The night rolled in over the hills as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. All was silent in the Mystery Shack as all who inhabited it, both permanently and temporarily, were fast asleep.
Blendin lay on the couch downstairs as it was the only spare place left in the aging structure that was fit for rest, what with all rooms now occupied with friends and family.
Deep into his slumber, Blendin swore he felt a tap on his shoulder. Awakening, his hunch was correct.
"Di...Dipper?" he said in a tired voice, "What are you doing and why are you up?"
Dipper sighed, "I'll explain in a moment," he said, "Just follow me, but quietly."
Reluctantly, Blendin got up and followed Dipper, who led him into the gift shop. There he watched as the boy opened the entrance to the old staircase behind the vending machine. He wanted to speak, but Dipper wouldn't let him until they reached the laboratory which lay 2 stories below.
"Okay Dipper, care to explain what the heck you're doing at three in the morning and why you dragged me into it?"
Dipper looked through an old box underneath one of the old, long silent machines that lay in the damp and decaying lab that once belonged to his great uncle.
"Oh, thank goodness," he said, "It's still here."
Dipper pulled out of the box a gun like device. It had a tall red tube connected to a small golden box and a long transparent bulb.
"Wha...what on Earth is that?" asked Blendin.
"I'll explain in a second," replied Dipper, "But when I tell you to, cover your ears, okay?"
Still confused, but trusting Dipper's word, Blendin nodded his head. He watched as he connected the device to an old radio. Dipper flipped the knob on the old device several times until he got the right frequency. He then did the same thing with the knob on the gun. But he wrote a word using it.
"Okay, now!" he yelled.
Blendin and Dipper both covered their ears and got down as the gun lit up and emitted through the wires and out through the radio antenna, a huge and ever-growing circle of blue light. Once it did that, the gun fell silent and the light turned off. Dipper got up and turned to Blendin.
"Do you know who I am?" he said.
"Uh...you're Dipper Pines, right?" replied Blendin.
"Exactly."
Upon hearing that, Dipper threw the gun to the ground, smashing it. He stomped on it repeatedly until he was certain it could never be salvaged and then threw it into a small garbage can nearby.
"Okay, two questions," asked Blendin, "What was that thing? What did it do? And why did you just break it?"
"That's three questions."
"I...I'm not good at time math, okay!" yelled Blendin.
Dipper sighed, "That's...that was a memory gun. I used it to wipe my memory from everyone's mind. It was a trick I learned from my Grunkle Ford. If you connect the memory gun to a radio and set the frequency correctly, it can be used for mass memory wiping. I set the frequency to the regular human ear, which is why I told you to cover your ears because I needed you to remember me. And, I broke it so that no one else could use it."
Mabel had thought she destroyed the last memory gun in existence on her and their 13th birthday. But in reality, Ford had kept one in the basement just in case. Only Dipper knew about it.
"Blendin, we're going," said Dipper with a heavy heart, "Right now."
"Okay, I may not be the smartest time agent in the business, but even I can tell there's a huge problem with what you just did," said Blendin, "If you could wipe the memory of your existence from people, then why didn't you just do that and live in this timeline?"
"Two reasons," said Dipper, "First off, the effect of this memory gun is not permanent. It can be reversed if the person who's hit by it is exposed to the thing they were meant to forget. When my Grunkle Stan's memory was wiped, all it took was Mabel's scrapbook and a few family stories from all of us to jog it back. If I was to do the same thing here, people would remember me again the instant I looked at them. Even just hearing my voice would jog that memory. That's why I did this at night. Everyone's asleep. Now we can slip away without ever being caught and their memories of me will never return."
"But...but what about photos?"
"I looked around the shack. There's none of me here and given no one looks at the family photos from what Mabel told me, I should be able to slip away."
"I still don't get why you don't just try to use it as a way to stay here," said Blendin.
Dipper explained it to him.
"That's the second reason. Along with the fact people would remember me immediately, I don't belong here. Thirteen-year-old Dipper Pines is not supposed to exist thirty years in the future. He's supposed to exist thirty years in the past. With his family, his friends, his...his sister."
"Simply put...I wanna go home. Or be it, my timeline. I want to have a life, memories, to grow up...with Mabel and the people who I care about."
Blendin smiled, "That's so sweet."
Dipper laughed softly so that no one would wake up, "I guess. Now, let's get to that other timeline before anyone comes looking for us."
As they got ready, Dipper looked at his old home one last time and smiled.
"Goodbye Mabel," he whispered, "I'll never forget you."
With the pull of the time tape, Blendin and Dipper set off into an unknown.
----
Tuesday July 23rd, 2013
Gravity Falls, Oregon
----
The sun was high in the sky as the duo appeared. Looking around, Dipper and Blendin found themselves in the clearing in the forest where it had all happened.
"Are we in the correct timeline?" said Dipper.
"According to the tape, yes," said Blendin, "Are we in the right spot?"
Dipper looked at the clearing. He spotted the Gastrope, the lizard who he had been so eager to find which had indirectly caused this whole mess, run across the clearing and into the woods nearby. Its footprints disappeared behind it because of the device which he now knew lay below.
"Yes," he said, "This is the place."
"Perfect," said Blendin, "Stand back please."
He pressed a button on his wrist device and with that, the vault beneath them rose out of the Earth and shrunk itself down into the size of a cube. Blendin then picked it up and pocketed it.
"Now that sucker can't trap anymore unwanted by the future, animals."
Dipper gave Blendin a punch on the arm.
"Oh...and uh, unsuspecting kids too, I guess."
Dipper rolled his eyes. He was about to talk when...
"Dipper?"
"Ahh, who said that?!" yelled Blendin.
"It's Mabel," said Dipper, "She must be looking for me. I guess...I should go."
"Yeah, me too," said Blendin, "The council pays top dollar to people who return lost time vaults."
"Thanks for everything. Even if your people made the thing that robed me of a life and Mabel of a brother and-"
"Yeah, yeah, okay, no problem. Now go reunite with your alternative timeline sister while I go deal with this!"
The two shook hands and with that, went their sperate ways.
"Dipper? Where are you!" yelled Mabel.
"Over hear, Mabel!"
Mabel recognized that voice anywhere. She ran to the origin. She saw Dipper running to her.
"Dipper!"
"Mabel!"
The two raced into an embrace. But to Mabel's surprise, Dipper hugged her tighter than he ever had before.
"Woah, bro-bro, you good?"
"Oh, I...I'm fine," he said, "I just missed you, and Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford...a lot."
"Really?" replied Mabel, "Because you've only been gone for like an hour. Grunkle Stan sent me and Ford to go look for you. He thinks you're hiding from his barbequing."
Dipper laughed, "Nah. I just got a bit lost while looking for that darn Gastrope."
"And that's why you never go looking for weird creatures on an empty stomach," said Mabel, "Come on, lunch is ready."
Dipper smiled and with that, he followed his sister, who was still his age, back to the campsite, as if the last 30 years hadn't even happened.
But of course, they did. Just not in this timeline.