Chapter Text
The explosion happened exactly as they had known it would. Dipper sat in the middle of it, not because he wanted to, but because he had no other choice. There was no cosmic coincidence to cause him to survive it, and so, Dipper Pines died, leaving nothing left for the demon to use. Bill fell apart minutes later, having no last-ditch opportunity for survival.
Dipper Pines died at twelve, but he had unfinished business, and he came back soon enough. And so it was that a week later, Mabel went back home with her parents, and her brother came with. Not alive, and definitely not as a demon of unimaginable power, but present, and that would have to be enough.
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There was a funeral. It was very nice. Everyone cried.
Mabel went back to school, and she brought her brother with her. She kept introducing him to people. She never denied that he was dead, or that she was the only one who could always see him clearly, (some never saw him. For some there was at times a cold spot in the air, a blurry figure at the edge of their vision, sometimes the smell of burnt skin and pine trees. Those with the Sight often saw him with massive burn scars and horrible injuries, missing an eye and hands burned to the bone, but otherwise there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who could and could not see. Once in a rare while, they met someone who saw him clearly more often than not.) but she never acted as if he was not present. Because he was always there, at her side.
They all knew that Mabel Pines was haunted, and that they should stay away from her, but she never minded. At least she never let it show that she minded. Some nights she stayed awake to hold onto him, and she cried into his cold chest and he stroked her hair with icy fingers until she was done. She learned to handle the cold. At least she still had him. At least she still had him, and she would not trade him for a million friends.
He only wanted to stay with her.
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Their parents let it go on for a year. They figured he would pass on sooner or later, and honestly, they were too caught up in the grief of losing a child to think too much about it. Until then, they tried not to mind being haunted too much. They hardly ever got to really talk to him, or even see him, but there was the way rooms went cold all of a sudden, the moving shadows, the blurry figure at the corner of their eyes, the feeling of being watched, the scribbled notes from nowhere in strange places, which made them feel like they were in the middle of a horror movie.
But he showed no signs of wanting to pass on, and Mabel spoke as if he was going to stay forever, and they… worried.
They brought it up for the first time just a year after the Transcendence. That maybe they should find someone who could… help? Someone who could talk him through it, and help him pass on?
Mabel threw a fit. She refused to even think about it, even consider for a moment to talk to someone who would take her brother away from her. It was not like he ever did any harm, right? All he was, was creepy, and cold, and still twelve while she was fourteen. There should be nothing wrong with him sticking around.
(The school started putting wards against ghosts around rooms during tests, because they realized he helped her cheat on them.)
It took them another year to bring it up again, and she shut them down just as hard, but they kept saying it, kept hinting, kept mentioning that maybe- maybe it was time to… move on? She refused to listen. Every time.
It was just shy of three years past transcendence that the final confrontation blew up in their faces.
There was shouting. So much shouting, and Mabel demanded to know why they wanted him gone so much anyways, and Mark finally blew up and shouted that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in three years, and he couldn’t live in the same house as an actual ghost. Anna started crying. Dipper flickered the lights off in the entire house.
Two weeks after that, the twins were on their way back to Gravity Falls. For good this time.
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Five years later, one Henry Corduroy moved to town.