This chapter should have been up last week but it needed a full rewrite to make it Stakes compliant. In fact most of the bits that didn't work have been moved to a later chapter and changed, I hate having to cut anything out. Still pretty damn dark but it will be getting lighter soon. Once this particular part of the story is concluded time will be moving faster and things will get progressively less dark until- well, you'll have to wait and see.
A quick note, I never completely decided what song Marcy is actually humming in this chapter but I kinda headcannon that it could be Because by The Beatles, because if we assume the bombs dropped some time in the late eighties/early nineties (given the technology Ooo appears to have in cannon) then it makes perfect sense that someone who collected pre-war vinyl would be more than passingly acquainted with The Beatles. The way Bonnie and Marcy harmonize at the end of What Was Missing sounds very much like that period of Beatles recordings to me. Also they're awesome, and Because is a really calming song.
Content Warning: PTSD descriptions, torture flashbacks.
A Vampire Guard did not question his queen's orders, even when sorely tempted. So Stefan simply bowed and left for the Ice Kingdom that night, tasked with probing Simon's troubled mind and discovering if he posed any threat to his infant daughter, if he would be capable of looking after her.
Before he left he allowed himself to lower the barriers on his telepathy and assess the mood of his queen. He was not at all happy with what he found. She was shocked to her core and deeply hurt, shaken by what had happened and angry at herself as though she could have somehow prevented it. When her thoughts had punched into his mind he'd experienced a sensation akin to free fall; a sort of emotional spiral of crushing anxiety and helpless rage that felt like falling out of the sky.
He'd felt that sensation before. The very first time he'd ever met Marceline the sensations of her feelings were similar; lost and alone and hiding out in a cave, half feral from hunger and waiting for a meal to wander by. Not as sharply edged with panic as she was now but with the same kind of self-loathing and despondency. She hadn't cared if she drank from humans or vampires or zombies, if she'd had her way she'd have sucked him dry and been tripping garlic balls on his blood for a week afterwards. Luckily Stefan was much stronger than a hungry baby vamp, even with her demon heritage she was no match for him. He'd wrestled her down and fed her from a safer source and once she'd finished hissing and swearing at him they'd become friends. Still, it had taken a long time for that free fall feeling to disappear completely from her mind. She'd taken a lot of work but he was proud to have helped her transform from half wild cave dweller to the intensely focussed woman who'd eventually assumed the vacant throne she'd inherited form the Vampire King.
He'd felt it again hundreds of years later, the night the Citadel had been overrun as he and the other remaining loyal vampires had held the rebels off long enough for the queen to escape north across the ocean and find sanctuary in her formed homeland, the place she hadn't returned to since her bite. That was the last time he'd seen her until her wedding day. Cassie had packed a bag of her most precious possessions and bundled it into her hands, all but shoving her out of the window into the night and promising in her usual bizarre way that they'd come find her. Those were very nearly the last words out of Cassie's lips, after that the rebels broke through and he saw the troubled vampire crumble to dust as Isaac and his cronies pushed a stake the length of her arm through the girl's thin chest. Poor Cassie hadn't stood a chance, sometimes in his nightmares he still heard her brother's anguished scream as he watched her die. Stefan didn't know where the boy had ended up or if he was dead now too; he'd left shortly after the battle and taken himself off to his desert island to brood about Marco's death and his part in losing the war.
He'd not been there to see it but Stefan suspected that had he been able to feel Marceline's thoughts when her wife had been kidnapped by the Grimmalk then she'd have felt like she was hurtling to earth with the force of a comet. And now she was falling again, thoughts tumbling freely like her mind was caught in a whirlpool. He wanted to stay and help her, counsel her as he had so many times in the past. But she had ordered him to leave so like a loyal subject he did.
First of all he'd stopped by the market in town to pick up a list of necessities pressed into his hand by the shady little butler, who it seemed was also terribly concerned with Ice King's ability to look after his daughter. Once he'd purchased the items on the list he flew north and scanned the horizon for the icy mountains.
There was the tallest one, and that strange face-cave must be the entrance to the Ice Fort. He landed soundlessly and took a deep sniff of the frigid air. The whole place smelled strongly of penguins and confusion.
Stefan had been ordered not to interfere unless he saw something truly awful that could not wait for Marceline to assess. He was a little uncomfortable with just standing by and observing, making decisions about other people's lives without knowing them well, but his queen trusted his judgement so he supposed he should have a little self-faith.
He let his often ignored invisibility slide up and cover him, feeling that strange sensation of intangibility as a kind of creeping coldness on his skin. The queen used invisibility as easily as she smiled and the girls were both partial to it too but Stefan had never been comfortable with that particular vampire ability. He preferred to slide into the shadows or shape shift into one of his habitual animal forms; he supposed he could have tried to shift into a penguin but he'd never practised that form before and doubtless the old man knew his pets well enough to notice a stranger amongst them.
Uncomfortable and apprehensive Stefan hovered carefully further down into the ice cavern. His awareness flickered with two human-like pulses long before he saw anyone, easy to distinguish from the penguin heartbeats thrumming all around them. The old man was sitting in his chair reading quietly from a children's book, the girl was on his knee staring in fascination at the pictures with her thumb in her mouth.
"What is real? Asked the rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle? Real isn't how you are made, said the Skin Horse. It's a thing that happens to you. You're real, Victoria. You're real and you're my precious girl. You know that? We'll finish the book tomorrow night, someone looks sleepy. Are you hungry, darling? We'll get you something lovely from the fridge, come on."
Well, Stefan was reluctantly impressed. He'd not known any copies of The Velveteen Rabbit even existed anymore, much less that the crazy old ice wizard would be so sentimental with his choice of reading material. Carefully, because infants could be so sensitive to mental intrusion, he lowered the shields on his telepathy and let Victoria's mind wash over him.
Comfort. She was comfortable, a little hungry but no more than any other child anticipating their supper. She was content and secure, she was peaceful. He felt the deep thrum of love for her father like a pulse against his mind. Stefan smiled despite himself, he was no keener than anyone else to separate the new family if it could be avoided. He let the mental shields back up and watched impassively as the Ice King fed his little daughter some crackers and cheese and a little carton of juice. She didn't look newly born like he'd expected, the infant appeared to be around a year old in human terms although it was so hard to judge when she was a magical creation. It seemed the Ice King had already bought most of what was required for a child, the bundle of baby supplies waiting outside the cave weren't as desperately needed as everyone seemed to think they would be. That was encouraging.
"Goodnight darling, sleep well." Ice King said, tucking her into a small cradle and kissing her forehead. He hummed her a lullaby and stood for a couple of minutes watching her eyes slide closed, a tender smile on his face. Once it was obvious that Victoria was soundly asleep he turned and looked Stefan dead in the eye.
"Your invisibility slipped after a couple of minutes but I didn't want to alarm her by pointing you out. Your queen sent you to watch me."
It wasn't a question. Stefan nodded anyway, no point in pretending Marceline wasn't deeply concerned by the situation.
"She thinks you're too old and crazy to look after your daughter. And she's furious with you for creating Victoria in the first place, for kidnapping her wife and causing her fragile mental state to shatter again after she was beginning to heal from her last trauma. Do you know what Bubblegum has done since she arrived home? She has laid in her bed and cried quietly, she refuses to see anyone and she touches her scars over and over, tracing their outline with her fingertips and crying some more. She was healing, she was almost ready to be back to normal after what the Grimmalk did to her. And your brutal kidnapping brought it all back to the front of her mind, made her revisit it all again. Marceline isn't going to forgive you for that any time soon."
"I didn't mean to hurt her." Ice King muttered, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
"You didn't leave intentional scars on her the way the cat demon did. But you hit her, beat her unconscious and left a fracture in her skull, you kept her prisoner and made her think you would murder her daughter in the most savage way possible. You destroyed what should have been the happiest time of her life. On a personal note, I will leave your shredded bloodless corpse to rot in the desert if you ever come within a thousand paces of any member of the royal family again. The only reason you're alive now is because the queen is too kind to leave your daughter an orphan. So this is your warning, Simon. For now Victoria seems happy and peaceful. If that should change then your life is forfeit. I will find you and I will make you wish you'd died easily along with all the other humans a thousand years ago. Just for one more night I will taste blood, and you'll beg for death by the end."
Without waiting for a reply Stefan turned and left the cave. He hadn't detected one ounce of remorse in the old wizard's mind the whole time he'd been there. It made him feel sick, nausea that shouldn't even exist without a functioning digestive system nevertheless churned through his guts. Without a backward glance he flew through the darkness back to where his queens waited in need of him.
...
"Honey, won't you eat a little bit of something? I'll bring you anything you want, just tell me what you'd like."
Bonnibel just shook her head and hunched the blankets further up over her shoulders, shivering again. She hadn't been able to get properly warm since she'd gotten home.
"I'd like to sleep." she managed after a moment. Marceline nodded sadly and ran her hands down her wife's arms, aching to do something more, something to ease her pain. But Bonnie didn't want anything, didn't want to talk or eat or hug. Perhaps sleep would help.
Carefully she helped her wife lie on her side, pulling an extra blanket up around her because her shivers still hadn't dissipated and she seemed so weak. It ached in all kinds of awful ways to see Bonnie lie there listless and dispirited.
"Do you want me to stay?"
Bonnibel nodded carefully, eyes squeezed tight shut as a fresh wave of tears leaked out from the corners.
Gently, as lightly as she knew how, Marceline let her weight down onto the bed and wrapped an arm around her love's trembling shoulders. After a few minutes of silence where she allowed Bonnie to let her tears flow she started to hum, very lowly, an ancient song that was more beautiful and melancholy than anything she'd ever managed to create. Nothing she could come up with seemed appropriate anyway but she knew that just letting the soft melody wash around the room was calming for them both. She wanted to let the words flow in too but it was probably better to just allow the magic to ease her wife to sleep with soothing images drifting across her mind; moonlight on water, the slow turn of seasons, the interconnectivity of all things. At first she didn't think it had worked, Bonnie still felt so tense. But after a while her breathing settled and deepened, heartbeat slowed to an even steady pulse and finally some of the tension began to ease from her body.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time to bring Phoebe up to see them when they returned, to make absolutely sure she was uninjured and happy. But Bonnibel hadn't been able to keep her tears in and she was too scared to hold their daughter for long, not wanting to accidentally cry on her and hurt her. She hadn't wanted to see the boys, hadn't wanted to talk to anyone at all since their return. And Marceline hadn't wanted to force her to speak, she'd open up when she felt comfortable and not before.
Stefan's back, he's waiting for you in your sun room.
Zoe's mental message arrived directly into the back of her brain via the Sire link. Reluctantly Marceline pushed back up into the air, letting her gaze fall hesitantly on her sleeping wife. She'd only be away for a few minutes though, just long enough to see what Stefan had to say, then she'd come straight back. She brushed a gentle kiss against Bonnie's shoulder before slipping out from the bedroom as quietly as she could.
It was late and the corridors of the palace were deserted. Floating through the empty rooms Marceline felt almost like a ghost, like she was haunting her own formerly happy life. The sunroom was dark too and completely useless at this time of night. But until she set up her own study and reception rooms for official vampire business it was their de facto meeting place.
Stefan was hovering silently in the middle of the room, he lowered the dark hood of his cloak when she entered and curled forward into a deferential bow.
"Highness." he murmured quietly in greeting, uncoiling as he spoke.
Normally she'd have laughed, told him not to be such a stuck up buttface, not to talk like some fancy pants noble. Normally Stefan would have laughed back and they'd have enjoyed the same joke they'd shared for centuries. But it felt appropriate now to be Lady Abadeer the Vampire Queen, deal with this as official royal business because she wasn't sure plain old Marcy could keep it together.
"Stefan. Tell me everything."
"He has no remorse, he doesn't realise that he's done anything wrong. But he loves the child and he's provided for her, there's no trace of any uncertainty in his mind where she's concerned. He's perplexed about your anger and sadness. He doesn't remember why you'd hate him for subjecting another innocent to his madness, he has no idea that he has ever known you."
She nodded, she'd known that a long time ago. Simon never remembered her anymore, not even for a couple of minutes at a time. She hoped she could miss and cherish Simon while still despising the Ice King; they were two very different people. It still felt like a knife through her guts every time he looked right through her though.
"Do you think the girl is safe with him?" she asked after a long minute of thought.
"She seems perfectly safe for now. In the future... who knows? But that's the same for everyone. Nobody knows how things will fall out. For now we need to focus on healing your lady, let the Ice royals take care of themselves."
Reluctantly Marceline nodded. If Stefan said Simon was capable of looking after his daughter then she would trust him; Stefan was the best judge of character she knew. She was glad the Simon problem was resolved at least and she wouldn't have to see him again any time soon. Now she could focus on helping her wife heal, if she could only work out what to do to help her.
"Let me talk to her." Stefan said quietly.
"You know I hate it when you read my mind." Marceline replied with a small frown. The big man just smiled remorsefully and rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently when he felt the built up tension there.
"If you would just open up and talk to me I wouldn't have to." he replied with the ghost of his old good humour in his voice. "You're a mess, Marcy. You've not slept either and you're hungrier than you realise. Here, I brought you some apples." he picked up a bowl she hadn't noticed from one of the coffee tables and held it out to her expectantly. Marceline sighed and accepted one with ill grace. She didn't feel hungry but if Stefan said she was then who was she to argue? Mostly she felt like she was one more worry away from a full blown panic attack. She didn't want to admit it though, she had to stay strong.
"It's sweet of you to worry about me, but I'm holding it together. I've had worse stress." she replied carefully.
"Not in the last couple of months, not since the Lich and all of that. And you did beautifully and you know we're all proud of you, but before that? The Citadel, nobody's happy with how that ended. Disappearing and building a whole new life somewhere else isn't gonna work this time." Yeah, she should have known better than to try to be evasive with a telepath. But dammit he was right, her usual methods of running away from conflicts and hoping they resolved themselves without her interference wouldn't work this time and there wasn't an obvious enemy she could hack at with her axe or throw into a space-time singularity.
If she left Bonnie to heal without interference there was no telling what would happen, it might destroy their marriage. They'd only taken their vows just over a week ago, the thought that this could be the end filled her with cold dread. Marceline was acutely aware that she'd promised in front of most of the royalty in Ooo to be faithful, loving, supportive, to always put her wife first and lend her strength whenever she needed it. Well Bonnie certainly needed it now. Her wedding band was still shiny and sat a little awkwardly on her finger, she wasn't used to the feel of it yet. Marceline wanted to get used to it, she wanted to wear it for so long that the silver was worn thin where it rested against her palm. She wanted them to have years together, centuries, and that meant dealing with the fallout from everything that had happened since before she'd found Finn, since she'd hurtled off into the night after screaming those awful words at the only person who made her feel whole. Had they ever really dealt with that? Possibly not, there was more she could say about it, more she could explain and apologise for.
Her ears pricked at a distant noise. Was that-?
She was away, flying so fast she blurred with the speed of it, bouncing off the walls in her haste to get back upstairs to their bedroom. The soundproofing that had been installed years ago was no match for sensitive vampire hearing.
...
This time the claws were thrust into the back of her skull, slowly pushing their way through flesh and bone until they prickled into her brain and caused electric jolts of agony to shoot down her extremities. She tried to pull away but the Grimmalk held her tighter, arms wrapped around her like a lover's embrace, purring harder with every gasp of pain that left her lips.
"You're going to die so prettily." the cat demon said, but with Ice King's voice. "Suffer and die and make a pretty dead bride for me."
She could taste her own blood again, it felt like she was going to drown in it. She lifted her arms to try to push the Grimmalk away but she recoiled in horror; she had no hands. Where her arms ended there were just mangled red stubs that leaked blood and gore every time she moved them, ruined ribbons of flesh that peeled back from the bone and seemed to twitch with a life of their own. While she was busy staring at them in terror the Grimmalk pulled her closer, close enough to smell the fetid stink of rotting flesh that rolled across her face with every deep purr. The claws hooked around something inside her head and pulled back, ripping a piece away from the back of her brain.
It was a lamp, a little lamp with a little blue flame in the middle, so familiar and precious that she felt her heart skip a beat. Phoebe looked so tiny, so fragile, curled up alone and shivering in her prison.
"Mama?"
She heard the echo of Ice King's manic laugh somewhere off in the distance and without warning it was snowing thickly all around her, drifting up against her legs and swirling around the top of the tiny lamp. The flakes drifted softly down and as each one touched the little blue flames Phoebe screamed and screamed in agony and Bonnie screamed too, horrified, unable to move because Joshua's demon blood sword was being driven through her stomach again and again by some merciless invisible force, blood pouring from her in sticky waves-
Cold hands were shaking her awake and she let out another strangled scream as she opened her eyes. The darkness in the room made a momentary shadow mask across her wife's face, like a death bruise, and Bonnie curled away from her into the pillows.
"Don't touch me!" she gasped out between hysterical breaths. And oh, Marceline had brought Stefan along too, it was mortifying that he should see her like that. Bonnie raised her hands to her face, overwhelmed with shame and noticed that her cheeks were still wet. She must have been sobbing in her sleep. At least she still had hands, not those awful red stumps from her nightmare.
"Shh love, it's ok. I'm here." Marceline tried to soothe her, but it was a hollow kind of comfort. She'd asked Marcy not leave and she'd still fallen straight into a night terror, even with her magic filling the room. It would be easy to blame her for the nightmare but Bonnibel knew that it was a product of her own damaged mind. She cried harder, curling into a ball of misery and digging her nails into her scalp.
"I'm l-losing it." she stammered around her sobs, this time not pulling away when cool arms encircled her and pulled her into a gentle embrace. After a moment Bonnie let her arms wind around Marceline too and gripped the back of her shirt tightly, pulling her as close as possible and breathing her wife's familiar scent deeply.
"Bon, Stefan wants to talk to you when you feel a little better. Is that ok, love? He just wants to help you heal." Marcy whispered in her ear, stroking one cool hand soothingly across her head.
Marceline's fingers brushed the place the Grimmalk had ripped at her brain in her nightmare, the place where Ice King had broken her skull. Bonnie shivered but she didn't pull away from the gentle touch. She told herself as sternly as she could that her head was whole, there was no tiny lamp prison inside her brain to disgrace herself with, no tiny Phoebe screaming in terror and pain as she was buried under the snow. After a moment she nodded, still reluctant but willing to accept that she needed the help. Stefan had already seen a thousand times more of her panic attack than she would ever have wanted, it couldn't get more mortifying than it already was to just see what he had to say.
"Let's get you cleaned up then." Marcy said with a gentle smile, dabbing at her eyes carefully with the corner of her sleeve. It was odd, Marceline caring more about her appearance than Bonnie did, and she surprised herself with a strange gurgling chuckle. It sounded half choked but it was almost pleasant, almost like she could appreciate the humour in it.
"Your Highness? I know you're reluctant to speak to me, perhaps it would help if I told you a little more of my history." Stefan said quietly, drifting forward from the doorway. "Before my bite I was a doctor, in a distant Kingdom that hasn't existed for a thousand years, but still a doctor nonetheless. I specialised in speaking with men who'd come back from wars, with women who had been badly abused and mistreated by their husbands. I suppose these days I'd have been called a psychiatrist although I always saw myself as more of a friend, listening to them when nobody else would, helping them talk through their feelings. I can't claim any real talent or knowledge compared with even the most rudimentary medical textbooks that have been written in the eleven hundred years since but I have tried to keep up to date with the new discoveries and improvements in my field. Will you consent to talking to me, your Highness?"
She nodded after a long moment; that made a lot of sense. The big man had the gentle air of someone who cared deeply and the confident bearing of a professional. She was surprised she hadn't seen it before now. And Marceline trusted Stefan, she didn't trust easily so that in itself was a considerable endorsement. With a small smile he settled himself into the air and prepared to listen very carefully.
