Sincerely Yours, Bill Cipher

A Real Family

The love we are greeted with once we arrive home is beyond comparison. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is waiting for us outside of the Mystery Shack. I never quite understood the human concept of a homecoming, but I think I have a pretty close idea now.
"YULE!" Merrily shrieks with relief, running as soon as we get out of the truck.
The two exchange sappy exclamations of joy and love and everything else, which I can honestly attest to be the cutest thing I've ever seen.
I feel a pair of arms wrap around my waist. I look down to see Mabel, blinking up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks so much better, so full of color, so healthy, so bright, so alive.
     I squeeze her tightly to my chest. "You're okay," I murmur, overwhelmed with relief. "Thank goodness. I love you."
She smiles up at me gently. "I'm so glad you're okay, too." Her smile wavers. "Come see me later, okay? There's something I want to talk to you about."
"What is it? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" I ask, cupping her face in my hands, turning it from side to side, checking for physical hurt.
She puts her hands on top of mine. "I'm alright. Everyone's fine now, thanks to you, Pacifica, and Yule."
I look past her where everyone is standing. "Where are the babies?"
As an answer to my question, I hear the happy screams of little children. Coming around the corner of the house, Melody chases the quadruplets, all of them rightly toddler-sized again. "Come back here!" she calls after them. "Ugh, how do your poor parents do this?"
She looks up from the chase and spots me. Her face lights up. "Bill!" In an unexpected gesture, she runs across the lawn and embraces me.
     "Melody! Wh-What are you doing?" I ask, tentatively returning the hug.
     "I'm hugging you, that's what!" she exclaims, her voice choked up. She steps back and holds me by the shoulders. "Do you really think you can get away with calling Rosanna your little sister without calling me your mother? You didn't even say goodbye to me before leaving on your uber-dangerous quest thingy!"
     "My... what?"
     "Look," she explains, "I know we're only, like, ten years apart in age, and you're never really going to be a Ramírez. You'll always be a 'Rehpic' through and through." She laughs. "But you're not our tenant. At least, not anymore. It's been a year you've been with us in our home. A year. Bill, that's as long as we've had our own home to live in! You've been with us from nearly the beginning, you were with us before our own child was born, and you're still with us now. If that doesn't make you part of our family, I don't know what does!"
I stare in shock for a moment, then I squeeze Melody back, "Thank you. This is a wonderful family to be a part of."
     Speaking of family, a car pulls up to the Shack. Donovan and Luna Redd tumble out of the front seats, leaving the doors open behind them.
Tamryn, Darcy, and Asher shriek in delight, running to their parents with open arms. Sebastian stands where he is, bursting into tears. They don't seem to be sudden tears of a meltdown, or of sadness, as a normal toddler would shed them. These seem to be tears of relief, leading me to think that he's retained the gist of his memories from the pulses that made him older. I wonder how long a two year old can keep memories like those fresh in his mind.
The children are ferociously doted on by their relieved parents. I wonder who called to tell them the news.
Dipper and Pacifica stand a ways away, close to each other, their hands clasped. Dipper, too, looks a hundred times better than he did yesterday.
"You're brother's looking well, too, I see," I remark to Mabel, who watches them with gratefulness in her gaze.
"Yes," she replies, her voice hardly much more than a breath. She takes hold of my arm and rests her head against it. "You can't imagine how scary it was... seeing him like that."
"But you were also-"
"No," Mabel stops me, shaking her head. "I mean, yes, I was doing just as badly, but when you see someone you love more than anything in the world about to die-" she chokes up, then continues, "then nothing else matters, not even yourself."
"I understand," I say, wrapping my arm around her, remembering our time with the Jinn. "I know just what that's like."
"You do?"
"I'll tell you about it later," I promise, hugging her tightly. "Let's just enjoy this moment we have now." A thought comes to me. "Wait right here," I tell her, then run off to the truck to retrieve something inside.
     "Ta-da!" I show them the entire strawberry cake we bought. The icing is dripping onto my fingers. "Uh, yeah, it's a little worse for wear, but probably still edible!"

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What I love about this big family of ours is that a melting cake is the least concerning thing in our lives. It gets eaten without question. Everyone, despite the state of the cake, agrees that it's one of the best cakes they've ever eaten.
I mean, we're a weird family, but that's quite all right with me. What family doesn't want paranormal investigators, tacky gift shops, semi-harmless ghosts, and ex-demons?
Well... I can think of a few, but that's besides the point! These people have taught me how to love, something I was never capable of before. I learned what family really is. It's not just related creatures coexisting, like me and my siblings were. No, a real family isn't like that at all. A real family loves and laughs together. A real family loves despite its member's mistakes. A real family's love can't be stopped by any spell, curse, or force. It's an eternal thing, one that embeds itself within our very souls.
And isn't that such a wonderful thing?