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Early October, 2013.
Pacifica doesn’t really expect the old man himself to be the one to open the door when she knocks, but he is.
For a moment he just stands there and Pacifica tenses, trying to figure out how this interaction is supposed to go. Are they supposed to snipe at each other like they always did, Pacifica putting the sleazy con man in his place while he attacks her family name? Or are they supposed to behave more like that time he’d given her a ride home without question, with nothing but a frown that didn’t even seem aimed at Pacifica? Is it supposed to be like it was during Weirdmaggedon, with Pacifica begging and Stan grumbling about an extra mouth to feed but letting her in anyway with the words “Don’t just stand there, kid, you’ll let the eye bats in”? Does the man even remember Pacifica?
Then Stan’s eyes drift to the duffel bag in Pacifica’s gloved hands.
Pacifica tenses even further. She’s trying to make a good impression, wearing a beautiful lake foam green dress that's never been worn thanks to her mother, and the matching gloves so that her sweaty hands won’t dirty the…house (even if she thinks it’d probably be the other way around). She’s wearing the diamond earrings to prove that she’s still got some money and won’t have to rely too much on his charity, but not the matching diamond necklace or sparkly eyeshadow so that she isn’t giving the impression of being the same totally spoiled rich girl the town has always known. She isn’t wearing any purple. Mother always said Pacifica looks like a princess in purple.
But the duffel bag is an ugly army green and cheap, very obviously bought and packed without Pacifica’s parents’ knowledge or approval. Pacifica is trying her absolute hardest to make a good impression, but that duffel bag could be her doing or undoing. The duffel bag is proof that Pacifica is desperate. The duffel bag is proof that Pacifica doesn’t know where else to go. The duffel bag is proof that Pacifica is weak, that Pacifica’s options have narrowed down to accepting handouts, sleeping on a bench somewhere like some kind of vagrant, or returning to being yet another link in the world’s worst chain.
Stanfor- no, Stanley Pines, Mabel had said, is still looking at the duffel bag when he says, “This doesn’t come for nothing. I need you to keep the attic clean the whole time you’re staying. And Soos and I will probably need help transitioning the Mystery Shack, what with Ford and I leaving soon. Basically the same deal I gave Mabel and Dip for the summer, okay?”
Then he turns right around and leaves Pacifica standing alone in an open doorway.
Oh. She should have known. Mr. Pines has always collected the weird, the unexplained, the misfits and the outcasts. And ever since her father had realized the bell wasn’t working anymore, wouldn’t work ever again no matter what he did, Pacifica has been nothing but.
Mid June, 2020.
Marcy flinches when suddenly there’s a woman on the bench next to her (where did she come from?), but she tries to hide it, making sure her shaking fists are hidden by her sweater pocket. This particular hoodie is good for that: baggy and soft and the exact shade of green Marcy’s Wit gem is - a nice reminder of who is in control. It’d still be nice to have her crossbow as well though, she’d never felt truly afraid as a ranger.
“Are you okay, kid?” The woman asks, and Marcy sneaks a nervous glance, trying to determine if she’s been recognized. It’s not really a rational fear, not like it is for Anne or even Sasha who fought on the frontlines of Frogvasion and had their faces seen by somewhere between half of LA and half of the world (whether that half believes it was all a movie shoot gone wrong or not). That doesn’t mean Marcy’s head isn’t still convinced that someone will look at her and know that Marcy’s hands were at the controls of the weapons that killed dozens of people, that Marcy’s fantasies were the whole reason Frogvasion was able to happen in the first place.
But the woman doesn’t look scared or accusing or suspicious. She just looks like a woman, one with very short blond hair that betrays brunette roots, sympathetic teal eyes, shimmery pink lipstick, and a light green jean jacket covered in pins over a hot pink sundress. There are pride pins and a skull pin and a Bloodcraft: Overdeath pin and wow apart from the eye color something about this woman practically screams “Sasha Waybright’s older clone”. Well, Sasha doesn’t dye her hair blonde, but. The lesbian in Marcy is still kinda flustered at the similarities.
“I-I-I’m fine,” Marcy stammers. “Just…”, she has no idea what to tell this woman, has no idea what she’s even thinking, “getting used to the idea of leaving, I guess.”
The woman nods, like that response makes any kind sense whatsoever, maybe it does, Marcy honestly can’t tell, and asks, “Do you have a place to stay?”
Marcy jolts, about to ask what in the worlds this woman is talking about, before she catches sight of her own reflection in the glass covering the bus schedule.
Oh, right. Marcy is practically curled up into a ball on this bench, legs folded up against her torso and arms wrapped around her legs. Until a few minutes ago, Marcy’s face (including red puffy eyes and disheveled hair that can’t hide any tiny circular scars without a green clip pinning it in place) had been buried in both of these. Her hoodie is threadbare from overuse, and it’s obvious that the too-short faded orange jeans clinging to her skin were the only semi-clean pair of pants Marcy could find. She’d been rocking back and forth too, probably, because Marcy does that a lot when she’s upset. Not to mention the duffel bag helping the bench to prop up her cane.
The bag is actually still half empty right now, and when Marcy does leave it's going to be in a car with a lot more luggage and people with her, but she sees how it might look to an outsider.
“I’m not running away.”
“Okay.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Not again.
“Okay. I believe you. But if you were, please know that I wouldn’t be angry at you for it. I wouldn’t send you home, or anything.”
...
Late October, 2013.
“I’m not going to be angry with you.”
Pacifica tugs her eyes from the not-at-all-interesting show about a tiger with a fist on the TV screen to meet just below Stan’s own. She really doesn’t want to listen to this, and definitely not while facing him, whatever this is, and she knows Stan doesn’t have a bell to force her with. Still, it feels safer to Look at people when they are talking to you, Pacifica.
“I’m not going to be angry with you,” Stan reiterates, “but I have to ask a question. Sorry, I’d probably be able to figure it out on my own if my brain wasn’t having a mush day about most of the people in this town, including whoever your parents- er, or guardians if it’s guardians, or guardian, or whatever- are slash is.”
He does that a lot, Pacifica thinks. He’s always apologizing for his brain having “mush days”. I don’t even bring up his whole memory-problems thing, not like the others do, and he still says it to me. Why?
“I’m not going to be angry with you, and regardless of the answer, I won’t force you to go home. But in case someone comes knocking on this door: were you kicked out of the house, or did you run away?”
...
Mid June, 2020, same day.
Marcy’s chest hurts. Why does it always have to hurt when she thinks too seriously about anything? It makes things hard. Marcy lets her right fist slowly uncurl and pull out of the pocket, finally giving in to the urge to rub at her second-largest scar through the green fabric. If she could reach, she’d let her left hand do the same to its larger match on the other side.
“I ran away when I was about your age,” the woman continues despite Marcy’s venomous desire for her to just shut up and die already, “maybe a bit younger.”
No, wait, that isn’t Marcy’s desire at all. That’s something Darc- the Core would think. The Core, not Darcy. The Core, not Marcy. Separate entities with separate minds and separate bodies and separate choices. The Core would murder people, the Core would take pleasure in the idea of dissecting Anne alive to better understand her anatomy, the Core would treat robotic soldiers killing in the streets like a fun video game, the Core would joke about Sasha’s father figure being disarmed not-
The ancient “greatest minds of Amphibia” were never into video games, or puns.
“My parents were very controlling,” the woman is still talking, “and I did a lot of not-great things because of them. So I ran away. I’d get it, is what I’m saying. But you don’t have to tell me unless you want to.”
...
Early November, 2013.
“You don’t have to tell me,” the lumberjack girl is saying as she rummages through a rack of clearance T-shirts to find one that might fit Pacifica, “but maybe tell Stan. He really should know, you know. Just in case we need to work something out legally.”
“You’re just supposed to be helping me get more outfits,” Pacifica points out, “you can stop with the interrogation already. I’ll tell Stan or whoever sent you that you tried, so you can leave me alone. Besides, no one’s come for me yet.”
That’s not entirely true, considering the texts and missed calls blowing up Pacifica’s phone. But somehow they haven’t thought of trying the Mystery Shack yet, so maybe they won’t. Maybe they have thought of it, but they’re too scared of one of the zodiac-chosen, of the man brave enough to fight a demon when they had proven themselves to be cowards, especially Father. Or maybe they’re too scared of what Mayor Cutebiker or Sheriff Blubbs or the entirety of Gravity Falls will think about any attempts to charge or sue the man who got his brain erased saving them all.
“No one sent me,” the lumberjack insists. “I chose to do this, to do both these things. I may not particularly like your family, Pacifica Northwest, but I’m not gonna turn my back on a kid in trouble. Besides, Mabel and Dipper seem to have forgiven you for the grief you’ve given them, so I’m totally cool helping you out. And as for no one coming for you…you saying that there’s some reason someone might?”
Pacifica looks stubbornly at her shoes.
“Alright, then. I’ll stop pushing.” There’s a tap on Pacifica’s shoulder and she forces herself to look up. There, in the lumberjack’s hands are two T-shirts that look like they might actually fit. The one on the left is sky blue and has a llama on it, and the words “Gonna llama-ze the world” in sunshine yellow. The other is teal with an image of what looks like The Ugly Duckling from Mother’s bedtime story, but that doesn’t make sense because it’s surrounded by others that look just like it. This one says “You’ll find your pond, Swan Queen” in army green.
“Either of these up to your standards?”
Pacifica reaches out a hand hesitantly. The fabrics are soft, like the llama plush her mother got her when Pacifica was little and Moth- when Pricilla was still buying things she thought Pacifica might actually like, the plush that’s half fallen apart by now but still waits on Pacifica’s attic air-mattress. They’re not itchy at all, not like the odd-pocalypse sack-dress had been (the itch had at least been better than the memories of Father’s Preston’s mutilated face that her original outfit brought up, but it still sucked), or stiff and inexplicably uncomfortable like a lot of her other old clothes had always been.
Pacifica starts at the realization that she’s been rubbing the material between her fingers repetitively for several seconds and pulls back immediately, but Wendy doesn’t seem to mind.
“These are fine,” Pacifica says quickly. “Definitely up to standards. Not that I really have standards anymore, not high ones, not…just…thank you.”
“No problem, kid. No problem at all. Just think about telling Stan, yeah?”
...
Mid June, 2020, still the same day.
“Thank you,” Marcy finally gets out past the don’t-like-making-vocal-words feeling currently in her brain, “I appreciate it. Still not running away though. Just dealing with some things.”
“Okay.”
For a long time they just sit there, two people on a bus stop bench in LA, watching the world go by. At least, it feels like a long time. Marcy knows better than anyone that the passage of time is nothing but a trick of one’s programming, a ticking of ones and zeroes. Or ticking neurons, because humans don’t run on binary, they don’t, Marcy doesn’t. Yeah. Marcy’s getting better at this “identifying her own thoughts” thing. She’s getting better. Her blood is the correct color again, and most of the exported and deleted memories have returned. That’s better.
Finally Marcy’s mind manages to sort language out of the mess of emotions in her head enough to ask, “You said you did some not-great things? Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”
“No, it’s okay. And yeah, I was a bit of a jerk. To my friends, and to other people. I was arrogant, controlling, rude, and obsessed with myself and my own desires. I never gave a single thought to how my actions might hurt others.”
“They’ll be fine, once I make them understand why I did it. I gave them families, I gave them adventure. I gave us a world where I don’t have to none of us have to be alone. Why should we go back to people who just want to turn us into little versions of them, another link in their chains? The hero’s parents never join them on the adventure.”
“How did you forgive yourself?”
Longing in Anne’s voice as she speaks of her Mom, the horror upon meeting Darcy. A scar on Sasha’s cheek, another on her back. How could anyone but the Core be so generous as to accept someone like me? How can my- How can the girls still care about me?
Early December, 2013.
“Woah, hey, what’s going on here?”
Pacifica sobs even harder at the sound of a new voice over her, gasping for breath and letting out pathetic little noises she can’t seem to stop. Of course Stan and Hotter-Stan (Ford, she mentally corrects herself for the millionth time) would get back from their trip today so that Stan would go straight to his living room and see Pacifica like this. Of course Stan would sound all concerned for her too.
“Mr. Pin- Dad! You’re back! I have no idea what’s going on here dude, she’s been like this for hours, and I can’t seem to calm her down no matter what I say or do.”
Soos shifts beside Pacifica on the floor, the man she used to call “fatso” and “servant”, who has apparently been sitting here beside her for hours. Pacifica nearly chokes at the revelation.
“Woah, hey, hey, breathe,” Stan demands, like that’ll fix anything.
The meaty hand now patting her back is not actually making it easier to breathe, not when Pacifica wants nothing more than to tackle its owner in a hug. She’s only been hugged by Soos once, and at the time it had startled her, but in hindsight it had been so big and warm and safe and Pacifica wants that so badly it just might kill her.
“You think you can tell us what’s wrong, Swan Girl?”
Swan Girl? Is Stan giving her nicknames now? Ridiculous.
Pacifica shakes her head rapidly, tries to rub the salty liquid and disgusting snot from her face with a fist. The other hand is kneading repeatedly at her chest, like maybe it might be able to make her lungs work, and if not then maybe just the motion will be enough to keep her alive. That’s ridiculous. All of this is ridiculous.
“Okay, that’s okay. Just try to breathe with us. Like this, yeah?”
The sound that Stan makes next is ridiculous, louder than any inhale should be and reminiscent of a broken vacuum. The gusty exhale that follows it isn’t any better. But they’re easy to follow, and before long Pacifica can taste cool oxygen in her lungs again.
“Good, that’s good, keep going. Do ya want me to call Dipper or Mab-”
“Why are you doing this?!” Pacifica bursts out before she can help herself, her thoughts unstoppable now that she has the air to express them with.
“What do you mean, kid?”
“Why are you helping me, why do you care?! I was awful to all of you for years! And I’m still not comfortable around that hillbilly because his stupid cult apparently stole some of my memories, but I should be because he’s your friend and I- Sometimes I still think awful things about people! Or reduce people to their appearance at first or- or-”
“I was awful,” Pacifica reiterates. “I bullied Mabel, and tricked Dipper, and harassed you for years.”
“You did do those things, that’s true.”
“So why-”
“But you’re not the person who did them anymore.”
...
Mid June, 2020, also still the same day.
For a moment Marcy is sure she’s going to get the same thing people always give her these days: the pitying headshake and the “You’re just a kid, sweetie”. She already feels the urge to knock her ankle against the bench legs and argue. Marcy doesn’t want to be reminded yet again that the Chief Ranger of the Newtopian Night Guard, Advisor to the King, Mind of Newtopia was a just a kid (that the First Lieutenant of the South Tower, Sasha the Slayer, Enemy of Herons, Hammer-Taker was just a kid, that the Protector of Wartwood, Hero of the Valley, Blue Champion was just a kid, that the Commanders of the Resistance were just kids). She thinks the next time she hears the whispered words “child soldiers” she’s going to break something, and it won’t be something that can be fixed (Sasha and Anne can’t be fixed).
This woman just tilts her head back, smiles at the cloudless blue sky and says, “I forgave myself because I’m not the same person I was when I did those things. I’m not the scared and sad little kid who didn’t see any choice other than being like my parents. I’m someone who chose to be better, and then followed through on it. I can’t change the past, but I can make my future better for everyone in it, including me. I don’t need to be miserable for that.”
Oh.
“I’m not that person anymore!”, the slicing of a wire, just enough mental breathing room to feel the pain (to reassert control, to tear apart from the Core, to tear into it and send it packing with the hopes she isn’t sending any of herself with it, to refuse to disappear).
“You sound like Sasha- oh, Sasha’s my friend. She said something like that to me, twice actually. Second time she told me that realizing it helped her when she was feeling guilty, and it’ll help me too.”
“She sounds like a wise kid.”
“But she still doesn’t understand, not really, neither of you do.”
Marcy takes a deep breath and lets out the words that have been circling her head for the last few months. Maybe not the best idea to let them out to a stranger, but it’s easier than letting them out to a friend. She tries to meet the woman’s eyes for this part, because she probably should. “A lot of people seem to think it was my parents' fault that I acted the way I did,” she admits. “But it never was. They may not have asked my permission to move, but that’s okay. Not everything has to be about me or decided by me, and anyway they are trying to do what’s best for me, always. They just want me to succeed. While I was in the hospital they even apologized for the way they told me about moving. They’re not bad people or bad parents, I wasn’t acting by any example they set. I was just being selfish. I was bad on my own.”
The woman shakes her head, and Marcy is guiltily relieved at the way the stranger isn’t making eye contact either even as her words are firm. “Everyone is bad on their own. My parents may have been my reason, may have shaped my mind and my actions to suit their own needs, but they aren’t my excuse. I don’t have an excuse. Still doesn’t change who I am now. Still doesn’t change who your friend is now. Still doesn’t change who you are now.”
“You really mean it? You don’t even know me.”
“I mean it. And I don’t have to, I can tell. I mean, even the fact that you feel bad is a positive sign for growth, it means you recognize you messed up. Beyond that, coming here to ‘get used to the idea of leaving’, talking to me, recognizing my need for privacy over your own curiosity…it shows uh, I think my therapist used to call it ‘emotional awareness’. That’s good.”
...
Early December, 2013, same day as the last 2013 part.
“You can’t know I’m ‘not the person who did that stuff’ anymore,” Pacifica argues, “you don’t really know me, not really.”
“Don’t have to. I know you haven’t gone out of your way to bring up my memory trouble- not to apologize to me, not to worry about me, and not to pity me. You don’t try to avoid the subject if it comes up either. I love my family but I won’t pretend they don't do a lot of that. You put effort into not saying mean things, even if I can tell you’re thinking them, and that’s better than I do a lot of the time. You watch Tiger-Fist with me, and you’ve promised to have a friendly mini-golf rematch with Mabel when she comes back for the summer. You got a job at Greasy’s even though we all said you didn’t have to, and I hear you help out Soos by running the register when Wendy can’t and I’m off at sea. I’ve never seen the attic cleaner. I even hear that Dipper’s texting you more often than he does Wendy these days. I can’t know what’s going on in your heart, but I can see how you interact with the rest of us.”
“So? How does any of that actually prove I’m not just another Northwest?”
“So you’re one of us, Blondie. We’ve all forgiven you, so you better hurry up and forgive yourself too. Pines-es, Ramirez-es, and Corduroys don’t take kindly to people being mean to their friends, and that includes you, Northwest or not. You’ve got world-saving heroes on your side. You realize none of your ancestors could ever say that right? Heck, you are one of the world saving heroes - you’d have gotten just as much credit as the rest of us if we’d made that magic circle work.”
“You really mean it?”
“Of course I do. Now come on, my old knees can’t stand being on the floor this long.”
...
Mid June, 2020, the same day it’s always been for the 2020 sections.
Emotional awareness. Awareness. That’s good.
“Thank you,” Marcy says again, and lets her hand fall from her chest. “Even though you’re probably wrong about me, it’s nice to hear.”
“Of course,” the woman replies. “Anytime.”
The next silence is shorter, and kinder. The ticking is quieter, and it’s definitely organic. Marcy fixes her eyes on some grass pushing out of a crack in the pavement, and presses her fingertips together, and breathes.
“So what are you doing here?” Marcy can’t help but ask, because a lot of buses have come by, and Marcy’s companion hasn’t gotten on any of them yet.
“Making a decision. I only came to LA to help with the clean up after I heard you guys also had an extra-dimensional invasion come in and wreck shop, and I’m trying to decide if I’m ready to go home yet, if I’ve done everything I needed to here.”
Marcy raises an eyebrow. “Your job let you be away this long, on such short notice? And they’ll let you stay longer if you want to? Or, uh, school?”
The woman laughs. “My boss understands. She’s not paying me for this time, of course, but I’ll get my job back as soon as I return, because she’s a big old softie. And I got some money to work with recently, from some poems I got published, I’m an aspiring author you see, so I don’t have to worry about that.”
“Woah, that’s cool! Where can I find your poems?”
“Here.”
Before Marcy can protest the woman is slinging an army green backpack off her shoulder, shoving a hand in, and pulling out a book to drop on Marcy’s lap. Ringing Bells and Unknown Worlds, An Anthology of Poems from New Writers, Collected by Wirt Pines. Featured Poets Include: Olivia Brown, Aniketos Prieto, Pacifica Northwest, Will Short…
“You can have a freebie, for your taste in video games,” the woman gestures to Marcy’s own black and green Bloodcraft pin (One of three similar pins Anne bought when she got cleared from the hospital first because as she’d said “Funnily enough, I think our anime powers are a near match for theirs. So I thought if this is the closest we can get to bragging about it, we might as well.”). “And because sharing is caring, or whatever. Mine are on page 91, under the name Pacifica. Make sure your friends read them too - if they’re anything like you, they could use that.”
“How many times can I thank you in one conversation?” Marcy marvels.
“Infinite times,” Pacifica jokes, “because I’m that amazing,” and then stands up from the bench just as yet another bus rolls in. “I think I’ll take this one. See you in another life, kid.”
Marcy doesn’t try to hide the flash of disappointment in her face when she realizes Pacifica is leaving after all. She does dredge up a weak smile though and offers, “See you in another life.” Or maybe in Gravesfield, when I get there, Marcy thinks. You never did say where you’re from. Maybe I can imagine you’re from Connecticut. Maybe I can imagine Gravesfield can be like Amphibia and you can be like Yunan and Olivia and Andrias. You know, all cool-queer-mentor/extra-parental-figure. Maybe I can imagine Gravesfield can be magic too, a safe adventure like the one the Core tried to give me. It’s okay that it’s not though. I’m going, either way. I’ll be better.
Marcy climbs carefully off the bus stop bench, grabs her cane, and heads home. Her parents will be worried about her.