I haven't updated this fic in forever, I'm so sorry guys! But if it's any consolation I've already started work on Full Circle and a couple of Foundlingsverse one shots, so they should be on the way in the near future. A quick aside; I was recently made aware that there's a character in Vampire Diaries called Stefan. I had no idea, I've never watched it and I know nothing about that character. Any likeness is purely coincidental. Ah well, hope I didn't confuse anyone with that.

Content Warning: PTSD issues, healing process.


"It's been a month and she's still having nightmares and headaches. When's she going to get better? Are you sure you know what you're doing, Stefan?"

The big vampire sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose to ease a little of the tension building in his head. He had perfect vampire memory, he hadn't forgotten at all how impatient Marceline was. He'd just naively hoped that maybe she'd learned to curb it a little in their years apart, apparently he'd been wrong.

"People take different lengths of time to heal, Marcy. Her Majesty might not be well again for quite a while, she had two very severe blows to the head only a few months apart and suffered significant emotional traumas. You need to be aware that she might not ever be completely the same as she was before her brain injury." he replied as gently as he could.

"But Simon didn't hit her that hard, he just knocked her out. I don't understand why she's so much more ill now than she was when the Grimmalk attacked her."

And that was the question, wasn't it? It could be that she was suffering significantly more problems due to the previous brain injuries too, a second concussion so soon after the first could cause a lot of damage even if it didn't seem as bad. Equally it could be psychological, triggered by the remembered stress response from the first trauma. A month wasn't anywhere near enough to time to be completely sure either way but Stefan was leaning towards psychological; Bubblegum wasn't displaying any of the usual concussion symptoms now except for terrible stress headaches and they could be explained equally well by the extreme anxiety that ran like a restless undercurrent through almost all of her thoughts. He sighed again and shook his head.

"It's impossible to say. I think it's psychological, after everything she's been through she's simply struggling to deal with her feelings of helplessness. She's used to being intimidating, politically powerful, being capable of looking after herself. But anyone can get taken by surprise. It doesn't matter that she's normally physically stronger than the Ice King if he has a club and she's looking the other way. I think all we can do for her right now is listen to her fears one by one and try to reassure her as best we can, try to increase her sense of personal safety. She is getting better, slowly."

To his relief Marceline reluctantly nodded, still frowning. She flipped over in the air to let some of the late evening sun filtering through the special vampire-proof glass of her sun room warm her back instead.

"So how do we increase her sense of personal safety then? A guard dog or something?" she asked, only half joking.

Stefan smiled thinly, he'd already put a plan in motion.

"I have a present for her, something better and more subtle than a big slavering dog. Besides, Jake wouldn't take kindly to some dumb animal rather than a Dog being around his beloved Mama, not if there was guard dogging to do and he hadn't been asked to do it. I was waiting to run it past you first, is all.

She turned to look at him curiously and Stefan gave her his best enigmatic smile. "If you'd been awake before now I'd have already shown you, but I understand that you needed to sleep."

Jake had kept Marceline up most of the night running a fever and coughing with every other breath; he was a little better when Tree Trunks had come that morning but given his Mom had been trying to sleep at night and stay awake through the day they were both pretty exhausted now. Even chicken soup hadn't helped. Marceline hadn't been able to do much more than soothe him and hold him, sing to him in a low voice and try to hold a cool hand against his too-warm forehead. She hadn't wanted to wake Bonnie and ask for help, not when her wife was still so ill herself. Jake had whimpered all night and asked her over and over where Mama was, she hadn't been able to think of a decent excuse and just told him Mama was sick too.

Stefan held out something small in his palm and she examined it closely, swearing softly when she finally recognised the soft aura glowing around it. Yeah, that should do it.

"There's a trigger word?"

"Waiting to be set, I thought it would be best to let her choose."

"Awesome. No time like the present. Come on big guy."

As she swooped from the room with a grin he was treated to a warm glow in the back of his mind telling him via his telepathy that he'd managed to make his queen happy. That was its own reward but Stefan was hoping he could do the same thing twice and help Bubblegum too.

...

Bonnie was asleep when they entered the bedroom, curled up on her side protectively around a lump in the blankets that was revealed to be Jake when Marceline carefully shifted the duvet to one side. He opened one bleary eye and smiled at her, still smelling a little ill but much better than he had been.

"Hey Mom. Mama's sick too." he whispered scratchily, quietly so he didn't wake her.

"Mhm. Does Miss Trunks know you're here?" she whispered back.

"Yep. Said I c'n snuggle wi Mama."

Their voices must have been too loud because Bonnie shifted and opened her eyes with a frown.

"Oh. Hello puppy, how are you feeling?" she asked Jake in a sleep rough voice, scratching him gently behind the ears.

"Poorly." he informed her solemnly, "Like you."

Marceline held her breath, hoping that wasn't going to upset her wife, but Bonnie just smiled at Jake and petted him a little more.

"But we're gonna get better, aren't we Jakey? Your cold will get all better and my poorly head will too. Then we can play together again." she replied quietly, stroking his ears.

"Actually I wanted to talk to you about that if you have a minute, love." Marceline said, drawing her attention away from Jake. "Hey Jake, do you wanna budge up a little so I can sit down with Mama?" she added to the puppy. He wiggled over and Marcy settled into a comfortable hover just off the bed.

Stefan was waiting in the doorway, unwilling to intrude when they were spending time with their son, but Marceline gestured him forward and Bonnie offered him a smile of greeting when she saw him. She'd grown used to spending time around the big vampire in the last few weeks and it was a relief to him that her thoughts no longer turned immediately to what a mess she must look every time he saw her.

"Highness, you look well." he said with a deep bow. "I brought something that I thought might help ease some of your worries."

He held out the object and she took it from his palm, reaching over Jake's head as he looked up curiously. It was a ring, heavy and silver, with a thin green band running around the outside. She turned it over and over in her hands but it didn't reveal its secrets to her.

"Wossat Mama?" Jake asked inquisitively, stretching his neck up to get a better look at it.

"I'm not sure, Jake." she replied. "Why don't you ask Uncle Stefan?"

"Stefan?" Jake asked, turning his eyes to the vampire.

"It's a magic ring." he said simply. "It's made of two different magical components. The silver is an anchor point, so long as you keep it on you'll always be able to find your way home, it'll warm up and move your hand in the direction you need to go whenever you start to worry that you're lost. If you're too far away or you're unable to move it will even transport you, but to do that will exhaust the ring's magic so it's single use for transportation. You can tune it to an anchor point here, or on another person if you wish. For example, it can use your wife's wedding ring to anchor to, or a foundation stone here at the palace, depending on your choice. The green is a solidified poison. It works with a trigger word. All you have to do is touch it to the skin of your enemy and say the word, it works on everyone but the undead. Even demons."

He felt a flicker of concern in Bubblegum's thoughts that her son had heard details that might upset him, but it was smoothed over after a second with reasoning that Jake needed to know that the world was sometimes a dangerous place. It made him smile a little proudly; she must be healing better than Marceline realised if she was able to use her old logical reasoning instead of following her panic instinct.

"Thank you." Bubblegum murmured, staring at the ring. "I suppose it'll be useless to try to take it apart and see how it's made?"

Stefan had already anticipated that the first thing she'd want to do would be to scientifically test it and see if she could replicate it. He shook his head; the ring had been a commission piece and the wizard he'd employed to make was very aware that spilling its secrets to anyone would result in his lifeblood draining out of two new holes in his neck. Besides she wouldn't find a way to replicate it with science, whatever Bubblegum thought she knew about magic and science being the same thing Stefan knew better. He'd seen the thoughts of both wizards and scientists.

"It would completely destroy the magical structure to tamper with it in any way." he lied smoothly. Marceline shot him a thankful glance. She knew he was lying too but neither one of them wanted Bubblegum to start messing around with that poison, it would kill a candy person in a matter of seconds just the same way as it would kill anyone with a pulse.

"Pup, do you wanna come pick some roses with me for Mama?" Marceline asked suddenly, sweeping the puppy up into her arms and tickling his tummy. He wiggled and laughed, nodding yes. "I think there's still some of the pretty pink ones in bloom in the greenhouses. Do you think they'll make her feel better?"

Stefan received a pointed prod in his telepathy as she spoke to her son.

Tell her how to set the trigger while we're gone. No need for the little one to hear that part.

"We'll be back in a bit." she said to her wife, dropping a kiss onto her hair before flying out of the window with Jake.

Stefan glanced up; the sun had set while they'd been talking. Marceline was perfectly capable of remembering not to wander around in the daylight without her hat and gloves but Stefan supposed he would never quite give up being overly protective of her. He'd spent too many long centuries standing guard by her door, warding away threats and assassins while she slept. He'd never be able to completely erase the habit now.

"The trigger word?" Bubblegum prompted him gently as he stared off out of the window. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that her wife could read Marceline's intentions just as well as he could despite not having the gift of telepathy.

"Oh, yeah. Forgive me." he murmured in embarrassment, coming forward to show her.

...

Things settled into a comfortable rhythm, weeks blurring by into months with a routine of official business, working in her lab, spending time with the family and intensive therapy sessions with Stefan. Bonnie could honestly say that by the time the cold weather really began to bite she was feeling quite close to being back to normal. She still had the most terrible migraines from time to time, still had days where her irrational fears were so overwhelming that she struggled to leave her rooms and still shivered in remembered fear if she found herself alone in the dark but Marceline was careful never to leave her unattended for longer than a couple of minutes at night and the bad days where getting less and less frequent. She was more grateful for that than she know how to express. The therapy sessions were brutal; more often than not she spent a few hours crying afterwards but she was healing, every session marked a small improvement despite how hard it was. Stefan was a better therapist than he gave himself credit for and she was deeply grateful to the big vampire for his help.

The longest night of the year found them cuddled together under the blankets, Marcy annotating some sheet music with a small frown on her face as she analysed the tune in her head and Bonnie reading a rather dry academic text on the subject of genetic variation in crop plants. She tried to focus but her attention kept wandering; it was interesting in theory but most of the plants the paper had been written about grew better in other Kingdoms anyway and they weren't wanting for food. With a sigh she put the paper down and snuggled more closely into her wife.

"Marcy?"

"...m?"

"Would you believe me if I said I was bored with reading?"

"...change it to an F sharp and make it more... wait, bored with reading? No. Not even for a second. I know my Bonnibel, you'd read the back of a milk carton for an hour if there wasn't anything else to hand. I can only assume you're trying to trick me into something, possibly even more reading." Marceline looked around when Bonnie didn't reply, a soft smile on her lips. "Hey, I was kidding. You've been staring at that stupid paper for ages and it's probably the most boring thing ever written. Even a brainlord like you needs to take a break every now and again."

"It's not the most boring thing ever written." Bonnie mumbled, embarrassed. "It's very important and interesting science, it's just not really relevant to us right now. And I thought we could do something else instead."

"Such as?" Marceline replied with a slightly predatory smile, all thoughts of composition thoroughly forgotten

"Nothing dirty! Mind out of gutter, please, you big pervert. I thought perhaps, if you wanted to, we haven't been out flying together in ages. Do you want to go out for a bit?"

"Aw seriously? You've got a lot of nerve to call me a pervert, little miss 'ohhh-please-bite-my-shoulder-again'. But yeah, we can go flying. Be nice to get out into the fresh air."

"You're a butt." Bonnie informed her wife with a smile. "But I think you'll find that these days it's Mrs 'bite-my-shoulder', actually. See I married this sexy vampire lady-" she broke off with a laugh as Marceline lifted her up into the air, wrapping the blankets more tightly around them and making for the balcony doors.

"Ok smart ass, we're going flying."

Bonnie wrapped her arms tightly around her wife's neck and they swooped off into the night. The air was cold against her cheeks but her blankets were held firmly in slim grey hands around her and they were thick enough to keep most of her body warmth in even as they accelerated together into the starry sky. As the palace fell away below them in a spiral of twinkling lights she felt the ever present cloak of vague anxiety that so often clung to her these days slip away too. She rubbed the heavy silver ring that fit snugly over her right thumb; she was the safest person in the world when she was in her wife's arms a mile above the ground, there was nothing at all to be afraid of as they hurtled through the freezing air together. Bonnie rested her head lovingly against her wife's shoulder and let out a deep sigh of contentment. Sometimes she'd been scared she might never get better, might never be the same woman Marcy had married. But she was feeling so much healthier now, so much more like her old self. She still dreamed of claws pushing through her skin or snow drifting mercilessly around her legs but they were vague and fleeting dreams, no more substantial than any other nightmare. Mostly she woke straight away from them and curled closer into her wife then fell asleep again easily, ignoring the darkness of their bedroom.

"I love you." she said to Marceline, over the wind their flight created.

"What?"

"I said I love you!"

"Huh? Can't hear you, babe!"

"I SAID, I LOVE YOU, MARCELINE ABADEER!"

The echoes of her yell bounced off the hills and rolled away into the night along with her wife's delighted laughter, filling up the whole landscape with noise and making Bonnie's cheeks flame with embarrassment.

"You tricked me! I take it all back, you're a total dilweed." she muttered into Marcy's ear.

"Nah, you love me, no take backs! And now the whole world knows it!" Marceline replied, slowing and turning to grin at her wickedly.

Bonnibel couldn't think of anything to say to that so she just pressed a kiss against her wife's cool lips, smiling despite the heat still filling her face. They were slowly descending, Bonnie realised after a few minutes of slow kissing. She looked around as they touched down on the shore of Lake Butterscotch. There was a picnic blanket and a hamper waiting for them, candles and an ancient wind-up portable record player softly crooning to itself in the darkness.

"How?" Bonnie breathed, confusion warring with delight. "I was the one who asked you to go flying, how did you set this up?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Marceline replied smugly, putting her down carefully onto a pile of big round cushions that Bonnie recognised as coming from the sun room. She knew how, if she thought about it.

"The girls. You can order them to do things telepathically through your Sire link. So that little stunt up there was to give them time to sneak out here before we arrived and get this midnight picnic ready."

"Nah, that stunt was because I like hearing you shout how much you love me from the rooftops. But it was a happy coincidence; it meant Zoe had time to arrange the cushions just right."

"Thank you, Zoe." Bonnie addressed the night, but she got no reply.

"They're back at the palace already, too far away for me to contact right now. But if you want I'll tell them thanks when we get back."

"If we get back." Bonnie corrected her with a smile. "I'm not sure I'd ever want to leave somewhere as lovely as this."

"Ah right, then I'll have to get someone to send Tree Trunks and the kids down here tomorrow morning, we can be a family of lakeside dwelling hobos. I mean, very briefly, before I burn to death under the unfiltered sunlight. Did I ever properly thank you for the sun room, by the way?"

Bonnie smiled again, face warm from an entirely different kind of embarrassment.

"Yeah, you did. Three times in a row, once with your hands tied behind your back. Pervert."

"I didn't hear you complaining. And I think you'll find that's Mrs Pervert, actually. See I married this gorgeous Candy princess..." Marceline replied, grinning even more widely. But that reminded her of something she'd been meaning to bring up, something that had just been waiting for the right opportunity. She cleared her throat carefully, a little self-conscious now that the perfect moment had arisen. Bonnie had been rooting around in the hamper, pulling out the treats the girls had hastily grabbed for them, but she stopped and peered curiously at her wife.

"Spit it out then, is something bothering you?" she asked after a minute.

"I... yeah, I guess. A bit. It's stupid though." Marcy replied, shifting a little uncomfortably. "I was just thinking, like, did we ever agree anything about surnames? Because it shouldn't matter really but you know vampires are compulsive about marking their belongings and it sometimes bothers me that you have a different surname from me. Not that I see you as my property! Grod, that didn't come out at all how I meant it to! I just mean, you know, since we're married and all. You know?"

But Bonnie was smiling at her again, polishing a bright red apple thoughtfully on the edge of her blanket.

"Hmmm. Queen Bonnibel Abadeer. I like it. You know that most everyone is gonna just keep using my maiden name though right? They're far too used to calling me 'Bubblegum' and the list of people I allow to call me 'Bonnie' is pretty short, in fact it's really just you." she replied.

"But I'd know, even if you still used your maiden name for official business." Marceline said, trying very hard not to let it come out as a whine. "And besides, I'm not taking your name. No, sorry, no. Marceline Bubblegum is not a thing that is ever happening, not in any of the infinite possible worlds in the multiverse, not even in the alternate reality where I'm a squirrel-fish and you're a sentient greetings card. No."

Bonnie had just raised a sandwich to her lips and almost choked on it.

"A sentient greetings card? Seriously? Oh Glob no!" she gasped between coughs. "That's hideous, I'm not going to allow that! And double-barrelling it is even worse. No, you're not allowed to have anything to do with my maiden name."

"That's a relief. But... I dunno, now I hear it out loud. It's a bit cute. What if I wanted to be Marceline Bubblegum? I could be sickly sweet and wear lots of pink and cuddle with all your squishy brainless subjects, you don't know, I might want that!"

It was a struggle to keep her face solemn but it was totally worth it to see the horror in Bonnie's expression.

"You just said it was never going to happen! And it's not! Bonnibel Abadeer. Nothing else. Ok?" she managed after a moment. Marceline just laughed and let her face split into a grin again.

"Yeah, ok. I can live with that. What about the kids? Do we honour their birth names or do they take the family name?" Marcy's smile slid a little as she thought about that. She wasn't sure it would be entirely appropriate to erase their birth identities; they were still the same people they had been when they were born, no matter who adopted them. Bonnie looked lost in thought, chewing contemplatively on her cheese salad sandwich.

"Perhaps," she said after a while, swallowing her bite, "we can use their surnames as middle names? Like, Finn Mertens Abadeer. Jake Dog Abadeer? Phoebe Abadeer, because I don't know what her birth surname was and I highly doubt she'll want to keep it when she's older."

"We could give her a middle name of her own." Marceline suggested. "How about Phoebe Clementine Abadeer?"

"Sometimes I think you do these things just because you like annoying me." Bonnie replied with a pout. "Clementine is an awful name, unless she actually is a little sweet citrus fruit. And she's not. I mean, she is sweet and without her shield she is orange, but she isn't a fruit. But I like the idea of picking a name for her. Serious suggestions, please."

Marceline thought for a while, catching the apple Bonnie tossed her without looking and draining it thoughtfully.

"Would you think I was silly for being sentimental about it?" she finally asked. Bonnie shook her head. "Then maybe we can name her after my grandmother. I barely knew her, I only remember that she smelled like jasmine and wore a lot of really beautiful jewellery. But her name was so lovely, she was named after a goddess. So how does Phoebe Lakshmi Abadeer sound?"

"It sounds gorgeous, love. I've never heard the name before. Tell me about the goddess?"

Marceline searched her distant, pre-vampire memories for a second.

"To be honest I don't know so much about her. She was a goddess from a different culture, my grandmother had moved halfway around the world when she was pregnant with my Mom so I never knew much about the Kingdom she came from. But Lakshmi was the goddess of wealth and prosperity I think, she was beautiful and fierce and associated with the festivals of light. It seems like a pretty perfect middle name for Phoebe."

"It does, it's lovely. You've never told me about your grandmother before, or the Kingdom around the other side of the world that she came from. You're just full of surprises, even after all this time." Bonnie murmured, scooting closer and sliding her arms around her wife's waist.