AVAVA

( Author's Note )

VAVAV

A little short and Choppy, but hey, I've been uber busy.

AVAVA

( Daphne/Dipper Pines )

VAVAV

Daphne stretched while standing next to her car, in the school parking lot, waiting for her sister to finally show up. She knew that her sister had plenty of friends, and had to be 'social'. Which is why she never complained about waiting. Normally, it wouldn't even bother her at all. But that was normally.

Today?

Today, she couldn't wait to get home, and for once it wasn't because she wanted to do her homework.

She wanted to see how Pacifica was doing. Her first day alone seemed to have proved difficult.

Daphne hadn't expected Pacifica to get easily bored.

'Poor, Pazzy.' She thought to herself. Pacifica hadn't ever had real freedom. Except, here and there, during their youths. However, it seemed that freedom dwindled down to pretty much nothing as she got older.

Daphne had showed Pacifica her enormous movie collection, so hopefully that entertained her for a good bit of the day.

And there was the pool. She could have went swimming.

'Stop worrying,' she thought to herself. 'Pacifica's not a baby. She can take care of herself. You're just worrying over nothing.'

"Okay, Daphodil. We're ready to be homeward bound." Mabel called when she was about two cars away in the parking lot.

"Pretty early today, Sis." Daphne said looking at her cellphone.

"Of course. Sisterella. You've got someone waiting for you." A smirk spread across her sister's face. Though it didn't seem mischievous. "I just thought, I'd cut it short. Y'know, before Paz turned into a pumpkin."

Mabel was a social butterfly, but she was also kindhearted. Daphne should have known her sister would hurry, as best she could. But she had been caught up thinking about Pacifica.

That had been happening a lot lately.

"C'mon, Sister-O-Mine. Homeward!"

AVAVA

Daphne got out of the car, after Mabel had already started towards the house.

"Hey, you smell something?" Mabel asked, stopping in her tracks.

"Hmm?" Daphne did notice something smelled weird. Kinda like someone was grilling, and not doing a very good job of it. "Maybe someone forgot something on the grill?"

Then Daphne noticed the windows to the house were open, and that the closer they got to the house, the stronger the smells was.

"Daph, is it getting stronger...?" Mabel started, then looked over to Daphne. "You don't think...?"

AVAVA

( Pacifica Northwest )

( A Few Hours Before )

VAVAV

Pacifica was bored. Had been for a while. She'd noticed that while Daphne and Mabel were at school, she was left with nothing to do.

For as long as she could remember, she had wished that she had some free time. Some alone time. She would have almost given anything to just be alone. But now that she was alone, and had free time. She wasn't exactly sure how to use it. She didn't want to tell Daphne that she was bored. It might make her think that she didn't appreciate staying there. And she couldn't ask Daphne to stay home. School was important to Daphne, and she couldn't take that away.

She had tried watching a couple of the movies. Only to lose interest about half way through. None of them seemed to interest her. She was sure that if she looked through them, she could find one to watch. But there were so many. A task that was overwhelming. At least to her.

Strange right?

A simple task, such as picking out a movie, being too much for her. After not having free time allotted to her, how was he supposed to pick out a movie? She didn't even know what she liked.

Games didn't seem to be her thing either. She couldn't figure any of them out. All she managed to do, was die. And that was getting old fast.

Maybe she could cook something. Lunch for Daphne, Mabel, and herself.

She had seen the cooks do it. Had watched Mabel and Daphne do it.

How hard could it be?

AVAVA

A little voice in her head was telling her that it could have been worse.

'Could have been worse?' She thought, and wondered how it could have been worse.

'The entire house could have burned down, instead of burning a single pan. And... whatever you were supposed to be cooking.' The little voice seemed to be tittering with laughter... if it could laugh... and wasn't part of her imagination. Never, the less, it still infuriated her, even if she knew that it wasn't real.

'It was hamburgers! Don't play stupid...' She stopped mid-sentence, realizing that not only was she talking to herself. She was actually arguing with herself.

'Calm down.' She urged herself.

She eyed the smoking pan on the stove, that had been turned off, even if it was way too late.

'Note to self: High, does not mean cook faster.' She thought.

"Okay now. One of these buttons... Aha!" She finally exclaimed as she found the switch that turned on the exhaust fan, over the stove.

The exhaust fan was working. Well, it was removing new smoke, and low smoke. However, it wasn't really getting the smoke already at the ceiling.

"Alright... lets see. Windows! Doors!" She thought aloud. All she had to do was open the windows and doors. And the smoke would leave on it's own.

Right?"

After she had opened windows, including ones on the second floor, since it seemed her failure had to spread up the stairs. She took the pan outside, and hid it in the trashcan. If only she could keep It a secret from Daphne and Mabel...

"Pacifica?" Daphne's voice carried through the house, and out the back door.

'Crap!' She thought, even as she considered hiding somewhere. She had almost gotten all the smoke out, and hidden the evidence.

AVAVA

( Mabel Pines )

VAVAV

Mabel had thought Daphne would blow a gasket when they found Pacifica. Not because Daphne was angry. Mabel knew Daphne was worried. What else would people think? The house smelled like burnt food, smoke, and Pacifica was no where to be found at first.

It had taken her and Daphne a while to actually find her hiding in the pantry.

Pacifica would have been able to hide in there for a good while, had the pantry not been one of her and Dipper's hiding place when they were younger. So, it hadn't taken Daphne long to find Pacifica. Though, Daphne had managed to pretty much tear both hers and Mabel's room apart. And tore them apart fairly well, considering that Mabel had saw a few outfits that she hadn't seen in a long time.

When they had finally found her though she looked as if she were scared. And it was obvious that she wasn't expecting Daphne to pull her into a big hug, and almost squeeze the life out of her.

Out of character for herself, she had decided to leave the two alone for a while, while she went to clean the rest of the minor smoke damage, and leave them to their own devices.

It hadn't taken long for her to clean up the small bit of mes that was left, Mabel assumed that if she had of socialized for another forty-five minutes that Pacifica would have been able to completely clean up the mess, and no one else would have been any the wiser. Maybe she should have stayed and socialized with her friends a bit longer.

AVAVA

Mabel sat working on a new design for an outfit that she had been designing for a while, when the doorbell rung. At first she had ignored the interrupting device, until the third or fourth ring. She had assumed that Daphne would get it.

'Fat chance.' She thought to herself as she untangled herself from various fabrics, before making her way downstairs to the front door.

Along her way to see who was there, she noticed Pacifica, and Daphne, asleep on Daphne's bed. That at lease solved the question of why no one else was answering the door.

Mabel finally made it to the door, kind of hoping that whoever had been outside had given up and left.

'No such luck,' she thought as the doorbell rung a fifth, and final time before she opened the door.

She stared that the person in front of her oddly confused. Pacifica's mother and father? Yeah, she expected them. Maybe even a police officer, or detective. Whichever happened to deal with disappearances. Salesmen, or even a pizza her sister could have ordered.

She gazed out taking in the features of the persons before her.

The first one: Blue Jeans, green flannel shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath. Big black boots, that would be more suited to hiking in the mountains or forest, opposed to walking in her suburban neighborhood. Then there was the fiery red hair. This one would be Wendy Corduroy.

The second: Wore similar clothing, though blue flannel instead of green, she had blue tinted blonde hair. And the most unique pupils. Though her face looked a bit different than before, maybe she was shifting differently, like humans changed their clothing. Aqua, the Water Sprite.

"Uh...? Hey?" Mabel said feeling rather confused.

"Mabs!" Wendy called out, as the same time Aqua spoke, "Mabel!"

"Uh... not that I don't like visit from friends." Well, Wendy was a friend, Aqua was more Daphne's friend than her's. Even if she did like Aqua. "But, whatcha gals doin' here?"

"Oh... We are in search for Daphne's friend. The rich girl, she has vanished." Aqua sounded as if it were a normal task to have.

"Yeah, Blondie Northwest bolted, so we thought...'Hey, Blondie and Dipper, I mean Daphne, were getting along very well, before you two left. And we know that they continued to talk even afterwards. So..."

"We thought that you or Daphne might know where the rich girl is," Aqua finished.

While that did explain what they were doing, it didn't explain why they were here, instead of calling. Again, it wasn't as thought she didn't like company. Quite the opposite in fact.

"Come in? I'll get something for us to drink, and we can talk about Pacifica." Mabel ushered in the two females. Then went to get sodas.

Once she returned, and each girl has a drink, herself included, she sat down, trying to think about what she should say, and what she shouldn't say.

"Well, I haven't talked to Pacifica in a while." Mabel commented, and was truthful. She hadn't spoken with the other girl, in a couple hours.

"Cut the crap," Wendy smirked after taking a sip from her drink. "We know Blondie is here. It's the only place she could go, and be off her parents radar, unless she were actually kidnapped."

The jig was up, and Mabel couldn't out and out deny it, without lying. So, she just hung her head a bit, before nodding it.

"See, this was a good hunt." Aqua commented. "So, now we take the girl back?"

"Well..." Wendy spoke up, "We were paid to find her, not to take her back."