Mabel squared her shoulders. “He meant to come back, but he hasn’t, so he must be in trouble! We have to help him. Please, Grunkle Stan?”

Stan patted the armrest of his chair and she slipped up onto it as easily as she ever had, and it hurt her a little inside to see how relieved he looked when she did.

It’s not that the others hadn’t taken the news well, but…. Wendy hadn’t been thrilled to find out she’d been working on top of what was potentially a giant hazard without knowing a thing about it so she could prepare accordingly—though truthfully, Mabel wasn’t sure if that was partly for show so she could ask Stan if they’d get hazard backpay. Besides, Mabel was pretty sure Wendy’s concern was more for them than for herself, or at least for the people they’d been when they’d first arrived in Gravity Falls. She suspected Soos was a little hurt that he’d never managed to earn Stan’s trust before now so that he could help with all of this before Danny had spilled the beans, though. Even Dipper had admitted to her that he’d have felt vindicated if Stan had just acknowledged that weird things went on in Gravity Falls before push had come to shove, even if he’d never breathed a word about the rest of it.

But he was still their Grunkle Stan.

“It’s like this, kiddo.” Stan’s familiar rumble held a note of regret, but there wasn’t a hint of leniency in it, nothing she could push on to make him give way. “We know something bad is coming even if we don’t know exactly what it is, but because we don’t know exactly what it is, we have to be prepared for anything. If you and Dipper try to summon Danny here, you won’t be successful unless we take down some of our defences—”

“We don’t have to do it inside!” The words spilled out of her in a rush. She hadn’t been helping everyone else gather supplies and paint one warding after another to blithely suggest striking through half their work. “I know you’re doing everything you can to protect the Mystery Shack, but we can do it in the yard! Or farther out into the woods!”

Something in Stan’s face tightened, and Mabel realized he didn’t think that was better.

He thought it was worse.

“The problem with summoning something,” he said carefully, “is that you never know for sure what you’re gonna get. You might be putting out an invitation for Danny, but something else might come along and hijack that.”

“But if he’s in trouble—”

“He doesn’t need us to save him.”

“But if the owner of the second journal—”

“If the owner of the second journal summoned him and they still have him by the time we find them, we’ll help him. But even if he’s not somewhere he’s supposed to be, he’s got some pretty powerful allies to have been here in the first place.”

Mabel frowned. Dipper had been worried that summoning Danny might pull him away from his home and they wouldn’t have an easy way to return him, and she didn’t want that, either, but that wasn’t the end of the world. They could apologize for that, and she was sure Danny would understand. But if he needed help and they didn’t even try?

Well.

If she were being perfectly honest with herself, he might understand that, too.

His warning hadn’t explicitly said they might invite someone else in if they did this, but between Danny’s warning and the journal entry, she couldn’t really blame Stan for thinking that. Plus, she trusted Stan too much to dismiss his concerns.

“We might have to face whatever this is without him.” Stan nudged her arm with his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s our best move to risk inviting in something else when we’re not entirely sure what we’re facing in the first place.” There was a pause. “Do you understand why I believe that? Can you accept it and trust me?”

She didn’t want to—it felt like giving up on Danny—but Mabel nodded.

She did understand.

Besides, as much as Danny had wanted to go home, he’d also wanted to help. She’d seen that in him even if he hadn’t always wanted to admit it. He might find a way back to them on his own, even if someone else had summoned him.

-|-

As the days slipped by, Mabel started looking for Danny less and less—she no longer ran to the window whenever they heard an unexpected sound from outside, something that was not an uncommon occurrence—and Dipper couldn’t help but feel terrible. There was a heaviness in his chest that wouldn’t go away.

Mabel wasn’t supposed to be that sad. She was easily distracted from it, thankfully, but she smiled a little less often than she had before. Genuine smiles, anyway. Not every smile she wore these days was a real one. Dipper had noticed that even if no one else had.

He knew she still wanted to try summoning Danny even if she’d stopped asking him about it.

Dipper hadn’t stopped looking for a way to send a summoned Danny back, exactly, but there wasn’t anything in his journal or Stan’s that was specific to what he wanted. He knew that knowledge might be in the second journal or that it might be something never discovered by the author—Grunkle Ford; he had to remember the author was his grunkle even if it was hard to imagine someone who wasn’t Grunkle Stan.

Of course, that knowledge might not even exist to discover. The whole search might be a wild goose chase. Still, without some sort of guarantee either that they wouldn’t rip Danny away from the one thing he’d wanted the entire time he was here without being able to return him or that they wouldn’t accidentally summon something bad that couldn’t be properly banished back to wherever it had come from—

He agreed with Grunkle Stan.

It wasn’t worth the risk.

Especially not if Danny’s warning was right.

Dipper threw himself into the search for the second journal instead, hoping that once it was found, Mabel would have a little more peace of mind.

Well.

He hoped they’d both have a little more peace of mind.

Even if he didn’t admit it to her, Danny’s disappearance—and the fact that he didn’t turn up like he’d promised, assuming the message Soos had found was real—ate away at Dipper. Dread that he’d somehow made a mistake curled inside his chest, and claws of doubt tore into him each night he lay awake without answers.

Stan had made as much progress as he could without the second journal.

He’d said he could try to infer what was missing and extrapolate from what he already had, but he hadn’t sounded too confident that that would work.

Danny had said he’d been in a portal accident, and Dipper didn’t want to accidentally repeat whatever mistakes had been made to cause that accident. He knew they had to go about this carefully.

He also knew they wouldn’t get any closer to rescuing Ford until they had the second journal. He’d subtly asked around (the woods, not the town) to see if anyone had heard of someone (something) finding a lost book, to no avail. Mabel had even risked asking the gnomes. (Despite threatening not to give an answer until Mabel agreed to be their queen, one of them—Jason?—had slipped up and given away the game. They hadn’t known anything, either.)

As each day passed without any sort of progress, any sort of lead, the desire—desperation—to find the second journal grew.

In hindsight, that’s when it had all gone wrong. Instead of being as careful as he could have been, as careful as he should have been, he’d done something he’d regretted.

Something they’d all regretted.

You’re friends with the Phantom, aren’t you?

He never should have listened.

Of course I know who he is! I see everything.

He never should have assumed.

He’s not here to help you, but I can.

He’d thought, if this was a friend of Danny’s, maybe they’d come because he couldn’t.

We can make a deal.

It had been a mistake.

After all, I know what you’re looking for.

A stupid mistake.

I know where it is.

Something he couldn’t undo.

I know who has it, and I know what they’re planning to do.

He’d thought he’d do anything to get the journal.

I could make sure you get your hands on it.

Getting the journal meant saving Grunkle Ford, reassuring themselves that Danny was okay, and preparing themselves for whatever else was coming.

Don’t you want to see it before it’s destroyed?

He hadn’t known back then that Gideon had had the second journal or that he’d used it to summon a demon.

If the journal is destroyed, you’ll never get what you want because it won’t exist anymore.

If he’d been thinking clearly, if he’d been half as suspicious as he’d been of Danny when he’d first turned up, if there hadn’t been some sort of deadline—

Tick tock, do you hear that clock? Every second brings us closer to destruction.

It hadn’t been a lie, but it hadn’t been the truth, either. At least, what Bill Cipher had really meant and what Dipper had understood were two different things.

Do you know what it feels like to have time literally slipping through your fingers? You people always compare it to water, but it’s more destructive than that. Every lost second burns. Tick tock goes the clock, down and down till there’s nothing left—except the agony of missed opportunities and lost chances.

He’d known Mabel had thought he’d given up on Danny. He hadn’t wanted Stan to think he’d given up on Ford, too.

I’m not asking for much—just a suit to go with my hat and tie.

It hadn’t seemed like a bad deal at the time. Stan had loads of old suits in the closet, and he wouldn't exactly mind losing one if it meant getting the final journal. Dipper had figured he’d just need to empty the pockets of mothballs.

So, what’s it going to be, Pine Tree?

He should have known it was too good to be true. He should have asked more questions.

Do we have a deal?

He hadn’t.

-|-

Five years was a long time to wait.

In Danny’s mind, it was too long. He’d forgotten things, important things—they’d probably been important things? They usually were with his luck—and if he’d ever found out the date beyond the year, he didn’t remember it now. He’d focused on summer of 2012, Gravity Falls, Oregon, and not much else. He didn’t know much else. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d wanted to write anything down or camp out in Oregon for the entire summer, tempting though that had been. He hadn’t even tried to coordinate vacation plans with his friends so they could do a road trip.

That was too risky.

Clockwork would have figured out his plan if he’d done that.

Of course, that was assuming Clockwork hadn’t already figured out his plan. Danny had been busy enough with stuff this summer that it sure felt like Clockwork had figured it out and was subtly pulling strings to keep him away. Every time he tried to plan his trip, even just as far as grab a bag of essentials and leave in the middle of the night, something would come up that he couldn’t push off onto someone else.

Now, Dani was covering for him, and she could handle whatever near world-ending disaster decided to rear its ugly head while he was gone.

He couldn’t afford to miss this window.

He probably already had, but if he hadn’t—

It was still summer. It was the last week of August, but that was still summer.

Danny had told his parents that he was taking off for at least the week, and now he was flying over Oregon in search of the elusive Gravity Falls. If he’d learned anything since his last visit there, it was that it had the same sort of reputation as Amity Park—nice and boring, with the odd crackpot story coming out of it that no one else believed—and that it could be just as hard to find, like it sometimes wasn’t on the map at all.

Considering Amity Park sometimes wasn’t—there had been another Ghost Zone incident—he wasn’t going to put anything past Gravity Falls.

In truth, this wasn’t where he’d thought he’d be five years ago, but then again, he hadn’t really thought about his future five years ago beyond making sure that that one horrible future never came to pass.

He’d been working for his parents since graduating high school, and things had gotten better once he’d taken his own advice and coughed up the truth about what had happened to him all those years ago. Once he’d told them who he’d become, they’d accepted him with a wholeheartedness that had made him wonder why he hadn’t told them before—or why he hadn’t let them remember knowing before.

They had been as supportive as they’d known how, doing everything from making sure their weapons didn’t affect him to offering to do family therapy to help them find a way forward. They’d even insisted that he didn’t have to give up on his dreams, that they’d help him become the astronaut he’d always wanted to be in any way they could, but Danny had experienced outer space as Phantom more than once now, and—

And it wasn’t that being an astronaut wasn’t still something he wanted to do, on some level, but it was something he was willing to let go of in favour of doing other things.

Besides, he was basically a liaison between the Ghost Zone and the Human Realm now. He couldn’t just leave that behind to pursue a completely unrelated career without a second thought, especially when he knew the odds of actually becoming an astronaut were slim and making it to space the proper way were even slimmer. Astronomical, really. Especially with a start as late as his would be.

Anyway, he didn’t want to risk one or two of the ghosts from further afield deciding to toe the line or completely negate the deal he’d struck surrounding the Amity Park Portals, and he still felt like that was his responsibility.

His parents could hold down the fort while he finished up some old business out here, though.

Probably.

Dani could help with that, too, if it looked like something might explode. She’d gotten good at working with their tech, even if she didn’t want to work for them—with them—like he did.

Dani had also been the one to give him directions for flying to Gravity Falls when he’d finally mentioned his plan. She had much more experience finding landmarks from the sky than he did, and flying was infinitely faster than driving. Plus, at some point, she’d apparently been to Gravity Falls. Naturally, she wouldn’t talk about it; once she’d realized why he was so interested in it, she’d refused to say anything until Halloween of this year. This was supposedly to reduce the chances of Clockwork finding out everything, but Danny suspected it was just because she enjoyed annoying him.

Whatever.

He’d get the story out of her eventually.

In the meantime, he wanted to know how this one ended.

Had Mabel and Dipper ever found his message? What had they thought when he’d just disappeared on them—especially if now wasn’t as close to the day it had happened as he hoped it was? Had they ever tried summoning him? He wasn’t sure if that would have worked—quite aside from the fact that they’d be getting him rather than the Danny they had known if it did work, he figured Clockwork would have done something to prevent it. Not that Danny could think of something Clockwork could do to ensure that, but it was Clockwork. If anyone was going to find a way to bend the rules, it would be him.

Danny still had some kind of memory-erasing gun hidden in the wall of his childhood bedroom as a testament to that fact.

He’d put it there upon getting back and hadn’t touched it since.

Not that he hadn’t been tempted to. Tucker had been up for testing the thing as long as it wasn’t on him, and Sam had made a comment she might not have truly meant about using it on Valerie to dissuade her of the notion that Phantom had ruined her life, and it’s not like he hadn’t mind-wiped people in the past, but—

But this was different.

Maybe it was because it fell a little closer to the side of technology than magic. Maybe it was because he suspected how often something similar must have been used in Gravity Falls and how much that had terrified those who had seen its effects but not known what was happening. (He hadn’t faced circumstances like that when he’d used the Reality Gauntlet; that had been bigger and the effects more permanent, and he’d destroyed that thing for a reason.)

Or maybe he hadn’t used the memory gun because of Jazz.

Jazz had freaked out when he’d first told her about it, talking about how he couldn’t possibly know the damage it did and otherwise looking far more disturbed about the whole thing than he’d ever felt. He hadn’t thought telling her everything about the Reality Gauntlet situation would improve matters, so he’d tried talking in hypotheticals, and he’d lost every argument.

Somehow.

He’d lost it again last year when he’d been ready to use it—really, actually ready.

She’d stopped him.

He’d let her—on some level, he knew that—but he’d stopped because he trusted her.

Still, if she’d arrived back in Amity Park any later, or if the Guys in White had moved any faster—

No. No, he didn’t need to remember that right now. He’d gotten through it, and that was all that mattered.

The fact that he might need the gun in the future was the reason he hadn’t brought it back here, though.

It was still insurance.

There was a reason he’d first made that deal with Clockwork, after all.

And there was a reason he still had a few tiny misgivings about coming back against Clockwork’s wishes. Orders, more like. Or cryptic warnings.

But there was also a reason he was determined to come back and see this through, whatever happened.

-|-

Danny felt the world-bending weirdness that seemed to ooze out of Gravity Falls before he could reliably pick out any landmarks, but there was the water tower, same as ever, which meant the shack should be over—

Danny adjusted his course, frowning, and flew faster, but it was starting to get harder to do, like he was trying to push his way through molasses. That skin-crawling, spine-tingling feeling of wrongness he’d first felt five years ago was stronger now. Instinct told him he should fly in the opposite direction, just get out of here and forget about this entirely, and he wasn’t sure the feeling was the result of something Clockwork had done.

That was a terrifying thought.

What the heck had happened here?

Was this some residual effect of whatever Clockwork had tried to warn him away from?

Maybe he shouldn’t be feeling bad about putting off this visit to deal with everything that had come up this summer.

Maybe it really would’ve been bad if he’d stayed here or found time to come back sooner.

The Mystery Shack was in roughly the same spot it had been the last time he’d seen it, but it looked like Vortex had paid it a visit when he’d been in a bad mood. Soos and Stan were up on the roof, patching holes, and Wendy seemed to be sorting debris from the yard into various piles—scrap, salvage for reuse, and scavenge for parts, maybe? She didn’t bother chasing the goat and pig away from everything (when had they gotten farm animals? Had he just missed them last time?), but she did seem to be making a concerted effort to keep them away from the smallest pile.

Danny slowed, not entirely by choice, and forced his way closer. He didn’t bother staying invisible, but he didn’t call out, either. He landed on the lane and transformed back in a familiar flash of light, hoping it would be easier to walk than to fly—

—and it was like someone had found a way to muffle the feeling that made him want to flee.

It was still there, but it was tamped down and infinitely easier to ignore, much like it had been five years ago.

He remembered feeling it back then, remembered getting used to it to the point that it didn’t really bother him unless he focused on it, but he did not remember it being that much worse in ghost mode. He was pretty sure he’d gotten better about ignoring it regardless of which form he was in. He’d assumed it was simply his reaction to Gravity Falls in general, some product of its weirdness as a whole, but now that he’d come back, now that he’d felt both….

Now, it seemed pretty clear that that run-danger-flee feeling was a result of the Mystery Shack itself.

Or, more likely, something inside the Mystery Shack.

Or something that had been inside the Mystery Shack and had exploded with enough strength to leave this feeling lingering behind, at least.

Danny blew out a breath and started to walk into the yard. He didn’t meet with any weird resistance now; walking felt totally normal, not like he was trying to push two magnets of like poles together.

The new vantage point let him notice Mabel and Dipper sitting with Stan on the porch steps. They looked pretty much the same as he remembered, which hopefully meant they were as unharmed as they appeared. Apparent destruction aside, maybe he wasn’t too late. Maybe he hadn’t missed everything, even if he’d missed the start of it.

Like the others, Mabel, Dipper, and Stan were busy. As far as he could tell, they were alternating between repairing the steps—a rust-spotted metal toolbox with a hammer on top of it sat at the edge of the porch, at least—and looking at the book in Stan’s lap. Danny wasn’t wholly convinced was one of the journals. The shape was wrong, wider than he remembered, and—

Wait.

Danny’s eyes flicked to the two figures on the roof and then back to the three on the porch.

What?

Something that might be guilt or maybe dread curled around Danny’s lungs and squeezed, and he stopped as he realized he’d come too late.

The state of the Mystery Shack hadn’t been the start of it, the first casualty in whatever fight they were facing. It had been the end. Or somewhere in the middle. They were still cleaning up from it, whether because it had recently happened or because they only now had time to deal with it.

Was this his fault? Not entirely—he knew it was stupid to think it was entirely his fault when Clockwork had straight up told him something was coming regardless—but was it partially his fault? For not being here? For not trying harder to be here? For not inviting Sam and Tucker and Valerie on a family road trip out to visit the friends he’d made here five years ago and being the calvary this fight might have needed to make sure things hadn’t gone as far as they had?

He had not come right back like he’d promised.

He should have, but he hadn’t. He’d let Clockwork distract him, and—

“Hey, we’re closed for repairs right now.”

Danny started. He hadn’t even noticed Wendy walk over to him, but she was looking at him in the same way she’d looked at him the first time he’d seen her. Well, mostly. The suspicion was better hidden behind a false smile this time, but it was most certainly still there.

He didn’t think he’d changed enough in five years that she wouldn’t recognize him, but then again, that could be a large reason for her suspicion in the first place. If she were looking for him, she’d be looking for the old him. The younger version of him. Not someone who was older and taller than her, if not by a lot.

“The grand reopening will be in a couple of days. If you’re still in town, you’re welcome to come back then.”

There was a tightness to her words that wasn’t hidden by what sounded like a half-hearted attempt at a congenial tone.

She definitely didn’t trust him, but frankly he couldn’t blame her for that.

Whatever Clockwork had sent him to warn them about had happened, and saying it had been rough regardless was no doubt a gross understatement. Who wouldn’t be jumpy, wondering if that was the end or if the universe had something else up its sleeve? It had been beyond bad. Even if the town itself looked okay, the state of the Mystery Shack told its own story.

Danny swallowed. A quick glance told him the three on the steps were watching him, and he couldn’t hear any hammering coming from the roof, either. Things had grown quiet in the eerie way that Gravity Falls could go quiet, and the urge to leave cranked up a couple of notches.

He ignored it and opened his mouth instead. “Are you guys okay?”

It was a stupid question. He knew that. They must have gone through a lot in his absence, and he knew better than anyone that sometimes, some pretty big things could happen that didn’t leave a whole lot of physical evidence behind. Not all the time, anyway. Sometimes, it just depended on how you looked at the situation.

Especially when interdimensional portals were involved.

Something that might explain the two Stans, come to think of it.

Wendy blinked but didn’t answer, more caught off guard than he’d ever seen her.

Danny heard movement from the direction of the shack and looked over to see Dipper on his feet and Mabel already running towards him. The two on the roof had put their tools down and were likely coming down, too. If they hadn’t recognized him, they’d decided he might be a threat.

That shouldn’t be surprising, really.

Mabel skidded to a stop less than two feet from him and stared up at his face. “Danny? Is that you?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but apparently Mabel wasn’t finished.

“Were you summoned away by the Time Police? Is that why you’re older? Did you meet Blendin?”

What?

“Time Police?” Danny repeated, even as Mabel hugged him and started to tell him why they hadn’t tried summoning him back and how they’d hoped he’d made it home.

Yeesh, if there were so-called Time Police running around here, no wonder Clockwork had been extra adamant he not interfere. It wasn’t just a matter of flying under the radar of the Observants; he needed to be unnoticed by these people, too—especially if Mabel didn’t seem to think it unlikely that he might be kidnapped and held somewhere.

“It’s a long story,” Dipper said as Mabel pulled away. He glanced at Wendy, who gave him a slight nod.

Danny was still trying to figure out how he’d managed to pass some test of theirs despite barely speaking when Dipper asked, “What did you say when you first came out of the thermos again?”

Danny had absolutely no idea what he’d said.

Well.

That wasn’t true.

He couldn’t remember, but he could guess.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Um. Was I complaining about being in there? I was probably complaining about being in there. It’s not exactly fun.” He hesitated. He remembered not knowing who they were or where he was, so maybe— “I might’ve asked about Vlad Masters. He was a real pain back then.”

He was still a pain now, sometimes, but Jazz—with the help of Tucker, Valerie, and Sam—had dug up enough on him to blackmail him into getting therapy, which had helped. A lot. The fact that Jazz had gifted some modified Fenton tech—smaller, more inconspicuous versions of the Spectre Deflector in a variety of wearable tech designs—to each person she could think of before coming to Vlad with her allegations was likely the only reason she’d been successful, though.

That’s not to say his parents hadn’t tried to cut Vlad off once they’d found out everything—his mom had even threatened to file a restraining order—but sometimes, the best way to beat someone was at their own game.

And, honestly, Vlad working through his issues after all those years he’d spent alone being bitter and jealous and resentful had made a marked difference. He could still be an egotistical jerk, but he was less of a creep. Danny had even agreed to learn a few things from him perfectly willingly a time or two, something he’d have never considered while Vlad was still on his ‘renounce your oaf of a father, be my son, and convince your mother to marry me’ schtick.

He had not realized how much sleep he’d been losing dealing with Vlad alone until it had quieted down.

“I knew it was you,” Mabel said as her elbow dug into Dipper’s side. He yelped and scowled at her as he rubbed at the spot, but he shot a relieved smile in Danny’s direction soon enough.

“Glad to hear you’re not dead, kid,” Wendy said with a growing smirk as Danny side-eyed her at the nickname. “Catch up with the twins if you want, but if you’re hanging around, you can stay on that wanting to be helpful kick and help us get things ready for the reopening.” She pointed towards the old toolshed, which looked like the most pristine thing in the entire area. “Grab what you need out of there.”

She turned to resume her work, and Danny’s eyes wandered over the twins and back to Stan, who was still sitting on the steps but had now been joined by the two who’d been on the roof.

It was Stan’s brother who’d been with Soos, Danny realized.

The guy wasn’t a clone or a doppelgänger from another universe, for all that he and Stan looked similar enough to be confused as such; he was Stan’s long-lost twin. Sixer. The author of the journals.

“You won after all, huh?” Danny murmured as he looked down at his friends.

The younger set of Pines twins exchanged glances. “Kinda,” Mabel whispered. The exuberance had drained from her voice and face, and she hugged herself. “Your warning helped, but….”

But it hadn’t been enough, not on its own.

“It was rough.” Dipper’s voice was flatter than Mabel’s. His hand found Mabel’s before he added, “We got through it, but it’s hard to know if it’s…. If it’s really over. Bill could bend reality, possess people— What if he finds a way back? What if we didn’t really stop him?”

Danny frowned. “Is he a ghost? Bill?” Possession was definitely a ghost thing, and reality-bending certainly wasn’t out of the picture, but if this was all about a ghost—

“He is the most powerful and dangerous creature I’ve ever encountered.”

The answer came from Sixer, and Danny wanted to blame the weirdness of this place for the fact that he’d completely missed the man’s approach. Soos had sat down on the steps with Stan, telling him something in a low murmur that Danny couldn’t make out. Danny wasn’t surprised he’d missed that movement, but the completely silent approach—

“Stanford Pines,” the man said, stretching out his hand. Danny realized he was staring at the six fingers and mentally berated himself for that as he reached out his own hand. “You can call me Ford.”

“Danny Fenton.”

Ford’s grip was strong, like Jack’s always was.

“You’re the one who convinced Stan to talk.”

Danny smirked. “I might’ve spilled the beans on my own if he hadn’t started coughing up some answers.”

“Why?”

Danny didn’t realize until that moment that this was an interrogation, but from the looks Mabel and Dipper were giving him, they weren’t about to interfere. A quick glance in Wendy’s direction convinced Danny she was listening, too, if the slight tilt of her head and the slowness of her work were anything to go by. Maybe they weren’t as accepting about his showing up again as he’d thought they’d be.

Maybe they thought they couldn’t afford to take the risk of being so trusting, after everything.

This was Gravity Falls.

“I thought it would help things go better than they did.”

Ford raised an eyebrow.

Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been his motivation for it from the start, but it was still true enough. That had clearly been Clockwork’s reasoning, and now that he could remember making the deal with Clockwork in the first place, Danny knew that had been the main reason he’d agreed.

The insurance of the memory gun had been nice, even now that he knew the effects could wear off under the right conditions. There was no denying that. Still, a major motivating factor was the very real possibility—read: threat—of things here going poorly and becoming his problem once it had spread and was therefore much more difficult to deal with without a lot of casualties. Clockwork hadn’t given details when Danny had asked, because he was Clockwork, but anything that was worse than the last future Danny had seen wasn’t one he wanted to come to fruition.

“One of my allies— I mean, one of the ghosts I know—” Danny broke off. He didn’t mind filling in Ford—if he wasn’t trusted by the others, that would have been obvious by now, and Danny felt he owed them something of an explanation—and he had a vague recollection of Clockwork telling him his secret might get out anyway. This had to have been what he’d meant, right? “Maybe I should back up. How much do you know about me?”

“Pretend I’ve been living in different dimensions for the past thirty years.”

Oh. Right.

Danny gave Ford the quick version—probably the gist of what he’d told Mabel and Dipper last time—and asked a few questions of his own. Curious as he was whether Ford had ever wound up in the Ghost Zone before there had been a stable portal to their world, this Bill character was the more pressing concern. Mabel broke off to go back to sit with Stan and Soos when Danny turned the conversation in Bill’s direction, and that told him as much about what had happened as anything else.

Still, from what they were saying— “I take it the thermos didn’t help?”

“Thermos?” Ford repeated, glancing at Dipper.

“We tried it after he possessed me,” Dipper said as Danny spluttered out a what?, “but it didn’t hold him forever. He got out somehow.”

The same way the Box Ghost always did, maybe? Danny still hadn’t figured that out. No circular container could hold him, yada yada yada, but despite looking into it—with the help of his parents after telling them everything—he was at a loss for how the Box Ghost managed to do something none of the other ghosts could.

“And it didn’t seem to be affected during Weirdmaggedon,” continued Dipper, as if Danny had a clue what he was talking about, “but when we tried to cram too many demons and stuff into it, they burst through the metal.”

Oh.

Comforting.

So that was a thing.

He should ask Clockwork how that other thermos of theirs was doing. He didn’t want to have to deal with his evil future self again if he could avoid it.

“Okay, just— Hold on a sec. You were possessed? Like, possessed possessed?”

“Like not in my body while he wore it like a meat suit possessed,” Dipper deadpanned.

That was what Sidney had done to him the first time. Displaced him, not overshadowed him. Danny’s control over his powers might not have been great at that point, but he’d still had them and been terrified. Dipper wouldn’t even have had that edge.

How come Clockwork’s so-called best versions of events—or at least the ones that weren’t as bad as the others—included Dipper getting possessed by someone (something?) his grunkle thought was the most dangerous being he’d ever run into? Why was there no version where that didn’t happen? Danny was not convinced the world would have ended if he’d been able to ship Dipper a modified Spectre Deflector.

That settled it. Danny was going to have words with Clockwork when he got back.

It wouldn’t change anything, but it would make him feel better.

“And Weirdmaggedon—?”

Weirdmaggedon had been exactly what it sounded like and, as far as Danny could tell, pretty much the result Clockwork had hinted at. They’d made an interdimensional portal, just like his parents had, and released more than they’d bargained for—just like his parents had.

It had also come to an end yesterday, which in Danny’s opinion was fairly damning evidence that Clockwork had been onto him the whole time, pulling strings Danny hadn’t ever been aware of to keep him away from here.

So why had he finally stopped pulling strings?

Danny was sure he was where he needed to be right now: here, even if he was much later than he’d wanted. He still clearly remembered how adamant Clockwork had been that Danny hadn’t been dropped in here to blatantly interfere—that is, help in some concrete fashion that constituted real helping—because he figured these guys could handle the situation, even if whatever Danny had done would help them get up to speed faster.

Handle it they had, apparently, even if it had gone off worse than it should have.

So if he hadn’t been drafted to do anything about that—if he genuinely couldn’t have helped—then why go through all that in the first place? Clockwork could have achieved something incredibly similar by freezing time for thirty seconds, finding that passage he’d written in the journal, and leaving it open where Stan could see it when Dipper and Mabel were around. Whatever he’d tried to say, he hadn’t needed Danny. Danny’s presence hardly counted as minimal interference alongside that, and it would’ve been easier for Clockwork to achieve.

Crud, what had Clockwork told him when he’d gotten here the first time? Why couldn’t he remember? It might’ve been important, in that roundabout way Clockwork sometimes said important stuff without seeming to say it. (Really, now that Danny had gotten to know him better, he figured Clockwork played it straight about fifty percent of the time, and most of that was under the watchful eye of the Observants. Or maybe these Time Police people, since Danny had no doubt that Clockwork knew about them.)

Maybe Danny hadn’t been able to keep his word to his friends about coming right back, and maybe he hadn’t helped as much as he’d wanted to back then, but he was back now, and he could help now.

He knew what it was like to use humour as a coping mechanism, to build a shield out of sarcasm and spears out of bad puns.

He remembered avoiding stuff and leaving as quickly as he could once an uncomfortable topic came up—and not always because such topics were sometimes accompanied by prototypes that had successfully locked onto him as a ghost.

He still picked something to focus on sometimes when he needed a distraction from the reality of a situation gone from bad to worse. He’d often thrown himself fully into a situation in an effort to help even if he should have first stopped to think things through more so he didn’t put himself at as much risk. He’d taken arguably stupid risks when they’d had a big reward because he’d been betting that he’d get through it more or less intact, especially when doing so had meant helping someone he cared about.

When it came down to it, he understood—essentially—where these guys were coming from.

He wasn’t that different.

And that, at least, was something he did remember Clockwork making a point about.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help,” he said. “I wish I could have been.”

The sentiment was true, and the words were certainly not something he’d utter lightly, even if this wasn’t Amity Park.

Dipper shrugged and looked down at his feet. “It’s okay. You got home like you wanted, right?”

“Yeah, but—” Excuses weren’t something they needed to hear right now. He glanced at Ford and saw understanding in his eyes, not condemnation, so that was something at least. Of course, Ford hadn’t met him until now, so he was hardly the first person Danny needed real understanding from to feel better about this whole thing. “Maybe I can help now, if you’ll let me?”

Dipper made no show of hiding the confusion on his face when he looked up at Danny. “Help how?”

“For starters, I can listen if you ever need to talk. I know what it’s like to watch someone else control your body. But I can also help you learn how to stop that so it never happens again.” He hesitated. “I’d need to know more details about your possession, but if you’re willing to share them, I’m sure I can find a way to make sure he can never get inside your head again. Or anyone else, either.”

“Without surgery?”

The question came from Ford, and Danny raised an eyebrow. That seemed too far out of left field to not be relevant in some way he didn’t understand. “Yeah, without surgery. If it’s not something that can be dealt with in a mind over matter way by strengthening your will and resisting so strongly that you don’t consciously know you’re resisting—which is a thing so don’t tell me it’s not; my dad’s done that for ages—then it’s just a matter of modifying one of my parents’ original inventions.”

“Your parents are inventors?”

Danny nodded. “And paranormal scientists with a focus on ghosts, meaning I wasn’t entirely surprised when I found a secret lab in the basement last time I was here. That’s kinda where I expect labs to be, even if they aren’t secret.”

“I wonder if I’ve seen any of their work.”

“You might’ve, but they haven’t published for a while, just filed for patents. I can tell you more about them later.” Danny looked back at Dipper. “Meeting them might not be a bad idea, though, especially if you want to think about doing an internship with them in a few years. Well, with me, but I work with them—”

“An internship?” Dipper repeated.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Like, a summer job if you want to do something while you’re in high school, or a gap year if you want some money for college, or something for course credit if you’re in college. I could make it happen if you’re interested. You or Mabel or both of you.”

Dipper blinked and stole a glance at Ford before facing Danny again. “You’re— You’re offering to be my mentor?”

Was he?

He was, wasn’t he?

He could do for the Pines twins what Vlad had never been able to do for him, though not for lack of trying.

That was it. That was the point of this entire thing. He was sure of it. Clockwork had gotten him exactly where he thought Danny needed to be and left Danny to his own devices long enough to do what Clockwork had planned all along.

Danny couldn’t even be mad at him. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world; Dipper and Mabel were good kids, and they could use some guidance when it came to arming themselves against possession. If nothing else, learning how to modify something to help them in a tight situation would undoubtedly serve them well.

Besides, if doing this prevented something worse than this Weirdmaggedon thing from happening? Or prevented it from happening again where it could spread beyond the boundaries of Gravity Falls? Danny would do whatever he could to stop that.

And from the little he’d heard of this Bill Cipher character, he wasn’t convinced that it was the end.

Not forever.

Not if there was any possible way for Bill to free himself or claw his way back to this reality or whatever could happen if things went sideways again.

“I want to do some digging before you agree to anything, but I suspect you could do worse,” Ford said quietly as he reached over to put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “Stan’s well on his way to recovering all his memories, but we’ve still got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Recov—” Danny stopped as his mind processed what Ford had said.

He didn’t need to ask, not really.

He could guess.

Gravity Falls was where Clockwork had gotten that memory-erasing gun.

“Come on, you can meet him again,” Dipper said, turning to lead the way back to Stan. With Ford following behind them and Stan watching them come, it was hard not to feel penned in.

Danny offered them a smile as he got closer. “Um, hi, I’m—”

“—the messenger boy,” Stan said. His voice didn’t hold any malice, and thankfully he didn’t sound like he was ready to toss Danny off his property for not giving them a proper warning about all of this. Of course, Danny wasn’t entirely sure how much had Stan remembered and how much Mabel and Soos had filled him in before Danny had walked over here. “Yeah, I remember you. You’re late.”

You’re late was infinitely better than you’re too late, even if Danny knew the latter was true.

“But I’m here to help now,” Danny said quickly, “if you’ll take my help?” He included Soos in his look, thinking the man had as much right to weigh in on that decision as the rest of them.

Soos’s answer was a small smile that Danny took as forgiveness for bailing on them, even if he wasn’t sure Soos really meant it that way. Stan’s counter was more to point. “How can you help?”

“Well.” Danny glanced over his shoulder at Wendy, who had given up the pretense of not eavesdropping and was watching them with crossed arms. “I’m a lot better at fixing stuff than I used to be. Why don’t I start with helping you get everything ready for the reopening?”

“I’ll find you some tools,” Soos said as Stan grunted something that must have been an affirmative. At least, no one argued with Soos, which meant no one was arguing with Danny.

It wasn’t the help he’d imagined he’d give. Acting as a sort of mentor to two (soon-to-be?) teens who’d been caught up in something much bigger than they could’ve anticipated hadn’t been on his bucket list, either, but this felt right. It may have come about as a result of Clockwork’s meddling, but Danny couldn’t bring himself to mind. It didn’t feel like Clockwork was making him do something anymore. This was his choice, and he was deciding to help his friends however he could.

Clockwork had once asked him if he thought he’d only helped one person—or at least influenced only one person’s path. Something like that. Either way, Danny hadn’t entirely understood what he’d meant at the time.

He did now.

Catching up with each other might take time, and it might be a slower rebuilding of friendship with them than it would have been had he gotten here earlier, but they’d get there eventually.

After Soos walked down the steps, Mabel pushed the toolbox farther away and scooted closer to Stan before patting the steps beside her. Dipper claimed a spot at Stan’s feet, so Danny sat where Mabel indicated.

Mabel slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. “I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad I’m back, too.” He wanted to echo her sentiment that he was glad they were okay, but he wasn’t sure they were. Not yet. Not completely.

He’d make sure they would be, though.

Somehow.

No matter how long it took.

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