Heat of the Moment Chapter 7: Like a Glove, a gravity falls fanfic

Chapter VII: Like a Glove

FRIDAY

Looking down at Puppet Mabel and Puppet Gabe in all of their sock puppet-y glory, Mabel couldn't help but feel a swell of pride at what Team Mabel had accomplished.

Candy and Grenda had spent more of the past four days with her at the Mystery Shack than they had at home, and for that, she owed them (and their parents) everything and then some. Soos had taken them to town to pick up new supplies almost every day, and had helped put together the soundtrack and the sets. Wendy had pitched in whenever she could, and stayed late after work too, when Mabel knew she liked to go cause trouble with her friends on weeknights. Grunkle Stan had pulled his strings and gotten her an amazing time slot at the community theater, plus he'd bankrolled the whole operation!

And Dipper… Dipper had done a ton for her, even if he'd been hiding from her since their little… disagreement. He'd made several background characters, including himself; he'd put together the tank too, as well as Gabe's military equipment, and whatever other props she'd pawned off on him while she and her squad refined the script, did the songs, and everything else that needed doing.

Anyway, she'd be making it up to him soon. She'd promised him that.

It had been four days of blood, sweat, and tears, but it was almost over now.

Mabel lowered her puppet self and her puppet lover into the cardboard box that was filled with smaller props and then clapped her hands. "Is that everything?" She asked, looking around her bedroom for anything that she might have missed.

Taped together Sev'ral Timez poster... multiple hanging dioramas featuring herself and her friends... Waddles slumbering peacefully on her bed...Her diary filled with all of her deepest darkest secrets... A collection of stuffed animals with doodles of Gabe taped over their faces... But no puppets!

"Yes sir!" Grenda answered with a roar. She was already holding an even bigger, practically overflowing cardboard box full of show stuff.

Candy glanced around the bedroom too, but then gave a thumbs up. "It is everything!"

Mabel did one last check, but for once, her side of the room was genuinely completely clean, and Grenda had picked up everything they'd had on Dipper's bed. "Alright!" she said, with all of the energy that four shots of Mabel Juice bestowed her. "To the truck!"

The three of them filed out of the bedroom, with Mabel in the lead (as was only right), and walked quickly (if carefully) down the stairs, their cardboard boxes held firmly in their hands. Mabel hummed her second favorite song from her show, 'Blading with You'.

But before she could get to the chorus, they were stopped by the grumpy roadblock that was her grunkle.

Grunkle Stan waited in the hallway with his arms crossed and his eyebrows quirked. "So girls, what's the plan?" he asked gruffly.

"We're gonna go set up!" Grenda said excitedly with a shake of her box.

Mabel nodded, and gently shook her own box as well. "We're taking the rest of the stuff to the theater to prepare. A puppet show as amazing as mine takes some time to get ready!"

Grunkle Stan squinted at his wristwatch. "Mabel, it's two o'clock; is it really gonna take you five hours to get ready for a puppet show?"

"It's art!" Candy cried.

"Yeah!" Mabel agreed. "True art can't be rushed!

"Uh huh," Grunkle Stan said, clearly unconvinced.

"Anyway..." Mabel began, giggling as she shifted her weight from one foot to another and then back. "We'll be back in a couple hours to freshen up, but we're gonna need Soos until then."

"Why not take your brother?" Her grunkle asked with a frown. "Kid's barely been earning his keep around here lately."

Mabel's good cheer faltered ever so slightly, but she rebounded instantly. "Oh, well, we need someone tall! And you need Wendy for the gift shop, right?"

Grunkle Stan waved his hand. "Yeah yeah, whatever, take my repairman, it's not like I'm paying him or anything." His frown morphed into a smirk. "But someone's gotta make some money to pay all this off, so get outta my hair! I don't have much of it left!"

Mabel grinned, and would have given him a hug if she didn't have her hands full. "Be ready for the show of your life!"

Her grunkle chuckled and stepped aside to let them pass, and they rushed down the hallway and out of the house. Grenda slammed the door behind them, like she usually did.

"Oops!"

It was another hot day today, and Mabel felt the heat immediately as they stepped out of the shade of the Shack. For the briefest of moments she contemplated not wearing one of her sweaters today, but she quickly fired that thought into the stratosphere.

Luckily, Soos was in his truck already (just like she'd asked him to be), so there'd be some AC going for them. She didn't want to melt on their way to the theater!

Candy and Grenda piled into the back seats, clicking their seatbelts with barely contained glee, while Mabel took shotgun. Though she loved the blast of the AC directly into her face, she diverted some of it back to her friends by fiddling with the knob. She was not a selfish deity.

Balancing her box on her lap, she was about to fasten her seatbelt when she remembered something.

"Hey!" Soos said sharply, frowning, "No seatbelts, no ride, hambone."

"I'll be right back!" Mabel said, exiting the truck and setting her box down on her seat. "Just forgot something!"

She jogged around to the gift shop entrance, squeezing between the couple of cars that were parked outside, and entered the gift shop with only one thing on her mind.

"Wendy!" she yelled as soon as she'd opened the door.

Wendy, who was reading a magazine behind the counter while a few tourists sifted through the merchandise, looked over at the sound of her name. She smiled. "Sup dude," she replied, closing her magazine.

Mabel skipped up to the counter, ignoring the funny looks the would-be customers gave her, and leaned against the glass just like Grunkle Stan kept telling her not to. "Nothin' much girlfriend, just getting ready to blow the whole town's mind tonight," she said nonchalantly.

Wendy chuckled. "I'll make sure to wear a raincoat to keep the brains off me. This is my favorite flannel!" She sat up straight. "So what can I do ya for?"

Giggling, Mabel pressed her pointer finger to the glass and swirled it around aimlessly. "I just had a couple questions about somethin'..."

"Hit me," Wendy said with a grin.

"You remember that party you and Dipper went to last week?"

"I–" Wendy began, her green eyes widening slightly, and her grin fading . "–yeah, of course. I mean, it wasn't even a week ago." She chuckled again and picked at her sleeve. "...What about it?"

Mabel pulled out her cell phone. "Dipper sent me a photo–"

A frown pulled at Wendy's lips.

"–and since you were in it, I kinda wanted your thoughts on something!" Mabel flicked over to her conversations, and tapped Dipper's. She didn't have to scroll back far to find the selfie he'd sent that night, since they hadn't texted very much since. She turned her phone around so Wendy could see it, but there was a bit of a glare.

Wendy leaned over to get a better look. "Oh yeah," she said, scratching the back of her head with a sheepish smile. "I guess I kinda forgot we took any pics."

Mabel pointed at the two people in the photo she'd never met. "By the way, who're they?" she asked, curious. Dipper had barely told her anything about the party, which was pretty unfair because she told him everything about her sleepovers whether he liked it or not. "I didn't see 'em last time we hung out with your friends!"

"Oh," Wendy said as she sat back up, her easy smile returning, "they're just a couple friends from school. They like to do their own thing a lot of the time. Sometimes the friend groups mix and sometimes they don't, y'know?"

Mabel didn't, since she'd never really had multiple groups of friends until coming to Gravity Falls, but she nodded like she did. "Yeah, totally!"

Wendy tapped the face of the guy with the earrings. "That one's Than." Then the girl with the blue streaks in her brown hair. "And the chesty one's Ashley. They're pretty cool, I think you'd like 'em."

Mabel nodded knowingly. She was sure she would. It took a lot to make her not like someone, and Dipper was a lot more judgmental than she was about these sorts of things; so if he liked them, then she probably would too.

And Dipper...

Mabel tapped the glass nervously, the real reason she'd come to talk to Wendy weighing heavy on her mind all of a sudden. "Do you think Dipper'd like it if I made a gift out of it? Like, printed the photo out and made a super cute frame? I know I'd like it."

Wendy's face scrunched up a bit. "Well... it's a really cute idea, Mabel, for real, but–"

"–well he had fun, didn't he?" Mabel interrupted, leaning even harder against the counter and pointing at Dipper's face in the photo. "I mean look at that smile! Dipper hated smiling in all of our family photos!"

He wouldn't have sent her the photo if he hadn't been having a good time, right?

But Wendy's face was telling a different story. "Yeah, of course he had fun," Wendy said slowly, not quite looking her in the eye. "I'm just... not so sure it's the kinda thing he'd like as a gift, ya get me?"

Mabel deflated a little. "Are you sure?" she asked, trying not to sound whiny. "I wanted to thank him for helping me out this week, especially since we were supposed to work on the password together." And they hadn't really talked much since their dumb argument about Pacifica, but Mabel kept that thought to herself.

Wendy's expression softened, and she looked back down at the cellphone screen. She stared at it for a long few seconds. "Maybe I'm wrong," Wendy said when she looked back up with a small smile. "Maybe he'd like it." She slid Mabel's phone back across the counter. "We did have a pretty good time that night, after all."

Mabel grinned. "That's gonna be my weekend project for sure then." She paused. "After my date with Gabe of course."

Wendy shook her head, chuckling. "Don't you have to blow his mind first?"

"Yeah, but I know that's gonna happen, so might as well plan ahead!" She stepped back from the counter, and waved forcefully. "Gotta go!"

Wendy waved back, but her gaze quickly slid to something behind Mabel. "How can I help you?"

A guy in a stained tank top, who she hadn't realized was waiting to get to the register, grumbled and gave her a dirty look. "Took you long enough!" he said.

But Mabel flashed him a radiant smile too, and then skipped out of the gift shop just like she'd skipped in, the door's bell chiming behind her as she closed it.

Soos's truck was right where she'd left it. When she opened the passenger's side door, Soos picked up the box she'd put on her seat to give her room to sit down. She fastened her seatbelt in one smooth motion, and then accepted her box back.

"Got what ya need dude?" Soos asked, chuckling. "I was thinking we'd have to leave without you!"

Candy gasped from the backseat. "We would never let him!"

"Yeah!" Grenda agreed, stomping her feet loudly. "I'd sooner die."

Mabel giggled, holding the box close to her chest. "I just needed to ask Wendy a couple things. Speaking of! Would you mind making a pit stop for me on the way back? I need to get a few photos printed out!"

"Ooh, behind-the-scenes photos?" Candy asked eagerly.

Mabel nodded like that was totally her plan, before realizing that it was actually an amazing idea too. She added it to her to-do list. No reason she couldn't multi-task!

"Your wish is my command," Soos said as he backed the car out of his parking spot. "But first, the theater!"

The drive was uneventful, mostly because Soos drove more like an old man than her grunkle ever did. But at least the slowness of the drive gave her some time to chat with her friends about important topics.

"Our babies would definitely have blue eyes," Mabel said, staring at her Gabe puppet dreamily. She imagined a mini version of herself with blue eyes, and swooned. Her daughter would be so pretty.

"And blonde hair!" Grenda added gleefully.

"Uh," Candy mumbled. "I do not think so. Mendelian genetics says–"

"–BORING," Grenda roared, before she started pounding her fists on her knees. "Blonde hair! Blue eyes!" she chanted. "Blonde hair! Blue eyes!"

Mabel took up the chant, "Blonde hair! Blue eyes!" She and Grenda kept the chant going for a whole stop light, and then all three of them devolved into sidesplitting laughter.

But if she was being honest, she quite liked her hair! She'd definitely want her kids to have her shade of brown. The blue eyes though, those she wanted.

Gravity Falls was such a small town that it never took them long to get anywhere, so they'd barely gotten through her top twenty baby names before they arrived (Gabriella. was near the top, of course).

Soos backed into a parking spot with practiced ease. He was a pretty dang good driver even if he was slow, but she supposed if he was able to drive a bus, a normal old pickup truck couldn't be too hard for him.

"And in one piece!" Soos declared triumphantly as he turned off the truck.

Holding her box close, Mabel kicked open the passenger side door (gently!), and stepped back out into the sunlight. She missed the AC as soon as she lost it, but her sadness was quickly replaced with glee when she turned around and, looking up, saw the Theatre Time Theater's marquee.

'Glove Story: A Sock Opera'

'by Mabel Pines'

Mabel couldn't help but squeal at the sight of it.

Grenda and Candy joined her the second they saw it too.

"We did it!" Mabel yelled, hopping up and down excitedly. "It's really real!"

"Yeah baby!" Grenda cheered. "Next stop: Broadway!"

She almost couldn't believe it. They'd worked so hard on all this, and here they were, just a few hours from making it all a reality!

And all it took was Grunkle Stan having some dirt on the right people! If there wasn't a lesson there, then Mabel would eat her hairband.

Despite there not being any other shows today besides her own, there was still an attendant at the ticket booth, lazing around with an incredibly bored look in his eyes. He reminded her of Wendy, but like a thousand times less cool.

He looked between the four of them slowly, completely slack jawed. "...Do you want tickets?"

Mabel would have clutched at her heart if she wasn't holding her box full of puppets. "Is that any way to talk to the director/writer/singer/lead actor of Gravity Falls' next great puppet sensation?" When the bored teenager just kept staring at her, she made a frustrated noise. "We're getting ready for the show! We need to get in!"

"...Okay," he drawled, "just... walk in I guess."

"Thank you sir!" Soos said for her, though she had a different word in mind for him.

The lobby of the theater was decorated with a few of the posters they'd hurriedly made on Tuesday, but other than that, it seemed perfectly normal to her. Not that she'd been to a theater too many times in Piedmont, so it wasn't like she had a ton to compare it to.

Past the lobby and into the theater proper, and Mabel only narrowly managed to avoid bursting into tears. The Mystery Shack that Soos had built was already set up on the stage, along with the Octopoid alien, the ballroom for the engagement scene, and the church for the wedding scene. They'd have to move a lot of it behind the curtains, but just seeing it all up there filled her with so much pride she thought she might explode.

Well, pride, and even more appreciation for her friends.

She bumped into Soos, since she couldn't hug him with her hands full. "Thanks for setting all this up last night," she said with a great big smile.

Soos smiled back, his buck teeth poking out a bit. "No probs dude. What are friends for?"

Once they'd gotten up onto the stage, Mabel set her box carefully down. She looked out into the empty audience, then up and around to the walls, the ceiling, the spotlights... Then she closed her eyes, held her arms out, and spun slowly, savoring the feeling of the stage all around her. Opening her eyes just before she started to get dizzy, she grinned. It felt just like she'd imagined it would.

Amazing.

"Okay gals and guy, lots to do! Chop chop!"

They had to get all their props organized in some way that made even the slightest bit of sense, move all the sets backstage and figure out the order in which they'd need them, practice moving stuff from backstage to front and then back, figure out how lighting and sound worked, get their smoke machine set up (Soos had brought that last night, right?), and, heck, they just had to practice. Practice everything. Sure, she was doing all the puppeteering herself, but there was so much they had to work out before the big moment!

Mabel removed the puppets from her box, then picked out the props and began to lay them out in piles according to what scene she was pretty sure they were used for (yeah she had her whole show in her head, but it was a long show!). Grenda followed suit by dumping her box onto the stage like a toddler dumping her legos.

Candy eyed the mess that Grenda had quickly made. "Uh, Mabel, would backstage not be better? We will have to move all this stuff anyway."

Mabel waved her hand. "Oh, pshhhhhh. We're only gonna get to have the theater to ourselves for a little while, let's spend as much time on the front stage as possible!" Who knew when they'd have another chance to have a whole stage just for them?

Candy nodded slowly, then sat down and started delicately removing the stuff from her own box.

But she supposed though there was no reason to leave stuff up on stage that they knew they wouldn't be using any time soon. "Soos, can you take the Octopoid and the war stuff backstage?" she asked the most testosterone filled member of her team, "we're not gonna need it for a bit."

"You got it boss!" Soos gave a thumbs up and got to work.

Mabel turned back to her own box, and once again briefly admired the beauty of her lead two puppets. They'd remade them pretty much from scratch last night, and, to her eye, they were perfect. There was no way Gabe could see anything wrong with them.

Soon enough though, she had everything she'd brought laid out on the stage, so she sprung back up to her feet and went to inspect her soldiers' work. Grenda's stuff was still a mess (she wasn't the best at staying organized, she had that in common with Dipper) while Candy's was prim and proper, just like she'd expected it to be. Candy had brought the Candy and Grenda puppets, along with other things they were going to need, like some books to use as weights and props both.

She was about to go take over Grenda's pile, when the spine of one of the books that Candy had laid out caught her eye. It was sitting between two other books, and had a blank red spine, but for some reason it tickled something in the back of her brain.

"Hey, Candy, what's that book in the middle?" she asked, squinting.

Candy looked like she didn't get what she meant for a second, but then she looked down and remembered the books she'd brought. "Oh!" she exclaimed, before she slid it out from between the other two books. She turned it around to face Mabel.

A familiar six fingered hand stared Mabel in the face, the number '3' printed in the middle of the hand.

"I just thought it looked nice and old!" Candy said, "Perfect for the wedding scene." She giggled, blushing.

Mabel chewed on her lower lip. The Journal did look nice and old, and it really would be perfect for the wedding scene! But it was Dipper's, and they hadn't even asked to take it. Surely he wouldn't mind, right? He didn't really need it for the laptop, or at least... she'd never seen him have the Journal with him when he'd been squeezing in a few password attempts.

She'd... She'd tell him when they got back to the Shack. Better for him to know than for him to go looking for it and then get mad when he realized they'd taken it.

"Don't lose it," Mabel said finally. "It's Dipper's."

Candy's face fell as she stared at the book in a new light. "I did not realize! I'm sorry."

Mabel waved her off with a small smile "It's alright! I'll just tell him I took it. You'll be fine." No reason for him to get mad at Candy too, he was already mad at her anyway. They could take it back when they stopped at home… but dang it, it did look great, and the show needed to be perfect!

Candy looked at her somberly, but nodded.

"Speaking of the wedding scene," Mabel began, turning to Grenda who was admiring the replica Shack that Soos had built. "Is your cousin still going to play the Reverend for us, Grenda?"

Grenda looked away from the mini-Shack, her jaw set firmly. "If he doesn't, he's gonna get it," she said, punching her palm threateningly.

"Great!" Mabel said, willing happiness back into her voice. That was pretty much everything covered, then. They had everyone they needed, and all of the props and puppets were here too. "Then let's get to work for real!"

"Aye aye cap'n!" Grenda shouted.

Wendy's day was going fine.

She definitely wasn't jumping every time her boss passed through the 'Employee's Only' door because she expected to see someone else. And she certainly wasn't at all anxious about the fact that she hadn't seen that someone else all day. She was totally cool with all of that, because that's what she did, she played things cool. She didn't let things bother her.

She was Wendy Corduroy, the coolest girl in school, and nothing ever bothered her.

Leaning over the counter with her chin propped on her palm, and her magazine lying in front of her completely unread, even Wendy herself couldn't believe her own hype.

The sound of the curtain that led to the museum sliding open nearly made her jump. Stanford Pines stalked into the gift shop and appraised the situation quickly. His eyes scanned the gift shop, looking for something to complain about.

Except...the gift shop was neat. She'd been bored and her magazines had completely failed to hold her attention. She hadn't really felt like talking to any of her friends either... So she'd done her job. Y'know, the thing she was being paid for.

But if there was one thing bosses were good at, it was finding something to drag their employees for, even if there was nothing out of place. Mr. Pines' gaze settled on her.

"Corduroy!" He reprimanded gruffly. "You're scaring off all my customers!"

Wendy scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I can't scare off what's not here." They'd had barely anyone come through today, a stark contrast to yesterday that was making her day pass by even more painfully slowly.

Mr. Pines squinted at her suspiciously. "And they're not here because they take one look through the window and see you frowning up a storm."

She couldn't be that obvious, could she?

"Who goes to the gift shop before they go through the museum?" she asked, deadpan.

Mr. Pines ignored her. "First the boy, and now my cashier too. Is something in the water? Do I need to order an inspection?" He shivered, the thought visibly repulsing him. "No, no, it's something else, gotta be."

The boredom must have gotten to him

Her boss grinned suddenly. "What was his name, the one with the acne and the tight pants? Blobbie?"

Wendy made a strangled noise and sat up, affronted. "What? I'm over him, give me some damn credit."

Mr. Pines laughed and adjusted his glasses. "Yeah yeah, whatever you say Corduroy, I was a teen once, I know The Look." He said 'teen' like it was an insult. "And it got you up off my counter, didn't it? Point to Stan Pines."

Wendy blew air out her nose and shook her head. He'd definitely told her more times than she could count to get off his counter, but dammit, people leaned on counters. That's practically what they were there for.

"So, you goin' to the show?" he asked flatly, his joy at successfully reprimanding her quickly fading.

Wendy nodded, and only barely caught herself before she leaned over the counter again. "Yeah, I'll be riding with Soos though, if that's why you're asking."

Mr. Pines tapped his cane on the floor idly. "Good good. Take Dipper with ya if he decides to go, I'll take the girls."

"Is Dipper not going?" She asked, the thought settling strangely in her chest. Did she want him to go? Did she want him not to?

Mr. Pines shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. "Have you seen that kid? Looks like a zombie! I'll be surprised if we wake up tomorrow with our brains still in our heads; and I've seen the real thing too!" Then he stroked his chin. "...maybe something is in the water."

Wendy wanted to laugh, but couldn't. The thought that even Dipper's grumpy great uncle noticed how... out of it he was filled her with a nameless sort of dread.

She'd really done a number on him, hadn't she?

Sure, they'd talked plenty this week, and they were even texting a bit, but things just weren't the same, were they? There was a… distance between them now, and she fuckin' hated it.

It had been there after she turned him down too, but he'd grinned and bore it while she told herself she'd done the right thing.

"–ey, Corduroy!" her boss said, snapping his fingers in her face violently. "I said go take a break!"

Wendy abruptly crashed back into reality. "Huh? Are you sure?" She'd already had her break today, hadn't she?

"Don't make me say it a third time or I might change my mind, get outta here!" He grunted with a hard stare. "Go get some fresh air or something, clear your head, yadda yadda. I don't need two zombies in the house."

Wendy got out from behind the counter, but then froze when she realized she didn't know where she wanted to go. She wasn't used to getting a second break!

Mr. Pines frowned at her.

"Fine, I'm goin'! Jeez," she grumbled.

She ended up going outside, but immediately regretted it. It was another hot day, and she wouldn't be getting much comfort out of it. She'd even worn shorts today, but it was barely helping. She circled around the outside of the Shack until she came to the ratty couch outside the back door.

It was empty, and she told herself she hadn't been hoping to run into a certain someone typing away on his crappy old laptop.

She sat down and took out her cell phone. Flipping it open, she went to her inbox and went about her now standard routine: deleting Robbie's latest pathetic messages, and then responding to Tambry.

'we're still on for tomorrow, right?'

'or are your new best friends a bunch of puppets?'

Wendy let the snide comment roll off of her like it was nothing. She had been neglecting her friends this last week, so she couldn't be mad at Tambry for being annoyed.

'yeah we're still on. mall?'

She hit send and leaned back into the couch, ignoring the weird pokey bit jabbing into her back. The couch was scratchy against the bare skin of her legs too, but she'd slept on worse. There was a bit of shade back here at least, but it wasn't much shelter from the heat. Her phone buzzed twice.

'well we're gonna start there and then see where we end up'

'maybe a movie after or something idk'

Wendy typed out a quick reply.

'sounds like a plan'

Then, a second later, she remembered what her boss had said.

'and make sure robbie doesn't come. I don't feel like dealing with him'

So, tonight was the puppet show. Tomorrow was the mall with the gang. And Sunday– that was movie night with Dipper. And they still hadn't even decided if it would be at her place or the Shack.

What did she even want?

The Shack? Where they'd be sharing a television with Mabel, and probably Mr. Pines too? Where she could rely on others to fill the dead air, and keep things something almost normal? That's when things had been easiest for her, she knew. If she squinted and pretended like it was two weeks ago, nothing had changed at all when they were all together as a group.

Or her house? Where they'd holed up in her room, all alone? They'd done it before, and not a single one of her siblings, or even her dad had bothered them.

And why would they? She was fifteen, and he was twelve.

(Almost thirteen.)

Could she handle it? Did she want to?

She'd already avoided talking about the party for almost a week... but could she keep avoiding it when it was just the two of them alone in her room for several hours?

Should she?

Wendy groaned and slumped further into the sofa.

Shit was way too difficult, and she was sick of it.

It was also too hot, she decided. Better to go inside where she could get some AC.

Standing abruptly, she was once again confronted by the problem of figuring out where the fuck she wanted to go. Resolving to figure it out as she went, she reached for the back door's doorknob. She was pleased (and a little bit surprised) to find that it was unlocked despite her not having come out this way; she'd figured Mr. Pines would be a bit more paranoid than that, but she'd been wrong a lot lately.

She made her way through the Shack, following her feet wherever they'd take her, until she found herself standing in the kitchen. She briefly thought about taking a Pitt Cola from the fridge, but decided against it. She'd already taken one today, and she'd feel bad about taking another when Mr. Pines was actually giving her a second break for a change.

Rifling through the cupboards (she didn't actually do that very often) she eventually found herself a glass to use, and filled it up with the tap. She had to let it run for a few seconds until the water cooled slightly, but it was good enough for her. They never had cold water at her house anyway.

She swished the water in her mouth for a second, testing Mr. Pines' theory.

Nope. Tasted normal enough to her.

When she was done with her glass of water, she set it down on the countertop next to the sink and took a deep breath.

"Alright."

Time to stop pretending like she wasn't just looking for excuses to not go find Dipper.

She at least needed to know if he was coming to the show tonight, right?

The living room wound up being empty, and for the first time in what felt like ages, it was actually clean too. Not a single puppet lay draped over the recliner's arm, and, at least as far as her eyes could see, there wasn't even a scrap of fabric littered on the floor. Mabel and her friends must have cleaned it up before they left earlier.

(By which she meant it had probably all been Candy, the cleanest of the three.)

After checking the living room, she wandered through the Shack until she found the backroom she'd asked Soos about last night. They'd just been chatting while putting together Mabel's sets on stage, and she'd brought up Dipper's "secret room". Soos naturally gave her the full rundown.

She poked through the dusty pantry she'd never been in until she found the big "suspicious-looking" wooden door Soos mentioned. There was a weird rectangular symbol in the middle of it, just like he'd said, and there was a bookcase pushed to one side of it.

Had to be the place.

She knocked three times in quick succession, then waited for a response.

When she didn't get one, she knocked two more times for good measure but was again met with silence.

"Coming in!" she called.

However, when she opened the door, all she found was another empty room.

Looking around, she realized that it was actually pretty dang spacious. It had a long couch against one wall, and a rolled up carpet stashed in the corner with a post-it note on it (which read 'do not touch'). A few cabinets lined the walls, each with a strange assortment of knick-knacks sitting on top of them, including a weird rainbow pyramid thing. A door led to a bathroom, but it was also empty.

(She remembered asking Dipper if the room had a TV, and she was disappointed to note that it didn't.)

Okay, so he wasn't in the not-so secret room.

She closed the door behind her, and made her way upstairs. He hadn't been on the couch outside, he wasn't in the secret room, and she'd definitely never seen him go up the ladder to the roof today, which meant he had to be in his room, right?

But the door to the twins' bedroom was wide open, and their room was completely empty too. Mabel's side of the room was bare except for her usual decorations, but Dipper's side was rather... shabby. His bed was a complete mess, with the blanket half on the floor and the pillows nowhere near the head of the bed, and there were sheets of paper thumb tacked into the wall beside it with long lists of crossed out words.

Wendy tapped her foot anxiously.

Okay, so not in his bedroom either.

By now, there was no way she had much break left, so she took out her phone and typed up a message.

'hey man, where you at?'

She knew she should've just sent a text to start out, but something about it was getting tougher every time she did it. Sending a text felt more... manufactured than just running into him.

(Even though she knew she was looking for him.)

She sat on his bed while she waited for a response, but after two minutes of waiting with no answer, she went a step further.

Wendy called him the old fashioned way–

–and it went straight to voicemail.

"Ugh, must be dead."

She was 95% of the way to giving up and heading back down to the gift shop when she heard it.

A faint 'bzzzt'.

She concentrated hard, and listened for any other sounds, and sure enough, within a few seconds, there was another 'bzzzt'. And then another a few seconds after that. And another!

And it was coming from... above? Somewhere to the side? Definitely up high, but this was the top of the house besides the roof, wasn't it? Well, except the att–

–God.

Wendy wanted to hit herself. She'd completely forgotten the Shack even had an attic.

Luckily, Mr. Pines had shown her exactly how to get up there, because he'd needed her to take a few boxes up one time earlier in the summer.

She went back downstairs the way she'd come, and wound her way through the sometimes mazelike Shack until she found the rarely used stairs that led straight up to the attic proper. She scaled them quickly, and sure enough as she made her way up, the sound of what could only be the laptop's buzzing became even clearer.

Once she got to the top, it didn't take her more than a second to find who she was looking for. At the opposite end of the attic, red light filtered in from a stained glass window with that strange triangular symbol she'd seen all over the Shack. Immediately below it was a red cushioned window seat. And sitting on that window seat clacking away at his keyboard was Dipper Pines, completely oblivious to the world.

Besides Dipper, the room was basically empty except for those boxes she'd brought up at the beginning of the summer. Okay, there was a grimy old mirror to one side, and a few random things Mr. Pines must have tossed up at some point, but other than that... nothing.

Why'd he even come up here?

She took a hesitant step forward, but the weight of her boots caused the wooden floorboards to creak loudly.

Dipper jerked, and looked over to her with wide eyes.

"Wendy?" he asked, his tone strange.

Wendy tried to smile, but couldn't make it work. Mr. Pines was right. He really did look like a zombie. His eyes were bloodshot, and the bags beneath them were even darker than they'd been yesterday.

"What's up?" she asked back, hoping it had even a trace of her usual attitude.

Dipper just shrugged, and turned back to his laptop with a wave. "Oh, you know, just trying to crack the code." He typed in another word, but another 'BZZZZZT' rang out. He made a noise.

She walked over to him and stopped beside the cushioned window seat, but he just kept staring at the laptop, and kept typing. There were several more buzzes before she found her voice.

"So, uh, your uncle wanted to know if you were going to Mabel's show?" She wanted to punch his shoulder, but didn't. "You'd be riding with me 'n Soos."

Dipper's eyes flicked over momentarily, before refocusing on the laptop. "Nah," he said flatly. "I spent all week on her crap, now I wanna work on mine."

Wendy frowned. "Are you sure dude?"

Dipper tried another password, but it failed too. "Yeah, I'm sure," he said, still looking forward at the screen.

Again, she found herself at a loss for words. She knew he could be determined when he wanted to be, in fact, it was something she liked about him. But this was too much, even for him.

'Play it cool.'

"Back when the last Call of Duty came out, Nate and Lee stayed up playing it for like... two full days." She began, chuckling. "They tried to get Thomson in on it, but he's not a big shooter guy. Anyway, Nate ended up like, fainting, at the end of it. He was so exhausted he just fell over and cracked one of his teeth, right in half. His top left canine's a total fake." She pointed up at her own top left canine with her thumb to illustrate it, but he scarcely looked over. "Just don't want the same to happen to you, ya get me?"

"I'm fine, Wendy," Dipper muttered, still typing even as he said it. "Once I get into the laptop, I'll sleep for like a week, alright?"

Several more buzzes filled the air.

Wendy clenched and unclenched her fist.

Yesterday… she'd chickened out. She'd been too scared to accidentally provoke the conversation that had loomed over them since Monday. No– since she'd kissed him.

Maybe now was the moment.

Something was eating at him, and if it was her, then she owed it to him to talk it out. Because he was her friend, despite how much she'd messed everything up.

He entered another password, and the laptop buzzed again.

"Dipper, hey." She reached out and touched his shoulder. "Is everything okay, dude? Do you wanna t–"

"–I said I'm fine." Dipper interrupted with a forcefulness that made her let go of his shoulder. His tired eyes finally held her gaze steady, stopping just short of a glare. "Nothing's wrong, I just want to get into this stupid fucking laptop, okay?" He tore his eyes away from hers again, and stared at the laptop, his face bathed in the red light of the stained glass. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, but didn't type anything else. "I'll talk to you later," he ground out, still looking at the screen.

Wendy just stood there, frozen, as he started typing again. A pit formed in her stomach, and a thousand thoughts flew through her mind, each pulling her in a different direction.

In the end, she followed the thought that led her down the easiest path. The cowardly path. Backward. Away.

"Alright," she said, her voice feeling hollow, "talk to ya later."

She retreated back to the stairs, the wood creaking beneath her feet with each step, but stopped just before descending them. She turned around, and, staring at the boy who'd occupied at least half of her thoughts for the last week, warred with herself one final time.

The words, 'I'm sorry,' hovered on the tip of her tongue.

Swallowing them, she turned around, and went down the stairs, her boots thudding against each one of them with all the weight of her shame.

They could talk later, she told herself. Things were fine. He was just having a bad day.

You deserve it, a smaller voice said.

When she finally found herself back in the gift shop, Mr. Pines was still there, inspecting the cleanliness of the counter.

He looked up at her when she shut the 'Employee's Only' door.

"Yeesh, what happened?" He said, the second he saw her.

"Nothing," she said, avoiding his searching gaze.

Her boss snorted. "That's about the least 'nothing' nothing I've ever seen." He vacated the counter anyway, giving her room to get back to her usual spot. "Anyway, we'll be closing up shop in about an hour, maybe earlier. Depends on when my darling niece finally finds her way home."

She nodded silently as she took her seat at the register.

Mr. Pines stared at her for a moment, then adjusted his Fez and cleared his throat. "Or we could just close up now…" He shrugged, trailing off. "Not like it's been a high volume day."

"I'm fine, Mr. Pines," she said, forcing something you could call cheer into her voice.

He threw up his hands. "Alright, alright! Can't say I didn't try." He left back the way he'd initially come, through the curtain that led to the museum. She heard him grumble "Teens!" under his breath.

But with no customers to deal with, and no real work for her to actually do, she quickly found herself alone with her thoughts. Which she didn't like one bit. She took out her phone, and flipped around aimlessly after deleting another dumb message from Robbie.

Eventually, she opened up a blank message, and just started typing whatever came to mind. There was a term for that sorta thing she was supposed to have learnt in English class, but she slept through a lot of those, so she couldn't quite remember what it was.

She couldn't really talk to anyone about this stuff, so vomiting her thoughts into a message destined for the recycling bin was just about the best thing she could do. Better than stewing. She'd been doing too much of that lately too.

(Dipper's name came up in the message more than once)

She'd already gone over the character limit twice when she heard the telltale rumble of Soos's pickup truck pulling up.

Dipper found the Shack silent and seemingly deserted when he finally descended from the attic. There was no one in the kitchen, there was no sound coming from his bedroom (and there usually was plenty of that if Mabel was there), and the living room was occupied solely by puppets strewn all over the floor.

Surprised that they all might leave without even letting him know, he even went around to the museum, but found it dark and quiet as well, without a Mystery Man in sight.

When Dipper threw aside the curtain that separated the gift shop from the museum, he was relieved to find that Wendy was still there, though she was the only one. Orange light filtered in from outside, dying the shop the colors of sunset.

Wendy was leaning over the counter, staring intently at her flip phone. She didn't even seem to notice that he'd walked in.

Dipper bit his lip as he tried to calm his hammering heart. She'd been who he was looking for the whole time anyway, right?

He cleared his throat.

Wendy's eyes flicked up from her phone for a moment before returning to it. "Oh. Sup Dipper," she said as she typed something out.

He took a few cautious steps forward, but each one was like his shoes were filled with lead; he practically had to drag himself forward until he was a couple feet from the register.

"Wendy, about earlier..." Dipper stuttered out, his voice cracking pathetically. "I just– I wanted to say–" Why were the words so hard to spit out? "I– I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."

Wendy shrugged, still not taking her eyes off of her cell phone. "Whatever dude."

Dipper's heart sank. "No– I mean– I was being a jerk, okay? I've just... I've got a lot on my mind, I'm sorry. Really."

Wendy silently typed another message on her phone, still not looking at him.

He grabbed at his shirt, twisting the fabric nervously in his fingers. "C–Can we talk?" Could she at least look at him?

"What about?" Wendy asked, as if he'd asked her what she wanted from the vending machine. "I thought you said you were fine."

Dipper swallowed hard. What did he want to talk about? Bill? Them?

Whatever he wanted to say caught in his throat as Wendy snapped her phone shut and stood up. She was smirking, and her green eyes were venomous.

"I don't know why you think I care so much."

Dipper recoiled like he'd been punched in the gut. He took a step back as he struggled to find something to say.

Wendy came out from behind the counter, her eyes never leaving his. Her smirk widened. "You talk so much when it's your nerd shit, don't you have anything to say, dude?"

What?

Why– why was she acting like this? Why couldn't he think of anything to say?

Wendy stepped closer to him, and he stepped further back.

"Why should I care that some twelve year old's mad at me?" she taunted as her eyes narrowed. "Huh? No answer still?"

Dipper felt like he was drowning, fighting for air; this– this wasn't Wendy. This wasn't how she acted.

"If anything," she continued, her voice lowering, "I'm the one who should be mad here. Riddle me this genius, do you think I like getting eye fucked by a kid every day? Or is that not in your little journal?" She wiggled her fingers. "Not supernatural enough for ya?" She laughed, her voice thick with sarcasm.

Tears stung his eyes as he tried to back away even further, but his back slammed into a wall. His breath came and went in shallow gasps.

Suddenly, she was in his face, her eyes flicking down to his lips. Her smirk was sickening. "Is it because I kissed you?" She whispered as she leaned over, bringing her lips close to his.

He could taste her breath.

"Do you want another one? Is that it?"

He tried to jerk away from her, but her arm shot out and pinned him.

"What, scared now? You were so confident when you tried to kiss me." Her lips nearly brushed his. "When you tried to take advantage of a drunk girl." Her eyes glittered as she giggled. "One little kiss and you think you can play with the big kids?"

"Wendy–" he finally managed, his voice cracking again. "–why?"

"Aw," she said, "another little voice crack! How adorable." She turned her head, and brought her mouth to his ear. "Newsflash dude: if it wasn't you, it just would've been someone else. Right place, right time. That's all it was."

It–

It was her face. It was her voice.

But it couldn't be Wendy. It just couldn't.

"But since we're here..." she drawled, her free hand creeping slowly to the hem of his shirt, "...do you want the next part? Round two?"

When her fingers brushed the flesh of his stomach, they were like ice. His breath caught, and he shut his eyes hard–

–and when he opened them, he was gasping for breath.

…He was alone.

Of course he was. He was so stupid.

The orange light of sunset in the gift shop was gone, the red light from the attic window having taken its place in the time it took him to open his eyes. The laptop was still sitting right where he'd last seen it: right on his lap.

"Just a dream..." he mumbled under his breath, as if saying it made him feel any better.

How many was that?

How many times had he nodded off, just to face something that made him never want to sleep again?

His heart was pounding, and his hands were shaking. He took deep breaths, slowly regaining a bit more control of himself with each one.

Wendy would never say anything like that. Never.

He told himself that every time he'd had a dream like that, but it didn't make his heart hurt any less. He could still hear the words said in her voice, could still see the cruel smirk that stared down at him on her face. It was so easy for his heart to believe, even if his brain told him that Wendy wasn't anything like the girl in his nightmares.

He took a shuddering breath.

Okay.

Alright.

What time was it?

He fumbled for his phone, and tried to unlock it three fruitless times before he remembered that it was dead. He'd forgotten to charge it last night, and he'd been up here in the attic all day. He slipped it back into his pocket and took another deep breath.

How long had he been out?

Had Wen–had everyone left for the puppet show yet?

Should he go check?

He shook his head. No. No. He'd just make a fool of himself. Better to focus on the laptop. Something he could eventually get right.

But as he stared at the screen that had taunted him on and off for the past week, the green glow of it only brought to mind the wicked glint in Wendy's eyes.

(Not Wendy. Nightmare Wendy.)

Eight letter words. That's what he needed. More eight letter words.

Dipper's fingers shook as his hands hovered over the keyboard.

"Stop thinking. Start typing."

He typed gibberish at first just to get started, but after the fifth nonsense word and the fifth buzz, his brain had cleared just enough for him to actually think of something.

'DISCIPLE'

BZZZZZZT.

'PLETHORA'

BZZZZZZT.

'ACCOLADE'

BZZZZZZT.

'GLINTING'

BAAAAAH.

He'd gotten through six of the eight letters in 'ACCIDENT' when he realized that the last failure buzz had been different from the previous ones. He'd typed the last two letters, and his right thumb was halfway to pressing the enter key when he realized that the screen had changed too.

FINAL ATTEMPT:

TIME UNTIL DATA WIPE:

4:52

4:51