Hello.

It's me.

Gravity Falls fandom has returned.

SO I HAVE RETURNED.

To be honest, I thought I wouldn´t update this again, however… nostalgia hit me hard these last few days, so, yep, let's finish this.

Just… let's make a few things clear.

1-I'm a full grown adult now. I have a full time job (ugh) as a dentist and I´m still studying to be an orthodontist. I´ll be busy, be patient.

2-Aparently, BillFord is canon now, but for the sake of this cute story, this will not include ANY OF THAT SHIP. I mean, I thought it was obvious but, you can never be too sure.

3- I re-read what I wrote and maaaaaan, my grammar sucks. Maybe in the future I'll fix it. Maaaaaybe.

4- I still have love for this story, so, be patient.

Now, enjoy :)

Chapter 16: Truth in a piece of paper.

The summer breeze isn't for everyone. While some people like the feeling of the hot wind in their face, most people hate it.

Alex loved it. It reminded him the peace and quiet he always got in summer time. It had a unique way of telling him that the world had so much more to offer him than responsibilities, even if it was like that just for a couple of more years.

But in that moment, he couldn't enjoy his summer breeze. He could only care about the confused face of his father, and the pure distrust Ford showed in that moment.

Alex wanted to run, he wanted to scream, he wanted to get aways as far as possible but, at the same time, he wished he could just run to his father's arms and tell him everything.

The bowtie around his neck suddenly felt too tight. He couldn't say anything, they knew where he had been, and they had every right to question him.

His father started to walk towards him, and, just as an alarm went off, Alex felt a sharp pain go through all of his body.

"Alex!"

He couldn't see a thing, his arms felt way too light, like a feather in the wind, dancing mindlessly in the vast earth.

"Alex!"

There was two voices calling to him. They were too similar, and both of them felt like bright colors giving life to a new canvas.

"ALEX!"

He opened his eyes, and breathed as if he hadn't been on earth for a really long time.

He looked around, or at least he tried to. His sisters' face were blurry, and his mind was really foggy, but he could guess where he was.

"Alex!" Filled with relief, Lily tackled him into a hugYou freaked us out!"

"Lily, let him breath!" Lizzie gave her sister a tired look before turning to her brother. " You okay? You kinda... well..."

"You fell out of heaven!" Lily sounded horrified and in awe at the same time "Well, technically, out of the ceiling but..."

"You just... appeared here."

Alex, just barely regaining his senses, tried to understand what their sisters were telling him, but at the same time, he needed to remember what had happened.

He had been at the hospital, he had been following the major, he talked to McGucket, he had returned home, his father and Ford had been waiting for him...

His stomach did a turn. They knew he had been at the hospital, he was so screwed.

"I need to go"

He stood up. Not being fazed by the concerned faces of the twins, Alex made his choice.

He would run away, till he found a way to stop being the Northwest man's puppet.

Alex looked down at his arm. His bracelet was beeping, slowly, and a little intermittent blue light could be seen.

His father and Ford knew where he was, he had no choice but to disobey his grunkle.

With a pinch of guilt , and ignoring his sisters' look, the boy grabbed his bracelet...

Huh...

Alex was taken aback. He attempted to grab his bracelet to take it off but... his hand just went right through it.

"How on earth are you doing that?"

Alex didn't answer Lizzie's question, he was panicking. Was it Ford's doing? Did the bracelet have some kind of weird spell on it?

No, he soon realized that wasn't the case. Every time he tried to grab it, his bracelet would go off again.

He was doing this. He didn't want to run away, far from it actually, he wanted to run to his parents and cry his heart out to them.

"Alex?"

The boy couldn't help himself. Tears were blurring his vision and his legs were giving up on him.

"Alex, what's wrong?"

The boy let himself be hugged by the girls. Everything was wrong. He was being used as a puppet and it felt oh so wrong...

Karma was heartless, but it had a bittersweet touch to it.

Whether he deserved this or not, he was tired of debating it. He was tired of everything, he was just a boy, he needed help.

Trembling with fear, he looked up to the small desk in the middle of the attic. A little notebook was on it, he felt as if it was waiting for him.

A knock on the door startled them.

"Girls, I know Alex is in there" Their father's voice was always kind and sweet to them. But this time was different "He needs to talk to us"

Alex stood up, and, giving a shaking breath, he talked through the door.

"Give me five minutes"

Alex went downstairs, where a heated discussion was taking place.

"Don't you dare treat my son like a criminal just because you have a stupid theory".

Alex grimaced at his mother's voice. She showed no hesitation in her angry voice.

"Pacifica, I just want to know what's going on"

"We too, but he is still our son " Dipper had his wife's back "And we just want to make sure he is okay".

"He could be not as good as we think, and you know that, Dipper"

Before someone could answer to that, Alex made his presence be known.

His mother did waste no time and ran to him just to pull him into an embrace.

"You're okay, darling?" Her voice was shaking, and Alex just nodded, without being able to speak from the guilt he felt.

When she let him breath, and he looked to everyone around him. Stan and Ford were eyeing suspiciously, while his mother glanced at the two men with his father by her side.

"Alex, we want to know why you were at the hospital this morning" His father's eyes were pleading, asking for honesty from the boy.

Alex felt nauseous.

"Look" shaking, Alex tried to hand his father the note he had written, folded in a sheet of paper, "I just wanted to know how McGucket was doing, that's all"

Ford raised an eyebrow to him, ignoring the note Dipper just grabbed.

"You're not telling the whole truth"

"I am telling you all that I can " Alex sighed, couldn't he just grab the piece of paper? "Look" he repeated, watching his parents read what he had written. Perfect "I didn't feel okay knowing he was hurt. After all he is... and old friend of the family, right?"

Ford was taken aback by that answer "Well he is certainly not an old friend of yours, right?".

"Just... look" His mother was shaking in his father's arms while Stan grabbed the note from her."There's not more than that"

"Then why did you escaped today? First of all, where did you go?" The man demanded to know "We lost your signal for a good while".

Alex blinked at this new information.

"I thought I appeared straight into the attic" This time, he was completely honest "I did feel a little funny".

"You really gotta stop lying, boy"

Alex frowned and gritted his teeth, he was losing his patience.

"I'm not lying" He saw how Stan's skin paled after reading his note. "If you just... "

"Well, sorry if I can't trust an old enemy" Ford hissed " You should know by now that just by being..."

"LOOK" Alex couldn't let Preston know who he had been "You have to believe me!"

"Why would I do that!?"

"Grunkle Stan! Hand it over to him, please!"

"Hand me over what!? Are you trying to play mind games with me!?"

"Wha-? NO" Alex was losing his patience "Just read-"

"Tell me the truth, Ci-"

Before Ford could finish that sentence, Dipper quickly grabbed the note from Stan's hand and tossed it to Ford.

"Look" Dipper spoked with clenched teeth, showing the scientist just how important was that he read that note.

Ford, a little startled, read the sheet's content. His face showed a rollercoaster of emotions before turning to Alex ,with shock written all over his face.

Alex couldn't help but to let out a sigh full of relief, before letting himself fall on his knees.

Everything would be okay, he would be okay...

Right?

Pacifica had lost her mind after everyone read his note, where he had told everything about what Preston had done to him.

"I'm going to cut his face off!" her screams could be heard all over the place while she ran off the front door and left the Shack.

"Wait!"

Dipper went after her. The yelling was awful. She insisted on going to attack her father but Dipper had to remind her a very important detail.

"If you go, not only can he hurt Alex, but he can use his pain to manipulate you!"

Alex had gasped. That was true, and he had not thought about that. They could threaten his mother into doing stuff she didn't really want to as long as he had that stupid bowtie around his neck.

"But… he… he…" Pacifica couldn't handle it "He's my baby…"

Dipper wasn't in a better state than her.

So now, while everyone gathered their thoughts, he was in Ford's lab, sitting in an examination table while the scientist examined the bowtie with various artefacts.

Alex sighed. He was tired, and he was hoping Ford actually had something that could destroy that thing without his heart stopping from an electric shock.

Ford let out an annoyed grunt while he wrote something. Alex rolled his eyes. Ford always took notes from everything since like… forever. He remembers how he even took notes about taking notes when he…

Alex gasped, the alarm in his bracelet went off and, just as Ford turned to him, he started to float.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yope, I mean… Nes, I mean…"

Alex shook his head. He had remembered some (now) not so pleasant memories about Ford when he was Bill Cipher, and he definitely wasn't going to think about those. His stomach was beginning to reject those flashbacks.

"I'm just… worried, that's all"

Ford seemed to believe him, because he closed his notebook with a solemn expression on his face.

"I owe you an apology, Alex"

The boy, astonished, just frowned at him. He certainly wasn´t expecting that.

"I was being too paranoid and couldn´t stop being distrustful of you. I even raised my voice at you without a fair reason"

Alex just shrugged. It's not like they could change the past, right?

"I can't really blame you for behaving like that, can I?" The boy smiled at him, accepting the apology.

The man smiled back, before, pursing his lips.

"Well now… I hate to tell you this but, there's nothing I can do for now".

Alex felt those words like a punch in his stomach and he fell on the table with a big thump. Now he actually felt like he could throw up at any moment.

"But…" Alex was shaking now. "Grunkle Ford, I…"

"I know, boy. But worry not." The man smiled brightly at him, before scribbling furiously something on his notebook. He then, handed it over to Alex.

It seemed like the man had a plan, but Alex didn't know if he could execute it.

The plan was pretty simple. Alex had already appeared from one location to another, maybe, just maybe, he could do that without the bowtie. More specifically, his whole body would teleport from one place to another while he left that artifact behind.

"I only did that once though…"

"You'll practice" stated Ford, crossing his arms over his chest "You'll be on my watch all day everyday while you do it".

Alex only nodded to that. It wasn't as if he had a choice, right?