#reverseworld

She'd been to this lake once before. Simon had taken her here when they'd first met, and she'd hoped coming back would give her some insight. But it was just a boring, gross lake, which had seemed a lot nicer last time she'd been here. Maybe it was because it wasn't winter this time. She could believe that if she tried.

What if things didn't work out with Simon? Betty didn't even know if they were still together. They hadn't spoken since the argument, and other than her dad, he was the only thing keeping her away from the Ocean Kingdom. Well, Simon, her dad, and her research, but she was running out of favours to call in to smuggle her books out of the royal library. The punishments for that were severe.

Someone plunged into the water behind her, and Betty jumped and turned around.

"Whoa, hey! Betty, right?" It was a grey-skinned land dweller that Betty vaguely recognised.

"Queen... Marceline?" She was the queen of the Monster Kingdom, a particularly powerful kingdom in Uuu's north. She was also a good friend of Simon's.

"Weird weather, huh?" said Marceline, who didn't seem bothered by being out of the air. Maybe she was using waterbreathing magic, but she was some variety of undead, so maybe she just didn't breath.

"What?" said Betty. She looked upwards. The sky had darkened since she'd come up here, and it seemed to be raining mud. That was weird. Weather was one of the few surface things she had a pretty instinctive understanding of, and usually it rained water, frozen water, or sharp implements. Not mud. She reached out to it with her powers to confirm. "is that... Ice cream?" It was cold, and it contained milk, cocoa, and sugar. It was definitely chocolate ice cream.

"Yeah, it's like this whole thing," said Marceline. "I'm trying not to think about it."

Betty could understand that.

"Hey, you look like you could use some distracting too," said Marceline. "I'm on my way to a party in the Monster Kingdom. You should totally come along." She held out her hand.

Betty narrowed her eyes at her. She had a hard time believing that Marceline had just happened to be passing when they were halfway up a mountain. Had Simon sent her to check up on her? No, that wasn't his style. Besides, there was no way Marceline didn't know what Betty had done to the Ice Kingdom. Most of Uuu knew by now. She had enough motivation on her own to want to check up on her.

But Marceline was right that she needed to take her mind off things. And even if it was a trap, it was better than staying in this muddy and increasingly sugary lake. "Sure."

.

Betty rolled her watery covering into another room and leaned against the wall. Being on land was exhausting. Gravity was everywhere, always trying to pull her water into a puddle and suffocate her in the air. She was getting better at fighting it, but she doubted she'd ever be completely comfortable up here.

Having to deal with gravity was sort of distracting her from her problems, but the party itself was a bust. She'd tried networking with Slime Princess, but hadn't got much further than agreeing that they were both princesses before she'd given up. What did it matter if she had good relations with other rulers? She was just going to break stuff and hurt people. What if next time, she hurt someone she liked? What if she hurt Simon?

This room was small, but it seemed nice and empty. It wasn't a huge party, and mostly seemed to be happening in the living room and kitchen. She doubted anyone was going to come looking for her. And there was what appeared to be a cage on the far side of the room, with some sort of bird sitting on a perch. Maybe she could pet it. She'd heard that was a good excuse to be alone at a party.

As she got closer to the cage, the bird resolved itself into a vaguely bird-shaped lump of black wool and white spider silk. It had a piece of plastic stuck into the head part as a beak.

"Whoa," she said. She reached in and petted it tentatively. "Close enough?"

There was a gasp behind her. "You like my pet bird? His name is Gunter, but he's not a penguin. He's a petrel."

Betty jumped, and turned around. If she'd been underwater, she would have known there was someone behind her. But she was on land. She kept forgetting she had to rely on her eyes and ears on land.

The speaker was a giant, fuzzy spider that Betty vaguely remembered being introduced to earlier. His name was Jumping Spider, and he was the party's host.

"I couldn't get a penguin because all the penguins talk," continued Jumping Spider.

Betty wasn't sure what to say. "Uh... So... You like petrels?" She was surprised he knew about them. Petrels were seabirds that rarely travelled to the land, and in Betty's mostly Simon-based experience, land dwellers usually only had the most basic knowledge of the ocean.

"Seabirds are cool," said Jumping Spider. "You don't like parties?" he added. "Me neither."

Betty frowned. "This is your party, dude." She couldn't figure out what this guy's angle was. Maybe he was just an idiot.

"Yeah," said Jumping Spider. "You know who does like parties? Queen Marceline likes parties. Are you friends with Queen Marceline?"

"I don't know," said Betty. "I just met her. She seems... nice?"

"She's nice," Jumping Spider agreed. "She's not very good at being a queen. She always parties instead of solving problems." He laughed, like that was a joke.

Betty frowned again. "What do you mean?" Simon hadn't mentioned that, but now that she thought about it, he'd never really talked about Marceline's queening at all. He always just described good times he'd had with her that Betty hadn't been there for.

"I dunno," said Jumping Spider.

She should have expected that. "Look, sometimes nothing you do matters. Why shouldn't you party?" She knew she wasn't talking about Marceline anymore, but it felt good to finally say it out loud.

"Uh..." said Jumping Spider. "What?"

"If you're just gonna break stuff and hurt people, why shouldn't you party and not do anything?" said Betty.

"Ohhh," said Jumping Spider. "You can't do anything? Wow. That must be really bad for you."

He didn't sound all that sincere, but it was hard to tell with the weird way he spoke. What was more important to Betty was that he hadn't told her that of course what she did mattered, or that what had happened wasn't her fault.

Validation from an idiot was still validation. And he'd picked up that she'd been talking about herself, so maybe he wasn't as much of an idiot as she'd thought. "I mean, I nearly killed Finn-Ice. Simon likes him! I think." As she spoke, she gestured out the window at the Ice Kingdom, which was still melted and flooded. And, for some reason, glowing, although Betty didn't think she could claim responsibility for that. "And Simon thinks it's his fault! Everything I do is someone else's fault. This is just like before. Why did I even bother to leave home? I don't know what I'm gonna do if me and Simon have to break up." Maybe they weren't the mildly star-crossed soulmates she'd always thought they were.

"Simon is nice," volunteered Jumping Spider.

"Yeah," said Betty. "He's nice. But does he have to blame himself for everything? I know, he had a bad childhood, but I had a bad childhood too!" She hesitated. "But I don't really know anyone else on the surface. And I'd do anything for him." She sighed. "I guess I'm just jealous. He's got such a great future, and I... don't."

No, she wasn't jealous. She was... frustrated? She felt like nothing had changed since she'd left home, and nothing was going to change. She was dangerous and isolated, and she was going to stay dangerous and isolated, forever.

"You're a princess," said Jumping Spider. "You can be like Marceline! In the future. Right?"

"Partying and never solving problems?" said Betty.

"Yeah!" said Jumping Spider.

Betty still couldn't really read him. "I can't go home, man. If I went home, dad would definitely make me go back to the tank. I'm too dangerous! I just proved that."

She thought about it for another second, and then said "Actually... It would matter if I... And I'd have more responsibility... and the library..." She couldn't help smiling.

Jumping Spider gasped, and said "You're going to go back and overthrow your dad!"

Betty didn't know how he'd got that from what she'd said, but she said "That's right! Thanks for giving me the idea, Jumping Spider."

Jumping Spider stared at her for a second, then said "We're friends" in a relevatory tone.

Betty opened her mouth to say that they weren't, and that they'd just met, but she found she didn't want to upset him. "Yeah. We're friends." Maybe it was time she met more surface people.

.

The Ocean Kingdom wasn't as big as the Monster Kingdom, but it was a lot friendlier looking, in Jumping Spider's opinion. And prettier, too. He liked the wavy houses on the city outskirts. You didn't get things like that on land.

Breathing underwater was pretty similar to breathing on land, except he'd needed to create a bubble of air with silk and fit it around his abdomen first. He'd heard about sea spiders, and thought maybe that meant spiders could breathe anything without any problems, but apparently not. Betty, who was very smart, had told him about rivers spiders that made diving abdomen-helmets out of silk, so he'd just done that. It was weird, but it was actually a little easier to breathe like this than normal.

As they entered the centre of the city, a silver-scaled fish swam up to them, looked them over, and yelled "It's the princess! The princess is back! With a horrible monster from the surface!"

Jumping Spider looked around for the horrible monster. Maybe it was that weird wiggly-legged starfish scuttling towards them? But that seemed a bit judgemental.

Betty had covered her ears. She uncovered them. "Hi." She looked around at the small crowd that was developing, and added "If any of you guys even think the word "kidnapping", I'm going back to the surface."

"It's the king!" called the same fish as before. "Alone! With a spoon!"

Everyone turned to look at a long-tailed merman with a crown. He looked pretty angry, and he was holding a small spoon.

Betty smiled, a little nervously, and said "Your majesty, hi. Did I spoil your desert?"

The king looked at the spoon in his hand, and dropped it. It slowly sank down to the seafloor. "Don't give me that snark, young lady. So you finally learned your lesson?"

"No," said Betty.

"I kept your tank the way you left it," the king began, then said "What do you mean, no?"

"I'm not coming back with my tail between my legs," said Betty.

The king looked puzzled. His mouth moved as he looked at Betty, then at Jumping Spider.

"It's a land saying," said Betty. "Never mind. I'm not here to go back to jail."

"It's not jail!" the king protested. "It's a developmental tool endorsed by several child psychologists that allows you to explore your nascent abilities in a safe environment!"

"Whatever," said Betty. "I've "developmental-ed" beyond that. I'm here to challenge you for the throne."

A gasp went up from the crowd. Jumping Spider looked around at them, and gasped as well, a little late.

"No you're not," said the king. "You know the penalty for failure."

"What's the penalty?" said Jumping Spider. Nobody had said anything to him about a penalty.

Betty didn't seem to have heard him. "Yes. I know the penalty."

"What's the penalty?" said Jumping Spider again.

"Exile," said the king. "The penalty for a failed challenge is exile. She has no idea--"

"You're gonna be exiled?" said Jumping Spider. That was pretty harsh. If Betty won, the king would lose his throne, and if she lost, he'd lose his home? Why did they even have a law like that?

"No, not him, me!" said Betty. "If I win, he loses the throne, but if I lose, I can't ever come back here."

"But..." said Jumping Spider. "You're from here. That's a bad law." They didn't have laws like that at home. He thought. He could never remember what was a real law and what people did just because they thought it was a good idea.

"It's meant as a deterrent," said the king. "But it's obviously not working. You're being ridiculous, Betty."

"I know the law, dad," said Betty. "I'm an adult now, and I'm first in the line of succession! You can't refuse a challenge from your primary heir."

"I knew I should have raised the age of majority," the king muttered. "Betty, listen to me. You're my daughter. I don't want to have to exile you. Stop this, and come home."

"I'll see you at the Waters of Proving and Postulating," said Betty, and swam away from the crowd.

Jumping Spider swam after her. "Bye, your majesty!" he called.

After a few silent seconds, Jumping Spider realised that the challenge might not be the intense video game tournament he was envisioning. "What are you gonna do in the challenge?" he asked.

"Oh," said Betty. "Regular ocean stuff. Underwater wrestling."

Jumping Spider's mental image was replaced by ostentatious muscley men hitting each other with folding chairs. "Oh, that's cool."

"Dad is better than me," said Betty. "But I know I'm stronger. I was stronger even before I left." She sighed. "The last person I fought was Simon's heart, and he was a joke."

Jumping Spider assumed that was a metaphor, although he wasn't smart enough to understand what it meant. But it was probably very deep and romantic.

"But, I've been practising," Betty continued. "I know his special moves. They've been the same since I was little. I think I can beat him now."

She didn't sound completely certain.

"What will do if you lose and get exiled away from home forever?" said Jumping Spider. He'd assumed that Betty would definitely win, until she'd said all that.

Betty shrugged. "I guess I'll get really good at partying."

"Oh, okay." He was glad the stakes were so low.

.

Simon dug some stray ice out from behind his ear. That really could have gone better. But at least the Ice Kingdom was safe. Still melted and flooded, but safe.

"That was algebraic!" said Finn-Ice. "We should hang out more often!" He was walking next to Simon. Gunter was on Simon's other side, and Marceline was floating above and a little ahead.

"Sorry about all that," said Gunter. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"Don't blame yourself, Gunter!" said Finn-Ice cheerfully. "Blame Jake! He's been a very bad boy."

"Maybe we shouldn't have let him keep the crown," said Simon. Gunter had obviously scared Jake when he'd put on the crown, but despite Gunter's apologies, Simon could tell he'd mostly been bluffing. If Jake was smart enough to figure that out, there could be problems.

"It's a good thing Cool Zombie Dog Princess was there," said Finn-Ice.

Marceline gave an embarrassed laugh. "I should have been here from the start. I just-- woah!" A flying, disembodied ice tentacle smacked into her, and she grabbed it in a chokehold.

Simon looked up, and decided it was probably a one-man fight. "Finn-Ice, listen. I know you're homeless right now until Jake finishes rebuilding the Ice Kingdom." He didn't think Jake should have to be the one to rebuild it, but Finn-Ice shouldn't either, and Simon couldn't see any end to that conversation that didn't involve offering to put on the crown and rebuild it himself. Maybe he was a coward, but he couldn't bear to even consider that.

Her dad rushed her from out of the gloom, and she stretched out her hands and turned the current against him. He started to negate it with his own power, but not soon enough to stop him from going flying. He slammed against the opposite side of the arena, and she swam after him, eager to press her advantage.

"I've been sleeping rough," Finn-Ice replied. "Living off the land. Settling down wherever my feet take me."

Simon was pretty sure Finn-Ice had been spending most of his time in seedy Monster Kingdom hotels, but didn't say so. "Well, I feel awful about what happened, and me and Gunter want you to know that you can always stay with us if you need to."

Gunter wasn't as okay with that as Simon pretended, but he'd reluctantly agreed when they'd talked about it earlier.

Finn-Ice gave him a strange look. "Uh... Why?"

Simon pushed down his annoyance, and said "Because you're homeless."

"No, I mean, why do you feel terrible?" said Finn-Ice. "It wasn't your fault. It was, uhh..." He looked up at the sky for a second. "Your crazy ex's fault! Yeah!"

"She's not crazy!" said Simon, louder than he'd intended. "Or my ex! We just had a fight. Okay?" He didn't know how to make things better without apologising, which she didn't seem to want him to do. He wanted to fix things, but he had no idea how.

"Ooh, riiiiight," said Finn-Ice. "It was your sane, current girlfriend's fault."

"The whole thing it was my idea," said Simon. He didn't really want to go into the dreams that had sparked all this. He was beginning to think he shouldn't even have told Gunter. "I tried to tell her I was sorry for messing everything up, but she just got mad at me."

Finn-Ice frowned. "You told her that? No wonder she got mad. Why didn't you tell me, your best friend and closest confidant in the whole of Uuu and also the entire universe and who you think of as, like, a cool uncle," he took a deep breath, "earlier?"

"You were there!" said Simon.

"Man," continued Finn-Ice. "You need to talk someone who knows about this kinda jazz. Maybe Simone."

"Finn, I don't need to talk to a girl version of me that you made up," said Simon. He'd thought being away from the crown made Finn-Ice a little more lucid, but today he was as confused as ever.

"If she was here, she'd say something like..." Finn-Ice frowned, and put on a falsetto. "'Stop calling your girlfriend crazy, she's just messed up in the melon from spending her entire childhood in a tank and she doesn't like it when you take credit for something she did even if it was something bad.'" He took another deep breath, and went back to his normal voice. "Wow! So wise!"

Simon made a face at Gunter.

She struggled in her dad's grip. He'd wrapped his tail around her, and was squeezing the water from her lungs. She couldn't breathe. If she didn't break out soon, she'd pass out, and he'd win by default. She couldn't breathe.

Gunter did not make a face back. He looked thoughtful.

"What?" said Simon.

"She... I mean he... He has a point," said Gunter.

Simon made another face.

"I didn't want to say anything," said Gunter. "I thought it might upset you."

"I'm plenty upset already, Gunter," said Simon.

Gunter looked worried. "The fact is... You do tend to... Make... No, no, I mean, you think... you think everything that goes wrong is your fault."

"It usually is!" Simon protested.

Gunter shook his head. "You can sometimes... put yourself at the centre of events that." He cleared his throat. "Don't involve you."

Simon managed to figure out what Gunter was avoiding saying. "You think I'm selfish too?" First Betty, and now Gunter. Maybe they were right. He really was no hero.

There was a loud shattering noise from above, and small pieces of ice rained down on them. Marceline floated back down to ground level. "Of course we don't think you're selfish. Right, Gunter? And Simon, Betty's gonna be fine. She was still a little messed up this morning, so I invited her to a party. I think she was into it."

Simon didn't think that would help, but didn't say so. He couldn't trust himself to know anything about Betty's reactions anymore.

"Oh, no, I don't mean to say you're selfish," said Gunter. "More like... the opposite of selfish, what's the opposite of selfish?"

"Buybird!" said Finn-Ice immediately.

"No, no, that's not it..." said Gunter. "You... you only do it when it's something bad."

Simon thought for a second. Gunter thought he was... selfish about assuming blame? That he took responsibility for things that weren't really his fault? That did sound like something he'd do. But he couldn't see why that was a bad thing. Nobody liked taking the blame.

Although... Simon suddenly remembered Betty ranting about how she'd never got to do anything herself until she'd moved out. He remembered her burning her hand in an experiment, and excitedly telling him about it afterwards. He remembered her trying to fix some delicate, cursed scientific equipment that had recently come into her possession, destroying it, and shrugging it off. He wouldn't call her crazy, or even "messed up in the melon," but she did seem like having the chance to try more than she minded failing.

She hadn't had to focus her powers like this in so long. She was exhausted, and yet her dad seemed fine, from what she could see of him in the dimness. He was faking. He had to be. She was ready to collapse, and she was stronger than him. If he was as tired as she was, she could use the last of her strength to pin him and win the match. If he wasn't...

What choice did she have? She raised her hands, and lowered them again, bringing the weight of five hundred feet of water directly onto her dad.

He was still pretty sure he was at fault for putting the idea of fighting Finn-Ice in her head, but if Betty wanted to take the blame for the stuff she'd done, maybe Simon should let her. He didn't understand why it would upset her, but maybe he just had to understand that it did. "Guys," he said, "I gotta go apologise to Betty."

"Okay, I'll do it!" said Finn-Ice suddenly. "I'll room with you in your treehouse of wonders!" He jumped into the air like he was trying to fly, fell on his face, got up, and ran away. "Whoosh!"

Marceline watched him go, and said "Doesn't he need a key?"

"He already has one," said Simon distractedly. "Marcy, did you say you saw her today?"

Simon wasn't surprised to find that Betty wasn't at the party anymore. She wasn't a very social person. What was surprising was that she'd apparently left with Jumping Spider, who Simon was pretty sure she'd never even met until today.

But that still wasn't as surprising as where she'd gone, according to the note Jumping Spider had left on his birdcage.

"Why would she go back to the Ocean Kingdom?" said Simon, as he and Marceline stared at the note. Gunter had gone home to remind Finn-Ice he didn't need to keep breaking their windows to get in.

Had Betty given up? If Simon had done that to her by blaming himself... Wait, should he feel bad about that or not? He'd have to ask her when he saw her. If he saw her. When he saw her.

Marceline picked up the note and sniffed it. "Hm. It's still fresh. Maybe we can catch up with them."

Despite the situation, Simon had to laugh. "Marcy, you can't smell that." She had a lot of powers, but enhanced smell was not one of them.

"Hey, you don't know everything about me," said Marceline, with a smile that made it obvious she was joking. "But we better go after them."

As they swam closer to the Ocean Kingdom and there was still no sign of Betty, Simon finally couldn't even pretend to be distracted by the jokes and anecdotes Marceline was trying to distract him with.

"I can't believe Betty went back home. If her dad put her back in the tank..." He clenched his fists. He'd been struggling with his temper a lot lately, but right now, that seemed like a good thing.

"Try not to cause an international incident, dude," said Marceline, smiling.

With an effort, Simon smiled as well. "I'll tell them I'm not a viscount first." He hadn't been back to the Ocean Kingdom since his first visit, and he'd never been clear on whether he was allowed back. It was his fault the library had been destroyed.

Or maybe it was Betty's fault.

.

They made it through the city outskirts, and into the more solid city centre. Nobody stopped them, or even seemed to care they were there.

"Wow, this place has changed since the last time I was here," said Marceline, looking around. "What happened to the brain coral farms? I swear there used to be brain coral farms." She pointed at a patchwork of green and orange fields of what appeared to be seaweed.

Simon tried to remember what Betty had told him about Ocean Kingdom history as they swam up the side of the palace to the main entrance. She'd said something about ecology and climate change... Something about ocean currents? "Brain coral hasn't grown here for, uh... three hundred years."

"Man," said Marceline. "I've been slacking off."

They reached the top of the palace to find two sharkmen guarding the entrance, just like last time Simon had been here.

"Hey!" said one of them. "How are you here already? We haven't even left yet!" He looked at his partner. "Did we already leave and come back?"

The other guard shook his head.

"Weird," said the first sharkman. He looked at Simon. "You've been summoned. You can just go in. You too, queeny."

Simon and Marceline looked at each other, and went in.

"Do you think she's in jail again?" said Simon, as they floated down the main shaft to the throne room. "Why would her dad summon me?"

"Whatever happens, I got your back, Simon," said Marceline.

Simon smiled. Obviously she wasn't that worried about international incidents.

Simon was prepared for a fight when he entered the throne room. He wasn't prepared to see Betty on the throne, and the king floating behind her, looking disgruntled.

"Simon!" said Betty. "You came! Oh, hi, Marceline."

The Ocean King coughed. Or was he just Betty's dad now? He and Betty both had crowns, but only Betty was on the throne. Had she actually usurped him? How? Why?

Betty rolled her eyes. "Queen Marceline."

"Hey," said Marceline. "Looks like you ranked up last time I saw you."

Betty shrugged and said "I won a wrestling match."

"I let her win," said Betty's dad.

"No you didn't," said Betty, almost before he'd finished talking.

Simon had spent a lot of time thinking about what he'd say to Betty the next time he saw her, but he'd never expected her to overthrow her father and become the queen of the ocean. That made every one of his ideas obsolete. Maybe he should just be direct. "Betty, I'm sorry."

"What for?" said Betty carefully.

Simon sighed. "I'm sorry for trying to apologise for things I didn't do. It was wrong of me."

Betty sat up straighter. "Wait, really? Simon..." She cleared her throat. "You're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you?" said Simon. She had much more right to be upset at him.

Betty started to say something, then seemed to change her mind. "Listen, Simon, I'm gonna be really busy from now on and I have to know. Are we still together?"

"Y... Yeah!" said Simon. "Yeah, of course!" This was so much less painful than he'd thought it was going to be. But he didn't know what to think about her becoming queen. He'd been a king once, and it hadn't agreed with him. Would Betty still be allowed to do all the things she wanted to do? What if she changed her mind? Would abdicating put her dad back on the throne?

A silk-clad Jumping Spider entered the room in a panic. "Betty! I forgot! Who was I supposed to summon?"

"It's okay," said Betty. She pointed at Simon. "He's here already."

"Hey, Jumping Spider," said Marceline. "You defecting to the Ocean Kingdom?"

Betty's dad stared her down. "Is that a question or a threat?"

"Glob, you Ocean Kingdom guys are so official," Marceline complained. "Jumping Spider can do what he wants."

"Simon," said Betty. "I... have a question for you. I know what you do is important... I can get any book you want from the library... Queening is gonna be hard..."

"Yeah?" said Simon, who had no idea what she was getting at. She couldn't be breaking up with him, could she? After she'd just asked if they were still together? She couldn't be that cruel.

"Do you wanna move in with me?" Betty said it all in one breath, like she wanted to get it over with.

"What?!" said her dad.

Betty was going to keep Simon permanently off-balance if she kept this up. He stammered for a bit before managing to say "I-I can't yet. Sorry, Betty." He couldn't articulate his exact reasons, but part of it was that he didn't want to get so serious right after making up from their first real fight.

Betty looked disappointed, but didn't seem that surprised. "Are you sure? I think I've figured out how to set up a permanent water breathing situation. How attached are you to breathing air...?"

"There's too much I gotta do on land," said Simon, although right now he couldn't think of a single thing. "And Finn-Ice-- I just invited him to stay at my place." He was about to add that it was his fault Finn-Ice lost his home, but stopped himself just in time. "Maybe in a couple years." The idea was tempting, but in a potential future way, not in a right now way.

Betty took a deep breath. "It's okay. We're not much further apart than we were before."

"Good," said her dad. "You might be queen now, but you're still my daughter, and you're not throwing your life away for some fickle, land-dwelling human."

Betty snorted. "Simon would never abandon me. I told you before, I love him, and this time it's true."

No. It wasn't his fault. Gunter was just being negative again. The negative thoughts had started soon after Prismo had... left, and Gunter was beginning to learn to live with them. All he had to do to counter them was think about how it wasn't actually his fault. It was the Lich's fault. Gunter wouldn't even know how to begin disintegrating a person with only his breath. He had failed to stop the Lich from killing Prismo, but that wasn't the same as killing him himself.

Then it was Gunter's fault for bringing the Lich there, except that wasn't true either. Gunter distinctly remembered the Lich entering Prismo's time room on his own. Gunter had only even met Prismo because he and Simon had followed the Lich to Prismo's time room, to stop the Lich from carrying out his evil Lich plans.

But they'd faile-- "Oh, no, we, we definitely won that one," said Gunter aloud. "Definitely stopped him that time. The Lich-- He's got more than one plan."

That should do it. He was getting a lot better at dealing with his negative thoughts. Even before... before, he'd had a lot of practice talking things through with Simon, who'd been always prone to that kind of thinking. It was different when it was your own brain, but he felt like he was on the right track

It was supposed to get him out of the habit of insulting himself all the time, and he wondered when that was going to happen. Probably never.

No, that was yet another negative thought. They'd probably go away sometime if he kept this up.

"Hey, Gunter?" said Simon, from behind him. "You okay?"

Gunter jumped guiltily, and closed the freezer. He'd been standing here arguing with himself and letting all the cold air out. He was such a mess. "Oh, no, I'm fine. Just thinking about the old... thinking. Thoughts. Thinking thoughts. You know me. Always thinking." And he wasn't a mess.

"What are you thinking about?" said Simon. "You doing okay in the melon today, Gunts?"

Gunter considered being honest, but there was no need to burden Simon, who was a growing kid and had his own problems. "Well... I was thinking... I was thinking of polishing off the last of that anchovy sauce!" He realised what he'd said as soon as he said it. Simon knew exactly why Gunter hadn't already eaten that sauce. "It's er, going to go off if we don't eat it soon. Can't let it go to waste! Anchovies..."

Actually, it might last another month if he kept it in the freezer. He could have another month of not having to think about what it meant to eat the last of Prismo's food.

Simon seemed a little more burdened by Gunter's problems than Gunter had hoped. "Oh..." He opened the freezer again and looked inside. "Are you sure?"

"I'm, er... Yes." Gunter would have to eat it sooner or later, and he couldn't keep losing his nerve. "It needs a proper sendoff." So did Prismo.

Gunter was having second thoughts. Actually, he was having twenty-second thoughts. But every time he let himself think that he should just go to bed and do this another day, his negative thoughts cut in, agreed, and told him to just let the sauce go to waste. And then he'd remember why he was doing this.

Prismo was gone forever, and Gunter would have to face that sometime. So why not tonight?

Besides, he'd already reheated the sauce. There was no going back now.

Gunter had constructed a recipe-ritual that he hoped would let Prismo live on in his dreams, which was the way Prismo had always said he'd want to be remembered. The recipe part was a simple spaghetti dish of five ingredients: Minced beef, chopped mushrooms, grated garlic, spaghetti noodles, and, of course, anchovy sauce. He'd prepared them all separately, which was bad cooking, but good ritualling.

And now the meat and sauce were simmering in separate pans, and the garlic, noodles and sauce were sitting aside on plates. He really couldn't put this off any longer.

Gunter waved at Simon, who was standing by with his drum kit. Simon started playing a slow, steady beat on the bass.

Gunter picked up the pan with the mince. "Two utter strangers."

He poured in the mushrooms with a clone body, and stirred them in with his main body. "A chance encounter."

Another clone tipped in the grated garlic. "A foundation of shared priorities and interest... things."

A clone took the pasta and dumped it on top of the meat. "Late night g..."

He couldn't go on. This was all wrong. The words were wrong, the feelings were wrong, Prismo being dead was wrong. He should never have started this ritual, and he didn't care if that was a negative thought.

"Are you sure you wanna do this now?" said Simon, still hitting the drum at the same pace. "If you wanna stop, we can have the pasta with tuna suace..."

"No. No. No stopping," said Gunter. Stopping was even worse than continuing. "I... I'm ready." He wasn't ready, but that was just a negative thought. He tossed the pasta until it was mixed in, and said "Late night grumble parties."

He'd already passed the point of no return at least ten times now, but this part truly was the point of no return. He used his main body to pick up the sauce and pour it over the meal. It didn't mix very well, so he tossed it again until it did. "A... A perfect, immaculate friendship."

Once he was happy with the result, he put on a dinner bib, and carried the food over to the table, putting it down next to the plastic bag he'd kept the sauce in. Prismo had given him his first set of anchovies in this bag. Gunter had cleaned it since then, but it was still the same bag. He wasn't going to throw it away.

Simon's drumming got subtly faster.

Gunter ate the pasta as quickly as he could without choking. It tasted all right, but he couldn't stop thinking about how this was the last time he'd ever have sauce like this. Even if he managed to get fresh anchovies from somewhere else, he didn't think he could eat them. Anchovies meant Prismo, and Prismo was gone.

Simon did a good job speeding up the drumming as Gunter ate. By the time Gunter was down to the last few mouthfuls, it was a drumroll.

Simon was so talented, not like Gunter.

Actually, Gunter had his good points.

He gulped down the final strand of pasta and jumped up. "Quickly! Let's... Let's hurry up and get to bed!" This was the last of the points of no return. As long as Gunter was thinking about Prismo when he went to sleep, his thoughts should transition into a memory-dream. The ritual almost assured that.

Gunter grabbed the plastic bag, fell forwards, and slid towards the ladder to his room. As he slid, he generated a clone underneath him, which generated another clone, until his main body was on top of a tower of sliding Gunters the height of the ceiling. He reached the ladder, grabbed the trapdoor to the bedroom, and pulled himself up, reabsorbing his clones as he did.

Feeling satisfied, he slid across the floor to his bed, noticed the bed was significantly higher than floor level, and realised that he hadn't thought this all the way through. Reluctantly, Gunter slowed down, panting a little, and climbed his bed ladder. But he was still thinking about Prismo, so the ritual was still on track.

Gunter closed his eyes, and dreamed.

Simon opened his eyes, and wondered why he wasn't dead anymore. Had some glob taken pity on him and given him a second chance?

Oh. He'd just been dreaming, and all that heart-weighing ancient Egypt stuff had never actually happened. That was a relief.

Simon grabbed his chest just in case, and was relieved to feel no hole. Prismo had warned... Prismo! He really had dreamed about Prismo, just like Gunter had wanted. The dream had been more about Simon's mostly imaginary sins than Prismo, but the two of them had never really been that close.

Gunter had probably had more luck. Simon looked over at Gunter's bed, but the only thing there was his plastic bag. "Guess he got up already." That was a bad sign. Either Simon had slept really late, or Gunter hadn't had dreamed about anything interesting enough to warrant lying in bed trying to get back to sleep.

And why had he left the plastic bag there like it was garbage? He couldn't have got over Prismo that quickly.

Simon got out of bed and climbed downstairs to see Gunter at the table, staring at nothing. "Gunter?" he called, still on the ladder. "I had a dream, but--"

Gunter burst out laughing. "Can't say I really see the appeal there. But you know." He suppressed another laugh. "Takes all sorts."

Simon stopped climbing. "Appeal? What? What are you talking about?" The appeal of having dreams? Gunter loved dreaming. He wasn't nearly as prone to nightmares as Simon was.

Gunter moved his flipper to his mouth, choked, and slapped himself on the back with a clone.

Simon jumped to the floor and ran over. "Gunter! Are you okay?"

"The Cosmic Owl?" said Gunter, when he'd recovered. "Did he say anything? Do anything weird?"

"Are you still asleep?" said Simon, exasperated. Gunter's eyes were open, but that didn't rule anything out. Apparently Simon sometimes slept with his eyes open, so why couldn't Gunter?

And why was this giving Simon such a strong sense of deja vu?

Gunter looked directly at him for the first time. "Simon, you need to focus, all right? What did the Cos--"

His body warped, then exploded into dust.

Simon stared. "Gunter?"

So, he probably hadn't been sleepwalking. Simon was pretty sure that wasn't what normally happened when you woke up a sleepwalker. But then what was it? Had that even really been Gunter?

Gunter's voice broke into his thoughts, from somewhere on the next floor down. "Simon!" He sounded... angry?

Simon raced downstairs to found Gunter in the doorway of another room, facing away from him. His arms were raised like he was carrying something.

"--so not getting any cookies now!" Gunter was saying.

This was more than deja vu. Gunter really had said that before, on the the day they'd met alternate universe Finn and Jake. Finn had been kind of a belligerent jerk at first, so Simon had knocked him out, and Gunter had scolded him for it. Gunter had been holding cookies on a tray, Simon remembered. Jake had been right next to him, eating them.

But all that had been more than a year ago. Why was Gunter acting it out? Simon peered over Gunter's head, half expecting to see himself and Finn, but the room was empty.

A memory dream? Or maybe just a memory.

If this was the same thing as the Gunter at the table, the Gunter in front of him could also explode at any second. Simon had to act fast if he wanted to get anything useful out of him.

Gunter put his head in his flipper in totally uncalled for annoyance, and Simon grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around.

Gunter opened his beak in shock and dropped his free arm to his side.

Simon managed to say "Gunter, what's going o--" before Gunter exploded into dust again, and Simon exploded into a coughing fit.

"Oh!" said Simon aloud. He coughed a couple more times. "I get it! He explodes when something different happens! Must be some kinda... timeline smearing event... I guess?" But why? And how could Simon break him out of it? He couldn't just wait for him to catch up with reality. That would take years, and Gunter might just get smeared again once he reached the memory of whatever it was that had triggered the problem. Could timeline smears go fractal? Simon didn't know, and he didn't think he wanted to find out. Not like this, anyway.

The first step was to find Gunter again. And to hope that Gunter was confining his reminiscences to the tree fort and wasn't back in the Penguin District reliving his first day of school or something.

He was going to get this right this time. He was going to say the same things he'd said in the memory, and integrate himself into it until the explosion window had run its course. He thought that might probably work, if he did it right, and if explosion windows were real.

Down the hall, he faintly heard Gunter say "Simon? You okay in there?"

Simon rushed into the hall to find Gunter standing outside the bathroom. The door was open, but Gunter's eyes were focused on the doorway, like he couldn't see inside.

Simon hoped he was jumping to conclusions about which memory this was. Gunter must have asked him if he was okay through a closed bathroom door lots of times. It wasn't like he'd never been sick in his life. Gunter was using his careful, Simon-has-major-issues voice, but it didn't immediately follow that he was trying to comfort Simon after he'd struck out with Bonnibel for the millionth time and Simon was about to snap at him.

Gunter had been trying to give him romantic advice, and Simon had said that Gunter didn't know anything about romance, because he was dating some absurd fraction of everyone in the world. It didn't even make sense as an insult, but Simon had said it because he'd thought it might hurt him. Thankfully, it hadn't, but that didn't stop Simon from replaying what he'd said in his mind every time someone asked how he'd met his girlfriend.

Hearing Gunter act it out was even worse.

"Beg your pardon?" said Gunter.

He was still using that voice. It really was the memory Simon thought it was, and he had to say something soon, or he'd never integrate himself.

But what? Simon never played out this part of the conversation in his head. He was hard pressed to even remember the exact words Gunter had used right after Simon had snapped at him.

Gunter had just asked if he was okay, and Simon had been angry at himself for being so unloveable and stupid, and at Gunter for being there and being so concerned... He probably would have lied? "I said I'm fine," Simon tried.

No, even if the words were right, the way he'd said them were wrong. He was pretty sure his voice had been higher when he was thirteen, and he needed to sound more upset, and...

Gunter whirled around. "Blimey, Simon. You almost gave me--"

Simon remembered to hold his breath before Gunter exploded this time.

Obviously where he stood mattered just as much as what he said. It was time to stop experimenting, and start researching.

This was beginning to scare him.

Gunter found himself in a huge room made of blocks. Or it was a set of rooms. Or he was outside, halfway up some impossibly giant structure made entirely out of blocks. He couldn't tell. He was standing on a staircase that led from the roof of a block structure to a hallway between some other blocks. Below the staircase, the blocks stretched down into blackness.

There were definitely blocks. That much was obvious.

In fact... He gasped. "It's Prismo's house!" It wasn't, but it had a similar kind of aesthetic. "It actually worked, I can't be--"

Gunter stopped talking abruptly, and narrowed his eyes. There was something off about his voice. It sounded normal, and for a dream, that was really strange.

He spawned a clone and inspected himself through the clone's eyes. "Hm. Now that... That is odd." In his dreams, he usually looked tall and bluish, with big wing and tail feathers, and his voice was much higher. He even spoke with a different accent. Not because he particularly thought of himself as being tall and blue. It was just the way he looked when he was asleep.

But this time, he seemed to be the same height, colour and species as normal. Maybe his usual dream form was on break or something.

He reabsorbed the clone and ambled down the stairs. Now, if the ritual had worked, where was Prismo? Gunter couldn't see him anywhere. Obviously, the ritual hadn't worked, and he was on the failure plane, where the failures lived.

"Oh, be patient," he muttered aloud. "Prismo must be... Well, he's further along, isn't he?" There was plenty of whatever this was that he hadn't seen yet.

Prismo approached on the wall of a distant block, and disappeared down the same hallway that Gunter was approaching.

"Ooh!" said Gunter. "There he is! Prismo! Prismo! Wait for me!"

Prismo didn't seem to hear him. Gunter raced down the stairs and slid after Prismo on his belly. As he picked up speed, Prismo seemed to as well. When he slowed down, so did Prismo. Gunter was beginning to wonder if he'd ever catch up when the hallway ran out, and he was sliding in empty space, surrounded by stars.

And there was a comet. Gunter flipped himself upright, and stared. It was... It was. And he wanted it. It was so close... He just had to reach out, but not yet... He just needed to wait a little longer, and...

Gunter lost track of time as he gazed as the comet. He'd never wanted something so much in his life, and he had no idea why. He just knew it was important. It was more than important, it was...

It wasn't Prismo, that was what it was. Gunter shook his head repeatedly. "Right. Yes. Okay. Prismo. Hope I-- Hope I haven't lost him..."

The hallway reassembled around him, and Gunter waddled along it. If Prismo was going to match his speed exactly, there was no point tiring himself out with more sliding.

A nearby wall turned transparent, and Gunter heard his own voice say "Couldn't you put the TV on the other side of the bed? Then you can watch TV without getting up."

Gunter peered through to see himself and Prismo in the time room, relaxing in the hot tub.

"And ruin the feng shui?" said Prismo. "You don't even wanna know how bad my luck's been lately. It's the equivalent of walking under thirteen ladders."

Ah, this must have been from they'd first met, when Gunter had been too intimidated to reveal what he really thought of feng shui.

Eventually, he'd learned that he and Prismo had one important belief in common, and that was that everyone was entitled to their beliefs. Gunter didn't care that that Prismo believed in feng shui, and Prismo didn't care that Gunter didn't.

Hadn't. He hadn't cared that Gunter didn't share his belief in the relationship between furniture and life energy.

Gunter watched himself talk with Prismo for the first time. Neither of them seemed to be able to see him, and he was glad. Time was complicated, and he didn't want to damage it.

He had a tentative thought that reruns of old memories didn't count as seeing Prismo again, but he was pretty sure it was wrong, so he ignored it. This was exactly what he'd been trying to do, and if he stared enough, the sound of Prismo's voice would stop making him sad.

A giant, treehouse-sized Gunter appeared outside the window, and Simon flipped the pages of last year's Journal of Temporal Paradoxai even more aggressively. Gunter was right there, but Simon couldn't talk to him. Not until he figured this out.

He'd thought maybe Gunter wouldn't explode if he left him alone, but according to his research, Gunter would eventually notice something was amiss no matter what. The change in the memory had to be relatively close to him, or he'd dismiss it, but unless he was kept in a featureless, airtight room, it would happen eventually.

If Gunter had to be unstuck from time and space, Simon at least wanted him to stop exploding. It looked like it hurt. He just couldn't figure out how to help. He didn't have a featureless, airtight room, and he had no way of moving Gunter there even if he did. He needed to think of something else.

Simon put down the journal, picked up a book titled Space, Time, Spacetime, and Timespace, and flipped to the index. He remembered this book being pretty basic, but smeared timelines were an uncommon research topic, and he was getting desperate.

He quickly discarded the idea that Gunter's spacetime anchor had been eaten by elderitchs. It wasn't impossible, but a quick cross-reference with Not Just Tentacles and Beaks!: A Phylogeny of Otherworldly Horrors told him that that type of eldritch was uncommon in this corner of the rational planes. He was searching for any mention of other causes of timeline smearing when a Gunter clone ended the room, and walked straight into Simon's reading chair.

"Oof!" said the clone. "Oh, Simon. Good timing. Let me tell you about--"

The clone exploded. So did the giant Gunter outside.

Simon had one second to try to concentrate before Gunter's voice floated in from the kitchen. Simon couldn't hear what he was saying, but every word sounded like an accusation that he wasn't upset enough, and wasn't doing enough to help.

He could read and keep an eye on Gunter. Probably. At least it might alleviate the guilt before it turned into an unmanageable spiral. Simon walked up to the kitchen doorway and listened.

Gunter was standing near the oven, looking with mild surprise at a point to Simon's left. Then he said "Simon says it's not that far. He says there are a lot of places-- Not in Uuu, obviously-- a lot of places that are further from the ocean than space."

Simon tried to remember when he'd had a reason to drop that particular fact onto Gunter. Maybe when they'd discussed when rockets would be reinvented? Or... Was the time he'd tried to build that revenge rocket? Simon still couldn't think about that without feeling awful about what that had done to Gunter. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that. You couldn't have your brain pop out and just walk away like nothing had happened.

Simon hadn't been well himself at the time, but that was no excuse for trying such a dangerous revenge plan on someone he'd had no chance of finding. O'Malley could have been anywhere in the universe at that point. The border between Earth and space might be very close, but most things in space were very, very far away.

Gunter waved a flipper and said "Oh, he knows what he's doing. He'll be fine."

There was no way this wasn't about the revenge rocket. That was twice his worst fears had come true now. Seeing Gunter talk to Marceline about it really hammered that how stupid Simon had been. He couldn't hear what Gunter was hearing, but judging by his responses, she was expressing concern.

This was not helping his concentration as much as he'd hoped.

"Wait!" said Gunter. He made a twisting motion on the oven's temperature knob, and climbed towards the window.

This must have been just before he'd stowed away on the rocket. Simon couldn't watch this.

Simon crossed the kitchen and grabbed Gunter as he was saying "He needs his space!"

"Gunter!" said Simon, knowing it didn't matter what he said, but not caring. "You can't!"

Gunter looked at him, then out the window. "Er, Marceline? Sim--"

Simon was beginning to get used to the feeling of his brother exploding in his arms, and that was scary. He started back to the other room, and Gunter reappeared near the oven.

"Not again..." muttered Simon. Now Glob was just tormenting him.

Gunter seemed to be stirring something on the stovetop. He looked at it, sighed, and waved his flipper in the direction of the drum kit, which was standing where Simon had left it last night.

Gunter mimed for a couple of seconds, then said "Two utter strangers."

Simon bit his tongue to stop himself from yelling out loud. This was the ritual from last night! If he could keep this going for long enough, he'd be able to see what happened to Gunter afterwards, and maybe get a hint about what was going on. No more trying to read while Gunter acted out every time Simon had ever failed him.

Simon leapt behind the drum kit and began hitting the bass, at the same steady pace as last night. He stared nervously at Gunter.

Gunter didn't look like he was about to explode. He said "A chance encounter."

Simon relaxed as much as he dared. This was the second-most important drum recital of his life. If he missed a beat, Gunter would probably explode again, and Simon didn't know how long it would be before this opportunity came up again. He'd had enough of this. He just wanted his brother back.

Gunter still wasn't certain where he was, but he was beginning to settle on "weird block city that looks like that megacity Karl made when she was two days old and Gunter Jr knocked down when she was two days and one hour." The block structures looked a bit like skyscrapers, and there seemed to be a sky above him. It was dark purple and featureless, but it was still a sky.

Memories of Prismo were playing on the walls of the buildings all around him, and Gunter felt that this project had been a moderate success so far. Prismo was going to be living on Gunter's dreams for a good while yet.

There was another door up ahead, and Gunter wondered what was inside this one. Maybe it was a high quality home theatre system with video of every one of Gunter's Prismo memories. Or maybe it was a monster from the beginning of time ready to eat his soul, but that was just a negative thought.

Some small dinosaurs walked directly up the left side of the walkway. They were about the same size as Gunter, and they were treating the vertical wall like it was solid ground. When they got to the top, they rotated ninety degrees and walked across the real ground.

Gunter stopped to let them pass, and also to figure out the surge of anger and loathing that was suddenly overwhelming him. He kept thinking things like No! Not again! and Crush them! Crush them now!

Gunter didn't see what the big deal was. He'd never seen anything like these dinosaurs before, and they weren't threatening him, so there was no reason to crush them. He could have, but you couldn't go around crushing things just because they were there. It was bad manners.

Maybe it was one of those racial memory things. Penguins probably hadn't had a good time back in dinosaur days. He couldn't see what was so scary about these normal sized guys, though. It was the big T-Rex-looking things his ancestors probably would have had to watch out for.

The last of the dinosaurs continued on down the right side of the walkway, and Gunter started walking again, wondering which memory of Prismo he'd see next. He hoped it was that hot tub party they'd had with alternate universe Jake. When Gunter and Jake had found out they both knew Prismo, they'd had to get together for a soak. They'd planned to do it again sometime, but... The Lich.

A nearby wall flickered, and there were Simon and Gunter, in Prismo's time room, standing in front of a bed where Prismo's waking old man body was sleeping. O'Malley was there as well, and Gunter didn't like how close he was standing to Simon. Prismo was up on the wall, and the Lich was looming in the background.

"Psh," Prismo was saying. "What could go wrong?"

Gunter forgot about not interfering, and tried to yell a warning. But he'd frozen on the spot. He could only stare as the Lich grabbed the old man version of Prismo, woke him up, and then killed him, while a running commentary went on in Gunter's head about everything he could have done better to prevent this. He could have kept a closer eye on the Lich. He could have knocked old man Prismo out of the Lich's hand. He could have gone on a diet so he wouldn't be so fat and useless.

What? He was a penguin. He was supposed to be fat. Or he'd die of hypothermia the next time he went for a nice winter swim. His negative thoughts needed to step up their game.

The Lich started laughing, and Gunter turned away. He didn't want to remember Prismo like this. But... He didn't have many bad Prismo memories. Maybe now that this one was over with, he could get back to the good ones.

Gunter threw himself onto his belly and slid down the walkway to the building up ahead, leaving the sound of himself screaming at the Lich behind.

The building consisted of one room, and was pretty large, but there was only two things in it: a bed, and a small inverted pyramid with a glass of milk on it. That was weird.

Gunter rubbed the pillow with his flippers. "No friction..." he murmured. He'd never wake up with fluffed feathers with a pillow like this. He prodded it, and it was so plump and soft that it was an effort to pull his wing tip back out.

"Now, what about this bed?" The frame was hovering off the ground, which was usually a bad sign, stability-wise. Gunter grew as large as he could without his head scraping the ceiling, and pushed down with all his strength.

Nothing. It was completely stable. This bed would survive an avalanche.

Gunter shrunk back to his usual size, and stroked the bed's blanket absent-mindedly. He'd never seen anything that came close to how comfortable this bed looked. He liked to think he'd done a good job with his bed at home, but it was a pile of rusty nails compared to this.

Gunter wasn't stupid. He'd crawled enough dungeons to know a trap when he saw one. But who would set a trap for him in his own dream? He couldn't even remember what happened when you went to sleep in a lucid dream. He had the feeling that it was either dangerous or impossible, but he couldn't remember exactly. Knowing about that stuff was Simon's job.

Maybe sleeping here would just push him one more level down, into his sub-subconscious, where he'd achieve oneness with all things. That sounded pretty nice.

And who'd miss him if it went wrong? He was always thinking about what a horrible person he was, how nobody could like him, and how he'd completely failed at everything he'd tried. He wasn't sure he completely believed that, but he believed it enough to make trying the bed out seem like a calculated risk.

No. He was a great person, and a wonderful brother, partner, and father. Well, a wonderful brother and partner. He was a talented cook, his good-natured friendliness won over everyone he met, and he'd saved small portions of Uuu countless times. He'd been places and done things that most people would never dream of. If he died now, the world would be poorer for it.

"Hm." That was weird. Maybe all the negative thought countering had finally caught up with him. All at once.

Anyway, it was nice of him to say to himself, although bordering on conceited, but the bed was still really tempting... Maybe he'd just check what it felt like. He'd probably never get another chance like this. The mattress was just soft enough to mould to his body while being firm enough to stop him from waking up with a sore back in the morning, and whatever the blanket was stuffed with, it was softer than chick-kitten down.

If he fell asleep in this bed, he'd never wake up again. He knew that suddenly, although he couldn't say know how.

In that case, he'd make sure to just lie in it for a few seconds, without going to sleep. He could probably do that. This sudden burst of terror and helplessness he was feeling should keep him awake.

Gunter gulped down the milk, and tucked himself into the bed. He inhaled slowly. "That's... That is even softer than I thought it would be! I thought it would be soft, but this is amazing!" His eyes wanted to close, but he kept them open with an effort.

I command you to leave this bed and wake up!

"You know what, you know I think I can close my eyes, actually," he said. He really wanted to. That would be even more relaxing. "Without sleeping, of course. You know, there's an entire stage between closing your eyes and actually sleeping." He'd open them right away. Well, after a minute or two, once he was satisfied that he could leave an accurate review on the Dream Block City Hotel de Trap website. Bed quality was an important consideration.

Do not close your eyes! Wake up! Wake up!

Gunter closed his eyes, and dreamed.

Simon finished the drumroll, which he was pretty proud of. It had been his own contribution to the ritual, and it seemed like he'd got the timing down perfectly twice in a row. Or Gunter wasn't paying enough attention to the drumming to tell whether it was slightly different, but Simon thought it was probably the first one.

"Quickly!" said Gunter. "Let's... Let's get to bed!" He grabbed his plastic bag and headed for the ladder on top of a tower of clones.

Simon followed as closely as he dared, and climbed the bedroom ladder just in time to see Gunter climb into bed.

Simon peered at him from the other side of the room. He wasn't sure if he could get any closer without Gunter detecting him and exploding again. He should have experimented more on distance.

The plastic bag began to glow, and Gunter vanished in a flash of light.

"The bag?" said Simon. He took a running leap at Gunter's bed, hoping the bag was a portal like his instincts suggested. Otherwise he was about to dive into a drawer and break all his fingers.

He didn't break his fingers. Instead, he appeared on a staircase, in a strange city of blocks.

Gunter was wandering down a walkway ahead of him. He said something like "Oh, be patient. Prismo must be... Well, he's further along, isn't he?"

"Gunter!" called Simon, then clapped his hands over his mouth. There was no reason to think he'd caught up to Gunter in real time yet, and he hadn't come this far just to have him explode again. But he had no idea how he was going to be able to tell when he was caught up. Would Gunter start looking more real? He already looked as real as he ever did. He wasn't faded or transparent or anything like that. He was just Gunter.

Distantly, Gunter said "Ooh! There he is! Prismo! Prismo! Wait for me!" and slid off down a hallway.

Simon sprinted after him, but he hadn't got far when a block in the wall slid aside. Inside was Prismo, who put out an arm to stop him. "Simon. Hold up."

Simon stared. "Prismo? But you... You-- Oh, I get it! You're dream resonance!"

Prismo looked uncomfortable. "Uh... No, I'm the real Prismo. I'm actually talking to you from the past. I set up this plan B scenario in case I ever get croaked for reals. So if this is happening, then I guess I croaked, and my anchovies ran out. But Gunter and I established a bro bond that should bring me back through his dreams."

"Are you time-travelling, or are you just predicting everything I'm gonna say?" said Simon, intrigued. Prismo was more about wishes and dreams than time, but he was at least loosely associated with all three.

"Maybe..." Prismo began. "Huh, I don't know. Prediction...?"

"'Cause you have power over possibility!" said Simon. He'd never got much of a chance to question Prismo about the extent of his abilities before, although he wished it had happened in better circumstances.

Prismo glanced around. "Uh... Hurry up, I need your help." He opened up another block in the wall to reveal a passageway, and Simon stepped through.

"What's the deal with Gunter?" said Simon, as they walked. "He won't stop exploding and acting out the past! Is he gonna explode if we talk to him here?"

"Oh, that," said Prismo. "I think it's just a side effect of dreaming a dream from inside your own dream? It's fine, he'll... Uh, it'll be fine."

"Ah, I knew it!" said Simon. That was sort of like what he'd thought. Gunter had got sucked into his own dream somehow, but dreams needed an outside source to maintain themselves. So reality had... picked out earlier versions of Gunter to fill the gap? Yeah, that was probably it. "How did he get in his own dream? His timeline got smeared, right? Is smeared the technical term?"

"Look, Simon," said Prismo, "I don't think I'm supposed to tell singulars about all this. They come down hard on that kind of thing--"

Simon opened his mouth.

"Don't ask who "they" are," Prismo added quickly.

"Okay..." said Simon reluctantly. "Do you still exist in every timeline? Even timelines where you never died? Are you just doing something else right now in those timelines?"

"Simon, I'm serious," said Prismo. "Listen. If you hear about the deets from me, you could, uh... destabilise the balance of the multiverse. You don't want that, right?"

"I guess not..." said Simon. He guessed preserving reality was better than getting easy answers, but he had so many questions. He was beginning to see why Gunter got along so well with Prismo. Gunter rarely asked about this sort of thing, and never pressed the issue.

They walked in silence for a little while. It was a long passageway, and Simon couldn't see any sign of their destination, whatever it was.

Prismo cleared his throat. "So, Simon. How has your day been?"

Simon was too surprised to respond for a second. "Not that great. I didn't sleep good, and my brother keeps exploding."

Prismo nodded. "Right, yeah, of course." He laughed nervously. "Me, I got a couple replies on my dating profile yesterday. I mean, I'm not optimistic, but who knows? They seem nice. One of them eats their pizza crust first, just like me, so, you know, we have that in common."

Simon had heard a little about Prismo's love life from Gunter, but it was still weird to hear him talk about it. What did he care about dating? Globs were supposed to be... Well, it depended on the glob. But they weren't supposed to be active on social media. "Uh... Good luck."

"Hey, thanks, Simon," said Prismo. "I hope you and your girlfriend are doing okay. But don't actually tell me, I can't know anything else about your timeline in case I figure out when I died."

"You really like not knowing things, huh?" said Simon. He couldn't relate. If he'd been able to find out the exact time and place of his death, he... Actually, now that he thought about it, maybe he wouldn't want to know.

"Knowledge is power, Simon," said Prismo. "I can't change the future-- I mean, I can, but you don't really wanna see that-- and I told you, I'm gonna get in trouble."

"But... you're a glob," said Simon. He could accept that globs had metaphysical limitations, but what higher power could the Almighty Prismo possibly have to answer to?

Prismo laughed nervously. "I'm not a glob... I mean... I guess I am? But I... I'm not really a glob."

Simon stared down the hallway, but he still couldn't see where it ended. "Hey. How much longer is this hallway? When are we gonna get where we're going? Where are we going?"

"It's, uh... just a little further," said Prismo. "Don't worry. I'm leading you the right way."

Simon opened his mouth, then closed it again. Prismo sounded a lot like he was lying, but maybe he was just nervous. He was a good friend of Gunter's, and Simon should give him the benefit of the doubt.

Some fish crawled out of the ground like it was water and kept pace with them.

Simon watched them for a while, then said "What are those?" They had elongated bodies and fleshy fins, like lungfish. But Simon was sure that lungfish didn't have such intricate fin joints. He'd been trying to learn to identify different fish by sight, so that he'd stop embarrassing himself in front of his girlfriend so much, but these ones had him stumped.

"What's... huh?" said Prismo. He leaned over to look where Simon was looking. "I don't see anything."

"Those walking fish there," said Simon. He pointed, although Prismo already seemed to be looking in the right direction. "Look!"

Prismo leaned further forward and squinted. "Sorry, Simon, I can't see anything. Are you playing a prank on me or something?"

"No--" Simon began, and the fish dived back into the floor. "Aw, they're gone."

Prismo seemed a little worried. "Well... That could mean... Oh, it'll be okay."

"But what will be okay? What's going on?" Simon wanted to help, but how could he when Prismo wouldn't tell him anything?

Prismo smiled nervously. "I-It?" He pointed ahead, where some more wall blocks were withdrawing to form a new passageway. "Oh, we're here."

This passageway led into a mostly empty room, with one significant thing in it. "Gunter!"

Against the same wall the passageway came out in, there was a bed. Gunter was sleeping in it, which was a little worrying. Simon had thought Gunter knew how dangerous it was to sleep in a dream. And there was a second Prismo on the wall behind Gunter, which was a lot worrying. Prismo's dream-time-wish glob form had been powered by a sleeping old man. Gunter wasn't old or a man, but...

"You've gotta-" Prismo began.

"Hey..." said Simon. "That's you! Is Gunter...? What did you do to him? You turned him into your host body!"

"Actually, you're pretty much--" Prismo said.

Simon took up a fighting stance. He wished he had a weapon, but he didn't know what would work on a glob, especially one with no physical form.

No wonder Prismo had acted so unruffled about his death back then. He must have known the whole time that he was safe, and that Gunter was going to take the old man's place. How could he? "You lied to us!" He was certain that Gunter had never agreed to this. He would have said something.

Prismo drew back. "Simon, calm down. It's--"

"Okay?" yelled Simon. "Was that what you were gonna say? I thought Gunter was your friend! Were you planning this the whole time? Was he ever your friend? You were playing the long game, weren't you!"

Simon looked over at other Prismo to gauge how much of a threat he was, but he didn't even seem to be looking in their direction. Gunter wasn't reacting either, but Gunter had always been a heavy sleeper. If Simon couldn't wake him with his voice alone, he'd just have to go over there. He was determined to commit a cosmic crime today one way or another.

Prismo sputtered for a second, then said "Simon, your job is to wake him up. I swear."

"I'm gonna wak-- Huh?" Simon rubbed his temples. Had Prismo just said..? "I'm supposed to wake him up? That'll help you come back to life? And Gunter will be okay?"

"Yeah," said Prismo. "I'd never sentence Gunter to sleep for eternity. Without asking him first. Now go on and wake him up. Hurry!"

Tentatively, Simon entered the room and approached the bed. "Uh... Hi, other Prismo. I'm sorry I got mad at you. Him."

"Don't worry about it," said Prismo. "You're gonna wake up Gunter, right? Plan B?"

"I--" Simon began, then stiffened as someone came up behind him. A physical someone, not another projection like Prismo. He put his hand to his belt, although he hadn't had nunchucks for a while, and began to turn.

He felt a wrench, and then he didn't really feel much of anything.

Prismo faded away, and Gunter opened his eyes. "Oh, hello. I must have dozed off." He yawned, stretched, and closed his eyes again.

Simon shook him harder. "Gunter! Get out of bed, we gotta get out of here! It's dangerous to sleep in a dream."

"M'not sleeping," Gunter mumbled. "Just... testing the bed. A firm... firm, soft..."

Simon gave up and dragged Gunter out of bed.

Gunter looked around. "Oh. Yes. Right. Thank you, Simon. What are you doing in my dream?"

"Prismo had me wake you up--" Simon began.

Gunter ran for the passageway before Simon could finish. "Prismo! I knew he was alive!" He hugged the wall Prismo was projected onto.

"Well, not yet," said Prismo. "Simon, in a second, you've gotta stop yourself from waking up Gunter."

"Me..." said Simon. "So I got smeared too!" He had no idea when that had happened, but it wasn't something you could detect on your own. "But if I interrupt my timeline, won't I explode?"

"Oh shoot!" said Prismo suddenly. "Hide!" He withdrew into the space between the blocks that made up the wall.

Gunter shrunk down to the size of a nail and hit in Simon's waistcoat pocket. Simon scrambled up the wall and wedged himself in the corner between the wall and the ceiling. It wasn't comfortable, but it was the best option in a bare corridor like this.

Another Simon and Prismo walked past. Simon was saying "But what will be okay? What's going on?"

Simon waited until they'd turned the corner, then dropped back to the floor, frowning. He didn't remember saying that on the way here. This Simon's timeline had already diverged, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Prismo emerged from the gap between blocks, and Gunter jumped out of Simon's pocket.

Prismo said "But wait, Gunter, that means one of your alternate reality incarnations will sleep forever to keep me alive."

Gunter looked thoughtful. "You know, I've, I've always wanted to do that?"

Simon actually believed him.

He thought he got it now: Prismo was trying to split Gunter's timeline into one where Simon woke Gunter up from eternal sleep, and one where he didn't. Simon didn't think he liked it, but it was Gunter's decision. He was more concerned about the split in his own timeline.

"And, Simon, I don't know if you'll explode or not," Prismo added. "It's kind of like a divide by zero thing."

"I don't think I have the right to make myself blow up..." said Simon. He'd done a lot of thinking about alternate selves, and he preferred to treat them like separate beings, even when they had almost exactly the same experiences and memories.

"You know what?" said Prismo. "Forget it." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" said Simon. "Gunter's okay with it, so... I'm okay with it too. I don't know you as well as he does, but you're in trouble, and I help people." Also, Prismo's death had probably been his fault, but Gunter had asked him to stop saying that about everything, even when it was true. "And if I was here, I'd say the same thing."

As he spoke, he heard the faint sounds of himself jumping to conclusions about Prismo's intentions. There wasn't much time left.

"Good luck," said Prismo.

Simon waited for the yelling to die down, and cautiously exited the passageway. He'd timed it about right. Simon was still talking to the revived Prismo, and didn't seem to have noticed Simon yet. Simon steeled himself to grab Simon by the shoulder, then hesitated. Now that he was facing the possibility of annihilating himself from realtiy, he wasn't as sure he'd agree to this in his place. Maybe...

The Simon in front of him stiffened and began to turn around, but before he could complete the motion, he rose into the air and exploded. A pair of nunchucks dropped down where he'd been.

Simon stepped back. "Wh-- Huh?" The nunchucks had black handles with shiny green jewels, and a red chain. It was the exact same black as his waistcoat, and the exact same green as his shirt, and the exact same red as his bowtie. What had he done to him?

Even through his confused horror, he was half annoyed that he wasn't stealthy enough to hide from himself, and half pleased that he was perceptive enough to notice when he wasn't alone.

Hesitantly, Simon picked up the nunchucks. They had a familiar feel to them that he couldn't put his finger on. It was books, and stubbornness, and believing people could change for the better. It was worry that he wasn't good enough, and a desire to figure out everything. It was believing the world could change for the better.

"Prismo," he said, looking around at the passageway, but it had closed. He addressed the Prismo above the sleeping Gunter instead. "Prismo. Are these... me?"

"Simon-chucks, dude," said Prismo.

Simon stared into the gems on the handles. His reflection stared back. "Can I bring me back?" They could bring Prismo back. Although Simon wasn't nearly as important as Prismo.

His Gunter slapped him on the back. "Don't worry, Simon, you're already back! After all, you're standing here, aren't you?"

"Alternate mes aren't disposable, Gunter," said Simon. Maybe Gunter's clone thing made him see things differently, but this was totally different from directing a second body. This alternate him had had his own consciousness, and now he was a blunt instrument.

"Just a casualty on the way to your ultimate self," said Gunter, with an air of spiritual certainty. "The ultimate self is the bloke who really matters, you know."

"Ultimate selves aren't all they're cr--" Prismo began, then flickered off for a second.

He reappeared, and then began to distort. He didn't look uncomfortable, but he did look worried.

Simon ran over to the sleeping Gunter, and checked his temperature. He seemed okay, and he was showing no signs of waking up. "Is this normal?" said Simon.

Prismo was blinking on and off like Morse code. "I don't kn--, --de, I've n--er done this bef--. I think... --me --rt of Gunt-- is -ca-ed? --, -a-?"

Simon had to take a second to translate. Sleeping Gunter was... scared? "So you don't really want to sleep forever!" he said to Gunter. It was half a relief.

"No no, that doesn't sound like me..." said Gunter. "Strange. Maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought I did. Well, live and learn, live and learn."

Prismo distorted badly, and the room began to crumble.

"Oh, wait, wait," said Gunter, as bits of yellow dust rained on them. "After your time, Prismo, but I have... Well, I have "depression" now. Is that the problem?"

Prismo turned back to normal for long enough to frown. "Huh, maybe... I think it'll calm down soon-- Gunter, look out!"

A piece of ceiling fell towards them, so Simon batted it away with the nunchucks in his hand. Then he remembered what they were, and who they were. "Oh, clamballs! I'm sorry, me!"

"Don't worry about it, bro," said his own voice. Simon thought it was a third alternate version of himself, and looked around wildly, until he realised it was coming from the nunchucks.

He turned them around in his hands until he caught a glimpse of his own face on one of his handles. "Is... Is that you?" No. It was just his reflection in one of the jewels.

His reflection spoke. "I know you're freaking out. I would be freaking out in your shoes, and I'm you. But it's fine. I don't... I don't think I'm fully sapient anymore. I don't want anything. I'm just... me."

"Huh?" was all Simon could think of to say.

"You don't have to feel guilty about this," said his reflection.

Simon stared.

He was dimly aware that the corridor had stabilised, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from himself.

Prismo said "I think I'm okay now. Gunter, man, I'm sorry to hear you're depressed. Is there anything I can do? I had this friend once, he kept pretending everything was fine, and then the whole solar system he was in charge of? It exploded. I wonder whatever happened to that guy..."

Gunter sounded embarrassed. "Oh, I've just about got it under control. No need to worry about me."

"If you ever need to talk..." said Prismo.

"Of course," said Gunter. "Yes. Absolutely."

Simon tore his eyes away from his new himself-chucks, and noticed that it wasn't Gunter sleeping in the bed anymore. It was old man Prismo.

Simon jumped to his feet as soon as they hit land and looked around for the Lich. He couldn't see it,

I usually have reverse Simon refer to the Lich as "it", because I did that inconsistently in the first fic I wrote, and decided to go with him preferring to refer to monsters as its. This is, of course, canon ever since the Ice King called Bella Noche an it in the episode Betty. (No)

but he could see the reason the Guardian had fell. There was a battle going on. All the greyified prisoners were attacking the Guardians. It was hard to tell, but Simon was hoping that the Guardians were winning.

Maybe it would have been easier to tell who was winning if I'd bothered to describe the battle at all. I've been trying to do better at that lately.

Also, “had fell”? That’s not the right verb form to use in this register. How did that sneak through?

He had to go help, but he needed a better understanding of the situation. And he didn't want to leave his mom.

This is more about her safety than being annoyed at her, but there’s a bit of both there.

"Simon," said Gunter. He looked a bit smaller than usual.

Probably literally, because he can change his size, but I never specified.

He opened and closed his beak a couple of times, then just said "This is bad."

I wanted to write better dialogue, but I was distracted by how good "Just promise me, if both my eyeballs get fried off, you'll fry yours off too" was in the episode. So instead he’s just speechless.

"It'll be okay," said Simon.

Gunter says the same thing to Simon at the end of the story. In universe that’s a callback to this bit, but out of universe it’s because Jake says it to Finn after Finn loses his arm.

Just as soon as they figured out what they could do about it. They could run away, probably taking the unmelted crystal chunk that some of the grey criminals had started swarming over,

Why are they swarming over it? What are they doing? What does Simon intend to do with it? Aren’t they on an unmelted crystal chunk right now? Explain, past me. It's pretty obvious if you've seen the episode, but if I’m doing episode rewrites, I should commit to them.

but what about the Guardians? And the Lich was still out there somewhere.

"Yeah, listen to, uh, Simon," said Petra.

Was that "uh" theatrical, or did she really not remember his name until Gunter used it? Probably the second.

She'd been lying facedown where the wave had left her.

She's the only poor swimmer in the group. Gunter is a penguin, and Simon was raised by penguins and has a fish for a girlfriend, so they're both excellent swimmers. And O'Malley can probably swim pretty well because he’s an Irish setter.

She pushed herself up into a kneeling position and wiped her face. "When the last Guardian dies, the fighting stops."

Martin says this in the episode, and the battle immediately finishes with Martin getting hit by a stray shot. But here the battle lasts a little longer, because I needed the characters to talk first.

The Guardians were definitely losing, Simon decided.

I’m glad I can tell when I’m being stupidly vague now, because that’s the first step to not being stupidly vague in the next draft

"I gotta help them."

O'Malley made a loud groaning noise.

So there's this They Might Be Giants song and Homestar Runner short called Crystal Fortress where the singer tells Strong Bad to come down from his crystal fortress, while Strong Bad insults him. At the start of the second verse, Strong Bad groans over the first line because he'd hoped the song was over, and that's basically what I was thinking of here.

"Could you drop the hero act for five Grod-darn minutes?"

In this story, I wrote him as being genuinely concerned that Simon was going to get himself killed pretending to be a hero. That’s why, earlier on, he ran towards the Lich to try to convince Simon to run as well. But he’s still more concerned about his own welfare, especially if he has more than a split second to think about it.

"I am a hero," said Simon. "And I'm not your protege!

O'Malley said he was earlier and it's really bothering him.

I've beaten the Lich before, and I can do it again." He just wished he had a plan.

I should have had him at least start to come up with a plan here, but I guess he has had a hard day.

"See?" said O'Malley to Petra. "Never listens to me anymore." To Simon, he said "Be realistic. Your mom ain't even here."

Not sure what that line has to do with what they were talking about, but at least it moves the scene along.

"Yes she is!" said Simon, looking directly at Petra.

"Okay," said Petra. "I know what you're implying, but I do not remember having a son."

Petra actually figured it out earlier when she learned what Simon was doing there, but all she knows about whether she has any kids is that she doesn’t want to remember, so she played dumb. Now that Simon has basically stated that he’s her son, she doesn’t think she can get away with that anymore.

As mentioned in rewrite of The Visitor, Drifter, Petra is deliberately lying by omission by saying she doesn't remember having a son. She knows she probably has a child of some sort, but she doesn't remember it, so technically she’s telling the truth.

O'Malley looked between them, then burst out laughing. "You... You two are related! And you were calling me old."

I like the implication that having kids makes someone older than just living a lot of years.

A monster flew overhead, and they all ducked.

Trying to ground the scene in the place it's supposed to be happening, so they don’t disappear into the blank plane of endless dialogue.

"I thought, quick hands, must be a human trait," O'Malley continued. "Likes to talk, questions every minor thing..."

The idea behind this was that he didn't want to assume that everyone of the same species was related, because people have done that to him and it's annoying. He probably thought he might be her nephew rather than her son, though.

Petra sighed. "You don't know as much about humans as you think."

Everything Petra says to O'Malley is dismissive or insulting. I write her as bigoted towards non-humans, although she considers O'Malley one of the smart ones. I was going to say one of the "good ones", but...

"Sure, he didn't get your air of superiority," said O'Malley "But he got your skill set, all right." To Simon, he said "See? You come from a long line of career criminals."

I doubt Petra actually told him anything about her family.

Simon wanted to say that ancestry didn't matter, but all he could think about was his mother being a criminal like O'Malley. She might have denied being his mother, but she didn't look inclined to deny being a criminal.

I think he probably would have been able to respond if anyone else had told him that, but just being around O'Malley seems to be mildly triggering for him.

"You follow the Church of the Third Moon, then?" said Gunter to O'Malley.

Gunter jumped in because Simon was getting upset.

"What?" said O'Malley.

"I've never met anyone who wasn't raised Adrestian who calls Glob the Divine Quadruple G," said Gunter. "Adrestianity is obviously in your blood."

O’Malley calling Glob “The Divine Quadruple G” was just supposed to be a dialectal thing, but it worked too well for this scene not to bring it up again.

It's basically a fringe sect of whatever the dominant religion of Uuu is, and the central idea is that there's a secret third moon of Mars called Adrestia. In Greek mythology, Adrestia was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and the sister of Phobos and Deimos, which the real moons of Mars are named after. Like Phobos and Deimos, she's associated with war, so it seemed like the best choice for a third moon of Mars. "Adrestianity" is a pretty obvious play on "Christianity". The name is a little close to Andrastianism from the Dragon Age games, but I don't think that's significant enough to change it.

"Maybe I'm not Adrestian like my folks were," O'Malley conceded.

I used past tense there because I thought his parents were probably dead, given his age. But afterwards I wondered how he knew that if he doesn’t get along with them, and how he reacted to their deaths. I wondered so hard I ended up outlining a whole story that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it out. And now it still won't leave me alone because I like the characters too much. Who wants to hear about how his brother-in-law would use Facebook if Facebook was a thing? Because I’ve figured that out.

"But you don't see me infiltrating the 37th Dead World just to say hi. Besides, anyone can be Adrestian, but sneaky skills like these two's don't come around every day."

I had some trouble editing this bit after I wrote it, because working out what it actually meant triggered my stomach pain. That's okay though, he probably didn't think very hard about it either.

Petra sighed again and said "That's great, Mal, but he's not my son. Can you see me with a kid?"

I would rate Petra's fitness as a parent slightly higher than O'Malley's, but only because she hasn't actively traumatised any children that I know of. Unless the reason Simon is afraid of fire is because she threw him into a volcano or something.

Also, she didn't bother lying by omission here because she couldn’t come up with something quickly enough, so she just did a normal lie.

"It's getting easier and easier," O'Malley responded, looking at Simon.