Chapter Text
October 15, 2016
Stanford Pines knew pretty much everything.
Now, at this point, he had learned that it wasn’t wise to routinely operate in accordance with that knowledge unless he wanted to be proved wrong in a very painful manner, but that wisdom didn’t negate the fact that he did know a lot. He could teach a graduate-level lecture about anything from quantum superposition of electrons to the complex political tensions in the Habsburg empire. He had felt the highs and lows of the human experience, in his home dimension and countless others. He knew his mind, and his feelings, and although he suspected there were a few more emotional surprises left in his life, it was safe enough for him to reasonably say that he knew how most things ought to feel.
But nothing could have prepared him for the way the wind left his lungs when Mabel calmly said, “Hey, your meal’s five units off, you qualify for the senior discount here.”
He lowered his menu to fix his great-niece with a stare. Normally, he would have said something smart like I beg your pardon, but his voice didn’t want to cooperate at the moment.
Mabel’s attention was back on the menu, scanning down the breakfast items despite the fact that they were well into the afternoon. “Sixty and up. You’re sixty-two. Senior discount.”
And it was all that Stanford Filbrick Pines, proud holder of twelve doctorates, expert on interdimensional survival, and master of science, could do to say, “But I can’t be that old.”
Mabel let her menu fall towards him by several degrees, so that he might get a better view of her smirk. “You’re hardly a spring chicken.”
“I’m plenty springy!”
She laughed. The waitress paused at their table, expectant, and Ford nodded for Mabel to go first. She gave her default question (“I know it’s lunchtime, but would you guys be willing to do waffles anyway?”), received her response (“No.”), and ordered a sandwich. The waitress used two of her four arms to hold her notebook and pen to jot down Mabel’s order. The other two busied themselves with refilling hers and Ford’s water glasses. How fortunate that hydration is a universal concern , Ford thought, not for the first time.
“And your grandpa?” The waitress asked, looking from Mabel to Ford.
He frowned. “Uncle.”
“Great uncle,” Mabel supplied.
The waitress clicked her pen expectantly.
“I’ll have the same,” he said after a pregnant pause, plucking Mabel’s menu and stacking it with his before placing it in the waitress’s waiting hand. “And we’d like it to go.”
He glanced at his niece. If she was annoyed to hear that they wouldn’t be dining in, she hid it well in front of the waitress. Mabel waited until she was gone before snorting. “That was out of character.”
“What?”
“You. Willingly providing private information that nobody asked for.”
Ford busied himself with a sip of water. Then, coolly, “Do you like having your meals paid for?”
Over the foggy rim of his glass, he watched her roll her eyes, and resisted the urge to mimic the smug smile she’d abandoned. Truth be told, the presence of his niece over the last years had made him feel like he’d aged ten years instead of four. Keeping himself alive had been hard enough. The constant stress of protecting himself and Mabel had taken its toll, but at least he had acquired an arsenal of classic guardian’s guilt trips to use as needed.
“Is it really so bad, though?” Mabel asked, seemingly unrelenting in her quest to make him feel his age. “I mean, you knew you were going to be old at some point, eventually. Right?”
Ford sighed. To his dismay, when he heard his own sigh, it didn’t sound like the weary exhale of a brilliant scholar burdened by knowledge. It sounded like an old-man sigh: tired. Maybe a little emphysematic. “In all honesty, no. Even before I came through the portal, I always figured I’d die young.”
Mabel made a face, scrunching her nose up in displeasure. “That’s so sad and dramatic.”
“That would be an accurate assessment of my mental state at the time, yes.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I was a freakishly smart six-fingered anomaly hunter,” he said. “It’s a miracle I saw twenty-five, let alone sixty-two.” He copied her wrinkled nose and creased mouth, then let himself give a rueful smile. “Seriously, kid, I look in the mirror and I wonder what happened.”
“Gross. Do me a favor and kill me after the first wrinkle.”
“Morbid today, aren’t we?”
“You started it.”
The food was set down by the disgruntled waitress, and Ford noted with a weary acceptance that she had, in fact, applied the senior discount. He paid her, Mabel scooped up the bag, and they were on their way back to the inn, looping through the back alleys of the unfamiliar city with the confidence of a native.
After ten minutes, that confidence proved unearned, because while they were certainly standing in front of a building, it was not their destination.
“I thought you said to turn northeast,” Mabel said behind him.
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
She came to stand at his shoulder. Although he still refused to believe how tall she’d gotten, he could take solace in the fact that she was at least shorter than he was, standing level with the bottom of his nose. “Where’s the marketplace, then?”
Ford snorted and directed his attention to the skyline above them, studying the buildings. Maybe he could spot something familiar. “If I knew that, we’d be on the move.”
He wasn’t looking, but he knew she’d rolled her eyes ( teenagers ). Then, a swift rustle of fabric, and she was grabbing his arm with a gasp. “Grunkle Ford, look!”
He tensed. Even as he followed her point with his eyes, his right hand was going to his holster, his left making a grab for the back of Mabel’s jacket to pull her behind him (why was she running towards danger?) but she’d let go of his arm and she was too far ahead and he missed . That fruitless swipe gave him time to see that she had rushed up to the short black fence that surrounded the brick building in front of them, and she was leaning on it, bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking back at him like she couldn’t believe her eyes.
He allowed himself three breaths to calm down before stepping up to the fence. “What? What am I looking at?”
Mabel pointed again, and around the corner of the school, he could see what looked like a sports pitch and a playground. “It’s a school, ” Mabel announced in delight.
His heart sank a little bit, but he tried to match her pleased tone when he spoke. “So it is.” When Mabel had joined him in the multiverse all those years ago, he’d known she would never be able to receive a traditional education, and had taught her himself. It didn’t matter that she was now at a point where she could have snuck into a graduate lecture on theoretical physics and followed along—she was a social creature. He knew she cared more about the experience of high school than the education of high school.
So, taking in the way she was staring near open-mouthed at the building, he had to say something. “It looks like a secondary institution,” he said. “I would guess equivalent to a middle school on earth.”
Mabel shook her head. “No, look at the vehicles.” She jerked her head to a small parking lot near the other side of the building, and Ford had to admit, it was definitely a student parking lot. Beat-up second hand transports, the kind that alien parents would be comfortable sending off with a new driver. He glanced back at her, a small, disbelieving smile spreading on his face.
It didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” Mabel asked defensively.
“Nothing,” Ford said. It wasn’t nothing. It was amusement that she couldn’t see how far beyond high school she’d progressed. This was not the first time she’d accurately analyzed a new obstacle simply by taking in her surroundings. She had become, in a word, brilliant, and he was proud to be related to her. But at the same time, it really was nothing, because Mabel wanted high school very badly, and a stable social group was the one thing she couldn’t ever have again. So he stuck with his one-word answer and nodded at a building down the street. “I think we need to go that way.”
Mabel dragged her toe through the mulch before following him. “I was supposed to start twelfth grade in September,” she said wistfully, casting one more look at the school. Then, softer, “I wonder how Dipper’s year is going.”
Ford buried his wince. He had long since lost count of earth-months, but Mabel assured him that they were well into October. Had she been silently dwelling on this for months? “I’m sure he’s doing well. From your descriptions of his affinity for science and the progressions of our home planet, I bet he’s bound for a stellar college.”
Mabel smiled at her shoes before throwing a light elbow into his side. “You won’t be mad if he skips your alma mater?”
He scoffed. “I’d be angrier if he did go to Backupsmore.” He felt her hand nudge at his, and he took it. They’d learned a long time ago that they were less likely to be split across dimensions if they were touching, and it had become a habit.
They reached the building Ford had recognized, and to his relief, they were now on the street with the bustling marketplace they’d passed through on their way to the diner. It was just as crowded as it had been before, so Ford did his duty as the tall one and shouldered his way through the crowd, Mabel following in his wake, led by his hand. He could hear her exchanging pleasantries with the merchants, returning their flirtatious invitations to buy their merchandise with playful banter. He rolled his eyes, but didn’t intervene. She could have her fun.
“Matching knives!” One merchant called. “Set of knives for the lady and her father!”
Father, he could get behind. Clearly this merchant was better at flattery than a certain four-armed waitress. He should nip this one in the bud, though, he knew how much his niece liked an aesthetically pleasing knife. “Come along, Mabel.”
“Wait, but I need a new whetstone,” she protested, and he stopped as she tugged at his hand. Pulling him along, she was already heading for the booth. He narrowly avoided a family of squat round creatures to follow her.
“Why didn’t you say something at the depot in 4X&?” He demanded.
“I did, we got chased out by you-know-who, remember?”
Damn. He did remember the unsightly bounty hunter that had thrown off their trip. And he had agreed that she needed a new whetstone. Was this typical frazzled-guardian forgetfulness, or was this the big six-two setting in?
They approached the merchant, who seemed thrilled to have lured in a pair of humans. “Ah, bipedal with opposable thumbs! You’re the very models of knife-wielders,” they flattered.
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Mabel said immediately, a bright smile on her face. She dropped his hand, but stayed close. “With tentacles like that, I bet you make a blade into a blur.”
The merchant’s wide-set eyes brightened. “What can I help you with today?”
Earlier in his sudden uncle-hood, Ford would have handled this interaction with a sullen stare and brusque tones. However, he’d learned pretty early on that Mabel’s natural propensity towards connecting with the merchants generally led to better prices and less being chased out of the marketplace by angry aliens with weapons. He’d step on her toes if she started getting too personal with them, but for the most part, he was simply backup and bank. When they could afford to buy with money, that is. Last week and last dimension, he and Mabel had (quite by accident) caught a local scourge and turned him in to the authorities. They’d been awarded a handsome number of universal units, and were currently living like kings.
Mabel’s flattery brought him back to the present, even as he fingered the string of the change pouch in his coat pocket. “Well, your wares are just so pristine, I know a reputable knife distributer like yourself would never sell anything less than a quality whetstone.”
One tentacle disappeared under the booth. “Whetstones, eh? Well, you’d be right, I’ve got a good collection. What kind of blade do you need it for?”
“Multipurpose,” Mabel answered breezily.
The merchant paused as if waiting for more clarification, but when Mabel didn’t offer any, they pulled a box up from under their tabletop. It rattled loudly when they set it down, and they began to rifle through it. “And how portable were you thinking?”
“Extremely.”
They dug past one or two more stones, then brightened. “This’ll be the one you’re wanting, then.” They pulled out a stone that seemed to be made of fossilized night sky. It was a rich, inky blue, occasionally interrupted by a luminescent patch of white. “It’s from dimension 1*_7, and it’ll protect your blade from nicks and dents as well as sharpen it.”
Ford glanced at Mabel. It was pretty enough to throw her off her game. Sure enough, he could practically see her resisting the urge to grab the stone and bolt. “How much?” She asked.
The merchant waved a tentacle thoughtfully. “Normally five hundred units. For you… two fifty.”
“One fifty.”
The merchant scowled. “You insult me.”
Mabel wet her lips, glancing at Ford. “Well… we could always go to 1*_7 and get one ourselves, for free.”
It was Ford’s turn to resist an urge—this one to laugh. Mabel knew what she was doing. He nodded in agreement, ready to follow her lead. She turned to go.
“Wait!” The merchant said. Mabel looked at him expectantly. They wrung their tentacles. “...one seventy five.”
“One sixty,” Mabel countered confidently.
“Deal,” the merchant grumbled, notably less playful than they’d been before. Ford counted out three fifty-unit coins and one ten, trading the bits for the whetstone, which was surprisingly lightweight.
“Have a good day!” Mabel said brightly. The merchant returned her cheery wave with a grimace. Ford pushed her along with a hand between her shoulders.
“They were nice,” Mabel decided, admiring the new stone before slipping it into her satchel.
Ford glanced over his shoulder at the merchant, relieved to see that they’d already caught another customer. “They didn’t care much for your bargaining tactics.”
“That’s a personal problem.”
>>>>> • <<<<<
Halloween at the Mystery Shack was in full swing. The parking field, the exterior, and even the exhibits in the shack had been decked out in full spooky splendor. The gift shop was selling candy corn on the cob. Plastic skeletons lie waiting in every closet. Soos had taken to wearing a pumpkin on his head while giving tours as Mystery Man. It had gotten stuck after the first day, but in the world’s most stressful trust exercise involving the pumpkined Soos, Wendy, and her axe, they’d developed a removable version, and the show continued.
In the basement, though, something far scarier was going down.
Dipper Pines grunted as he readjusted his grip on the barrel, pouring the last of the radioactive waste into the valve and setting it down with a loud echo. He straightened, breathing heavily, but he couldn’t stop staring at the barrel. It was in. It was the last one, and it was finally in. He glanced at the corner. They had four more barrels of the stuff, just in case. Just in case. He didn’t want to think about just in case. If everything went right, he would have Mabel back in seventeen hours.
“Is it ready?”
Dipper peeled off his latex gloves, balling them up and tossing them into the garbage can. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He turned to face Stan. “I…”
His voice abandoned him. Stan just set his jaw and nodded. “Okay. You—you’re gonna stay in here. No matter what happens, you do not go onto the floor.”
Dipper nodded. They’d discussed what would happen when they finally fixed the machine before.
“Okay,” Stan said again, and Dipper followed a couple steps behind as he made his way to the control console. Flipped a couple of switches, pulled a lever. “That should set the timer—“
Dipper’s feet left the ground, and he squinted against the violent blue light. He could barely hear Stan’s shocked shout over the sudden noise. “What’s going on?!”
“I don’t know!” Stan’s shout sounded very far away. “I don’t know!”
Dipper stared at the portal. It didn’t look right—the light was flashing, sputtering, and the sigils glowed red instead of multicolored. He thought of the study on the floor above them, and before he knew what he was doing, he reached forward and slammed into the lever. Gravity returned, and he landed nearly on top of Stan and slid off his great-uncle, who managed to grab him by the collar before his nose collided with the floor.
“Thanks,” Dipper said, pulling his knees under him and standing up. Stan stood, too, swelling to his full stature. The effect was diminished somewhat as Dipper had been the same height as Stan for months now.
“What the hell happened?” The old man demanded. “And why did you shut it off?!”
“It wasn’t right!” Dipper shouted back, gesturing at the portal. To his immense relief, it looked unharmed. “We have to figure out what went wrong, why it didn’t start on the timer, and then we can start it again.”
“Maybe it just needed to warm up?”
“Did it do that last time?”
Stan bristled, and didn’t reply. Dipper set his jaw. “Then it’s settled. We troubleshoot. I’m not screwing this up.”
“You think I want to wait any longer?” Stan’s tone was agitated, defensive. They’d had this fight too many times for Dipper to rise to the bait.
“No, I don’t,” he sighed instead of fighting back. That shut Stan up.
A thought occurred to Dipper. He didn’t want to think about it, but the instant it formed in his head, he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
“What is it?” Stan said warily. He knew Dipper’s tendency to spiral on what-ifs, and he knew the warning faces.
Dipper spoke slowly. “What if that meant we’re only getting one of them back?”
It took Stan a moment to reply, but when he spoke, Dipper could tell that he had taken the question seriously, and a part of him understood that Stan had pondered the idea before. “If we only get one… we get them upstairs. You make ‘em feel safe, and I come down and turn it on again. And again, and again, however many times it takes.”
Dipper swallowed. “Okay.”
Stan rubbed his hands together, the clap loud in the wake of the portal’s rumble. “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s figure out what went wrong and do it again.”
>>>>> • <<<<<
The whetstone tugging at her pocket and lunch hanging on her opposite elbow, Mabel felt like the day could have gone a lot worse. The school had put a damper on the cheerful mood that teasing Ford had given her, but haggling never failed to brighten her day. She liked to think that it was a family talent, and every time she reached the point where she was ready to walk away from a deal, she was reminded of the time Stan lost his hands in a similar stance with the Hand Witch.
Wow, she’d thought about Stan and Dipper on the same day. It had been a couple of months since that had happened. She felt guilty for that, of course she did—they were her family, she should be thinking about them all the time—but most days, she and Ford just didn’t have the brain space to dwell on anything except the fight. Last week’s bounty had made for something of a vacation for the duo, and while she had been beyond grateful to take a hot shower and sleep in real bed, their camping packs had loomed in the corner of the room, a constant reminder that this was a temporary reprieve. Clearly this break had encouraged her brain to go soft. She liked being soft, but there were downsides.
The market stretched on for several blocks. Mabel assumed that they would go straight back to the hotel, but Ford was eyeing a stand of high-tech gauntlets that seemed to be loaded with weapons, and they seemed to be fitted for a large spectrum of species. “Want to go see if they’ve got one for you?” Mabel asked. Ford nodded. Mabel patted his shoulder. “I’m going to go check that produce stand. Can I have fifty units?”
Ford gave her a look. She rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna spend all of it. Relax.”
He gave her a coin. “I wasn’t worried about that. Don’t go too far.”
“I won’t! And I like the red glove for you, for the record,” she said, grinning and spinning on her heel. She ducked past a clump of patrons gathered around a street performer, tucking the coin safely in the breast pocket of her coat as she approached the produce stand.
“Ready for a midday snack?” The vendor asked.
Mabel sucked her teeth and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But the colors are just beautiful!”
The vendor’s saccharine smile vanished. “Colors are for customers. Shoo!”
Mabel gave a good-natured shrug and moved along. Again, she was reminded of the Gravity Falls market, and Stan’s coaching as they wandered through. “Don’t hang out too long in any one place, and even if you want something, pretend you don’t. You don’t have to buy, but they need to turn a profit.”
Another booth, maybe half a block down, was selling art supplies. Mabel glanced over her shoulder. She could see Ford at the gauntlet booth, holding up a hand and comparing it to one of the vendor’s wares. He would be fine.
She pushed her way towards the next stall. Maybe she could find something nice for him for Rosh Hashanah—a never-ending inkwell, maybe, or a fountain pen that automatically translated languages. She could spot both of those things in the booth, and was sorely regretting not asking for more units, when her pocket began screaming.
The piercing beep that made market patrons everywhere groan and hold their ears only made her head snap up and towards Ford. When she locked in on him, he was already pushing through the crowd. She darted around people, pushing through, twisting around—
But then there was a tug in her gut, as if someone had driven a fishhook through her bellybutton and was reeling her in, and the whole world vanished in a blur of blue. She braced herself for impact, wondering what kind of landscape she’d be spat into—
Black.
That’s all there was for far too long, just black. Panic rose in her gut. Jumping dimensions normally happened much faster than this. The last time a jump had taken this long, she’d wound up in—
“Shooting Star? Ho-ly smokes, you grew up!”
Mabel froze. There was the fear, yes, but more than anything else, the primary emotion she was feeling was confusion. “This isn’t the nightmare dimension,” she said.
“Sure it is,” came the grating reply. “I guess your nightmare’s changed over the years, is all. Gotta say, utter nothingness seems a little basic for you.”
“Oh… thank you?”
“How ya been?”
Talking to a disembodied voice was annoying, she decided. If he was going to mock her, she wanted to at least see his face. Maybe that was the point of the nightmare: total nothingness. “I mean, it could have been worse,” she said, bringing one hand up to her neck to absently rub the small star tattoo just behind her left ear. “Is there any particular reason you brought me here?”
“I didn’t bring you here!” Bill said, popping suddenly into existence mere inches from her face. She recoiled, startled, and he laughed. “Ha! I love it when humans are scared of me. But no, I didn’t bring you here. I sure am glad to see you though!”
That was suspicious. She squinted at him. “Why would you be glad to see me?”
“Because!” Bill kicked his ankles up and reclined on a chair that wasn’t there. “It means yours and Stanford’s dumb brothers are kicking up the portal again!”
Her stomach hit her feet. “What?”
“It means ,” Bill said, slow and gleeful, “That my door is opening!”
“No, I know what it means, you stupid triangle,” she said, waving a hand to quiet him. Come on, Mabel, buy time . “I’m trying to process it, can you give me a minute?”
“Why would I—no! I thrive off of your distress, I’m not going to give you a minute! Where’s Stanford?”
“I thought you didn’t care about us now that we’re not on earth anymore.”
“Oh, no, you don’t matter to the plan,” Bill assured her. “I just enjoy seeing him struggle.”
Mabel crossed her arms, dropping her hand from her neck. She’d be fine. The tattoo hid the scar where a homing device had been inserted last year. It sent a signal to the collidascopes she and Ford had built years ago. He had one as well, a flat chip the size of an ibuprofen tablet, planted in his lower neck under a tattoo he’d gotten years prior. If she pulled the device out of her pocket, she would be able to see his little maroon dot and her own hot pink one, and she would be able to locate the quickest path back to him through existing dimensional cracks. The nightmare realm was smack in the center of the multiverse, and she and Ford hadn’t been too far from the central rings, so she expected that he’d be there within the hour.
She wasn’t about to whip that out in front of Bill, though.
Instead, she frowned. “That isn’t very nice. You used him, it’s not exactly like you have a valid grudge to hold.”
Bill swelled and turned scarlet. “HE—“
Against her better judgement, she shrank back a little bit. Bill calmed himself, returning to his usual size of apparent harmlessness. “He destroyed my portal. My chance at human dominion!”
“Good thing, too,” Mabel said. “Americans are prideful. They wouldn’t like some dumb tortilla chip waltzing in from Bumfuck, Oregon and declaring his supremacy.”
Bill squinted at her. “Are we allowed to swear now? I didn’t think we were allowed to do that before.”
She shrugged. “All I know is that I woke up one day and I knew I could. No turning back.”
“It kind of ruins the whole innocent-kid thing you had going on the last time I saw you.”
Mabel wrinkled her nose. “Um, if you had just left Ford alone and not completely ruined his life, mine would be just fine right now. Any ruining in my family was your fault.”
“Tomato, tomahto,” Bill replied. “You’re not as much fun as you used to be.”
“You sound like a baby boomer. And not the fun kind like my grunkles.”
Bill squinted his eye. “What the hell is a baby boomer? Is that someone who explodes infants? I think I just learned about some humans I might like!”
Her pocket buzzed, and she had about a half-second’s warning before it started screaming. That was sooner that she’d expected. Bill shouted and covered the sides of his head. (Why would he do that? Mabel wondered. He doesn’t have ears.) “What is that?!”
“My ride,” she answered calmly, throwing up a peace sign as she heard the dimension tear behind her. “See you, homie.”
A six-fingered grip wrapped around her extended arm and yanked her backwards. She fell willingly, watched the nightmare realm become an inky tear in an otherwise pleasant meadow, and she watched the seam stitch itself back up as suddenly as Ford had torn through it. Her heart was racing now, just from the action, but before she could turn to say something clever, she was turned by her shoulders and wrapped in a hug. This would work, she decided, but before she could hug him back, her great-uncle was holding her at arm’s length, one hand moving to her chin to tilt her head from side to side.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?”
“I’m okay,” she said, probably seven times before he heard it. “I’m fine.”
He stared at her for another moment before pulling her back into another hug. She wasn’t about to complain, just tightened her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his coat. She felt him press a shaky kiss to the top of her head.
As happy as she would be to stay like that for as long as he would, Bill’s words were eating at her. “Grunkle Ford?”
“Mm?”
“We gotta talk,” she said seriously, holding him by his elbows and staring at him. “Bill said something that… I don’t know. We have to talk. But I don’t—“
He picked up on her hesitation, patting her upper arms before turning away, offering her his hand. “Come on, let’s get back to that dimension and grab our things from the inn. I can retrace my steps. We’ll find some secluded dimension and we can discuss whatever he said. Sound good?”
Mabel swallowed, glancing over her shoulder to where the tear had been just moments ago. “He’s in there,” Ford said firmly, taking her hand and squeezing it. “He can’t get here, not right now.”
“Yeah,” she agreed distantly, starting to nod. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Ford started off, leading them through several weak spots before Mabel found herself back in the dizzying marketplace. The entire trip, she couldn’t stop thinking about the basement of Stan’s shack, and if he knew the ramifications of whatever he was doing down there.