It was about a day or two after Weirdmageddon, and Mabel was still feeling rather guilty about, well, everything. True, now that Weirdmageddon was over she didn't have to live with ending the world, but now she still had to live with almost ending the world, and putting so many people she loved in so much danger, and being such a stupid awful sister, and being such a stupid awful person, and-

Things were starting to look up, though. The world wasn't going to be destroyed anymore, of course. Bill was gone, hopefully forever. Grunkle Stan was starting to get his memories back. She'd been eager to help him get them back, but whenever he showed signs of a memory lapse, she'd get an icky, horrible feeling in her heart, or her stomach, or her guts, and she'd remember that she was the reason he was like this now. She also felt really uncomfortable around Dipper and Grunkle Ford, knowing that terrible things happened to them because of her. She just felt so guilty, but she didn't want to tell anybody because her feeling guilty would probably just make everybody feel even worse.

She wanted to help them and everybody else with whatever they needed, but she also felt like she needed to be alone for a while. Soon, she realized there was a way to do both.

It wasn't long before Mabel was standing at the edge of the Bottomless Pit. She knew from experience that it wasn't really bottomless, at least not for people, and would just spit her back out shortly after she falls in. This way, she could spend some time alone, and to everybody else it would be like she was gone for a few minutes at most.

Mabel stared down at the vast depths of the pit. Even though she knew it wasn't really dangerous, it was still kinda scary. But she could handle scary. She'd been dealing with scary for most of the summer. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and cannonballed directly into the pit.

She felt herself falling. And falling. And falling some more. Soon, she could no longer hear the sounds of the forest, or sense the sunlight. The only sense she still had was the feeling of falling, and the feeling of her long hair being blown upwards by gravity. It was actually kinda nice sometimes, this sort of isolation she was in.

The silence was soon broken when she heard the words "Oh, hey Mabel."

Mabel's eyes shot open in surprise to see Wendy nonchalantly falling through the darkness about ten or so feet in front of her. Her long red hair was being blown upwards by the fall, though her hat stayed on her head.

"Wendy? What are you doing... uh, down here?" asked Mabel.

"Oh, I just kinda toss myself down here when I need some alone time." said Wendy casually. "I come from a kinda hectic house, you know. Plus, with the whole weirdness apocalypse that just ended, and being turned into a flag the other day, I guess falling through an abyss for a little while is just kinda, I don't know, relaxing. How about you?"

"Yeah, me too, I guess." said Mabel, fighting the urge to blurt out "Sorry". "So, how long have you been doing this?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"A while ago, I ended up falling in for reasons that I'd, uh, rather not get into right now." said Wendy. "Anyway, after it spat me back up and I realized that I wasn't gonna die, I've been jumping down it every once in a while whenever I need to."

Mabel scratched her head and said "It's happened to me a couple times, but it's usually been an accident. This is the first time I really did it on purpose. I've just been feeling kinda..." she paused, wondering whether to spill the beans or not. She decided to tell the partial truth. "I've been feeling kinda icky and terrible lately."

"Why's that?' asked Wendy, sounding concerned.

Mabel sighed. "Could you keep a secret? Like, a really big secret. I really need you not to tell anybody."

"Sure thing." said Wendy with a nod and a slight smile.

Mabel tried to look at something other than Wendy, but there wasn't really anything else in the void the two were currently falling through.

"So, uh, you see, uh, the thing is, uh, I kinda maybe sorta definitely made a deal with Bill." said Mabel. "And right after I did, something really, really, REALLY bad happened."

"Alright, I kinda have the feeling that I know what the really bad thing you're talking about is." said Wendy. "But the thing is, you were just tricked, right?"

"Well, yeah." said Mabel. "But I wouldn't have gotten tricked if I wasn't so stupid."

"Hey, just because you were manipulated doesn't make you stupid. From what I heard, tricking people was what that Bill guy was best at." said Wendy. "He tricked your uncle a long time ago with promises of knowledge or something like that, he tricked Dipper with the promise of getting the password to that laptop we found, and..." Wendy paused and let out a sigh before saying "He got pretty close to tricking me, too."

"Really?" said Mabel, tilting her head slightly. "When was that?"

"I'm gonna ask you to keep a secret. Could you do that?" asked Wendy.

"Can do." said Mabel, nodding.

"So, it was a few days before..." Wendy paused, apparently trying to think of the right wording. "...the really bad thing, I started getting visits in my dreams. Now, I know now that it was that Bill guy visiting me, but at the time I didn't know who that was, so as far as I knew it was just some floating pyramid guy. Anyway, he starts offering me a chance..." Wendy sighed and looked down sadly. "...a chance to see my mom again."

Mabel listened with concern as Wendy said "I wasn't quite sure about believing him at first. I mean, I knew that ghosts existed, and stuff, but I didn't know if he had any power to summon them, or make them manifest, or whatever. But he showed me and told me about some of stuff he could do, and it wasn't that long before I was convinced. I still thought it might be too good to be true, so I didn't take the deal right away. But for the next few nights, he kept visiting me in my dreams, and he made some pretty convincing points, and he was kinda vague about what he wanted, but he acted like it was nothing big. Plus during the days, I kept thinking and thinking about it, and I started feeling guilty about stuff I never got the chance to say to her, and anxious that I might never get another chance like this again, and a whole other bunch of emotions that just kept growing day by day."

Wendy scratched the back of her head and said "Honestly, if he visited me one more night, I pretty much definitely would've ended up cracking and giving into the deal. I guess he must've found somebody else, 'cause he didn't show up in my dreams that night, and the day after that... well, you know what happened."

Mabel looked guiltily at Wendy. "It sounds like you just wanted to see your mom again. That's a way better reason than mine. The thing he tricked me with only worked because I'm so dumb, and I only ever care about myself."

"Hey, there's no need to feel like that." said Wendy, who made her way over to where Mabel was free-falling by awkwardly making swimming motions through the air. When she got to Mabel, she placed a hand on her shoulder and said "Were you feeling really desperate when you took the offer?"

"Well, yeah." said Mabel. "But it was a really stupid thing to be desperate about, and I-"

"The point is, were feeling desperate?" repeated Wendy.

"...Yeah, I was." said Mabel.

"When people feel desperate, they can do really stupid things." said Wendy. "I mean, I had this feeling that taking his offer would probably mean a bunch of bad stuff would happen, and that his way of letting me see my mom again would probably involve sending me to where she was instead of bringing her to where I am. In hindsight, I definitely would've been a goner had I ended up shaking that dumb triangle's hand. But even though I had that feeling deep down, I just sort of... didn't really care at the time, I was desperate enough that I probably would've ended up taking the deal if he offered it one more time."

Wendy looked up wistfully and said "I know I'm gonna see my mom again someday, though. Maybe soon, maybe not for a very long time. Mom probably hopes it won't be for a long time, but who knows what'll happen."

Wendy looked back at Mabel and said "Anyway, even if you did make an unbelievably bad mistake, you weren't really thinking straight when you did it, and you shouldn't be beating yourself up about it as if it would be the kind of thing you'd do if you were thinking straight."

"I guess." said Mabel. "But I've kinda been wondering if I'm the kind of person who'd take the deal even if I knew what was gonna happen."

"Well, I don't think you're that kind of person." said Wendy. "And I don't think your family, or any of your other friends thinks you're that kinda person either."

"That's probably just 'cause they don't know I'm the one who did it yet. I don't really think I'm ready to tell them yet, though. Do you think I should?"

Wendy said "Eventually, yeah. I think telling them'll make you feel better, just to get it off your chest. It felt pretty good to finally tell someone about the offers that triangle guy was making."

"Yeah, it might." said Mabel. "Even though I haven't told anybody until now, I have been trying to do stuff to make up for what I did."

"Well, if that's the case, then maybe you're a better person than you think." said Wendy, giving Mabel a pat on the back.

"Yeah, maybe." said Mabel, managing to crack a small smile.

The two girls fell in silence for a few seconds before Mabel said "So, guess we still have a little while of falling, huh?"

"Guess so." said Wendy. "While we're here, want to hear a story of something pretty weird that happened last winter?"

"Sounds good to me." said Mabel.

The two spent the next while trading stories as they fell through the darkness. The icky, awful feeling Mabel had was still there, but it seemed to get slightly smaller by the end of their fall.

"...and after spending the better part of the weekend in a giant fish's stomach, going to school actually seemed preferable." said Wendy. She let out an embarrassed laugh as she said "Unfortunately, I guess the local dogs must've smelled the stomach juices I was still covered in, and it made them pretty hungry."

Mabel giggled before looking down and seeing that they were falling towards a bright light.

"Well, I guess that's the end of our fall. I'll tell you the rest of the story later." said Wendy as they fall into the light.

The first one to fly out of the pit was Wendy, landing on her back by the edge. A couple of seconds later, Mabel flew out, flying a few feet into the air before landing on Wendy's stomach. Wendy winced, but managed a smile as Mabel got up and dusted herself off.

"Thanks, Wendy." said Mabel with a bright smile before heading off.

"No problem." said Wendy, waving as she watched Mabel walk back towards the shack.