"I should tell you about Hambo." It's late at night and they're still miles away from the kingdom. Bubblegum tenses, remembering how mad Marceline got at her for making fun of the ratty old bear. Apparently getting him back was apology enough for it, though, because Marceline hasn't brought it up.

"Okay..." She tugs her sweater away from her now-naked torso. Anything to stall having to tell her what happened to the shirt. "So what about it?" Marceline sucks in a breath, then another before she exhales and sits down on the ground.

"He was a present from an old friend," she begins. "Someone I met after the Mushroom War when I was alone...I was seven, and he took me under his wing and gave me Hambo." Her face clouds over with sentiment, only for about one point two seconds before growing sad. "He's gone now. My friend."

"Oh...he died?" Bubblegum sits down next to her, not close enough for them to be touching but enough to keep her eyes on that face. Marceline shakes her head.

"If he were it'd be easier. He's still alive, but he's a whole different person now." And she starts weaving a story of the man, kind and thoughtful but slowly being driven mad by a crown he would wear now and then. How she'd begged him not to wear it because she knew it was bad for him, how he'd taken care of her when she was sick. The last time they were together she'd cried while singing a song with him, and then...

"...you never saw him again," Bubblegum finishes. "I'm...sorry, Marceline. If I'd known, I wouldn't have made fun of Hambo." Suddenly something goes off in her brain. The crown Marceline described, the old man, the madness, his beard. No, it couldn't be... "Marceline, you..."

"Figured it out, huh." She smiles thinly. "Yep, your pesky nemesis the Ice King was my best friend. Sorry I never said anything but hey, I didn't feel like it." She shrugs. "No big deal, though...least I have Hambo back, so why cry over an old guy?" But her eyes are closing, she's trying to fight back tears and Bubblegum feels awful. This doesn't change her feelings towards the Ice King himself, but she hates seeing Marceline so sad.

"It's okay," she says, putting a hand on the vampire queen's shoulder. It's promptly shrugged off.

"Look, I got my bear back so let's just go."

"Marceline..."

"I got it back! God, why do you always have to-"

"Marceline, don't start." She cuts her off before she can go off on some angry rant. "I care, okay? If I didn't I would've said no in the first place, and I certainly wouldn't have given that witch my favorite shirt in the whole world in exchange for Hambo!"

"You what?!"

So much for waiting for the right time to tell her.

"I kind of had to. Because of the sentimental value thing..." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Marceline, but there wasn't any other way and I wasn't about to leave without Hambo! I swore I'd get him for you and that was that!" Marceline doesn't respond for several moments and Bubblegum wonders if it's too late to sneak into the castle and take the shirt back.

"Bonni, you're such a dweeb." Marceline smiles again, a real one this time. "Only you would throw away a thing you loved for a thing someone else did."

"You're not upset? But-"

"Of course I'm upset! You said it meant a lot to you," Marceline says. "But it's still...sweet of you to do it. For me."

Bubblegum moves a little closer, so close their bodies touch for the barest fraction of a second.

"It does, and I miss it," she says, "but the person who gave it to me means more."

She lays her arm across Marceline's shoulders. Marceline doesn't push her away this time.