september
The Gravity Falls post office was quaint, fitting in with the rest of the city's good old American small town charm. Or at least, that's how Dipper Pines had once described it when he had gone with his sister and her friend-slash-formal-rival, Pacifica Northwest, to check for a package from his parents back home in Piedmont, California. That dreadfully hot day in July was the last time Pacifica had a reason to go there. Or at least, it had been. Since the end of the summer, Pacifica had been making weekly trips to mail out letters to Mabel, who had asked if she could be the blonde's pen pal. Pacifica had excitedly agreed.
Pacifica stood at the end of a short line of locals, arms crossed, a pink envelope in one hand and her cell phone in the other. A rather boring ten minutes trickled by before she was able to drop off the letter and head back out of the building. As the heavy glass door shut behind her, she felt her cheeks grow hot at the sight of her former best friends strolling along the sidewalk on the other side of the road.
Hoping that they wouldn't notice her, Pacifica tugged nervously at the heavy llama sweater she wore. Now that the weather was cooling down, she could actually wear it without feeling like she was being roasted in an oven. However, the shaggy top wasn't something that her parents or peers would really approve of. Despite the fact that Mabel had knit it for her, Pacifica felt embarrassed to be seen by the girls while wearing it. As she quickly rushed away from the building, she saw Tiffany leaning towards the other girl and pointing at her out of the corner of her eye.
"Is that...?"
"No, that can't be. She's dressed like weird girl."
"Good thing she's not hanging around us anymore. Wouldn't want to be seen with that mess."
Pacifica shoved her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and kept her head down as she started down the road, struggling to keep herself from biting back at the girls with any nasty comments. You need to be the bigger person, she told herself. Screw them for being mean to you. They're assholes and you don't need them.
She turned towards a dirt trail that twisted through some bushes and trees and pushed past, dirt kicking up under her boots. At the end of the summer, she had discovered that it was a shortcut that would lead back to her family's manor. She'd been taking it since.
The woods were quiet, the only noises heard being those of the leaves rustling in the breeze and Pacifica's quiet footsteps. At first, she'd been wary of the path, unsure of what could be creeping out beyond the trees, but now she almost enjoyed it. It was peaceful, calm, and the silence gave her plenty of time to think. Not to mention that it saved her plenty of time each trip she took downtown.
By the time she made it back to the massive manor she called home, it was nearly 3 o'clock. The blonde climbed up the steps and pushed open one of the heavy wooden doors.
Old Man McGucket and his son had bought the mansion after the events of the Weirdmageddon, but had agreed to let the Northwests remain as long as they were polite and let him have his laboratory and a few rooms to himself. Pacifica and her family didn't really have a choice, considering they would have nowhere to go. At first, the thought of having to share her home with some disgusting hillbilly made her sick, but as time progressed, eventually she warmed up to him. McGucket was usually working away in a parlor room that he'd turned into a makeshift lab, creating all sorts of robots and devices to improve life in the manor. The old man had even taken to helping in her lessons; Pacifica had switched to being homeschooled when he made the offer to teach her.
The manor's main hall was empty besides one of the maids polishing the floor in the back corner. Pacifica slowly made her way up the staircase, not in much of a hurry to get anywhere. When she reached the top, she bumped into a familiar old man as he quickly turned a corner, sending the books in his arms flying.
Pacifica crouched down to help the scientist gather his belongings, a quiet "sorry" slipping out of her mouth (she had been changing from her old habits and ways, but apologizing was still a new and awkward concept to her).
"My bad," McGucket replied. "I should'a been lookin' where I was going. Gotta hurry off to the Shack to give these books to Stanford before he's off travelin' again." The man stood up straight, his arms full of heavy and worn down journals, their pages hanging out messily.
"The Stans are back in town already?" Pacifica asked. It had only been 3 weeks since they'd left town to head off on some epic monster hunting adventure up north. She wasn't expecting them to come back until at least December.
McGucket nodded. "Somethin' about visitin' Soos 'n Melody," he told her as he descended down the grand staircase. Pacifica rushed to catch up with him.
"Can I come with you?" She asked him. It wasn't often that Pacifica found an excuse to visit the Mystery Shack now that Dipper and Mabel were gone for the rest of the school year, and she was curious to see how Soos and his girlfriend were running it with the Stan twins gone.
"Sure! The more the merrier," McGucket beamed.
Their walk through the woods was longer than Pacifica had anticipated and made her wish she had better walking shoes. She knew to be thankful for the nice weather, however, considering it would soon be cooling down and she'd be trapped in that big home of hers all winter considering the fact that most of her old friends wouldn't talk to her anymore. Trips to ski lodges and the mall weren't all that fun when you were by yourself.
The Mystery Shack was fairly empty for a Friday afternoon in late September, the only people in the gift shop being the older Pines twins and Soos.
"How do I get this thing to work?" Stanley held a small smartphone in his hands, mashing his fingers against the screen. "Hello? Kids? What am I-"
"Let me show you, Mr. Pines," Soos offered, taking the device and carefully pressing the volume buttons on the side. Seconds later, the voices of Dipper and Mabel could be heard.
"Hey Grunkle Stan!" Mabel chirped on the other end.
"Hey, kids! How's the seventh grade treating you two knuckleheads?"
Part of Pacifica wanted to go up and greet her friends through the phone and chat with Stan for a moment, but she stayed put by the front door. McGucket had already made his way over to Ford, who had been sitting by the checkout counter, his nose buried in a book with the mothman on the cover. The Mystery Shack felt so noisy and full of energy that she wasn't entirely used to. The manor was almost always quiet, never chatty like this. The blonde felt out of place.
The front door swung open, hitting Pacifica in the back. She stumbled away and turned around to see the redheaded teenage clerk who'd been working the gift shop all summer.
"Sorry, dude! You alright?" Wendy looked the girl over.
"I'm... Alright, I guess, yeah. I shouldn't have been standing there," Pacifica responded shyly. She watched as the girl walked away, rolling up the sleeves of a blue flannel top. Wendy still proudly wore the pine tree cap he had given her at the end of the summer, proving Pacifica wrong on a previous statement that trucker hats didn't look good on anybody.
It seemed like it would be a while before McGucket was ready to leave. He and Ford had headed to the study underground to chat about the research they'd both done throughout the month. Stan had walked off into the living room, chatting on the phone with his niece and nephew. Meanwhile, Pacifica had pretended to be really interested in a certain cheap snowglobe to avoid talking with anyone or looking out of place.
"Pacifica?" Wendy cleared her throat behind the checkout counter. "Wanna step outside on the porch with me for a minute?"
The blonde slowly nodded and folded her arms over her chest, shrinking in on herself. Pacifica followed Wendy out through the front door and out onto the rickety wooden structure. Sighing, Wendy leaned against one of the support beams and held out her hand to Pacifica, offering a wrapped fudge pop to her. Pacifica hesitated before taking it. The sugary treat was something never included in the large grocery orders her parents made and they'd lectured her about following their 20-step diets and what-not. She unwrapped the pop as she sat down on the porch steps.
"So what's up with you? How have things been?" Wendy asked as she slid to the ground.
Pacifica shrugged. "Things have been pretty quiet. It's been a while since I've tagged along on any monster hunts or prevented the end of the world," she replied with a slight smile.
"I see you've still got your 'destiny sweater'," Wendy smirked.
Looking down at her top, Pacifica ran her fingers over the llama design below her chest. "Oh yeah. Not exactly Chanel, but it's comfy at least."
"I wish I still had some cool stuff from the Weirdpocalypse. I mean, my symbol was a bag of ice. I can't exactly have any cool clothing or anything... At least Dipper gave me his hat." She tipped the brim of the cap towards Pacifica. "How are they doing, by the way? I told 'em I'd keep in touch, but between school and work I've been kind of busy."
"Mabel texts me around the clock, and we're going to start sending each other pen pal letters every now and then. I haven't talked to Dipper much, though. Mabel said he's been a bit stressed out with the school year starting back up."
Wendy nodded as Pacifica nibbled at the fudge bar. "It's gotten pretty boring working at the Shack without them running around, I'll have to admit," she laughed, "and Soos and Melody are doing great at running this place, but it's weird not walking into work to see Stan telling people about-" Wendy paused, puffing her chest out and mocking the stern expression the old man usually wore before continuing, "the spookums that I found eating my trash yesterday! It's true! Not fake! Completely real, I promise you, you're getting an authentic supernatural experience here!"
Pacifica giggled at the spot-on impression and finished her pop as the door beside them squeaked open. McGucket teetered through it, a stack of even larger books and more papers in his arms.
"Ah, Pacifica," Ford greeted the blonde with a six-fingered wave. "Fiddleford here has been telling me about your lessons with him. He said you're really enjoying them now."
Feeling a bit on the spot, Pacifica nodded awkwardly. "Oh, um, yeah. They're really, like, interesting. I used to think all of that science-type stuff was lame, but y'know. Not too bad." The first few lessons that she'd had with McGucket were (if she were being honest) a boring snoozefest, but after a week or two, she'd started to pick up with it and enjoy the long hours spent sitting on the fancy carpet in his office, watching as he demonstrated how to assemble different types of machinery or explain theories to her.
"Every scientist needs somewhere to keep their discoveries, and if not that, just a place to get their thoughts down. I thought you might find this useful." Ford smiled and handed her a leather-cover journal that felt heavy in her small hands. She brushed her fingers over the front, feeling the cool metal plate on the front that resembled the llama on her sweater. "Do you like it?"
She clutched it to her chest, trying to contain her excitement. "I-I love it," Pacifica murmured, smiling wide. "T-thank you, Mr. Pines."
"Welp, I guess we better get goin'," McGucket chimed as he hopped down the porch steps. "See ya' later, Stanford!"
Wendy reached over and ruffled Pacifica's hair. Normally, the blonde would mind that, but she only smiled more. "If you ever get tired of these old geezers, you can always come hang out with my friends and I, FYI."
"I'll keep that in mind."
As Pacifica and McGucket started on the trip home, she flipped through the many blank pages that had yet to be filled. If someone had told her two months ago that she would be walking home with the kooky inventor who lived in the junkyard, wearing a tacky sweater Mabel Pines had knit for her, just coming from the Mystery Shack, she would have laughed in your face and told you there was no way in hell that would happen. Now, she realized how much she was changing. Thinking about it all, she decided she liked this much better than expensive trips to galleries and stores to go on a shopping spree. The Weirdmageddon had been a disaster, sure, but she was almost thankful for it. Without it, she would have spent the day with people she didn't like, stuck in a stuffy classroom in Gravity Falls Middle School, bored out of her mind but dreading to go home and be ignored by her parents.
The events of the Weirdmageddon had almost been a blessing.