Author's Note: The previous 'Sugar, Spice and' stories are preludes to this, which I plan will become a true chapter story. Updates are planned to be posted every two days.
Reviews are appreciated. Keep calm and carry coffee!

Fionna was having a very strange week. Well, stranger than the usual everyday strangeness, anyway.

Let's see, Cake was fluffing about her boyfriend, bleah, that was normal.

The Ice Queen was still coming up with lame prince-kidnapping plots, gross, that was normal too.

Her missions across the land of Aaa had been awesome and kick-butt, that was also normal, haHA!

Gumball and Marshall were snapping at each other again, and that should have been normal.

But for some reason it didn't feel normal, and she couldn't figure out why.

She didn't like trying to figure out something that felt 'complicated'. That was normal for her, but in this case the whole thing had been just like a woolly-weed itch that wouldn't go away.

The strangeness probably started around the time with that one mission Gumball had given her.

He'd been banging (politely) on the door of Tree Fort, and when she let him in he looked out of breath.

"Oh, hey, Gumball! Uh...dude, you okay?" she asked.

He held up a finger, sucking in breath, "Has-has Marshall Lee been-whew-been by here...?"

When she told him she hadn't seen the vampire he slumped, "Oh, thank goodness..."

He then straightened up and straightened out his crown, his cheeks turning a darker pink, and she laughed a bit to herself, "You ran all the way here from your castle, didn't ya?"

"Well, it was an important matter, Fionna, though I'm sure I nearly exploded my own 'heart-guts' in doing so."

He bemusedly examined his own chest, then frowned, "I wish I could put that incorrigible hue-sucker under some sort of capital punishment, pardon my bluntness."

"What'd the guy do this time?" Fionna asked, and blinked when the prince started to sway, "Um, wanna sit down?"

"Thank you." he said weakly, and did, and Fionna realized he had probably waited for her to offer. Pfft.

"Right, so, what'd the guy do?"

"That uncivilized son-of-a-demon stole the—" he stopped himself and coughed, "Uh, excuse me." He took a deep breath, "The...character in question stole...something important to me, and it's imperative that I recover the thing that he stole."

"Sounds like a mission!" she grinned, and it wasn't gonna be a lame mission! "What'd he steal?!"

He stared at her and then looked like he was getting a headache, muttering something she couldn't make out.

"The thing that he stole was a...file, I suppose you'd say. But it has extremely sensitive information that I can't afford to be leaked beyond its source, and I'm afraid, Fionna, that not even you can look at it."

"So it's like a secret." she said.

He sighed, "Yes, Fionna, that's exactly what it is, and he has it."

She grinned, "I'm good with secrets and junk, Gumball, and finding Marshall. I can catch him, beat him up, and get it back for ya. I promise I won't look." Gumball shook his head, "I'm afraid to take the risk, Fionna."

She blinked, and then pouted, frowning, "You don't come all this way like you did to worry about stuff like that and then expect me not to! Now I'm gonna be fluffing about this for the rest of the day if you don't let me!"

When he frowned, doing that 'I'm-thinking-so-hard-I-gotta-cover-my-mouth-and-l ook-serious' thing he did, she moved forward, "You know I'm the only one we both know who can actually catch Marshall. Your 'Candy Kingdom Task Force' just makes him laugh." When he made a hurt face she waved her arms, "Well it does! He laughs at me too, but at least I can punch him right in his guts for it, yeah? Come ooon! Ple-e-ease?"

He stared at her for a minute, before he pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing, "The idiot planned for this. Alright, you may help me in recovering the file, but certain precautions have to be made. One, I come with you."

She nodded, hopping from foot to foot, ready to just go already. "Yeah, yeah, sure!"

"Two, if we get there and you see papers or things like that, anything that looks readable or interesting, don't look at it. In fact, back away and shut your eyes, yes, I think that'd be safe."

That made her frown, "What if the dude attacks me when my eyes are closed?"

"I'll be there, so you'll be alright."

"Oh, um, right..."

"And three, and most important, if he starts to say, or 'sing', glob forbid, anything about that file, you shut your ears and sing, or run away as fast as you can, singing. Like, really fast."

She crossed her arms, feeling a lot less psyched now.

"Uh, dude, I'm not trying to argue, but how are any of those rules actually gonna let me catch Marshall?"

"I'll be there, remember?"

She tried to think of this as a good thing, but really didn't feel too good about it. "Well, I can't run away, Gumball, that'd just make him laugh even more. And, no hard feelings when I say this, I can't see you getting anything out of him."

He suddenly gave a weird, very 'un-Gumball' smile that made her blink, before he shook his head quickly.

"Um-ahem-right, well... Hmm, maybe we can do something similar..."

After leaving Cake a message back at Tree Fort, she headed towards Marshall's cave, Prince Gumball on her back.
It was awkward, him being taller, but he was pretty light, so it wasn't too bad.
He wasn't a quiet passenger, though.

"Remember, don't look at any papers."

"Uh-huh..."

"And don't listen to him."

"Yeah..."

"And don't do anything or go anywhere without me."

"I get it, Gumball!"

"Sorry, sorry, I know. It's just—I'm just really nervous about this, Fionna. I'm sorry if it makes me doubt you."

She sighed, flipping a lock of her hair out of her face, "I'll let ya know if it does, heh. It's alright, I know how important secrets are and stuff. I remember getting so crabbed when Cake found out one of mine."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But it was only the one where I was cutting up the bedsheets to make shadow monsters to fight.
I kept pinning that on the dust bunnies for, like, months."

"It doesn't sound like much of a secret anymore, Fionna, if you told me."

"Pfft, I was six. It was my secret, so it's okay if I told it.
Mom and Dad kept the linen closet locked after Cake told 'em, that's why I was crabbed."

"Well, one mustn't ignore the importance of linens..."

"I guess. Anyway, I got back at Cake later by finding out that...well...never mind."

"Never mind what?"

"I'm good at keeping secrets, dude!"

She felt him laugh against her back, and she laughed a bit herself. Even if he was control-freaky, this was pretty fun.

"Well, I suppose that I, too, had been something of a well-meaning miscreant in the days of my youth."

"Ha-ha, I bet!"

"No, no, really! One time, get this, I gathered a meeting of some of the palace guards' children, and we led an anonymous diplomatic protest against the kitchens for an increased supply of treats for snack-time.
We had a little anthem, some masks, banners, a written list of demands, everything!"

She chuckled, imagining a tiny, squeaky Gumball marching in the halls carrying a sign. The image was too funny.
She snorted as she began to laugh, and the prince noticed.

"Well, sure, it's not like fighting shadow monsters, I guess, and perhaps not as 'anonymous' as my much younger self understood," he said, sounding miffed, "But, if pressed, we would've staged a tactical revolt, and I had plans for one! Nap-time, however, was our inescapable adversary..." he shook his head sadly, and she looked back to see him smile a bit.

"Ah-ha-ha, ahh, yeah... Hey, hey, we're almost there."

She felt him tense, and shook her head a bit to herself. It must've been some secret if it bothered him this much.
Marshall Lee would steal it, knowing it'd bother Gumball this much. Why would Gumball write down a secret, though?
The cave yawned open, the dark rock looking creepy against the bright colors of the sky and the forest.
If she strained her hearing, she could already hear the chords of an electric guitar.
She walked carefully inside, picking her familiar way through the juts of rock. Were they stalagmites? Stalactites?
Eh, she never remembered. She jumped back when a shower of rocks crashed in front of her.

"Well, well, well, look who dropped in to see li'l ol' me!" she heard a voice laugh.