start here
Mabel is over the moon.
Dipper and Pacifica! Together at last! Sitting on the couch, side by side, hand in ha— well, okay, they aren't holding hands right now, but that's just because Mom and Dad are there. Close enough! Her brother has found love, sort of, even if he won't admit it. Violins will play and rose petals will gently rain down and Mabel will be a bridesmaid and she will catch that bouquet, so the other ladies better step off! She might have to wait awhile, though. Maybe Dipper and Pacifica won't be slow and boring about it and just get married after high school. That's only four more years, just about! That's not so bad.
Yes, Mabel's trusty twin has finally found romance, and… and… and it's kind of hard to wax poetic when Mom and Dad are laying out some ground rules and the moment is so laden with parental-imposed awkwardness that even Mabel is feeling it, and she's not on the receiving end. Dipper's head is in his hands and his cheeks are so red he looks like he's about to pass out from heatstroke. Pacifica is sitting ramrod straight on the couch with her hands clasped in front of her, her face tinged pink.
"—keep the doors open, and I mean it. Or there won't be any privileges. Understood?" Mom is saying.
"Tell me this isn't happening," Dipper groans.
"Dipper?" Dad presses him.
"Yes! Yes, okay, I get it!" Dipper frantically concedes. "We're not—…"
"No one is saying you are. But there are going to be some rules anyway, and we need you to follow them," Dad says firmly.
"I understand, Mr. Pines," Pacifica says.
Dipper just rubs his eyes aggressively; like if he does it hard enough, he'll be somewhere else when he opens them.
"Also, bedtime means bedtime. You can say goodnight, but I want you both to be in your own rooms after ten thirty, and you need to stay there," Mom continues.
Pacifica nods. Dipper hunches his shoulders and tries to disappear.
"Dipper?" Dad prompts him yet again.
"Okay. Bedtime. Yep," Dipper says.
"I suggest you take this seriously," Mom warns.
Mabel is stuck at a halfway point between enjoying Dipper's torment—because, face it, it's pretty funny—and being empathetic enough to find it almost as uncomfortable as he is. She's leaning towards empathy, though, if only because here he is taking all the flak for Pacifica and it's not like it's entirely his doing that she's moving in. Mabel has a big hand in all this. But now that Dipper (probably) has a girlfriend (hooray!) he's getting all the Talks at once: The Girlfriend Rules, The Friend Staying Over Rules, and The You Drove to Malibu On A Moment's Notice and Then Asked If Your Friend Could Live Here Rules, two of which don't have any precedent. Mabel, meanwhile, stands on the sidelines even though Pacifica is her friend too. Two out of three of those Talks also apply to her!
Maybe she should do something? Speak up on Dipper's behalf, take some of the heat? Of course, most of the heat is on the 'girlfriend' side of things, which Mabel can't do anything about (not that she would even if she could because it's LOVE).
She makes an attempt at distraction. "But Pacifica can still sleepover in my room, right?" she asks her parents, drawing their attention.
"Maybe on weekends, sometimes," Mom allows. "We'll talk about it. Now, we just want you two to be clear on all of this," she says, going right back to Dipper and Pacifica.
Sorry, Dipper. She tried.
As if to underscore how momentous this occasion has been, it's a Monday. Normally a day anything but momentous, true, but the twins didn't have to go to school! That hadn't been an intentional side-effect of Pacifica's arrival; still, it's like she's already repaying the kindness she's been shown. No school on a Monday, courtesy of a Pacifica-impelled 'family emergency.' If it hadn't already happened, Mabel would have suggested it. She wouldn't have wanted Pacifica to be alone for most of her first real day in her new home. And she is also all about three-day weekends, so bonus.
Mabel sticks it out in the living room until Mom and Dad finally decide that Dipper and Pacifica have treated the rules with appropriate gravitas. Dipper flees the room like a dog let off a leash and Pacifica goes to the kitchen so Mom can show her where all the food is. Mabel follows Dipper up the stairs to his room where he flops backwards onto his bed and pulls the bill of his cap down over his face.
"Can you believe them?" he says. "We're not even like that, they're just embarrassing us for nothing!"
Mabel generally tries to be a supportive sister, but she won't support this delusion. "Bro, you must be an Egyptian sailor because you are swimming in denial!"
"Ugggghhh…" Dipper groans. "You can't stay in my room if you're going to make puns like that."
"You can't stop these truth bombs!" Mabel runs forward and begins rapidly poking him in the stomach, blowing raspberries with each jab.
Dipper quickly curls into a protective ball. "Agh— a-ha ha ha— stop it. Mabel!"
"Just admit it now and save yourself! You love her!" Mabel switches from his midsection to his head, pushing it repeatedly into the soft mattress. "Love love love love looooooooovveee—"
Dipper is quickly driven past his point of endurance. "That's it!" He swiftly rolls over and grabs his pillow. "You asked for it! There's not a court in this land that will convict me if I whap the beans outta you!"
"Oh, ho! Beans there will be, Dipper, beans there will be: When you spill 'em!" Mabel snatches a second pillow up from the floor at the foot of his bed. "Looks like you just volunteered for some enhanced interrogation."
"I'm serious, Mabel. I'm way bigger than you now, you don't want to get into this," Dipper warns her.
Mabel only brandishes her pillow with deadly intent. "Sounds like someone's scared of facing a pillow fight champion."
They're both about a second away from launching into what will no doubt be an epic and very fluffy battle when Pacifica suddenly appears in the door. "Hey, your mother said—" she stops when she sees them standing there, holding their stuffed weapons of choice. "Um, what are you doing?"
"Nothing!" Dipper says quickly, dropping his pillow. "Nothing, just… talking. What's up?" he asks, voice cracking on the second syllable.
"Your mother said you should eat lunch now so you're hungry for dinner," Pacifica says. She looks lost. "Are you coming back down?"
"We'll be right there," Dipper says.
Once Pacifica is gone, Mabel braces herself for a surprise attack. But the fight has left Dipper; he straightens his hat and tosses his pillow back onto his bed. "Come on, we shouldn't leave Pacifica hanging. This has to be weird for her," he tells Mabel.
"Such a gentleman," Mabel needles him, one last time.
Dipper stops and sighs. "Look, even if there is, I don't know, something going on—"
"I KNEW IT."
"If! There was definitely an 'if!'" Dipper retorts. "Even if, I don't need you shoving me into any closets with her, okay? I don't know what this is, or what we're doing, or even if it's anything at all, and I don't want you to push her into something she doesn't want."
Mabel immediately latches onto the alternate implication. "So then what do you want?" she asks eagerly.
Dipper tugs the brim of his hat down and looks at the floor, hiding his expression. "It doesn't matter what I want," he says stoically.
Oh, poor Dipper. So afraid to hope. So fearful of another letdown. Mabel suddenly feels awful about his doomed crush on Wendy, though she knows that even her expert matchmaking couldn't have made that happen. Teasing him had just seemed so funny at the time. Less so in the aftermath; especially since by the time he had come clean it had been so obvious that it would only serve to get it off his chest, not bring about anything more. But Dipper couldn't just shrug off his crush the way Mabel had all of hers. He isn't built the same way. Mabel hurts, heals, quickly moves on. Her flings were a means to an end, the only real downer being her failure to secure an epic summer romance worthy of her scrapbook. Dipper just hurts, during and after. He dwells.
Mabel wants this for him. And what's more, this time she's almost a hundred percent positive it can work out, because she's pretty darn sure that Pacifica wants it too.
"Come on, Dip," she says, pushing playfully at his shoulders (when did they start getting that broad?). "You know I'm just looking out for you."
Dipper relaxes slightly. "I just want… to be sure this time."
It takes every ounce of willpower Mabel has not to squeal at what he just implied. "Bro, you have nothing to worry about," she assures him. "Pacifica wants a dunk in that Dippingsauce!"
His expression turns dubious. "That's… nice? No, actually, it's gross. Now I'm just picturing her jumping into a vat of barbeque or something."
"Sexy, saucy Pacifica," Mabel says, furiously waggling her eyebrows.
"This is me leaving," Dipper says, pushing past her and out his door.
After lunch, Mabel eagerly leads Pacifica out the sliding glass doors to the back patio and into the yard. It's a nice day out, the sun just beginning to dip towards the horizon and the grass long enough to be soft and springy, at the perfect point right before it grows too high and has to be cut again. Waddles rolls over and observes them enter his verdant domain.
"And this is the backyard!" Mabel announces. "You've already met Waddles, pet pig extraordinaire. The biggest rule here is to stay out of the flower bed."
Pacifica frowns slightly as she looks at the flowers in their mulched wood area. "Why would I even want to walk on them?"
"Well, let's just say that sometimes when there's a pool noodle fight, you don't always watch your feet," Mabel tells her.
Pacifica casts her gaze about the yard, as if there's something hidden in plain sight. "You don't have a pool," she says, sounding slightly perturbed by that fact.
Mabel shrugs. "Don't need a pool for a noodle fight!"
"Yeah, no thanks. Do you have croquet?"
"Croquet…" Mabel wracks her brain for a moment. Then she perks up. "Oh, you mean whacky-hammer-hoop-balls!"
Mabel digs around in the shed until she finds the box with the croquet set. By the time dinner rolls around she's learned how to play the game properly thanks to Pacifica's tutelage. It's nice to know how croquet actually works, but on the other hand she sort of prefers the freestyle mayhem she and Dipper usually indulge in with the set, even though their own rules had resulted in yet another winning streak for Dipper. What they play has more in common with hockey than the game proper (and always results in very bruised shins). Mabel isn't as good as Pacifica, but she's holding her own well enough. Dipper joined them not long after they started, and for once he's getting destroyed. Now that they're following the proper rules the girls' mini golf skills translate just well enough that he doesn't stand a chance.
"Aaaaand I'm done," Dipper deadpans as his ball swerves well clear of its intended target and comes to a very gradual stop.
Mabel would normally bug him to keep playing, but he's saved the indignity of any further croquet trouncing when Mom sticks her head out the screen door and announces it's time for dinner.
When they go inside Mabel sees that another chair has been added to the table, next to where she usually sits. Before everyone can take their usual places, she rushes forward and takes Dipper's seat. He frowns at her and looks like he's about to try and kick her out of his spot; then he sees Pacifica sitting by herself, an empty chair between her and Mom. The look he gives Mabel is exasperated, but he goes over and sits next to Pacifica without an argument.
Mabel's not-so-subtle manipulation doesn't go unnoticed by Mom. She gives Mabel a very wry glance across the table, with perhaps a bit of warning in the forward tilt of her head.
It isn't until the food is being passed around that Mabel starts to consider how Pacifica feels about all of this. The blonde heiress is stiff in her seat, carefully picking at her meal with a fork held in an obviously trained manner. She looks kind of distant as the conversation moves around her.
Mabel's first instinct is to ask Pacifica some questions or proclaim to her parents how Pacifica is awesome at mini golf; something to draw the other girl out. But when she opens her mouth to do just that, she stops and reconsiders. Pacifica's just had her entire life turned upside down. Maybe attention isn't what she needs right now. Maybe what she needs… is Dipper! And there he is, the dope, eating his baked potato and ignoring the love of his life. What a boy.
Mabel sinks in her seat until her legs are out far enough to kick him sharply beneath the table. He jumps a little and glares at her. She glares right back and jerks her head meaningfully in Pacifica's direction.
Dipper assesses his friend and looks a little guilty. He leans into Pacifica's space and says something that's too quiet for Mabel to make out over Mom and Dad's conversation. Pacifica's eyes refocus; her reply is equally soft, but her mouth quirks up in a small smile as she continues to talk with him.
Mabel turns her attention back to her food, satisfied with a job well done.
A few hours and a couple TV movies later, it's bedtime. Mabel walks out of the bathroom with her teeth freshly brushed and stops near the stairs. Down below, Pacifica is sitting on the couch, one sheet stretched over the cushions beneath her and another pooled at her side. The room is dark and still and she's just sitting there, staring at nothing. Mabel bites her lower lip with concern, then descends the staircase.
Pacifica doesn't look up until Mabel is close. It's like she's coming back to herself. She doesn't say anything; she just schools her features.
"So, if you get lonely you know me and Waddles are just upstairs, right?" Mabel says.
Pacifica relaxes almost imperceptibly. "Thanks. I'll be okay."
"Okay. But, if, I don't know, you just happened to sneak up to see a certain brother of mine, and you needed someone to cover for you…" Mabel says slyly with an exaggerated wink.
It's too dark to tell if Pacifica blushes, but she does roll her eyes. "Good night, weirdo," she says dismissively.
"Heh. Good night!" Mabel trots back up to her room, confident that everything is working out just fine.