Well, here goes nothing! A new multi-chapter story to read and hopefully enjoy. This takes place in the same semi-AU of all my "Future Pines" stories, and is basically a prequel to "Pines Will Be Pines." A huge thanks goes to ddp456 for all the time and energy he's put into helping me whip this plot into shape.

As usual, all comments, critiques and whatnot are all greatly appreciated (also my usual array of weird glaring spelling and grammar typos, which continue to escape both the notice of my editing and my spellcheck).

- SGA

After pulling into Gravity Falls Mobile Estates, the young woman stumbled wearily from her pickup. Her muscles ached from a long day at the logging camp. Thankfully, now that the week was over she could look forward to….

Wendy's relief fizzled out before she even stepped inside her trailer home. By the time she tugged off her boots she was already wishing that it was Sunday night. Granted, work really wasn't anything special. It was just a job her dad had managed to arrange for her. But besides a paycheck, at least it gave her something to do. After all, she wasn't really into going out a lot anymore. Or really doing much of anything, for that matter.

This definitely wasn't the outcome she expected when she first moved off to Portland with her boyfriend for a new life in the city. But since that final and epic breakup with her now-ex and the hasty move to her backwoods hometown, she'd been living in a sort of self-imposed seclusion. Life now mainly consisted of shuffling back between work and this cramped mess she called home, doing her best to forget her recent disaster of a relationship and trying to forgive herself for letting it go on for as long as it did. So far she had gotten the getting up and going to work part down pretty pat. The other stuff though, not so much.

The twenty-five-year-old peeled off her sweat-stained jeans and flannel and switched to a tank top and shorts. After changing out of her filthy work clothes she checked her phone and found two messages waiting for her.

"Wendy? You still alive?" There was a mix of concern and annoyance in Tambry's recording. But Wendy couldn't blame her though considering all the unanswered calls she'd racked up. "If you are, you know the drill. Whenever you feel like you want to be a person again, please drop a line or something, okay? Robbie and I would really like it if….."

Since it was no different from the her friend's last several messages, The lumberjill fast-forwarded through it. The second message then began to play, and she was surprised by a familiar bubbly squeak of a voice that she hadn't heard in a good while.

"Heeeeey, Wen-Wen! Guess who-oooo? I'll give you a hint, her name starts with 'M' and ends in '-abel!' Haha! Anyway I'm just checking in. How's things? Boy it feels like a it's been a million years since..."

Wendy managed a brief smile as she listened to the overly long voicemail, all the way until her friend was cut off by the time limit. How long had it been since she heard from either of her dorks? She thought of the last few insane months and could only think of a few scattered texts, all from Mabel. Dipper meanwhile…..

She reached for a battered pine tree cap resting on the corner of sofa and started playing with it as she thought back. Wendy genuinely couldn't even remember exactly when she last heard from him. To be fair, grad school was probably keeping him pretty busy at the moment. He was probably juggling more than enough papers, projects, or whatever his program was demanding from him, and she knew that Dipper never gave anything less than a hundred percent for any of his work. Or at least that's what she assumed he must be up to right now. The doofus was probably in his element.

Wendy had to be honest, she hadn't given either of the twins too much thought for a while now, what with everything she'd been trying to deal with. The more she thought about how long it had been, the tighter her gut twisted with guilt. She made a mental note to try and give one of them a call tomorrow. Mabel, probably. Or…..maybe the day after. She'd definitely around to it sometime later in this week.

A resigned groan echoed through her home. Who was she kidding? As much as she wanted to chat with her friends, she balked at the idea of having one more person witness the self-pitying hermit she'd let herself become. Plus, even if she worked up the energy for a call, she highly doubted she'd be much fun to talk to. Wendy tossed both phone and cap onto the couch, plodded into the kitchen and fished a six-pack from her fridge.

"Well," She raised her first drink of the evening to no one. "Here's to another Friday night….."

"Hello? Helloooooo? Wendy?"

Wendy jolted awake. Someone was knocking so hard at her door that it was rattling the entire trailer a little.

"Wendy? Wen-Wen? You there? Helloooo!"

She stumbled out of her little bedroom and was startled to find a rosey-cheeked visitor smiling in through a window.

"Wendy, it's me! Mabel!" She banged on the window with an open palm. "Your friend! I'm outside your place right now! Do you see me?!"

There was no mistaking the grinning brunette standing there, clad in one of her many sweaters, along with some bedazzled jeans, a colorful bandana stylishly tying up her hair, and the glasses she'd been wearing since her junior year of college. Wendy fumbled open the door and Mabel bounced in with a jangle of homemade earrings.

"Hey there!" She started gabbing like if they'd last seen one another only yesterday. "How's my sister from another mister? And family? Haha! Anyways, hope you don't mind a little super-secret-surprise visit!"

"Uh…" Wendy was reeling. "You're….you're here?"

"You bet Mabel's here! I was actually driving up to the Shack when I called last night." Her grin twisted mischievously. "Pretty sneaky, huh? Anyway, weird story short, I was running a teensy little errand at the mall Wednesday when I passed by some camping gear store. I took one look at all those boots in the window and then it hit me. Suddenly I was all, 'Whoa, hold the phone here! How long has it been since I heard from my Wen-Wen?' And you know what the answer was? Way way waaaaaay too long! It was all on my mind, and when I mentioned it on the phone to Stan later he said you had moved back into town. And so then I was all 'Well what am I waiting for?' I made plans, packed up, left work early as I could yesterday, and VOILA!"

"Huh? Wait so you've talked with...uh, so did Stan or Ford...did they….." Wendy silently cursed herself for paying the two old twins an overdue visit a week back. Stan had been very generous with the beers (up until Ford cut the both of them off), and she recalled that her lips had loosened quite a bit. As anxiety quelled in the pit of her stomach, she took a deep breath and tried asking again, "Uhh….so what did they tell you?"

"Just a quickie little summary! You know, calling it quits with your old guyfriend after things got all stupid with him, coming back here, the new job with your dad, all the basic biz! Ooohh, also that you weren't all that jazzed with your new pad." She took a look around. "Hey, this isn't as bad as I expected at all! This is going to be waaaay easier than I thought!"

"What is?"

"What else? Your home makeover!" As Mabel started zipping back and forth to unload a near-impossible amount of bags from her hybrid, she gabbed nonstop."No need to worry about breakfast, I picked us up some sammies at Greasy's Diner. Bacon, egg and cheese on a roll for you, egg and cheese on a fluffy croissant for me! No coffee though. I brought all the fixings for some fresh Mabel Juice. Now you can start looking through these fabric samples and pick which one you want for window curtains. Don't worry, it's an all-flannel selection, of course. Also, I've been on a major needlepoint kick lately, so I packed a couple of my latest ones. They're nice, huh? Hope you don't mind if I hang a couple up around here. I think a good needlepoint can really help tie a room together if you chose the….."

Wendy stood there just trying to process everything that was happening. When it all finally sunk in, she interrupted her friend with a sound that was both a laugh and a sob. Mabel ground to an instant halt.

"You okay?"

"S-sorry Mabes, I...it's not you or anything, I….it's….." As the redhead fumbled over her words, she wiped at rapidly tearing emerald eyes. "Just….th-thanks. F-for showing up. I-I've….the last few months have been...kinda crappy...kinda really crappy."

A couple stray tears were sneaking down her freckled cheeks. Mabel dropped everything and threw her arms around her.

"It's okay." She squeezed tight as she felt her friend lean gratefully into the embrace. "I also brought plenty of hugs for my Wen-Wen too…."

After just a few hours of company, Wendy had made an impressive recovery. She was talking, chuckling, smiling, and even trying to help spruce up her home. Mabel wouldn't have any of the latter though, and every time her friend tried to lend a hand she'd shoo her back onto the sofa. And while she wiped, scrubbed, and decorated, she energetically filled Wendy in on all the latest developments with her current boyfriend and her new job as an elementary school art teacher. After being bombarded with updates, a significantly relaxed Wendy surprised herself by how easily she opened up about the recent happenings in her own life. To be fair though, this wasn't just any person that she was venting to; Mabel had always been the closest thing that she'd ever had to a little sister.

"...I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I gave him that second chance."

"Don't beat yourself up." Mabel was currently busy hanging some photos on the wall. "He was the one who wanted to be the Jerk of the Year. He kept seeing that girl right after he promised it was a one-time mistake! How is that not the biggest butt move ever?"

"Yeah, but I would have saved myself a stupid amount of trouble if I didn't let it drag out like I did." Wendy grimaced at the memories of all the screaming matches, tensely silent dinners and the numerous nights where she chose to sleep on the couch. "Man, I still can't believe I thought that we could work through it. All I did was put myself through hell. And for what? So I could run into his little side action again just as she was leaving our apartment. I don't even know why….."

She grabbed one of the new handmade throw pillows her friend brought and and muffled a loud groan into it. Once the frustrated eruption passed, she tossed the pillow back aside with a sigh. "Dude, if he's Jerk of the Year, then I was the Idiot of the Century."

"Well let's look on the bright side! First of all, he's finally out of of your life, so no more dealing with all of his stupid lying cheaty jerk stuff. And I know it probably feels awful right now, just remember everything great you still have!" Mabel as usual was a mountain of optimism. "You got all of your family and friends, includinngggg…..the raddest two people in the entire universe!"

The brunette grabbed one of the framed pictures that she had just hung up and playfully dangled it over Wendy's face. "Speaking of, remember this?"

It was a photo of a pair of twins wearing their college graduation robes and enormous grins. Standing between them was a lanky redhead who was looking a little dirty but also extremely proud while she hugged both her dorks. Wendy brightened up as she fondly recalled that fateful day. It felt like ages, even though it had only been slightly over a year ago.

"Oh man, check out that doofus." She chuckled at Dipper. Out of the three of them, he was wearing the biggest grin by far.

"You have noooooo idea how much you made his day." Mabel giggled. "Mine too. We thought you weren't gonna make it."

"What? C'mon, of course I was! I wasn't going to let some car trouble stop me." Wendy laughed. Lucky for her, she had managed to snag the help of a few very helpful bikers to get her to the ceremony only minutes before it started.

"Or bug trouble!" Mabel tittered as she remembered this particular detail from her friend's epic trip.

"Ugh, don't remind me." For a brief moment Wendy could taste them flying into her mouth at seventy miles an hour again. She then looked back at the young man in the picture and felt a wistful pang. "So speaking of graduations…."

Without even thinking she reached for the battered Pine tree cap and started fiddling with it. "How long does Dipper have left until he's done with his program? I haven't heard from him in forever."

"You and me both. And we only live a couple miles apart back home!"

"Jeez. So it's just been all work and no play, huh?"

"More so than he's even been in his whole entire life. It's a kookoo crazy accelerated degree program he's on. But he should almost be done soon!" She chirped with relief. "It'll be great to finally to see him outside of a library for once again."

"So that's it? He seriously hasn't been up to anything else?"

"I wouldn't say that…" Mabel admitted slyly. Wendy sat up and flashed a prying grin.

"C'mon, let's hear it." She said eagerly.

"Let's see…." Her friend giggled. "I guess for starts, he finally found out how much coffee for an all-night research session is too much."

"Oh my God." Wendy snorted.

"Ooooh yeah, that was one everyone lesson learned the hard way. I had to take three straight shots of Mabel juice to get the energy to bring him down..."

Once they finished getting the cramped trailer into shape, the girls spent the rest of the day goofing around and reminiscing about old times, and capped it off with a pizza and a wonderfully heckle-worthy bad movie. As Mabel watched the her friend finally plod off to bed, she felt so glad she decided to come all the up right before the big trip kicked off next week. It looked like Wendy had really needed this. It was such a shame that her last few months had been such a mess. Someone as awesome as her deserved way better than the hand she'd been dealt with lately.

While she got ready for bed, Mabel, of course, couldn't notice that Wendy's current hermit tendencies (as she had described them) reminded her a lot of a certain exhausted grad student back south in California. Mabel had confirmed Wendy's assumptions that Dipper was pretty busy. But for the sake of her friend's mood, she had left out how Dipper wasn't exactly having the time of his life. Her poor brother had almost let his program take over his entire life, to put it bluntly. The fact that he was still chugging along was almost a miracle.

Mabel looked out the window and sighed. No doubt Dipper was probably face down and snoring in a pile of books right now after another jam-packed day of working himself ragged.

After setting down on the sofa with a pillow and blanket, the nightie-clad brunette grew lost in her thoughts. It was a shame that Dipper had been out of contact with her for so long. No one could do a better job of helping Dipper keep him and his stress in check than his lumberjill friend. Wendy always seemed to know how to get him out of whatever shell he had managed to crawl into.

And Wendy…..Mabel couldn't help but notice the obvious change that had gone through the redhead countless times through their day together. Every time the conversation steered to Dipper, she always got a little livelier, laughed and grinned more and was always full of eager questions. It happened every single time, without fail. Just talking about him made the lumberjill automatically brighten up. She missed him, plain and simple. Mabel really wished she'd been able to track down her brother for this quick weekend trip, but the study-zombie hadn't answered any of her calls.

She fell deeper into thought. Just how could those two themselves fall out of touch for this long? Now on one hand, it admittedly made sense. Wendy had gotten herself all caught up in her last relationship (both its good times, and all its horrific ones). Meanwhile, literally no one could bury themselves in their studies like Dipper could. Her brother could easily put the most intense workaholics to absolute shame.

But on the other hand, the whole thing was so stupid. She couldn't think of any way to put it. It was just so stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid that she almost didn't know where to start. There was no doubt in her mind that those two nitwits would both be weathering their current rough patches so much better if they had at least been talking regularly. After all, absolutely no one could bring out the best in one another like those two could, no matter the circumstances. Mabel knew this better than anyone else after watching them over all these years. Few people really enjoyed themselves as much as they did whenever they were together, whether it was another paranormal caper or just goofing around. And she would be hard pressed to name two people who better knew one another better in and out (well, excluding herself and Dipper). There was no doubt about it in her mind, they needed to get back together as soon as possible so they could…..

"Waaaaait a minute." Mabel whispered as she paused on that thought. Back together...

Together...

Those two...

She sprang up like a Jack-in-the box. Of course. Of course. Mabel almost wanted to do a full facepalm, and then decided to do one anyway for dramatic effect. Why hadn't she thought of this sooner? Without further delay she leapt from the sofa, fished a glittery notebook and bedazzled pen from her backpack and flipped on the light. Before she got to work, she checked the time. The Matchmaker figured she could get in a good amount of brainstorming before she finally had to turn in for the night.

"Sleep well, Wen-Wen." She sang softly across the trailer with a giggle. "Don't worry, Mabel's gonna fix everything…."

"Huh?" A half-awake grunt startled her. "Mabes? Y'saysomethin'?"

"Uh….I...I was….was just putting in a call home! Okay Mom...yeah, I'm fine….uh the, the shower in my apartment's still not working, I'll fix it when I get back…." Mabel actually took out her phone to talk into, and kept up a whole facade until she had clumsily exited the trailer.

Once safely outside, she dropped the act and reached in her notebook.

"Okay, step one…." She whispered as she scribbled an important reminder. "Make sure not to pull a Dipper…."

Wendy was surprised when the redhead in the bathroom mirror greeted her with a grin for the first time in a long while. She felt like a whole new woman. Or maybe she was just feeling a little more like her usual self again. Either way, it was a welcome change of pace. Still clad in a junky tank top and sweatpants, she plodded around until she found her friend outside. Mabel was already washed, dressed, and now casually knitting as she lounged in one of two lawn chairs.

"Good morningggg!" She trilled. "How are you you doing?"

"You have no idea. Man, you have got to visit more often. Keep this up, and I might actually be back to normal soon." Wendy joked before she took a seat.

"Funny that you mentioned that." She tittered slyly. "Guess who's going to be back up here next weekend?"

"Am I looking at her?" Wendy guessed. The bubbly brunette laughed.

"You're only looking at half the package! It'll be me and my bro-bro, coming up to set off on a summer adventure extraordinaire!"

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "You're gonna have to clue me in a little more than that."

"Gladly! You know how Grunkle Ford likes to travel sometimes and do his weirdness investigation dealies?"

"You mean those expedition things? Yeah…." Wendy nodded as she followed along.

"Well it's been getting a little harder for him to do heavy duty fieldwork. Especially with him and Stan kind of getting on. He's been happier to just stay right at home in his lab, but in the meantime he's still been keeping track of all kinds of reports and crazy stuff going on in other places. He's run up a pretty big list of stuff he hasn't checked out but really wants to, so that's where we come in!"

"Wait," Wendy quickly realized where this was going. So are you and Dipper-"

"You bet! We'll be taking Stan's old RV out on the road and check all the stuff Ford wants to know more about!" She beamed in anticipation. "We have a whole itinerary set up and everything!"

"Whoa." Wendy couldn't lie, this came as pretty disappointing news. She slumped in her chair and muttered, "Well….guess it's good I can see him a little before you guys head off."

"A little? Sorry, no can do." Mabel shook her head, then grinned slyly. "How about you see him a whole lot instead?"

Wendy had no idea what she was talking about. "Wait, what?"

"Guess who's coming with us on an epic summer road trip? Here's a hint!" Mabel leaned over and poked her gal-pal square on the nose. "Boop! This lucky lady, right here!"

"I...wait….wait, hold on." Wendy struggled to wrap her head around this bombshell. This was all very sudden, to put it mildly.

"SURPRISE!" Always one for theatrics, Mabel reached into her sweater sleeves and released two puffs of glitter confetti with a cheer. "The gang's getting back together!"

Wendy didn't know what to say. Part of her was thrilled beyond words at the prospect of an adventure like in the old days. Another part of her was particularly happy to see Dipper again. And the rest of her had literally no idea whatsoever what to think. She fumbled over her own tongue until she could recover a little from the initial shock. "I-"

"It's great, isn't it?" Mabel squealed.

"I….it's…..maybe? Dude, just wait a sec here. I can't just….I mean, maybe you should wait until I talk to my dad. I don't think I can just up and take a break-"

"Already done!" Her friend beat her to the punch. "It's one million percent fine with him!"

"...What?"

"Yup! I made a little stop by the cabin while I was grabbing breakfast." Mabel dropped a box of donuts in her friend's lap. "Good thing your dad likes getting up early too. I popped in, said hi, and we had ourselves a nice little chitchat. Trust me, he's totally okay with it."

"You...talked to him?" said the incredulous redhead. Her father wasn't the kind of guy who willingly let others shirk work, least of all his own children."You got him to think it was fine?"

"Oh he was all for it after I was done tell him! Now he doesn't know allll the details, but he thought that a little road trip could definitely do you some good."

"...My dad?" Wendy still couldn't believe her ears. "Seriously?"

"You better believe it! "Mabel looked her straight in the eyes and clucked concernedly. "You really, really haven't been out that much lately at all, have you?"

"Uh….not really." Wendy blushed until her face and hair matched. She averted her gaze, fished out a sprinkle-covered donut and asked around a small mouthful, "Soooo…...what should I pack?"