A/N: So this is based on this post is based on a post in the Transcendence au about looper demons and also on a dream I had one night about Mabel trying to stop Ford from coming through the portal.


It wasn't the completely different sweater that tipped him off. The mud stains hid much of its color and design, anyway. It wasn't her matted hair or the scrapes crossing her arms and face.

It was the screaming.

The moment Ford exited the portal, Mabel let out a scream that cut through the air like a thousand blades. Stan scrambled to his feet, rushing to her side with a breathless, "Mabel, sweetie, what is it? What's wrong?" He wrapped his arms around her, rocking her, holding her together like she was made of broken glass.

Ford glanced from his brother to the two children crowding around him. "Stanley?" He barked. "What's going on? I told you not to-"

Stan lifted his head to face him, yelling, "Not now, Stanford!" It was their first interaction in thirty years.

Soon after, the screams subsided into stuttering sobs, during which a few halting sentences could be made out. "I tried to stop it."

"I'm sure you did, sweetie," Stan assured her, though not sure what she was talking about.

"Every time, I'm always too late. If I can just stop the portal…" Something hard came over her features, something filled with bitterness as she met Stanford's gaze and harshly bit out, "I should have pressed that button."

Shocked by the vitriol he was receiving from a little girl, Ford pulled his hood back and asked, "Stanley, who are these kids? How do they know me?"

"Mabel," Stan said gently, "that's my brother. I don't know where you've heard about him, but he's really not a bad guy."

She tore away from him while he was distracted, hissing, "He takes Dipper away. He makes him hate me."

When Stan tried to get close to her again, she flinched away, so Dipper tried. "Mabel," he reached out to her, feeling encouraged when she didn't back away, then gripped her wrist with the slightest amount of pressure, "I could never hate you. You know that, don't you?"

A new wave of tears gathered under her eyes, falling in a steady stream. "You always say that," she whispered, desperation and a hurt sunk so deep it flowed through her veins making her quiet. "But you always choose him over me."

Dipper shook her head. "Mabel, I want to understand what you're saying, more than anything, but you're not making any sense."

"It doesn't matter, "she said, and the despair in her voice scared him. He'd known her his entire life and he'd never heard her sound so… Sad didn't cover it. She wasn't just sad. Defeated didn't cover it, either. It was like she was at the bottom of the ocean looking up. She was standing right in front of him, so why did he suddenly feel like she was farther away from him than ever? In a move of desperation, he threw his arms around her, feeling the way her long, tangled hair pressed against his skin, and it took so much longer than it should have, longer than it ever did, but he could feel her hand come up to rest on his back.

"Don't go."