You Can Run, But You Can't Hide [R.I.P]

Insanity Is Anything

Dipper's P.O.V 

I spent two long, painful, and horribly unpleasant weeks in recovery. The pins in my back made my muscles sore, and I looked like a flagpole - stiff and unbendable. During my stay, the nurses usually helped me master sitting up again, but I knew I'd have to continue physical therapy long after my departure from then on. 

Mabel was excited, but was very careful around me. She suggested a wheelchair, but Ford refused politely, since I had to use a strange, robotic-like machine that would help me walk, keep my posture upright and to endure a little-less-painful process of walking again (plus Ford invented the robotic walker). 

It hurt like hell, and sleep was the worst: I mean - how the hell is a kid going to be able sleep while lying in bed like a stick? 

"Hey, Dip-Dip!" Mabel called. I whined, not wanting to move. 

"What?" 

"Want some Mabel Juice to cheer you up?" She asked me while holding up a blender full of pink liquid that contained glitter and plastic dinosaurs. I shook my head and continued reading. I couldn't move my arms to a certain angle or degree, so I was a bit irritated. 

Suddenly, something completely irrational and bogus popped up in my head: what if I could walk without Ford's invention? My bedridden recovery was several times quicker than a usual near-quadriplegic. 

(a quadriplegic is a person who is paralyzed after a C3/C4 spinal fracture - just look it up) 

"Hey, Mabes?" I looked at her. She looked at me. 

"Yeah, bro-bro?" 

"You know how my stay at the hospital flew by like it was nothing?" I wondered. 

Mabel looked at me like I sprouted two heads. "What do you...oh." 

Shaking her head, she put the blender down on the table and walked over to me. "Dipper," She started, "walking without Ford's machine is really risky. I don't want you to hurt yourself...again."

"C'mon, Mabel! Please? Besides, it'd make sense to ask Ford about this since he has twelve PhDs! Our great-uncle is smarter than practically anyone; plus he's survived a lifetime in space!"  

Mabel groaned. "Ugh, fine! I'll go fetch Ford for you then." 

"No! I want to see him in person! I want to go down in the basement and make him take this terrible thing off my back!" I protested. 

Mabel kept giving me this if-you-fall-I-will-kick-you-into-next-week look while she guided me down the elevator and the stairs. 

***

Ford's P.O.V

I was trying to find a rational location to where Dipper's letter was sent from when I heard the all-too-familiar creaks and groans of Dipper's machine and the elevator. Standing, I saw Dipper and Mabel looking at me with conflicted experssions. My thoughts immediately jumped to a specific name: Bill Cipher. 

"Great-uncle Ford...I'd like to take this machine off." Dipper said. 

Wait what? 

"Why? You can't walk without my invention!" 

Mabel nodded towards him after an uncomfortable beat of silence. "Maybe I can," my nephew added quietly, "maybe I can walk without this." 

My thoughts kept jumping around, and Bill's name kept screaming in my mind. "Are...you asking me this because of the quick recovery a while back?" 

My niece and nephew nodded. 

I adjusted my glasses, and sighed. "Alright," I mumbled, "I'll remove it." 

"...I'll remove it."