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

Chapter 11 – The Man Comes Around

Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the throne
And at his feet, they'll cast the golden crowns
When the man comes around
- Johnny Cash: "The Man Comes Around"

Marceline grimaced in disgust as she flung another ladle full of rancid, congealing fat into the rusted sink. The first few inches of the stuff had been solid; she'd practically had to pry it out of the old deep fryer. It had ended up coming out in one horrible, pus-yellow layer, but beneath that was darker, semi-liquid grease mixed with ancient crumbs of batter that was harder to scoop out and smelled ten times worse.

Standing at a distance with her shirt pulled up over her nose, Bubblegum made a nauseated sound as another scoop of yellow-brown fat landed in the sink with a wet slap. Half of her face was concealed, but the look in her eyes was enough to convey her utter repulsion.

"And you're seriously telling me that not only are you are going to make food in that thing, but you're also going to eat it?" The pink girl sounded as sickened as she looked. "Just because you remembered the food in that stupid Grease movie? Is that why it was called Grease? Ugh, I wouldn't even use that junk for oiling hinges..."

"That's why I'm getting rid of it," Marceline said, her voice sounding strange as she tried her hardest to breathe through her mouth rather than her nose. The worst part about the smell was that it did remind her of the food she was thinking of, crispy golden batons of fried potato that she remembered eating with her mother. It had been in a place similar to the derelict restaurant they were currently standing in, but like most of Marceline's memories that involved her mother everything was brighter and warmer and much more colourful.

When she and Bonnie had watched the movie with the weird teenagers who wore the same jackets, Marceline had immediately recognised the food they were eating in the diner. That had interested her far more than the actual plot which seemed to be about singing and driving cars and not much about the school they were supposed to be attending. Bonnie had spent the start of the movie explaining schools to her with quite a lot of enthusiasm, only to be extremely disappointed by what she'd called 'the worst curriculum and discipline I've ever seen why are they fixing a car when they should be in class'. Marceline didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but it had seriously annoyed the pink girl in any case.

Marceline had found the restaurant on one of her regular scavenging trips, which were much more fun now that her next meal wasn't depending on them. Now she had the opportunity to collect things that she'd have previously seen as nonessential, like trinkets and extra sets of clothes and random electrical items like lamps. The latter would once have been completely useless to her, but she now had a portable generator she'd taken from the vault.

One thing the vault didn't have however was a deep fryer. Marceline had scoured the books in the vault after seeing the movie because although she remembered fries, she had no idea how they were made. Eventually she'd found a reference to them in a cookbook that Bonnie had found and discovered that she needed a deep fryer to make them properly. Apparently the oil needed for a fryer couldn't be stored for more than a couple of years unlike most of the vault's food supplies, so the people who'd constructed it hadn't bothered to install one.

After quite a lot of cursing, Marceline had accepted that she had no way of making the fries she remembered. But then she had found the restaurant, which looked like a broken, faded version of the one from her memories, and had immediately gone inside to investigate. She had no idea if the deep fryer would still work if she cleaned it up, but that was why she'd asked Bonnie to come; she was good at fixing electrical things. However, the pink girl had point-blank refused to even touch the thing until it was clean, and was currently sitting on the grimy counter with her arms folded, looking as if she'd rather be anywhere else.

Really, Bubblegum would have preferred to be back at the vault, working on another de-crystallization formula for her candy people. The first one she'd tried had dissolved the crystals well enough, but had also dissolved the poor candy person she'd used as a guinea pig. She still felt terrible about that, but had told herself that she didn't have a choice. Her own biology was too different to let her experiment on herself, and her only other option was to sit there and watch the little creatures crystallize and fall apart like their miniature versions had. At least it had been quick; she'd barely had time to note that the crystals had gone from the candy person's limbs before it had liquefied into a pool of red goo.

The pink girl was relatively sure that she'd known what had gone wrong, but it required further research and study. Instead here she was watching Marceline digging what was essentially filth out of an old cooking device that she didn't even need but apparently cooking things in boiling oil was a big deal now. Bubblegum didn't get it at all, but then again she accepted that might be because she had no memory of the world before the bombs. It certainly seemed to be important to Marceline at any rate, which was why she hadn't left already. Though she was beginning to wonder what the other girl would do when she realised she didn't have any cooking oil.

Marceline had finally managed to pull the fryer basket free of the congealed fat, and set it to one side as she scraped the last of the ancient oil out of the appliance. At the bottom of the fryer was greasy brown sludge, a revolting slurry of semisolid fat and undefinable chunks of some burnt substance. Scraping as much of it out as she could, Marceline headed over to the camp stove she'd set up in the corner, which had a pot full of soapy water boiling away atop it. Grabbing hold of the handles, careful not to slop it on her legs, Marceline hauled it back over to the fryer and poured it into the oil reservoir, filling it to the brim and then setting the wire basket back into it to soak.

"I hope I can get all the soap out…" Marceline muttered to herself. "It's gonna be a pain to keep bailing that thing out until it's clean."

"Just use the drain," Bubblegum called to her. "Water should go through that no problem."

"What drain?" The grey girl sounded bemused. "There's a drain?"

Sighing, Bubblegum jumped down from the counter and headed over to the fryer, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the thought of having to touch it. She gingerly reached out to take hold of the side, her fingers finding a seam in the metal panel which she then pulled open, revealing a space below the fryer that held a greasy metal bucket and a valve attached to the bottom of the oil reservoir. Marceline had thought it was one solid piece.

"You couldn't have told me it had a drain before I had to scoop all that gross oil out of there?" Marceline snapped, her voice sparking with irritation.

"I thought you knew!" Bubblegum replied defensively. "You're the one who wanted to make fries so I kinda assumed that you knew how these things work!"

"Well I don't!" Marceline growled, glaring at the other girl. Bonnie's only response was a look that was thoroughly unimpressed.

"So exactly how were you planning to work it?" she asked acidly. "Were you just going to hope that you could throw in a potato and fries would come out?"

"Maybe, yeah!" Marceline retorted, and the two girls glowered at each other for a few moments before Bubblegum's expression cracked into a smile, and Marceline began to giggle. "Okay, yeah, so maybe that's not how it works," she admitted. "I was kinda hoping you'd know what with all that reading you do and everything."

"Why didn't you ask then?" Shaking her head with a chuckle, Bubblegum turned the valve handle below the reservoir, and a mixture of hot water, grease and debris flooded into the bucket. Both girls looked into the fryer, and then made identical faces of repulsion. "Okay, we are gonna need WAY more soapy water. And a scrubbing brush."

Several hours later, the two girls had managed to get the fryer into a state that roughly resembled cleanliness, though it still felt uncomfortably sticky in places. Once Marceline had filled it with clean water for the fifth time, Bonnie plugged it into the generator they'd brought from the vault, and they both leaned over it curiously, waiting to see if it still worked.

For several moments nothing seemed to happen, and Marceline sighed. "Figures that after all that it would be broken anyway," she muttered darkly, looking down at her grease and dirt-covered clothes with a grimace. She was glad that she'd picked old, plain ones that morning for scavenging, and that her hair was safely tied back out of the way.

"No, wait, it is working!" Bonnie was still hanging over the appliance, her former disgust forgotten. "Look, you can see the heat currents in the water around the element."

"Around the what now?" Following the pink girl's gaze, Marceline saw that around the curved metal pipe at the bottom of the reservoir, the water seemed to be rippling slightly. As they watched, the ripples slowly became more distinct, then the water surface began to shimmer as faint slicks of prismatic colours undulated across it. A few minutes more and it started to boil in earnest.

"YES!" Punching grease-stained hands into the air in victory, Marceline's smile lasted for as long as it took her to realise exactly what Bonnie had known from the beginning. "Ah breadballs, we still don't have any oil!"

o.o.o.o.o

The old glasshouses in the park were partly ruined, many of the glass panes had been cracked or shattered by the shockwave of the bombs and the resulting cold had killed most of the tropical plants. But they still provided shelter, and the soil was fertile, so hardier plants and trees grew there in wild abundance. The irrigation system still worked as well, faithfully watering the soil at regular intervals even though the human custodians were long dead. Like the fountain in the park, power was supplied from the vault's main reactor though many of the lights had broken in the years since the Mushroom War.

Hiking another basket of sunflower seeds onto her shoulders, Marceline set off along the overgrown path towards the exit. The paving stones in the glasshouses were in even worse condition than the ones outside, inside the rioting plant life had shifted or cracked many of them with roots and creepers so she had to be careful where she stepped. The small candy people frolicking around her feet had even more difficulty, often having to clamber over crazily canted stones and jutting roots, but did their best to keep up.

Marceline had thought Bonnie was being sarcastic when she'd said they'd be helpful, but as soon as she'd shown them the seeds she was looking for they had scattered, returning with armfuls of them to throw in the basket. A couple of the less-crystallized ones had even climbed the overgrown sunflowers to shake more seeds free. This would hopefully be the last trip she'd need to make to harvest them, and it had taken half the time thanks to Bonnie's creations.

Watching them make their way alongside her, Marceline hoped that Bonnie would find a way to fix them soon. The candy folk still didn't seem to be in any pain from the crystals slowly creeping along their limbs but Marceline could see that it made it more difficult for them to walk. The worst afflicted moved with an awkward stiffness that reminded her of Simon on cold mornings, when he'd stumble around for the first few minutes of the day with his back and shoulders hunched, muttering about how much getting old really sucked. Maybe the candy people were just getting old. Simon had once told her there was no cure for age when she'd asked him when his back would get better.

Making a mental note to tell that to Bonnie later in the hope that it might make her feel better about not being able to cure them, Marceline walked out into the park and headed for the vault. "Thanks little guys," she called back to the candy people, who waved to her in response then wandered off towards the fountain.

Getting the full baskets back to the vault was the worst part, Marceline had to try to keep it level on her shoulders as the seeds would shift about within and throw her off-balance. She'd made the mistake of trying to jog back with the first one, which had ended with the off-centre weight of the basket pulling her off her feet as she rounded a corner, then she'd spent about half an hour having to gather the spilled seeds up again.

Thankfully this time she reached the vault without incident and went inside. Punching the entry code into the computer with practiced ease, Marceline picked up the rope that was lying by the hatch and attached it firmly to the straps of the basket. The first time she'd done this; she'd carried the basket down on her shoulders and nearly gotten jammed in the ladder shaft, then nearly dropped it. Bonnie had suggested using a rope to lower it first instead, proving once again that the pink girl was too smart for her own good, and that was what Marceline did now. Carefully unspooling the rope hand over hand until she felt the basket hit the bottom of the shaft, Marceline then climbed down after it.

Of course, she still had to drag the blasted thing to the cafeteria which Marceline did with extreme bad grace, muttering curses under her breath which were mostly aimed at her stupid obsession with making fries. Maybe it was because it was something to do now that she didn't spend every day struggling to survive, maybe it was because of the association with her mother, but Marceline still hadn't given up, even if she had to drag another three baskets of seeds back from the glasshouses. She hoped not, because she didn't think there were very many left now even though ten years of wild growth had spawned dozens upon dozens of the flowers.

To Marceline's surprise, when she hauled the basket into the cafeteria's kitchen, Bonnie was there. The pink girl was working her way through the huge pile of seeds Marceline had already collected, rinsing them in the sink then spreading them out to dry on a counter. She looked around as she heard Marceline enter, giving her a brief, half-hearted smile.

"Hey. I thought you might need some help with these," Bonnie said, her voice strangely dull and flat though Marceline could tell she was trying to hide that.

"I thought you were working on a cure for your little candy guys?" Marceline replied cautiously. She hadn't seen the other girl for a couple of days; Bonnie had shut herself in the lab saying that she needed to focus. And the pink girl was still wearing the same clothes as she had been then, dark circles around her eyes suggesting that she hadn't slept much.

Looking away, Bonnie sighed heavily, the sound almost becoming a yawn. "Yeah, but I'm not getting anywhere right now so I'm taking a break. The more frustrated I get, the less progress I make."

"Maybe you need to sleep? You look… rough." The suggestion was given as delicately as Marceline could put it, but all she got in response was a look of irritation.

"No, I'm fine," the pink girl stated stubbornly. "Besides, I know what I'm doing with this and…"

"You could just explain it to me, and go get some rest, or a bath, or fresh clothes or something," Marceline offered. "No offence Bon, but you look like you need all three."

Bonnie's shoulders slumped slightly in response, but she didn't stop what she was doing, refilling the metal colander she was using to rinse the seeds and placing it in the sink. "Look, just let me do this okay? I just wanna do something that's actually going to work for once so that I know it's not just me, the things I do turn out okay sometimes."

The pink girl actually sounded defeated for once, and Marceline frowned in concern, feeling somewhat useless since she couldn't exactly talk science with the other girl to help her figure out where she was going wrong. "Well, okay. But I'm helping too, since this was my dumb idea to begin with. Now how the heck do we turn all these seeds into oil?"

o.o.o.o.o

The golden oil that Marceline tipped into the fryer was slightly grainy with fragments of seed husk and flesh but Bonnie hadn't thought that would make much of a difference. The pink girl had eventually agreed to get some sleep once the two of them had finished blending, roasting and pressing the seeds to get the oil out of them. Marceline was slightly disappointed since that meant she wouldn't get to try the fries, but Bonnie had been distinctly underwhelmed by the concept of fried potato sticks from the beginning.

Turning the fryer on, Marceline peeled and chopped the potatoes she'd brought with her while she waited for it to boil. The vegetables grew wild all over the wilderness; Simon had taught her what the plant looked like so it hadn't taken her long to find some. Cutting them into the perfect long rectangles she remembered was much harder, hers came out a lot chunkier and mismatched. She was sure they'd taste the same though.

Throwing chopped potato into the wire basket, Marceline dunked them into the oil which immediately began to bubble and crackle. And the moment the smell hit her nose, nostalgia hit her like a boot to the head. The same memories of her and her mother swam back to the front of her mind, even clearer this time. Marceline hadn't been sitting beside her, she'd been… higher up? And there had been a plastic tray in front of her, she'd hit it and it had rebounded, catapulting the fries up into her face while her mother laughed helplessly.

Marceline blinked, and the memory was gone. But the smell remained, and somehow it was comforting, familiar. And she needed salt. She didn't know where that thought had come from, but Marceline did know that she definitely needed it. And ketchup. There was definitely salt in the vault, maybe there was ketchup too.

Taking a couple of steps away from the fryer, Marceline paused. Bonnie had told her that these things could be dangerous if they were left unattended just like a fire. They could catch fire. And if you put water on them to extinguish them, apparently they exploded. With an irritated growl, Marceline decided that she'd just have to take the fries out and turn the appliance off, then head to the vault and come back to finish cooking them. It wouldn't take long, she'd found a shortcut down an old alley.

Flipping the power switch on the generator, Marceline lifted the basket out of the oil and waited for it to stop bubbling. Once it had simmered down to what she hoped was a safe temperature, she hopped over the counter and dashed out of the restaurant.

o.o.o.o.o

As Marceline had thought, it didn't take long to get to the vault, but she had to spend some time rummaging in the vault's pantry until she managed to find a familiar red bottle. It was still sealed, and when she peeled the plastic cap off and gingerly sniffed at the contents nostalgia decided to give her another sucker punch. She knew this smell as well.

She was tempted to wake up Bonnie, but since there was no sound from the room the girl slept in when it wasn't movie night, Marceline guessed she was actually asleep. She couldn't hear the sound of the keyboard in there or anything, and that was definitely unusual.

To her annoyance, when she stepped outside again it had started to rain, heavily, as night began to fall. The streets would be pitch-dark, but that made no difference to Marceline. The rain was a pain in the ass, but she was pretty sure the restaurant roof was watertight; she hadn't seen any sign of flooding inside. She'd just have to sprint.

But as she turned onto the street the building was on, Marceline felt a sudden rush of unease that had nothing to do with the cold rain pelting across her back. Something was different. And despite spending nearly a year in relative safety, Marceline's survival instincts were still as razor sharp as they'd ever been. If something felt wrong, something most likely WAS wrong, so she'd need to be careful.

Moving slowly now, ignoring the rain as she placed one foot carefully and soundlessly in front of the other, Marceline approached the restaurant. Maybe the smell of cooking had attracted wild animals, and she immediately decided that if some wild creature was helping itself to her fries, it would quickly become an entrée. Turnabout was fair play after all. Her indignation at the thought made her unconsciously increase her pace, though it was still silent.

But all thoughts of spit-roast racoon vanished the minute Marceline walked into the building. There was something here that was eating her fries, but it wasn't an animal. It wasn't a human either, or a mutant, or even Bonnie's candy people. It was a man in a neat business suit, with blue-grey skin and big, big eyes that widened in surprise as he saw her. His mouth fell open, revealing sharp teeth. And for the third time that day nostalgia struck, this time with a sledgehammer and a vengeance.

"Daddy…"

A/N: Well, there had to be a reason that Marceline was so pissed off about her father eating her fries...