Sorry (not sorry) about that cliffhanger! Let's skip all the intro stuff, and just get into it, huh?
"Dipper!"
Mabel unbuckled her seatbelt, her heart and mind racing. Her first instinct was to her brother, to see if he was okay, but she quickly suppressed that desire. She couldn't do much to help him; he needed a professional. Mabel jumped from her seat, crossing the aisle to her parents seats.
"Mom! Dad!" She could feel other passengers eyes turn to her, but she didn't care.
Mr. Pines looked up from his laptop, prepared to give his daughter another talking to about noise- then he saw her face. Pale and clearly panicked, her eyes wide and shining with tears.
"Mabel? Wha-"
"Dipper! He… he just collapsed! I don't kn-"
The father didn't let her finish. He quickly shook his napping wife awake, simultaneously yelling for a medic and pulling off his seatbelt. "Anyone? Is anyone here a doctor?" He knelt down beside his son, feeling his wrist for a pulse. It was there, thank everything, it was there.
By now, one of the flight attendants was beside them, the other one trying to calm the frightened passengers down.
"Doctor! I need a doctor!" Mr. Pines yelled again, his mind only able to focus on the unconscious form of his boy.
"I am a doctor!" A man with brown-gray hair stood up from one of the rows in the back of the cabin, swiftly moving toward the family. "Please, move back."
"No!"
Mabel wondered who had said that, until she realized it was her voice. "No, I can't leave him!"
"Mabel, he needs space-" Mrs. Pines pulled on her daughter's arm, but Mabel shook her away.
"I can't leave him! He's my twin brother! I- I…" Mabel took a shuddering breath, tears now pouring from her eyes.
"Sweetie, I know you're scared, but you need to let him see your brother." The flight attendant set her hand on Mabel's shoulder. "We don't know what's wrong with him and it could be serious."
Mabel swallowed the lump in her throat, nodding. She felt her father's arms wrap around her and lift her up, but she never let her eyes leave Dipper. The doctor moved closer to him, soon blocking him from her sight.
"Mabel?"
The girl jumped, looking over at her mother.
"What happened?" Mrs. Pines blinked, a few tears escaping her as well.
"I… I don't kn…" Mabel drifted off. She could feel something. Almost like… a burning sensation on her side.
Her side.
Her mind flashed back to when she'd elbowed Dipper, and he'd recoiled in pain.
It was something to do with his side.
"His side." She whispered.
"What? Mabel?"
Mabel turned back to her parents. "Tell the doctor to check his side!" The parents exchanged glances for a moment before Mr. Pines nodded and moved back to where the doctor was looking at Dipper.
"My daughter said to look at his side." He told the man. "She was sitting with him, so she's probably right."
The doctor nodded and rolled up the boy's shirt. The Pines family watched on bated breath, only for the doctor's face to turn worried. He turned back to them and said sternly, "I think I know what it is. We need the flight attendant. Now!"
"What? What's wrong with him?" Mrs. Pines cried.
"I think it's his appendix. How old is he?"
"E-eleven."
"That's when it becomes more common…" the doctor pushed past the family, hurrying to the attendant. "We need to get this child to a hospital immediately," the man told her. "He needs surgery as soon as possible."
Mr. Pines looked at his wife, his face frozen with shock. She looked back, her heart feeling like it had stopped.
All the while, Mabel's eyes never left her brother.
And it is revealed! I actually spent quite a while researching appendicitis to try and get all the symptoms and experience correct. Hopefully it shows!
What will the pilots do? How will we get Dipper to the hospital? Find out next time!
