Breaking Trust- a Gravity Falls AU

The Strange Man

Mabel's POV
I woke up the next day and saw a figure sitting a few feet away from me. I quickly sat up and scooted away, suddenly feeling afraid. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," he said. That didn't satisfy me, but I didn't back away as he stood. "Who are you?" I asked the man. "I go by many names, but my given name is Stanford Pines. Please, call me Ford," the man said.

"Wait, Stanford? That's my great uncle's name. And Pines is our last name. I'm Mabel Pines," I said, suddenly confused. "I've never met another person with the same last name before." The man, Ford, just looks at me as if he were thinking. He sat there staring at me for a few minutes before asking, "Are you by any chance from the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon?"

I blink a couple of times, unsure if I should answer. It seemed like a normal question, but I didn't trust the guy just yet. Dipper had tought me to trust no one. I trusted very few people, but I now realized that some of my trust was misplaced. I didn't know I was crying until Ford said, "Now, don't cry. I'm sorry if I uncovered some bad memories. I'll stop my interrogating for now. I'm concerned, if you came from Gravity Falls. But let's put that behind us, for now. Would you like some breakfast?"

I look up and see a skillet over a small fire with some meat on it. My stomach growls, but I resist grabbing the food. "As long as it isn't those eye berries, I'll eat whatever you give me."

"How long have you been here?"

"About a day. I'm starving. What do you have exactly to eat?" I ask as I look at the skillet. Ford starts to rummage I his sack and starts to mutter, but I don't understand him. "The meat is of a wild colfrid, a bird from this region that's tastes just like chicken. I also have some berries that are similar to raspberries. They are delicious." Ford finishes speaking and plops one in his mouth. He puts out the fire and offers me the colfrid meat. I was never one to try new foods, but I'm too hungry to care about this new poultry.

I take a piece from the skillet and taste it. It was incredible. Much better than chicken. I scarf down that piece and take another. When that is gone, I eat a few of the berries, which tasted like raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries all in one fruit.

"What are these berries called? And where did you find them? I didn't see any when I went foraging last night."

"There name is hard to pronounce, so I call them flargle berries, for short. I got them in another dimension. Dimension number 6, to be precise. It has some of the most delicious foods in the other worlds."

I look outside to the strange land I was in. According to what the man said, there were at least six dimensions. Thinking about that made my brain hurt, so I continued to eat my breakfast. Although, I did think about the strange mysterious man sitting in front of me and of Dipper and Grunkle Stan in my dimension.

DIPPER'S POV
I look at the man sitting across from me at the table. I thought that I had known him. I thought he was my friend -my family- until I learned the truth. Now, the only family I knew I could trust was Mabel, but I wasn't entirely sure of that anymore.

I finish eating my pancakes as I think of ways to save Mabel. I go down to the basement and read through the journals. I look at the diagrams of the portal and try to understand their meanings. Most of what is written is in another language or written in code. I still study it anyways.

I hear a noise coming from the stairs. "Do you want some help, kiddo?" I hear Stan ask. I turn around and glare at him. "No thank you," I say in a cold voice. "I can do this on my own without your help. I don't need your help. I don't want it." I was still angry about his lies. I would never trust him again.

Stan looks disappointed and turns away. I return to studying the diagrams of the portal. The author must have done much research in order to make this dream a reality. I read about his hopes and wants of making a gateway to other places. The author wrote about how he made this device and of the tests conducted with it. Maybe I can use this knowledge to restart the machine, I think. I walk into the portal room and collect the broken pieces of the portal. Some of it was sucked into the portal last night, so I would have to make some new pieces. I look up from my work and notice that Stan is still standing in the other room.

"Why are you still here? I already said I don't want your help. Now please leave me alone while I try to rescue my sister.  If you haven't noticed, I don't trust you anymore, so just leave."

Stan looks as if he was about to burst into tears. "I'm sorry, Dipper. I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want to lose Mabel, my brother, or you. Please try to forgive me, someday." With this, he walks up the stairs and back into the shack.

I go back to collecting the metal and think of how much everything has changed with this family in less than 24 hours. Everything is strange, now.