Miserable Mabel

Mabel stomped into the attic bedroom. She was wearing a filthy sweater, with vines wrapped around her arms and legs. Her face was made up into a mask of misery, almost as miserable as she really felt.

"You are a heartless jerk!" she raged at Dipper.

"What are you talking about?" Dipper asked.

"Today was one day, one week, and one month from the day I lost Waddles," said Mabel. "I went out there looking like this, to beat my head against the totem pole and cry over Waddles."

"You're still not over that pig?" asked Dipper.

"No, I am not! I even got Soos to lead a tour out to the pole, to say that I was Miserable Mabel: a girl who went bonkers after her dreams were shattered by some heartless jerk."

"But..." said Dipper. "You're not really bonkers."

"No, but I really am miserable. You traveled in time to check if I had gotten better: first a day, then a week, and now a month. I heard you say how far ahead you were going each time, so I was ready to pose for you, beating my head against the totem pole to show you how I felt."

"To guilt-trip me, you mean," said Dipper.

"It should have worked. You should have felt guilty and gone back to fix things. But you didn't! Nothing has changed. I still don't have Waddles, because you have no heart."

"It wasn't me," said Dipper.

"What do you mean?" asked Mabel.

"That wasn't how it happened, for me," said Dipper. "Yes, I went ahead in time one day to check on you. There was nobody at the totem pole. In the distance I heard you laughing; I'm sure it was you. I knew you were all right, so I went back to Wendy. Soon after that, Blar-Blar came and took back the time machine, so I never went ahead again."

"I haven't been laughing," said Mabel. "Not once since that day."

"You would have, if I had fixed things like you wanted. It's a time paradox. Tell me, if I had fixed it so you won Waddles, would you have remembered to come to the totem pole and pose for me as if you hadn't?"

"Of course not. I wouldn't have needed to, if I had Waddles."

"That would mess things up. If I didn't see you, I wouldn't fix anything. Then I would see you, and I would. It's a crazy loop that would mess up time. Let me do the math."

Dipper scribbled some calculations on a page in Journal 3. "I've got it. Time must have branched. In one branch you got Waddles, and that's the branch I saw when I looked ahead. In the other branch, this one, you didn't get Waddles so you acted out the head-bumping scenes which the other me saw."

"So there's another me out there, in another dimension, who won Waddles and has been having fun with him all this time?" asked Mabel. "And she messed everything up for me by forgetting to guilt-trip you?"

"That's about right," said Dipper.

"Blargh! That silly, carefree, pig-winning girl! I wish I could jump over to that other dimension, kill her, and take Waddles back for myself."

"You're not capable of murder, especially not of yourself," said Dipper.

"I guess not," said Mabel. "But I wish..."

Wendy came into the room. "Hey dudes, what's up? I heard shouting up here. Are you guys having a fight?"

"Wendy, I'll tell you the whole story and you decide if Dipper did the right thing or not," said Mabel.

After a long, convoluted explanation with lots of questions from Wendy, she finally got the picture.

"So, you're saying that in a lot of time-lines I got hit in the eye with a ball, but Dipper found a way so I didn't, and so he could win my platypus-duck for me. But you think he should have let me get hurt, so you could win a pet pig?" asked Wendy.

"Yeah, that's it," said Mabel.

"I think it was sweet of Dipper to do that for me," said Wendy.

"Yeah, but..." said Mabel.

"And it was selfish of you to demand that he let me get hit with a baseball and get a black eye, just to satisfy your whim to have a pet."

"But..." said Mabel again.

"How could you keep a pig, anyway? What would you do at the end of the summer?"

"I don't know. I hadn't thought ahead that far," said Mabel.

"Do you ever?" asked Dipper.

"But it was all for nothing," said Mabel. "You didn't end up dating."

"Mabel!" said Dipper.

"It's all right. It worked out," said Wendy. "We spent fun times together. I had a chance to talk to you, and we settled on being friends. We would have had to talk about it sooner or later, but who knows how long you would have suffered in silence?"

"Maybe all summer," said Dipper.

"And he didn't save you from dating Robbie," said Mabel.

"I had to find out Robbie was a jerk for myself, Mabel," said Wendy. "I'm my own person and I make my own mistakes."

"That music disk business was pretty bad," said Dipper.

"Yeah, Robbie lied to me, pretended he wrote a song for me when he really ripped it off some other band. I appreciate that you helped me find that out. You were a good friend. You didn't try to take advantage of the situation and try to ask me out or anything."

"We'd already settled that we weren't going to be dating," said Dipper.

"That's all very nice for you, but what about me?" asked Mabel.

"I suggest you move on, maybe find a different pet," said Wendy. "What about that goat that always hangs around here, Gompers? He could use some petting and attention."

"Pacifica's family ate Waddles!" said Mabel. "I can't move on from that."

"I'm sorry, Mabel," said Dipper. "It just wasn't meant to be."

"It was, and there's a world where it happened," said Mabel.

"Maybe, but what can you do about it?" asked Wendy.

"I know what I'm dedicating my life to. Let me see your Journal 3, Dipper. I'm gonna study every bit of it, learn every secret in Gravity Falls. I'll out-Dipper you. I don't care if it takes time travel, magic mirrors, or deals with demons. I'm going to find my way to that other world where Waddles lives," said Mabel.

"Mabel, that isn't you," said Dipper. "You're the fun twin."

"Not any more," said Mabel. "I'm the anti-Mabel, the reverse of Mabel. From now on, call me Lebam."