Sincerely Yours, Bill Cipher

The Agony of Worry

     I awake to the smell of pancakes cooking. My dream stays clear in my head. I have to tell the others about it. I throw the blankets off of me and rush to the kitchen.
     It seems that I am the last one awake. The kitchen is crawling with people. The Ramirezes are taking with Stan and Ford, who is holding Rosanna. Dipper holds two of the colorful-haired children in his lap, and Seb holds the third. My siblings are seated at the table, gnawing on their flapjacks, aside from Phil, who seems uninterested. Mabel is cooking the breakfast. Including me, we have a whopping fifteen people in our kitchen!
"Morning, Bill!" Mabel exclaims, beaming, stepping away from the stovetop. "Hungry?"
I wring my fingers through my hair. "Hardly. I just had the craziest dream. Vision? And this whole scene is quite overwhelming."
Her laughter adds to the other chiming voices in the kitchen. "Isn't it? I'll give you a pancake, anyway. Maybe I, you, Dipper, Stan and Ford can go and talk about whatever dream you had."
I look over at the chattering toddlers and Seb. My mind seems to go through a reset. I- I remember them. All of a sudden I remember them, when I didn't before. How could I have possibly forgotten? I met them at Dan's house. I remember when Dan brought Seb over when he started experiencing pulses. Dan left the Society so he and his family could be safer.
Mabel gives a short burst of a yelp and runs over to Seb, wrapping her arms around him. "I'm sorry!" she cries. "I remember now. I'm so sorry! That must have so hard for you."
I too walk over to the quadruplets. Sebastian's eyes soften with relief. "I'm sorry too," I tell him, also glad that this pulse has passed. However, knowing how Seb's pulses have worked so far, I expect that this one will continue to repeat, if the patterns stick. I pat the heads of the toddlers in turn. "I remember you guys. Aster, Asher." Asher looks up at me with big eyes, then shies away from my touch. "Tulip, Tamryn." Tamryn grins as I talk to her. "Dandelion, Darcy." Darcy giggles. "And..." I finally put my hand on Seb's shoulder, "Snapdragon, Sebastian." Seb smiles through a mouthful of pancake.
The doorbell rings. Most people in here don't even notice over the constant chatter. "I'll get it," I volunteer, no idea who it may be. Things are so insane right now, it could be about literally anything.
     I open the door to find Dan and Lily breathing heavily with worry-stricken faces. Lily completely loses it. "Bill, are our children here?!"
     "Yes, they are. You got here remarkably fast from when the pulse wore off," I note. Dan and Lily push past me.
     The children have already run into the room at the sound of their parents' voices. Unaware of the situation, the three infants yelp with delight at their parents arrival, as if they just went out on a short shopping trip. Seb, however, breaks down into sobs, and I really feel for him. The stress and relief of the situation have completely consumed him.
     Dan and Lily run over to him and envelop him in their arms, trying to calm his cries. Lily also has broken into tears. "I'm so, so sorry, Seb," she murmurs to her son. That still is an odd thing to consider. A twenty-one-year-old and his wife of similar age with their sixteen-year-old son? I just try not to think about it too much.
Dan breaks away from the hug and kneels to embrace his smaller children. "Hello, my lovelies," he coos. The three scream with joy and latch onto him. "My word!" He laughs. "You four need some serious help with your hair." He selects vials from the inside of his coat and feeds each one to his children in turn. I watch their colored features brighten.
Donavan/Dan stands, smiles at me, and pulls his wife close. "Let me formally introduce my wife to you, Bill. This is Luna. She's a year older than I am, and the kindest, most beautiful woman I know." She blushes dark orange and he pecks her on the forehead.
     The happy reunion is short-lived. Not a second later, Seb lets out a pained, ear-piercing scream. He clutches his stomach with one hand, his head in the other as he grits his teeth in agony. Then, he shrinks back to the size a child his age should be. Panic-stricken, the toddler starts to cry.
     His parents rush over to check on him with concerned exclamations of their own. His siblings also look startled. I watch in horrible shock. What was that? That was at least three times worse from the last time I saw him transform. Are the pulses... growing more dangerous? Is Seb only going to be hurt worse each time until... oh gosh. Are we all in much more danger than we realized? Will these pulses destroy us? How am I supposed to stop this? Oh, Axolotl, what am I supposed to do? I've been given a second chance and I'm blowing it!
"Bill, it's okay," Mabel tells me, noticing my sudden distress, putting her arms around me.
"No, Mabel, it's not." I push away, though I regret it as soon as I see her hurt expression. "I'm sorry. It's just that I think the pulses are getting worse. I don't think they're going to stop worsening until they cease. I couldn't bear it if you all were to get hurt because of my actions. I couldn't live with myself if another one of you were to die on my watch." I lower my head, painful memories returning to me.
Little Seb shrieks a blood-curling wail, and grows back to the size of a teenager, growing strait into to clothes he had previously been swimming in. He looks around for a moment, his eyes wide and round with fear, then curls into a ball with his head between his knees, heaving a single, distraught sob. Luna cries softly too, and holds her son close to her body.
     It breaks my heart for the Redd children to have to say this to their parents, but I feel like I must. "Seb's tendencies to have his pulses repeat frequently worries me that the pulse where we all will forget them will happen again. I think... I'm sorry, but I think that until we're sure it won't happen again, it would be safest for your children to stay with us."
     Donavan's face darkens. "You're saying we could be a danger to our own children?"
     "Well, you sent them away the first time, didn't you?" I snap. As soon as I say it, I know it's too late to take it back. I don't even know why I said it. I'm just caught up in so much at the moment that I can't even think straight.
     Dan Gerous steps up to me and grabs me by the collar. For the first time since I've met him, I see how he lives up to his alias. His eyes blaze, and not just with the fake color he's filtered into them. "Listen here, Bill Cipher. If you think I would ever intentionally hurt any one of my precious children, you are horribly mistaken. You'd understand if you had any of your own. I don't know if your fiendish mind can even comprehend the love a parent can feel toward his sons and daughters, but I want to drill it into your head this second. You can never understand how much it hurts me to see my son like this. You can't begin to realize the agony of worry you would put Luna and me through by keeping our kids here."
     His face suddenly twists with sadness as his voice cracks and he begins to cry. "I know that's what we have to do, though. But I can hardly stand to know that I'll be away from my boy during the times when he'll need me most."
     Luna stands up and looks at me, her brows furrowed. "I don't suppose we could stay as well. I know that's not an option. This place already seems overcrowded, and we couldn't put more of a burden on you all."
     "I apologize," I whisper, ashamed.
     Donavan sighs. "Alright. If it does not happen within two days, we'll come back for them. We'll drop some clothes off for them, okay? And if things worsen, promise to call us right away."
     "We promise," Dipper swears with a nod.
     After hugging their children again and giving them words of love and encouragement, Donavan and Luna Redd leave.
     And I feel even emptier than I did before.