Something seems off...

Chapter 17

"Where should I start?"

"My family, please."

"Right. Greg's father fell into depression a few years after you disappeared, then died in the early 2000s of cancer of the pancreas. Your mother stayed by his side the whole time, but passed away three years ago. I'm sorry, Wirt."

He was expecting it, he had to tell himself. They were orphaned, their parents were dead. Dipper looked up, not a trace of apology on his face, but Wirt had to remind himself that the kid had nothing to do with it. He was just the poor soul who had taken it upon himself to tell him the grave news.

"Should I go on, or stop?" he asked, concern tinging his voice. No, he wasn't apologetic, but he still cared for how the news would affect him.

"Yes, p-please," Wirt stuttered through rapidly forming tears.

"As you can imagine, all your grandparents are long dead. The only actual family member that I found was on your father's side..."

Wirt flinched away. His father. The last person he wanted to be reunited with.

"Not him..."

"No," interrupted Dipper. "He died behind bars after he did the same thing he did to your mother on another poor woman. Just... don't think about it anymore. The person I was mentioning was your uncle." [1]

He fidgeted a little. He had met him once, but it had been brief. His father and his brother had never gotten along well, with ten years difference in age, there was a reason. But they also had completely opposite personalities, physiques, and his father hadn't approved of what he called his "way of life". And like all things he had done, his father had left a lasting impression on him. More precisely, he had frightened it into him. Now that he was older, he could see that his hatred towards the estranged family member was unjustified, but he still resented the man who hadn't, in the early stages of his mother's wedlock, warned them of her to-be husband's evils and false promises.

"All right, but now about Sara?" he asked, quickly changing the subject. "And the others that were there on that day?"

"What's her surname?" he asked, and Wirt told him. He typed on the keys again, sometimes scanning a page, to then dismiss it with a swipe of the touchpad. He stopped after a while, looking back up to him.

"All your friends continued the search long after the authorities had left, and had formed an association of sorts, but they disbanded when most of them graduated and moved out. A few hard-cores stayed though, including Sara, her sister Emily and a certain Jason." [2]

"She aced in wrestling in college, as well as contemporary dancing, and studied to become a doctor, but gave up and moved back to her hometown instead and became a policewoman. She also married..."

"Jason, I knew it."

He gave him a look.

"...Boris, the town doctor."

Ah. Well.

"And they've got three kids. Jason, on the other hand, has become a very successful animator for a children's cartoon show. [3] To tell you the truth, she seems to be the one who would believe you the easiest, being so dedicated to finding you. If we manage convince her, there's a high probability that she could help us find a home for you two, someone likely to take you in without too many questions asked. We need competent (he glared in the direction of the gift shop) adults if we are to get anywhere with this. You're not going through the system, either. [4] If you're getting new identification, it's not the best of ideas to leave them between the hands of the State more frequently than necessary."