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Mabel leaned against the trunk of the apple tree and sighed contently.
In one hand she held an apple, blood red and deliciously sweet, juice dripping down her arm as she lifted it to her mouth.
Her other hand was curled around a baby, wonderfully chunky and currently sleeping in her lap.
Mabel looked down at her first great-great grandchild and smiled. Henrietta Matilda Castañeda was just like her grandpa Nito with an extra finger on each hand, and flaming Pines hair.
In the distance she heard shouting and cries, instructions being yelled and ignored, doors slamming and kids shrieking. The entire Pines clan had gathered for her and Dipper’s 92nd birthday, and she’d rejoin the party in a bit.
Mabel had found, however, that the older she got, the more she appreciated a little down time. Just a little mind you, because she was still Mabel Pines, and she didn’t feel a day over 65 and she and a few of her great-grandkids were going to do keg stands later and freak the heck out of Willow, Acacia, and Hank and it was going to be great-
But for now she was happy to have a few minutes alone with her and Retta.
Gently, Mabel laid the sleeping baby on her stomach onto the blanket that was spread out on the ground.
“Hey Henry,” she said to the tree, the ground below. “We have a great-great grandkid. Look how beautiful she is.” Mabel stroked her hair, fine and soft under her hands. “Vienna named her after you.”
She leaned back against the trunk of her husband’s tree, and took another bite from her apple, sweet but with a bitter aftertaste from the skin.
Bittersweet. She could live with that.
There was a shadow cast over them suddenly. Mabel looked up to see her brother standing over them. She smiled up at him and patted the blanket on the opposite side of her.
“Pop a squat brobro.”
Dipper did, but without a snarky remark like usual. All of Mabel’s internal alarms began to ring. He was having one of his moods again, dollars to donuts on it.
Next to them, Retta stirred, a frown appearing on her tiny face, confirming Mabel’s guess.
Dipper didn’t say anything, or move to pick Retta up, just continued to stare off in the distance. As Mabel tried to calm Retta down, she tried to marshal her thoughts. She had been planning on this talk for a while, and now was a good time for it.
Mabel opened with a gentle punch to the shoulder and a “Happy birthday Dippingsauce!” He looked as old as her, as old as he would have been without the Transcendence, hair gone white, hands wrinkled and covered in liver spots, eyes slightly sunken in his face.
Apparently it freaked people out more to have an old demon appear in their circle rather than a young one, he had confided a year or two ago, both of them having a good laugh at that.
“Wanna hold Retta? If she’s my first great-great grandkid that makes her your first great-great grandniece which I think is pretty cool.
No response.
“Dipper Pines, I will not have you pouting on our birthday; you tell me what’s wrong this instant!” Mabel snapped even though she knew darn well what was wrong because she wasn’t stupid, and Dipper was her brother, her twin…..
She knew.
Dipper still wasn’t saying anything, just doing that goofy staring off into the distance thing still. The older they had gotten, the more stubborn he had become.
“Is this because I’m going to die?” Maybe that was too blunt, but she was older too, and she was tired of beating around the bush, especially since Dipper would act like a character from Twin Souls for three hours if she didn’t put a stop to it now.
Dipper’s head whipped towards her and Retta who was finally settling down, but Mabel refused to let herself be quailed by the look of anguish on his face.
She finished off her apple, before laying the core aside and looking at her brother.
“Let me guess. You were probably thinking about, I don’t know, goofy Dipper stuff like ‘I shouldn’t love anyone ever again because they’ll leave’ or ‘I’m a goober that doesn’t take a bath ever’ or-“
“M̨ab͡e͜l!”
“And you aren’t holding your first great-great grandniece because you think you need to start thinking about cutting your ties, getting ready to leave when I do-“
“Mabel that's̶ not͢ ͡fa̵ir͢”
The taste of apple was still heavy in her mouth.
“Probably not. Sorry. But Dipper-“
She reached out with her free hand, sticky with apple juice and baby drool, and Dipper took it without thought. In her other arm, Retta began to calm down again.
“Dipper?”
“Yes Mabel?”
“You need to stop being an ass,” she sweetly said and Dipper choked on his spit in shock. He could count on his hands (and okay, one of Retta or Nito’s) the number of times he had heard Mabel swear in their lives.
Mabel took advantage of the silence to keep going on.
“Dipper I know….I know that there is going to be a lot of pain in your future. I know it’s going to hurt to keep living on and on and on and on and-”
“A long time, I know Mabes.”
“Anyway, you…you shouldn’t push everyone away because you’re worried that you’re going to get hurt. Hurting is just part of life. But that’s not all of life either.”
She looked down at her grandchild, who seemed content to peer around her blearily at the dragonflies and pixies in the air around them.
“I don’t want you to mope and do nothing but be sad when I die. I want you to be happy. I want you to spend time with your family.”
There was still a mulish look on his face which would have been more at home on a twelve year old’s face rather than someone who was 92.
Mabel sighed.
“I’m worried about you. And I’m worried about what you will become if you lock yourself away from everyone.”
The blood drained from his face. He opened his mouth once, twice but no words came out.
“Dipper you love the kids and they love you. Why cut your nose off to spite your face? Why would you leave them when they needed you most?”
A tear, golden and thick, trickled down Dipper’s face.
“Promise me you’ll stay with them.”
“I can’t do that, it’s too big, I mean, who do you mean by them and whe-”
“Okay, promise me you won’t lock your heart away, that you remember you will always have family that loves you, that…that….”
Now it was her turn for a tear to fall down her face.
“That you’ll try your best to not be alone. Please?”
He leaned into Mabel’s side, laying his head on her shoulder.
“Ị ͔͔̘̜́p͕̖̣͔̪r̜̪o͙̹͎͔͘ͅm̡͍̪i̺̦̹s̴̝̪͖͉͉e͈̭͕͖͔̩͈”
They stayed that way for a few minutes, under the shade of Henry’s tree, until Retta began to make sniffly sounds again. Without being asked, Dipper took her into his arms, and began to coo at her, bouncing her gently up and down in his lap.
“What did you name her?” Mabel asked.
“Alrai.”
At Mabel’s blank look, Dipper explained. “It’ll be the next pole star in about a thousand years, give or take.”
“Cool. Any reason why?”
Dipper could distantly see the dirt of a different planet on Retta’s feet, smell the air of a distant star in her hair, and knew without knowing she was going to be one of the first to shoot free of the Earth one day.
He smiled and retracted a claw from the finger Retta popped into her mouth. “Seemed right.”
——
The man laid the blanket out between a mighty apple tree, branches heavy with fruit, and a pine sapling that had just been planted, the earth still raw and fresh around it. Task finished, he knelt down and began to futz with the baby carrier next to him.
Dipper had asked Retta and her son Will if they had wanted to come along too, have a another visit back to Earth, but they had both smiled, a little sadly, and respectfully declined.
From the depths of the car seat, Will’s daughter, Aphra Mabel Castañeda peered myopically at her Grunkle. She let out a giggle as he lifted her out of the seat and laid her gently on the blanket. Aphra began to roll over, a skill she had just mastered. Dipper sat next to her in the warm sun, and simply watched his niece for a few minutes.
It took a few tries for the words to leave Dipper’s mouth, but finally they came.
“Hey Henry. Hey Ma…Mabel. Look. You have a great-great-great-great grandkid. And…and she’s absolutely wonderful.”
An apple fell off the tree and landed on the ground next to the blanket. Dipper picked it up and took a bite, bitter skin giving away to sweet flesh and juice.