How Dipper and Mabel ended up in Gravity Falls for the summer. Pre-canon event, using a few pieces of lore from Book of Bill
"What were they fighting about?" Mabel asked her brother as he quietly closed the bedroom door behind him. Dipper sighed.
"Just boring adult stuff." He answered. Her face scrunched to the side. She wasn't satisfied. She could also always tell when he was lying.
"Like what?"
"I dunno, whatever adults talk about. Taxes? Carbs? It was stupid."
"Well, whatever it is, they have been talking about it for weeks." Mabel flopped onto her bed. "I hear them down there every night. Dad's pacing drives me crazy."
Dipper sat on his own bed. He was silent and staring at the floor.
"I don't know how we're gonna make it to the end of the summer." Mom had said. She was in her work clothes, having just gotten home from another double shift, sitting at the kitchen table. She shuffled the papers on the table. Dipper couldn't actually see them from his eavesdropping spot but had heard her car pull in a few minutes ago. He heard Dad's heavy footsteps on the floor.
"We will." He said in a low soothing tone. "We always do. We've gotten through hard times before. We'll get through this, too."
"Hard times, yes. But nothing like this. Nothing ever this bad."
Dipper had never heard his mom so scared. He pulled his knees to his chest and leaned in closer, trying to catch their every hushed word.
"We can't be so defeatist. It doesn't help." His dad said sharply. The voice he used when he wasn't kidding anymore, when "no" meant no.
"I am not defeatist," his mother shot back, an angry hiss of a whisper "I am defeated. I can't do this anymore."
Silence rang hot in his ears.
"Let's not fight." His dad said.
"No." His mother conceded.
More silence.
"I'm worried about how this is gonna affect the kids." His dad's voice moved up and down the kitchen. Pacing.
"I am, too." Mom sighed. "The stress isn't good for them. Mabel has been acting out. Dipper is a nervous wreck."
"I haven't said anything to them." Dad snapped. Accusing? Defensive? Angry?
"I haven't either." Mom's voice threatened to rise. "But they're smart kids. They can feel something is wrong."
Dipped chewed on his nails. Was he a nervous wreck? He didn't feel like one.
"Listen, I've been thinking. You remember my Uncle Ford?" His dad said. Dipper didn't know dad had an uncle. His dad continued "He lives up in Oregon, last I knew. On a little piece of property in some rinky dink town. Maybe the kids could...I dunno, maybe the kids could spend a couple weeks with him?"
"Your uncle? The one on house arrest?"
"I don't think he is anymore."
"You want to send our children away to live with a criminal? Now? Of all times? The man is basically a stranger! I don't think we've spoken to him in ten years!"
"We send him a card every Christmas." Dad pointed out. "And he's not a perfect choice but...I don't think the kids need to be exposed to all this. It would just be for summer. Just until things are...okay again."
"Stanford Pines has never once reached out to these kids. Never sent a birthday card, made a phone call, anything. Why would I send them to him?"
Dipper suddenly remembered. An old photograph tucked into dad's things. It was grandpa when he was graduating high school with two little boys sitting at a dinner table. Dad had told him grandpa had two twin brothers who were way way younger than him. That's how he explained that twins ran in the family. Was one of them this Stanford person?
"Just think it over. The fresh air couldn't hurt them. They're just a few hours drive away if something happens. They can call us or email us if they need anything. We can have a little breathing room to figure things out. And in September they'll come back home. Back to us."
"That's assuming there's a home to come back to." His mom scoffed. "Or an 'us' to come back to."
"Hey. Hey now." The pacing stopped abruptly "There will always be a home for them. And, in one way or another, there will always be an us for them. Nothing that happens will ever ever change that."
Dipper waited to hear mom agree. Waited for them to apologize, kiss each other goodnight. But mom didn't say anything. Neither did dad. The papers shuffled. The chair creaked as dad sat or maybe mom stood. There wasn't any more to say.
"Mable?" Dipper asked in the dark room "Are you still awake?"
"Yeah."
"Do you think I'm a nervous wreck?"
"I think you're just a regular wreck." She teased and laughed. Dipper smiled. They heard their parents' voices, muffled through the door. They sat up, moving together.
"Dipper, what are mom and dad so worried about?" Mabel asked, looking at the door.
"I'm really not sure. I wish they'd tell us." Dipper wasn't lying now.
"I wish they would, too. I hate secrets."
"Me, too."
They listened together for a little while but, unable to make heads or tails of what was being said, Mable laid back down. She announced she was just going to get some sleep. To wake her up if anything interesting happened.
Dipper stayed awake, eyes adjusted to the dark. The voices raised and lowered as the conversation went on but he couldn't pick out more than an occasional stray word. Mabel snored softly next to him, glow in the dark stars yellow-green over her bed. He wondered about who Standford was, why they'd never seen him at the holidays or even heard of him before now. Why mom thought he was on house arrest. Why dad wanted to send them away.
Eventually, unable to fight anymore, he heard his parents footfalls into their room and the house grew still. He laid down and sunk into a restless sleep.
Stan Pines slept slumped over a computer control panel in the secret basement lab under his home.
The lights and sounds of the lab often bled into his dreams. Lights blinking and trilling all around him in a language he almost understood. As his body moved through the syrupy cloudy dreamscape, he was not surprised to see his hands, his stupid damned hands, pushing buttons and pulling levers. He was not surprised to see lights. He was close to what he wanted, so close to his goals. It would finally be enough. He would finally be enough. If he could just reach a little farther, push a little faster..
Yet, as always, a switch fails. An alarm blares. It's gone wrong. At the last moment, it always goes wrong. Every night, a new failure. The portal collapses like sand or the lab dissolves like water or his damned hands just aren't fast enough to save him. Again. Somewhere, distant, he hears his father's voice but can't decipher the words. A single eye watches, always. Tonight, his dreams shatter with a piercing twinned
ring ring
His eyes tore open, his heart pounding. He looked around dimly for the source of the noise. The control board blinked back at him but didn't seem to be the cause of the intrusion.
ring ring
The phone? Above him, in the shack, the phone was ringing. The piercing jangling noise penetrating into the underground lab with surprising ease. He shuffled to his feet, in no great hurry to resolve the noise. Who in God's name would be calling at this hour? He glanced at his watch. It was midmorning. How late had he been up, pouring over that stupid journal? The shack was empty and locked. The stairs were long and dark and cold. He opened his hidden door and hid it again. Secrets. He found the phone, rattling in its cradle.
"Yeah, what?" He answered gruffly. A pause on the other end. A hesitation and then
"Uncle Ford?" A small familiar voice. Questioning, uncertain. He searched for the reference in his memory, he knew this voice. "I'm calling for Standford Pines." The voice added, a little more clearly. A face appeared in his mind.
"Hey! If it ain't my favorite nephew!!" The bravado came out easy and sour. Well rehearsed. "What can I do for you, nephew? Hope you ain't looking for money."
"Did you get my last postcard? From Mable and Dip's graduation?"
"Uh yeah sure!" He found a side table, stuffed with old bills and letters and take out menus. He propped the phone between his shoulder and ear, half listening to his nephew chattering on.
"Great! I was worried you hadn't gotten it--"
Mable and Dipper? Shermie's kid had gotten married a while back, of course they would've had kids by now. Two kids already? Time flies.
"--know they're far from the family here in California--"
There, among the debris, a postcard sized announcement.
"Announcing the birth of Maple Pines and 'Dipper' Pines" the card proclaimed above the image of two soft faces swaddled in pink and blue. Twins. It ran in the family, after all. A line of freckles danced across the boy's forehead. On the back, a note in familiar handwriting - "Your brand new Great-Niece and Great-Nephew! Can't wait to see you, Uncle Ford. Love, The Pines."
"--it's been so long--"
A weight settled against his collarbones. He'd never met them, never seen them. An old ache in his chest twinged. He didn't know them at all. How old would they be now?
"The fresh air, the natural beauty in Oregon--"
He shuffled through a timeline of postcards. Christmas, birthday, Christmas, Halloween, birthday. In jerky snapshots, the kids grew up. Stretching into little bodies and faces that Stan could see shadows of his nephew, his brother, his mother, his father in. Finally he found the most recent. Two smiling faces at a miniscule 8th grade graduation. He turned his attention back to the conversation.
"When I hadn't heard, I figured I'd call. What do you think, Uncle, can you take them for the summer?" His nephew concluded his pitch. Stan nearly dropped the phone in shock.
"What? Take them for the summer?" He repeated.
"Come on, Uncle, just say yes. You won't regret it." A Pause. "I'd like them to know you."
The ache grew in his chest, dull and familiar.
"I dunno..." Stan said. The twin faces smiled up at him from the snapshot. The ache in his chest burned and he sighed heavily.
"It won't be long before they're all grown up." His nephew added.
"Oh, alright." Stan conceded impulsively. What was he doing? The words poured out of him anyway. "One summer. I could use the help around here. They'll be put to work! No free rides here!"
"Wonderful!" He could hear the smile in his nephew's voice. A man, now. A grown man Stan had once held in his arms, a soft blue bundle. "You'll love them, Uncle. And they'll love you. They'll be there the First day of June. They'll meet you at the bus stop."
And they'll love you.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. Just remember, you owe me one."
"Sure thing. Love you. I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah. Love you, too, kiddo. See ya soon."
Stan dropped the phone heavily back into its cradle. Mable and Dipper?
Stan wondered if he was ever sent the same notes and cards. They'd be languishing in any number of post offices or PO Boxes or borrowed mailboxes or fake addresses in half a dozen different states and 3 different countries. A breadcrumb trail of milestones he never saw. Evidence of a family he'd never really been a part of.
He'd never responded to Ford's personal mail, not in the last thirty years. He answered the odd call from Sherm or from the kid that trickled in on holiays or birthdays but never reached out. On one hand, he kept telling himself that Ford would sort it all out when he was back. On the other hand, there was a secret part of him that couldn't bear to speak to the family, yet. Not while he was still a screw up. Once he had Ford back, once everything was back to normal and okay again...
But the post cards never stopped coming. His nephew was a good kid. Sweet and stupidly optimistic. No idea where he'd inherited that from. Musta been Shermie's influence
He dropped the pile of paper back into the side table and closed it again. He thought about Shermie. The last time he saw Shermie was right after the birth of his first child. He was just a teenager, then. Shermie was in maybe his twenties?
They all gathered in the parlor to coo at the new baby. Shermie and his wife looked exhausted and proud and terrified all at once. They'd made the trek from where? Maybe Baltimore? Where had he been living by then? It was all so long ago, the details were grainy but the feelings weren't. He remembered holding his little nephew, remembered ma making a huge fuss, the big dinner she prepared, the way Shermie's wife made soft polite conversation with them.
He wished he'd have known that was going to be the last time he saw them. He would have said something. Right? If he'd known, he would have managed to tell him and Ford and Ma what he wished he could say to them now.
He would have said something to his father.
He heaved a sigh and slunk into the chair. What would he have said? He didn't know. It didn't matter anyway. His parents had passed away and he'd never get the chance to set it right. Stanley was dead and no one missed him. Only Stanford was alive and well.
And they wanted to know him.
Wanted these kids to know him.
He could outwit a couple kids. They wouldn't know the difference, they'd never met Stanley anyway. He was rationalizing, now, the silly impulsive thing he'd done. And if he could get them to work the shack during the peak tourist times, he could devote more time to the portal. Plus, he wouldn't even have to pay them. If he kept them busy, they wouldn't bother asking too many questions.
Stan thought about being 12. God, it felt like lifetimes ago. What do kids these days even do during the summer? Fordsie and he spent hot muggy days adventuring on the beach, working in their father's shop, going to movies. It all blurred together. Was he 12 or 13 when he got caught for stealing that pendant from the pawn shop? Maybe older, maybe younger. How old was he the first time he got suspended for fighting in class? Memories of bar mitzvahs, school dances, featherweight boxing matches all ran through his mind like a choppy reel to reel home movie.
He wanted to say it didn't feel real anymore. He wanted to brush it away and dismiss it as time long gone but the feelings flooded back to him.
How intense his first kiss was. How terrifying his first campout alone. How electrifying to win his first bout. Feelings were so much bigger and louder when he was a little boy.
Other feelings crept in as he remembered - The shivering cold of sleeping in a car when he had nowhere else to go at 17. The gnawing burning hunger after days of no money and no food. The total and crushing isolation of having nothing and no one. These feelings, as always, seemed to seep into the good ones. Poison them. Taint them.
"Ah, well," he told himself, "Too late now."
Too late for all of it. He could only focus on now. Right now he had to build the gate, get Ford home. That's all that mattered anymore.