The house felt empty without Bonnie.
The pain in Marceline's chest had subsided—though not all the way—and she was left feeling hollow and void. She had run out of tears hours ago, and now she just sat on the stiff couch, too mentally exhausted even to hover in the air or to decide what she was going to do next.
What was she going to do next?
She tried to look anywhere but at the crushed roses on the floor.
Bonnie had warned her. She had said, more than once, that they had not been on good terms for a long time. That before Marceline lost her memories the two of them barely even spoke anymore. She had even implied that she was only hanging around so much now because she was trying to make up for lost time, to apologize for not being there for the old Marceline.
The vampire stared at her hands, flexing her fingers open and closed. Who was she, then? If she wasn't the old Marceline, what did that make her? The new Marceline? She had so many memories of her past now, although she knew she was nowhere close to remembering everything. If she kept regaining memories, when did she stop being new Marceline and start being old Marceline again?
Could she ever really go back?
Did Bonnie feel like new Marceline was some sort of chance at redemption? A chance for her to feel like she was making up for the things she'd done without actually having to face them? Perhaps the princess felt that if she pretended Marceline was an entirely different person for long enough, she would feel less guilty about it all.
A knock at the front door startled Marceline from the deluge of questions and she leaped from the couch. Part of her hoped it was Bonnie, but her other parts pushed the hope down and she opened the door, just to have three small blue figures whoosh past her into the house.
The vampire turned, startled, to find three very loud transparent ghosts zooming through her living room. "Ayyyyyy Marceliiine!" one of them stopped in front of her and held up a large bottle of a sickly green liquid that was glowing slightly. "I brought the good stuff!" She raised her eyebrows and shut her door.
She must know these people if they were barging into her house like this.
"Hey, guys." Marceline scratched the back of her neck, wondering exactly what she should do in this situation. One—complete with a transparent blue mohawk—laid back in a relaxed manner, floating slightly above her couch. A second one—a small female—was examining her VHS rack, and the third was still floating in front of her, holding up the bottle. All three of them seemed to be waiting for her to speak.
"Um," she said. "You all know me," she began. "But—uh. I don't remember any of you."
They stared at her blankly; the second one looked up from the scanning of her videos.
Nervous laughter escaped Marceline's lips. "What I mean is. Uh. My memories have been erased," she explained, haltingly. "Well, I remember some things now but nothing about you three—I don't know how it happened, or why, but, yeah, I can't remember anything. About you."
The one in front of her lowered the bottle. "Bummer," he said.
Nobody seemed to really know how to react.
"Well," the one in front of her scratched his transparent head with the hand that held the bottle; the liquid inside seemed to glow a bit brighter as is sloshed around with the motion. "I'm Les." He pointed to the one with the mohawk near the couch. "He's Spike, and that's Annie."
"Hey," Annie said, floating up to Marceline. "Are you sure this isn't one of your classic pranks?"
"Positive," Marceline said firmly, then she registered the rest of the question and asked, "my classic pranks?"
"Girl, you are the queen of pranks," Spike said from the couch. His mohawk bobbed up and down as he nodded. "No, not queen. Empress. You are the empress of pranks."
Marceline furrowed her brow. Something dark and cold swirled in the back of her mind, but the ghosts kept talking and it was lost again.
"What's with the roses, M?" the female, Annie, hovered backward slightly to examine the crushed rose petals on the floor.
"Oh. Those." Marceline's voice sounded dead, even to her own ears. "Those were from Bonnie."
"Woah," Annie said, backing away from the petals.
"Yikes," Spike said seriously from the couch. "Not cool, Marceline."
"You're hanging with Princess Bubble Brain again?" Les looked genuinely worried, and Marceline felt the ache in her chest begin to widen, to deepen.
"No," she said firmly. "I'm not." Angry—at herself, Bonnie, even the ghosts she didn't remember who hung there and judged—she sped to her kitchen and located a broom before violently wrenching the door open and sweeping the petals onto her front steps.
The three ghosts cheered, and Les popped open the cork on that strange glowing bottle, but Marceline did not share their mirth. She only wanted to sleep, possibly for a thousand years.
"You used to love this stuff," Annie said before taking the bottle from Les and taking a huge swig. She handed the liquid to Marceline, who took it warily. "Just about the only thing that can get a vampire drunk."
That finally captured Marceline's attention. She could use a couple hours of reduced nervous system function.
Yeesh, she was starting to sound like Bonnie. That wasn't good.
Marceline took a deep breath, and downed half the bottle in one pull while the ghosts cheered her on.
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Finals are over, so I'm finally able to write again. I wrote this real fast because I figured a short chapter is better than no chapter at all? Maybe? Thanks so much for reading!
