Pacifica's Last Wish Chapter 25: Epilogue: Part 3, a gravity falls fanfic

A/N:

Credit to CraveFanArt for the cover art.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravity Falls. Gravity Falls was created by Alex Hirsch and Disney owns it.

Epilogue: Part 3.

I have decided to remove the quotes. They were too long and broke the immersion.

Warning: This chapter gets a little dramatic and emotional. You should probably avoid reading this in public, but I want to reassure you that I keep my word about the story being a Romance/Humor and it will of course have a happy ending.

Also, this chapter tells two stories at the same time. One in the present and another in the past. Try not to get very confused. We begin in the present.

:: ::

[A peek ahead - Part 1]

"Wait! Don't just leave me here, Pine Tree!" Bill yelled as Dipper walked away. "At least have the decency of telling me why you did this!"

"You speak of decency after what you did?" Dipper stopped and turned around on his heels, walking back to the dream demon. "I'm doing this because I promised, because I told you fifteen years ago what would happen if you ever showed up again, because you didn't have the decency of attacking me directly instead of hurting my loved ones, and especially because of what you did to Pacifica."

"Ah," Bill showed a toothed malevolent smile, causing a shiver to go down Dipper's spine when he saw a face he knew so well being defiled with such a smile. "So you have finally tied the loose ends and found out the truth. Well, well, well, Pine Tree. I honestly thought it would take you less time. You are getting dumber with age." He said mockingly.

Dipper frowned and couldn't help but ask.

"Why? Why did you cause me so much trouble? I haven't done anything to you, Bill. I let you go fifteen years ago!"

"You humiliated me and made me lose my chance of being finally free!" Bill struggled against the bindings. "You probed my mind, Pine Tree! You saw what I was going to achieve! It was going to be glorious! I was a handshake away from apotheosis and you wasted it! We could have had everything!" He hissed spitefully.

"You would have had everything and I would've been just a sock puppet." Dipper hissed back. "You brought this on yourself."

"And so did you." The dream demon smiled cruelly. "I'm curious, what gave me away?"

"You left breadcrumbs. At first I didn't know it was you. It was unthinkable to me that someone would hold a grudge for fifteen years since I rarely think badly of people. Pacifica even used to call me naïve because of that…"

:: ::

[The fate of each - Part 1: Nature is cruel]

:: ::

Three years ago…

Dipper twitched and woke up in bed with a broad smile. He was twenty four and had been married to the love of his life for a year and half now. This last year has been definitely the best of his life. Pacifica and he agreed after marrying not to search for a job yet and enjoy their early marriage years travelling around the world and living their life together in a carefree way thanks to the heiress' fortune. A few months ago they grew tired of visiting other countries and finally settled in their childhood town Gravity Falls.

The young man took a quick survey of the bed and realized Pacifica wasn't with him. The clock on the nightstand marked five in the morning. Further scanning of the room made him realize that the bathroom had its lights on, so he guessed she would be there. Dipper scratched his own cheek, trying to remember the last time he had woken up so early, or at least earlier than Pacifica, realizing that this might be the first time ever since they had been living together. Soon he heard bared footsteps coming back from the bathroom and he quickly played asleep, unwilling to let Pacifica think that she might have accidentally woken him up.

With his eyes closed, he felt how Pacifica lay beside him in bed. He felt how she nestled her back in his chest and how she grabbed one of his hands, pulling it up and then using his palm as a pillow for her cheek. Dipper smiled inwardly at her affection. Living together in their own house granted him such a sense of inner security and confidence that he thought the two of them couldn't be any happier.

He was wrong.

Dipper felt his palm becoming wet. At first he sighed happily, guessing that Pacifica had fallen asleep and was drooling on his hand. However, after a few minutes, he heard a quiet and muffled sob. Dipper shot his eyes open and raised his head to have a look at her. Pacifica was weeping silently and rubbing her face on his hand in search of solace.

"Pacifica?" Dipper asked warily, using his free hand to push away some of her hair to make sure she was indeed crying.

"Dipper!" She sniffed a couple sobs back and turned her face away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep." Pacifica kissed his hand and buried her face into her pillow to hide it from him.

"Hey," He gently nudged her shoulder in an attempt to make her roll onto her back.

The heiress eventually complied and revealed a pair of puffy eyes, which caused Dipper to realize that she had probably been crying all night.

"C'mere." He wrapped her in his arms and hugged her as he felt teardrops falling on his shoulder. "What happened?"

"Dipper… I can't…" She mumbled and sobbed.

"You can't what?" He parted the hug and cupped her cheek, wiping the tears away with his thumb. "I'll help you."

"I had… that time of the month yesterday morning… I can't, Dipper. I can't." She mumbled and buried her face back into his shoulder.

"Oh." Dipper gasped and then embraced her. He guessed women's periods were painful, but he knew there was also something more.

"I can't, Dipper. I wanna have children but I can't… I wanna have my own children…" Pacifica sobbed quietly.

They had been trying to have children for over a year now without success and the ruined hopes were taking a toll on the heiress.

"We'll have them. It's just a matter of time." Dipper reassured and began stroking her hair repeatedly while wondering how many nights she had been crying without him noticing it.

"Dipper… You don't understand. I asked my parents about it and…" Her voice broke into more sobs. Dipper kissed her shoulder and began rocking her in his arms in vain attempts to calm her. "M-my parents told me they had lots of trouble conceiving me. Dipper, they told me they are almost sterile and I… I m-may not be able t-to have children…"

Dipper paled but forced himself to recover instantly.

"Don't say that. You're fine, Pacifica. We just… have to keep trying." He tightened the embrace so that Pacifica didn't see how his face was contorted with horror as his heart broke.

Everything came to his mind in a rush, everything that he had seen through the years and had caused him to ponder the multiple whys. Why when they were young and had sleepovers at the manor Priscilla always brought the trays with food herself and sighed sadly when she looked at the three kids playing together? Why whenever Mabel ran through the corridors of the manor yelling at the top of her lungs and toppling the typical expensive vase, Preston always laughed instead of glaring at her or kicking them out of the manor? But the memory that struck him more vividly was of his father asking the Northwest patriarch at a party about trying to go for their own pair of twins. Preston replied that he would have loved to have the manor full of his own children with what back then Dipper thought it was a cordial smile. He knew now it had been a wry smile and realized with terrifying clarity why Pacifica had never had any siblings.

Pacifica stopped sobbing slightly and parted from the embrace to face her husband.

"Is there anything in your journals that…" She began to say but Dipper shook his head with a heavy sigh. Pacifica nodded casually as if she had just been told there were no vegetables left in the store and lowered her head to continue weeping. She hadn't truly expected a solution from the journals.

Dipper felt completely useless. All his knowledge about the paranormal and all her money were no match against cruel simple nature.

"We could always… you know… there are lots of children out there that—"

"No, Dipper please. Don't ask me to adopt. I wanna see a little you asking me to buy snacks and take him to the zoo the next weekend. Please, don't ask me to adopt someone else's children instead. That would be like saying no forever to that little Dipper. I can't do that, please…" Pacifica lowered her gaze so that her bangs hid her expression.

"I won't." He quickly reassured. Dipper hadn't thought about that, but now that she had mentioned it he realized that he would love to see a small brunette Pacifica running around the house and asking him for help with her homework. "I… I couldn't do that either." He concluded with a sad sigh.

"I'm sorry." Pacifica mumbled and felt miserable at her cruel fate.

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Dipper murmured.

"And whose fault is it then!?" She snapped and began to laugh. "Don't you see the irony? Every time I wanted something my money always gave it to me. Even you, who I couldn't get with my money, ended up with me. But now for something I truly desire in my life I simply can't have it because it's been fated for me ever since birth!" She sighed and placed her hands on her own belly. "I… I'll understand if… if you want to leave. I'm not talking about now, but eventually…" Pacifica began sobbing again.

It was Dipper's time to laugh.

"Are you joking? Why? Because you can't have children? Don't be silly, Princess. I love you." He raised his hand and showed her the ring around his finger. "I promised you we'd always be together and I'll make you another promise now: We are going to have our own children."

"But—"

"Pacifica, I never break my promises, remember?" He pulled at the chain around her neck to fish out the medallion through her pajama neck and rubbed the crystal in it. Even after twelve years, it still glowed as the first day showing the pictures of Pacifica at the Annual Northwest Fest the day she crushed on him. "I promised you then that we would convince your parents and we did it in the end."

"I know." Pacifica stopped sobbing and smiled faintly.

"Now let's try to do some positive thinking! First, both of us should get into a specific diet for conceiving." Dipper cheered.

"I'm already on one of those." She commented.

"Oh, then you change into a different one while I begin mine." He shrugged. "And, as I know you're definitely going to get pregnant soon, I'm gonna do a list of stuff we'll need. Let's see… a good regular diet, lots of sleep, no stress… We could walk through the park daily for that. The phone number of a good doctor too, a few classes of those weird breathing exercises…" He began listing with his fingers.

Pacifica couldn't help but close her eyes and smile.

"Leave your overcomplicated list for now and come to bed, my dorky husband." She lay on her side and patted the spot in front of her. "I love when you worry about everything, but forget about that now and just hug me."

Dipper complied happily and wrapped her in his arms, landing a few feathery kisses on her cheeks and tickling her nose by brushing his lips over it. The heiress giggled and entangled her legs with his, rubbing his back with her hands.

"We should time perfectly the… you know." Dipper traced his hand along her side and cupped her breast through the fabric, massaging it in circles.

"Yes, and that means not today." She winced and pushed his hand away. "They get too tender this time of the month."

"Sorry." He wrapped her in his arms and resumed stroking her hair. "So, when…?"

"I guess in two week it should probably be the best time for trying," She smiled playfully. "and you gotta keep your Big Dipper strong because I'm gonna abuse it so much."

"It's gonna be a very long two weeks then." Dipper snickered and flushed.

"Not as long as the two weeks that we'll have to wait after that to see if it worked."

The first week they tried the new diet and concluded in switching into a different one since it didn't taste very good. The second week they forgot about the issue and spent it happily with each other. The third week was a blur of pleasure. The fourth week Pacifica was completely expectant like a child urging to open a Christmas gift.

The fifth week was once more nothing but grief as Pacifica spent her nights crying silently, afraid of waking Dipper up and telling him that they would have to start all over again.

:: ::

[A peek ahead: Part 2]

:: ::

Present time.

"Something she said that day began a small train of thought in me. Pacifica said she had her period the previous morning, but she was crying at night. Why? Why if she had had her period almost twenty four hours ago she was crying then? Why right after she had a few hours of sleep?" Dipper scowled at the dream demon. "I blame myself for not giving those thoughts importance at first."

"You wanna know what I showed Llama in her dreams?" Bill said with a smile full of malice, answering before Dipper could utter a word. "You see, Pine Tree, hope is the first step towards disappointment. Every time your little Llama's rotten insides failed, I showed her what could've been but was never going to. Your eyes, her nose… All of it combined in a little kid." The dream demon rejoiced in how Dipper's face contorted in anger and how his fist trembled in rage.

"I'm leaving. Enjoy your eternity here." Dipper had had enough with the pointless conversation.

"But there is a lot more of the story that you haven't mentioned yet! We haven't even got to the part where she considers suicide!" Bill laughed as Dipper ignored him and walked away. "Don't you want to know who gave me the idea to do this? Because it wasn't mine at all!"

"Name him!" Dipper stopped, urging to hear another name to hate.

Bill waited for a few seconds and then grinned.

"Shooting Star."

"Liar!" Dipper turned and stomped towards the dream demon with a threatening finger. "Just like all that nonsense about the suicide attempts! You speak nothing but lies!"

"Maybe I'm lying, or maybe I'm not. If you let me out of this stupid body and probed my mind in the dreamscape you could know for sure, but I guess that won't happen." The dream demon struggled in his bindings. "Regardless, after a few months your little Llama couldn't stand it anymore and she considered suicide several times, but the coward always thought back because of you. She didn't want you to think it had been your fault."

Dipper's upper lip twitched as he showed his teeth menacingly.

"Keep this up and I'll—"

"You what? What else can you do to me? Are you going to torture me? Wonderful! Just like you did to Shooting Star!" Bill threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

"I never landed a hand on Mabel in my life. I didn't even threaten her jokingly." Dipper denied with a sharp movement of his arm.

"Oh, but she suffered a completely different kind of pain." The dream demon said with a knowing smile. "We have to go back to your teenage years for you to fully understand this. The first ten years after my defeat I was too weak to influence dreams. I could only watch and learn while planning revenge, and so I did. Have you ever wondered why none of Shooting Star's relationships lasted for long? She had a new boyfriend every trimester."

"I guess her boyfriends always ended breaking up with her because Mabel has always been a little…"

"Random? Weird?" Bill interrupted him. "It doesn't matter how you were going to describe her because you were wrong from the start. Even if she told you they broke up with her, it was her who broke up with them most of the times."

"Yeah, right." Dipper said skeptically. "Why would she do that? Why lying about it?"

"She lied for the simplest reason in the world: She didn't consider it true love. Your sister is a romantic and, in her eyes, she met true love when she was twelve but it was never fulfilled."

"Who was the boy?" He asked, considering he might be on time to fix that.

"Boy?" Bill burst into laughter. "You really are as naïve as Llama puts it! It wasn't a boy to begin with. It was her childhood secret crush, it was her best friend and it was the person her twin brother married." The dream demon cackled at the irony.

"Maybe…" Dipper frowned and considered the possibility. "It's true Mabel had a small crush on Pacifica when we were younger, but she outgrew it with age. How do I know again that you're not lying?"

"You don't." Bill smiled mischievously.

"Well, even if what you say were true, I didn't have a voice in Mabel's feelings anyway. It was up to Pacifica to decide and she chose to be friends with Mabel."

"And Shooting Star was happy with just seeing Llama every day! But everything changed after you two married." Bill's smile turned malevolent. "Not a single phone call, not a visit in months… You two were too busy travelling around the world and enjoying each other to remember poor Shooting Star."

"Each of us had their own life by then." Dipper excused himself. "Mabel had her store and Pacifica and I wanted some privacy in our early marriage. We had all matured. We were twenty three after all."

"You had matured?" The dream demon began snickering, soon turning into cackling. "You still don't get it, do you naïve Pine Tree? It doesn't matter whether your sister is twenty or sixty! She's never going to grow up! She's always going to be twelve!"

Dipper sighed and pursed his lips with a sad face. He knew Bill wasn't lying about that in particular. It had always been part of Mabel's charm her childish joy about everything.

"And she just couldn't take it!" Bill continued. "A month after you left, she began crying herself to sleep repeating 'You promised, Dipper. Twins forever. You promised.' Shooting Star was in such a terrible state that she was even fired from her beloved store! And what did you do about it? Nothing! You didn't even bothered know!" The dream demon rejoiced in how Dipper lowered his gaze. "One night that she was tossing and turning in bed I decided to take a peek into her dream. It was about when the three of you were younger and spent all your free time together. Shooting Star woke up crying so much that the best of inspirations struck me!" He laughed happily.

:: ::

[The fate of each - Part 2: A Second Chance.]

:: ::

Two years ago…

Dipper had been standing in front of the door of the apartment for ten minutes now. He lacked the courage to ring the bell. He had always known the address, he had always known the door, the apartment was even five minutes away from his own house but, in the two years he had been living in Gravity Falls, he had never seen the interior of Mabel's apartment because it's been almost three years since he had last talked with his sister. With time they had ended up growing apart. Dipper frowned and thought about the situation repeatedly, eventually turning to leave with slumped shoulders.

"Mabel probably has her own life now. I don't want to bother her with my problems." He sighed and put his hands in his pockets.

The door behind him opened and Mabel stood on the doorframe with a plastic garbage bag. She was in one of her sweaters with the intention of carrying the bag to the dumpster, until she recognized the back of the man in front of her.

"Dipper?" She asked doubtfully.

Dipper turned around and smiled nervously at his twin.

"Uh… Hi, Mabel."

"Oh my gosh!" Mabel face lit up instantly and brought her brother into a hug. "It's been so long! Come inside!" She dropped the garbage bag in her hall and pulled her brother into her apartment.

"Alright, alright. I'm coming." He chuckled at her energy, feeling more relaxed at the situation.

Mabel's apartment could be described in a single word: Pink. She had four light pink fluffy fufsacks around a small table acting as chairs. There was a sofa with a hand-knitted dark pink cover with animals drawn in it. Her windows had goofily-eyes stickers on them, probably to rejoice in their silly movement whenever she opened and closed them. The more Dipper saw of the apartment, the more he smiled. It looked childish, but he couldn't deny it would be delightful to live there. Even though both of them were twenty five now, her apartment resembled a teenager's. There were posters on the walls and plush toys on the sofa. The only thing that seemed out of place was an overused workbench with traces of glue, glitter and even scorched marks on it. A workbench she had to use a lot for her arts & crafts store.

Mabel led him to one of the fufsacks and Dipper sat on it with difficulty, almost falling over the first two times from the complicated seat.

"How is everything, bro-bro? Tell me, tell me!" She demanded happily, sitting on the fufsack in front of his.

"Well…" Dipper ran his hand through his hair, accidentally showing the premature wrinkles on his forehead due to the overstress he was going through at home. "I'd like you to tell me a little about yourself first."

"Me? I'm doing great! I am becoming Gravity Falls' most eligible bachelorette!" She smiled proudly. "Although… can I call myself bachelorette considering I never went to college?" Mabel began tapping her chin deep in thought.

"So… you are living alone?" Dipper bit his tongue after saying that.

"Yeah…" Mabel lowered her gaze. "But it's okay! The apartment is a little small for two persons anyways. You can even see the bed from here." She added matter-of-factly and pointed towards the small room where her bed was.

Dipper noticed how the walls of the small bedroom were covered in wallpaper painted sky blue, with a rainbow on the wall behind the bed and a sun on the ceiling. He had a feeling that Mabel had painted the wallpaper herself and he couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of how little Mabel cared about what people would think of her. It looked very artistic and pretty cool, but he would never do that to his own bedroom. Then, he realized that between the multiple plush toys that covered the bed, there was one towering among them. A golden plush llama toy he knew too well, since it was the one he had won for Pacifica thirteen years ago at the fair and later Pacifica had gifted to Mabel.

"Is that the same toy? It looks as good as new." He pointed at the toy with a smile.

"Of course! Goldilocks is still my favorite!" Mabel smiled broadly. "I make sure she's clean every day so that she looks in pristine condition."

The memories from those days flowed into his mind and Dipper frowned deeply and gave a heavy sigh.

"Mabel… there is a problem with Pacifica and… I… I don't know what to do."

"Wait, don't say anything yet." The cheerful brunette's smile faded into a serious face and she stood up, rushing into the kitchen and coming back soon afterwards with a cup of smoking chocolate. "I just wanted to make sure this time you had the chocolate."

"Oh, thanks." Dipper took a sip from the sweet beverage. "You still remember after all these years the day we thought her parents were going to take her away?"

"I'll never forget that day, Dipper. I thought you were going to do something very stupid if Pacifica didn't show up in the limousine with her parents." Mabel turned somber for a second and then cheered up again. "Well! What's bothering you, bro-bro?"

"It has something to do with what you've said." Dipper commented and left the cup on the table just in case it slipped from his fingers. "I… don't know how to cheer Pacifica anymore and she… I fear she'll do something stupid." He lowered his gaze and began fidgeting with his fingers.

"But… how can you say that? You guys looked so happy!" Mabel's eyes widened in complete disbelief.

"It's… We've been trying to have children for two years without success and… ever since we found out that her parents were almost sterile she thinks that maybe she…" Dipper began stroking the fluffy fufsack in hopes that it would somehow grant him some comfort.

"Oh." Mabel gasped and quickly pulled into a hug.

"I don't know what to do. She has bags under her eyes because she can't sleep, she doesn't smile anymore… It feels as if she were dying slowly, Mabel, and I-I can't stand seeing her so sad." He buried his face into her shoulder, finding some solace in squeezing her fluffy sweater.

"I'm so sorry, Dipper." She began rubbing his back with her hands to cheer him, and then she parted from the embrace to look at him. "Have you… tried seeing a doctor about it?" She asked, choosing every word very carefully.

"No." He shook his head, slumping back onto the fufsack. "She doesn't want to and I can understand why. What would we do if the doctor told us that she can't have children? At least, with the doubt… we still have a little hope left." Dipper reached for the cup of chocolate and accidentally toppled it to the floor. "Sorry, I'll clean it."

"Let me clean it." Mabel interrupted him, pressing her hand on her brother's shoulder to hold him on the fufsack.

Mabel grabbed a cleaning cloth from the kitchen and began wiping the floor absently. In the meantime, Dipper analyzed his sister and realized there was something odd with her. Mabel was cheerful and had a smile on her face, but Dipper had known her all his life and, even though it had been three years since he had last seen her, the memories were still there. A few small signs gave Mabel away, like the bitten fingernails and the unhealthy amount of ice-cream in her kitchen. He realized Mabel was going through a small depression, as much as someone so cheerful could go through that emotional state.

"Are you alright?" Dipper quickly asked and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Yeah, it's just been a couple of hard years… but I managed." Mabel shrugged with indifference and tossed the cleaning cloth into the sink. "Adam broke up with me a year ago and I kinda had a creative disagreement with the company that owned the store I worked on but… well, in the end I got my own store thanks to an anonymous benefactor." Mabel pointed to the wall where the deed of a store hanged. "And I'm self-employed now!" She smiled proudly.

Dipper couldn't help but reciprocate the smile, feeling happy for his twin, but the feeling didn't last for long.

"You've gone through all that and you still have a smile on your face… How do you do it? I mean, look at me!" He lifted the bangs on his forehead. "I'm twenty five and I've wrinkles on my forehead! I even have a few grey hairs here on the sides!"

"It's not easy, Dipper. You've to understand there are things that, even if you wish them wholeheartedly, they are never going to happen." Mabel glanced at the llama plush toy and sighed sadly. "But the sooner you accept them, the easier it is to deal with them. I focused entirely on my store and hey, it's not that bad. It keeps me busy so that I no longer think about all that stuff." She concluded with a faint smile.

"Well… now that you mention that… Um…" Dipper inhaled deeply because he knew he didn't deserve an answer after being apart for so long. "Pacifica could use a good distraction and I thought that maybe, if… if you need some help at the store…"

"Yes!" Mabel replied even before he finished. "I mean… Sure, I could use a bachelor at the store." She quickly added with a flush.

Dipper closed his eyes and gave a heavy sigh of relief, pulling his sister into a hug.

"Thanks, Mabel. This means a lot to me. If you ever need anything…"

Mabel had thousands of wishes, although the biggest of them all was very simple: She wanted everything to be the way it used to be. She wanted to hang out at the Shack with her brother and her best friend. However, she knew that was not going to happen.

"Don't mention it, Dipper. We're twins! Of course I'll help you!" She said cheerfully and felt how Dipper quivered and sniffed a few times on her shoulder at her words. Knowing how little he liked that his manliness was questioned whenever he wept, Mabel ignored those sniffs and changed topics. "So… Pacifica studied clothes design, particularly dresses, right?"

"Y-yes." Dipper took a second to recover. "You don't sell anything like that, do you?"

"No," Mabel smiled faintly. "but I'm willing to do a few changes in the store. I'm the owner after all."

"Oh my gosh… She's gonna be so excited but this!" Dipper smiled broadly and even laughed. "But… how should I tell her? Pacifica is too prideful to accept a job just like that."

"Don't worry, I've got that covered." Mabel grinned and handled him a bowl of ice cream.

:: ::

Pacifica knew she shouldn't be doing that, but she had to. Today was a special day after all. There was a room in their house that once it was a cause of pure joy for the heiress. Now it caused her nothing except sadness, but she had to get in. The door was brightly colored with the intention of being cheerful. Pacifica opened the door with a sweating hand and got into the room. Taking a survey of the area to make sure everything was on its place made her eyes well up. It was a child's room.

The room was decorated with a carpet on the floor which was a map of Gravity Falls seen from the sky. There was a shelf with multiple different toys, from the puzzles Dipper enjoyed to the plush animals and fairy tales she did. In a built-in closet, there was equipment for several sports: Balls, golf clubs and even a tennis racquet. She had never liked tennis, but maybe her child would like it. On a wall, there was a board Dipper had thought to use for teaching them math from a very young age. Pacifica wasn't very certain about that idea, but she couldn't complain. There was after all a small workbench next to it where she wanted her children to develop their artistic abilities.

Pacifica walked up to the cot and traced her hand along the wooden rails, realizing that they were covered in dust. No one had ever used that cot and no one was ever going to use it. The heiress broke into sobs and ran out of the room, getting into her own bedroom and sitting on her bed.

Pacifica felt completely useless and looked at the cupboard where they stored the medicines with different eyes. It had passed her mind in previous moments of depression, but she couldn't do that to Dipper. Pacifica knew he was going to blame himself for it, but she wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to have children and love them, and that meant she had to leave. Today it made two years since they had begun trying. Two years of failures and lost hopes. Today she looked to the exit of her suffering the medicine cupboard was offering her with very different eyes.

The sound of the main door opening broke her train of thought. Dipper was back at home. The heiress dried her tears on the bed sheets and tried to appear calm, but she didn't manage it. Soon afterwards Dipper entered the bedroom.

"Do you know who I ran into at the mall?" He lied and gave her a bowl of ice cream. "Mabel." Dipper said with a smile.

"Oh!" Pacifica gasped in surprise while dipping a finger into the ice cream and raising it to her mouth. "How is she?"

"Good, but… you see, she has a problem and I told her you might help." Dipper began repeating what Mabel had instructed him. "There is a guy that has invited her to a fancy party," Pacifica raised an eyebrow in surprise. "but Mabel doesn't have any good dresses for it."

"Dipper, your sister is almost a head taller than me. None of my dresses would fit her." Pacifica said matter-of-factly.

"That's what I told her! But then we talked a little more and I said you could easily design a dress for her." He suggested.

"Can't she make one herself?" Pacifica countered.

"Have you forgotten the last time Mabel attended to one of your parents' parties with a dress she made herself?"

"Yeah, she left the glue gun stuck to the skirt of her homemade dress." Pacifica genuinely giggled at the memories and the sound filled Dipper's heart with joy.

"The thing is that I kind of promised Mabel you would design a dress really quick so… If you don't mind…" Dipper gave her his best smile.

"Sure, I'm a little rusty though." The heiress left her ice cream on the nightstand and stretched her fingers. "I haven't done this since college, and that was almost four years ago."

"Don't worry, we've time."

Pacifica went to her desk and sat on her office chair. It had been such a long time that she had to readjust the height of the chair. The heiress took a sheet of paper and a pencil and began drawing a sketch. After a few minutes, she stopped and frowned at the progress, crumbling the sheet into a ball and throwing it into the wastepaper basket. She repeated the process and finished the sketch this time, but she wasn't happy with the results yet. Pacifica threw another paper ball into the basket and massaged her fingers for a while, realizing that she had lost lots of practice these past idle years. She reached for a new sheet, only to find that she had ran out of paper.

"Dipper, could you—"

Before she could finish her sentence, Dipper placed a stack of two hundred paper sheets on the desk. Pacifica smiled and continued drawing while Dipper looked at her progress over her shoulder, staring in awe at how after every crumpled sheet of paper the new sketch was more elaborated and beautiful than the previous one. After an hour, the wastepaper basket was filled to the brim with paper balls but Pacifica had managed to produce five different dresses designs.

"Well, tell Mabel I personally like the purple one." She stacked and handled them to Dipper, but stopped to have one final look. "On second thought… This red one is awful. Give me that." She snatched the sheet from his hands and crumpled it into another ball, redrawing the dress again and handling it to Dipper. "Yup, now I'm happy with the results."

"Thanks. I'll give them to her tomorrow. Mabel is going to love it." Dipper commented and rolled up the stack.

"So… is there something else that Mabel needs to be drawn?" Pacifica asked as she played with the pencil on her now again deft fingers. She was for a change feeling useful, distracted and happy, displaying a smile. She had completely forgotten about how miserable she had felt two hours ago.

"Actually, Mabel mentioned she could use some help in her store." Dipper left that in the air nonchalantly as he inwardly felt completely delighted at seeing his wife smiling for the first time in months.

"I can't believe I'm gonna say this… but I'd like that." Pacifica's eyes widened since she had never in her life expected to end up working for Mabel. "I've no idea about sweaters though, and I'm not gonna draw on cats. In fact, I can only do dresses and… they're not exactly arts & crafts store material…" Pacifica countered and sighed.

"Oh! But don't worry about that! Mabel owns the store now and wants to remodel it into a boutique or something, so she could use some help of someone who knows about business management and dresses designs." Dipper quickly added, but too quickly to sound casual.

"Really? She wants to do that all of a sudden? And she needs the help of someone with precisely the two degrees I studied?" Pacifica eyed her husband suspiciously. "You think I'm stupid, Dipper? You haven't you told her about…"

Dipper sighed and lowered his gaze.

"Yes, I told her."

"Then tell her she doesn't have to remodel her whole store for me. I don't need anyone's pity." The proud Northwest snapped and crossed her arms over her chest.

"But… Pacifica, please." Dipper gave her a pleading look, earning a frown and an avoided gaze from the heiress. He shook his head in defeat and slumped back on the bed. "Did you know you were smiling while drawing those sketches?" He mumbled.

"Yeah, and?" She looked at him.

"It was the first time you smiled in months." He said and fixed his eyes on hers. "Princess, I know it's hard. I know that we'll never have children and I'm still assuming it but… it's a little easier to deal with when you're smiling." Dipper sighed and Pacifica dropped her arms as she lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry, forget I said anything. I'll call Mabel tomorrow and tell her you're not interested."

"No." Pacifica raised her gaze and tried to smile. "No, Dipper. I'll call Mabel myself and tell her a few ideas for the store." She said and smiled genuinely when Dipper's face lit up. "But I don't want her to remodel her store out of pity for me. It won't be a boutique and it won't be an arts & crafts store either. It'll be a mix. Mabel will have her sweaters, glitter and weird stuff, and I'll have my fancy dresses and jewelry." She concluded with a broad smile as she pictured the result in her mind.

"But… I don't think Mabel has the money for that kind of renovation." Dipper frowned as he remembered his sister's apartment.

"So what? I'm rich."

:: ::

[A peek ahead: Part 3]

:: ::

Present time…

"After all these years… Mabel still kept the plush toy Pacifica had gifted her as if it were a golden treasure." Dipper commented absently as began doubting what he knew of his sister. He noted mentally to make sure once he got home that everything changed for the better and Mabel became a part of their lives again. It was the least he could do.

"Poor Shooting Star never let go of that crush on Llama and it almost became her doom. And if it weren't because of the Puppet Master's fondness for your sister, who took pity on Shooting Star and gave her another store when she was fired, she would've been forced to go back to live in your parents' house and she would be into a deep permanent depression by now." Bill smiled at the possible past.

"Who is the Puppet Master?" Dipper asked quizzically.

"The Master of Puppets. He who likes to control." Bill clarified.

"Why do you always have to use nicknames on us?" Dipper said with a frown.

"Do you know how many Prestons have I met through my life? If I didn't use nicknames like Puppet Master, Llama and Shooting Star I'd go even crazier! Besides, you're not the most adequate to talk about nicknames, Mas—"

"Preston funded Mabel's new store?" Dipper's eyes widened at who the anonymous benefactor had been. "I guess it sort of makes sense. He never liked me but he was always different with Mabel." Dipper sighed heavily as he understood the situation now. "I think the fact that she was best friends with Pacifica made Preston love her as the second daughter he could never have."

"It truly is a rotten family tree." Bill commented mockingly.

"I would've thanked him if I had known." Dipper ignored the comment about sterility. "After all, it was thanks to Pacifica working on Mabel's store that I finally decided to start my own TV show. Do you know how I realized it was you who was messing with us? I wrote all the characters for my show. The good ones and the evil ones. Dealing with so many different perspectives grants you a… special insight about the world." Dipper smiled grimly. "So I thought to myself: 'What if all this bad luck isn't just a coincidence? What if there is someone behind all this?' and I would've caught you a year ago if everything hadn't gone downhill after my show premiered on TV." Dipper frowned and lowered his gaze.

"I also guessed you were getting close, that's why I set the next part of my plan in motion. And I've to say it worked flawlessly." Bill showed a toothed smile.

"What did you do?" Dipper narrowed his eyes and glared at the dream demon.

"Over the years I've had a few pet projects to see the results of influencing meatbags through dreams. Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin… Even your beloved Ford! None of them would've been anything if I hadn't stimulated their inspiration with well-selected dreams." His proud smile turned into a malicious one. "So, like you have just said, I thought to myself: 'What if I did just the opposite? What if instead of using dreams to cause inspiration I used them to trigger an emotional response given certain circumstances? What if I simply influenced someone to fill their heart with fear?' It was worth a try and turns out it worked like a charm! The Puppet Master stopped unknowingly getting in my way and, as an added bonus, all the progress you had made towards fixing everything with Shooting Star was laid to waste!" Bill began cackling. "Who would've thought something as banal as a few dreams would make them drive back home so fast in such a rainy night because they thought something was wrong?" The dream demon gave Dipper a knowing smile.

"Oh, so you caused that too." Dipper said causally rather than in anger. "Well, to tell the truth, there had always been long standing bad blood between them and me, so I don't personally care but… Would you look to the right for a sec?"

And Bill, one of the oldest entities in the universe, looked like a fool to his right and fell to the oldest trick in the world as a fist collided with his face and broke his nose.

:: ::

[The Fate of Each - Part 3: Dreams are constantly shattered…]

:: ::

A year ago…

"Thanks! Come back soon!" Pacifica closed the main door once the last customer left and then she turned the hanging signal from 'open' to 'closed'.

"Pazy-Paz-Paaaaaaz!" Mabel said in a singing fashion from behind the cash register.

The heiress smiled and turned around to look at her best friend. The cheerful brunette was holding in her hands lots of bills as if they were a huge hand of cards.

"Check out all the cash we did on our first day! Have you ever seen so many presidents together before?" She said as her face lit up with a broad smile.

"Of course, it's not such a big deal." Pacifica shrugged with indifference.

"Oh. Right, I always forget you're rich." Mabel rolled her eyes and lost part of her enthusiasm.

Pacifica looked at her with an impassive smile which soon turned mischievous.

"I was joking! Mabel, it's amazing!" The heiress laughed and opened her arms wide in a welcoming way.

Mabel squeaked happily and threw the money in the air, crossing the distance between them in three strides and bringing Pacifica into a bone-crushing hug. The heiress yelped and gladly returned the embrace as both girls began laughing and bouncing in joy.

It had been a couple of hard months for them, but in the good way for once. Pacifica had spent every day busy drawing dress sketches so that she had her first clothing line ready while Mabel did the same with her sweaters and accessories. It had been very time consuming since they wanted to achieve something original and unique, but the heiress appreciated that. She had accepted the cruel reality and overcome her issues, focusing on following her professional dream of designing dresses and being finally happy for the first time in years. Today it had been the opening day of their store and both girls had been very nervous, Pacifica more than Mabel since it was her first time selling anything, but everything had been a complete success.

"My health insurance is great, but I'd prefer that you tried not to break any of my ribs." The heiress commented as Mabel kept squeezing her in her arms.

"Sorry." The cheerful brunette giggled and they parted the embrace. "But we made a lot of money! I've never made so much on my own before!"

"Yeah, well… silk is expensive, you know?" Pacifica said matter-of-factly and held out the price tag of a nearby dress.

Mabel's eyes bulged out and then she burst into laughter.

"Oh my gosh, Grunkle Stan would be so proud of you if he saw those prices!"

"Where do you think I got the idea from?" She smiled but frowned inwardly.

Pacifica understood that Dipper hadn't showed up because he had to be at the studio to supervise the premiere of his show in TV, but she didn't understand why her parents hadn't dropped by. The heiress shook her head to push those thoughts away and decided to call them when she got home.

"With that money in a few months you could get into a better apartment." Pacifica suggested happily.

"Hey! What's wrong with my apartment?" Mabel narrowed her eyes.

"Nothing, it's just… a little small."

"Maybe, but it's perfectly located!" Mabel smiled slyly. "Besides, I'm not moving out now. Last week I finished painting the landscape on the kitchen walls. Now it looks like I'm cooking in the Arctic!"

"You have to show me that—Hold on a second." Her phone had begun buzzing. "Hello?"

"Hurry with that or we'll miss the premiere of Dipper's show on TV!" The brunette whispered and Pacifica made a gesture for her to be quiet.

"Yes, that's me but it's Pines. Pacifica Pines." The heiress gave Mabel a smile. Even though she had been married for almost four years now, most people kept mistaking her surname for Northwest, which was more famous. "Who am I talking to?"

Then Mabel saw something that she would remember for the rest of her life.

The phone fell from Pacifica's hand and broke on the floor. At first, her face was pale and impassive, with her gaze still fixed on Mabel and her look blank as if she hadn't understood what she had just heard. Then, almost at a painfully slow speed, her brow progressively furrowed, her eyes clenched shut and she opened her mouth to wail in pain, but no sound came from it.

"Pacifica, what happened!?" Mabel asked wide-eyed, completely distressed by her reaction.

Pacifica didn't answer. Instead, she finally voiced her pain and began sobbing loudly. A part of her heart had just been torn from her.

:: ::

"We've just entered commercials!" Someone announced.

Dipper released the breath he had been holding for the last ten minutes. The commercial break meant they were halfway through the first episode of his show. As Pacifica had begun almost a year ago getting ready to open her shop with Mabel, Dipper had found himself with the wish of also pursuing his professional dream. He had made the pilot of his TV show and sent it to a few companies. Much to his surprise, one of them had answered almost instantly. Dipper had been very excited and began working with his team on a first season for his show, and today it was the premiere on TV.

"Alright, people!" He yelled so that his team heard him. "We have two minutes of commercial break! I need information! What does the audience think of the show so far?"

"The show has a good reception among kids, teens and a surprisingly great reception among adults!" One informed.

"Really?" Dipper said with a hint of surprise, considering it was a kids show. "I guess that's good anyway. What do people think of the Grunkle?"

"They say he's grumpy and hilarious!" Another replied.

"Perfect! That's the effect we were looking for." He smiled proudly. "How are we doing on the social media?"

"We're trending a lot on Twitter and apparently we're also memeing on the internet!" The second one continued.

"Good for the first one and someone explain me later if the second one is a bad thing. Now, have they noticed the cryptograms?" Dipper asked.

"Yes! Here someone has already solved four of the seven hidden cryptograms that have appeared so far." The first one informed again.

"Wow, kids nowadays are certainly smart." Dipper noted mentally to complicate the cryptograms a little, and then he felt a buzz on his leg. "Just a sec, my personal phone is ringing. Yes?" He covered his other ear with his hand to muffle the noise in the studio. "Mabel?"

"Dipper, you've to come to your house now! Something has happened!"

Dipper's eyes widened and he needed to hear no more. The distress in Mabel's voice and the sobs in the background were enough to make him leave the studio and race to his car.

"Mr. Pines! The show is about to come back from commercials!" Someone yelled to stop him, but Dipper didn't care one bit.

:: ::

Dipper had to turn off his personal phone which didn't stop buzzing halfway to his house and regretted having given that kind of personal information to his coworkers. He finally arrived in his car, parked terribly and rushed into his house, finding Mabel coming out of his bedroom. Her face was distressed and her eyes were puffy. She had been crying.

"Dipper, she's very bad." Mabel lowered her head and trembled. "I-I don't know what else to do."

"Thanks for calling me." Dipper tried to cheer his sister by squeezing her shoulders. "Why don't you make some hot chocolate? I'm certain there is nothing some of your sweet chocolate can't fix."

"Yeah." The brunette nodded but she wasn't so sure about that. "You should get in there."

Pacifica was blubbering inconsolably on the edge of her bed. The moment she saw her husband entering the bedroom, she sniffed a few times in vain attempts to calm her sobs and speak.

"D-Dipper…"

Dipper sat beside her on bed and held her hands.

"I'm here, Pacifica." He reassured and stroked the back of her hands with his thumbs. "What happened?"

"D-Dipper, m-my p-parents… The road was w-wet and t-they were driving back to the m-manor and…" Her voice broke into sobs.

"Oh." Was all he managed to utter.

Dipper had never liked her parents, but at the moment he was feeling grief. Not for them, but for the woman he loved which was crying her heart out in front of him.

"I'm sorry." Dipper brought her into a tight embrace and rocked her in his arms as Pacifica continued shaking and sobbing loudly.

"N-now I will n-never see t-them again…" The no longer heiress but owner of the Northwest fortune wailed in grief.

Mabel entered the bedroom with three cups of chocolate and Dipper sighed, regretting having asked her that now. Pacifica could use the sweet hot beverage but her hands were shaking so much that she in no way was going to be able to drink it. The brunette seemed to notice that too because she placed the cups on the nightstand and pushed an armchair next to the couple to sit on it. Mabel grabbed one of Pacifica's hands from Dipper's back and began squeezing it as the former heiress continued sobbing loudly between Dipper's arms.

Dipper couldn't believe this was happening, and with the worst possible timing. Every time they had a lucky break, they got back into another streak of bad luck and there was nothing he could do about it. Dipper felt completely impotent at this situation. How could he cheer her up after such a loss? There was nothing he could do against luck, destiny or life selection. He couldn't simply fix what had just happened to Pacifica because it had been just an accident. He couldn't take revenge on chance because it wasn't corporeal, because it had been only a severe case of bad luck, unless…

"Dipper." A nudge from Mabel on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts. "She has fallen asleep."

Dipper parted the embrace and wiped the tears off Pacifica's cheeks with his thumbs. Fatigue had caught up with her and she was peacefully sleeping. He kissed her forehead and gently laid her on the bed. He turned to his sister.

"There's a guest room if you need to—"

"No, I'm okay." Mabel replied with her worried gaze fixed on Pacifica. "This armchair is good."

Dipper decided not to insist and he lay back on the bed next to Pacifica, stroking her hair idly as he struggled to remember what he had been thinking about before Mabel nudged him. He had a feeling that it had been something important. Then, Pacifica instinctively snuggled closer in her sleep until her head was resting on his chest and Dipper embraced her. Whatever he had been thinking about, it couldn't be more important than what he had in his arms at the moment. Dipper had a look at Mabel and saw that she had also fallen asleep in the armchair. He tried to have some sleep himself, but he couldn't manage. Dipper continued stroking Pacifica's blonde hair and cuddling her gently all night.

The light coming through the windows progressively increased as dawn came and the morning began. Pacifica moved a little in his arms and eventually opened her eyes.

"How are you feeling?" Dipper asked.

"Terrible… but a little better than yesterday." Pacifica hugged his chest tightly. "Now that they're gone… I'm the only Northwest left and it's the worst feeling in the world knowing that I'm also going to be the last…" She lowered her gaze and frowned. No siblings, no cousins, no close relatives… No children. This meant that there was something only Pacifica could do and the squeeze on her shoulder signaling that Mabel had also woken up made it only harder for her.

"Don't worry Paz-Paz, you still have us!" Mabel tried to cheer her.

"I'm sorry Mabel but…" Pacifica sighed sadly. "I'll have to quit from our store. My parents always wanted me to lead the company and now… I have no other choice."

"Oh… I-I understand." Mabel lowered her gaze and smiled sadly. Everything was sliding through her fingers yet again.

"Can't you hire someone to act as CEO in your name?" Dipper suggested when he realized how his sister's face rivaled with Pacifica's in sadness.

"No." She declined sternly. "I need to fix the Northwest name myself."

"But Princess, what about your dream?"

"It'll have to wait."

:: ::

Four months ago…

The last eight months had been hard for them and not in the good way. Mabel had to deal with the store alone and had no free time at all to see the couple, but even if she had, Dipper and Pacifica were just as busy. On one hand, Dipper's show had been a social media success and he had to work twice as hard on it because the company that owned the channel was giving him lots trouble. In addition, his contract didn't allow him to talk about anything not released yet with anyone outside the team, so he couldn't comment with Pacifica what he was doing at work, which increased his own frustration.

Pacifica had been unwilling to lead the company in the ruthless way her father did and tried the soft and calm approach. That didn't last a month. People didn't take her seriously and saw her as the pretty blonde girl who had just inherited the company and had no idea of how to lead it. Pacifica got serious and became even more ruthless than her father had ever been, earning the respect and the fear of her coworkers and surprisingly increasing the company's monthly profits in a fifteen percent in only three months. However, Pacifica didn't like one bit what she had to do and moreover she quickly realized that no matter how talented she was or how much she had studied, leading such a large company was very time consuming. Between meetings, phone calls and other business distractions, she barely had time to spend with the people she loved and it was causing severe damage to her private life. Dipper and Pacifica had ended up spending most of their time at work and rarely had time for themselves.

However, today it had been different. Pacifica had made an extra effort to finish earlier than usual and she was going home in hopes of catching Dipper before he went to sleep. The fact that he worked from very early in the morning to the afternoon and Pacifica from early in the afternoon to late in the night had greatly affected their life, more precisely their sexual life. In fact, she didn't even remember the last time they had done it. Pacifica was adamant to change that tonight.

Dipper was sat in front of his computer, working on adding cryptograms to his show. He was glad that the fans were deciphering them, but he would prefer it took them longer than five minutes to do so. Dipper was racking his brains for a way of making them more difficult and he failed to hear his wife sneaking up on him.

Pacifica slid her hands inside his t-shirt through the neck from behind and purred into his ear "Dippuuurrr.", earning a yelp and a jerk of surprise from him. She giggled and her lips began tracing a kissing line along his neck, goosebumps following soon afterwards.

"Today I came home earlier and I thought we could… celebrate it."

Dipper's eyes bulged out when her hands managed their way into his jeans.

"Give me t-ten minutes to finish this, Princess."

"Make it eight and I'll bite that spot on your neck so hard you'll splurt right away." Pacifica whispered playfully and gave a lick to said spot.

Dipper felt the blood of his body being equally distributed between the blush on his face and the bulge in his jeans, which twitched in expectation between Pacifica's hands.

"I-I-I think I can make it in 6!" He blurted out.

"Then I'll consider biting something else too." She snickered and withdrew her hand from his jeans.

Six minutes were enough to try putting on something she had bought on her way home. Pacifica went to their bedroom and came back shortly after wearing a silk robe.

"Hey Dork, wanna find the hidden cryptogram here?"

Dipper turned around in his office chair and Pacifica let her robe slide to the floor. She was wearing a black lace pushup corset and panties lingerie set that accentuated all the curves of her body and covered just the right amount of skin, giving her a most entrancing cleavage and causing Dipper's jaw to fall to the floor.

However, creativity also struck him that very moment.

"Of course! Partially hidden cryptograms! We'll see now who finds and decodes them in five minutes! Thanks, Princess!" He yelled and turned around on his chair to work back on his show.

Pacifica rolled her eyes and sat on the couch. The accorded six minutes passed and Dipper hadn't finished yet. When they reached the ten minutes, Pacifica went for a different tactic.

"Diiiiippeeer, who's gonna eat these two?" She asked in a singing fashion.

When Dipper turned around to look at his wife, she freed her breast from the corset and pressed them together with her hands.

"Two minutes!" Dipper squeaked as his mouth watered and his jeans felt painfully tight. He turned again to rush the last details of the episode and add the remaining cryptograms. "And people wonder why the second season looks rushed." He muttered and continued clicking and typing as fast as he could.

After another ten minutes, summing a total of twenty instead of the originally ten accorded, Dipper finished working on the episode and raced his way to the couch as he removed the t-shirt over his head but, when he had a look at Pacifica, he saw she was snoring slightly and deeply asleep, completely exhausted after her hard day of work. Dipper smiled warmly and picked her up in his arms, taking her to the bed and lying in it with her. A few minutes later, Pacifica squirmed and snuggled closer.

"Dipper," She said more drowsy than conscious. "did we do it?"

"Of course, Princess." He lied. "You were amazing."

"Good." Pacifica smiled and closed her eyes again. "I feared that… after all that had happened we wouldn't manage but… what really matters in the end is that you still love me…"

Pacifica closed her eyes and fell asleep. The next morning she would not remember having that conversation, but Dipper stayed awake all night thinking about it. He made up his mind. He would take care of making sure they had more time to be together, but it would take him a while.

:: ::

Warning: Mildly-to-averagely described sexual themes in the following scene. Feel free to skip until the next (:: ::) which signals the next scene.

:: ::

A month and half ago…

Pacifica finally had, not only one day off, but two. Dipper arranged a romantic dinner at home the first night. He had cooked something light, a salad and a few pieces of fruit, so that what they intended to do after dinner didn't upset their stomachs. Dipper was trying his best not to look desperate and ate calmly, even if his leg wouldn't stop bouncing up and down under the tablecloth in expectation, whereas Pacifica was beyond the point of caring. She devoured her dinner in a matter of seconds and stared at Dipper expectantly.

"Uh… You want some more?" He asked with his eyes widened.

"Sure." Pacifica shrugged and moved her chair next to his, picking from the salad and the fruit on Dipper's plate until she ate his dinner too, much to his surprise.

Now that both of them, or rather Pacifica had finished having dinner, she grabbed Dipper by his belt and pulled him towards their bedroom. The moment they closed the door behind, Pacifica shoved her husband against it. It had been too long since they had last done it and she was hungry for him. Landing a series of rough kisses, her deft fingers quickly unbuttoned and removed his flannel shirt. Her mouth dashed to his pec and her tongue gave a few flicks to his nipple, causing Dipper to quiver and giggle. He half-consciously pushed her downwards, eager for her mouth to continue applying love to his flesh. Pacifica traced a kissing line towards his navel and next down his happy trail. There was still no six-pack there, but she didn't lose hope. Her fingers hooked on the hem of his clothes and pulled his jeans and boxers down, making them pool around his ankles.

Pacifica grabbed his penis and tested how ready they were with a few pumps. Dipper was hard, but she knew he could be harder. Unlike Pacifica who had had the day off, Dipper had been working since early that morning and now close to midnight he wasn't at full strength, but she knew a way of fixing that really quickly. Pacifica gave him a mischievous look and waggled her eyebrows playfully. Dipper knew what was going to happen now and gave her a huge grin, closing his eyes in order to fully experience every sensation. He felt a few feathery kisses, followed by a long lick from base to tip. Then, she blew a little on his penis to give him an icy sensation and make him quiver in expectation. Finally, she opened her mouth and engulfed him, her tongue swirling in quick motions around him.

Dipper shuddered and moaned his pleasure when he couldn't feel any more ready for action. He pulled his wife back to her feet and reached for the hem of her dress, pulling it swiftly over her head and revealing the black lingerie. Dipper loved what the corset was doing to her chest, but at the moment it only stood on his way. He lowered the straps on her shoulders and set her breasts free, quickly enveloping one in his warm mouth as his hand took care of pleasuring the other. The moment his lips began giving gentle sucks and his fingers began tweaking, Pacifica took a sharp breath and her nipples stood completely erect at the stimulation. She really wanted to let this continue, but she was also eager for something else. Pacifica pulled him up by the hair and looked at his face with a lustful expression.

"Play with the twins later. Now just bonk me until my brain explodes!" She growled and wrapped her legs and arms around him in a jump.

Dipper grunted at her weight and moved towards the bed while Pacifica's mouth ravished his neck, but his arousal got the better of him halfway through. Her desk was closer and it would have to do. Dipper sat her on it and eyed the complicated lingerie panties, which had straps attaching them down to the stockings and up to the corset. He had no time for finding out how to remove such complicate lingerie, so he simply pulled the sodden base of her panties aside and thrust himself inside. Pacifica's eyes rolled back in her head pleasantly and she buried one hand into his chocolate curls, the other pressing against the desk behind herself to keep her balance, all while Dipper reached for her butt and squeezed it, pulling her closer to achieve a deeper pleasure as they began thrusting their hips against each other. A half a minute later, Dipper had to stop all of a sudden, realizing that the fabric of her panties had become like sandpaper to the skin on his penis. Without thinking it twice, he grabbed the back lingerie panties and tore them off her groin with a 'RIP' sound.

Pacifica gasped and looked at him with a small glare.

"Those were expensive, you know?"

"They weren't purple. I didn't like them." Was all Dipper said to support his point, and it proved to be enough.

The fact that he was right angered her more than her torn lingerie. Pacifica frowned gave a hard shove on his chest, causing Dipper to stagger backwards and finally fall on the bed with a surprised expression on his face. Pacifica jumped up from her desk, ran to the bed and pounced on him with such strength that the legs at the foot of the bed snapped.

After a few hours and some rounds and games, Pacifica's lingerie was scattered across the room and they were almost done for the night.

Pacifica's pleasure became too much for her to handle. She squeaked and lost her balance, falling back on top of Dipper's belly from sitting on his face. Dipper however wasn't done. He pulled her groin back to his mouth and resumed his vampiric attacks on her sex. He was determined to make her shriek and soon he would achieve it. When she felt his hot tongue swirling at lightning speed, Pacifica's hands grasped the bed sheets and her thighs clamped around his face as she arched her back and finally shrieked in joy and release. Then, Dipper progressively slowed down the flicks of his tongue and the smooches until he completely stopped.

"You lost your balance." He rested his chin on her mound and gave her a playful smile.

"Yeah… I—Uff" She panted in an attempt to recover her breath. "I really needed a night like this."

"Uh-huh." Dipper returned his face between her legs, teasing her inner thighs with his teeth before going back to eating her out.

"Wait! Oh-my-gosh…" She squeaked before her hips began rising over and over again on their own to match the movement of his tongue. "I t-think four times was enough for tonight." She stroked his chocolate bangs to make him stop.

"Fine, we'll continue tomorrow." Dipper shrugged and went back to resting his chin on her mound.

Pacifica sighed happily and lay back, using Dipper's bent knees to rest her head on his thighs as if they were a pillow. Then she realized something for the first time in the night. The foot and the head of the bed were at a different height.

"Wow… We broke the bed."

"What do you mean 'we'? You alone broke the bed with that jump earlier." Dipper chuckled.

"I may have gotten carried away a little." She giggled as Dipper began stroking her belly.

"Just a little?" Dipper pointed with his head at the nearest wall. There was a hanging mirror with a splatter of whitish fluid on the wall at each side of it and another one right on the mirror's surface.

"Hey, you clearly liked that one." Pacifica pulled the hands on her belly to her chest.

"Sure." He began squeezing her breasts. "The 'Gimme that, Dork. I wanna play target practice with your Big Dipper' sounds fun for one time, but you needed three tries to hit the mirror and overusing it kinda hurts."

"I would've hit it the first time if you hadn't been wiggling and begging 'Please, Princess, do it faster!'." She mimicked the moans and wiggles he had done. "And that didn't sound very painful, huh?"

"Well…" Dipper flushed and averted her knowing gaze. "Maybe we could buy some lube for the next time…"

"I have my own lube." Pacifica gave him a mischievous look and ran her tongue along her lips teasingly.

"I—Uh… You wanna try hitting the desk, like… now?" He babbled as his eyes widened at the idea of all the oral sex that would involve.

"Nope. My hands and mouth have already seen enough action for tonight." She snickered and swung one leg over his head, moving on the bed to lie next to him. "By the way, you're so cleaning that mirror tomorrow. I'm not gonna comb my hair with your dippingsauce all over my reflection."

Dipper chortled and began stroking her side.

"So it's you who wants to play target practice but it's me who has to clean everything afterwards?"

"Pretty much yes." She placed her hands on his chest and began stroking the faint marks left by her fingernails. "But if you don't wanna clean it, just say it and we won't play target practice anymore." Pacifica gave him an innocent look. "It's a shame though, I was really looking forward to try toppling something off the dresser, and we would need a few tries and lots of lube for that. Besides, I wanna try if giving you a few bites makes your Dippingsauce splurt harder."

"That mirror will be tomorrow squeaky clean!" He blurted out without thinking.

Pacifica snickered and hugged his chest.

"You're a dork, have I ever told you that?"

"Every single day for the last fifteen years, Princess." He pecked her scalp and embraced her.

"Good to know someone else is counting." She sighed and closed her eyes.

Dipper began repeatedly stroking her hair and let his mind to wander. He still remembered the conversation they had close to two months ago. Pacifica no longer addressed the children issue and seemed to have overcome it, but Dipper knew better. He had seen her sighing whenever they walked near a playground, he had seen her lowering her gaze every time they went to the mall and walked near the sport clothes for children, but the most obvious fact had happened tonight. Despite the multiple times they had had sex over the night, she had pulled him out every single time with some kind of excuse like the games. He couldn't deny they were fun, but Pacifica had never been one of playing games in bed. She was playful, but not so playful. Dipper guessed what was passing through her mind: With zero chances there was simply no disappointment next month. She had completely lost hope in having children and that gave Dipper an overwhelming feeling in his chest.

"Pacifica." He whispered and broke the embrace. Dipper pushed her gently to lie on her back and began kissing her neck softly.

"Again?" She cupped his face and looked at him. "Dipper, you should sleep a little. You have to be at the studio tomorrow early in the morning."

"I'll manage." He gave her a sly smile. He hadn't told her yet what had happened in his job, and he wasn't going to tell her now. At the moment, he was only focused on kissing her neck.

Pacifica rolled her eyes and her hands reached to grab him and take care of his arousal. Dipper however was quicker and pinned her hands over her head as he rolled on top of her. She gave him a quizzical look and opened her mouth to complain with another excuse.

"Shh." He interrupted her and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "I love you, Pacifica. No matter what happens, I'll always love you."

Pacifica still didn't remember the conversation they had had before she fell asleep almost two months ago, but she found some solace in his words. She displayed a smile and hugged him, her legs bent at each side of his waist. Dipper began to move slowly, kissing her and accompanying every thrust with gentle caresses on her shoulders and hair. His intention was to show her affection rather than sexual pleasure, and she welcomed it by kissing him and stroking his back in return. Dipper rested his forehead on hers and placed a few feathery kisses on her lips, one of his hands tracing her side and squeezing her thigh. Their slow movement made them take their time to build up their pleasure, but they were too busy enjoying each other's closeness to be bothered by it. They enjoyed every kiss, every gentle caress and every soft spark of pleasure that flew through their bodies.

Some time later, when Dipper was already beginning to feel the familiar tingling in his groin which he tried to hold back as long as possible, Pacifica held her breath and closed her eyes, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist. Dipper felt her inner muscles contracting repeatedly around him as she suddenly opened her mouth to release her breath accompanied with a loud moan of pleasure. Dipper then smiled and didn't hold back anymore. And, even though that session of soft lovemaking didn't grant them a strong orgasm like their wild sessions usually did, the warm feeling in their chests compensated for everything.

:: ::

Pacifica woke up the next morning and stretched in bed. She felt a little sore after last night, but that was the usual after such a night. It was nothing that a hot shower couldn't fix, and she intended to take one now. Pacifica reached for the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was almost noon. She had overslept. Pacifica quickly jumped out of the bed to get ready for the day. Even though she didn't have to go to work today, she couldn't simply ruin her sleep schedule. However, something on the bed made her stop on her tracks. Something, or rather someone.

"Dipper! Wake up!" She quickly shook the sleeping form of her husband. "It's twelve in the morning! You're like… four hours late to work!"

Dipper groaned and turned to look at her. He rubbed his eyes and then sighed.

"I don't have to go to work. I quitted yesterday."

Pacifica was left dumbstruck by the information and took a few seconds to speak.

"What!? But it was your dream!"

Dipper chuckled and held her hands in his.

"If it was getting between us, it wasn't such a good dream."

""I…" Pacifica gave him a face he couldn't quite determine. It was the mixture of a frown and a worried look. "We'll speak about this when I'm back from work."

"I thought you had two days off." Dipper looked at her in puzzlement.

"Not anymore." She declined with a sharp gesture of her hand and stood up.

Hours passed and Dipper awaited her to come back home. He was determined in not going back to the studio. The job was entertaining and satisfying, but it was also very time consuming and rather stressful. Dipper had to work hours and hours on the same episode without being able to talk about it to anybody outside the developing team due to the privacy contract. Then, there were also the multiple little changes that the channel made to the episode once it was finished. Dipper had never thought that the word 'suck' would have to be strictly censored for 'stink' because it was offensive to children. That little thing alone didn't bother him, but the issue was when many little things bunched up together. All of that and the little time he had had lately to see Pacifica had been the last straw that broke the camel's back. He was not going back to the studio.

Much to his surprise, Pacifica got back home around five in the afternoon, which was way earlier than usual. The moment she entered the bedroom Dipper confronted her.

"Look, Pacifica. I'm not going back to the studio." He began but was interrupted.

"Dipper, it's not—"

"No, listen." He fished out his own Journal and all three of Ford's Journals from a drawer. "I've been thinking and… I could write short fables based on our childhood adventures. I always liked recording my experiences and maybe I'll be a good fantasy writer. It's probably not going to make lots of money but it should be enjoyable and…"

"Dipper, forget about the money. I sold the company." Pacifica said midsentence.

"…I thought Mabel could draw me the covers and—Wait, what?" He asked completely dumbfounded.

"I sold the company." She repeated. "We're almost billionaires now, so if you wanna write about your childhood then write all you want."

"B-but, Pacifica, your parents and the Northwest name…" He tried to remind her of why she had taken the lead of the company in the first place.

"Oh, that's why we're almost billionaires instead of billionaires." She smiled and gave Dipper a paper. "Half the money was for this."

Dipper's eyes widened and read the paper aloud. "The Northwest Foundation for orphaned youth and children with economic difficulties…"

"It's a philanthropic foundation I founded after selling the company. The manor was gathering dust so I also gave it to them with the condition that they use it as an orphanage." Pacifica explained and then sighed sadly. "I can't have children and I can't adopt them either but… my parents would've loved to have the manor full of children before they died so I thought…"

"I know." Dipper interrupted her and brought her into a tight embrace, kissing her forehead. "I'm so proud of you, Pacifica, and I know your parents would've been too."

Pacifica snickered and shook her head.

"No, they wouldn't. They would've preferred that I kept the company, but that's the way things are."

"Hey, who knows? They wanted what's best for you and right now it isn't to lead such a big company."

:: ::

[The Fate of Each - Part 4: Dreams are constantly shattered… or not.]

:: ::

Twelve hours ago…

Dipper twitched and woke up in their new bed with a broad smile. He was twenty seven and Pacifica and he had finally got the handle of their lives. Pacifica was back working at the store with Mabel and Dipper had already sorted the information of his Journals and began a few fables. Both of them had their distractions at work and their free time to enjoy each other, and Dipper thought they couldn't be any happier.

The young man took a quick survey of the bed and realized Pacifica wasn't with him. The clock on the nightstand marked five in the morning. Further scanning of the room made him realize that the bathroom had its lights on, so he guessed she would be there. Dipper scratched his own cheek, the scene being vaguely familiar to him. Soon he heard bared footsteps coming back from the bathroom and he quickly played asleep, unwilling to let Pacifica think that she might have accidentally woken him up.

With his eyes closed, he felt how Pacifica lay beside him in bed. He felt how she nestled her back in his chest and how she grabbed one of his hands, pulling it up and then using his palm as a pillow for her cheek. Then, he felt his palm becoming wet and all the memories came to his mind. Dipper frowned and sighed sadly, moving his hands from her face to embrace her belly tightly. All his previous thoughts about happiness were quickly switched into sadness at their bad luck.

Dipper was wrong again, but this time it was for a completely different reason.

"Dipper, not so tight." Pacifica complained and tried to loosen his grasp on her belly.

Dipper raised an eyebrow in confusion, considering Pacifica had always loved to be hugged from behind as tight as possible, and loosened the grasp on her belly. Pacifica wiggled in his embrace and rolled onto her other side to look at him. She was weeping, but she had a faint smile on her face.

"From now on you have to be careful down here." Pacifica stroked her own belly. "I didn't wanna tell you until the morning, but… since these past days my stomach has been a little upset and my period was not coming, I decided to check something out earlier while I was vomiting and… well, see it for yourself." She fished out a stick of plastic from her pajama pocket, but it wasn't just a stick of plastic. It was a pregnancy test and the result was two lines.

Dipper had no idea of how a pregnancy test worked, but he guessed the answer pretty accurately.

"You're…?"

"Yup. We're gonna be parents." Pacifica said and her smile turned broad.

Dipper's face lit up as if he were a kid who had been told he wasn't going to get a video console for Christmas yet when he opened the gift box he found one inside, and he also reacted as such. Dipper sat up with Pacifica still in his arms and began bouncing on his knees on the bed as he yelled in joy: "We're gonna be parents! We're gonna be parents! See, Pacifica? It was just a matter of time!"

Pacifica giggled at his enthusiasm but soon she got a little motion sickness. She was as happy or more than him, but her pregnancy hormones weren't helping much.

"Wow, easy there Dork. If you keep shaking me I'll vomit again. Upset stomach, remember?"

"Oh, sorry!" Dipper carefully laid her in bed as if she were the most fragile thing in the world. Then, he unbuttoned her pajama shirt up to below her breasts and pressed his hands on her belly with a huge grin.

"It's a little early to feel anything." She smiled and began stroking the hands on her belly.

"You know, this has always been my favorite body part." Dipper whispered and landed a few feathery kisses on her belly.

"Then you're gonna love this because it's gonna get so big." Pacifica gave him a lopsided smile, knowing that her figure was not going to be the same before and after the pregnancy.

"Sounds like more Pacifica for me to love." He smiled and began teasing her flesh with her teeth.

"Stop that!" She giggled and her belly quivered at his teasing.

Pacifica buried her hands into his chocolate curls and Dipper rested his head on her belly. He was determined to be extra caring with her now. She was thirsty? He would bring her whatever brand of water or fruit juice she wanted. She was hungry? He would ask which food and then he would cook it in a sec. She was bored? He would try his best and if that wasn't enough, he would also call Mabel. His eyes widened when he remembered that they now had to tell Mabel. Dipper was certain that his twin would probably break one of Pacifica's ribs in a hug when they told her.

"Dipper," Pacifica interrupted his train of thought. "wanna know the first thing I'll do when he's born? I want to see how he holds my fingers in his tiny hands." She said with sparkling eyes.

Dipper gasped and looked at her with a smile.

"I want to do that too!" He chuckled and stroked her sides. "But what I was looking forward to do is leaving the house for an hour or two then come back only to see how her face lights up and comes to receive me at the door with a hug."

"Dipper, we're having children not dogs." She snickered. "I'd also love to do that though. Wait, you said 'her'?" Pacifica raised both eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah, because I know it's gonna be a girl." Dipper landed a quick peck on her belly. "She will be just like you, but brunette. I'll help her with her homework, take her to school and teach her stuff while her big blue eyes stare at me like I'm the smartest person in the world." Dipper sighed dreamily.

"I wouldn't want to burst your bubble, but it's definitely gonna be a boy." Pacifica countered with a sly smile. "He'll be as smart as you and as determined as me. I'll buy him whatever he wants and take him to places like the fair, the zoo, the sea… Oh my gosh, you think we'll spoil our children?"

"Probably, but who cares?" Dipper chuckled pressed his ear on her belly as if trying to hear something. "We disagree on the gender, so how about this: If it's a boy you choose the name and if it's a girl I'll do it, but regardless of the gender we'll love them just as much."

"Agreed on one condition." She said and then put on a pleading look. "If it's a girl… I'll love her a lot but… we'll go for the boy afterwards, right?"

Dipper gave her a warm smile and hugged her belly.

"We'll have as many children as you want, Princess."

Pacifica sighed happily and stared at the ceiling, her hands massaging her husband's scalp while he caressed her belly.

"These are gonna be a very long nine—No, actually eight months."

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Dipper quickly parted from the embrace and sat on the edge of their bed, looking for something inside his nightstand drawer. "We're on the… fourth week?"

"According to this thingy." She held out the modern and very expensive pregnancy text. "We're on the sixth week." Then her face blushed. "Wow, it was the night we broke the bed!"

"That was a fun night." Dipper chuckled at the memories and finally found what he was looking for. "Alright, the table for the first trimester is…"

"What's that?" She kneeled up behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking curiously over his shoulder at what Dipper had in his hands.

"Remember three years ago when I began planning your pregnancy? Well, I kept this hidden in here just in case." He explained and Pacifica's eyes widened in surprise. She had just realized that Dipper had never lost hope and she rubbed her cheek against his to show her affection. "Here's the diet for the first trimester and a weekly schedule. Mondays we'll go to the park and you'll eat chicken, Tuesdays to the lake—"

"What are the purple labels for?" She asked, noticing that most of the hours of the day were colored in purple.

"Those are sleeping hours. In your first trimester you need to sleep at least eight hours daily, so we're gonna sleep twelve split into night sleep and three naps just to be sure."

"No way, Dork. I'm not gonna spend my whole pregnancy sleeping." She quickly denied the idea. "Besides, when am I supposed to go to work at Mabel's store in this schedule of yours?"

"It'll be just the first trimester, Princess. Mabel will understand that you take a few weeks off. You need many hours of shuteye and a lot of folic acid." He said matter-of-factly and pointed at the schedule. "In fact, I'll make you an orange juice now to cover the daily folic acid intake."

"Nuh-huh. Dipper, I'm pregnant, not physically impaired. I'll drink all the orange juice you want, but I'm not gonna spend the whole day sleeping. I'll do the same stuff I've always been doing, and that includes working at Mabel's store."

"But…" Dipper tried to counter.

"No buts!" She quickly silenced him with a mild glare.

Dipper rolled his eyes and smiled.

"Fine. Would you at least let me do a quick diagnostic test to make sure everything is alright?"

"Sure, why not." Pacifica shrugged and saw how Dipper turned over the schedule sheet to reveal a list.

"Let's see… first trimester… sixth week… Here!" He cleared his throat and put on a professional voice, something he did easily thanks to the experience in voice acting he had developed back to when he was making his TV show. "Are you experiencing nausea? Wait, you already answered that one. Hmm… do you have sudden mood changes?"

"Does feeling like punching you because of that voice counts?" Pacifica asked with a playful smile.

"I guess so." He coughed a little and turned back to his own voice. "Next question: Sore breasts?"

"Now that you mention it…" She drew one hand from his neck to her breast and massaged it. "Yeah, they're a little sore. I think I need a bigger cup size, at least until these hormones are done messing with my body."

"I—um…" Dipper's mind was overwhelmed at the idea of her breasts being temporally bigger and he quickly skipped to the last question of his test. "Do you have a decrease or sudden loss of sexual desire?"

"What do you think?" Pacifica chortled and stuck out her tongue, running it from the crook of his neck up to his earlobe.

Dipper stood up with a yelp of surprise and Pacifica smiled sultrily, lying back on the bed. She was certain that the soreness of her breasts would easily go away with a few well-placed kisses and whatever Dipper's mouth did to her afterwards, so she finished unbuttoning her shirt and opened it wide, exposing her charms completely. She closed her eyes and waited to feel his warm lips on her nipples, but they were taking far too long to land. Pacifica opened an eye and saw Dipper taking notes with a pencil on the schedule.

"Dipper!" She whined.

"What?" He quickly lifted his gaze from the sheet and Pacifica gestured over her naked chest. "Oh! Just a second, Princess. If that part of the test was wrong it means that the website where I took it from was also wrong, so I cross this here, and this, and also this…" He began crossing out lines and lines on his list.

"Ugh." Pacifica grunted and buttoned back her shirt. "You better uncross that because I don't feel like doing it anymore."

Dipper stopped crossing mid-line and looked at her with such a big pout that Pacifica couldn't help but giggle.

"C'mere." She patted the bed. "Let's sleep a little more."

Dipper smiled and left the schedule on the nightstand, lying beside her and hugging her from behind. He quickly adapted his usual posture from wrapping his forearms around her belly to simply resting his palms on it.

"See, Princess? I never break my promises. Now that we're going to have our own children you don't have to cry anymore at night." He whispered and landed a kiss on her shoulder.

"I didn't cry for this all nights." She murmured. "There were some nights that I just woke up feeling terrible, but that's all over now."

"Oh, I guess you had a nightmare or something." He commented and began to doze.

"Yeah, that must be it." She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep too.

With the promise Dipper had made her three years ago being finally fulfilled, a heavy weight was taken off Dipper's mind and was replaced with a complete sense of serenity. For the first time in three years, his mind was at ease and his detective skills got to work. He instinctively tied loose ends, considered possibilities and, as an epiphany was being formed on his mind, his eyes became wide open.

"Do you remember any of those nightmares?" He warily asked.

"Hmm… no." She squirmed in his embrace. "Dipper, I don't wanna talk about that. Let's have some sleep."

"No!" He quickly replied and then collected himself just as quickly. "I mean… Look at the hour! It's six in the morning! You have to be at work in three hours!"

"Mabel gave me the day off because of the vomits. Besides, you have been insisting on me sleeping twelve hours a day and now that I want to sleep I can't? Are you sure it's not you the one with the mood swings here?" Pacifica asked playfully and turned around to look at him. "Wow, Dipper. What's wrong?"

Dipper realized that he might be displaying a completely distressed face and he quickly put on a fake smile.

"Nothing."

"C'mon, Dipper. I know you're lying. Your eyebrows are doing that thing again." She snickered and stroked his cheek. "What's troubling you?"

"Um…" Dipper facepalmed inwardly. He had never known what exactly his eyebrows did whenever he lied, but Pacifica had ended up knowing him better than himself after being together for so long. He saw no point in lying, so he simply didn't say it all. "Pacifica I… have to leave and do something for the day."

"By 'something' you mean something dangerous and paranormal?" She looked at him suspiciously.

"Yes." He answered after a moment's hesitation and lowered his gaze.

"No way, Dipper. You know I don't have a problem with a let's-talk-to-the-gnomes paranormal adventure, but you're not going into another I-come-back-with-a-broken-arm adventure." Pacifica frowned and stroked the arm he had had put into a cast for six weeks when they were teens. "You said that was the last time. Please, especially not now… You're gonna be dad!" She grabbed his hand and placed it on her own belly.

Dipper gave a heavy sigh and caressed her belly.

"I'm sorry, Princess, but I need to fix this once and for all."

Pacifica looked at him for a few seconds and then she sighed in defeat.

"Fine, but please be careful for me and… for us." She held his hand on her belly and gave it a squeeze.

"Don't worry." He quickly pecked her forehead and stood up from bed. "But… no matter what happens, don't go to sleep until I come back. He mustn't know I'm coming for him and this time I'm not letting him go." He added with a stern face.

Pacifica raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

"Who?"

"Trust me." Dipper smiled at the fact that Pacifica didn't remember Bill from their childhood. "When I'm done, you won't have any more nightmares."

:: ::

[The Fate of Each - Part 5: Demonology]

:: ::

Two hours ago…

Dipper did one last check to make sure everything was ready. He was proud of what he had achieved in so little time; he had even managed to get the mercury, but there were many things that he would prefer not to remember. Dipper grabbed the memory gun and set it to erase the last ten hours. Then he raised it to his head and pulled the trigger.

The young man blinked a few times, trying to make the camera flash-like blind spots in his vision go away. He clenched his eyelids shut and groaned in vain tries to vanish the stinging sensation behind his eyes as if he were suffering a migraine. Then, he shook his head a little and took a survey of the room where he was at. The last thing he remembered was leaving his own house, and now he seemed to be in the Shack's basement. On a table in front of him there was a file labeled as 'Demonology' with a note attached to it. Dipper recognized it instantly. It came with one of the last letters he had received from Ford years ago, but he had never opened it due to the note attached to it.

Dipper held the note and read it aloud.

"My dear Dipper. I have realized that you are more suited for the task of keeping Bill from unleashing his reign of madness on this world than I am, therefore here I send you all my notes regarding the issue. These are all the cases of demonology I've found over the years. You have to be very careful with this information and use it only as a last resort for two reasons: First, as the saying goes, if you play with fire you get burned, and the people who tried what's written here got literally burned (Try not to see the drawings with a full stomach). Second and most important, you must not fall asleep after reading this. Your mind isn't protected like mine is, and keeping Bill from knowing what's written here is your only advantage."

Regardless of the warning note, Dipper had always felt curious about what was written inside and it seemed that now was the moment to find out. He warily opened the file and found a note on the first page. However, he realized it was his own handwriting.

The note said

"Do not read what's written in here. It's terrible and I hope most of it was lies. All you need to know for the matter at hand is in a notepad inside the first drawer."

Dipper scratched his cheek and pondered about it for a second. He was very, very curious so he turned the first page to have just a little peek at the first case. He quickly regretted his decision and closed the file as he felt his bile rising.

"Wow… I've never seen teeth so big and sharp… or someone without lips nor nose before."

He shook his head to get the picture out of his mind and opened the first drawer. There was a small notepad with apparently instructions on each page.

The first page read in his own handwriting

"Do not turn to the next page until you're done with the one you're at. Behind you there is a sheet of paper and a bag. Do not open the bag. Take the sheet of paper to the copier machine and do a copy of yourself."

Dipper immediately frowned at the idea. His previous experiences with clones hadn't gone very well but if it was what the notepad said, then he had no other choice. He first went to the kitchen to get a water bottle just in case and then, he headed to Stan's old office and made a copy of himself. Dipper looked cautiously at how the sheet of paper took form and soon an exact copy of himself stood before him.

"Um… Tyrone?" He asked doubtfully.

"Yeah, I guess that name will have to do." The clone shrugged.

"So… it's pointless to ask, but you're not going to backstab me, are you?" Dipper took a step closer to the water bottle.

"No, Dipper. This is important. We're doing this for her." He shook his head sternly. "By the way, have you thought about suggesting her to name the kid Tyrone?"

"I was thinking the exact same thing!" Dipper couldn't help but smile. "But Pacifica isn't going to like that name."

"Probably not." The clone chuckled. "Well, read the next step."

Dipper felt a little more relaxed around his copy and turned the page.

"If Tyrone is up, he can't read any of the following pages, otherwise this won't work." He read aloud and raised his gaze to the clone.

"Sure, read it for yourself."

Dipper continued reading and turned page after page. The more he read, the more the smile fell from his face and the more his frown deepened.

"Oh… I… I can't do this to you." He sighed and closed the notepad.

"It's pretty much what we were expecting, right?" Tyrone gave him a lopsided smile and Dipper nodded. It wasn't hard to guess why Dipper needed a clone right after reading a file about demonology. "It doesn't matter whether you can or can't do it, Dipper. We have to do it anyway. It's the lesser evil."

"I hate those three words." Dipper muttered and inhaled deeply, grabbing the water bottle. "If you have second thoughts about this and change your mind, just drink from the water bottle. I'll understand it."

The clone took the water bottle, opened it and then poured its content onto the floor.

"And there goes my second thoughts. What now?"

Dipper smiled and placed a hand on Tyrone's shoulder.

"Now we have to go to the bunker."

:: ::

Ten minutes ago…

"Comfortable?" Dipper asked as he finished fastening the rope around the clone's wrist.

"No, but that's the point." Tyrone shrugged as much as his bindings allowed him.

Dipper did a double check on the ropes around the other wrist and the ropes around the ankles, and then he took two steps back to check the cryogenic pod. The panel showed that everything was in order, so he sighed and had a final look at his clone.

"Thanks." He muttered.

"Don't mention it. Remember you're thanking yourself."

Dipper stood before the pod with the notepad in his hands.

"This won't hurt." He reassured the clone.

"Wow, it's true you do something weird with the eyebrows." Tyrone commented and Dipper lowered his gaze. "Just do it quick."

Dipper read the first incantation aloud. "ʇɥıs sɔǝuǝ ıs qɐsǝp ou ʇɥǝ qooʞ 'ɯɐןןǝns' qʎ pɐu ɐquǝʇʇ. ɟǝǝן ɟɹǝǝ ʇo snǝ ɯǝ, snɔʞǝɹs!" Then Tyrone fainted. Dipper read the second one and felt a metallic taste in his mouth. He read the third and last incantation and felt his nose bleeding. Dipper smiled and cleaned the blood from his face with the back of his hand. According to the notes, that was a sign that the magic had worked. However, Tyrone was wiggling in his bindings with his eyelids tightly clenched.

"Tyrone?" Dipper asked warily and approached the cryogenic pod.

"Hnnng…" The clone groaned. "I… think it didn't work. Untie me and let's repeat from the start."

Dipper approached to remove the ropes but stopped on his tracks. The old fork scars on his forearm had begun to itch terribly and that was more than enough for Dipper to think twice.

"Open your eyes first." He demanded.

Tyrone blinked quickly and then winced, leaving his eyes closed.

"My head is spinning and the lights hurt my eyes. I need to sit down. Untie me."

This time, instead of approaching Dipper took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Show me your eyes." He insisted.

Then, as if it were a completely different person, Tyrone stopped wiggling and the painful expression on his face was replaced by a malevolent smile.

"Well, well, well. You seem to be harder to fool with age, Pine Tree." The clone opened his eyes to reveal golden irises, a yellowish sclera and vertical slits for pupils.

"Bill." Dipper immediately scowled at him.

"That's me!" The dream demon began a staring contest with Dipper, knowing how seeing his clone possessed was bothering him. "You sure had gone through lots of trouble just to talk to me."

"I didn't bring you here to talk." He shook his head and kept the stare, although it was becoming harder and harder. It was his own face, his own voice, himself but with an evil touch that Dipper couldn't stand.

"I honestly don't care. At the moment I'm having fun with your little clone in his mind. When I grow bored of hearing him scream, I'll leave this body so that you can look into his eyes and see the consequences of summoning me." Bill shrugged as much as the bindings allowed him.

Dipper glared at him and smirked.

"How much do you know of demonology?"

"How much do you know of anatomy?" Bill replied in a mocking tone.

"Because I was hoping you'd tell me what these runes on the back of your hands are." Dipper pointed to the marks the clone had on each hand. The symbols had been made with silver paint.

Bill looked impassively at his hands and then returned to his staring contest with Dipper.

"They look like very ugly tattoos to me."

"Their goal is to prevent the demon from using his powers through a host, but of course you don't recognize them. They were meant for more powerful demons and you have never been able to use your powers through a host anyway." He commented as bitterly as possible. "You know, I've been reading a little about the subject, and from what I remember…" Dipper tapped the notepad hidden in his flannel shirt pocket. "…since you're a dream demon, it means you're just a little lesser demon! You can't spite fire nor grow teeth to bite someone's head off! You're lucky to be from another dimension, because in this dimension you wouldn't have lasted an hour in the old days when you had competition."

"Really?" Bill burst into laughter. "You spend two hours in your 'internet' and you think you know demonology? Summon me in the dreamscape and I'll show you that not only those bullies can grow teeth or spit fire." He said defiantly.

"Oh, no. This isn't my research. This is Great Uncle Ford's."

Bill's eyes widened for a second and then he quickly collected himself.

"Sixer is dead, just like Stanley." The dream demon snapped. "They died a painful dead in the ice, but you didn't know that, did you?"

"I had guessed it when they stopped sending letters years ago." Dipper replied with a sigh. "The bad thing about monster hunting is that you eventually find a monster that is smarter and stronger than you. However, Ford sent me his research before that, and I've learned a few things about demons. You'll probably recognize these runes on your upper arms." He lifted the flannel shirt on the clone's arms to reveal another pair of identical marks.

This time his facial expression showed that he indeed recognized the symbol, but his voice didn't change.

"It doesn't ring a bell. Speaking of bells, how is Llama? Crying much?" The dream demon replied in the same bitter tone.

"They forbid the demon from leaving the body until the host dies." He ignored the comment. "The cult who designed it wanted to extract information from demons, but they didn't know about the first rune so it's not hard to guess what happened." Dipper shuddered as the picture of the person without lips and with dagger teeth came back to his mind. "Who would've thought that the legends of dragons and werewolves had a little grain of truth behind them?"

"I loved the story class." Bill chuckled mockingly. "So I'm stuck here for… How long can a meatbag of these live without eating? Three weeks? And then what, Pine Tree? Have you, who are so smart, thought about that?"

"Actually, it's a paperbag and… why would I? I'm not going to see it anyway." Dipper shrugged and displayed a malevolent smile for the first time. "You're going to be stuck in there for all eternity. Paper doesn't eat, drink or breathe, you know?"

The smile began to fall from Bill's face.

"Well, at least I'll have someone to play with. Your clone just broke and he is wailing in a corner. In various corners at the same to be more accurate because, as you know, pain in the mindscape can be very realistic and after cutting him into pieces—"

"Oh! That reminds me of the last rune." Dipper poked the clone's forehead. "This little thing on your forehead expels the host's soul from the body so that the demon can't consume it. I'm not sure who you're messing with in your mind, but that's not Tyrone."

"It doesn't matter." Bill quickly added. "Even if the clone is gone, his memories are still here. Your memories. I'll search how you did this and then I'll find a way to reverse it."

"I don't think so. I shot myself with the memory gun before using the copier machine, so you won't find anything in his mind about how I did this or how to get out." He replied with a smug smile.

Dipper stood before the dream demon with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression on his face that clearly said 'checkmate'. Bill closed his eyes and tried to leave the body, realizing with terrifying clarity that he couldn't. Then, he struggled in his bindings in an attempt to escape the pod, but he could barely move either. The dream demon's expression went from mocking to desperate in a matter of seconds.

"What do you want?" Bill muttered. "I'll give you anything."

"All I want is one of your deals, but I set the terms this time." Dipper smirked. "You're going to stay right there for all eternity and let me be. In return you'll get nothing. As you can see, I'm just as fair as you tend to be. Goodbye, Bill." He finished and turned to leave.

"Wait! Don't just leave me here, Pine Tree! At least have the decency of telling me why you did this!" Bill yelled as Dipper walked away.

"You speak of decency after what you did?" [···]

:: ::

Present time…

[···] "…Would you look to the right for a sec?"

And Bill, one of the oldest entities in the universe, looked like a fool to his right and fell to the oldest trick in the world as a fist collided with his face and broke his nose.

"Wow! Pain is hila—"

But Dipper didn't let him finish. He held his head still by grasping his hair and struck his nose repeatedly with his fist.

"She cried herself to sleep! She spent a year working in that terrible place and it was all your fault!"

Dipper struck him until the pain on his knuckles surpassed the rage he felt in his arms. Only then he stopped and backed away, breathing hard through the nose in anger.

"Getting tired, Pine Tree?" Bill spit a paper molar and displayed a ruined malevolent smile.

Dipper felt completely glad that he had broken his nose. The clone's voice no longer sounded like his own but more nasal, a little like what Bill's voice sounded in the dreamscape. Dipper massaged his aching knuckles and smiled in satisfaction.

"Yes and no. I could switch to the other hand and do this all day, but I'm tired of you. This time I'm leaving. Good riddance, Bill."

As Dipper turned to leave again, Bill frowned. He had been struggling for the last ten minutes and the rope on his right wrist had loosened enough, but he wouldn't be able to escape if he was frozen into the cryogenic pod. His frown soon turned into another malevolent grin and an idea came to his mind.

"Thank you, Pine Tree. Shooting Star has shown me suffering, Llama has shown me desperation but you, you have shown me pain. Turning me into a popsicle won't hold me, Pine Tree. There'll be an electrical failure someday and I'll be out. Then, I'll find your little Llama and show her pain. First, I'll make her think I'm you and hold her in these arms—your arms. Then, I'll hurt her with these fingers—your fingers, and in the end I'll make sure the last thing she ever sees are these eyes—not your eyes, my eyes."

Dipper stopped and turned around.

"You never learn, do you?" He cracked his knuckles and approached the pod again.

"Oh, but I do learn." Bill freed his arm and punched him in the throat.

Dipper staggered back and fell to one knee with a surprised expression on his face, struggling to breathe.

"I have learnt a few things after our last encounter. You were ready for me that time, and now I'm ready for you. I've learned that you meatbags are very weak," The dream demon untied his other hand. "and that you can die from the stupidest thing in the world like a cold or a punch on the right spot, like the throat." He untied his feet and walked out of the pod, staring at how Dipper breathed raggedly on one knee. "Although it seems I need to aim a little lower for that. It doesn't matter now. Let's have some fun."

Bill kicked Dipper in the diaphragm, forcing him up to his feet and making his lungs to push out the little air he had managed to get in. Then, he seized him by the shoulders and threw him against one of the tables nearby. Dipper grunted and struggled to get air into his lungs while his hands groped the table in search of anything to defend himself. He felt an elbow striking him on the back and he screamed in pain. Bill punched him in the kidney to push out again the air Dipper had managed to gather and turned him over, delivering his next punch into his face. Then, he left a panting Dipper falling to the floor and he walked around the room.

"Whoo! This…" The dream demon examined his tingling hands. "This feels amazing! I never expected pain to feel so good!" He laughed. "And this body… I don't breathe, I don't eat and I don't get tired! It's awesome! I genuinely thank you, Pine Tree. I'll be able to do many things with this! However…" Bill finally found what he was looking for. He grabbed steel pipe lying between the pods and turned to Dipper. "…you won't be able to see it, because you're going to be dead. But don't be sad, Shooting Star will join you soon. Llama… I don't know. I think I'll play a little with her first." He displayed a cruel smile and walked towards Dipper, who attempted to get on his feet aiding himself with the table, but fell back with his arms resting on it. "Oh, you're not gonna put on a fight? That's boring. Anyway, try not to get too much blood on my new body. It's made of paper after all."

As Bill raised the pipe over his head, Dipper didn't feel his lungs burning anymore. Oxygen was again being delivered to his muscles, and with that oxygen there was also a river of adrenaline and mindless rage. The pipe fell and Dipper rolled aside in the last second to let it struck the table instead, and then he used both feet to kick the dream demon in the belly. Bill staggered backwards and, while he regained his balance, Dipper stood back up on his feet. Bill swung the pipe horizontally as he laughed and Dipper had to arch his back and jump backwards to dodge it. The dream demon repeated the motion vertically and Dipper turned to the side and let the pipe fall next to himself, but as Bill was raising the pipe to strike again, Dipper grasped it with both hands and threw one elbow into the dream demon's mouth. Bill yelped in pain and let go the pipe, backing away a few steps.

Now that Dipper had the pipe, he eyed it for a second and then threw it away. He was seething and his hands were screaming at him their need to cause pain, and he was not about to ignore them.

"That was a mistake, Pine Tree." The dream demon commented at the discarded pipe. "I always love a challenge though. C'mon." He beckoned Dipper with his hands.

The little experience Dipper had earned in the few fights he had had over his life told him to circle him around and try to make him lose his balance, but his rage demanded him to punch him to death, make another clone and then punch him to death again, and at the moment his rage was in charge. Dipper ran his tongue over his broken bottom lip to taste his own blood and spit on the floor. Then, he stomped towards the dream demon. Bill didn't feel intimidated at all and threw his fist at Dipper's face.

That was the real mistake.

Dipper ducked, easily parrying the punch with his forearm and with his other arm delivered a punch of his own into Bill's stomach, forcing him to bend over. Dipper aided the sudden momentum and finished pulling the dream demon's head down as he struck his chin with his knee. Bill was left completely disoriented and Dipper seized the opportunity to grab a metal tray lying on a table and struck his face with it. The dream demon spun and fell to his knees with his face on a table, just like Dipper had been a second ago. Then, Dipper made a fist with both hands and struck him right between the shoulder-blades, causing Bill to wail in pain, but Dipper was not done yet. He turned him over and wrapped his fingers around the dream demon's neck to choke him. Bill's eyes bulged out and in response he did the same to Dipper. After a few seconds, Dipper realized his fatal mistake. Blinded by rage, he had forgotten that Bill didn't breathe. Dipper quickly let go of the dream demon's neck and tried to free his own, but he wasn't making any progress. They had the same strength after all.

Bill also saw what had happened and smiled broadly as he got back to his feet, pushing Dipper against a wall. He began cackling and added progressively more pressure to the throat in tries to crush the trachea.

"As I told you, the key is hitting the right spot." The dream demon smiled and dug his thumbs into his neck. "Just a few more seconds and when you hear the 'crack' everything will be over."

Dipper began to see a small black ring in his vision with phosphenes all over it, but what Bill had just said made him display a smirk. There was indeed a crack, although it didn't come from Dipper's neck but from Bill's groin. The dream demon grunted and immediately let go of his neck. Dipper had just kicked him where a man should never be kicked, but Dipper didn't regret it at all and Bill wasn't exactly a man. The dream demon fell to the floor with both hands between his legs and his thighs clenched together, his mouth agape with incredulity.

"How… how does this hurt so much…!?" Bill rolled on the floor with his eyes completely bulging out.

"I thought pain was hilarious." Dipper coughed as he regained his breath. "You still have to learn a lot about anatomy. Now let me show you what really hurts."

Dipper raised the dream demon to his level and head-butted his broken nose. With his palms he struck his ears, making a disoriented Bill raise his arms to protect his face. Having his belly unprotected, Dipper punched him in the base of the breastbone and Bill lowered his arms to protect that, revealing his neck. Dipper thrust his elbow in the crook of his neck and Bill raised his arms again, allowing Dipper to hit him on the second rib with a soft crack. Then, Dipper kept mercilessly beating the clone's tender points depending on what Bill tried to protect until the dream demon begged him to stop.

"Enough, Pine tree… Enough… I yield, take me to the pod…" He panted and waved his arms, unsure of what to protect now.

"No." Dipper reached for the clone's flannel shirt and lifted him in the air. "I've never been cruel to anyone, not even to you, but today I'll make an exception."

Dipper threw him through the air across the room and Bill collided against a wall, falling to the floor and rolling on it. He quickly raised his gaze and saw how Dipper approached with a face contorted in rage, his fingernails dug deep into his palms, causing blood to pour from his clenched fists. Bill felt something gripping his chest, something that caused his hands to shake and his legs to ignore his commands. He was feeling fear, and he began crawling away from Dipper as fast as his arms allowed him. Something pulled at his leg and Bill was dragged through the floor, the dirt and broken glass damaging his palms and chest. The dream demon tried to stop the inevitable and held himself to a table leg. Dipper stopped pulling at his leg and seized the back of his head, slamming Bill's face onto the floor one, two and three times.

Bill let go of the table leg and Dipper pulled at his head, forcing him to lie on his back. Then, he stared at him.

"You said you'd hold her in these arms. I won't let you do that." Dipper growled and stomped with all his strength on Bill's forearm, causing such a gruesome sound that a shiver was sent down his spine.

The dream demon howled and began to sob without tears, holding his open fracture with his healthy arm. On the other hand, Dipper stared at the scene with repulsion. From an objective point of view, he found curious that the copier machine recreated bones but not blood, but from a subjective point of view he had to avert his sight, since that was still a copy of his own arm. Dipper grabbed the foot again and continued dragging Bill through the floor towards the pod. However, Bill's healthy hand tried to grab hold of whatever he could find and he ended up holding to a conduit that fed the cryogenic pods.

Dipper tugged a few times at the dream demon, but his own arms were already exhausted. He let go of the leg and approached him.

"I'm tired of this." He placed his foot on top of the hand, trapping it between his shoe and the conduit. "You said you'd hurt her with these fingers. How do you pretend to do so if they're broken?" Dipper added all his strength and weight to his foot, feeling a few cracks and then raising his foot to see how all the fingers were bent the wrong way.

He kicked the clone to turn him over and then pulled him up by the flannel shirt. Dipper held the dream demon's face in his hands and Bill tried to fight back, since he knew what came next, but his two arms had been rendered useless.

"You said these eyes would be the last thing she was ever going to see. I don't know about that, but I know that the last thing you're ever going to see is this." And the last thing the dream demon saw was a pair of thumbs sticking into his eyes, and he felt pain like he had never imagined before.

A few minutes later Dipper had tied the clone back into the pod and was certain that this time he would not untie himself. Dipper had found some cable tie in a desk and that was something one doesn't simply struggle his way out. Now he stood on the control room, watching the pod through the glass.

"I'll get out of here, Pine Tree." Bill panted and Dipper averted his gaze, not because of shame or fear, but because he didn't want to see his own face with black pits instead of eyes. "I'll get out and drink some water to leave this wrecked body. And then I'll haunt your dreams, and if you're no longer around, I'll haunt your children's dreams. You'll see… I'll have the last laugh here."

"Shut up." Dipper muttered and turned on the cryogenic pod.

As the clone froze and stopped talking, Dipper collapsed on the floor. His jaw hurt and he felt a molar loose. He noted mentally to go visit a dentist tomorrow. His chest ached badly, but he didn't think he had anything broken. His knuckles were bloodied from punching too much and his palms were bleeding from clenching his fists too hard. Dipper ignored all that and opened the notepad. The next step told him to open the black box inside the bag. Dipper did as told and found a few ingredients, a pair of gloves, a gas mask and instructions attached to them.

"Careful with the mercury. The woman at the store told me it's mercury IV and it's safe to touch with the hands, but I wouldn't risk suffering a painful dead by intoxication in a few weeks, so put this on." Dipper read aloud and saw that the ingredients were mercury, moonstones and unicorn hair, which brought a smile to his face because he already knew the spell.

Dipper put on the pair of gloves and the gas mask and then he began pouring the mercury in a circle around the pod. Once that was done, he placed five moonstones at exact distance from each other forming a pentagon in the circle and, to conclude, he placed the unicorn hair on the mercury. A multicolored bubble appeared for an instant around the pod and Dipper took that as a signal that everything had worked. He flipped another page of the notepad and realized that it was the last one.

"The sheet of paper was waterproof… Oh!" Dipper laughed. "Well, good luck drinking some water to get your last laugh now, Bill."

Dipper sighed now that it was all over and walked out of the bunker. When he set his feet into the forest, he realized how much his whole body hurt, and how much of that day he would like never to remember again. Dipper pondered for a second to use the memory gun just once more, but quickly discarded the idea. The day had been traumatic, but it had also been instructive. He had learned a few things that he would rather not forget, and the first thing he did was head to Mabel's apartment.

:: ::

"Alright, stop right there bro-bro." Mabel prevented her brother from opening the door to his house. "I didn't ask when you came to my apartment all bloodied asking me to patch you up. I didn't ask while I was applying makeup to those bruises on your face or when I lent you those gloves to hide the bloody mess you have done to your hands, but I have to ask now. Who did this to you? And why are you insisting so much in me coming to your house?"

"To your first question, it was Bill but that's already taken care of for good." Dipper waved his hand dismissively.

"Bill who?" Mabel asked and searched her mind for any guy they knew named Bill.

Dipper rolled his eyes but smiled. He considered a good sign that no one remembered him.

"Triangle guy, remember?"

"Oh!" Her eyes widened in realization. "Wait, was it a 'hey sucker, eat this punch!' kind of meeting or a 'we talked and then I kicked his butt' kind of meeting?" Mabel looked worriedly at her brother, since she knew what she had been dreaming for the last few years.

"Eat this punch kind of meeting." Dipper lied. "And please, don't tell Pacifica any of it."

"Well, glad that's over anyway." Mabel sighed in relief. "And don't worry, my lips are sealed! How's Pacifica's stomach by the way?"

"That's precisely why I brought you here. I want to—No, we want to show you something." Dipper then held his sister by the shoulders. "And… Mabel, I'm sorry."

"For what?" She asked obliviously.

Dipper pondered for a second how to sum up everything that he had learned that day. He didn't know if what Bill had told him about Mabel was true, but Dipper felt the need to apologize nonetheless and he couldn't find the words.

"For everything. I'm so sorry." He sighed.

"Oh, um… It's okay, I guess." She gave him a lopsided smile, since she still had no clue what he was talking about.

Dipper smiled warmly and hugged her.

"I know I don't say this enough, but thank you. You've always been there for me and… for us."

"Of course I have!" Mabel returned the embrace. "I'm the big sis after all!"

Dipper gave her a squeeze and parted the embrace.

"C'mon, let's get inside."

The twins found Pacifica in the last place Dipper would have expected. She was in the brightly colored room wiping the dust off the cot with a cleaning cloth and displaying a hopeful smile.

"Princess, look who has come to visit us." Dipper let her know that they were in the house.

"Mabel!" Pacifica's face lit up even more.

"Hey, Paz-Paz!" Mabel cheered. "How's your stomach doing? You solved the vomits thingy?"

Pacifica looked at her quizzically and then turned to her husband.

"You didn't tell her about…?"

"Nope. We're doing it together." He smiled and switched from standing next to Mabel to standing next to his wife.

Pacifica eyed him and decided not to notice the fact that he was wearing gloves, that some of the skin on his face had a different color due to obvious makeup and that his bottom lip was broken. She instead smiled broadly at who Dipper had chosen for being told first about her pregnancy.

"Alright, I tell her and you receive the bone-crushing hug for me."

"I—uh…" Dipper's eyes widened for a second. His chest was aching a little too much for receiving such an abuse now.

"She's pregnant, isn't she?" Mabel interrupted them and received a pair of bewildered looks and a slow nod from Dipper. "I knew it! I'm gonna be auntie!" Mabel yelled jubilantly and brought the couple into a bone-crushing hug, bouncing and forcing them to bounce with her.

"Ouch." Dipper complained and noted mentally to drop by the hospital in addition to visiting a dentist tomorrow.

"You kinda ruined the surprise, you know that?" Pacifica teased as she returned the happy embrace.

"C'mon, Paz-Paz. I'm a girl too! If you had vomits all week and now I see you cleaning that cot what do you expect me to think?"

:: ::

[The Fate of Each - Part 6: Twins Forever]

:: ::

Pacifica was now halfway through her second trimester, more specifically on the nineteenth week. Her hormones had finally settled and she was now enjoying her pregnancy. Her belly was growing and, although she had developed an even bigger craving for chocolates, she watched closely every single meal she ate. On the other hand, Dipper had made his personal goal to forbid Pacifica from moving a single muscle during her pregnancy. He bought everything, cooked everything and brought her whatever she wanted.

At first, Pacifica enjoyed ordering him around but, for someone as her who had had butlers her entire life, it soon became boring and she wanted to do things herself too. Dipper naturally didn't let her and, in order to prevent Pacifica from doing anything he deemed potentially dangerous, like cooking or driving, he designed a very simple loophole. Dipper took her every day into a walk through the park, the forest or the lake, or a visit to Mabel's apartment to drain her energy. At the end of the day Pacifica was so exhausted that she would let Dipper do all the household chores for her. Then, he would gently massage any part of her body that ached to the point that Pacifica thought one of these days she would burst in pleasure. During the night they changed the way they usually slept. Now, instead of Dipper hugging her tightly from behind, he spent most of the night caressing her belly in circles while both of them displayed hopeful smiles.

Today it was a very special day marked on their calendar. They had an appointment at the private and very expensive clinic they were attending to regarding her pregnancy, so Dipper and Pacifica picked Mabel at her apartment and the three of them went to the clinic in Dipper's car. Mabel had an unusually big purse but she avoided the topic when asked. Dipper and Mabel sat in the front seats and Pacifica was reluctantly in the backseat, since Dipper insisted that was the safest seat in the car. Once they parked, Dipper rushed out of the driver's seat opened Pacifica's door, but instead of helping her out he prevented her from leaving the car.

"You want a wheelchair? I'll get a wheelchair." Dipper asked and turned on the spot without waiting for an answer.

"No, Dipper. I don't need a wheelchair." Pacifica rolled her eyes and tried again to get out of the car.

Dipper stopped her once more.

"You're right! A gurney will do better. I'll fetch one in a sec!"

"Oh my gosh…" Pacifica facepalmed. "See? This is why I didn't let you come with me to the previous check-up."

"So… um… how do you wanna do this then?" He asked so worriedly that anyone would have thought he was the one pregnant instead.

Pacifica raised an eyebrow in disbelief and Mabel decided to interrupt them before the sarcasm took place in the conversation.

"I think you're being a little bit too overprotective, bro-bro."

"Oh, but… are you sure? I mean…" Dipper placed his palm on her grown belly and rubbed it lovingly.

"Just hold my hand, Dork." Pacifica smiled and extended her hand. "I can walk on my own."

In reception they were told to which corridor and which room they had to go, so the three of them walked their way there. The corridor was empty, with a row of chairs fixed to the wall and a few doors on each side. Dipper was about to suggest that Pacifica sat on one of the chairs when a nurse came out of the room nearby.

"Pacifica Northwest?" The nurse asked, reading the medical record.

"That's me. Pines, Pacifica Pines." She corrected.

"Oh, my apologies." The nurse consulted her record again. "Yes, I have a small note here saying that you married."

"It's fine, happens all the time." Pacifica smiled faintly and then muttered under her breath. "I've been married for almost five years now though. It's about time they stop making that mistake."

The nurse didn't seem to hear that, but Dipper did and gave her hand a squeeze. He knew that despite being married, her public image was and had always been Pacifica Northwest, and fame was something that one didn't simply change overnight.

"We'll have the room for your ultrasonography ready in a few minutes." The nurse continued. "With a little bit of luck, we'll know the gender today and also see what that irregular heartbeat we heard last time was."

"Alright." Pacifica nodded and the nurse left back inside the room.

Mabel looked at Pacifica quizzically, since she didn't know what the nurse was talking about. However, by how Dipper's eyes were bulging out and by how Pacifica was biting her lower lip, the cheerful brunette guessed that Pacifica hadn't told Dipper about said irregular heartbeat and therefore the nurse may had talked too much.

"I-irregular heartbeat?" He stammered. "W-what did she mean by irregular heartbeat?"

Pacifica sighed and held Dipper's hand in both of hers.

"The doctors said they heard an irregular heartbeat in my last check-up."

"Why didn't you say anything!?" Dipper exclaimed even more worriedly than before.

"They weren't sure of it and I didn't want you to overreact!" Pacifica explained, fearing what was about to happen.

"Overreact? No, no, no. I'm not going to overreact." Dipper quickly reassured, raising his hands defensively. "But if there's an irregular heartbeat…" He began pacing in circles and cupping his chin thoughtfully. "…then that means something has gone wrong! Oh no… what if it's something you've eaten!? I made sure to double check every ingredient but… That pizza we ordered two months ago! I knew it had too much cheese! Or maybe it was…"

"So much for not overreacting." Pacifica groaned and slumped on the chair.

As Dipper kept walking in circles and listing with incredible accuracy everything they had eaten for the last four months, Mabel sat next to Pacifica.

"How are you feeling, sis-sis?" She asked cheerfully.

"I… don't know." Pacifica lowered her gaze. "I've been very careful with my diet, as you can see by what Mr. I'm-not-gonna-overreact there is listing." She joked and Mabel giggled. "We don't drink, we don't smoke, we take walks through the park to breathe fresh air every day and I've been sleeping a lot so…"

"…Maybe it was that horror movie we watched on TV!" Dipper continued in the background. "We got a good scare! No, wait… I got a scare and you fell asleep. Then it had to be…"

"…So the doctors surely made a mistake?" Mabel finished the statement for her with a smile.

"Yeah, I hope so…" Pacifica sighed and began stroking her belly through the fabric. "I had never dreamed of coming this far…"

"Can I…?" Mabel extended a doubtful hand and looked at her. Pacifica nodded with a smile and let Mabel to caress her grown belly. The cheerful brunette rested her palm on it and rubbed it slowly, displaying a huge grin. "Oh my gosh, I'm so jealous!"

"Well, it's no secret how to get one of these." Pacifica smiled slyly and nudged Mabel's shoulder with her own.

"Oh, um…" Mabel averted her gaze and flushed. "I can't do that now… Maybe in a few years."

"It's alright, sis. You'll find someone." Pacifica snickered and side-hugged her best friend.

Mabel returned the embrace happily and then chirped all of a sudden.

"I almost forgot! I have a present for you!" She quickly opened her oversized purse and fished out a big golden llama plush toy.

Pacifica's eyes widened and held the toy in her hands.

"You kept it all these years?" She asked in disbelief and raised the toy to smell it. "It even still has the fresh flowers smell!"

"Yup, I wash Goldilocks from time to time with shampoo to keep that smell." Mabel confessed very proudly. "I actually do that with all the plush toys."

"Mabel I can't accept this! I gave this toy to you, why would you want to give it back?"

"Well… I noticed that the room you have for the kid lacks a big fluffy toy so I thought…"

Pacifica smiled warmly and realized that the present wasn't for her.

"Thanks."

In the background, Dipper didn't fail to remind them of the single day in her whole pregnancy she had skipped the minimum eight hours of shuteye rule.

"Would you do me a favor really quick, Mabel?" She asked and the brunette nodded eagerly. "You see that fire extinguisher there on the wall? Well, if Dipper keeps overreacting like that when the nurse comes back, I want you to grab it and hit him as hard as you can."

"I'll hit him twice just to be sure." Mabel joked and both girls giggled.

"…but what we definitely shouldn't have done…" Dipper continued his ramble. "…is having sex! You know how hard I shoot the stuff when you bite me! We should have used a condom or at least limit it to the bed! What if we damaged her somehow that time we did it on the kitchen table?"

Pacifica flushed the darkest shade of red possible and took a quick survey of the corridor in search of anyone that could have heard her husband. On the other hand, Mabel's face screwed up since she had eaten yesterday in said kitchen table with them.

"Mabel," Pacifica grabbed the brunette brusquely by the collar of her sweater. "Remember what I said earlier about the extinguisher?" She asked and Mabel nodded very slowly, feeling slightly threatened by the sudden mood swing. "Scratch that and hit me instead!"

"Don't worry, I've this under control." Mabel reassured and stood up. She seized her brother by the collar of his flannel shirt and began shaking him. "Snap out of it, Dipper!"

Mabel slapped him across the cheek.

"Ouch! But—" She slapped him again. "Ow! Why? Ouch! Mabel! Stop that!"

"No one cares how hard or where you shoot the dippingsauce!" She slapped him one more time just in case. "Keep it together, bro-bro! You're not helping!" She hissed and discreetly pointed with her head towards Pacifica.

"Right." Dipper's eyes widened and stopped struggling. They sat at each side of Pacifica and Dipper rested his palm on her belly. "Don't worry, Princess. I'm sure everything is going to be alright." He smiled warmly.

"Dipper… it was very hard for us to get here…" She sighed and looked at herself as if there were something wrong with her body.

"Hey," Dipper recognized her look on the spot. It was the same look she had whenever her period came. He hugged her to calm her nerves and rubbed her cheek with his. "You'll see how everything goes well… and how it's a girl." He added with a playful smile.

Pacifica couldn't help but giggle.

"I told you a hundred times. It's gonna be a boy."

"We'll see in the sonogram." Dipper rubbed her belly with his palm.

The door opened and the nurse came into the corridor.

"You can come in now. Is your husband coming with you?" She stared in amusement for a second at the multiple red handprints Dipper had on his face and then noticed Mabel. "Or any other familiar?"

"No." Pacifica quickly replied and stood up, leaving the plush toy in her seat.

"But—" Dipper complained with his eyes widened in surprise.

"Dipper, please." Pacifica squeezed his forearm and gave him a pleading look. "I promise to tell you as soon as I'm out, but I wanna do this alone." She sighed and decided that, if something had gone wrong, she would soften it up to Dipper when she came out.

Dipper nodded slowly and slumped back onto the chair right next to Mabel as Pacifica left with the nurse. The cheerful brunette nudged him playfully in an attempt to cheer him up and Dipper smiled faintly, but soon that smile faded and he gave out a heavy sigh of worry.

"C'mon, Dipper. You'll see how the doctors did a mistake. Pacifica is the strongest woman I know." She cheered matter-of-factly.

"What about Wendy?" Dipper countered with a raised eyebrow.

"Fine, second to Wendy she is the strongest woman I know." Mabel rolled her eyes. "The point is that you'll see how nothing bad happens."

"I know…" He buried his face into his hands. "I just want this to work, Mabel. She had completely lost hope in having children and now we're so close…" His hands dropped from his face and one landed on something fluffy. Dipper raised an eyebrow and picked up the plush toy resting on the seat beside him. "Oh, Mabel… you didn't have to!" He said, recognizing the toy Pacifica had had in his hands earlier.

"Why not?" Mabel looked at him quizzically.

"Because uh…" Despite suspecting her feelings, Dipper had never told his sister he knew. "…it was your favorite?"

"Pffft. C'mon, Dipper. It's just a toy." She waved her hand dismissively.

"Are you sure?" He looked at her warily.

"I'm a hundred percent sure it's not one of those magical toys that talk in the movies." Mabel joked.

"Well… thanks then." He noted mentally to do a quick research on how to maintain a plush toy shiny and clean. He wouldn't want the toy to look neglected when Mabel paid them a visit sometime in the future.

"So…" She quickly changed topics. "Today you know the gender and I heard Pacifica wants a boy." Mabel commented.

"Yeah. If it's a boy she chooses the name and if it's a girl I do the naming." Dipper explained.

"Wanna bet twenty bucks she chooses a name beginning with a 'P'?" Mabel asked with a sly smile.

Dipper looked at his twin curiously.

"Why a 'P' of the twenty six letters the alphabet has?"

"Hmm… Call it a female intuition." She shrugged. "So you're in or not?"

"Oh, I'm definitely in." Dipper fished out his wallet and showed her a twenty dollar bill. "I could use your twenty bucks now that Pacifica is eating for two." He giggled.

"Nuh-huh. You're rich! It's me who could use them." Mabel joked back and both twins laughed.

"I really wish it is a girl though." He commented and stared at the ceiling. "A small brunette Pacifica running around the house and pulling at my pant leg because she wants me to lift her in my arms… I want to see her grow up again." Dipper sighed dreamily and Mabel smiled, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze to let him know that she'd like to see that too. "And, you know what? She could use a cousin to play with, even if there's a year or two of difference between them." He returned the squeeze and looked at his twin.

"I'll think about it." She replied and her cheeks flushed. "Dipper, you and I are twins so… if Pacifica has a girl, she might… look… like… me…" Her voice came out in a whisper as her eyes sparkled.

"Then I'll love her just as much!" Dipper chuckled. "But that's not what you were trying to say, was it?"

"No…" She began playing with her hair. "You think that maybe, if… if Pacifica and you need to go out to dinner someday, I could…"

"Of course, Mabel. In fact, you'll always be the first we call." Dipper reassured and hugged his sister. He knew that Mabel hadn't had a stable relationship in years for whatever reason and she wasn't going to have children any time soon, but Dipper didn't mind that she gave some of that motherly love to his own children in the meantime. "I promised you too. Twins forever, remember?"

"Yes." Mabel gave a happy sigh and returned the embrace, squishing her brother between her arms. She had been waiting years to hear those specific words. Then she parted the hug and began to bounce on her chair, patting repeatedly Dipper's forearm. "Oh my gosh, I could teach her to knit sweaters!"

"Don't get your hopes too high." Dipper smiled. "It could be a boy."

"Then I'll teach him too! Where's the problem?" The cheerful brunette shoved her brother playfully.

As both twins laughed, a shriek came from the room where Pacifica had got into. Mabel's eyes widened in worry but Dipper displayed a broad smile and stood up. He had recognized that specific shriek and knew that it wasn't of distress, but of joy. Soon afterwards Pacifica burst in the corridor and grabbed Dipper by the flannel shirt, shaking him.

"Dipper! Dipper, Dipper, Dipper!" She laughed hysterically.

"A girl!?" Dipper couldn't help but ask what his heart demanded.

When Pacifica nodded, he yelled jubilantly and wrapped her in his arms as Pacifica threw hers around his neck, Dipper lifting her from the floor in a tight embrace and kissing her cheek deeply. Pacifica yelped and, when she was left back on her feet, Dipper quickly cupped her cheeks and looked at her in the eyes. "Don't worry, Princess. We'll go for the boy as soon as possible."

"We don't have to!" Pacifica yelled happily. "It wasn't an irregular heartbeat but two hearts! A boy's and a girl's!"

"Wait, that means…" Dipper's mouth was agape in incredulity.

Mabel voiced everyone's thoughts first.

"TWINS! Twins! Twins, twins, twins! You got twins!" She jumped up and joined the hugging. "Oh my gosh! You have to call them Dipper-Two and Pacifica-Two and they'll be the Sequel Twins!"

"Not in a million years." Pacifica chuckled and parted the embrace, taking the plush toy under her arm. "C'mon, let's go home. I'm hungry and no wonder why! I have to eat for three!" She smiled and rubbed her belly happily.

As the three of them left the clinic and approached the car, curiosity got the better of Dipper and he stopped, placing his hand on her belly.

"Pacifica, let's do the naming now. How about naming the boy Tyrone?" He suggested.

"I kinda already had a name in mind." She smiled apologetically. "And… no offense but that name is terrible. What about Patrick?"

Dipper's eyes widened in surprise and Mabel burst into laughter.

"Haha! Zing! Gimme those twenty bucks, bro-bro!"

"What?" Pacifica watched curiously how Dipper reluctantly handled his sister a twenty dollar bill.

"How did you know?" Dipper asked.

"It was easy! Preston, Priscilla, Pacifica and now, of course, Patrick!" Mabel smiled smugly. "They all begin with a 'P'!"

"And," Pacifica had already caught on. "I also married a Pines. You're supposed to be the smart one here, Dork." She looked at her husband mockingly.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." He rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Patrick… Sure, I like it. It means nobleman in Latin so I guess it's kind of appropriate, given your family's heritage."

Pacifica grinned at her name being welcomed.

"What about you? Have you thought a name for the girl?"

"Well… You know I've never given much importance to names. I mean, I myself have been using a nickname instead of Mason ever since I was five, but… I'd like her to have a special name so…" Dipper smiled warmly and threw one arm over his twin's shoulders. "…what about naming her Mabel?"

The cheerful brunette's face lit up and stared with her mouth agape at the married couple.

"That's a fat old lady's name," Pacifica snickered. "but I'd love name my daughter after my best friend."

:: ::

Two months already! I feel so ashamed of how long it has taken me to write this. After being busy the whole June, it took me a few days (rather weeks) to get the handle of writing again so this got way more delayed than intended.

First of all the credits:

· The last scene in the clinic is based on the fanfiction "Always there" by SuperGroverAway. It was the first Gravity Falls fanfiction I ever read almost 2 years ago and wanted to introduce it somehow in my story.

· The summoning scene is based on the book "Malleus" by Dan Abnett. The book is set in the Warhammer 40.000 universe. Dark stuff.

· That huge amount of quotes are all taken from The Witcher saga. Lots of controversial topics are addressed in those books but it's a great saga.

A/N:

· The few reviewers who answered to my PMs curiously said the same thing: The romance is cool but what's great is the conflict. Well, here you have it. This chapter was 95% conflict.

· I don't have my Journal 3 replica yet but I've seen a few leaked important pages. Let me quote this line from the page about Pacifica. "They ring a bell to call her like a butler and punish her with groundings and credit cards cutoffs if she disobeys." I just want to say glad I was right about Pacifica's parents.

· In case you're wondering, Dipper's name is Mason. I find it to be the perfect name because in the US it was originated in Piedmont, which is their home town. It's a mix of "Mabel" and "Jason" who is Dipper's voice actor, and Mason also comes from Thomas which means 'twin'. I couldn't have expected a better name for Dipper. Mason & Mabel the twins. Sounds good.

· I hope none of you scrolled down halfway through the episode to see whether Pacifica got pregnant or not in the end. Spoiling yourself on purpose is the worst kind of spoiling!

· Some of you asked me how long it takes me to write these monster-size chapters. I've no idea. I can only rely on my .doc file. The one for this chapter was created the 02/15, which means that I began the sketch in February but if I remember correctly, I think I began writing the actual chapter around early May. I wrote nothing during June, so… a month and half approximately? Regarding the February sketch, a sketch is usually something like [Mabel and Pacifica open a store.] [The Northwest die and Pacifica quits from the store.] and the sorts, so it's not actually hard to make and it changes a lot from beginning to end.

· One of the main goals I wanted to achieve by writing this story is proving a very simple thing: Fanfiction doesn't blow up if you write a pair of twelve years old kissing. Before beginning with this story I was very sick of reading Dipifica fanfiction stories that were abandoned by the writer right after reaching the kissing part, or suddenly dropped in the header "Hey guys! Now they're magically sixteen because I can't write a pair of preteens kissing but I want to!" which is absurd and a complete plot killer in my opinion. It was planned since the start that they were going to make out despite their age and, even though it got a little out of hand here and there, I don't regret my decision at all. In fact, I feel that how inexperienced they were and the many times they messed up added a level of cuteness to the scene rather than sexual arousal.

· Regarding this topic, I was tired of always the same Dipifica plot where Pacifica escapes her home and changes her look by dying her hair or something like that. I don't know about you, but I think that running away from home at the age of 12 is not a good idea, so I wanted to make a story where she stayed with her parents and had a successful romance in the end.

FYI:

· Pacifica's partial sterility has been hinted since the finale of The Last Wish episode where Preston and Priscilla talk about their daughter. I'm surprised no one pointed that out in the reviews during their teen years.

· Since Pacifica was technically no longer an heiress after the Northwests died, I stopped calling her that. And believe me, it was really hard to overcome the habit.

· Dipper's career is based on Alex Hirsch's. And his outfit too.

· Needless to say that the Northwest Foundation is a copy of the Wayne Foundation.

· Dipper planed everything to make sure Bill doesn't get out of that one. I wouldn't want to get on Dipper's bad side after that. However, it is unknown if the dream demon lied about anything or perhaps everything.

· Just to clarify their heights, it's not that Pacifica is short. Dipper and Pacifica are average and have approximately the same height, Dipper being taller. The thing is that Mabel is taller. She played a lot of different sports like basketball and karate when she was a teen because she wanted to meet 'hotties' and also burn some of her excess of energy, and she ended up being taller.

· As you have probably noticed, this chapter is told from Dipper and Bill's perspective, therefore it's never really confirmed if Mabel really had a crush on Pacifica or not.

· Regarding their children I prefer to leave it to each one's headcanon, but I think it would be cute that Patrick is determined and stubborn like Pacifica and Mabel Junior (Mabes to avoid confusion in family meetings) is goodhearted and a little nervous like Dipper.

· The names of each episode of the trilogy are used in this chapter. A grain of truth, the lesser evil and the last wish.

Guest reviews (So many 'Guest'! They're ordered chronologically and with dates.)

Guest(1) (May 23): I see your logic. Taking in consideration that writing a 39k words chapter takes around 70 to 80 hours between writing and revisions, one should expect the reader to spend 10 seconds to leave a review.

However, that logic is wrong and that's the first thing you have to learn before writing fanfiction, otherwise you better avoid doing it at all.

Writing for reviews is the worst thing you can do because it's a headache and never works. By only having a look at the stats you know that it simply isn't a good idea: This story has 56.246 views but 192 reviews (4 being mine), which means that only 0'3% of the times a reader reviews.

In addition, this story isn't written to get reviews anyway. Take for example this chapter: If I had wanted to get more reviews I would've cut right after Bill says Pacifica considered suicide and saved the rest for another chapter, which would've been cut after the Northwest die, and so on. I would've got around 5-6 chapters from this chapter only and probably 6-7 times more reviews because the stops were made at cliffhangers and people would freak out, half the reviews being "Oh no, you can't do this!" and the other half "Wow, what happens next!?"

So yeah, I get what you mean but I don't mind. I don't write for reviews and I honestly don't care the amount of reviews this story gets. It's not my style, I just write because it's distracting and I love the characters. Although I can understand there are some authors who do that. It's a strategy like any other but I prefer to post everything in one go. Wow, quite a big rant here.

Bereck: The descriptions about sexual scenes in that chapter were mildly described because their intention was to make a comical scene, not to cause sexual arousal in the reader. I think I left that very clear in the header of 'I don't think now it's the best time!' chapter. Even though it was warned beforehand, this is still T rated and that means no explicit sex.

Guest(2) (May 24) and Guest(3) (May 24): Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. That chapter had many hours of both thinking and writing behind it. I'd say the hardest was writing them so happy during their teens knowing how badly it was going to be for them in this chapter.

Rober: Dang it, I only had to write Pacifica's complete name once in the whole story and I misspelled 'Elise'. Well, thanks for letting me know, it's fixed now.

Rob Lowe: I'm not much into celebrity stuff so I didn't know who Rob Lowe was until I Googled it. I'm glad you think that way about the story and yeah, I'm starting a Reverse!Dipifica in a few days in addition to adding more chapters to the M rated.

IwantanMrated: By your name I guess you didn't read the AN. I've started an M rated about their teen years and yeah, there should be some 'deepthroated pleasure' as you quote by chapter 5.

Guest(4) (May 30): I actually wanted to add Gwen from Ben 10 (original series, not the spin-offs) because she was redhead, stubborn, interested in magic and also smart like Dipper, but since she is Cartoon Network I decided to keep it Disney only. The less disclaimers the better.

Guest(5) (Jun 24): Thanks. It's always rewarding to see that this story is educational as well as entertaining. However, I suggest you to ask before beginning to bite your partner. Each person is unique, some like it and some don't. If your partner doesn't like you going full teeth, try using the bottom lip as support. If you do it right, your partner is probably going to shriek in joy and beg you to do it again going full teeth this time.

Announcements:

· I'm doing a partial/complete rewrite of this story. [Nevermind, it's rewritten now]

· This story is not set on complete but it's finished. As in, there is no more plot to this. The next chapter will be some funny drabbles and that's all.

· I'm hopefully beginning in a few days a Reverse!Dipifica story. I've the sketch, now I need to write. Contrary to the Reverse stereotype, Dipper won't be an impassive guy who doesn't react to anything. He'll be like Original!Pacifica: Most popular boy in town, rich and a total bully. They're 16, Pacifica is the protagonist, Dipper is the antihero and Mabel is the antagonist. I can't write Southern English so Gideon is going to appear only briefly. I think it'll be a 20k, just a small adventure about how they go from total hatred to love.

· The M rated has received a smutty update. Both stories were updated at the same time, which means that the M rated already has its sex scene.

Stuff and things I've learned in my first fanfiction:

It takes some time and lots of writing to get the use of formatting. In fact, I'd say I only managed it in this chapter and the previous one, so it took me 175k words to do a somewhat readable formatting.

Updating bi-weekly is very exciting and I guess people loved having a new chapter on Mondays and Fridays, but it completely affects quality. I was the other day rereading the Episode 3 and in some chapters Dipper is a 'Yes man' and in some others Pacifica just giggles at everything. I've learned from the experience and I'm not going to do a weekly updates based stories again unless I have it completely finished and revised first.

Apart from that, fanfiction is way funnier and more entertaining than I had ever hoped, but that's also a bad thing. I've sometimes spent complete nights writing instead of sleeping and that ended up taking a toll on me, so I'll have to work on a proper schedule.

Also, if you're beginning a story then take notes of EVERYTHING! I have an 'Ideas' doc file which was filled with whatever came to my mind in case I had an use for it later, and it has proven useful many times.

Answering reviews with PMs is very cool but some people seem nervous when talking to me. I just want to say that I don't bite and, even if I did bite, I think you're safe behind the screen.

No more copy & paste.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and supported the story. Many reviews have made my day and encouraged me not only to post faster but to increase the quality of the work. You're awesome.

Special thanks to those who gave me a critique. If it hadn't been for you, this story would've been probably worse in many aspects. For example, I'm glad I was told the smut was getting out of hand before the boat trip chapter and I remade that chapter cuter instead of smuttier in time, because it ended up being the most appreciated chapter from the three episodes by far.