Any minute now, Mabel Gleeful thought, tapping her manicured fingernails on the white tablecloth in front of her. Several other tables were scattered across the striped floor of the restaurant. She was the only one there under eighteen (or forty, for that matter), and the lack of presence of a certain boy was making her anxious.

Ugh, where is he? Frankly, Gideon's tardiness was bothering her. She made such an effort to set up everything for him, all he had to do was show up!

The girl had to, once again, suppress a surge of anger-fueled energy from escaping her fingertips. Keep it in, shut yourself out, stay in control...her brother's words ran through her head. Just another thing to add to the list of what was bothering her then. Why does he have to be so stuffed in all the time? He only cares about getting what he wants...

Mabel stopped the motion of her hands, due to something her brother had said coming to the foreground of her mind. It must have been from the previous night, when she was barely stirring on the ground...

I'm doing this to protect you.

Dipper must have thought she couldn't have heard him saying that. It probably would have been better had she not. His claim prodded something deep inside the pent-up emotions that Mabel always struggled to conceal.

Somewhere in there was a memory of them as children, just after they had found that book that Dipper was so fond of...Mabel never knew what to call that thing. It didn't really have a title, just a hand with the number 2 engraved on it. The idea of having a book called 2 always was peculiar to Mabel, but Dipper was just bent on finding the book titled 1. When he found that book, and created the amulets for them, something was beginning to spark, and the eccentric nature of the magic that the girl was given…

"Just another minute, sister," the boy proclaimed, proudly glancing at his work.

"Why'dya have to take so long making mine?" A little girl sat on a chair behind him, craning her neck to get a better view. "You got yours done in, like, two seconds!"

The boy paused, trying to find a way to explain his reasons without setting his sister off. "...the materials were running low and impossible to duplicate exactly, so I had to come up with a substitute…it might be a little harder to control, but I'm sure it won't be a problem…" He laughed nervously.

"Let me see it!" Seven year old Mabel's hands pried for the blue stone, which her brother held back.

"Mabel, I don't want you getting hurt…" Dipper slowly and carefully dropped the object into his, admittedly older, sister's eager hands. She quickly fastened it to her headband, grinning at the outcome.

The little girl struggled at first, but managed to lift a nearby book off of the table and bring it into her brother's palms. She then levitated a pen and, in messy handwriting, scribbled I TOLD YOU SO on the blank sheet.

The boy gave a small laugh, to which Mabel responded, "I know what you're thinking. You're real proud of me!"

"You can't read my mind or anything…" He crossed his arms, not admitting that he was actually extremely proud of his sister. "The amulet doesn't give you THAT power."

"Yeah I can read minds! Just 'cause it's something I can do." She laughed. Then she settled down into a more gratitude-filled smile. "Thanks for making me this. Love you, little bro."

That was one of the last hugs that would occur between the two...they didn't know it, but they had just singlehandedly changed things for the worse.

Mabel pushed back the crystalline tears that pricked the back of her eyes, overcome with the memory. It felt like she was living that part of her life out again, back when she had a healthy relationship with somebody, ANYBODY. Back when neither of them were constantly fueled by destruction, craving power, needing to grow stronger...when she wasn't worried that she was the lesser, all the time...She pulled one of the large menus that a waitress had set on the table in front of her eyes, so that nobody could see if they managed to spill out.

Her quick thinking had saved her, because just a moment later they did, and she bit down on her lip to stop any unattractive sobbing noises from escaping.

Why does my life have to be so hard...it's not fair!

"Uhm...excuse me?" A voice right in front of Mabel snapped her back into reality. She wiped the tears from her eyes, praying that her makeup wasn't smeared or her eyes bloodshot, and plastered on a fake, wide grin before lowering the menu onto the table.

Pacifica stood behind the other chair, smiling uncomfortably with her hands in the neon green patch pockets of her bright pink nylon jacket.

"Pacifica Northwest!" Mabel explained, forcing a happy tone into her voice. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I'm, you know, good…" The blonde girl twirled her hair around one of her fingers nervously. Mabel wondered what she was there for, but decided to use Paz's appearance to her advantage.

"You wouldn't happen to know what Gideon is up to, would you? We had something arranged for tonight, and it just baffles me that he hasn't shown!"

"About that…" Pacifica began quietly, before remembering why she was there. She cleared her throat and straightened up, her face becoming serious and determined.

Mabel looked at her eagerly.

"Gideon, uh...he's, um, not coming, he…" Pacifica awkwardly laughed, scratching the back of her head. "...doesn't really want to...see you anymore! He's...not really into you..."

Snap.

The brunette kept her face calm, but on the inside, she was burning up.

That was it. That was the final straw.

"Oh, is he?" Mabel faked a nonchalant tone. "So you're saying that you've.." Despite her attempt to stay smiling, her eye twitched and her grin faltered for the quickest split second. She prayed that Pacifica didn't notice, and finished with, "come between us?"

"Please don't be offended, he really doesn't want to hurt you!" Paz waved her hands in front of her, as if to say 'don't freak out!'

The psychic brushed it off her shoulder, and with a gleeful (no pun intended) giggle, said, "Oh, of course I'm not offended! Bygones are bygones, and all."

A confused look crossed Pacifica's face. "Really? You're not going to...freak out, or something?"

"No, no," Mabel distractedly twirled a fork around the table, as if she were barely paying attention. "These things happen. Now, you can be on your way. Thank you kindly for dropping by."

"Yeah, sure!" Pacifica sighed in relief, walking backwards towards the exit. "Well, sorry about the break up, but, uh...thumbs up, right?"

The last thing Mabel heard before the blonde girl disappeared from sight was the nervous laughter coming from her.

"Thumbs us, indeed," The psychic whispered, a sinister tone in her voice. With all of the strength she had, the bent her fork in half.

"Pacifica, you just made the biggest mistake of your life!"

Gideon Pines POV

I had been watching the whole time that Pacifica was in the club. Even though Mabel seemed to take it surprisingly well, I'm still nervous about what happened.

"How'd it go?" I ask when my cousin finally walks out. "Did she try to...hurt you, or something?"

"No, everything's fine," She dismisses it with a shake of her hand. "You're just being paranoid."

"...I guess." We walk down the path towards our bikes. "Let's head home."

"Nah, we should pick up some ice cream or something," Paz decides. "Stephanie is out, again. We can watch old movies all night!"

That sounds like a good plan to me. I nod in agreement and we begin the ride home. Everything is back to normal again, and everything is going to be okay.

Oh hey, hi! So my quick little announcement is that next week's chapter might be a liiiitle late. I got a new laptop for Christmas, which is like YAY! because now I can write on it for hours and not have any siblings complaining that I'm hogging the computer. Buuuut I haven't gotten Microsoft Word on it yet, and my story plan for this was in there, so I have to wait to see what I was going to have next chapter be about, because believe me, it gets even more intense FAST. So apologies in advance if it turns out like that.