The following takes place about three weeks after "Come Along With Me."

Marceline the Vampire Queen was good at lots of things. Sound mixing. Making cocoa. Looming. Shredding (bass). Shredding (enemies). Laughing at Finn. Frightening off anybody else who tried to laugh at Finn. The list went on.

What she wasn't so good at was being a part of somebody else's life in a way that didn't make her want to panic and flee. A thousand years of rotten luck would do that to a girl. But Marcy was confident there was nothing she couldn't learn with practice.

Simon was helping. She made a point of inviting him over at least once a week, even if it was just to play Card Wars or watch Basic Mortality (they were up to the Grimdark Killer arc in season three). Marcy was well aware of how much hurt and confusion they needed to talk about at some point, but for now, both of them badly needed the normal.

And there was Bonnie too, of course. Marceline couldn't put into words how much of a relief it was that they were trying this thing again, out in the open - almost as if they were daring the whole world to just go ahead and try to screw it up this time around.

But Bonnibel was busy with plans for the human settlement, and Simon with his ice hotel, so Marcy had decided it was the perfect time to practice being with her other favorite people. Which was why, on a lovely overcast day in the grasslands, Marceline the Vampire Queen was setting up a microphone bank around the Music Hole, humming from under the brim of her mile-wide hat.

"So, big day, huh?" Music Hole said as Marceline finished tuning a subwoofer. "Hanging out with Finn and his new girlfriend for the first time. Nervous?"

Not quite the right word, Marcy thought. She replied, "Come on, MH. I think I can stare down Huntress Wizard."

Music Hole knit her eyebrows. "That's not exactly what I mean. You know what happens with young love. When two songs meet, they kinda change around one another. They harmonize with each other and then after a few measures, they don't sound much like they did before at all. I dunno. Am I too deep in the metaphors here?"

"No, I think I got it." She heard voices over the next hill: the others were coming. Marceline swallowed butterflies from her throat into her stomach, and floated over to meet them.

Jake was in the lead, his viola under one arm. BMO trotted along in his wake. Marceline wrapped them both in a hug.

"Marcy, you sure you're cool with us crashing?" Jake asked when they separated. "BMO snores, like a lot. And farts."

The little console crossed their arms. "Neither of those things are possible."

"Of course I'm cool!" Marcy flashed a quick hang-loose before her face turned serious. "I know what it's like to be stuck couch-surfing, man. I had people help me when I had nothing. I wanna pay it forward." Even if it did take 800 years to get the chance.

Finn and Huntress Wizard brought up the rear. They weren't holding hands, but kept close as they walked - unconsciously, almost, like they were accustomed to moving in one another's orbits. HW glanced at Finn, who suddenly cracked up laughing, probably at some joke from an hour ago.

His girlfriend smirked. Marceline did too. In spite of her fear that she might not know Finn at all anymore, she knew that she loved to see him happy.

"OK, Marcy." Finn waved to Music Hole, then moved a bit ahead of HW. "I know adding new girlfriends to the band is controversial, but Huntress Wizard lives and breathes music."

"Nope. Carbon dioxide." Huntress Wizard stepped around him. "Thanks for taking them in for a bit, Marceline. My place is a little lacking in creature comforts."

"My boy needs to shower," Jake put in. "For everyone's sake."

"Dudes. Dudes and dudettes plural. Enough thanking me already. We're here to rock, not kiss my butt."

Marceline hovered over Music Hole, where the acoustics were best, and strummed a few test chords. The sound thudded out, clear, deep, and perfectly modulated. She didn't mess around when it came to subwoofers.

"Oh yeah, one other thing," she said to HW. "We're not, like, a band band. No fixed lineup or anything."

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop LSP from quitting once a month." Finn had flipped BMO on their side and was setting them up as a synthesizer.

"I know!" Jake turned one of his tuning knobs. "Every time she quits, I can't quit for like a week or I look like I'm copying."

Huntress smiled back at Marceline. "I don't have a lot of experience with bands, but from what I've heard, this is definitely what they're like. I'll try not to mess with your sound too much."

She had her flute out now, making Marcy acutely aware there wasn't much more opportunity for stalling. She'd told everybody this jam session was supposed to be casual. But Music Hole was right: if something went wrong, and they couldn't vibe together, it would awkward up everything that happened after, just a little.

Ugh, her internal monologue sounded so trivial. She hated needing people as much as she did. If only she could really be the badass vamp she played onstage...

...that was the key, wasn't it? They were both Marceline. All the Marcelines were one and the same. The Vampire Queen grinned: she could do this.

"All right, flute, synth, viola, bass, vocals...we're ready!" She let her bass hang from its strap and tied her hair back. "Finn, Jake, you remember that kinda cosmic melody we had going last time? With that big drone and the heavy strings?"

"I love that one!" said Music Hole. "I had an idea for some lyrics, actually."

"It's all you, MH. I've got nothing in the words tank."

Finn caught HW's eye. "Do you think you could play something that sounds like...a galaxy? Or the rings of a planet? Maybe a comet?"

"The endless music of the spheres." Huntress got her laser-sight look. "The undying melody that sings from the roots of the world. The sound of a silent night. Sure, I can give it a shot."

My glob, thought Marceline, she's sincere. Finn, to his credit, looked pretty into it.

Marcy started with a slow, thudding line of deep notes. After a few bars, she hit one of her pedals to start looping it, then started in on a higher, more melodic riff. Jake jumped in next, playing long minor-key notes, putting as much vibrato into each as he could. Finn flipped switches and turned the dials on BMO's surprisingly sophisticated sound board. The melody he produced was pure Finn: half EDM, half R&B, and a little bit war chant.

Marceline looped her second riff, and started on a third. Music Hole was waiting for all the instruments before she started. It was Huntress Wizard's time. Now or never.

HW lifted her flute to her mouth, and played the first note of the music of the spheres.

At first, she just held a few notes, matching what Jake was doing. Then her fingers started moving faster. Huntress Wizard's woodwind jamming moved into the space left between Marceline's, Finn's, and Jake's pitches and tempos, and before Marcy knew it, HW had the melody.

She sounded hesitant at first. But what Marceline had taken for tentativeness proved instead to be a slow, sure confidence. Each note on her flute twanged a string in Marcy's soul. Finn stared with such pride that he lost the tempo for a second. BMO cleared their throat to get him back on track.

"I learned not to fear the stars, from you..."

Music Hole with the lyrics. Marcy didn't like to think too hard about moments like this, preferring to try and live in them and enjoy them, but she spared some time to admit that this jam session was going mega-well.

"They're just shafts of light, traveling through..."

MH sang to the melody of Huntress's flute. Finn dialed BMO back a bit, switching to a lower-key piano to get out of her way.

"Breath is not like light, it dies right when it hits the air..."

Marcy caught Finn's eye, then Jake's. They both nodded. Talking to her friends without words was so easy that she felt silly to have ever been uncertain. They'd talked last time about their mutual love of showy key changes. Now was the time to try.

"But I wish you and I could last forever too..."

"Key! Change!" Finn shouted.

"I only wanna hear

One more time

Is that too much?

It would be enough..."

Huntress Wizard leapt on the key change train and rode it away from the station. She didn't miss a beat. We could probably do that again in two bars, and she'd still be with us, Marcy thought. That girl is focused.

"I haven't got much else

But words can keep you warm

The universe is cold

But beauty sometimes burns..."

Screw it, Marcy thought, and laid down a fourth live loop.

They ran through the verse one more time, then by silent mutual agreement that it could never get better than that, all stopped at once. For a moment, quiet reigned on the grasslands.

Finn broke it, because that was sort of Finn's brand. "Cosmic," he said, taking one of HW's hands.

Trees didn't turn red when they were embarrassed. Marcy had checked one time when she'd wanted to go vegan. But whatever Huntress Wizard was doing right now was definitely the forest equivalent of a blush. "Well. You're the one who's been to space. I just played what I thought you'd play."

"That was amazing!" Marceline floated to the ground and put her arms around the couple's shoulders. "Finn, I'm stealing your girlfriend. You can have Bonnie."

"Nuh-uh." Finn shook his head. "You think Prubs could play like that? She'd just be all Finn, all your notes have to be letters, and Finn, play real chords, and H isn't real, Finn, and all that boring junk. She's your problem."

Jake joined them on the south side of Music Hole. "Man, we gotta lay that one down! That could be bigger than Fry Song."

"If it's all right, I'd rather not." Huntress Wizard blew some sap through the end of her flute.

"You sure?" asked Marcy. "You got an open invitation to the studio, girl. Say the word."

"I appreciate that. But I think what just happened would be ruined if we tried too hard to replicate it. I would...I'd rather this not be like a band band."

"Yeah, chill." Marcy drifted off the ground again, not in any hurry. "So what next?"

"Something bouncier?" suggested Music Hole. "I'm in a super good mood all of a sudden."

They messed around for hours, until sunset and hunger drove them to bid Music Hole farewell and head back to Marceline's place. A handful of times, they sounded pretty good, although they never got back to the same planetary alignment they had at first.

Not that Marcy minded. Huntress Wizard was totally right: sometimes you should just let a moment be a moment. She wondered if meeting Finn had taught HW that. From what Marcy knew of H-dubs's early life, it was knowledge she'd desperately needed at one time.

But she didn't waste too much of the evening in wondering - just floated a foot above her recliner while Finn spread out sleeping bags and Jake stirred five cups of cocoa. The people in her life were a planetary alignment all their own. It wasn't really so rare.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What's been missing from these stories so far? Music, of course: the thing that brought Finn and HW together to begin with.

It's also great to be able to explore Finn and Marceline's friendship, especially from her POV. "What Was Missing" and "I Remember You" were both such perfect episodes that I understand why Marcy came to be defined over time by her relationships with Bonnibel and Simon. But amid all that, it's easy to forget that Finn had a deep, non-romantic friendship with a girl, six seasons before he patched things up with Phoebe.

The song they perform is based on "Saturn" by Sleeping At Last, which I do not own in any way. I've changed the lyrics for legal reasons. If you want to get an idea of how the jam session sounded, though, look it up on YouTube; you won't be disappointed. Also, if you've never heard a live looping performance, look up Cullen Vance next; you'll be even less disappointed.

Next time, let's rewind. Did Huntress and Finn lock eyes at Finn's first and only Wizard Battle? I wonder...