TW: fire, smoking, family fighting, historical antifeminism, death

1918

"Here we are, all educated and proper, and now the world is ours!" Mabel twirled as she walked down the street, her mauve skirt flaring around her. The now-eighteen-year-old twins were coming home from their school commencement ceremony, awaiting the celebration dinner with their family.

"The world's not quite ours yet," Dipper said, "Over in Europe, everyone seems to think the world should be theirs."

"Oh, Dipper, do you ever stop thinking about the stupid war?" Mabel sighed, throwing her hands up, "It just makes everyone sad."

"No, I can't just stop thinking about it, when I keep receiving white feathers in the mail. It's not that easy just to ignore the people who call me a coward. I can't just forget that some of my school friends died in France, or Turkey or Belgium while I was reading."

"You're not a coward. Don't tell yourself that." Mabel said, "And I'll beat up anyone who does." Mabel obviously didn't physically fight the bullies any more, having mellowed that much, but was still feisty enough to give the kind of verbal smackdown that taught the bullies a lesson about messing with Mabel Pines's brother. "Anyway, cheer up, because tonight's going to be all about you, Dip. You and your medical school dreams." As they'd gone through school, it had become increasingly clear that Dipper Pines was extraordinarily intelligent, and his father's dreams of having a doctor for a son had only grown. One of the professors at the small college the twins had attended for the last few years advised that Dipper should even consider John Hopkins University in Baltimore, the country's foremost medical school. Flattered by the attention, and buoyed on praise, Dipper had barely thought about his and Mabel's childhood dreams of flying around the world in their own plane in years.

When they arrived home, the dining room was full of relatives. Their Grandmother and Grandfather on their mother's side, as well as their mother's brother Uncle Hector and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their grandparents on their father's side, and David's sisters and brother, Aunt Ruth, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Joseph. The twins greeted each relative around the table, and took their seats at the table.

"As you know, we're here to celebrate the end of childhood for our two youngest children," David announced, "They may have completed their school courses, but this is just the beginning for young Mason. We expect that he'll be accepted into John Hopkins University to study medicine." Applause broke out around the table, and calls of congratulations.

"Mazel Tov!" Grandmother Pines called, "You've always been a clever boy, a yiddishe kop!" Of all the family, David's father Golda had had the hardest time assimilating, and frequently slipped back into Yiddish, something the twins loved about her.

"Off to study, are you?" Uncle Hector demanded, and Dipper stiffened, knowing what was coming, "Why aren't you off to the war? Or are you too smart for that?" Neither of Uncle Hector's sons had gotten a college education, but they had both left for the war as soon as they could, and one, Carl, would never return.

"No, I just…um…" Dipper trailed off, unsure how to respond. His father had been hinting, ever since Dipper had turned eighteen that it was time he was out there on the front line (ever appearance-conscious, David didn't want anyone saying his son was a coward), and they had come to the agreement that if Dipper did not get accepted into medical school, he'd be joining the army.

"Now, now, there's nothing wrong with hesitation before taking lives," Uncle Joseph cut in gently, and Dipper relaxed, "I would say it is better to be too hesitant in things than too bold, like your sister."

"What?" All eyes turned to Mabel, who looked a little guilty, a little defiant, but mostly confused.

"What do you mean, Joseph?" David asked, to which Uncle Joseph produced a newspaper clipping. The article was a report on yet another women's rights march, and in the photograph, amongst the suffragettes and 'Votes For Women' signs, was Mabel. A gasp went around the table.

"Mabel," David's tone was low and angry, "What is the meaning of this?"

"I'm fighting for my own rights," she said, tilting her chin defiantly, "What's so wrong with that?"

"You have made a spectacle of yourself!" her father burst, "After everything this family has done for you and your brother, and you risk our reputation, and your own like this?"

"I don't care about that, any of that!" Mabel was not exactly a master of the calm, polite and quiet argument, and her tone was rising and wobbling, "I'm a woman now, and I know what I want. I want to be able to vote and to go out and become a pilot, so that Dipper and I–"

"You will not become a pilot!" David shot back, "Your brother is going to become a doctor, and he does not need you to become a distraction. We will discuss this further later, but for now, leave the table please, before you create any more of a scene." With a sob, Mabel leapt up and ran away from the table. Dipper watched her go, wishing there was something he could do without contributing to the disturbance.

"Poor girl," Aunt Ruth said, "Losing her fiance must have had a significant effect on her."

"They weren't engaged," David said stiffly, clearly embarrassed to have had to discipline his daughter in front of guests, "He never actually spoke for her." A few months ago, Mabel had received the news that her beau, Armando Agua, had become engaged to a girl in France while serving there. The news had left her shattered, and she had thrown herself even more into her secret suffrage work. Dipper suddenly knew for sure that he needed to go and make sure his sister was alright.

"May I be excused, Father?" he asked, to which his father responded with a subtle shake of the head.

"Come now, Mason! This dinner is in your honour, you can't leave yet."

Dipper sighed. I'm coming for you, Mabel.

The room which had once been the twins' nursery, and was now the study, was quiet, except for Mabel's sobs, and dark, except for the light of her cigarette. She didn't actually enjoy smoking that much, but it was trendy amongst her friends, and besides, her father thought it unladylike, and Mabel was feeling rebellious. Everything was going horribly wrong for her, on what was supposed to be a happy day. She was in deep trouble for doing the things she loved, just as she always was, and probably soon Dipper would be leaving for Maryland, and would be thousands of miles away. She glanced at the envelope that Dipper was about to send off to John Hopkins to see if they'd consider him–recommendations from his teachers, his application essay, and a few examples of his very best work. The only thing missing was his commencement certificate, which of course, he'd received that evening. Suddenly, the door opened and Dipper came in.

"Mabel?" he came over and put his arm around her, "I'm sorry about earlier. If it makes you feel better, I think women should get the vote as well."

"Thanks," she smiled a little, sniffling, "Are you really going to go and become a doctor?"

"Yes," Dipper's face lit up in excitement, "The teachers really think I have potential, can you believe that! They say that I'm intelligent, and that I could change the medical world, and help lots of people everywhere!" Mabel tried to be happy for her brother, but her heart ached.

"But what happened to building our own plane, and going on adventures, Dipper?" She asked urgently, "Did you just decide that that wasn't important!"

"That's never going to happen, Mabel," Dipper said flatly, "Father won't let you go for your pilot's licence, and I'll be too busy with studying." The heat of anger flared up, and Mabel jumped to her feet.

"So your future is so very important that you've stopped caring about mine!" she burst, "Am I simply just to sit there, smiling, married off to someone–" her voice hitched, thinking about Armando again, "-and never get to do ANYTHING, while you go off, and get to do interesting things far away in Baltimore where I'll never get to see you!"

"Oh, Mabel," Dipper stepped towards her, trying to calm her down, "You don't have to give up. You've got your commencement certificate, so you could teach school if you wanted, or I'm sure Father wouldn't object to you getting your nursing certificate."

"I don't want to do any of that!" Mabel sobbed, flinching away, "We've always done things together, and now some professor-y people are calling you clever, you forget all about me!"

"Mabel, you're being unreasonable," Dipper said, anger spiking in his voice, "I'm not forgetting about you. How could I forget about you? But this is a chance I can't turn down! I'm sorry that you'll be left behind, but–"

"A loud, silly, suffragette sister, who never does the right thing in a situation will be bad for your reputation?"

"No, Mabel, that's not what I meant!" Dipper said, wondering how this whole thing could have gotten so terribly out of hand, "I just mean that this is an opportunity too good to refuse–"

"I get it, Dipper," Mabel interrupted, "It's real important to you that you get to do all of this and go off and be smart, so I should just shut up, and let you. Well, fine!" She turned to storm out, tossing her cigarette down.

"Mabel!" she heard Dipper gasp from behind her, "What have you done?" There was a genuine anger in his voice that she rarely heard, and she turned around to see what the problem was. Her cigarette, tossed casually aside, had landed on the envelope that Dipper had been about to send off. Her stomach turned in horror.

"I'm so sorry." But nobody heard her apologies, as the flames spread across, the envelope with it's carefully printed message 'JOHN HOPKINS MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICATION–MASON PINES, and swallowed it up.

Less than a week later, Mabel was living in a tiny apartment with a few friends. Nobody had believed that the destruction of Dipper's application was an accident, given her outburst at him, and ruining Dipper's dreams was the last straw in her father's fury, and she'd found herself out on the street. Worst of all was Dipper's anger and disappointment. He refused to even speak to her, to look at her, and Mabel felt like crying every time she thought about it. I'm so sorry, Dipper. I'm so sorry.

Dipper meanwhile, true to his agreement, was dragging his feet as he handed his papers over to the local army recruitment office. Although the idea of going off to war was still terrifying, there was a big part of him that barely cared anymore. He didn't have time to collect the necessary paperwork to apply to any other good medical schools, or really any other good schools, and worst of all, he didn't even have Mabel anymore. She'd pleaded with him to forgive her, but he didn't know what she expected, after destroying his dreams. If you wanted to keep us together, that was not the way to go about it, Mabel.

Several months later David and Helen Pines passed away from the Spanish flu that was sweeping the country, the same flu that had claimed the lives of thousands, including that of their eldest son, Tyrone. When their will was read, everything had been left to their youngest, and the whole family fortune was left in the hands of Mason Jacob Pines. Dipper had resigned from the army as soon as he possibly could, following the armistice, but he still had no prospects at any medical school, given the setbacks. But he was now alone in the world, with no direction, but also nothing to hold him back. Nothing to tell him that he had to be a doctor, or anything else.

So as soon as he could, Dipper had enrolled at the University of Alameda, a local college, not highly reputed, but able to accept him on such a minimal academic transcript. And despite the disappointments, and the grief, Dipper was delighted to realise that he was finally about to do the one thing he'd always dreamed of: not to become a doctor, or even an aeronautical engineer; but to become a scientist.

Meanwhile, in a tiny apartment, the scissors moved swiftly, and the last long, brown curly lock of Mabel's hair fell to the ground. She glanced back in the mirror at where instead of seeing the Mabel she was used to, the happy, sweet, proper young lady, a very different Mabel looked back, one with a short, fierce bob cut, eyes darkened by tears and late nights. This Mabel looked bold, rebellious, and fashionable. This Mabel was about to leave all the heartbreak behind her, and take on the world.