Mabel awoke to the sound of men's voices in the Shack.

She tumbled out of bed and discovered that Dipper – usually the later riser of the two of them – was already gone, his sleeping shirt abandoned in a heap on the floor. She changed quickly out of her pajamas and into a green sweater that she had quickly appliquéd a dragon onto yesterday (it had originally had a turtle on the front, but she thought the new version was far superior) before clattering down the attic steps and into the kitchen.

There, she found Stan, Dipper, and two strangers laughing at something over plates of bacon and eggs and mugs of coffee. Well, Dipper had orange juice in his, but she noticed he'd still poured it into a coffee mug.

"Good morning!" she sang out, sliding across the kitchen floor in her sock feet and popping open the refrigerator. "I'm Mabel – and you're sitting in my chair." She grabbed the orange juice from the rack and shook it at the shorter of the two strangers.

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Sorry, then," he said, standing and scooting to the next chair over. "Is that better?"

Mabel's eyes widened and she nearly dropped the juice. "Are you from London?" she demanded.

The man was built like a wrestler – stocky and broad-shouldered. His hair was red and cropped short, and he wore a green polo with the initials RDS embroidered over the heart. He grinned at Mabel, and a scar tugged at the corner of his lips, making him very rakish indeed.

"Bit north of there, actually," he answered. "You must be Mabel – the girl who hatched the dragon."

"Mabel," Stan said, dishing up a plate of eggs for her. "This is Howard and Chuck. Chuck and I go back a bit – I helped him dispose of a couple dozen Stanvacs back in the day."

"After you sold them to my dad," the red-headed stranger said pointedly. "And," he added, looking at Mabel, "I go by Charlie."

Stan waved a hand, and handed Mabel her plate. She hopped up into her seat, and looked across at Dipper, whose face was nearly purple with the excitement he was managing not to burst with. Eating breakfast with guys who took care of dragons – Mabel was sure it was a dream come true.

She remembered her own dragon-filled dreams of the night before and her heart sank a little. These men were here for Squeaker, after all. She couldn't let their accents or general coolness disarm her.

"I'm impressed that you managed to hatch one at all," the other man – Howard, who was tall and stringy where Charlie was broad, and dark where Charlie was pale. "Especially if, as you say, the egg had been dormant for over thirty years."

She shrugged, stuffing her mouth with eggs so she didn't have to talk.

Dipper, apparently unable to stifle his curiosity any longer, came to her rescue. He whipped out a lined notepad and a pen and clicked it anxiously. "Can I ask you some questions?" he said. "Like – how is it possible that it stayed in its egg for thirty years without hatching? Why did it grow so fast? Is it going to keep growing? How fast? How much?"

He kept up a running stream of questions, dashing down the answers as quickly as Charlie or Howard could explain them to him. Mabel ate her breakfast silently. It tasted good, but sat in her stomach like a brick. She caught Stan looking at her worriedly, and managed a smile at him.

The meal was over too soon.

Charlie, standing and placing his plate on the counter, cocked his head at Mabel. "I hate to rush," he said, "And breakfast was delicious. But we've got to be back in Romania by tomorrow night, and they're forecasting a bit of rough weather on our way back."

Mabel swallowed her last bite. "What'cha gotta go back for?" she asked. "Maybe you should stay a while. Like for a week. Or the rest of the summer."

"Howard," Charlie said. "You go on and get the equipment out." He waited until the other man was out of the room – Dipper close on his heels – and then bent down on one knee to be at eye-level with Mabel. She couldn't help but notice, now that he was this close, all the scars that crisscrossed his arms and face. One in particular, a large burn on his arm, was shiny with age and almost looked like a flame tattoo.

"You hatched it," he said softly. "That's a fantastic thing to see – you're a really lucky girl, Mabel Pines. I've only seen a hatching twice in my whole life, and I've been working with dragons for almost twenty years. There's nothing quite like it. It's magic."

Mabel crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. "Yeah," she agreed.

"I understand that saying goodbye is going to be hard," Charlie continued. "But you've got to do what's best for the dragon."

"Squeaker," she corrected. "His name is Squeaker."

Charlie looked a little surprised, and glanced up to meet Stan's eyes. Stan shrugged, his arms folded over his chest. "She named it," he said.

"Squeaker, then," Charlie said. "We're going to take him to a place where he'll have all the room to roam he could ever want – mountains, rivers, caves, forests – and plenty of other dragons to keep him company. No one can come and hunt them or hurt them, and if you ever wanted to visit, well. I'm sure I could work something out."

"You mean it?" Mabel asked, lifting her head.

"Of course I mean it." Charlie looked offended. "Do you have any idea what my mum would do if I made a promise to a girl who hatched a dragon, and didn't keep my word?" he gave an exaggerated shudder. "Trust me – it would not be pretty."

In spite of herself, Mabel smiled. "I'll take you to the cave," she said, hopping off the chair. She still wasn't a hundred percent okay with giving Squeaker up so soon, but this sanctuary Charlie promised to take the dracling to sounded nice enough. And maybe she could visit one day. Dipper would love that.

"Just let me grab my shoes."

"Squeaker?" Mabel called, ducking under a branch as she entered the clearing with the cave. The dracling's green snout poked immediately out of his cave, and he came scampering out to meet her – all seven feet of him,

Mabel stepped back in surprise. "Whoa!"

Squeaker, now easily the size of a pony, pranced along lightly, weaving his head up and down in pleasure and excitement that she was there. He snorted indignantly at Stan, Dipper, and the two strangers as they came stumbling out of the underbrush, but didn't seem to actually pay too much attention to them, since Mabel's pockets smelled like bacon and suddenly that was the most intriguing scent in the world.

He nosed at her, poking his hard snout at her hip and nearly bumping her over, but she only laughed and dug the bacon out of her pocket. Scratching the dracling's head as he munched happily at the treat, she grinned. "Thought you might like something a bit more than crickets today."

Charlie looked at Howard with a frown. "You say he hatched yesterday?"

"The day before yesterday, actually," Dipper said. He poked at his lip with his pen, thoughtful. "How… how big, exactly, do dragons get?"

"About dragon-sized," Howard said vaguely, circling the munching Squeaker with a puzzled expression on his face. "But I've never heard of a breed that grew so large so fast. Usually dragons take months to mature."

"Squeaker's special," Mabel said, proud. A tiny hope niggled at her. "He's… he's not too big for you to take with you, is he?"

Charlie smiled at her, a little regretfully. "Sorry, Mabel. No luck there. We've transported full-grown dragons before – Squeaker may be big for his age, but he's no challenge to us."

She deflated somewhat. "Ah… I figured you'd say that."

She continued to play with the dracling, pushing away the sadness to focus on how his scales glimmered in the morning sun, or the way his eyes swirled when he was amused, or how intently he watched the twitching stick that she teased him with. While she kept Squeaker distracted, Howard and Charlie began to unpack what looked – at first – like a canvas duffle bag. But they started unfolding it. And it doubled, and doubled again, and again, and again until it lay on the ground like a giant floppy blanket, almost six feet square.

Dipper was watching with eyes the size of frying pans. "What – how is that – what did you—?" he spluttered.

Charlie winked at him. "Magic."

Grunkle Stan snorted. "Hookum," he retorted, his arms crossed over his chest. "Probably Russian technology."

Howard rolled his eyes and pulled open the duffle bag's flap. "Alright," he said to Mabel. "Let's get him settled inside."

Mabel eyed the bag doubtfully. It was bigger, sure, but it still didn't look roomy enough for a dragon. And it was flat. Was Squeaker going to have to curl up in a bag all the way back to Romania?

Howard saw her dubious expression and a sly grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Just try it," he said, gesturing inside the limp bag.

Mabel stepped forward and peered inside. Her eyes widened.

The bag's opening led into a spacious, barn-like room, with straw-strewn floors, walls of some pale-gold wood, and wall-mounted lanterns of pewter and amber glass. The sweet smell of hay and something like cinnamon wafted out.

"It's—"

"You're going to want to say something like, 'larger on the inside,' I know," Charlie said, holding up a hand. "But please don't. We hear it all the time, and besides – wrong franchise."

Mabel put her hands on her hips. "I was going to say, magic, but whatever."

She wrapped her arm around Squeaker's neck and led him toward the bag's opening. He took one whiff of the delightful smell and squeaked in excitement, bolting into the magical interior without a backward glance. When Mabel followed him in, climbing down three shallow stairs into the room, she found the dracling up to his ears in a trough full of something that smelled very much like Squeaker's own toasted-marshmallow scent.

Charlie poked his head in above her. "It's a—" he glanced over his shoulder, presumably at Stan. "Ahem. A magical trough," he stage-whispered. "It's specially designed to provide exactly what the dragon needs."

Mabel nudged Squeaker's head aside. "Looks like… toasted crickets and molasses?"

Charlie shrugged. "I've seen stranger." He gave her a little go-ahead gesture. "You should probably… say your goodbyes."

He vanished back into the sunlight streaming down from above, and left Mabel with her arm around Squeaker's shoulders. The dragon was making happy snurfing noises as he scarfed down the crispy snack, and in spite of herself, Mabel smiled.

"I'm gonna miss you," she said, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I promise I won't forget about you."

Squeaker pulled his snout out of the trough and nuzzled in her hair – leaving sticky bug-bits all over it, but Mabel didn't care. He whuffled in her ear, and she breathed deeply of the hot smell of marshmallows.

Tears stung at her eyes, and she blinked quickly, sniffling. "I… I gotta go, Squeaks," she said, standing up and scrubbing at her face with the sleeve of her sweater. "You're going to have a blast – I promise. Lots of crickets and—" her voice cracked "And…and… other friends…"

Too late. She was crying. "Just don't forget about me, okay?"

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Grunkle Stan. His face was creased in sadness, and he cleared his throat twice before saying,

"Come on, kiddo. Chuck and Howie need to get on the road."

Mabel threw her arms around her grunkle's waist and heaved a shuddering sigh. "I don't want him to go," she whispered.

He knelt down and held her at arm's length. "Hey, hey now," he said. "Hey. Sometimes people just gotta go, okay? It's rough. Like – I know, it really stinks. But that's life and sometimes it just does. Stink, that is."

In spite of his harsh-sounding words, Stan's tone was gruffly understanding, and Mabel nodded. Wiping her face with the hem of her sweater, she gave Squeaker one last pat and let Stan take her hand.

She didn't look back until they stepped out of the stall/bag/thing, and when she did, she had to smile. Squeaker, obviously not one for prolonged goodbyes, had buried his face in the trough again, and was contentedly munching, his tail swishing back and forth like a happy cat.

As she stepped out, Charlie zipped up the bag and he and Howard began to fold it back down until it was once again the size of a normal duffle bag.

"Well, Stan," Charlie said, turning to shake Grunkle Stan's hand. "It's been a pleasure. Please let's not do it again."

Stan jerked his thumb at Mabel. "Hey, she's the one who hatched the thing."

"Right, you're just the guy who stole it out of a foreign country and kept it in your knickknack house of horrors for three decades." But the red-headed man was smiling, so he couldn't have been too upset. "Just let me know fast if anything else starts hatching in there, alright?"

Dipper sidled up to Mabel. "You…gonna be okay?" he asked.

Mabel sniffed, but put on a smile. "Yeah," she said. "Eventually. Maybe Grunkle Stan will let me get a dog after this."

"I wouldn't count on it." Dipper nudged her with his elbow. "But there are lots of other rocks in the Shack…"

"You boys need a ride back to the airport or anything?" Stan was asking Charlie and Howard. The two dragon caretakers gave each other significant glances and Howard said,

"Nah, but thanks. We left our, ah… our rides parked at the motel. We'll be fine." He passed the magically-expanding duffle bag to Charlie, who shouldered it.

Then the two men – and their dragon cargo – headed back toward the Shack, and Gravity Falls.

Mabel watched them go, and sank onto the log outside the cave with a sigh. She was happy… but sad. But happy. But… sad. It was confusing.

"Right." Stan turned around and clapped his hands. "So. Petting zoo?"

Ah. Now there was something not confusing at all.

A/N:

And that's it for this one, folks! This chapter was a bear to write, believe it or not. I'm still not satisfied with the ending, but it was getting so long I felt I just had to cut it off at some point. Writing Mabel in distress is surprisingly hard, and I would have loved to go further into that but... space demands. Also the fact that I'm totally pumped to start work on my next fic, The Haunted Staircase, which I posted a summery of last chapter. Check back soon for that! And let me know what you think - did I get Mabel ok? Is Charlie a leeeeetle too obvious? LOL Glad to hear what you thought - and see you next week (hopefully) for the next adventure!
~Essie