I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.

'Twas the Week After Christmas

(December 26, 2015-January 3, 2016)

Chapter 1: Holidays and Airports

Since Thanksgiving, Dipper and Mabel had kept a low profile at home—after all the uproar following Mom's discovery of an, um, indiscreet photo that Mabel had taken of Dipper and Wendy—and Grenda, Candy, and Pacifica!—they didn't want to rock the boat, upset the apple cart, make waves, or lose their chance to spend part of Christmas break in Gravity Falls.

It involved some sacrificing. On December 23, Grunkles Stan and Ford showed up, with their wives Sheila and Lorena, to spend the holiday. Mom gave Ford and Lorena the guest room and put Stan and Sheila in Mabel's room. Mabel offered to bunk in with Dipper, but Dad quickly nixed that idea, so Dipper, with a sigh, took a folding cot down in the basement and let Mabel sleep in his room.

Not that the basement was a bad place to sleep: it had its own little compact bathroom, sink, shower, and toilet. And, except for supports for the floor above, it was mostly a great big open space, with tons of books on shelves against the longest wall. It was a little like sleeping in a library. And with an extension cord and his laptop, Dipper had everything he needed. Mabel could have taken the basement, but she would have needed a refrigerator, and Dad didn't feel in the mood to haul it down the stairs.

From here, both Grunkles and Graunties were going on vacations—Stan and Sheila to Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean for a week, Ford and Lorena to Hawaii, which she had always wanted to see. For the two days before Christmas, the talk was all about that. Also, Stan revealed something that Dipper had wondered about but had never gotten around to asking him: "Yeah, I may drop in at the casino," he said one afternoon. "I had some luck prospecting, so I've got a little money to risk."

"Prospecting?" Alex Pines asked. "You mean, like, for gold?"

"Yeah," Stan said modestly. "Used to be some prospectin' and mining up in the area back in the 1800s. I happened on a kind of cave near a waterfall, and I've taken, oh, a good many ounces of gold out of it over the past six months."

Dipper looked at him, and Stan winked. Dipper thought, That explains why Stan was always off on little trips last summer! It wasn't real prospecting—what Stan was doing was essentially looting the hoard of gold a long-dead old-timey prospector had hidden away in the cave—but nobody else had a claim on it, and as long as Stan filled out the papers and reported his findings, no one would care. Dipper, who had his laptop out, did a quick web search: gold currently was selling for about $1060 per ounce. Knowing Stan, "a good many ounces" probably translated to "Five, ten pounds."

"It's just a hobby," Sheila said, holding Stan's hand. "But it's sure nice that Stanny found one that pays!"

"I like the gettin' outdoors part best, though," Stan said. Dipper nearly rolled his eyes. He remembered when Stan's getting outdoors mostly consisted of driving tourists on the Mystery Tour. But he'd been a good bit more active in the last couple of years. He wasn't as buff as Ford, but Stan had lost some weight, too. Next to him, Alex Pines, though thirty years younger (well, if you didn't count Stan's swig of water from the Fountain of Youth), looked a little pot-bellied now.

Dipper popped up a notepad app and wrote: Reminder to self. Stay active to keep from getting fat.

Ford was immersed in a TV show—a nature program about Hawaii, as it happened—and he remained mostly oblivious as his wife Lorena chatted with Dipper's mom. "I'm thinking of retiring," Lorena was saying. "I don't have all my years in, but if I left the full-time job with the library and the Museum of History, Ford and I would have so much more time. And his patents are still bringing in more than we need to live on."

"I only ever worked for a couple of years while Alex was in grad school," Wanda said. "Then the kids came along, and raising them and keeping house turned out to be a full-time job!"

"Well, I wouldn't entirely quit," Lorena said. "The library always needs volunteers, and I could be a volunteer docent at the Museum of History, too. I'd like that, especially since Ford is going to be so busy helping to start a new college near Gravity Falls."

"You mentioned that," Wanda said. "Ford, is this a private school?"

"Hmm?" Ford asked, absent-mindedly. "The ecosystems in those river valleys are astounding! We must hike at least a few—I'm sorry, what did you ask?"

Smiling, Wanda repeated her question. "Oh, well, there will be some governmental support, once everything is up and running," he told her. "But the bulk of the funding is coming from a quasi-private source. We're starting very small, you understand. With luck, we'll open next fall with a student body of one to two hundred students. Graduate level only, granting Masters' and Doctorate degrees—though that's for the future."

"And what's the main thrust to be?" Wanda asked.

"Hm, well, anomalous studies, you know, my own field. We'll tackle the subjects that other schools just give a nod and a wink to. I hope we'll attach scholars internationally, given time. But we'll study cryptids, paranormal phenomena, things other advanced schools ignore."

"Sounds like the kind of place Dipper would want to attend," Wanda said.

"Well, he's welcome, of course—as long as he comes with an earned bachelor's degree, sound test scores, and a strong interest!"

"Oh," Alex said, "I don't think you'll have to worry about that."

And at that moment the front door banged as Mabel, who'd been away all morning visiting three of her friends, came in. "Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford! Graunty Sheila! Graunty Lorena! You're here! When do we eat?"

They ate eventually, at mealtime ("Boo!" said Mabel when her mom broke the news that it was only three PM), and then, as they again sat in the living room and visited, Grunkle Ford suddenly said, "Oh, it slipped my mind—well, almost. Mason, you're still planning to visit Gravity Falls after Christmas, right?"

Dipper glanced at his mom. "Uh, well, yeah. Dr. McGucket says Mabel and I can stay with them—the Shack's closed, and Soos and his family are off on vacation."

"Yes, yes," Ford said with a little show of impatience. "However—and with your family's permission, of course—I would like to ask a favor of you. Fiddleford would do it, but he's wrapped up in an invention he's working on, and I hate to distract him. Would you be able to run over to the Shack once each day to check on an instrument in my lab there? I'll give you a key, and I'll tell you what to monitor. If the instrument should stop recording, or if it should register certain readings beyond normal parameters—don't worry, I've got them written out for you—I want you to call me. Once a day is sufficient, any time you want to go."

"Uh, Mom?" Dipper asked. "Is it OK?"

"If you will be careful," Wanda said. "Don't break anything, and always be sure you've locked the door when you leave. Check twice!"

"OK, sure, I will, then," said Dipper, who knew something his mom and dad didn't know: Though Soos and his family were down in Mexico, for the coming week Wendy was going to be living in the shack—alone—as caretaker.

He wondered if Ford, like Stan, was sneakily arranging some visiting time for him. No, probably not. Ford was too focused on his studies to think of that. Probably.

Ford took Dipper into the dining room and gave him a printed document, complete with photo illustrations. "You know the niche in my upper lab where the prototype Portal stands," he said. "This is right beside that, a small instrument on a high table, about the size of, oh, one of those one-cup coffee makers. It has a USB port on the left side. What you will need to do is to plug in this USB drive—it's formatted already—and the instrument will load the last day—or few days, the first time—of data. Then take the USB to the computer you've used before. You remember the password?"

"Mnemonic_072212," Dipper said. It was a typical password for Ford—the word meaning "a memory aid," plus the date that Weirdmageddon had begun.

"That's right. This print-out explains how to open the program. Once you've done that, then plug in the USB—any port will do—and everything else is automated. The computer will print out a report sheet—you'll see several in this document, so you'll know what they look like. Just add each sheet to the stack in the left-hand top desk drawer. I don't anticipate your having to call me, but you have my computer phone number. Now, if this graph goes above the red line, call me, or if there's a notice of equipment failure. Those are the only two events that would make calling necessary."

"What, uh, exactly is this monitoring?" Dipper asked.

"Well, it's like a seismometer, you know the device that—"

"Measures earthquakes," Dipper said. "I know that much."

"Yes, of course," Ford said, smiling. "This one measures disruptions caused by the Nightmare Realm. Very subtle, and Gravity Falls is one of the few places on Earth where they can be measured. I've monitored them for years now, ever since we defeated Bill Cipher. Sometimes the level of weirdness rises, sometimes it falls—it's in a low state right now—but if the graph ever goes above the red line, that's an indication that the old rift might be leaking forces into our world. Then we'd have to spring into action. Fortunately, so far the highest the graph line has climbed is only two thousand milliweirds. It would have to hit a hundred thousand before there would be any actual danger. My last reading, this morning, showed it at only five hundred and fifteen. Below abnormal, you might say."

"I guess a milliweird is, uh—"

"My own invention. A measurement of background weirdness."

"Gotcha," Dipper said. He felt glad that he hadn't brought up the subject of Wendy after all.

But he couldn't help reflecting that whether Ford had thought of it or not—she would be there!

Christmas morning came, and though Santa hadn't visited since the twins turned thirteen—now they exchanged presents with their parents and each other—Mabel yelled for Dipper to come down now!

Because there were packages beneath the tree for both! Just as if the old boy from the North Pole had nostalgically decided on one last visit, there they were, one for Mabel, one for Dipper.

"Hang on," Dad said, coming in from the kitchen. "We want to watch you open them."

Wanda, at his side, said, "These are gifts from Alex's uncles and aunts to you."

"I'm gonna die!" Mabel announced, hugging the outsized red-shiny wrapped package with her name. "Get them in here!"

Everyone came to bear witness, and Alex said, "Go. OK if Mabel goes first, Mason?"

"She'd better, or she's gonna explode," Dipper said.

She ripped into the package, squealed, and actually tore the cardboard box to smithereens. "You guys! You didn't! This is so great!"

It was too big to hold up, but Mabel proudly displayed a top-of-the-line karaoke system, capable of accommodating six microphones, with high-end wireless speakers. Dipper whistled in admiration. It had to cost upwards of five hundred dollars. Maybe Grunkle Stan had hauled more than a few pounds of gold out of that cave!

Then it was Dipper's turn, and he felt his heart slam hard when he carefully opened his own package. "I don't believe it," he murmured. "A Tele!"

He held up an electric guitar—a Fender Telecaster, sleek and professional-looking, and for good reason. "This is too good for me," Dipper said.

"Then practice, kid," his Grunkle Stan said. "Until you're worthy of it. Your buddy Robbie Valentino told us what to get, by the way, so ya might want to let him play with it a little if he promises to wash his hands before."

"I'm . . . overwhelmed!" Dipper said.

Most of the other presents were practical—some cold-weather gear for their week in the Falls, new sneakers for Dipper, and so on—but there were some surprises: a movie gift card worth a hundred bucks for both Dipper and Mabel, some books of arcane science for Dipper, a new cell phone for Mabel—her third that year, because she was prone to breakage—and even a special sheath for her grappling hook, courtesy of Grunkle Stan.

As for the Grunkles, each of them got a pass card to the airlines' VIP lounges, plus an outrageous Hawaiian shirt for Ford ("I love it!" Lorena declared) and a miner's helmet and mini-pick for Stan ("for your prospecting") and, oh, too many to catalogue. We'll say that they were all happy and they had a Christmas even Scrooge couldn't complain about.

The next day, and in two different cars, they ferried everyone to the Oakland International Airport. Ford's and Lorena's plane for Hawaii took off first; an hour later, Stan and Sheila boarded one for New York, their first stop on their vacation; and just after the Pines family had an airport lunch—Wanda warned Mabel to eat light, because she was prone to airsickness, but Mabel held that she had the fun of tasting everything twice, so it was OK—the kids got ready to go to their departure gate. This time they had checked some luggage—the guitar in its case (though Dipper would have to borrow Soos's amps) and the karaoke machine, plus some odds and ends of winter clothing.

"Who's coming to pick you up?" Wanda asked. "Wendy?"

"She said she would," Dipper told her. "She's a safer driver than Dr. McGucket, and his wife doesn't drive at all."

"Remember," his mother said, "she's a friend. Thank her and enjoy her company—but you're not planning to go out alone with her. Right?"

"I got it, Mom," Dipper said. "I won't go on a date with anybody unless at least Mabel is along."

"Same with me and Teek, Mom," Mabel said. "I promise."

"We're trusting you," Mom said.

Mabel hugged her. "Thank you."

Dad said, "Say hi to Wendy for me. If the traffic's not bad, ask her if you can drive her car for a little while. It drives like a dream!"

"OK," Dipper said, grinning. "But she's pretty picky about who she lets drive it."

Then the Mystery Twins trundled their carry-on bags through Security and down to their gate. A final surprise awaited them when they got called to the desk: "Passengers Mason and Mabel Pines."

The airline clerk smiled at them. "I've got your new boarding passes," she said. "Because of the upgrade."

"Upgrade?" Dipper asked. Their tickets had been for business class to begin with.

"Brobro!" Mabel yelled. "Look at this! Grunkle Stan upgraded us to first class!"

Dipper couldn't help grinning like an idiot.

Maybe he'd been wrong.

Maybe Santa had visited them after all. Or maybe—call him Stanta.