Chapter Sixteen

"Look, Ariel, I don't think he's gonna do it again, and I'm keeping a stricter eye on him so that it won't happen again," Stan said after he had explained to Ariel Pines what Dipper had done to himself.

"I don't know if being in Gravity Falls is such a good idea for him," Ariel spoke through the phone. "He just got back from the hospital again, and the dosage on his medication was finally regular. If he's having issues, his medication needs to be checked."

"I could take him somewhere near here," Stan suggested. "Then he won't have to leave, but he'll get his medicine fixed up."

"I don't know…" Ariel trailed off. "He was making progress here, and I don't want a different psychiatrist to mess up his medicine."

"I'll find someone and you can have your guy send over records," Stan said. "Please, Ariel; Dipper was so scared of having to go back home. I promised him I'd try to convince you otherwise."

"I just don't know, Stan," Ariel said. "I'll talk to Doctor Warren and see what he says. He might think it's a bad idea to switch Dipper over to a different psychiatrist that he doesn't trust, but if he says it's all right, I guess it's fine with me." Ariel didn't really want her son to be somewhere else when he was having issues like this, but if Stan was telling the truth, and Dipper desperately wanted to stay in Gravity Falls, she would try her best. "I'll call you in a few days after I speak with Doctor Warren."

"Thank you, Ariel," Stan said before the two shared their goodbyes and ended their conversation. Stan wouldn't break the news to Dipper just yet; he didn't want to tell the kid he was going to stay in Gravity falls until it was absolutely certain that he would.

Stan left his office, going to the kitchen where he was planning to make breakfast for the twins. He hadn't expected his kitchen to be a wreck and two kids making breakfast inside of it.

Well, Dipper was sitting on the counter with his ankle wrapped in a bandage that Soos had found for him, with crutches leaning against the counter beside him. Stan noticed the kid was still forgoing his sweatshirts and wearing t-shirts. The scars that kid had…Stan purposefully avoided looking at them.

Mabel was standing in front of the stove, making pancakes with…glitter on them? Stan hoped those were sprinkles.

The two suddenly turned to their uncle with big smiles on their faces. Dipper looked tired, though. Stan hoped he was sleeping through the night.

"Happy Grunkles day!" the two exclaimed loudly when they noticed their uncle in the room.

"What?" Stan asked.

"It's Uncles day in Canada," Dipper mentioned; his tone was laced with fatigue.

He hasn't been sleeping, Stan commented internally.

"In Canada?" Stan asked. The twins nodded. "You know we're in America, right?" At least the last time he checked they were in America.

"Of course we know we're in America," Mabel said, rolling her eyes playfully. "But I thought that you might want a nice breakfast from your favorite niece and nephew."

"You two are my only niece and nephew," Stan said. "Nothing makes you my favorite; you're just the only two I got."

"Well, you've gotta appreciate that we tried," Dipper said. "And those aren't sprinkles."

"GLITTER ATTACK!" Mabel exclaimed as she threw more glitter into the pancakes.

After the horribly glitter-tasting pancakes – that Stan totally ate because he wanted to see his niece smile – the man stocked the gift shop while Dipper sat on the counter by the cash register and Mabel worked with the register. Stan had banned her from it, but the brunette girl always seemed to work her way back to it.

Last Stan checked, though, the twins weren't getting along, and it was slightly suspicious that they were getting along so well now.

"Weren't you two fighting yesterday?" Stan asked the twins. While they hadn't been physically fighting, and hadn't said anything about it, he could tell when siblings were fighting. He was all too experienced in that department. Each twin turned to look at him.

"We're working on it," Mabel said. It was clear in her voice that she didn't want to talk about it, and even Dipper wouldn't meet his eyes. Stan felt he was doing his job if Dipper wasn't leaving and punching himself all over the place.

The day went on somewhat normal for once. Stan still found it strange that Dipper never spout out anything about adventuring or paranormal investigations. The last time the kid had been there, the whole summer was full of nothing but whatever was in that journal.

The journal…

Stan needed to find it.

"Hey, Mabel?" Stan asked. "Can I talk to you alone for a minute, sweetie?"

"Sure thing, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, stepping away from the register. Stan waved over to Soos to keep an eye on Dipper as he took Mabel into the kitchen. "What's up?"

"I wanted to know if you knew how to get the journal away from Dipper," Stan said. "I want to keep an eye on it so he doesn't get worse than he is now."

Stan thought it was going to be difficult to get something like this out of Mabel. He thought she would have wanted to protect him from their uncle, including his possessions. That's why Stan hadn't expected Mabel to say, "It's under my pillow," so quickly.

"What?" Stan asked.

"It's underneath my pillow," Mabel repeated. "I was scared he was going to get caught up in the journal and end up hurting himself again, so I hid it underneath my pillow. He has no idea where it is."

"Can I have it?" Stan asked. He wasn't sure if Mabel was still wanting to protect her brother by keeping it safe for him.

"Of course," Mabel said, and that's when Stan realized that the twins were in deeper trouble than he thought.

Closing time. The twins were safely in bed. Soos and Wendy were off for the day. Stan had the third journal.

He entered his secret code on the vending machine before entering the lab underneath the Mystery Shack.

He had waited far too long.

He was going to get his brother back.

Iloohu.

So, I finally updated. I know it was a long wait, but you can all thank Xyakori for PMing me and managing to pull me out of this hiatus. I was on hiatus because of being a full-time college student - even though I totally have until chapter twenty-one written - but I figured I owed you guys something. I wanted to wait until I finished another chapter to post it, but I figured it would be okay to do it now. It's been, like, four months now, so you guys deserve it.

I'm sorry for taking so long (and my cipher creator is under maintenance right now, so I had to use another one and I seriously hope it works). This was shorter than I'd like it to be, but at least it's something.