Disclaimer: Adventure Time belongs to Pendleton Ward/Cartoon Network. Thanks to Rinney and Anna for proof reading.

Chapter 10 – Strange Phenomena

Soon it will be the phase of the moon
When people tune in
Every girl knows about the punctual blues
But who's to know the power
Behind our moves
- Kate Bush: "Strange Phenomena"

In the vault's lab, Bubblegum was watching the tiny candy people she'd made that morning with concern. They were made of exactly the same materials as the others, but these ones were a fraction of the size, barely an inch high. The speed of the aging process was inversely proportional to their size, so they were already as mature as their larger siblings. Now she just had to wait and see if the worrying crystallisation starting to affect the ones in the park was due to age or environmental effects. These ones had never been out of the lab, or even the tray she'd set up for them, but chattered to each other, slept and ate just like the bigger ones.

Although she'd made these ones solely for research, Bubblegum loved them all the same. She was definitely getting better at this; her original attempts to create life had resulted in shambling sugar creatures that deteriorated after a few hours. The ones in the park above were over a year old now; they could learn and talk and seemed very social. But lately some of them had begun to limp and stumble. And when she'd examined them she'd found sugar crystals forming in their feet.

After taking copious amounts of notes in a frantic rush, though thankfully the little candy folk didn't seem to be in any pain as yet, Bubblegum had rushed down to the vault and immediately started looking through her textbooks. Some of them had been in the vault's library to begin with, but most of them she had collected from around the city over the years.

One thing she did miss about her original protoplasmic form was that it had been able to carry much more; she'd been able to just roll over as many books as she wanted and absorb them into herself then eject them back at the vault. And she also missed being able to split herself up into separate, independent portions because that had made exploring much, much easier and faster. Especially when she didn't have to worry about being crushed by a falling building since the rest of her would be fine. But that was the choice she'd had to make when she designed her current form; she'd had to pick between the convenience of her original form and the power of speech and opposable thumbs.

Thumbs definitely did make science easier, Bubblegum had to admit that. And she didn't think Marceline would have reacted so well to her if she was still sentient ooze. Granted, the first thing the other girl had done had been to hiss at her and run away, but she would probably have freaked out even more if she'd woken up to find her tree surrounded by pink protoplasm.

Then again, if she'd still been a mass of mutant candy Bubblegum doubted that she'd still be having strange, confusing and worst of all distracting thoughts about Marceline. Maybe her design for her human form had been a little too good, since she was now feeling some very human urges. She'd never wanted to kiss anyone when she was goo after all. Now the thought of that prospect kept creeping up on her at the most inconvenient times, like while she was trying to investigate the reasons her candy people were crystallizing for example.

Taking a deep breath, Bubblegum forcibly cleared her mind of that hormonal nonsense and focused back on her work. If her calculations were correct then right about now the miniature candy folk would be reaching an equivalent age to the larger ones so she needed to keep a close eye on them to watch for any changes, not think about Marceline.

A few minutes later one of the tiny figures tripped and fell while playing tag with three others, and when they came over to investigate one of them did the same. Lifting the first one gently, Bubblegum held it up to the light and saw what she'd been fearing, the beginnings of dense crystallization at the ends of its limbs. The tiny creature hung placidly in her grip, trusting her not to drop him or harm him. But she only just managed to stop herself from letting him go in shock as she saw the crystallization starting to spread.

It was like watching a chemical reaction, or a time-lapse of alum crystals growing. The darker shapes rapidly crept up the candy person's legs and as Bubblegum set him down carefully she could see that he could no longer bend them. The little creature still didn't seem to be in pain, though he was stumbling around with an odd, stiff-legged walk that made him look like he was on stilts. She scribbled down more notes quickly; obviously this was an age issue after all, and the accelerated aging of the tiny candy folk was making it develop much faster.

"…must be too much sugar and not enough glycerine…" Bubblegum muttered, noticing that more and more of the miniature candy people were displaying the same symptoms now. Oddly it seemed that the crystallization happened earlier depending on what colour they were; red and yellow were the first, green and blue were the last. But within half an hour all they were capable of was an awkward, stilted hobble. And then the first one toppled over, shattering into a small pile of red sugar.

Within the hour, all that Bubblegum was left with were a dozen heaps of coloured sugar. Although she'd managed to jot down some potential formulas for reversing the crystallization, the reaction had happened so fast that she hadn't had time to synthesise any. And she had doubts about whether she would even be able to halt it if it was a natural process, like crystals forming in honey. At least it seemed to be a painless condition. They didn't suffer.

Taking her notes and analysing both them and the time stamps she'd logged at each stage of the reaction, Bubblegum started sketching out a complex algorithm that would let her calculate how long the larger candy folk would have before complete crystallization. Either way, she'd need to start working on a potential cure as soon as possible. And if that didn't work, well, it would be time to look at the base formula for creating the life serum again.

Bubblegum was so deeply involved in her equations that she never heard the footsteps echoing along the corridors, or Marceline yelling her name. It wasn't until the lab door was thrown open with a clang that her attention was finally snapped away from the papers, and she looked up to see Marceline standing in the threshold, looking anxious and awkward all at once.

"Bonnie!" It had taken Marceline about twenty minutes to find her way from the entrance to the lab, and even then she'd only managed it because she'd been there several times with the pink girl already. Bubblegum had taught her the entrance code for the vault so she could let herself in and out, but it was still extremely unusual for her to come down of her own accord. "I need to talk to you, like right now…"

"What's wrong?" It was obvious to Bubblegum that there was most definitely something wrong from the grey girl's rapid breathing and the way her eyes were darting around nervously. Something was obviously troubling her. The dark hollows under her eyes suggested that she hadn't slept well, and from the way she had one arm pressed into her lower abdomen it looked like she was in pain.

Marceline shifted awkwardly on the spot, not knowing how she could tell the other girl what the problem was in any way that she wouldn't find distasteful. "There's something wrong with me. Like, really, really wrong and I don't know what it is and you're smart so you might know but it's totally gross and I think I'm going to be sick again…"

"Sick again? Did you eat something that wasn't sealed properly or something?" Setting her notes down, Bubblegum went over to Marceline and put one hand on her forehead, feeling a damp sheen of sweat against her fingertips though the other girl didn't seem to have a temperature. But her pupils were contracted and she was swaying slightly on her feet.

"I need to sit down," Marceline said abruptly, and dropped down onto the floor, propping her back against the wall and pressing both arms into her stomach. "And it's not something I ate! It's… well, I'm bleeding. A lot."

Bubblegum looked at the other girl oddly, unable to see any traces of blood on her skin or clothes. "Uhhhhh… did it stop or something? I don't see any bleeding…"

"That's because it's coming from… somewhere I shouldn't be bleeding from!" Groaning, Marceline pulled her knees against her chest, rocking slightly on her haunches. "And it hurts, and I don't know why!"

Mentally running through a list of human ailments, which was much easier than figuring out what was wrong with her candy folk as she'd found plenty of textbooks on human health, Bubblegum quickly realised what the problem must be. "Oh. Uhm. Has this happened before?"

"NO!" Marceline yelled back at her, her face flushing with embarrassment from the way the other girl had made it sound like something she should know about. "I think I'd remember waking up in a pool of blood!"

"Then, uh…" Bubblegum rubbed one ear awkwardly, trying to think of a way to word this that wouldn't be too distasteful. "Did your mom ever tell you about things that might make you bleed from… there?" Marceline's response to that question was to look at her as if she'd grown an extra head.

"My mom died when I was three," the grey girl said shortly, as if she was explaining this to a very small or stupid child. "I don't remember her ever telling me anything about bleeding from a weird place for no reason."

"Oh. Right." Clearing her throat awkwardly, Bubblegum considered asking the other girl if Simon had ever explained human reproduction to her, but on consideration that was probably unlikely given the way Marceline was reacting. "Well, uhm, it's a normal thing, don't worry. There's things in the vault you can use to absorb the blood from this kind of thing and it should be over in a few days.

Marceline stared at the pink girl for a few moments, looking horrified. "There's stuff in the vault for THIS? Is this… something that happens a lot?"

"Generally once per lunar month," Bubblegum replied, starting to drop into textbook mode. "It's called menstruation, and it occurs at sexual maturity. Usually it happens around thirteen, but you were way underweight so that would have delayed the onset. It's perfectly normal and nothing to worry about; it just means you can reproduce now."

"I can do what now?" Marceline asked, bewildered, then groaned and shifted in pain.

"Have babies," the other girl explained, and this time Marceline looked at her in outright horror.

"Why the… the breadballs would I ever want to do that?!" she exclaimed. "That's stupid!"

"Sorry Marcy, but I didn't invent human biology," Bubblegum replied, though her voice was sympathetic. "It's kind of pointless now anyway since you'd need a boy as well to have babies and we're both girls, but it's still gonna keep happening. Does it hurt?"

"No, it's just fine," Marceline replied through gritted teeth, sinking down onto her side. "I'm lying. It really, REALLY hurts."

"Yeah, that can happen too," Bubblegum said, running one hand in smooth, comforting circles around the other girl's lower back, hearing her grunt softly in appreciation. "Then it's called dysmenorrhea. It's also normal."

"I thought I was gonna die…" From the way Marceline's voice was shaking, Bubblegum could tell she had been more frightened than she'd let on. Perhaps that wasn't surprising, the pink girl supposed that waking up soaked in blood and in pain would generally not bode well for someone, especially if they had no idea what was happening to them. "Was it like this for you?"

"No," Bubblegum admitted, truthfully. "I guess I was lucky." Well, she supposed that never having gone through the same ordeal was lucky in a way, but really it was because she had engineered her human body not to have such distractions.

Marceline had curled up into a ball on the floor, making soft sounds of pain now and again. "I hate it. It's gross. Is this really going to happen every month? Really?" For a moment she sounded hopeful, as if she thought Bubblegum might tell her it was just a one-time thing after all, she'd been joking about it coming back every month.

"It should do, yes. But, uhm…" There was a pause as Bubblegum racked her brains for something positive to say about it, she didn't think that Marceline would particularly care for being told 'now you're a woman' or anything like that. "It shows you're healthy?" she said eventually. "And that you're not malnourished any more."

"Ugh. Can you just kill me now?" Marceline groaned, thumping her head against the metal floor. "This is worse than the time I drank pond water without boiling it first. At least that didn't come back every month."

"No, but how about I get you some painkillers and a heat pack and you can go lie in the movie room until you feel better?" Bubblegum stroked one hand through Marceline's hair comfortingly, pleased to find that it was relatively tangle-free. "It should stop hurting eventually; some ibuprofen and a heat pack will help."

"Mnph," The sound was grouchy, but acquiescent. "I wanna watch the movie with dinosaurs."

"Then you can have dinosaurs," Bubblegum agreed as she helped the other girl to her feet. "Whatever makes you feel better."

o.o.o.o.o

Marceline woke with a start as the movie credits started to roll; the last thing she remembered was that the guy in the suit was being eaten by the tyrannosaurus. The heat pack that Bonnie had given her, an odd gelatinous thing that immediately heated when she snapped a metal disc in the middle, was still pressed into her lower abdomen but had cooled and hardened. The pink girl had made her cocoa as well, it was cold now but Marceline drank it anyway.

Her belly and back still ached dully, but the pain was much less intense now; earlier it had felt like a fist clenching around her spine. Marceline still felt uncomfortably… sticky, but a quick look beneath the blanket showed that the blood hadn't soaked through the pad Bonnie had given her. She made a face as she remembered what the blankets had been like back at the tree. Those were going to take some scrubbing when she got back.

She hadn't slept well at all the previous night, woken by cramps and nausea and then when she'd noticed the blood in the early hours of the morning she'd been terrified. At the time she'd had no idea why she was bleeding and had assumed that something had gone horribly wrong inside her. Marceline had been too scared to try and go back to sleep, afraid that she'd bleed to death, but the cramps were so bad she didn't want to move. Eventually, after several hours of not dying, she'd managed to haul herself to her feet, staunch the bleeding as best as she could, and head for the city in the hope that Bonnie would know what was happening. No wonder she'd fallen asleep.

Burying her face in her pillow, which was actually Bonnie's pillow, Marceline inhaled its scent deeply. It smelled of sugar and strawberries and vanilla, the same as Bonnie did, and she found it somehow comforting. The pink girl had only stayed long enough to make sure she was comfortable and start the movie and then returned to whatever she'd been doing in the lab. Apparently it was really important, though Marceline had noticed that it wasn't important enough to stop the other girl from fussing over her. It wasn't that she minded being fussed over, far from it, it was just so long since she'd had someone to fuss over her that it made her feel awkward. She wasn't quite sure how to respond.

Marceline looked up as she heard the door slide open, and saw Bubblegum walk in carrying a plate of muffins; the same kind she had brought with her the first time she'd followed Marceline back to the tree. "Hey, how are you feeling?" the pink girl asked as she saw that she was awake. "Hungry yet?"

Marceline hadn't eaten anything earlier as her stomach had still been in knots; she'd felt like anything she ate would just come right back up. Now that she was in less pain however, she was starving. "Yes," Marceline replied, pushing herself up into a sitting position as Bonnie sat beside her. "Did you just make these? I thought you said you had important stuff to do?"

"Well, mostly it was just thinking and making notes," Bonnie replied. "Baking helps me focus." Which was true; the measuring and kneading and shaping cleared her head and calmed her nerves, giving her a clean slate to work on. She had filled several pages of her notebook with formulas for various anti-crystallization serums in between baking stages and while all of them would require extensive testing it was a start at least.

Wolfing down one of the muffins, Marceline shifted slightly to lean against the other girl, awkwardly and nervously putting one arm around her in a one-sided hug. "Uhm… thanks Bonnie. Sorry I was all freaked out earlier, it was just that I had no idea what was happening and, uhm, hope I didn't gross you out or anything."

Bubblegum laughed gently at that, raising one hand to stroke the grey girl's hair. "It's not gross Marcy, it's just reproductive biology. You didn't know about it, so it's not surprising you freaked out." There was a pause as the pink girl considered her next words carefully. "Uhh, there are some books and stuff about it here if you want to read them. And I think there's a video too." The look on Marceline's face was enough to tell Bubblegum exactly what she thought of those suggestions.

"Ewww, no, gross," she replied, pulling a disgusted face. "All I need to know is that bleeding for five days every month is normal, I don't wanna know anything else."

Bubblegum was going to argue that Marceline would need to know these things if she was ever with a boy, but reconsidered when she realised that unless other survivors were out there, and she knew there were none in this city, Marceline would never meet one. Knowing that the thought of that pleased her made Bubblegum feel strange; it was irrational and yet she couldn't deny it. "Well, okay then. But you should still look at them sometime," she added, unable to quite shake the feeling she was being irresponsible. "You wanna stay tonight?"

"Yeah, okay," Marceline barely had to consider the prospect. She wasn't sure whether it was just those hormone things that Bonnie had talked about, but she really didn't feel like spending the night alone back in the tree. "We could have movie night early."

"Oh yeah, I found more tapes!" Running out of the room, Bubblegum returned a few moments later with another stack of videos. "These were in the library. Apparently they're musicals? I think that means there's singing."

"Why would they be singing?" Marceline asked, bemused. "Are they movies about singing?"

"No, not exactly," the pink girl replied. "It means that they sing about what's going on instead of just doing it. Like, this one's about teenagers like us," Bubblegum said, holding up a video with a black-haired boy and blonde girl on the cover. "And I guess they sing about… teenage stuff?"

"What, you mean like we do all the time?" The sarcasm was practically dripping from Marceline's voice. "Like this?" She immediately launched into a somewhat off-key melody, making up the words as she went along. "I woke up this morning and went to see my friend Bonnie, I was really worried 'cause I was bleeding from my…"

"Marceline!" This time the pink girl was blushing furiously. "That IS distasteful!"

The grey girl's laughter echoed along the corridors as she saw the look on her friend's face. "It's a work in progress. I need to think of a rhyme for it anyway. Maybe the movie will give me ideas."

Muttering inaudibly, Bubblegum put the video into the player and started it, then settled down beside Marceline who was still giggling. "So distasteful…"

A/N: And this one goes out to all the girls who have horrible menstrual cramps. Wouldn't it be so much worse if you had no idea what was happening to you to boot? Also, we are slooooooooowly moving towards Bubbline, next chapter should hopefully get the story moving a bit faster.