Tapestry

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Dipper awoke with a start. Groggy and disoriented, he lay on his back staring at bright white nothingness. He couldn't remember how he got here. In fact, he didn't know where here was. The last thing he remembered was… what? Waking up in the Shack? That sounded right… Going to the woods… Mabel was with him… Soos and Wendy? Yes, them too. Then what? Shouting… Running… Fear… Pain.

He grimaced and clutched his chest. Looking down he saw his shirt was ruined, a charred black circle in its center. But surprisingly, there was no pain. He peeked under the collar at his (disappointingly hairless) chest. Nothing. Not a mark or scratch. Not even a sunburn.

Getting up, the boy surveyed his surroundings. Every direction he turned there was the same blinding whiteness as above. The place gave him the same sensation he'd felt in the bottomless pit: being completely surrounded by nothing at all.

He looked around again, hoping to see some type of landmark, anything. And there it was: A figure robed and hooded in white, shining like the background until they were nearly indistinguishable. Afraid but desperate for answers, Dipper walked toward the stranger. It held out a hand which Dipper grasped. Suddenly the robe slipped away, along with its human shape. Floating before the boy was a yellow triangle with one piercing eye. "Welcome to the afterlife Pine Tree. You're dead!"

"Bill!" Dipper jumped back in shock. "What's going on?!"

"I just told ya kid. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."

The boy scoffed, "You're not God."

"Blasphemy!" Bill chided. "I ought to cast you out, or smite you or something."

"No." Dipper said defiantly. "I'm not dead. And you're not in charge of the afterlife. The universe isn't that messed up."

"Says you." Crossing his arms, the cyclopes continued. "The fact of the matter is, you died about five minutes ago while on one of your little monster hunts."

"No."

"Yep! Burnt to death by a wyvern. Roasted up like a wienie."

"That's not possible."

"Really? You don't remember pushing your sister out of the way? Nobly sacrificing yourself for her and your little friends? That certainly sounds like the sorta stupid thing you'd do."

"Are they okay?" Dipper's mind switched gears to the friends he'd likely put in danger.

"Well…" Bill looked thoughtful for a moment (or as thoughtful as someone can look with only one facial feature). "That really depends on your definition of 'okay'."

"I'm serious, Bill. Are they hurt?"

"Physically they're perfectly fine. You meatbags are pretty durable after all, as long as all your bits stay attached." The dream demon took on a tone of mock concern, "Mentally on the other hand, well, maybe you should see for yourself."

Images started to appear on Bill's body, the first showed Mabel sitting on her bed back in California. She was wearing a plain tee-shirt instead of one of her colorful sweaters. Dipper could see a pile of boxes on the floor, an open one filled with her hand-knit clothing, being sent into storage. The twin had a blank expression on her face. On her lap was a blue and white cap that she absently ran her fingers across. "Ol' Shooting Star here took your death pretty hard. It's a shame too, she used to be fun. Now she just sits around being boring."

The next image pictured Stan sitting at his kitchen table, slouched over with head on his hands. The Shack looked even shabbier than usual, and the old man looked even older. "Stan's not faring any better. Seems he blames himself for what happened. Your parents certainly do, they're filing charges of child neglect, and got a restraining order to keep him away from Mabel."

Soos was sitting on the couch with his abuelita trying to comfort him. His typical smile was gone, and looked like it hadn't been there in a long time. "Question Mark's having a hard time. In the course of a few months he gained, then lost, two new family members. That's not gonna help with his abandonment issues."

Next was Wendy lying on her bed. TV off. Curtains closed. Door locked. Phone discarded. Just lying on top of her bedspread, trying to will herself to sleep through the day. "Dang. First Red loses her mother. Then the kid who was fast becoming her best friend is killed right in front of her. Too bad therapy doesn't work."

Back at his house in Piedmont, Dipper's parents were a mess. Eyes puffy from sadness and lack of sleep, faces drawn tight in stress. They look older than they did at the beginning of summer, he noticed grey hairs that weren't there before. "One kid dead and the other kid broken. I guess your folks don't find the situation as hilarious as me."

"Why are you showing me this, Bill?" Dipper turned away and rubbed his eyes, not willing to cry in front of the demon.

"I'm just trying to show you that your actions have consequences. I want you to look back at all your mistakes before I let you try and fix 'em."

"Fix them?" The boy turned back. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm willing to let you go back and make one change in your life to avoid all this." Bill gestured to the void all around them.

"Why?" Dipper asked. "Why would you do that? You won. I'm out of your way, I can't interfere with your 'plans' anymore. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Sure it is." The dapper shape floated closer. "But not necessarily like this. I wasn't lying when I said I liked you kid. You amuse me. And I might have use for you later on. So what d'ya say?"

Dipper looked at the outstretched hand in front of him. "No. I'm not making any more deals with you. If I accept, something worse will happen."

"Suit yourself kid." Bill retreated, and floated into a relaxed position. "On the bright side, now that you're dead we can spend some quality time together."

Grimacing, the preteen asked, "How much time?"

"Let's see…" Bill counted silently on his fingers. "Eternity."

Dipper balked. "What did I do to deserve that?!"

"I know! You lucky devil!"

Bill floated idly in silence for a while before more images started flashing across his body. A funeral. People crying. His adventures from the summer. Finding the journal. Finally, he spoke up, "Just one mistake. Just one action you have to change, and you'd be safe and sound at home."

"What's the catch?" Dipper grunted. "There's always a catch with you."

"Not a catch really. You just have to make sure you fix the right thing."

"That's easy: Don't go looking for wyverns."

"Nope!" Bill poked his nose with his cane. "If a monster doesn't kill you today, one will kill you tomorrow, or the next day. The fact of the matter is you've pretty much been destined to die since the beginning of summer. You've been living off borrowed time for over a month."

"So, what? Don't come to Gravity Falls at all?"

"Closer, but that decision wasn't up to you, was it? If your parents had given you a choice you woulda stayed home playing video games."

"What then? What else can I do different?"

"Well, let's think for a minute, shall we?" Bill adopted a lecturing tone. "What got you killed?"

"A monster."

"And why did you go looking for that monster."

"I thought there might be some clues to the author's identity around its nest. The page on wyverns had been edited a bunch of times. A lot of stuff was scribbled out or written over. If he spent that much time studying the thing, he might've left something behind."

"Hmm. So: You walked into the jaws of death to find the guy you've been obsessing over. Think back to the other times you've nearly died this summer. What's the common theme? How do you even know where to look for these things anyway?"

Dipper glared at the triangle, "The journal. You want me to go back and never find the journal."

"Ding-Ding-Ding! We have a winner!"

"Why? Why are you so interested in getting that book away from me? I'm already dead. Why do you still care?"

"Some things are better left hidden kiddo." Bill patted the boy on the head. "Now are you interested in my offer or not? Does it really matter that I get something out of it too? It just makes it a win-win situation."

Dipper still didn't take the proffered hand. "But won't changing the past mess up the timeline?"

"Puh-lease, Pine Tree." Bill rolled his eye. "The world isn't gonna blow up, or civilization collapse, because you change your past. You're not that important."

Biting his lip, Dipper thought over his options. Bill was a liar, but did he have any other choice? He could try to change something else, but would it even work? He had done a lot of dangerous stuff because of that thing, and he didn't do it alone either. What if instead of him, Mabel gets killed. Mabel!

"What about Mabel?"

"Huh? What about her?" Bill asked.

"She met 'Norman' before I even found the journal. Without it I wouldn't have thought he was a zombie, and if I hadn't thought he was a zombie I wouldn't have saved her from those Gnomes!"

"Oh, uh." The demon's eye darted back and forth. "I'm sure the situation would have worked itself out."

"And the convenience store!" Dipper advanced on the triangle. "Wendy and her friends would've gone there regardless of the journal. Would they have gotten out?"

"Look, there's always gonna be some hiccups when you make a 'change your fate' deal. That's just how it works."

"I can't believe I even considered making another deal with you." Pacing back and forth, Dipper huffed. "You're a liar and a con artist. Even this whole 'Purgatory' setup should have given it away. I mean, it's like something you'd see on… TV."

Dipper glared at the triangle even harder. "You stole this entire idea off the TV, didn't you? This is all from an episode of Star Trek."

"What? Don't be ridiculous. This plan is 100% original." Bill said indignantly.

"No it's not! Now I know why this all seemed so familiar. It was the episode where Q tells Picard he died because his artificial heart gave out, then he offered to let him go back and avoid the fight that made him need it in the first place."

"This is my own unique plan, any similarities between the two are a coincidence."

"Dude, you ripped off the first five minutes of dialogue!"

"Fine, maybe I got some inspiration from various sources, but the overall idea is still mine."

"It was practically word-for-word! Seesh!" Dipper threw up his arms in frustration. "So, I'm not actually dead, am I?"

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not!"

"Fine, you never died. You're in the hospital dreaming."

"See! You even ripped off the ending!"

"Jeez, shut up about it already kid."

"Wake me up."

"Alright, alright. But before you go, I must tell you that I owe you a debt of gratitude."

That remark took Dipper by surprise. His curiosity now outweighing his eagerness to leave, he asked, "Why?"

"You've shown me that I never actually understood you. Sci-fi shows. Videogames. Mystery novels. These things make up the tapestry of your life, I can't use them as inspiration. I'll have to use things you have no understanding of, against you. Like sports, girls, and social interaction!"

"Hey!"

"See you around kid! And don't get cocky just because you won this battle, the war isn't over. You can't stop me. Resistance is futile!"

Bill snapped his fingers and a bright light blinded the boy before he awoke with a start. He was on a hospital bed, wearing a paper gown which covered a layer of gauze on his torso. Around his bed were Stan, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy, all relieved to see his eyes open. Before any of them could speak, Dipper opened his mouth and said,

"Wow. Bill is a huge nerd."
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A loving parody of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Tapestry. Most written because I couldn't get the idea of Bill as Q out of my head.