June 5th

The twins arrived, sleepily, at a small town in Washington state near midnight. They were both extremely tired from a long day of driving and desperate for a place to sleep. Fortunately the area was on a more well traveled stretch of road and had a few small motels in the area with cheap, if not overly comfortable, rooms and they were able to get themselves tucked away without any trouble.

As they settled in for the night into the twin beds with their somewhat scratchy lime green sheets they heard the soft fall of rain coming down outside and pattering against the dusty window of the room like soothing music, but Mabel found herself unable to sleep. Her brothers slow, even breathing from the bed next to hers was causing her to drift into memories of those long summers in the attic of the Mystery Shack... it had been years since they shared a room at home, ever since puberty with all its disruptions had come on full force and their parents had decided to clear out her fathers den to turn into Dippers new room. Those first few nights had been the hardest, she had slept with those same familiar grumbles and breathing all her life and the silence had been deafening. Hearing it again, now that she had grown used to sleeping alone, was jarring. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed that sound.

She thought back on the ride up and the hours that they had spent joking, reminiscing and just generally bantering back and forth in the car and realized with a start that this was the most time that she'd spent with Dipper in almost a year. It had been so fun... why had they ever stopped hanging out like this? What had started to drag them apart? Was this how it was going to be from now on? She'd been overjoyed to see the look on his face earlier when he had unwrapped the scrapbook/journal that she'd given him, but now the thought of him taking to book off to college while she went to art school on the opposite side of the state just made her heart ache.

"Hey... Dip..." she whispered quietly.. "Dipper...DIPPER!" she finished, not quite as quietly.

"Huh.. who... whuzza?" he grumbled blearily.

"Oh, good... you're awake." she whispered, back at her original volume.

"I guess I am." he groaned quietly.

"I was just thinking -" How do I put this into words? How do you tell your brother you are afraid of losing him without sounding pathetic or creepy? She gave up and just hastily blurted out "I was wondering...um... what are you going to do after college?"

"This is what you wake me up for?" he grumbled. "I dunno... I was thinking of maybe going into journalism."

"Journalism? Like a reporter or something?" she said.

"Yeah. I guess it just seems like a good idea. Its solid work and I think I'm not bad at investigating."

"You investigate weird stuff though... can you imagine trying to turn in a story about Gnome migrations to the New York Times?"

"Gnomes are real though!"

"Well yeah, we both know that – but anyone back home we tried to tell about our adventures thought we were nuts. We had to change schools after all the fights you got into from idiots picking on you."

"I remember, I was there. Glad that Stan had given me a few of his old boxing tips, otherwise it might have gone a lot worse for me. Anyway those were just dumb kids though, I'm sure that rational adults will be able to accept... gnomes? Crap. I don't know, with some video evidence maybe... but then everyone would say it was faked... Oh god, I'm going to end up like that guy with the weird hair on the History channel aren't I?" he said, with a note of panic in his voice.

"It's a possibility." she replied wryly.

"Well ok... maybe I don't know what I want yet. I'm 18, its not a crime to not have your whole life planned out at this point. What about you? What do you want to do when you get out of art school?"

"Thats the thing Dipper – I don't have a plan. I'm mostly just going because I like doing arts and crafts... but I don't think its something you do for a living.

"Are you kidding? Mabel you are ridiculously talented – you made a life size replica of Stan out of wax when you were 12! You have the chops to be a serious artist if you put your mind to it."

"What if I don't want to put my mind to it though? I love drawing and sculpting and stuff... but they are just hobbies to me. Fun stuff to do. I don't see myself going around wearing a beret at art shows talking about what my stuff 'means'. I'd feel like a huge poser."

"Well, there's all sorts of stuff you can do with art... you could do movie special effects or advertising... maybe even make a cartoon - you used to watch a lot of them."

"Heh, yeah- I loved those old Disney cartoons! The Warner Brothers ones were funnier though." she said.

Thunder rumbled ominously outside.

"Anyway, why all this talk about the future?" Dipper asked with a yawn.

"Because I'm worried about us." she said quietly.

"I think we'll do ok, we're pretty smart and I think we can get by."

"I don't mean that I'm worried about me. I'm worried about us, you know – the two of us. I start thinking of the fact that we'll both be moving out and not sharing a roof for the first time in our whole lives and I start freaking out." she said with a catch in her voice "Does that make me weird? Is this weird to hear?"

Dipper was silent for a moment before replying, "I don't think you're weird. Silly yes, but not weird." he sighed "The truth is I've been thinking the same thing. Everyone is always going on about growing up and what it means. Growing up is leaving the house, leaving your family and then finding something that pays money and doing it for the rest of your life."

"Growing up is a butt."

"Well why does it have to be?" he said forcefully, "Why do I have to cut all my ties and just become this whole different person to be considered an adult? Why should I have to lose my best friend?"

"I'm your best friend?" she asked quietly.

"Um... yeah." he said sheepishly. "I don't care if its lame or whatever but I've always thought of you as my friend, not just my family. Like even if we weren't related I'd have wanted to hang out with you like we used to. I don't know... I feel like we've been drifting lately – there's a lot I don't know about you now and it makes me kind of sad. I mean, I guess it makes sense that we'd tend to stick with friends more than family as we grew older... but I'd always thought of you as my best friend, not just my sister."

"I was thinking that earlier too... about how I miss our closeness. Thats the real reason I woke you up actually... just seeing you flip through the journal, and all those pictures of us together on our summers. It made me realize that I don't want this to be our last summer either. I don't want to lose you Dipper." her voice cracked with emotion and she held back a sniffle.

"I don't want to lose you either... I don't want this completely amazing person who I've spent my whole life with to just become someone that I see on Christmas and Thanksgiving get-togethers. I don't want the only person who really, really understands me to become a stranger."

"Well... what can we do?" she asked after several moments of near silence, broken only by the rain growing more intense outside their window.

"I don't know yet... but I do know that I'm going to come up with something. To tell you the truth I was just getting kind of resigned to the idea that this inevitable... but knowing that you feel this way too... I don't know, it makes me think that we can do something about it."

"Me too."

"We have some more time before we make it to Gravity Falls... I'm sure I'll have a foolproof plan by then. For now though lets get some sleep – I don't want to pass out on the road tomorrow."

"Ok. G'night Dipper." she whispered, and added quietly, "Love you bro."

As she settled in to her pillow she heard a faint whisper in return, "Love you too sis."