Chapter 11


"I don't understand at all."

I groan. "Jake, we've been through this. We're wasting time."

"Okay, okay, just go over the part where the guy that's been married to Bubblegum for months now is actually evil."

"That's what Nick told us," I repeat for the third time.

"Nick the Vampire King," Jake confirms.

"Former king," Marceline interjects from the kitchen of the tree fort, helping herself to a bowl of strawberries. We asked Jake to meet us here to go over our options for a rescue mission, but so far, all we've done is attempt to catch him up on the situation, rather unsuccessfully.

Jake rolls his eyes. "Nick the former Vampire King, who kidnapped her," he points a thumb at Marceline, "and tried to kill you."

"Yes," I answer.

"So we're going off something a crazed evil vampire said right before you sent him to a dusty grave?" He looks at me skeptically. "Am I the only one who thinks this info might not be the most reliable?"

"I was about to kill him," Marceline explains exasperatedly as she takes a seat next to me, draping her legs across my lap. "He was scared. Finn asked him where the wizard who sent him to kill the humans was now, and he basically told us that he was posing as the Ice Prince. Nick wasn't exactly the type of guy who'd protect someone else's identity instead of saving his own skin. He thought I'd spare him if he told us the truth. He was wrong," she finishes darkly, popping a now-gray strawberry into my mouth.

Jake shudders, unable to mask his unease in the presence of the monster with whom I've become so smitten, then turns back to me. "Okay, but, I mean, if the Ice Prince had this evil agenda and he's secretly a wizard, why hasn't he just come after you himself? And, think about it, Bubblegum is pretty happy over there. He hasn't hurt her."

"Not that we know of," I point out, swallowing. "She was acting... weird at your wedding. Depressed or something."

"And I smelled the evil on that guy as soon as he looked at me," Marceline adds. "I talked to him for a while, and even danced with him. I couldn't really pinpoint that he was a wizard with massive human hatred, but he was uber-creepy," she says with a sneer. "Seemed like he might be a religious nut too."

I look at her, confused. "What makes you think that?"

She shrugs. "Said some junk about the Cosmic Owl smiling down on the wedding, or something like that. Sounded old school. Of course, if he was around to rescue Nick from his watery resting place, and he's the one the Ice King stole his magic from, he's gotta be way older than he looks." She chuckles. "Wonder if Bonnie knows her handsome husband is really some old creep."

"Yeah," Jake says, his voice thick with sarcasm, "cause it's totally gross for an ancient evil creature to be all lovey-dovey with an innocent seventeen year old goody-two-shoes-"

Marceline hisses, her razor-sharp fangs bared at Jake, her eyes a fiery red. "What's that, Jake?"

"He's kidding!" I pipe up, just as Jake cowers down, shrinking until he's about four inches tall. I turn her face toward mine with my hand. "He's kidding," I assure her, kissing her demon cheek. She morphs back to a less terrifying form, but her glare at Jake remains. "Anyway," I say loudly, trying to bring focus back to the conversation, "I don't know exactly what kind of danger P.B. is in, or how much she knows. I also don't know why he's never attacked me, or why he wants humans dead, or even why he hides his magic powers, if Nick was right about them." I let out an exhausted sounding sigh. "I just know that I'm sick of finding clues that only lead to bigger mysteries. I need to know once and for all what happened to my relatives, and why. Ice Prince has the answer. I can feel it."

Jake nods as he grows back to his normal size, and Marceline drops her glare to smile encouragingly at me. "So," Jake says, "what's our plan?"


Working out what to do next didn't take long. Jake and I were all for crashing the castle and serving the Ice Prince a steaming bowl of butt-kick soup, but Marceline brought us down. "You did that in the Underworld and almost got yourself killed," she reminded me. "Let's do a little recon first. See what we're up against."

Recon to Marceline consists of Jake and me freezing our buns, hiding out on a snow-covered hill in the dark, staring at the castle, while she uses her invisibility to get a closer look.

"Why do we even need to be here, dude?" Jake complains. "Seems like your girl's got it covered."

I scowl at him, rubbing my hands together vigorously to try and keep warm. "Something could go wrong," I remind him. "Marceline's worried about me getting into trouble, but she's the one who got kidnapped last night. I can't have that again, man," I say, shaking my head. "I went so crazy worrying about her, I summoned one of the most evil demons I could think of just to get her back."

"Yeah bro," Jake chuckles, "that was pretty nuts. I'm glad I wasn't there to see your future father-in-law in all his evil glory. Although I do kinda wish I got to see his face when he saw that it was your scrawny butt that summoned him, heh-heh."

"I'm not so scrawny these days," I argue, then pause for a moment, taking in all of his comments. "And hey, I'm not getting married or whatever!" I exclaim. "Just because you're seeing everything through newlywed goggles doesn't mean that's what everyone's doing. Marceline and I just started this thing. Need I remind you that you waited more than five years before you popped the question?"

Jake smiles knowingly and waves a hand as if my words mean nothing to him. "Yeah, but the bachelor life suited me well for those years. It took time for this wild stallion to be tamed," he says, looking wistfully into the distance. "You're more old-fashioned. Traditional."

I raise my eyebrows. "Traditional? I know you haven't forgotten that the chick we're talking about here is Marceline." I grab his ear and stretch it toward me, and speak loudly into it. "A crafty vampire who's out doing our dirty work for us right now. I seriously doubt she's gonna want to be my 'traditional' apron-wearing housewife." I let his ear go, and sigh. "I'm not even really sure where we stand, once all this biz is over with. She's immortal and I'm not. Physically, I'm already a year older than her. You think she'll still be into me when I'm ten years older, or twenty, or fifty? And if I'm still into her when I'm old, well, that's just creep status." I shake my head, and Jake wraps his arm around me.

"Things'll work out, brother," he says confidently. "You've just gotta take it day by day. We live in a pretty mixed-up land. I've seen stranger things end well than just a human and a vampire in love."

I look at him skeptically. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Oh tons of stuff!" he gushes. "Hot Dog Princess and that carnivorous clown-serpent, for one. Lady and I doubled with them for a movie night a few weeks ago. They've been going strong for over a year!"

A laugh escapes me, and Jake joins in. "You always know what to say," I tell him, pulling on the sleeves of my yellow sweater. They barely cover my wrists anymore. Time for Beemo to knit me a new one, I guess, though this one's only lasted a few months. I've just been growing too fast these days.

"Hey weenies."

Jake and I both yelp, then turn abruptly around to see Marceline floating behind us, with a smirk on her face and a pile of pink fluff slung over her shoulder. After the initial shock, I feel a wave of relief course through me at the sight of her, here with us and safe again. Apparently I was more worried than I even let myself admit. Then I mentally kick myself, since I should know by now that she's at least a thousand times tougher than I am, and can totes handle herself. Still, I can't help letting out a happy sigh, feeling at ease for the first time in hours.

"So, there wasn't much going on over there," she begins, not bothering to give us a chance to ask her how it went. "Nothing creepy or evil, anyway. I got kind of bored trying to figure stuff out, so I brought this back with me, since maybe we'll have a better chance of knowing what's up if we just ask." She flings the pink bundle down onto the snow next to our oil lamp, where Jake and I had just been sitting, and I gasp, getting a good look at what she's taken from the castle.

"Marceline!" I yell in a panic. "You were supposed to check things out, not kidnap the princess!" I drop to my knees next to Princess Bubblegum and brush the bright magenta hair away from her face. She doesn't stir. "What did you do to her?"

Marceline crosses her arms across her chest and frowns. "I just scared her a little until she fainted," she defends herself. "It's not like she's hurt or anything. You're welcome, by the way."

I look up at her in surprise after checking P.B.'s vitals. "Are you kidding? This was not part of our plan," I say, unable to keep my boiling anger from revealing itself in my voice.

"Plan?" she laughs. "You didn't have a plan. You wanted to rush in there, swords blazing, and tear the place up with no real info. I made a new plan," she says in an unapologetic tone. "One that actually makes sense."

"No," I argue, standing back up to face her. "You made a mess. How are we supposed to explain to Princess why she's been kidnapped from her home by the good guys? And what about Ice Prince, huh? You think he won't notice or mind that his wife's gone missing in the night? What were you thinking?" I yell.

I brace myself for a fight, setting my jaw and jutting my chin toward her, showing her that whatever demon power she throws out won't intimidate me, not while I'm this angry. She doesn't yell or transform, though. She just lets her feet touch down on the snow and shakes her head. "I was thinking that you'd be relieved to have your precious Princess out of harm's way," she says. "I was thinking that all of this, the recon, the inevitable battle you're planning, it's all to get her back anyway, so I saved you the trouble. Now you get to find out about your enemy from the person closest to him, and she'll be safe and sound while you go defeat him. Then you return, the triumphant hero, and you get the girl you wanted all along. Happily ever after and all that," she laughs humorlessly. "But if you don't appreciate my help, then fine. I'm out."

And with my mouth hanging open idiotically, she springs up from the ground and flies away. It seems to be her preferred method of ending our arguments.

Jake exhales loudly behind me. "Wow, that was awkward."

I glare at him. "Saying it out loud doesn't help."

"Finn?" a small voice below me asks, sounding confused.

Instantly, I forget about whatever I was saying to Jake and kneel down again in the snow. "Yes, Princess, it's me," I tell her. "I can explain everything, but first let us take you somewhere safe."

She looks around to take in our surroundings, worried, but lets me pick her up without protest. I climb on Jake's back and he grows to the size of a large horse, with long legs that reach the ground below the mountains. We reach the Grass Lands in a matter of minutes, and just as we do, Princess Bubblegum goes rigid in my arms and grasps me tightly. I look down at her, slightly alarmed.

"Oh Finn," she says, her voice shaking. "You don't know what you've done."

No, I guess I don't. But I stay silent, putting a comforting hand on her back, letting her cling tightly to me until we're safe inside the tree fort.


The princess sits in silence for too long. Jake keeps looking to me, asking me with his eyes why I'm not pressing her for information. But every time I open my mouth to ask her a question, her somber face- staring down into the hot cocoa Beemo made for her- stops me in my tracks. I'm not sure how to continue, if I should explain to her why she's here, or jump right in and ask what she knows about her husband's involvement in Nick's plans to kill me. So I stand in the middle of our living room rather stupidly until I see tears falling down her pale pink cheeks, and I go to her. Jake retrieves his favorite blanket, the green one he's had since he was a puppy, worn thinner over time, but still so soft, and gives it to me to wrap around her shoulders. I do, and she buries her face in my chest to cry. No sobbing or sniffling or labored breathing, just tears soaking into my shirt. Finally, I can't take it anymore.

"What did he do to you?" I ask quietly, but my voice is firm.

She looks up at me with her tired, glassy eyes. "He wouldn't hurt me, Finn. He loves me," she says simply, her voice steady despite the tears. "It's what he's going to do to you. How much do you know?"

I decide the truth, with no sugar-coating, is the best answer. "He's not who he says he is. He's an evil wizard who hates humans and yesterday he tried to have me killed."

"What?" she gasps, sitting up stiffly and pulling away from me. "That's impossible! He couldn't have!" she says frantically.

"He did," I assure her. "Princess, why don't you tell me how much you know. And why exactly you never spoke up until now if you knew he was some kind of a threat to me."

She shakes her head in protest. "No, you don't understand, I didn't tell you because he wasn't a threat!" she exclaims. "At least, he promised he wouldn't be."

"That doesn't make sense," I tell her, feeling confused..

She lets out a long sigh. "Okay, okay." She closes her eyes and seems to gather her thoughts before speaking again. "I don't know where he came from, but he's been looking for you for a long time. He heard tales of a legendary hero of our land, a human, and he came to Ooo to find you, and to kill you. It was a happy coincidence for him to find the Ice King here as well, who he still claims is his father, but I don't know if it's true. It's so hard to tell what's true anymore." She pauses, looking defeated, but then continues. "But he says that when he saw you with me, his plans changed. He told me that he fell in love with me so completely that he gave up his quest to end the human race, and he set out to find my father, so he could prove his worthiness to me, and make me forget about you. Of course, I didn't know any of this at the time. I was grateful that he brought back my father, and I still can't believe I have him back. But nothing could have made me stop caring for you, Finn. Not even my father's request that I marry the man who rescued him."

I hold up a hand to interrupt her. "But that's what you told me. You said it was your royal duty or some junk."

She swallows, and looks at me meaningfully, with what looks like regret in her eyes. "I couldn't tell you the truth, because I knew you would have put yourself in danger trying to fight for me. When I denied his proposal, he felt he had no choice but to threaten you. He told me that if he couldn't have me, he'd have to destroy the person who stood in his way. I know you're strong Finn, but I was afraid for you. I saw him defeat the Ice King and mercilessly banish him from this realm. He somehow located my father easily, when Ooo royalty had teams of experts searching for him for years, and had finally declared him dead. I knew he had so much power and I was afraid. So we struck a bargain."

I shut my eyes tight as if somehow, I can stop her next words from coming, because I know those words, and everything they mean will shatter my world. I know it won't work, so I give her what must be a pained look, and beg her, "Please, don't say it." But I know she's going to go ahead and say it, and I brace for the truth, which just a few weeks ago, I fantasized about hearing, and now, I'm scared it might break me.

"I married him, and in exchange, he made a Royal Promise never to hurt you." Dropping her chin down and looking at her lap, she lets her words and their unspoken meaning resonate in my core.

She married him to keep me safe.

She married him because she loves me.