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The Mystery Shack's cash register barely opened all day, the redheaded Wendy Corduroy not having to open it up much on such a slow day. She let out a sigh as her eyes read through a page of the most recent issue of "Indie Fuzz," not really paying attention to what the words were saying, using them just as a distraction to pass the time. She rested her head on her fist propped up on the counter, looking over to the empty stool next to her and letting out another sigh.

The past few days at the shack had been pretty lackluster without Dipper Pines sitting next to her, trying his hardest to make her laugh and smile. She stared at the seat of the stool for a few seconds before holding her head in her propped up hand, groaning softly in frustration. She knew why her dork wasn't here; she took some of his motivation away.

A few days ago, Dipper had invited Wendy to go on one of his mystery adventures, which she enthusiastically agreed to. Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and herself eventually found themselves in an old bunker, apparently built by the author of the journal Dipper was always carrying around.

Not only did they nearly get smushed into pancakes with that crazy moving-walls-and-symbol-puzzle room, but they encountered a shapeshifting monster, which had it out for all of them. At one point during the scuffle with the creature that ensued, it turned into the shape of Wendy herself, playing possum.

In a state of shock and sadness, mixed with the adrenaline in his body, Dipper confessed his secret crush to Wendy, albeit indirectly. After defeating the shapeshifter, via Mabel and Soos freezing it in a cryogenic chamber, they four of them left the bunker, where Wendy took Dipper aside and explained to him that a relationship with him wouldn't work out.

She tried letting him down as easily as she thought she could, and Dipper seemed to take it well, wanting to still be friends, leaving with another movie night scheduled. During Wendy's bike ride home, her calm smile slowly morphed into a gloomy frown.

She knew it was the right thing to do, letting her dork down easy, but why did it feel so bad? He still wanted to be friends, so this should be fine, right?

"Must be a good article," a gruff voice said right next to Wendy, bringing her out of her thoughts with a small jump. Her boss, Stan Pines, stood next to her, still wearing his suit as he opened the cash register, counting up the day's profits. Wendy looked down at the magazine that was still open at the same place, wondering how long she'd been looking at the same two pages.

"Normally, I'd say something about not working and 'I don't pay you to read'' but there's barely been a customer today," Stan said, lifting up his unnecessary eye patch before flipping through banknotes. Wendy was slightly relieved, not having to listen to one of her almost daily lectures from her boss.

She grabbed her magazine and hopped onto her feet, pocketing her name tag and walking around the counter, heading for the door. She was almost to the exit of the gift shop when Stan spoke up again.

"Hey listen, I've, uh, noticed you've been kind of down recently, and that Dipper has as well. I don't want to pry or anything but-"

"I don't want to talk about it," Wendy interrupted, her head drooping a bit. While that sentence wasn't one-hundred percent true, she didn't want to talk about it at that moment, and not with Stan, even though she knew deep down he meant well.

"Phew, that's a relief!", Stan said, patting his brow with a banknote. Wendy rolled her eyes, opening the door, getting a whiff of pine tree that just brought her mind right back to Dipper. She let out a third sigh, dragging her feet through the open doorway.

"Look, I don't like seeing you or Dipper moping around like this. You guys are, uh, important to me, y'know. Ugh, I'm not good at this sappy stuff like Mabel is. Just, you guys are too close to be like this, don't wait too long to talk to him." Stan said as he moved into the doorway, stopping in the middle of it as he finished.

Wendy stopped as she listened to him, still facing the woods, not wanting to show her boss her diminishing mood, continuing her walk into the woods surrounding the Mystery Shack afterwords.

The redhead kept drudging towards home, repeating the talk she had with Dipper outside the bunker over and over in her head, feeling worse each time she remembered his face after she let him down. Her mind was conflicted. She stopped about halfway to her family's cabin, looking up at the starry night sky with another exhausted and somber sigh.

"Why do I feel like this?", Wendy said out loud to herself, "I felt fine after I talked with Dipper, but now this?" She thought the lingering sadness of having to reject someone she knew had a huge crush on her would eventually pass, but it seemed like her sorrow was going nowhere.

Her eyes started tracing out shapes in the twinkling stars above, her brain trying to do anything to cheer itself up. After a few imaginary constellations were made, the redhead recognized one that was all too familiar, The Big Dipper. She closed her eyes and shook her head, continuing her walk home.

"Ugh, just going to make myself more upset like this." Wendy said to herself, quickly reaching Corduroy cabin, making her way inside and to her room with a quick "hello" to her father and brothers. She flopped herself face-first onto her bed, right into her pillow, which she proceeded to groan loudly into.

She rolled over onto her back after unsuccessfully venting her frustrations out, looking over to her alarm clock on her bedside table, her eyes landing on a picture of her dork, Dipper Pines, giving a shy smile and wave to the camera. Wendy groaned again, covering her eyes with her hands.

"This sucks..."

She couldn't take it anymore, all of this stress and hurt that she felt. She thought back to the bunker again, she had to do something to try and solve this. Her mind jumped around from climbing the tree to open the bunker, all the way to leaving the bunker unscathed.

Wendy's mind kept lingering on one thing though, and for once it wasn't the look Dipper had after being let down by her. She sat up in bed, hopping back onto her feet, leaving her room and the cabin with a "bye" to her family. She had to do this, and do it now.

The redhead grabbed an ax stuck in a tree stump nearby, carrying it with her as she walked back into the woods with determination.

Within a few minutes she reached the same tree she climbed earlier, finding the entrance to the bunker already open. She knew it was a good idea to bring the ax. Wielding it, she started climbing down the spiral staircase, eventually landing on the bottom of the entrance, walking into the first room of the bunker.

Nothing was different, the bed and the supplies were all still there. Wendy kept the ax held up at the ready as she briskly walked through the moving-walls-and-symbol-puzzle room, making sure not to step on the same button that started the security mechanism from before.

She walked right past the monitors and into the next room, stopping just in front of a cryogenic tube.

The redhead pointed her ax at the shapeshifter still frozen inside of it, a faux Dipper stuck in an animation of an agonizing scream. Her face slowly morphed itself, from determined, to angry, seething, enraged. This was the cause of all of these problems.

"You. I've got some stuff I need to say to you."