This was an interesting request fic to write as much because of the subject matter as because of the fact it snowballed into (at least) three chapters. The gorgeous Alquimiaverde requested some real world AU Bubbline with a twist; middle aged Bubbline. So here we are with a forty year old Bonnie and Marcy. It's a wonderful concept because as they so rightly pointed out, there's not many stories featuring older women and it's a nice change of pace to set a romance around the middle years of a character's life.

There's an OC and a sort-of-OC but sort of not. That's all I will say on the subject right now, but I think you'll like them (I hope). More info about them in the next chapter.

Content Warnings: implied hetero sexing by means of biology. Off screen minor character death, feels. Fuzzy warnings for the urge to go hug your mother.

Bonnie downed her fourth plastic cup of fruit punch and wished for the thousandth time that someone had been thoughtful enough to spike it. But no, the drink was completely free of alcohol or anything else that might make her social anxiety just a touch easier to manage. She tried not to crane her neck again and scan the faces surrounding her but it was almost impossible not to keep looking. She'd be there, wouldn't she? She wouldn't miss an opportunity like this.

But the crowd of people standing laughing and joking in their old school library did not contain a head topped with a silky mass of waist length black hair or a voice like the spring thaw in full flow. There was no smooth caramel skin or delicious smile wicked enough to make an angel blush. Defeated, Bonnie grabbed another cup of punch and stared down into its sugary depths. Why had she bothered coming to their high school reunion? There was nobody there she was desperate to catch up with, it wasn't like the last twenty five years of her life since she'd been a student there were worth bragging about. She'd kept in touch with Lady at least, the tall Korean woman had married her high school sweetheart Jake right out of college and their eldest son had recently won a prestigious scholarship; he was off to study economics at Yale in the US. Bonnie was distantly glad for him. Kim seemed like a boy who was really going places although she hadn't seen him in years. He and Bonnie's daughter were the same age and had played together when they were much younger, before Lady had moved the whole family to the other side of the country for work.

"Bonnibel Sugar, lurking around in the classics section like always. You've not changed a bit."

The voice was straight out of her memories but it wasn't the one she'd been aching to hear all night. Still, she turned and spared a hug for the tall, balding man with the infectious grin and boyish sparkle still in his blue eyes.

"Finn. Well look at you, all grown up! God, it's been twenty years!" she replied with a smile that wasn't completely faked.

"I could say the same. When did you cut your hair? No ring on that finger still, I'd never have you pegged as the living alone type." he replied with a smile that wasn't entirely just friendly. Bonnie groaned internally; twenty years and the man still couldn't take a hint.

"Divorced, actually. The paperwork only came through recently but we've been living apart since our son was small." she sighed. And she knew exactly what his next question would be because as lovely as he was Finn Mertens had always been a pretty two-dimensional guy.

"Oh. So, no boyfriend on the horizon?"

More than twenty years. And he was still just as predictable as ever.

"No. No boyfriend. No girlfriend either, although I've come to accept that that would be my preference. Finn, I'm gay." she told him gently. The blonde man's eyes widened.

"Oh. Oh! Right, so did you have the kids with, uh, a woman, or...?"

"The short version? I met a guy, my parents liked him and I thought that would be enough because I hadn't realised then why it all felt so distant and vague. I guess I just thought there was something a bit broken about me. I got pregnant and dropped out of my PhD programme to get married and raise our daughter. We had a son after that and the relationship turned bad pretty much immediately afterwards. He was always either working or expecting me to cook and clean for him and I was already essentially a single mother only it felt like I had two small children and one sulky teenager who'd previously been a husband. I asked him to move out and we've been separated for more than ten years. He only agreed to the divorce now because he finally met someone although he pushed her away pretty quickly after she got to know him a little better. At least I got his signature on the paperwork finally, I thanked her for that. I have a daughter who's almost eighteen, Penelope, and Zak is fifteen. I'm back at university and I should be graduating from my PhD next year. How about you? Fill me in on the last twenty something years." Bonnie finished with a slightly strained smile. She hated going over the same old ground every time she met an acquaintance because it felt so much like admitting to everyone that she was a huge failure.

"Umm, lemme see. I graduated uni and went into teaching, I've got a twelve year old son who lives with his mother, also divorced and just... I dunno, back on the market I guess. Same thing, she was sick of me working and the arguments got pretty heated, she always had a fiery temper. It works better this way. I miss my kid though, he's a great little guy. Are your two more like you then or their useless father?" Finn added with a frown.

"I'd like to hope they're both like me. Penny's got a sassy streak a mile wide, no idea where that comes from. And Zak is almost scarily focused sometimes, he's definitely gonna move mountains one day. I'm so proud of them both." Bonnie replied with an internal sigh of relief. She could talk about her children all night, it was easy and safe and-

"So have you seen Marceline?"

-the exact opposite of what she wanted him to ask next.

"Not since my twelve week scan when I was having Penny. Her career took off and we lost touch." Bonnie replied quietly. That was the heavily edited version but there was no way she was telling Finn about the other things that had happened that night and the other reasons Marceline had disappeared into the wilderness. "I imagine she's in some penthouse in New York snorting coke off the chest of some gorgeous toy boy the same age as my daughter by now."

"She said she'd be here on the Facebook group page." Finn frowned. "Said she was moving back to take a job in radio. I don't think the punk thing ever worked out as well as she was hoping."

"I don't use Facebook." Bonnie murmured. She was desperate for her old friend to go away and talk to someone else. It was torture standing there chatting about her high school best friend and former crush to the guy who'd been so determined to get into her pants when he was sixteen that he'd dedicated the same song to her every weekend for weeks on the school radio because she'd mentioned one time that she liked that song. What she hadn't told Finn at the time was that she liked it because she'd heard Marceline practicing it and had been captivated by her voice.

"Finn! Oh my God, imagine seeing you again!"

It was Lydia, the former school gossip and stealer of many a boy's virginity back in the day. Looked like she'd become a full-grown cougar now. Bonnie stepped back into the gloom between two library stacks when the curvy woman bore down on Finn, she wasn't keen to get into a conversation with Lydia.

"Looks sorta like a deer in the headlights, doesn't he?" murmured a soft voice in Bonnie's ear. She froze, heart almost stopping dead in her chest.

"I waited by the gates for ages, can't believe you came in without me. We always wait at the gates for each other. Jesus, Bonnie, how could you forget that? Rude." the voice continued.

It was like slow motion, like her body just took itself completely outside of her control and spun her around, propelled her forwards and made her cling on like she'd never let go. One second she was standing perfectly still trying to remember how to breathe and the next she was in her high school best friend's arms, face pressed against hair that was still impossibly soft and fell in a long wild cascade over one shoulder. The scent of expensive strawberry perfume and the wild rainy night outside hung around her and Bonnie couldn't quite remember when she last felt like her legs would give way from the simple act of being close to another human being.

"Marcy. Oh, you came." she breathed.

"Gently, nerd. I need to breathe." the taller woman replied softly, though she was holding Bonnie every bit as tightly as the redhead was embracing her.

"You amazing bastard, where have you been? I tried to call but you changed your number? And nobody had your new address. You missed the baby coming." Bonnie said, pulling back to examine her old friend's face minutely. It still hurt, an ancient twist of pain in the middle of her guts whenever she remembered that Marceline had just left without a word. Bonnie had thought it was long ago forgotten but it had apparently just been quietly waiting in a neglected corner of her heart ready to spring out unexpectedly and cause another jolt of anguish when she was least expecting it.

"It all kicked off with the band and we went on tour, like it was a 'go tonight or miss your chance' sorta deal. I came by your place when I got back but he said you were out with the baby and you didn't have time for your friends who actually treated you like a friend so you definitely didn't have time for a deadbeat like me. I got the message, you were going different places to me and I wasn't welcome. Um, you didn't bring him along tonight, did you?" Marcy asked worriedly.

"Who, Braco? We've been separated for ten years. Everything fell apart after Zak was born. My son, he's fifteen now. I just couldn't keep pretending to be happy. It was either leave or- I don't know, it was a bad time. I could have used a friend." Bonnie added a little sourly. Once her excitement at seeing her old friend had faded a little she was right back to being hurt that Marceline had just vanished one day and left her to get on with her life without even saying goodbye.

"Fifteen years ago. I was in Berlin, living with some doofus named Ash who promised he was gonna make me a star. It never happened, obviously. I wasn't in a great place myself. Bon, I'm sorry. I thought you didn't wanna know me anymore, thought you were blissfully happy being a wife and mother. He said you didn't want to see me anymore. If I'd known..."

She lapsed into silence, running a hand distractedly through hair that Bonnie could tell even in the low light was beginning to silver a little with age. Marcy hadn't really changed at all, she was still intimidatingly tall and beautiful with amazing high cheekbones and hazel-green eyes that shone out of her face like she'd been blessed by some ancient forest goddess. Like an Amazon or a dryad or something. Bonnie was very aware that she'd never quite gotten rid of the baby weight from her last pregnancy and she'd just thrown on whatever sweater was cleanest, too busy yelling at Zak to move his school shoes from the middle of the kitchen floor and asking Penny where she'd left the hairdryer last time she'd borrowed it and not put it away after herself. Marceline looked like she'd been dressed by a team of professional stylists. For all Bonnie knew, she had been.

"Listen." Marcy started suddenly. "Do you wanna ditch these losers and go grab a bite to eat or something? Like old times. You were really the only one I wanted to see again anyway."

Bonnie considered. She'd suffered through a few awkward conversations with people she'd known a long time ago and she'd successfully deflected Finn's none-too-subtle advances. There was only so much social she could deal with in one evening and if she was honest it was really only the slim chance that Marceline might be there that had prompted her to come along that night. She cast a quick glance around the library to plan their escape.

"We've got Lydia charming her way back into Finn's pants in front of us, Jake and Lady holding court by the main entrance and that weirdo James Baxter by the punch table. I suggest we slip around the back of the stacks here and out the side door. Reckon it still leads out by the gym?" Bonnie murmured after a second's thought.

"Yeah, I came in that way. Didn't wanna get spotted and have to explain why I didn't have a greatest hits album already. This feels so naughty, like when I used to drag you out to keep watch for me when I was smoking behind the bike sheds." Marcy added with a grin.

"You still smoke?" Bonnie asked in quiet surprise as they moved off behind the stacks together.

"Nah, I quit. Lost my father to lung cancer a few years back and I didn't want to go the same way. That old devil was still smoking forty a day even when they put him on twenty four hour oxygen."

"I'm so sorry, it must have been awful for you." Bonnie murmured. She remembered Hunson Abadeer as a severe man, ramrod straight and the very definition of uptight, permanently dressed as though he was going to an interview with his bank manager. Marceline had fought almost constantly with him since the day she was born; Bonnie hoped they'd finally found some common ground at least before he'd passed away. She followed the taller woman as she slipped noiselessly through the side door and out into the dark corridor that lead off to the gym without a backward glance at the crowd of middle aged former acquaintances who'd made her feel so inferior earlier in the evening. Marceline was really the only one she'd come to see too.

"Do you want a lift?" Marcy asked quietly, a little shyly, when they stepped out into the windy car park at the side of the building. It was raining ever so slightly and the scent of damp Spring buds blowing from the horse chestnut trees on the school field was filling Bonnie with memories of walking arm in arm together along that very path on their way to lunch or field hockey, cracking jokes and loosening their school ties like the pair of rebels they thought they were. God, they'd been so young. So innocent. And now they were sneaking off like sad, middle aged spinsters desperate not to have the rest of their peers discover how badly their plans had worked out. It filled the redhead with a sort of nameless nostalgic longing for the days when everything had been so simple and easy, when they were so young and naive and the future was nothing but an exciting adventure filled with potential.

"I brought my car. But I guess it makes more sense to go in one and just pick it up after." Bonnie murmured, unable to express all those strange feelings that were filling her like a fog. Was there some regret in there too? Would she have done it differently if she'd know what the future held? But then she wouldn't have her two wonderful children, the very best things in her life. Bonnie followed Marceline to her car and just pushed those thoughts away. There was no point dwelling on it anyway, she couldn't change the past.

She stayed silent through the short drive to the nearest late-opening restaurant but stole plenty of furtive glances at Marceline out of the corner of her eye as the other woman drove. It felt like just yesterday that her best friend had disappeared out of her life for good, since Bonnie had screwed everything up so badly and pushed her away. How could she even begin to forgive herself after so many years of silence? How could Marcy stand to just sit quietly with her like Bonnie wasn't the biggest disappointment in both of their lives? But Marceline just hummed quietly to herself as she drove, seemingly perfectly at ease. Bonnie couldn't quite get her head around it, it was like one of those regret-filled dreams she had where Marcy was still in her life and she hadn't messed everything up.

"Right, this is my treat. Part of my severance deal with the record label was a row of big juicy zeros in my bank account. So what do you fancy? You can have absolutely anything you want." Marcy told her as they slid into a booth together. Bonnie tried hard not to interpret that as being about anything except food; it had just been far too long since she'd spent time around an attractive woman, she told herself sternly.

They chatted about inconsequential stuff over dinner, avoiding any topics like what had happened just before Marcy disappeared or the why's and how's about Bonnie's marriage and divorce. Then out of the blue, Marcy sighed a little and said;

"You know that night you kissed me, I wasn't sure if it was just you being full of baby hormones or if you really meant it. And it messed me up, Bon. I went away and thought about it because what do you do when your engaged and pregnant best friend grabs you and makes out with you out of the blue? I figured I'd just carry on like nothing had happened when I came back, except you didn't wanna see me. But then I heard you do the stuttering coming out to Finn tonight and it made me wonder if perhaps it was more than just... I dunno, a phase or something? Experimentation?"

Bonnie froze again, this time with her fork halfway to her mouth. She hadn't spoken to anyone about that night, not ever. Not even the occasional and very brief ex-girlfriend. A number of women had tried and failed to come up to the impossible standard in Bonnie's head over the last ten years and the reason why it had never worked out was sitting opposite giving her a searching look with eyes so intense it felt like she was reading the answer right out of Bonnie's mind.

"I don't know. Honestly, Marcy I was so messed up back then. I was full of hormones and Braco had just proposed and I didn't know what I was doing. It felt like I was drifting away from you and I didn't love him but I didn't understand why it wasn't working. Everything with him just felt so robotic. Can we just chalk the whole thing up to experience and move on? It was eighteen years ago, we're both different people now." she finally mumbled. It wasn't quite what she wanted to say but 'I've been in love with you since we were eleven years old and when I kissed you it was because my life had gotten so overwhelming I couldn't hold it back anymore and then you just walked away and I thought you hated me for complicating everything' wasn't something Bonnie felt equal to admitting. But perhaps Marceline could see that in her thoughts anyway, because she just nodded like she'd heard all the words the other woman hadn't said.

"How do you feel about boats?" she asked instead. Typical Marcy; change the subject abruptly and with absolutely no warning. Bonnie had always had to stay on her toes to keep up, she'd missed it. And she'd have welcomed almost any change of topic right then so she pounced on it eagerly.

"I like them? I suppose, I mean not big ferries or cruise ships or anything. But Braco's parents have a small sail boat and we used to take the kids sailing for the weekend when they were little. Zak loved it; I think that's where the lifelong obsession with pirates comes from." Bonnie replied carefully.

"Cool. Cause I commissioned a houseboat and I want you to come to the moving in party. I'm having it sailed over when they finish fitting it out and it's gonna be put to anchor in the harbour here. I took a job with a radio station doing their afternoon slot and I decided to move back home. Got sick of all that touring and rehearsing and everything. I mean, hell, I'm forty this year. If I haven't made my big break by now it just isn't gonna happen. Time to face facts; I was a one hit wonder and if I don't start doing something else soon then the money I have saved from that one popular song I wrote isn't gonna last until I'm pension age. Besides, this is a good gig. It's good money, easy work, I get to chill and listen to cool music. My first slot airs in a couple of weeks and I thought I'd try to have a little get together on HMS Treehouse before then." Marcy grinned.

"You can't call a boat Treehouse." Bonnie replied with a frown. Where else could she even start? All of that was so incredibly solid gold Marceline, so eccentric and unexpected. Of course she was going to be a radio host and live in a boat named Treehouse. If anyone was going to live like that it would of course be the mercurial swirl of contradictions that was Marcy.

"Sure I can. I already have. I smashed a bottle of champagne on it and said 'I name this ship Treehouse' and everything." Marcy shrugged with a small smirk. "Anyway the party's next weekend, I thought you might wanna come along, Y'know, if you can get a sitter."

"Penny's eighteen in a couple of weeks, she doesn't need a sitter. And Zak will be at his father's place next weekend." Bonnie said, electing to ignore Marceline's gentle teasing.

"Brilliant. So am I putting you down as a plus one?" Marcy asked brightly. It was more subtle than Finn had been but Bonnie wasn't stupid, she knew when someone was fishing for information.

"Wow, smooth. No, you are putting me down as extremely single. I have two teenagers at home, I'm finally finishing my theoretical physics PhD and I work full time too. I don't have a spare second to breathe let alone date anyone." Bonnie mumbled around the blush that was trying to push its way onto her cheeks. Dammit, how did Marceline always know how to get under her skin? It had been a gap of almost eighteen years and Bonnie still wanted to giggle and blush like a schoolgirl when Marceline flashed that wicked sexy smile at her and fluttered her eyelashes.

They left the restaurant together and the tension in the air between them was so high Bonnie was distantly surprised the raindrops didn't fizz and sizzle. Marceline drove her back to the school and dropped her off without getting out of her car; Bonnie watched her pull away with a strange churning in her chest that she didn't want to name. It might have been longing or regret, she thought as she drove home. Or it might be loneliness, the same aching loneliness that had never completely left when she'd called her best friend only to discover that her number was disconnected eighteen years earlier. Whatever it was by the time Bonnie lay down to sleep that night after checking on her children and writing a little more of her thesis it hadn't completely gone away yet.