Chapter Fifteen: Don't Make Me
She didn't want to do this. God, how she didn't want to do this. The island looked like nothing, a couple of palm trees, a couple rocks that looked as though they had gathered on the shore long ago, and grass. Mabel hated it the moment she was forced to land her gaze on it, with Gideon's hand on her back tightly gripping her dress like he expected her to throw herself overboard. She was starting to wish she had taken that chance when she still had it.
"Ain't it beautiful?" Gideon asked, looking at the island. "We gotta wait till sundown before we can head out, but I bet it'll look even better then."
A million words were on her tongue, waiting to burst out with the slightest push. She almost screamed out when Gideon took her hand, looking down at her as though he had always expected this moment to be as perfect as Mabel was allowing it to be. Gideon didn't even seem to care that she felt nailed to the deck, but maybe he just really thought that she wanted to do this.
"I don't want to do this." Mabel whispered, voice cracking silently. Why wasn't she lashing out though? Bill wasn't here, he didn't need protecting, and neither did her brother. Was she really safer pretending to go along with a plan she knew was doomed to fail?
Gideon's face darkened, his hold on her hand tight enough to make her skin go red, and Mabel to try to pull away. She wished Gideon was still the same way when they were little, when he was soft and squishy and she could lift him over her head easily. Being on a ship had filled him out though, turning fat into muscle and fixing her no means of escape.
"It's gonna be for the best." Gideon's hand on her own stated that she didn't have a choice, but that didn't stop her from pulling back, trying to get a bit of distance behind.
She knew the legend he was after, she knew everything about it. She knew it all because the only time she had actually looked at the entries of the journal the hand drawn image of a butterfly jumped out at her, capturing her interest more than anything else Ford had written about.
"You mean I can live forever?" Mabel asked with a gasp, still small enough to crawl into Ford's lap, though not without a small grunt from the man. He laughed lightly, seeing Mabel proudly present the entry of the journal as though she had written it herself.
"Not exactly." Ford said, showing her the specific incantation. "See this? It's what you have to say when you make the option. It's been mistranslated for a thousand years, but I managed to find the original document hidden away, almost as old as the ancient beings."
"So almost as old as you?" Mabel screeched with laughter as Ford suddenly dropped his journal, managing to tickle her through her sweater. She knew she should have reinforced it with extra fluff.
"As old as me? Just how old do you think I am?" Ford laughed as Mabel tried to tickle him back, pleading for mercy. Luckily for her, Ford couldn't keep up the attack for long, eventually letting her right herself once more on his lap and relax. She only moved to get the journal, flipping it open to the right page so they could read together.
"So what did everyone get wrong that only you could figure out, huh?" Mabel traced her fingers over the butterfly that probably still looked the same from the moment that Ford had drawn it. He took her hands away from the page so she wouldn't smudge it, even though the ink had long since dried.
"Well, see here?" He pointed right at one word, one that Mabel wouldn't have been able to pronounce even if she tried. "It says pure, and everyone thinks this next word means heart."
Mabel nodded, not even sure that she could follow along right now. Dipper would have been so much better at this than her, but Dipper hadn't brought the journal to Ford with questions. Sometimes the things he said though just went right over his head.
"So what does it really mean?" Mabel asked, bringing her fingers once more to trace the butterfly. This time Ford didn't stop her, probably not seeing the point when she would just ignore him anyways.
"I think it means intentions. Like that there has to be blood from someone with pure intentions, not pure of heart." Ford explained, his excitement growing slightly. "See, I translated a large amount of text by hand, and I think that this loop was really meant to be more of a flourish which really would have translated the whole meaning of the word. Back then people weren't nearly as careful as we are…"
Mabel had zoned out the moment that she realized that she was getting a lecture that she probably wouldn't have understood even if she was as smart as Dipper. All she could think about was how there was an actual spell that could make her live forever. The rest of her life, making sweaters and always making new friends. It sounded like heaven.
"Don't make me do this." Mabel asked softly, not even sure that Gideon had heard her for a moment with how he turned away from her. She could feel her heart racing with every moment they spent together, every inch the sun sank lower into the horizon.
"But darlin' ya know I only want what's best for us." Gideon drawled out, his tone irritated. The topic was probably still closed off for him, but it wasn't for Mabel. She wanted to get out of this.
"I don't want to live forever." Mabel said, taking a deep breath through her nose. She had lasted this long while pretending to love him, she could last a bit longer. Gideon might be a pirate, but in a way he was still the man who claimed he loved her.
"It's gonna be great, sugar plum, don't you worry." Gideon kept repeating that, as though it would really melt away her worries if she simply stopped thinking about it.
How could she not worry about it though? It was her life on the line, it was Gideon trying to play God and live forever. She didn't want to watch her brother grow old and have a family without her, and all the while she was forced to stand on the sidelines and give up everyone she had lived.
"If you do this, you do it alone. I want no part in it." Mabel eventually said, pushing back from Gideon for the first time since she returned on the ship, getting space between them.
For a moment, Gideon looked shocked, but anger quickly replaced that. His hand caught her arm before she could truly get distance between them, keeping her close even if they weren't standing more than two feet apart. Mabel tried to pry his fat fingers off of her arm, disgusted by his touch and unable to remain quiet on the sidelines anymore.
"I don't know where you got it in that pretty little head of yours that this is a choice, butterfly." Gideon cooed, voice too sweet to be anything but sickly.
For a moment, she wished she had stayed quiet, but that quickly disappeared. If she was going down, she wasn't going down without a fight.
The ships sailed silently together as they approached the island, and as Gideon's ship floated silently on the water, Cipher and Pines sailed together to make a silent approach. There didn't seem to be any noise except the breath of wind from the sea, and their boats sliding through the water as they made an approach.
"This isn't going to work." Ford muttered, getting a glare from Stan and surprisingly Dipper as well. Ford shrugged helplessly, holding his hands out in defense as they finally approached Gideon's ship, which now seemed abandoned as well.
"You both really think Cipher is just going to help us? I'm telling you, he has something hidden up his sleeve." Dipper tensed a little, but refused to turn around. His uncle, the man who he had looked up to, longed to be like, was willing to abandon Mabel to fate just because it wasn't the logical thing to do. Dipper was starting to think they really weren't all that alike after all.
"Then we'll just have to stay right on top of him." Stan said, turning the wheel so they could creep up silently to Gideon's ship. Ford gave a bark of a laugh that matched Bill's almost perfectly, and Dipper wondered if Ford picked it up from Bill or the other way around.
The ship's silently approached, Cipher's coming from one side as the Pines crept up on the other. The sun was just starting to sink below the horizon as they approached, and as soon as the sun hit the water in a burst of color that almost distracted Dipper, they descended upon the unsuspecting crew.
It was bloody, and terrible, it was battle. It was swords sinking into chests with ease, and it was damage taken on all sides. Looking back, Dipper didn't remember anything other than sliding his knife into flesh and feeling blood soak his clothes, he would remember seeing his uncles fight against people as though they had alway done so before, and he would remember thinking that this was all for Mabel at the idea of Bill Cipher, but Dipper didn't get one glimpse of him.
The sun had completely set by the time that the fight with over, with more of Bill's crew dead rather than Gideon's, but Dipper had been unwilling to actually take the kill shot like his uncles had. Dipper stood with his uncles on the bow of the ship, staring down at the fallen who were lined up peacefully, most soaked in more blood than they probably had in their bodies.
"You seen Ford?" Stan asked, leaning against the railing as the prisoners were escorted down to the brig. Dipper was tearing apart the least damaged fabric of his shirt, wrapping it around Stan's wounds to try to stem the flow of blood. Enough blood had been shed already.
"He's not with…" Dipper vaguely waved his hand at the dead. "He's probably just helping them bring people downstairs."
The older man gave a grunt, only once actually making a move when Dipper was less than careful than to safely cauterize wounds. He was too tired to be careful, and even then he didn't have many supplies to actually make sure he was doing it safely.
"Cipher ain't back yet." Stan noted when the crew from Cipher's ship came back from below, without Ford by their side and Cipher nowhere to be found as well. Dipper couldn't actually even remember Bill fighting with them, much less actually staying on their ship when the fight was over.
"Why do we fall so easily for their plots?" Dipper ended up asking when the sun had long since disappeared, and he no longer had fresh clothing to wrap around their wounds.
"It's just a way of life, I guess." Stan shrugged, but then winced when it seemed to irritate his shoulder. "Some things never change."