12/22/16 EDIT: I've gone through all of the chapters published so far and revised them, tweaking some issues according to your guy's constructive criticism! Thanks so much for your support and for helping me scrape the rust off my creative writing skills. Happy reading!

A/N: Kind of a filler chapter this time, but there's some stuff I really wanted to get out there.

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After that, Mabel's day was good for a while. She finished her portrait of Waddles and Gompers, managing to complete it with a full range of colors and outline it in glitter glue. She enjoyed her day around the house, excitedly dancing with Waddles to the music for at least an hour after completing her art piece, then running down to the kitchen to create a masterpiece of a snack to help her recover from the intense dance party. She explored the refrigerator and the cupboards, pulling out milk, eggs, butter, flour, sugar, sprinkles, and everything necessary for an excellent cupcake lunch. As she searched for food coloring in the very back of the top cabinet, she came across something even better.

"Icing! Yes!" she grinned, tossing the small tub onto the counter before spotting the box of food coloring behind it. "Bonus!" She grabbed that, too, then crouched down from where she was standing on the counter and put her legs behind her to carefully find the floor and climb down.

Once safely on the floor, she dumped all the necessary ingredients into a mixing bowl, creating a sugary pink batter which she then poured into little pastel paper cups and put in the oven. While preparing her decorating station as she waited for the cakes to bake, Mabel looked at the clock, realizing she still had hours left on her own before Stan closed the tours and Dipper came back from his day with Wendy. She plopped down on the floor to think about what she would do for the rest of the day, starting to feel a little uneasy about the long, lonely time that stretched ahead of her. Having the house to herself was fun for a while, but she was quickly running out of things to do. She absentmindedly started turning the eraser over in her hand, biting her lip as she considered her options.

Her train of thought was interrupted when Grunkle Stan entered the kitchen, an eyebrow raised at Mabel's position smack in the middle of the kitchen floor. "I'm not sure how to react to this."

The younger twin giggled, shoving her eraser back into her pocket and hopping up to her feet. "What are you doing here, Grunkle Stan? I thought you were doing a tour."

"It, uh, got cut short," he said vaguely, eyes nervously flickering from Mabel to the window, where he could see a few customers running frantically out the front doors, followed by a group of squirrels that Soos was chasing away, a chair held defiantly over his head as a battle cry ripped from his throat. He snapped his gaze back to Mabel, plastering a grin back over his face. "Anyway! I got a few minutes to spare before the next round of suckers comes around. Whaddaya say to some good ole' quality time with your favorite Grunkle–"

"Stanley." He was interrupted by a six-fingered hand being firmly planted on his shoulder. "We need to talk," Ford said from behind the conman.

"Holy Moses!" Stan jumped, spinning quickly on his heel to face his brother. "Hot Belgian waffles, Ford! You're lucky ya didn't give me a heart attack. I thought you were gonna stay down in that lousy lab of yours all day. What gives?"

Ford narrowed his eyes at his brother, slowly lowering his hand back to his side from where it was floating in the air after Stan tore away from the touch. "I saw your customers leaving on one of my monitors. I decided to take the opportunity to come upstairs while no one was around. We need to talk."

"What in the-" Stan stopped himself short, taking a deep breath in attempt to calm himself down. When he continued, it was with lower voice. "What in the… heck would make ya think this is an good time?" With his eyes, he gestured desperately behind him in attempt to communicate to the author that Mabel was right there.

Ford leaned to the side a bit, peering around his twin to offer Mabel a soft smile and wave his fingers at her. She looked up from twiddling her thumbs, pretending not to listen to her uncles' exchange, and she waved back with a big grin.

A twinge of guilt rose in Ford's stomach that he hadn't noticed his neice there, but he couldn't think about that now. There were more pressing matters at hand. He straightened himself out and returned his attention to his brother. "Regardless." He cleared his throat. "I have something that I need to speak with you about."

Stan sighed. He knew how stubborn his brother could get, and he didn't have the energy in him to fight that stubbornness right now. He glanced over at Mabel to make sure she doing all right. "You gonna be okay if I go talk for a minute with my brother, kid?"

Mabel grinned up at her guardian, nodding enthusiastically. "You can go ahead, Grunkle Stan. I don't want you to be in the kitchen when I get to decorate my cupcakes anyway. It would ruin the surprise."

A wide smile spread across Stan's face to see Mabel acting herself again. He reached out an arm to gently ruffle her hair, admittedly a bit unnerved with her mysterious cupcake plans. "Can't wait, sweetie. Seeya later."

"Okie dokie," Mabel smiled, offering a thumbs up as her uncles left the room.

Stan followed Ford out to the hallway, then leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "Alright, Buttercup," he said dryly. "Your place, or mine?"

Ford rolled his eyes. "None of this house belongs to you," he said under his breath, avoiding eye contact. "Let's go to your room," he decided, feeling protective of his lab and not trusting his twin not to snoop around. He started heading that way immediately, leaving Stan to follow him, arms still crossed.

Once in his room, Stan closed the door behind him and leaned against it, refusing to drop his arms to his sides. "Why didn't you tell me about your encounters with Bill Cipher sooner?" Ford immediately launched into what was on his mind, voice hushed to ensure that their conversation wasn't overheard by anyone.

"Well, shit, Poindexter," Stan replied sarcastically (at least he could curse more freely now that they were away from preteen listeners). "I'm sorry if it wasn't exactly the first thing to cross my mind when I finally saw my brother after being alone for half my life."

"That is not what we are discussing right now," Ford hissed, jabbing a finger in Stan's direction. "Stanley, you need to tell me everything at once. What has he done? How did you manage ward him off? I need to know every detail so that I can decide whether he's an immediate threat to our family-"

"My family," Stan corrected coldly.

Ford scowled at his brother, an inexplicable feeling starting to bubble up in his stomach. It was like pain, guilt, betrayal, but worse. He suppressed the emotion and otherwise ignored the interruption. "...and so that I can decide what to do with Mabel. What we need is-"

Stan widened his eyes, standing up straighter, defensively. "Whaddaya mean, 'what to do with Mabel?'"

Ford raised his voice, infuriated at the incessant interruptions. "Damn it, Stanley! Can't you just let me speak to you for a single minute without interrupting me?!" He let out an exasperated sigh, reaching under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his noise. He managed to hush his voice a little bit before going on, but he continued in the same manic, excitable manner in which he began. "My God, Stan, it's not like I'm going to hurt her. I love her, too, and I don't want her in harm's way any more than you do. And if Bill has been in her head-"

"He was never in her fuckin' head, Stanford!" Stan exploded. "You keep freakin' her out with all your paranoid demon talk, and I won't have it!"

"You're still interrupting me," Ford accused, but Stan completely disregarded the remark, talking right over his brother without slowing down.

"I mean, can't the girl just be havin' a rough time without there bein' some all-powerful mind demon pullin' the strings? Sweet Moses, she's a fuckin' kid, Ford. Besides, if that son of a bitch had entered her head, like he did Dipper's, she sure as hell wouldn't just be mopin' around-"

"What?" For the first time since they'd come in, the room was silent. The author's voice was nearly a whisper, now, like he was hanging onto some shred of hope that if he spoke quietly enough, what Stan was saying wouldn't be true. But his voice was also urgent. It was intensely frantic, desperate for an answer but also afraid to hear what the answer might be. In the single word, he had simultaneously conveyed a world of panic and one of denial. "He… He was in Dipper?"

For once, Stan didn't seem to want to talk. He bit his lip, shoulders slumping. He looked down at his feet. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, he was."

The conman kept looking down, waiting for Ford to say something. After a good minute of silence, he glanced up to see Ford watching him expectantly, terror and frustration clear on his face. "Well? What the hell happened, Stan?"

Stan took a deep breath. This was enough for one day. Even if he wanted to spill everything out before his twin, he wouldn't know what to say. "Listen, Poindexter, I'm not gonna talk to you about this right now. Can we save it for later? I've gotta go back to work, and to be completely honest with ya, I don't know that much about it. It's all between the kids." He waited a beat, then held a warning finger up at his brother, his face serious. "But that doesn't mean ya get to go askin' 'em about it, capiche? At least not now. They're too shaken up."

Ford sighed, profoundly annoyed by his brother's decision to steer the conversation on his own course, and ran an anxious hand through his hair. "Are you sure Dipper is okay?"

"Of course, Poindexter. I'm takin' care of him, " he said firmly. He was regarding Ford with an expression that... Well, if Ford didn't know any better, he would say Stan looked hurt. He looked defensive, as if Ford had been accusing him of being an unworthy guardian.

"Now, Stan, you know that I didn't mean to-"

Stan waved a hand dismissively, not interested in anything Ford had to say. "Hurry and get back to whatever you're tinkerin' with in the lab. Before I start lettin' customers in again." They couldn't have anyone see Ford slip behind the vending machine, that was for sure.

The researcher widened his eyes. He hadn't realized that when Stan terminated the conversation about Dipper, he intended to terminate their meeting as a whole. "I'm not finished with this conversation, Stanley," Ford objected, following the businessman as he started to leave the room.

"I am," Stan said decisively, heading through the hall with determination.

Ford opened his mouth to raise an argument, but before he could get any words out, Mabel appeared before the both of them, holding out a plate which held two cupcakes. "I'm done!" she declared. Pink and yellow frosting was smeared across her nose, and her sweater had been showered in a healthy coat of sprinkles.

Both desserts were in pink cupcake liners and were smothered with far too much icing. The sweet on the left had a big red-icing fez drawn on it with a yellow half moon, while the one on the right yielded a yellow illustration of a six-fingered hand. Each cake had been personally drowned in its own generous helping of pink and blue crystal sprinkles. She grinned up at them expectantly, proud of her work. "Betcha can't guess which one's yours, Great Uncle Ford," she said slyly.

A warm smile lit up Ford's face. He got down to Mabel's level and tapped a finger on his chin, pretending to consider. "Hmm..." He reached out to the cupcake with the hand, picking it up gingerly. "This one?"

"Yep!" Mabel confirmed.

"Well, Mabel, the craftsmanship is superb. Did you even add sprinkles to the batter? Thats ingenius," he mused, peeling away the paper to observe the colorful cupcake. Mabel thanked him whole-heartedly before turning the plate to Grunkle Stan to let him take his.

"Oi, kid, talk about heartburn." Stan wrinkled his nose. Mabel frowned, looking down at the floor. "But!" he went on, a certain cheer in his voice. "It'll be more than worth it." He patted his great niece on the head before swiping the cupcake from the plate and taking a big bite.

Mabel looked up at him with a hopeful grin, holding the now-empty plate to her chest. "Is it good?"

"The best!" Grunkle Stan promised through a full mouth.

The girl squealed excitedly, then looked expectantly up at her Great Uncle Ford, who had risen from his kneeling position, still holding the cupcake with careful hands. "I think I'll take this downstairs with me and eat it when I need a pick-me-up. It's too pretty to eat right away."

Mabel nodded in understanding. "I did work really hard on it."

Ford laughed softly. "I can tell." He booped her nose, wiping off some of the icing. "I'll see you later, dear," he told her before leaving to the gift shop to descend into his lab.

"Nerd doesn't know what he's missin'," Grunkle Stan winked, already through with his treat. He licked the icing off of his fingers before walking back out to the shop.

Mabel looked down at herself, almost nervous now that both her uncles were gone again. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be alone anymore.

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