, when all too suddenly, it stopped. The three peeked out from behind raised hands and arms, and stared.

Mabel and Dipper were breathing in perfect time. A syncronized sleep.

"No-now what?" Soos stammered. Grunkle Stan pulled up an old crate and joined Wendy and Soos at the foot of the twin's beds and sat down.

"We wait."