Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The lack of sleep out of pure excitement for returning to Gravity Falls after a whole year was beginning to weigh on my eyes. Mabel and I had begged our parents to let us come for Christmas or even Easter, but they had refused, as they wanted us to be focused for the school year.

They were also a little weirded out for how much our last summer in Gravity Falls had meant to us, but even though we didn't have a bad relationship with our parents, we agreed on not going into detail about the events that took place almost a year ago. Mostly because otherwise we probably wouldn't be allowed to get anywhere near Gravity Falls again. But after miraculously getting Mabel to keep her mouth shut all year, our wait was over.

Just as I began drifting into sleep I was harshly woken up by my sister's shoulder shaking under my head as she got up and smashed her face in the window squealing.

"Are we already there?" I said not hiding away my excitement.

"Hell yeah we are!!" She said as she petted waddles (who was waking up from his nap on her feet because of her yelling).

As the bus stopped and we got off, I heard the sigh of relief from the bus driver who had to stop the bus multiple times because of certain pig getting carsick and vomiting all over the place.

I ran after my sister and we threw ourselves into the arms of Grunkle Stan, and shortly after into Ford.

"I'm glad to see the pig could make it." Stanley said ironically as I realized how much I had missed his voice.

"He has missed gravity falls so much." My sister said pouting in waddles direction. "But not more than I have!!"

"We loved receiving your letters and hearing about your adventures." I admitted.

"We loved living them too but I got to say, I'm really glad we're back to spend this summer with both of you, kids."

I couldn't help but smile as they helped us with our suitcases and we started to walk towards the Mystery Shack. It wasn't long before I saw it's giant sign missing a letter. Just when my sister was about to run away towards it, she was interrupted by Grunkle Stan's voice.

"Wait, I forgot to mention something that might be a little important... So remember how after the weirdmageddon Pacifica's parents lost almost all of their fortune?"

My sister and I nodded at him, a little confused as to where he was going.

"So, even though they had the money to buy a decent house here in Gravity Falls, they decided they wanted to move away to another state and start a new life, and a scam business.. they are pretty desperate to get back their old classy lifestyle."

"What? Don't tell me Pacifica moved away." Mabel said with sad eyes.

"Quite the opposite actually." I was getting more confused by the second. "Pacifica refused to move out and keep living like that, so she begged me to let her stay at the mystery shack." Both of our eyes widened but my sister's were topped with a wide grin.

"I tried to talk to her parents and they didn't really care. They even promised to send some money every couple months, which they haven’t done in the past four, so I can assume the business is not going great, but anyway, she now lives here."

"What?!" My twin and I say in unison, but with very different tones.

"Aren't you excited Dipper?? This summer is going to be so fun, I can't believe this, oh my god!!"

"No! I mean, you know I don't have a problem with Pacifica anymore and I know she has genuinely changed but, call me crazy if you want, I was planning on seeing her a few times this summer and have a couple laughs instead of living with her??" My arguments apparently hadn't resonated with my sister because she just started spinning in her feet and squealing.

"Look kid, I didn't like it at first either but she has proved herself to be good for this home and has taken care of plenty of the tasks Soos used to do before he runned the Mystery Shack with me." Stanley said as he kneeled to talk to me with a sincere expression.

Still not convinced, I looked down to my feet, I genuinely knew Pacifica was much nicer now but it wasn't enough to make me feel good about living under the same roof as her, at the same time I sympathised with how hard it must have been to have such selfish parents that care so little about you and I felt really bad for her. She didn't deserve that.

"Ugh, I guess It's okay." I spoke under my breath.

"I can't wait to see her!! Are Soos and Wendy here?" Mabel said enthusiastically.

"Soos is, Wendy will get here later in the afternoon."

Mabel proceeded to run towards the house even more excited than before, knowing that Soos was there made me cheer up a bit but I was still taken aback by our new roommate.

"And in what room is Pacifica staying?" I say to Ford as Stanley ran after my sister.

"Well, we figured out since I spend almost all of my time in the basement working on my experiments and investigating, I could just add another bed there and turn it into my new room, letting her use my old bedroom, the one where you guys found the electron carpet." I smiled, finding kind of sweet how my uncle had made space for the girl in need.

As I entered the front door I heard the loud conversation between my sister and Soos and I gave him a big hug, recognizing his pepperoni pizza and car oil scent.

"I love your sweater Mabel." Soos commented, throwing me beck to how my sister had knitted that exact one on our room's floor, it spelled 'The Mabel strikes back' with a little illustration of herself holding a star wars lightsaber, beaming with the idea of returning to Gravity Falls.

We asked Soos about how Melody and him had been just as Mabel turned violently as she heard steps coming from the corridor.

"Is that Pacifica??" She said, turning to Soos with sparkly eyes.

Pacifica walked out the door with a bright smile and didn't even have time to get a word out before Mabel threw her arms around her.

"It's good to see you guys, Stanley has already told you that I… you know, live here now, right? heh." She said with a hint of embarrassment, darting her eyes down.

Her bangs had grown out a bit and she was not dressed in expensive looking clothes like last summer, but her outfit still looked too glamorous for a shack in the woods due to her classic hoop earrings and uggs.

"He did, We are so excited, right Dipper?” She said turning to me, making Pacifica look towards me too.

"Yeah” I said, shrugging with a crack in my voice, that often happened when I lied, Mabel narrowed her eyes recognizing it.

"So how have things been in California?”

"Great but I was dying for summer to start already, how about you?” My sister asked.

"Not much, I’m trying to heal after all that my parents have put me through, It's not so bad around here, now I get the hype of this place.”

"Remember when you used to call us peasants for living here, who would have thought, right?” I said, becoming aware too late that my attempt at a gentle tease had turned out to sound really rude.

I earned another deadly look from my sister and a roll of her eyes from Pacifica.

“Wow, calm down Pines, I know I shouldn't have said all of those things, I was just really out of touch, I needed to be humbled, and well.. I don't know if you can tell but I was. But now I'm glamorous and self aware, soon to reach perfection.”

She said giggling before turning to glance at both of our confused faces more seriously. “Guys, that was obviously a joke.”

Mabel nodded with a smile and tried to laugh it off before breaking a remarkably long silence.

“Dipper, we should go upstairs to our room and unpack the cases, see you later Pacifica!!” Mabel said.

"Bye, see you later.” Pacifica said, smiling before turning away into the corridor.

Mabel grabbed her magenta glittery case as I stood there watching Pacifica walk away, and as if she had felt my eyes fixated on her blonde hair, she turned and looked at me directly in the eyes before entering her room, I felt a shiver down my spine at the short eye contact but didn't give it a second thought and also grabbed my case.

I went upstairs and the view of our room brought me really good memories. Both of us were exhausted so we threw ourselves in each of our beds.

“I missed this so much.” My sister said in a whisper.

“Me too.” I said laying on my back in the bed.

As I stared at the ceiling I thought of all the new memories I was about to make that summer, I couldn't wait to spend time with my family and friends, maybe even solve some new mysteries (preferably without the life-threatening danger we put ourselves in last summer) and enjoy the full Gravity Falls summer experience again.

I couldn't help it when another thought popped into my mind, Pacifica. Would living together make us somehow grow closer, or even more apart? If I was honest with myself, since the night I realised she was different than her parents, she had really intrigued me. The brave girl under the spoiled, rich, brat facet, and now that she was the opposite of that, who was she now? The fact that I was dying inside to get to know her at a deeper level didn't change the fact that I was not totally comfortable with living with her, but it did help.

Chapter Text

As I reached for the handle of the door I felt what you feel when somebody's watching you, so I turned to shake the feeling away and locked eyes with Dipper, who stood there like he had seen a ghost. I felt like a ghost. I had felt like a ghost for a long time. I couldn't stop feeling as if everybody that looked at me only saw me as the ashes of a long gone fenix, a shadow of the girl that used to have that spot on the top of the pyramid.

But when I entered my room closing the door behind me, I couldn't help the smile that plastered my face. I wouldn't have admitted it for anything in the world, but it made me really happy to know I would spend the summer with the twins. I really needed them to drive away my loneliness.

After my parents lost their fortune all my so-called friends pretended like I had never existed. The worst part of the situation was that it was not one of those hurtful betrayals where you never would've expected them to leave you. I knew my friends only liked me because of my status, it seemed normal to me. I was used to people only looking my way for money since I was a child.

But the Pines twins were a whole other story, I would have preferred putting up with Mabel asking me to let her braid my hair and arguing with Dipper all summer long over any other thing else in the world, which was also really humiliating, considering that I had spent most of the previous summer straight up bullying them. Every time I thought about it, the strong urge to bang my head against the wall made it's way onto my mind, but at least I was the living proof that Karma is real. Pathetic or not, the twins were my only friends in the world (Can you consider your friend someone that doesn't only tolerate your presence?).

After a while I heard the voice of Wendy going into the gift shop and then the twins going downstairs to greet her. I decided to join them even though this was my millionth time seeing Wendy this summer, since she spent most of her own summer here. At first she made it clear that she didn't quite like me but as time went on and she noticed I was trying my best to be nice during small talk, she started to treat me completely differently, and to my surprise, I genuinely liked her too.

“Hey Paz.” She acknowledged me as I entered the shop.

“Hi Wendy.” I tried disguising my internal disgust at the nickname with a small smile, I hated it but I figured out if you are trying to win someone over, rejecting well-intended nicknames was not a good idea.

She turned to the twins again and started talking about how Soos had asked for her help with some repairs. However she stated that she was really excited to hang out with them as soon as she could.

“Paz? Where did that come from?” Dipper asked once Wendy was gone.

“I like it!!” Mabel said, tilting her head.

“If any of you start calling me that I’m killing myself.” I said

“Calm down Paz, It's just a nickname.” Dipper mocked me.

“I have a better one, how about Dipstick?” I said, crossing my arms.

“That's not a nickname, that's an insult, can you tell the difference?” Dipper said, rolling his eyes.

“Can you tell the difference between showering and standing under the rain?” At this point Mabel wasn't even trying to hold back her laughter.

“Calm down guys!” Mabel intervened just before her giggles were cut off by two voices yelling her name, one high and the other much deeper.

Mabel glanced at the door before turning to us with sparkly eyes and sprinting to the door screaming. My concerned stare at Dipper went unanswered as he rolled his eyes with a half smile towards his sister.

“Grenda, Candy!! I’ve missed you so much!!” Mabel yelled, jumping into them.

I recognised them (but couldn't tell them apart) from the night I allowed them in my mansion in exchange for Dipper's help with the ghost. Thinking of that night still made me shiver.

“We missed you more.” One of the girls yelled as the three of them hugged.

After some more screaming, hugging and jumping (which I found a little extra) the taller girl noticed me and her eyes widened.

“Pacifica Northwest?”

“Hey.” I said, trying to sound nice. The smaller girl gasped and looked my way.

“I knew the rumors about Pacifica moving to the mystery shack but I thought they weren't true.” She said, causing me to start feeling a little uncomfortable.

“I told you her house had a sale sign.” The taller one mentioned, turning towards the other.

“Want a picture? haha..” I joked with an awkward chuckle trying to laugh away my discomfort.

“Really? I wouldn't mind-” The smaller girl started.

“It was a joke.” I said in a more serious tone.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I think I’m leaving now, but, uhh, have fun.” I said, speed-walking towards the kitchen in embarrassment.

I went into the kitchen, and drank some water while hearing their voices going upstairs. Ford entered shortly after.

“Hey Pacifica.” He greeted me without looking up from a book in his hands.

“Hey, want me to help with dinner or something?”

“Yeah that would be really helpful actually, I heard Stanley say he was going to make some pasta for dinner but he’s still at the grocery store, can you take care of that?”

“On it.” I hated cooking and cleaning with a burning passion, but doing these things in the mystery shack helped me feel useful and not like a total parasite.

“Seriously thanks, see you later.” He said turning the page on his book while leaving the kitchen with a refreshment.

In less than an hour I had the pasta ready for everyone and headed upstairs to the twins room, Mabel’s friends were already gone and so were Soos and Wendy that had left shortly before.

“Hey dinner is ready, can someone go to the basement to get your uncles while I lay the table?” Both looked at me a little shocked and very obviously still finding odd my help.

“Uh, sure.” Dipper answered, getting up from his bed.

Mabel followed me to the kitchen and helped me lay out the dinner. It went by pretty quickly as I silently ate part of my plate and listened to how Mabel and Dipper answered poorly their uncle's questions due to exhaustion, especially Mabel who apparently hadn't slept the previous night out of excitement. Everybody thanked me for the dinner and went straight to bed.

I wasn't sleeping very well due to the heat so I was tired too when I got to my room. I layed in bed and it didn't take me long to fall asleep.

“You don't deserve this.”

“What?” I said confused.

“You don't deserve this.” A deep voice repeated in front of me.

“Where am I??” I yelled looking around the room terrified, quickly recognizing the giant living room of the house I grew up in.

“I think you perfectly know where you are, Northwest. Do you know where you should be?” The ghost that Dipper had help me getting rid of (I believed his name was Archibald Corduroy) screamed as I crawled away backwards. He seemed furious.

“You made one good thing, you did something for others once and now you believe yourself worth living under the roof of who you tried to hurt so many times.” He very evidently referred to the mystery shack, his voice accompanied by the pounding of my heart.

“I’m sorry!!” I tried holding back my tears.

“We both know that's not enough.” He whispered as blue fire spread quickly in the living room and I shut my eyes closed.

I opened my eyes again when the agonizing smoke was replaced with the equally agonizing feeling of a heat wave in gravity falls. I sat up in my bed staring at my feet. I really oftenly had this type of nightmares since the night I first disobeyed my parents.

It was past nine in the morning and I knew there was no way I was falling asleep again. I got up from the puddle of sweat that the combination of the very lucid nightmare and this heat wave had created and headed to the kitchen.

Dipper sat at the table writing in some type of journal. He was already dressed up in one of his regular outfits but I was still in my lilac pajamas, and I felt a little embarrassed.

“I need water.” I said opening the fridge and chugging down the whole bottle.

“Why are you up so early?” He asked without looking up from whatever he was writing down.

“I could ask the exact same question, what are you even writing? Didn't you return the journals to Ford?”

“Sorry, I forgot to ask for your permission to have my own journal.” He ironically commented.

“Well instead of losing your time writing journals, you and your uncle could try to do something about climate change because I’m about to melt. This has to be the hottest summer ever experienced in Gravity Falls." I said, exaggeratingly fanning myself with my hand.

“Has climate change really altered Gravity Falls temperature drastically this summer or is this just your first summer without having air conditioning in every room?” He looked up from his journal, sounding genuine.

I rolled my eyes, even though he actually had a very probably right point. I refilled the bottle of water and thought for a minute before deciding on what to do next.

“The only thing I know is that if I go one more minute without doing something about the heat I’m going insane, I’m heading to the river.”

“The river? Wasn't the river extremely polluted by your parents' factory?” He asked.

“The factory was destroyed during the Weirdmageddon and my parents didn't have the money to rebuild it. So bye bye mud flaps, hello clean river.” I shrugged while I left the kitchen on my way to get ready.

“Wait! The river does sound really refreshing right now..” He said as I leaned out the kitchen door.

“Are you coming or not?” I said as he nodded.

“Be ready in five, see you at the door.” I demanded rolling my eyes as I headed to my room to change, secretly really content with my new company.

Chapter Text

As I went up the stairs to my room I realized that I had just seen Pacifica without makeup and fancy clothes for the first time in my life. It felt weird to know that wouldn’t be the last time that happened this summer, since she would be living here.

I could hear my sister’s snores before I even reached the room. I took my backpack and shoved my journal into it. I had taken a liking to journaling last summer and finally I had my own. With the pressure of writing something worth being in Ford’s journals gone, I could write down all my thoughts, which made it more fun but also way less exciting, no mysteries to solve or codes to figure out. I didn’t believe all the mysteries of Gravity Falls had already been solved, though.

I rushed into the bathroom and changed into my swimsuit and a white shirt, took my swimming towel and went downstairs again. Pacifica was already on the door on her phone, a towel over her shoulder and a teal bag over the other.

“Let’s go.” I said approaching the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Dipstick?” She said, crossing her arms.

“What? And don't call me that.”

“Hold this.” She handed me her bag and towel as I grumbled.

Pacifica rushed to her room as I waited confused, then came back with a post-it and a pen. She wrote something down and stuck it to the door.

“Do you want your uncle to think somebody kidnapped us or what?” I peeked over her shoulder at the post-it as she took back her things and opened the door. The post-it read "Dipper and I went to the river, we'll be back soon! -Pacifica" with her signature heart on the "i" in her name.

I closed the door behind us and followed her for a while, she looked like she knew where we were going so I decided to (for once) not question her. In less than ten minutes we reached the river so I started to take off my backpack.

“Wait, we are not there yet.” She said as she continued walking.

“I’m pretty sure this is the river though.” I said pointing towards it.

“Just follow me, I know a better spot, There the water doesn't just reach your knees like here, in my spot it's deeper, Dipper, haha, get it?” She said, giggling at her own lame pun.

“Hilarious.” I ironically said with a straight face.

She kept following the trail and after a while we got to a little pool formed by a fall in the river. The area was surrounded by pine trees, rocks and tall grass.

“I used to find the river disgusting, you know? But now I love coming here in the mornings, it’s so peaceful.” She told me.

“It still is a little disgusting.” I said looking at the not so clear water.

“Are you building a pool in the backyard of the mystery shack any time soon?” She rhetorically asked as she climbed up some rocks.

“Not really.” I answered.

“That's what I thought.” She turned her head to me from above her shoulder.

She left her bag and towel on top of a rock and dived perfectly into the water making it seem obvious that she had taken swimming lessons from a young age, which led me to wonder if there even was anything for which she hadn't taken private (and definitely expensive) lessons.

“That feels so much better.” She said as she surfaced from the water.

I took off my shirt and backpack and cannonballed into the water. Glad to feel the revitalizing ice cold surrounding my body. When I resurfaced, Pacifica still had her hands in the air, covering her face from the water I had splashed. She gave me an irritated look and I couldn't help but laugh as she huffed and swam away.

She sat at a nearby rock as I swam around in the water. She looked thoughtful for a couple seconds before looking up at me.

“How has the first year of highschool been?”

“Meh, just a slightly harder version of middle school. I really enjoyed history class, some lessons were boring but most of them interes-”

“I mean socially!! God you're such a nerd.” She said under her breath, laughing.

“Pacifica, you know damn well I’m not exactly the right person to ask that, why?” I said as she stared down at her nails.

“It’s just.. Ugh I don't know. I’ve never been to a real school, I’ve had a private professor all my life. I was able to finish this year because my parents paid in advance and the professor didn't accept returns, but once summer is over I’ll be..”

“Going to the Gravity Falls’ public highschool?” I chuckled at my own words.

“What the hell are you laughing about?!”

“Sorry, sorry. You’ve got to admit the situation is comedy gold. You made fun of that school for being cheap so many times.” I said as I swam out of the water.

“Yeah, trust me, I know , but it's also going to be hell for me. I’ve made fun of you many times for “not having friends” but the truth is I have way less friends than you. All my friendships ever were bought. Mortifying.” She looked up briefly before returning her gaze to her nails, ashamed. I sat a few rocks away from her.

“If you don't mind me asking what even happened with your parents' money? As far as I know you still were rich when we left last summer, what went wrong?” She looked up and took a long breath.

“It all started with the Weirdmageddon, by the end of last summer, we had lost more than half of our money due to most of our business around Gravity Falls being destroyed. But, you know, we still were super rich, no one would have even noticed anything if we had just made some accommodations, like selling our boat and the peacocks, god. We could’ve even kept the mansion, if my dad hadn’t been so stubborn” She paused for a second, trying to hide her frustration.

“So why not?” I said intrigued.

“He went feral, he was convinced he didn’t need to sell anything, that he could get the money back. He started to invest in the weirdest business, bet insane amounts of money, fell for scams. Then, he started blaming my mother, and my mother took it all out on me.”

She looked up to me and even though she spoke in a serene tone I could see through her eyes the pain that her parents had caused. She took a short breath and continued her story.

“The rest is history. They took away our mansion because of our debts, so my parents decided to move away. That was my last straw. I refused to keep living like that. My parents told me I had no choice but I knew I needed to stay in Gravity Falls. My hometown.” We fell silent and stared at the flowing water.

“I’m really sorry.” I said, not sure if I could've said anything else.

“Don’t be. Now I live in the mystery shack. I do really miss my parents sometimes but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.” She said getting back into the water, I followed along as I started to feel the morning sun burning my skin again.

“How did you end up in the mystery shack anyway?”

“It was the only place I could think of. I was ready to get on my knees and beg, but for some reason Stanley resonated with the whole getting kicked out of your home and having nowhere to go, he talked to my parents and to Ford and figured it all out for me. I’m forever grateful for that.” I smiled to myself as I thought about how under all that scams and frauds my great uncle really had a kind heart.

I connected what Pacifica had said to Stan’s past pretty quickly. I remembered perfectly the day that Ford came back from the nightmare realm and they told us what had been going on. I figured out that if Stan had been so comprehensive with Pacifica It was because no one had been there for him when his own parents kicked him out of their house for ruining Ford’s perpetual movement machine.

“I’m glad my uncle was there for you.”

“I am too.”

“Enough talking about me, how has everything been going for you and your sister?” 

“Not great either, honestly.”

“Why is that?” She said with curiosity.

“I’ll tell you but please, don't mention it around Mabel”

“Sure?” She said, confused.

“Our parents got divorced.” She turned to me with widened eyes.

“The hardest part was seeing how Mabel lost her spark, she was unrecognisable. I felt so lost, I’m so glad it's finally summer.” I said, trying not to think again about the awful memories.

“I’m so sorry. Why does having parents has to be so hard? Dear god.”

“Totally. Whatever. I don't care anymore, if that's their decision then good for them. I was just worried for Mabel. But she's going to be fine now that we are here. Want to head back and have breakfast?” I knew she could tell my words weren't true, but thankfully she decided to let it be and got up.

She wrapped herself with her towel and searched for something in her bag, then pulled out her phone and started typing something.

“I’ll text Mabel to see if she's already awake.”

“You have Mabel's phone?? Since when??”

“You don't have to know everything Dipstick.” She mocked me.

We dried ourselves, picked up our things and started walking towards the Mystery shack. Along the way she searched for a comb in her bag and detangled her hair. I pulled out my sunscreen and started applying it. I spoke up immediately when she glanced at me.

“You can make fun of me all you want. Sun cream is important.” I stated.

“I didn't say anything?! For your information I also believe in the importance of sun cream. It's the only way to age gracefully.” 

“...And to prevent skin cancer?”

“Yeah, that too.” I facepalmed myself at her words and she just shrugged and pulled out her phone.

“Your sister answered with something about a Karaoke night… and thirty thousand emojis. Know anything about that?”

“No, but I guess we’ll find out soon.” I said as I pointed at the shack peeking through the trees.

Pacifica opened the door and threw away the post-it.

“Hey!! Guys, I’m in the kitchen!!” Mabel yelled as she heard the door closing.

We got to the kitchen where Mabel sat with a bowl of cereal and milk, a piece of paper and at least fourteen types of glitter.

“I rested awesomely!! I have so many ideas for our welcoming party. Will people be uncomfortable if we make it weirdmageddon themed? Yeah, better not, the wound is still fresh. Karaoke it's always the best option.” Mabel ranted.

“Have Stan or Ford even agreed to this?” I asked my sister just before, as if I had summoned him, Stan entered the kitchen.

“Hey! You kids are back from the river.” He glanced at Pacifica and me. I saw out of the corner of my eye how Pacifica smiled broadly at him.

“Grunkle Stan!! Will you let us throw a welcoming party in the Mystery Shack pleaseee." Mabel pleaded.

“Sure, I guess. I’ll ask Ford what he thinks about this.” He said not able to refuse. Mabel squealed.

“Imagine how many people are going to assist now that we are the local heroes!! More people equals more money.” My sister winked comically in Stan’s direction.

“You sure know how to convince me pumpkin.”

The next 20 minutes consisted of Pacifica and me hearing Mabel's ideas until she was out of breath while we silently ate our breakfast.

Chapter Text

Mabel’s enthusiasm truly was contagious. I woke up feeling genuinely excited for the party that would take place that night. The afternoon of the previous day had gone by pretty quickly, we had cleared up the Mystery Shack’s big and designated for parties room, so we could use the space for the party, setting up the scenario and setting up tables…. It gave me a lot of free time to think about what would happen at the party and sure, it would be uncomfortable to see everyone after avoiding them all year long, but it had to happen eventually and for once I was feeling pretty good about myself. I got up (once again sweating from the heat), got dressed and headed to the kitchen where, to my surprise, Dipper sat again writing. I thought about the possibility of this becoming some type of morning ritual for the both of us.

“Hey, up for the lake?” I asked.

“I don't really have anything better to do, so sure.” He shrugged.

“By the door in five.” I said walking back to my bedroom.

I packed my teal bag with my phone, sun cream and a comb. I decided to wear my favorite swimsuit (a lilac one-piece) and black shorts. This time I remembered to prepare the post-it and came out a couple minutes later. Dipper already stood on the door waiting. I put the post-it on the door and we left.

We reached the river and started following the trail towards the pool. I looked at Dipper from the corner of my eye who looked lost in his thoughts, then looked up smiling.

“Doesn't it make you feel great seeing Mabel so excited?... Are you excited for tonight's party?”

“Strangely, I am! I need to think about what I’ll be wearing though.”

“Does it have to matter that much? I don't know, I'll probably just wearing my regular clothes.” 

“Really?... And why don't you just try wearing something nice for once? Dressing up can be really fun sometimes you know.”

“What do you mean by ‘wearing something nice for once’? My clothes are nice.”

“Well.. I don't know, I think you could just try-” I chuckled, mocking him, before he interrumpted me.

“Stop being so superficial, Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, don't call me superficial!!”

“Pacifica I asked you if you were excited for the party and the first thing that came to your mind was what you were wearing, and then you insulted my clothes. If that isn't being superficial...” He insinuated.

“Dipper, I wasn't trying to be rude, you know I'm into fashion and all that stuff, but I never meant to make you feel bad, and you know it. You are the one insulting me, calling me superficial out of nowhere. I deserve an apology.” I admitted.

“You deserve an apology?!”

“Yeah?!” 

“Well that's ironic.” He threw his hands up in the air.

“What?”

“I think that's really off coming from you, considering you never apologized for literally anything as if you didn't spend a whole summer humiliating us.” He attacked me.. with the truth.

“What?! Dipper you know that's not fair, I’ve worked really hard to change, You know I was being... exactly who I was raised to be.” I tried to defend myself.

“I’ve never denied that, I know your family is awful but that doesn't change your actions and how you should take responsibility for the way you acted.” He spoke with a calm but cold voice.

“You don't get it!! If you had been raised like me you would have been the same... or probably even worse!! Can't you understand that?!” I said with a lump in my throat.

“I disagree. Your parents were extremely controlling but they never told you to humiliate us, did they? That was on you.”

“What do you even know about my parents? It’s not even about what they told me to do, it's about what I believed I had to do to make them proud.”

“Look, I get it, I’m not saying what you did was part of your nature or that it came out of you, but it was you who did it and you at least should acknowledge that.”

“What do you even want me to say?? You are so much better than me Dipper, I could never be as morally flawless!!” I ironically said in a dramatic way.

He turned away and continued walking exasperated.

“Can we not do this all summer? Admit it, you have never truly forgiven me, do you just hate me?” I asked.

“Ugh. Leave me alone. You're not even listening”

“Answer my question!”

I almost bumped into him as he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw something on the ground. I walked around him to see what he was staring at, only to see a trail of footprints.

“Dipper?? You're the ” I said with my hands on my hips, furious.

“What are these footprints? They weren't here yesterday.” He told me, distracted away from the conversation.

“Do I look like I care?!” I yelled.

“Then, I feel the same way about your question.” He said, finally looking up from the ground.

I stood there dumbfounded for a couple seconds, before realising that I already had the answer to the question.

“Fine.” I turned around and walked away, a couple of silent tears forming in my eyes.

I couldn't even blame him, I couldn't stop thinking how I would’ve hated me too. Truly, my nightmares were just my subconscious putting into words what I was most afraid of, I didn't deserve his or Mabel’s friendship nor did I deserve to live in the Mystery Shack. Why would’ve he wanted me as a friend after how I treated him and his sister last summer? 

Of course he deserved an apology. But apologizing would mean admitting it was my fault and admitting that, meant that, deep down, I was just like my parents, and I was capable of doing the same things they did. The only thing that set us apart was that I wanted to change, but that didn't give me the ability to do so. It was not enough with wanting to change. My past, and what me and my family had done would always haunt me and I probably deserved it.

When I reached the Mystery Shack, I realize how pathetic I looked and how extremely awkward it would be explaining to anyone why I was crying (especially considering that they had only been here for three days and how I was already causing problems). I wiped my tears as best as I could and went in.

I ripped the post-it from the wall and headed to my room. I changed into a blue skirt and tucked in a light pink shirt. I sat and redid my makeup (staring at myself in the mirror was one of the worst things possible to do when I was upset, for more reasons than anyone would've wanted), got up and decided to check if everything was going alright with the Karaoke party preparations.

I got to the museum where Soos tried to get the ancient karaoke machine to work and Mabel frantically inflated balloons.

“Hey, need help with anything?” I asked.

“Yeah!! Please I need someone to go to Wendy’s house, she isn't answering my texts and she was supposed to bring her disco ball.” Mabel yelled without looking up from the bright orange balloon she held.

“Sure, I’ll take care of that.”

“Thank you so much Paz. Bye!!” I didn't have the energy to be mad about that nickname so I just accepted it.

I knew the way to the corduroy’s cabin since earlier in the summer, she had left her phone at the Shack and Soos asked me to bring it to her. I stepped on the porch and knocked in the door. After a couple seconds I heard steps and one of Wendy’s brothers opened the door. After an awkwardly long silence I spoke up.

“Um. Is Wendy here?”

“Dad, the Northwest girl is here again.” He yelled into the cabin causing my forced smile to fade into an uncomfortable confused stare.

“Just Close the door!!” The teenager shut the door in my face and I stood there wondering why people enjoyed doing that so much. I pulled out my phone and called Wendy, who fortunately picked up this time.

“Hold on a minute Paz, I think I just heard my dad slamming the door at someone.”

“I’m outside Wendy. Mabel sent me to make sure you were bringing the disco ball.”

She was silent for a couple seconds before connecting the dots and giggling at me on the phone. We both already knew her family despised mine, and probably forever would. It was understandable.

“Wendy get out already!!” I said half laughing half complaining.

“Sorry, coming.” She hung up the phone and I waited for a couple more minutes before Wendy came out with the disco ball in a plastic bag, her usual flannel shirt and Dipper's old hat. Wendy and I started walking back to the Mystery Shack in silence.

“Hey you seem a little off, is it because of my dad? You know it isn't your fault, it's just-” She calmly started.

“No, no, it's not that. It's nothing, forget it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I just don't really want to talk about it.”

“I understand that, but I don't know, maybe I can help.” She shrugged. I decided she was right so I took a long breath.

“I really want to apologize to someone but I feel like if I do it would make it just too real, I don't want to bring back bad memories.” I admitted.

“I mean, the fact that you are considering it probably says you should do it, don’t you think? You already know what to do, the only thing left is gathering courage.” She shoved me by the shoulder lightly and I knew she was right.

I thanked her for her advice and she didn't ask any more questions about it, deciding to give me some (definitely appreciated) space. On our way she also shared with me the story on how she had found the disco ball with her friends, a fun little story about how the local policemen had chased them through the whole town, it made me crack up and her intentions of cheering me up a little were obvious. We reached the Shack, where Mabel waited for us. The room was filled with balloons and Soos had left the lightning looking beautiful. I helped hang up the disco ball, which took us almost all afternoon because of how heavy it was. Once we were finished with it, I decided it was the right moment to look for Dipper so I could try to apologize before the party.

“Okay guys, everything’s ready, the only thing left is ourselves, everyone go put on your best attire, the party starts in about an hour and a half.” Mabel said excitedly as everyone left to change.

I figured out it would be better to change before looking for Dipper. I didn’t want to be the last one getting ready, and he probably had already changed too.

I went into my room and, suddenly the short purple dress with a halter neck that I had chosen the previous night looked stupid. Dipper was right, I had been superficial. It was really hard to tell where my own interest in clothes and makeup ended, and where the sick obsession to overcompensate my lacks with my appearance that my Mother had engraved into me started. I decided to not give it a second thought and just put on the dress, did my makeup and came out of my room.

“Wow, Pacifica you look beautiful!!” I recognized Mabel’s voice and turned to her. She wore a reflective silver short dress and carried in her arms a sweater with a disco ball on it.

“So do you!” I said sincerely.

“I’m a mirrorball!! Look.” She made a little twirl and I smiled at her excitement. Dipper’s words about how she had lost her spark for a while reappearing in my mind.

“Really sparkly, I like it.” She smiled broadly at my compliment.

“Hey, have you seen Dipper?” I asked.

“No, I haven’t seen him all day, since I sent you both to Wendy’s house.”

“Uh, no? You didn’t send us both, I went alone.”

“What do you mean? You and Dipper came back from the river and then went to Wendy’s house.”

“No, we didn’t come back together from the river.” A heavy feeling sat in my stomach.

“And where did he go then??” Mabel said, visibly starting to freak out.

“I, I don’t know, he should have come back.”

“Go ask everyone in the museum and I’ll go upstairs and check if he is there, got it?”

I nodded and we split. I entered the room where the party was being thrown and where Stan, Ford and Soos (In really nice clothes to my surprise, making me realise how much Mabel had insisted on the dress code) chatted in the corner.

“Hey, has anyone seen Dipper?” I said, sounding a little more worried than I intended to.

“Not really dude.” Soos said followed by Ford and Stanley shooking their heads

“You haven't seen him all day?” I double checked.

They shook their heads again and exchanged concerned glances as I ran away. I started getting worried, Gravity Falls didn’t particularly stand out for having the safest forest. I found Mabel going downstairs.

“He’s not upstairs, has anyone seen him?” I shook my head, disappointed at her words.

“Does this mean he never came back from the river?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, you should know, you were with him!” Mabel saiid, not in an accusative tone but clearly wondering what had happened for us to come back separately.

“We just had an argument, but it wasn’t that bad!!” I partially lied.

“I’ll keep looking around the shack, and you can go check if he’s still in the river by any chance.”

I violently nodded and we bolted to do as planned. As I ran towards the door I saw through the window that the sun was already down so I grabbed a flashlight on my way out.

As soon as I got out of the house I sprinted towards the forest, tears started strimming by my face. He was going to miss the party and it was my fault. Or maybe even worse, what if something had happened to him? All because I left with my stupid tantrum. The guilt felt heavy and I slowly felt every progress I had made over the year fading away. I reached the river and with my flashlight I spotted something on the ground, there were… footprints? The exact same footprints Dipper had noticed this morning, I instantly followed them, screaming his name.

“Dipper??!!”

Suddenly I heard something, I stopped and listened to the really distant sound.

“Pacifica??!! Help!!” It was Dipper’s voice, relief washed over me as I ran towards his voice.

We kept screaming each other's name as I got closer to the sound. I knew I was almost there when I heard the last echoing scream right in front of me.

“Pacifica!! careful!!” I didn’t have enough time to process what he had said as I tripped and fell over fiteen feet down through a hole in the ground.

The fall felt so long that I heard the echoes of my stifled scream.

Chapter Text

I extended my arms in a poor attempt of catching Pacifica, they gave away because of the weight, sending both of us directly to the ground. She groaned and propped herself up with her arms. She looked up at the hole horrified, just to find out that she was now trapped in the cave with me.

I could barely see anything when she glanced at me, only illuminated by the faint moonlight that filtered through the hole. She was still crushing my legs, when, ironically enough, I caught a whiff of the same perfume she had worn over a year ago, the night I helped her with the ghost problem, the scent was flowers and champagne. It would've been somehow nostalgic if the person wearing it hadn’t just fallen fifteen feet down into a cave on top of me. She crawled backwards and I got up slowly in pain, I extended my hand to help her get up. She pushed my hand and looked up at me infuriated.

“What the hell was that Dipper?!” She yelled.

“How about you start by saying ‘Thanks for trying to keep me from dying!’”

“Key word try.” She mumbled as she got up and dusted off her dress, accidentally spreading the mud that covered it even more.

I rolled my eyes with frustration. If we didn’t get out of here soon enough, Pacifica's ingratitude would eventually drive me crazy. But when I looked back at her, something shifted, her expression wasn’t defiant like I had expected, it was tired. The rage evident in her voice this morning was now replaced with worry and agitation, as well as a bit hoarse from shouting my name to find me. I realized I might have been too hard on her. She looked down with disgust at her dress and hair covered in mud, her makeup was smudged and her eyes were puffy too.

“Were you crying?” I said confused, noticing the tear trails her makeup had left.

“Shut up already and get us out of here.” She said as she turned away and subtly whipped her tears.

“I don't really know where we are, I just thought the safest option was to wait by the entrance of the cave until somebody found me, we are not that far away from the shack.”

“Are you serious? This is so embarrassing." She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Do you realize Mabel is going to cancel the party once she realizes you are not there right? She'll make the whole town look for you and they’ll find us down here like this.”

“Hey, I’m not excited to spend the night here either, but it's not like there's another option, unless you are willing to go into the cave without a flashlight.”

Her eyes widened and she quickly crouched down scanning the ground with her hands, she picked up something that laid on the ground, a flashlight. She quickly clicked it on, and a dim light cut through the darkness, showing the depth of the cave.

“Great, Let's go then.” I said, shrugging. I wasn't really sure if this was the best idea, but I was willing to do anything to avoid spending the night in a cave with Pacifica Northwest. She stood there staring into the cave’s tunnel.

“Dipper.. Did you ever even found out where those footprints came from?”

I shook my head slowly in response. Whoever, or whatever, had caused the footprints was probably still somewhere in the cave. We weren't much safer at the entrance anyways.

“I’m not going in there.”

“We can just wait here then.” She contemplated my words and looked up the hole, taking a moment to choose between our limited options.

“You go first.” She decided, handing me the flashlight. I accepted it and led the way.

We entered the cave’s tunnel and slowly advanced, the interior was dark, only illuminated by our small light. Rough, uneven stone walls surrounded us. The air was damp and musty and the only thing I could hear was the light clacking of Pacifica’s heels behind me. Just as we got to the widest part of the tunnel, a second sound joined the clacking, we heard a weird distant grumble behind us. We stopped abruptly and Pacifica tugged on the back of my shirt, both of us were shaking.

“What the hell was that?” Pacifica whispered, the grumble coming closer behind us. I grabbed Pacifica's wrist and we started running as fast as we could. Echoing loud thuds against the cave walls joined the grumble. The beast gained proximity until it was breathing down our necks.

“What do we do??!!!” Pacifica shouted desperately.

I glanced back and directed the flashlight to the creature. Enormous wings rose above it, making them crash against the cave walls and ceiling, his round bright eyes reflecting the light. I instantly recognized it to be one of the creatures in Ford's Journal.

“I-I think it's Mothman, Ford told me about him.” I said out of breath.

Pacifica didn't have time enough to answer before tripping over a rock and falling forwards on the ground. I hurriedly pulled her by the arm, trying to get her up again, my heart pounding as I saw Mothman getting closer.

“Wait, did you just say Moth?? Turn off the flashlight idiot!!”

It clicked. I turned the flashlight off immediately and all of the frenetic sounds stopped. The cave fell dead silent again. In complete darkness, I helped Pacifica get up and she grabbed my wrist, I could feel her shaking. We advanced through the cave blindly and silently. We walked for what felt like hours without saying a single thing, it wasn't longer than ten minutes. Mothman wasn't following us anymore.

“Can we stop? I scraped my knees horribly back there and the mud makes it burn so bad.” Pacifica broke the silence whispering, sending a shiver up my spine.

“I think I have some water and band-aids in my backpack.” I whispered back.

Pacifica sat down on the ground. I pulled out my water bottle and sat next to her. I opened the bottle of water and she guided my hands to pour the water on her knees.

“Good call back there with the light, I can't believe I missed that.”

“Thanks… sorry for calling you an idiot though, turns out running a marathon in heels with a ten-foot tall thing chasing me puts me in a bad mood" She joked.

“Valid.” I grinned as I felt around inside my backpack to find the band-aids. I pulled them out, took a bunch and handed them to her.

“Isn't the Mothman from West Virginia anyway? Or do all the creatures on earth gather for fan conventions here on Gravity Falls?!” She whispered in annoyance while putting the band-aids on her knees.

“I truly don't know, there might be more than one Mothman or maybe he has come all the way here to visit the Mystery Shack.” I said ironically, getting a chuckle out of her.

“The only thing I’m interested in is how are we going to get out of here without light.” She reasonably sounded exhausted.

“I guess the only thing we can do is keep going in the dark.”

We got up and Pacifica held on to the handle of my backpack so she could tell where I was. We kept walking in silence. Until I spotted some dim light coming from the end of the tunnel.

“Hey, I think there's an exit!!” She shaked my backpack, urging me to walk faster. We reached the end of the tunnel and went into a much bigger part of the cave, this part was full of the same type of tunnel we had just walked out of, the entrances to those tunnels surrounded us and I was stunned by how well distributed it looked. Pacifica pointed at a small hole above some rocks in the cave, where the light was coming from. It was enough for a small person to go through crawling.

“Finally!! We can go through that, if we are quick enough we can make it before the party!!”

I stood there fascinated by what seemed to be the Mothman’s lair. I couldn't help but wonder where all of those tunnels could lead to, maybe they even connected the whole town.

“What are you waiting for?? let's get out of here!!” Pacifica said impatiently.

“It’s just... Aren't you dying to see where all of these tunnels lead to? I hadn't felt like this in so long, nothing ever happens in Piedmont and It's so exciting to-”

“Dipper. Absolutely not right now, If you help me get out of here, we’ll be back to explore soon, I promise.” She said bringing me back to earth.

“But what if we-” I started, wondering about all the things that could happen that would stop us from ever coming back.

“You’ll just have to trust me, camon!!” She pulled me to the exit.

I watched Pacifica clumsily climb up the rocks (I wouldn't have been much skilled either if I had to climb up muddy rocks with high heels). She crawled through the hole and I looked back one last time at the cave, tasting once again, after a year, what it felt like running into something weird and dangerous in Gravity Falls. A discovery that I would have to wait to investigate.

“Hey, we are not far away from the Shack, the cave made it look much more of a long walk than it actually was.” I heard Pacifica in the distance while I climbed up the rocks and crawled through the hole.

We were finally out of the cave. The air felt clean and the night was breezy. We were finally surrounded by the tall pine trees that grew in Gravity Falls’ forest. Pacifica's relieved smile was much more visible now under the moonlight. Her smile dropped when the realization that we didn't have any time to spare hit her. She started running and looked back to make sure I followed. We runned through the forest, in an attempt to get to the Mystery Shack on time. I was surprised when Pacifica knew exactly the way back, after less than ten minutes running I could recognise the part of the forest we were in, and could tell we were closer to the shack.

“How do you know the way back?”

“I guess that being raised in a five-floor mansion and constantly sneaking out of it gave me a good sense of direction.” She said slowing down a little.

“You used to sneak out of the mansion?” I said, a little surprised.

“Yeah, all the time. I never told anybody that before because I was terrified my parents would find out, I guess it doesn't matter anymore though.” She said shrugging.

We finally spotted the Mystery Shack in between the trees. Colorful lights were spilling out of the windows and I sighed with relief knowing that we wouldn't be ruining Mabel’s party. We sprinted towards the door.

“Dipper, wait.” Pacifica grabbed my wrist as if she had suddenly forgotten we were in a rush.

I tilted my head in confusion and waited for her to continue speaking. She gulped and let my arm go.

“Can we talk for a second?” Pacifica said, glancing at the floor of the porch and running her hand through the muddy clumps of her hair.

“Sure?”

Chapter Text

I realized I was still holding Dipper's wrist and let go of it painfully late, his arm felt sweaty, as well as… my whole body honestly. For the first time since I had fallen in the cave I began to feel self conscious about the amount of mud, dust, sweat and smudged mascara I was covered in. I felt extremely uncomfortable and dirty, and the stinging pain in my knees wasn't helping at all.

Apologising to Dipper while we were completely out of breath, wasn't my brightest idea, and I realized I should've given myself some time to recover from our little encounter with Mothman first. But I had already started speaking, and backing up now seemed even more embarrassing than choosing this moment. I glanced towards the two muddy footprints trails we had left on Ford’s porch and cleared up my throat, ready to speak up before the silence went on for longer.

“I really, really want to talk about what happened this morning... look I shouldn't have-”

“Pacifica stop, you don't have to do this, I was way too harsh with you, I shouldn’t keep bringing up your past even when you are obviously trying your hardest to be better.” Dipper interrupted me.

“No, Dipper you were right, my past it's a part of who I am, I shouldn't keep pretending I never did anything wrong and justify myself... I could lie and tell you that I wish we had met later in life so you hadn't seen that part of me but the truth is that if I hadn’t met you I probably would still be the same… and that thought terrifies me.” I spoke, trying hard to not let my voice crack, Dipper gave me a sincere smile before his response.

“Of course your past it’s a part of you Pacifica, but it does not define you. The fact that you are here apologising after everything we've been through today tells me everything I need to know and that’s what defines you, that’s what matters.”

I stood there with a melted heart as Dipper waited for my reply, this went on for too long and Dipper gave me a concerned look.

“Are you okay?” He couldn't finish properly before I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

The whole situation was embarrassing since I knew he probably thought it was not that much of a deal. But I craved so deeply feeling validated, trustworthy and capable of change that I, for once, allowed myself to not care about doing something embarrassing. Dipper could be so sweet sometimes. He looked shocked for a couple seconds before returning the embrace lightly. He smelled horribly but so did I at that moment.

“I am really sorry though.” I said resting my head on his shoulder, he chuckled.

We both jumped when we heard the door cracking open behind us. Mabel stepped outside while we still held each other and we pushed each other off quickly and hard. Mabel's concerned stare slowly turned into a mocking grin. She looked at both of us and raised her brows. I pointed my finger at her as I felt my cheeks heat up.

“We had a very long day Mabel, don't you dare-” She threw her palms up in the air and giggled.

“I literally didn't say anything, don't know what you are talking about.”

I lowered my pointed finger slowly and narrowed my eyes at her. Mabel stared at us up and down, now confused.

“What even happened?” She said pointing to our clothes.

Dipper opened his mouth to say something but then quickly closed it and sighed. We both were too tired to explain anything.

“I hope you guys are still up for the party…” Mabel said, scratching the back of her head.

“I almost forgot the party!! What time is it??” I asked.

“Don't worry. You still got… ten minutes.” Mabel said quickly checking in her phone.

I quickly walked past her towards my room. As I walked away I heard Dipper going upstairs and Mabel following along, interrogating him on the way.

“Are you okay?? What happened?? Why are you covered in mud?? Why were you guys hugging??... Ew, you smell horrible, you really need to shower before the party.” I heard Mabel ramble, only getting another long sigh out of Dipper for the moment.

I went into my room and into the tiny bathroom that it led to, it was really small and the water in the shower was always ice cold, but at least since everyone used the bathroom on the second floor, this one was only used by me.

I took a quick shower and made sure to clean up my knees really well so they wouldn't get infected, the scratches were really not that deep so they would heal in no time. I blow dried my hair as fast as I could and threw my purple dress into the laundry, the stains didn't look good but it was worth the try.

I looked for something to wear and found a blue short dress that my mom had gotten for me a couple years ago, I remembered her holding it up for me as I clapped for it in my old room. The dress still was beautiful so I just looked at myself in the mirror and tried not to give it a second thought as I redid my makeup and got ready to head out to the party, only a few minutes after the designated time.

“Your worst days are behind you Pacifica.” I said to myself as I checked the mirror one last time.

Mabel was going downstairs when I reached the hallway. She smiled at me and skipped the last two steps in the stairs with a jump.

“Wow, how did you get ready so fast??”

“I’ve been going to beauty pageants since I was five.” I shrugged.

“That sounds fun!!... and lowkey traumatizing.” She said with excitement.

“Yeah, it really messed up with my head, but at least it gave me impressive skills when it comes to getting ready quickly.” I joked.

She giggled and we both glanced up the staircase when we heard Dipper going down.

“How did you change so fast??” Dipper asked me. He was wearing a very decently looking shirt and dark pants, he looked really nice and anybody who had talked to this boy for more than five minutes could've told that he hadn't chosen the outfit for himself and Mabel had.

“She went to beauty pageants as a kid and she might be traumatized!!” Mabel said cheerfully.

“No offense but that should be ilegal.” Dipper said as he got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Probably.” I said shrugging again.

Mabel led the way into the party and as we entered it became obvious that some of the guests had already arrived. My palms felt sweaty and my stomach dropped a little as we walked into the room.

I kept my distance in the corner of the room while everyone cheered for Mabel and Dipper. After all, the twins were still the heroes of Gravity Falls, even though if you asked anyone the reason why they would just stare at you in confusion. Everyone had agreed on not talking about weirdmageddon, a decision I heavily agreed with since I wouldn't appreciate anyone remembering me daily how my parents had tried to bribe an interdimensional being capable of manipulating reality and invading people's minds.

Mabel quickly stepped up into the stage dragging Dipper with her, who looked content but a little overwhelmed.

“Hey everyone!! Looking good tonight!! Anyone excited to have some fun??”

Everyone cheered and Mabel's eyes lit up with enthusiasm.

“When I say kara, you say oke!! Kara!!”

“Oke!!” Almost everyone yelled in the room.

“Kara!!”

“Oke!!” Everyone repeated.

Mabel was beaming with joy and Dipper shook his head and rolled his eyes with affection.

They stepped down and a line for the karaoke machine created itself, a brunette girl I had once signed an autograph for stepped up and started the night with the song “I Love It” by Icona Pop and Charli XCX, song that had came out the previous year and that she was making fair justice to. Everyone knew the lyrics to it.

I walked over to Wendy and Dipper that chatted while Mabel lip synched jumping as if she was hearing the song at the very front of a real concert. I passed by two girls who recognized me and looked me up and down, they whispered into each other's ear and giggled, I felt anxious but I remembered Dipper's words and kept walking. They didn't know anything about me anyways.

Wendy noticed me and waved, she was wearing a dark green two-piece set and looked really elegant. It was really impressive how far Mabel had been able to take the dress code. People who I had never seen wear something nicer than a pair of jeans, looked better than ever.

“Look at Mabel, it's the first song of the night and she is already about to pass out.” Wendy said, pointing towards her.

The three of us giggled at the sight of Mabel screaming her friend's names to get their attention across the room. Wendy's flip phone started vibrating and she pulled it out of her pocket.

“Tambry? Are you guys already here??” Wendy tried yelling over the music. She smiled at us before walking through the crowd into the exit. The lights of Wendy's friends' car flashed through the window, illuminating Dipper’s face, who gave me a small smile. I felt something weird in my stomach but I decided to ignore it as Mabel walked over to us with widened eyes and the biggest smile.

“Guys do not turn but behind you there’s the cutest boy I just talked to!!” Mabel said as Dipper and I turned around. A boy with blonde hair and dark eyes stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, he looked like a fish out of the water and completely clueless.

“Mabel not this again… he looks weird.” Dipper told her.

“What do you mean cute? He looks like his biggest achievement ever has been learning how to tie his shoes.” I gave my opinion.

“Camon!! He’s a Spanish tourist and hasn't made any friends here yet, plus he told me he likes karaoke, and I love karaoke, it's meant to be!!"

“Whatever, you do you, at least you're having fun.” Dipper shrugged.

“Yeah.. but I need your help with that Dip-Dip.” Mabel batted her eyelashes at us innocently.

“With what?”

“I need you to sing a song with me to impress him!!”

“Why would you need me for that?? Here, I'm sure Pacifica would love to.” He said gently pushing me by the shoulders.

“Pacifica sings well. I need you!! So it looks like I sound better in comparison!! It's the perfect plan.” Mabel said cheerfully as I giggled at the discreet insult she had thrown to him.

“Wow Mabel, that makes so much sense, now I’m definitely doing it!!” Dipper ironically agreed.

“Really??” Mabel said with sparkly eyes.

“Of course not!!” He answered, irritated.

“Camon!! Dipper please, I’ll owe you a big one, I swear, just do this for me. I’m just asking you to do karaoke at a karaoke party. And don't pretend you don't enjoy singing, we hear you sing in the show- mhhmh.” Dipper raised his hand and covered Mabel's mouth.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it but please shut up!!.. And you definitely owe me.”

“Which one are you guys singing??” I said as I sat in one of the nearby chairs and clasped my hands in my lap.

“Yeah, which one, Dipper?? One from Taylor please!!” Mabel pleaded.

“Oh my god, I love Taylor Swift!!” I really did like her.

“Really?? I adore her!! favorite album??” Mabel jumped.

“Definitely Speak now.”

“Oh my god, Speak now fits you so much, I’m a fearless girlie.”

“I love Fearless!! I can't believe that-” I said before I was cut out by a loud fake cough beside Mabel and me. Dipper waited annoyed.

“You guys should sing a popular one, so everyone knows the lyrics to it.” I thought out loud.

Silence fell as Mabel and I thought about what song they could possibly sing. Dipper crossed his arms and sighed before speaking up defeatedly.

“We are never ever getting back together?” He said with his head low. I already knew that if Mabel liked a singer, Dipper had to learn all of her songs one way or another.

“Hell yes!! That's what I’m talking about Dipper!! Now, I need your worst performance, you need to sound so bad that I sound like the real Taylor myself in comparison.” Mabel said, dragging Dipper on stage again.

The line went by quickly and the twins got on stage, Mabel selected the song in the machine that probably contained all of Taylor’s discography.

Seeing Mabel up on the stage really brought me back to the first time I had met her. I remembered how I had competed with her back at the start of last summer, how I had won unfairly and how I had arrived home with the crown in my hands... and how, once more, it hadn't been enough for my parents to be proud of me in any way. But I didn't even have time to feel bad about that memory before Mabel flashed me a bright smile as they got ready to start the song. I remembered that where I had ‘win’ that competition was where I now lived, and that girl that had lost against me and his brother were my friends now. There was no hell to return to after the party anymore.

As soon as the song started and they perfectly knew which lines were who's I realized they had probably done this a million times. I actually really liked Mabel’s singing. In the other hand Dipper’s voice purposefully sounded awful. I couldn't stop laughing at his voice and the concentrated expression he made putting all of his efforts into doing his worst so Mabel would impress that guy. I glanced towards the boy to see if he was looking at them, which he was. I looked back at them just as they started the short dialogue part of the song where Taylor pretends she's on the phone and laughed so hard my ribs hurt.

“Ugh, so he calls me up and he’s like, ‘I still love you.’” While Mabel sang this line I locked eyes with Dipper who looked at me as if he could hear my giggles over the music (which was impossible because I couldn't even hear myself). Dipper stared at me for a couple of seconds while I continued to laugh and I could've swore his cheeks had darkened. Mabel nudged him to continue the song, making him realise he was already late for the next line so he began to sing it faster, making his performance even worse. I wiped the tears that had formed in my eyes from laughing and clapped once they finished the song.

I realized I couldn't recall the last time I had laughed so sincerely and hard in forever.

Chapter Text

I glanced at the crowd while Mabel sang her lines and spotted Pacifica. She laughed uncontrollably and had a broad smile on her lips. I had only seen her laugh like that the day we had stepped on her parents carpet with dirty shoes, after she opened the door for the townsfolk, even back then I could tell that that was the real Pacifica. And then I was so clearly in front of her again. She glanced up and locked eyes with me, unable to stop laughing.

Mabel nudged me hard and I realized that not only had I been staring at Pacifica for an embarrassing amount of time but I also had stopped singing, I quickly picked up the song and speeded through the lines I had missed. Mabel finished the song and hopped off the stage radiating joy.

I, after having, once again, humiliated myself in front of a large number of people for the sake of seeing Mabel happy, stepped down the stage with my hands in my pockets. If I was honest, I didn’t actually care that much though, it wasn’t like the people that actually mattered to me hadn’t already heard me sing at some point… Grunkle Stan, when we used karaoke to defeat zombies and, unfortunately, the many times he had caught me singing disco girl, Soos, when I lost a bet against Mabel, Wendy, when I had to do the lammy… What mattered was that I really didn’t care that much what the rest of Gravity Falls thought, and after saving everyone from a literal dream demon, it would take a little more than being bad at karaoke to change their perspective of me.

Grenda and Candy ran towards Mabel and hugged her as they told her how amazing her singing had been and how that blonde guy was drooling over her. I rolled my eyes, a little grossed out. Pacifica walked towards us and greeted Mabel’s friends with a small smile, their eyes widened for a second after recognizing her, but I could tell they recalled the conversation Mabel had had with them after their encounter about trying to not make her uncomfortable.

“Pacifica!! Great!! I need your honest opinion, was my party crush really paying attention? No offense girls but the three of us tend to feed each other delusions way too much.” Mabel yelled over the music that the next person participating in the karaoke had started playing, looking first at Pacifica and then at her beaming friends.

“To be honest I did see him looking at you.”

“Oh. my. god. You guys were right, he's in love with me!!”

“Wow, that escalated pretty fast.” I said a little taken aback.

“Too fast.” Pacifica agreed.

“Tooold you!!” Their friends said in between giggles.

“Now that you wound her up she’s never forgetting about it.” I said to Pacifica.

“Mabel, there has been a little of a misunderstanding. I told you he was paying attention, not that it was a good idea to reciprocate it.” Pacifica shrugged.

“And why's that?” Mabel said disappointedly.

“I bet he is only here because his parents heard something about… weirdmageddon.” Pacifica glanced around the room to make sure no one was listening and lowered her voice to say the last word.

“It’s possible, a lot of weirdos and scientists came to Gravity Falls after what happened because they found out about the rumors, but most of them were gone within a week when they found nothing.” Candy told us.

“Yeah and they were really mean about it too, as if we were making them lose their time when in reality everybody wanted them gone.” Grenda crossed her arms and huffed.

“That’s impossible!! Look at him, he looks so clueless and innocent. I’ll tell you what, I love a good bet!! Let’s do it!!” Mabel tried to defend the boy.

“What? No, I just meant bet as an expression, because It’s really likely it's that way.”

“So you’re saying you're not sure about it?” Mabel crossed her arms defiantly.

“I totally am.” Pacifica answered.

“Well, then let’s make it a real deal, if he’s only here because of the rumors, this summer I will only flirt with guys that neither you or Dipper consider that give off major freak vibes.”

“You mean no insane and dangerous Mabel crushes from now on? I support this” I opinionated crossing my arms.

“And what exactly happens if I wasn't right?” Pacifica asked.

“You… have to get on stage and sing a song!!!” Mabel excitedly said after thinking for a few seconds.

“Fine.” Pacifica chuckled and standed out her hand for Mabel to shake it. We agreed on waiting for them to not scare away the boy they were approaching.

Candy, Grenda and I watched out of the corner of our eyes as Pacifica and Mabel walked towards the guy and he picked up on them.

It was hard to understand what was going on since I was no good lip reader. Mabel greeted the guy with an ear-to-ear smile and Pacifica narrowed her eyes in the slightest way and gave him a polite smile as she interrogated him. The boy answered timidly, scratching the back of his neck, and I could tell Mabel liked the answers because her smile only got brighter. Pacifica took a short breath and decided that they had heard enough, pushing Mabel in front of herself gently and speaking in a nicer manner. I squinted my eyes and tried to read her lips.

“Show you around… knows the town… well… Mabel.” Those were some of the words that I had been able to figure out Pacifica had said.

They pointed to us letting him know they had to come back and walked over to us. Pacifica had a defeated look on her face and Mabel giggled as Grenda and Candy begged for answers.

“He’s a tourist, he’s staying here for two weeks because it's the cheapest place his parents could find in Oregon. He genuinely has never heard anything about… what happened.” Mabel told us looking towards Pacifica smugly.

“Camon, I helped you get your date, you’re going to show him around the town and everything… everyone's happy, let's just forget about the bet this once, okay?” Pacifica said with a nervous laughter.

“Sorry Paz, the mic is waiting for you.”

“Ugh, whatever, but stop calling me Paz.”

She walked away from us and got into the karaoke line. Mabel decided to go back with her crush again and Grenda and Candy sat at some of the chairs. I walked to the table where Soos and Melody were selling refreshers for an insane price (Grunkle Stan's idea, obviously).

“Hey Dipper!” Melody said with a smile as she saw me.

“Hey dude! How's the party going?” Soos greeted me.

“Good, but Mabel is obsessing over a creepy guy again.”

“I'm sure it'll be okay dude.” He said.

I walked away with a Pitt Cola and saw Pacifica step on the stage out of the corner of my eye. She looked a little embarrassed but I only saw a few people looking up at her in confusion as to why she was there. If this had happened a year ago, not a single person would’ve been able to look away from who used to be the most popular girl in Gravity Falls. She took little time to pick a song out of the variety, and then her face brightened when she saw the one she'd be choosing.

The first notes of the song started playing and my heart skipped a beat. Incredulous, I waited for the first line, which confirmed I wasn’t getting the song wrong. I instantly recognized it. Mabel almost broke her neck by how fast she turned to get my reaction. The boy she was talking to stood confused as she ran up to me.

“There's no way in hell she is singing a BABBA song.” Mabel yelled at me over the music.

“This feels like a fever dream.” I said under my breath.

Mabel and I stared in disbelief as Pacifica sang the whole thing, more concretely ‘Trafalgar’ by BABBA. It felt weird listening to it infront of so many people since I had heard that song about a million times in the shower or with headphones, but what felt weirder was hearing it from Pacifica's voice, and not only was surprising how beautifully she sang it but also, how much she enjoyed the song, she was even doing little jumps and not once did she look at the lyrics in the karaoke machine. She knew every single word by heart.

She finished the song and stepped down the stage with a dumb and joyful smile. Mabel speed-walked in her direction and I ran behind her in fear of the many ways she could’ve embarrassed me at that moment.

“Mabel, you were right, that wasn't so bad, I loved singing that song!! I’m really surprised it was one of the first ones added in the machine.” Pacifica said thoughtfully.

“It's because Dip- Ow!!” I discreetly stepped on Mabel's feet as hard as I could to stop her from giving Pacifica some really unnecessary information about myself.

“Why are you both acting so weird?... Ohh, I know, alright, you can go ahead and make fun of me now, it's music from the seventies, really out of fashion, whatever. My parents never let me listen to BABBA because they said it made us look tasteless, and it's my favorite group, so this was really terapeutic for your information.”

I couldn't utter a single word, Mabel side eyed me, not even in a mocking way anymore but just in utter shock. BABBA had always been my thing, they weren’t really underground or anything, there were still a decent amount of fans out there… but Pacifica? I even considered the possibility of the whole thing being a prank orchestrated by Mabel, but I knew for a fact she would’ve never been able to take it that far, if this had been a prank she would’ve been rolling on the floor the moment Pacifica started singing. Pacifica crossed her arms as she waited for our answer.

“Neither of you are gonna say anything?... Wow, so being confident about your interest does stop people from making fun of them, surprising… Well, I’m thirsty, I'll go get something to drink now, bye.” Pacifica said, flipping her hair out of her face as she walked away, clueless as to why we were acting this way.

“There's no way, This is meant to be!!” Mabel squelead beside me.

"What exactly is meant to be??" I asked confused.

"The two of you obviously!! You know what I mean." Mabel grinned.

“Ew. Mabel we haven't been here for a single week yet and you are already trying to play matchmaker with me…and... Pacifica…” I said faking an exaggerated shiver.

“Nah, not even you can deny this Dipper, freaking BABBA?? I only know a single person whose favorite group is BABBA, you!!”

“I admit it's a weird coincidence, but you don't have to make a big deal out of it, seriously.”

“You're right, no need to rush this, we’ve got all summer ahead of us.” I didn't like what Mabel was implying.

“That's definitely not what I meant.”

“I’m going back with my spanish boy now, you can stay here and… overthink this.” She grinned while I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration.

From then on, the party went by pretty quickly. I chatted with the usual people, Soos and Melody, Wendy and her friends, Grunkle Stan (Who sat at the entry charging an outrageous amount), Grenda and Candy and a few other not unusual or long interactions.

On the other hand, Mabel spoke to almost everyone in the room. She spent most of the night introducing everyone to the tourist boy, even to me. I just waved my hand awkwardly and learned that his name was Hugo. All of this energy, predictable from Mabel, was what made me really surprised when she sat down on one of the chairs, holding her stomach.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“My stomach hurts a lot, I dunno why.” Mabel answered.

“How many pitt-colas have you had?”

“Literally two!!”

“That's what you said back in november and we ended up in the hospital, Miss twenty-one pitt-colas.” I reminded her as I sat down on a chair beside her.

“No, but really, it's not food intoxication pain, I unfortunately know that one, It's a weird type of pain.”

“It's probably nothing, parts of my body randomly hurt all the time.” I said trying to get her not to worry.

“Yeah, probably, one pitt-cola and I’ll be good to go!” Mabel said pretending to get up.

“Mabel-” I held her back, grabbing her forearm.

“I’m joking!!” She giggled.

The party went on for a couple of hours more, ending too late for my liking. Not much else happened. I tried to stay close to Mabel the rest of the night as everybody went home, a little worried about her stomach pain. Mabel finished saying goodbye to everyone and Grunkle Stan told Mabel, Pacifica and me that we would need to help clean up the room in the morning. We were too tired to argue so we headed towards our rooms.

As I followed Mabel upstairs I glanced back at Pacifica, who walked to her room. She looked genuinely happy, I honestly couldn't comprehend how she wasn't exhausted. On only one day, she had a fight with me, helped with setting up a party, fell into a cave, ran away from a monster, worked it out with me and attended a karaoke party. I wondered if it was just me who seriously needed to sleep more, but even though I was more visibly tired I was feeling pretty happy too. It had been one of those long days in Gravity falls. The type of days that I had missed so much during the school year.

I finally sat in bed and pulled out my journal, not resisting the urge to turn the pages and stop on Pacifica's one. I had a page for almost everyone important in my life that fully contained how I perceived them. Not that Pacifica was that important to me, but she really was an interesting person, there was always more to her than what met the eye. As I put down the pen to annotate her recently discovered musical taste, I almost fell out of my bed when a very recognisable scream (my sister's) invaded the shack.

I rapidly put the journal under my pillow and rushed out of the bedroom. As I went into the hallway, Mabel slammed open the bathroom door and jumped up and down excitedly, I was really confused as to why. Pacifica came upstairs with a worried expression and running her hands through her tangled hair.

“I got my period!!” Mabel yelled squealing.

Pacifica and I exchanged confused glances. I personally didn't know much about the menstrual cycle but I did know it was popularly known for being annoying and inconvenient, not something to celebrate in the middle of the night.

“And what are you so excited about? That’s just one more thing to worry.” Pacifica told her in confusion.

“No!! It's not just that!! It's an experience that connects women of all kinds, in every part of the world!!” Mabel said with sparkling eyes.

“I guess… Do you need products or anything?” Pacifica said yawning, as I began to feel a little out of place.

“Yeah, thank god you're here, it's so awesome that you live with us now!!”

Pacifica was about to get to the first floor, before she looked up to me and chuckled.

“Go to sleep, you seriously look like you need it.” She said, turning and rushing downstairs.

“This is the best day ever!!” Mabel said as I walked past her.

“Good night Mabel and congratulations??... I think.” I told her as I went into our room.

It didn't take long for me to drift into sleep, lastly hearing my sister telling Pacifica about how they needed to do something to celebrate the news with the rest of the girls (Candy, Grenda and Wendy) the next day.

Chapter Text

I woke up and squinted my eyes. I didn't usually oversleep, so I wasn’t used to the light that filtered through the small window above my bed in the morning. I got up and went into the bathroom, quickly brushing my teeth and hair and changing out of my pajamas.

I left my room with a yawn and decided to go into the kitchen since I could hear Mabel chatting with someone. I followed her voice and entered the room. She held her phone on speaker and was talking to Candy and giving her the supposedly ‘great’ news. She greeted me with a smile and told her friend she would talk to her later.

“Hey!! Want some?” Mabel said, putting down her phone and shaking a cereal box.

“No thanks, I have no appetite in the morning.” Mabel shrugged while pouring some milk into a cereal bowl for herself. I poured myself a glass of water and sat down in front of her.

“So... how are you feeling?” I chuckled, trying to follow along with her perspective. I knew that even if it wasn’t a big deal for me, the question would trigger a massive reaction from Mabel.

“So excited!! I can't believe it's finally happening!!” It was seriously shocking how far Mabel would take looking at the bright side of everything. She took another spoonful of cereal and looked up to me curiously. “How was it for you, your first period?”

I leaned back in my chair and started to recall the situation.

“I think I just sobbed for about 5 minutes and then went on with my life. I didn't tell anyone because I was embarrassed... then one of our servants found out, so she told me it wasn't something to worry about and taught me the basic stuff… and that's pretty much it.” I said, without going into much detail.

“That doesn't sound really fun... why did you think it was embarrassing?” Mabel's smile dropped a bit, making me feel as if my story sounded sad out loud, it truly hadn't been a bad experience or anything like that, it probably would’ve been better if I had someone to talk about it with but I managed it well on my own.

“I got it earlier than my ‘friends’ so none of them were familiar with it yet, and they had recently made fun of a girl for it so I decided it was best to stay quiet about it.”

Mabel looked at me with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. I didn’t want my sob story to interfere with her expectations since, while I didn't think having your period was a joyful, women-uniting experience, I did think it was important, and trying to make a good day out of it for Mabel seemed like a great idea.

 I tapped the table with my nails, looking for something to change the topic. I knew Mabel wanted to hang out with her friends that day, and going to the diner seemed like a decent place to do so.

“So what do you want to do today? We can have lunch at the diner with your friends if you want.” I said, causing Mabel to quickly recover her excitement.

“Yeah!! I’ll text our friends!!” Mabel answered. The word ‘ours’ seemed a little forced, but I appreciated the intention of making me feel included. She grabbed her phone and messaged Candy, Grenda and Wendy, while periodically eating a spoonful of cereal. At some point she finished the bowl and laid back.

“Have you finished?” I asked, standing up.

“Yup.” She answered.

“Keep talking to your friends, I’ll clean this up.” I said, leaning over to take her bowl. She thanked me with a smile.

I took the bowl to the sink and did the other dishes there as a thought popped into my mind. I considered it for a moment before deciding it was casual enough to ask Mabel about it over my shoulder from the kitchen’s sink.

“And… where's your brother?”

“Sleeping... which is really weird because he doesn't usually oversleep, whatever happened to you two yesterday, really put him over his limit.”

“Makes sense… want me to tell you what happened?”

“Well, duh!” Mabel answered, crossing her arms with an impatient smile.

“Dipper said that Ford had told him something about it before, does mothman sound familiar?”

“No way!! We’ve been here for a couple days and you guys have already run into a monster? And without me??” She said, propping herself up on the chair.

“Unfortunately, yes. We fell into a cave that turned out to be where he lived or something and he chased us for a while but we managed to get out and come back in one piece.”

“That's way too brief,  I feel like I’m missing out on the details … What about that hug?”

“Mabel if you try to make a big deal out of the half-second long hug I had with your brother, I swear I’ll cartwheel myself into the bottomless pit” I said, turning away from the sink to narrow my eyes at her.

“I won't, I won't.” She said in between giggles. 

“You better not.” I said turning again to finish cleaning up the counter.

“Anyway, we have to help with the party room so I’ll go wake him up.” Mabel said, hopping off the chair.

I went into the room we would be cleaning up, sat down in one of the chairs and went on my phone for a while, without much else to do apart from waiting for the twins to help me clean up the room. It wasn't long before Mabel and Dipper entered through the door. Dipper rubbed his eyes sleepily and his sister gave him her usual grin.

“I'll put on some music so cleaning is not absolutely insufferable.” Mabel suggested.

Mabel skipped over to the speaker and blasted whatever upbeat commercial music had just come out. The three of us spent the next half hour picking up every piece of trash, relocating every misplaced chair and scrubbing every spilled drink from the floor. By the time we were finished Mabel’s music had already begun to rot the insides of my brain so I was glad to get out of there.

“Well, that wasn't so bad.” Dipper said. “Mabel already told me about your plans so, uh, have fun.” He put his hands in his pockets.

“I’ll go clean my hands and we can head over to the diner with the rest of the girls!!” Mabel energetically told me before disappearing into the hallway, Dipper started walking away behind her.

“Wait.” I said, causing Dipper to turn around. I crossed my arms. “I hope you know you’re not going into that cave alone.”

"That’s actually exactly what I had planned for today...”

“Are you crazy? You can’t go in there, at least wait until somebody can go with you, unless, I don't know, you're fine with dying alone in a cave away from the outside world.”

“Why do you pretend that it's a big deal? It wasn't even that dangerous, nothing happened to us”

“Yeah, pretend I’m overreacting as if that thing wasn't triple your size, sorry but I think you dying might kinda ruin my summer.”

“Fine, I won't, but I won’t wait much longer either, an open hole in the ground in the middle of the woods is something worth investigating.”

“But it can wait for a little while, we're heading to the diner now, bye.”

“Later.” I heard him say as I left the room.

I grabbed my purse and threw in my phone, then got out of my room and waited for Mabel by the door. She came downstairs a few minutes later and opened the door for the both of us. Stan sat on the couch at the porch with a can in his hand.

“Ohh I forgot to ask, can we have lunch at the diner with my friends?.. Also can Wendy take her day off? I told her I’d convince you.” Mabel said, clasping her hands together with a chuckle.

“Woah, that’s a lot of requests for a day, kid, considering I let you throw that party yesterday!!” He said, raising an eyebrow at Mabel.

“Grunkle Stan, pleasee, it’s a special occasion, I got my first period.” Mabe said, giving him big and sad puppy eyes.

“Did you at least tidy up the party room?” Stan said, leaning back on the couch.

“Yeah, we did, and the kitchen too.” I said, trying to help her to convince him.

“I guess then it's okay.. you kids have fun, but tell Wendy this is her last day off this summer!!”

“Thanks, we will!!” Mabel said, we both gave him a thankful smile before stepping down the porch.

“Wait pumpkin, I’ll give you some money from what I made yesterday from the party so you can invite your friends for lunch.. but don’t get used to this!!” Stan said, pulling a stack of cash from his left pocket and handing a small part to Mabel.

Mabel squealed and leaned down to hug him. He sighed and dramatically looked down at the stack of cash, pulling a chuckle out of the both of us.

We began to walk over to the diner, which was farther away than we remembered, probably because of how the burning sun hitting our backs made any short walk seem like a hundred miles. We reached it and I held open the door for Mabel, noticing a sign on it that said ‘We’re hiring.’ Mabel’s friends sat at a booth, waiting for us.

“Hey girls!! You haven’t been waiting for too long right??” Mabel said, sitting down next to Grenda.

“Don’t worry, I just got here.” Wendy told her.

“And we got here around five minutes ago!” Candy said.

I sat down in the free spot next to Wendy and infront of Candy, who looked at Mabel with sparkly eyes as if she had won the lottery.

“So how are you feeling Mabel?” Candy asked her.

“Great, It's so crazy I finally have it!!”

“Now the only one left is me.” Candy said, looking down with disappointment.

“Don’t worry Candy, you're really not missing out on anything, Mabel and Grenda just hype things up too much but in reality it mostly sucks, the only good thing is just that it's the ultimate excuse for everything.” Wendy told her.

They all chatted for a while and the couple times I added something it was well received, which made me comfortable, even though I still felt a little out of place. Shortly after Lazy Susan approached our table.

“Hello young ladies, oh, and hey Mabel, I’m glad to see you and your brother are back.” Lazy Susan said with a half smile.

“Thanks!!” Mabel answered.

“Also, I don’t know if any of you saw the sign but I’m looking for a new waitress, I’d love it if any young girl like you was interested in the job!” Lazy Susan said, placing her hands on her hips.

“We’ll think about it!” Grenda told her, slamming her fist on the table.

“I unfortunately do not live here!!” Mabel said, with an ironic cheer.

“And I unfortunately already have a job.” Wendy said, jokingly mimicking Mabel's tone.

“Well, what can I get for you today?” Lazy Susan wrote down everyone’s order until she got to mine, it took me a couple seconds to decide what I was having.

“Uh, I’m not really hungry.. maybe some french fries.” I said, giving the waitress a polite smile.

Lazy Susan nodded and went back to the kitchen as we continued with our conversation. Our orders didn’t take long since the diner wasn’t too crowded. I chewed on some french fries before Candy realized someone familiar had just entered the diner.

“Hey isn’t that the guy from yesterday??” She said tearing at Mabel's sweater to catch her attention.

I turned around and saw the boy that Mabel had spent the previous night talking to at the party. My blood ran cold as I saw the girl that came after him through the door, one of my old friends, Tiffany. Before I could say anything about it, Mabel hopped out of her seat and walked in their direction.

I took a deep breath and tried to keep my calm. I realized that I was probably overreacting maybe Tiffany had changed and this could be a nice interaction for everyone… or maybe she was still the same. She used to be one of the meanest of my friends, and, because of that, one of my closest.

“Hey!! I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon.” Mabel told the boy. “Oh, hey, how are you? My name is Mabel!” Mabel waved her hand excitedly in front of Tiffany, who gave her a dirty look.

“Do you know her??” She said, turning to the boy. “Wait, aren’t you that childish annoying girl that almost got everyone killed last summer.” She lowered her voice, trying not to say anything implying weirdmageddon too loudly.

“T-that’s not true.” Mabel’s smile fell apart within a second.

“Trust me, get away from this weirdo before she ruins your reputation forever.” Tiffany said with a giggle and turned to the guy, who stood dumbfounded.

“What’s your problem?” Mabel said with teary eyes.

“I don’t know what this is, but leave me out, no me metais.” The boy said, with a strong spanish accent, he gave them a polite but mostly confused smile and walked out of the diner.

“Ugh, look at what you've done, I don’t even need to get near you for you to ruin everything.” Tiffany said, rolling her eyes. I got up and walked over to them, with boiling blood.

“Hey Tiffany, so I’m pretty sure I just heard you talking about ruining things? Funny, because I just remembered something, weren’t you the one that ruined a certain slumber party in fourth grade?”

“Pacifica?? What are you doing here? I-It wasn’t me, you’re lying!!” Tiffany said, off-put by the situation.

“Oh really? It wasn’t you? I thought I was so sure, I remembered you were the one that-.” I began, watching Tiffany’s face go pale.

“Pacifica stop, I’ll leave you alone but don't say anything else.” She said wide-eyed.”

“That's what I thought.” I said. Tiffany turned around walking away, just to stop dead in her tracks a second later as if she had changed her mind.

“You know what? You aren’t in any position to try to humiliate me. No one has even seen you for the whole year, you don’t know half of the rumors. And now you're acting like some type of public defender? Crawl back to wherever you were hiding, because things have been far much better since you left.” Tiffany adjusted the small purse on her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at us before getting out of the diner. 

Mabel and I stood there for a minute. She blinked confused as I swallowed as fast as possible the lump in my throat, repeating to myself that she didn't know what she was talking about.

“What’s wrong with her??” Mabel said.

“Same thing that used to be wrong with me not that long ago. I’m sorry she was mean to you, don’t take it personal, she manages to make anyone feel worthless. I’m sure that boy will realize she was just being mean.” Mabel glanced down at the floor, still upset, just before looking up with questioning eyes.

“Are you okay tho? She was really cruel.”

“As if I could care about what she has to say about me, I know exactly why she's like that, she's just putting up walls.” I said, half trying to convince her, half trying to convince myself.

“That's true, we shouldn't let mean girls wannabe's words like hers affect us… also don't mind if I ask but what even happened at that sleepover? She seemed scared.” Mabel said with curiosity.

“We promised not to tell anyone and it wouldn't make you feel any better anyway.”

She nodded in agreement and glanced towards her friends that gave us worried looks. We walked towards them and sat down at the booth again.

“What happened?” Candy said.

“Nothing important enough to get between Mabel and her good first period experience.” I answered, trying to cheer them up.

“That’s right!!” Mabel said, standing up energetically, just before grimacing and holding her tummy. “Wait no, this kinda hurts, I want to lay down.” She sat down at the table again with a pained smile and the conversation went on again.

Mabel looked a little down on the way back to the Mystery Shack and I was worried that she thought the day hadn't started really well, which it clearly hadn’t, I wasn’t sure if I should've said anything about it before Mabel spoke up.

“Be honest, do you think I'm annoying?” Mabel said out of the blue.

“Of course not , why would you say that? You can be.. intense but that doesn't annoy anyone.” I answered honestly.

“Thanks… I just feel like as time goes on my energy stops being charming and becomes more and more frustrating.” Mabel told me.

“And why is that?” I asked, a little lost.

“I don't know, I guess when my parents fell apart, I felt as if my loudness was making things worse. So, I stopped, and they looked relieved. Now, I can’t help but feel that, deep down, everyone is secretly tired of it.” She told me.

“Mabel, I can’t believe I’m the one telling you this, but everyone loves your energy. You are pure light. Seriously, anyone would give anything to have your personality and positivity.”

“Thanks, I needed to hear that, you're awesome Paz.” She said, with a brighter smile.

"That nickname is annoying though.” I answered, getting a chuckle out of Mabel.

After a while we reached the porch and went in. Dipper sat on the floor in front of the tv with a controller in his hands. Connected to the tv there was a beat-up console wrapped in tape.

“You guys are back, check out the old console Soos fixed, there's another controller.” He said pointing to the couch, where a dusty controller sat.

“I’ll go get you medicine and I’ll be back.” I told Mabel, turning to walk towards the kitchen.

“Okay, thanks!!” Mabel answered. “I call player one!!” She said, entering the living room and sitting besides Dipper on the floor.

I almost jumped when I heard the video game's startup sound over my shoulder. I immediately recognised it to be from a game I knew really well, Bloodcraft: Overdeath , my all-time favorite game. Just as I was about to turn around and scream in joy at the chance of playing again after so long, a better idea popped into my mind.

I got on my tiptoes to reach the medicine shelf in the kitchen. I could hear Dipper’s laughter coming from the living room and how the game was going, Mabel was evidently losing. I came back just in time to see the bright red letters appearing on the screen that read ‘Game over’. A wave of nostalgia hit me just by seeing those, I remembered the countless hours I had spent glued to the screen in my room, until I even reached level 100, which not many people could say, honestly.

“Playing with you is so boring, you always win.” Mabel whined.

“It’s not my fault you always choose the hardest character to play with just because she’s a girl.” Dipper pointed to the screen that displayed my favorite character.

“And I’ll keep doing it.” Mabel said while getting up. “Thanks Paz, play this round while I take this.” Mabel said, taking the pill and glass of water from my hands and sitting on the couch behind us. I sat beside Dipper and he handed me the control.

“Don’t think I’ll go easy on you just because you’re not familiar with the game. Mabel and I play it frequently back in Piedmont, but don't worry it’s easy to get the hang of it.”

“I’ll try my best.” I said, biting my tongue.

“You can choose another character with easier to use abilities, the all-rounder is a good character for beginn-”

“Don't worry, I’ll keep the girl.” I cut him off.

“That's the deathslayer, it’s the hardest character to play with, are you sure?” Dipper asked.

“I said I’ll keep it, don't be a pain.” I said, knowing I perfectly knew how to manage the character.

“Alright, don't complain when the round is five seconds long.” Dipper answered

“Oh I won't.” I said under my breath as the round began.

Chapter Text

The loading screen displayed the usual countdown before the game began, and I glanced over at Pacifica. To my surprise, she actually looked excited. I’d always assumed she wasn’t the type to be into video games, but that was before she changed, and she had changed a lot. Who knows? Maybe the match between Mabel and me had sparked her interest, and with a little help learning the basics, she could get into video games over some time. Or perhaps, more likely, she was just excited to take part in something we obviously enjoyed so much.

The game started, and Pacifica came out swinging, way faster than I expected. I went for a quick-fire combo, but she blocked it with a shield. I’d never seen anyone react that quickly before. She wasn’t even flinching. At this point, I was honestly a little confused about what was going on.

“You’re taking this seriously, huh.” I said, breaking the silence.

“You were the one who said you wouldn't go easy on me, Pines.” She replied with a giggle.

“Y-you’re right, I won’t.”

And with that, the game continued, but Pacifica wasn’t just playing defense anymore. She countered with a sharp, precise series of slashes that wiped out a third of my health bar in seconds. I was already scrambling to recover, completely on the back foot.

I started to panic. This couldn’t be real. There was no way she knew how to pull off combos like that. Then she used the deathslayer’s special move, a charging attack I didn’t even remember being in her character’s kit and hit me full force. My health bar dropped faster than I could react.

I tried to roll away, but she was on me in an instant. Every time I used my speed spell to get some distance, she was right there, blocking, countering, attacking. What the hell was going on? How was she doing this?

Pacifica glanced to the side, calm as ever, like the game wasn’t even happening. “Something wrong, Dipper?” she asked casually, her tone almost bored. Then her eyes shifted back to the screen. She was too calm, way too calm for someone who was supposed to be new at this. The confusion on my face was very much obvious, and I could practically feel Mabel’s wide-eyed stare from the couch behind us.

I fumbled for a moment, trying to get off a quick projectile, but she was already closing the gap. Before I knew it, she unleashed an insane combo, a flurry of sword slashes that sent my character flying across the screen. I barely had time to recover before she followed up with a finishing move that left my character flat on the virtual ground.

The screen flashed as my health hit zero, and I found myself staring at the Game Over screen in disbelief.

“GG.” She said, leaning back with the most casual smile, the kind that made my blood boil and my brain short-circuit all at once.

“What do you mean ‘GG’?? You’re a gamer??!” Mabel shouted, sliding off the couch onto the floor in disbelief.

I just sat there, completely stunned. How had she done that? Pacifica had destroyed me in every possible way. I couldn’t even land a solid hit.

Pacifica finally burst into giggles. “You should’ve seen your face.” She said, like this all somehow made sense.

“W-what the heck?” I stammered, still trying to process what had just happened. “How do you even know all that stuff?”

Both Mabel and Pacifica burst out laughing at my question.

“Come on, you seriously can’t be that surprised I played video games back at the Northwest mansion. What did you think I did all day? Wine-tasting or something?”

“Are you for real? And you used to play Bloodcraft: Overdeath specifically?” Mabel asked, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, a lot . I mostly played the online version tho. I didn’t really have anyone to play with in real life.”

“Dipper plays the online version all the time back at home! That’s why he always beats me. But now you 've beaten him!” Mabel said, clearly reveling in the moment.

“I guess I have.” Pacifica said, still giggling.

“How could you not just beat me, but completely destroyed me? You played like you knew every single thing about the game! What level are you even at?” I asked, still in shock. Nobody in real life had ever beaten me, not even the guys at the Tech Club in school. Pacifica wasn’t just good at this game, she was the best I’d ever seen.

“I actually reached level 100 right before Weirdmageddon. After everything happened, I didn’t really get the chance to play again.” She admitted casually.

“Level 100?? I’m only level 58, and I’ve been playing on the same account for years!”

“That’s what happens when you underestimate me.” Pacifica said, getting up from the floor with a smirk.

“Wait, let’s log into your account! I want to see what being rich looks like in a video game!” Mabel said eagerly.

“Sure.” Pacifica said, pointing at the old console. “Does this thing have the online version?”

“It does, but it crashes all the time. I already tried using it this morning.” I replied.

“Yeah, but at least let’s check out the account.” Mabel insisted.

Pacifica took the controller and waited with us as the online version loaded. It took forever, but eventually, the screen flashed, and Pacifica typed in her account username, PLATINUMPAZ, and password. My jaw nearly hit the floor when her item collection appeared.

“No way you have all of this. There’s, like, $5,000 worth of stuff in here!” I said, staring as she scrolled through her inventory. “And most of these items aren’t even buyable, you have to win actual tournaments to get them!”

“I told you I played a lot. You can keep the account if you want, though.” Pacifica said, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from a drawer.

“Are you serious?” I asked immediately.

“Nobody’s touched it in over a year, and it makes me kinda sad to see it just sitting there. I’m not getting a new setup anytime soon, so it’s better if you have it.” She said nonchalantly, scribbling down the password.

“You know you could sell this account for enough to buy a brand-new setup, right?” I pointed out.

“I’m not selling my precious account to some forty-year-old game addict weirdo! It has emotional value. Just keep it, okay? You can give it back if I ever get back into gaming.” She said, handing me the piece of paper.

“Well, if you’re sure… Thanks, Pacifica. That’s really nice of you.” I said, still a little in shock and unsure of what else to say.

“We have to play together all summer long so you can show me how to beat this nerd, Paz!” Mabel said, lightly kicking my back as she leaned over the front of the couch, grinning ear to ear.

“Like that’s hard.” Pacifica said with a smirk, making both her and Mabel giggle again.

I rolled my eyes playfully and let it go. The rest of the afternoon flew by. After chatting for a while longer, Pacifica and Mabel headed up to our room, where Mabel somehow convinced her to let her do her hair, nails, and makeup (though Pacifica sounded very doubtful about the whole thing). I figured Mabel also wanted to have a private conversation, probably about her period or whatever other girly stuff.

Meanwhile, I stretched out on the sofa, but my mind started to wander back to the cave we’d found in the forest. The tunnels sat there, dark and unattended. Where did they all lead? And why did I get the sinking feeling that Mothman wasn’t the only thing that had ever walked through them?

Thankfully, my thoughts didn’t linger for too long. Dinner was announced, and we all gathered around the kitchen table to eat. The conversation was light, mostly jokes and small talk, as we ate some potato salad. Moments like these made things easier for everyone. And as the days went on, I found myself getting more comfortable with Pacifica being around. I wasn’t fully used to it yet, but moments like this, and seeing how happy my uncles were to have her as part of the Mystery Shack, helped me adjust to the new normal.

After dinner, we said our goodbyes and headed upstairs. Mabel and I plopped onto our respective beds, the day winding down.

“How was your day?” I asked her.

“It wasn’t bad, but it felt like a not-fun roller coaster.” She replied.

“Really? What happened?”

“Well… it didn’t start off great. Something happened when we were at the diner…” Mabel began, and I listened intently as she explained the details.

[…]

“What the hell is wrong with that girl? I’m really sorry I wasn’t there for you.” I said once she finished. “It must’ve been hard to deal with.”

“It’s okay, it wasn’t that bad. The rest of the day turned out great and seeing Pacifica beat you up on Bloodcraft definitely cheered me up.” She said, giving me a smirk.

“No but really, I know Pacifica has changed, but that’s the problem about the kind of girl she used to be. They think they can get away with anything because no one stops them.” I said with frustration. Mabel laughed sweetly and nodded and I knew she wasn't really taking me seriously.

Shortly after, I heard Mabel’s steady breathing as she drifted off to sleep. I figured it was about time I did the same. Just as I started to slip into whatever dream my subconscious had planned, I was abruptly jolted awake.

A heavy weight landed at the foot of my bed, and I sat up instantly, my heart racing. It was a fully loaded backpack.

“Hey, wake up. A promise is a promise, right? Let’s go to that stupid cave.” Pacifica whispered, dropping the bag onto my bed and slinging another one over her shoulder.

“What??” I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“If you don’t want to go, that’s fine. I guess we’ll find another time to do it.” She said nonchalantly, turning toward the door.

“No, wait, wait.” I said as my groggy brain processed her words. “Are you serious?”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep, and I figured you wouldn’t wait much longer. And if you think about it, nighttime is the best time to go, no one will be waiting for us, it's more than enough time and no sunlight filtering into the cave. Plus, your uncle has, like, eight pairs of night vision goggles lying around.”

“You’re not wrong.” I admitted. “But shouldn’t we let someone know?”

“If you feel like we have to, go ahead.” Pacifica said with a shrug. “I’m just used to doing this kind of thing on my own.”

“They’d probably just try to stop us.” I said after a moment of thought.

“Exactly.”

“Okay, let’s go.” I said, throwing off my blankets and getting out of bed.

“Should we wake Mabel? Are you sure she doesn’t want to tag along?” Pacifica asked me.

“She specifically asked me to leave her out of anything dangerous this summer. Plus, she hates being woken up for any reason. But we should let her know where we’re going. I’ll leave a note.”

“Wait, I’ll just text her.” Pacifica offered, pulling out her phone.

Mabel’s phone buzzed lightly from the nightstand.

Pacifica glanced at the buzzing phone on the nightstand and smiled. “Guess she’ll know where we are when she wakes up.”

I smiled at my sister and nodded.

“I will wait for you by the door, be quick.” Pacifica said, disappearing downstairs.

I took a long breath and braced myself for one of those never-ending and exciting nights Gravity Falls.

Chapter Text

I leaned on the door, arms crossed and flashlight tucked under one arm. I tapped my foot and glanced down at my phone. 4:00 . It seemed almost impossible that I had been wandering around awake in my room for four hours already. The decision of waking Dipper and heading to the cave had passed through my mind several times in these hours, the first time being a punctual idea that wasn’t happening at all, but my boredom and sweaty pillow, which were driving me crazy, helped me realize there was in reality nothing to lose. And even meeting again with that six-foot-tall human-bug was better than overthinking all my life decisions, including every single word in the interaction with Tiffany that had taken place that day.

Dipper walked downstairs, rubbing his eyes and wearing his old ugly puffer that he hadn’t taken off during almost every day of the past summer. For a second, as he stepped down, it was almost like he was still the exact same person as when I met him, except for the fact everything was different now, especially me.

“Hey, sleeping beauty , well rested?”

“We both know I haven't been well rested for years.” he said, his voice a little deeper since he was just awake… but not that much. His voice was still pretty high-pitched for a boy his age. “No, but really, we should drink some coffee.”

He said and turned, heading to the kitchen. I followed along. He took a can from one of the shelves and poured some milk into two cups.

“Oh my God, it tastes like crap.” I whispered.

“You don’t like coffee? You seem like the type of person who would love it.”

“Oh no, no, of course I like coffee. I love it. Real coffee from a coffee machine, not instant coffee.”

“Right, sure, let’s stop by the Starbucks in the middle of the damn forest at four a.m. and grab some pumpkin spice lattes later. Would you like that?” he said condescendingly.

I rolled my eyes, and he took my cup of coffee from my hand, our fingers brushing. He took two small containers and poured some liquid and sugar into my coffee and handed it back to me.

“Any better?” he said, followed by me taking a small sip.

“Well, yes, thanks.” I nodded with a satisfied smirk.

He smiled back. “Vanilla extract, my sister drank like three full glasses of it at once and we had to rush to the E.R.” I chuckled and we silently finished our cups.

“Let’s get going. The night is not as long as it seems.”

The cool night air wrapped around us as soon as we stepped out onto the porch. Dipper fumbled to adjust the strap of his backpack as he took out a second flashlight and held it out, pointing into the trees.

“So, can I know why you have decided to go tonight? I know you promised, but I thought it would take a little more pressure than that. Has poverty shaped you into an adventurous girl, or what?”

“Ha, ha, and no, I was just bored.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Boredom or curiosity, maybe.”

“Let’s just get this over with before I regret it,” I said, not meaning it.

“Fair. I won’t risk it.” He shrugged.

Dipper glanced at me as I navigated the trail. The forest around us was alive with the sounds of crickets, the occasional rustle of leaves, and the crunch of twigs beneath our shoes.

We walked in silence for longer than anyone would've liked to, our flashlights casting long shadows on the forest floor. When the dark outline of the cave’s second small entrance finally came into view, I hesitated, my fingers tightening around the flashlight.

“All right, Pines. Lead the way.” I said, my voice steady despite my unease.

Dipper gave me a quick nod and stepped forward, the beam of his flashlight cutting through the thick darkness of the cave’s interior as he lowered down and crawled into the hole. I followed closely behind, my heart pounding just a little faster than I’d like to admit. As the shadows swallowed us whole, I muttered under my breath.

“This better be worth it.”

We quickly turned off the flashlights, and Dipper took out both pairs of night vision goggles that we had brought with us. They were big, round, and bright red, attached by a black elastic band. We put them on, and Dipper let out a whispery giggle.

“Don’t even worry if we run into Mothman now. You look like a fly, so I’m sure we could negotiate with that thing. Mothman and Flygirl would probably get along.”

He chuckled. I kicked his arm, and he smiled harder at my annoyance.

“That’s ‘Queen of Flies’ for you. Show some respect.” I said, turning around.

As I got a clear vision of the tunnels in that part of the cave for the first time, I realized something I hadn’t before. Some tunnels were smaller—so small that only someone our age or just a little older could fit, and definitely not a giant monster with large wings. I turned to Dipper with a questioning look.

“Aren’t these tunnels really…?” I started.

“ Human-sized? I know. This is why I wanted to come back. I’ve got the feeling that these tunnels aren’t just Mothman’s place. I think somebody made them and Mothman just found them after a while.”

“Well, that’s weird. What should we do then?” I asked.

“I think our best option is just to choose whichever we feel like and try to find out whatever we can tonight.”

“What about that one? It looks like the most used one.” I pointed, nodding toward one whose ground and walls looked more compact from the years.

“Sounds good to me, but if something happens to us or we die, it’s your fault.”

“I’ll have to live with that… wait, not live, in that case. Whatever.” I said, stepping toward the tunnel.

We walked for about an hour. The tunnel seemed really straight, and we made light conversation about meaningless stuff, getting a little louder as time went on since no monster seemed to be out that night.

“Smells like something died in here. Ew.”

“Well, it’s a mysterious cave. It’s not gonna smell nice.”

“Bet your room back in Cali smells the same, like something mysteriously died.”

“You’re going to be the next dead thing if you don’t stop with the unfunny jokes” Dipper threatened me, which cause me to chukle. Just a few steps forward, he stopped abruptly, and I almost crashed into his back.

“Wait, look at this,” he said.

I walked forward, the narrow cave barely letting both of us stand at the same part, causing our arms to touch. I looked intently through the cave and realized something. The direction of the cave had changed after almost an hour. And not only was it slightly to the left, but it was now completely uphill.

“Oh, that’s weird.”

I looked back, and when I turned again, I caught something out of the corner of my eye—engraved in the wall of the cave. Dipper stepped forward, but I grabbed his forearm and pulled him so he would look in the same direction as me. He quickly realized what I was looking at and brushed his palm against the wall so we could get a better look. My jaw almost hit the floor.

“ Grace Northwest x Walter Evermore , engraved inside of a heart. Well, it makes sense that another one of your ancestors would want to have tunnels connecting Gravity Falls, but the love part—that’s new,” he chuckled.

“No, my family wouldn’t want that. They wanted to stand out from the rest of the people in Gravity Falls, not get close to them… But it’s that name, Grace Northwest. I know it.”

“Really? From where?”

“It’s a really long story. I don’t think you are even going to believe it.”

“Well, we have a long night ahead of us.”

“Didn’t you say the night isn’t as long as one might think?” I said, smirking and relaxing my shoulders.

“It depends,” he said, rolling his eyes with a smile. “Are you telling me Grace’s story, or…?”

“Has your sister mentioned the girl who messed with us today in the diner?” I said with a shaky breath.

“Uhh, yes. Why?” He said, even more confused than before.

“This story is from back when we were best friends .” I admitted.

“Wow?” He tried to understand my point.

“Let’s keep going while I tell you everything. I don’t like standing next to this, it creeps me out.

We continued walking forward, now uphill. I took a long breath and glanced at Dipper who looked at me patiently and started my story.

Chapter Text

The more we talked, the less the cave walls around us felt real . It felt as if for a moment, the past wasn’t just a memory anymore; it was happening all over again.

[...]

I sat in front of the door waiting and yawned, days went by really slow at the mansion when my parents didn’t have any rich important person I had to impress but thankfully that night I was the one having people over to impress and this people were much easier to impress. As a matter of fact, they were the ones trying to impress me.

I didn’t usually have sleepovers, I refused to call the very few ones I had that way. Sleepovers were for girls who painted their nails in their poor parent’s basements and made charms out of plastic beads. What I did was different, exclusive, top tier, those were my kind of parties. I handpicked a few people, my inner circle, my closest friends. There was Vivienne, whose personality revolved about her last summer’s trip to Paris, Serenity, whose family was almost as rich as mine but obviously not quite, Seraphina, who was known popularly for her shoe addiction and Tiffany, who had the loudest, most over-the-top laugh and was scared of everything.

The heavy handle of the door echoed with two clumsy knocks and I got up and opened the door. I gave my chauffeur a cold nod and he returned to the limousine I had sent to pick them up from their houses and unloaded the vehicle, taking out every girl’s cases.

“Welcome to Northwest Manor girls!” I greeted them. They greeted me back with excitement and I led them upstairs to the designated sleepover room. A spacious circular room with five beds, all covered with fluffy hot pink sheets and plenty of pillows.

“So, like, I love this wallpaper, Pacifica.” Vivienne said, dragging her fingertips along the wall, where intricate vines and flowers were painted in a muted gold. “It’s so elegant. Totally old-money vibes”.

“Yeah, this place is so spooky-cool.” Serenity added, eyes darting around the hallway. “Do you ever hear weird noises at night?”

I just shrugged, trying not to look too amused. “Eh, sometimes. it’s no big deal, though. Probably just the wind or something.”

“Oh my God, so brave, Pacifica. If I lived here, I’d have, like, a total freakout every time I heard a floorboard creak.” Vivienne giggled.

Tiffany, though, was uncharacteristically quiet. She was sitting on her bed, chewing gum, her eyes darting around the room nervously. I snapped my fingers in her face and she jumped slightly.

“Tiff, seriously? Are you actually still going on about how my house freaks you out?” My house was most probably haunted, I mean a hundred year old mansion that everyone has envied for so much time, it checked out, but saying that would meant showing weakness, and the Northwests were no weak people, and we didn’t shack up with weak people either so I knew I had to teach my friend a lesson.

“Yeah Tiff, what are you, five?” Vivienne chuckled.

“Grow up.” Serenity followed.

“No, no way. I’m not scared, the last time I said that was like, years ago!” She said, shaking her head a little too quickly. “You have to admit it has a weird vibe though…”

“Girl, your parents like Scandinavian minimalism, your house has this weird post-traumatic dentist clinic vibe.” I said, backfiring her comment.

Tiffany laughed off my purposely mean comment and then all of a sudden, Whitney, whose idea of what fun meant had always been kind of twisted, reached into her bag and pulled out a very old and dusty Ouija board. It was wrapped in a silk scarf (interesting choice) like it was some rare artifact.

“Ta-da!” She said, waving it around like she’d just revealed her new Chanel handbag. “Let’s, like, do something actually fun.”

I could feel Tiffany tense up next to me, and that’s when I realized, this would actually be more useful than I had thought. I had the chance to show Tiffany no ghost story was worth humiliating herself infront of anyone, if I was doing this It was because I cared about her, and wanted her to be worthy of my invite.

“Whitney, where did you even get that?” I asked, feigning a little disgust, because that’s what they’d expect from me.

“Oh, I just, like, found it in my grandma’s attic or whatever.” She said, like it was no big deal. “Come on, Pacifica. You don’t mind right? If this place really is haunted we might as well have fun at its expense.”

I scoffed. “I guess. But if we’re doing this, let’s make it good. Lights off, candles on.”

Vivienne clapped her hands excitedly, and Seraphina shrieked, “Yaaas, spooky vibes!”

Tiffany, though, was definitely trying to avoid my gaze. I shot her a look. “Come on, Tiff. You’re not scared, right?” It was sort of an unspoken rule: you could be nervous, but you couldn’t be scared. Not out loud. Not here.

“Totally not scared.” She muttered, not looking at me.

We dimmed the lights, lighting only a couple of candles around the room. The flickering shadows made everything look creepier, which was exactly the point. The Ouija board was placed right in the middle of our pink-looking beds, the contrast taking me back to earth on how unserious the situation actually was. We were just fourth graders messing with a ouija board, not a cult summoning a demon.

“Okay, everyone put your fingers on the… whatever this thing is called,” Serenity instructed, pointing at the planchette. “And, like, don’t move it on purpose, obviously.”

We all placed our fingers lightly on the planchette, and for a moment, everything was dead silent. I could almost hear Tiffany’s breathing, which was a little too fast, but I didn’t say anything.

“Spirits of the… Northwest Mansion or whatever,” Viv began, giggling a little. “Are you, like, here with us?”

Nothing happened at first, but then, slowly, the planchette started to move. Tiffany gasped, and I could feel her finger press down a little harder, like she wanted to stop it but couldn’t.

“Oh my God,” whispered Seraphina. “Is this… real?”

“It’s moving!” squealed Vivienne, clutching her designer lip gloss like it was some kind of protective amulet. “Who’s doing that? Like, seriously, stop it.”

“It’s not me!” Serenity replied.

Tiffany was the only one who didn’t look thrilled. Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a tight line. I wanted to tell her to chill out, but there was something about the way she was staring at the board that made even me feel uneasy.

“Spirits,” Serenity continued, in her best dramatic voice, “if you’re, like, here or whatever… Give us a sign?”

The planchette moved again, this time more deliberately. It spelled out, slowly: Y-E-S. I could feel my heart pounding a little faster against my chest, but this was what we wanted, right? It was predictable too, I knew that there had to be presence in between the mansion’s walls, I had been hearing the noises, whispers and voices most of my childhood.

Tiffany actually yelped, jerking her hand away. “I… I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“Come on, Tiff.” I said, trying to sound annoyed instead of… whatever that weird feeling in my chest was. “Don’t be a baby. It’s just a dumb game.”

She looked at me, her brown eyes wide and filled with something I couldn’t quite name. “Pacifica, please. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

I was about to tell her to relax when Serenity, who didn’t stand out for her patience, asked, “Spirit, who even are you?”

The planchette moved again, faster this time, and we all held our breath as it spelled out: G-R-A-C-E.

“Grace?” Vivienne asked, her voice a little shaky now. “Who’s… Grace?”

My heart was pounding in my chest, but I forced myself to laugh. “Probably, like, some random maid from a hundred years ago or whatever .”

But the planchette wasn’t done. It spelled out: N-O-R-T-H-W-E-S-T. I felt the air in the room change. It was colder somehow.

“Pacifica.” Tiffany whispered, clutching my arm now. “Please, let’s stop. Please.”

I could see she was actually terrified, her hands trembling. I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, she seriously needed a reality check. Getting this agitated over a game was not the type of behavior I would’ve expected from one of my friends. On the other hand I was starting to feel just a little freaked out, too. But I wasn’t about to back down, not in front of everyone.

“Let’s just… finish the game,” I whispered back to Tiffany, forcing a smile. “It’s just getting good.”

Serenity, who was totally oblivious to Tiffany’s horror, asked, “Grace Northwest, are you, like, dead or something?”

The planchette shifted, almost impatiently, like it was annoyed with us. Y-E-S.

I heard Seraphina let out a little squeal, and Vivienne whispered, “No way.”

Tiffany was breathing fast and shallow now. “This isn’t funny anymore, Pacifica.” she said, her voice shaking. She started to stand up, like she was going to bolt.

“Come on, Tiff. Don’t be so dramatic.” I said, a little more harshly than I’d meant. I was starting to get annoyed, both with her and with this creepy, stupid game that I hadn’t even planned on playing in the first place.

But before Tiffany could even argue, the planchette started moving again. We hadn’t even asked a question this time. It spelled out, slowly.

“‘P-R-O-F…’ Wait. ‘P-R-O-F-E-C-Y’? Profecy ?” Vivienne spelled out.

We exchanged confused glances for a second before Serenity spoke up, breaking the silence.

“Did… did the spirit just misspell ‘prophecy’?” She said.

“Maybe it’s ancient spelling? I don’t know, maybe English was different back then?” Seraphina added.

“Or maybe our friend here is just a pathetic illiterate .” I said, pissed at the absurdity.

The second the words left my mouth, the candle on the far side of the room went out. It wasn’t like a breeze or anything. It just… went dark. And then another candle flickered and died. One by one, the lights were going out, until the only thing left was a dim glow from the hallway.

Tiffany whimpered, clutching my arm so hard it hurt. “Pacifica, please… please, I’m begging you, let’s just go.”

For the first time that night, I felt my throat tighten. I was about to tell everyone that maybe it was time to call it quits when I heard something. A creak. Not from the board, but from somewhere in the mansion, like footsteps on an old floorboard.

Everyone went silent. Whitney’s smug expression was completely gone now, and Vivienne was gripping her knees. Seraphina’s eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open.

I swallowed, trying to sound casual, like nothing was wrong. “Maybe my parents are back early.”

But we all knew that was a lie. My parents were at some gala across town. They wouldn’t be back until morning. And my family’s staff had the night off. We were supposed to be completely alone.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, waiting for me to say something, to take charge. I didn’t want them to see I was as freaked out as they were, so I forced a smile. “Whatever. It’s probably just the house settling.”

Whitney tried to laugh, but it came out shaky. “Y-yeah, like, this house is, like, ancient. Definitely just the old… you know, pipes or whatever.”

Another creak echoed down the hallway, this one louder and closer. I could feel Tiffany shaking beside me, and finally, I sighed, squeezing her hand a little.

“Fine.” I said, louder than I meant to. “Let’s just… end the game. We can go back down to, like, watch Clueless or whatever.”

But as I reached for the board to put it away, the planchette moved one last time, spelling out: D-O-N-T .

Vivienne screamed, and we all jumped back, letting go of the board as if it had burned us. Tiffany was practically in tears at this point, and even Whitney looked genuinely freaked out.

That was the final straw. “Alright, party’s over,” I said, standing up and trying to sound like I wasn’t a little scared myself. “Come on, let’s go back downstairs.”

But Tiffany was still staring at the board, frozen. “Pacifica… what if we made it mad?”

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my own nerves. “Oh, please. It’s supposedly a Northwest ghost, what would it do to me? I’m her legacy .”

We started gathering our stuff, but as we made our way down the dark, winding hallways of the mansion, I could feel the others’ nervous energy, like they were expecting something to jump out at them any second. I tried to keep them calm, telling dumb jokes, pointing out random statues that looked kind of silly in the dark. But it wasn’t really working.

Then, out of nowhere, we heard a loud bang from one of the rooms down the hall as we passed by it. We all turned and Tiffany let out a scream that froze my very blood. I pulled her by the arm but she was frozen, her face pale and horrified. I yanked her harder by her arm and we took off running, practically dragging me with her. The others followed, and we all bolted down the stairs, through the empty halls, and back to the main room where the lights were still on.

We all collapsed in a pile of pink silk and cashmere on the couches, breathing hard. Tiffany held back tears and no one spoke for a few minutes.

“D-didn't you girls see her??” Tiffany asked, her voice shaky as ever.

“Saw what?” I said, almost afraid to ask.

“That woman, Grace, s-she was standing there.”

“Tiffany, are you okay?” Vivienne asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you sure you didn't just imagine it?” Whitney asked.

“She was right there, I saw her clearly, she was looking at Pacifica almost pleadingly.” Tiffany said, letting her head fall in her hands as she freaked out. “I… I told you. I told you this was a bad idea.” She whispered.

She was right. After a few seconds of listening to the pounding of my heart, I realized I was actually terrified, but I couldn't be terrified, I couldn't be weak, so I replaced my fear with a more familiar emotion, anger.

“This is just ridiculous.” I said getting up from the couch. “Tiffany, stop making things up, and quit being an attention seeker, there was no one! We were all right there, you ruined this for everyone, this was supposed to be fun and the worst thing that happened were just a couple noises but you freaked yourself out!” I shouted at her.

“Freaked myself out?!” Tiffany looked genuinely hurt, and for a second, I felt bad, maybe I was paying the situation with the one who had the hardest time. “I wasn’t the one who thought it was a good idea to mess with a Ouija board in a haunted mansion!”

Whitney scoffed. “Oh my God, Tiff, just… stop! This wasn't my fault, I didn't know it would be this much of a deal!”

Tiffany’s face went red, and she looked like she was about to start crying for real this time. I felt a weird twist in my stomach. She wasn’t wrong—it was kind of messed up of Whitney to bring that thing here, and maybe… maybe I shouldn’t have pressured her.

I took a long breath and clasped my hands together

“Look, let's just forget about this all, Tiffany, it’s fine,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re safe. It’s just an old, creepy mansion. Nothing actually happened.”

But she shook her head, her voice barely a whisper. “Pacifica, I don’t… I don’t think it’s safe. I didn't like this place before because I felt things, all of the time… but today I actually saw one. I want to go home.”

Before I could respond, the lights in the room flickered once, twice, and then went out completely.

We all froze, not even daring to breathe. Then, in the pitch-black silence, we heard it again: footsteps. Not random creaks or settling sounds. Actual, deliberate footsteps, moving slowly, coming closer.

And that’s when we all lost it.

Vivienne and Seraphina started screaming, Whitney was practically hyperventilating, and Tiffany was clinging to me so tightly I could barely move.

Then, suddenly, the lights flickered back on, and standing in the doorway were my parents, looking absolutely livid.

“What on earth is going on here?” my mother snapped, her eyes narrowing as she took in the mess we’d made.

I gave Tiffany a death glare, thinking she wouldn't even dare to think about letting my parents know what had happened. But fear washed over Tiffany and she spilled everything—about the Ouija board, the candles, the ghost, everything. It was like a dam had broken, and she couldn’t hold it back anymore.

My mother’s face went from angry to horrified to furious and she totally lost it when Tifanny mentioned the name Grace.

 “Pacifica Elise Northwest,” she said, in that voice that sent chills down my spine. “You are grounded. All of you, out, now. All of your parents will know about this, you can all say goodbye to each other for a very long time. No more sleepovers ever again.”

The girls scrambled to pack up their things, all of them looking at Tiffany like she’d just ruined their lives.

Once everyone was gone, I flopped onto my bed, exhausted and terrified about whatever my parents would plan as punishment. As I stared up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but think about Grace Northwest. What in the world did she want from me?

The mansion was silent again, that heavy kind of quiet that settled into every shadow, every corner. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, and this wasn't a feeling I wasn't familiar with before but for the first time those eyes had a name.

[...]

“Wow, I keep forgetting you really were an asshole.” Dipper’s voice, along with his usual brutal honesty, snapped me out of the trance my own story had put me in. I shot him an annoyed look.

“What? I said were .” he shrugged.

“Well, that’s it. That’s all I know about Grace.” I breathed out.

“And you never saw her?”

“No, I may have heard her, but I never saw any real ghosts until the day we fought the lumberjack spirit.”

A heavy silence hung between us as we both processed everything I’d just pulled from my memory. Soon enough, we reached the end of the uphill cave.

“Wait, that smell... it’s so familiar .” I mumbled.

“Look, up there, there’s a trapdoor.” Dipper said, pointing toward the ceiling. There was a wooden square set between the dirt and rock, not far above our heads.

“I’ll prop you up so you can try to lift it.”

“Wait, we’re going in there? Are you sure?” I asked.

“What else should we do?”

“Why don’t you go first?” I said, crossing my arms.

“Do you want to prop me up?” He said, kneeling while rolling his eyes.

“Okay, fine, I’ll go.”

I stepped into Dipper’s hands and placed my other foot on his leg. He gently lifted me, and I unhinged the trapdoor. Climbing up, I took off my night goggles, letting my eyes adjust to the light filtering through the door in front of me.

Chapter Text

"That smell again... I can't remember where I know it from," I said as I lay down on the ground, making sure I wouldn’t fall into the hole myself while trying to pull Dipper up.

He reached for my arm, and I pulled as hard as I could, planting my foot firmly against the floor. Dipper climbed up, then pulled out our flashlights again. The moment he turned his on and pointed it around the small, dark room, the realization hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water. The faded color of the walls, the wooden floor, the now obsolete golden candle holders on the walls, all impossible not to recognize...

"I—We—Are we in Northwest Manor?" I asked, shocked.

"That's why we were going uphill!" Dipper said incredulously.

"And this smell... I know where we are. This is my room!... well, was." I knelt in front of the cracks in the wall and peeked through them, recognizing the structure of what had been my bedroom for most of my life. "The housekeepers used to clean it daily, but the herby smell that came out of nowhere never went away," I said, looking around.

"Looks like it wasn’t just your room," Dipper said.

I turned back and saw him standing in front of a large chest in the corner of the room. It was filled with jars—some small, some larger—containing different kinds of herbs. As I got closer, the scent grew stronger. Dipper was holding a fragile book, one that looked like it was about to fall apart. The cover read: ‘Grace’s Diary.’

"Do you think this was her room?" Dipper asked, looking at me curiously.

I let out a sharp gasp. "Are you telling me that out of the forty-three rooms in this damn mansion, I ended up in Grace’s room?"

"Maybe she chose you and led you here as a child," Dipper said.

I shot him a skeptical look, raising an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or if he actually meant it. Either way, I didn’t like it.

"What?" he said, shrugging. "I learned not to underestimate ghosts last summer, okay? You never know. Here." He handed it to me. "I think you should take it. She was from your family and maybe she wrote something you’d want to know. Plus, I already have to carry my own journal around."

Hesitantly, I took Grace’s diary from Dipper’s hands and carefully placed it inside my backpack.

There wasn’t much else to look for in this room. Dipper grabbed a couple of jars containing herbs he couldn’t recognize, and we sat in silence for a while in front of the chest, as if we had silently agreed to take a short break.

"Let's try to get this door open," I finally said.

We walked over cautiously, our flashlights illuminating the old wooden door. The paint was chipped, and the iron handle looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. I grabbed it and pulled hard. It didn’t budge.

Dipper pressed his hand against the wood. "Might be stuck... or locked or both."

"Great." I sighed. "I walked for hours through an underground tunnel just to end up trapped in this old mansion. Again. Fantastic."

Dipper smirked. "Could be worse."

"How exactly?" I asked, puzzled.

"I dunno. Grace could be here with us."

I shot him an unimpressed look and rolled my eyes. "Seriously, Dipper?" I muttered, then turned my attention to the lock under the handle. "Well, at least if she were here, she could, I don’t know, phase through the door and get it open for us!" I yelled, throwing my hands up and glancing around the room as if Grace could hear me.

The second the words left my mouth, a soft tinkling sound echoed behind us.

Dipper and I froze.

A chill ran down my spine as the sound repeated, metal lightly clinking against the floor, like keys jingling together.

We turned around in unison, our flashlights sweeping over the dusty wooden planks.

There, just a few feet away from where we had been standing, lay a small set of rusted keys.

Without thinking, my hand shot out and gripped Dipper’s wrist. He flinched slightly but didn’t pull away. If anything, he adjusted his grip.

Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved. My breath felt caught in my throat, and from the way I could feel Dipper’s grip tighten on his flashlight, I could tell he was just as freaked out as I was.

“Tell me,” Dipper whispered, his voice barely audible, “that you had those in your pocket and they just fell out.”

I swallowed hard. “These aren’t mine,” I whispered back. “You jinxed it. She’s here,” I said, lightly pushing Dipper.

“Shh, if she’s here, she’s probably hearing you. She could get offended.” He then looked around the room and spoke slowly, and loudly. “Grace, if you can hear us, we’re happy you're here, and don’t worry, Pacifica’s not evil anymore.”

I pushed Dipper harder this time. “She’s a ghost, not deaf. And we don’t even know if she’s really here. You look insane.”

We fell into silence again, as if waiting for something to happen.

“…So, do we pick them up?” Dipper finally asked.

I turned to him slowly. “I mean, unless you want to walk back home through that tunnel.”

He hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, clearing his throat. “I’m picking them up.” I let go of his wrist and blinked expectantly as he picked up the keys and approached the door. He went through the rusty set of keys, trying each one of them. It was the fourth key that entered the lock perfectly, and Dipper turned it.

“It’s this one.” He unlocked the door and pushed, and then pulled—the door didn’t budge. “Grace, we could use a little help here.”

“Stop it!” I said, pushing him back with a chuckle. I turned back to the door and ran my hand along the edges. Something felt off. I leaned in closer, shining my flashlight on the frame.

“I think it’s… wallpapered over from the other side,” I muttered.

Dipper blinked. “Wallpapered? Who wallpapers over a door?”

“Someone who didn’t want this room being used anymore,” I said.

Dipper hummed in thought, then stepped back. “Well, if it’s just paper, we should be able to break through, right?”

He reached into his backpack and pulled out his pocketknife. With careful movements, he slid the blade between the door and the frame, wiggling it around until a bit of old wallpaper peeled away. I pulled out my cutter and, bit by bit, we tore through layers of brittle paper, revealing a faint outline of the door.

Once we had cleared enough, Dipper tried the handle again. It still wouldn’t move.

“Okay, plan B,” he said, stepping back. “On three, we both push.”

I nodded, planting my feet firmly on the wooden floor.

“One… two… three!”

We threw our weight against the door. It made a cracking sound under the pressure but didn’t open.

“Again!” Dipper said.

Another shove. A loud crack echoed through the room as the door suddenly burst open, sending both of us stumbling forward into the room. I landed on my back, breathing heavily as I stared at the familiar ceiling of my room.

“Well,” he said, spitting out a bit of dust. “That worked.”

“Shhh, listen,” I whispered.

We both glanced at the door of my old room, listening intently. We looked at each other dead in the eyes when a loud cough echoed through the hallways of the mansion, followed by ecstatic voices coming from a TV.

“That’s probably McGucket's son, Tate. We should get out of here,” I suggested.

“Why? We could just talk to McGucket. He's my friend.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, so there’s a problem though,” I said, fidgeting with my fingers.

“What?” He raised an eyebrow.

“My parents kept refusing to leave the mansion and kept sneaking back into it for like a month after we lost it. Even when it had already been sold, Tate had to get the police involved a couple of times. They had a huge fight, so I’m pretty sure if he sees us, the police will be here in a minute.”

“Wow, what didn’t your parents do?” He rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, but don’t worry, I’m sure we can sneak out the deck stairs.”

“Lead the way then.”

“Wait.” I took in the view of my empty childhood room, nostalgia and memories (most of them bad, but some good) filling me up. I kneeled in front of my bed and reached into the air vent underneath it, pulling out a medium-sized box.

“Yay, it’s still here.” I opened it, and Dipper sat in front of me, leaning on the bed.

“My old llama plushie, and old photos! Look, at least now I can prove I’m naturally blonde.” I handed him a picture of three-year-old me.

“I don’t know, bleach already existed when we were toddlers, and it wouldn’t be the craziest thing your mom had encouraged you to do.” He joked.

“Yeah? And how do I keep getting it bleached now that I'm broke, smart guy?”

“If there’s a will, there’s a way?” Dipper shrugged, and I rolled my eyes.

“Ugh, I do miss how my hair looked when I had expensive hair products,” I said, looking at a more recent photo, just a couple of years old, of me next to my pony Drusila.

“It honestly looks the exact same… Can we quit talking about your hair and get out of here, please?” He said, glancing at the door.

“Look, here’s Tiffany.” I showed him a photo of me and my friend group.

“This looks like it belongs in that *Mean Girls* movie.” I shot Dipper an unimpressed glare and kept going through my stuff.

“Look, the crown from the first child’s pageant I won—creepy.” Dipper took the baby-sized crown carefully from my hand and held it on top of his head.

“Oh my god, thank you so much, I wish for peace all over the world and to learn how to stop diaper rash.”

I giggled, trying not to make much noise, and threw the photos and my plushie into my backpack, leaving the rest of the things in the box and putting it back in the air vent.

“Okay, let’s go.” I rose to my feet and walked toward the door.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar and comforting essence that was still noticeable.

We crept along the corridors silently and slowly until we reached the back door. I pulled the handle.

“It’s locked?? Really??” I whispered in frustration.

“Any new ideas?” Dipper whispered behind me.

“Well, there’s no other exit on this floor, so it seems going downstairs is our only option.”

We made our way back to the stairs in front of my room and took each step as silently as possible.

When there were just a couple of steps left, we suddenly heard the squeaking sound of the sofa as McGucket’s son stood up. I looked back at Dipper in horror as we sped up going down. Now that we were there, it was clear he was only a room away, and we would be facing him as soon as he turned into the corridor.

“Who’s there?” he yelled, our rushed steps now impossible to conceal.

As we passed by an old sewed-up painting, a memory of the secret room we had once found flashed through my mind.

“Here!” I rushed towards it and pushed hard on its side to raise it. The small black hole was still there, untouched. Dipper wordlessly jumped in and held it for me to go through. I jumped after him, letting the painting fall back into place, darkness surrounding us. I tried to hear Tate’s direction over the pounding of my heart.

“Dad, the ghosts are acting up again!” His deep voice yelled into the house.

We quietly crawled to the back of the room that was filled with those creepy old paintings.

“Oh my god, I’m about to faint,” I whispered, trying to hold back my adrenaline-fueled laughter.

Both of us stared into each other's eyes as we tried to catch our breath, my heart pounding in my ears. I realized this had been the longest we had ever held eye contact and, as if he were reading my mind, he pulled away and glanced at the floor.

He lay back and let out an “ouch” as he pricked himself with something on the floor. He picked it up and showed it to me.

“Wait, isn’t this the earring you took off that night we fought that ghost?”

“No way, seriously? That’s a real diamond, that’s worth a fortune.” I got a closer look, verifying it.

“Here.” Dipper said mindlessly.

“No, keep it. Take it as payment for saving the world last summer.” I pushed his hand away with a smile. He looked confused for a bit as I got up to peek through the painting before he could try to change my mind, then put it in his backpack.

“It looks like he’s gone. Let’s go.” I said. We exited the room, and he quietly followed my steps.

We were now on the second floor, with only two exits, both of them on the north wing. But as we walked over there, just when we were about to reach one of the exits, we heard his rushed steps towards us again.

“He must have heard us,” I whispered as we ran, hitting the walls with each turn. There was no time to hide in the painting room again, and soon we reached an open window.

“It’s this or giving up,” he said, looking out the window. There wasn’t much height, just about six feet.

“On the count of three.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.” 

Chapter Text

The window lay open before us, moonlight spilling into the hallway like it was urging us to escape. Six feet wasn’t much, but the thought of Tate calling the cops (and consequently my parents getting involved) was enough to make my stomach twist harder than the fall ever could.

Pacifica glanced at me, her eyes shining with adrenaline. She swung her legs over the sill and dropped.

Her silhouette landed with surprising grace. My brain, still trying to process the situation, kept me frozen in the window frame for a few seconds.

“Hello? I said three! Come on!” she hissed, waving me down.

I jumped. The air rushed past me, a single heartbeat of weightlessness, before my sneakers hit the grass. My knees bent, absorbing the shock, and I stumbled, falling face-first. I exhaled, the flashlight still clutched tight in my hand. Then I looked up at the window. It slammed shut right away, but Tate wasn’t behind it, he was too far away to have closed it so quickly. I squinted my eyes trying to see if anyone was behind the window but the corridor was as empty as before.

“Nice landing.” she muttered, smirking.

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”

Before I could retort, a voice echoed from inside the mansion. Tate again. He sounded furious this time, he’d probably heard the window slam shut behind us. My pulse kicked up.

“Go, go, go.” I urged, grabbing her wrist again and pulling her across the lawn. We sprinted through the carefully trimmed grass, the shadows of the manor stretching across us like claws. I tried not to think about how much trouble we’d be in if we got caught here.

We didn’t slow down until we reached the edge of the property. Pacifica bent forward, catching her breath, while I pressed my back against the cold bars and listened. No footsteps behind us. No shouting. Just the creaking of the old mansion and the wind in the trees.

I finally let myself exhale.

“That was close.” I murmured.

Pacifica looked up at me, strands of her blonde hair sticking to her face with sweat. She was flushed, her chest rising and falling quickly, but somehow she still carried herself like she was in control.

“Getting into close calls is normal when I’m with you.” she said, straightening up and brushing imaginary dust off her jeans. “You know Gravity Falls is like a magnet for insanity.”

I laughed softly despite myself. She wasn’t wrong. But still, there’d been something different tonight, something heavier. The diary in her backpack. The smell of herbs in that hidden room. The keys. Grace.

I couldn’t shake the image of those rusted keys materializing behind us, or the way Pacifica’s hand had clutched mine like her life depended on it. She’d tried to play it off, of course, but I’d felt it. Those rare cracks in her usual confidence, like the day of the karaoke party in the cave or last summer back in the mansion.

“Over here. There’s a missing bar on the fence.” She said. We walked for a couple minutes and reached the gap.

“Hey,” I said quietly, lowering my voice so it didn’t carry past the mansion walls. “Is it too weird to come back here like this? …Are you okay?”

Pacifica lowered her head. Just for a second, her eyes softened. Then she straightened her shoulders, scoffing.

“Of course I’m okay. At the end of the day, it’s just a creepy old house… and probably the ghosts of my dead relatives.”

“Right. Super casual.” I said, raising an eyebrow. I decided it was better not to keep pushing.

I sighed and leaned against the gate. “Well, for what it’s worth, you handled it better than most people would.” That got a small smirk out of her.

I glanced back at the looming shadow of Northwest Manor, its windows dark and watchful. I had only been there twice in my life, and it still made me feel uneasy as hell. I couldn’t imagine growing up there. Still something told me tonight wasn’t the last time we’d find ourselves here.

We slipped through the bars, and the world outside the fence felt quieter, like the manor’s noise stayed trapped behind. The grass soon turned into the rough slope of the hill, and we started going down, careful not to trip on the dirt and rocks.

The night air was cool, brushing against my face and sneaking under my jacket. It made me shiver a little. I kept my flashlight low, the beam jumping over roots and stones. Pacifica didn’t say anything, but I noticed her rubbing her arms sometimes, her breath showing in the cold.

Our footsteps crunched on the ground as the manor faded behind us, swallowed by the trees. Crickets chirped in the distance, and the wind moved the branches, making them creak like whispers.

By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, the air smelled of pine and wet earth. Pacifica finally spoke.

“Remind me again why we didn’t just take the tunnel back?” she asked, stepping over a branch.

“Because Tate was right above it and the Mothman inside of it,” I said. “This was safer.”

“I know but it’s freezing, this is crazy. I was dripping sweat all night two days ago. What’s wrong with this town’s weather?” She mumbled.

“Everything’s crazy here, you said it yourself.” I shrugged. She huffed back in annoyance.

We walked until the lights of the town appeared ahead of us, streetlamps glowing yellow, a few neon signs flickering. We avoided the center, keeping to the side, trying to stay quiet and hidden. It didn’t take us long to reach the other side of the town, walking by the road that led to the forest.

We suddenly encountered a car, but not just any car. It was the only police car in the whole town. Panicking, we dove into the nearest bushes, branches poking at our faces as we tried not to make a sound. We crouched there, holding our breath.

“Okay, I’m pretty sure they didn’t see us,” I whispered, trying to sound confident.

Pacifica squinted through the leaves, probably checking for flashlights or suspicious faces. I began to crawl through the bushes, we didn’t have much time to spare, the sun would rise in about an hour and a half.

“Oh. My. God.” Pacifica yanked me back by the backpack handle.

“What—?” I said, peeking between the branches to see what was wrong.

My jaw dropped. Blubs and Durland were sitting in the car, making out.

“There’s no way, I called Mabel crazy when she came up with that theory.”

“She knew??” Pacifica turned to me, half-whispering, half-snorting.

“She really is good at matching people,” I said, only to instantly cringe when I remembered she’d tried pairing the two of us before.

“Well, I don’t know if they really are a couple but they’re definitely not just coworkers,” she added. At that point it was almost impossible not to laugh, both of us shaking in the bushes, praying we wouldn’t give ourselves away.

“Let’s get going. I’m getting a bit uncomfortable,” I muttered, crawling forward again.

“Me too, but to be honest, they’re kinda cute, they’re kind of made for each other.”

“Yeah, but this is such a massive invasion of privacy. We shouldn’t be watching,” I urged her to follow me. She huffed but started crawling too.

“What privacy? They’re in the middle of the road with the windows rolled down and everything…” she muttered reproachfully.

Still half-biting back laughter, we finally crawled away from the roadside. My knees ached from the gravel, and every branch seemed to snag my jacket, but it was better than risking being spotted. The police car’s headlights faded into the distance, and with them the bizarre image of Blubs and Durland kissing.

Pacifica brushed a leaf out of her hair, muttering something about “never forgetting that,” before crawling ahead on all fours. The road stretched on beside us, the asphalt glowing faintly under the pale moonlight. Every now and then, a cold breeze swept across, carrying the faint smell of fuel and pine needles. My hands were dirty, my palms scraped, but the adrenaline and ticking clock kept me moving.

After a while, the trees thickened, and we slipped off the roadside, letting the shadows of the forest cover us. The air felt cooler and quieter there, less exposed than the open road. I lifted the flashlight but kept the beam low, just enough to guide our steps without calling attention.

Pacifica walked closer now, her arms crossed as if to protect herself from the chill. I didn’t say anything, but I noticed how her eyes flicked from side to side, catching movements that weren’t there. Gravity Falls’ forests always had that… atmosphere, like the trees themselves were paying attention to us.

Our steps quickened once the outline of the cabin finally came into view, sitting quiet and familiar at the edge of the clearing. Its wooden panels glowed faintly under the last of the moonlight, a safe haven compared to the long walk behind us. My chest eased as we climbed the porch and slipped inside.

The familiar creak of the floorboards greeted us. We didn’t even bother talking much, just traded one quick look, half relief, half exhaustion, before heading down the hall to our separate rooms. Well, separate floors. She went straight downstairs, while I dragged myself up the creaky steps toward the attic.

Mabel was already there, curled up under her pile of mismatched blankets, breathing softly in her sleep. Waddles snored at the foot of her bed. The normality of it all after the night we’d had made me pause for a second. I tossed the flashlight onto my desk and pulled off my jacket, feeling the chill leave my skin.

The shower was quick but hot, steam fogging the little attic bathroom mirror. By the time I pulled on clean clothes and dropped into the chair by the window. The first hints of dawn were already sneaking through the curtains, painting the walls with a pale orange glow.

Somewhere below, faint through the floorboards, I heard the water running, Pacifica, no doubt rinsing off the night too. For a moment, I thought about how weirdly normal it felt: after everything, the mansion, the chase, the keys… we ended up here. Same cabin, same small town, morning already breaking.

I rubbed at my eyes, exhaustion hitting me all at once. But as I stared at the growing light outside, I knew there was no point in trying to sleep. The sun was rising. The day was already here.

Instead, I leaned back in the chair, exhaling slowly. “Guess I pulled the first all-nighter of the summer.” I muttered under my breath. Dragging my exhausted feet downstairs.