{HIATUS} Guess Who's Back

Chapter 1 - Midnight Thoughts

September 7th, 2012

12:00 AM

Pines House, Piedmont

Dipper was staying up again. It didn't really matter to him anymore to be honest. After spending the summer at Gravity Falls, he gave up hope of ever having a normal sleeping schedule again.

He sighed softly and began chewing on the gum of one of his pencils, as he started reviewing his notes.

Remaking Grunkle Ford's journals, what with the original three going up in flames, was harder than it was. Of course, since the young Pines Twins were still in touch with the older set, Stanford had, with quite the amount of faith as well, put Dipper to the task of recreating his journals. 

Dipper didn't really think he was the best candidate for it, but Ford reassured him, when Dipper expressed his doubts one day, that he was absolutely, the best person for the job.

"But what about Old Man McGucket?" Dipper had asked quietly.

"Fiddleford is brilliant, there is no denying that, but you, Dipper, have something he lacks," Ford had told him smiling. 

"What is it?" The boy has asked in curiosity. 

"You are a brilliant, dedicated, young man who enjoys the strange. Much like myself in that account, " He chuckled, "I have complete faith in you, my boy, and I'm pretty sure you won't disappoint me."

And so, Dipper had no choice but to accept. Between Grunkle Ford's complete and unadulterated faith and Mabel's encouragement, it would have been a no brainer not to accept.

Dipper smiled. His family was crazy, well, certain members of it were crazy, but he loved them. 

He continued chewing on his pencil as he reviewed the notes on Manataurs, his schoolwork lying haphazardly on the other side of the desk. Going back to school was every bit as horrible as it sounded, maybe even more. 

In fact, going back to California in general was bad. They were so used to Gravity Falls's weirdness that Mabel and Dipper forgot it was not the normal expected from them. 

Despite it only being a week since school started, it already felt like a month. A month that weighed heavily on the Dipper's mind.

Dipper would be lying if he said that he and Mabel didn't miss Gravity Falls. The town with it's weird people and even weirder phenomena had left quite the impression on the young Pines. They missed their Grunkles. They missed Wendy. They missed Soos. They missed Grenda and Candy and Pacifica and Old Man McGucket and darn it! They missed all of them!

They were some of the only people that embraced the twins for who they were, not for who they appeared to be. They were some of the very few people that had managed to see the real Dipper and Mabel, not Dipper and Mabel Pines. They were the ones who saw last all of their young, bored, normal children facades within their first hour of being there!

And it hurt! It physically hurt to have all that acceptance, all those feelings of warmth, of happiness, of belonging, torn away after the summer was over. 

Dipper sighed heavily as he fiddled with the pencil in his mouth. 'Not to mention all the bullying,' He thought bitterly. 

People in Piedmont loathed the strange and different. They would do anything to make those who were different in some shape or form feel unwelcomed. 

Dipper and Mabel have always been bullied. For as long as they could remember, people were always either making fun of them or sabotaging their belongings in one way or another.