"Some things are too broken to fix." He looks at the little shadows. They're a part of this place like he now is, and aside from hearing them, he can feel them. Their lifeblood was leeched off of Robbie, but they're still made of the same nightmare-stuff now running through what's left of Dipper's veins. "I know you know that, Robbie. Because of them."

He nods towards them.

"You can't ever put them back together again, can you." He looks at him with that unblinking light, as one of the little ash children walks over towards him.

Dipper doesn't destroy it. He reaches out with a twisted hand to brush his too-long fingers against what once had been a cheek, and for a moment, he's not a monster. He's just one damaged child comforting another.

"Little kids aren't made of puzzle pieces. You can't rebuild us from ash," he says gently. "I'm ash, Robbie. I was ash before you even met me."

His voice goes distant.

"The yellow light burned me up inside and just left a shell that looked like a kid. I was fooling myself by thinking otherwise." Which yellow light is the question. Was it the light of the Yellow Lanterns, burning his brain, or the yellow light coming off of him all summer in Gravity Falls? Maybe both. Probably both. "All this place did? Was make the outside look like the inside."