By the age of fourteen, he had already died three times. His soul had only left his body for mere seconds, but it was still categorized as death.

The first was when he was six. He had fell while riding his bike and knocked his head against the asphalt, which sent him into a coma. While in the ER as they stitched him up, he had floated above his body and watched the monitor go flat for only a couple of seconds as they placed defibrillator pads on his chest.

Of course then he had no idea what that had meant, and afterwards as he woke up in a hospital bed greeted by watery smiles from his twin and parents, he had written it off as a dream. After all he was only six, and after mentioning it to his friends who just laughed at him, he banished the thought.

The second was when he was eleven. He had been defending himself against the bully of the school, Matt, and the taller boy had shoved him against the lockers before dropping him. The bully had kicked him a couple of times before punting him down a set of concrete stairs. An hour later, as school was out, the janitor found him on the floor in a pool of his own blood as he bled from his head and a gash across his stomach and ribs from the pipe he had smashed into at the bottom.

Once again, while on the operating table, he watched the heart monitor go flat and his parents and twin cry behind the one-way glass as the defibrillator was placed on his chest and he was sucked back into his broken and battered body.

For years to come he would trace the scar from that pipe on his stomach through his shirt when he passed Matt; the bully had left him alone since but always snarled at him in the halls and shoved him when he would walk past his house on his way home.

The third was not due to injuries, but the lack of a soul inside his body. It had been his twin and his' first summer in Gravity Falls and during her epic sock opera, his possessed body had fallen, knocking the soul of a one Bill Cipher from it. The few seconds between the demon's soul being literally knocked out of his body to him reclaiming it left his body, according to his spooked twin afterwards, cold and lifeless.

By all accounts, Mason 'Dipper' Pines had died three times before his fourteenth birthday, although the last had not been put down in any hospital records ever.

His twin joked it off as luck when he realized it one night, bolting up in bed and sweating. He had grasped at the sheets and tried to come to terms that he had died three times before. Three times his soul had left his body, his heart had stopped, his breathing had ceased.

His whimpers had drawn his twin sister from her slumber and the sound of her brother crying in bed had forced her from her own. She had walked across the hall to his room where the door was slightly ajar and had crawled in with him.

Nightmares for the Pines twins were not unusual. It was often one was awoken by night terrors that depicted shape-shifting monsters and inter-dimensional one-eyed demons and hidden evil behind bright colors and pop music. There were nights that the only thing that got them through it was each other, holding the former through their visions.

That night was no different.

She had moved the covers down and crawled under them, grasping his hands. "Say it with me."

They had a system for nights like these; when visions of their fated time in Gravity Falls reduced them to shaking, whimpering (and sometimes screaming) messes. They had worked out a system the night they returned to their perfectly normal and ordinary town of Piedmont and Dipper had woken the whole house, screaming in terror.

Both Mabel and his parents had rushed to his room to find him thrashing around in his sheets, the fabric wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat as his flailed around, crying and screaming in pain. His parents had immediately rushed to his side, panicked.

But Mabel had been frozen in place, doomed to watch her brother writhe about on the bed while his own mind entrapped him. Phrases had escaped through his panicked mind, scaring her as they had floated past her ears. No! Please, don't hurt—no! Mabel! Wendy! Grunkle Stan!

The one that had broke her heart as she stood in the doorway and her mom cdialed 911 while her dad cut the offending sheets from his body still haunted her to this day.

Mabel, don't trust him!

Now, as she grasped his hand and turned on the totally-not-a night light he had by his bed for nights like this one, she repeated herself. "Say it with me."

Deep, shaking breaths followed those words and she just gripped his fingers tighter against her chest. She laid his palm against her chest, letting him feel the rhythmic, soothing beat and his breath became more even.

"Okay, breathe. What's your name?"

A heaving chest and corrupted lungs stutter through a spit-out answer. "M-my name is D-dipper Pines."

Deep breath in, deep breath out. "Good. How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Yes. And where's Bill?" He freezes against her at the name, and she responds with a reassuring, sympathetic smile. She'll wait.

"H-he's gone. He's dead." Her other hand finds his, covering his mouth to block the silent cries that crawl from his throat, and she brings it to her chest. "Yeah. It's okay."

"It's okay." Another deep breath, she releases a breath with him.

"Yes. You're safe."

"I-I'm safe."

"Say it again."

His voice is stronger now, tears drying against his cheeks and voice raw but he's not shaking anymore, which is progress. Small steps are still steps. "I'm safe."

"You're safe."

"Yes."

"I'm safe."

"Y-you're safe."

"Yes, see?" her hands press against his, which are at her chest, trying to show him that her heart's still beating, that it's her in front of him, not a hallucination. That she's okay. She's safe. She's alive. "I'm okay."

Released breath. "Yeah."

"Wendy's safe."

His head shoots up at that, and her heart breaks in two at the sight of his eyes. They're watery and broken and open and so vulnerable and it's then she knows her suspicions were correct. Once again, he'd dreamed of that day in the bunker.

Guilt hits her like a train crash and she suddenly finds it hard for her to breathe. If she hadn't pushed him into the room with Wendy all because of his crush on her, he wouldn't have had to fight the shaper-shifting monster that's given him nightmares since.

While in the bunker he had to choose between two Wendy's, and the horrifying possibility that he might have picked the wrong one haunts him. The thought that the one he buried the ax in might have not been the monster clone of the redhead lumberjack follows him around, and Mabel often finds him reaching up and rubbing his trapper's hat when he's making important decisions.

He'll reach up and rub, second-guessing himself, all confidence in himself gone, and every time it happens her heart aches. "Say it."

Tears well at the corners of his eyes, and through shaky lips he says it. "W-wendy's safe."

"Again."

"Wendy's safe."

"Who's safe?"

A gulp, slight hesitation, but she'll take it. "Wendy."

"Stay here, I'll be right back. Don't move."

A stuffed red wolf takes place of her hands in his, and she's hopping off the bed, running back to her room across the hall, making sure to dance around the squeaky board in the hallway that would wake their parents.

She swipes his phone off her nightstand where it sits, charging, and smiles down at the wallpaper. It's a picture of all of them; the Mystery crew. They're out in the forest and she remembers that day well. They had gone back up for Labor Day weekend after school started and Grunkle Stan insisted they needed a family photo.

Soos is off to the left, smiling and giving his trademark thumbs-up while she hangs from the fence in front of him, showing off her braces. Dipper is to her right, smiling slightly and behind him Stan is smiling wide and holding up bunny ears on his great-nephew.

Directly next to him is Ford, dressed in his familiar trenchcoat and he's smiling, holding one of his journals. In front of him, on the other side of the fence is Chompers, the goat, and in the bottom lefts sits a redhead with a green flannel shirt and a trapper hat identical to the one hanging on Dipper's bedpost.

She's leaning against the fence, arms over her knees, smiling at the camera, and just looking at the photo makes the older Pine twin long for her home away from home.

Then she's tiptoeing back across the hall while hitting a contact and holding it out to her twin brother who takes it in one shaky hand. She slips beneath the covers again as he puts it to his ear and exhales.

She hears the ringing, and smiles when she hears the click and a soft, familiar voice that has Dipper bringing a hand to his mouth, choking back sobs of relief.

"Mason?"

Mabel smiles at her brother, reassuring as his breathing becomes stilted again. She knew the lumberjack would be up at 3 in the morning; the redhead had revealed that she got up early every morning to set out breakfast for her father and brothers before taking a run through Gravity Fall's woods.

"Is that you?"

There's a few seconds of silence and silent tears drip down her brother's face, and the redhead on the other side of the phone gets it. Her voice grows softer, if possible and her voice floats through, loud enough that she can hear. "Hey, man, focus on my voice. I'm okay, you're okay. I'm here in Gravity Falls, wearing a blue and white pine tree baseball cap and perfectly fine and dandy, waiting to see you guys."

A shaky breath meets her and Mabel squeezes her brother's shoulder as he collects himself enough to talk through his raw throat and broken mouth. "H-hey."

"Hey yourself. Is Mabel there?"

He nods, and the redhead on the other side seems to know how he responded to her question. "You're lucky, you know. Your sister loves you very much."

He swallows, pushing down more tears. "Yeah, I know."

The twin sister slips from the room, smiling, closing the door behind her. She leans her back against it, closing her eyes at the low murmur that floats from his room as he slowly clams down at the sound of his best friend and crush's voice.

They're going to be okay.

He's going to be okay.

A/N: see you on Wednesdays and Sundays!

-a.m