The end is in siiiight! I've got maybe two or three chapters left to write? This was supposed to be the first half of a chapter but the characters ran away with me and so I had to split it in two.
Who's awesome? You guessed it. IAmTheTrashPanda deserves much love for her excellent proof reading on this chapter. Please accept my deepest apologies if the physics explained here are not quite on point. I'm afraid physics is a weak spot in my scientific background that I've been remiss in educating myself on. But hopefully it all makes sense. Alternate realities, ftw!
Content Warning: Snooping. Kids, do not snoop in your parents' bedrooms. Don't do it. You might be mentally scarred by what you find, parents have sex lives too and not all of them are strictly vanilla. Somewhat mutilated Casablanca quotes; my apologies to the eternal soul of Humphrey Bogart. Physics, implied emotional but not genetic incest and all the horrified reactions that come with it, hints at ladysexing. If you think you recognise a universe? Probably cause I borrowed it from a readily available source with the author's permission.
"Mom's acting weird."
Those weren't the words Finn wanted to hear before his eyes were even open. He could see his sister's blue glow through his eyelids and thrust his head under his pillow in frustration.
"Go 'way, Firefly. I don't care." he mumbled sleepily.
"Finn! Come on, I think something's up with her! She's been super quiet since that night you went flying together and you started wearing your arm, did she say something to you?"
He sighed and sat up, glaring at the unwelcome intrusion of light into his bedroom. Phoebe was sitting cross legged on the end of his bed peering down at him worriedly, blue flaming brow furrowed anxiously. By the light flooding in around the edges of his curtains Finn figured he must have slept until mid-afternoon at least; there wasn't so much he wanted to get out of bed for anymore. He cast his mind back to the night at the mountain pool, trying to remember what they'd talked about past the drowsiness still fogging his brain.
"She said a bunch of stuff. We talked about when she got bit by the Vampire King and junk. Loads of people have bad stuff happen to them and they just get on with it, so I guess I gotta too. I'm not the only one dealing with stuff." he shrugged with a sigh. His mood was no better than it had been the week previous but he was at least more resigned to his fate as a one-armed comet boy. His brother's impending wedding wasn't cheering him up any either, more than ever it felt like there were a thousand years between him and Jake now.
"She's been acting strange since before Zoe and Matilda left. I dunno, something's weird. Like, she's tense. Mama too. And it could just have been the stupid election biz or it might have been the- uh, other stuff." Phoebe finished lamely. She knew how badly her little brother reacted to any mention of the comet.
"Yeah. Other stuff, maybe." Finn agreed, still sleepy and a little slow on the uptake. "You think we need to snoop around some, find out what's going on?"
"Or we could just ask her." Phoebe suggested. The way she was twisting her hands together in her lap gave away her anxiety though; Finn knew that if subtle questioning had worked she'd never have come to him. Phoebe just needed him to be the one to do the snooping because she was too much of a perfect little princess to go through their Mom's stuff herself. Finn might not be the brightest guy in the world but he knew when she was manipulating him and he wasn't about to give in without a fight.
"We'll go tonight. She's busy with Mama organising Jake's stupid wedding, they'll be distracted for ages. And I think Lady wanted Mama to scan the pups too, check everything's ok with them. We'll have a few minutes to look around their bedroom but you gotta stand guard, ok?"
Phoebe waivered, he could see the warring urges plain as day on her face. Others might find her hard to read but she was his sister, he'd been able to predict her emotions at a glance since before he could write his own name.
"Come on, Firefly. What happened to being heroes?" Finn added quietly. "Don't bail on me too, I can't deal if you and Jake both give up on me. You wouldn't break a hero's oath to a cripple, would you?"
"Fine." she breathed, rolling her eyes. "We're heroes together, forever. I'll stand guard but you better be quick."
"Thanks, Firefly." Finn murmured quietly as he slid his good arm around her shoulders in a brief hug.
The evening came around quickly enough; by the time Finn had showered, eaten a clumsy late lunch and mooched around the library for a while it was beginning to get dark and his sister's significant glances and throat clearing weren't lost on him. Unfortunately they weren't lost on Peppermint Butler either, who fixed the pair of them with a steely glare and crossed his arms in what he probably thought was an imperious manner.
"And just what do you two have planned that's so secret and important you can't say it out loud?" he asked suspiciously. Phoebe looked horror stuck but Finn knew exactly how to handle the little candy man.
"Uh, it's a surprise for Mama. To say thank you for fixing my arm." he lied smoothly. "You understand, right? It's strictly need-to-know."
Peppermint's expression immediately softened at the mention of his favourite queen and oldest friend.
"I see. Well her Majesty has been under a lot of pressure recently, it's very thoughtful of you to arrange a surprise gift for her. Just promise you won't leave the palace or get yourselves in any trouble." he added, eyes narrowing slightly. Peppermint Butler may be easy to manipulate if he thought it was for Bonnie's benefit but he'd had sixteen years' experience dealing with Finn and he knew the youngest prince was more than capable of getting himself in all kinds of trouble without ever leaving home.
"On my honour." Finn replied with a gallant bow. The he straightened up, grabbed Phoebe's arm and towed her from the library before she could blow their flimsy cover.
"Nice going, brainlord. Now we have to get a gift for Mama too." Phoebe hissed at him once they were safely on the stairs to their mothers' bedroom.
"Yeah? We'll get her a book or something, I'll ask Olgar to go into town and pick up something old looking from one of the shops. He won't mind." Finn shrugged as they rounded the corner cautiously, ears pricked for the sound of Banana Guards unexpectedly heading their way. Nobody was around and there was no light shining from under the bedroom door so Finn let them in as quietly as possible.
"I'll wait here. Be quick and if you get caught I was coming to tell on you. Deal?" Phoebe muttered as he slipped inside.
"Ah dude, that's so lame. And totally something you'd do. It's brilliant and if we do get caught you totally owe me one for it. Now keep a look out and make a sound like a snow-owl calling for its mate if you hear anyone coming.
"What does that sound like? Finn? Finn!"
Too late, he'd already closed the heavy door in her face, leaving her alone in the corridor and fuming silently to herself.
He didn't have to search for long. There was something glaringly out of place on his Mom's nightstand; a jar of dark green pickles with an old fashioned looking label. Marceline didn't eat mortal food, there was no reason he could think of for them to be there. Finn picked the jar up curiously and turned it around and around, frowning down at it in the low light and trying to work out if he'd seen that brand anywhere before. It wasn't like he did a lot of grocery shopping, the Banana Guards took care of that sorta thing.
"Prismo's Artisanal Pickles." Finn muttered aloud to himself. "Wonder where they-"
He broke off in sudden panic when a noise from outside like a strained hooting hit his ears. That was Phoebe's lame attempt at a snow-owl's mating call, Finn realised. He froze, wondering where he could hide. If it was Mom then nowhere was safe, she'd smell him before she was even through the door and she could hear his heartbeat from across the room. Mama was easier to sneak away from but she was the smartest person on the planet, no way she'd neglect to look under the bed or in the closet.
"Firefly? There you are sweetie, what are you doing? We wanted you in the dining hall, we were going to run through Jake's wedding dinner. Have you seen Finn? Why are you standing in front of my bedroom door?"
It was Mama then. That was... Finn didn't know if it was better or worse. Mama could lose her temper quite easily and yell, Mom was usually a lot calmer. Next second he heard his sister's muffled reply and cringed; damn Firefly and her goody two-shoes nature.
"Oh! Yeah, um... I was... Look, Finn wanted to go through your stuff cause he was worried about Mom and I agreed to stand guard. I'm sorry Mama, I didn't wanna but he guilt tripped me by making me promise on that stupid hero oath from when we were kids. He's right inside, he was looking for clues."
"Tattle-tale." Finn muttered to himself as he hurriedly went to replace the jar of pickles. His thumb brushed over the spikey 'P' on the label just as the door began to creak open.
"You're a little too old for these kinda weak pranks, honey." Bonnie sighed over her shoulder. "Come on downstairs, we'll find Finn later."
Phoebe went to follow her mother, still shaking her gummy pink head in parental disappointment, but for a second more she lingered and glanced into the bedroom before Bonnie closed the door. It was empty, no sign that anything had been disturbed save for the slight jostle of pickles in a jar on Mom's night stand, rippling from recent movement. Wherever Finn had hidden he'd fooled Mama; his sister just shrugged and walked away to the dining hall.
...
"Of all the Time Rooms in all the multiverses he walks into mine. Finn the human, a living legend. Your Mom was right; you really do have a nose for trouble."
Finn looked around in confusion. The dark bedroom had disappeared around him in a swirl of colour and he was standing in a well-lit yellow room full of doors and not a lot else. He spun on his heal to face the voice that addressed him.
"Wow, dude. You're a shadow." Finn breathed in confusion.
"I sure am. Well spotted. My name's Prismo, welcome to my Time Room." the stranger replied.
"Where are we? This is in the palace?" Finn asked, looking around curiously and staring out of the nearest doorway into the nothingness beyond.
"Technically no. And yes. We're everywhere and nowhere. Finn, do you know much about alternate dimensions, string theory and the multiverse? No? Ok, well... think of it like this. The whole world you live in is like a page in a book. And there aren't just lots of other pages in that book, there are an infinite amount of pages. Everything you could ever possibly imagine happening is in that book. And then you pull back a little and notice you're in a library full of books. An infinite amount of books. And all of them contain everything that could ever happen in every infinite universe. Do you understand?"
Finn shook his head, it sounded worryingly like something his Mama would have tried to explain to him.
"So we're... in a library? But where are the books?"
"Not a literal library. A metaphorical, metaphysical library. Every page of every book is a universe, completely separate from every other universe. There are so many of them, all squished together in space-time and extra-dimensional space. And none of them touch for very long, only for a moment, only enough to let tiny bits of their world into another world. Like your Aunt Eagle Mask, she came from another page of another book from another shelf entirely. One day she'll go back there. But if you imagine every world is a page in a book in an infinite library then where we are now is outside the library door. You see? You're outside of space and time. Outside of dimensions. You both exist and don't exist, you're a Platonic ideal. Finn, you stepped through a door into another world and another time." the pink shadow man sighed in frustration when the boy just continued to stare at him blankly.
"Dude, I travelled in time?" he gasped, amazed.
"Sorta. In space-time. Outside of space-time. Or more accurately space-time travelled around you. It doesn't matter. I expected you'd come by sooner or later, why'd you think I asked your Mom to teach me the banjo? Apart from it being a totally rad ice breaker for parties. She was so worried you'd find your way here and in an infinite number of universes you didn't. You're getting yelled at by your Mama for going through their stuff, or by your Papa, or by your artificially created cyborg nanny. Or you're battling a monster, studying for tomorrow's exam, hugging your friend while she cries- Finn, the possibilities are literally endless. But this version of you is here and you've got some questions. You're the reincarnation of the chaos comet. There are places you'll find yourself coming back to over again and this is one of them. There's a reason you're here and neither of us really knows what that reason is right now. But I trust the cosmos, you must need to see something. So. What do you need to know?" Prismo asked in a business-like manner.
Finn paused, trying to process all of that. He was in something like the control room of the multiverse and apparently he could look in on all the other potential worlds that existed in a parallel time to his own. Like the Wood Between the Worlds, he realised. Marceline had recounted the whole Chronicles of Narnia word perfectly from memory to him and his brother and sister when they'd been very young. Finn had always hoped the wood was a real place; perhaps in one of the infinite parallel universes it was. But the pink shadow man called Prismo had said he could ask anything, know anything. Anything that it was impossible to know in the universe he came from. All of a sudden Finn knew exactly what he wanted to ask.
"Can I see the universe where I meet my human Dad? I want to know what he was like. The universe that's just like home, only he's alive. I just... I always wanted to know." Finn finished a little breathlessly. He'd kept his desire to connect with his human roots a secret from his parents for years, worried they'd mistake his curiosity for rejection of their love.
"Man, are you sure? I don't think you're gonna like that world." Prismo replied.
"I'm certain. I just need to see it." Finn replied decidedly.
"Ok, well if you insist."
The whole of the wall in front of them suddenly lit up like a movie screen; Finn sat automatically and the floor sprouted a comfy couch that he unthinkingly settled back into.
"Hey, that's Jake!" he said excitedly. "And who's the Dog lady with him? That's... not Jake? Is that his Dad? They look really alike. Hey, it's me! That was my baby hat, Mom still has it in her drawer! So, Jake's parents found me? But... where's Mom?"
No sooner were the words out of Finn's mouth than the screen refocused on a different location entirely, a spot on the edge of the Candy forest where his Mom hovered half visible with her axe bass around her shoulders, gazing at the rooftops of the Candy Palace in the distance with tears welling in her green eyes.
"So long, Bon. I hope you'll remember me sometimes." she muttered to herself, before turning back in the direction of the grasslands and disappearing amongst the trees.
"Where's she going?" Finn asked in confusion.
"Away." Prismo replied simply. "She left for ten years. Went... well, everywhere. Went home for a while, fought with her Daddy and left again. Went to the Citadel just in time to find the ashes of your aunts when they were murdered in their sleep by a group of rebels a few years later. They're dead in this universe. Peppermint Butler arranging for them to come to the palace literally saved them. Then your Mom went to a desert and stayed there alone for a while. Just... thinking, I guess? Anyway, that's where she went."
"Aunt Zoe and Aunt Tilda died?" Finn gasped.
"Fraid so. Wrong place, wrong time." Prismo replied solemnly. "Let's skip ahead until you're a bit older. Those Dogs raised you and Jake to be heroes, you're an unstoppable duo. Your adoptive parents died, you moved out with Jake into an unused treehouse you found, And one day the owner of that treehouse came home to find two strangers asleep in her bedroom."
"Oh, I bet Mom was pissed." Finn gasped. He watched in fascination as another version of his mother, looking identical to the one who'd raised him save for the lack of wedding ring, hissed at the alternate version of himself from the ceiling and proceeded to kick him and Jake out into the rain.
"It's a kinda long story. Basically she decided you were cool and you could stay in the treehouse, she went back to her cave. The junk leading up to your human father starts after, I just thought you'd need some context." Prismo explained. "You have a ton of surreal adventures, until-"
He pointed to the screen and Finn was looking at himself freeing a portly, balding man with a huge sandy beard from what looked like some kinda crystal prison. He recognised that at least, he'd read about the Crystal Citadel in school.
"My Dad was a criminal?" Finn asked, face falling.
"Sorry, bro. I told you that you wouldn't like this world." Prismo reminded him gently.
"What's he doing? Why's he leaving?" Finn demanded. The playback stopped, frozen as other-world Finn stared in disappointment at his biological father who appeared to be shrugging nonchalantly.
"Do you want me to rerun the scene? You gotta focus on the dialogue." Prismo replied. Finn watched in silence as his birth father brushed off his alternate self, turned away and tried to escape through a portal. When other-world Finn's arm was ripped away a single tear tracked its way down his alternate's cheek. Finn's hand was on the invisible join between his own elbow and the elaborate prosthetic his Mama had made for him.
"Stop. Just, stop it. I don't wanna see more." he muttered when the tower into space provided other-world Finn with nothing more than a heartfelt rescue by the woman who should have been his adoptive mother. "Why's Mama not wearing a wedding ring? Where are the scars on her face? Is she even talking to Mom? I don't like this world. I don't like humans, everything I've ever heard about them has been bad. And where's my girlfriend?"
"Oh. Um. About that-" Prismo started awkwardly, but not before Finn caught a glimpse of himself kissing his own sister.
"EW! DUDE! SWITCH IT OFF!" he screeched in horror. "What the fuck? Why would you ever show me that?"
"You asked!" Prismo told him defensively. "Look, would it make you feel better to look at some other universes?"
"Yeah. Ok. Can I see one where my parents are really happy together?"
"Sure. You want a human universe?"
"Yeah. I wanna see what they'd look like if they were human too. But, like, an exciting universe. I don't wanna see them doing boring stuff like watching movies or grocery shopping." Finn nodded.
The screen flickered back to life and he was staring at his own parents as humans and it was weird. There was Mom, same long silky black hair but her ears were rounded like his and her skin was a smooth nut-brown. And Mama's skin was the same soft peachy-cream as his own, her hair was pulled back into a messy strawberry-blonde bun as she launched herself into his Mom's arms, kissing her enthusiastically in a snowy forest.
"Wow. They look... has Mama been crying?"
"Yeah, a little. She, um, saw something that upset her. Look there's a pile of context here that you've missed and I really don't think you need to see what happens right after this. Do you wanna go back to the start of this storyline so you understand how they got here?" Prismo asked carefully, pausing the action just before Mom's hands could slip into his Mama's jeans.
"Ew. Dude. Yeah, we'll skip that bit. I wanna see the story from the start though." Finn agreed. Prismo placed a tub of popcorn he'd pulled from nowhere on the coffee table that had sprouted from the floor and without thinking about it Finn reached for it with his robotic arm and settled into watching the whole adventure unfold before him in a strange, human world.
...
Nobody had snuck up on Marceline in years, not since that time years earlier when Jake had surprised her in the palace kitchens. And it wasn't like she didn't know Finn was there, she simply hadn't expected him to suddenly fling himself around her neck like that and hug her so tightly she was glad she didn't have to breathe.
"I love you so much, Mom." he told her seriously.
"And you know I love you too, squirt. What's all this about?" she replied, hugging his arms back as best she could.
"Nothing. I just, I love you. Mama too. You guys are brilliant. And I'm so glad you're together, you make each other really happy. I just, I wanted to tell you."
Next second he pressed a hasty kiss to her cold cheek and skipped away, presumably to find his Mama and give her the same treatment. Marceline shook her head at his retreating back and sighed, putting her banjo down. She was ninety nine percent certain he'd been to Prismo's Time Room, the one place in existence she really didn't want him to go. He smelled vaguely of pickles and that uncertain cleanliness that came from temporarily being an abstract ideal; it had taken days for her own scent to return to normal after her first visit with the time creature. But given that Finn was a cosmic entity of some description it made sense that he'd be unconsciously drawn to another cosmic entity like Prismo. The shadow man had warned her that Finn was a focal point for the cosmos, he would receive Cosmic Owl dreams and become embroiled in cosmic events whether he wanted to or not. A quiet life would forever be denied to her youngest son but if she knew him half as well as she thought she did then Finn definitely wouldn't mind.
That night as they undressed for bed Bonnie was quiet too, obviously thoughtful.
"Did Finn come by and hug you half to death then tell you he loved you more than anything in world today?" she asked her wife after a while.
"Yeah. I have this feeling like he's been to Prismo's place and seen something that upset him." Marcy sighed. She'd brought Bonnie along on her last two visits, her wife would have staked her into a pile of ash for not sharing that particular discovery at the first possible opportunity.
"Maybe he got traumatised by viewing the universe where he and I got married." Bonnie replied with a disgusted frown, still freaked out by that.
"You asked if we ever ended up with anyone else!" Marcy replied defensively. "Sorry if you didn't like that!"
"Ok? But who the hell was that brunette? She was all over you!" Bonnie shot back, still jealous.
"I have no idea. Come on, babe, let's not argue about stuff that didn't even happen in this timeline. At some point in some universe you married Finn and had half-candy babies with him. It's gross but it's not outside the realm of possibility if you hadn't raised him from a baby and weren't exclusively into women. And in some even more distant universe I apparently was perfectly happy to suck face with some gorgeous-"
"Marcy!"
"-sorry but she was hot!"
"Oh, is that so? I'll show you who's hot." Bonnie replied with a possessive growl. She dropped the nightdress she'd been about to wiggle into and launched herself at her wife. Marceline caught her easily and let her lips be claimed in a jealous kiss.
"You're mine." Bonnie told her fiercely when they broke apart. "Forever. I'll teach you to kiss other women behind my back in alternate realities."
Marcy just leaned in and kissed her again, perfectly content to let her wife push her down into the bed and claim her again. Because after the trauma of discovering that their relationship lay in tatters in so many infinite realities Marceline needed the comfort of knowing that in the here and now Bonnie loved her and needed her every bit as much as she needed her wife. She understood Finn's need to let his parents know how much he valued them. More than an hour later as her wife curled half asleep on her cool chest and slid sated, warm fingers across the curve of her thigh Marcy let out a contented sigh.
"I love you, babe. If there's a me out there who doesn't then I don't want to meet her. You're my whole world." she murmured into the darkness. Bonnie tried to reply but she was too close to fully asleep, all that passed her lips was an incoherent mumble. Marcy very carefully lowered her into the bed and wrapped the blankets around her, staying awake for a long time and just staring unblinkingly at her wife's perfect face and counting all the blessings she could think of. Soon their eldest son would be married and they'd have grandchildren. Finn was safe and understood that the greatest strength lay in love. Phoebe was a credit to them both, so intelligent and kind. They had a wonderful family, a wonderful life together. She wouldn't have swapped that for any other world in the unfathomable infinity of the multiverse.