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.

This is not in my normal Gravity Falls continuity, but is a story written for Wendip Week 2019 from Prompt 5, "You mean a lot to me, man."

Confessions

Mabel pounded on the door with both fists. "Let us out of here! Right now!"

"Save your breath," Dipper warned. "I don't think we'll get out by pounding and yelling. Wendy, what did you find?"

"Stone walls, Dip," she said, returning through the gloom with their only flashlight. "I think we're stuck here unless somebody's got dynamite on them."

Mabel went through her sweater. "Darn it, I know I had some earlier!"

"Let's calm down," Dipper said. "We got in here by speaking a magic word. There must be a different magic word to get us out again. Or something."

That summer Dipper and Mabel were fifteen, Wendy eighteen. Stanford now had an apartment in the Shack basement, along with his labs, and he was continuing his efforts to explore and understand the mysteries of Gravity Falls. Stanley, officially retired, still dropped in at the Shack every single day to help Soos sell merch to the marks. And Wendy still worked at the Shack, well, just because it was something to do in the summer and she was still trying to make up her mind what she wanted to do now that she had just graduated from high school. Or so she said.

"Let's look at the map," Dipper said. He'd photocopied it from Stanford's notes—the twins' earnest but sometimes absent-minded Grunkle had marked it "To be explored when time permits."

However, he had made that note more than a year earlier and, typical Stanford, had apparently forgotten it. Mabel had discovered it under a tall pile of books and papers on Stanford's desk and had come up with the bright idea: "Let's go explore this as Grunkle Ford's birthday present!"

Dipper thought that was cool. They'd covered Grunkle Stan—a pair of magic money pants. Really, it's astounding what you can find on eBay. That present was wrapped and ready to give to Stanley on June 15—tomorrow, in fact.

Dipper spread out the photocopy on the floor of the cave and shined the flashlight on it. It had a thumbnail drawing in the upper left corner: CAVERN OPENING, NORTH BANK OF RUNNING RIVER. The rest of the page was covered with a ground plan of the cavern's interior—roughly circular, with annotations in Ford's small, neat handwriting: DON'T WALK BENEATH STALACTITES, THEY DETACH. SMALL DRIPPING SPRING HERE, WATER MAKES YOUR FEET SWELL DO NOT DRINK. And in the uttermost recess of the cavern, an X, and beside it SECRET PASSAGEWAY? MAGICALLY SEALED? EXPLORE! CONJECTURE: REQUIRES CHARM OF OPENING.

That morning Wendy, who knew the woods better than anybody except maybe her dad, led them to the Running River, which burbled over round rocks, and they followed its course until they found the cavern opening. "Been here before," she said, "but never noticed the cave. Looks more like a scooped-out place where a humongous boulder fell out."

But—they took off shoes and socks and rolled up their jeans and waded through the icy water—when they got close to it, they could see that actually a crack in the stone way to the right opened into the cavern. They had cautiously entered, had avoided the stalactites, the spring, the vortex of vertigo, and a few other perils, and had come at last to the place marked X.

It did look like a sealed-up passageway—an arch with an almost smooth stone face beneath it. When they put their palms against it, they could all feel a strange vibration that the other cave walls did not have.

"Open Sesame!" Mabel tried, but nothing happened. So they went through a whole list of spells that might open a passage way, including "Open up!" "Alakazam!" "Abracadabra!" and "Hocus Pocus!"

None of those worked, so they tried more desperate measures. Wendy yelled, "By the Power of Grayskull!"

Dipper's turn: "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!"

Mabel punched his shoulder. "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo? Are you crazy, Broseph? That's for like dresses and pumpkins!"

"It was all I could think of," Dipper said. "You come up with something better, then!"

"OK, I will!" Mabel crossed her arms and stared at the wall as though daring it to open. "This is the real deal. Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho!"

"Didn't seem to work," Dipper said.

Wendy and Mabel took turns yelling other guesses as, with the light, Dipper prowled around the edge of the shallow arch. He tried to concentrate enough to shut out the girls' voices: "Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee!" and "Sim Sala Bim!" and the like.

A little above eye level, Dipper saw a layer of caked dry mud. He scraped it and beneath it he saw what might have been carved letters. "This may help!" he said above Mabel's shouted, "Klaatu barada nikto!"

They came over. "What does it say, dude?" Wendy asked.

Dipper read haltingly: "Praetorium loqui veritatem intrare."

"Russian?" Mabel grumbled. "Make it hard, why don't you, stupid cave!"

"It's Latin," Dipper said. "Um, let me see: Praetorium . . . means, uh, like, courtroom, hall of justice, something like that. The rest—speak the truth and enter?"

"I hate you, stupid trick door!" Mabel yelled. "That doesn't work, either."

"Maybe it's like in Lord of the Rings," Wendy suggested. "You just had to say 'friend' and the cave unsealed."

"You read Lord of the Rings?" Dipper asked, surprised.

"Well, yeah. Me and my dad and brothers were off on this survival camp trip, which I hated, and I asked if I could finish reading a book before going out and getting firewood and trapping food and all the stuff I did better than them already, and Dad said fine, and that was the biggest book I could check out of the library—I liked it pretty well, except the women characters were—"

"So boring," Mabel pronounced, dropping to the cave floor and sitting there looking glum.

"I get it," Dipper said. "OK, let me try this. Speak the truth, speak the truth—um, veri—something. Veritas!"

"Hey!" Mabel said, jumping up. With no fuss, the stone in the arch vanished, and they all walked through.

And discovered the opening now was sealed on the far side—and, growing desperate they had spent more than an hour trying to find some way out.

No, "Veritas" didn't work on this side.

"We are so gonna miss our Grunkles' birthday!" Mabel complained.

"Yeah, and we'll run out of air eventually too!" Dipper said.

"Worry about the important stuff first, though," Mabel told him. "Their birthday!"

Wendy sat with her legs crossed in a semi-lotus position, her elbow on her knee, her chin on her fist. "OK, let's think our way out. The first word, you say it's like courtroom?"

"Something like that, I think," Dipper said.

"So . . . what if this was a place where in ancient times they brought people to try for crimes? Or to testify? What if we have to tell the truth to get out?"

"About what?" Mabel asked.

"Um—each other?" Wendy asked. "What else is there?"

"Might as well try," Mabel said. "Um. Wendy, I love you like the big sister I wish I had! Dipper, I, um—I tease you too much."

Dipper had his hand against the stone. "Hey! It just vibrated a little! I think we're onto something."

"So you try," Mabel said.

Dipper bit his lip. "Mabel, you drive me crazy sometimes, but you're funny and, um, and adorable. Wendy—" he sighed. "Wendy, I still have a huge crush on you." This time they all heard a faint creaking and some small stones pattered to the floor.

"It's working!" Mabel said. "Wendy, go, go, go!"

"All right," Wendy said. "Mabel, you're the funniest girl I've ever met and I love you like a little sister. Dipper, you mean a lot to me, man."

They heard a deep, foreboding boom!

"Uh—I think we got rejected," Dipper said.

"I hear water!" Mabel exclaimed.

Dipper turned the flashlight up. Water had begun to flow in from the ceiling. Already the far side of the cave stood a few inches deep. "Is it gonna drown us?" he asked.

"Maybe that's the punishment for not telling the truth," Mabel said. "Let me go again! Wendy, I—sometimes I'm jealous 'cause you've had so many boyfriends! Dipper, I wish you'd be more self-confident around girls! Oh, my God, it's pouring in! Dipper, quick!"

"OK, OK," Dipper said. The water had flowed across the floor and was a half-inch deep. No, a full inch. The cave was filling fast. "Um, Mabel, I get envious of how easy you can make friends! Wendy, I—if we're going to die, I'd love to kiss you just once!"

"Aw, dude!" Wendy said. "Mabel! Sometimes you need to think twice before doing crazy things, OK? Dipper—you—you mean a lot—" She closed her eyes and then in a rush, said, "OK, the truth is I guess I'm kinda in love with you now!"

The stone vanished, they rushed through, and a moment later they heard the gush of water behind them shut off.

"You two are in love!" Mabel said when she got her breath back.

"Did you really mean that, Wendy?" Dipper asked.

"Come on," she said, and she led them back out into the open air. They crossed the stream and then hiked through the woods until they got to a spot where a tree had fallen a few years earlier, from the look of it. Wendy sat on it, patted the log beside her and said, "Mabel, here." Then on the other side, "Dipper, you here."

They sat on either side of her. She took a deep breath. "I'm still too old for you," she said softly. "Eighteen-year-old dating a fifteen-year-old, and this is a small town, people would gossip their heads off. You understand that?"

"Yeah," Dipper admitted. "But—I can't help what I feel, Wendy. I'm sorry, I would if I could—"

"Dude," she said softly. "I don't want you to change the way you feel, understand? Like I said, I guess I'm kinda in love with you."

"So—but the age thing—" he said.

"Won't matter so much if what we feel is real. Not in a couple years, anyhow. Can we wait? Can we hold out, you know?"

"We can try," Dipper said. "But—I love you, Wendy."

She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his, her cheeks glowing, her green eyes closed, her voice sweet and soft: "I love you, Dipper."

Half a minute went by with the wind stirring the leaves overhead and birds chirping and trilling.

"Go ahead, you two!" Mabel said. "Kiss!"

They did. When another half minute passed, Mabel said, "Enough. Back to the Shack! We've got more thinking to do, 'cause we got a big problem—now that we have Grunkle Ford's present, how the heck do we wrap it?"

The End