Chapter Nineteen

"Finally, after all these years, I made it," Stan said as he stared onto the portal he had to rebuild and reactivate. He actually learned a thing or two about this sciency stuff in the process. His brother would be proud. Or so he thought. "Now just to give it a little more time." Stan sighed in relief at the knowledge that his brother was coming back. He turned and headed out of the basement, making sure no one was in the gift shop before leaving through the secret entry-way in the vending machine. Stan was actually pretty proud of himself for managing to keep all of this a secret for so long. Especially with the kids watching him like a hawk this visit.

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel asked, popping out of god knows where. Stan actually jumped when he heard her voice. It was so unlike her voice from the last time she was there. Stan had noticed how both the twins had matured since the last time he saw them.

"What is it?" Stan asked in a grumpy voice. He couldn't let the kids know he was happy about the fact that his brother was coming back. They couldn't know.

"I was wondering if I could have that journal back?" Mabel asked. Stan caught on to the puppy eyes. He knew she was trying to get it back to her brother. Dipper must have found out that she got rid of it.

"I'm not gonna give it to you if you're just gonna run it to your brother," Stan said. "You know he's sick, Mabel. He doesn't need the exposure to stuff like that."

"You're right," Mabel fibbed. "I'd just feel safer about it if I knew exactly where it was. Trust me, he can't get a thing out of me. I've got buns of steel."

Stan squinted his eyes. "Well, if you say you won't give it to your brother, you can have it." Stan knew he would regret it, but he dug out the old book and handed it over to Mabel. "Don't give it to your brother."

"You got it, dude," Mabel said as she rushed up to the attic. Of course she would give it to Dipper. Anything to stop Bill. Mabel reached the attic, shutting and locking the door behind her so that Stan wouldn't interrupt them. "I got the journal, Dipstick, but I don't know how we're going to use it to stop Bill."

"I can find something," Dipper said. "Bill's been plaguing my mind for years now. If there's something in here to stop him, anything at all, I should be able to recognize it in my subconscious and it'll tell us about Bill."

"I hope you're right about this," Mabel responded.

"Me too."

Dipper looked through the journal a hundred times over. There was nothing. Nothing stood out to him, even after all the time Bill had spent playing around in his head. Dipper was at a loss and figured he'd be stuck like this forever.

"Anything?" Mabel asked after two hours of nonstop looking.

"Nope," Dipper responded.

"You need a break," Mabel suggested. "You've been at this for hours. You're even squinting while you're reading."

"It's been a while since I've read so much in one sitting," Dipper said. Everyone had been keeping an eye on him ever since he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. There was no time to sit around and read for so long, and if he did, everyone thought something was wrong with him and that he needed another checkup.

"You should come downstairs and eat something," Mabel suggested. Dipper's ankle was healed enough for him to walk lately, and Mabel needed to get her brother out of the stuffy attic. "Maybe we can convince Grunkle Stan to take us out to eat?"

"Because that went so well last time," Dipper muttered sarcastically under his breath in an irritated tone. "I don't really want to see anyone in town right now. Gideon already popped up last time we were in town and called me insane."

"What are the odds that we bump into him twice?" Mabel asked. "Besides, maybe he's changed from being nuts to being nice? You never know."

"Yeah, I mean, I went from being nice to nuts," Dipper responded.

"Now that's not what I meant," Mabel said. "You're not nuts. You told me yourself that it's Bill's fault, and I believe you. So I'm going to help fix you. Soos might help too."

"I think he's on Grunkle Stan's side now," Dipper said. "We need to take care of this on our own. Everyone else just thinks I'm crazy because a doctor decided to label me with a mental disease."

"Well, there's nothing the two of us can't do as long as we're together," Mabel said. "Just tell me what to do and the Mystery Twins are back in action, bro bro."

"You haven't said a sentence that wild in a long time," Dipper said. He even allowed himself to laugh at the oddly constructed sentence.

"Well, maybe I just needed to stop worrying about you so much and start listening," Mabel responded. "Anyway, let's get to work! After a lunch break."

"Okay, okay, we'll do something for lunch," Dipper said.

"Yay!"

Thankfully, they didn't run into anyone at the diner when they had asked Stan to take them. He had complained that he was busy with the shop, but Dipper managed to pull eyes on him to get what he wanted. Dipper noticed he had that effect on people ever since he had been diagnosed.

Dipper wasted no time getting back to the journal, but Mabel was still a bit worried. She was trying to help, but it just seemed like Dipper was falling back into old habits and obsessing about the journal.

Not doing anything with the journal wouldn't fix their problems, but obsessing over it could make things a lot worse. Mabel wasn't sure she wanted to play with those odds right now, but she figured she had no other choice. Mabel felt like she owed it to Dipper to help him after not listening to him for the past few years.

"I keep thinking this circle has something to do with it," Dipper said, mostly to himself, in the room. It piqued Mabel's interest.

"What circle?" Mabel asked as she peeked over Dipper's shoulder.

The circle was an image of Bill Cipher in the middle with several symbols surrounding it. Mabel had noticed it before, but she never paid it much mind. It wasn't like Bill was super important those years ago. Well…at least not to her…

"What do you think it means?" Mabel asked.

"I don't know," Dipper said. "But do you see that?" He pointed to the pine tree, the shooting star, and the journal symbols.

"I get the journal and the pine tree, but what about the star?" Mabel asked. She recognized the pine tree from Dipper's old hat and the journal from the cover.

"You were wearing a shooting star sweater when we first came to Gravity Falls," Dipper said. "Bill even calls you that. He calls me 'pine tree' and you 'shooting star'. What if we have something to do with this and he calls us by that to identify our relationship with the circle?"

"I guess it's a possibility," Mabel said. "But that sounds way bigger than just us. I mean, there are plenty of symbols in the circ…" Mabel slumped her shoulders over, eyes widened in shock.

"What is it?" Dipper asked.

"It's the symbol of Grunkle Stan's hat."

"That's it!" Dipper exclaimed. "I'm getting sick of you doing this to me! You're destroying my family and my life!"

"You know how to get rid of me," Bill responded. He held out his hand with a blue flame accompanying it. "Are you finally ready to make a deal?"

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