"Have any of you ever thought of getting a tattoo?" Pacifica asked abruptly from her prim seat in front of her desk in the basement of the Mystery Shack, a level above the former Portal, where the Mystery Trio, Mystery Twins, now eighteen year old Wendy and twelve year old Gideon were hanging out.

Gideon was getting better as time went on, growing and maturing, enough that they were all willing to hang out with him, and actually call him a friend, and Pacifica, well, she was officially part of the Mystery Trio of her, Grenda, and Candy, that watched things in Gravity Falls when the Mystery Twins weren't around.

The other occupants of the basement looked a little surprised at the seemingly random question, having come in the middle of another conversation as it had, but answered anyway.

"I guess, maybe. If we still want the same designs when we're old enough," Dipper answered for the twins, glancing over at his sister. "Didn't think you'd be interested in one, Paz."

Pacifica shrugged. "It just feels important," she said.

"I know what you mean," Wendy said from her perch, stretched out across the top of one of the lab's tables. "My dad's going to freak when he finds out, but I still want one. Not even a cool one, man. What's happening to me?"

"Aw, Wendy, you'd be cool even with the lamest tattoo," Mabel said brightly, eyes wide and already envisioning the possibilities.

"Let me guess," Pacifica said, examining her nails with a disinterested air. She pointed at Wendy, Gideon, Dipper, Mabel and herself in turn as she named off the tattoos. "A bag of ice, a star, a shooting star, a pine tree, a llama," she listed. The four she called out shifted and shuffled, with various agreements. "Nothing fancy, just line art, like the ones on that circle."

"Wish it was cooler than a bag of ice," Wendy said, "but yeah, Robbie's talking about getting one too. He keeps claiming it's going to be, like, a dragon or something, but I'm pretty sure it'll be that stitched heart. It feels...right."

"Soos already got one of the question mark," Mabel said, finger tapping her cheek as she thought. "And I know the Stans got theirs...just the outline, like Paz said. They think it's a secret, but we know."

"McGucket went out and got the glasses," Pacifica confirmed. The old man had let the Northwest family move back into the manor eventually, with agreements and contracts drawn up by the Stans and a non-Northwest chosen lawyer about sharing and space and the acceptable number of explosions per week. Mostly, they suspected, so it was easier for Pacifica and the Mystery Trio to hang out with the old man whenever they felt the urge. "I didn't care if he did, really, but he was heading for some seedy little place and well, when one has money they should go for the best," she said dismissively, as if they all couldn't see right through her to why she would care enough send the old man to a better, if more expensive, parlor. "But it got me thinking."

"Aw, you gonna pay for ours, Pazzers?" Wendy asked, laughing. Pacifica sniffed.

"I'm not 'Pazzers'. And if it keeps you from going somewhere like that disgusting bio-hazard excuse for a tattoo shop, then yes," she said, pointing at Wendy crankily. "Just because we're friends now doesn't mean I'm putting up with you putting sub-par work on your body and getting it infected because you couldn't shell out for the sanitary parlor."

"Well, it's going to be awhile," Dipper reminded her. "Wendy and Robbie are the only Zodiacs old enough to get a tattoo that haven't gotten one yet."

"Gives me and Grenda time to think about one," Candy added.

"Whoa, your parents would let you get a tattoo?" Mabel asked. Candy grinned.

"And your parents will?" she asked back, and the three girls shared a grin.

"My parents will freak if I get one," Pacifica confirmed, with a smirk. "Especially if it has anything to do with that."

"You're not going to do it just to annoy them, right?" Dipper asked, looking up from where he'd been tracing out their symbols on spare paper in his pine tree emblazoned journal. "I thought you quit worrying about that."

Pacifica waved a dismissive hand. "Please. That's just a bonus."

"Ah'm gonna have ta keep mine a secret," Gideon finally spoke, having been listening silently but with interest to the conversation. "Ah don't, and folk's start getting' on my boys for bein' a bad influence."

"Ugh, they would too," Mabel agreed. There was a round of agreeing noises – most of the men Gideon had befriended in jail had stayed loyal over the years, but despite the passage of time some people still eyed them with distrust. The Mystery Group, though, accepted them, and having so many kids looking up at them had the ones that stuck around trying to clean up their act, at least enough to be able to still be trusted around the kids.

They made good backup on monster hunts. Like their own pack of bodyguards, paid mostly in Melody's amazing cookies.

"We got your back, man," Dipper said, still sketching out random glyphs and symbols.

"They mess with one of us, they mess with all of us!" Grenda declared. "And they're one of us!"

Gideon beamed, the smile that was appearing more and more often, the real, genuine smile without malice or falsehood that he was more and more comfortable with around his friends.

"So, when do we go do this thing?" Wendy asked, sitting up and stretching, breaking the moment.

"Wait, what?" Dipper dropped the pencil he'd started chewing on, scrambling after it. Mabel scooped it up and tossed it back to her brother automatically, before Waddles could get at it.

"Yeah, dude. You're all coming with when I get mine. You cool with me dragging Robbie along and getting his done at the same place? Otherwise he's just going to go some cheap place, you know he will," Wendy asked Pacifica. "He and I can chip in for it, but we all know Robbie."

"Ugh, fine," Pacifica said, rolling her eyes as she tapped away on her phone. "There. Next Saturday, in Bend. Same place that I took McGucket to, an appointment for both of you. I know we all have it free."

"All in?" Wendy asked, holding out a fist. One by one they touched fists, holding the connection, Pacifica holding out until the last.

"Take back the Falls," she said quietly, and the rest chorused in echo.

"Take back the Falls."