The Distance Between (A Relativity Falls Story)

1929

1929

"Have I mentioned that I don't like this?" Candy asked, as she hammered two large metal pieces together.

"Perhaps you've said that once or twice," Dipper said with a huge eyeroll. Candy had proven very unsupportive of late. She had never been especially enthusiastic about Dipper's friendship with Bill Cipher, but the plan to construct a portal had met with her utter disapproval. Dipper supposed he could sort of see why having a friend join forces with a self-confessed 'dream demon' could be perceived as unwise, but Dipper liked Bill. Bill was very complimentary, and told Dipper he was smart, without a hint of backhandedness (unlike some people, naming no names), and had enlightened Dipper to just all the possibilities which lay ahead, which is why they were building a portal now.

"This is a terrible plan." Candy reiterated, who was apparently convinced that repetition was the secret to winning an argument.

"Doesn't the idea that there are whole other dimensions out there excite you at all?" Dipper asked incredulously. He had previously always enjoyed having Candy around, her smart mouth and overly competitive attitude to everything notwithstanding, but the constant criticism she'd been offering of late was causing significant strain between them.

"A little, I admit," she said, swinging athletically down from where she'd been working on the top part of the portal, "But I think that there are better, safer and more advisable ways than following the orders of a demon, Dipper. A literal, self-proclaimed demon."

"I have no clue why you're so judgemental about Bill, Candy. He likes you. He, and I quote, told me that I could learn from you, and that I could stand to have even half of your spunk." Candy paused, clearly flattered, despite herself.

"Ah, I see, so he thinks I'm the kind of sucker who he can just butter up, and hope I'll like him." Dipper now knew what he had previously suspected–that Candy was so eager to dislike Bill, that anything he said would be misconstrued as something more malevolent. Dipper knew that this was ridiculously unfair, considering that Bill was a perfect gentleman, and very sincere and complimentary. Well, maybe not a perfect gentleman, given that his sense of humour was rather...unconventional, and occasionally disturbing, but regardless, he was unexpectedly pleasant, considering he was a demon.

"Candy, stop it. Without Bill, we never would have gotten this far with our research! With his insight, we can find so much information out, and we barely even have to leave the house!" Candy's brow furrowed.

"And I guess it suits you very well to barely leave the house. You've been hiding away ever since Wendy got married, and despite the fact that 'no, of course, you didn't have a crush on her at all, you were perfectly happy to see her married.' you still went and disappeared from society for a month and then summoned a demon."

"When you put it like that, it sounds bad," Dipper sighed, "Bill is the best research assistant I could ask for!" He knew that he'd hit her, harder than he would have liked, too.

"If you want me to leave, just say so!" Candy snapped, "If you'd rather have the demonic triangle as your assistant, just tell me and I'll go. My parents might be glad to see me again!"

"No, Candy. I didn't mean it that way. I need you here," Candy slowly, visibly melted with the sincerity in Dipper's voice.

"Alright, you idiot. I'll stay. Although, I want it known that I refuse to be compared to the demon shape."

"Of course not," Dipper chuckled, "Bill is many things...but you're the invaluable and irrepressible Candy Chiu, and I would be lost without you."

"Oh, yes you would," Candy nodded vehemently, before adding softly under her breath, "you might even be lost with me."

That, after all, was why she had stayed. Because she knew, even if Dipper didn't want to admit it, that Bill Cipher was bad news, and if she wasn't there to keep him safe, Dipper was going to get hurt.

***

Thanks to the stock market crash, and everyone having much less money, Mabel's dress wasn't brand new, but it had been so long since she'd worn a pretty dress that she was delighted. Finally the day she'd always been dreaming of had come, and she was getting married. Sure, it wasn't exactly how she imagined it, given that none of her family could be there, but looking around the huge manor, and at the cotton plantation her sons would one day inherit reminded her why she was doing this.

"Do you, Mabel Rachel Pines, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the priest asked.

"I do," she replied. With this, she was finally gaining what she'd so desperately wanted and needed for the last few years–companionship and financial security.

"And do you, Gideon Charles Gleeful take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife."

"Why, of course I do," Mabel had met Gideon a few months ago, where he was performing as a singer at a swanky Louisiana jazz club where she was desperately trying to sell her latest batch of Mabel Juice, when barely anyone had money. Turns out she'd picked the wrong club for it as well, and security was onto her before very long. She'd scanned the room, and quickly picked Gideon as a wealthy plantation owner's son (she'd been right too), and had began flirting with him, hoping to turn security off her. It had worked, surprisingly enough, and now here she was, wearing his mother's engagement ring, and about to solve the money woes that had haunted her, and maybe the hole in her heart that had been there ever since she'd lost contact with her brother, the huge raring loneliness that she couldn't ignore, would be finally forgotten, filled, now that she had a companion for life.

"I now pronounce you man and wife!" As Gideon's friends and relatives applauded, and threw friendly, celebratory Southernisms at her, she wished that her family could have been there. She wished that her mother could have been there to adjust her veil that morning, and despite all the resentment and anger, Mabel still wished that her father had been able to walk her down the aisle. In amongst all the God-bless-their-souls's and the ain't-they-sweet's, Mabel couldn't help wishing she could hear Grandmother Pines calling out a joyous 'Mazel Tov!'

"Well, here's where the rest of our lives begin, my sweet peachblossom," Gideon said, smiling at here. He was always so complimentary and sweet, which just reminded Mabel of how much he didn't know about her, how many lies she'd told him. She wondered how he'd respond if he ever found out that she was thirty, not the mere twenty-five she'd told him, that she wasn't a nurse before her marriage, that her grandparents had been Jewish, that she wasn't an only child, who had been recently orphaned. But hopefully, here was the end of the lies, the lawbreaking, the exhaustion, the loneliness. Everything would be fine, surely.