"HEY SHOOTING STAR!" Bill shouted. He would have been smiling if he had a mouth. He snapped his fingers and Dipper floated up into the air as Mabel watched in horror. He grabbed Dipper's body with one hand, his head with the other and began pull. Dipper screamed in agony as his head was ripped from his body.

Mabel yelled, "no!" as Bill pulled her over to him and chopped her right hand off.

He pulled Dipper's off too and said, "LOOKS LIKE YOU FINALLY GAVE YOUR BROTHER A HAND! NOW YOU CAN BE TWINS AGAIN! THAT WAS YOUR FAULT, YA' KNOW?" Then he looked at Dipper's decapitated corpse and eye narrowed. His right index finger transformed into a black blade as he chopped Mabel's head off. "GOOD LUCK SLEEPIN' TONIGHT!"

Stan watched Mabel scream in terror as she slept. He'd heard it from his room and had come to check on her. He shook her gently, before she shot up (nearly hitting him in the face).

"Mabel, sweetie," he said calmly. "You okay pumpkin?"

Mabel shook her head. "He killed Dipper…" she mumbled as she gripped her blanket tightly.

Stan didn't need to be told who 'he' was. He knew. "Dipper's fine. He's a tough cookie, if you get what I mean. An' he's with Stanford. Your brother will be fine, he's not dying any time soon, okay?"

"Hmkay." Mabel said. "I wish he could be here. I wish he didn't have to go!"

"He'll be missin' you too sweetie," Stan smiled.

"… I know."

Wendy was standing outside of the crime scene when Stan and Mabel approached. "Hey dudes." She waved hello to them.

"Hey Wendy!" Mabel was clearly back to her usual, optimistic self. "You ready to investigate the house? It's gonna be so fun! I invited Candy and Grenda along to make it a girls and…" she looked at Stan. "A Grunkle and girls adventure bonanza!"

"Yep." Wendy sipped her Pitt Cola as she talked. "So when are they—"

"HELLO!" Grenda yelled as she ran down the street.

"Ahh!" Wendy screamed. "Jesus man, you scared the life outta me."

"Candy falls down now," Candy said as she fell off of the roof into a bush. "With the benefit of hindsight, I say that that was not a good idea."

"How'd you even get up there anyway?" asked Stan.

"I could tell you. But the last person I did tell regretted it."

"… never mind."

"Alright party people, let's go!" Mabel smiled as they walked up to the door.

"Wait!" Candy said. "Look, footprints in the snow!" It was true.

"Wait a second…" Stan rubbed his chin. "Back when Gideon was trying to steal the Shack, I figured out what the sole of his shoes looked like so I could use it as evidence. That's the same print."

"Are you sure?" Wendy asked. "Didn't he turn good?"

"I'm sure. I knew he was playing us!"

"I don't know," Mabel said, her ever-trusting nature coming through as she crossed her arms. "Grenda, Candy, what do you think?"

"MR PINES IS RIGHT. I THINK."

Candy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure. Maybe we should talk to him before running in there with no evidence."

"I agree with Candy," Wendy nodded. "Tell you what, I'll take her to Gideon's house and the rest of you keep looking. Got that?" Wendy had specifically decided to spare Mabel (she had noticed how uncomfortable she was whenever Gideon was around. Which wasn't good since he and Dipper had kinda become friends, bonding over their shared trauma).

Mabel bowed her head as she bit her nails. "Okay," she mumbled. She was still bitter about her brother and former nemesis, mainly because Dipper never talked to her about torture at the hands of Bill. He'd said that she'd 'never understand.' But the worst part was she knew he was right. She got nightmares occasionally but Dipper had them every night. He'd been affected much worse than she had (as was the case with Ford and Stan) and had never once told her what living in Weirdmageddon was like. He hadn't talked to anyone about it. Ford had suspected that he'd blocked the memories out of his mind, but Dipper had denied it, saying that what he saw had been burned into his mind. "We'll keep looking." Mabel said.

Wendy chapped on the Gideon's door with a sour expression on her face. Candy was standing next to her and both Blubs and Durland we're behind her.

Bud Gleeful opened the door with his familiar smile plastered across his face. "Why, Miss Corduroy! You're a friend 'o those there Pines, ain't'cha?" He then looked at Candy. "And who might you be?"

"Candy Chui. I'm a friend of Mabel's."

"Ahhhhh. Well, I see two police officers here so I assume you're here to ask one of us some questions. Li'l Gideon, perhaps?"

Wendy raised her eyebrows in surprise. Bud was smarter than he seemed. Maybe that's where Gideon got it from. "Yes actua—"

Blubs and Durland quickly pushed by her and rushed into the house.

"Wait!" Candy shouted as she ran into the front room to see Gideon once agin in handcuffs.

"Leggo of me!" he shouted desperately. "I haven't done nothin' wrong!"

"Well that's a double negative, which tells me that you did do something wrong," Wendy smirked as she walked in.

"I know that!" Gideon's lip quivered. "Look," he sighed, composing himself. "I deserved it last time, I made my peace wi' that. But I swear, I haven't done anything wrong."

"Well we're gonna have 'ta take you in for questionin' anyway," Blubs said.

Bud looked on and asked, "what's goin' on here? I don't understand."

"A footprint was found in the snow outside Tad Strange's house that matches Gideon's," Candy said.

"Gideon." Bud looked at his son sternly. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do any'pin!"

"We think he killed Tad Strange!" Durland stated bluntly.

Wendy sighed and rubbed her temples.

Mabel held the phone up to her ear and chewed on her nail as she listened to the sound of it ringing.

"Hello?" Dipper's voice was weary and croaking, it was clearly night where he was.

"Hi Dipstick."

"I just got to sleep, why are you calling?"

"… I had a nightmare."

"Aw," Dipper mumbled. "I'm sorry."

"Why do you keep saying 'I'm sorry' to things that aren't your fault?"

"What?" Dipper stalled as he processed the question. "Oh, it's just a reaction." He was silent for a few moments, before he said, "what was it?"

"Bi – he came back. He came back and he killed you and said it was my fault then he killed me!"

"He's dead," Dipper told his sister. "Remember that. Keep telling that to yourself."

"I try but it's just not working!" Mabel screamed, a lone tear running down her face. "I don't know why I'm moaning. You have it so much worse. Are you okay? Did you have any nightmares?" She knew Dipper denied that he had it worse, but it was true. He knew that. Deep down.

"… no," Dipper lied.

"Call me if you do okay? Or even if you didn't… I've been missing you."

Dipper sighed. "I miss you too."

That was the last thing he said before he hung up. Mabel rolled the cord around in her fingers absentmindedly for a few moments, before walking over to Stan's dusty old recliner and sitting down. "Maybe there's something on TV that can cheer me up," she muttered as she turned it on.

"Gravity Falls is buzzing today." Shandra Jimenez said as she held her script. "In the first actual news report since the declaration of World War Three, Tad Strange has bee found dead in his house. Viewer discretion is advised as these images disturb some of you wimps." A few images of Tad's dead body appeared in the background. "The police force have apprehended their primary suspect Gideon Gleeful – local town criminal and former conman – due to footprints matchin' his shoes being found at the scene of the crime. Police officers Daryl Blubs and Edwin Durland have also found a set of fingerprints on the door handle that match Mr Gleeful's."

Mabel sighed. The evidence added up, but she didn't believe it for some reason.

Now she had to figure out why.