all i could find was you

It's getting close to what Dipper's mother calls 'jacket weather,' the drop in temperature that indicates the coming of winter. Or at least what passes for winter in California. Dipper knows that jacket weather in Piedmont means 'heavy coats and numb hands' weather in the Midwest. His friend Arthur posts pictures from Milwaukee, some of which feature the sort of snow Dipper's never seen in person. It makes him wonder if it will snow in Gravity Falls, far from the coast.

He's ready to trade his shorts for jeans whenever necessary and doesn't put much thought beyond that into his wardrobe. His mother, however, has a keener eye for such things. She pulls him aside after breakfast on Saturday and looks him over critically.

"We're going shopping today. You need some new shirts and long pants," she tells him.

Dipper, never particularly enthused by shopping, resists. "What? Why? I got pants."

"Ones that aren't going to fit you, goob. You're sprouting like a weed, and you're not going to school with your ankles sticking out of your pants like capris."

Dipper grumbles and complains a bit more, even though he knows there isn't any getting out of it. His mom doesn't take him shopping very often, so when she does, she makes him. But as he's getting ready, he goes into Mabel's room and stands in front of her full-length mirror and is forced to admit that Mom might have a point. His shirt is dangerously close to revealing his stomach and he's on the cusp of showing off an unsavory amount of leg. At least there's some hair on those legs. Some. Still, he doesn't think he can pull off Mayor Cutebiker's signature look.

Mom drags him to the mall, which as far as he's concerned is one of the circles of Hades that has somehow risen, bloated and neon-drenched, from the bowels of the earth. He manages to avoid going to any of the trendier stores that sell clothes using pictures of naked people and smell like a fire in a body spray factory. He ends up in the department store section of the mall, dragging his feet behind his mother as she picks out shirts and pants and then dumps them in his arms on the way to shooing him into the changing rooms.

The only thing he makes sure they buy is another vest with an interior pocket. They have to go to two other stores to find the right kind, but it's worth it. His mother seems amused by his attachment to a certain type of clothing, which he gets. It's not like he's ever cared much about his clothes before, but his old vest saved his life on more than one occasion simply by having space for Journal 3.

Journal A is roughly the same size as Journal 3 and should fit just fine. Dipper is still grateful that Mabel had the insight to make him such a gift. With the pine tree journal, he'd been trying to do his own 'thing,' find his own style. Journals with golden hands on the cover had, after all, been Great-Uncle Ford's stock in trade. But the pine tree journal had never felt right, never grabbed him in the same way. Writing any observations regarding weirdness and the supernatural into it had seemed… off. Maybe it is just force of habit. Whatever the case, he's decided that the golden hand motif isn't a Ford-only thing—it's a family tradition. He's following in his mentor's footsteps.

Besides, with a blue pine tree already on his hat, carrying around a journal with another blue pine tree on it had sort of felt like he was trying to accessorize or something.

The next week, he and Mabel are walking home from the bus stop. It's in the low fifties and windy; loose leaves rattle across the asphalt and pavement, collecting in storm drains and against curbs, whirling around neatly mowed front yards. It's sweater weather, and Mabel is happy to oblige. Her fuchsia sweater proclaims, 'Shoot for the Moon!' over a well-knitted depiction of the moon and an anthropomorphic rocket high fiving.

When they near the house, Mabel splits off and goes running to the backyard to play with Waddles, like she does every day after school. Dipper, not in any hurry, sticks to the sidewalk and heads for the garage.

It's because of this that he spots the car coming slowly down the street, slow enough to gain his attention. He doesn't know much about cars, but he knows an expensive one when he sees it, and this one looks like it's probably worth more than his house. When it draws near him, it slows even more and then rolls to a stop.

Dipper is beginning to wonder if he should run before he gets human trafficked or something, though that would raise the question of why anyone who could afford a car like that would need to sell him. He stands his ground, figuring they're lost and one of those tinted windows is about to roll down so someone old enough to not be aware of the maps on their smartphone can ask for directions.

Instead, the rear door pops open and Pacifica Northwest steps out.

"Pacifica?" Dipper says in surprise. Obviously, it's her, but it's a rather sharp adjustment to his expectations.

She flips her hair up haughtily and approaches him. "Dipper Pines. So, you do live here."

"Uh, yeah. Where else would I live?" he says. "Wait, are you stalking me?"

"As if," she retorts. "I was… in the neighborhood, and I saw you."

Dipper doesn't need a pair of Mabel's Skepticals to doubt that. "You were 'in' the neighborhood. You."

"I live in California, you know," she snaps.

"You do not, you live…" Dipper suddenly remembers what happened to her home, "…somewhere other than Gravity Falls. Right."

Pacifica looks at him like he's an idiot. "We only lived in Gravity Falls during the summer. Did you really think we spent all year in a logging town in the middle of nowhere?"

When she puts it that way, Dipper does actually feel like an idiot. The kind of money the Northwests have (had?) doesn't come from small Oregon towns on the low end of the economic scale. Northwest Manor may have been their ancestral home, but Pacifica's parents are probably into banking or hedge funds or some other rich person thing Dipper doesn't know much about. Rich people go where the money is.

"I'm living with my mother in Malibu right now. Dad's in London, I think. Maybe New York," Pacifica says.

"And you drove all the way up from Malibu to Piedmont so you could cruise slowly down my street," Dipper says.

"Of course not," she scoffs. "I flew."

"Of course, because why wouldn't you spend that kind of money to argue with me on the sidewalk," Dipper says, rolling his eyes. "Look, I have homework to do, and unlike some people, I can't pay someone else to do it."

It happens so quickly that Dipper almost misses it; and if he hadn't seen it before, he might not have recognized it. What flashes through her eyes is hurt, genuine and unmistakable to the rare person who has seen the youngest Northwest vulnerable and alone. She buries it quickly behind a prideful twist of her lips, but not quickly enough.

"This was a dumb idea," she hisses, and turns on the heel of a designer shoe.

Dipper can't help himself; whatever else she is, he thinks she's sort of a friend and definitely a comrade (and in his mind he can see—in a second of vision so clear it's as if it's happening again—the light of the scorched sky and the beam they floated through as they parachuted into the heart of darkness, and the way she hid her fear behind disdain but went with them just the same). He reaches out and catches her arm, expecting her to pull away.

Instead, she faces him again. This close to her, he can see dark circles beneath her eyes that even her expensive makeup can't fully camouflage. "Pacifica, I'm sorry," he says, and he means it. "I know you didn't come all this way to fight with me. …You didn't come all this way to fight with me, right?"

Pacifica doesn't move. She looks down to where his hand is still lightly wrapped around her wrist and her face lapses into an open heartache that he's witnessed only once—by the dusty rays of a flashlight in the hidden room of a long, dark history.

"You're real," she says beneath her breath, and now Dipper understands.

"You want to come in for a minute? I bet Mabel would like to see you," he says almost to his own surprise.

She seems to come back to herself and pulls away from him in an absentminded gesture. "I can't. I'm not supposed to be here."

Dipper shrugs. "Just saying, if you're already in trouble…"

For a moment, she glances towards his house with something that might be longing. "…No. I have to go before Mother notices."

Dipper is about to ask how her mother could possibly miss her daughter flying into San Francisco and renting a driver; then he thinks about what he saw of her parents and it makes more sense than he thinks it probably should. "Some other time," he says, mostly to have a response and not because he believes it will ever happen.

But her mouth firms and she looks fiercely towards the car. She reaches into her designer purse and pulls out a scrap of paper which she shoves into his hand. "It's my number," she explains, not meeting his eyes. "I just need to… It's not…"

In another time, another place, Dipper probably would have given her grief about her sudden loss of eloquence. But this is not the right moment for that. Instead, he writes his own number on a portion of the paper and tears it, handing half back to her. "Don't be a stranger, Pacifica. I mean, we were all there. That has to mean something, right?"

"Right," she says, sounding relieved. "We were there. It happened."

"Yeah," he tells her, making sure to look her right in the eye, "it did."

Pacifica's mouth lifts in a smile, and it's not smug or cruel or pasted on. Then Dipper freezes awkwardly as she impulsively steps forward and wraps her arms around him for a second time. He starts to raise his hands to hug her back, but just as quickly as she touched him, she steps away. Her eyes are wide, and her cheeks are slightly pinked.

She takes a breath and says, "If you tell anyone about this, I will sue you."

He can't tell if she's serious, so he scoffs at her. "You don't have a case."

"I have money."

"Touché."

When she reenters the car, her eyes catch his just before the door closes, and he thinks she is smiling again. It isn't until he keys in the code for the garage and steps through the lifting door that he realizes he is, too.