2

Wendy groaned, she had a splitting headache, and she felt numb all over. At first she didn't know why she was lying on a stone floor, then the previous day came back to her. Oh, god, it wasn't a dream. There was a tiny fire a few feet away, a pile of burnt sticks now. Her neck had a crick in it, and it hurt to turn it and survey the other side of the cave. Where is he? For a moment she had a thought. What if he went to get food and got killed. Or what if he just panicked, and ran off, leaving me behind to die of starvation. No, he wouldn't do that, he's a brave kid. Right?

"Wendy! You're awake!" The redhead turned the other way and saw Dipper standing at the cave's mouth, carrying a bag. She immediately felt awful for assuming the worst of him. He walked over to her, and dropped some berries into her lap. Wendy looked down at them, and then back up at her twelve year old friend. He raised his hands and smiled "Don't worry, they aren't poison." She raised an eyebrow, "And how do you know this?" he shrugged "I ate a few." she sat up straight "You did what!?" he smiled "It's okay, I was just messing around with you. But seriously, those berries are perfectly fine; I researched the local flora when I first got here." She stared back at him with half lidded eyes, "We're in a life and death situation and you choose now to joke around?" he smirked and began rummaging through the bag, "Just eat it." She looked back down at the dark blue berries, and threw one up into her mouth. She shuddered almost immediately at the sour taste, but continued eating, her empty stomach demanding sustenance.

"So I was looking around where the mudslide had landed us, and I found our bag of things." She had finished the berries and was going to get up and look in the bag, but when he turned and saw this he panicked and told her to sit back down. "Dude, what's wrong." then she felt the pain, and hissed as she quickly sat back down. "Your leg, I need to put the splint back on your leg…" She sighed, "Alright let's get this over with." He grabbed the stick and vines and began re-attaching it to her leg. "Why did you take it off in the first place?" The restriction of her movement was making the redhead feel a little ticked off. He looked a little hurt at the anger behind that question, and then he licked his lips and looked back down at his work. "Took it off to check your wound, I wanted to make sure it hadn't gotten worse. And to apply some rainwater I had collected to it, an-and then I was hungry and I had to go get some food for us, I'm s-sorry, I forgot..." He kept stuttering and the annoyance in her face disappeared, she felt even worse for getting angry at him when he had just been trying to help. Unable to see his face because of his cap and the angle of his head, she reached over and lifted Dipper's chin.

He was on the verge of crying. It was like a knife stab to the heart, and she was silent for a moment before she began apologizing. "Dude, I-I'm sorry, okay, I was just blaming you for my bad situation. Are you okay?" He nodded and sniffed, trying to conceal how hurt he had been. It was this exchange which made her realize he had never been angry with her, he had never yelled at her, even when she did stupid things, which she often did, he never blamed her for them. You don't deserve a friend like him, if you think he's betraying you every five seconds. She leaned forward and much to his surprise she hugged him. "It's gonna be okay dude, we're going to make it out of this." He smiled and for a moment everything seemed perfect.

Then Wendy retracted her arms and asked him with a playful smile "We good?" he nodded, looking much more confident and sure of his answer now. He finished the splint before turning and removing something from the bag. "My clothes! But how did you get them clean..." He rubbed the back of his neck, "I found them, and then I cleaned them, and you were still asleep so I hung them up on a low hanging branch to dry." Wendy was shocked at how much work he had put in, the clothes were spotless. "Thank you...this is really something." He laughed nervously "It's nothing really, can't have you walking around in a torn bathing suit now can we?" He meant it as a joke but it almost came out like a question. There was agonizing moment of awkwardness, and then Dipper stood, a blush clearly staining his cheeks, "Better let you get dressed. I'll go look for more berries." She nodded, almost as red faced, "Yeah that sounds...good."

He walked out of the cave a little too quickly, taking a number of deep breaths as soon as he was outside. You got to keep it together, you got to keep it together. Now is not the time to let her find out you still have a crush on her. Then he remembered how it had felt to hug her, how she smelled, and how her smile had made all his worries disappear. He shook himself, and tried to forget it, this made his heart ache however, he wanted so badly to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to her. And you can't do that if you're wasting time worrying about a silly crush, you have to stay focused. He straightened up and walked towards the woods, a determined look on his face.


"Okay, thank you for your time officer." Stan hung up the phone and rubbed his brow, before he looked over at his great niece. She was crawled up on the sofa, a sad look ruling her normally sunny features. Sighing, the old man took a few steps over to her and bent to be at the same level of eye contact, "They didn't find anything at the spring, but they just started looking." She nodded, then she got up and walked slowly out of the room, her pig trailing behind her. Despite it's squeals however, she ignored it. Now Stanford would not call himself an emotional man, but that sight was so disheartening he was forced to sit down and stare glumly at the ceiling. "Oh boy...I better call her parents, this is getting serious."

He got up and walked to the phone, a grimace on his face.


Dipper returned with the berries for dinner and found Wendy searching through the bag and around it, now fully dressed. "Missing something?" She sighed, "My hat. It's not in here." He shrugged, "I guess it was lost in the mudslide." The redhead stared up at him seriously, "You don't understand. Me without that hat, is like, I don't know, Mabel without sweaters or you without the journal." He placed the berries next to the fire pit, and smirked as he responded "That bad, huh?" She nodded, and began checking under the bag. "I don't know, I like it. I think you look pretty with all your hair down." He looked horrified the moment he realized that he said that aloud. She didn't move or speak for a moment, then she got up and turned to him, rubbing her arm instinctively. "So...what can I do to help?" He looked confused, "You should stay here while I-" She raised an eyebrow, "What? Go murder a bear and bring back its meat? Let's not forget who has been out in the wild the longest. Why don't you go get us some water, and I'll collect firewood." He stood up, worry clear on his face. "But your leg!" She puffed a strand of hair out of her face, "Dipper, I understand that you don't want anything bad to happen to me." He looked at the mossy cavern floor, "But I'm not helpless and I am not going to sit around and let you do everything on your own."

"Okay, sorry for being paranoid." He began to walk towards the mouth of the cave, when the object of his affections walked over and turned him so that they made eye contact. "I'm gonna be fine, okay?" He nodded and she smiled when she saw him doing the same. Then the taller of the two began her walk down the mountain, quickly followed by the preteen.


At first Dipper was unsure if he was going in the right direction, he kept looking back down at the map, which was soggy and muddy. Finally, after stumbling around in the woods for what felt like hours, he heard running water and ran to the source of the sound. Only to find that the water was too dirty. The mudslides had brought buckets of clay of and sand into the river, and no amount of boiling would sanitize that water. He groaned and threw the canteen to the ground, before sitting on the bank and staring into the flowing water. All right, you at still have a little rain water left in the other canteen, and if it rains tonight you'll have some for tomorrow, the important thing here, is not to panic. He spotted a pile of sticks several yards away, and ran to them, figuring that the least he could do was help get some kindling. Running his hand over the pile, he discerned that they were fairly dry (most likely sheltered by the umbrella of pine needles above), and the pint sized adventurer began picking up the fallen tree limbs. Then he heard a growl.

Slowly turning his eyes met the burning ferocity of a mountain lion's, and his hands slacked allowing the kindling to hit the wet soil below. The beast stood on the other side of the river, but considering Dipper's past experiences with mountain lions, he knew that it could probably make the leap. It's okay, it's probably more afraid of you then you are of it. The creature hissed and revealed it's collection of razor sharp teeth. The poor human gulped, and took a step backwards, trying to distance himself from the bank. The beast hissed again and it lowered it's head to the ground, it haunches reared up, preparing to leap. Moving as slowly as possible, the terrorfied pre-teen reached down, and picked up several of the fallen sticks. Then he grabbed a sizeable stone and heaved it at the cougar, turning and sprinting off into the forest as the creature was startled by the stone hitting right next to it's tail.

Dipper laughed out loud a the adrenaline rush of his flawless escape hit him, and he bounded over rocks and fallen trees, the cool breeze bringing a smile to his otherwise serious features. Finally returning to the cave, he called out into the dark interior. "Wendy? I didn't find any clean water, but I did get some more firewood. You won't believe what happened-" He glanced around, and realized that his lanky crush had not returned. But it's been so long since we both left, she must be back. He turned back to the forest, and licked his dry lips. She could have gotten lost, or the mountain lion could have gotten her, or-

He tried to ignore the swirl of "what ifs" and ran down the mountain with twice the gusto.


Two hours ago

When she was younger, Wendy had often collected kindling with her brothers, usually in the dead of winter. They would get all their coats and hats on and shuffle out into a blizzard, searching for the dark wood of fallen branches against the immense blanket of white. So despite her injury, the first thirty minutes went by extremely easily, with Wendy strolling between the trees, and picking up the latest stick to catch her eye. Of course half of them were fairly damp, but the redhead knew that she had plenty of time to collect enough, and continued on her way, always keeping the mountain in sight. After about fifty minutes though, the pain started to rear it's ugly head, and the spunky teen winced with every other step she took with her injured left leg. Twenty or so minutes after that, and the pain had become a real monster. She tried to focus on something else, the birds singing, and lumber jack tune her father had taught her, the crunching of pine needles underfoot. Nothing helped.

Finally the pain was agonizing, and she convinced herself that, she just needed to get one last stick. For some reason she felt that before returning to the safety of the cave, this stick was an immediate concern. Perhaps because she desperately wanted to contribute, to be more than a burden. Or maybe it was because she didn't want her nimble friend to do any more work, after all, he must have gotten up at five or six to get everything ready, and had probably not had a good night's rest due to his bed being the stony floor of a cave. So she staggered on, forcing herself to complete this one last, albeit slightly meaningless part of her task. Finally she reached this final piece of kindling, and upon picking it up she turned and half sprinted towards the mountain, unaware of the eyes which followed her.

The pain was different now, it was more searing, and it ran through her faster. Which somehow made it easier to bear, but as the teen ran out of breath and had to come to a stop, the pain caught up with her, and Wendy had to lean against a tree. "Uhhh! Work you stupid goddamn leg!" She was relieved to be able to swear, this situation did not lend itself to any of the kiddy curses that she used around Dipper and Mabel. Gazing up at the grey sky she felt a cold wind hit, and her flannel shirt, already wet from the drizzle, did nothing to keep her warm. The exhausted redhead rolled up her pant leg and inspected her injury, a horrified look came upon her face when she saw how much the bruises had swelled, and how much blood had stained her pant leg. Grabbing a branch not too far above her head, she lifted herself to her feet, her kindling scrunched under her left armpit.

Slipping in the mud at first, she regained her footing, and began to trudge in the direction of the shelter she shared with her young companion. Then she heard a growl from the bushes behind her, and, not knowing or caring what was lurking behind her, the frightened teen leapt back into sprinting. Her boots squelched uncomfortably in the mud, and she discovered that the rain had returned. Perfect, just perfect. She bit her lip to distract from the pain in her leg, but cried out when her right foot tangled with a half buried log, and she fell face forward into the quagmire at her feet. The sticks scattered across the mud, and Wendy groaned. She tried to get to her feet, but the pain in her left leg and in her right ankle was too much and the most she could do was roll over. It's okay, just lie here for a little bit, and let your ankle rest for a little bit. Then she heard the same growl, and slowly rose to see a mountain lion not thirty yards away, licking its chops.

She raised her legs agonizingly slowly and leaped to her feet as the creature charged, then for the third time today, she sprinted through the woods like a flash fire. Seeing a particularly large group of logs ahead she prepared herself for the pain, and leaped over the obstacle, landing right in front of it and crying out as she discovered that her ankle was worse off than she had anticipated, hobbling forward the lanky prey took a quick glance behind to see if the beast had followed her this far, and promptly crashed into someone. Groaning, she sat up in the mud and rubbed her forehead, identifying the person she had collided with being her a quite dazed Dipper Pines.

He shook his head, and smiled when he realized her presence. She was surprised to find him wrapping his arms around her, but returned the affection with a smile. After a moment he let go awkwardly and stood up, the redhead began apologizing as he helped his crush to her feet, "I'm sorry, there was a mountain lion so I dropped most of the sticks back there and-" He shook his head, "I'm just glad you're safe, don't worry, I couldn't find clean water. So we failed together…?" She smirked at his nervous smile and sighed, "Yeah, I guess we did."

They heard a growl coming from nearby, and Dipper looked up nervously "We should probably get back to the cave now; we have a little water and some kindling so we can try again tomorrow." She nodded and took a step but winced visibly, seeing her pain the kindhearted pre-teen ran over to her side and helped support as she walked. She smiled and squeezed his shoulder, as they returned to the cave in comfortable silence.