Preston was undergoing a bit of a crisis about his decision. He was several hundred feet up in front of a defective locomotive. Not a situation he ever thought he'd find himself in, really.

"Hurry it up!" Priscilla said, impatiently, as Preston continued gingerly stepping along the bridge. "So long as you stay away from the edges, you'll be fine!"

Preston was tempted to tell his wife quite what he thought of that request as he continued taking step after step, all too aware that the town was so far down that the buildings looked like kitschy little common folk sculptures.

His somewhat over-conditioned, greying hair was caught by the breeze as he took a deep breath and prepared to climb onto the engine. He was just raising his foot over the dented cowcatcher when-

"Now, hey there fella. Y'all wanna put that foot down and come talk for a minute?" Bud asked, standing ahead of Priscilla. His generous silhouette all but filled the tunnel portal.

"Stay out of this, Gleeful!" Preston snapped back.

"Now, Preston, we jus' wanna talk." Bud replied, stepping out onto the track. If such a round man could square his shoulders, Bud most certainly was.

"Yeaaah, just a friendly woooord between frieeeends!" Susan added, the amiable woman providing an impressive level of menace with her unusually sarcastic tonel. "After all, Preston, this is my great-gran'pappy's bridge, our families worked together, nooo…?"

A shot of what could only be called guilt went up Preston's spine. Not something he was used to. Did Susan Wentworth know? Surely Pacifica had kept quiet. For her family's sake. No, he couldn't believe it. The idea that -disarm them, Preston. Arm your charm. You are, above all else, a master of diplomacy.

He turned back to Susan with a smile almost as artificial as his wife's face. "Well, I suppose I can at least grant the Wentworth family my attention-"

"Well, you just get those shoes off of the locomotive and we'll taaalk!" Susan replied.

Preston paused, his mind snapping back to its most comfortable state. That being arrogance. "Why should I?"

After all; Susan and Bud were just two people. Two people who weren't even rich. They thought they could stop him? Really? Them and whose army?

He got his answer as Manly Dan lumbered onto the scene like an angry gorilla, flanked by his two oldest sons. Robbie, Tambry, Thompson, Nate and Lee arrived with baseball bats. Toby Determined was wearing a cape for reasons nobody seemed able to summon.

"Because if you don't, we might have to get a little physical," Susan said, her familiar drawl suddenly tightening, as did the grip on the Grade 5 cast iron skillet in her hand.

Mabel and Dipper watched with quiet, but unbending interest. Just as Dipper was about to ask if she was okay, Pacifica snorted through her nose angrily at the entire scene.

It made Mabel and Candy giggle, but Dipper knew that an angry Pacifica was a beast to be reckoned with. Not that he'd ever dare call her a beast, naturally.

She looked up at the locomotive's cab awning and lowered her eyebrows. "Ford, can you give me a leg up?"

The ageing researcher blinked. "Eh?"

"Just do it. Please." She said, flatly. "I need to tell my Mom and Dad how I feel."

Dipper raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

"Seems like the message doesn't stick, Dip."

"D-don't fall!" He stammered. "Be careful!"

She grinned and kissed her boyfriend's blackened cheek. "Don't worry. I've got this."

Ford handed her the magnet gun for insurance as she clambered up onto the locomotive's cab clumsily and scrambled to her feet. It occurred to her that she'd just put another fifteen feet between her and the ground, which did little to calm her nerves. But desperate times…

While the Northwest heir was planning an intervention of her own, Preston and the townspeople were growing increasingly tense. Voices were beginning to raise, Preston stubbornly gripping the engine and barking at them like a pompous bipedal rottweiler.

"What does this have to do with you?! She's my daughter!"

Susan furrowed her brow. "Not your property! She's happy!"

"Happy? Happy?!" Priscilla interjected, shoving past the group. "She's covered in filth, she's stranded on a railroad bridge and her eyeshadow is ruined!"

"Yes, mom. I amhappy." Pacifica snapped, from a new vantage point. The townspeople looked up and gasped at the sight of the teenager standing atop the cab roof, her feet squared on the bolted cast iron - a gentle breeze lifting her mane of hair as she stood with impressive authority.

"Pacificaaaa! Be careful, sweetie!" Susan said in a panic, gripping her skillet. "D-do you need help? Are you stuck?!"

The Northwest heir smiled at her boss's good-natured concern and waved her down. "Hey, hey! Calm down! I got this, Susan. No worries."

Her father seemed far less concerned. His eyes pierced her like steak knives. "Get down from there this instant." he snarled.

"You're making a scene!" Priscilla hissed. "Everyone can see you!"

"Then maybe you'll both listen to it, mom! I'm sick of this crap!"

The two Northwest elders gasped. That was a lot of lip from Pacifica. How far she'd fallen!

"Don't make me-"

"What? Do what, Dad?" She snapped back, grabbing the thick twine that led to the locomotive's shining, brass bell. "Ring a crappy little bell? Like this?"

CLANG-A-LANG-A-LANG

"Earth to Dad! Planet Pacifica to Mom! I am not going to listen to you anymore! You told me you'd dropped this. You told me you were going to let me live my new life."

"Pacifica, we were told you wouldn't go looking for trouble! That you'd be looked after!" Preston snapped, before leaning in somewhat gingerly and shielding his mouth. " And now you're acting like this in front of everyone! "

"That everyone is my family, Dad. That everyone is my friends, my family and the people who have been there for me when you haven't. And the Pines are who I love! I'm filthy, I'm burnt, I broke at least three nails and I'm pretty sure I have a minor concussion, but you know what? You know what?I would still take this over going back to being a Northwest!"

"You're delusional!"

"No Dad, you are. I know everything about our family and I hate it. I trusted you - I trusted you to stay away, but the moment we're in the public eye, you try to freakin' control me?!"

"You aren't safe!"

" Please." Pacifica spat back. "With everything we know about you? About the Northwests? You aren't safe."

"Pacifica!" He yelled now, furiously. His hair had slipped out of shape over a sweaty, red-faced brow. " Enough !"

"This is the third time I've had to tell you, Dad. It is enough. I just helped save this town from a rail crash. That is literally the opposite of what our family has done." She scoffed for a second as she took in the irony, before turning back with an accusatory finger towards her dad. "Isn't that funny? We just stopped a repeat of one of the worst things our family ever did, and I did it without being worried about getting my hands dirty. And you? You stand here, in a spotless suit, pretending I did wrong? You didn't even go to that college! They found you too obnoxious!"

Preston's face had gone a funny shade of purple. His fists were clenched. He made odd sputtering sounds as he tried to articulate a response.

Pacifica felt like she was going into an adrenaline overload. As terrified as she was - as unnatural this kind of thing still felt, even after the scene earlier that summer, it felt damned good. She felt confident. After everything - after everything they had seen, it felt more enforced than ever.

Train crashes.

Sunk ships.

Curses.

Secret chapels.

The Crawlspace.

Cankerblight.

Conspiracies.

Fraud.

The more she had learnt about her family this Summer, the more she felt sick. She didn't think her father was heartless - not a bit of it - but to tout their heritage as something to be proud of? To still clamour to the idea of being a Northwest? To intrude on her new life as if they could offer anything better?

That angered her. And it was fairly clear it angered the town. She bet Grunkle Stan would be livid if he wasn't stuck on the other side of a particularly bizarre railroad cavalcade. Almost definitely sleeping.

All the same - she took a deep breath and decided to drop some of her venom. "Just… Dad, please. Please just stay away from me. Just quit it."

"Pacifica." Preston finally said, his tone softening. "I'm just concerned-"

"If you genuinely cared, you wouldn't showboat. You'd talk to my new family."

"If I didn't care, I wouldn't climb up here and-"

"Dad, look around. Look at everyone who's climbed up here."

Preston blinked and frowned as he looked at the crowd of kids in the locomotive cab - looked at the crowd of townspeople behind him. It was a hard point to refute. A shallow wind whistled through the locomotive's frames as the locals glared at him, furiously.

As did his daughter.

His moustache bristled furiously. "I shan't tell you again. Come home."

"Good to see you, Dad." She said, practically spitting every syllable before climbing back down into the cab. "Maybe we'll do it again before the end of Summer."

"Fine. But I shan't help you out of this situation, Pacifica. Mark my words! This is it!"

Dan - with Marcus alongside him, and Kevin on his shoulder - lifted the Northwest patriarch and wordlessly carried him out of the way before trudging towards the dented, tired-looking locomotive.

"Omigosh, Kevin!" Mabel chirped, leaning almost fearlessly from the engine's cab. "Hi!"

Kevin beamed as he clambered onto the engine and shimmied his way towards her. "Hey, Mabel! You okay?"

The bruised brunette had a wide smile on her face. She seemed ready to climb out of the engine just to grab her boyfriend. "Better for seeing you!"

"Hope Ford doesn't mind me turning up, but-"

"If you have any kind of plan, Kevin, you've got me beaten," Ford called out.

The middle Corduroy son gave his characteristic, gap-toothed smile and nodded to his Dad - who, with Marcus alongside him, began to push.

Number 4.5, groaning, began to move, inch by inch, away from the bridge's centre - led by the battered pickup truck. It was no mean feat - the Corduroys grunted and growled as they struggled to heave the thing away.

One by one, so did everybody from the crowd. Lazy Susan pushed with a grunt. Bud wiped his brow, digging his heeled cowboy boots into the track deck as he shoved with all of his might. Tad snorted. Toby made a bizarre sound, not unlike a mountain lion.

And, with a roll of his eyes - and a furious grimace - Preston joined in, too.

Then - perhaps even more surprising - Priscilla followed his lead, with little care for her $170-per-finger manicure.

The bizarre cavalcade began rumbling away - and, for at least a moment, the passengers in the cab breathed a sigh of relief.

Dipper smiled and wrapped his arm around Pacifica's waist. "You did good."

"We're all doing pretty great today." She smiled, laying her soot-covered cheek on his singed shoulder.