"How on earth does gruncle Stan have a daughter?" Dipper said as he an Mabel watched her unpack her car from their bedroom window.
"I know," she said lifting up Waddles and looking at him perplexed " gruncle Stan is eighty or something and she's ,like, twenty."
She tilted her head and looked at Dipper "How does that even work?" she said
Dipper raised his eyebrows
"Mabel, I think gruncle Stan is in his sixties, and your missing the big question here, what happened to Katarina's mom?" he said with an extremely serious face.
Mabel gasped.
"You're right!" she exclaimed, she paused in thought for a moment then pointed at the ceiling "AHA, maybe she fell in the bottomless pit!"
"Mabel, the bottomless pit is like a wormhole she would have just come out again. There has to be something really mysterious about Katarina and her mom if gruncle Stan has never mentioned them." Dipper said
As Dipper finished speaking they heard feet coming up the steps.
"Lets go ask her!" Mabel said running for the exit.
Dipper grabbed the back of Mabel's sweater.
"Mabel!" Dipper said "We must approach this delicately, we can't just out right ask her!"
"LETS DO IT!" Mabel said picking up Waddles and running to the attic followed by a head shaking Dipper.
Kat was fighting to get an old camping cot set up in the attic when Mabel, Dipper and Waddles ran in.
"Hi Katarina!" Mabel said making Waddles wave his hoof
Kat turned and smiled.
"You can just call me Kat." she said still fighting to get the cot set up.
"Oh," Mabel said looking back and forth "Well, Hey Kat!" she said with great enthusiasm.
Dipper smacked his hand to his forehead and Kat just laughed.
"Hey right back at ya', what brings you two up here?" she asked
"Just wanted to ask you some questions." Dipper said
"Well question away, Pines squared." she laughed turning back to the stubborn cot, but catching the black stare of Dipper and Mabel she decided to rephrase her joke "Pines to the second power?
"Oh, I get it now, heh heh heh." Dipper said then laughing awkwardly with Mabel.
Kat laughed even harder than before.
"Just ask your questions." she said still laughing a little.
Mabel jumped in with the first question.
"How old are you?" she said
"I am twenty-five." Kat said fidgeting with the cot some more grumbling.
Mabel gasped "Gruncle Stan must have been ancient!" she exclaimed
Kat laughed so hard she started to snort.
"Your gruncle Stan is not that old! He was in his late thirties when I was born." She said
"Oh," Mabel muttered "he was still pretty old."
"Whatever Mabel," she chuckled to herself and she finally got the cot set up "YES, FINALLY, SUCK IT COT!"
She then proceeded to burst into a swing dance style happy dance.
Dipper's jaw dropped.
"Are you Carla's daughter!?" he exclaimed with a horrified expression.
"Nice way of approaching it delicately." Mabel muttered.
"Oh God, my dad is still talking about Carla?!" she laughed shaking her head "No, my dad met my mom almost a decade and a half after Carla dumped him."
"Oh, then what happened between Stan and your mom?" he asked.
She paused and chewed her lip a bit then spoke.
"They split up when I was two. He prefers not to talk about it because it was especially hard for him." she said quietly not making eye contact.
Mabel looked back and forth between Dipper ,now twiddling his thumbs and avoiding eye contact, and Kat ,who was also avoiding eye contact while she set up things around the room. She then adjusted Waddles in her arms and smiled brightly.
"Do you have any siblings?" she said with extra cheer.
Kat glanced over at the determined look of happiness on Mabel's face and smiled back.
"Yeah, my older brother Markus and my older sister LeAnn." She said
Dipper frowned.
"How did your siblings get normal names when you got saddled with Katarina?" he said
Kat snorted rolling her eyes.
"Guess their mom liked normalish names more than my mom did." she shrugged
" What do you mean 'their' mom" Dipper asked
Kat paused again.
"Your great-uncle was divorced with two kids when he and my mom met, so technically Markus and LeAnn are my half-siblings because they are his first wife's kids." she said
"Really, gruncle Stan's big secret was that he's been married twice and has kids?! That is so lame!" Mabel said mouth open
"Yeah, that is kind of lame." Dipper said
"It's not a lame secret it's normal, Cut him some slack, Stan is a normal guy who does weird stuff not everything about him is going to mysterious." Kat said searching her pockets "You get what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, I guess." Mabel said dejectedly resting her chin on Waddles head.
"Good." She said nodding her head.
Shortly after she threw her hand up frustrated finding her pockets empty except for car keys
"AH, DAAARRrrrn it," She said deciding half way into her explicative to make it mildly more child friendly remembering Dipper and Mabel's presence "I left my cellphone in my car, see you two later." she then jogged down the steps.
"I can't believe Gruncle Stan's secret is so boring." Dipper said going up to the window.
"I know, I guess he really is just a normal guy." Mabel said sitting next to him watching as Kat ran to her car.
"Heh, Kat kinda runs like gruncle Stan." She giggled
"Oh my god, she does!" Dipper laughed along with Mabel as she had Waddles mimic the motions.
Later that evening Kat was sitting in the window seat of the attic typing on her computer when her phone began to ring.
"Hello?" She said picking it up off of the cot where she had left it.
"Hey, It's me, " Her sister LeAnn said "You get to dad's ok?"
"Yeah, I got here a couple of hours ago." she said moving back to the window seat.
"Good, Did you remind him about Lizzy's birthday on Wednesday?" LeAnn asked
"Yep, I may end up dragging him to your house but he will be there" She laughed a little
LeAnn laughed back.
"Alright, anything new with him?" she asked.
"No, not really," Kat said adjusting her laptop slightly " he has some relatives staying over, I think there uncle Duke's son's kids, Mabel and Dipper."
"Oh, sure I've met them before."
"Would there be a problem if we lugged them with us to the party?"
"I don't think so, they're around Lizzy's age and they're pretty good kids."
"They sure ask a lot of questions, though."
"Gave you the third degree about why dad never talks about you, huh?"
"Yep, I didn't give them anything really solid, but I probable told them way too much for dad's comfort zone," Kat finished typing a sentence on her laptop, hit the save button, closed it, and changed her phone to her other ear " I'm not even here a whole day and these kids are already too close to figuring who and what I am."