Gravity Falls Pines Triplets (Original Version)

Blendin's Game

She had a huge 'innocent' smile across her face, and both hands behind her back, one of which had its fingers crossed.

Dipper sighed and shook his head, then headed out of the gift shop towards the shed.

It wasn't a very far walk at all, for the shed was only about a foot away from the Mystery Shack. Dipper used one hand to knock on the door.

"Hello? Mara?" he called. "Are you in there?"

"Leave me alone, please" said Mara's voice from the other side of the door. "I'm busy."

Dipper determined that his sister must have been really distressed if she was using the word please.

He turned the knob and entered the shed anyways.

Apparently, it was possible for the shed to be even messier than it usually was. There were wires hung everywhere, pieces of scrap metal and screws that were just lying around, and several unfinished devices that looked an awful lot like tape measurers strewn all over the place. There was a small device that looked like a miniature bronze chamber large enough to fit a capsule or tube in sitting on the worktable as well.

Mara was working at her worktable, her attention focused on the invention she was working on right now, which also looked like a tape measurer.

There was a grilled cheese sandwich that was sitting abandonedly on the work table too, but it looked as discarded as the devices that had been thrown everywhere.

Dipper almost dropped the candy when he first saw his sister.

He hadn't seen her for three whole days, and now he could see why.

Mara's hair looked like a rat's nest, and the bandana was so crooked that half of the white streak of hair was exposed. Her skin was clammy and pale, as if she hadn't seen the sun in a long time, and her hands were trembling slightly as she screwed a bolt into place. But what really caught Dipper's eye were the huge, dark bags that were underneath her eyes.

"Mara, have you gotten any sleep for the past three nights?" he asked.

Her lack of an answer confirmed it. In fact, she seemed to be pretty intent on ignoring him.

"What are you working on?" Dipper asked, as he turned and looked at the wall.

There was a board there, with all sorts of blue prints, sketches, and equations pinned to it, and the board was labelled 'Time-Travelling Tape Measurer.'

Dipper knew immediately what she was trying to do.

"I've been thinking a lot about what McGucket said" Mara said, finally turning from the device that she was working on towards her brother. "That I can't go back in the past to change it. Then it occurred to me that I'm supposed to invent time travel in the future. I figured, why not now, when I really need it?"

Dipper tensed when she said those words. That didn't sound like her at all. She never rushed towards the future, and yet this was exactly what she was trying to do. Her lack of sleep seemed to be affecting her judgement.

"Then, why don't you just create another memory serum instead of going through all this trouble?" he suggested. "You can use it to restore McGucket's mind."

Mara shook her head.

"No, that serum restores memories. It can't fix a broken mind. Besides, that's not good enough. I want to go back in time, and make sure that he never finds the memory gun in the first place so that his life doesn't get ruined."

"Look, Mara, why don't you take a break?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You look exhausted. Get some sleep. And here."

He dropped the handful of candy onto the desk next to her, but she didn't budge. Mara was not stuffing her face with chocolate the instant she saw it. She really did have impaired judgement.