A/N: I have to say that I am surprised at the attention that this is getting, none of the stories I posted to fictionpress were this popular. I really appreciate all the feedback and encouragement I am getting. Enjoy this chapter while you can.


Simone Petrikov woke with a raging headache to find a young girl holding a giant one eyed head and a cat standing on two legs gazing at her with intellect at least equal to human in its eyes. She rolled over and closed her eyes again, it wasn't real, she was still dreaming, wasn't she?

She didn't really recall the dream she'd had, but she knew it had lasted a long time. There were bits and pieces, it was after she'd found the crown, that strange crown. She'd had magic, hadn't she? It was ridiculous, it had to have been a dream. Maybe this was just lingering strangeness, she would roll back over to find nurses, she was in the hospital because she hadn't been able to get the cold out.

But she had left, hadn't she? She had had to go home to… to get the crown.

It was all a dream, she told herself and, mustering her courage, rolled over again. To find that she was alone in the room. It was still the same room, wooden with a trunk, or maybe big branches, through it.

She pulled herself out from under the happily smiling furs on the bed. That was definitely strange, the eyes seemed to follow her, but at least they didn't talk or anything. She was wearing a dress she never would have been caught dead in.

She pulled it off and found herself incredibly thin, she was so much thinner than she recalled, barely more than skin and bones, and wearing almost nothing. Surely there should be some clothes around. If this really was the hospital they would have gowns at least. But it didn't look anything like the hospital, maybe she'd been moved, maybe she'd been asleep for a long time, that must have been why the dream was so long.

She looked around and found a cupboard with a draw pulled out, there was a bed in that draw and the rest were filled with random things. There was a wardrobe near the bed and when she opened it she found clothes, but after pulling out a couple of garments she was forced to accept that none of it would fit her.

The headache was nagging at her, she didn't want to remember any more of her dream, but she didn't seem to have much choice. She tried to distract herself as the images shifted slowly in. She pulled the dress back on and carefully climbed down a series of planks that had been nailed into the tree, a makeshift ladder.

She reached a lower level to find the cat playing what looked a lot like some sort of game console, the giant's head resting near the couch and the girl staring intently. Memories sifted in, this was a place she knew, a place she had dreamed at least, and these people, she knew them too.

Her head throbbed, she needed some aspirin. Would they speak the same language as her? Would they know what aspirin was?

"Do you have any aspirin?" she asked.

The girl and cat looked at each other. "I don't know what that is," the girl admitted with a shrug. "What do you need it for?"

"I have headache," Simone told the girl. "I need some sort of pain killer."

"Aren't your tears supposed to cure everything?" the girl admonished the severed giant head, walking towards the kitchen area.

"They do," the head assured the girl, it had a deep voice. "This must have developed afterwards."

"Did that giant head just talk?" Simone asked no one in particular.

"You're lucky it's shut up," the cat told her.

She was not dealing well with this. The girl turned up just in time, handing her a glass with a smile. "We don't have any pain killers, but this should work," the girl told her.

It looked like water but tasted a little salty, which was weird, and it certainly did work. She was fine for almost five seconds, at which point the headache returned in force. She wasn't getting out of it that quickly. The memories trickled in without any sort of order.

"I have go lie down," she said, again to no one in particular. "You don't have another bed, do you, the faces are a little creepy."

"Faces?" the cat asked, getting up.

She got to the hollow where the ladder lead up and her legs stretched. She just stretched up. It was too much for Simone. Talking cats weren't too bad, talking severed heads were a little worse, stretching was just a touch too far. She fainted.

She woke in the same bed with new blankets on it. Maybe it was all a dream, she theorised, until noticing the cat standing by her bedside. Or maybe it wasn't a dream, she sighed. She didn't like it not being a dream.

She remembered leaving the hospital to get the crown back, and then nothing for a long time. She remembered snippets of interaction with the giant cat and teen before her. But it wasn't coherent at all, she didn't have any solid memory of after she'd put the crown back on.

Maybe try to start over, she thought.

"I'm Simone," she said, offering a hand to the girl. "Can you tell me where I am?"

"In our tree house," the girl offered, looking suddenly upset. "I'm Fionna, and this is Cake."

The all shook hands.

I made her upset. The thought didn't seem to be her own, and it certainly wasn't the crown, so who was it now? It was only a piece of a thought, she didn't hear anything else from that voice, at least not immediately.

Simone got up, she was still wearing the dress, she hadn't ever really liked dresses, being the sort of person who would often spend time exploring old ruins or digging for ancient treasures, she had been a collector, hadn't she? A scientist. Until she found the crown.

"Do you know where I can get some clothes?" she asked the girl, Simone was more comfortable with her, she seemed normal enough, even if she was living in a tree house with a talking cat.

"You don't like the dress?" the girl appeared surprised.

"It isn't what I prefer to wear," Simone tried to be polite.

"You've worn it as long as I've known you is all," Fionna said. "I suppose we could go get you some new clothes."

"How long have we known each other?" Simone asked. It was starting to seem less and less like it had been a dream, more like memories she had blocked out. She could barely remember a thing after she got the crown back. On a thought she touched her head. "Where's the crown?" she asked. "Last thing I remember is getting it back, where did it go?"

"I can't say," Fionna told her. "But I took it from you a few days ago and hid it."

"Hmm," Simone was contemplative for almost a full minute. "It is probably for the best, it wasn't really much good. Though the headache I have is very reminiscent of the headaches I would get when I went too long without the crown."

"So the tears didn't cure your headache?" Fionna asked. "I may have to hit the head again."

"They worked for a moment," Simone reassured the girl, wanting to avoid violence. "I have a feeling that this headache is from something similar to the crown, it won't go away for physical things."

"Hmm," it was Fionna's turn to look contemplative.

"How about some clothes then?" Simone asked.

"Clothes," Fionna exclaimed. "Always a good distraction."

"Where do we go?" Cake asked.

Simone still wasn't used to that.

"I don't know," Fionna said. "Though we should probably put the head back on the cyclops first, I said I would give it back when Ice… Simone was better."

"What were you about to call me?" Simone asked.

"Ice Queen," the girl admitted.

"Why?" Simone was perplexed. "Why would you call me that? I don't know you."

"It has been your name as long as I've known you," Fionna protested, looking upset again.

I made her sad again, the voice complained. It sounded a lot like her own voice, but it wasn't, it was like the crown, she heard it in her head and it made the headache worse. Unlike the crown it didn't appear to be crazy.

"My name was Ice Queen?" Simone confirmed, that didn't sound right. She'd been called that, she remembered that from before the crown, but to have it as a name?

"It was, and it has been for a long time," Cake told her. "You don't remember anything?"

"I remember being in hospital because I just couldn't get warm," Simone told them, she had no reason to lie and she thought that maybe giant cats can smell lies. "But my head started to ache and the crown told me to go home and get it back. I had to do what it said, you see, it made the pain so much worse."

"I recall that," Fionna told her.

"After I went home and put the crown back on, I can't remember anything," Simone told them. "I have tiny fragments, but nothing solid or intelligible."

"Do you think Choose Goose has anything for memory?" Fionna asked the cat.

"I couldn't say," Cake shrugged. "But she didn't have anything for sickness, so maybe today is a bad day. We should ask Gumball, he's a scientist, isn't he?"

"That would be awkward," Fionna complained, looking at her feet.

"Why would it be awkward?" Simone asked, almost excited at the prospect of meeting a scientist, even if it was a scientist named 'Gumball'.

"He asked Fionna out," Cake told Simone. "She didn't say yes."

"Stop talking about it," Fionna instructed. "It doesn't matter now, Simone needs something to bring her memory back. But first we have to put the head back on the cyclops, then we can get I… Simone, some clothes and visit Gumball, apparently."

"Where are we going to get some clothes?" Cake asked.

Fionna looked thoughtful. "Maybe we should visit Gumball second and see if he knows where we can get some new clothes," the girl suggested. "I think all the places we know are empty by now."

"We could try where the fish people hang out," Cake suggested. "There is probably at least some fabric there we can use."

"I know how to sew," Simone offered.

"So do I," the cat replied.

"I don't," Fionna mentioned.

"You should have seen the dress I made Fionna," Cake said wistfully. "Or remember it at least."

"Did I see it?" Simone asked.

Fionna perked up. "I'll go get it," she announced. She fairly leapt down the ladder into the lounge and Simone and Cake could hear her searching there.

"Why is she getting the dress?" Simone asked the cat, determined that she would get used to the talking cat, or at least pretend it was a little person in a suit.

"When you were Ice Queen you tore it," Cake said. "Maybe she thinks it will bring back your memory, or at least some of your memory."

"I tore it?" Simone asked, she couldn't see herself committing any kind of violence.

"Well, I guess the crown made you do it," Cake said. "That's what you told me anyway."

"The crown was bad in that way," Simone said. "At first I didn't remember the things I did and then I wished I didn't. Why was I Ice Queen?"

"You were the queen of ice," Cake said. "The crown gave you powers to do with ice, you lived in a mountain made of ice and slept in a bed made of ice."

"Why?" was the best that Simone came up with.

The cat shrugged and Fionna reappeared, dragging a torn white dress behind her up the ladder.

"Here is the dress Cake made for me," she said, presenting the thing to Simone.

"I wouldn't have thought something like that would be your style," she said without thinking. The cat made her wear it, the voice told her. "I don't mean any offence by that," she hastily assured the girl. "I'm sure you looked great in it."

Fionna blushed and Simone couldn't help but agree with the voice this time. Fionna looked cute when she was flustered.