WARPED

Chapter 24

Lucy blinked in the bright sunlight and took in her surroundings. It took her a moment to realize that she was on the roof of the Mystery Shack.

How in the world did she get up here?

Wobbling slightly, she blocked the sun with her hand, gazing out into the sea of green forest and the specks of the town in the distance. What the hell? Had she gone sleep-stargazing or something?

"Ha! Sleep-stargazing. That's a new one."

Lucy jerked. Bill hovered above her, hands behind the tip of his triangular head.

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" Lucy grumbled.

"Nah, not really. Bothering you is so fun!" Bill laughed. "Especially considering the show we just put on downstairs, Pen."

"Show? Downstairs? What the freak are you talking about?"

"I'll sum it up for ya in a few words." Bill's face vanished, leaving behind a TV-like screen. Onscreen was Lucy saying some pretty harsh words to Jocelyn, and then Jocelyn lunging across the table for Lucy's throat.

Bill laughed. "That Music Note sure does have a temper!"

Lucy blanched. "I...I don't remember any of that…"

"Of course you don't!" Bill said. "You weren't in control, dummy!"

It hit Lucy like a slap to the face. She balled her hands into fists, glaring up at Bill in fury. "What the heck? I never gave you permission to do that!"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Bill shook his finger at her, like she was a baby who was reaching for the cookie jar before dinner. "We shook, remember? You are mine. And that means I can take over for you whenever I want."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Lucy yelled.

Bill chuckled. "We've covered this ground, Pen! I'm never leaving you alone."

All of the fight went out of Lucy as the sheer helplessness of her situation hit her like a brick wall.

"But - but we didn't shake on that!" Lucy cried, indignant. "We agreed that I'd get them where you want them!"

"The devil's always in the details, isn't it, Pen?" Bill asked slyly, examining his fingernails.

"LUCY, WHO THE FREAK ARE YOU TALKING TO?" came a yell from Lucy's left.

Lucy's heart plummeted. Hazelle and Jocelyn were perched half in the Shack, half on the roof, staring at Lucy in bafflement.

"Ooh, company!" Bill sang. "I wish I had popcorn to see you try to explain this one, Pen."

"I...um…" Lucy swallowed, the lump in her throat not going away. "I'm not talking to anyone."

"Um, yeah, you are," Jocelyn accused, eyes narrowed in suspicion and contemptuous curiosity. "You were shouting at thin air."

"I was...I was...singing!" Lucy yammered. "Can't a girl get some privacy to sing...on the roof...around here?"

Bill laughed over Lucy's shoulder. "Nice one, Pen. Real great cover up."

"Lucy." Hazelle's voice was stern, but her eyes were huge and worried. "Are you okay? Be honest. Please. We're concerned."

"She's concerned," Jocelyn corrected, flipping her braid over her shoulder and crossing her arms. "I'm just here to be the good looking one."

Hazelle shot her a look before looking back to Lucy.

"You know you can tell us if something's wrong, right?"

But Lucy ignored her question, her anger at Jocelyn reaching the boiling point.

"Does everything seriously need to always be about you?" Lucy snapped. "God, I could've fallen off and you would have found a way to turn the conversation back on you!"

"It's not my fault you've been acting weird!" Jocelyn fired back, getting steamed. "I'm just trying to keep things normal around here!"

"Normal. Right." Lucy barked a dark laugh she hadn't known she'd had. "Have you forgotten? We're in Gravity Falls. Nothing is normal." She paused. "I think I'm finally understanding that."

"Lucy?" Hazelle asked tentatively. "What's going on?"

"I dunno, Pen," said Bill with an air of ease. "Maybe you should spill the beans. They're gonna found out eventually, right? Ooooor," he mused, "that may not be the best idea. Think of how betrayed they'll feel. You've been fraternizing with the enemy! We've been hanging out for days!"

Lucy's confidence faltered. "I - Nothing. Just homesick I guess." Lucy wanted to kick herself for backing down like that.

"I would kick you, if I could!" Bill answered her thoughts. "I wanted a showdown!"

Jocelyn narrowed her eyes, but, for once, kept her comments to herself.

"Well, just know you can come to us," Hazelle began, elbowing Jocelyn in the side upon her snort of disgust, "for anything, okay?"

Lucy nervously tucked short black behind her ears, avoiding Hazelle's eyes. "Yeah, sure."

"Okay." Hazelle gave a sweet, sincere smile. It tugged at Lucy's heart. "We're gonna get home eventually. You know that, right?"

Bill rolled his eye. "Heeeere we go. Caduceus is getting sappy."

"Sure, yeah, of course," Lucy said, shooting a glare at the dream demon. "You guys can head back in, okay? I'll be there soon."

Hazelle and Jocelyn left, but Lucy was sure she hadn't convinced them she was sane.

"Yeesh. I'm outta here, Pen," Bill grumbled. "I can't handle all the dumb sweetness. But don't worry: I'll see ya in your dreams, kid! Very, very soon!"

In a spark of light, the dream demon was gone, and Lucy felt the first real moment of quiet she'd gotten in a while.

XxX

As the day passed, Lucy felt more and more awful.

It hurt to watch Hazelle and Jocelyn become so accustomed to life in Gravity Falls. They got along with the Pines so well - Hazelle and Dipper were conspiracy theory nerd buddies, Jocelyn and Mabel were BFFs, and all four of them seemed to get along with Stan just fine.

But Lucy? Her only "friend" was an incessant dream demon that kept possessing her body without her permission. Fantastic.

She couldn't say she avoided everyone taking residence up in the Shack, because she did continue to hang out with them - Hazelle kept pestering her to join them for meals, and Lucy obliged to both satisfy her rumbling stomach and shut Hazelle up. It took all of Lucy's willpower to not smack the worried look clear off Hazelle's face, but she knew doing so would only make her strange life even worse.

That night, after a gourmet dinner of ham and cheese sandwiches and tap water, Lucy skulked up to the roof again. She sat on the edge, watching the sun set. It really hit Lucy at that moment just how alone she was. She'd practically lost the friends she'd come to Gravity Falls with, and she'd probably lose them for good once they returned to their reality. Who was left?

Lucy curled into herself, knees pressed against her chest. The answer was no one.

The window that led out into the roof creaked open, and two heavy feet wobbled down the length of the roof to stand behind her. "Up for some stargazin', huh, kid?"

Lucy shrugged. "They're out tonight. Why not?"

Stan struggled to sit down beside her, cursing under his breath about his back. "Ya don't wanna hang out with the other twerps?"

"No." Lucy sighed. "They don't want to hang out with me."

"Correction: the loud one doesn't. But Four Eyes, Mabel, and the boy don't seem to care all that much. As long as you're not releasing the forces of darkness or anything."

Lucy winced. If only he knew. "I like being on my own sometimes. That's all."

Stan hummed noncommittally, elbows on his knees. "I get that. You can only take so much of the world at one time. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to just stare up at something that ain't gonna judge you, y'know?"

Lucy rested her chin on her knees. "Yeah, I do."

Memories of when she had been downstairs earlier came to the surface. Jocelyn had ignored her to an even greater degree. If Lucy came within five feet of her, Jocelyn would immediately turn around and strike up a lively conversation with the nearest person, deliberately keeping Lucy out. The worst was whenever the two of them made eye contact, Jocelyn would hit Lucy with a frosty glare, sharp like icicles boring into her body. Lucy knew Jocelyn was still hurt and angry over Bill's comments earlier, and, knowing Jocelyn, she wasn't going to forget it any time soon. Lucy wanted to scream at her IT WASN'T ME! But that would make her sound even more crazy. Jocelyn's judgement hurt.

Up there on the roof Lucy felt a little better, mostly because Jocelyn wasn't up there with her.

Lucy marveled at the stars above her. There were just so many, making her feel insignificant and small.

"There's so many stars," Lucy commented to Stan. "You can't see nearly as many back home. Too many lights."

"You ever looked at constellations, kid?" Stan asked.

Lucy shook her head. "Stuff like that's Hazelle's thing."

Stan turned and looked at her. "Well, d'ya wanna learn?"

Lucy shrugged. "Sure."

Stan cracked his knuckles. "Alrighty, listen up, kid Grunkle Stan don't know a lot, but he knows the heck outta constellations." He pointed to the sky. "Up there's Scorpio, the scorpion. And there's Sirius, the dog, and Orion the hunter is over there, along with his belt. And over here," Stan continued, pointing, "is my nephew, the Little Dipper, and what he may never become, the Big Dipper." That last bit made Lucy smile.

"And last but not least, that over there is Pegasus, the jellyfish."

Lucy crinkled her nose. "Actually, Pegasus is a winged horse."

Stan rolled his eyes. "That's up to interpretation. Besides, horses are smelly, angry creatures. Wouldn't a jellyfish be better?"

Lucy blinked. "Jellyfish sting people. And besides, I know my Greek mythology." Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. "Winged horse."

"Think what you want," Stan said. "I'm sticking with my guns."

"You mean your jellyfish."

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know, I'm - I'm tired!"

Lucy laughed, and it felt like the gates of Heaven had opened in her chest - she felt clearer, brighter. She bit back a smile and said, "Whatever you say, gramps."

"Gramps!" Stan spluttered, indignant, but a grin was pinching at his lips. "See here, whippersnapper, I'm not that old. I'm only kinda old. If you wanna call something old, talk to the stars."

"But aren't they already dead?" Lucy asked.

"That's how dead they are. They're dying really slowly over hundreds or thousands of years. The light from them is only just getting to us now." Stan sighed, hands behind his head. "They're kinda like people, huh? We're all on our way out. But here's the important thing to remember: no matter how much time you've got left, you'll always have time to stargaze."

Lucy wasn't sure why Stan told her that. He'd become strangely prophetic, but his words made her brain rev like a newly fixed car. She didn't have a lot of time left in Gravity Falls, did she? If she was being honest, it wasn't the reality she'd hated, it was what it had done to her relationships. But maybe it was meant to be. Maybe she wasn't meant to be friends with Hazelle and Jocelyn.

And maybe her working with Bill wasn't coincidence, either. If she wasn't meant to be Hazelle and Jocelyn's friend, maybe she was meant to be the exact opposite. But she'd have time to think about that kind of stuff with the next time she saw Bill, Lucy reasoned, a dark, menacing feeling taking hold of her chest.

Lucy was sick of being ignored. Of being pushed around, glared at, treated like a charity case. Hazelle and Jocelyn had to pay for the way they'd treated her. Surely Bill could help with that.

But she'd save that for tomorrow. Right then and there, all Lucy wanted to do was watch the stars.