Mabel sat on the counter in the gift shop, swinging her legs back and forth as she read Wendy's magazine with her. After the whole incident with Robbie, everyone was a bit more fidgety and reading over Wendy's shoulder like this was rather enjoyable for the girl, almost like having an older sister.

The door swung open and in walked Tambry, Mabel just raised a confused brow, as Wendy greeted her friend. "Hey Tambs, what brings you here? You do recall how Stan feels about you guys coming around, right?"

The gothic teen shrugged, "I'm actually here to help Dipper out. When we crossed paths the other day, we wound up talking a bit about the Doctor Zone Files, and figured it would be fun to nerd out about the show a bit, catch up with what episodes we haven't seen and all that."

Mabel blinked in surprise. "You like that show?"

Tambry nodded "yeah, I like the writing. The effects sucks but the acting makes up for it."

Wendy shrugged. "I've liked worse movies for worse reasons."

The two teens had a good laugh as Mabel chuckled nervously, it was then Dipper wandered into the gift shop. "Tambry? I thought I heard you, though I didn't think you would want to watch the series with me so soon after we talked about it."

Tambry shrugged, "well, I was in the mood to watch a bit, and figured since I was going to watch it anyways, why not watch it with a new friend?"

"Oh!" Dipper said "um yeah, sure. Do you want to watch it with us, Mabel?"

She hesitated before shaking her head "no thanks. But you two go have fun!"

As Tambry followed Dipper off to the living room, Wendy turned to Mabel and poked her in the side, getting her attention. "Someone is looking a little jealous here."

"What?" She scoffed, "I'm not jealous. I'm happy Dipper has a new friend."

"That look in your eye is telling a different story."

Before Mabel could deny the claim once more, Stan stepped into the room. "Hey, just saw your goth girl friend in the living room with Dipper. Since she is hanging with him and it's his day off, I won't kick her out. But you better remember my rule about those boys coming here when you're supposed to be working."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Yes boss, I remember. One accident and you never let a girl live it down."

"Now I'm curious-y about that story," Mabel said.

Wendy shrugged "it's not a very long or interesting story, the guys visited, goofed off, broke a bunch of stuff, and Stan banned them from ever stepping foot in here. The only two he doesn't really hate are Tambry and Thompson, because neither are destructive, making them potential customers."

Wendy proceeded to poke the side of Mabel's belly once more. "You should learn how to divert a conversation properly, cause I am still concerned over how jealous you are."

Mabel pouted, though before she could deny anything, Stan spoke up. "Well, since you are on the clock, I guess I can teach her a thing or two. Come on Mabel, come to the kitchen with me for a bite to eat."

Now it was Wendy's turn to pout, as Mabel raised a brow as she followed Stan. She sat down and glared at the table, hearing Dipper and Tambry talking in the living room.

Stan cleared his throat to draw Mabel's attention to him, as he set a can of pitt cola down in front of her. "I am not gonna tell you how to handle things, don't even believe I should, given how things turned out with me and my own twin. But if you want to listen, I have a bit of a story to tell."

Mabel looked up and slowly nodded.

"Firstly, so you can have a little context, me and my twin were similar to you and Dipper. My brother was as smart as they come, a real super genius kind of guy, while I was just the one with 'personality'."

"Okay…"

Stan chuckled, "yeah. He was praised by everyone, and I got jealous." Stan paused to give Mabel a pointed brow raise here. "And in my jealousy, and fear of losing my bro, I slammed my fist on the wrong table, jostling something that should not have been jostled. And that is how everything fell apart for me, his invention broke, and I caused my brother to hate me. In my anger and jealousy over everyone taking my brother from me, I pushed him away, and didn't hear from him."

"But it all worked out, right?" Mabel asked "you guys forgave each other?"

Stan frowned, his thoughts swirling as he answered. "Like I said before, he refused to talk with me, and this house is all I have left of him."

"So you two never made up?" Mabel asked.

"I never got the chance to properly hash things out with him, because my jealousy of him wanting his space to grow caused me to ruin his future, and I could never really bring myself to hate him for that. I would occasionally look into the mirror and talk with myself on how I would word things if I ever got the chance to talk with him again. But by time I found out about his situation, things were already out of control, and now I haven't spoken to him in thirty years."

Mabel was quiet for a while "I'm really sorry that happened to you guys. But why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want you to make my mistakes." Stan ruffled Mabel's hair as he continued. "If you start getting jealous over something this small, what if you get jealous over something bigger, like him wanting to go to a fancy college that you aren't able to get into, and he has to be separated from you for a time. If you let your jealousy bleed into anger, you could be as miserable as me someday, and I love you two rugrats too much to watch history repeat itself."

"I guess…"

Stan smiled. "Don't think that it's all on you, he needs to realize that you still deserve his attention, he shouldn't just up and leave you for anyone. But you can't shade him from all the light, and he will eventually grow big enough to get more light than you can stop. Everyone blossoms at some point, just try to grow with him, rather than over him."

Mabel played with her sweater "it's good that Dipper is making other friends but… What if he decides that he doesn't need me anymore?"

Stan scratched his chin. "That sounds an awful lot like me back in the day, and in all honesty, I never found my answer. But as long as you have faith in your brother, whether he needs you or not won't matter. He doesn't have to need you, to want to spend time with you. You are his sister, not his carer."

"I know…" She said "but I just worry, like, we're twins and what if he decides he doesn't want to hang out with me anymore?"

"As long as you don't give him a reason, if he decides to never want to hang out with you then that's his fault." Stan said" but if you try to smother him, then you give him reason. If you just be the best sister you can be, there shouldn't be a reason to worry."

"You guys are siblings, fighting will happen, it's normal. But as long as you don't dwell on the fact that he wants his own life, you can always be a part of it." He said, placing a hand on his niece's shoulder "take it from someone who has gone through being pushed away from his twin, if you try to force yourself into his life he will feel smothered and start to push back."

Mabel slumped her shoulders, Stan's words clearly getting through to her. She glanced back in the direction of the living room where Dipper and Tambry were watching their show. She could hear Tambry explaining some of the things on the show, using terms and words she actually didn't know the meaning of.

"You know what," Stan said, an idea coming to him "maybe we can go do something. Just the two of us. Dipper has got his own thing going on already, so why not you?"

Mabel actually smiled as she got up to follow Stan out as the man shouted at Wendy. "Hey, Wendy! Soos is off for the day, so I am stuck leaving you in charge, don't disappoint me."

"Ai ai boss!"

Stan started with driving them through town, a waste of gas, maybe. But helping his niece was worth it. "So, what can we do to have fun without your brother?"

"Hmmm" Mabel considered the question "oh! Is there a craft store or something nearby?"

Stan chuckled a little before letting out a sigh. "And here I was thinking you would want to do something other than shopping with me. I'm gonna tell you now though, I am not splurging a whole lot here, so prepare to pay out of your own pocket if you want to get the fancy schmancy stuff."

As Stan pulled into a small store, Mabel read the name as Schmancy Crafts, making her giggle. Did Stan really make a pun about the craft supply store's name? Dipper's rubbed off on him.

Mabel wasn't planning on doing as much shopping as Stan seemed to believe, as soon as they were in the store she grabbed two things. A large box full of chalk (over thirty colors!) and some sidewalk paint pens.

She smiled up at her Grunkle "I want to go decorate public property!"

Stan blinked as he scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So, we are going to go and deface public property with our own artistic style in a way for us not to be held accountable in a negative light. Alright, sounds fun."

Mabel was practically vibrating in excitement "yay!"

—-

Once they were back in the car Stan looked at her expectantly "so, where are we doing this?"

She considered the question "where do you think we should do it?"

Stan shrugged as he did his best to stay on the road, stupid cataracts. "I never really care about where I make a mess, just as long as I do it smart and avoid the fuzz."

Mabel bit her lip "... Do you think we could get away with doing Gideon's house?"

Stan smiled as he drove a bit slower towards the residential area of the town. "Alright, I can get behind that idea. He's probably still crushing on you, so if we get caught you can just distract him. Just bat your eyes, smile, and say hi slowly, and as he races through his house to get to us, we make a run for it."

Stan made it to the street the Gleeful family lived on as he stopped enough away to assess the situation. "Okay, it looks like Bud is off manning his car lot, so we only have to really worry about Gideon catching us. Mrs. Gleeful never leaves the house, so we have no worries with her."

Mabel nodded and tried to be serious but had a hard time hiding her grin as she grabbed the chalk and sidewalk paint.

As the two pulled up down the road, they ditched the car enough distance away to not be noticed, hidden by foliage. The two made their way over, Stan put a ski mask on, before he handed Mabel her own just before they hopped the fence.

"Why are we wearing masks?" She asked. "Won't that make us more suspicious?"

"It's in case we're seen so they have a much harder time recognizing us. Do you really want to turn around and flirt with Gideon if we are already making our get away?"

Mabel blinked. Yeah, if they were only caught as they were running away from the scene it would be pointless to distract Gideon, because they were already done. What Mabel didn't catch was how pulling off the mask was something that would also distract Gideon. Making him feel like she was breaking the rules to see him, his fantasies probably being all she needed to distract him enough for Stan to grab her and run. Both were open to any excuse to keep her from having to flirt with Gideon.

As Stan started to decorate the back wall with silly things, such as a facsimile of Gideon with an overly exaggerated dumbified look, he turned to Mabel to see if his plan to cheer her up was working.

Stan had to stop and blink as he saw that Mabel somehow bedazzled the ski mask he gave her, which was also now pink. Well, at least she was feeling better, even if he had to get a new mask for future accomplices.

Stan looked to see what his niece had decorated the wall with, she had rolled the sleeves of her sweater up and he could see her arms were covered in chalk and there was sidewalk paint in her hair. The wall in front of her was a rainbow of colors, it didn't seem that she had one thought or idea in mind for she had drawn a variety of things. But the one that caught his eye was the one in the middle, which was a surprise since it was the biggest drawing.

The middle drawing was of a pile of what looked to be lawn gnomes, with the one on top suspiciously dressed similarly to a certain psychic they both hate, as two unicorns, the left blue one wearing glasses and a familiar vest while being rather lanky. The one to the right was pink and wearing a familiar sweater as the two stood triumphantly over the pile of defeated foes.

Stan wasn't sure whether to laugh or sigh. While he found the image funny, it also spoke of how much Mabel was missing her brother. Stan wasn't able to fully comprehend how she was feeling, because he and his brother didn't develop things that were just between the two of them like the kids had.

He and Ford had both enjoyed their alone time and had dreams of adventures, because they were the scrawny kids the bullies picked on. But Mabel had developed things with Dipper that were just things they did together, because nobody else was willing to do them, such as Mabel doing descriptive audio to help her brother.

That took some serious dedication, he's sure he's not the only person to accidentally turn those things on… Okay, so maybe he was just too lazy to change the channel to the regular one, sue him.

Stan flinched slightly as they heard a door slam, crap, looks like they were about to be caught. Apparently, the little troll that lived here must have heard something, because as Stan turned he found Gideon stepping around the corner with a glare on his face. "I thought I smelled something off."

Looking down, Stan took note that Mabel had grabbed the scented paint, which cost three dollars and seventeen more cents than the non scented stuff. Mabel, having completely forgotten their plan and reason for the masks, screamed out "glitter bomb!"

She threw down a small ball that exploded into sparkly glitter that caused Gideon to squeal as he tried to wipe it off, giving Stan the chance to grab Mabel and run. "You'll never catch us alive runt!"

Stan was out of breath as he made it to his car and set Mabel down in the passenger seat, both of them laughing and giggling over the whole thing. "That was amazing! Can we do it again?"

"Of course we can, after we let the heat die down from today. If we do it again too soon, they may catch us, and I don't want that troll holding that over my head." Stan ruffled Mabel's hair as she pulled her mask off, before he started the car up and began to drive a bit more. Smiling as he drove the opposite direction of the Gleeful house. "So, how are you feeling after our adventure here?"

"It was great" she bounced in her seat a little.

"Well, that means that when we get home, you'll have something to brag about to your brother. While he stayed home hanging out with an older girl, you got to deface a creep's property…"

She giggled "now I kinda wished we used normal paint instead of chalk…. Or at least taken a picture of it. He's probably gonna wash it off."

Stan smirked as he handed her a camera before driving around the block to catch a glimpse of their handiwork from the hillside. As Mabel smirked, she quickly adjusted the zoom and got her picture, just in time before Gideon, looking to be stomping and grumbling, began to spray the wall down, ruining it. "We even get to capture the gnome's reaction to our pictures as well. Hilarious."

As Mabel giggled over the pictures, Stan started to drive normally. "So, you in a good enough mood to see how your brother's day has been?"

Mabel looked at the pictures, turned to her Grunkle before going back to the camera. "Yeah, I guess it doesn't always have to be just me and him. Just because we have always grown together, doesn't mean there isn't more room in our garden for others to grow close, right?"

"Hey, you used my anologuey thing. Good on ya kid."

Mabel giggled at Stan's use of the wrong word, knowing he either didn't really know the proper term, or he just got it wrong to make a joke with her. "Dipper would have corrected you if he were here."

Stan laughed as he turned onto the road leading to the shack. "Same with my own brother."

Mabel was all smiles as she thought about today with how much she learned she shared with her favorite Grunkle. Hopefully one day she would be able to meet her other Grunkle. Until Stan comes out and says it, she will remain with the belief that he is okay and will come home one day.

As Stan pulled up to the Mystery Shack, he began to grumble with frustration, Mabel noticed why when she saw the 'closed' sign in the gift shop window. "That no good teenager."

Mabel giggled at his grumbling, following him into the house portion, to find Wendy sitting with Tambry and Dipper, the blind boy sitting between the two girls as Tambry continued to describe what she saw on the TV, with some input (read as funny comparisons) from Wendy.

"Wendy!" Stan exclaimed "what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be watching the storefront?"

The older girl shrugged as she barely moved her eyes from the TV. "Eh, after you left me in charge, after I stood diligently dealing with customer after customer, I gave myself a short break. So I closed up shop for a bit, and came to take a load off with my boss' nephew."

Stan grumbled more, ignoring Mabel's giggles as she listened. "And how long ago was the start of this 'short' break of your's?"

Wendy blinked as she looked at her wrist, ignoring the fact that there wasn't a watch there. "I don't know, it's all so fuzzy."

Stan groaned, "I should fire you."

Wendy shrugged. "Hey, I will have you know, I was keeping an eye on these crazy kids." Ignoring as Tambry bopped her on the back of her head, "who knows what silly things she is filling his head with. I had to make sure her descriptions were accurate for Dipper's young impressionable mind."

"I think she's doing pretty good for her first time," Dipper said.

The boy's muffled snickers was all the evidence Stan needed to know that Wendy was not being as upstanding as she was making herself out to be. If Tambry's offended side look hadn't been enough of a clue that is.

"I should fire all three of you."

Dipper blinked as Tambry shrugged him off. "How can you fire me from being your nephew?" He asked.

"Where's my severance pay?" She asked at the same time.

"You used it to watch my cable." Stan stalked off to his room as he grumbled about no good punks.

—-

The night as the twins got ready for bed Mabel was happily describing her day out with their Grunkle.

"Wish I could have seen his face." Dipper admitted through his snickering.

Mabel pulled out the camera she got from Stan. "Stan circled around the cliffside near his house so we could take pictures. I honestly… When did he take my camera? I never realized he had grabbed this before we went out…"

Dipper blinked at her. "Are you telling me Stan pilfered your camera, and you just realized he had, even though he handed it to you?"

Mabel shrugged as she blew a raspberry at him. "I was distracted by taking the picture. Not like he had planned to sell it. It's the camera I hold all my black… scrapbook-ertunities on…"

"If you have any discriminating photos of me," he glared at his sister, "I will be very upset with you."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "That isn't friendly blackmailing, that is bullying, I don't take incriminating pictures of you… Anymore…"

"What do you mean 'anymore'?!" He asked "when did you used to take pictures of me?"

Mabel rolls her eyes. "I have always taken pictures of you Dipidy, you're my brother and I love you. I just don't take blackmail-ie pictures of you. It makes me feel icky ever since your eyesight got worse."

Both of them shifted slightly at the mention of Dipper's impending eternal void. Mabel decided to continue and bull her way through. "Getting blackmail pictures of you made me feel terrible, so the only pictures I have kept of you are my teasing ones. Like the first time you wore your glasses. You looked so sophisticated."

He rolled his eyes over his sister's teasing. Mabel pushed her way into Dipper's bed as she began to go through all the pictures she had of him, describing each and every embarrassing moment to him, from his first piano recital, to the time he fell asleep on the couch all curled up like a kitten.

"Hehehe, where has my brother's adorableness gone?"

"I forgot it in a pair of pants that I left in Piedmont."