repeat after me
—she thrusts her arms outwards, fighting for air, for space; she's tangled up, she's drowning. Pacifica feels herself falling and then she strikes something flat and unyielding, the impact hard against her back. She rolls over, trying to get away—light hits her eyelids for the first time. Understanding, now, that her eyes are shut, she opens them, seeing nothing but a gray haze over a rectangle of brilliant illumination. Her breathing steadies. Rationality slowly returns with every exhalation.
She realizes she is on the floor, and she's just been battling her bedsheets.
Her fear quickly fades, replaced with chagrin. She tears the sheet off herself and tosses it aside. She is in her room, of course, on the floor as she expected, having fallen out of her bed in the midst of her imaginary tussle. It isn't until she calms enough to hear anything besides the pounding of her own heart that she notices another sound vying with her harsh breathing: a song, coming from the hallway just outside her door.
A sensation of déjà vu washes over her so intensely that for a moment she feels dizzy. She doesn't even remember what she was dreaming about. Getting to her feet, she stamps out into the hallway and finds Soos' boombox on his custodial cart, surrounded by half-finished taxidermy. Wrinkling her nose (and careful not to touch any of the fish heads), she turns off the radio.
The light coming in from the window tells her she has already slept in an unusual amount. Still feeling discombobulated, she gets ready for the day more quickly than typical, skipping a few of the more time-intensive beauty routines in a bid to get out of her room and start feeling normal again.
Exiting the hallway and moving towards the kitchen, she pauses at the entrance to the living room, where Stan is having an argument with Mabel as she attempts to pry the TV remote from his hand.
"You let me watch Pooch Patrol before!" Mabel complains. "Shouldn't you be running the tours?!"
"Soos is running the tours, and Baby Fights is rerunning the season finale, which I missed! It's Skylar versus Phoebe, and if you think I'm missin' that title match for lousy Pooch Patrol—"
Again, Pacifica feels that disconcerting sense of déjà vu. Doing her best to shake it off, she listlessly pokes around in the pantry before discovering a toaster pastry that Mabel somehow missed. It's cold and slightly stale, but it will do. Her head hurts and she doesn't feel like making a proper breakfast or trying to convince Dipper to do it for her.
Not wanting to return to her room, but also not feeling well enough to want to do much else, she goes upstairs to the attic, hoping to find at least one of the twins. Wendy's makeshift bed is empty, as is the twins' room. This is momentarily disappointing, but opens up an interesting opportunity.
Dipper's bed is dangerous territory; not that they've been perfectly law-abiding when it comes to that kind of rule. Still, there are limits. But nothing says she can't get in his bed when he isn't even here, right? Perhaps not within the letter of the law, but certainly within its spirit. She might be given pause if she didn't know that he showers before bed, not in the morning.
Crawling into his bed, she rests her aching temple on his pillow and loses track of the time, eyes fluttering shut and blocking out the light.
"Pacifica?"
She sluggishly raises her head when she hears her name, unsure if she is waking up or if hardly any time has passed at all. Blinking, she sees Dipper standing nearby with an uncertain posture. She can appreciate why. Here she is not only sleeping in, but doing so on his bed. He's probably confused, which makes two of them.
"Are you… okay?" he says slowly, a question which covers a lot of ground.
It's a fair thing to ask. It's not like she normally behaves like this.
She's not sure how to encapsulate exactly what's wrong with her into words—and it doesn't help that she doesn't know what's wrong with her—so she says, "I'm really tired today."
"That's cool, there's not much going on. Great-Uncle Ford got caught up in the whole Waddles thing so he's not ready to do anything else yet," he tells her.
She's not sure why he hasn't asked about her being in his bed. Maybe he thinks she is irritable right now (which she is, her head still hurts) or maybe it's obvious she was looking for him and took advantage of his absence. It's not the first time she's commandeered his bed, albeit under different circumstances.
Her headache throbs again, sending a lancing bolt of pain through her left eye. She presses the heel of her hand against it, wincing.
"Shoot, are you getting sick?" Dipper says.
Pacifica shrugs lethargically. "I don't know."
He steps forward and places his hand on her forehead. "…This is what Mom always does," he says. "How hot is your forehead supposed to feel? I'd be able to tell, right?"
Pacifica would have rolled her eyes if she didn't think it might make her even dizzier. "I don't have a fever, my head just hurts."
Dipper drops his hand, looking no less concerned. "Maybe we should just stay here today."
She feels like she's having a permanent out of body experience; the world is foggy and strange. She has this nagging thought, like she was somewhere else a minute ago, doing something else entirely, in a dream, or maybe even while awake, which she supposes would be a hallucination. She's forgetting something, and it feels important.
Forgetting. Memories. Her memories.
"Aren't we going to the museum?" she blurts out.
"We are?" he says.
Yes, they are. She wants to see the memories that are buried there, to know what happened in the past, which is kind of funny since she isn't sure she knows what's going on right now. Trying to ignore her headache, she swings her legs off the bed, accepting Dipper's helping hand and standing.
"I want to go see my memories," she tells him.
"The memories! Right, the Blind Eye," he says. "I don't think anyone's been down there since we were; I mean, we're probably the only ones who still know about it. Yeah, we can do that for sure."
This appears to be an entirely new idea for the day. She was hoping that prompting him would reveal the museum was already part of his or Mabel's plan and Pacifica somehow forgot, because the alternative is that she might be losing her mind. Strange that it should happen now and not, you know, in the middle of Weirdmageddon when the world was ending in an unfolding series of chaotic horrors, but whatever.
Dipper is still watching her closely. "Are you sure you're up for it? We can always go later."
She's not sure, no. But she also doesn't want to stay here, unable to sleep, feeling like she's lost in her own head.
"I can't stay in bed all day," she says.
The corner of his mouth quirks in amusement. "I mean, you can…"
"You can," she retorts. "I'm a productive person."
"She says, sleeping in her bed and then my bed, and then I assume after this Mabel's bed, or Wendy's, or Stan's—"
"Uh, never, gross." She pushes her way past him. "I'm getting ready."
Descending from the attic, she pauses to let Stan go past as he comes from the direction of his office, turning towards the living room. She can't help but think of what Dipper just said, and the thought of even coming near Stan's musty, old-man bed makes her cringe. Does Stan even wash his sheets? Has she ever seen him wash anything?
"Northwest—you seen my boots around anywhere?" he asks.
She automatically shakes her head; why would she know where his boots are? Like she keeps track of his footwear. She starts to tell him exactly that, and instead finds herself inexplicably saying, "They're in your office."
This produces a highly awkward moment as the two of them stare at each other silently, equally surprised that she had an actual answer, and in Stan's case probably that she bothered to answer at all.
"…Alright," Stan says slowly. He backs up the way he came, maintaining a suspicious eye on her until he exits through the doorway.
She can't blame him. He probably thinks he's being set up for some manner of Mabel-based pranking. Pacifica wishes that were true, because how else would she know anything about Stan's boots? Are they really in his office? Did she just lie? More to the point, did she just lie without even meaning to?
Feeling a growing urge to leave the Shack, she goes to her room to dress for the weather. She hopes the bitter air outside will do her some good, clear her head. It doesn't take her long to get ready, and before she leaves, she takes a couple of painkillers from her suitcase, washing them down with tap water. She stands by her bed for a moment, her desire to get outside at war with a wish to crawl back into her blankets and erase the day. She can always try that later, if going into town doesn't make her feel any better.
A muffled bang from outside startles her. She stands on her toes to look out the window and can't see anything but snow. As she goes down the hall to the porch door, she realizes it was probably that pumpkin cannon that Soos built. Mabel's been dying to fire the thing off; she must have gotten her chance. Pacifica would be a little mad about it, just because she would have liked to see the cannon go off, but with her head still aching the last thing she needs to be next to is an explosion, even if it's just compressed air.
The porch door flies open. Mabel runs inside, her eyes huge with pure panic. She sees Pacifica and skids to a halt.
"Um, what's the number for 911?" Mabel says hurriedly.
A lot of commotion follows, most of it just a blur to Pacifica. She's not happy to be going to Gravity Falls Hospital again, but at least this time it's just for Stan. That's a pretty awful thing to think, she knows, but it looks like he's not seriously injured, and he's such a jerk sometimes that there's satisfaction in knowing he got clobbered by a giant snowball.
However, this makes her think about how many people would have once—and maybe still would—taken delight in seeing her get clobbered by a giant snowball, and that takes the fun right out of the whole thing.
Mabel is guilt stricken, sitting in her chair with one knee wildly bouncing, gnawing fiercely on a lock of her hair. Soos, meanwhile, is utterly devastated. Melody is trying to comfort him, but for the moment he's inconsolable.
Pacifica still feels awful—and now not just physically. Stan let her into his home, after everything, after Pioneer Day, after what Father did. He gave her money for her birthday; he let her stay with the twins. She doesn't want him to be actually hurt… just a little hurt, in a funny way. No one would find that funnier than Stan.
As Stan goes in for an MRI to confirm he isn't concussed, Pacifica tries to sit up straight, eventually giving up and letting her pulsing temple rest on Dipper's shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut against the too-bright fluorescent lights.
He puts his arm around her, his hand warm on her shoulder. "Maybe we should have someone look at you… I really think you're getting sick," he tells her.
"I never get sick," she mumbles into his shirt.
"Everybody gets sick sometimes, even on vacation. I got sick at the Grand Canyon once and all I got to see was the hotel."
She's only half-listening, feeling sleepier by the second. "This isn't vacation."
"It's not?" He considers that and seems to like the idea. "Yeah… You know what, you're right. We live here too, don't we."
She would love to share in whatever mini-revelation he's having, but her head is killing her and it's only getting worse. Her stomach lurches with sudden nausea and she stands up quickly, fast enough to get a head rush, jolted by the ferocity of the sensation, holding her hands out to steady herself and trying to get her eyes to focus.
"Pacifica? Hey!" Dipper holds her by the shoulders, keeping her steady. "Great-Uncle Ford, I think she's—"
Whatever he thinks is drowned out by the roaring in her ears. The world tips on its axis and the floor becomes a moving wall, heading straight for her. She feels her hand slap painfully against the checkered tile and then darkness envelops her, and the blackness is not frightening but a soothing absence of everything.
Light returns, bright against her eyelids. She blinks. A fluorescent light fixture comes into focus, humming behind its mottled plastic shade.
"—said she had a headache. Pacifica?" A hand rubs gently on her left shoulder. "Pacifica?"
The floor is cold against her back. She can't believe she just passed out in public. She doesn't remember rolling over; she raises a hand against the lights, trying to stop them from stabbing through her eyes. As she attempts to sit up, her vision clears enough to see Dipper as he helps her. The world swims as she goes upright, and she grabs on to Dipper's arm to steady herself.
"They're bringing a stretcher over," he says. "Just sit here for a second, okay?"
Oh, no. They are not wheeling her out of her like an invalid. Already mortified by her fainting spell, the thought of a stretcher motivates her to fight back to her feet.
"Whoa, easy there," Mabel says. Pacifica can feel Mabel's hands on her other arm, the twins steadying her from each side.
"I'm fine," Pacifica says, the dazed quality of her voice making the statement less than convincing, even to her. "I… I'll just go home."
"No way, Pacifi-kay," Mabel says ardently. "You almost just faceplanted on the floor!"
"Dude, it was scary. Dipper almost didn't catch you; you were like, hypnotized or something," Soos says somewhere behind her.
"Yeah, you're not going home, you need to get checked out," Dipper insists.
There's a clattering of wheels rolling across the floor; Ford and Melody come back into the waiting room with one of the ER staff pushing a bed. Pacifica doesn't like any of this, not at all, but she's too weak to do much but verbally protest.
With Dipper's help, she reluctantly lies down on the wheeled bed. The lights above pierce her eyes like needles again and she closes them, her head aching in time with her heartbeat. Dipper is explaining what happened to the staff. As the bed begins to move, she feels a vibration, deep and strong, that goes beyond the wheels moving against the floor.
She opens her eyes and grabs Dipper's arm, getting his attention. "Something bad is about to happen," she says. She doesn't know where the words come from, but they feel absolutely true.
Dipper goes tense, his eyes widening. "What is it?"
The view outside the windows turns completely white. Then their glass shatters, bursting inward. Hot pain cuts across Pacifica's body as the shards hit her, and she feels the bed tip upwards as a great, billowing force slams through the waiting room.
Then it is as black as midnight.
And then—