Mabel was quiet.

The last time she was like this, it was when Grunkle Stan was taken into police custody and she didn't know what was real.

Mabel Pines did not know what was real.

She flexed her grip on her grappling hook and tried not to cry.

It had started when Dipper made the deal with Bill to save her life. His life, practically, for hers. Then Bill snapped his fingers and Mabel was suddenly lying on dead grass in front of the Mystery Shack, which was somehow restored.

She woke up along with both of her Grunkles, Pacifica, Wendy, Soos, and basically everyone else, even Gideon.

Then they erupted to confused, panicked noise.

"Why are we at the Shack?"

"How is the Shack here?"

"Did we do it?"

"Is everyone here?"

"Where did Bill go?"

"Are you okay?"

"Where's Dipper?"

Mabel's heart skipped a beat at the mention of her brother's name.

Pushing herself up to her knees, she frantically searched her surroundings and it seemed everyone was there.

Except her brother.

Someone gently took her arm and coaxed her into a standing position. Then her head was tucked onto someone's chest. She barely noticed that it was Stan: but she knew it was him because of his cologne.

She held tight on onto him. She closed her eyes shut.

After a moment, she opened her eyes. In front of her was Ford, his face somber. He didn't say a word when he wrapped his arms around both Mabel and Stan.

Mabel squeezed even tighter.

"I'm sorry," Ford whispered as he ran a hand through her hair. "I'm so sorry."

"How did our plan backfire so terribly," Stan croaked. Mabel felt tears fall onto her hair, drop by drop. "God, Ford. We failed."

"We can get him back," Mabel said shakily. "Right?"

Ford didn't say anything.

Stan kissed her forehead. "Yeah, kid. We'll get him back. We just..." Mabel felt Stan take her head off hers. He was probably looking toward the direction of the Fearamid. "It will just take a while to come up with a plan that will work."

She pressed her face in his chest. Tears escaped from her eyes.

Then she heard the snort of her pig.

Mabel took her head off Stan's chest and lowered her arms. Her great uncles let go.

She fell into a crouch and took Waddles into her arms. Sobs wracked her entire body as Waddles licked the tears off her face.

Stan put a hand on her shoulder. "Let's go inside," he said lightly. "It's dangerous out here."

Mabel nodded and took Waddles inside with her Grunkles and everyone else.

It was two hours after that when Candy and Grenda joined her in her room, the both of them still clad in warpaint and cuts and bruises.

"How is everyone else doing?" Mabel asked, busying herself with cleaning and putting colorful bandaids on her own cuts. Waddles dozed on her bed next to her grappling hook.

Candy and Grenda exchanged a look. Candy tucked her hair behind her ear and said, "Well, they all seem alright right now. We will bring you some food later."

"By the way," Grenda added. "When we went up the stairs Pacifica was totally admiring her llama sweater."

Mabel smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Candy pointed at the grappling hook. "Are you planning on going out later?"

Mabel frowned and pulled it toward herself. "I need to rescue my brother."

Grenda furrowed her brow and even stomped on the ground. "No, it's dangerous. We need a plan!"

"Yes," Candy asserted with urgency, pushing her glasses back up with a finger. "Without a thorough plan, who knows what will happen to you!"

Mabel glared at her grappling hook. "I'm getting him back," she said quietly. "He only just barely sacrificed his life for me. I need him back."

Grenda moved so that she was in Mabel's sight. "Not yet, Mabel."

Mabel met her gaze. "Fine. But we need to figure one out soon. Who knows what is happening to him right now?"

Silence followed for the next couple of minutes.

Candy and Grenda sat down on the floorboards, leaning against each other.

"Pass me the cat bandaid?"

___

Two days pass. The lot of them do not have a plan yet.

Instead they've busied themselves with interchanging patrols for finding food, protecting the Shack, and finding a way to save Dipper and ultimately end Weirdmageddon (but barely anything has been established in this jurisdiction).

During these two days, Mabel found that Stan was increasingly more prone to tears. Ford was always holed up in his room. Mabel tried to join every alternating patrol, even though it was recommended she'd only do it once a day since there were more than enough people to go on them. She called BS on that; she wanted to find her brother and that was one of the only options to do it. Dipper could be out there.

On the second day, Mabel found herself eating a meager lunch of heated up canned meat with bread in Grunkle Ford's room.

It was mostly to keep in eye on him.

Ford hadn't left his room ever since the first night; he only came out for brief group meetings and getting food and that was it.

Mabel was worried about him.

Really worried.

She noticed that he barely spoke anymore. When he does go out, when people talk to him he only gives monosyllabic answers.

Now while Mabel is visiting him in his room for lunch, Ford was sitting on the foot of his beige L-shaped couch he uses as a bed and Mabel sat on the floor.

Looking at him now, one-on-one, Mabel could see up close how glazed over his eyes were, how he hadn't shaved, how he probably hadn't combed his hair. He looked terrible.

Because she couldn't help it, she said, "Grunkle Ford, are you okay?"

Her great uncle pushed around his portion of meat. He'd eaten only a couple of bites the time she was there when she was almost done with her own food. He looked up and gave her a sad smile. "You don't need to worry about me."

"Yes, I do. You're my uncle." And I care for you.

Ford pressed his lips into a thin line and put his fork down. With a sigh, he set the plate down beside him. "It's just..." he chewed on a fingernail. "It's my fault what happened to him."

Mabel couldn't hide her flinch. Outraged, she slammed her fork to her plate. "Why would you think that!"

Stanford wouldn't meet her gaze. "If I hadn't missed the gunshot that would end Bill a few days ago, we wouldn't even be in this apocalypse mess. I was going to call to make that deal with Bill, but sadly Dipper beat me to it. I can't help feeling it was my fault."

Mabel could not believe what she was hearing.

But she also wouldn't let her Ford continue to feel this way.

She got up from her seat on the floor to sit by him on the couch, offering him her silent encouraging presence.

He took off his glasses and pressed a hand to his eyes. "Dipper could be dead right now. He could be getting tortured, God only knows."

Mabel put her hand on top of Ford's open six-fingered hand. "The best we can do is do something about it."

___

That night, or what everyone dubbed to be night, Mabel decided to go sit on top of the roof to take a break from non-stop chatter.

She'd snagged one of her stuffed animals from her bed for comfort. She put the soft, cotton-stuffed sloth in her sweater pocket when she climbed rung by rung of the ladder leading up to the roof.

Only when she opened the hatch, someone was already in her spot.

It was Stan.

"Stan?"

Stan turned and smiled grimly. "Hey, kid."

Mabel took that as an invitation to sit beside him, sighing when she sat down. She had just got back from a patrol. She helped fight an eye-bat and her group won, no harm done, except leaving her breathless and a couple stinging scrapes on her knees. She had been out with Robbie, Candy, and Grenda. They needed work with fighting, but Mabel was more than willing to try and start teaching them after fighting wacky monsters all summer.

She gingerly rubbed her multi-colored cat-printed bandaids on her knees.

"Fun time in your patrol today?" Stan asked, raising his pitt-cola to his lips.

Mabel shrugged, pulling out her sloth stuffed animal and hugging it to her chest.

She rose her head to look off toward the Fearamid. This high up, she could see the menacing tip of it peaking above the trees.

She turned her head to the side and saw that Stan was looking at it too.

Stan seemed to feel her gaze because he reached for her hand and held it.

A few moments later, Mabel squeezing her uncle's hand and stroking the faux fur of her stuffed animal, she murmured, "I thought you hated heights, Stan."

Stan squeezed her hand as well. "Dipper is up there, a million feet in the sky right now," he said. "I can handle twenty feet."

Mabel shuffled a little closer and put her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her own shoulder and squeezed.

They didn't say anything after that.