Summary:
As Mabel gets prepares to put on the perfect puppet show, Dipper is driven to making a desperate deal to try and save Lapis.
Between alien invasions and high-stakes jailbreaks, it had been awhile since the Mystery Kids had come together to solve a genuine mystery. Dipper, however, was determined to change that when he gathered everyone at the library with a mission in mind. A mission he knew he'd need all the help he could get with.
"Alright, you guys," he began as they claimed a table in a quieter corner of the library. "Today's the big day."
"Big day!" Mabel enthusiastically echoed.
"Super big!" Steven added. "Uh… what's so big about it, exactly?"
Connie couldn't help but laugh a little. "Come on, Steven. We've been over this already. We're all here to help Dipper find a way to rescue Lapis."
"That's right," Dipper nodded, allowing himself a small, hopeful smile. "And I think I have a pretty good lead for us to get started with too." He presented that lead to the others as he carefully set the old laptop on the table. "Soos finally finished fixing up that laptop we found in the bunker a few weeks ago. If this thing works, we could learn the identity of the author and unravel the greatest mysteries of Gravity Falls!"
"I still can't believe it," Connie curiously eyed the laptop. "After all this time, the answers to all of the questions we've been asking this entire summer could be sitting right in front of us! This could be our biggest break yet!"
"Whoa!" Steven leaned forward, fascinated. "That's so cool! But… what does any of that have to do with Lapis?"
"It has everything to do with her," Dipper said, resolved. "The author knew a ton about Gem stuff; the journal is filled with his notes about them, but what laptop has even more of his research on it? Specifically about fusions, maybe even ways to split them up."
"Oh!" Mabel exclaimed, readily following along. "If that's true, then we could use the author's super-sciency know-how to stop Malachite and save Lapis all in one swoop!"
"Exactly," Dipper's smile widened a bit. "At first, I thought that finding a way to help her was almost impossible, but with this laptop, we might just be able to pull it off. I have a really good feeling about this."
"So do I!" Steven warmly agreed.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Mabel urged, pumping her fist. "Let's get this baby open!"
"Ok, here goes nothing." Dipper flipped the laptop's switch, holding his breath along with all the others as they waited to see what would happen. Slowly but surely, the time-weathered machine rattled to life, its screen flickering a dull green after countless years being left dormant. "Yes!" Dipper grinned, relieved. "It works!"
"That's amazing!" Connie exclaimed, impressed, "It still boots up, even after all this time! Whoever built this thing really knew their stuff."
"Yeah, they-" Dipper cut himself off with a wince when the laptop let out a warning beep. The kids turned their attention back to it, only to find an obstacle none of them had been expecting: a screen flashing //UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FORBIDDEN// before demanding a way to bypass it. "Ugh, a password!" Dipper groaned, facepalming. "Of course…"
"I guess that does make sense," Connie mused. "Especially if the author really did keep all of his most important, private research on here."
"Hm…" Steven perched his hand to his chin in thought. "Eight letters, huh? What words have eight letters…? Oh, I know! 'Password'! Eight letters! Mystery solved!"
While Mabel was right on board with this suggestion, Dipper and Connie weren't quite as taken. "Steven, 'password' might not be the most… secure password in the world…" Connie noted with a frown.
"Well… it's easy to remember, at least."
"But I doubt it's the kind of password someone like the author would use," Dipper began flipping through the journal for some kind of clue. "I mean, for all we know, the password might not even be a word at all. It could be some kind of code or a series of numbers or anything else! Where do we even start?!"
"Don't worry, bro-bro," Mabel rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "With you and Connie's brains, Steven's enthusiasm, and my laser focus, there is nothing that can distract us from… Do you hear that?"
A bright trill of piano music echoed through the library, coming from the children's section nearby. There, a pony-tailed boy entertained his young audience with a puppet-starring musical that he smoothly sung along to. "All my life I've been dreamin' of a love that's right for me, and now I finally know her name and its… Sing it with me kids:"
"Literacy!" the children cheered their response.
"I finally understand what all the buzz is about!" the boy's bee puppet professed. "Reading!"
"Gimme some of that honey!" the book puppet cried. From there, the boy brought both puppets together in a strange sort of "kiss".
"Oh wow," Steven cooed, intrigued. "I've never seen a puppet show like that before."
"Um… is it ok for him to be making those puppets kiss so, uh, passionately, in front of all those kids?" Connie raised an eyebrow.
"Who cares?" Dipper rolled his eyes as he turned back to the laptop. "We have way more important things to do right now than watch some weirdo's dumb puppet show, right, Mabel?" To his surprise, he got no answer. Instead, Mabel had her sights set solely on the young puppeteer, a clearly lovestruck look written all over her face as she let out a wistful sigh. And even if Steven and Connie didn't, Dipper knew his sister well enough to know exactly where this was going. "Oh boy…"
"Are you ok, Mabel?" Steven asked, confused.
"I'm better than ok, Steven," Mabel gleefully spun around in her chair. "I'm in love!"
"With… that guy?" Connie shot a skeptical glance over at the puppeteer. "Really?"
"What a dreamboat," Mabel heaved another happy sigh. "I've never seen eyes as blue as his and that ponytail, oh, don't even get me started on it!"
"Trust me, we won't," Dipper deadpanned as he cracked a book open. "Now, can we please get back on track with the laptop? According to this cryptology book, there are approximately 7.2 million eight letter words, so we're going to have to work together to get through them all. Now, let's see here…"
Despite her brother's insistence, Mabel remained distracted by the alluring puppeteer. She slipped away from the table so quietly that nobody really noticed–Dipper least of all as he came up with a system for them to work off of. "Ok, so I'll type. Connie, you keep track of the words we've already tried, and Steven and Mabel, you guys can take turns listing off words from the-" He stopped short when he glanced up, only to find the seat next to Steven was glaringly empty. "Mabel…" he groaned, annoyed.
For her part, Mabel didn't hear him as she snuck over to hide behind a book cart and spy on her latest crush. She wasn't surprised to find that he was even more captivating up close as she watched his puppet show's finale.
"And that's why we don't stick our hands in…" he trailed off as the children eagerly joined him.
"Other people's mouths!"
"Hey, I'm Gabe Benson, ya'll, good night!" he bid his audience goodbye as their parents came to collect them. "Hey, good job today, you guys," he proudly congratulated his puppets, only to spark an argument between them soon after.
"You were late on your cue!" the book puppet accused.
"What?!" the bee putted scoffed, offended.
Gabe, however, was quick to step in and soothe them. "Hey, hey, be good to each other. We're all stars."
By now, Mabel had hopped up onto the book cart, casually rolling in while lying on top of it. "Hey! Guess who's Mabel! I am. Care to learn more?" she asked, throwing on a flirtatious grin. "I bet you do. You like to learn-" She cut herself off with a frightened wail as she fell from her perch and onto the ground–though she didn't stay down for long. "And I'm up!"
"Oh, hey," Gabe smiled as she walked over to him. "I'm Gabe, master of puppets. Nice to meet you."
"You're amazing with those puppets," Mabel whispered, dazzled.
"Really?" Gabe looked between his pair of puppets in surprise. "A lot of people think puppets are dumb, o-or just for kids, or something."
"Well, I don't!" Mabel countered. "I'm puppet crazy! People call me Puppet-Crazy-Mabel!"
"Oh, no way, people used to call me Puppet-Crazy-Gabe!" Gabe exclaimed, beaming. "So, when's your next puppet show?"
"My… huh?"
"Well, you can't truly love puppets if you're not throwing puppet shows, right?"
Mabel quickly shook her confusion off. She was off to a good start–she wasn't about to lose her momentum now. Even if that meant she had to lie to keep it going. "O-oh, yeah! I mean, I'm totally working on a puppet show!"
"Oh, what are the details?" Gabe asked, deeply intrigued.
Mabel forced out a laugh. Try as she might to think of a way out of this, she couldn't help but dig herself in even deeper. "Oh, there are soooo many details…"
At the same time, Dipper, Steven, and Connie got to work on the laptop anyway. That work was more than a little tedious as they essentially picked random words from the dictionary, a plan that wasn't really showing too many promising results so far.
"Ok, so the next word is, ironically enough, password," Connie said as she flipped to another dictionary page.
"Oo! Fingers crossed!" Steven said with a hopeful grin.
"I guess it's worth a try…" Dipper frowned as he typed it in. Unsurprisingly, the laptop flashed red once more from yet another failed entry. "Called it."
"Aw…" Steven sagged in his seat, disappointed. "And I really thought password had a shot too…"
"Um, heeeeey, you guys!" Mabel forced on a smile as she made her way back over to the table. Even still, it did little to hide the anxious edge in her voice, one that wasn't lost on Steven or Connie.
Dipper, on the other hand, barely looked up from the laptop when he asked, "So, how'd it go with, uh, puppet guy?"
"Dipper…" Mabel hesitated at first. She didn't even have to say it to know how he was bound to react, but still, she still laid it out all at once anyway. "How hard do you think it would be to write and compose a sock puppet rock opera with lights, original music, and live pyrotechnics by Friday?"
Dipper froze, pulling his hands away from the laptop as it buzzed from another failed entry. "What?" he looked at his sister, baffled. "Mabel, are you serious?!"
"I don't know what happened!" Mabel pressed herself back into her seat. "I got lost in his eyes and his ponytail and I'm gonna be so embarrassed on Friday if I don't have anything to show for it! I need a ton of help if I'm ever gonna pull all this together!"
She barely needed to beg at all to get Steven on board. "I'm in!" he gladly agreed. "Puppet shows are already a lot of fun to watch; putting one on will be even more fun, especially if we all work on it together!"
"Hm… I guess making a few sock puppets wouldn't be too hard, right?" Connie shrugged.
"A few?" Mabel shook her head. "Oh, no, no, no! This can't be just some plain old puppet sideshow. This has gonna be epic, with huge, elaborate sets and a whole menagerie of puppets acting every single, heartfelt, suspenseful scene out! If I really wanna impress Gabe with this, then we can't spare any expense, and that includes time."
"But what about cracking this password?" Dipper interrupted. "We have to figure this thing out–and fast. The sooner we do, the sooner we might be able to set Lapis free!"
"I know this is really important to you, Dipper," Mabel earnestly agreed. "A-and it's important to me too! But if you help me with this for just a couple of days, then I promise we'll all pitch in with the password! Please! Pretty please! It's for love, Dipper!"
She put on the most convincing, desperate look she could muster, one that she knew her brother had never been able to resist before. And sure enough, he couldn't resist it now either. Dipper sighed, still far from happy as he begrudgingly relented. "All right, fine-"
"YES!" Mabel scooped him up into a tight and sudden hug. It wasn't long before she pulled Steven and Connie into that same embrace, delighted to have each of them along for the ride. "Thanks so much, you guys! Everyone hear that?" she shouted to the rest of the library. "These three! They're all the best!"
"The best?" Steven chuckled. "Aw, Mabel! You're the best too!"
"No, you're the best!" Mabel countered just as cheerfully.
"No, you are!"
"No, you!"
"You guys, shh!" Connie cut in, embarrassed by the curious stares they were catching. "We're still in a library, remember?"
"Not for long!" Mabel hopped out of her seat. "We gotta go get some socks, and a ton of them!"
"Oh! I think Amethyst keeps a bunch of old socks in her room!" Steven suggested. "I'm sure she'd let us borrow a few if we asked."
"Then lets get going," Dipper frowned as he shut the laptop and slid it into his bag. It'd just have to wait until later, he supposed. And with it, unfortunately, Lapis would have to wait too. "The sooner we get this whole puppet show over with, the sooner we can all focus our attention on the laptop full time. We're close to discovering something big here, I can feel it…"
With that, the group left the library, with one mission still hanging in the air and an all-new one along with it. But as distracted as they all were, none of them noticed a familiar shadow looming on the wall behind them.
A shadow with a much more sinister mission of his own in mind.
Steven and Mabel spent the entire trip back to the temple brainstorming ideas for the puppet show. As outlandish and over the top as those ideas were, Dipper and Connie could only barely follow along with them. Not that they really cared to as they continued theorizing over what the laptop's elusive password might be. Both sides swiftly fell into silence, however, over what awaited them at the temple.
"You guys!" Steven called for the Gems as he burst through the door first. "We need some… socks?" He paused, bewildered by the large, green metallic sphere sitting in the center of the living room. "Uh…"
"Oh! Hello, kids," Pearl peeked out from the other side of the sphere. "Sorry about the mess. We'd hoped to have this all cleared out before you got back, but somebody had to keep activating 'attack mode'."
"Eh," Amethyst shrugged from her spot on the couch. "Even you gotta admit that laser show it put on was pretty rad, P."
"It nearly set the house on fire," Garnet bluntly pointed out.
"Um… what is that thing?" Connie asked, cautiously eyeing the sphere.
"Peridot's escape pod," Pearl explained, standing. "We found it in a field not too far out of town earlier. She wasn't inside, so we brought it back here in the hopes of finding some sort of lead as to where she might be. But so far…"
"No luck," Garnet shook her head.
"What are we gonna do with her when we find her?" Steven asked, concerned.
Before any of the Gems could answer, Dipper cut in with a surprisingly bitter answer all his own. "Take her out before she can cause any more trouble, I hope," he said, scowling. While the other kids shot him a round of wary glances, the Gems were surprisingly on the same page.
"Yeah, probably," Amethyst leaned back in her seat. "We just gotta track her down first. You dorks wanna help?"
"Normally, we'd be all about it," Mabel said. "But we're in the middle of something super important right now! Something that we're gonna need a bunch of socks for. Amethyst, I heard you can hook us up with some?"
"Sure," Amethyst hopped off the couch. "How many do you need?"
"As many as you've got!"
"On it!"
"You're not even going to ask what they need that many socks for?" Pearl asked as Amethyst passed her by.
"Meh, whatever," she shrugged again on her way to the temple gate. "It's not like I was even gonna wear any of them anyway."
"Well," Pearl turned to the kids as Amethyst headed inside. "If she's not going to ask, then I will. Mabel, what in the world could you possibly need so many socks for? Amethyst has hundreds of them in that disaster of a room of hers, and the last time I checked, you only have two feet."
"Oh, the socks aren't for my feet, Pearl!" Mabel chuckled. "They're for this huge sock puppet show I plan on producing so I can impress this guy I just met like an hour ago! His name is Gabe and he's a total hunk who's totally into puppets. So I figured I might as well give him what he likes, you know?"
"You might want to consider another option," Garnet advised.
"Oh… uh, why?" Mabel asked, suddenly frowning. "Do you see a future where this turns out… I dunno, badly?"
"No, actually," Garnet replied. It was true, too. For whatever reason, her future vision wasn't giving her much of a glimpse at the next few days at all. A peculiar oddity, but nothing she was too terribly troubled by, at least not at the moment. "But I do know that trying to win someone's affections by impressing them isn't always the best idea, especially if you want to form a genuine connection with them."
"Oh, but I already did form a connection with him back at the library when we talked about puppets and I stared at his beautiful ponytail!" Mabel pointed out. "I'm just trying to make that connection a little… deeper."
"And you intend to do that with… socks?" Pearl asked, confused. "I'm not sure if I understand how that's going to work…"
"Don't worry, Pearl, you're not the only one," Dipper dryly agreed, even as Mabel stuck her tongue out at him.
"You guys should come see the show on Friday!" Steven eagerly invited the Gems. "It's gonna be great! There'll be lights, music, jokes–written by yours truly–and, uh… socks! Lots of socks. It'll be great!"
"We'll be there," Garnet confirmed before Pearl could protest. "But just remember, Mabel: going all-in for someone you barely know isn't as important as going all in for someone you do."
"Um… ok?" Mabel raised an eyebrow. It was solid advice, but she wasn't sure she'd really have much of a use for it. She didn't think much further on it either, as Amethyst emerged from the temple with a heaping box of socks in tow. "Oh my gosh, yes! Those are perfect! Steven, help me pick out the best, most puppetey ones!"
Steven readily pitched in, and so did Amethyst as she dove into the box headfirst, sending socks scattering everywhere. "Oh, for crying out loud!" Pearl plucked a sock off of the escape pod's hull. "You three are making a mess!"
"I really hope we don't have to make puppets out of all of those socks…" Connie muttered, daunted by just how many there were. Dipper, on the other hand, was much more concerned with something else entirely.
"Hey, uh, so," he turned to Garnet and Pearl as he pulled the laptop out of his bag. "Garnet, you remember the laptop we found in the author's bunker, right? Well, I've been trying to see what's on it, but all of its information is blocked off with a password. And while you didn't really know the author himself, he did know a lot about Gem stuff, so… I was wondering if you guys might have an idea about what it could be?"
"A password?" Pearl leaned in to get a better look at the laptop. "Well, given the author's apparent history with Rose, I'd think it could be 'Rose Quartz', but that has ten letters, not eight."
"Yo, what if he made the password my name?" Amethyst popped her head out of the sock pile. "You know, 'cause I'm so awesome and everything." It did fit the letter count, so Dipper gave it a try, only for the laptop to reject it, just like all of his other attempts. "Aw, boo!" Amethyst flopped back down into the socks. "Author guy totally missed out on a great opportunity there."
"Do you have any guesses, Garnet?" Dipper asked as he held the laptop up to her.
"Hm…" Garnet stared down at the screen for a long moment before ultimately shaking her head. Once again, her future vision proved pointless here–if anything, it was downright foggy for reasons she couldn't quite place. "Sorry, but no. Still, that doesn't mean you should stop looking into this, Dipper. Especially if there's a chance that whatever's on that laptop can finally provide all of us with some answers."
"Yes, like who that mysterious author is," Pearl firmly nodded.
"Or how he was so tight with Rose and not with us," Amethyst added.
"Huh, you guys are being… surprisingly supportive of this whole laptop thing," Dipper noted, impressed.
"Well, of course. Why wouldn't we be?" Pearl asked. "This whole journal mystery has been baffling us for weeks now! And with the threat from Homeworld, er… neutralized for the moment, I'd say there's no better time to solve that mystery than now!"
"Pearl's right," Garnet affirmed as she rested a steady hand on Dipper's shoulder. "And you're the closest to solving that mystery out of all of us, Dipper, so keep at it. But like I told you before, be careful; as you saw in the bunker, looking for answers can lead to some dangerous places. And those are the kinds of places that you should never let yourself go into alone."
"Don't worry, you guys," Dipper confidently assured. "Once we unlock this laptop, the truth behind all this stuff will be as good as revealed. Besides, all we really have to do is figure out this password; this should be easy-"
"Yeah! Just as easy as turning all these grody old socks into puppet superstars!" Mabel hurried for the door with Steven not far behind her. Each of them carried a generous armful of socks, eager to get started as Mabel called Dipper and Connie along after them. "Now, come on! We're burning good puppet-show-preparation daylight!"
In no time at all, the shack's den had been transformed into sock puppet headquarters. As soon as she had a script drafted, Mabel put her show straight into production. She tasked Steven, Dipper, and Connie with helping her turn Amethyst's dingy socks into carefully-crafted puppets, a time-consuming task filled with plenty of glue and glitter to spare. Along the way, Mabel recruited Soos and Wendy to lend an extra hand in a project that was growing bigger and bigger by the day.
"Alright, everyone!" Mabel called everyone to attention in the middle of another crafting session. "This is gonna be called Glove Story: A Sock Opera! Steven came up with the Glove Story part, while I thought up the Sock Opera half."
"Get it?" Steven whispered to Connie. "Glove Story? Cause sock puppets are kinda like gloves? It's a pun!"
"Yeah, I got it, Steven," Connie chuckled as she finished off another puppet.
"Just to warn you all, people's eyes will get wet," Mabel warned dramatically. "'Cause they'll be crying. From laughter! At how tragic it is!"
"Ugh, yeah," Dipper grumbled as he tried to yank a glue-covered puppet off his face. "That, uh, sounds great."
"Here, let me help," Steven leaned over to gently unstick the sock. In doing so, his smile fell when he noticed something none of the others really had. "Whoa, Dipper, you look really tired. Have you been sleeping ok?"
"...Not really," Dipper hesitantly admitted. "Since we've been so busy with all… this," he motioned to the many puppets and craft supplies surrounding them. "The only time I've had to work on cracking the laptop's password has been at night. So I… might've been staying up a little later than usual lately-"
"Try all night," Mabel said with a knowing smirk. "Or at least until you finally pass out in a pile of all your nerd notes."
"Hey!" Dipper shot back defensively. "They're not 'nerd notes'; they're important research that I need if I'm ever gonna figure that password out."
"Have you made any progress so far?" Connie asked.
"Um… not yet, but I've gotta be close, I just know it!" Dipper insisted. "That's why I can't give up now. I may be a little tired, but I'll sleep much better anyway after Lapis is safe and sound."
"You know what always puts me to sleep?" Mabel slid a paper bag puppet of Stan up beside Dipper. She threw her voice, making it deeper and more gravely for extra effect. "Listenin' to you run your yap!"
A round of laughter sounded through the room, though Dipper didn't join in on it. Instead, he let out an annoyed scoff as he shoved both the puppet and his sister away, though he was still trying to stifle a smile all the while. "Come on, Dipper," Wendy encouraged as she elbowed him. "You gotta roll with Mabel's craziness. It's what makes life worth living."
By now, Mabel had already launched into one of her show's many songs, with one hand on the keyboard and the other bringing another puppet to life as she sang, "Puppet boy, puppet boy, you're the boy I-"
"Looooove!" Everyone else chimed in after her. It helped that they all knew the lyrics front and back thanks to Steven and Mabel practically singing them nonstop the past several days.
At that exact moment, Stan passed by the den, only briefly pausing to take stock of the mess of puppets and people claiming the room. His brow furrowed in confusion, but he ultimately shrugged the strangeness of it all off as he took a swig of his coffee and said, "Not even gonna ask."
The week flew by, and after days of tireless work and preparation, the big day was almost here. The script had been written, sets made, theater booked, and posters hung all over town. Now all that remained was the highly-anticipated 'sock opera' itself. And when it came to impressing a boy like Gabe, Mabel was more than ready to pull out all the stops.
"Good night, my babies," she warmly whispered to her puppets as she put them to bed all around her. She took a moment to take the puppets she made to look like herself and Gabe, letting out a wistful sigh as she made them 'kiss'. "Soon, Gabe Bensen…"
"Mabel? Are you still there?" Steven's voice sounded from the phone sitting on her bed.
"Sorry, Steven, I got… distracted," Mabel grinned as she grabbed the phone. "You were saying?"
"Well, I've been looking over the script again, and I'm just a little confused about this part with the killer whale and the fireworks... Are they supposed to be coming out of the whale's blowhole instead of water, or did I just misread that part?"
"Come on, Steven, I need to stay with me here," Mabel urged. "The fireworks are the water. Only sparkly and fiery instead of wet and watery! That way everybody can be totally amazed by-"
She stopped short as another sharp buzz sounded through the attic, followed up by an aggravated groan from her brother. "That one wasn't it either, Connie," he continued his own phone call. "Just like all the rest of them. What else is new?"
"But we've already tried hundreds of words and letter combinations," Connie countered. "Maybe there's something we're still not seeing here…"
"Yeah, and I know what that something is: the password," Dipper dryly returned.
"Well… we can always work on it some more tomorrow after the puppet show," Connie reassured. "By then, we'll have Mabel and Steven back to help us full-time, so maybe that'll make things easier."
"Sure, it will…" Dipper shot a doubtful glance over at his sister. She was still just as distracted with her puppets as ever as she used one of them to bid Steven farewell. "But until then, I think I'd better keep on working on this on my own. See you tomorrow, Connie."
"Don't stay up all night, Dipper!" Mabel cautioned him as he hung up. "Last time you got this sleep-deprived, you tried to eat your own shirt."
Only now did Dipper realize he was doing exactly that as he promptly spit the collar of his shirt out. He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he honed his focus on the laptop once again. "Just a few more tries…"
"Come on, bro-bro," Mabel shook her head as she tucked herself in for the night. "You and I both know that 'a few more tries' is gonna turn into a lot more tries."
"Yeah, well, maybe one of those tries will actually be the one," Dipper sullenly muttered as he gathered the laptop and his supplies. He didn't even bother bidding Mabel goodnight as he headed out to continue working on the roof on his own. Even if the password was still out of his reach, one thing was more than clear:
It was bound to be another long and lonely night.
The minute Dipper stepped out onto the roof, he was struck with a tide of emotions every bit as strong as the crisp night air surrounding him. The last time he'd been up here, Lapis had been there to sit alongside him. As he took a seat and closed his eyes, he could almost hear what she'd said to him, just hours before the disaster that had torn them apart.
"You know, if there's one good thing to come out of any of this, it's that I got to spend more time with you. I think that's what I'm going to miss the most if… well, if something happens…"
"Don't worry," he'd told her, oblivious and unknowing. "Once all of this blows over then we'll have even more time to spend together. And when we do, it'll be even better than before, you'll see."
"...Y-yeah," she'd returned with a smile that never met her eyes. "Even better."
"No," Dipper muttered to himself as he opened his eyes–only to find that he was alone again. "It's not. It's so much worse."
He shook his head to clear it. He couldn't let his grief drag him down again, like it nearly had back on the lake shore last week. Back then, he had no leads and little hope of helping Lapis. But now, he had the laptop–he had a chance, however small it might be. Unfortunately, there was only one thing still standing in his way:
A password he couldn't seem to figure out no matter how hard he tried.
"Oh, come on!" he scowled as he made another failed guess. The laptop was all too quick to rub it in his face as its jarring rejection chime rang through the quiet night. "Give me a break already! I can't take that sound anymore! I—hate—you—sound!" He beat against the keyboard with each word out of sheer frustration alone.
He wasn't getting anywhere like this, clearly. He forced his sights away from the laptop, opting to take a brief break as he pulled something out of his jacket pocket: the photos he and Lapis had taken together a little over a week ago. It had hardly been any time at all, but it already felt like a lifetime ago now. Still, he was glad to have these photos, if nothing else. A moment, captured in time, when the two of them were together, when they were truly, genuinely happy. A moment he longed to share with Lapis again somehow, even if he knew he couldn't–
Not until he finally set this right.
"Don't worry, Lapis," Dipper let out a weary yawn as he tucked the photo away again. "I'll figure something out…" He paused to look between the laptop and his notes, filled with plenty of entries he'd tried to no avail. A list that only continued to grow right alongside his own anxious impatience. "Maybe Connie was right," he let out an exhausted sigh. "What if I am just missing something? There has to be some kind of shortcut or clue… Or better yet, someone who could help-"
He cut himself off when the wind abruptly picked up into a downright chilly gale. Dipper pulled his jacket tighter around himself, suddenly unsettled as something seemed to ripple through the trees. He shut the laptop and pulled it close, only to freeze when he caught sight of the full moon above him. And the long, thin, shadowy slit sliding straight down the center of it.
Things only took a stranger turn as bright blocks appeared from thin air, arranging themselves around the moon in a familiar shape. Dipper scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide as he stared at the moon, only for it to stare right back at him. Nature only continued to fall to pieces all around him as color steadily bled from the woods.
And then, in a blinding flash of light, the world fell silent as the culprit behind it all became clear: Bill Cipher.
"I THINK I KNOW A GUY!" his voice rang loud and clear through the greyscale night. Dipper had nothing to say ini response as he stood, shocked, in Bill's triangular shadow. Not that he really seemed to care as he casually drifted in closer. "Well, well, well. I gotta admit, you're awfully persistent, Pine Tree. Hats off to you!"
He tipped his tophat, and somehow, the entire world tipped along with it. Dipper only narrowly managed to catch his balance, clinging onto the laptop all as the roof righted itself back underneath him. "Y-you!" he finally found his voice again. "What are you doing here?!"
"Oh, just checking in," Bill cheerily shrugged. "Did ya miss me? Admit it, you missed me!"
"Hardly," Dipper bitterly scoffed. "You worked with Gideon! You tried to destroy my uncle's mind! Not to mention how you terrorized all of us while we were trying to save him."
"Geez, kid, it was just a job!" Bill countered defensively. "No hard feelings. Besides, since then, I've been keeping an EYE on you." Without warning, he shot up in size, his eye pitch black as he seemed to stare straight through Dipper. "You may be a bit rough around the edges, but I've gotta say, I'm impressed!"
"Y-you are?" Dipper asked, surprised. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd done to catch the attention of a being as ominous and unsettling as Bill Cipher. He wasn't so sure he was proud of the fact that he had either.
"Sure am!" Bill brightly agreed. "In fact, you deserve a prize! Here, have a head that's always screaming!"
With just a snap of his fingers, a disembodied head appeared, crying out in agony as it fell onto the roof. Dipper flinched away from it in frightened disgust that only grew as skin, muscle, and sinew were all stripped away from the head before it disappeared entirely. All while Bill kept on laughing such a sickening, sadistic display.
"Augh! What's wrong with you?!" Dipper snapped at him, appalled.
"Ain't that the question of the millennia!" Bill chuckled as he took a seat on the edge of the roof. "But the point is, I like you, kid! And I couldn't help but notice that you've been having a hard time with that crusty old laptop there, so how's about you let me give you a hint, huh? I only ask for a small FAVOR in return."
Dipper tensed as he watched Bill's hand and eye flicker with bright blue flames. With more than a few unpleasant memories of this wily, wicked demon in mind, he wasted no time in harshly turning his offer down. "Are you kidding me? I'd never do a favor for you! Don't forget who defeated you last time!"
"Right, you 'defeated' me," Bill rolled his eye. He vanished, only to catch Dipper off guard again by reappearing right behind him. "Still, seems to me like you're passing up a great deal like this too quickly, Pine Tree. Kind of ironic when you think about how Water Wings didn't hesitate to take up Stripes' deal to save you…"
Dipper didn't even get a chance to respond to this before he noticed one of the pictures of him and Lapis go flying out of his pocket. It came to rest over Bill's open palm, held high out of Dipper's reach as he tried to reclaim it. "Hey! Give that back!"
"Whoa, hold your awkward, pre-pubescent horses for a sec, kid, and think about this," Bill advised. "Do you really think you're getting anywhere by making all those shots in the dark with that password? You think you're not just wasting your time out here while Water Wings has a non-stop, all-out brawl with Stripes at the bottom of that lake just so she can keep you 'safe'?"
"S-stop," Dipper muttered, his hands in tight fists at his sides. But of course, Bill was more than happy to keep going, to continue getting under his skin and hitting him right where it hurt most.
"Wouldn't it just be so much easier to get just a little help, to get just a tiny bit closer?" Bill left the photo just above Dipper's head, just out of his reach. Just like the password, just like Lapis. "Wouldn't that make whatever I want from you worth it just to bail her out?"
"Stop." Dipper was a bit firmer this time as he shot the demon a sharp warning glare. If only to keep himself from caving, from giving in, from getting help in all the wrong places.
"After all," Bill's ploy turned a touch more cruel and convincing all at once."Water Wings sure thought it was worth it to bail you out, didn't she?"
"Stop!" Dipper finally shouted, unable to take any more. He squared his shoulders, glaring up at Bill and sternly said, "I don't need your help."
Unsurprisingly, Bill didn't take him seriously; if anything, this only made him mock him even more. "Oh, suuuuure you don't! After all, you already have Shooting Star and Rosebud, so why would you need me? Oh, but wait! They're busy with that puppet show of theirs, aren't they? Oh, well, you can always ask those Crystal Chumps for help, right? I'm sure Fuse Box, Half-Baked, and Bird Brain know all there is to know about that laptop, almost as if they didn't mysteriously lose all their memories on that journal of yours!"
Dipper didn't have anything to say to that. As much as he hated to admit it, Bill was right. He was almost entirely on his own with this, and he was getting nowhere fast. But even so, he knew he was bound to be much better off on his own than he would be if he even considered accepting Bill's offer. He may have been desperate to help Lapis, but he wasn't desperate enough to make a deal with a literal demon.
"I said," he stood his ground and upheld his stance. "I don't need your help!"
Strangely, Bill simply shrugged, completely unbothered. "Well, then have it your way. But if you ever change your mind, I'll be here for you, ready to make a deal! And you know, now that I've brought it up, maybe I'll go pay your pal Water Wings a visit down at the bottom of the lake and let her know all about how her precious little Pine Tree doesn't care enough about her to lend her a hand! I bet that would be lots of fun!"
"W-what—no!" Dipper exclaimed, suddenly panicked. Lapis already had enough to contend with when it came to Jasper; the last thing she needed right now was a nuisance like Bill too."Leave Lapis alone!"
"Boy, you sure are easy to rile up, Pine Tree." Bill let out a smug laugh as he finally let the photo fall back into Dipper's hands. "It's almost as funny as you thinking you can guess that password on your own is! Oh, speaking of funny, wanna hear my impression of you in about three seconds?"
Bill let out a fearful scream, one that Dipper ended up echoing as he abruptly found himself pulled back into reality. He woke up to a recolored world just as dawn broke across the sky, as if that unnerving encounter had been nothing more than a dream. It might as well have been too; Bill was gone without a trace–
Unfortunately, his chilling words still remained.
Dipper sat up, shaken far more than he'd like to admit. Even now, he still couldn't help but think that Bill had a point. Just how many wrong guesses would it take for him to get anywhere even close to the password? What if he never managed to guess it at all? How long would Lapis have to wait on him to get it right, to set her free?
It'd be so much easier to ask for help, Dipper knew that. But to ask for that help from a creature as cunning and conniving as Bill Cipher? It was all but unthinkable, especially since he had no idea what Bill even wanted from him in return.
He wasn't so sure he wanted to ever find out either.
"I don't need his help," Dipper echoed to himself once more as he hugged the laptop close to his chest. "I don't."
It was all he could do to try and convince himself that he could handle this, that he could do this. He could crack the laptop's password. He could uncover the author's greatest secrets. He could even save Lapis. He could do it all, without having to take a deal from a demented dream demon.
Or at least… he hoped he could.
"Hey! I'm puppet Stan!" Mabel cheerfully waved her Stan puppet in her uncle's face at the breakfast table the next morning. While she was already riding high with excitement for today's show, Stan was anything but.
"Still ignoring this," he scowled as he sipped on his coffee. He blocked Mabel out with his newspaper as she continued parading her puppets around until Steven and Connie arrived.
"Today's the big day!" Steven cheered as he bounded into the kitchen. "Who's ready to put on the best puppet show ever?!"
"I am!" Mabel hopped to her feet, bringing several puppets along with her. "But I can't do it without you guys; I'm super glad you got here early! Thanks so much!"
She caught them both off guard with a sudden hug, one that Steven was more than happy to return. Connie blushed as she did the same a bit slower, letting out a flustered chuckle as she said, "Don't mention it, Mabel." As soon as they parted, however, concern filled her face when she noticed one of them was missing. "Is Dipper up yet? When we were talking last night, he sounded like he was starting to get pretty frustrated with the laptop…"
"Frustrated is kind of an understatement…" Dipper muttered as he stumbled into the room with a long, tired yawn.
"Yeesh, bag check for Dipper's eyes!" Stan joked, though not a single one of the kids laughed. "Oh come on, nobody?"
"Aw, Dipper, you look even more tired than you did yesterday!" Steven said, worried. "I mean, even more tired than you usually look–you always look at least a little tired all the time, n-no offense."
As exhausted as he was, Dipper was scarcely able to make sense of what Steven was saying as he stared at him blankly. "...What?"
"Dipper, I told you to get some sleep last night!" Mabel scolded. "Here, wake up with some Mabel Juice!" She grabbed a pitcher of mysterious pink liquid, filled with glitter and small toys. "It has plastic dinosaurs in it!"
"Is that stuff even… drinkable?" Connie asked, frowning.
"Hardly," Stan cringed. "It's like if coffee and nightmares had a baby."
"I… think I'll pass," Dipper shook his head. He paused for a moment, sparing a glance between Stan and the others as he dropped his voice low. "Uh, can I talk to you guys in the living room for a second?"
Steven, Mabel, and Connie followed after him, and Stan hardly paid them any mind as they left. As soon as they were out of his earshot, Dipper turned to them, gravely serious as he told them all about what had happened last night. What was haunting him even still. "Guys, listen. Last night, I had a dream with Bill in it."
"Bill?" Connie raised an eyebrow. Beside her, Steven tensed up at the mere mention of the dream demon while Mabel frowned, just as perplexed. "That triangle guy we fought inside Mr. Pines' mind. What did he want?"
"He said he'd give me the code to the laptop if I gave him something," Dipper scoffed, crossing his arms "Like I'd actually trust Bill, right?"
"You sure seemed to when you handed over the code to the safe to him last time," Connie dryly pointed out.
"...You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?" Dipper asked, deadpan.
"Nope."
"Don't worry, bro-bro!" Mabel chimed in. "Today's the day the Mystery Kids are back in action! We'll all be free to help you crack that code just as soon as I hand off my puppet stuff to my production crew."
"Production crew?" Dipper asked, surprised that she even had one. That surprise soon turned into something else entirely as they all headed outside to find said "production crew". Candy and Grenda readily reported, bright-eyed and covered in socks as Mabel and Steven hurried over to meet them.
"We read the script," Candy said, thoroughly impressed. "Very emotional."
"I cried like eight times!" Grenda exclaimed.
"Well, hopefully the audience will too once they see the emotional passion I've poured into this show!" Mabel grinned proudly.
"Oh! Maybe we should hand tissues out to people at the door!" Steven suggested. "That way they'll all have something to try into!"
"Oh, good idea, Steven!" Mabel agreed. "See, this is why I named you my co-producer! Because you always think of everything!"
"Aw, well I don't know about everything," Steven chuckled, blushing. "But I try."
The sound of roller skates skidding to a stop soon cut through the conversation. The group turned to find none other than Gabe himself, puppets still on both hands as he offered them a cool greeting. "Hey, ladies."
"Gabe!" Mabel waved to him, delighted. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just blading by," Gabe removed his helmet to shake out his hair. "Helps me dry out my ponytail after a shower."
"Hubbity-hubbity," Grenda grinned, stars in her eyes. "What a hottie!"
"Maeibeur'i hante Gaeibeu'eul humchyeohagetda…" Candy muttered in envious Korean.
"Ok, am I the only one who doesn't get what the big deal about that guy is?" Connie whispered to the boys, far from impressed.
"Believe me, you're not," Dipper flatly returned.
"It's so great to see you!" Mabel offered Gabe a wide, charming smile. "I was just working on the world's greatest puppet show! It has puppets!"
"Your passion is so refreshing, Mabel," Gabe complimented. "Unlike the girl from last night's puppet show. Single-stitch on one puppet, cross-stitch on the other? I was like 'uh-uh'!"
"Cross… huh?" Mabel frowned, completely lost.
"Naturally, I couldn't afford to associate with such an obvious puppet novice, so I deleted her off my cell phone contacts list."
"Oh! Uh, naturally!" Mabel let out a nervous laugh. All at once she was realizing she was much more out of her depth than she thought. At the worst possible time to be realizing such a thing at that.
"But I know you won't let me down, Mabel," Gabe smiled. "Based on what you said the other day, you must be a puppet expert."
"You know, Gabe, you look pretty sweaty," Grenda spoke up with an eager grin. "You should really take your shirt off. Right? Aren't we all thinking that?"
Gabe didn't, of course; instead, he put his helmet back on and prepared to skate off, but not before calling, "Later, ladies! See you tonight, Mabel."
"Y-yeah!" Mabel shouted after him against her rising panic. "S-See you tonight!" Her smile swiftly fell as soon as she turned back to face her crew. "Augh! We gotta up our game, girls! Did you hear that thing he said about the stitches?!"
"Don't worry, Mabel! Your crew can handle it!" Grenda assured. She held up a puppet, only to accidentally rip off both of its arms in the process. "…Oops."
"How many eyes does a face have again?" Candy asked amidst trying to glue countless googly eyes onto one.
"Ok," Steven spoke up, strumming on his ukulele. "So I think I just about have this song memori-" He cut himself off as one of his strings suddenly snapped clean in half. "Oh… Well, uh, I guess the ukulele accompaniment is out then, huh?"
As alarming as all of this already was, things only went from bad to worse as the mountain of sets and props Soos and Wendy were trying to strap down to the roof of Stan's car suddenly fell loose and came crashing down. Nothing was going to plan, and with only a few hours left until curtain call, Mabel knew she had no choice but to throw herself right back into the thick of it to fix it all. She wouldn't settle for anything less than perfection, and clearly, neither would Gabe.
"O-ok, I'm back on fabrication!" she announced to her team. "It's all hands on deck! Someone get me my lint roller, STAT!"
"Whoa, hold on!" Dipper grabbed her as she ran past him. "I thought you said you were going to help me!"
"Dipper! This sock crisis just bumped up to code argyle!" Mabel protested. "The laptop can wait!"
"It can wait?" Dipper scoffed. "Mabel, do you seriously think that your random crush of the week is more important than uncovering the mysteries of this town? You're obsessed!"
"I'm obsessed?" Mabel countered just as hotly. "Look at you! You haven't slept all week! You look like a vampire, and not the hot kind!"
"Guys, come on!" Steven cut in as he came to stand between the twins. "Don't fight! Both the laptop and the puppet show are really important, so we should-"
"No, Steven," Dipper staunchly cut him off. "The laptop is important. But this dumb puppet show isn't. I don't get why you're going so crazy on this anyway, Mabel. I know exactly how this'll go; you'll be into this guy for a week, maybe two, and then you'll get bored with him and move onto someone else. You're putting all this time and energy into something that won't even matter in the long run!"
"It does too matter!" Mabel stomped her foot down, frustrated. "It matters to me! Why can't you understand that?! Oh yeah, I know why, it's because you've been burying your head into that stupid old laptop all week! Don't you think it's time to give it a rest already? Just wait and see, your body's gonna end up quitting on you if you don't give it some sleep!"
"I don't need sleep!" Dipper argued. "What I need is to figure out this password! And this laptop isn't stupid! For all we know, it could end up helping us figure out a way to finally save Lapis! Which, in case you've forgotten, is way more important than any pointless puppet show is!"
"I-I haven't forgotten that!" Mabel shook her head. "But that's just it, Dipper. You don't know if that laptop will even be able to help Lapis at all. You could be doing all this work for nothing and you wouldn't even know until you've wasted too much time and energy on it."
"I'm not wasting time!" Dipper bitterly shot back. "You are, Mabel! Why can't this puppet show thing just wait?!"
"W-well, why can't your laptop thing just wait?!"
"Because I'm doing it to help Lapis! That's the most important thing right now-"
"No, it's not!"
Both twins gasped the second Mabel said this, out of sheer disbelief that it had slipped out of her mouth at all. Without a second thought, she regretted it, but Dipper could hardly care less as sheer anger filled his face instead. Even Steven and Connie were shocked into silence as the tension between the twins finally hit its breaking point. Still, Mabel tried what she could to take it back, even if she knew it was already far too late for that now. "D-Dipper… I… I didn't mean-"
"No," Dipper coldly cut her off. "You know what? Fine. I'll do it on my own. It's not like it'll be any different from how it's been anyway."
Steven was the first to leap into action when he watched Dipper turn to head back inside. "Dipper, wait!" he called after him. "You don't have to do this all by yourself!"
"Yeah," Connie agreed with a wavering smile. "We'll all help you just as soon as-"
Dipper put up a hand to stop them both, barely glancing over his shoulder at any of them. "No, it's fine. You guys just keep working on the puppet show. After all, that's the only thing that really matters now, right, Mabel?"
She winced when he shot her an icy glare, and again when he slammed the door behind him as he headed back inside the shack. Guilt settled in her stomach like a stone when she realized just how right he was. Rescuing Lapis was so important to Dipper–she knew that, and really, it was important to her too. But at the same time, she couldn't just ignore all of the time and energy she'd put into making this puppet show happen. How could she abandon all of that hard work now, when she was so close to bringing it all together? Why couldn't Dipper just see that? Why couldn't he just wait a few more short hours for her help?
Why did she feel so wrong about making him wait when he never should have had to?
In the end, her guilt drove her to do something to set this right. Still, she knew she'd have a hard time facing Dipper in person right now–and besides, the show still direly needed her attention. So she decided to recruit the next best person she could think of when it came to dealing with her brother at his worst.
"Steven…?" she began, rubbing her arm. "I, uh… Do you think you could maybe go talk to Dipper for me? Tell him I'm sorry for, um… well, you know."
"Um… I guess so?" Steven shrugged, frowning. "But why don't you just go talk to him yourself?"
"'Cause he won't listen to me," Mabel huffed. "Not when he's this upset. But he might just hear you out. Especially if you lay on that good ol' 'Steven Charm' of yours super thick."
"I'm… not sure what Steven Charm is," Steven admitted, blushing. He was even more confused when he heard Connie snort out a laugh beside him. "But I'll see what I can do to help him feel better. Be back in a bit!"
"Good luck," Mabel let out a relieved sigh as she watched him go. She busied herself with attending to a tattered puppet, hoping it would distract her from just how bad she truly felt. But it did little to ease her woes as she hoped Dipper would somehow forgive her for this.
She hoped she'd somehow find a way to forgive herself too.
The sharp sound of rapid typing filled the attic, alongside plenty more failed entry buzzes. This time, however, Dipper was hardly as annoyed by any of his wrong guesses as he was with Mabel.
He still couldn't believe that she'd said that, that she'd even dared to imply that her silly puppet show was more important than helping Lapis was. She'd saved their lives by sacrificing herself to fuse with Jasper; Mabel had been right there to see it all just as much as Dipper had. And yet, she hardly seemed to care about that as much as she did about some weird boy with a penchant for puppets. She hardly seemed to care that her own brother needed her help more than he ever had before.
"'Oh, Dipper, you're not as alone as you think you've gotta be'," he mocked what she'd said to him a few days ago as he checked over his notes again. "'I'm with you on this! We'll get started right away!' Yeah, right… That's the last time I'll ever count on her for anything…"
He found himself caught between an annoyed sigh and an exhausted yawn. With each passing hour, staying awake was becoming more of a struggle. He'd hoped he'd finally be able to get some rest once the others pitched in, but clearly, that wasn't happening anytime soon. With no one around to lighten the load, he had no choice but to stay up until the password was finally found and all of the laptop's secrets were finally revealed.
He couldn't rest, he wouldn't rest until Lapis was finally free.
To remind himself of that mission, Dipper kept his stack of photos close on hand. Every time his eyes grew heavy, he glanced over at them. He would have thought the sight of Lapis' warm smile would have steadied his resolve. Instead, it only made him doubt himself even more.
He sighed again as he leaned back against the side of the alcove to glance out the window. Outside, Mabel was still hard at work on her puppet show, as if nothing had even happened at all. It frustrated Dipper, every bit as much as everything she'd said to him had. "What if she's right…?" he wondered to himself, forlorn. "What if the laptop really doesn't have any answers that can help? What if… W-what if this is all for nothing?"
He knew all too well what that would mean. He'd be right back to square one; no hints, no clues, no leads. Lapis would still be stuck right where she was and so would he. Alone and miserable, saddled with a massive debt he knew he'd never be able to repay.
As troubled as his thoughts were, they only ended up pushing him even further to the brink of sleep. He barely noticed as his head leaned against the window, his hands drifting away from the laptop as his eyes slowly slipped shut. But when he opened them again, he wasn't sitting in the attic anymore–
Instead, he was standing on the lake shore.
The sky was dark, only illuminated by the hand ship's wreckage burning bright green all around him. As alarming as that was, Dipper froze stiff when he suddenly realized he wasn't alone. Only a few feet away, standing in the shallows of the lake with her back turned to him was none other than–
"Lapis!" he hurried forward to meet her. A relieved smile slipped onto his face, though it was short-lived when she glanced back at him with a bitter glare.
"Dipper…" she began, her voice low and icy. "Why haven't you saved me yet?"
Dipper stopped short, taken aback by the very question he kept asking himself lately. A question he had no good answer to. "I-I'm trying!" he wavered under her piercing gaze. "I really am, Lapis, you have to believe me! It's just… taking longer than I thought it would-"
"I only stayed here on this awful planet for you," Lapis viciously accused. "And look at where that's gotten me. I'm trapped here with her, and you won't even do anything to help me!"
"N-no!" Dipper countered, fighting back tears. "L-Lapis, please, just listen! I've been doing everything I can and working really hard to help-"
"You've been working for nothing," Lapis coldly concluded as she turned her back on him. "You can't help me. No one can."
Without even sparing him another glance, Lapis walked further into the lake. The water rose to meet her, to chain her, just like it had before. But not before she finally looked back at him and sternly said, "Don't forget, Dipper: I'm a prisoner again. And this time, it's all because of you."
"Lapis, wait!" Dipper tried to follow her. He charged straight into the frigid waters, not stopping, even as she began to disappear below the waves. He had to get to her, he had to help her, no matter what he had to do or how far he had to go. "I'll figure out some way to save you! I know I can! I just need a little more time-"
He didn't get a chance to say anything else as a massive wave suddenly ripped across the lake the second Lapis was fully submerged. It was enough to sweep Dipper off his feet, carrying him right back to the shore and nearly drowning him along the way. He had no time to recover from it as something else emerged from the lake in Lapis' place.
"Well, look who it is… Lazuli's precious little pet human." Dipper shuddered as he slowly glanced up to find Jasper scowling down at him. She towered over him, furious and fearsome as the flames burned even hotter all around them both. Frightened for his life, Dipper tried scrambling to his feet to flee, though Jasper didn't let him get that far. She grabbed him by the back of his vest, hoisting him up to her level, despite his desperate struggle to get away.
"Trying to run away, hm?" she taunted him with a cruel smirk. "Just like she did…"
"L-let go of me!" Dipper cried as he kicked and thrashed against her hold. But of course, Jasper showed no signs of letting up. If anything, she only tightened her hold on him.
"Why should I?" she sneered. "You're the reason why she has us both trapped down here! Why every second we're locked together is a fight neither of us can ever win! And for what? Just so she could keep you safe? What a waste."
With that, she finally dropped him, though she didn't give him much of a chance to get away. She slammed her foot into his side before using it to pin him solidly to the ground. Dipper let out a pained whine of protest, though Jasper ultimately ignored him as she only continued to tear him down even further than she already had.
"Do you really think you'll ever be able to 'save' her?" she let out a hateful scoff. "Face it, you miserable little mistake: you'll never split us up and you'll never see her again. And do you know why?"
She shoved her foot harder against his chest, to the point that even breathing soon became a struggle. Dipper choked on what little air he still had in him as a sob forced its way out, his eyes burning with tears fueled by fear, by despair, by shame most of all. Shame that only struck him even harder when he realized that every last thing Jasper was telling him was true.
When he realized every last thing she was telling him was everything he'd been telling himself this whole time.
"Because you're a weak, pathetic, worthless little human," she hissed, her golden gaze filled with every bit as much venom as her voice. "That's all you've ever been, and that's all you'll ever be. You aren't strong enough or smart enough to come even close to what Lapis needs you to be. You can't save her–you can't even save yourself."
Jasper finally released him again, but she was hardly finished yet.
"You-"
Dipper could only barely pick himself up off the ground to watch as she walked backwards toward the lake.
"Are-"
Her gemstone shined bright, illuminating the wicked grin spread wide across her face as she twisted the knife one final time.
As she took Lapis away from him all over again.
"NOTHING!"
In an instant, she plunged into the water the same way Lapis had before her. Somewhere beneath the waves, a fusion–a monster took shape. Malachite burst up from the depths with an ear-shattering roar, slamming her way toward the shore. Dipper couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think as he found himself sitting helplessly in her massive shadow. She raised a mighty fist high into the air, ready to crush him in an instant. And Dipper did nothing to stop her; nothing but close his eyes and brace himself for what he knew he deserved. Except–
It never came. Because without warning, he found himself abruptly ripped out of one nightmare–
Only to be dropped into the middle of another.
"Wakey, wakey, Pine Tree! Time's ticking away! Not that I care–time's just one big, elaborate hoax anyway!"
Bill's shrill, grating voice was just about the last thing Dipper could have ever wanted to wake up to, especially after such a horrific dream. He was still shaken from it as he darted upright, startled to find the attic drained of its color. And even more startled yet to find the demon in question casually floating just a few feet away.
"Yeesh, took you long enough," he coolly glided past Dipper, ignoring the cross glare he was sending his way. "Still, I gotta say, that was some nightmare you just had. Stripes may be just as boring as every other space rocks out there, but the way she scared the daylights out of you split all three of my sides! What a riot!"
"Ugh," Dipper groaned, aggravated. "Give it a rest already. I already told you, I don't want your help! Why can't you just take a hint and leave me alone?!"
"Because you won't take a hint, kid," Bill countered. "Though you might want to; after all, you're on a bit of a tight schedule now."
"What do you…" Dipper trailed off as he looked over at the laptop again. Only to find a message filling the screen that made his blood run cold:
"Too many failed entries! Initiate data erase in five minutes."
A timer steadily ticking down only made that message all the more urgent. Less than five minutes remained before whatever secrets the laptop may hold, useful or not, would be wiped away forever.
"W-what?! No!" Dipper gripped the laptop in rising panic. "I'm about to lose everything?! I only have one more try?!"
"Well, well, well…" Bill piped up, smugly satisfied. "Someone's suddenly looking a lot more desperate…"
"Stay out of this!" Dipper snapped. He had no time to contend with Bill now, when he had only one chance left and so little time to take it. But try as he might to come up with something, anything, all he could focus on was that timer, all too quickly ticking down to take his first and only lead away from him for good.
And to take any hope he had of helping Lapis right along with it.
"You know…" Bill chimed in again. "I can help you, kid. You just need to hear out my demands!"
That was finally enough to get Dipper to look away from the laptop. Of course Bill would show up right now, when he was at his most distraught and desperate, when he had him exactly where he wanted him. Dipper was more than ready to tell him off for taking advantage of that alone and yet… he couldn't. Not now, when he was so close to losing this lead, to losing Lapis forever. Time only continued to slip away from Dipper, and as it did, he quickly, painfully realized–
He had no other options left. No other options… except…
"Ugh, what crazy thing do you want anyway?" he finally, begrudgingly asked. After all, Bill was a total wild card; he wasn't about to make any sort of deal with him without knowing exactly what he was getting himself into. "To eat my soul? To rip out my teeth? Are you gonna replace my eyes with baby heads or something?"
"Yeesh, kid, relax," Bill chuckled, amused. "All I want is a puppet!"
That was just about the last thing Dipper could have ever expected. "A puppet?" he echoed, confused. "What are you playing at?"
"Everyone loves puppets!" Bill cheerfully pointed to one of the many piles of leftover puppets from Mabel's show. "And it looks to me like you've got a surplus on your hands here! Just one of them isn't too much to ask for, is it?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow, no following the demon's bizarre logic. If there was even any logic to such a seemingly simple request at all. "But what are you going to do with a-"
"Dipper!" A sudden knock on the attic door startled Dipper. Even Bill seemed caught off guard as Steven called out from the other side. "Are you in there?"
"S-Steven!" Dipper called back, alarmed. "Uh… Y-yeah, I'm in here! Give me just a second!"
"Oh, uh, ok," Steven frowned. "It's just that Mabel wanted me to come up here and check on you. She seemed kinda upset about what happened earlier…"
"Uh huh, y-yeah, sure," Dipper shot a worried glance back at the laptop. With only three minutes left now, he couldn't afford to waste a single one of them. "Like I said, I'll be out soon!"
As distracted as he was, Dipper didn't even notice Bill behind him. His eye surged black, his body flashing a bright, angry shade of red the second he so much as heard Steven's voice. Still, he was quick to recollect himself, staying the course for the sake of sealing the deal. A deal he wasn't going to let anyone, not even Rose Quartz's little brat, get in the way of.
"So, Pine Tree, before we were so rudely interrupted, where were we?" Bill caught his attention again. "Oh, that's right! You were gonna hand over a puppet while I give you a clue about that laptop! So chop, chop, time's a-wasting!"
"I-I don't know, man…" Dipper rubbed his arm. "Mabel worked really hard on those puppets… I don't know how she'd feel if I just gave one of them away…"
"How 'she'd' feel?" Bill scoffed. "That's what you care about right now, when you're about to lose everything you've worked so hard for? Wow, kid, you really need to get your priorities straight. Seems to me like one little puppet is a small price to pay to learn all the secrets of the universe!"
"Dipper?" Steven knocked again. "I-is everything ok in there?'
"Yeah, Steven, everything's fine!" Dipper insisted as stole an anxious glance over at the door. He could only hope Steven couldn't overhear any of this. It was already bad enough that he was even considering taking Bill up on his offer; the last thing he needed was for anyone else to find out about it.
"Besides," Bill persisted. He went as far as gliding in front of Dipper, to block his view of the door–and to block Steven out along with it. "What's your sister done for you lately? How many times have you sacrificed for her, huh? And when has she ever returned the favor…?"
In all honesty, Dipper had no answer to that question. For as long as he could remember, Mabel always seemed to get her way, almost always at his expense. He was used to giving up what he wanted to make his sister happy, but rarely did she ever do the same for him. Even now, with something so important at stake, she'd proven where she stood–and it wasn't by his side.
So why should he bother standing by hers? Why should her puppet show go off without a hitch as the laptop's answers slip straight through his fingers? Why should she get to impress her frivolous crush while his last hope at helping Lapis was lost forever?
Why should she always get to win when he always had to lose?
If he was already on the verge of caving, what Bill had to say next only pushed him even further to that point. "But you know who has sacrificed pretty much everything for you…?"
"Don't-" Dipper tried to stop him before he could hold her over his head again. Before he could remind him just how badly he'd failed her if he was being driven to such desperate measures.
But of course, Bill was more than happy to say it anyway. "Ding! That's right! Water Wings!" he blithely proclaimed. "After only a week or so of hanging out with you, she was willing to trap herself at the bottom of a lake with a big ol' brute like Stripes for the rest of eternity! It's so sweet that I would gag if I actually had a stomach or a mouth! But the point is, she's locked down there, having a grand old time duking it out with Stripes and spending every waking moment in an endless sea of misery and torment, and it's all—your—fault!"
"I… I know…" Dipper admitted, defeated. His nightmare had pretty much confirmed that and then some. From the moment he'd watched Malachite drag herself into the depths of the lake, he'd been carrying the guilt of it all. And with each passing day, that guilt only grew heavier and heavier, to the point that he wasn't sure how much longer he could shoulder it.
He wasn't sure how much longer it would be before that guilt crushed him completely.
"Dipper! I-is someone else in there with you?!" Steven pressed his ear to the door in sudden worry. "I thought I heard another voice…" A voice he could barely make out, but a voice nonetheless. One that, for reasons he couldn't quite place, rattled him down to his very core with untold fear.
Dipper was ready to reassure him again, only for Bill to stop him short and keep him on track. "A single puppet in exchange for saving one of the only beings in the universe who really listens to you and understands you," he laid the terms out plainly. "Sounds like the fairest price you're gonna get, Pine Tree. Unless you don't want to ever see Water Wings again and wouldn't mind if she slept with the fishes until the Earth inevitably burns up someday way after you're dead and gone! Either way, kid-" He offered his hand out, shining bright with blue flames burning cold. "It's all up to you."
Indeed it was. The laptop and its secrets, Lapis' long-awaited freedom, it all rested solely in his hands now. Both stood on a fine line of being lost altogether, but they didn't have to be. Still, it felt like such an impossible choice to make. And with only thirty seconds left on the clock, it was a choice Dipper found he had to make far too fast.
A puppet for a password. It was such a simple exchange really. Nothing really lost for so much that could be gained. It was all so easy, to the point that Dipper was surprised he was even thinking twice about it. When push came to shove, Lapis had given up everything for him–her form, her power, her very existence itself, all to protect him.
And all it would take to free her now was a single sock puppet. Really, how could he not give something so pointless up to save someone who mattered so much more?
He had no choice, not really. Neither had Lapis. She had taken Jasper's hand, resigning herself to such immense torment. But as Dipper slowly lifted his hand to take Bill's, he could only hope that this would be enough to end it.
He only briefly stopped short when he heard Steven pounding on the door again. "Dipper, come on!" he pleaded, pushing hard against the door. As stressed as he was, he didn't even notice the hinges starting to creak and bend under the pressure he was putting them under. "S-something's wrong–I can feel it! Open the door, please!"
"Tik tok, kid!" Bill urged before Dipper could get too distracted. "Rosebud can wait; but you and I both know that Water Wings can't…"
No, she couldn't, no more than she already had. Not with only seconds left to spare before the laptop's secrets were lost. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was guilt, maybe it was simply mere exhaustion alone. But wherever the reason behind it, Dipper knew exactly what he had to do.
All for Lapis. Only for Lapis.
"Just one puppet?" he asked, refusing to turn back now. "Fine. It's a deal."
His hand didn't burn when it met Bill's. But the second they brought those hands down in a solidifying shake, the attic door came crashing down. Steven fell along with it, disoriented at first. Only to fall stiff with shock when he got his first glimpse of Dipper–
Shaking hands with Bill Cipher.
"D-Dipper…" Steven barely managed to pull himself to his feet. "W-what… what are you-"
"S-Steven!" Dipper tensed up when he realized he'd been caught in the act. "I can explain-"
"Glad you could join us, Rosebud!" Bill gleefully cut in. "You're just in time to watch me pick out the puppet Pine Tree promised me! Now let's see here… Eenie, meenie, minie-"
"YOU!"
His eye turned red the second it settled back on Dipper. He didn't even get a chance to ask what he meant before a sharp, agonizing feeling gripped his entire body. That feeling only worsened as an unseen hand clawed away at something deep inside of him, determined to tear it out entirely. Its grip tightened viciously, practically suffocating his very soul from the outside in. He didn't know what was happening, much less how to make it stop.
Not that he could have even if he tried.
He was certain he was screaming by now, but he couldn't hear it. In fact, he couldn't register much of anything at all as something sharply shifted. Without warning, he found himself flung through the air, suddenly unable to feel that pain–or anything at all for that matter.
"Dipper!" Steven's horrified cry was Dipper's first sign that something was terribly wrong. But nothing in the world could have ever prepared him for what awaited him when he opened his eyes and turned back around–
Only to find his own body, lying prone and unconscious against the alcove far below him.
"W-what's going on?!" Dipper's voice hitched in panic as he looked down at himself. "What is this?! What did you do to my body?!"
Sure enough, his 'body' was still there, but it wasn't much of one compared to its lifeless double on the floor. His limbs were translucent, his chest transparent as his hands passed straight through it. Only as he looked back down at the body that should have been his did Dipper realize–
Bill had ripped him straight out of it.
As if on cue, the demon's twisted laughter began to ring out across the attic. Laughter that was somehow coming out of Dipper's barely conscious body.
Steven didn't hesitate to rush to his side, only to be shoved hard to the ground the second he got close. He could only watch, eyes wide with terror, as Bill pulled his newly-stolen body up to stand. When he opened his eyes, both of the boys were shocked to see they were nothing more than thin black slits set against pools of bright, almost glowing gold. Just another sign that the demon had claimed this vessel as his own.
Bill only kept on laughing as he lifted the laptop high into the air, just as its timer hit zero. Steven yelped as the machine crashed down onto the floor right next to him, broken to bits. A rain of paper followed it, the ruined remains of the photos of Dipper and Lapis that Bill was triumphantly tearing up. Only he was able to see the distraught despair hanging heavy Dipper's now immaterial face as he realized he'd just lost everything: the laptop, its secrets, the photos, his last chance to help Lapis, and now–
Even his own body.
"Sorry, kid!" Bill grinned up at his hapless victim, so easily fooled into giving him exactly what he wanted. "But you're my puppet now!"