The kids went back to bed, filled with dread of the consequences of their heartbreaking decision. Dipper tried to comfort his sister by allowing her to sleep in his bed beside him. She didn't want to sleep in her own bed tonight anyways.

She had been having trouble sleeping on her own even before tonight. Mabel was laying in her bed, and an intruder snuck into her room and tried to rape her. He had threatened to kill Stan if Mabel refused him, and for that reason, Mabel was going to let herself be raped to protect him.

Now, once again, she was laying in her bed, once more feeling scared and helpless, once more accepting torture to save someone she loved, once more fearing what was coming next. At least she was able to take some small comfort in the fact that she was not suffering alone this time.

Stan and Ford offered to sleep with her to calm her nerves. She insisted she would be fine without them since Dipper would be in the room with her. If she was honest with herself, she wanted nothing more than to have her entire family with her right now. But she was too ashamed to ask, already humiliated at what happened at dinner.

She soon learned that she didn't even need to ask her Grunkles for their comfort; they already knew exactly what she needed without words.

Her uncles would come in to check on her intermediately throughout the night. She pretended to be asleep every time, but she could hear them. At first, they just peeked in on the children from the door. Soon, they came over to stand by Dipper's bed looking down at them. A few times, they tucked the blanket around them.

Most of the night, they would run their fingers through her hair. It was a soothing gesture. They often did it when she had panic attacks. She also remembered them doing it a lot when she was recovering in the hospital too. She would wake up in pain. Her medication made her incoherent, confused, and scared. Then, she would feel a hand in her hair and a soft voice reminding her she was loved and not alone. That soothed her more than any amount of medication.

But this felt different than before. With each stroke of her hair, she felt a sense of mourning. It was like petting a dog being put down. You pet the dog, so the dog doesn't see the lethal needle being put into their skin, and so they don't feel scared as they slip away.

The gesture didn't erase Mabel's fear as each stroke drove a needle of pain deeper into her heart. At several points, she would have to hold in sobs and skew her eyes tightly shut to conceal tears. She pretended to roll on her stomach to bury her face in her pillow to conceal her secret tears.

Despite the woeful circumstances, Mabel tried to take her mind off the misery by making a game of it. She would tally how many times each Grunkle came to see her. It was an easy game. All she had to do was feel for five or six fingers. She lost count eventually, because no sooner would one leave the room than the other would come in, ensuring that she and Dipper were hardly alone at all that seemingly endless night.

Even though she told them she would be fine, here they were still protecting her. They were right by her side if she needed them. These two old men who had no responsibility to her loved her like they were her fathers. They had tried to become her fathers in the eyes of the law. Even though the dream of being their daughter was crushed, they would always be her fathers in her heart. Now, she must protect them like they've protected her.