Short 51 - Socks and Sweaters

I suppose that I must admit something at this juncture.

I was afraid.

I was afraid of what the future was going to be. Of what might yet come about from whatever Rassilon was planning. The Master had made it clear that it would be destructive. And knowing Rassilon's usual scale, it would be destructive to the limits of even a Time Lord's imagination. Could I, could even the Doctor, stop him?

But I was also afraid of the future in general. Even if I beat Rassilon, how might that affect my life. Would I regain my memories, just to be torn between my old self and my current self? Would I get to keep my TARDIS and keep traveling the wonders of Creation, or would I end up stranded somewhere as a result of my actions?

Because of this fear, there was a part of me that didn't want to focus on the search for final answers. A part that just wanted to go back to traveling and enjoying myself. And, if I must be honest, I was letting that part start to dictate my actions a bit. I was finding myself hesitant to continue searching. Instead it was just bouncing around, doing the usual adventuring and making people look at me like I was mad. That's always fun.

These thoughts were on my mind when I noticed something peculiar on the TARDIS systems. A dimensional instability. A growing one. Some sort of rift of the nasty variety.

The Cracks were bad enough. I didn't want something like this to get worse.

When I stepped out of the TARDIS I found myself in a forest with a structure visible through some of the trees, although I couldn't make out the sign on it. Something about the area felt a bit off. A bit. Like time-space was a little on the warped side here. I recognized the feeling from before, but I gave it no thought in consideration of what I was investigating. I held the sonic screwdriver out and followed it forward. It was then that I heard the sound of someone running across the cleared ground. I followed the noise in time to see a figure curled up against one of the trees, going through the contents of a backpack. "Urgh, wrong backpack." The speaker was a young girl, long brown hair, brown eyes, and an utterly broken look on a face that looked like smiling was a more natural countenance. Her knees curled up and she stretched her sweater to cover herself from ankle to forehead. "It's not fair. I just want summer to last forever."

I walked over and was standing nearby by the time she was in this state. "Well, hello there," I said. "Is something wrong?"

"Sweater Town is not accepting calls right now," she answered from within the confines of her stretched out sweater. It had a little birthday cake design on it and confetti elsewhere.

"Hrm," I answered. "Sweater Town? Now there's somewhere I've never been before. Sounds like an interesting place. What's it like? Good schools? Nice roads? A classical little city hall at Cardigan Way and Jersey Street? Hopefully a decent pub too." I lowered myself to sit down against the tree beside her. I waved the sonic around a moment before putting it back in my pocket for the moment. "And I fully expect for them to make some rather decent sweaters in the local sweater factory. Although I have to be honest that I'm partial to jackets myself."

For several seconds there was no reaction. And then she popped her head out of the sweater. She was still upset by the look of her face. "What do you want?"

"Oh, just looking about," I said. I turned slightly and extended my right hand across my chest, palm open. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor." I winked. "And I'm a bit of a doctor at everything, if you must ask."

The young lady considered my extended hand for a moment. It was after a few moments of my reply that she reached forward and accepted. "My name is Mabel," she said.

"Mabel? Lovely name." I nodded and finished the handshake. "So, it's a nice summer evening, from the look of things. Pacific Northwest I'd say. Normally this kind of weather and environment lends itself to something other than hiding out in Sweater Town." I folded my hands on one knee. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?", she asked.

"Whatever it is that has you so upset, Maybe I can help?"

"Only if you know how to stop time and make it summer forever," Mabel answered sadly.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. Quite the odd request... or maybe not so odd, come to think of it. She was young, after all. "Well, I admit wanting an eternal summer isn't an issue for me, just have to change where and when I am. But for you, that seems a rather tall order. Why is it you want eternal summer?"

"Because I don't want this summer to end," she said. "I don't want to grow up and go to high school because they're all mean there. And my friends won't be here for the birthday party and my brother's going to stay and be a stupid apprentice to my Grunkle Ford." Mabel lowered her head as tears came to her face. "I don't want us to break up. I want Dipper to come back home with me."

"I see." I drew in a breath. The poor girl looked like she had lost her last friend. Convincing her that the world wasn't ending tonight was going to be a bit of a task. "That is some pretty big stuff, yes," I answered. "No wonder you don't want the summer to end. Unfortunately, time doesn't work that way."

"Why does it have to?", she asked, still rather upset. "We were happy here. We were having a great summer. But now it's all over."

"Well, yes," I agreed. I looked up at the red twilight sky. It was certainly more foreboding than I would have thought it would be. "That's part of life, Mabel. Things end. Good things, bad things. Eventually they end and something else begins. And that something else can be even better."

"It's not going to be, though," Mabel protested.

"Oh, you don't know that," I pointed out. "Certainly there may be some things you don't like as much, but there are other things that can be even better. The future's like that. Just this big ol' birthday present all wrapped up, and you never know what you'll find inside. Could be a nice new sweater, could be a package of socks you don't need."

"I don't know, is that bad to have the socks?", Mabel asked, her face becoming thoughtful for the moment. "You could always make sock puppets with them."

I made a show of thinking it over. "Huh. I suppose you could. Clever thinking there."

Her expression had brightened a bit, but still seemed quite sad. "I just wish Dipper was going to be there with me."

"Ah, well, you never know, he might be," I pointed out. "I mean, you two are siblings, yes? How far apart in age are you?"

"About five minutes," she answered.

I "ahhed" and nodded. "Twins, eh? Well, that sounds even better. You've been in each others lives since forever, right?" When she nodded, I continued, "Well, I suspect he needs you as much as you need him. He'll come around."

"You think so?"

"That I do. Don't be afraid to talk to him about it. Either way, best to move forward." I smiled gently at her. "Future's nothing to be scared about, really. Better to roll with it, see what it brings, and grow from the experience."

As I said those words, I found myself contemplating them. Maybe there was a difference in scale involved, but I realized I had to take the same viewpoint in mind. I couldn't run from what my future held; I had to face it. I had to deal with it. And Rassilon. The fate of many worlds could rest on stopping his plans.

For her part, Mabel seemed to be considering what I had been saying. "And what about our birthday party?", she finally asked. "None of my friends will get to be there."

"Ah, well… Good question." I scratched at my chin. A thought came to my mind. A bit of charity and fun. "Your friends are going to be out of town presumably? Off at band camp or the like?"

"Yeah."

I looked at Mabel and allowed the smile on my face to grow. "Ah, well, I can't say no to a face like that, can I? I'll help you with your birthday party. Your friends will get to go and no one who shouldn't know will be the wiser."

The response was a look of hope barely veiled by forced suspicion. "How?", she asked.

"I suppose I should mention that I am a time traveler," I said. "Well, not just that. My ship can travel through six dimensions of time and space. But the fun part is, I can go pick your friends up, take them to your party, and then bring them back a moment after I picked them up. It'll be like they were never gone."

I would have thought that she would be dismissive and I'd have to prove things. I was rather surprised when she didn't seem the least bit shocked at the prospect of time travel. Instead it was just pragmatic investigation with the question, "You're not lying, are you?"

"Not at all. Cross my hearts and all that." I made the gesture with both hands over my respective hearts.

Mabel seemed interested in that. "Wait, you actually have two hearts?"

"Well, part of being a Time Lord and all…"

"So you've got twice the hearty-ness I do!" She chuckled. "Hearty-ness!"

I had to chuckle at that. "Well, I suppose, yes. Surprising that you seem so ready to believe it though."

"If you spent a summer in Gravity Falls, you would believe anything," she assured me.

"Ah? That's the name of this area, eh? Now you've got me interested. But first things first." I pulled out my sonic screwdriver again. "Might I see that bag?"

"Oh? What is that?"

"It's my sonic screwdriver. It does a lot of things. Scanning is one of its more useful things."

"So it's a nerd tool or something, huh?" Mabel took the backpack and handed it to me. "It's just my brother's nerd books and mission stuff…"

I accepted the bag and reached in. I felt a sphere inside and pulled out… ahhh. No wonder I had those readings. I held up the object to her. "And what do we have here?" It looked like a snowglobe, if you could make an unstable rift in space-time an ornament. The square base was clearly a containment and stabilization unit. One that wasn't quite working anymore, given the size of the crack growing in the glass-like globe. "Well, this is what I came here looking for, I think."

"What is it?", Mabel asked. "I've never seen Dipper with that before."

"It's a tear in space-time," I said. "Look at that fluidity… quite unstable. Has anyone been opening trans-dimensional portals without proper stabilization protocols in place?"

"Well…" She looked a little sheepish. "My Grunkle Stan sort of did something lie that a few weeks ago."

A few weeks. Yikes. "A good thing he put this in containment, or you would already have severe problems," I told her. "There are all sorts of nasty entities who would love to get their hands on something like this. The Queen of the Elves, the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, Hastur, the Master, various Gods of Chaos…."

Before I could continue a young boy's voice called out "Mabel!" We both looked toward the source of the voice. A young man about Mabel's age and size was coming up, wearing a dark blue vest with a red shirt underneath and a pair of gray shorts. He had a hat on with a pine tree insignia on it. Given the obvious resemblance, this was presumably the twin brother Dipper.

But what really drew my attention was the gentleman coming alongside him in the brown coat. What gave him away, more than anything, was the sixth finger on each hand, although even with the gray hair I knew him by sight. I started to stand. "Well well, Stanford Pines, old boy! I didn't expect to find you here."

Stanford stopped and stared for a moment before smiling. "Ha! Doctor, nice to see you again! It's been a couple of decades.. at least on my end it has." He stepped up and offered his hand. Not for the first time I noted with some amusement that his voice, if it were made a bit more reserved and controlled, would sound a lot like Tenzin. "How did you get your TARDIS out of that dimensional vortex? I thought you were a goner for sure!"

I accepted the handshake with my free hand. "Oh, a bit of quick thinking, some more power from the Time Vortex, that sort of thing," I replied. "I went back to look for you, but there was no trace."

"Secondary vortex caught me," Stanford answered. "Swept me off to another dimension."

"Ah." I nodded. "Well, at least you got home, I take it? This is your home dimension?"

"It is."

Dipper looked from me to Stanford. "Grunkle Ford, you know him?"

"Sure I do! He's called the Doctor. He's a humanoid alien with a dimensional ship. We ran into each other during my traveling through the other dimensions."

I held up the rift. "So this is your handiwork? I take it if you're Grunkle Ford, than Grunkle Stan is the twin you told me about? He actually got you home?"

There was a hint of irritation from Stanford at the mention of said twin. He'd barely talked about the other fellow when we met. "Yes. Stan disregarded my warnings and activated the portal."

"But that's how you got home," Mabel pointed out. "So everything's okay, right?"

"No, it's not," Stanford said. "Stan's recklessness created that interdimensional rift. It's a danger to the entire Earth."

"Oh, Grunkle Ford!" Dipper reached into the other backpack, presumably Mabel's, and pulled out an object. "Here's that alien glue."

"Alien glue?" I blinked and looked at it. After a moment I realized where I had seen it before. "Oh, no wonder. This is that valley with the crashed alien space craft, is it? I was here a thousand years ago sealing a Crack in the Multiverse."

"A story for another time, Doctor. The rift, if you please?"

I nodded and extended my hand.

As I did so, I heard something. At the periphery of my senses. It was so faint…

Had it been less faint, I might have acted in time.

A rock came sailing in just as my hand released the rift into Stanford's grip. It smashed into said rift and knocked it out of his hands. A rather stout form flickered into view as it ran between us and dived, grabbing the rift as he did so. A laugh filled the air as he landed face-first into the roots of a tree.

"Wait, isn't that the time travel guy?", Mabel asked.

"At last!", the man cried. "At long last! I've…"

I felt a familiar tinge at the moment and thrust my hand into my pocket for the TARDIS remote. Just as I did he looked toward us. The impact had pulled his goggles off his eyes.

His gold, cat-like, utterly mad eyes.

"Bill!", Stanford shouted.

I didn't need the confirmation. Bill Cipher. A demented extradimensional entity who sought constant escape from his decaying prison dimension.

"It's too late, Sixer! This world is mine!" Bill, in his borrowed body, threw the rift to the ground.

As it shattered, I summoned the TARDIS. It materialized around us as the rift began to expand uncontrollably, and presumably under Bill's direction.

I held out a hand and pulled the TARDIS activation lever, shifting us into the Time Vortex for safety's sake before Bill could do anything. "There, now we're safe," I informed them.

"Wait... where are we?" Dipper looked around.

"This is the Doctor's TARDIS," Stanford answered for me. "His dimension-traveling ship."

"Woh." I thought for a moment that Mabel would literally get stars in her eyes.

Dipper, however, quickly reverted back to the business at end. "Oh no, what do we do?!", Dipper shouted. He looked to Stanford. "Grunkle Ford, what do we do?! Bill broke open the rift! He's going to destroy the world!"

I looked to Stanford, who went from frowning to grinning as he saw the look on my face. He knew it, too, from our adventure so long ago. "I think the Doctor has a plan," he told his great nephew.

"Of course I do," I said, flipping switches and twisting knobs on the TARDIS. "But first things first. I need to get some things together. And the most important one is right…" I reached above the TARDIS controls and pulled the relevant item down. "...here!"

Dipper looked at me skeptically. "That's just a hat."

"It looks like Grunkle Stan's hat," Mabel observed.

"It's not just any hat, Dipper," I answered enthusiastically. "It's my lucky fez." I put the fez right on my head. "So, children, are you both ready to save the world?"

"I am!", Mabel shouted with just as much enthusiasm as I'd shown.

Dipper was clearly a bit more bewildered by everything going on, but seeing his sister like that made him rally. He pumped his fists and added, "Me too!"

"We're with you, Doctor!", Stanford pledged.

"Good, good! Because now we're going to make a plan…"

I admit that it was quite the thrill. As much as I knew Bill Cipher would be a pain in the arse to deal with now that he was corporeal, nothing gets my hearts going like a good adventure and saving the world and all that stuff. It's a big morale lift.

Suffice to say we did win, and it was crazy and bizarre and quite glorious by the end.

Oh, yes, sorry about that. I know you're probably curious for more details. But that's not the point of this tale. Rather it was about how talking things out with Mabel. By helping her, I also found that the talk helped me face my own fears for the future. I had to do just as I advised her to do; go forward and open that wrapped up gift of the future, whether it had nice sweaters or bad socks. It's how life works. We get up every day and see if it's the sweaters or the socks. Or both.

And then we turn the socks into sock puppets. If it helps.

But rest assured, I did not disappoint Mabel. She did indeed get her desired birthday party with her twin brother and all of their friends from Gravity Falls (quite a name for a place, isn't it?). I made sure of it. And it was probably the best birthday they'll ever have.

After all, how can you do better than a birthday party on Disneyplanet?