First published 09/03/16

Last edited 05/05/20

Full Summary: After a wrong turn sends the Fenton family to Gravity Falls, Oregon instead of sunny California for summer vacation, Danny finds himself getting more and more paranoid that something is definitely wrong within the strange town, and he's determined to find out what, with the help of the newly acquainted Pines twins. Meanwhile, Dipper begins to suspect that there is something off about Danny Fenton and that he isn't so normal as he comes across. And to top it off, Bill has other plans, starting with the discovery of a half-human, half-ghost, and an opportunity that spells out trouble for everyone.

Chapter 1

Summer was tough when you had to switch your lifestyle completely. Danny had gone from a no-sleep, anxiety ridden C-student to a moody teen that was only ever awake to use the bathroom, eat, or to fight the occasional ghostly annoyance— which was more often than not. At this point, it was almost like the ghosts coming in and out of the Ghost Zone got a kick out of tormenting him. But he dealt with it, as he always had, and soon enough, it became routine, and he became comfortable with that. And so with his luck, when a family road trip was proposed, it wasn't much of a surprise to him at all.

A supposed family road trip to the beaches in California had not been as simple as originally planned. He had Jazz to thank for this spectacular idea after she'd suggested to their mom that the family needed to get away from their obsession with ghosts. And of course, Maddie was first to jump aboard the idea and had suggested the beaches. Before Danny could even protest, the Fenton family had planned out their entire trip, and soon enough Jack was hauling the suitcases out into the RV. Danny, on the other hand, was less than ecstatic to leave Amity Park unattended.

Sam and Tucker had insisted that they would be fine handling the ghosts without him. They were equipped with FentonWorks ghost hunting gear and knew what they were doing, but as much as Danny trusted them, it took a lot of convincing from Tucker that everything would be fine— (and a few threats from Sam about curb stomping him with her combat boot if he didn't stop worrying). They had promised that if anything ghost-related were to happen, they'd take care of it, and if anything Vlad-related were to happen, they'd call him immediately.

Still, being gone for three weeks out of state was nerve wracking for Danny. The constant gut-wrenching feeling wouldn't leave him ever since Maddie announced that they would be going on a road trip in the first place. It wasn't that Danny didn't want a vacation— sure, he'd do anything to get a break from the stress— but he felt that he could never really relax when there was always a ghost to catch. Sam and Tucker being on the case at least lifted a bit of the weight on his shoulders.

What could go wrong with beaches? Sure, a trip to California would take hours, many hours, probably about a day or more, but Danny shouldn't be paranoid again. He remembered what happened during the last Fenton family road trip vacation and shuddered before sliding into the large silver and green vehicle. He couldn't afford to let the paranoia and stress get to him again. Not after last time.

Danny sighed to himself and buckled his seatbelt. "Am I going to regret going on this?"

"Well, it's not like you had a choice," Jazz answered from next to him. She had been in the GAV first, and probably was the most over-packed with more vacation essentials than the four of them combined. Her hands were occupied with a book that had a title that was too long for Danny to read or care for.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, if this trip turns out to be anything like the last family road trip we had, just know that I'm blaming you." he stated, crossing his arms once more and giving Jazz a sour look.

"Danny, it's California!" Jazz exclaimed, resting her book onto her lap. "Which is pretty far from Amity Park by the way, so stop worrying. There's nothing ghostly about California," she began, the last sentence closer to a hissed whisper so their parents didn't hear. "And by any chance that there is, I'm sure that we're more than prepared. Really." she continued, gesturing to the Fenton portable weapons vault installed into the GAV.

"Doesn't matter," Danny replied, glancing over at his sister. "Still blaming you. This vacation was your idea, after all."

"Gee, thanks," Jazz muttered with a half hearted eye roll, before returning back to her book which Danny had assumed was some kind of dictionary at this point.

The entire trip would take at least a full day of driving, and that was including the unfortunate too-fast-for-comfort speed that Jack drove at. Luckily, there weren't many cars on the road due to the early morning hours of the day, so the prospect of traffic or worse was a weight lifted off Danny's shoulders. He loved his dad, but his driving skills were downright questionable half the time.

Danny decided to listen to music on his MP3 player for the duration of the road trip— anything to distract himself— and plugged in his earphones to the device. Only 2000 more miles to go, he thought dreadfully.

By the time just a little over an hour had passed, they were just outside the city limits and were passing by the large 'You are now leaving Amity Park!' billboard. Danny stared up at the sign as they drove by it, already feeling his stomach beginning to churn with worry. And on top of that, he was starting to get a little sick from his mom's insistence on playing road trip games.

"I spy . . . uh, something that's . . . green." Jack said cautiously, squinting at the road ahead of him. Jazz lowered her book as if to speak, but instead only rolled her eyes and flipped to the next page. Danny put his head back against the headrest, and stared at the ceiling of the RV.

"Trees. Again." he groaned.

"Correcto, Danny-boy! Your turn!" He beamed, smiling at Maddie, who was flipping through the pages of a United States map booklet. It contained maps for every region and state of the country, each map a different page and provided every boring fact about each area. She looked up from the booklet and gave a lovingly smile back at Jack.

"Mom, are we going to be doing this the entire trip there? I'm hungry." Danny complained, looking for any reason to end the tortuous road game. Although he knew that as long as he participated in answering, it would continue. He was beginning to despise the person who invented the game I-Spy.

Maddie turned around in her seat and tilted her head to glance back at Danny. "Well, we can play another game if you want, sweetie–"

"No," he moaned in annoyance.

"Fenton jerky?" Maddie offered sympathetically.

"Maybe later," Danny answered, grimacing as he watched his dad munch furiously on his share of Fenton jerky. Maybe Danny wasn't as hungry as he thought.

The minutes that passed were beginning to feel like hours.

Danny reached into his purple backpack that had been resting by his shoes for something to do. Deciding on a pencil and notebook, he thought he could pass the time by doodling. It wouldn't come out the best, and considering his dad's driving, it'd definitely come out shaky, but he happily settled on sketching out some of his notoriously known ghostly enemies.

After about fifteen minutes, Danny could sense that Jazz was looking over at his page from the corner of her eye.

He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Really, Danny?" Jazz frowned, peering over at his latest drawing. "I mean, I knew you didn't like Vlad Plasmius, but to draw him getting brutally decapitated . . ." she trailed off, staring at the crude drawing. "Wow...Okay, Danny, that's just weird."

Danny begrudgingly flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "I was bored." he mumbled.

"I see that." Jazz frowned, before returning to her book.

She had gone through her second psychology book by the time they reached the Illinois border, and Danny had gone through three different playlists of music from his MP3 player, after drawing everything he could think of that was worthwhile drawing. The sketchbook was now left on the seat between him and Jazz, untouched for the past hour.

"Hey kids, we're nearing the gas station. Who wants snacks?"

Jazz had woken from her sleep without stirring her other sleeping family members. Rubbing her eyes in response to the brooding daylight, she looked down to her analog watch to read half past seven. It was early in the morning so surely they had been out on the road for almost a day. At least.

She looked out the window and was confused to be seeing pine trees instead of palm trees. How long had she been sleeping for?

"Um, dad? Where are we? Are you sure you aren't heading north?"

Jack nearly jumped at the sound of her voice before looking around and piecing together the same unspoken conclusion as Jazz. They had taken a wrong turn a long time ago, while he was half asleep at the wheel.

"Jazz! I didn't know you were awake!" Jack exclaimed, and looked back at his daughter, who had her arms crossed, silently waiting for an explanation.

"I really should'a let Maddie take the wheel earlier when she offered to…" He said slowly and shrugged his shoulders, his smile fading to a look of worry as he began to get an idea of what Jazz would say next.

"Dad… you didn't take a wrong turn… Did you?" Jazz accused, biting down on her lip in panic. Even she already knew the answer to her own question. The RV was nowhere near heading in the direction to California now. Looking at the various signs on the road they passed by, they had just passed a state border and were heading northwest. They've been heading north for the past few hours instead of south. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere around Utah.

Jack laughed nervously, eyes slowly widening. "Surprise?" he tried.

Jazz let out a deep sigh, and frowned at her father. "Dad! Are you serious? Why didn't you wake any of us up earlier?!" she asked, looking frantically at the road in front of them.

"Well to be honest, I didn't actually notice that I had made a wrong turn since about a couple of minutes ago . . . when you pointed it out."

"How do you make a wrong turn and not notice for hours? We passed the wrong state!"

Jack squinted at their surroundings through the windshield. "I must of dozed off for a few hours… Maddie had the map, and then she fell asleep, and then the road signs got harder to see when it became darker outside . . . oh boy. We're lost."

"Figures," Jazz exhaled. "Why don't we just use the Fenton GPS to figure out where we are then?"

"Great thinking Jazzypants!" Jack exclaimed, pressing a few buttons on the vehicle's console and a black and green screen slowly powered on. There was a map on the small screen, and a red dot on the map signifying where the RV exactly was.

"...Oregon?" Jazz asked, utterly disappointed. What was there that was even remotely interesting in the state of Oregon, other than pine trees?

Jack squinted at the small screen installed into the car. "Hey, on the plus side, Oregon is only one state away from California! ... Right?"

"Camping essentials is the one thing I didn't pack for!" Jazz whined.

"Well, we can always just keep driving and pretend this never happened! Although that would probably take another full day of driving..."

Jazz crossed her arms, and frowned, thinking. "Let's stop at the next town then. Maybe stay a few days and rest up before heading south."

"Sounds like a plan! Wake your mom and Danny up, will ya? Let them know that we have a slight change in plans!" He said, eyeing the GPS with a newly found excitement. He knew to keep a positive attitude for the rest of the family, despite being slightly worried about leading them into the unknown. Especially when he had no idea what he was doing. Good thing Jazz was smart.

She rolled her eyes and went to the back of the RV to reach her snoring brother. "Danny, wake up!" she hissed, and shook his shoulders awake.

He stirred quickly, and rolled over in his interrupted sleep before startling awake and screaming: "What!? What is it?! Is it ghosts? Where?!"

"No, Danny. Jeez, you're starting to sound like dad." Jazz regained her posture and promptly looked back over her shoulder to the front of the RV where Jack was driving. "...And because of him, we're not heading to California anymore."

Danny's brows furrowed in confusion. "...What?"

His sudden screaming woke up Maddie. "What is it?" she asked tiredly, rubbing her eyes. Danny sat upright, with a yawn. "What time is it?"

Jazz sighed, and glanced to the roof of the RV. "It's morning. Dad took a wrong turn, didn't notice for hours, went north instead of south, and now we're in Oregon."

Danny groaned, putting his head in his hands. "Figures."

"Oh, Jack…" Maddie muttered with a frown.

"Let me guess, now we're gonna have to stay in some weird place in Oregon before we can actually go to California like we were supposed to?" Danny mused.

Jazz snapped her gaze towards Danny. "Yeah… how'd you guess?" she asked.

"Because I've been running worst case scenarios in my mind the entire trip so far." Danny responded, and promptly dived back into his pillow face first. Great, just my luck, he thought worriedly.

thanks for reading!:) this is probably the fourth time i've gone back to rewrite and edit this fic since i first wrote it in high school but yet i persevere:) i started writing this in like...grade 10-11? now i just finished my second year of university...oh how times have changed. i'm gonna continue editing and writing this story as i go through it! leave a review if you enjoyed!

- dannyghost:)