Marceline felt herself floating through a furious haze of darkness. The shot from PB had hurt more than she thought. She couldn't tell if it was physical pain or... something else. She was weightless, not falling, just floating. No matter how she fought, she couldn't get a twitch in edgewise. But she couldn't just stp trying to get out of whatever drug daze PB shot her up with.
"Damn it... Peebs..." She chokes out in the paralysis. Whatever PB used was potent even on undead like her.
It feels like an eternity. Gob, how long was she just going to be lying around like this?! She spent so much of the war just asleep as the world was falling to pieces. This time is no different. She's still …
It was just like when she was still a kid... She watched Simon descend to madness... She was just safely tucked away from knowing anything as her mother died... As the world moved on... She could do absolutely nothing. Nothing has changed.
"I'm so... gonna kick you... Peebles..." She bites her lip hard, speaking into the dark.
"...eline..."
"Ma..."
"Marceline!"
Her eyes flutter open, feeling a cold hand on her cheek. It takes her keen eyes a moment to adjust to the figures of Finn, Jake, and her dad bent over her prone form. Her entire body felt heavy and stiff.
"There ya go, champ!" Her dad grins toothily and brushes some frost off her face with his thumb.
"Marcy, what happened?" Finn asks, exhaling a breath of warmth. His eyes are unnaturally blue and glowy.
"Yeah, you and PB just ran in! We come and find ya all out and near iced!" Jake exclaims.
"Wha..." Marceline coughs and chokes out in a weak voice. She immediately makes the mistake of trying to sit up, only to have several parts of her skin crack from the frost that accumulated while she was knocked out, "Ahh..."
"Come on, upsie does it," Hunson picks her up in his arms, "We'll let you thaw out a bit."
"Marcy, where's the princess?" Finn asks Marceline hurriedly, "And Ice King?"
"Peebs went ahead after... fudging shooting me..." Marceline rubs the sore spot on her forehead where the capsule bullet cracked against her skull.
"Wait, wha-" Jake makes a weird face, "PB sh-"
"We gotta find her!" Finn says quickly and starts running ahead.
"Excitable, isn't he?" Hunson chuckles as he follows with a freakishly long stride and stretchy legs, Marceline in his arms still.
"Wait, Jake, what the dingdong happened to Finn..." Marceline looks down to the dog following alongside.
"Ehh... Finn pulled out some weird energy voodoo bazinga stuff and now this whole place has stopped. Ain't gonna be getting up any time so we gotta get to Ice King and deal with this lickety split!"
"The meteor is rather miraculous, hehe," Hunson chortles, "The boy isn't a bad vessel at all."
Marceline thought she heard him mutter in demonic non-speak, "Too bad he couldn't have killed the old coot."
"PB!" Finn cries out as they finally arrive to the inner chamber. They find what looks to be a puddle of growing water as the upper walls seem to be crumbling and melting into chunks. A familiar pink shape and a blue shape are in the middle, where the water has pooled the most.
"What the..."
Finn darts immediately, feet splashing as he goes to pick up the pink shape that is obviously Bubblegum. He turns her over and sees the icicle embedded in her abdomen. However, it doesn't seem to be spreading, and PB isn't bleeding. She is unconscious, and the gem on her crown is suspiciously flickering.
"Peebles!" Marceline leaps from her father's arms, just barely keeping herself afloat as she unsteadily goes to reach the monarch as well, "Peebs!"
Hunson lets Marceline go. He focuses his eye slits on the motionless form of the Ice King not too far away from the princess. The ice monarch no longer has any energy aura, and his pale hairs seem to be... shriveling? What limbs stick out are thin and bony, more than usual. The Nightosphere lord's lips curl into a satisfied smile.
"PB! Hey, say something!" The boy shakes the candy monarch cautiously.
"Finn, maybe get the icicle out of her first?" Jake flails his arms.
"Oi, PB, you better not croak before you answer for shooting me!" Marceline goes and yanks the icicle out. The hole left in the gummy body makes slight squelching noises, but no fluids spill out.
"Gh-ugh!" Bubblegum convulses and yelps as the cold projectile slides out of her body, "Ungh! Ah..."
The candy monarch gasps and breathes heavily as her eyes open and look up at the myriad faces surrounding her upon waking.
"Y-you all..."
"Welcome back to the living, princess!" Jake grins, "Glad to see you weren't really iced."
"Jake," Finn slaps the dog's ear despite snickering himself.
"Marceline!" Bubblegum sits up, wincing a bit from her open wound. The vampire queen looks about ready to slug her. As she braces for impact, Marceline throws her arms around her parka-insulated shoulders instead, "... I'm sorry, Marceline..."
"Shut up, you dingwaddle..." Marceline growls lightly in the hug, "I'm not gonna forgive you that easy."
"... What about the Ice King..." Finn looks to the listless ice monarch now. Cautiously, he takes an icy stalactite that fell and uses it to poke the wizard on the floor. Not getting an immediate response, he turns the body over.
He gasps slightly seeing the desiccated body of the Ice King. The bluish skin was grayer and tight, pulled against the bones even more decrepitly than before. The lush, white beard on his face is falling strand by strand by the second. His sharp toothed mouth is open and agape, with a thin whistle of breath. The crown on his head has its jewels entirely blackened, and the frame is sparking.
"... He did it," PB says as she looks over, "He stopped it..."
"...! Simon!" Marceline rushes over, letting go of PB as fast as she had hugged her. She stares with fear at the shriveled body of the Ice King... or what might have been the ice monarch, "H-Hey... Hey, Simon!"
"..."
"W... what the bunking junk happened here?!" Jake stares, "The guy's like a sad sack!"
"... I shot him with antimagic to deactivate the crown control," Bubblegum lightly covers her own wound, "The fact I'm not frozen over after being stabbed... means it worked."
"Wait, you-" Marceline looks to the princess with a betrayed expression, "You... shot him..."
"There was no other choice," PB says as tonelessly as she can. She doesn't meet Marceline's gaze.
Overhead, large droplets of water start speeding up their descent towards the growing puddle around them. Finn looks about, his eyes glowing. He thought he saw something like a blue wizard's silhouette flutter like a gaseous fart before dissipating into a whisper of nothing. He heard something like a final gasp.
"...I think this thing's broke for good," Finn exhales as his eyes slowly return to normal, "Whatever you did, Peebs, it's totaled."
Marceline caresses that bluish face shakily. As the beard bits fall away, he looks more like when she'd first met him in the fallout... in San Francisco. Strangely, she can swear the corners of his mouth are curling upwards in a slight smile, even as he is dying.
"S... Simon...?" Marceline whispers, scared. She felt just like a little girl again, all of a sudden, on the verge of losing something precious... powerless to stop it...
"Muhh..." His breathing rasps as his voice tries to say something in a low voice. One of those withered hands reaches up slowly, unsure if it would even reach her. She grabs it.
"... Dad... Dad, do something!" Marceline exclaims, voice shaking, "You, you can do something, right? Finn! Use that... that blue power, whatever!"
She looks to the others in the room, pleading. Her eyes land on Bonnibel, who shifts to crawl over to her on her knees.
"He did it … to save all of us, to save you, Marcy," PB says gently, slowly drawing her arms about the despairing Queen, "... I'm sorry..."
"Mhh... Mahrr..."
"...! Simon?" Marceline whispers.
"S... sorreee..." That haggard face with the decrepit smile looks on the verge of calcifying and crumbling away, "M..."
"You're apologizing, you old dum dum?!" Marceline shouts, "No, you don't just do that... You stay around and fix what you did, you hear?! Don't … don't just...!"
"... L... Lahv you..." A final giggle, like that of the crazy old man he is... and yet it was also something she didn't hate. She could listen to that insanity forever maybe, if it meant he could stay... Yet, those eyes are a million miles away, further than ever.
"You dum dum, don't..." Marceline bites her lip hard and doesn't care if she bleeds. Her hand holding his has to be careful not to crush those fragile bones. It's so hard...
"Don't leave..." The Queen whispers with a brittle voice, "I... love you, too... Simon..."
His eyes seemed to stare at her. But she knew he probably didn't see her... see her tears... He was dying.
And then, he was gone.
Following the death of the Ice Monarch, the sphere of the Ice Element was thrown into disarray. The Ice Mountain Peak, displaced and now collapsed, melted entirely within a week of the Crown's defeat at the hands of Princess Bubblegum and Bella Noche. The antimagic itself was entirely expended in cancelling the arcane energies of the Crown, so that is gone now, too. Obviously, the High Wizard wasn't that happy about the whole theft, but he had to deal with too much other stuff to be super PO'd. The remaining forces of ice were all either extinguished quickly, fell into pieces, or fled towards the Frigid Range. Few made it back, given the distance and obstacles. Penguins were being found in every corner of Ooo, having spread considerably over the world during the freak Ice Age.
Those who were hanging on to the cusp of life from the cold virus recovered after a few weeks of warm baths and hot soup... but the dead do not return. It was time to heal.
The ice-ravaged Kingdoms slowly gathered back up their numbers and left the refuge of the Candy Kingdom. They had won.
"Sheesh..." Phoebe sighs as her family quibbles about flying formations and what new styles to use to rebuild the Fire Kingdom following the loss of the fire giant, "Well, see you, Bonnie."
"Take care, FP," PB smiles softly, "Say, did you bring your old man at all, or the suitor he tried to stick you with?"
"Nah, they probably froze and croaked," Phoebe says bluntly.
"Ah," PB looks blankly at that deduction. Of course, neither of the monarchs had much attachment to the old Fire King and his cronies at this point.
Grid-face Princess collects all of her technology, shrinking it back into the neat little grid-faced cubes they use to carry delicate machines. Slime Princess had perhaps the largest amount of people to relocate. Luckily, they were all more or less coalesced into a single ooze, which would make for easy transport and they just break apart later. Hot Dog Princess and her weenie knights rode off in their bun-shaped carriages. Breakfast Princess left a smorgasbord of items in gratitude as her syrup guards escorted her subjects out. Queen Bee remained a bit to help warm up any stragglers.
LSP and Turtle Princess leave the dungeon with sunglasses and face the sun for the first time in what felt like months They were planning a beach day.
"Giirrrl, lookit me! I am so, like, ready for a tanning trip!" LSP exclaims, waving her arms.
"Girl, that would totally look good on you!" TP agrees enthusiastically.
Down in the dungeon, Betty became despondent shortly after the destruction of the magic hat. She's turned on her side on the floor, hugging her knees, not speaking nor moving. She can't hear the voices any more... the voices that told her the secrets to cure Simon...
"... Simon..."
Meanwhile, the two adventuring bros were helping with rebuilding the Candy Kingdom and administering relief to non-kingdom residents. Tree Trunks and her little family had ended up coming at the thick of the winter rolling in and luckily suffered no real lasting trouble. The little elephant kept spirits up with her pie.
"Take care, Tree Trunks. You, too, Mr. Pig, Sweet P."
"Aw, thank you boys, for all you did," The pygmy elephant pats Jake on the head and looks to Finn, "My, Finn, I do declare, were your eyes always so blue, honey?"
The hero's eyes had changed permanently to be a blazing blue shortly after the conflict. It's less any real effect and more just distracting to onlookers.
"Uhh, yeah, I guess, haha," Finn laughs.
The brothers bid the small family goodbye for now, as well as countless other inhabitants from the nearby lands. After another long day of trying to return things to normal, it's already sunset. The Candy Kingdom stands as a lone landmark in the recovering landscape. The Princess dresses in an uncharacteristic denim jacket and fuels up her candy mobile. Calling it a day, she dons a pair of shades and looks out to the dying daylight across her recovering domain.
"..."
She gathers up some sweet flowers from the local florist. These flowers don't die in cold, but they will attract ants and bees. She takes the bouquet in the setting sunlight into her car and drives out, towards the beach. It's a scenic day, watching the sun set into the sea's horizon. Some ice floes reminiscent of the Ice Age remain floating in the distance.
Marceline is sitting in the sand with her zombie dog Schwabl and her axe bass across her lap away from the lapping waves. A beach umbrella shades her from the last of the sun's rays. She's dressed in all black and wearing wraparound shades. Her ear twitches a bit when PB steps onto the sand behind her. She doesn't move from her spot.
"... Hey."
Marceline says nothing as PB sits down on the spot next to her. They say nothing more for a few moments of suffocating silence. Both of them merely look out to the sunset.
"... You got your wish," Marceline says at last, "Candy Kingdom's safe from the scary Ice King."
"I never wanted to kill him. There was no other choice," Bubblegum looks to the woman at her side, "I knew you wouldn't be able to... And I didn't want you to do it, either. He meant a lot to you. I know that. That's why..."
"Whatever..." Marceline scoffs, "You took my dad's advice."
"... What did you want me to do, Marceline? Ooo was dying. You almost..." The words catch in her throat and PB shakes her head.
"Stop making it sound like you did all of that for me!" Marceline snaps, "I didn't want any of that!"
"No one did! But Simon did what had to be done in the end...!" PB finds her own voice rising, "He really loved you."
"... Tsk..." Marceline stands as the sun dips and vanishes into the horizon. She lets her axe fall onto the sand and she kicks up a small bit of dust as the waves near and the moon comes out, "... Like I didn't know that."
Bubblegum looks to her silently as the last of twilight settles. Soon, there should be stars out.
"... It's all just a buncha junk I didn't want to happen. It doesn't make any sense. It's baloney," Marceline runs a hand through her hair, "I keep thinking that... If I stopped you, I could have reasoned with him."
"You tried that before..."
"Yeah, and that doesn't stop me. I wouldn't have minded doing it over and over again... if he could come back... and isn't just croaked forever, you know?"
On the ice floes, they glimpse a series of penguins come out from their little igloo and go for a night swim. A giant monster goldfish swims up and snaps one of them up, sending the rest scattering.
"I'm living forever anyway," Marceline scoffs with a wry smile, "I wouldn't have minded."
"... I wouldn't mind it either," PB says firmly and stands suddenly, "I would've done the same thing as many times as it took."
I didn't want you to go there and face him... and get hurt.
Marceline silently takes off her shades, showing her red eyes in the growing dark. She softly holds her arms, cradling herself as the air begins to turn chilly by the beachfront. Her dark hair flutters in the night breeze like a flag. She raises her head a little and sees the first star of the night twinkling overhead.
"... I guess we both would just be dum dums forever."
"Well, I wouldn't call my choice a dumb one," PB protests lightly and then sighs, "But... Yeah, we'd just be doing the same things over and over again... and I don't regret it."
The sound of the waves creeping closer grows louder. Overhead, the moon hangs at its highest and more stars emerge.
"... I was kinda scared," Marceline mutters, "For you, too."
"... I know," PB looks down a little, "I felt you holding me."
Marceline blushes and hopes the night covered for that. It shows up very obviously on undead skin due to their pallor. Meanwhile, it's much harder to tell for gum.
"... I'm glad you're still here, Marceline," PB says softly.
"Where else would I be?" The vampire queen asks with the slightest bit of her old snark.
"Hey, are we late?"
The vampire and gum person turn to see the large dog carrying the boy coming over. Finn's eyes are like luminous orbs in the dark.
"Some memorial," Marceline scoffs, "Yes, you are late."
"We are right on time!" Jake says with a note of pride, "The thought's what counts!"
"Uh huh."
"Hehe... So, we gonna say some words?" Finn says hopefully, "I'll go first. A-ahem. Ice King, Simon, you were a bag of beans that needed a girlfriend. Like, seriously, dude. You were so desperate. It was seriously gross. I'll always remember kicking your butt, and you taught me a lot on being a hero. Ooo isn't gonna be the same without you."
"Might be safer," Jake coughs.
"I, for one, will not miss you breaking into my Princess Tower and kidnapping me several times. I didn't like what you did for a lot of good reasons, but I won't list them now," PB sighs, "... I will say that your presence was a bit of a constant. I could rely on it among variables. And that was... something comforting, I guess."
It was a very awkward way of saying things, but she tried, at least, with as much tact as she could muster. Marceline can't help but let out a small amused breath at the candy monarch's eulogy attempt.
"... Simon, I love you," Marceline says simply, "I'll never forget you."
Now all eyes look to the stretchy dog.
"Uh... Well, ahem..." Jake says nervously, obviously woefully underprepared, "Ice King, I'm not sure about the loony lady and her hots for you, but you were a pretty... chill guy, I guess. You kinda killed my son, TV, so... yeah."
Somehow, he won the awkward prize from Bubblegum.
"Well, guess that's it," Finn takes out a bottle of water and a bag of ice from his backpack that they bought in advance. They take paper cups with some iced water and pour that out onto the sand after a brief cheers.
"... So, what do we do now?" Jake asks after a moment of silence as they stare off to the night horizon, "Without Ice King, we don't got half as many princess rescues left."
"There's still adventure, Jake!" Finn nods, "And other evil guys out there. Way eviler than Ice King."
"... He was never really evil," PB says quietly, "Just... very misguided, I suppose."
"... Yeah," Marceline looks to the brightening star, "Good ol' Simon."
"Same for that crazy Betty lady now. She's never getting out of that nut house," Jake scoffs.
"Well, I need to get back before the banana guards start throwing cream at our new prisoner again," PB sighs as she goes to walk back to her car. She tosses a glance to the queen, "Need a ride, Marceline?"
"... Sure."
"Alright, take care, princess and Marceline!" Finn hops on Jake and the two walk off with the dog's stretchy stilt of legs. In the dark, Finn's eyes glow a brilliant blue still.
"... He's gonna be that way forever?" Marceline smirks as she packs Schwabl and her base into the passenger side seat.
"I will be doing an eye exam on him tomorrow, but it seems harmless enough," PB says as she enters and buckles up, "... Are you okay?"
"... Yeah," Marceline leans on the door with her arm propped up against her chin as PB starts the engine, "I'll be fine."
As they drive into the night, Marceline and PB are quiet. The queen thinks back in silence to her memories with Simon and the Ice King... or just Simon. All those times in San Fran, running and surviving... All those times of crying and worrying he was losing his mind and leaving her forever... And all those times she thought she hated him, but never really did...
Huh... we never would've met if he... never wore the crown... Marceline realizes briefly.
The crown was something that would bring only despair... It didn't grant wishes. It bought sadness and madness. And yet, somehow...
… Even if I could rewrite it... I wouldn't change that... A wry smile forms on Marceline's lips.
I wouldn't change that we met at all. It's selfish... but I would relive it forever if I could.
At last, she whispers the farewell she had held back since that day. It falls from her lips like a quiet prayer as she closes her eyes and enjoys the wind combing her hair.
"...Good bye, Simon."
Author's note:
And that's THE END of this fic that I dragged out for WAY TOO LONG and I apologize for that. It was originally a "how I think AT would end" thing that was supposed to end before the actual series... and so a lot of the stuff in this fic is dated as heck lol. Anyway, thanks so much for reading!