Wendy was always worried by the study. A small room in the corner of her house that she rarely ever entered except to look for Dipper. She had hoped that as their married life took hold he would have little need for it. But things had changed as they grew up. Their problems went from the weird to the dangerous, new faces went from acquaintances to friends to bodies in what felt like months sometimes days and Dipper's study had become a mausoleum to all of them. Dipper had taken to placing monuments to his fallen comrades, a ring from a strange woman who had helped them with a few cases before running afoul of an extra-dimensional greed demon. The greed if you were to believe it's boasting. But there, hanging above his desk was the testament to his failures, a single six fingered stone hand. As if his family hadn't payed enough of a price to that despicable yellow triangle in his last attempt to return Ford had made another sacrifice. Sat beneath this was her husband, his head buried in his arms slumped over his desk. Wendy understood that he must still be pretty shook by today's events despite their lack of severity.
A routine job herd a group of young manotaurs through the woods and back towards their cave. But Dipper had gotten distracted, and a young boy had almost been trampled before he had managed to take note of the situation and carry him to safety. A relatively harmless mistake but it had shook her husband significantly more than expected. Wendy reached forward and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"He nearly died, a kid nearly died. Because I wasn't paying attention, Ford wouldn't have let this happen, but I did." his voice was raspy and emotional like the sound a dog might make after spending a night in the cold. As he spoke Wendy understood, no matter what he did, Dipper could never live up to Fords brilliance and he couldn't forgive himself for it, despite her assurances and his Gruncle's Dipper's crippling inadequacies never went away.
She reached forward and gently lifted his head to face her. "Dipper you need to understand, you are not your Gruncle, you are your own man, not the mistakes you've made." She kissed his forehead before reaching into her pocket pulling out a small hand drawn card.
A crude stick figure drawing of Dipper staring down some even worse looking Manator's with thank you written above it in rough, childish handwriting. Placing it down in front of her husband she whispered "a kid left this an hour ago along with a collection of flowers, seemed he was incredibly grateful for what you did." A small smile graced her husband's lips and she knew that he might just be starting to look on the brighter side.