Dipper remembered that night well.

They had been lying in bed, his sister on the opposite side of the room. The lights were off, but they didn't sleep. The yelling kept them awake. Louder and louder, and they tried their best not to hear it.

Then the yelling changed, became unlike what they had heard before…

Then a blast.

What happened next was so jumbled that he couldn't really piece it together. He remembered the sudden stab of panic. Leaping out of bed. Then he was in the closet, holding onto Mabel and she onto him. A ghastly wail through the walls.

Another blast.

Then quiet for a long long time, pitiful sobbing that might have been Mabel's or his own, until he heard growing sirens and splintering wood from the front door.

From there it had been a flurry of lights, voices, yelling, get those kids to the hospital. Flashing red greeted them as they stepped outside, carefully shielded from the view of the living room. A silver blanket draped around their shoulders. Dipper walked just before the guiding hands that pushed behind him, not wanting the man to touch him.

Instead he reached for his sister.

That was the first of two moments he remembered the most clearly. Amid the blurred cacophony around him, the lights and cameras flashing in his eyes, the biting cold of the night air, he wanted to take his sister's hand.

And she took his.

As they kept moving forward into the squad car, she looked into his eyes. Three years later, he remembered the fear he had seen. He had seen her afraid whenever she was bullied on the playground, whenever someone had taken her pencil box or mocked her stickers, but never such a deep-rooted horror and despair. From the softening in her face, he guessed he must have had the same expression.

The feel of her hand, the look in her eyes. Those were the snapshots that burned in his mind. He couldn't even remember the photograph in the paper, right above the words "TWINS SURVIVE MURDER-SUICIDE OF PARENTS", the only identity given to them. But that photo had long faded, and his two pictures were all he needed to remember from that night.

Dipper lay on his side in bed, facing the wall, running through those two memories over and over when a voice interrupted him.

"Hey bro?"

He swallowed, and pretended that he was just waking up. He faked a yawn.

"Mornin' Mabel," he rubbed his eyes. "What time is it?"

"Ten minutes to the alarm." The faint blue light of morning peeked through the window and testified in her support. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he lied. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You were awake." He closed his eyes as he realized his charade wouldn't hold. "You snore. What's going on?"

"Just...thinking about that night again."

Dipper sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor. He sighed and closed his eyes again, until he felt Mabel's hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, we're alright now." She looked around. "Well, kinda. But I still have you," she forced a thin smile. "And you'll always have me."

Dipper gently nodded. "Thanks Mabel." With that he was able to bring a smile to his own face. "C'mon, let's get ready."

After dressing themselves and turning off their alarm, they tried to leave their room only to be nearly bowled over by an eight-year-old boy.

"Hey, watch it!" Mabel yelled.

"Oh my gosh," he stammered. "I-I didn't see you, I'm so sorry-"

"Just watch out, okay Tom?" Dipper was cross as he stepped into the open space.

"Okay, yeah, sorry!" With that Tom ran off again down the stairs. The twins watched after him.

"Nearly got you," Dipper observed.

"Yeah, he's lucky he didn't." The two of them crossed the empty space which made up the core of the house's second floor. Sprouting from it were the master bedroom, where their foster parents slept; three smaller bedrooms, including their own, that housed five foster children; and a restroom. At the moment, they saw another one of their housemates, a fifteen-year-old named Vanessa, leaning against the door.

"Head downstairs," she pointed. "Ben here's been taking forever…"

Dipper sighed and followed his sister to the first floor. The upper floor's bathroom had better hot water, for whatever weird reason the plumber had decided on. On top of that, the move didn't even make a difference: there was a line downstairs too, with Tom waiting just outside the door. The sound of a running shower came from inside

"Uh, hi, Dipper, Mabel…" Tom waved at them timidly. "Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened-"

"Who's in there?" Mabel asked.

"Kimberly, she's just-"

"KIMBERLY!" Mabel banged on the door. "There's a line!"

Almost immediately the water shut off, and they could hear the curtain flying open, a rushed effort to put on clothes, before a ten-year-old opened the door.

"Sorry!" She quickly passed by the twins, keeping her eyes low, not looking at either of them. With that Dipper motioned to the boy.

"Hurry, can you?"

Tom nodded and darted into the restroom, practically slamming the door. Dipper and Mabel leaned against the walls opposite each other.

"Okay, so, is it my turn to go first?" Dipper thought aloud. "I think it's my turn."

"Hey, you went first yesterday!"

"Are you sure? I don't think so…"

"It was totally you yesterday!"

"No wait, remember? You needed me to get you your bands for your braces, and I was just outside so I could get them."

"...oh yeah." Mabel shrugged. "In that case, it's yours whenever he gets out of there."

Within minutes the boy exited the bathroom, muttering only a quick "Excuse me" as he tried to squeeze by the twins. Fifteen minutes afterward, the two of them approached the dining table as their foster father tried his hardest to slather jam on seven pieces of toast.

"Okay, okay, Kimberly here you go." He playfully tried to fit it directly into her mouth, since her arms were full with books. "You head down to the bus with Tom and Andrew, okay? They're already out front. Oh! Dipper, Mabel?"

He reached down the counter and picked up a pair of paper sheets.

"Mrs. and I got them signed for you. And hey," he winked and offered them a thumbs up, "keep up the great work!"

They smiled as they accepted their signed progress reports. Dipper's had nearly straight A's, while Mabel had hers peppered with a few more B's, but they both had made the honor roll. Obviously, they hadn't been at all nervous to obtain the required signatures.

"Oh, and are you staying after school today?"

"I'm not," Mabel shook her head, making her hair bounce back and forth. "At least, far as I know."

"Same here," Dipper bobbed his head in her direction. "Might be helping out with something, but I got to double check…"

"If you are, just call, let us know, and catch the late bus back. Here, go get your backpacks on." After they had done so and returned, they were rewarded with a peanut butter and jelly toast breakfast. "You kids have a good day, alright?"

"Okay, thanks!" They chimed in unison before heading out the door to the bus stop. It was only a short walk, around the corner of the house and down the street a bit. Their housemates were already waiting there: Tom, Andrew, and Kimberly were waiting for the elementary school bus, and Ben and Vanessa for the high school bus..

"Hey." Ben motioned for them as they came closer. "Hey guys, I saw that movie you lent me last night. That ending was INTENSE! I mean the guy-"

"-was alive the whole time, I know right?!" Dipper began reminiscing about his favorite scenes from the film, while Mabel gravitated towards Vanessa. They struck up a conversation about a project Vanessa was working on ("The role of writing in ancient civilizations, yay…"), and managed to speak for about ten minutes before the high school bus came.

"Hey, see you guys after school!" Ben pointed at Dipper and Mabel. "Right?"

"Heh, that's right!" Dipper grinned. They watched as the bus turned the corner and left, and they grew silent, glancing over at the three other kids huddled together waiting for the elementary bus. Wary eyes watching them back, but the twins decided to leave them be this morning. The uneasy silence lasted until the middle school bus arrived, and Dipper and Mabel boarded.

"-and then she said, that they went into the back room of the alley, and-"

"-oh my God, no way! I would have never thought-"

"-I know! And with him too, are you sure you heard-"

Dipper sat at his table against the wall of the cafeteria, sketching in his notebook. Elaborate equations and fantastical designs rubbed elbows with drawings of flying saucers. Looking up with a smirk, he spotted his sister in the midst of her friends - although from the amount of dirt she was intent on digging up about them, he doubted if "friend" was the right word.

He remembered a book he had read a few months ago talking about "social capital", and he figured that's what she dealt in. She wasn't a social butterfly, she was a stockbroker, measuring benefit and risk and choosing each word with care. The efforts clearly paid off: they were near the end of their second year at middle school, and Mabel had become the central hub in the student body. There had been little surprise when she ran for student body president, and won. Dipper felt that he deserved a little credit, though, for helping her engineer her campaign. For two weeks Mabel's face was seen more on the campus than the school mascot, a memory that still left him feeling satisfied inside.

"Whoa whoa, hey," Mabel's voice interrupted his thoughts. "What did you say?"

Dipper looked up, his stomach clenching with excitement. Was he about to see…?

"I'm just saying," another girl protested, "I don't think Wolfman Bare Chest is very well-written, I don't see it's appeal-"

"It's awesome!" Another girl lashed out. "How can you not love it?!"

"Jenny, please," Mabel soothed her. "Charlotte is perfectly titled to her opinion."

But Dipper could see the side glance that Mabel fired at Charlotte, the flicker of fear in the girl's eyes. She had gone against the group's orthodoxy, defined as Mabel's orthodoxy, and so by the end of the day, a dirty secret or two would begin floating the school. Whispered words, things overheard and said by friends of friends. No one would know where they came from - or no one would say - but every slander victim had a common transgression: crossing the twins.

Dipper returned to his notebook, wondering if Mabel would come to him for inspiration. He was just thinking up a couple of good slanders when a jeering voice sounded. "How's it going, Starshine?"

Dipper scowled and covered the star on his hat with his hand. "What do you want Gary?"

"Just wanted to sit. You don't own the cafeteria, you know." He pulled up a chair. From the other table, Dipper could see Mabel giving him a concerned look. "Have fun in gym class today?"

He felt his fingers twitch. They had had to run some stupid test today, going back and forth across the gym as long as they could, and Dipper had been the first to fail it. Gary had gone all the way until the bell.

"Not all of us can have coaches for parents," Dipper snarked, and he flipped up his journal trying to shield his face.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Hell, not all of us can even have parents."

He squeezed his pen so hard it slipped from his grasp. Dipper squeezed his eyes shut, thankful now he had put up the notebook.

"I have Mabel."

"Oh right, Miss Popular. Miss Goody-Two Shoes, Citizen of the Year-"

"Your mom seems to like her."

"Just because my mom's vice principal doesn't mean that she gets everything right about everyone. Especially with you two."

Dipper struggled to think clearly, to find a good comeback. In his silence Gary continued.

"Remember Emily last month?"

"Emily...in science class?"

"That's right, she had to go home after that 'accident' with the Bunsen burner."

"That's right."

"No," Gary leaned forward and lowered his voice, peering over Dipper's journal. "You listen to me. You were her lab partner, and I remember you griping the day before about how she never did her fair share of the assignments."

"Look, maybe it was convenient for me, but-"

"In the fall, Fred made fun of your weird constellation deformity. Two days later he was pushed down the stairs and broke his arm, but they never found who did it."

"Well maybe he had it-"

"And last year, Hunter got a broken nose when he ran into a door. Who does that?"

Dipper again remained silent.

"I'll tell you who: people who share a class period with a certain Starshine Boy."

"What do you want with me!? Why are you trying to pick on me like this?"

"You and your sister think you own the school, and you're wrong. I'm going to prove it. If you go to any of the administrators about this, all I have to do is open my mouth and you'll spend all of eighth grade in suspension!"

Dipper looked down at his journal, not willing to meet Gary's eyes. "Fine. It's a deal."

He could practically hear the smirk on Gary's face, felt him flick his cap, then the boy moved off. Dipper stared down into his journal, the events rather shocking to him. But he didn't cry. He hadn't cried in years. Not since that night.

"Dipper?" Mabel had left her circle of friends and come over to him. "What was that all about?"

He took his pen and scribbled down "Gary Feldman" in his notebook, circling the name with a zealous hatred.

"We have a lot to talk about."