Pacifica had woken up on Sunday morning to find Mabel already awake and humming to herself at her desk just as she was putting the finishing touches on a rather elaborate looking fake ID. Mabel had handed the small plastic card to Pacifica with a smile and began massaging the life back into her cramped hand.
"Tell me what you think," Mabel had said with a note of pride in her voice.
Pacifica looked over the ID with a growing sense of astonishment at the level of detail put into it. The card probably wouldn't have passed a government inspection but it looked like it would be more than adequate to fool most people.
"Mabel this is pretty amazing!" Pacifica had murmured.
"Thanks! I think this might be my single best forgery yet," Mabel grinned, "I used one of my old junior high ID's for the card."
Pacifica read the ID over a second time and she felt a small frown twist at the corners of her mouth when she started to read over the listed details.
"Okay, so I'm Atlantica Southeast'?" Pacifica said, glancing up at Mabel.
"Yeah, I figured we should go with something as far from Pacifica Northwest as we could get," Mabel said, "to throw anyone looking for you off the trail."
"Uh huh," Pacifica said with a slightly skeptical nod, "and I'm from... Franceburg?"
"Yup," Mabel nodded.
"Mabel, you do know there's no such place as Franceburg, right?" Pacifica asked slowly.
"Oh don't worry about it, no one actually reads the fine print on those things," Mabel said with confidence.
"Not that I'm not grateful, but why didn't you just use a real French city like Paris?" Pacifica asked.
"Paris is too well known, that would obviously look suspicious."
"Unlike Franceburg?" Pacifica asked skeptically.
"Duh, it sounds so stupid that it has to be true!" Mabel said with a grin.
"Are you totally sure about that?" Pacifica asked.
"Yeah, people will go along and pretend they know all about the place if you bring it up because they don't want to sound ignorant. If you want to have some real fun sometime just make up some sort of science-y sounding word and ask Dipper what he knows about it and watch him sweat for a while trying to see if he remembers if it's a real thing or not," Mabel said with a grin.
"Well... you're the expert I guess," Pacifica said with a shrug.
"Okay, now let's start going over your backstory – you are the daughter of a simple cheese farmer, but you've been sent here to the far off land of America because it was the only way to escape your arranged betrothal to the evil Marquis of Franceburg," Mabel began, her hands stretching wide in expansive gestures.
"I thought I was supposed to be a foreign exchange student?" Pacifica asked.
"That's just your cover story – this part here is the real fake-truth," Mabel said.
"So my cover story for running away from home is just a cover story for escaping marriage to an evil prince?" Pacifica asked.
"Marquis," Mabel corrected, "and yes – the best lies are like stacks of pancakes, just when you think you've reached the end there's a whole new one waiting at the bottom soaking in the syrup of deception."
"What's the Marquis' name?" Pacifica asked, feeling compelled to learn more despite her better judgment.
"Oh shoot, I hadn't thought of that part... um... he's, uh... Guy de ...von ...um... Richjerk... van Evil... the Third," Mabel said.
"That's a lot of 'von's and 'van's for a French aristocrat," Pacifica said, feeling a grin starting to tug at the corners of her mouth.
"I dunno, maybe his dad was the Duke of the USSR or something," Mabel said.
"How about we work more on the exchange student cover-story to my backstory first?" Pacifica suggested, not bothering to point out the number of flaws in Mabel's last supposition.
"Fine," Mabel sighed, "but I didn't even get to tell you the part about your secret loup-garou boyfriend who followed you across the sea yet,"
"I promise you can tell me all about it tonight when we go to bed," Pacifica said sincerely.
"How did you sleep by the way? I know the old air mattress we've got isn't that great but I hope it wasn't too bad," Mabel asked.
Pacifica gave Mabel a small smile – her friend had a snore like an industrial buzz-saw tearing into sheet metal and the mattress had started to deflate half-way in the night which had led to Pacifica having a disturbing dream of sinking into a pool of quicksand.
Compared to night after night in empty hotel rooms though…
"It was the best sleep I've had in a long time," Pacifica answered honestly.
"Franceburg?" Dipper had asked incredulously as he glanced at the fake ID which Pacifica had handed him when she'd met him downstairs at the breakfast table.
"Trust me, any objections you're thinking of I've already brought up to Mabel – she made a pretty good case for it though," Pacifica said with a shrug, deciding it best not to mention the bit that Mabel had said about Dipper's own gullibility.
"Well, it's too late to do anything about the name now I guess – the inks already dry," Dipper said with a sigh as he handed the card back to Pacifica.
Pacifica glanced up at the different boxes of cereal lined up along the top of the refrigerator and felt her stomach give an embarrassingly loud growl.
"So... um, could I-" Pacifica began, before Dipper cut in.
"Of course, you don't even have to ask," Dipper said quickly, reaching up to grab a box for himself and motioning for her to join him.
Pacifica gave a grateful nod and selected a box for herself without looking before taking the seat across from Dipper.
There were a few moments of silence that seemed to stretch out just a bit too long for comfort, the only sound in the room being the clink of the metal spoons against the bowls as they ate their cereal. Pacifica's eyes darted up from her cereal at Dipper between spoonfuls of her dubiously healthy breakfast, always seeming to catch his gaze during that awkward instant when he had also been giving her a quick glance before they simultaneously dropped their eyes again.
"Dipper," Pacifica said, her voice breaking the uncomfortable silence, "do you really think this is going to work?"
Dipper paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth and considered the question.
"Well, odd though it may seem my sister does have a real talent for forgery so the ID shouldn't be an issue - as long as you can keep up with the 'oo la la's' and the 'oui-oui's' I don't see any major problems," Dipper said.
"Really?" Pacifica asked.
"Sure," Dipper lied breezily, the first hint of nervous sweat showing on his brow.
"Are your parents really going to be okay with it though?" Pacifica pressed.
"Well what are they going to do? They can't exactly ship you back off to 'Franceburg' now that you're already here at our place," Dipper said with growing confidence, as if his arguments were also convincing himself.
"What if it is a problem though? I don't want to get you and Mabel into any trouble with them just because of me," Pacifica said, an unfamiliar note of hesitation in her voice.
"You've met Mabel, right? Trust me, the two of us have been in some kind of trouble since we were old enough to walk and she was strong enough to drag me along after her," Dipper replied with a smile.
Pacifica returned his smile, though her lips quirked down once more with worry as she toyed with her cereal.
"Are you positive that I'm not going to get you guys in huge trouble?" Pacifica said.
Dipper bit back the sarcastic response that had jumped into his mouth. From anyone else all the questions and demands for reassurance might have seemed unnecessary, but he'd had the distinct displeasure of meeting the older Northwest's and it was easy to see why she was so concerned about possible parental repercussions.
"Look, don't worry about it – I know you want to look out for us, but this time we're going to be looking out for you," Dipper said.
Pacifica felt a small smile tug unconsciously at her lips. She'd noticed over the years that Dipper always got this tone in his voice when he was trying to be Serious Dipper, and hearing it was actually a little bit reassuring. It didn't exactly make her feel like everything was going to be alright, but if anything went wrong she knew that she actually had some very solid help in her corner this time.
"Thanks Dipper,"
"Don't mention it… oh, I almost forgot – I have something for you." Dipper said.
"Really?" Pacifica said, slightly surprised, "what is it?"
"Well, it's not something new so much as something changed," Dipper said in a somewhat apologetic tone and dug around in his pocket and extracted a small pink object which he placed very carefully on the breakfast table.
Pacifica craned her head closer and saw that it appeared to be a toy car.
"Thanks, I guess? I might be a little old for this particular present though," Pacifica said.
"It's actually your car," Dipper said.
Pacifica quirked her eyebrow at him.
"It's true, I went out last night and shrunk it down. Had to do it in the middle of the night so no one would report seeing a teenager reduce a car down to the size of a matchbox." Dipper said.
"You shrunk my car?" Pacifica asked.
"Yeah, I thought it wouldn't exactly make a lot of sense for a newly arrived French foreign exchange student to have a car. It's not like you could have driven here from France," Dipper said.
"You shrunk my car?" Pacifica asked again, still trying to process the statement. The words were all English but something was obviously wrong with her hearing because they weren't making any sense the way he'd put them together.
I mean, even with all the weird stuff I've seen I'm pretty sure no one can do that.
Right?
"It didn't hurt it in any way – I mean, I was really careful not to ding it up or anything like that." Dipper said defensively.
Pacifica turned back to the car sitting on the table, and when she squinted her eyes she could just make out the custom vanity license plates that had been installed a few months back. She leaned in closer and saw an extremely tiny can of energy drink in the cup-holder, smaller than a pencil eraser.
"You shrunk my car," she repeated, feeling half dazed as she sat back in her chair.
"Mabel, I think I broke Pacifica – can you come down and help me?" Dipper called out toward the stairs with the barest note of panic starting to crack into his voice.
It took Pacifica a surprisingly short amount of time to adjust to the fact that she was now the proud owner of a car that was too tiny for even the smallest of clowns to use – though it had required a few minutes of patient explanation and several demonstrations of the shrinking flashlight in action for the truth to finally sink in.
Despite her up-close and personal encounters with ghosts and other bits of weirdness from her hometown she was still largely a skeptic at heart, and the fact that her mostly-normal friends apparently had a collection of bizarre and magical odds and ends which they'd taken home as souvenirs took some getting used to. After many assurances from Dipper that the shrinking process hadn't hurt the car in any way, and that he could restore it to its original size anytime she really needed it, Pacifica was able to see his point that this was actually a very solid plan.
The rest of the time between morning and afternoon passed by distressingly quickly as the twins and their guest drilled themselves in trying to make sure their exchange student cover-story for Pacifica was as airtight as they could possibly make it. The fact that Pacifica spoke excellent French with an extremely pronounced Valley-girl accent had almost sent Dipper into a panic attack, but since they had already committed themselves to the deception there wasn't really anything to be done about it.
"Mom and dad don't have an ear for language anyway," Mabel had reassured him with a dismissive wave of her hand, "they never recognize any of my impressions after all,"
Dipper decided it better to not mention that Mabel's talent for impersonating voices was basically nonexistent, but she did have a point – anyway it had been years since his mother had to speak any French at all from her highschool courses. She'd probably be too busy trying to remember what Pacifica was saying to notice how she was saying it.
It was shortly after the trio had taken a break from all their drilling to get some lunch that the call came in on Dipper's phone - his mother telling him that their plane had just landed and that they would be back home in less than an hour.
This was it.
Pacifica felt herself torn between fear and anticipation... the thought of staying here, among her two friends and far away from the ugly emptiness of her life at the Manor was almost too good to be true... and the fear that she'd be discovered as a fraud and shipped back up to a cold reception from her parents told her that it probably was.
Pacifica felt her stomach churn with nervousness but tried to keep her face as impassive as she could manage. Apparently her act wasn't as convincing as she had hoped it was because she nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand settle down on her shoulder and give her a friendly squeeze. She turned and felt a brief but genuine smile flash across her face when she saw that the hand belonged to Mabel who had come up behind her and was giving her a huge grin and a friendly thumbs up.
"You've got this one Pacifica – don't worry about it," Mabel said confidently.
Pacifica wasn't so sure, but they'd already come this far and it seemed a shame to waste all the preparation they had made together by just giving up.
"Atlantica," Pacifica reminded Mabel.
"Ah, right," Mabel said a little shamefacedly, "It would be kind of silly to go through all this trouble and then slip up by just blurting out your real name wouldn't it?"
"Don't worry Mabel, you've got this," Pacifica said as she gave her friend a friendly squeeze on the shoulder of her own with a playful sparkle in her eye.
"Sometimes I forget that you can be kind of a butt," Mabel said with a false pout.
"Always happy to remind you," Pacifica replied.
"Are you sure you don't want the beret? It just doesn't feel right doing this whole French student ruse without a beret," Mabel said, eyeing Pacifica speculatively.
"It might be just a tiny bit over the top," Pacifica said delicately, "but you could wear it if you want – you could be pretending that you want to make me feel more at home."
"Oh man that's a great idea! I'm going to go change," Mabel said, dashing up the stairs once again.
Pacifica watched Mabel disappear up the stairs with a feeling of consternation.
"She takes a little getting used to as a roommate," Dipper said after catching the look of surprise that had flashed across Pacifica's face.
"You managed somehow for a few years - got any tips for me?" Pacifica joked.
Dipper tapped his chin thoughtfully with his knuckle for a few moments, his eyes narrowed in a frown of concentration.
"Pretty much the best I can give is to try and relax – you can't really predict exactly what she's going to do, ever, but you can learn to figure out a few of her patterns if you don't let yourself get too stressed out," Dipper said.
"You sure you aren't exaggerating just a bit there?" Pacifica asked.
Dipper raised his hand, one finger lifted to ask for silence. The gesture irked Pacifica, but she grew interested when she heard Dipper counting down under his breath from three, and when he reached 'one' she heard Mabel calling down from upstairs.
"On second thought, the beret by itself is a little too plain and I want to jazz it up a bit. What do you think – fake little mustache, yeah or nay?"
"Nay, a thousand times nay," Dipper called back up.
"You people have no sense of style," Mabel groaned back at him.
Pacifica turned to Dipper and made a silent hand-clapping gesture while he took a bow.
"Thanks again," Pacifica said once Dipper had made his final flourish.
She felt an unexpected stab of shyness as she said the words. Sincerity was still a fairly unpracticed skill for her in her day to day life back home.
Dipper suddenly stiffened up mid-bow and Pacifica's head darted up when she heard the faint sound of a car travelling up the street. She shot Dipper a questioning look and he gave a tight-lipped nod that let her know that he recognized the sound of that particular vehicle.
Parents? She mouthed to him, not sure why she was whispering since the car was barely at the end of the block judging by the sound.
He nodded again.
Pacifica gave a small shudder, feeling like someone had suddenly replaced her spinal column with ice.
Suddenly she knew that this just wasn't going to work. She hadn't practiced enough. The plan was stupid. She was putting her friends at risk for no reason.
"Dipper we can't do this," Pacifica said quickly.
"Pacifica - just trust us here," Dipper said.
"I do trust you guys, but this is just-" Pacifica stammered.
Dippers hand reached out tentatively and grabbed her own in a tight grip, and Pacifica felt the unfamiliar warmth as he gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"If you trust us, then just trust that no matter what happens we'll be here to help you out. Just give it your best shot here and it will be fine," Dipper said, shooting her a slightly shaky smile that didn't look as determined as he'd hoped it had.
Pacifica jumped slightly when she felt her other hand caught in a soft grip and she turned to see Mabel standing beside her with a knitted beret perched jauntily on her head and a small curly mustache slightly askew on her upper lip.
"Ready to meet our folks - Atlantica?" Mabel asked, emphasizing the fake name with a conspiratorial grin.
The sound of footsteps coming up the driveway and a key scraping against the lock set Pacifica's heart to pounding, but she gave the twins hands a squeeze back before pulling herself out of their grip and then taking a deep breath and lightly slapping her cheeks twice.
Dipper's right. Mabel's right too. This idea might not work, but it definitely wont if I don't go in and give it my best try.
The door opened up and Pacifica caught her first glimpse of the Pines parent's, her mind doing that strange double take that sometimes happens when greeted with a situation that is both familiar and unfamiliar at once. She'd never met the people standing in the doorway before, but she unconsciously spotted little details about them that she recognized instantly – the shape of Dipper's ears in his father, the small button nose a perfect match for Mabel's on their mothers face and the blend of other features that made the strangers here seem almost like family.
The two stopped in the doorway and shot a questioning glance Pacifica's way before turning to Mabel, but before they could open their mouths to ask their children what was going on Pacifica flashed a 1,000 Watt smile from her face and walked toward them with her arms flung wide.
"Bonjour!"
"Oh my god I can't believe that actually worked," Mabel said with a sigh as she slumped against the door to her bedroom, lightly flinging the beret from her head vaguely toward her laundry hamper.
Me neither, Pacifica thought to herself as she lay with boneless exhaustion across the slightly deflating surface of the air mattress that sat in the least inconvenient spot of the floor in Mabel's room.
"Mom looked pretty impressed by all the French stuff you were babbling at her – though I think what really sealed the deal was when you kissed both of her cheeks and started thanking her and Dad in super bad English for letting you stay here," Mabel said with a note of genuine admiration in her voice.
Pacifica flushed slightly at the memory – the truth was that her mind had blanked at the sight of her friend's parents that all the careful rehearsing she'd done with herself earlier had gone out the window. Instead of the meticulously planned speech that she'd worked out she'd ended up winging it and doing every stereotypical French tourist thing that she'd ever seen in a movie or TV show at once. Pacifica was sure that her own parents would have seen through a ruse that transparent in seconds but fortunately the Pines family was a bit less well traveled and she'd been accepted warmly, though Pacifica had noticed a few surprised glares shot Dipper and Mabel's way when the full exchange student story came out in the open.
It had worked out just like Dipper had guessed though – even if her presence here was a surprise the bewildered Pines parents couldn't exactly send poor Atlantica Southeast back to the small village of Franceburg, so she was here to stay till the time when her exchange was up. No one was quite sure when that was going to be since Atlantica had accidentally had her exchange student schedule papers eaten by one of the farms dairy goats according to Mabel.
Pacifica lay back in the sagging air-bed, her head in a whirl over the way the past few hours had passed. She'd been so worried that she was going to choke – all the negative thoughts and possibilities had been swirling through her mind ever since the night when they had first decided to try out Dipper's plan to hide her here that she still couldn't quite believe that everything had somehow worked out for the best.
I'm going to have to get used to being called 'Atlantica' while I'm here, Pacifica reminded herself.
She gave a small frown once again at the thought of the alias that Mabel had selected for her.
I can't understand how anyone would believe that was my name – who on earth would name a kid 'Atlantica'?
"Paz? Earth to Paz..." Mabel stage-whispered to her from amidst the pile of pillows and stuffed animals that littered the top of her bed.
"Huh?" Pacifica responded, shaking herself out from the mini-funk she'd been in.
"You had kind of spaced out there for a second. Doing some heavy thinking?" Mabel asked.
"Not really, just trying to unwind a bit after that whole deal with meeting your parents," Pacifica replied.
"I told you that you didn't have anything to worry about with them – even when they try to be all stern and stuff they are really just big pushovers," Mabel said.
"You don't think I might have been a bit overboard with my act back there?" Pacifica asked, a note of worry in her voice.
"A bit? You were a baguette and a 'sacre bleu' away from being labelled a walking hate-crime," Mabel said.
Pacifica winced.
"Was it really that bad?"
"It went just a bit beyond subtle," Mabel said slowly before brightening up, "but it looks like it all worked out though!"
"I really hadn't planned on taking the whole performance that far, I just panicked," Pacifica admitted.
"Don't worry, you won't have to keep up the act for long – I'm sure hanging out with me and Dip will manage to Americanize you in an amazingly short period of time," Mabel said with a grin.
"Well, I do need to start practicing my English now that I am staying in Amérique." Pacifica replied.
"That's the spirit!" Mabel said.
Pacifica felt a matching grin start to spread across her own lips in response to Mabel's enthusiasm. Despite all of the stress she'd felt earlier she couldn't deny that the encounter had been exciting.
The plan that she had made with the twins had only really covered as far as tricking their parents into letting her stay… they'd never actually covered how things were going to go after they'd actually succeeded. Pacifica saw the future stretching out in front of her now, unknown and uncontrolled for the first time in as long as she could remember.
And for the first time in as long as she could remember she was finding herself excited to find out what lay in store for her next.