Not even an hour after his wife died, Martin had buried and set a grave marker for her a little deeper into the forest, where some wild flowers grew and things were still beautiful. Marceline watched him from a few feet away as he stood in silence for another twenty minutes before returning to the house. After a full minute of staring straight at Marceline, he quietly announced that he had business to attend to. His daughter looked too much like his late wife, and he didn't think he could look at her without crying. It was way too much for Martin to deal with.

He left Marceline alone in that house, and she couldn't say anything about it. There was nothing to say, so she held Hambo and hiccupped while she cried for nearly an hour after he departed.

If Marceline held Hambo close enough, she could swear that he smelled like her mother and father. Although her parents were gone, she still had Hambo; her mother even said he would make sure she was never alone.

It was a thought that kept her spirits up.

Several months later, Marceline was still attempting to adjust to her new life. She managed to find money all around the house and purchased food for herself at ridiculous prices, and even managed to go home and cook it without burning something down. However, it was the silence that nearly killed her. Everything around her house suddenly seemed much larger than it actually was. She no longer had her father's stories, or her mother's lullabies.

However, despite her best efforts, people did see her coming in and out of the forest where the man-eater was said to have lived. They even found her house, and they ransacked it while she and Hambo hid amongst the trees. They didn't get much despite their efforts, just some spare change and that expensive vase in the hallway her mother liked so much. Marceline was smart, and hid jewelry and other small valuables under a loose floorboard she pulled up from under her bed.

Although it scared her to think that these people could come back any time they wished, Marceline was a brave little girl and she tried not to let it bother her.

She managed to go through her days with Hambo, and even met some other children at a run-down park on a relatively quiet day one afternoon. When she got home, she found an old, dusty cookbook and even made a chocolate cake with Hambo (she was covered in flour and chocolate, but it was delicious and fun and it reminded her of her mother; she cried while she ate that cake but she would never admit it to anyone). Her days were quiet, filled with her imagination and Hambo, but it was becoming a peaceful quiet.

Marceline should have realized that History always repeats itself.

The moment she found her way in the world, the very second when she was beginning to come into terms with everything she had and everything she lost, the world made it its mission to disrupt and uproot her life.

She was lying in the grass outside of her house, staring up at what little of the sky she could see past the trees when she saw something fly by. She immediately sat up, recognizing the object as a plane. Planes never flew over the city, and so she found herself climbing the closest tree with Hambo in order to see where it was going.

She watched in horror as it dropped a bomb. Overhead, other planes were joining the fray, and Marceline had to pry herself away once the city started to go up in a ball of flame.

Marceline trembled in fear, and something inside her told her to run.

She found herself in front of the cellar door, pulling it open with a grunt. Once inside, she slammed it shut, and got down on her hands and knees as she attempted to find a hiding place. It was too dark to see, the lamp was too high for her to reach, and she didn't trust her legs to keep her upright. Marceline made it to the cabinet where she started to store canned food and knocked everything into the floor as she crawled inside with Hambo. Despite her best efforts to come up with a plan, she didn't know what to do, other than to just sit there and wait for the chaos outside to pass.

Although she doubted the bombs would go off anywhere near her house, there was always the fear of the unknown… and the sinking feeling that if something horrible did happen, her mother and father weren't there to help her. Though the explosions outside were horrifying, what Marceline truly feared now was being alone. She no longer knew what to do.

Somewhere outside, she heard someone screaming and begging for their life. She covered her ears and closed her eyes, believing that if she sat there long enough, everything would stop.

She tried not to flinch when the cellar door opened and someone walked inside. The clicking of their boots sounded all-too familiar, but Marceline was absolutely convinced that her best chance of survival was to sit still and wait, and that perhaps they wouldn't notice her and Hambo. Her heart jumped in her throat when she heard the click of the lamp and the lights flickered on. Don't move, she told herself as she sat there.

"Marceline?" The last thing she expected was a familiar voice. "Marceline, are you in here?" It was her father. Word traveled fast between Earth and the Nightosphere and when Martin heard that bombs had fallen, he knew he needed to see his daughter.

In her haste to get out of the cabinet, Marceline hit her head. "Daddy?" She crawled out, and immediately ran for him, lifting her arms up for him to pick her up. He obliged, holding her against him. With a sigh of relief, Marceline rested her head against his shoulder.

Martin's hands trembled as he brought her back outside, and he avoided letting her see the body of the man whose soul he just sucked out. A heavy silence fell between them as he walked her into the house.

"…Will you be staying, daddy?" She finally asked.

Martin placed her in her bed and brought the blankets around her. "No." he answered, sitting down at the edge. Right when it looked as though she were about to cry, his gaze wandered down to his hands. "I'll be back though. I have to tie up some loose ends in the Nightosphere."

Marceline wanted to believe her father, she really did. However, after months of being alone in the house, she wasn't sure she could. "Do you promise?"

"Yes." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I'll leave when you fall asleep."

True to his word, Martin sat there for well over an hour as Marceline fought sleep. She didn't want to see her father leave, but as young as she was, exhaustion took over. When she woke to an empty house, she wished that everything that happened the day before was just a dream. Marceline didn't want to think about how much it hurt to realize her father just came and left.

A/N: This concludes chapter two guys! We'll be entering Marceline's teen years in the next chapter. C:

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