Its Hour Come Round At Last

"You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, 'There is a price we will not pay.' 'There is a point beyond which they must not advance'…"

- Ronald Reagan





Mabel Pines sighed, staring up at the ornate wooden ceiling of the La Honda County estate where they'd been training the past couple weeks. Ever since Pacifica's old friends from Gravity Falls shown up looking for their little brother, it had taken some convincing. They lived through the events that threatened not only the survival of the United States of America, but every other country on the planet, so the concept of something that weird and horrible was, unfortunately, all to possible to them. After which they'd let them use this estate, and had agreed to arm and fund their campaign.

She sighed, at the lump in her throat that formed in her throat whenever she thought of the Siege of the Mystery Shack. On the face of it, thirty-five thousand soldiers of the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the Canadian Army with ample Air Force and Navy support should have had no problem. Against an army of mercenaries lured in by the chance to have money and power in the New World Order (an already dead dream, not that they knew) controlled by a nine-year-old with an obsessive crush and an abusive father with more money and weapons then sense. Poorly armed, poorly trained, and even more poorly lead, they should have been falling all over themselves to surrender.

Gideon Gleeful and Preston Northwest's strength was their remarkable ability to use logic and ability to achieve their illogical plans. They'd armed them with advanced weapons and technologies gleaned from the journals. Their commanders worked out tactics to use their new weapons to their fullest advantage. Add to the mix sleeper agents who have been…adjusted by Bill Cipher who wreaked havoc on the airbases and ships that would have provided the fire support and were expressly designed to prevent that sort of slaughter for friendly forces.

And one week before her and her brother's thirteenth birthday, having been foiled with all their other plans, including a plan to bring an unstoppable horde of demons in from Bill Cipher's home dimension, Gideon and Preston, no longer caring about their long term goals, threw their carefully prepared militia army into killing her brother, great-uncle, and grandfather, and capturing Mabel and Pacifica. Sixty thousand militia members, a staggering number that Allied commanders at first refused to take seriously, went up against roughly the same number of American and Canadian soldiers and marines who'd initially gathered to take on the demons.

The Shack shuddered, sawdust sprinkling down from the rafters under the two explosions that buffeted the wooden structure. The roar of answering artillery was so loud and so close that she couldn't tell what direction they'd been fired from. Mabel paced back and forth like a caged animal, listening to the sounds of battle. The sounds of gunfire interspersed with what she was starting to recognize as the telltale whine of laser rifles, was audible from the half a mile away the nearest fighting was. In the air above them could be heard the sound of helicopters hovering in the air above the Shack, and the roaring whiz of firing rockets.

"Get those mortars up!" a barely audible voice said. "Those bastards are killing Marines out there, go!"

This is insane! Gideon's army demand that they hand over Dipper, Mabel, and Pacifica "or face the consequences" within twenty-four hours was still ringing in her head.

No one had taken it seriously. They'd taken it as a delusional demand and continued demobilizing to return to their bases in the United States and Canada.

Then, the 1st Battalion, 186th Infantry Regiment and a battalion of The Black Watch of Canada found themselves completely cut off at Northwest Manor at six in the morning. The two battalions reported that they were taking, of all things, laser fire.

Artillery and airstrikes managed to open a whole for both units to escape, right before all Air Force support seemingly disappeared from the field. Both units had reformed half a mile to the north of the Mystery Shack, trying their level best to hold of Gideon's forces in that direction. Within three hours, all American and Canadian military units had been forced out of Gravity Falls. They reformed around the Mystery Shack alongside the, completely ignoring their repeated demands to surrender her, Dipper, and Pacifica to them, in exchange for leaving them in peace.

Mabel was sick to her stomach. All this over three people? All this over me? She'd give herself up rather than allow this to continue.

Mabel started for the door.

"Mabel!" her great-uncle said. "Mabel, wait!"

Mabel ignored him, continuing to march towards the door of the attic bedroom she and her brother shared the past few months. She was bought short by a strong grip on her arm, and she turned to view her brother shooting her a determined look.

"You can't do this, Mabel?"

"Why not?!" she snapped. "People are dying out there! Maybe if I give myself up, I can convince them to stop trying to get you two and let the others go."

"No!" Pacifica said behind him, as the building shook again, under the wrath of another explosion tearing up the soil outside. "You can't convince him to stop! They're too committed now! What are they going to do? Stop shooting and say, 'we're good?' They're in it, it's either win here or die. And even if they win here, they can't possibly prevail in the long run. And even if you could convince them to 'stop', thousands of people have already died to prevent us from falling in their hands. If you give yourself up to them now, you'll be throwing everything they died for away."

Mabel sighed in the present, sitting up in her bed. They're right. Damn them.

And when a large force managed to break through and invest the Shack directly, they'd fought like demons to keep them out long enough for reinforcements to arrive and for the Air Force and the Navy to finally get back in operation, getting some serious air support out to them.

With that, the tide turned, and with air support finally back in play, they'd broken the siege. They drove Gideon and Preston's forces back through Gravity Falls, harried by constant airstrikes that pushed their forces past the point of collapse.

At the end, thirty-five thousand of Gideon's forces were killed, wounded, and captured, including Gideon and Preston. The total casualties for the good guys, however, had just barely been short of that number. At nearly seventy thousand casualties total for both sides, in one instant, the Siege of the Mystery Shack displaced Antietam/Sharpsburg as the bloodiest single-day battle in American military history.

And it was fought expressly because they refused to turn over three twelve-year-olds to a psychotic nine-year-old and an abusive father.

It's happening again. She remembered that horrible night where she'd watched helpless as Jessica Ocampo was flung into the back of an SUV and driven away, only to be found, still alive, being fattened up to go into a liver pate and kept in a cage like an animal. Every time I screw up, someone else pays the price.

She flung her covers aside and walked out of her bedroom, eyes downcast and paddling down the hall towards the stairs that led to the living room.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Melanie sitting on the sofa. The TV was on, and she seemed to be staring at a history documentary that she wasn't actually watching.

She sighed, crossing her arms reflexively. Right now, in her mood, Melanie Ocampo was the absolute last person in the world she wanted to talk too. She attempted to edge along the wall into the kitchen behind her when Melanie noticed her.

"Hey, Mabel," she said flatly.

Mabel gave a deflated sigh, collapsing against the wall behind her. "Hey, Melanie."

Melanie gave her a concerned look. "Are you all right, Mabel?"

Mabel swallowed a lump in her throat. "I'm fine, Melanie."

Melanie stood up and walked over to her. "I need to ask you, something. Are we okay, Mabel?"

The totally unexpected question was enough to stun her out of her reverie and she gave her friend a quizzical look. "Of course we are, Melanie. Why wouldn't we be?"

"Well," Melanie said, folding her arms. "You've been avoiding me since you came to me to tell me that my sister is still alive."

Mabel flinched as though struck.

Melanie noticed her reaction, and understanding dawned in her eyes. "Oh. This is about that, isn't it?"

"She was right there, Melanie," Mabel said, sliding down the wall to the floor, vision blurring with tears. "She was right there. I could have gotten her out of there that night and we ran away."

She was sick to her stomach. Wendy and Robbie's logic was sound, but no amount of sound logic was going to make that moment "okay" from an emotional perspective.

Melanie sat down in front of her. "And if you had, yeah, I would have gotten my sister back. Dipper's right though; if we had, no one else would have gotten back theirs. They would have murdered them all to hide what they'd done. My sister wouldn't want that on her conscience, and you don't either."

"We could have attacked, anyway! Sure, we would have all died, but the FBI would have found picked up the trail from Dipper's board, and taken down Salvatore."

"They could have," Melanie said, "but they probably would have started 'liquidating' their captives immediately. We'd still have a lot of dead kids." Melanie shook her head. "Damn it, Mabel! We went over this earlier! Why are you having trouble with this now?"

"Because it's happening again."

"What's happening again?"

"This," she said, waving her hand around in frustration. "I screw something up, and other people pay the price for my mistakes. Four years ago, I let myself get talked into going out with a fraudulent child psychic. He tried to cut my brother's tongue out. Later on, he threw my family off their land, and tried to hold me captive as his 'queen' with a giant Robo-Gideon. I let myself get obsessed with a creepy puppeteer and then bailed on my brother when he needed me. And if I hadn't gotten my act together, the world would have fallen when a demon took possession of my brother to get his hands on the third journal! And that same ridiculous fraud was one of the perpetrators of the Siege."

Melanie gave her a stunned look, as though she'd sprouted mathematical proof of the Theory of Everything. It was a look she'd always gotten, but not for something like this. "What?"

Mabel swallowed, regretting what she said the second it was out of her mouth. Everyone knew what the Siege was - it was the first major encounter battle fought in the United States since the Civil War. It wasn't something people forgot quickly. It was the why of the Siege that was still the subject of a million conspiracy theories. Everyone knew that the Siege was fought because the local government refused to turn over a group of civilians to terrorists, who'd turned out to be far more well-organized then anyone imagined at the time. However, the federal governments of the United States and Canada refused turn over the information regarding precisely who they were fighting to defend. If only because they'd never get a chance at anything approaching a normal life if they didn't.

The conspiracy theorists were convinced that it was because these were the highest of high value targets, presidents, prime ministers and high ranking scientists, that the thousands of dead and wounded could only be justified by them being world leaders.

She'd wondered how they'd react if the truth ever was leaked. That so many people laid down their lives for three twelve year old kids.

Melanie's questioning look abruptly gave way to sudden understanding. "You mean you were the one-"

Mabel cut her off with a nod. "Dipper, Pacifica, and I, yes. We were The Guarded," she said, using the nickname by which, in absence of their actual names, they'd entered American and Canadian military folklore.

Melanie's face drained. "My God," she whispered softly.

Mabel nodded. "So you can understand why I don't like the idea of people paying the price when I screw up. Yes, I understand that I'm not the one who tried to cut my brother's tongue out or the one who attacked American and Canadian forces at the Siege. However, the fact remains that none of that would have happened if it weren't for me."

Melanie sighed, putting a comforting hand on Mabel's shoulder. "You can't blame yourself for the actions of others, Mabel. You didn't slaughter thousands of our soldiers, Gideon and Paz's father did. You didn't shove my sister in the back of a van, convey her to an isolated farmstead and are fattening her up to use her liver in pate. Salvatore is. Yes, you understand that you're not actually guilty of what others have done. You still need to forgive yourself, though."

Mabel looked at her quizzically. "Forgive myself? For what?"

"For the fact that you're still alive."

The two women looked at each other. Part of her recognized that her friend was right. But it was a part of her that still warred with the fact that she'd heard the gunfire, the explosions, the screams of wounded and dying men and women, had stood alongside her brother and Pacifica at the High-Water Mark, firing down into the forces surrounding the Mystery Shack. She couldn't help but think that none of this would have been happening if it wasn't for her.

"Well," Melanie said aloud. "You think about what I said. I'll go and get breakfast started. We're having bacon and eggs today."

Melanie got up and walked towards the kitchen, disappearing into the dining room and the kitchen beyond.

As soon as the door closed, she heard footfalls down the stairs. She didn't need to look up or even ask to know who it was.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," Dipper said pointedly. "Melanie's right, you know. Fifteen thousand people died to keep us out of Gideon and Preston's hands. They thought it was worth it."

"They were soldiers! They were doing what they were told," Mabel retorted. "I doubt they wanted to die for three kids, most of whom they didn't know from Adam."

"Of course, they didn't!" Dipper pointed out. "They didn't want to go out there, get shot down and leave their countries defenseless! They sure as hell didn't want to die! They did it because General Richards told them to do it and because it was right. They didn't want to sit there and watch from their perspective a bunch of innocent kids turned into slaves when they could have done something to prevent it. They died so we could live. So you could live, not so you could feel guilty about not dying with them."

Mabel opened her mouth. What she was about to say died in her throat when the unmistakable sounds of two massive diesel fueled trucks abruptly filled the air around them. The two siblings looked at each other and Mabel scrambled to her feet, running to the window on Dipper's heels.

Pulling up into the spacious front drive were two moving vans and a flatbed tow truck. Strapped to the back of the truck were three of the most beautiful, most expensive cars she'd ever seen.

"Melanie!" Dipper shouted from behind her. "Food can wait! Get upstairs and start waking up everyone! What inheritance Paz is allowed to receive for the time being has just showed up and we need to get everyone up to unpack this."

Melanie acknowledged and stormed out of the kitchen and back up the stairs. Mabel felt Dipper's hand on her shoulder.

"Mabel," her brother said quickly. "Go outside and sign for all of this while I go get Pacifica."

"Right," Mabel said nodding quickly, putting aside the feeling that this was not yet resolved. She tore the door open and ran down the stairs towards the van.

-----------------------------------------

Pacifica Northwest, hastily dressed in a ratty green t-shirt and blue jeans that she pulled out of her closet at the last minute, stared at the back of the moving van as though it were some unfathomable nightmare from beyond space-time. She had some idea what was in there, though. Control of her business assets in her father's will was to be administered by court-appointed executors until she turned eighteen.

Her father's possessions and records, however, passed into her hands two days ago at midnight when the sentence of death by lethal injection was carried out. Since she couldn't legally have them dumped in San Francisco Bay, she'd decided to have them shipped out here while she figured out what to do with them.

Right now, the general consensus involved liberal amounts of kerosene.

She felt Dipper's presence next to her. "Are you ready to do this?"

Pacifica sighed, leaning into her partner's shoulder. "This isn't going to go away on its own, and the driver can't just sit there all day. Let's just do this."

Dipper nodded. Cupping his hands around her mouth, he shouted, "Open it up!"

Viviane and Genevieve unlocked the cargo door and pushed it open.

"My God," she said after a moment. She felt her legs going weak. Memories of that dark moment in the secret room of her parents manor flooding over, the sounds of the ghost rampaging through her father's house, as she huddled in a ball, overwhelmed at the depth of her line's depravity and treason, mindlessly clicking a flashlight on and off as she struggled with what she saw, came back to her.

In the front of the truck, in front of the piles of records, was the collection of "artwork" that had finally forced her to confront the truth of her line.