Saturday December 8th, 2012
Valentino Funeral Home
Gravity Falls, OR
"We are gathered here today to honor the memory of Gillian Rupert-Pines..." Janice Valentino said as she lead the funeral.
Wendy sat through the memorial service vaguely paying attention. She was spending most of her time looking at those that had gathered for the service. While there were a couple of others, most of the mourners were members of the Shack crew and extended family. Stan and James were in the front row with Ford and Mabel on either side of them. Soos, Dipper, Francis, and Tony took up the next row. Melody, Abuelita, Fiddleford, and Adam were next. And finally were some folks from around town like her dad, Adam Pines, Mayor Tyler, Blubs and Durland, Susan, Mr. Decker, and a few others. She and Pacifica had taken the seats on either side of the door into the parlor.
Unsurprisingly only Janice Valentino was here, Greg Valentino had left early this morning to head to Portland to pick up Robbie. He had been missing since just before the blizzard. Apparently he had gone up to Portland to visit friends, only for his van to breakdown while he was up there. The problem is that she has known Robbie since they were kids and his only friends were here in Gravity Falls. Something was hinky.
Back to the matter at hand, this was originally going to be only a memorial service as the ground was too frozen to dig up. But as Greg had went to leave this morning the plot that had been purchased for Gillian had been found to have been freshly dug.
Flashback
A wall of darkness surrounds the cemetery making the already dark night absolutely impervious. Still sound is not affected by the darkness and so the din of moving earth being shoveled was still there. In the center of the darkness was Yami breaking up the frozen earth with his solid darkness.
"You gonna try to dig the whole grave by yourself?" Shifter asked as he walked through the darkness barrier.
"They planned on just putting her into a freezer until they were able to do something." Yami said as he continued to dig.
"Want us to help?" Shifter asked even though he didn't appear to worry about the answer. He shifted into a giant moltik from Monstermon and dove right into the grave Yami was digging. Using the creatures spade like hands he began to break up the hard dirt and send it up out of the grave.
"Well I guess an extra pair of hands wouldn't hurt," Yami said as he saw how easy Shifter was breaking up the solid dirt. He started to shovel out the freshly broken dirt and then he processed what Shifter had said, "What do you mean us?"
At that point Freerunner and Flux walked into the clearing.
"Well the ground is frozen solid," Flux said as he kicked at the edge of the grave. He reached into one of his pouches and grabbed something, "I wonder if it'll be stronger than diamond."
He slid down into the hole and with his hands held open and straight, he began thrusting them into the dirt breaking it up. Freerunner than produced a shovel he had been carrying behind his back started shoveling up the dirt his brother loosened.
"The whole team wanted to come but we decided that with the size of your average grave it was best to keep the grouping small." Freerunner said as he worked the loosened earth.
"How come magic girl didn't come? She probably could have just spelled up the grave here." Yami asked as he resumed using his darkness to dig up the dirt.
"Well as you've may have noticed, this town has a history with the weird. Glamur wanted to come, but we decided we didn't want to take a chance with residual magic and the graveyard." Shifter said as he continued digging.
They continued working through the night.
Back To Present
Ford, Dan, Mayor Tyler, Blubs, Durland, and Steve Decker acted as the pallbearers as the they took the casket out to the grave. After a brief statement by Stan and James, they lowered the casket into the grave. As each guest left they shoveled a bit of dirt into the grave.
Later At The Shack
After the well-wishers left and it was just the family Stan approached James.
"Look, kiddo. I know this has probably been hard on you and the others have been searching to find out if you have any other family besides me." Stan said as he sorta shuffled in place somewhat uncomfortably "But until they find someone, well, I've applied for temporary custody of you. If you want of course?"
James stood there dumbstruck for a moment, then he turned and started to cry.
"Uhm, well I'm sorry kiddo. I'll leave you alone." Stan said as he turned to leave. "Just let me know when you leave. I'll want to say goodbye."
He had barely taken a step before he was practically tackled by James.
"I'll stay you old fool." James murmured from where he had buried his head in Stan's back.
"Welcome to the family kiddo," Stan said as he turned around and hugged James.
Tuesday December 25th, 2012
Mystery Shack
5:05 AM
Dipper jerked up right quickly as he felt a familiar presence appear in his room. Looking down over at the room's one closet he saw the ghostly form of Will O.
"What's wrong?", he asked slipping into Shifter before his feet hit the floor, "Is someone in trouble? Do we need to get the others?"
"Hold your horses, Dip." Will O said before she powered down leaving just Wendy, "No, emergency. This is just my first Christmas in years and well our first Christmas and I guess I just couldn't wait to get over here."
"Tsk, tsk. Abusing your powers. What would Santa think?" Dipper said as he shifted back to his normal form. Pulling her into a hug, he fell back down on his bed with her beside him.
"Well I don't want that, I've been a good girl this year." Wendy said with a smirk.
"Hmm, I dunno. Sneaking out of your house to visit your boyfriend at five in the morning might be suspect." Dipper said returning her smile. He leaned over and gave her a kiss.
"But is it really sneaking out when I'm the only one home. Remember, dad and the boys left for survival training Saturday morning." Wendy replied before she placed a second kiss on his lips. A moment later they were hit by a flying stuffed animal.
"Will you two lovebirds quit your yammering. It's not even 6 yet and some of us are trying to sleep." Mabel called from her bed.
With a chuckle they laid back down until the house woke up for the Holiday.
~~~The End~~~
(For Now ☺️)