I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for reading. You're awesome, give yourselves a hug and know that your beautiful comments are always the highlight of my day. Thank you. c:

She didn't. Marceline didn't show up the next evening. Or the one after that. Not even the third one. Bubblegum stopped feeling bad about what happened and started being angry. She'd been ignored by Marceline before, but it was usually accompanied by some sort of explanation. A goodbye, a lame excuse, a lie, something.

Bonnie was sick to death of Marceline's mood swings. She'd been all over the place recently and it was high time something was done about it. Then she checked herself. The last time she'd yelled at Marceline her friend had vanished for nearly ten years. Not one word in all that time. Maybe there was another way to go about it, another way to figure out what her problem was.

Of course, before she could look into that, Bubblegum would have to be released from bed-prison. Peppermint Butler had teamed up with Lady Rainicorn and Doctor Princess, the three of them were refusing to let her leave her bed. Not even to get paperwork from her desk five feet away! It was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever experienced.

At first she'd thought to do the work at night, but a new guard rotation was instructed to check on her every fifteen minutes. After the first night trying to work around that, she gave up. It was more exhausting to hide all her work and snuff out the lights every time they walked past than it was to just twiddle her thumbs waiting for sleep to come. Ridiculous. She was the princess; she should be allowed to do her work. Honestly.

The fourth day after waking up, she was finally allowed to leave her bed and she threw herself at her work, needing to make up for lost time. It had turned into quite the precariously balanced stack on her desk and she spent two Grod-awful days clearing that up while attempting to simultaneously hear petitions and other complaints from citizens and aristocracy. It wasn't easy and the whole quagmire took several days to iron out. Even sporadic visits from Finn weren't the usual sunshine-on-a-cloudy-day relief she'd come to expect.

At Peppermint's direction, Finn and Jake were required to visit every other day. Sometimes they dragged her places that weren't as exciting as they might've hoped she'd find them. She couldn't be having fun when she was so far behind in her work and worrying over Marceline's continued absence. She even asked the young adventurers if they'd encountered her in their travels, but apparently she was nowhere to be found. And Marceline was good at not being found.

*...|...*

In the end, two weeks and change after her kidnapping, Marceline appeared sitting on her balcony rail. Bubblegum had just walked in after eating in the dining hall much to her disgruntlement to find her perched not-as-precariously-as-it-seemed on the cold steel. She glanced over her shoulder as the door clicked.

"Hey."

Bonnie found herself fuming. She stormed over to her friend with a thunderous expression on her face. She felt like a kettle just reaching boil and her lid was going to blow. "That's it?" she shrieked. "Two weeks you've been gone and all you have to say is… is 'hey'?"

"Woah," Marceline said, eyes wide, hands raised in supplication. "Calm down, Bonnie B. I was with my dad. He's been bugging me about visiting for weeks now. Something about not getting enough 'quality family time'." She said that last with a smirk and made air quotations with her fingers.

"For two weeks?" Bonnie asked, starting to feel sort of silly about being mad. Family time was important.

"Well…" she said, rolling her eyes. "He did throw me in a cell for a few days. He left me in there with some of his more… chaotic demons… thinking they could convince me to take over the Nightosphere for him. You know," she added with a shrug, "the usual." Her fangs caught the moonlight as she grinned. They were so not a normal family.

Bubblegum sighed. "Alright then. I just… you didn't say anything. I get…" she trailed off. Worried, she was worried about the stupid vampire. "Anyway, Finn was concerned when he couldn't find you. He said you were going fairy smashing or something."

"Darn, I forgot about that. I'll make it up to him." She floated closer, her hands in her pockets in the obnoxious carefree way she had. "How can I apologise for making you worry, Bon?"

"Wh-who said I was worried about you?" Bubblegum asked around the lump suddenly sitting in her throat. "I wasn't. Worried I mean."

Marceline chuckled and Bubblegum realised it'd been too long since she'd heard the vampire laugh. "Oh Bonnie," she said gently. "You worry about everything."

She opened her mouth to protest but nothing came out. It was… mostly true. She did worry. Not about everything, that was impractical and would take up too much of her time. But she did worry, yes.

"So what kind of wicked torture will you put me through for not calling?" Marceline was still smiling her cocky smile but something in her voice was different. It wasn't glaringly obvious, but they'd been friends a long time – arguments and falling outs couldn't change that – and Bubblegum could hear it.

She thought a moment, wondering what 'punishment' she could inflict. Then it hit her. "Finn and Jake wanted to throw a party and Peppermint Butler said it was a good idea to reinforce the knowledge that I'm just fine after that… incident… so we're having a party. You can come."

Marceline raised one eyebrow. "A party, Bon? That's the best you got?"

"It's a fancy dress party," Bubblegum added. Marceline would hate it. "The ball gowns and black tie kind." She was rewarded with the most disgusted face she'd ever seen Marceline pull.

"That sounds awful," she moaned. "I suppose I can't come in something more comfortable?"

"No," Bonnie said in a far too gleeful tone. She forcibly collected herself. "You have to wear something fancy. A dress," she added. It would be just like Marceline to turn up in a suit and ruin everything.

"Ugh. Fine. Just this one time." She pulled another face, but it was marred by a smile. "The things I do for you, Bonnibel." She turned for the window. "When is this shindig going down?"

"Probably the night after tomorrow."

"I'll see you there," she said with a wink. "Sleep tight, Princess."

Bubblegum smiled, something warm kindling in her stomach. Something that had been doused when Marceline vanished. It felt nice. She did sleep very well.