The Boy Who Cried Werewolf

Reunion

Four years. It had been four years. Neither Dipper nor Mabel had gotten much rest on the bus ride up to Gravity Falls. They were too excited at the prospect of seeing their grand-uncles and old summer friends, again. Now, as they drew near to their destination, they were practically bouncing in their seats with excitement.

"Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh!" Mabel sang out. "We're almost there!"

Dipper smiled. "Yeah, I can hardly wait!" he agreed.

"Can hardly wait to see Wendy," Mabel teased.

Dipper blushed, but his smile remained. "Yeah," he said, slipping into a daydream as he watched the woods go by the window.

"You still like her, dontcha?" his sister pressed, punching him in the shoulder.

"Well, yeah," Dipper replied, his reverie interrupted by Mabel's terminal effervescence. "She's my best friend, after all."

His sister giggled, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"We're just friends," Dipper protested.

"Sure," Mabel snorted, both annoyed and amused at her brother's refusal to admit the obvious. "I'll bet she likes you, too!"

"You really think so?"

"Dipper, you guys spend practically all your free time online together! Why would she do that if she didn't like you back?"

"I wish she could've liked me the way I liked her. But you know- I'm just glad she likes me. Even if it's not, y'know...that way."

"Know what I think, Bro? I think she's gonna surprise you this summer."

Dipper rolled his eyes at her, mired in fantasies of love, yet determined to see things as they really were, and not as he might wish them to be.

At Manly Dan's lumber mill, Wendy Corduroy was changing the oil of the big logging truck, while Dan himself was sharpening the chainsaws they were going to need for a job the following week. They worked together in silence until Wendy finished. She slid out from under the truck and walked over to her father's workstation.

"Hey, Dad?" Wendy asked. "Would you mind if I knocked off a little early today?"

"Eh?" Manly Dan replied. "You got somethin' special planned?"

"Mabel and Dipper are coming in today," she said. "They're gonna be visiting for the summer, and I wanna go meet him- er, them when they get here."

"Oh, the Pines kid?" Dan laughed. "Nice little guy, but-"

"Aw, come on! I haven't seen him, for like, four years!"

"Wendy, you see each other all the time online...."

"But Dad," Wendy pleaded. "Seeing Dipper online just isn't the same."

Dan laughed again, but more gently this time. "You always were fond of the little squirt, weren'tcha?"

"He's my best friend." Wendy hugged her father's arm and tilted her face up to him, giving him her best smile "We've hung out together, gone on awesome adventures together, and, like, totally saved each other's asses more times than I can-"

"Yeah, yeah; situations he got you into in the first place."

"He did save us all from Bill," she said. "All of Gravity Falls, and maybe even the world...."

Wendy turned up the wattage on her smile and made puppy-eyes at her father.

"He helped me all through high school," she pressed further. "Please, Dad?"