"There she is, kids; the cheapest fair money can rent!" Stan proclaimed, spreading his arms wide. "I spared every expense."

Mason stared out at the rusty, shoddy, falling apart fair that had gone up in less than two days. "This is a lawsuit waiting to happen," he muttered in mute horror.

"That's where you come in!" Stan said. He handed Mason, Mabel, and Wendy a stack of papers with a blue letter A on them. "I printed up a bunch of fake safety inspection certificates, so you kids go slap 'em up on anything that looks like it might in thbreak e next few hours.

"Grunkle Stan, is that legal?" Mabel asked, sounding very concerned. Mason nudged her with his elbow.

"When does Grunkle Stan do anything by the books?"

"Hey! I, uh… Drive with a valid driver's license!"

"Stan, that thing has a picture from when you were, like, forty- it's outdated as hell."

"Well, at least I still have it! Just, get on it, ya little ingrates! Soos, how's that dunk tank going?" Stan left the teens behind to talk with the handyman. Mason shrugged.

"May as well," he muttered, and wandered off to find something to 'certify.' That tram was looking a little wobbly...


An hour later, after slapping a poster on pretty much all the rides, Mason met up with Wendy. Mabel was… Somewhere. Just the thought of her being on her own in this rickety excuse for an amusement park was making him twitch.

"You good, dude?" Wendy asked after a particularly violent spasm. Mason rubbed his arm uncomfortably.

"Yeah, just… I don't really know if I want Mabel to be here. This place is crazy dangerous, and if something happens…"

Wendy slugged him in the shoulder. "Relax, bro. She'll be fine. Stan may be cheap, but he at least won't let anyone die or anything. Right?"

Mason tilted his head in consideration. "I guess not," he said sullenly.

Wendy perked up. "Hey, how about we walk around the fair? You know, try to dunk Stan, play a few of the rigged carnival games, maybe hit up the ferris wheel?"

Mason glanced at the massive ride. It was rusty, and the mechanism was slightly damaged, causing the wheel to jolt every now and then, the bolts getting caught. "Maybe not that last part," he said, shuddering.

Wendy followed his gaze and winced. "Yeah, that's a no to the ferris wheel. We'll figure somethin' out."


Mason actually had a surprising amount of fun. Wendy had just completely failed one of those bottle-throwing booths, her ball bouncing right off the stack of empty milk bottles. Her indignance was hilarious, and when Mason laughed, she challenged him, a smirk on her face at the thought of him humiliating himself as well. Neither she nor the booth vendor were prepared for him to fling the ball so hard it shattered the bottles, and tunneled through the back of the stand. Mason took the offered purple duck/panda hybrid from the dumbfounded vendor, and presented it to the redhead.

"Your prize, milady," he said with exaggerated pomp, bowing low. Wendy giggled nervously, a light blush dusting across her freckles.

"Um… Thanks, dude. Heh." He straightened up, and she shyly met his eyes, hugging the plush animal to her chest. "Hey, Mason… I was wondering if-" She was cut off when a bald, round man wearing a grey jumpsuit barreled past, slamming his shoulder into Wendy, nearly toppling her over. He continued running without a word of apology, leaving the teens to stare after him in confusion. Wendy opened her mouth to finish her sentence, interruptions be damned, but something else caught their attention.

"Wendy!" The two turned and saw Robbie jogging up to them, a purple snow cone in his hand. The goth spared a glare for Mason, before putting all his attention on Wendy. "Hey, Wendy, I've been meaning to ask you for a while now… We've been spendin' a lotta time together, and I was wondering if, maybe, you wanted to go out with me?"

Wendy's eyes went wide, and she glanced between the two males. "Uh, Robbie, I- uh-" She seemed panicked, and Mason smirked. She must've been embarrassed that it happened so suddenly, and with an audience, no less. He knew when to take a hint.

"I'll just leave you lovebirds alone," he heckled, taking a few steps back. "I'm gonna go find Mabel. Talk later, Wendy!" With that, he ran off in search of his twin.

When Mason turned a corner, Wendy rounded on Robbie, who was wringing his hands together, nervous about her response. "Robbie, what the hell, dude!?"

"Wh-what?"

"I was just about to ask Mason out, and then you pop up, and oh god now he probably thinks we're dating-!"

"Wait, you were gonna ask Pines out!? You have a crush on him!?" Robbie yelled, hands flailing so wildly that he threw his snow cone off to the side.

"Dude, everybody knows I have a crush on Mason! Except you, apparently!"

"Wha-?"

"Oh man, this is a disaster!" Wendy moaned. "Now I gotta go clear things up with him, and- it's that fat dude's fault!"

"Uh, fat dude?"

"Nothing. Just… Go somewhere, Robbie. I'm not in the mood to deal with you right now." When he finally sulked off, after many half-hearted excuses and pleas, Wendy rushed off in the direction she'd last seen the man moving. If he hadn't done that, she would've been able to finish her sentence long before Robbie appeared!


"Your prize, milady," he said with exaggerated pomp, bowing low. Wendy giggled nervously, a light blush dusting across her freckles.

"Thanks, dude." He straightened up, and she shyly met his eyes, hugging the plush animal to her chest. "Hey, Mason, I was wondering if-?" Wendy glanced back, and sidestepped the fat man who dashed past. Mason stared after the man in shock- how did she know he was there? She started speaking again, and he reigned in his lingering thoughts, writing it off. She must've heard his footsteps.

"I was wondering if-"

"Wendy!"

Wendy's face twitched. She turned to the newcomer, and heaved a great sigh. "What do you want, Robbie?" she asked harshly, causing both males to step back in surprise at her acidic tone.

"Uh, well, I've been meaning to ask you for a while now… We've been spendin' a lotta time together, and I was wondering if, maybe, you wanted to go out with me?"

She opened her mouth to reject him, but Mason beat her to it. "I'll just leave you lovebirds alone," he heckled, taking a few steps back. "I'm gonna go find Mabel. Talk later, Wendy!" With that, he ran off in search of his twin. She reached out a hand, useless considering he was far past her reach by now. The redhead growled, and brushed past Robbie, walking to a secluded area.

"Third time's the charm," she muttered, leaving behind a blinking goth.

"Uh… What?"


"Is that thing a duck or a panda?" Mason asked, staring at the prize on the top shelf of the booth.

"I dunno, but I want it," Wendy said dryly. She paid a dollar, grabbed a ball, and slammed it as hard as she could into the stack of bottles. Only the top one fell. "What!? That's totally rigged!"

Mason chuckled. "Lemme give it a shot." He tugged a bill from his pocket, traded it for a baseball, and wound back. Wendy bit her lip, and hesitantly opened her mouth.

"Hey, ya might wanna tone it back, dude. Don't wanna break something, right?"

The brunet tilted his head in consideration, before nodding. "Right. Stan might try to sue me or something," he chuckled. He once more lined up the shot, but didn't pull his arm back quite as far. The ball still shattered the glass bottles, but this time, it merely bounced off the wooden wall in the back- and ricocheted right into Mason's right eye.

"Shit!" he cried, staggering back a few steps, hands flying up to cover his face. "Ow!"

"Dude, are you okay!?" Wendy cried, panicked.

"Ah, m-maybe?" He stopped cradling his skull. "Is it swollen?" Wendy absent-mindedly grabbed his wrists, preventing them from going back to cover up the shiner. She leaned in close, examining the darkened eyelid.

"Not swollen, but it's bruised pretty bad."

Mason sighed, his hot breath washing over Wendy's face, and she finally realized how close they were. She took a quick step back. "Um, w-wait here! I'm gonna go get you some ice!" she cried, turning and sprinting off. She ran all the way back to the porch of the Mystery Shack, where a cooler was located. Reaching in, she yanked out a bag of ice, then immediately booked it back to Mason- who was chatting with Robbie, and holding a purple snow cone to his eye. The two saw her approaching, and stopped talking.

"Here!" Wendy nearly yelled, thrusting the bag into his free hand. Mason turned back to Robbie.

"Hey, you didn't start eating this thing, right?"
"Nah. You can have it if you want," Robbie said carelessly.

"Awesome. Well, I just remembered I have a… Thing, to do, so I'll just be going now." He shot a not-very-discreet thumbs up at Robbie, who merely nodded. Wendy narrowed her eyes.

"Hey, so, I've been meaning to ask you for a while now… We've been spendin' a lotta time together, and I was wondering if, maybe, you wanted to go out with me?" Robbie asked, and Wendy nearly began clawing at her ears. It was like hearing a broken record!

"No," she said emphatically, turning and walking off.


With a frustrated growl, Wendy flung the ball at the pyramid of milk bottles. However, her irritation made her aim sloppy, and the ball ended up slamming into the edge of the table the bottles sat on, bouncing back and hitting Mason in the right eye.

"Shit!" he cried, staggering back a few steps. "Ow!"

"Oh god, not again," Wendy muttered. Thankfully, Mason was too preoccupied by the throbbing pain to pay much attention. "Are you okay, dude?" she asked louder, taking a step forward.

"Ah, m-maybe?" He stopped cradling his skull. "Is it swollen?" Wendy got close, consciously grabbing his wrists and leaning close to his face.

"Yeah, a real shiner. Want me to kiss it and make it better?" she asked huskily. Mason frowned, furrowing his eyebrows. His single open eye flashed scarlet for a moment, too quickly for Wendy to determine if it was some freaky thing, or if it was just a trick of the light.

"Weird. Has this… Happened before?" he asked uncertainly.

"I think I'd remember accidentally pegging my friend in the face with a baseball," Wendy replied dryly.

"Mason shook his head, clearing the haze. "R-right… Must just be deja vu, or something…" he murmured. "Anyways, uh, I need ice."

"Oh, right!" Wendy cried, remembering the situation. "Duh! C'mon, there's a cooler on the Shack's porch." She grabbed his left hand, tugging him along. His right was busy covering his bruised eye, leaving his steps unsteady as his depth perception vanished. It took a few minutes, but they finally made it to the Mystery Shack. Wendy jogged up the steps, flinging open the cooler and grabbing a bag of ice. Just as she turned to offer it to Mason, a black stretch limousine pulled up in front of the Shack, and Pacifica Northwest stepped out. She waved enthusiastically at Mason, and half-heartedly at Wendy. The redhead huffed in annoyance at the unexpected interruption, while Mason just grinned a bit.

Pacifica finally noticed that the brunet was clutching his face, and could see the darkened skin peeking between his fingers, and bolted up to him in seconds. She pried his hand away from his face. "Mason, what happened to you!?" she screeched.

Mason winced at the volume, but kept a small smirk on his face. "It's nothin', Paz. Just a little run in with a baseball. Who knew that Wendy had such a crazy pitch?" he joked.

Pacifica glared at Wendy, and snatched the ice bag out of her hands before the female lumberjack could react. She grabbed Mason's wrist, and yanked him inside the building, shoving him down on the recliner, then plopping down sideways in his lap. The blonde held the ice up to his eye gently, waiting for him to acclimate to the sudden chill before pressing it against his bruise. He breathed in relief, slumping backwards a bit. Pacifica began cooing at him, making him chuckle. Wendy, who had followed behind them, disoriented from the sudden turn of events, frowned at the scene.

"Comfortable?" she asked sharply, crossing her arms and glaring pointedly at Pacifica.

Mason shrugged, both eyes now closed. "My brain's feeling a little rattled, but I'll survive," he said nonchalantly.

Pacifica, however, met Wendy's stare. "Perfectly," she replied primly, voice dripping with so much venom it was almost tangible. Even Mason picked up on it, because he slid his good eye open. When he noticed the stare-down that was happening between the girls, though, he decided he was better off not intervening. Wendy growled gutturally, then stormed out the front door. Mason exchanged a glance with Pacifica.

"What was that about?" he asked. The blonde shrugged, then leaned up and captured his lips with her own, silencing any further questions.


The world tilted on its axis, and Mason staggered, nearly falling over. He rested his hands on his knees, gasping, suddenly desperate for oxygen. Someone was yelling, but he couldn't make out the words through the ringing in his ears. He was staring at the ground, blinked, and was staring at the sky. There was something pointy digging into his back, but he was more concerned with the fact that everything was tinged red.

The sun, the clouds, the trees, the hair of the person looming over him… Wait, that was just Wendy. She was saying… Something. Her lips were moving frantically, but everything just blurred together. She started shaking his shoulders, tears forming in her eyes. Suddenly, like a rubber band, everything snapped back into focus, and Mason lurched upright.

"Wendy, what did you do!?"


Wendy didn't know what to do when Mason collapsed. He had just pointed out the bottle-throw stand, for the fifth time, when he stopped mid-sentence and keeled over. His breathing was ragged, like he ran a marathon behind her back, and his head lolled around aimlessly. Scarlet electricity flowed around his prone body, sparking dangerously. His eyes, sclera and all, turned the same bright color. His teeth sharpened, ears and nails lengthened. Normally, this would be accompanied by a fierce scowl, and an attempt to pummel whatever had pissed him off, but this time, Mason just looked scared.

Finally, he bolted up into a sitting position, nearly smashing his forehead against Wendy's. She had to throw herself backwards to avoid brain damage, landing on her ass. His eyes snapped to her, and he bellowed, "Wendy, what did you do!?"

His demonic features faded, and he leapt to his feet, not swaying even the tiniest bit.

"Um, what?" Wendy asked nervously, slowly righting herself.

"You- you did something. I've lived this day before, but every time, it ends differently, before I'm right back at this moment, and all the changes start with you acting differently. What did you do." He stalked up to her, grabbing her shoulders in a crushing grip, forcing her to look into his chocolate brown eyes.

"I- I don't-!"

"Wendy."

"Time travel!" she finally admitted. "There was this fat dude, and he had a tape measure that brought you back in time, so I kinda… Borrowed it?"

"Borrowed it?" Mason growled accusingly.

"Alright, I mighta stole it, but it was his fault anyways! He's the one that nearly knocked me over when I was gonna ask you out, so he owed me!"

Mason reared back. "Ask me out?"
Wendy froze. Mason stared at her. For a moment, they simply sat there in silence, until Wendy opened her mouth with a wordless shriek. She donkey-kicked Mason in the stomach, winding him, then dug through her pockets with an unmatched ferocity. With a triumphant cry, she pulled out the time travel device, and yanked on the tab. Mason had recovered, by then, and his hand latched onto her wrist. Panicked, her arm spasmed, and the tape measure ended up unwinding far more than she intended. The teens only had time to glance at each other, fear in their eyes, before they vanished in a glowing blue light.


They landed on a dirt path. Glancing around, Mason saw absolutely none of the structures that had surrounded them mere moments ago. He slowly crawled to his feet, dusting his shorts and vest jacket off. Wendy, who was still on the ground, groaned. He helped her up, then snatched the tape measure from her hand, shoving it in his jacket pocket.

"Dude!" she cried, feebly reaching for it. He stopped her wrist with an iron grip, then cowed her with a fierce glare.

"You got us into this mess, and I don't trust you to get us out of it."

Wendy winced. "Look man, I'm sorry! I had no clue this was gonna happen, and if you didn't grab me like that-!"

"If I didn't grab you!? You shouldn't have been trying to go back in time, again! What is this, the fourth time?"

"...Technically the fifth," she muttered, referring to their current situation. His harsh stare let her know the comment wasn't appreciated. Mason turned his back on her, paced a few steps away while rubbing his forehead and saying something under his breath, before turning around and returning.

"That guy you took this thing from- did he say anything?

"Uh… Yeah. His name's Blender, or something, and he's part of some… Time Anomaly Removal Crew? But he kept talking about how he didn't see any anomalies there, so he just ended up running around like an idiot, and that's why he bumped into me."

Mason's jaw dropped. "He's part of an organization that specializes in fixing time anomalies, so you go and cause time anomalies!?"

Wendy scratched the back of her head sheepishly, averting her gaze. "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

The brunet pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling noisily. "Goddammit." He paced away a few steps, and placed both hands the sides of his heads, jamming his fingers into his temples as hard as he could, eyes screwed shut. "God-fucking-dammit."

"Mason…?" She walked closer to him, reaching over to place a hand on his shoulder. She was not expecting to suddenly whip around, slapping her arm away. His eyes were pure scarlet, his face frozen in a furious snarl. She blinked, and he was suddenly in her face, towering over her.

"Don't act all innocent," he growled. "You live in Gravity Falls, you should know not to mess with things you don't understand! Instead, we're at least a hundred years in the past, because you wanted to go on a stupid date." Mason kept pushing forward, and Wendy kept backing up until she bumped into a tree. He slammed his hand into the trunk, right next to her head, showering her hair with an explosion of wood chips. Their noses were practically touching, which was all Wendy could focus on, Mason's words blurring into white noise.

Eventually, Mason noticed the glazed look in her emerald eyes, because he finally backed down with a sigh. He lifted his net hat a bit to card a hand through his hair, the red bleeding out of his sclera.

"Um…" Wendy began, unsure what to say. Mason cut her off.

"Stop. Just, stop. Tell me how to operate this stupid thing," he pulled out the tape measure, "And let's go back to our time." Wendy squared her shoulders, an actions that put him on edge.

"No."

"Whaddaya mean, no?"

"I mean, I'm not telling you how until I get what I want."

Mason furrowed his brows, anger rising. "And what, exactly, do you want?" he asked, voice dangerously low. Wendy shivered, but forged on.

"You."

Mason blinked, then shook his head. He fixed Wendy with a pointed stare, but his raised eyebrows betrayed his shock. "You know slavery went outta fashion at least two hundred years ago, right?"

Wendy startled. "What!? No! I wanna go out with you, dude. Like, boyfriend-girlfriend?"

Mason blinked again, then sucked in a breath through his teeth, hissing like a popped tire. "Oooh, that's a bit of a problem."

"What!? Why!?"

"...I dunno if I should say."

"Tell me!"

"You might get angry though."

"I'm gonna get angry if you don't!"

"Oh… Well, I'll tell you when we're back in our time."

"No! Tell me now!"

"Now for us is in a century, so if you wanna wait a hundred years for now to come around, then be my guest."

"Ugh, fine! Press the button on the top to undo the last travel." Mason grabbed Wendy's wrist, pressed the button on the top of the tape measure, and the two were enveloped in a blue glow, vanishing moments before a herd of bison trampled across their footprints, erasing any sign of their presence.


Mason and Wendy stumbled into each other, feet unsteady as they finally landed back in their time, only a few paces away from where they left. Mason pocketed the time machine- since nobody had hopped out of the time stream to take it back, he assumed it was safe to keep, so long as he was careful. No interacting with his past self (he had the copying machine if he needed to be in multiple places at the same time), and no leaving stuff in the past/future. That probably covered all his bases. He was shaken out of his thoughts, literally, by Wendy, who had grabbed him by the shoulders to prevent him from running away, which he totally wasn't planning on doing (it would have been a brisk walk, not a full-on sprint).

"Alright, we're back in now, so I want answers!" she growled, a manic spark in her eyes. Mason smiled nervously, then swallowed.

"Okay. So, it's a problem, because… Pacifica said she loves me, kissed me, then I passed out. We haven't spoken since, and it's been two days," he rattled off, taking a deep breath at the end to refill his deflated lungs. While Wendy was twitching and frothing at the mouth, he gently pried her fingers off him, then made a tactical retreat (he was very careful not to run, in case it activated Wendy's predatory lumberjack instincts and urged her to give chase). He retreated all the way to the attic of the Mystery Shack, and flopped down in his bed. Mabel was on her side of the room, playing with a small pig.

"Dipper, this is Waddles. Oink!" She held the pig up reverently, grabbing his little hoof to make him wave at Mason. Mason waved back half-heartedly, too distracted by the day's events. Mabel noticed his absentmindedness, and commented on it. "What's up, Dip-Dop?"

"...I think I've made a terrible mistake."