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setoangel01-fanfiction · 8 months

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When I First Saw You

Zerith Week 2023 - Day 1 - Love at First Sight

Fandom: FFVII FFVII: Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII / 7 Remake

Pairing: Zack Fair x Aerith Gainsborough (Zerith)

Rated: T

Story Summary: An AU in which Aerith meets Zack while selling flowers on Loveless Avenue. As terrified she is of the sky and this SOLDIER she knows she should steer clear of, it's all too easy to get lost in the stars glistening in his eyes.

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Heart hammering against her sternum. Palms sweating and knuckles turning white as she held onto the brown whisker basket clutched in tight fists. Meadow green eyes darting to and fro amongst the crowd of people all acting like she wasn't even there.

It was the first time Aerith came topside and already she was regretting ever coming.

The words of her mother's disapproving voice and Aerith, being headstrong and now technically an adult at 18, refused to listen, but right now she desperately wishes she had.

Sector 5 was safe. Home. The people all there knew her and appreciated her. The kids at the Leaf House always clung to her skirts and looked at her like she was their big sister. The adults in the Sector always happy to have her help around their businesses or brightening up their lives with the flowers she'd been growing since she was a child and stumbled upon the fledgling garden in the church…

But not these Topside People.

Sector 8, The Loveless District was turning out to be absolutely terrifying. Yet it wasn't the fact that people didn't spare her or her flowers any attention or even look at her when she spoke. Even the rude man who bumped into her and made her drop her basket didn't even say sorry!

…Yet that wasn't what was bothering her…

It was the sky.

Even darkened by night and sprinkled with stars from the little she saw amidst the smog and clouds - she felt sick just by its sheer enormity…

Aerith's heart thumped painfully harder and she felt the beginnings of sweat lining her brow as she tried to keep her eyes away from it yet there was this pull, this tether that wouldn't let her be. Feet shifting, Aerith made sure the coast was clear before backing up closer to the building behind her. It didn't help like she hoped it would.

All the Flower Girl could do now was curse her own damned stubbornness.

Selling flowers to the much richer residents of Midgar to help her mother with bills now sounded like the dumbest idea on the Planet and yet if she left now, she'd just be proving her mother right… Maybe just a little longer. She'd sold a few flowers thus far and she told herself if she only made just a few more sales that would be enough to at least make the trip topside hopefully worth the effort.

It had to be.

That still didn't stop her hands from shaking…

"Woah! Are those flowers real?" a voice said from right beside her and Aerith had to clench every muscle to keep from screaming at the sudden interruption into her chaotic thoughts. She had half a mind to tell whoever it was off for scaring her yet when she turned to greet the owner of the voice, her tongue wouldn't move.

Peering at the man who interrupted her inner torment, the entire world froze around her.

Standing in front of her was a man a full head taller than her with broad shoulders, thick sinewy bare arms, sun-kissed skin and raven hair that looked a little ridiculous in the way it seemed to defy gravity with the black spikes falling down akin to quills.

Yet as nice as he already looked, it was his face that seized her heart like it was caught in a merciless vice grip.

Never in her life had she seen a more beautiful man. She never even thought she could call a man 'beautiful' until this moment - but he was. Strong cheekbones and a sharp chiseled jaw, he was clean shaven with thin well manicured brows and regal looking nose. All gorgeous features made more rugged and handsome when accompanied by the cross-shaped scar adorning his left cheek.

But nothing could compare to those eyes.

Dark blue suffused with an undertone of an array of violets even more vibrant than the flowers she grew in her garden, the beauty of a galaxy all encompassed by a ring of bright green. The glow from streetlights and the stars overhanging in the terrifying sky glittered in his iris.

Never had she seen more beautiful eyes…

Aerith heart galloped like a stampede of Chocobo in her chest.

Those fickle childhood dreams and admittedly sappy and quite ridiculous romance novels that spoke of this very feeling suffusing in her chest. The very idea of falling head over heels in love at first sight felt almost poignant as she found herself lost in his bewitching gaze. She'd never taken the idea of such a thing to heart especially when living in Midgar amidst the poverty and stricken populace suffering beneath the towering steel sky.

Yet as she fell into that cloudless blue skies of his eyes, she wondered if perhaps this was what it felt like…

But the lofty idea of love at first sight truly was only for fairy tales when she suddenly allowed herself to take in the harsh reality in front of her.

It was only now that her eyes left his own that she noticed the blatantly obvious SOLDIER garb. The very moment when Aerith plummeted down back into the Planet from her castle in the sky. For as devastatingly handsome as this man was, as breathtaking a sight as he was, it was all a cruel mirage. He was a SOLDIER, let alone one from First Class given the black turtleneck he wore, and any SOLDIER, no matter the rank, was a sign of nothing but trouble. Her entire life, she'd been warned relentlessly to stay away from anyone who worked for Shinra.

This man should be no different yet every single sense of wanting to run fled the second he smiled at her.

"...So… Are those real?" he asked again and Aerith's face burned like Ifrit's hellfire when she realized she'd never answered him and instead had been staring like an absolute idiot, basically ogling the man, for who knows how long.

Lowering her head and staring at the yellow and white lilies filling her basket in order to hide her reddened face she finally replied. "Yes! Yes… They're real." Not wanting to act like a petulant child in front of him and her own stubbornness, Aerith lifted her head (blushing cheeks be damned) and looked up at him. "I grow them myself actually." she stated proudly.

There was no way she was going to let a stupidly handsome SOLDIER make her cower.

Yet the man merely smiled wider showing off ridiculously white teeth that was only more evident against his tanned skin. "Really?" he asked excitedly. "That's amazing! I had no idea you could even grow flowers in Midgar. Or grow anything really given all the veg and stuff has to be imported." The man's head lifted up and against her will, her heart skipped a beat when he suddenly winked at her. "You must have quite the green thumb."

With little else to say without giving out the real reason for the plants growth, Aerith replied, "Yeah. I've been gardening since I was a kid." And instantly cursed herself for even saying that! He didn't need to know anything personal about her so Aerith bit her tongue.

"Well, it shows." the SOLDIER said with a nod before he reached into his pocket and Aerith instinctively wanted to immediately take a step back but forcefully kept her feet planted regardless of how much every instinct told her to run.

Shinra meant nothing but trouble.

Shinra meant nothing good.

And that included everyone who worked there… Yet she refused to be afraid. The mastered ice materia lingering in her pocket made her feel secure knowing whatever this guy was planning could be deterred at least long enough to give her time to escape regardless.

Aerith may be a bit naive but she was far from stupid or ill-prepared.

Yet nothing happened other than the man taking pulling out his wallet. Aerith bit back a smile knowing if the man was in Sector 5, leaving a wallet in his pocket was just asking to be stolen from by the many pick-pocketing kids in the sector.

"How much for a dozen?" he asked with genuine interest.

A dozen flowers and any ill-intentions she believed this SOLDIER had dissipated. The man probably just got off work and just wanted to buy flowers for a wife or girlfriend and now she just felt shitty for even thinking he'd kidnap some flower seller (because that's all she was, dammit, regardless of what the Turks believed) in the midst of the crowd going about their business around them.

It still didn't stop her from feeling a bit bitter that she found an obviously-taken man so attractive in the first place, Aerith stated "Fifty Gil," more than the typically 3 gil per flower she had been charging the rich residents who lived here.

The man flashed her a strange look, but before Aerith could lower the price in fear he'd think she was swindling him, he spoke up, "Wait. That's it? You need to be charging more than that. Before she could say anything, he'd placed 100 gil bill in her hand like you'd toss a crumbled piece of paper in the trash bin. "Here. Keep the change." he stated and Aerith didn't even have the heart to tell him she didn't even have enough money to make change for that amount.

Aerith stared down at the paper gil in her hand like she'd never saw such a thing. So many emotions bombarded her at once but it all faded when he merely continued smiling with his head tilted a bit to the side. Almost like a puppy.

The sight made Aerith smile beside her better judgement, a bit of a hysterical laugh at her lips as she carefully folded and hid the largest monetary bill she'd ever held safely in her small coin purse. Money safely sequestered away, Aerith than began gathering a dozen of the most fresh beautiful lilies, six of white and six of yellow with long stems and bright green leaves with no wilted petals.

"So…" Aerith said conversationally as she arranged them, "You and your wife have an anniversary or some other occasion to celebrate or something?"

The look on his face was comical. His cheeks flushed scarlet and his eyes grew huge. "No!" he stated quickly. "I'm single! I - I mean, I'm not married so no wife, or girlfriend currently. Actually. I. …Heh." he lifted his hand to rub at the back of his head in an adorably bashful motion.

"Oh. Then who are these for?" Aerith couldn't help the teasing lit to her voice and the smile pulling at her lips.

"The flowers are actually for my ma." he said with a smile that warmed her right down to her toes, "She's here visiting from Gongaga. Being in SOLDIER, we really don't get much time off so I didn't have time to go visit so her and my dad decided to stop by instead. So, when I saw those flowers, I knew I had to get her some. Me and her actually used to grow some that looked a lot like that when I was a kid but they didn't handle the jungle weather too well so they always died off." he finished with a shrug and all the trepidation at this man and his intentions, regardless of his profession and employer, faded away instantly.

"That's really very sweet," Aerith said genuinely, "I bet she'll love them."

The SOLDIER smiled bashfully at her compliment and let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his head again. Damn, he was just too cute. Incredibly handsome and cute as hell - a deadly combination. And just like that, he'd became almost distracting as she forcefully pulled her eyes away from him.

Aerith gathered the prettiest flowers together, arranging them in a bunch before she finished by tying the beautiful bouquet together with a pink ribbon she cut from the spool located at the bottom of the basket.

"All finished! Here you go," Aerith presented the bouquet to him with a flourish.

The man smiled as he reached for the flowers and a tingle went from the top of her head to the bottom of her heels when the leather of his glove brushed her hand. To have such a visceral reaction without even skin to skin contact was nearly electrifying - who was this man and why was he making her feel this way? It was as if she was basking in a fire yet plunged into an icy bath at the same time. Such a dichotomy of emotions she could hardly articulate yet the feeling was already addicting.

"Thanks so much! I really appreciate it." he said with a beaming smile that put the sun to shame with its illumination and sheer warmth. "Hope you have a good night and maybe I'll see you around." With a lazy salute and other arm cradling the precious bouquet to his broad chest, the man turned around and began walking away with a confident stride.

The clamoring voices, sounds of cars and the life around her she hadn't even heard suddenly blared in her ears. How lost she had been in that man's orbit…and she never even got to know his name…

A sudden fear overtook her and it wasn't one of the sky threatening to swallow her whole. Like the Planet was screaming and pulling her tightly to this tether that he rested at the other end.

A deep rooted fear that if she let him leave, she may never see him again.

She couldn't let that happen…

Feeling brave and finally obeying the pull of her heart as it reached for him, she called out, "Wait!"

The man immediately halted in his tracks as Aerith stepped forward to close the distance between them. Heart pounding and palms sweating yet she refused to show anything but a smile and cool confidence even if all the things she'd been taught about Shinra and all who worked for it were ignored in that beautiful face and bright blue eyes looking at her with genuine intrigue.

"You forgot this. Here." Aerith's hands were trembling as she reached out and slipped a single yellow lily into the strap of his SOLDIER armor. The golden flower against the slate black of his First Class Turtleneck made a beautiful contrast much like his black hair and intense blue eyes. "On the house."

Aerith's heart pounded, her palms sweating yet she dared not look away from his eyes.

The varying emotions as he looked at the flower than back to her face filled her chest with a strange form of trepidation and excitement. The world grew quiet again - like they were the only two people on the Planet. The very Planet and its voice a gentle, satisfied hum echoing in her heart as she watched the SOLDIER's enchanting blue eyes light up and he flashed her a crooked smile. He didn't even appeared bothered or ashamed of the gentle hint of coral blush staining his cheeks knowing the apples of her own were probably painted cherry red.

"Thanks," his voice was like a melody she never wanted to hear the end of.

"You're welcome. It suits you," Aerith smiled softly, her heart leaping as she watched him suddenly reach out a hand to her.

The man smiled. "I'm Zack," he introduced himself and the name struck something in her. Like she'd heard it for the first time out of a million more. Like she'd already known it and it echoed on the cusp of her tongue.

"Hi, Zack. I'm Aerith," she replied, gently grasping at his warm hand. The world continued around them and yet it felt as if nothing yet everything had changed as he gently gripped her hand and shook it.

Zack smiled, his eyes sparkling as he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time yet there was a familiarity in that gaze he didn't bother hiding, "It's nice to meet you…" he said before chuckling when he realized he hadn't stopped shaking her hand. He gently let it go and Aerith reluctantly let him and grasped the handle of her flower basket instead of latching on to his hand never to let go.

What was happening to her?

"Hey, uh. I was wondering. I-If you're not busy some time next week - would you let me buy you a coffee?" he asked.

Aerith let a teasing smile lift the corners of her mouth, "No."

Shock filled Zack's face, his expression looked like a kicked puppy for only a second before Aerith chimed in again with a sunny smile.

"I actually don't drink coffee, but you could buy me a cup of hot cocoa or tea."

Zack's face lit up again like it was Yule morning. White teeth greeting her between tempting lips as he replied, "Really? Awesome! S-Sure. I could even get you both!" he said excitedly and Aerith didn't bother holding back a giggle at his eagerness. He was so damn adorable.

Aerith flashed him a coy smile. "I guess it's a date.

"I can't wait," Zack replied with a wink before pulling out his PHS and handing it to her. Aerith's palms tingled as he placed the phone in her hand so she could type in her number and leaving her name with a flower emoji after it.

"So you won't forget who I am," she said while handing it back.

Zack looked down at what she'd typed and flashed her a heart-stopping grin, "You don't ever have to worry about that."

"Oh stop it, you!" Aerith giggled, face flaming as she pushed at his shoulder and although it was akin to moving a house, he allowed her anyway. His laughter as beautiful as church bells ringing on a bright Sunday morning. Everything about him nearly took her breath straight out of her lungs in the best way possible.

Zack chuckled but his eyes caught the time on his PHS and his eyes grew wide, "Dammit, I gotta go! My parents are waiting at the restaurant. But um, I'll call you so we can plan out when to meet next week, 'kay?" Zack said.

"I can't wait," she rehashed his previous words back to him. Zack smiled, turning around and giving her a lazy salute, he took off faster than she'd expected, even from a SOLDIER. He soon disappeared into the bustling crowd and left her standing in the street feeling as if the world came back into focus.

It felt as if nothing yet everything changed with that single interaction. There was still a crowd of people milling about, the too loud conversations, the music blaring from nearby restaurants and shops, people still bumped into her occasionally yet it didn't bother her… not even the sky above did.

Looking up, Aerith glanced into the dark night now free of clouds and all she saw was the dark blue and violet of his eyes, the flecks of mako from the reactors leaving streaks of green like the ring around his iris.

No, that wasn't so scary anymore…

Aerith's PHS suddenly buzzed in her pocket with an unknown number on the screen. A smile overtaking her face as she read the message inside.

"Hey its Zack! Thanks again for the flowers! my ma did love them btw. Ill text you my schedule when I get it 2maro so we can set a date. Have a goodnight. ;-) " it read and Aerith couldn't help but smile.

It was strange. She'd just met him yet she felt as if she'd known him her whole life already or even every lifetime. A feeling of rightness settling deep in her chest as she put her flower basket on her arm before writing him back, "I knew she would! Moms always love flowers. They're a perfect gift! Have a nice time with your parents. Yes, please let me know when you're free. I'm looking forward to it, Zack. You have a good night too." before she could second guess herself, she pressed send.

Placing the PHS back in her pocket, Aerith glanced back up at the sky and instead of fear, she smiled instead.

There was a warmth in her chest. A warm fuzzy flickering fire resting comfortably underneath her sternum as she took in the sky that reminded her of his eyes.

It was way too soon to tell, and Aerith had never known what it was like to be in love, but she imagined it felt a lot like this…

#zack fair #aerith gainsbrough #zack x aerith #zerith #zerith week #zerith week 2023 #love at first sight #fanfiction #zerith fanfiction

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billnoncipher · 2 years

Text

Wendip Week 2022: Eight Stories

by William Easley

Though these stories sometimes share elements with my customary AU, they really aren't canon to that series. Each was written as a response to a prompt (the story title) and the conditions were that each story had to be set in 2022 and in some way deal with the past in GF.

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Story 1: On 4 Wheels

Who hasn't dreamed of a road trip with someone they love?

Chapter Text

1-On 4 Wheels

(June 2022)

Returning to Gravity Falls after four years of college felt weird. Well, weirder than normal. Dipper, now twenty-two, had last been here the winter when he was twenty. It was just a short visit, squeezed into the long MLK weekend, and he hadn't even stayed in the Shack that time. He only spent one night and then he returned to California and college the next day after Stanley Pines's funeral.

Now, two years and a few months later, he stepped off the Speedy Beaver bus and saw Soos waving at him and giving him his big buck-toothed grin. Around him were kids, a boy who was seven, a girl who was five, another girl who was three. The baby boy was, Dipper assumed, back home with Melody.

"Hiya, dude!" Soos said, cheerfully hefting Dipper's suitcase. "Mabel didn't come with?"

"No," Dipper said with a smile as they climbed into Soos's car. The three-year-old they fastened into the baby seat and the other two were big enough to wear grown-up seat belts. "No, Mabel's wedding is coming up at the end of the month, and you know her. She's deep into planning. She and her new husband plan to honeymoon here, though."

"Sweet!" Soos said. "Uh, mind if I make a short detour?"

"Go ahead," Dipper said. "You're the boss."

"Yeah," Soos said a little sadly.

They stopped at the Catholic church, where Soos showed Dipper a little memorial in the cemetery. "Abuelita's not really here," Soos explained. "She's buried in Mexico in her family's cemetery. But we did this, like, memorial to her. OK, kids, say your prayers."

The little ones clustered around the memorial stone and murmured, "Eternal rest grant unto our Abuelita, Lord, and let eternal light shine upon her." Soos joined in. Then he said, "Good job, kids. Now Abuelita lives with the angels."

From the church they drove straight to the Shack. It was open for business, and Soos said as they got out, "Dude, I have to go be Mr. Mystery. Is your old attic room OK? We, like, cleaned it and all."

"I wouldn't want to stay anywhere else," Dipper told him. They went in by the back way and Dipper carried his suitcase up the stairs and to the attic. The room was a lot neater than it had been the first year he and his sister had shared it, and the beds looked new. Dipper didn't unpack, but he set his bag and backpack down and smiled wistfully at the other bed across the way, still the old one. "Check out all my splinters," he murmured.

He washed his face in the upstairs bathroom and opened his backpack to dig out his old pine-tree cap, a little faded now. Later, he promised himself, he'd go into the gift shop, maybe buy a new trucker's hat if they still sold them, and visit. Not yet. He wasn't up to that yet. A little walk first would do him good.

He left quietly, forcing himself not even to glance into the gift shop. Wendy wouldn't be there, anyway, She had left the Valley, gone to college, then wound up, last he heard, in Portland. She had always wanted to move there some day. He had not heard from her for two years, except for Christmas cards.

Too late to regret, too early to remember.

First he paused at a small, fenced-in spot within view of the Shack. A single grave was there, with a stone for Stanley Filbrick Pines. The inscription beneath was a Psalm in both Hebrew and English: "He heals the broken heart and binds up the wounds."

"Hi, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said, standing beside the headstone and leaning over to place a pebble on it, one among many. People in town remembered him and visited him often. "I'm back for a while. Mabel's going to come and visit with her new husband later in the summer. Your Pumpkin. I just wanted to say thanks for all you did, and rest in peace. Yeah, I'm still a knucklehead."

That done, Dipper walked down the old familiar Mystery Trail to the spot where he and Wendy had sat on a log and had so many talks over the years. There was that time after the Bunker adventure when she'd let him down so gently. There was the time just before she headed off to college.

He sat down on the log, now softened with moss and decay, and talked aloud to the tall redhead now, though she perched beside him only in imagination. "Here I am," he said. "Back because I don't know anyplace else to go. I'm not going to move back in with Mom and Dad. They deserve their retirement and time together. I've got a little bit of money. Well, a lot of money saved up, 'cause when Grunkle Stan died, nobody knew it, but he had about tour hundred thousand squirreled away from something he'd found up in the Arctic. He sold whatever it was and . . . just banked the money and left half to Mabel, half to me. No estate tax in Oregon on the amount that came to us, so it's in my bank. I haven't touched it."

He imagined her saying, "Really man? He would've wanted you to."

"Yeah, but the thing is—here I am with my degree. Double major in physical sciences and in video production. And no way of getting a toe in the door of any studio. I just realized the morning after graduation how useless that diploma's gonna be. My science degree would allow me to teach high school, but I'd need education courses, and I'm sick of school right now. No idea what to do with the rest of my life. So I'm planning to spend a summer here, go out and look for mysteries and anomalies, and . . . be a hermit, I guess. Everybody I was close to's gone. Stan. Pacifica off somewhere in the East, with her second husband. Even Mabel's friends, Candy and Grenda, moved away. Ford down near Cal Tech in an assisted-living place, writing his memoirs. Gonna be lonesome—"

"Who you talking to, man?"

Dipper nearly jumped out of his skin. He scrambled up. "Wendy!"

She stood on the trail smiling at him. Wendy, now, what, twenty-five? Still looking like a late teen, though, tall and lanky and, oh my God, in a green flannel shirt, jeans, and boots! No trapper's cap, but that long, long red hair, those green eyes, the freckles, and her wonderful, sleepy-eyed, crooked smile. She leaned back a little, her elbows crooked, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

For a long moment he just stood and stared at her, his jaw hanging open. She chuckled. "Hey, I'm gonna hug you, dude, if I won't break you."

She spread her arms and embraced him. Then she stepped back and surveyed him. "You turned out hunky, Dip. Talking to yourself? You sound down, so, friend to friend, tell me what's the matter?"

He shook his head and for a moment could not speak with his throat tight and aching. 'Just—just I've been feeling lost. How'd you find me?"

"Soos told me a couple days ago you'd be coming to visit. I stopped at the Shack a few minutes ago and he said you were out someplace. I kinda guessed you'd wind up here."

"I—oh, Wendy, could we just sit here for a minute or two?"

"Yeah, sit down and scoot over."

She sat beside him. "So you graduated, I guess," she said.

He nodded. "Yeah, few days ago."

She nudged him. "With honors, I bet."

Still feeling dazed by her sudden appearance, he murmured, "Phi Beta Kappa." Then he coughed self-consciously. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I've been workin' over in Portland, hardly anything better than an intern job with a start-up company. No money in it, but I got by. What time is it? Early, but have you had lunch?"

"No, early, like you say. I took the bus up from Piedmont, so, uh. No real breakfast, either."

"Brunch!" she said. "Bus, huh? No wheels?"

"I'm just a ground-walker," he said with a grin.

"Soos will let us borrow his Jeep, I bet."

He did. They could have gone out of the Valley to an upscale restaurant, but for old times' sake—Greasy's Diner. It was early for lunch, late for breakfast, but hey, it was Greasy's. They had pancakes and scrambled eggs, coffee and OJ.

And they caught up. "So what are you up to this summer, Dipper?"

"Not much. Just sort of . . . winding down after college. Wondering what to do with my life and not coming up with any answers. How about you?"

"I got exciting plans for the summer. See, I just recently landed a new job. I mean, a good-paying one!"

"Great," Dipper said. "What?"

"I'm gonna be a TV star," she said. Then, grinning at his surprised, delighted reaction, she shrugged. "Well, I'm gonna host an Internet series, anyhow. At least for the next year. I'm supposed to start next week, and then I'll be on the road for a full twelve months."

"Doing what?" Dipper asked.

"Traveling all over the country. Everywhere except Hawaii, 'cause I can't drive there! But for a start, I'm going to drive up to Alaska and do travel shows on interesting, out-of-the-way small towns and little-known wilderness places all over the USA. One hour-long show every week for forty-nine weeks, one from every state in the continental United States."

"Wow, sounds exciting," Dipper said.

"Yeah, just me and my crew. A writer-camera operator-editor-computer person."

"All in one?" Dipper asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe. Haven't hired them yet. By the way, got an invitation to Mabel's wedding. Typical of her to have it in the Shack! I figure I can come to Gravity Falls that week, record the Oregon show, and kill two birds." She took a long, slow sip of coffee. Then, a little too casually, she asked, "How about you, Dip? Wedding bells in your future?"

He shook his head. "I don't have, uh, plans."

"Yeah," she said, nodding sympathetically, "I know. Mabel and I kept in touch, and she told me you didn't have great luck in the romance department."

"Zero luck," Dipper admitted. "How about you?"

"Nothing crucial," she said. "Sorta in between right now. Never met the right guy. Ready to go back to the Shack? I'd like to show you something."

They drove back to the Shack and Wendy returned the Jeep keys to Soos. Then she led Dipper out to the parking lot and to a remote corner. With a broad grin,

Wendy said, "There she is, my new honey. Want the grand tour?"

"Wow," Dipper said. He was looking at a cream-colored RV, over twenty feet long. "This is yours?"

"Well, for now it's the company's," Wendy said. "But I got the use of it for the next year, and then if the show does OK, they may let me buy it for cheap. I'm gonna put the miles on it, doing the video series."

She opened it up, and she and Dipper stepped inside. The compact space looked amazingly efficient: a tiny toilet with a shower and folding sink, a galley with a two-burner stove and microwave, pantry already stocked, little fridge, fold-down table, and all the way in back a bed.

"This is so cool. I'm happy for you," Dipper said.

"Get this." She sat in the driver's seat, turned on the ignition, and moved a control. Dipper heard a low-pitched hum and looked back. About a third of the RV space was moving, stretching out to the left of the driver's seat. "Slide-out. Gives more room. That's supposed to be a single bed, but it's been redone as a work station—digital editing and all that biz."

"Cool!"

"Sit down, Dipper. Wait, I'm gonna slide in the bonus space." She reversed the control, and the extension glided back. The engine purred. Not looking at him, her hands on the wheel, Wendy said, "Yeah, it's cool, but there's still a detail to work out. Gotta hire my crew. Any suggestions?"

"I don't know anybody in town now," Dipper said.

"Well, I got my eye on someone," Wendy said.

"Who?

She laughed. "You, doofus!"

"Uh—"

"Look," Wendy said softly, still not meeting his gaze, "I'm not too old for you now. And as I watched you back over the summers, I kept thinking I needed to give you another chance. Spent a lot of time thinking about you, Dipper. Did you ever think about me? About us?"

Dipper felt his face glowing red-hot, and his tongue tangled. "Um, think? You? I—I, uh. All the time!" he blurted at last. "Like twenty-four hours a day, every day. Uh, sorry. I—I didn't mean to, um—confess, because you know, um, friends—"

She turned toward him and put a finger against his lips to stop him. "I want you, Dipper. It's totally up to you. How about it, man?"

Dipper's mouth still wasn't making words very well: "Are uh, Wendy, are you asking me to—"

"To be my partner." Now she was looking at him, her eyes warm and dreamy. "Writing scripts, shooting video, editing, the computer biz—you got that all knocked, Dipper. I want you if you want the work. You won't get rich, but there's a salary and we get a good per diem for food and so on. Are you willing to go on a road trip with me?"

"For the whole year?" Dipper asked, wondering if he'd fallen asleep on the log and was dreaming. He bit his tongue. Ouch. This was all real.

For the first time Wendy's green eyes looked vulnerable, uncertain. "For a whole year. Or, really, for as long as, uh, you know. You can tell me if you don't want to—"

"I want to!" he blurted. "Oh, God, Wendy, I always—this is—but I don't have a car. I've got some money, I could buy—"

"You don't need a car," Wendy said, visibly relaxing. "We'll travel in the RV. Everywhere. Together. Get it?"

"Yes," he said. "I—thank you, Wendy, this is—I think—I think I'm happy!"

"Good for you," she said, standing. "You get up, too. Now put your arms around me. I'm happy, too. Like I said, I've been thinking about you. About us. So kiss me."

They kissed.

Then she looked him in the eye—he was as tall as she was now. Frowning a little, she said, "One thing, though. I mean, we're partners, that's settled. We'll do the contract stuff tomorrow or the next day, no big rush. I'm happy, too, but we got a problem, man."

"What?" he asked.

She whispered in his ear, "There's only one bed."

"Oh, well—uh."

She playfully nipped his ear. "We'll have to see if we can make it do."

So she drove the RV to a private spot.

They discovered that the bed would do very well.

***************

Story 2: Movies & Chill

Sometimes it's fun to rekindle customs we've grown out of....

****************

The run-up to winter of 2022 proved to be unusually cold and snowy in Gravity Falls. Climate change or whatever, for a while Dipper didn't think he and Mabel would be able to make it through the icy passes and the winding, snow-blowy roads, but somehow or other, they finally rolled through the entrance to the Valley and Mabel said, "We could've made it faster if I wa

"Well, yeah," Dipper agreed, "only I wanted to get us here alive."

"Oh, if you want to get technical . . . looks like everything downtown's closed." That was true. It wasn't all that late, but the sky was low and gray and the stores showed nothing but security lights.

"What do you expect?" Dipper asked. "Past six o'clock, and more snow's coming in. If we can get up the hill to the Shack I'll be happy."

"You have your key, don't you?"

"Yes. For the fifteenth time."

"Watch it, Brobro. Little slippery there!"

"I may park at the bottom of the drive," Dipper said. "I doubt if the snowplow cleared it out, with the Shack closed for the winter."

The snowplow had not cleared the drive, and a good six inches of snow coated it, but very carefully, and sometimes backsliding, Dipper urged the car up into the driveway. "Made it! Thank God for snow tires!"

"It's a winter wonderland!" The Shack and the trees around it wore a white coat of snow. The place stood dark—Soos and his family were down in Mexico, visiting relatives—and Dipper unlocked the gift-shop door and lugged suitcases in while Mabel built a snowman.

By the time Dipper had stored the luggage, the snowman was already seven feet tall. "I'm gonna make a snow Manotaur!" Mabel announced.

"Sis, just let it go!" Dipper pleaded.

She didn't finish the sculpture, but came in some minutes later, her nose red and snow on the shoulders of her quilted jacket. "Toasty warm in here!" she said.

"Yeah, strange, there was a fire in the fireplace. I mean, it had burned down to embers, but usually Grunkle Stan wouldn't leave an unattended fire going."

"Soos, then."

"No, they've been gone since the first of the month. Who are you calling?"

"Pacifica, doy! I told her I'd check in—oh, hey, girl, it's me, Mabel! Guess what? Dipper didn't kill us, and we're in the Mystery Shack." Mabel laughed. "I'd love to, but it's way too wintry for me to—what? Really? Heck, yeah, I'd love that! OK, see you soon!"

"Pacifica's driving over here?" Dipper asked. "In this blizzard?"

"Just wait and see, ye Dipper of little faith," Mabel replied smugly. "I gotta pack for a sleepover. Sorry you're not invited. Candy's already there, and Paz is coming to give me a lift."

"I don't think you should try to drive," Dipper said. "It's already pretty dark."

"Tosh and tush," Mabel said. "I gotta move stuff from my suitcase to my backpack!"

Half an hour later, it truly was dark outside, and Dipper was debating putting his foot down about Mabel's going out when he heard the roar of an engine outside. "There she is!" Mabel yelled, dashing to the gift shop. Dipper followed.

A light glared into the window, and when he opened the door, he saw Pacifica at the wheel of what looked like a small bright-yellow pickup on treads. "She's got a Snow-Kat?" Dipper asked.

"Every girl should have one! Button up the Shack and stay warm, Brobro! I'll see you after the thaw!" Mabel went out into noticeably deeper snow, past the incomplete snowmanotaur, and yelled, "Cool ride, Paz! Can I drive?"

Dipper didn't want to see the result if Pacifica gave her permission. He closed the door and, shaking his head, started back toward the kitchen. Soos had left some food in the freezer and in the cabinets, and he was getting—

Someone pounded on the door. Dipper rolled his eyes. "Oh, great, what did she forget?" He went back to the gift shop, but when he opened the door—

"Hiya, dork!" said Wendy. She was all bundled up in a red thigh-length padded jacket and had the earflaps of her trapper's hat down over her ears. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah!" he said. "God, it's good to see you! How was college?"

"Got through in five years," she said cheerfully. "I'm working for my Dad until I can get a place with the forestry department or some biz. Pacifica gave me a ride over. How are you?"

"Got through college in four years," Dipper said with a grin. "Now I've got this degree and I'm still looking for a job. Hey, have you eaten?"

"Nope, got any food?"

"Let's see."

Not too shabby. They found some frozen steak, cans of tomatoes and beans, and spices, so Wendy whipped up a big pot of chili. "Dad and the boys are off on their annual apocalypse training," she said as the food simmered, smelling delicious. "I'm not much for sleepovers nowadays, so I thought I'd come and bum the sofa off of you for the night."

"Sure," he said.

As they ate—it was deliciously spicy for such a cold winter night—Dipper asked, "Are you, um, never mind."

"Not dating," she said. "I've had way too many short-term boyfriends, so I'm giving it a rest. You?"

He shook his head. "Nothing serious."

"How was the fire when you got here?"

"I just never met—wait, what? Fire?"

"Yeah, man! I knew how cold it was gonna be, so I stopped by and started just as small welcome fire before driving over to Pacifica's. I knew she had the Snow-Kat, and I was startin' to wonder if you guys would get stuck on the way. By the time Mabes called, I didn't want to risk driving my pickup over, so I hitched with Paz. And now here we are, and if the weatherman's right, here we're probably going to stay for two days, maybe three."

"Great," Dipper said. "Uh, that's not, not, sarcastic. I mean, it's really great!"

They were just a little awkward around each other. It had been two years since they'd seen one another in person. But soon they were joking around and reminiscing about the time when Dipper had cloned himself, the time when Robbie had tried to hypnotize Wendy, the time they had parachuted into Bill Cipher's lair—

At nine, Wendy stretched and said, "Dude, the local station's old-time horror show is coming on. Wanna watch, for old time's sake?"

"Sure!"

"How 'bout bringing down some pillows and a couple of blankets?" she asked. "This kind of cold, the fireplace doesn't cut it at keeping things comfy."

He did, and meanwhile she turned on the big flat-screen TV that Soos had bought to replace Stan's worn-out model. They improvised a nest on the floor, lots of blankets, then the pillows, then themselves, and finally two more blankets.

He chuckled. "I've heard of movies and chilling, but this is the real deal."

On the screen, the weather lady was saying dire things: "Buckle up, Gravity Falls! The low for tonight will hit the single digits, and by tomorrow an estimated two feet of snow will have fallen. Don't look for any melting tomorrow, because the high is going to be only twenty degrees. Stay inside and stay warm and safe. We want to keep all our viewers! Now stay tuned for the Friday Night Frights!

"They haven't even changed the title card," Dipper said.

"Same one I remember," Wendy agreed. "I'm cold, man. Mind if I snuggle?"

"Snuggle away," he said.

The crummy old movie began, in a kind of color—faded—as the music went into would-be eerie chords, dum DUM da DEEEE.

The title came up against a midwinter landscape of mountains and forest: The Invasion of the Abominables!

"Copyright MCMLVII?" Wendy said, reading from the screen.

"That's 1957," Dipper translated.

A somber-sounding announcer said, "This . . . is the top of the world! The Himalaya mountains! Tibet!"

"Early Tibet and early to rise," Wendy murmured.

"Here the lamas, priests who keep mysterious ancient secrets, perform rituals that they learned from their parents to keep . . . eerie beings at bay!"

"The lama's mama taught him," Dipper said.

"Who wants a llama, llama," Wendy crooned.

"Stop it!" Dipper scolded, but he was laughing.

"Man, I hope you don't mind this—"

Dipper screeched. "Your hands are like ice!"

She had slipped her palms inside his shirt, undershirt even, and against his bare skin. "Yeah, but your chest will warm them up. Who's this guy?"

On screen, a man who had to be a scientist, because he wore a white lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses, sat at a desk in what looked like the corner of a disused warehouse and picked up a ringing phone with a long spring-like cord. "Hello," he said. "This is Doctor Thornwright speaking. Yes, Operator, put him through."

A reverse shot showed another man in some kind of military uniform, sitting at what looked like the identical desk, except he was in an office setting with a window through which one could see a huge photograph of the U. S. Capitol posing as the real thing. "Thornwright!" the man said. "This is General Dismay of the U.S. Air Force, calling from my office in Washington, D.C. I know you're no longer in service, but I want you to do a great favor for your Uncle Sam!"

"Sammy needs his beard trimmed, and you have some scissors," Wendy said in an imitation of the General's voice.

"Why, sir, what could that be?" asked Doctor Thornwright.

"This is to be kept ultra extreme top secret, Thornwright. We've received reliable reports of suspicious activity in Tibet. The top of the world. The Himalayas, in fact. It seems as if . . . they have been spotted again!"

"Leopards?" Dipper answered for Thornwright. "Sir, they're always spotted!"

But the movie guy said, "Then this is the research opportunity I've been hoping for! At last I can prove my alternate theory of evolution is true. General, I'll take the assignment, with one provision!"

"What's that, son?"

"I'll need my personal assistant to come along to keep notes!"

"Right, Doctor, I keep forgetting you don't know how to read or write," Wendy said.

But the General's line was, "Sure thing, Thornwright. What's his name?"

"Her name," Thornwright corrected. "He's a she, and she's my personal research assistant, Dr. Joan Swiffle. She holds a PhD in assistantology."

"Your hands warm now?" Dipper asked Wendy.

"Getting there, man. You mind?"

"Well, you're kind of stroking my chest."

"Yeah, you got abs now. Does this bother you?"

"I wouldn't say that."

They kissed, just one peck, but then another more slowly and more intimate. They lost track of the movie for a few minutes.

A scene or two later, Doctor Swiffle, the doctor's personal assistant, was boarding an Air Force plane with her boss. Joan Swiffle was blonde with artificially arched eyebrows and very red lips, and she had two outstanding features.

"Is she wearing a bra or two ice-cream cones?" Wendy asked, now pressed close to Dipper under the blanket. "Were girls shaped different back then?"

Dipper felt a little short of breath. "I think the pointy look was sort of fashionable back then."

"Does it do anything for you, man?"

"No, I prefer a natural look."

The movie, with incredible speed, became boring. There seemed to be endless shots of snowy landscapes with something happening just on the edge of the screen, lots of stock footage of mountain climbers against snowy peaks, but no Abominables showed up in focus.

At one point, after the fourth commercial, the screen showed one of those fakey binocular views of a row of figures plodding across a snowy slope. But the highest magnification merely revealed a very blurred image of what could be a guy's face wearing a white gorilla mask.

Dipper tried to sound like a wise old Jedi: "The Snow People always march in single file to conceal their number. Which is 'one.' There's only one costume, you see."

The scientist cursed his luck. He had a state-of-the-1940s-art camera with a telephoto lens (it looked like the spool from a roll of toilet paper spray-painted black) and missed his shot because—"Film! I should have thought to bring film!"

"He should've brought like seventeen cameras!" Dipper said. "Annnd we're back to long pans over a cloudy sky and a row of snowy mountains. Same ones as before. Are you as fed up with this movie as I am?"

"Mm-hm," said Wendy. She reached for the remote and clicked them into darkness. "So blah it's not even funny." She did something involving a lot of wriggling under the covers and then rolled onto to her left side, resting her right thigh over Dipper's. "Sure is dark."

The fire in the next room leaked only a soft reddish glow through the doorway. "Sure is," Dipper said, feeling her breath warm on his cheeks. "Getting colder too."

Her hands again, gliding over his skin beneath his shirt. And then down to his waist. She tugged a little and he felt his belt loosen. "Not so cold under the blankets," she whispered.

As her hand sneaked inside the waist of his jeans and lower, he gulped. "This is great, but do you feel, uh, comfortable here in the dark?"

"I'm feeling something," she said in a husky voice, and she sure was. "I can tell you like this."

"Yeahhh," he replied. This seemed like a dream he'd had before. I don't want to wake up!

She felt so warm against him. He put an arm around her shoulders and to his surprise felt her bare back. "Yeah," she said comfortably. "Took off my shirt and stuff. Do you mind?"

He had involuntarily jerked his hand away. "No," he said, beginning to stroke her soft, smooth skin. "I don't mind at unnhhh—"

"Dipper," Wendy murmured right in his ear, "can I ask you something?"

"Uh, s-sure," Dipper said.

She reached for his wrist. "Are your hands . . . cold?" she whispered.

"A, uh, a little."

"I was hoping they were. Put 'em on these. Yeah, nice. Let's warm 'em up."

The movie, forget it.

Chilling, now, chilling was much more entertaining.

******************

Story 3: Friends to Lovers

“I hate it when guys fight!”

******************

When Dipper returned to the Mystery Shack in June, 2022, the first person he looked for was Wendy. He was disappointed.

"She's takin' some time off, dude," Soos explained. "Like a mental health day. She's had honkin' big problems."

"She never said anything to me," Dipper said, worrying. They still texted two or three times every week, had phone conversations at least once a month. "What's the problem?"

Soos looked apologetic. "Um, she, like keeps that secret, Dip. I'm not sure, but I think it's some b-o-y-f-r-i-e-n-d problem."

"That spells "boyfriend," said Soos's seven-year old daughter.

That made even a concerned Dipper smile. "Next time, Soos, spell it 'aneqhdmc.'"

"That's no good," the seven-year-old said without even looking up from the game she was playing on her tablet. "Just a minus-one Caesar cipher. Too easy."'

"She's even smarter than I am," Soos confided.

Mabel had checked in at the Shack as soon as they rolled in at sunrise that morning and then had taken off immediately because Marius and Grenda were in town and had invited her out for a day of royal dining and entertainment outside the Valley. She had borrowed Dipper's car, so in turn Dipper borrowed Soos's Jeep. "I'm going to run over to Wendy's house and see if she's OK," he told Soos.

"Tell her that her job is safe!" Soos said. "Also warn her to check inside her boots before she puts 'em on in the morning. Scorpions, dude!"

The drive to the Corduroy house was only about five miles, but it took Dipper longer than it would have had he been used to driving a straight-shift vehicle. He got the gear-grinding down to a minimum, though, and at a little after nine he turned off the road and onto the winding drive that led downhill to Wendy's home.

Dan's pickup wasn't parked there. Wendy's car, a ten-year-old Hideo Traxxer, stood in front of the house, but—Dipper saw as he got out of the Jeep—it had been in a wreck. Or something. The windshield was broken out, clumps of laminated glass fragments gleaming across the hood like spilled diamonds under a cloudy sky, and both headlights had been shattered, too. The hood itself held a half-dozen deep, concave dents as if a blacksmith had been working it over with a sledgehammer.

Dipper hurried to the front door and knocked.

"Go away!" Wendy yelled from inside, sounding angry.

"Wendy! Open the door!"

"Smoke, I don't want to talk to you! Go away!" Furious, no doubt about it. Wendy was yelling so loud her voice broke.

A little louder himself this time, Dipper yelled, "It's me, Dipper. There's nobody else out here."

The door opened then, just a crack, and one green eye peered out at him. "Dipper! I didn't think you'd be back in town until tomorrow," Wendy said, at first excited. But she went back to frustration and barely-controlled rage. "Go back to the Mystery Shack, and tell Soos I'll come in to work tomorrow morning."

"Wait, Wendy, please let me in," Dipper said. "Something's wrong. You can tell me about it. We're friends, remember?"

For a long few seconds, Wendy hesitated. Finally, with a sigh, she stepped back and opened the door. "Come on in. Excuse the mess."

He stepped in, blinking. She wasn't wrong. The place was a mess—but a closer look told him that most of the clutter comprised Wendy's clothes, jeans and shirts and bras and underwear, scattered all over the floor and furniture, many of them torn. A lamp had been knocked off a table and lay with its shade all crumpled on one side. The TV screen had been cracked. The coffee table was lying with four legs in the air, like roadkill furniture. "What happened?" Dipper asked.

"Smoke Krissell happened," she said wearily. Carefully, Wendy locked, dead-bolted, and chained the front door. She brushed her hair back out of her eyes. "His real name's Stewart, but everybody calls him Smoke. Used to play high-school football. We've had one date, and it wasn't fun. Soon as Dad left for work this morning Smoke came to the door and wanted to take me out right then and I said no, I had to work, and he got out of hand."

"Do you have a black eye?" Dipper asked, peering at her.

She touched her left cheek. "Do I? Maybe. Smoke slapped me pretty hard. He's got two shiners himself, though. I chased him off."

"Wait, who is this guy?"

She sighed. "Help me pick up this stuff and tidy the house, much as we can. I'll need to wash my clothes and maybe mend what I can and toss the rest. I got a basket here somewhere."

Two of Wendy's shirts were ripped in half, good for nothing but cleaning rags now. Her jeans were all in one piece. At least four pairs of her underwear had been shredded—"Did he use a knife?" Dipper asked.

"Don't think so, just his hands and teeth. After I turned him down, I was just standing in the doorway, waiting until he finished screamin' at me and callin' me names to tell him off. He got real mad 'cause I wouldn't flinch or say anything and slapped me so hard he made me fall on my butt, and he bulled inside the house and tried to grab me, but I got away and wouldn't let him touch me. I had my laundry in the basket, 'cause I was taking it to the washing machine, and he grabbed the basket off the floor and spilled everything out and started to rip stuff up. I tried to pull it away from him, and he popped me another one that made me see stars and fall to my knees, so I got up, shook it off, and beat his ass and kicked him out."

"Did he vandalize your car?"

Wendy sighed and nodded. "Yeah, while I was runnin' to the back porch to grab an axe. I got back to the front door just in time to see him drive off. Dammit, it's gonna cost a bundle to fix the Traxxer."

They rounded up all the undamaged clothing and righted the coffee table and lamp. The TV buzzed, but no picture appeared, so she shut it off. Wendy settled onto the sofa with a groan. "My eye swollen?" She switched on the lamp, popped the shade into roughly the right shape, and turned toward him.

Dipper leaned close. "A little. Want an ice pack?"

"That would be sweet," Wendy said. "You know where the fridge is."

Dipper went to the kitchen, popped out a half-dozen ice cubes, put them in a plastic bag and wrapped that with a face cloth. Then something from the living room sounded like an explosion. A muffled, furious male voice bellowed, "Who the hell you got in there with you, slut? Who's Jeep is this? I'll kill him!"

"Go away, Smoke!" Wendy yelled.

Dipper hurried back to her and handed her the ice bag.

Somebody kicked the door, hard.

"Oh, hell, he's gonna bust in," Wendy said, starting to rise.

With a splintering crash, the latch plate broke free, the chain ripped the holder out of the frame, and the door banged all the way open, and a burly skinhead guy in a black tee-shirt and jeans charged in, glaring through two purpling, bloodshot eyes. "Get away from my girl, runt!" he yelled. When he shook his fist, Dipper saw he wore what Grunkle Stan called knuckle dusters.

"Lay off, Smoke! He's not my boyfriend!" Wendy said, pushing past Dipper.

"I'm gonna trash him and then teach you a lesson, bitch!" he shouted, spit flying.

"He's just a friend! And I don't want to see you anymore, Smoke! Get out of my house!" She shoved his chest.

He slapped her so hard she spun and fell face-forward.

Later Dipper couldn't even remember the next few minutes.

Wendy, while they waited for the ambulance, told him, "I never saw anything like it, Dip. I mean, you know those cartoons where the Tasmanian Devil turns into like a whirlwind of claws and teeth? That was you, man. You plowed right into old Smokey and drove him out on the porch. He landed a good one on you, but, man, you didn't even pause, kicked him in the groin and doubled him over, then got his face hard with your knee—that's where the blood on your jeans came from, his nose—he falls backward off the porch, hard, knocks the wind out of him, and next thing I know, he's laying on his back, arms spread out, and you're sitting on his chest and just pounding left and right and yelling, 'She's-my-friend-you-BASTARD!' When I pulled you off, he was like out of it." She tilted her head. "I hear the sirens."

The EMT guys said it looked like Krissell was just unconscious, maybe a mild concussion. Blubs and Durland showed up and took statements from Wendy and Dipper and got video from the security camera Manly Dan had installed a year or so earlier. The recordings showed Krissell on both visits, and even included his pounding on Wendy's car with a breadloaf-sized rock.

Durland went back to the patrol car, radioed somebody, and returned with the news, "Checked on his ID. There's warrants out on him for assaultin' a policeman in Portland, domestic abuse of a girlfriend in Seattle, and another one from Washington State for armed robbery. Maybe another one from South Carolina, but they want prints to be sure."

"Take him into custody," Blubs said. "Cuff him."

"Do you want me to read him his rights?"

"Not until he's booked." Blubs glanced over. "And conscious."

One of the EMTs, a no-nonsense woman who reminded Dipper a little bit of Grenda, checked him and Wendy out. Wendy was OK except for bruising. Next the medic probed Dipper's face—"Does that hurt? Do you feel anything grating?" She made him focus his eyes on the bridge of her nose and follow her moving finger side to side. Then she looked at his hands. "Pretty swollen knuckles. Next time, don't punch anything bony so hard. Go for the gut. Make fists. Tighter. Open. Anything catching? Doesn't look like any bones are broken."

While her partner was injecting Krissell, who was beginning to stir and mutter incoherent curses, the EMT finished and said Wendy and Dipper weren't hurt bad enough for treatment and told them to rest, use ice on their bruises, and take ibuprofen for pain.

As the two EMTs loaded Krissell, who was fading again after the injection, into the ambulance, Blubs pushed his hat back. "Looks like he's gonna spend some hospital time before we book him!"

Then he explained to Wendy and Dipper that they wouldn't have to face charges. They had studied the damage he'd done to her car and the house and had already watched Krissell kick in the door and assault Wendy on the video. "In Oregon, what you did to him counts as self-defense," he said. "But later on the prosecutor's gonna want your statements unless this guy pleads out."

Durland would ride along in the ambulance to guard Krissell, now sedated as well as manacled and handcuffed, as the EMTs drove to the hospital. "What'll I do if he comes to and gets violent?" the deputy asked.

Before closing the rear doors, the tough woman EMT said, "Hit him on the head with your flashlight. We wouldn't notice."

The ambulance drove away. Dipper used Wendy's computer to copy the security video and put it on a usb drive for the sheriff. Then Blubs left in the patrol car.

Dipper and Wendy trudged back to the house.

"Damn dirtbag," Wendy said. "Little help, Dipper? We're gonna have to fix this door, dude, before my dad gets home. And anyways, he's going to tear into me about all this damage. I'll have to buy him a new TV set, I guess. He didn't like it that one time I went out with Smoke. I told Smoke that was it, that one date was all. He was so mean and nasty, and he kept touching me until I couldn't stand it. Slapped me and I kneed him where it hurts. That was two days ago. Then this morning he comes around with this crap. Jeeze, I give up on guys!"

They broke out the tools and—mostly Wendy, Dipper's carpentry skills were limited—got the front door properly re-hung, the latch plate replaced and reinforced, and by then it was lunchtime.

"Want to go out for something to eat?" Dipper asked as they sat on the sofa. "I'll drive"

"Your jaw feel all right?" she asked. "No loose teeth?"

He probed with his tongue. No loose teeth. But the whole side of his face was swollen and—ouch!—tender when he touched it. He told her he didn't think anything was broken.

"Your nose is a little bloody," she said.

Dipper took out his handkerchief and dabbed, but the little brownish-red spot of blood was almost dry. He caught Wendy gazing at him with a half-fond, half-amused expression. "What?"

Seriously, she looked into his eyes and asked, "You know what you have to do now, Dipper?"

Alarmed, he asked, "What?"

She made a pistol with her fingers and gave her voice a rasp: "Ya gotta whack Sollozzo and McCluskey, bada-bing!"

"Always The Godfather," Dipper lamented. "Why is it always The Godfather? 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli. Make 'em an offer they can't refuse."

Wendy said quietly, "Hey, Mikey, tell that nice girl you love her."

Dipper winced. "Ouch." It hurt to grin.

"Man, seriously, what is wrong with guys?" Wendy asked, sprawling back on the sofa. "Or is it me? I just have such rotten luck. Every time I think, I could really get to love this one, he immediately turns into a jerk and lets me down. I'm like the world's worst judge of guy's characters. Made up my mind. I'm gonna be a spinster, dude! No more boyfriends for me!"

"What about just a very good friend?" Dipper asked.

She glanced at him with affection. "Well, I dunno. I guess. Yeah, we've been friends a long time. I like you and all, but then you turned into a wildcat or some biz. You know I hate it when guys fight over me!"

"I wasn't fighting what's-his-name, Krissell, over you," Dipper corrected quietly. "I was fighting him because he hurt you." He took a deep breath. "I'd do it again."

Wendy touched his hair on his forehead. "Got a small lump there, too. Well—I gotta admit when you had him down, I came and got a couple of kicks in. The slimeball. Do me a favor and stay with me until Dad comes home and be my witness that it was Smoke who busted up my car and the TV and ruined like half of my clothes?"

"Sure," he told her. "I mean, he could just watch the video—

"Nah, you know Dad. He'd blow his cool before I could get him to sit down and look at it. But if you tell him the story, he'll believe you. Will you do that for me?

"You know I will," he said. "That's what a friend would do."

She didn't want anything to eat, but she did want to talk. She had a small bottle of Motrin, and they each took one. Then as they popped a couple of Pitt's and as they sipped them, for the first time, ever, really, she talked and talked to him about herself. He learned about her rocky love life, every single guy she'd ever seriously dated turning sour on her. In the afternoon, both achy, they sat side by side on the sofa—they'd forgotten about lunch—and she wept silently. "Guys are so rotten. Why couldn't at least one of them," she asked, "be like you?"

The silence stretched out until he said gently, "I'm like me."

Now her face, her freckled cheeks still wet with tears, broke into her lop-sided grin. "Yeah, man, you are, but—I dunno. You and me? You think? I'm too old for you."

"No, you're not," he said, brushing her bruised cheek with a soft touch of his fingers. "You're perfect for me. And I can't lie and tell you that if we get together I'd make our lives a bed of roses or whatever. I've got my college diploma, but no job yet. And I don't have much to offer you. Except—" he took a deep breath. "My friend, I love you. I mean, I'm not just in love with you, I truly love you and always have and always will. There. I've said it for the first time in, what, ten years? Wendy, all I can promise is that no matter what, I'll always love you and I'll never once hurt you or treat you bad, and . . . I'll just go on loving you."

"You're my best friend," she said, running her fingers through his hair, smiling at his Big Dipper birthmark. "A step like that, my kind of luck, it might totally wreck our friendship. But I gotta admit, you're getting that hunky Pines build. And I have a better time goofing with you and Mabel than I've ever had with any of my so-called boyfriends. I'm tempted."

Dipper got off the sofa and dropped to one knee. "Wendy—"

She giggled. "No, no, dude, please don't put me on the spot, not yet. Don't ask me to be your wife."

He dropped his chin and looked at the floor for a few seconds. Then he raised his eyes to meet her gaze. Softly, he asked, "Wendy Corduroy, will you be my lover?"

She gasped, her lips parted, her eyes wide with surprise. Then she got that sleepy look back in them. She leaned forward so her lips were close to his. "I think maybe—yes. And then, if we're OK together," she whispered, "I mean, after we're really sure, will you be my husband?"

Weeks later, Mabel was to call it the world's craziest proposal.

Maybe so, man. Maybe it was.

Like they say, whatever works, works.

And in this case—it worked like a charm.

**************

Story 4: Will You?

Odd how two people can clash off each other, and then one day, boom.

****************

In the Falls, Dipper loved Wendy a lot,

But alas, at those times Wendy did not.

And other times Wendy wanted Dipper to hold,

But at those times, Dipper's feelings ran cold.

*****************

It wasn't the Grinch who fouled up things between Wendy and Dipper, it was sheer bad timing. They were always friends, but friends sometimes quarrel. And the times that Dipper was hopelessly, truly, deeply smitten, Wendy was distracted and just wouldn't be smote. And when Wendy was feeling warmly romantic, fear of having his feelings hurt had made Dipper retreat into his shell and he just wouldn't respond. They usually wound up a summer avoiding each other.

Then the next summer, when Dipper came back to Gravity Falls nursing his bruised feelings, Wendy would see him and sympathize and try to say, "It's OK, dude, I'm ready now."

Dipper being Dipper, he couldn't bring himself to trust her, or more precisely, her feelings. It's awful when you like someone a whole lot but fear they're going to hurt you again, so he'd say "Let's just be friends," and then Wendy would feel like crap, wonder what she had done wrong or what he was misinterpreting, and the next year he was back to loving her and she was all, "No, you're right, we're friends."

Ten years. Well, ten years that summer. Mabel was now a respectable married lady, had been for a month, and was three months pregnant. Yes, the man she married was a stand-up guy, and no, he wasn't a pile of Gnomes. He was quite a big name on the Interwebs, having established a profitable social-media site for teens. She was a clothing designer and consultant, and she could keep doing that until the baby decided to come.

Anyway, Mabel arrived in Gravity Falls for just a short visit in June 2022. Dipper was there for the whole summer, finishing up some investigations for Grunkle Ford, who was older and didn't travel as much as he used to, though he was now publishing best-selling popular books on the paranormal. Ford lived in Piedmont, near the Pines's home. Dipper had, after leaving college, become his Grunkle's ghostwriter (mainly changing Ford's stiff scientific prose into vivid prose) as well as Ford's chief researcher and leg-man.

No, that's not what it means. Of course Dipper liked boobs! Well, yes, he liked Wendy's legs, too, but—I did not say "butt!" It's a noun, not a conjunction! Listen, a leg-man is an employee who goes and does stuff for their more sedentary employer. A private eye's leg-man will interview witnesses, look up documents, stuff like that, freeing the Chief up to use the old brain, confront the villain, and have the hot romances. Not that the popular-science books Ford wrote were that kind of literature.

Anyway Dipper took photos of sap-embalmed dinosaurs, went snorkeling with the real Gobblewonker, recorded Gnome folklore, and other such chores.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, at Mabel's wedding and after, Dipper had lamented that he'd probably never get married himself, because the previous summer Wendy had still been on her friends kick, and now even though he'd be in the Falls all summer, he was planning on being cold and distant so Wendy wouldn't break his heart.

"The path of true love is like a rotten, rutted, washed-out road when the two people driving on it are both knuckleheads." That's William Shakespeare. No, wait, it's Grunkle Stan. He was still living in Gravity Falls, though he was retired, and when Mabel came to him and suggested that it would be nice if Dipper and Wendy could somehow get together, Stan said, "I guess somebody oughta pave over the broken pavements of life and smooth 'em out. OK, I want in on this."

Mabel went to visit Wendy, now working as the office manager for Corduroy Lumber and Timber, LLC. She caught the redhead just as she was getting off work on Friday afternoon.

"Mabel!" Wendy said, grinning.

"Wendy! Don't hug too hard, I'm pregnant!"

"Whoa! Dude! You gotta tell me all about this! Wait, already? You just got married like four weeks ago!"

"Yeah, Mike thought we ought to. Hey, we got a house, and we're gonna put in a nursery, and—I don't want to stand here on the sidewalk. Could we have dinner together or something?"

They went to the Big Swallow, a new-ish restaurant overlooking the lake, and dined on the patio. "I miss this town so much when I'm away," Mabel said. "So how's the job working out?"

Wendy shrugged. "Meh. It'll do for a while. Not gonna be my career, though. At least I'm making enough to have my own place. One of the tourist cabins Dad built. He lets me rent it real cheap."

"You know, Dipper's back in town," Mabel said casually.

"Good," Wendy said in a neutral tone. "Um—how is he?"

"He's good, he's good," Mabel said. "He's investigating some paranormal junk for Grunkle Ford. They're partners now, writing true pop-science stories about the paranormal, and the books are getting a big audience. Dipper's earning pretty decent money. It's all good."

"Tell him I'm glad he's good," Wendy said, sipping from her wine glass.

Mabel sipped her water. No wine for her! At least not for the next six or seven months. "Yeah, well, the thing about it, is Dipper's not good. He's terrible! Wendy, he's so lonely!"

Wendy shrugged. "I'm sorry about that. I mean, we just never connected, but I wish him well."

"You could help him," Mabel said.

"How?" asked Wendy, smiling, but suspiciously.

"Give him hope," Mabel said.

With a sigh, Wendy said, "I've tried over and over. Mabes, he's told me and told me we're just friends, that's all."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but you know Dipper. You can't believe him when he talks about emotions and all. Because he has them but can't understand them!"

Wendy ordered a second glass of white wine, a rarity for her. "I know. But when I'm feeling, you know, romantic about him, I worry that he's gonna brush me off because he's all on eggshells and doesn't want to force me to say something I don't mean or—I don't know."

"He'll come to see you," Mabel said. "You know he will. He can't stay away from you. Do me a big, big favor? When he comes, just say, 'I'm willing to give us a try as a couple. Will you agree?'"

"And he'll say, 'We said we'd just be friends, and I think we ought to stay with that," Wendy replied in a resigned voice. "And I'll get flustered and he'll get mad—we like each other a whole lot, Mabel, but I'm not sure that we'll ever, you know, connect with each other. Love each other." She sighed.

"I've got a reason to ask you," Mabel said.

"What's that?"

"I want my baby to have an aunt."

And at about the same time, Grunkle Stan was having a heart-to-heart with Dipper. "Kid, face it. You know you're in love with Wendy. She knows it. Everybody knows it. Give us all a break. Take her away from all this."

"All what?" Dipper asked. They were eating in Greasy's Diner, and the food wasn't nearly as good as the chateaubriand and chicken cordon bleu that Mabel and Wendy were having. "I mean, I love Gravity Falls! If I could do it, I'd move here full-time. I wouldn't be taking her away from anything."

"Yeah, you would. She don't like workin' for her dad. Fact is, she's miserable! Even miserabler than she was that first summer when she was clerking at the Shack. Look, you got a job with Ford, he sends you all over the place to investigate ghosts and ape men and crip-toed animals. Wendy'd love to travel! And she's an ace photographer and she could do all the illustrations! Ford's got plenty of dough. He'd hire her like that!" He snapped his fingers so loud that all the other diners and the whole staff jerked their heads around to look at him. He grinned and waved. "Still got it!"

Dipper sighed. "Grunkle Stan, I've tried to tell Wendy that I love her. I've even tried to propose. She always cuts me short. Then sometimes she feels sorry for me and says she loves me, but I know she's doing it out of pity—"

"Pity, schmitty," Stan said. "I'm tellin' you, you two could make it work. You gotta just do two things."

"What?" Dipper asked.

"One, trust her. You can. I know you can. Hell, you and her have stood side by side more'n once to face down some spookum! I remember this one time she jumped on a freakin' flyin' eyebat and flew it so it froze one of Bill Cipher's henchmen or henchthing or whatever it was. And I saw your face when she reached for your hand when you guys were standin' on Ford's stupid Zodiac! She says she loves you, trust her!"

"What's the second thing?" Dipper asked.

Stan leaned forward. "It's even more important, Dipper. Trust yourself! Trust your feelings! That fuckin' Journal ruined you, Dipper. 'Trust no one,' Ford wrote. That, that sentence, that's what you shouldn't trust, 'cause it ain't true. You can trust her if you trust you, and then you can, uh, trust each other, and—heck, just tell her you love her and say you'll give it a try and ask her if she's willing, too. I'll bet she will be. When nothing else works, fall back on the truth—"

"Aaggh!" Dipper yelled, flailing his arms.

"What? What is it?" an alarmed Stan asked.

"A possum just jumped on the table and stole my hamburger!"

"Yeah," Stan said. "They'll do that."

Dipper knew where Wendy was renting a small house, and on Sunday afternoon he showed up there, walked nearly to her door, turned around on the front step, hesitated, and walked away, paused on the sidewalk, turned again—

Wendy opened her front door. "Oh!" she said. "Hey, dude! Heard you were in town."

Dipper coughed. "Yeah, no, I mean, you're going out, I'll try to see you before I have to leave—"

Wendy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Dipper! Relax, man. I wasn't going anywhere. I just saw you through the front window. Come on inside. Have a Pitt's or something. Catch me up."

Dipper faked a smile and walked back to her front door, not as fast as his heart was beating time, boom-da-ba-boom, and she stepped back, holding the door open for him. "You're looking really good," he heard himself say.

"Eh, I could lose five pounds. You look like you've been working out yourself, Dip. Nice day. Let's go on the back porch and sit. Quiet back there." She paused in the kitchen, her hand on the fridge door. "Mind if I have a beer?"

"I'll take one too," Dipper said. Why did I say that?

Wendy's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really? Rimrock OK?"

"Fine, yes, Rimrock. Beer. OK."

She handed him a cold golden can, and they went through a sliding-glass door onto what she called a porch, though it really was more of a deck with an awning. They sat side by side in two patio chairs. The well-kept yard was fenced in, and beyond the fence he saw the woods and beyond them, the bluffs. She popped her beer. He popped his. "So you're drinking beer now," she said, sounding amused.

"Now and then," he said. To prove it he took a swig. It was true, he drank beer now and then. A total of, let's see, last New Year's Eve, then at Ford's barbecue in March when Fiddleford had come to visit, and, um. One other time that he couldn't remember. So this was his . . . fourth beer. He turned an impulsive "yuck" into an "ahh."

"You don't have to chug it, man," Wendy said. "I have more in the fridge."

Dipper coughed. "I didn't mean to—" he paused and sighed. "Wendy. OK, I promised myself I would ask. Um. If you say no, it's OK, and I won't ever ask again. I probably won't ever even see you again—"

"What are you asking me?" Wendy said patiently.

"Can I come and see you now and then?"

She actually laughed. "You're doing that now, dude! Any time, sure. That's not what you meant to ask, is it? Come on, what is it really?"

He sat for a moment, hearing woodpeckers busy with their carpentry somewhere in the woods. He took another small sip of beer. "OK," he said. "Here it is. I'd like to try being more than just friends with you. I—" he closed his eyes. "I love you. I'd like to be your boyfriend. Or more. Will you?"

"Dunno," she said, musing. "Don't look so upset! I haven't said no. I think I could love you, Dipper. Heck, I know I could. There are times when we're chasing monsters or fighting ghosts that we're really, really good for each other. But in just normal life, can we get along, you think? I mean, I can be moody and you can be insecure."

"Yeah," he admitted. "But, listen, I'm working for Grunkle Ford, and you and I can do investigations together. I travel all over the place for him, Twin Peaks, Eerie, Indiana, investigating ghosts and even stranger things. We could do that together, like we used to do every summer in Gravity Falls. And even when there's a lull and life is ordinary, I'll make allowances for you if you can do the same for me. Will you?"

"Dipper," Wendy said softly, "Listen up. I mainly don't want you to be a pushover, man. Lot of the times when I'm upset or angry or whatever, I get unreasonable. I know I do. And I don't want you just to lay back and take any crap—"

"Don't say any more," Dipper told her.

She blinked. "You trying to prove something?"

"No. You're just telling me stuff I already know. And it doesn't matter. You could—could take a swing at me, or cuss me out, or kick me out of the house, and I'd still feel the same way about you. But I'll try to deal with you when you have an off day if you'll try to do the same with me, when I'm all suspicious and worried."

"Will you?" Wendy asked.

He looked her in the eye. "You bet your ass."

Wendy set her beer down on the deck and stood right in front of him. She looked down on him with those wonderful, sleepy green eyes. "Stand up," she said.

He did, and they were face to face. She gently took the beer from him and set it down beside hers. "I think that might be too strong for you, man. All right. I've always liked your moxie. Let's try it, then," she said. She put her arms around him and gazed into his eyes. "Boyfriend."

He felt hot and cold and scared and elated. "Let's do it. Girlfriend," he managed.

She pulled him close. "You're just the right size for me now," she said, looking him straight in the eye. She moved her face closer, and he kissed her.

She pulled back, smiling. "Aw, dude. You haven't had much practice at this, have you?"

"Well, yeah, I—" Dipper stopped, feeling as sheepish as when he did the damn lamby dance. "No, I haven't," he admitted, falling back on the truth. "Romantically speaking, high school and college were both a bust for me. I haven't really, seriously kissed more girls than, um—well, more than you."

"It's OK," she said softly. "You get better as you practice it. Let's go inside, man."

They did, both carrying their beers, which they set down unfinished on the counter. she closed the glass door and locked it. "Bedroom's the first door on the left," Wendy said in a husky voice. "Will you come with me?"

"What are, uh, we gonna do?" Dipper asked.

"Practice," she said.

****************

Story 5: Babysitting

Thank heaven for little extradimensional eldritch horrors....

****************

Wendy was off on a photography shoot for Pacific Coast Nature when Dipper got an unexpected call from Grunkle Ford: "Mason, I hate to ask you, but I must have backup immediately! Stan's in Vegas, and Fiddleford's too old—it's an anomaly hunt. Possibly dangerous, probably not lethal. I think. Are you willing to go with me and watch my back?"

Dipper looked into the living room, where the twins were building something elaborate out of a set of intricately shaped wood blocks that their grandfather Dan had carved especially for them out of six different varieties of hardwood. "Let me make an arrangement and I'll be there as soon as possible," he said.

"Please hurry. Something is coming through from the monster dimensions!"

Dipper phoned Mabel. "Can I drop the kids off?" he asked. "Wendy's out of town, and Ford needs help."

"Uh, sure, Brobro," Mabel said. "But Sandi's teething, so—"

"That's OK," he said. "Danny and Gwen will play with each other. Be there in ten minutes."

Life is strange. Six years after the Mystery Twins had left Gravity Falls for high school and later college, Dipper and Wendy, then newlyweds, had returned to the weird little town to settle there. Mabel came back a few months later, because her boyfriend, who was now her husband, worked in the Falls, having replaced Blubs as sheriff when he and Durland retired and moved to Florida. It was a win-win, she figured. Sandi would love playing with the Gnomes and her hubby would have probably the least dangerous police assignment in the Northwest. Plus he was smarter than Blubs and ten times smarter than Durland, but then so was moss.

Dipper and Wendy lived up the road a half mile from the Shack, still run by Soos and Melody and their brood, and Mabel lived about the same distance down the road from it. Dipper pulled up and the three-year-old twins came with him to the house, Danny cheering, "Yay! Aunt Mabel!" and Gwen protesting, "No! My Aunt Mabel! Mine!"

Mabel opened the door. "There you are, my beautiful knuckleheads!" she said. "Come on in! I have juice and cookies!"

"Uh, not yet," Dipper warned. "They just had breakfast. Maybe a snack later, but not too much sugar."

Mabel slapped down the very idea with a dismissive gesture. "Oh, Broseph, no worries. You know my iron self-control! Come on in, kids!"

"Yeah . . . right. Well, thanks, Sis."

"You be careful, Dip."

***

Though Grunkle Stan was out of the Shack and on his own, living downtown in an apartment, Ford had turned his underground laboratory into a combination research center and home. Waving at Melody, Dipper pressed through the early crowd coming out of and going into the gift shop and ducked into the Employees Only part of the Shack. Because Ford realized that repeatedly seeing someone open a secret passage behind a vending machine just might make a stranger suspicious, he had rearranged things a bit. Now a closet to the left of the lockers, marked "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE / ELECTRICITY" and locked with a facial-recognition security unit scanned him and then silently opened to reveal an inner door to the extended elevator, and a narrow side door that opened to the emergency ladder, roughly where the stair used to be..

Ford met the elevator on the top level of the lab, aiming a quantum destabilizer at Dipper. "Good, it's you!" he said, lowering the weapon. "Or is it? Quick tell me how to pacify the Gremloblin!"

"Give him a singing fish!" Dipper said. "Grunkle Ford, is there a monster loose in the basement or something?"

"Something's here, all right," Ford said. He looked much the same as he had ten years before, except his hair now was mostly white and he had undergone laser surgery and no longer wore glasses. "I somehow can't get a fix on it. I think it's currently on the bottom level, but in order to capture or neutralize it, I need a wingman! Wait a minute and I'll arm you."

To Dipper's surprise, Ford handed him a rifle-style quantum destabilizer. "It's set to narrow beam, lowest setting," he said. "Even so, be careful. A shot in the wrong place could bring the whole Shack down on us!"

***

Meanwhile, and some miles away from Gravity Falls, Wendy stood on a temporarily non-flooded beach and took beautiful photos of Hug Point, specifically of an inlet that allowed a waterfall to tumble straight onto the beach, like a replica in miniature of some Hawaiian spots. The weather was good that morning with just a few puffy small clouds, and she squatted for one angle, stood tall for another, shifted position for another, and captured at least a dozen great shots. Her assistant said, "Mrs. Corduroy-Pines, the tide's just turned."

"Six more and let's get out of here," Wendy said. If they lingered much longer, a rising tide would catch them between ocean and a bluff, and they'd have to clamber over water-slick rocks and then push through tangles of thorny growth and over slippery, mossy boulders to get back to the van. She snapped the last few pics, then turned and got some photos of breaking surf—each wave coming a bit closer—before she joined Grace and they briskly hiked down the beach until they hit the spot where they'd come in via a narrow, crooked footpath that led to a parking spot. "Tired?" Wendy asked as Grace unlocked the car.

"Getting tired," Grace said. "How far did we walk?"

"Couple miles each way. Don't know about you, but coffee's not lasting me. We need some food. Let's find a place to get brunch and then what's next on the list?

"Um." Grace consulted her phone for the list. "Nehalem State Park."

Wendy corrected her pronunciation: "Neh-HAY-lem, not KNEE-hah-lem. Cool! That's only like half an hour away, and I know a bakery and café there where we can eat. Can you wait that long?"

"Sure." Grace said. She unlocked the van and Wendy stored her cameras before climbing into the passenger seat.

"Two more long days of this," Wendy said. "Be good to get back home."

Grace drove south and they chatted, but after about ten minutes Wendy's phone chimed. She glanced at the screen and answered it: "Hi, Mabes. What's up?"

"Um, I'm kinda stuck here," Mabel said. "The twins want a snack, but I don't know what you and Dip let them have, and I can't get him on the phone."

"Why are you babysitting?" Wendy asked, sitting up straighter in the passenger seat.

"Dipper has some emergency deal with Grunkle Ford, I don't know what, and I love having them over, but, you know, they're saying they're hungry."

"They're always hungry," Wendy said. "OK, let me see, what would you have handy? Yogurt?"

"Uh, yeah, banana flavored. Is that OK?"

"Perfect!" Wendy said. "Give both of them about three ounces of that and maybe, um, two small graham crackers? Like snap a regular one in half for each of them?"

"Got those!" Mabel said. "Thanks. I'll go take care of this right now!"

As soon as she hung up, Wendy tried Dipper's number. It went straight to the voicemail message. So she tried Ford's. No luck.

But when she dialed the Shack number, Soos answered: "The Mystery Shack, where the dreams are real! Come and visit us! This is Mr. Mystery speaking, how can I help you?"

"Soos," Wendy said—

"Wendy?"

"Yes, right. Listen, are Stanford and Dipper over there?"

Soos lowered his voice: "They're like down in the secret L-A-B, up to something mysterious and all. I can go see if they're busy."

"Um, don't bother them. But soon as you see them, let Dipper know to call me."

"I will, dude! That's like a Soos promise."

"Thanks, man."

The drive south was scenic, the brunch tasty. Still, Wendy couldn't shake a feeling of foreboding.

***

"What is that thing?" asked Dipper.

"It's either an eldritch horror or a cryptid monstrosity," Ford replied, sweat beading on his forehead. "Still behaving in the same maddening way. Since the moment I spotted the thing, it keeps phasing in and out of reality! It's impossible to get a good bead on it!"

Whatever it was, the . . . apparition, the thing, appeared momentarily as either an eyeless, slimy, pulsating, purple-and-pink blobby thing with short spiked-tipped tentacles, or a twelve-legged crab-like scuttling blood-red crustacean-like creature with abut nine eyes on stalks, or a lurching, glurching monstrosity that looked like a zombie's torso, except the distorted, crumbling face was on the chest and it had no head. And less describable shapes in between. It didn't speak, but made strangely faint, strangled, gurgling sounds and sometimes seemed to chuckle at them.

"It's like the Shapeshifter," Dipper said. He'd given up on trying to shoot it with the destabilizer rifle. From the way it flickered, both in his vision and on Ford's anomaly-detector screen, he was sure that if he fired, the thing wouldn't be there by the time the beam actually ignited.

Ford was shaking his head. "The somatic pattern does not match the Shapeshifter's. It's something else, from somewhere else, and I suppose we really should fire if it ever manifests completely. One thing gives me pause. So far, it seems to have made no hostile moves. I hesitate to make a first strike when it hasn't attacked or even made a threat display."

"It is a threat display," Dipper said.

"If only it would retain its grip on our dimension—there it is again!"

This time it looked like a snake with three heads threaded through a six-legged turtle's body. It scampered for a foot and a half and vanished.

"You're absolutely sure it isn't the Shapeshifter?" Dipper asked.

"Not the same morphic signature at all," Ford said. "And I checked the surveillance feed from the bunker, and the cryonic chamber is stable and secure."

Dang, the thing, now something like the melancholy offspring of a turkey and a lobster, flickered into view and immediately faded.

Dipper gripped his weapon without attempting to sight in on where the thing had been. "Have you ever come across something that sort of phases in and out?"

After a few moments, Ford replied, "Well, actually I recall that when I was lost in the Multiverse, I once had a brief fit of dimension-flicker. It was at a time when I made a narrow escape from a dangerous situation by diving into a natural portal, and I seemed to be on the edge of two realities. One was a swamp, the other a desert, and bizarre creatures yammered at the sight of me in each one. I went back and forth for quite a long time before I was able to hold onto one of the dimensions long enough to get away from the instabilities. Unfortunately the desert rats were hostile, and I had to find a way out of there before—"

"It's here again!"

Now it appeared in a corner of the lab, facing away from them. It spun and they wished it hadn't. This bodily form looked like a toad formed to display a greatly outsized mouth, but when the toothy jaws opened, there was a beak behind them and when that opened there were like seventeen tongues serpent-like.

"Move left and aim for the corner!" Ford said, moving to the right.

The creature faded again, but it did not move very far between appearances, and now they should have it, quite literally, cornered.

"Wait for it, wait for it—" Ford said.

He and Dipper both nearly jumped out of their skins when a deep voice boomed from behind them: "MY BABY!"

***

By the time Wendy had shot her Nehalem Park photos, ranging from the beach to the walking trails and to views of the mountains, her nagging feeling of alarm had increased. Once again she called Dipper.

This time he answered: "Hi, Wen, can't talk right now, got a situation, twins are fine."

"Gah!" Wendy viciously switched her phone from call mode.

"What's wrong?" Grace asked.

"Probably nothing," Wendy said. She called Mabel again.

Mabel answered in a soft voice: "Hi, Wen. Shh. Danny and Gwen and Sandi are all down for a nap."

"Are they OK?"

"They're fine! What could go wrong with me, Mabel, babysitting? Just a sec. OK, I'm texting you a picture."

"Aw," Grace said, looking over at the mat with the three sleeping kiddos sprawled out on it.

"Watch the road," Wendy warned. "Thanks, Mabes. Listen, I may head home pretty soon. I've still got a week's deadline and only two more days of shooting, so—"

"Don't worry!" Mabel said. "Everything's fine. Do your photo thing and then come home, but don't make your trip longer than it needs to be by doubling back here. I'm sure Ford will keep Dipper safe. Probably."

"I'll think about it," Wendy said. Instead of thinking, she worried.

Dipper's outlook had a way of rubbing off on her.

***

"Thank you," the weird creature said. It looked, as much as anything, like an enormous toad with seven legs, three tentacles, and nine eyes on stalks, and its body was indeed toadlike, except the mouth ran seventy per cent of the way around it. "How much should I pay you?"

"Nothing, nothing," Ford said, speaking through Fiddleford's universal translator device, which had pickups and speakers in every room of the basement. His words came out as gleeble glup gleeble, but the sort-of-toad thing seemed to understand.

She (Ford supposed the gender) heaved and belched up something that looked like a dinner-plate-sized, slightly flattened purple egg. "At least take this. And I apologize for Slunguggle's playing with his firstfather's dimension hopper. He's just a naughtums itty baby, really."

"Floorbie shzinkle pookie," said the translator, though what Ford had said was, "We're happy he's well."

The baby gargled, "Muppa loopa gumma goob." Obligingly, the translator said, "Muppa loopa gumma goob. Um, possibly 'The pen of my aunt is on the table?'"

"Come along, little one," said the probably-mother. She picked up the child, which now looked like a partly-metamorphosed tadpole version of her.

The creatures vibrated and shimmered out of existence.

"Well," Dipper said, "that happened."

Ford took a deep, unhappy breath. "It will take a lot of air freshener and pine cleanser to get the smell out of this laboratory."

They took the elevator upstairs, and Dipper, to his surprise, saw that the sun was down and the Shack was closing up. Ford thanked him. Deadpan, Dipper asked, "Aren't you going to share our babysitting fee with me?"

"Good Lord, you can have it all!" Ford said. "It's only a nodule of purple quartz."

"Kidding," Dipper told him.

***

At Mabel's, he went inside and found her snoozing in a recliner. "Wake up, Sis," he said. "Dinnertime!"

She yawned and blinked. "Dipper! Hi. Everything OK?"

"I'll tell you about it later," Dipper said. "Meanwhile, I brought you a pizza with everything. Also, I came to collect the twins."

"Yay, pizza! Oh, about your kids," Mabel said, grinning. "They wanted a sleepover, and I told them that's fine. My neighbor watched the kids for a few minutes, and I went up to your house and got them some clothes and PJ's and a few toys. They're being real quiet now, so let them stay over tonight. I love babysitting!"

That didn't sound like her, but Dipper shrugged. "Uh—well, sure, if you want—do you really love babysitting that much?"

"Oh, Brobro, it makes me want to have two more kids of my own! See you tomorrow around noon, OK?"

"That will be fine," Dipper said. "Say hi to Jimmy for me when he gets off duty. And save him some pizza."

Through a mouthful of crust, toppings, and mozzarella, she said, "Let Jimmy get his own. He knew the job was dangerous when he took it!"

He drove the short distance up Gopher Road and parked in the driveway. What a day. It's gonna be weird here all alone in the house, he thought. He'd become so used to the toddlers' clamor and giggles. Silence was going to be worse than their noise.

He was too tired to think about cooking. In the kitchen he slapped together a ham and cheese sandwich and chased it with a Pitt's. Then he trudged upstairs to the bedroom, tugging off his shirt and unfastening his belt as he went.

Dark in here already. He had stepped through the doorway and had pushed his pants down, kicking them aside, before he switched on the light—

"Don't stop there," Wendy said from the bed. She threw back the covers to show that she hadn't stopped there.

"You're back!" Dipper said joyfully.

"And my front, too," She said, grinning. "And now about those annoying boxer briefs—"

"Um, the kids are—"

"Are with Mabel, I know. She came up and got their overnight stuff to give us a little break. And Grace is at the motel in town, and she's gonna come and pick me up at six sharp tomorrow morning for the rest of my photo job, so we don't have all that much time together and we're all alone and I'm feeling kinda hot for you." She rolled out of bed and came over and removed his shorts for him. "Come to bed, man."

He did and as they pressed warmly together, she said, "I had a feeling all day that something was bad wrong here. Was I right?"

"Yes and no," he said, kissing his way down her throat. "Ford called me in for what turned out to be a routine job."

"Chasing spooks?" she asked. "Ooh, don't stop, that's nice."

"Babysitting," he answered her, and then carried on with the nice part.

**********

Story 6: Looking Back

Memories can be scary. But also sweet. Especially when shared. Especially when shared in bed....

**********

Soos and Melody's fourth child, a daughter, making it like even steven, dawgs (as Soos said, meaning they now had two sons, two daughters) came into the world on the morning of Friday, July 13, 2022.

What a coincidence. From now on, little Stephanie and her dad could celebrate their birthdays together every year. "I'm gonna make sure she never hates her birthday, though," Soos said the first moment he saw his new daughter. "I'm planning on being a cool dad, not a cold one like mine was!"

Wendy and Dipper were sure he'd succeed. His other three kids adored him. Young Mr. and Mrs. Pines, not yet parents themselves (but they were trying to accomplish that), had watched after the three Ramirez kids from about six A.M. to ten that morning, while Soos was with Melody at the hospital. Then the blessed event occurred (actually at 8:33) and a couple of hours later, Soos had joyfully returned to the Shack with photos of Melody and the baby, which everyone told him was the most beautiful baby ever, an evident though kindly-intended falsehood. Stephanie looked crinkly and pouty and bald, like practically every other newborn.

"I really want to go back to the hospital to be with Melody," the big guy said apologetically. "This afternoon, when Stephanie and her will be in the room, like together, you know what I mean? If I can make arrangements, but no pressure on you, dawgs. I just really want to see my wife and our new baby!"

Anyway, Mabel took over babysitting at four that afternoon, and a little later, Soos called from the hospital to say cheerfully, "The doctor just told me, like, Melody and Stephanie can come home by ten on Sunday morning. She's doing great, and Stephanie's like a hundred per cent healthy, and, um, it was a real smooth delivery, Hambone. Two nights in the hospital, and boom! Like that, they get to come home. Isn't that great?"

The Pines twins and Wendy got everything ready by eight that evening, Soos returned from the hospital in time for dinner, and when Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy said good evening, he was happily regaling his other children with tales of how great their new sis was going to be. Mabel went on her way, and Dipper and Wendy drove back to their home, not far from the Shack.

"Hope our kids will be as sweet as Soos's," Dipper said as he and Wendy settled down for the evening. He reached for the remote. "Want to watch TV?"

"Let's just reminisce," Wendy said. "I'm in the mood for memories."

"OK," Dipper said, replacing the remote on the bedside table and slipping into bed beside her. "Let me see. I'll start. The first day we saw the Shack, which was a big surprise to us, Stan made me and Mabel go up to the attic and unpack, and when we came downstairs, you were at the cash register and Soos was fixing something. Stan introduced you both, but for a day or two I thought your name was Wanda, like Mom's, and Soos's was Zeus."

Wendy laughed. "I remember you wrote that in your journal," she said. "Zeus! What a name that'd be for him. Let me see. I kinda remember the first time I saw you guys, with Stan tellin' us that you were his niece and nephew. He had Mabel's name right, but he called you Dippy. Um, and you were wearing your cargo shorts and red shirt and blue vest, but your hat was different?"

"Was it?" Dipper thought. "Oh, right, that was my old brown trucker's cap, with a star on the front. I'd had that from the third grade! Or fourth? Anyway, I lost that one when Mabel and I were fighting off the Gnomes who wanted to marry her. We were in the golf cart, and one of them had his teeth in the bill of the cap when Mabel gut-punched him off me, and he and the hat flew out of the cart. Oh, you might not know this part: We got back to the Shack after it closed, kind of wrecked the golf cart and had to face down a hundred Gnomes, and by the time we staggered inside, we looked so beat-up that Stan told us we could each take one piece of merch. That's when I got my blue and white pine-tree hat—"

"Which you've replaced now a couple times," Wendy said.

"Yeah, lost one when I was trying to save Ford from a spaceship, and lost others at other times. I think the one I wear now is my fourth. Anyway, I chose a cap, Mabel chose a grappling hook."

"So that's where she got it!" Wendy said. "That's strange. I don't remember the Shack ever selling them!"

"I don't think it ever did," Dipper said. "I think the grappling hook was in a box of junk that Stan bought from an abandoned self-storage unit. Back then he did that to get raw material for making new exhibits."

"You and I didn't talk much those first few days," Wendy said. "Of course I remember early on when you came runnin' up to me and said you needed to borrow the golf cart to save Mabel from a zombie. I thought you were just tellin' a story so you could try out the cart! But, hey, this one time when I was twelve, I snuck off and drove Dad's pickup halfway to town before I ran it into a ditch. I could relate. I liked your moxie and gave you the key."

"That was the first time I'd ever driven one," Dipper admitted. "First time I'd driven anything! But I didn't hit any pedestrians!"

"Good on you, man." Wendy laughed.

"Yeah, and it turned out to be the Gnomes, not a zombie, but you know that story. I was driving the golf cart too fast to get away from that giant Gnome formation, and when we pulled up to the Shack, I rolled it. Mabel and I fell out on the grass but just got scratched up a little. I was so scared Stan would make us pay for the golf cart, though."

"Nah, it's still going. Sturdy hunk of junk!" Wendy burst out with a laugh. "Oh, my God, remember that time we tried to jump the golf cart off a ramp, and we totally busted it?"

"And Soos fixed it but also added a nitrous oxide booster!"

Now Wendy was laughing uncontrollably. "And—that time-we made—made the jump and crashed it through the freakin' roof!"

That started Dipper's laughter. "And we somehow gave Grunkle Stan the impression there'd been a freak tornado!"

They ranged to other summers. "Our first kiss," Dipper said. "That Fourth of July. I'll always recall that."

"At the fireworks," Wendy said. "Yeah, I remember real well."

"Then that time I had to wear Mabel's clothes and a wig and Mabel disguised herself in my clothes and hat so your dad wouldn't get mad if he saw us and thought you were hanging out with me."

Giggling, Wendy crooned, "Yeah, I kinda kissed a girl, and I liked it!"

They tried a little experiment. Yep, they still both liked kissing.

"Hey, man, that summer when I made you my assistant lifeguard and Poolcheck fired us both!" Wendy laughed again. "When I took you on, I didn't know you couldn't swim, I swear!"

A little more somberly, Dipper put his arm around her and said, "That time we fell off the boat into the Pacific."

"Yeah, so cold, Dip. I thought we were both dead."

"We passed out before the rescue chopper got there. They flew us to the hospital while we were both unconscious, and I woke up before you did, but to get me really awake, the doctor told me you had frostbite and they had to amputate your fingers."

Wendy shook her head. "So cruel. But it woke you up and we recovered. And remember they let us warm up in a nice hot shower?"

"Together," he said.

She snuggled close to him. "Yeah, and there we were wet and naked and hugging and nothing happened but a big slippery embrace. We were still too dazed to get up to anything sexy. But Dad would have freaked if he'd ever found out!"

"Anyhow, one summer you taught me how to swim," Dipper said. "In the lake, remember? We skinny-dipped, first time I'd ever done that. And then I got to go hot-tubbing with you in that nice steamy natural spring. Still love doing that. We ought to hike out there this weekend."

"It's a date, man! Don't pack any clothes!"

They kissed and fooled around a little. Then out of nowhere, Wendy asked, "What do you think was the weirdest thing we went through?"

"Getting stuck in that bizarre valley where everything morphed into monsters is way, way up there on my list," Dipper said.

"Me, I think it was following that ghost into the creepy dimension where Gravity Falls was a cartoon show, and we got stuck at a comic-book convention, and we like entered a masquerade dressed as ourselves—"

Dipper couldn't stop chuckling. "And we came in second! And Mabel's still pissed about that!"

"We all suddenly had five fingers," Wendy said. "And we all felt so heavy and all. And we met that dimension's versions of McGucket and Soos. Guy from Georgia, I think. Anyway, he was our Soos in the masquerade, remember? Real nice guy."

"And with other McGucket's help, we finally put the ghosts to rest."

"Yeah. So many times things we thought were terrifying turned out to be sorta OK when we understood what was going on."

"Like the Sentivore's cave. When the butterflies captured Mabel."

"Man," Wendy said softly, "I really thought you were dead that time. But it was the clone of you from the copy machine."

"That was rough," Dipper said. "We found Mayellen McGucket and rescued her, but we lost the last two clones."

"Yeah, and then later on, the next summer, I think, Soos's dad died up in Canada, and Soos told us about the only time he'd seen the guy since like forever. He came to the Shack the previous winter and bummed money off Soos and then ran off to Canada. Harsh."

"I remember the funeral," Dipper said. "Soos cried like a little baby, but not so much because his dad had passed away. He talked about how Stan had become his second father, remember? And Mabel and you and I were like his sisters and brother."

"Yeah, and that reminds me of how later we put up memorials to the two clones near that awful cave."

"And we visited your mother's grave."

They were silent for a while, sharing thoughts without speaking.

"Dip, when were you the most scared?" Wendy asked.

"Lots of times. When Gideon was completely off the rails and built his giant robot and kidnapped Mabel. I jumped from the cliff to crash into the robot and fight him. I was really furious about his taking Mabel, but mostly I was terrified." He considered it a little more. "Really, though, about the most scared I've ever been was when I investigated the Westminster House and ran into a lich. That was horrible."

"Yeah, but you had cute little Eloise by your side. No, man, Brujo was way worse than that," Wendy said. "Nearly as evil as Bill Cipher in Weirdmageddon."

After a few minutes of snuggling, Dipper reflected, "So many good memories, too. I remember all the holidays we got to spend together. The Christmas we helped the Sawyer family. And you and Stan went off somewhere to get Mr. Sawyer out of jail. Somebody was stealing stuff all over town that winter. We thought the Gnomes had all turned into kleptomaniacs or something."

"Yeah, Stan and I sprang Mr. Sawyer from jail and gave that fat, crooked cop the surprise of his life!" Wendy said. "Oh, and did I ever tell you how Stan and I once burgled a museum?"

"What?" he asked.

Arching her eyebrows, Wendy zipped her lip. "Maybe later," she said enigmatically.

"All right," Dipper said. "Oh, and the time you got that magic axe—"

"Not magic, enchanted," Wendy corrected. "Came down from my ancestor Archibald, yeah. That's why I usually carry that one when we go into the unknown!"

"Like the abandoned gold-mining town. That creature was scary."

"Meh, we've faced worse. Just remembering it all, whoosh! I mean, we've had exciting lives, man," Wendy said.

"Yeah. And soon now, it's going to get a lot more exciting," Dipper told her.

"I know what you're thinking," Wendy said as they caressed each other.

Of course she did. When they were touching, they both read each other's minds. They kissed and fondled and did a few other things. Wendy said, "The thought of it still kind of scary to me, though. You think we can get pregnant in the next year?"

"Not unless we work on it," Dipper said.

"Dude, I notice you're getting all the tools ready."

"Mm. Too tired?"

"Dipper, I'm a flippin' Corduroy." She moved closer and kissed him long and hard. "And if you want to work on it—yeah, that's good—let's get started."

Not that they ever kept a score card, but if they had, of the times they'd made love, well, you know. The honeymoon would be way up on that list. A few times when they'd faced danger and had come through and celebrated their escape in each other's arms rated high, too.

But, to tell the truth, that night, when they set out with a determination to become parents, that night everything got so intense and so good that it rocketed to spot number one.

Um, and also two. And before the sun rose the next morning four.

Not three, though. The three spot was occupied. Well, what did you expect? Man, the honeymoon had to be in the top three.

**********

Story 7: Birthdays

And Many Happy Returns….

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

"Here they are!" Dipper said from the front window.

"Yay," Wendy responded. She started to get up from the easy chair.

Dipper waved her off with a big smile. "No, wait here. I'll go help them in. You just take it easy."

"You're babying me, but OK," Wendy said with a grin as she settled back into the chair and put her feet up. "You're gonna suffer, though, 'cause you know Mabes is gonna have a ton of luggage!"

He opened the door. "I know."

Dipper went out onto the porch. Brilliant, already hot August day, sun climbing up and already about a third of the way to noon, no clouds up in the blue, humidity low and a little breeze to help. Not shabby at all. The SUV, a red Canyonero, had just parked in a slot, and Mabel threw open the passenger-side front door and hopped out as he came down the gift-shop steps to meet her. "Broseph!" she yelled as she stood on tiptoes and arched her back, hands thrust to the sky. "Come and help Teek!"

"That's why I'm here," Dipper said, approaching her. "And by the way, happy birthday, Sis."

Mabel did a little celebratory three-second dance. "Back at you, Broseph. Sorry it took us this long to come up to Oregon to see you and your new place. How's the house working out?"

"It's great," Dipper said as Teek got out of the driver's seat, waved, and walked around, to open the hatch of the SUV. Mabel hugged Dipper and then stepped back for a better look at the log house.

"Manly Dan outdid himself," she said. "Looks so . . . modern! How many rooms?"

"Wendy will give you and Teek the tour. But there's three bedrooms, three bathrooms, study, kitchen/dining room, living room, and on the second floor two attic rooms we haven't even put furniture in yet. Nice basement too if we want to expand. On four acres. And we're only a mile from the Mystery Shack! Here, Teek, let me help you with that. How's life in L.A?"

Teek smiled. "Well, I just got a promotion from production assistant to Mr. Chalkyn's personal assistant. So I get to work side by side with a director plus a twenty per cent raise!"

"Teek's the only one that can keep old Chatty Chalky focused," Mabel explained. "Teek sets up meetings and tasks for the day, makes sure he gets to them, has all the data he'll need when he gets there. Schedules the whole day and gets Mr. Director where he's supposed to be, then is right at his side during shooting. Oh, and because of Teek, production on Eagle Sauadron's coming in on time and under budget."

"Down side," Teek began—he pointed toward a heavy gray suitcase—"Could you get that one, please? Down side of my job is Chalkyn's gonna want to take me with him if he changes studios, and he will because he always stirs up trouble and goes on to the next producer in town. I mean, his movies make money, but he's hard to get along with."

"Sounds great," Dipper said, hauling out two suitcases. "Hey, Mabel, at least take one of these!"

The three lugged in a total of five suitcases, three of them Mabel's.

Wendy was standing by the fireplace—no fire there in August, of course—and Mabel dropped her suitcase and said, "Hi, Wen—"

Mabel broke off, clapped her hands to her cheeks, and shrieked.

Wendy said, "Happy birthday, Mabes! Dip and I are gonna drive you and Teek over to Ford's house for the party this afternoon. Hope you had a good drive from California—what's the matter with you?"

"Holy Moley!" Mabel said, laughing. "The matter with me? You gotta be kidding!"

Three months and ten days earlier-Saturday, May 21, 2022

Early in the morning, from the bathroom, Wendy called, "Hey, Dip, come here for a minute!"

Dipper, propped up in bed with his laptop on his thighs, murmured, "Hmm?"

"Just come here."

"Hang on, answering an email to my publisher . . . there." He set the laptop down on the bedside table and swung out of bed. Wendy always took her shower first, unless they were conserving water and showering together, or unless Dipper had to get up way early for some reason, like an emergency call from Ford regarding a vampire bat infestation or an eldritch abomination in the ladies' room of the library.

Dipper was wearing gray boxer shorts and a white tee shirt, his usual sleep attire. He didn't bother with slippers.

He opened the bathroom door. Wendy, wearing a grin and nothing else at all, stood at her sink. She not yet showered—the big mirror over the double sink hadn't misted. "What have you got on your mind?" he asked.

"Take a look, Dip." She wrinkled her nose stuck out her tongue. "Not at my boobs, at what I'm holding in my hand."

He took the plastic wand from her and looked at the little window in it. "Wow!" he said.

Two lines, both bright pink and sharply defined. Two.

He blinked at the two lines and smiled like an idiot. "Can I hug you?"

"You better. It's my birthday today!"

Hugging a completely nude girl, especially one as gorgeous as Wendy, especially one as warm and soft and loving as Wendy, especially one with whom one shares a touch-telepathy—well, it's nice.

—Happy birthday, Wendy. And by the way, I love you. Oh, what are we supposed to do next—

Don't panic, man! I'll make an appointment first thing Monday.

—Oh, right, right. Is it still OK for me to take you to The Club this evening for your birthday?

Sure it is! I've got a craving for filet magnon and crème brulee for dessert! No wine though. But it's barely daylight, it's a long time to dinner. Tell you what I want, let's celebrate.

He got a flash of how she wanted to celebrate.

—Uh, is that, our doing that you know, OK?

She showed him just exactly how OK it was.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

"Why didn't you let me know?" Mabel asked, jumping up and down as if she were ten.

"Thought we'd make it a surprise," Wendy said.

Teek finally put down the two large suitcases he'd lugged in. "It really is!" he said.

"How many months?" Mabel asked. "You're really showing!"

"About four and a half," Wendy said.

Mabel poked her twin's face and mussed his hair. "Dipper! You're gonna be a dad! You better write five or six new books—wait a minute. Wen, I gotta ask, boy or girl?"

Wendy glanced at Dipper. Dipper nodded.

So Wendy said, "That's why my tummy's so big. Twins. One of each, actually."

Mabel's whoop of joy rattled the windows.

"We're pretty sure they're both gonna be red-haired," Dipper said.

Teek looked a little puzzled. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, red hair's usually a recessive gene, but Wendy's special. She's got flippin' Corduroy genes!"

"So you beat us to the punch," Mabel said. "Teek and I are trying."

"You'll get there," Wendy said. "Keep a watch on your temperature and strike the days after the thermometer's hot."

"Yeah, already keeping track," Mabel said. "Ooh, I'm so excited! I'll decorate a nursery for you! Which room's the nursery?"

"There's time for that later," Dipper said. "Sit down, you've been driving for hours."

"One thing, Mabes," Wendy said as they all sat. "Grunkle Stan wants to be godfather to every child you have. And to ours too."

"It'll do him good," Dipper said. "He's kinda feeling his age, and he laments that he never had kids."

Mabel was holding Teek's hand. "OK, we'll talk to him about that, but you guys were sneaky about not telling us you were pregnant."

Wendy answered her seriously: "It's a big deal now, bringing babies into this mixed-up crazy world. It's a serious thing, and I just wanted to make sure I was getting through the first trimester OK."

"She did," Dipper said. "Flying colors."

"Especially during morning sickness," Wendy said. She became serious again: "Yeah, but you think about possibilities, you know. So much could go bad wrong. And it's huge responsibility. On the other hand—"

"I get to be Aunty Mabel! Those kids are gonna be slopping over with love! When are you due?"

"Doc says December 15, but that's an estimate and can be way off."

Mabel had her phone out and tapped out the date in the calendar app.

For a short while everyone just sat smiling at everyone else. Then Teek and Wendy started to sing "Happy Birthday," and Mabel got bashfully teary and Dipper said the presents for his sister were in the next room.

"No," Mabel said, her face shining. "Right here I got my big unofficial sister and my younger brobro right here. I got my nearly lifelong crush who's also married to me. And I got me. Let me get used to being an aunt-to-be. That, now. That's the best gift I've ever received."

"Tell us that again when you've been changing diapers and wiping bottoms for a day or so," Wendy challenged.

"Hey," Teek said, "don't knock it. We know that's how a girl tells a niece or nephew 'I love you."'

Squeezing her husband's hand, looking at them all with shining eyes, Mabel said, "I love everybody!"

**********

Story 8- Wild Card

Because in life there’s always some random element….

Around 7:15 PM, an icy night in February 2022 . . .

The tree came out of nowhere. One second Wendy was driving along a curving Roadkill County Road, looking ahead to a date-night evening with her husband, and the next second a gigantic tree was falling, headlights showing it smashing to the pavement right in front of her car, too late to—

Crash.

Darkness . . ..

***

Grunkle Stan put his hand on Dipper's shoulder. Quietly he said, "Go get some shut-eye, kid. I'll wait here with Wendy and call you pronto if anything happens."

Wendy lay so still, so pale, in bed, her head swathed in bandages, her face bruised, more bandages on her arms, a yellowish IV drip feeding into the crook of her left elbow. "I can't leave," Dipper said hoarsely, his eyes red and bagged from lack of sleep. He'd been sitting in the hospital room for twenty-eight hours now, and the doctors kept saying, "We don't know, son. We'll have to see how it goes in the next few hours. We just don't know."

Stan patted his shoulder, gently. "Kid, you're beat. Look, the Stanleymobile is parked right outside the hospital. Two minute walk from here. Back seat is plenty big enough for you to stretch out. Here's my spare key. Grab a blanket from the shelf there. You go, I'll stay, and I'll call you with any news."

"Thanks," Dipper said wearily as he pushed up to his feet and swayed a little. "Oh—Mabel's finally managed to get a flight. She should be here late tonight." He stood by the bed and stooped to kiss his wife's cheek. "Hang in there, Wen," he said. "Remember, you're a flipping Corduroy."

Stan took Dipper's place in the chair and settled in for the vigil. It was late, getting close to midnight, a little warmer than it had been the day before. He reached into his outer jacket pocket and took something out. Then he sat still and waited, listening to the hospital sounds, the monitors, the occasional ding of somebody calling a nurse.

When the lights dimmed, he sat up straighter, taking a deep breath of the disinfectant-scented hospital air. "Here you are," he said. "Might as well let me see you. I know you're here and why you're here."

Like a storm cloud coalescing from vapor, a dark form materialized. It became a tall, robed, hooded skeletal figure, grasping a scythe. The skull tilted to the right. ARE YOU A WIZARD?

"Me? Naw, I'm just a guy." Stanley nodded toward Wendy. "The lady in the bed, there, she's my niece. By marriage."

USUALLY I AM VISIBLE ONLY TO WIZARDS OR WITCHES. AND THOSE WHOSE TIME HAS COME, OF COURSE.

"Yeah, I'm no wizard, but I been around. You've come for her, right? But it don't necessarily have to be her, if all the old folklore stories are in any way true. There's certain escape clauses. Unless you're really just a vengeful SOB."

VENGEFUL? DON'T LOOK ON THIS AS MALICE. I DO WHAT MUST BE DONE. I HAVE NO MALICE IN ME.

"You're dodgin' the issue. Come on, like I say, I been around. I'm Mr. Mystery. Retired. I read and saw enough weird stuff in my time to know there's always rules, and rules always have exceptions. So you don't have to take her, right, if I volunteer to go in her place. True?"

IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT. TRADITION HOLDS THAT TO WIN A REPRIEVE, A MORTAL MUST BEST ME IN A CONTEST.

"I challenge you to a pie-eating contest! And first one who drops part of the pie on the floor loses! Hah!"

For the briefest of moments, the fixed grin on the skeletal face seemed to show the faintest flicker of amusement. I MUST DECLINE. BUT THAT WAS A GOOD ONE, STANLEY PINES.

"Yeah, I was just pulling your leg. Straight up now, no fooling. You go in for, what, chess?"

SORRY, NO. I CAN NEVER REMEMBER HOW THE LITTLE HORSES MOVE.

Stan held up the deck he had taken from his pocket. "How about some Tarot Hold 'Em, nothing wild?"

Though the visitor's eyes could not blink, somehow they gave the impression of blinking. YOU HAVE PIQUED MY INTEREST. HOWEVER, PLAYING FOR JUST ONE LIFE IS RATHER LOW-STAKES.

"OK, OK," Stan said. "Gotcha. Penny-ante's no fun. Here's the deal: One hand. Double or nothing."

SO IF I WIN, I TAKE BOTH OF YOU, BUT IF YOU WIN—

"You get neither. Or if you have to take something, find a sick bird or squirrel or something. But no humans. Like a what do you call it, scapegoat. That's allowed, the stories tell us. What do you say?"

LET US FIRST AGREE ON THE RULES OF THE GAME.

It took them some time, but Stan had already noticed that the wall clock's second hand had frozen at five ticks to midnight, and all sounds had stilled. Somehow time had paused for this. Finally, they agreed to the basic proposition: The Major Arcana would be left out of the deck. The Minor Arcana would be played like a poker deck. Each player would be dealt two hole cards, face-down, and then five more community cards, face-up, and from the total seven, each player would select five to make up his hand. After a minor bit of quibbling, they agreed on just one wild card. Stan disliked wild cards, but as the visitor insisted, THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A RANDOM ELEMENT.

"OK, I'll agree to that," Stan said, spreading out the whole deck. "Here, point out the wild card you want." A bony finger tapped one. Stan snorted as he added it to the fifty-six card deck of Minor Arcana. "Figures."

Stan pocketed the smaller stack of Major Arcana. They pulled up the narrow hospital table, the kind that raised and lowered so a bed-bound patient would have a place for plates, silverware, and cups or glasses. Stan sat forward in his chair. The other stood but bent a little. Stan neatened the deck. "Cut the cards. And not with that thing!"

DON'T POINT. IT IS VERY SHARP. AND I APPRECIATE THE HUMOR. The bony hand reached out and cut the deck as nearly equally as anyone could, probably twenty-eight cards in one stack, twenty-nine in the other. Stan shuffled repeatedly.

He dealt one card to his opponent, one to himself, then another to each. As he picked up his two, he said, "We're not fooling with flop, turn, and river bets. Here go the first three."

He laid them down one by one. Ace of Wands. Three of Pentacles. King of Wands.

Stan reflected. He held the Knight of Wands and the wild card. OK, he could make that at least a pair of aces, not too shabby.

NOW, REMIND ME OF THE VALUE OF THE POSSIBLE HANDS.

With a sigh, Stan reviewed the various hands and their standing. "Ready now?"

READY.

Stan dealt the Queen of Wands. "Interesting," he said. "We still good for the deal?"

WE ARE STILL GOOD. THE SUSPENSE IS NOT KILLING ME.

"Hah! Good one yourself!"

Stan dealt the final card. Page of Wands.

READY FOR THE SHOW-DOWN, STANLEY PINES?

"Yeah, I guess. Whatcha got?"

Death showed the Ace of Pentacles and the Queen of Swords he held. TWO QUEENS AND TWO ACES.

Stan whistled in admiration. "Nice. Two good pair you got there. However—" He laid down his cards. "Page of Wands. Knight of Wands. Queen of Wands. Wild card, I'm using as King of Wands. And Ace of Wands. Royal flush."

I SEE.

Stan tapped the Death card. "That's the one you insisted be wild. It's wild. So I say it's now King of Wands, and I win."

A BIT IRONIC, I SUPPOSE.

"You accusing me of cheatin'?" Stanley asked with a grin.

His opponent silently returned his grin. Bit of a foregone conclusion, that . . ..

***

Dipper rushed into the hospital room, still clutching his phone. The doctor stood by Wendy's bed, his back to the door, but he turned, saw Dipper, and, his eyes above his green surgical mask obviously smiling, gave him a thumbs-up.

"What happened?" Wendy asked in a woozy, weak voice.

"You're going to be OK," Dipper said, leaning close to her, his tears falling onto her face. He kissed her lips, very gently. "You had an accident, but—you're going to be OK!"

Then he turned—and saw Stanley sitting slumped in the chair. A scatter of oversized cards lay on the floor between his feet, his cell phone beneath his dangling, limp right hand.

Dipper gasped. "Oh, no."

He stepped around the doctor, who was murmuring reassurances to Wendy, and fearfully reached to shake his Grunkle's shoulder.

"Hey! Hands off! Oh, it's you," Stan said, jerking. "Sorry, Dipper. Thought somebody was tryin' to pick my pocket. I wasn't asleep, I was just resting my eyes. Like I told you on the phone, I knew Wendy'd come through."

He grunted and bent over and began to pick up his phone and the scattered Tarot cards.

"What were you doing?" Dipper asked, staring at the colorful cards his Grunkle was gathering..

"Ah, hand me that Death card, kid. Thanks. What do you think I was doing? I was playing a hand of solitaire. Might play another one tomorrow night, who knows. Wendy's been asking for you."

"Dipper?" Wendy croaked as the doctor paused to shake Dipper's hand. "My head hurts and I'm thirsty."

As he straightened the deck, Stan said, "Go take care of your wife, knucklehead."

"Water will be fine," the doctor said. "Everything looks great. I'll be in again before eight, but Wendy's turned the corner. Good night."

Dipper was so tired he fumbled and nearly spilled as he poured ice water from the pitcher into a plastic glass. Stan smiled as he watched his nephew hold a bent straw to Wendy's lips and she began to drink. When she'd finished half the glass, he heard her whisper, "I love you so much."

Stan decided the two needed their privacy and left them alone. On the way out, he stopped at the small first-floor chapel, where Manly Dan was praying. "Hey, Dan, good news," he said. "She's gonna make it. Go up and say hi, and then get your butt to bed. She needs rest, and you ain't gonna be any good to her all wore out."

Manly Dan shook his hand, nearly crushing it. He glanced upward and rasped, "Thank you, Lord," before he hurried out of the chapel and toward the elevators. Stan honked his nose in his handkerchief and walked out of the hospital, not to go home immediately but just to stand for a minute and look up at the stars. "Anytime you want a game, putz," he said genially. "You know where I am."

His cell phone chimed and he took it from his inside jacket pocket. "Yeah?"

A strained, frightened voice: "Grunkle Stan?"

He grinned. "Pumpkin! Wendy—"

Mabel's voice was frantic. "Oh, God, is she—"

"Calm down, Doc says she'll pull through fine." Stan heard Mabel whisper something, a prayer, and then he asked, "Where are you?"

"Portland, airport. I'll drive—wait, I'm too young to rent a car. I'll do something, call an Uber or catch a bus—"

"Nah. You just go get something to eat," Stan said, glancing at his watch. "Then rest somewhere in the airport. Keep your phone handy. I'll be there in two and a half hours."

Sounding exhausted and edgy, Mabel blurted, "It's so late! Are you up to driving—"

"Kid, way I feel now, I could drive for a day and a night. I think I just might live for a hundred more years. Do what I told you. And I love you, Mabel."

Now she was sobbing. She said something he could not catch, her voice strangled with relief and tears.

"Anyhow, I'll call you soon as I get there." It came out maybe a little gruffer than he'd meant. In a gentler tone, he added, "I'll meet you at the passenger pick-up. And dry up the waterworks before I see you."

"I love you too," she squeaked.

On his way out of the hospital lot, just after the turn on the highway, Stan saw a brownish blur—a rabbit bursting from cover and darting across the road. He heard a thump on the undercarriage.

Stan sighed and pulled over to the shoulder. Resignedly, he climbed out of the car and walked back until in the glow of parking-lot lights from the hospital he found the young rabbit, unbloodied, still warm, but its body loose with the finality of death.

"So you had to make me hurt a little," Stan said. He laid the small rabbit in the yellow, overgrown grass beside the road. "You couldn't just lose gracefully, could you?"

He didn't see a thing, but he perhaps heard a remote voice: A LIFE HAD TO BE TAKEN. AND IT IS FITTING THAT SOME GRIEF MUST COME AT SUCH A TIME. STILL, REMEMBER THE ONE I CAME FOR.

Stan walked back to his car, nursing a sour grudge. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, I guess. I gotta go get my niece now. My niece by blood, not by marriage."

DRIVE SAFELY.

Despite himself, Stan smiled—grimly—as he got into the driver's seat. "That a warning?"

JUST FRIENDLY ADVICE.

"You're kind of a cruel bastard, ain't ya?"

When no answer came, Stan started the engine, turned on the heater and pulled back—carefully—onto the highway. "Nah," he said to the night. "I guess not cruel. Just a real workaholic."

**********

That wraps it up for this Wendip Week of 2022. Of course, this last tale must tip a black felt hat to the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett.

OK, Wendippers, see you next summer!

And for Dipper and Mabel,

8-1-16-16-25 2-9-18-20-8-4-1-25!

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