I'm fine. Mabel's all dandy, I swear. Really.

Okay maybe a little not. It's the day before our birthday, and I'm –

Thinking. I guess. Not brooding, I'm not some broody-pants downer, just –

Thinking.

About Weirdmageddon. I guess.

That whole thing was super mega badness. Truly it was…

Well. for people other than me, I suppose. For my bro-bro, the (at the time) perpetually-almost-thirteen-year-old boy who was wandering around town and managed to avoid being captured despite not having a home base. The boy who had no idea if any of his friends and family were alive or not, who had no food and no sleep and pretty much just utterly drastically nothing while I had a nice happy little bubble world of awesome radicalness and bright colours.

Not to mention plenty of food and sleep and the family I wanted around.
I had a good time of it, for three whole days, and I didn't even think of the rest once.
And then I tried to trap them there, convince them it was better. And I know that was partially Bill's influence, but in the end, it was also me.
Me.

Happy, kind, lovely, bubbly, good Mabel. Being selfish.

I'm – like that more than I'd like to admit.

But that's not the point of all this thinking. Not really.

Grunkle Stan. Stanley. He… did that. He nearly died, figuratively, for us. Me and Dipper.

And he jokes about it. Because, I guess I never really thought about this, because he seems so –

Stan. He's so stan-ish. That's a verb now. But what I mean is I never thought him as – insecure, in that way, I guess. Feeling like our lives are worth more than his. And he did that. And at the time –

I thought he'd die. I also thought it was Ford, but then I wasn't thinking much at the time aside from No (Capitalisation necessary). Just two things.

Grunkle Ford, and -

NO.

In truth, I wasn't thinking straight. I don't really know if I am now, tbh. To Be Honest. Stand-ins are helpful.

They take less time. And – I guess I've come to value time as more than I ever really did before all this.

Dipper would use finite to describe time. Stan would say money – because Stan – and Ford would say…

I don't know what he'd tell us kids, but –

I think he'd think doomed. Y'know, 'cause of time baby. That guy.

Though, aside from all this… I mean, everything turned out great, in the end, didn't it? Our Grunkles are getting along way better, Pacifica's being… well, a stuck-up rich kid but a nicer stuck up rich kid.

Dippin' Dots and her get along better now, at least, and I'm glad 'cause he needs actual friends.

Not that he doesn't have any. Y'know, just ones our age that aren't his sister. I mean, I'm awesome, but I have other friends and so Dipper should too.

Also I guess they had that heart-to-heart thing a – I dunno how long ago – length of time that we've gone past, I guess. So that's good for them.

I'm still, uh, digressing, I should stop doing that.
Not confronting my problems head-on is what got me into that whole mess in the first place, after all.

So…

Dip an' I are getting along fine, now. We haven't spoken one-on-one no matter how much he wishes to, because – despite all I've learned – I still can't handle that.

But I figure I owe him for everything that happened. An explanation, an apology, whatever he wants.

Tentatively, I knock on our bedroom door. There's some shuffling, and scrambling, and then the doors open.

Dipper's gone and gotten pen on the corner of his mouth again (are you supposed to say pen, or ink? Eh, who cares) and isn't wearing his vest, but I don't blame him.

(The aircon went out with the power and the total destruction of the shack. It's more a shack now than it's ever been – considering before it was more of a log cabin.)

(Also, since the door was broken down – By Dipper no less! – we put up a bedsheet and Wendy's been 'promoted' to guard.)

(Stan's just a big softie. That's what I've gained from that particular mess.)

(I should stop making asides. Dipper's staring at me, while I stare at nothing – just past his shoulder, into the middle distance.)
(Darn. Y'know, like that thing you do to socks? I'm not cussing, oh my gosh, I'm only nearly-thirteen. I'll never swear – in that sense at least – ever. Promise.)

I smile, but it's too awkwardly big, and Dipper obviously knows all my tells, being my best bro-friend, and steps aside.
"You could've just come in you know. Your room too." Dipper says, dry.

He started being a lot more dry in tone at the beginning of the year. I only just started noticing… after I made a caricature of him. What was nothing like him at all, personality or style or humour-wise.

There were a lot of little changes that I never noticed; the ones that happen over time.
Heh. Time.

Time.

I flop gracefully onto my bed, before sitting up and bouncing in place for the fun of it. "Yeah." I draw out. "But where's the fun in that? Heard you scrambling." I sniggered, because I did and it was kinda funny. I should've found it funny, 'cause I would'a done that only a week or so ago.

Time was so hard to tell in the bubble. Even harder in Weirdmageddon Falls, so it feels more like months, or years, than hours, or days.
In fact, it was literally no time at all, since Time itself was paused.

My sniggers die out, and I sigh dramatically.

"I'm sorry." I blurt out, but It's quieter than my usual… than I am usually. This sort of thing always is, I guess. Or, at least, that's what it should be.

Subdued.

Dipper frowns, but he knows what I'm getting at. He sits on his bed, and he's still, calmer than I am.
Calmer than he's been in a while. He's not slouched, and those perpetual bags that practically owned a home under his eyes, pretty much lived there – they were less than they had been the past few weeks. His shoulders weren't slouching as much, and in general my brother looked less like he had the weight of everything on him.

He looked healthier than he had done for a while. I guess – despite the day or so I've had to notice. I still managed not to; 'cause I was avoiding him.

"There's nothing you need to be sorry for." And that response is pretty much automatic, for my brother.

It wasn't always. When we were younger, there was a time when he'd ask why I never really did anything in front of other people, why I waited 'till either of us were alone to console him. Why I never agreed to 'embargo' the bullies. Why I accepted valentines from them, only to re-use those valentines as a card for 'the best bro-bro in the world!' or whatever I put on it that year.

He shaved part of his hair for me, that year I had that incident. I watched as he was bullied and waited until after to give him his card… which wasn't even his card. It was a bunch of cards made for me that I re-used to give to him. And I even had some left over.

And he thinks of those as good memories. Ones when we're there for each other.

I'm not so sure I do, anymore.

I felt – I don't know what I felt, truly, but I explode anyway.

"Sure there is!" I exclaim, fall backwards so I don't have to look at him. "I started weirdmageddon, didn't I? Hid in a bubble and replaced you, I didn't worry about anything at all for the whole three days." I complain, explain, ask him rhetorically because truthfully –
I don't know. I guess, in the end, I want to blame myself.

It's better than blaming other people. Good people don't do that sort of thing.

No." Dipper replied anyway. "Bill started it. Ford started it, way back when. Stan started it this summer, I started it when I didn't glue the rift together in favour of – other things, Blendin started it when he made a deal with Bill, Fiddleford started it when he forgot instead of trying to help his friend." Dipper pushed forward, ruthlessly. "If you blame yourself, blame everyone. Because, in the end… it's everything that led to those Weirdmageddon days, everything that happened in the last – however long Bill's been around, that's all led towards all of this. He's a master manipulator – and, in the end, we were all the puppets he wanted us to be."

Dipper finished what I'm calling his speech, and there's silence.

Truthfully, I don't know what to say to that. Or if I'm supposed to say anything at all, in fact.
I mean, what can you say to that? Dipper's basically just a teenager, and – and that's his thought process?

It's way more mature than I'll ever get. At least, I think so.

"…pfft." I blow hair out of my eyes, hesitantly dismissive. "You didn't do anythin' Dipper." I say, because he didn't.

"That's the problem." Dipper responds. I sit up, because in the end lying down is just another form of avoidance.

I think I, Mabel 'The Good', 'The Love Guru', the 'every other title I've given myself' Pines, have grown enough to know that's the case.

(It feels like way, way more than just four days.)

I still don't know what to say. I'm good with words, like totally great with them, but right now everything just seems like it's a little too far out of reach. Like a tub of glitter on the top shelf of a store's… shelves, one that you desperately want because it'll make everything better, you know it will but you just can't reach it.

Then the kind lady at the register sees, and she gets it for you, and I guess that means what I'm trying to say is I need an adult's guidance right now.

Someone who's seen the world for what it is, and understands it.

I don't have that, I guess. Not yet; too young, I'd say. It's not the greatest, most awesome feeling. I don't like it at all. Not knowing what to say to help my bro. It's… hard.

"You tried to help." I said. "You came after me, right? Found the bubble, went inside and – got me out. You helped build the shacktron, and drive it, and a bunch of other really cool feats I'm sure… I didn't get to see them 'cause I was in a glorified Sweater Town. But they happened, I know it."

There I go. Nailed it.

Dipper's mouth made a small smile, but it wasn't more than half-hearted. "Then we agree that neither of us did anything wrong?" He pressed, and oh, I see what you did there mister.

I shrug, overexaggerated-like, and he sits back, looks at me curiously.

"What brought this on?" He asks, and I – I think I see hurt in that, because I've basically avoided him for days and he's done nothing wrong.

In fact, imo, In My Opinion, he's done everything right. That I know about, anyway.

"…" I don't know what to say. I close my mouth (which of course I opened in the first place so I could speak) and thought for a moment.

"… I guess I figured it was time to talk about it." Is what I say in reply – even though really, ngl, Not Gonna Lie – All I wanted to do was apologise.
Even if it wasn't necessary – is it wrong that I feel it was? Is? Will always be?
Probably. Oh well

Dipper nodded in – eh, acknowledgment, and inclined his head. Though that's the same thing, I guess, but you get my drift. Well, not really the same thing – the incline was like, my bro thinking or something on those lines. Along those lines.

I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Like, ninety-bajillion percent sure. That's a number, totally.

Dippin' Dots stops pondering, and speaks. "… you wanted to apologise, even though you were the one who was like – a freaking heroine, Mabel, really." Dipper states, enthuses, insists.
"Not exactly in a great way and I'm sure mom and dad are gonna want us to have therapy or something, but – really, Mabel – you gave Grunkle Stan time, you saved our lives. I – hell, I'm – we're all proud of you."

Dipper's stare is insistent, a little wide-eyed and I don't get this, don't much like it, so I flop back down onto the mattress.

Because yeah, I did offer myself up – as, what, sacrifice or something? But that's not like, heroic or anything. It's definitely not something to be proud of. I – I dunno why I did it really, but I'm gonna go with the whole 'didn't want my bro-bro dead' angle right now, for my sanity.
"… pssht." I deny, blowing my hair out of my face. "Nahhhh."

I pause, for a moment. Because, well, we all know this, yet I feel like I need to say it out loud, throw it out into the open air.

"I'd do it again you know. If needed." I say to the ceiling – because, in a way – I just can't face him when I say it.

The truth's a little difficult to say outright, I've found.

There's silence for a moment. When I look over, Dipper looks a little exasperated. "Please don't."

"… Alright, fine." I mutter, reluctantly, and he looks a bit happier so that's a win. Even if that was a little lie itself. See? Way easier.

One more thing tho. (Though.)

"One thing, Dipper?"

"Yeah?" He asks, encourages.

"I spent three days in a dream world. How about we do stuff you wanna do, considering – eh, Dippy Fresh…'s existence?" I offer, and he glowers at the reminder. "Sure." Dipper agrees, because my bro isn't exactly one to turn down something like that.

The almost-a-teen boy shrugs. I go back to staring at the posters on the ceiling, along with my friend the mould spot. (I forgot his name…)

Dipper smiles, and it's a soft one. "Come on." He gestures for me to follow, points at the clock Grunkle ford gave us a little bit ago since the previous one got destroyed in the chaos of the… Four? Four not-days.

"Grunkle Stan says the diner's full of townsfolk, all commiserating or something, and he wants to peddle what little bits we have left."

And so I follow.

We're not all better. Not everything from those days has been addressed, and we're like, a few days from going home.

But for now, for until we get back…

Things are good. And, eventually, things will be great again.
With time.