This Is Our Pattern

{Marceline x Ice King/Simon Petriklov}

Disclaimer: I own nothing but heart-guts, a computer, and a simple story plot.

Rated: T

"…So…"

It's just like him to start off a sentence awkwardly, but I can't find it in me to help him out. I don't really know what to say.

"So," he tries again, "that was a pretty cool jam session, yeah? You and me, rocking out, singing songs, acting cool?"

I just nod. Nodding is the best thing I can offer in terms of a conversation for right now.

He giggles. "Yeah, perfect. It was perfect. Which means that we gotta jam again soon. Cuz I haven't really tapped into my tortured soul yet, and I still need a better song to attract princesses.

"So, we gotta plan for another sesh, alright?"

I nod, just because…because me not nodding means that he'll stay around and try to convince me otherwise. And I need him to go away.

"Alright! I'll call later to get the deets." He… Simon, he's turning away from me, his drum set once again clumsily piled upon one another, and wrapped around his back wit the extension cord. I see the tips of his beard fan out as he starts levitating in the air, ready to go home, ready to be "The Ice King" again. "See ya, Marceline!" His voice calls out to me as he finally, thankfully, leaves my cave. For now.

I pause there for a minute, or maybe more than a minute, staring after him. Finn and Jake, they're still hanging around the cave, hours after I said they could leave. I can smell them; I could even go over to where they're "hiding" and whispering in loud voices and or call out to them. Maybe invite them inside or something. But, they'll just ask me questions and I don't need them to do that. I don't want to have to explain myself.

I close my door and slump to the floor, knowing that I'll be like this for awhile in spite every nerve in body wanting me to do the opposite.

I need to...leave.

I have to find another place that's safe…away from here because he's found me again. And he'll come back. He always comes back…when he remembers that...he knows me. He'll hang around, do things that he doesn't remember always being able to do or taught me back when he was…different… And then he'll do something, something bad that makes me want to run away from him, to find a place where he can't follow me easily.

…This is…a pattern…the pattern between Simon and me. I've lived and traveled all over the Land of Ooo, and almost every move has not been by choice, but because…it's part of our pattern.

…To be fair, it's not entirely his fault for the back and forth between us, that our pattern exists.

I followed after him first.

It had been maybe fifty years or, like, a century since I had seen him, since he sent me away from him. I still didn't know The Nightosphere existed, or where my father was yet. I was 120 years old by then and had been traveling "forward"—picking up clothes that had been left behind that fit me and umbrellas that could keep me safe from the sun until I found the remains of houses and restaurants or just…buildings, half-blanketed with grass and vines and filled with dirt and broken furniture and picture frames, the images that they used to show full of the dead and forgotten. And drinking blood from anything still living—predators like wolves, wild dogs, and bears; scavengers like rats; dogs; cats; humans…I must have wiped out a lot of budding human populations in that systematic way over the course of years. Decades spent feeding on them because they were there and it was easy.

Just one long, straight line until the night I had somehow reached the ocean and decided to finally turn back. And again, I wandered around the places I had walked around before, in all the destruction that was trying to grow into something beautiful…and somehow, grass became snow and snow became more snow, and I found him.

He had been wandering too, walking in the direction opposite from me, whatever was "forward" for him…The place where I had found him was so, so cold. Desolate and lonely. And there was snow everywhere, but in between all that snow was…stuff, stuff that someone had gathered—old signs, broken instruments…tattered remains of old clothes…just stuff. But somehow, I knew that buried in that snow and stuff was him.

And then after all that digging, I finally found him.

Simon.

He had been alive, cocooned in a snowdrift and rolled up in a ball with bandages all over his body. He didn't look like he'd been eating very often and I knew that that was strange, but I was just happy to find him bundled in a blue blanket and the hair of his beard. And…that crown on his head. It was like me, when he had found me before.

"Who? Who are you?" He clawed at the ice to try to get away from me. "Why have you come here? What do you want from me?"

"I'm Marcelline. Don't you remember me?"

"Where did you come from?"

"Up there. I came to find you, Simon."

"Who's Simon?"

I swallowed hard, realizing something about Simon in that moment. "You are. You don't...remember who you are?"

He shook his head.

"So, you don't remember me…"

"No…I'm sorry." And he did look sorry. He looked like such a little kid.

How...how could I look at him and be mad that he didn't still remember me after a hundred years?

"…It's okay." I reached out and touched his shoulder. I was surprised he let me do so. "It's okay because...I remember who you are, and I'm going to help you."

I spent another hundred years with Simon, just trying to help him remember things—teach him things, things that reminded me of him; things I thought would help him remind him of himself. I must have burrowed through mountains of snow to look for things—blankets, toys, books. I'd explain what they were and watch him learn from me. Or I watched him teach himself things again like…how to play the drums. We must have collected and raised so many penguins…or maybe he attracted them, I don't know. We must have gotten into a thousand snowball fights or used old…trashcan lids for sledding. We must have had a million conversations, made up a million stories about nonsense. I must have led me in a thousand circles in that wasteland because of the inklings he had, because of his connection with the white stuff that covered the ground and made up our world. He must have watched me learn how to play a thousand chords on the guitar he'd found for me one day for a thousand nights, applauding at the feeble attempts at music I made back then.

I almost never left his side for a hundred year, which was fine. Because...we had each other... The icy wind would blow in our ears, we'd see nothing but ice planes or glaciers re-freezing over or mounds of snow we had left behind, and it was fine.

…I left for two reasons and two reasons only. For blood…polar bear blood, from far away, because I hadn't learned to drink red yet, and I knew that if I drank from the penguins, even just a little bit, he'd find out somehow and it'd make him sad. But finding a polar bear could take me days or weeks.

And I left because of the sun. Because even thought night could last for a long, long time, the sun would always come back and last for just as long. So I had to bury myself in the snow to avoid the pain.

Days to travel away from Simon, the kill, and then days for me to get back with the sun being the only thing that truly stopped me.

Usually, Simon would wait for me, but I had dug myself from out the snow one day to find that even though I was close to where I knew I had left him, he had wandered away from me. And me being scared and worried and remembering the last time he had left me behind and how scared he was when I finally found him, I followed after him.

...I didn't know that after a hundred years, if I wasn't around to be there, to call him by his name, that his mind could leave him so quickly.

I remember finding him again and then following behind him from miles away, watching him be surrounded by the penguins that had somehow survived his incessant need to travel or "run away", and watching him constantly crying and fighting with himself, talking about crazy things and princesses, and having so many mood swings. He never seemed to notice me hanging around, he never seemed to call out for me. There were times that he would stop and sit down and look around, like he was waiting, but I realized that he didn't really remember what he was looking for. Who he was looking for.

I'm not sure when he realized the things he could do with the snow and ice. I wasn't sure if him gaining his ice powers had happened randomly, or if he would practice when I was gone. He would make things from the snow—living things, he'd breathe life into them—and then throw them on the ground or manipulate them into horrible things or make them into monsters, only to break them when he felt like or use them to scare the penguins. He was like a child—a horrible child who did terrible things just to see what he knew would happen.

So, I turned around and left him. Again.

I found the abandoned cities again, only by that time, nature was growing without restriction and being manipulated into changing somehow. Whatever had survived, they were different from what was around before too, they were starting to form societies and function, there were messing with stuff…magic and science.

And it was through the magic that my dad somehow found me and then made me a vampire.

I'd count off another hundred or two hundred years of going between The Nightosphere and where I had been—"The Land of Ooo" my dad called it. It was mostly him leaving me behind, like he had a long, long time ago. For his "business trips" and "golf games". And me by myself, stealing things he kept dear to him but never used, and making them my own, like the family axe. Or about mid-way between one hundred or two hundred years, me sneaking into The Land of Ooo after him, and messing with the living creatures' lives, drinking blood, doing what he said he had created me for—"the family business". I had become something to be feared, "Marceline, The Vampire Queen", even after I learned that I could drink red and different shades had their own tastes—strawberry red was tarty; chili pepper red was hot; red beef red was the most like human blood, all bloody and metallic. I thought about Simon from time to time, moments when I was alone or felt the wind make my ears cold and my hair fly around my head. When I held Hambo, when I played music…and then I would use it as a way of attracting humans who had forgotten what music really sounded like. "Marceline, The Vampire Queen."

And I might have eventually, truly forgotten him if I hadn't found out my dad had followed me and caught him eating my fries…stealing the taste of sweet ketchup red and salt away from me.

I took my Axe-Bass and left The Nightosphere for good and went around The Land of Ooo again, finding remains of the old places where I stayed, hearing names pop up again and again...The Warrior Gumbald; Billy; The Lich.

I never looked for Simon. I never heard anything about Simon.

But somehow, Simon found me.

Maybe it was because I had gone back to what was familiar and almost fully preserved—the city with that toyshop where he'd given me Hambo. Or maybe it was the phrase "Vampire Queen" hat had been floating around Ooo for so long. Or maybe something inside his head had triggered him into coming into that forgotten, abandoned city.

I refuse to believe that it was a bond that we shared. It had been five hundred years and...I had finally stopped lying to myself about his memory being strong.

"Hey. Hey." I had opened my eyes one night to an outlined figure in the moon looking down at me over the makeshift bed for stuffed animals I had made for myself. "Are you a trespasser?"

"…What?"

"Are you a trespasser? ...What is your name?"

I sat up and brushed my hair out of my face."I'm Marceline, The Vampire…Simon?" It was him, almost the way I remembered him. The cold that emitted from his skin, the beard, the crown atop his head. I hadn't been able to help myself at the sight of his white eyes when I made him out in the moonlight. I had reached out and hugged him. Tight. "Simon…Simon, I can't believe it's you. I can't believe you're here, just like me."

I didn't…I didn't understand why he struggled to free himself from my hug. "My name is The Ice King, trespasser!"

I pulled away from him. "...The Ice King?"

"Yes, I am The Ice King, creator of snow and ice. And I am here to claim your land, Marceline, The Vampire Queen, as my domain. For you see, I wish to create my own kingdom!"

"...What?!"

"This land is to be my domain. And should you choose to stay here, you will no longer be a queen. You will be my minion, a princesses, and be made to stay with me."He…giggled. "I'll make an ice castle, we'll hang out. You'll learn how to play music with me. And we'll stay up all night and talk and write stories and songs."

"Simon. I'm not trespassing. You and I…we met each other here. Don't you remember?"

"Nope." He shook his head, dismissing my words. "I've been here plenty of times before, scoping it out, making sure it's perfect for me to keep. You are my first invader."

"Simon! I'm Marceline. Simon, you know me and I know you. We're friends. I stayed with you for most of my life. We first met here. You gave me Hambo." I thought of the doll in my bag. "Try to remember." I had reached out to him, to try to push away his crown a bit or something, which had been a mistake.

He slapped my hand away and jumped back. "No one is allowed to touch the crown of The Ice King!" I watched his power being gathering in his hand and him direct an attack on me.

I had tried to jump away, but had been caught on my leg, an ice block forming around my foot.

"I will use my ice powers on anyone who dares to do so."

I can't remember everything I did to defend myself, just two things. Two things I regret, but found necessary—hissing at him, full of intent to…hurt him—no no, not hurt him; to keep him from hurting me and…himself—and running away when I found an opening. I hid out in another building to thaw my leg and watched as the city we had resided in became blanketed in snow and frozen over with ice, and listened as he called out to me. To apologize, to finish our fight…I don't know.

When it seemed like it was finished, I left and headed out somewhere else in Ooo, where the grass was green and not blanketed by snow.

But…I met Ash after that. And moved in with him.

But after Ash seemed to…go away and leave me behind in the treehouse, Simon found me again. And I hung around because…I don't know…

But being around him this third time meant I got to see how he lost his mind. It meant that in one visit, I'd had a first-row view to him go from completely happy and goofy to…confused. Murderous. Never towards me, but the things he'd say, the things he'd talk about—princesses. Kingdoms has sprouted all over The Land of Ooo and it seemed that every new kingdom had a princess. And he was obsessed. His need for princesses, his want of princesses, his cries about how lonely he was and how he didn't know why he was lonely, but he was, but if he had a princess, he'd know he'd be happy again forever and ever.

One day, I couldn't stand it anymore. I left.

This was our pattern.

And it took me all over Ooo—sometimes to new places; sometimes older places, places I hoped he didn't remember strongly. I think maybe once, I thought of trying to find something that could…help him, some form of magic that could free him.

But no matter what, he found me. And every time we did, it was like he was meeting me for the first time.

It could take him ten or twenty years or almost fifty years; I could have happily been living in The Fire Kingdom or in a long, forgotten cemetery. I could have been in the middle of running away from someone else—my dad, free from The Nightosphere because of someone else foolishly using the magic he used to step through. I could have lived in places where the new creatures that kept appearing or where monsters and curses were rumored to kill anything weak that dared to mess with it. I could have been watching the rise of a kingdom like The Candy Kingdom or a universe like Lumpy Space or wars between humans and other humans or dogs and rainicorns, content to see the tiny, simple lives of everything around play out it's role—he'd find me. A hundred new places to live that would eventually be discovered. None of those defenses mattered—even the princesses he was obsessed with were ever truly enough to keep from finding me when he wanted to. And he always finds me.

And today seems to be the day.

I always knew I wouldn't be safe living in a cave. It would only be a matter of time...although, two years of living in one place in peace before finding me was a record for him.

"I guess...it's time to go."

I pick myself up from off the floor and float upstairs. Thinking, I'm already thinking of where to go next. It's harder this time because I have…others that I like hanging around me. I'm even reconciling with a...friend that I thought was lost to me…but there are a few places I haven't been back to in awhile—and they can always visit me…

I just need my Axe-Bass and a suitcase for my clothes this time. I've thought of a place and it's got recording equipment. All of this can stay. Maybe I'd let Finn and Jake crash here. Make a second home for when they traveled too far to get to the treehouse easy. Eventually, Simon had to forget about me again; I'd be able to come back again…Right?

The sound of a phone snaps me out of my thoughts…oh wait, it's mine. "Hello?"

"Hey, hey, hey, Marceline. Just calling to let you know I made it back home safely."

"Oh…that's great, Simon. Listen, I know you want to find out when we can…jam…again, but I just don't think—"

"Oh that's not what I'm calling about now. I just called to say…"

"Yes…?"

"You don't have to go away."

"What?" My voice cracked right then.

"You don't have to go away. Or, I don't want you to go away…something? I know I acted strange today and maybe sometimes I made you upset and I don't know why you keep calling me 'Simon', but whatever. I'll let you call me Simon and we can hang out every once in a while, or something…and I promise I won't ever push you again or try to kiss you…just don't go away.

"It's just, even though you're not a princess…hanging out, jamming out with you felt so right. Y'know?"

"…I know…" I sigh and find myself saying the words that maybe I've always imagined saying, if he had ever asked anything of me.

"Okay. I'll stay."

"I Remember You" had me full of so many feels, I just had to get this out. I tried bringing in some stuff—thoughts about how the desolation from The Mushroom War and how it became The Land of Ooo; the rise of Marceline, and more about her and Ice King's relationship and the reason why she's always moved. I wanted to create an answer to the Whys? in my head. For me, the line from "Nuts" that goes "Every time I move, eventually you find me and start hanging around…" really got me. I could believe that they would spend a part of their lives together, but doubt that it would only happen maybe once in a moment of time.

And then more questions popped up. Like, how long does it take for him to find her? How many times has he "remembered" then "forgotten" who he is (because something being wet with "fresh tears" points to frequent episodes)? Who found whom first? How much influence did Marceline have in the early years of Ice King's—not Simon's—existence? (I don't that he would have the presence of mind to create castles and collect things and make labyrinths for himself—maybe it was the crown, maybe it's the crown and something else.) Plus, just some other things like…if Marcie can only eat shades or red, why did she go out for fries? And why doesn't she have vampire marks when she first meets Simon?

So many questions…I hope you enjoyed this one-shot.