She's not Princess Bubblegum here. She's not PB or Bub-Bubs or Peebs or anything like that. She's Bonnibel; she's Bonnie. As Marceline watches her approach with bated breath, their eyes trapped in each other's gaze, she wonders at how this is even happening. Bonnie takes smaller and smaller steps; time seems to slow down, until she stands just a breath away, close enough to be enveloped in the vampire's scent.

Marceline sees her swallow nervously, lick her lips. She feels Bonnie's pink fingers timidly rise to brush her raven black hair behind a pointed ear. One finger barely grazes Marceline's face, and she shudders, turning her head slightly to follow the touch. There is a moment's hesitation, but Bonnie's hand lightly comes to rest on Marceline's cheek. She closes her eyes at the princess's touch, finally released from the spell of Bonnie's eyes. But Marceline opens them again, places her hands on Bonnie's shoulder blades and pulls her closer, bit by bit, until finally, after so many wasted years, they kiss.

They are both so terrified of themselves that at first, their lips barely touch. But that's all it takes. Marceline's chest feels full to bursting. Bonnie's thoughts are a whirl of impossible numbers and defied laws of physics. In an instant, they are pulling at each other, desperate for more, for the taste and the smell and the touch of the other. Living off the sight and sounds of each other for so long was never enough; they're famished. And yet as little, vulnerable whimpers escape Bonnie's throat, as Marceline moans and her half-lidded eyes turn an altogether new color that the Princess Bubblegum has never before encountered, they feast all the more on each other.

Bonnie, the shorter of the two, pulls away from Marceline to kiss her cheeks, her jaw, her chin. At first, Marceline smiles drunkenly, intoxicated by the touch. Then Bonnie gently touches the two scars on her neck. Her eyes flash open at the touch, knowing what's about to happen, a scream stuck in her throat. Before she can realize her partner's reaction, Bonnie sweetly kisses and sucks on the old wound, sending Marceline crashing through nightmares.

Please, Marceline thinks, too weak to speak, I'm dying. You're killing me, stop, please…

The weight of the vampire is crushing her against an old dead tree. No moon tonight: she can't see her attacker. She had though, she thinks, maybe? Right now, she feels too weak to know for sure. How long has this been happening? Her vision is blurring; her body feels like she's been set on fire, like dry grass in the summertime. She's vaguely aware that her hands are trying to push off her assailant. But she's so weak, so thirsty.

Please…

She's a half-demon for crying out loud. She should be able to fight this thing off. She survived the Mushroom War, survived losing her mother, then Simon. She survived twenty goddamned years on this dying planet, and she was going to die like this?

Where the hell was her father now?

"This seems… good," Simon wheezes, holding a lamp over his head to look around the little cave they have just scampered in to. He leans over, trying to catch his breath. Marci, who barely worked up a sweat, takes the lamp from him and looks around.

"Yeah."

Later, as they eat cold beans from cans, laughing over their most recent escape from trouble, Simon gets a sad look in his eye. When Marci gives him a questioning look, he says, "I'm sorry. That we got separated."

"Simon, that was years ago."

"I'm still sorry."

Marci thoughtfully chews another spoonful of beans, her little stuffed monkey doll, Hambo, tucked between her ribs and her arm. After she swallows, she nodded and smiled.

"Did you… use the crown at all while we were apart?"

Simon swallows. "No. I didn't."

Although Marci suspects he's lying, she smiles again.

Simon wakes to high pitched, furious screaming the likes of which only Marci could make. He shoots up out of his torn sleeping bag, hollering, "Marci? What, what happened?"

"I'M SICK!" Marci roars. Still in the cave, Simon can't see where she is very clearly. He gropes for the lamp and lights it, blinking as his eyes adjust.

"Simon look! This is bad! What's wrong with me?!"

"Oh dear," Simon mutters to himself, seeing that Marci had found herself covered in blood from the hips down, coating her legs and soaking her shorts and sleeping bag.

"Do you know what this is?" Marci asks, teary-eyed.

"Yes."

"What is it? What's wrong with me?"

Simon has no idea how to handle this situation. It had never crossed his mind that he would ever have to handle this situation. Perhaps somewhere in his brain he had assumed Marci, being a half-starved half-demon, wouldn't have to deal with this issue. Certainly he had never had to discuss it with anyone ever before. What was he supposed to do?

"Well," Simon says quietly, "The good news is you are not sick."

"Wha-?"

"Marci, um… Did your mother ever talk to you… about uh… the birds and bees and…?"

Her confused face is enough of an answer. Of course not. Simon remembers how old she was when he first found her. He crosses his arms in front of him and awkwardly starts to explain. The fourteen-year-old mostly stares down at her legs, blushing now and again in synch with Simon's own embarrassment. He keeps changing topics, never dwelling on any one thing for too long, only to return to it several topics later, and then off again. It's a clumsy, vulnerable experience.

That said, when Simon finally concludes saying, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. If anything, this means you're healthy," Marci can't help but breath a sigh of relief. Still not daring to look at him directly, Marci plucks up some courage to ask a question.

"Simon were you ever… in love?"

"Uh!"

"Sorry! Sorry, never mind!"

"No it's okay. Um… yes. Once upon a time."

"And did you... do that stuff?"

Simon grimaces. He can't believe he's talking to a teenage girl about his love life. It's kind of gross. But then he thinks she might never meet another soul to talk with about much of anything. The thought the maybe this girl he's raised and loved throughout the chaos… that she might never get to fall in love… Fatherly affection rushes through him.

"I… uh, we did."

"Because you loved her?"

"Yes. And she loved me."

"What was her name?"

"Her name was…" Suddenly, Simon looks shocked. Scared. "Her name… Her name was…" He can't remember. He can't even imagine her face. Thinking back, he can only remember vague feelings of closeness and gratitude and happiness, maybe the sound of her laughter, but a fog blocks the details out.

"Forget I asked," Marci says quickly. She stands up. "I'm going to go clean myself up and see if there's anything in town I can use. Want anything?"

"No. Sounds good. Shout if anything happens."

After she leaves, Simon cries.

"Daddy?"

Marci hadn't seen him in ages. Since the war… and honestly, watching him suck up the souls of the dying and those tormented by radiation poisoning didn't really seem to count as a father-daughter experience. She had found a diner that was still, miraculously, open in the midst of the chaos; she had run out to find a bottle of ketchup from an abandoned drug store next door, so excited to taste the salty, greasy goodness and reminisce about meals with her mom back home, before she lost her.

And here he is, in the middle of the diner. Eating her fries. "...Why?"

She runs, tears streaming down her face, although she tells herself it's just the rain. But before she leaves the diner, she grabs the axe her father had leaned up against the wall by the door. An axe seems like a good tool for hitting things.

When Simon finds her, she's attacking the remnants of storefronts in this new town they crossed a swamp looking for earlier this week. He knows who she is, knows she is important and familiar and his responsibility… although he struggles to remember why sometimes. But he's learned how to hide that. Seeing the sixteen-year-old like this is painful though, even if he can't remember everything.

After standing back for what seems like hours, Simon approaches Marci when she finally is too tired to swing the axe anymore. She's just destroyed the front of an old music store. Simon doesn't say anything, just stands beside her. Then, he walks up to the shop, steps in through the space where a window used to be, his boots crunching on glass inside. Marci follows him, watches as he peruses the old records, CDs, and instruments. She stops at one instrument, a beat up old electric guitar with only four strings. "That's a bass," he says.

Her father, Hunson Abadeer, watches from outside the city. One day, Marceline will have to face the truth of what she is. He won't take her to the Nightosphere now… She's half-human. The demons would tear her apart. Even his protection would be relatively powerless, and although he has hardly ever seen her, he doesn't want her hurt. Or at least not killed, being his one and only heir. But one day, he knows, she will come with him there, and he will give her a proper education. Presently, she was far too human for his liking.

Marceline crumples down onto the old tree's roots. Her vision blurs more, but she can hear the vampire take a few steps away.

"Damn you…" she whispers. She was trying to shout.

The creature stops, turns. Marceline is about to close her eyes and give up, die young. Suddenly, there's moisture on her lips. It's thick and sweet and coppery. She's so thirsty—her body feels so hot and dry, like she's made of sandpaper—she licks at the moisture, doesn't give a damn what it is, anything will do. Slowly, she's becoming aware of her surroundings again, enough to tell that it's blood that she's slurping off of her attackers fingers from a fresh cut across their digits.

She doesn't care. So thirsty.

"Feels better, doesn't it?" a hazy voice says above her. Marceline licks her lips again. She's still thirsty, but it is a bit better.

But then everything in her aches, her heart is racing, she can barely breathe. What once felt ablaze are suddenly all icy pricking needles. Among the tree roots, Marceline writhes in incomprehensible pain until she's too weak to even move. The figure above her leans closer, next to her ear, and rests a hand on her still-bleeding neck.

"Welcome to the party."

The vampire leaves Marceline under the tree.

Many years later, not realizing who it is, Marceline would kill the vampire herself.

Bonnie stares at Marceline, utterly confused at being roughly shoved away. Marceline, trembling from head to foot, stumbles across the room, trips, tumbles, crawls to the darkest corner of the room and curls around herself. She doesn't look at Bonnibel.

"Marci?" Bonnie says, hurt. She rubs her shoulder a bit where Marceline pushed her, then walks over to the vampire in the corner. She squats down in front of her, peering at Marceline with a scientist's eye. But Marci won't look at her. No, she can't even see her. So she watches Marceline's eyes, listens to her ancient muttered curses (which sound like silly kid-words to Bubblegum), and more, gathering information. Again, Marceline pushes against her shoulder, more gently this time, a shaking hand signaling her to stay away.

"What's wrong?"

For a minute, Marceline says nothing. Bonnibel watches her calmly. When the trembling starts to subside, the princess sits down in front of Marceline and gently grabs her wrists. Meeting no resistance, she pulls her into an awkward hug, nuzzles against the other side of Marceline's neck.

"Bonnie…"

"Hey."

"I… I'm sorry."

Bonnibel shakes her head. "Don't be." She breathes in deeply, calmly, modeling for Marceline how to ease out of the reaction. "You okay?"

" 'Course I am, always am…"

"Marci."

She sighs, her body relaxing a bit.

"Hey, you remember that time we went and got Hambo? From the witch?"

Marceline nods, leaning her head down on Bonnie's shoulder. She shifts, adjusting into a more confortable position for them both. Bonnie helps her along until Marci is practically cradled in her arms.

"Do you remember that ridiculous outfit you wore outside? With the cloak and the welding mask?"

At that, Marceline had to smile a bit. "Yeah."

"I just remember you flying in with that mask on, thinking 'What the lump has this chick done now?' I mean, where did you even find a welding mask?"

"Hmm," Marci replies. She breathes shakily, cards her fingers through Bonnie's pink hair.

"Has this happened before?"

The vampire bites her lip nervously. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, Marci."

"It's okay. I'm okay."

"No it's not," she replies matter-of-factly, kissing Marceline's forehead through her black hair. With a sigh, she rubs Marci's back and arms.

A thousand years is a long time. Marceline has fallen in love before, plenty of times. And yeah, every once in a while this would happen. She would push them away, fly off, have her own personal meltdown. In any relationship she'd had, sooner or later something triggered her, made her run. No one could get too close. She was kind of used to it… A thousand years is a long time.

This is the first time that Marci can remember someone staying, however. Bonnie, always so composed, kind of scares her…

"Bonnibel…?"

"Yes?"

"Kiss me again."

Bonnie pauses, rubs her back again, then looks Marceline square in the eye. "Are you sure about that?"

Their faces are so close. Marceline smiles briefly, darkly, also realizing that her lips are just a tilt of the head away from where Bonnie's nipple is under her shirt. She sits up, holding Bonnibel's hand.

"Absolutely." The last syllable echoes into Bonnie's mouth as Marci presses her lips to her again. She can feel Bonnie smile. They caress each other in the corner of the room, Bonnie slowly lowering Marceline to the floor and laying on top of her. She lifts her head up; looking into Marci's ever-changing eyes, she then lowers her lips to Marci's jawline.

Bit by tiny bit, pink lips kiss down Marceline's neck until they reach the scars. This time, Marci tugs on the back of Bonnie's head, encouraging her. She shudders at the touch, the wet sound at her neck, but she remains solidly focused on the present. Then she gasps; she had been so absorbed in the touch of Bonnie's lips, Marceline hadn't noticed a hand slowly creeping up under her shirt, cupping her breast. As Bonnie looks up and catches Marceline's eye, the vampire knows then and there that she's undone.

Marceline wraps herself around Bonnibel, rolls them on their sides, and sets to work, grinning from ear to ear.