Please leave thoughts and questions in the comments and I'll try to answer them! Thank you for reading and enjoying it so far :D

Chapter five will be a little delayed because I haven't started my The Owl House rewatch yet and my final semester has gotten really busy, but I'll try to have the next chapter out by early May.

"Theatre camp?" Wendy asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, I thought it would be fun. You said that you thought I could be an actor."

"Well, yeah, but I didn't think you would leave me." Wendy sounded a little despondent.

"It's just for the summer," Cary promised quickly.

"Ugh. Bet it's gonna be the most boring summer ever."

"I'm sure you'll find ways to make it exciting," Cary said.

"Don't forget me when you become a big star, Feathers."

"I could never, ever forget you."

"Good. But… To make it easier to remember me, here." Wendy took off her red flannel and handed it over.

"Aww, but that's your favorite."

"It's okay, I have the green one. I want you to have this one. You look cute in it, anyway."

Cary blushed and reverently folded the flannel and packed it before pulling Wendy into a hug.

"I'm going to miss you too, but I'll be back before you know it."

Soos said a quick goodbye the morning Cary went to the airport, both of them trying not to cry.

"Summer will be over before you know it," Cary said.

"Yeah. Just don't get into too much trouble at camp, okay?" Soos said.

"Don't worry, I won't get caught."

Soos laughed sadly, afraid, just as Stan was, that they were losing Cary. But she looked up at them with her hopeful golden eyes and he forced himself to believe she'd be back. There was no reason she wouldn't be back. It was just theatre camp, after all. It was just Connecticut.

Stan was quiet for the first part of the drive to the nearest airport, which was about an hour away from Gravity Falls. He was in his head about this whole thing, desperately hoping that he wasn't driving his daughter away for good.

"Dad?" Cary finally broke into his thoughts, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Hm, yeah? What's up, Carebear?"

"I'm not running away. Team Pines doesn't run away. We're just… It's just the summer. It's just to get answers. So that when I come back home I don't put you guys in danger."

"Right. I know, sweetheart. It's okay. I'll miss you lots, but you're right. It's just for the summer. I'm already making plans for all the awesome stuff we're gonna do when you're back."

"And I'll be back soon," Cary said, "it's just a couple of months. What could happen in a couple of months?" Neither of them wanted to answer that lingering question. A lot could happen in a couple of months.

"Just don't forget about us, Cary," Stan said with a forced laugh.

"I won't if you won't."

"Deal."

They hugged for a long time when they got to the airport, before saying one more goodbye so that Cary could get ready to board the plane. She'd been on a plane once before, but that had been with Stan when they had visited her Las Vegas birthplace one year near her birthday. That had been before Stan had been put on a no-fly list. Now she was all alone and nervous, worrying about worst-case scenarios. The worst-case scenario was that she turned into the monster from her visions and dismembered all of these travelers before any of them could reach their destination. She tried very hard not to think about that. She would have felt so much better if she'd been driving across the country with her dad. Instead, she settled for wrapping herself in his borrowed jacket and trying to calm her nerves.

Stan swallowed his tears until he got home, then he sat in the driveway and sobbed for ten minutes before faking a smile and going inside. Wendy and Soos were waiting for him.

"She's on her way to theatre camp, so… Back to work. My niece and nephew will be here in two days." Stan couldn't let himself worry and obsess. There was work to do, so he had to trust that Team Pines was strong and that Cary would be okay.

When she touched down in Connecticut, Cary wasted no time beginning to look for answers. When she wasn't searching for answers she stayed with one of her dad's old friends, a badass grandmotherly type who Stan had met in a biker gang. The lady, who insisted Cary call her Nana Whiskey, was strange but kind and didn't have any information on the monsters/answers Cary was hunting.

But, fortunately for Cary, someone did. It took her most of June to track those answers down, but finally, she was able to grab the bull by the horns. And after calling her dad one last time to tell him she was getting close, she staked out an old abandoned house and waited for a glimpse of the "witch" who lived within. Her destiny was within reach and everything was falling into place.