The two young teens stared at the almost-bald man before them. With hair that looked as if a mustache had been placed on his head, tiny goggles over his eyes, and wearing a grey jumpsuit, he was an odd sight to behold, assuming you hadn't seen the likes of zombies and unicorns. "I-I owe your dad a f-favor or two. I can help you go back in time, if- if it would help."

"Who are you?" Cassandra managed to spit out. "Wait- back in time?" she echoed, the concept sinking in, "What do you mean back in time?"

"My name is Blendin Blandin, I worked in the time anomaly removal crew until- well, u-until things happened."

"In 2012?" she prompted, guessing the answer.

"N-never mind! What matters is that you can use this to go back to before you or your dad were possessed, if y-you really want to fix it," Blendin explained, holding out a tape measure.

"So I just… pull it out like this?" Cassandra asked, taking the item and pulling out the tape, glancing over the glowing numbers of days-months-years.

"That's right!" he confirmed.

She looked at the tape measure; she could go back a few hours and prevent all this. She could go back…

"Just pull it out a few hours and you and your cousin can go back and-"

"Ash, grab my arm!" Cassandra barked, yanking the tape out long, past years 25, 26, 27-

"WAIT!" Blendin yelped, as she let go and the tape zipped back into its casing.

Cassandra laughed in triumph as they reappeared in the clearing many years prior.

"I can witness what happened thirty years ago first hand!" she beamed.

"Are you sure?" Ashwin asked, "I think I only saw the tape go out so far as 28-"

The ground beneath them shook.

"What was that?" Cassandra asked, staring bug-eyed at Ashwin, "Also, shouldn't we be able to see that tree's roots?"

With a roar the gremloblin stood up, the kids tumbling off it's back.

Ashwin and Cassandra screamed in terror for a moment, before jumping up and running in different directions.

The beast chose Cassandra as the best prey - maybe because she was shorter, or less athletic, or simply at random - and Cassandra quickly regretted her choice of direction, as she found herself on the edge of a precipice. Turning her back to the drop, she took in the creature, staring it in the eyes. She took a startled step back and tumbled down the drop, careening to the bottom where she landed at her father's feet.

He looked exactly as she'd left him, eyes glowing yellow and a horrible grin across his face. The world fell dark, like the worst possible cloud drifting across the sun. He knelt down before her, expression unchanging,

"Hey kid, check this out!" he sneered in not-really-his-own-voice, producing the kitchen knife.

Just as the blade plunged through his chest-

"Hey, HEY!" Cassandra was shaken back to reality with a jolt, and stared, deer-in-the-headlights, at the boy knelt in front of her. "You OK?" he asked. She noticed a mark just under his messy hair. "You looked right in the eyes of the Gremloblin. That doesn't usually end well. You're still kinda' glazed over," he noted, waving a hand in front of her face, "can you even hear me?"

"D- da- d- Dipper," she realized, dumbfounded, "Dipper!" not really in a position to handle any of the terrible cocktail of emotions careening through her, Cassandra acted on instinct and hugged the boy tight, startling him considerably.

"Cassie!" Ashwin called, rushing to his cousin's side. "Uh… is she bothering you?" he asked Dipper, Cassandra still clinging to her future-dad like a vice.

"Dude, she just saw her worst fear. She can do whatever she wants," Dipper assured him.

"Hey, cool birthmark," Ashwin noted. "OHMIGOD," he realized, eyes bugging out.

"What?" Dipper asked.

"N-nothing," Ashwin assured him, "no worries. Hey, Cassie," he muttered, "you ready to let go of him yet?"

"Sorry," Cassandra mumbled, releasing Dipper.

"Hey, dude, no problem. A gremloblin is rough to look at. Who are you guys?" he added, looking between Ashwin and Cassandra.

"Uh…" Cassandra thought it over; should she go by her real name, or was a fake name better suited to time travel? "I'm… Carrie," she decided, going off the fact that Ashwin had already called her 'Cassie,' "and this is my cousin, Al."

"Al?" Ashwin echoed.

"Al." Cassandra confirmed.

"Yeah, I'm Al," Ashwin accepted, "it's short for Albert, which I'd rather go by, but, you know, family."

"So… have we met? How did you know my name?" Dipper asked Cassandra.

"Your reputation precedes you…?" she offered, hoping that would fly.

Dipper laughed, "Really? Oh man- wow!"

"How old are you?" Cassandra asked, deciding that was a better question than 'what year is it.'

"Fourteen," Dipper responded. "why?"

"Hey! Cass- er, Carrie's fourteen!" Ashwin pointed out, "What a cowink-y-dink!"

Cassandra tried to count the years in her head, her fingers flicking up and down in an attempt at assistance.

Ashwin was right: they'd gone back 28 years. They were two years too late.

"Dammit," she muttered.

"Is, uh, something wrong?" Dipper prompted.

"No, it's, uh, it's fine," Cassandra assured him, "we're just… kinda' lost."

"Really? Where are you from?"

"Uh…" Cassandra pulled a blank, struggling to think of an answer that wouldn't make them sound really, really suspicious.

"Just, you know, the next town over," Ashwin filled in for her.

"Huh," Dipper responded, "well, do you guys want to come back to The Mystery Shack? I'm sure we can get you back from there."

"Sounds great," Cassandra agreed. "let's go, lead the way."

As they trailed Dipper out of the woods, Ashwin went for small-talk.

"So… you, uh, hang out in the woods a lot?" he asked Dipper.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," Dipper admitted, "there's a lot of cool stuff out here."

"Either that or your worst nightmares," Cassandra muttered.

"Well, sure, some of it looks creepy, but most of it is harmless," Dipper assured them.

Cassandra forced out a skeptical laugh.

"Though you just met a gremloblin," Dipper allowed, "that's pretty nasty."

Cassandra resisted the urge to mention things worse than the gremloblin.

"Dipper!" a mass of knitted joy collided with Dipper at the point where the woods began to thin out into bushes. She hooked him in with an arm over his shoulder. "You've been gone for, like, hours!"

Cassandra and Ashwin stared at the girl, eyes wide, taking in her bright colors, reflective earrings, glitter, and overall aura of joy.

"Oh, hey, uh, this is my sister, Mabel," Dipper said, gesturing at her.

"We're twins!" Mabel added. "And who is this?" she grinned, stepping up beside Ashwin. Very close beside Ashwin.

"I- I'm Al," Ashwin introduced himself with a half-hearted wave, 100% unsure of how to deal with this situation.

"Well aren't you a cutie!" she beamed, "Come here often?"

'What to Do When Your Mom as a Teenager Makes Goo-Goo Eyes at You' was definitely not covered on any help forum he'd ever seen.

"Actually," Cassandra cut in, noticing the fear in Ashwin's eyes, "we're from the next town over. We got kinda' turned around in the woods."

"I thought they could get home from The Shack," Dipper explained.

"Great idea!" Mabel agreed, skipping ahead. "Plus, there's tons of cool stuff at The Shack! And they can meet Soos, and-"

As Mabel went on Cassandra leaned close to her cousin,

"Back to the Future called, they want their plot line back," she muttered.

Ashwin punched her in the shoulder.

"I'm just saying," she shrugged.

They stepped out of the forrest and into The Mystery Shack's parking lot. Ashwin and Cassandra took it in.

"Shouldn't it look… newer?" Ashwin asked Cassandra under his breath.

She looked over The Shack, and saw what he meant. The Shack looked real worn-down, and apparently twenty-eight more years as Oregon's third most popular tourist attraction would only improve the worn-down building.

"It is kinda' counter-intuitive," she admitted.

"It's an odd looking place, isn't it?" Dipper prompted, noticing their wide eyes. "And it only gets weirder inside. Brace yourselves."

Dipper lead them through a room or two of the exhibits on their way to the gift shop, and the cousins worked to take it all in - what attractions had made it, which ones hadn't, which ones had paved the way for something greater - but no falsified 'horror' or 'wonder' of The Shack could compare to the jolt they'd already experienced today: their parents as teenagers. Indeed, the corn-i-corn and mummified mermaid were no match for even the next shock of Soos, twenty eight years younger.

"Hey, doods!" Soos beamed as the twins shuffled into the gift shop, "Who've you got with you there?"

"This is Al and Carrie," Dipper introduced them. Which was lucky, as Ashwin and Cassandra were a bit slack jawed and overwhelmed by the whole situation. Soos was so much younger, and so eager to be suited up as The Man of Mystery. He was different, somehow, than the steady facet of Gravity Falls that they had come to know.

"Well it's awesome to meet you doods!" Soos confirmed, shaking the kids' hands, "Enjoy your time at The Mystery Shack!"

Ashwin and Cassandra nodded weakly.

"Dude," said the teenager behind the counter, "are they, like, your cousins? Or…?""What?" Dipper asked.

"They just look way like you guys. Soos, tell me you don't see what I'm talking about."

Soos squinted at Ashwin and Cassandra, and Cassandra got up the nerve to gesture vaguely towards the counter and ask,

"Who's that?"

"Oh, uh, that's Wendy."

"I'm working here over the summer," the older teen explained, "it's nice to meet ya'."

Cassandra gazed at Wendy's long, flowing red hair, open green shirt, white tank top - Cassandra swallowed hard.

"It think I understand my middle name, now," she breathed.

"What?" Ashwin asked.

"Nothing," she muttered back, shaking off her mild daze, "don't worry about it."

"So, Carrie and Al got lost, and are looking for a way home-" Dipper started to explain, but Cassandra cut him off.

"A-actually, we're in no real hurry!" she insisted. "We have time."

"Are- are you sure?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah!" Cassandra assured him, "We were sort of looking to get over here, anyway. What- uh, what's cool around here? Any, um, major events, say, in the last two-"

Ashwin elbowed her in the side,

"What she means is, we might as well see the sights while we're here," he covered for her.

"Well, there's always Greasey's Diner, and the arcade," Mabel listed off, before being interrupted.

"Soos! Where in the he- God almighty there's more of them."

Cassandra and Ashwin flinched, startled by the gruff, familiar voice.

"This is Carrie and Al," Mabel explained to her Grunkle Stan, "they're from the next town over. Apparently they got lost in the woods."

"Somthin' wrong with 'em?" the old man asked, waving a hand in front of their stunned expressions.

They promptly shook their heads no in an attempt to indicate that they were more-or-less normal.

"Then are they mute?" he asked his great-niece and nephew.

"What were you looking for, Mr. Pines?" Soos interjected.

"Oh, yeah, there's this thing - about yea big - I left it here. Ahh, what's it called…?"

"That's our Grunkle Stan. He's a little harsh, but he's nice, really," Dipper insisted.

"No- I-I'm sure," Cassandra responded.

"Pleasant fellow," Ashwin added, still not over the jolt of seeing his great-grunkle younger, but still old.

The twins watched their uncle for a moment, wondering vaguely and futilely what, in fact, he was looking for, until Dipper's phone went off.

"Looks like candy found something," he muttered. Mabel also checked her phone, finding the same message.

"We should go check it out!" she insisted.

"What is it?" Cassandra piped up.

"Uh…"

"Is it something weird? And if so can we come with you? Please?"

"I- I don't know," Dipper stammered.

"We can handle it!" Cassandra assured him, "I fought gnomes, and befriended a bigfoot-"

"And a mermaid," Ashwin added.

"Yeah! And a mermaid! And pixies, and-"

"Let's bring 'em!" Mabel beamed, "I'm sure they can handle a little candy monster!"

Dipper shrugged in acceptance.

"We're going to grab a monster," he told the room at large, "see you in a few hours."

"Have fun," Wendy responded.

"You said candy monster?" Cassandra prompted, following the twins as they headed out of The Mystery Shack.

"A low class monster," Dipper explained, "it's a strange little hairless thing that steals summerween candy. And, presumably any holiday candy, and maybe even candy you just have lying around the house. It's sort of a pest."

"Got it," Cassandra responded, before Ashwin pulled her away to follow the twins a few feet back.

"Are you really serious about this?" he hissed, "Are we really just going to stay here?"

"I don't want to let a chance like this go by! Maybe people are less guarded about the thirty-year secret closer to the fact!"

"You're kidding, right?" Ashwin retorted, "What if it's some big traumatic event?! You want to open a fresh wound?"

"Who said it was something big and traumatic? It could just be something really weird they don't think we can handle! Or a conspiracy, or- I don't know! That's why it's a mystery!"

"We need to go home!"

"Twenty four hours," she pleaded, "just give me that. Then we'll go home, I promise."

Ashwin gave her a skeptical look, but seemed to accept it.

Once in town, the group headed into a gifts and stationary store, where Candy was waiting for them. Ashwin stared, bemused, at the small teenager that would grow into aunt Candy, but Cassandra had noticed a clock on the wall - 4:14. They'd missed several hours in the time jump.

"What's up?" Mabel asked, almost serious.

"We have about a 20-pound candy monster running loose in the storage room. The owner has been chasing it for hours," Candy explained. "I've tried to get her to simply lead it away with candy, but she doesn't want to part with any of her merchandise."

Dipper frowned,

"Have you tried to catch it?"

"She gets a little in the way," Candy explained.

The five of them peered into the back room - a glorified storage closet - to find an older woman trying to catch the scrabbling monstrosity to no avail.

"We need to distract it," Ashwin noted. "how 'bout some loud noises?"

"Could work," Dipper shrugged.

"On the count of three," Mabel said, "we all shout something. One! Two!"

Deep breaths were taken.

"THREE!"

Five hollering teenagers made a pretty good distraction. Good enough for the monster to pounce on Cassandra in an effort to stop them.

"GAAH!" Cassandra shrieked, falling backwards with the force of the creature. In her frantic flailing the thing was flung from her upper arm and into the main store. Disoriented, it scuttled around in angry confusion, hissing at them.

"Keep it away from the candy!" Dipper ordered.

"Easier said than done," Cassandra muttered, rubbing her arm and wondering if the freak drew blood.

"Back up!" Ashwin hollered. Full of adrenaline and drawing on his time as a youngster at soccer camps Ashwin hurled his foot at the nasty little thing, booting it out into the street where it whimpered, hissed, and scurried away.

The room was silent for a moment.

"Shoo!" the woman running the shop finally broke in, "Get out! I have enough to fix without having to work around you all! Shoo! Out!" she insisted, shuffling them out the door.

"Sorry," Cassandra said as they all stood on the sidewalk. "guess we aren't that great of monster hunters."

"I don't know," Dipper shrugged, "all things considered, that went about as well as it usually does."

"Good to know," Cassandra nodded.

"You guys did good!" Mabel beamed, "Good kick," she added, winking at Ashwin and throwing him a finger gun.

Ashwin could muster only a squeaky nervous laugh in response.

"Your arm is hurt," Candy stated, handing Cassandra a handful of bandaids. "you need to fix it."

"Th-thanks," Cassandra accepted the bandages, and rolled up her sleeve. "That's the second monster that's done real damage," she muttered, remembering her gnome bite.

"That'll be a little rough to explain to your parents," Dipper noted.

"Eh, I could say it was a branch or something," Cassandra shrugged.

"Either way we need to get you guys home," he reminded them, "the last bus leaves in an hour or two-"

Cassandra froze. They couldn't go home. Home was 28 years from now. Her mind reeled looking for an excuse.

"Buut… that's after dark!" she said, "Our parents just can't stand us being out after dark. They might rather we stay- stayed with you guys."

Boy, this was a flimsy argument, she realized. But she got lucky, because Mabel was thrilled with the idea.

"OK! I'm sure it'll be fine! We can get out the sleeping bags, you can stay for dinner, we can spend some more time together," she concluded, wrapping an arm around each cousin, though leaning particularly on Ashwin.

"Well, you should call your parents and make sure," Dipper pointed out.

"Right, yeah, of course," Cassandra said. "we'll just use that phone over there," she concluded, noticing an old pay phone and pulling her cousin with her to it.

"How are we going to do that?!" Ashwin hissed, "Our parents aren't here!"

"Well, two of them are right there," Cassandra reminded him, "but I get it. We can just mime using this thing, say a few words to 'Mom', and be done with it!"

"How does this ancient thing even work?" he asked.

"Uh…" Cassandra hesitated, "that's a coin slot! So, fake coin in slot," she muttered, putting her hand up the hole and trying to obscure it from the other kids' view. She put in a random ten digits, and lifted the phone. She waited a moment, as if it was ringing, nerves high, feeling as though the twins were watching their every move and would notice any small flaws in her performance.

"Hi, Mom!" she finally spoke, "We were out in the woods, you know, and ran into some cool kids. Yeah, it's a little weird, but now we're so far out of town-" she waited for a moment, wondering how a mother might respond to that, before deciding she'd waited long enough. "Uh-huh. See, we're in Gravity Falls, and we think it might be a little late by the time we get home." she waited a moment more. "Yes, I know how you hate it if we're out late. They're great kids, really. We'll be staying at that tourist trap, The Mystery Shack? … Yeah, that's the one. We'll come back in the morning, I swear. … And Ash- Al's parents are OK with it, too? … Great. Love you, Mom. Bye." Cassandra hung up, took a deep breath, and turned back to the group, hoping her little act held up, "We have permission!" she assured them with a smile.

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