Astronomy

"What's on your mind short stuff?" Wendy asked, seeing how distracted Mabel was.

"What do you get someone who leaps off a forty foot cliff onto a thirty foot robot, to rescue you from a demented stalker?" she asked. "I'm thinking it's a bit more than a hand knitted sweater."

"Wendy grinned thinking it was a scene from Bare Chested Werewolf that she'd caught Mabel reading before. "Have his babies," she said firmly.

"What?!" Mabel stared at her wide eyed.

"Was he unarmed?" she asked, pretending to be serious.

"And kinda beat up," Mabel agreed.

"Babies, like half a dozen of them," Wendy said solemnly.

Mabel stared at her, while turning a shade of red normally not seen outside the produce section of the supermarket.

"True love always wins out, and nothing says love more than risking your life for another's happiness," Wendy said, enjoying teasing the inexperienced girl.

"I…I guess I'll get right on that," Mabel said stumbling off in a daze as most of her higher brain functions hit tilt.

Wendy held in her laughter until Mabel had left.

"Dude," Soos said shaking his head at her.

"What?" Wendy asked. "It was just some harmless teasing."

Soos took out his cell phone and pulled up a YouTube video for the red headed teen to watch. It was grainy and slightly out of focus, but she recognized the area. The clip played in utter silence and she didn't even need to see the first post underneath from Tambry saying 'That crazy little nine year old has a pair on him' to know who she was watching.

Wendy removed her fur lined cap and poured her water over her head before replacing it. "I think…I'm going to make myself scarce."

A strangled high pitched, "What?!" rang out from upstairs.

"Tell them I'm sick," Wendy said fleeing the shack.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"Mabel," Dipper said as calmly as possible, trying to ignore the way his voice was cracking. "You're my sister, why are you trying to…"

"Get the little Dipper to show clearly during the daytime?" she offered.

"Yes, that," Dipper said nervously.

"I was talking to Wendy and she said I owe you a dozen children for what you did and true love always wins in the end so…"

Dipper blinked a few times and ran it through his Mabel filter, but it still didn't make sense, so he decided he'd deal with things as they were now and find out from Wendy what she'd said later. "True love… Mabel, I love you."

"You do?!" she asked in shock.

"You are my sister; I love you and yes it's true love. I loved you yesterday, I love you today, and god help me I'll love you tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that until the calendar runs out. However that doesn't mean I want to…" he trailed off awkwardly unable to find a way to say what he meant.

"Teach me astronomy?" Mabel offered.

"Exactly!" he exclaimed in relief. "We are twins, which means we are probably closer than most siblings, but I like the way we are and I never want that to change."

Mabel's eyes were watering as she held out her arms. "Awkward sibling hug?"

Dipper hugged her. "Awkward sibling hug," he agreed.

"Pat pat," they chorused as they finished their hugging ritual.

"But what do I do to say thank you for saving me from Gideon?" she asked.

"You saved my life not five minutes later," Dipper pointed out.

"Yeah, but I was also saving myself, so that doesn't count," she countered.

"How about you promise to never make another little Dipper comment ever again and we call it even?" Dipper offered.

"Deal," Mabel said as they shook on it. "Of course I'm lying when I say that, because it was all sorts of funny and no way can I just give that up."

Dipper groaned and Mabel giggled with both of them relieved things were back to normal, though Mabel's giggle was a trifle evil as she now had something new to tease him about when they were alone together and she wanted to make him blush.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Stan continued down the hall wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. "Damn allergies," he muttered, refusing to admit how touched he was. "You better be alright Stan," he said as he made sure no one was watching as he punched a code into the soda machine that caused it to move aside revealing stairs down into a hidden room filled with high tech equipment. The three books were laid out on a console together, forming a circuit diagram that looked half way between the blueprints for a spaceship and the archeological rubbings taken from an Inca pyramid.

Stan rechecked everything twice, going as far as rearranging the looks to make sure they only matched up the one way. A pile of gold bars and coins laid on a small metal platform off to one side. He added a few more coins to the pile while cursing the rising prices that necessitated him scrambling for every penny he could make so he could finish his work. "You damn well better appreciate this," he said as he prepared to test fire the machine using the oncoming storm as cover just in case he blew the transformer at the local power station… like he had the first time.

He ran a thumb along the fish symbol on his fez while he waited for the storm. He hoped everything went well; they had a lot riding on this, everything in fact.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

The wind howled outside, rattling the window, while lightning flashed and Dipper knew he wouldn't be sleeping alone for long. As the thunder roared he heard the boards creak from Mabel's side of the room and held up the covers so she could climb in. Mabel wasn't scared of thunder and lighting, but Dipper used to be; he got over it years ago. Not that Mabel cared, when it stormed she climbed into his bed regardless. He'd asked about it once and she'd told him that it was in case of tornadoes, because she wasn't about to let him go to Oz alone. As far as quirks go, it was pretty adorable, and he couldn't bring himself to complain. It was the reason he was no longer afraid of storms in fact. Now storms made him feel warm and safe, like he was being hugged by his sleeping twin.

The sound of the closest door creaking open wasn't a welcome one, as the last time it happened the creature inside had eaten most of their summer-ween candy, but this time he saw Mabel step out of the closed and look wistfully towards him. Glancing down he saw that he was still being held by a sleeping sib, an exact duplicate for the one standing across the room. He held up the covers on the opposite side from the sleeping Mabel and she quickly climbed in.

"You're not going to ask?" the Mabel from the closet questioned.

"Nope," Dipper replied. He could think of a couple of reasons for there to be two Mabel's off the top of his head and none of them were really worth losing sleep over. "Night, sis."

"Night, bro," she whispered back, hugging him extra tight for a moment.

The sound of something crawling out from under the bed and urging Mabel to scoot over a minute later had him opening his eyes and seeing a duplicate of himself. This time he had to wake Mabel up to get her to give them a little more room, so he could climb into bed with them.

"You aren't going to ask why there are two of me?" Mabel asked.

"Are you going to ask why there are two of me?" he replied.

"Nope, night," Mabel said sleepily her head on his chest.

"Next time we'll push the beds together to make on huge bed," the other Mabel said.

"Night me, night yous," the second Dipper said.

"Night," everyone chorused. They all kept on ear cocked for another minute, but no new twins showed up so they all drifted off.

The twins held few secrets from each other and the few they did were either unimportant or a symbol of trust between them which they'd eventually share.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

A bald man in a futuristic jumpsuit cursed the twins while searching the ground for out of place litter. Picking up a candy wrapper he vanished in a burst of light.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

"Shmebulock!" cursed the gnome as he saw a circle of mushrooms burst into flame, a cold blue fire casting it's pale flickering radiance against the surrounding trees heedless of the wind and rain. The gnomes fled deep underground. Well, once Shmebulock managed to explain what was going on. It's not very easy to communicate when you can only say one word; fortunately he was a master at charades.

A hole opened in the air above the fairy circle and a pair of glowing blue figures floated out.

"Excellent work, as always," the young man with the slicked back hair, revealing a birthmark that looked like the big dipper on his forehead, complimented his companion. His sky blue suit and polished black shoes looked decidedly out of place in the primeval forest clearing.

"Of course, my dear," the young woman in a matching dress said. "I was trained by the best after all."

"Flatterer," he said with a smile.

Morning…

Dipper awoke as one of the Mabel's tried to sneak off.

"The other you is already gone," she offered.

"See you later?" he asked.

"Probably," she agreed with a guilty grin that said she was up to something Mabelish.

"Night, sis," he said, deciding to sleep for another hour.

"Night, bro," she whispered, sneaking off. He heard her mumble, "How did he sneak off without waking me anyways?"

He kept quiet; no way was he going to tell her she drooled in her sleep.

Typing by: The Last Primarch!