You walk into Dipper's lab, yawning and rubbing your eyes. You didn't get that much sleep last night, but you're surprised that you're this tired. Something about your conversation with Will seemed to just sap up all your energy.

Dipper looks over his shoulder at you as you approach him. "Well good morning, sleepyhead."

You smile feebly back. "Morning."

"Huh, I really am pushing you, aren't I? I'm surprised your mother hasn't come and given me an earful for keeping you from your beauty sleep."

"She probably wants to," you say. "But it's fine, I love all this stuff we do here."

He grins at that. "That's good to know. It's been fun to work with you. You've got a good head on your shoulders."

The praise makes you flush, and you laugh awkwardly and say, "Not when I'm tired like this," in an attempt to joke it off. But now you feel like you'll have energy for days on end. Dipper Pines thinks you're smart.

You and Dipper get started on your work for the day. Not every day is exciting or adventurous: today, Dipper tasks you with analyzing data on wood nymph migrating patterns and sorting them into statistical groups. It's mind-numbing, but you keep reminding yourself that it's the migrating patterns of nymphs, not something boring like deer or elk. Dipper says the boring stuff is part of being a scientist, no matter how interesting your studies are. So you try to stay focused and make him proud.

After a while, Dipper sighs and sets down his papers. "That's enough of that, I think. Even I can't focus for that long."

You look up. How long has it been? An hour? Two? Six?

"You know. . ." Dipper looks at you with a spark in his eyes like he's just gotten an idea. "I've been working on something. Something I haven't shown anyone yet. Can I trust you?"

"Yes," you say immediately. Dipper grins and turns around, and only then do you realize that you lied.

Can Dipper trust you? You're keeping your conversations with Will from him, after all. It's not like Dipper explicitly told you not to talk to Will, but you know he'll be disappointed if he finds out. Does that count as being untrustworthy?

He can trust you to see this project, at least, you tell yourself. This has nothing to do with Will. Dipper can trust you.

"Alright." Dipper pulls himself onto the table and sits with his legs swinging back and forth as he talks. "Sixty years ago, my great uncle, Stanford Pines, built a portal."

You jump up onto the table too and lean forward eagerly.

"He was trying to find the Unified Theory of Weirdness, but his work was tainted by Bill Cipher. What Ford thought would be the key to scientific fame was actually a way for Bill to take over the universe. The portal led straight into Bill's Nightmare Realm, and Bill almost succeeded in taking over the world back then."

Your eyes widen. "There were two Weirdmageddons?"

"Not quite," Dipper says. "Bill didn't get as close back then as he did during Weirdmageddon. Ford ended up on the other side of the portal before Bill could get through, and it shut down. Thirty years later, my other great uncle and Ford's twin, Stanley, fixed it and turned it back on."

"Why?" you ask. As soon as the question leaves your mouth, you realize the answer.

"To get his brother back. He didn't realize it would start the chain reaction that led to Weirdmageddon. But Weirdmageddon came because of a lot of people's actions, including mine. We stopped assigning the blame a long time ago.

"Anyway, ever since then, I've avoided any type of interdimensional studies. Our dimension is one of a handful that doesn't know about the others and rarely gets — or sends — travelers. I've tried my best to keep it that way, in order to prevent another Weirdmageddon."

Good, you think.

"Until now."

Oh.

"I realized that the main problem with the first portal was its destination. Bill set the destination to the Nightmare Realm without Ford knowing. So I started prototyping an interdimensional device with a programmable destination. They have plenty of them out in the multiverse, but none of them have seemed to make it here, so I had to build my own. I've been keeping it a secret because I'm afraid of people's reactions, but you weren't there for Weirdmageddon, so I thought you'd have a more open mind."

"U-um, yeah," you say. "Does it work?"

"I don't know, I haven't tried it yet," Dipper says. "But I have a good feeling that it will. And that it won't cause another apocalypse."

"That's good," you say with a tentative smile.

Dipper looks thoughtful. He leans over and opens a desk drawer, pulling out a device that kinda looks like a fancy calculator. "I'd invite you to test it out with me," he says, "but your mother would probably have my head. Still, I wanted to show it to you."

"Cool," you say. "So it's like. . . a dimension hopper?"

Dipper pauses to think about that, then grins. "Yeah. I like that term. Dimension hopper."

~~~~~

That night, you dream about Will again. You two are sitting amiably together when you remember the dimension hopper and the question it gave you. "Oh, I had a question for you."

"What?" he asks, casually putting an elbow on his propped-up knee.

"Are you from another dimension? Is that what the mindscape is?"

Will goes limp, and from his eyes you can see him mulling over your question.

"Yes," he finally says, hesitantly. "I'm anchored in another dimension. The mindscape. . . it's like an in-between dimension, and it's not attached to a particular one. But it's vast enough that I've only ever seen the portion of the mindscape that's closest to my dimension. If that makes sense."

"So. . . it's like an ocean, and the dimensions are like islands?"

"Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. Eventually I set out looking for another portion of the mindscape, and I ended up finding your dimension. Most of my energy is still in my home dimension, but the me you see in Dipper's lab is a portion I sent out."

You frown at the implications of that. "Is the real you different?"

"Not really. More emotional. But the version of me that's talking to you right now isn't exactly the same as the one with Dipper. This meeting area is closer to my dimension. Almost right on top of it, actually. Somehow, when you dream, your energy travels across the mindscape to my dimension's territory. Usually people have their own little squares of mindscape to dream in, but you jumped out of yours for some reason."

"Huh," you say. "I don't remember doing anything that could've caused that."

Will rubs his chin in thought. "I thought maybe you'd read a spell or something. Maybe it's a natural ability."

"Maybe."

The conversation dies after that. You usually don't like sitting in silence — you need conversation — but with Will, it feels natural, somehow. You just sit and ponder the conversation you just had, satisfied by Will's presence next to you.

So this is because of you? You're the one who made contact with Will? From what Will said, it sounds like you're travelling across dimensions without Dipper's fancy dimension hopper. And just in your dreams, too!

You're not sure whether to be impressed or scared. What does all this mean?

Well, despite the confusion of it all, you do know one thing:

You're ultimately glad that you could meet Will.