Chapter 6

Ice King was, needless to say, a little surprised at his unexpected guests. Two of which he had fought last they met earlier that day. Oh, but that nice man with the scarf and screwdriver was here!

"Hello again, sir!" The Ice King said. "It's always nice to have guests here!" He greeted The Doctor warmly. Ignoring everyone else.

"You can call me The Doctor. And we are all here on a very important matter." The Doctor said.

"What is it, Doctor?"

"Well, I'll first need to hear your account of the Great Mushroom War."

"Ugh, such a long time ago! I have a tape of some stuff you can watch." The Ice King pops a VHS tape into a player in the living room. Everyone watches intently. The tape reveals a man with olive skin, black hair and glasses. He reveals himself to be Simon Petrikov, an antiquarian of ancient artifacts. Airplanes are seen flying in the sky out a window in the room he is in, and a framed picture is on a table near him. In it are the man and a spectacled woman in a green sweater, and the two appear to be a couple. Simon Petrikov speaks, holding the crown on the Ice King's head in his hands.

"After purchasing this crown from an old dock worker in Northern Scandinavia, I brought it home and excitedly showed my fiancé, Betty. I jokingly put it on my head just for a laugh or something. And that's when it started... the visions. I fought with them, shouted at them until I realized it wasn't real, it was the crown! I quickly took it off, and saw my fiance in front of me, looking at me with such contempt! What had I said? What had I done when I wore this crown? All I know is, I never saw Betty again."

The tape goes fuzzy, and another scene begins, Simon now looking very upset." I know my mind is changing... but I'm already gone too far to know what to do. I want people to know that... if I do things that... if I do things that hurt anyone, please, please forgive me." Simon skin had turned blue and a white beard had begun to grow. He now looks more like the Ice King.

"Just watch over me until I can find my way out of this labyrinth in my brain and regain my sanity. And then maybe Betty, my princess... maybe you will love me again. Please love me again, Betty!"

The transformation is complete, and Simon wails on screen as the tape ends.

The Doctor turns to the Ice King, who is looking embarrassed. "I can't believe I wore those glasses! I looked like a big nerd!"

The Doctor isn't distracted. "Simon Petrikov. I understand everything now. Simon, I understand."

The Ice King looks annoyed. "What, what do you understand?"

"I know why you steal princesses. You loved someone before the War, Betty, your fiancée. Your princess. When that crown made you change, all you wanted was her to return to you. You lost someone you loved, and it hurt you, and it still hurts you. So you steal princesses, because you have lost your own. You are a lonely man, Simon Petrikov, lonely and cold. And I understand what it means to be lonely. But you must remember, you may not feel it now, but you were a human. You, with a human heart and a woman who loved you. Without her, you don't feel human anymore. But, Simon, you are so lonely and afraid. And that is why you are still human. You have a human heart, and it is always hurting. And I am so very sorry."

"No! I am the Ice King!" he protested, backing away and holding his arms up defensively.

"It's all right, Simon. Just listen to me. You are not alone. Do you hear me? You are not alone!" The Doctor assured. He pointed to Finn. "Finn, you are human. Simon, you are human. I know you think you are not alike, but you are. You two are the last of your species. You are alone, together, and therefore not alone at all."

Finn was looking at Simon angrily. "But he's evil! I'm not like him at all!"

"He's not evil, Finn. Just afraid. And anyone can be dangerous when they're afraid. He's been hurting all this time, with a wound that never healed. Well, I am here to heal. I'm the Doctor, and I will make you better. But you have to help me help you."

"Don't you dare patronize me! How dare you come into my domain and try to…probe me! You know nothing of my heart!" The Ice King yelled, his hands glowing with ice magic threateningly. Finn raised his fists with Jake beside him. Marceline hissed," You wanna dance, old man?"

"No! No fighting, no more! Don't you see, this needs to end! Violence doesn't end violence, it extends it. You have to be better, and you can be! I believe in you all, in the humans inside all of you! You are so much better than that, so much more." The Doctor had been moving closer to the Ice King and Finn, both of whom had tears in their eyes. The Doctor addressed Simon, gently moving his hand toward his crown. He took it off of the miser's head. "Simon, believe me when I say I understand you and what you are feeling. I've experienced it all before. Such profound grief and loneliness…I was a husband, Simon. I was a husband, a father, a grandfather, a son, a brother. I sacrificed everything, a whole civilization, for future peace in the universe. And I wake up every day knowing such guilt and loneliness, because I am the ultimate martyr. I am the absolute last of my kind, and there is no going back, only forwards. And I have anger, Simon, anger that while I have no home left, there are others destroying their own. I cannot let the pain and anger consume me. I have to be better than it. I have to save them all, from themselves. And I will save you, and this planet. And you will rise up and be better humans when this is done. Well, not Jake, Jake is a dog."

"Guilty," Jake agreed.

Finn and Simon were staring intently at each other, perhaps for the first time noticing their similarities. Finn nodded," Wanna save the planet with me? ….Simon?" He asked.

Ice King smiled widely and nodded. He shook Finn's hand, old hands surprisingly strong.

"Good, good. Now. I want to find that tentacle creature. Marceline, think. Where did you find it?"

"I don't know, in a big hole in the ground somewhere…Outside my hometown, but I don't know where that is!" Marceline was frustrated.

"Hmm…Simon lived in Northern Scandinavia, a place which was directly affected by the war. If we can assume the Land of Ooo is in the same area, I can search for it." The Doctor was pacing now, waving his screwdriver around the air.

"Wait," Marceline said," you said before you might be able to stop the War from happening in the past."

"If it isn't a fixed point in time, then I could try. I've stopped wars before. There's no telling how different the present might be though. You all might never even have existed in the first place, in which case you never went back in time, in which case you never existed….The war created you so you could stop it and vice versa…A paradox! We run the risk of creating a paradox. This could blow apart the universe as you know it. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let's find this creature first."

They all left the Ice Kingdom in search of the creature who may have started the war.