Do you come here often?

We both just stared at each other like deer caught in headlights. I was the first to recover, but that doesn't imply that I knew what to say.

"Ummm….. Nice sweater."

I would have facepalmed if she wasn't staring straight at my face. I could have came up with something better than that. How are you? What have you been up to? Isn't the weather lovely this evening? Anything would have been better than 'Nice sweater."

After a while, it didn't seem like she'd be coming back from her daze anytime soon if no one stopped her. She just gaped at my face in astonishment to the point that I thought there was something there.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"....are you…..Dipper?"

"....yes. Hello Mabel, long time no see." I put on my most brilliant of smiles.

Although on the outside I looked confident at that moment. All facilities inside my mind were having a crisis.

"She's here! She's here!"

" RED ALERT! RED ALERT! I REPEAT, RED ALERT!"

If it wasn't for all the negotiation and communications training I'd been through, my face would have been the manifestation of panic. Trying to convince a goblin that you don't have its gold (while obviously knowing that you do) is good practice for keeping a straight face. One odd twitch and you'll have hundreds of goblins on you in an instant. I learned that the hard way the first dozens of times. *shudder*

She looked…. Older. Pretty much the same other than the fact that she was clearly bigger. She was starting to look like mom though if I tilted my head to the side a little bit. She had on the pink sweater with the sunrise design that I noticed back in the store and a pair of blue jeans. I wondered how she was withstanding the heat without one of McGucket's necklaces on her.

"I heard you graduated this year. Congratulations."

"....thanks."

Damn. This is awkward.

"Ummm. Are you okay?"

"I should be. Let me jus - ouch!"

"Mabel!"

"I'm fine. It's just…"

She trailed off and pointed towards a bite wound on her ankle.

"How did it bite you?"

"With its teeth."

"I know that but how?"

"I was walking down the alley - because it's a shortcut - and out of nowhere that... that…"

"Terror dog" I interjected.

She glared at me but continued

.

"Yeah that thing... Came out of nowhere and bit my ankle. I screamed and then you showed up."

"I see."

We stared at each other for a second before she started to turn around.

"Well if you'll excuse me, I'll be leaving now."

"Wait!? What?"

"Don't think I've forgiven you for what you did those years ago. Because I haven't. It really hurt me….and it still does."

"Mabel. I'm sorry. I know that 5 years ago I hurt you. But it was to gain the strength to protect you. And look. I've done it. I couldn't have saved you from that terror dog if I wasn't who I am today."

"That doesn't make up for the pain you caused me though."

"I know. And I don't expect it to. How about I treat your wound back at the shack? There's a 98% chance that terror dog had weirdabies based on the color of its blood. It's like normal rabies...but a hell of a lot weirder. There's a cure back at the shack."

She looked reluctantly at her ankle and then back at me. It seemed that my words were pretty convincing. There was no such thing as weirdabies, I pulled that out of my ass. But it was enough to get her to go to the shack with me. More time together. More time to repair the relationship.

".....Fine."

"Okay. Do you think you can make it there on your own?"

"It's fine. I can handle it."

"Okay, but first let me stop the bleeding."

I applied some medical techniques that I learned to her legs to stop the bleeding. It only required me to apply precise pressure to certain arteries to stop the flow of blood in her ankle momentarily.

She started toward the entrance to the alley only to falter after 1 step and wince in pain.

"Are you absolutely sure you can make it?"

"I said I can handle it."

She once again started towards the entrance to the alley. This time she got to 2 steps before she stumbled and cried out in pain.

I waited until she straightened up again. This time I didn't ask her if she needed help. I simply walked up to her and picked her up princess carry style.

"Put me down!"

"No."

"Put me down!"

"So you can fall again. No."

"Fine. Just don't carry me like this. I'm older than you(by 5 minutes). Piggyback me."

I put her down so that she could stand up again. I handed her my sword so that it wouldn't get in the way. She glared at me as I turned around and indicated for her to get on my back. When I felt her hop on, I locked her legs into place and headed towards the shack, bags in hand.

It didn't take long before I reached the shack.

"So you guys really did shut down the Mystery Shack."

She said as she looked at what used to be the Mystery Shack. There was sadness in her voice. It was the first time she'd been back here since all those years ago. And many things had changed. Now there were a couple satellites on top of the roof with highly sophisticated equipment scattered around the loan. There was even that space rocket Great Uncle Ford and I built 3 years ago. It was way bigger than the house. I guess there was a reason people kept trying to sneak in here after all. Curiosity.

I carried her inside where I yelled, "Great Uncle Ford, Mabel's here. I'm heading down to the basement."

Then without waiting for the response, I headed to the elevator. The vending machine was no longer there. It felt unnecessary since we weren't hiding anything…..Let's just say that statement is true.

We headed down to the 3rd floor and entered the lab. It was much bigger than before. At least 5 times bigger. We split it off into 5 different areas.

-Creature Containment area on the far right. There we housed many creatures that we used to study and experiment on. Some of them are harmless. While others are very dangerous and should never be let out of its cage.

-To the left of the Creature Containment are was the Fight Simulator. It was a chamber that could create any creature to fight against. All you had to do was type in the creature's name and the machine will find that monster in its database and create as many duplicates as you want. It also allowed you to fight against trained martial arts experts. I've taken down 5 Jet Lees, 5 Jackie Chans, and 5 Bruce Lees at the same time.

-To the far left was the Garden. It was filled with many flowers and plants that aren't normally seen. Poisonous plants were kept in the greenhouse separate from the others. Most of the plants are used to study and some are them are used in medicine.

-Beside the Garden was the Inventions Lab. We created a ton of stuff during our time down here. Any ideas that we had were prototyped and tested right in there. From iron man suits to exploding bubblegum. All of it happened in that area.

-And in the middle was --

"Why the hell is that thing here!!"