Kathy knew those words were bound to come out of Mabel's mouth. What else was she going to say? That she wanted to make out with her since the moment they met? That she wanted to force her to give her the Journals of Merlin? Neither of these options made sense and the first one was just sort of random. Why would Mabel want to make out with her?
Needless to say, Kathy was unaffected by Mabel's words. Everyone else, however, was not. Pacifica gasped and covered her mouth, Dipper became pale as the dead, and Gideon looked ready to vomit.
So Kathy stood up tall and made sure that Mabel's attention never left her. "How original. The long-time foe comes back to fight against their rival and end the battle between the two for good. Tell me, will you miss me when I'm gone?"
It wasn't just Mabel who was surprised by Kathy's question. Everyone in the room looked at her with surprise. They almost didn't believe that she asked that.
"Am I going to miss you?" Mabel asked, incredulously. "Of course not! Why would I miss someone who was such a thorn in my side for all these years?"
Kathy shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's because I've been a thorn at your side for all these years. You're used to my presence. And once you kill me, that's it. I'm gone. I'm dead and I'm not going to become a ghost even though I have the option. I won't be there anymore and you'll realize just how much you care about me."
Mabel scoffed and rolled her eyes. "That's ridiculous. I'm not going to miss you."
"You say that now, but what if, when you finally do it, you'll regret it immediately and try to bring me back? Which you won't be able to, because no magic can bring someone back to life. Then you'd slip into a depression and live out the rest of your life in misery." Kathy said.
Mabel glared at her. "Stop it! I won't regret killing you. I'll be fine and I'll live without you. I've done it before and I can do it again."
"Okay," Kathy said. "But can I choose how to die? I feel like you owe me that."
"No!" Mabel cried. "I'm not going to let you choose how you die! That's not how this works! Besides, I don't owe you anything!"
Kathy raised an eyebrow. "No, I think you do. You and your brother tortured me for years, forced me to run away from home, and leave behind everything I've ever known and loved. If anything you owe me big time! So let me choose how I'll get to die and we'll call it square. Deal?"
Mabel shook her head furiously. "No! What is wrong with you?!"
"I'm just trying to die with a little dignity," Kathy told her. "Is that so wrong? Also, I know this goes without saying but I need you to bring my body back to my parents. Just because you're my murderer doesn't mean that you shouldn't be considerate. And I want to be buried in my black mini dress with the glitter belt. Also, try not to mess up my face too much. I want to look cute at my funeral."
"Will you shut up!" Mabel yelled. "Dear god I have never met someone who talked so much before they were killed!"
"Does that mean you killed a lot of people or that you've watched a lot of people die?" Kathy asked.
Mabel gave her an incredulous look. "Why do you want to know that?"
"Oh, I don't," Kathy replied. "I'm just trying to buy some time."
"Buy some time? Buy some time for what?" Mabel asked.
Kathy stole a look behind Mabel and grinned. "It's more of a who and what I'm buying time for."
Mabel didn't get it at first. Then she slowly put all the pieces together. The long conversation kept Mabel from killing them. The look Kathy shot behind her. The strange feeling she got as if something were standing right behind her.
She wasn't that surprised when she got hit on the head and fell unconscious. Above her body, Linus stood holding a lamp and breathing deeply. It seemed that knocking Mabel out took a lot out of him. Dipper, Pacifica, and Gideon watched this all unfold with eyes wide. What the heck just happened?
Meanwhile, Kathy let out a shaky breath. She was less confident than she acted. When she got herself together she rushed to her friends, eyebrows furrowed.
"Are you alright?" She asked them all.
They couldn't quite form words so they simply nodded their heads with mouths agape.
"Good." She nodded, knowing what she had to do. Then she turned away from them and moved toward the closet. She pulled out her suitcase and when she set it on the bed she pulled out her clothes and began packing.
The trio stood there watching her before they finally got their voices back. Dipper spoke first.
"What just happened?" He said speaking for everyone in the room, other than Kathy and Linus.
Linus was the one who answered. "We've knocked your sister unconscious." He told him.
Dipper rolled his eyes. "I can see that. I mean why did you knock my sister unconscious?"
"It was a part of our escape plan," Linus said. "Kathy knew that it was only a matter of time before Mabel figured out what was going on. She also knew that Mabel would kill you all when she found out. So she devised a plan. When Mabel inevitably found out I would come out of the journal and knock her out. And to make sure she didn't immediately start killing, Kathy figured she had to distract her by talking about strange and confusing things. Which she did perfectly, I might add."
Kathy finished her packing, closed the suitcase shut, and looked up. "Thank you. I'd like to think that I did pretty well for someone who was having a panic attack."
"You couldn't even tell." Linus smiled proudly.
Kathy returned the smile. "Thank you. Your praise means the world."
Meanwhile, everyone else listened to this explanation and short conversation in disbelief. They could not believe what they were hearing.
"You mean that you had a plan to get us out of here, alive, and you just let us stand there scared out of our minds?" Pacifica asked furiously.
Kathy shook her head. "Of course not. Yes, I had a plan and yes we are still alive. However, I knew that it was not guaranteed that we would get out of here alive. There was the slight possibility that Mabel would see past my facade and kill us all immediately. I didn't want to get your hopes up. Besides, even if there was a guarantee the plan would keep us alive I still wouldn't tell you. You all suck at acting."
As soon as the sentence left her lips, her friends erupted in cries of offense.
"I beg your pardon?" Dipper glared at her.
"That is not true!" Gideon yelled.
"We would have been perfectly fine," Pacifica said, offended.
Kathy rolled her eyes, unphased by their responses. "Okay, I'll admit Dipper is a pretty good actor. But you two are not." She gestured to Pacifica and Gideon.
"Really? When have we ever been bad actors? We managed to stay hidden from the twins for a couple of years didn't we?" Gideon challenged.
Dipper bit his lip. "Well, that's not entirely true."
Everyone turned to him. "What do you mean?" Gideon asked nervously.
"The truth is," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "You guys popped up on our radar a couple of times in the past year. The reason that we never found you was because of me."
"You?" Pacifica said disbelievingly.
"Yes." He nodded. "Whenever we found a trace of you, I did my best to keep it from Mabel. Sometimes she found out but I always managed to stall her enough for you to get away."
Gideon shook his head in disbelief. "You mean to tell me that the reason that you and Mabel didn't find us sooner was that you sabotaged yourself?"
"Pretty much," Dipper told him.
Gideon threw his hands up. "Just great! We all owe our lives to Dipper Gleeful. Isn't that just a nice kick in the stomach?"
"If we're being honest, it's mostly you and Pacifica that owe me your life."
Just when they thought they couldn't be any more surprised than they already were.
"What are you saying?" Pacifica questioned. "That you mostly covered for us? What about Kathy?"
"Kathy never really needed my help," Dipper explained. "Once she went underground, it was like she never existed. It was like trying to find Carmen Sandiego. Except we didn't even know if she was still alive."
While Gideon and Pacifica stood there more surprised than they had ever been in their lives Kathy stood proud of herself. This whole day was making her feel a lot better about herself. She would have stayed there feeling good about herself for a little while longer but she remembered that Mabel was still there. She may have been unconscious but she wouldn't stay that way for long. They had to get out of there.
"As much as I enjoy this conversation, we need to get going," Kathy said. She pulled three thin slips of paper out of her pocket and handed them to her friends. They were tickets to a boat that was leaving in one hour.
"Why do you have these?" Gideon asked. "You couldn't have known that Mabel was coming."
Kathy nodded. "You're right. But when I woke up today I got the strangest feeling that something big was going to happen today. I figured it would be best to buy the tickets just in case."
Dipper examined his ticket in awe. "You bought one for me."
"Of course I did. Did you think we were going to let you fend for yourself? You're one of us now. And we take care of our own."
Before Dipper could get a chance to thank her, Kathy began pushing everyone out of her room.
"You guys got to go." She said, "You need to pack up. Take only what you need. Disguise yourselves so best you can. Meet me at the dock before the boat takes off and we'll go on together. Don't be late. This is the last boat leaving Greece tonight."
Gideon stole a glance at Mabel. She was still unmoving. "What about her?" He asked. "What will you do with her?"
Kathy didn't answer at first as if she were contemplating her answer. When she opened her mouth she said, "Don't worry. I'll take care of her."
As ominous as that sounded, there wasn't any time to ask what she meant. They had to get out of Athens. So they left without any protest but still felt a little uneasy about leaving Kathy along with Mabel.
Once the door was shut behind her, she leaned against the wall and let out a deep sigh. She was extremely tired. This day was becoming one of the most stressful in her life.
She turned to look at Mabel's body then looked to Linus. "You know what to do."
Linus gave a slightly terrified look. "You want me to kill her?"
"What? No!" Kathy said. "I want you to make sure she stays unconscious. At least until we reach a safe distance. Like you did when we found out you were Merlin."
"Oh." Linus gave her a look of surprise. "Sorry. I just figured that, since you were acting all ominous, it's murdering time."
"You thought I wanted to kill her?" Kathy said in disbelief. "Why?"
Linus shrugged. "You said all those ominous things about taking care of her and how I knew what to do."
"That does sound a little murderous," Kathy admitted. "I can see why you thought that. But time is of the essence and we don't have time to murder someone. So just do whatever you did last time and let's get out of here."
Linus nodded and got closer to Mabel and pressed his index finger to her temple. His finger emitted a blow glow and eventually, it faded. When it did he stood up and looked toward Kathy.
"It is done." He confirmed.
Kathy smiled. "Good. Now let's get going. She might not wake up anytime soon but I'd rather not chance it."
Linus let out a scoff. "You think that somehow the spell will wear off and she'll wake sooner than expected? Do you think she could do that?"
"If there's anyone powerful and crazy enough to do it, it's her," Kathy said grimly.
Linus studied Kathy very closely. "She scares you doesn't she?"
"She might be the only person that scares me in the entire world," Kathy replied.
Linus nodded and made a mental note. The last time that he had been faced Mabel she didn't seem so terrifying. If anything she seemed a little pathetic. But if Kathy was scared of her then she had to be a threat. Kathy was one of the bravest people he knew. She wasn't afraid of much but the few things that she did fear were truly frightening.
This is why it was so important he remembered Mabel Gleeful was a threat. It didn't matter how his first impression of her was, first impressions could be deceiving.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kathy made it to the ship before the rest of her friends. One of the many benefits of having the secret meeting in her hotel room. And packing before her friends left to go pack themselves. All she had to do was make sure Mabel would stay asleep and that she wasn't leaving anything behind.
However, she did stop on her way to get some food. She had no idea what the food on the ship would be like or even if there would be any food. So she decided to prepare for the worst. She also needed some medicine to soothe her stomach. She knew that the minute she even saw a ship her stomach would be doing backflips. And she was right.
The second that she caught a glimpse of the ship she started to feel nauseous. And since her friends were there she couldn't even distract herself, so she sat there trying not to throw up.
This is why when Dipper, Gideon, and Pacifica came into sight, she was relieved. As soon as they were within earshot, she immediately started talking to them.
"Thank god you're alright. I was beginning to worry." She told them. Then she turned serious. "Is there anything I should know about? Did anything happen while you guys were packing up? Anything that could come back to bite us in the butt?"
When the group shook her heads, Kathy nodded satisfied. She began to make her way to the ship and the others followed behind.
Now as much as they didn't want to admit it, they were all wondering what happened to Mabel. Kathy said she would take care of it but they had no idea what that meant exactly. You could never be sure with Kathy.
So Gideon gathered up his courage and asked her. "So did you take care of Mabel?"
"Yeah," Kathy said. "She won't be bothering us anytime soon. I got Linus to put the spell on her where she won't wake up until we're a good distance away. If she hasn't somehow fought the spell she should still be in my bed, sleeping like sleeping beauty."
Pacifica furrowed her eyebrows. "You mean like a baby."
"No," Kathy replied. "I mean like sleeping beauty."
"But the saying is sleeping like a baby."
"And I think that's a terrible comparison. Babies never sleep when you want them to. They're always crying while you're trying to figure out what's wrong. And even when they're asleep, you have to be super quiet and not make a sound. Otherwise, they wake up and start crying again. Sleeping beauty was in such a deep sleep that it lasted one hundred years and only a guy kissing her without her consent woke her up. Therefore the saying should be like, sleeping like sleeping beauty."
Pacifica gave her a weird look. "I guess that makes sense."
Meanwhile, Dipper was still reviewing Kathy's answer to the question. "Wait, you mean that you didn't kill Mabel?"
Both Gideon and Pacifica turned to him, each giving him a look like they wanted to choke him. Kathy also turned to him and gave him a shocked look.
"No! Of course not!" Then she looked at all her friends. "Did all of you think that I was going to kill Mabel?"
When she saw everyone avoid eye contact with her, she got her answer. She let out a huff and crossed her arms.
"Okay, the fact that you think that is kind of insulting." She glared at them. "I would never kill anyone. Even if that person was Mabel. Although I realize now that I said certain things may have insinuated murder. But still, it hurts my feelings that you think I'd be able to do that."
She could have reprimanded them all night but a man began crying out how the ship would be leaving soon. Thanks to this, she remembered that they were still in danger and that they had to get going.
"However there are more important things to worry about. Now let's get going. I don't want to miss our ride out of here." Then she paused, surprised by the words she just said. "I never thought I'd said that about a boat. Oh, well. That's just life I guess."
So they all made their way to the boat and got in line. Everything went smoothly with the tickets and they got on the boat without any problem. The boat sailed on right on time and they watched as they got farther and farther away from the land until they couldn't see it anymore.
They were four of ten passengers on the trawler. It was fairly small but still very neat and tidy. And since it was pretty late they decided to get some sleep. Although it wasn't easy. Not because Kathy was suffering from seasickness, but that didn't help. It was because they all were expecting Mabel to pop out of nowhere and kill them. They knew Linus was powerful and they were being silly but they couldn't stop it. Mabel already surprised them once tonight. They did not want a second time.
There was also another reason why Pacifica couldn't sleep that night. And that reason was Dipper Gleeful. She hadn't been this close to him since the night he accidentally slept over at her hotel room.
She wished she could say that she was uncomfortable. She wished that the reason she couldn't sleep was that he was so close to her and it felt wrong. She wished she could say that she didn't feel more at ease at his side.
But she'd be lying to herself. She was so comfortable and felt so safe that she almost fell asleep. It was the fear of Mabel and the shame of feeling these things about Dipper that kept her awake.
She knew that they had only been teasing her about her crush on Dipper being more than just that. However, she was beginning to suspect that maybe they were right. Maybe she was in love with Dipper.
When the thought entered her mind she shook her head furiously. She couldn't have been in love with him. They hadn't spent enough time for her to fall in love. This wasn't a fairy tale. You didn't just meet some stranger and fall in love immediately. That's not how life worked.
But then again Dipper wasn't some stranger. And there was no denying that she had feelings for him. Could those feelings eventually turn into love in the right circumstances? Maybe when all this was over, they could try and be together? She knew that Gideon and Kathy would try to be a couple. Why couldn't she and Dipper?
That was different, a voice inside her said. Gideon and Kathy were friends. The entire time she had known Dipper, they had been enemies. He had been the one to bully her friends mercilessly in front of her. Then he tried tirelessly to get her to go out with him, up to the point where it had bordered on assault. She couldn't forget all that.
Yet she had a feeling that he wasn't that Dipper anymore. He had changed in the last couple of years. Maybe he deserved a second chance. Or maybe he didn't.
All these thoughts and arguments began to hurt Pacifica's brain. Suddenly she felt suffocated and decided she needed some fresh air and space. So she got up and walked away from her friends.
What she didn't know was that Dipper noticed this and began to follow her. And what he didn't know was that Kathy and Gideon began to follow him when they saw him follow Pacifica.