Gravity Rises (S2)

HW: Part Fifteen

"Mabel."

She moaned, curling up tighter.

"Mabel, it's morning."

Mabel slowly opened her eyes, blinking groggily in the pre-dawn light that reached through the window. "It's still dark," she mumbled.

"The sun rises late here. It's just after seven A.M."

She paused as this revelation struggled to get through. How could it be seven? She was still tired. It felt more like midnight.

"We didn't get much sleep last night." That was Ford, her mind realized. Ford was speaking. Ford was lying next to her. What was she doing in the same bed as Ford? "But we only have three hours left before the portal opens. We have to get down there."

Mabel's eyes flew open.

It all came rushing back. The portal — the anomalies — how she crawled into bed with Ford last night.

Ford undid the restraints and gently moved Mabel off of his chest. She buried her head under the blankets, not ready to get up yet, as Ford sat up and stretched and moaned in pain. He muttered something like, "I need Melody," and stood up, his joints cracking. Mabel could hear him moving around the room, probably getting dressed, but she tuned out the sounds and kept the covers over her head.

"Mabel."

She started. Had she fallen asleep again? She pushed herself up and turned bleary eyes on Ford.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in a red turtleneck and his signature trenchcoat. "I'm going out to find Melody. Come out soon, okay? We all need to go down to the basement together, because I'm the only one that knows the code."

Mabel gave some kind of moan in agreement. Right then, she only cared about doing what she had to so that Ford would go away and leave her alone to sleep.

Ford left, and Mabel flopped back down onto the bed, stealing Ford's pillow for her own use. It smelled like old person — the whole room did, really — but she didn't care, even as she buried her face into it. She lay there for a long time, breathing deeply, trying to go back to sleep.

But she was already too awake, and her body was too fed up with the anomalies to fall asleep again. Eventually, she sat up, rubbing her eyes. Didn't Ford say they all needed to go downstairs together? Were they going to leave her?

She stood up with a yawn and padded out of the room.

When she reached the end of the hallway, she saw Melody treating Ford in the kitchen. Ford sat on the counter with his shirt off, revealing flabby old man skin wrapped in bandages, which Melody changed, rubbing ointment around his scratches and bruises. Mabel cringed instinctively when she saw her uncle shirtless — it wasn't gross, per say, it was just weird.

. . . And kinda gross.

"There you are, Mabes!" Dipper came pounding down the stairs behind her. "You worried me! Where'd you go last night?"

"Um," she said, her brain too tired to form eloquent thought. "I crawled in bed with Ford."

As she said it aloud, her cheeks began to heat up in embarrassment. Oh no. She'd crawled in bed with Ford. Like a terrified, needy child. There went any chance of him taking her seriously!

"Kids," Melody called, "come in here and grab some breakfast. The milk should be still cold enough for cereal — though it also might be frozen."

Her words reminded Mabel of how cold it was. Dipper had a sweater on over his pajamas, and suddenly that seemed like the best idea in the world. She told her family she'd be right back and ran up the stairs, grabbing her orange hoodie. There wasn't time to change out of her pajamas, so she just threw it on and zipped it up.