Mabel wanted to believe in Stan. She wanted to believe that he was her Grunkle, that he loved her, and would never do anything to hurt her. All the evidence pointed to Stan being a liar. Heck, she already knew that. He was a con artist and proud of it. She had no logical reason to trust him. But…

"Look into my eyes, Mabel! Do you really think I'm a bad guy?"

No, she didn't. But how can she be sure?

"Shut it down now!"

"Mabel, please!"

That caught her attention. Stan hated that word. Just saying the word gave him a burning sensation. He lost millions because he couldn't say the word please. And now, he said it so earnestly. What is in this portal that Stan would give up his pride for?

No, she was being stupid. This machine could kill them all. She had to do it. She was going to do it. But she looked into Stan's eyes. So many emotions swirled within them: desperation, regret, sadness, but most of all, sincerity.

"Grunkle Stan…" Mabel lifted her hands and let the gravity take her away. There was no going back now. "I trust you."

Dipper was screaming at her. That was expected. But what she didn't expect was…

"NO, MABEL! DON'T LET GO!"

She didn't understand. Isn't that what he wanted? Why did he sound so terrified? She opened her eyes and realized she not only drifted upward, she was drifting backward toward the portal.

"Grunkle Stan…Grunkle Stan, help me." Her uncle had a traumatized look in his eyes as he helplessly watched Mabel drift away. It was like he had seen this all before. "GRUNKLE STAN!"

"MABEL!"

A burst of light blinded Mabel and then everything was gone.

Gravity returned full force and knocked her into something, or rather somebody. Said person gave a loud grunt as they both fell to the ground. Mabel barely paid attention, though. She was too focused on the portal she had just gone through disappearing in a flash of light.

Before she could even begin to process what just happened, a hand went over her mouth and she was pulled behind a wall. She gave muffled screams and tried to escape her captor's grasp when he whispered in her ear.

"Quiet, he'll hear you."

What was he talking about? Who will hear her?

"Sixer, where are you?"

She recognized that voice. Bill.

"Follow my lead and you'll get out of this alive. Understand?"

Mabel nodded. She was better off taking her chances with this stranger than Bill Cipher. The man grabbed her hand and they took off running in some sort of crazy marble maze. The twists and turns confused her. This maze was more perplexing than the corn mazes her parents used to take her to in the fall. There were more choices than left and right, there was up, down, diagonal, 90-degree angles.

She has no idea how he did it, but he found his way out of the maze into a bleak, desolate wasteland with a blood-red sky over them.

Bill burst through the wall of the maze. "So, IQ, you got out of the Quadrangle of Qonfusion, and look…" He gestured towards Mabel. "You even caught a shooting star."

"You'll never catch me alive, Cipher!" The man threw a grenade that provided them a temporary cover from Bill.

"How are we gonna get out?" Mabel asked.

"We'll have to escape through one of these wormholes." There were wormholes all around them due to the instability of the nightmare realm. He looked around for the nearest one. "There!"

Mabel wasn't keen on jumping another portal, but now that the grenade's dust had cleared, Bill on was now on their tail. She didn't really have a choice.

They jumped through the wormhole and Mabel was hit by a blast of cold air. The place they landed was covered in a thick sheet of snow. Mabel's sweater was made of a breathable fabric so she didn't get too hot in the summer, and therefore, was ill-equipped to protect her from the frosty weather.

The man who rescued her took off his goggles and slammed them to the ground in frustration. "Stanley, you fool! I was right there! I had Bill in my clutches! And here comes my idiot brother to reactivate the portal!"

Mabel finally got a glimpse of his face. He looked almost identical to Stan. This rambling, angry man was Stan's brother? He and Grandpa Shermie never mentioned having a brother. But he called him Stanley instead of Stanford. And the portal, why did it take her to Bill? Where were they now? What was going on? Everything was happening too fast.

The man paid her no attention, still in the middle of his heated tirade. "Bill and his minions could have waltzed right into our dimension. I warned him that…"

He cut off his rant upon hearing a small sob. It was the girl. The girl who had knocked into him when he tried to escape to the portal. The girl he had to abandon the mission for so he could bring her to safety.

He remembered how confused and scared he was when he first came through the portal. And he was a fully-grown adult back then. This was just an innocent little girl who probably had no idea what she's gotten herself into.

"Hey…" He kneeled on the ground to be level with her. She was hugging her knees and looking at him with uncertainty. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I've had a very…stressful day." Stressful thirty years more like it.

"You don't have to be afraid of me. I won't hurt you." He realized that the girl was shaking and it wasn't just from fear. He remembered that they landed in the middle of a snowy tundra. He took off his scarf and wrapped it around her head.

They were in below freezing weather and she wasn't properly dressed to survive such harsh conditions. His own coat was made from a fabric called "polyweather," used to make clothing suitable for any climate: breathable in heat and toasty in the cold. He picked it up in the Ever-Changing Weather Dimension. He didn't have one to give her, though. They would have to share his.

"What's your name, my dear?"

"M…Mabel."

"Mabel, you must be very cold. I only have one coat, so I'll need to hold you so we can share it. Is that alright?"

Mabel was hardly in a position to refuse. She extended her arms and allowed him to pick her up and hold her against his body. He bundled her in his coat and she sighed in relief at the instant warmth.

"Mabel, I know you must have a lot of questions. But right now, we need to get you somewhere warm. Then, we can talk."

Maybe it was because he did save her from Bill, maybe because he was family, or maybe because his face looked so much like her beloved Grunkle Stan, but Mabel had no misgivings about trusting this man. She quietly rested in his arms as he set off to find them shelter.