Starfall

Chapter 31 - Shadow Vale

Pacifica watched as Ford's face shifted and morphed between contemplative reflection and exacting resolve. He no doubt was furious about being duped by his daughter. Pacifica couldn't imagine having a daughter. It was not as if she had never thought about it. It just was something daunting with far too many hurdles and complicating factors. Chiefly among those were her parents. To a lesser degree though Pacifica enjoyed her freedom and wished to keep it that way. From her perspective, pregnancy just seemed a gross inconvenience. If anything having a surrogate mother host the child seemed far more reasonable. That way she could keep her hard-earned figure intact. It wasn't vanity she reasoned, it was prudence.

Then she frowned. Perhaps she was being conceited though. It was so hard to tell these days. Drawing the line between her old habits, fueled by her parents, and her new persona was a challenge. Where did her old qualities end and her new nature begin? There was more gray area than she cared to introspectively dwell on. In her quest for self-improvement, she had begun to learn that not everything could be thrown out. Many things that were unique about her made her special. Her shrewd intellect and ability to be able to tell when others were manipulative or had hidden agendas was something that she had learned to accept. Perhaps it was so easy to see it in others when she had lived the same way not too long ago.

Pacifica and the twins were different, but they still had common ground. Their love for Gravity Falls was one thing they had in common. Pacific loved it mostly because of the twins. Dipper and Mabel loved it because of everything else it meant to them. Despite that, they had come together to defend Gravity Falls against the terror that was Bill all those years ago. It had given her a sense of belonging. And while she still had a long way to go in making up for her past she had begun to think of Gravity Falls as home.

The twins were her lifeline. When they were away for the rest of the year it was long drawn out agony. Of course, she had been shipped off to boarding school every year so both she and the twins missed the small quiet logging town and everything it represented to them. And now here she was in space in another dimension chasing a crazy space pirate woman who also happened to be Ford's daughter. She smiled. She was happy to know Ford had not been alone all those years. Her teenage affection for Ford had left her with a fondness for him in her later years. He had lost so much. Both he and Stanley. Stanley had endured the pain of being alone all those years while Ford had endured the pain of having his family torn away from him. And now after all these years, he had a chance at a reunion with his long-lost daughter. She wished him every happiness, even if she had kept those affections under lock and key.

Now that Dipper had grown up he was every bit as dashing and brave as Ford, and ruggedly handsome to boot. She smiled to herself. She looked over at the handsome young man. Her face frowned. The dork had his face all but two inches away from his journal as she doodled a picture of Zaharah's ship in his journal. He skillfully added the shading and thatching to the outlines he had made earlier in haste. Pacifica watched his brown eyes as they looked over the drawing intently. He stroked his clean shaved chin contemplativly as he evaluated his handiwork. His brown eyes wide in contemplation he twirled his chocolate brown hair with one hand while he started to chew on his pen cap. He was so cute sometimes she mused as she bit her lip. Then she gathered her composure before Mabel could catch on to her pining affections.

Really though she should be focused on the fact that they had almost been deserted in space and left for dead. Well till someone from the nearby space station sent someone out to help she supposed. That was a big 'if' though she assumed. They could easily just turn out to be people like this Tarkis from the Vandark sector that Ford had mentioned. Someone who would sell them to the highest bidder. Ford had once again saved them with his shrewd wit.