Chapter Text
It really was shockingly easy for Betty and Simon to get lost in the beautiful bubble that was being parents to a newborn. Marceline had stayed with them for the first couple of days after Rosemary’s birth, after which point she had to return to her actual life, much to her parents' sadness. Still, that meant that Betty and Simon, who had no jobs or responsibilities aside from their daughter to keep them occupied, spent practically every moment in their home, fussing after her and watching her grow.
“She has your eyes, my princess,” Simon said with a smile on his face that hadn’t gone away since Rosemary’s birth. Currently, she was asleep in her crib, and Betty and Simon were standing in the nursery, watching her sleep and commenting on her. She was far better than any TV show Simon had ever seen, even Cheers, because she was theirs. He could have watched her, and pointed out features she shared with his beautiful wife, all day. Betty looked at him affectionately before responding in kind.
“Well, she has your nose.” Betty offered, gently touching the nose of their baby, who stirred but did not wake from her slumber. “She’s perfect,” Betty said, and it was utterly true. Everything from her cries, to the way she cooed, to how she breathed while she slept was the most perfect way for a baby to do those things. Betty was well aware she was biased, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Their daughter was going to be showered in affection. There was nothing in the world that could ruin the sanctity of what they’d created here.
“Mr Petrakov, Mrs. Groff, we need your help immediately!” A man called as he burst into their cabin and bee-lined for the nursery. He was blue-skinned with green hair, clearly an example of post-war sentience, and they’d seen him around the village a few times before they’d gone into baby-induced exile. He was clearly out of breath and had such a panicked look on his face, they both decided not to tear into him for entering their home without permission, though neither was particularly curious about whatever had possessed him to do it.
“Can it wait, we’re trying to take care of our baby,” Simon asked with slight annoyance, even though what they were doing was less taking care of Rosemary and more staring at her while she slept. The man simply looked at them a bit perplexed and for a moment it seemed they’d be in a stare off to see who could last the longest without breaking and speaking. Betty and Simon looked at him seriously, and the man began to sweat, indicating he was going to lose this battle. And so, he began to explain himself.
“There is conflict brewing between two sections of the village over how communal crop production should be run, and we need our leaders to sort it out.” The man explained seriously, and both Betty and Simon had not the slightest clue what he was talking about. They had their own farm, so they didn’t really deal with issues of group farming, meaning they were in no way qualified to discuss what should occur. And, even more seriously, the reverence with which he spoke to both of them made their skin crawl.
“Leaders?” Betty asked confused. “We’re not leaders, we’re just parents,” she said, and that word brought a smile to her face as she whipped around to look at their baby once more before returning to the conversation. Despite the fact that neither Betty nor Simon had ever claimed to be any type of ruler or leader, the man seemed utterly confused by this, as if it was some sort of contradiction. He looked at them bug-eyed, as if they were playing some sort of prank on him, and when it became clear that they weren’t he began to grovel.
“Well, whatever it is you call yourselves, your people need you.” The man said, clearly uninterested in examining why Betty and Simon might have rejected the title outright, not to mention their lack of interest in the subject at hand. Rosemary started fussing and Simon turned back to her crib, rocking her gently until she calmed down enough to return to sleeping. Now, both Betty and Simon were heavily on board with the idea of kicking this man from their home. However, they chose to be nice about it, which may have been a mistake.
“Woah, slow down. We don’t have people, unless you're counting our kids. We didn’t ever accept the position of leaders, and we don’t want it. If you all can’t figure out how to solve a basic conflict on your own, you should elect someone to lead you and leave us out of it,” Simon asserted, trying his best to project confidence in his statement and leave no room for argument. Unfortunately, the man seemed to have only heard the part of the sentence he wanted to, as he brightened significantly and grabbed both Betty and Simon by the arms, pulling them outside.
“Everyone, our leaders have spoken, and they want us to hold an election!” The man announced to an excited crowd who had gathered outside of Betty and Simon’s house. Before being pulled outside, Betty had managed to grab their daughter, and she was not enjoying how much awe people were staring at their child with, like she was some sort of fleetingly deity. “What other decrees do you have for us?” The man asked, and both Betty and Simon stared him down until he seemed to shrink, before addressing the crowd.
“We are not your leaders, and we don’t offer decrees,” Betty insisted, clutching Rosemary to her chest and shaking her head. She hated the feeling of everyone looking at her like she was important, because that meant she could let them down. “Hold an election if you want, or don’t, just please leave us out of it.” Betty explained and with that herself and Simon tried to return to their home, only to be stopped by the man and turned back towards the crowd. They all looked at them with nervousness and anticipation.
“Listen, we know you didn’t exactly choose this title, but the two of you founded this village, and have completed amazing feats which everyone knows about. It's only natural that we look to you for guidance.” He offered, and neither Betty nor Simon appreciated his explanation. When they’d founded this village, they had to work so hard to argue their values of democracy and free choice in a world that seemed to desire god-kings and strong-willed leaders. But that had never been who they were, and they wanted to make that as clear as possible.
“If we agree to be the judges of an election for town leader, will you please leave us alone?” Simon asked, wanting nothing more than to cuddle with his wife while feeding their daughter. Neither of them had ever been deeply interested in power or strength, and nowadays, they cared even less. While they of course did still love adventuring and were looking forward to doing it with their daughter once she got older, just as they’d gone on adventures by necessity with Marceline, right now they just wanted to keep her safe and happy, away from the status they’d been given.
“Sure, I guess,” the man said after a murmur went up through the crowd, everyone seemingly deciding it was an acceptable trade-off for what they were asking. Neither Betty nor Simon had much hope that it’d actually keep the townspeople off their back for long, but it was possible it would buy them time, which was all they wanted. Once an agreement had been reached, Betty cleared her throat and prepared to make an announcement to the crowd, which felt deeply strange to her, though she did her best not to think about it.
“Great, then this evening we’ll hold a vote and count the results. And any vote for one or both of us will be thrown out immediately, so pick someone else. Now leave us alone.” Betty explained and then, finally, they were allowed to return to their home without being bothered by the little cargo cult they seemed to have amassed. “We really need to put a new lock on that door,” Betty mused as she put Rosemary back in her crib, and herself and Simon were once again returned to the sweet domestic bliss they so loved.
“How should we vote in the election? Just put some pieces of paper in a box, or would you like something more elaborate?” A random citizen asked, after knocking on one of their windows. Simon sighed and shooed them off, which seemed to work, before going to the kitchen and asking Betty what she’d like to have for dinner. Simon always let her pick nowadays, considering she was completely in charge of their daughter’s ability to eat. It seemed only fair she should get whatever she was craving.
“We need to get curtains too, along with a new lock.” Simon muttered as he chopped vegetables for their favorite soup, one Betty had made for the entire community when they’d joined their first village. Simon always thought his tasted a little too bland compared to the way she prepared it, but Betty always insisted it was great, and Simon had no interest in going against Betty’s judgement. He mixed in the goat cheese, which they still made themselves, and the meat, which they didn’t have to hunt for but instead got from a nearby fox salesman.
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Betty said as she thought about sewing some for the two of them soon. Neither of them realized how much they valued their privacy until this moment. When they’d been scavenging the wasteland with Marceline, it’d been so bereft of people that they hadn’t worried about privacy at all. And, when they’d moved into their first village they were just like any other members, so privacy had been maintained. Now, however, the two of them were being elected to the role of unwilling cult leaders.
“Here you go, my darling,” Simon said as he presented Betty with a bowl of the soup. He loved the way that they’d managed to recreate parts of their old life in this one, the bowls that the two of them had made out of clay and other implements they found being a recreation of the bowls they’d gotten when Betty first moved in with Simon. They were made from memory, and some had Marceline’s little handprints on them as she’d helped gather the clay. They were made of everything that had happened to and with them, and it showed.
“This is great soup, as always, Simon.” Betty said after taking a sip of it and snuggling close to Simon, their baby in hand. A smile spread across Betty’s face that she couldn’t help because they were a family, safe and sound here. Or at least they would be a perfect fan if not for the fact that they were constantly surrounding by the weirdos of their village asking for more logistics of how this election was going to happen. All that they hoped was that the people managed to elect someone slightly less unhinged than they were collectively.
“How does Bonnibel deal with this sort of thing?” Simon asked, thinking about the large crowd they’d seen at her coronation not too long ago. They were clearly thankful to and adoring of her, but they didn’t seem to regard her as someone who needed to be bothered with ever little incident. Though, knowing Bonnie, she probably would have appreciated that considering she loved being involved in the lives of her citizens. Maybe Betty and Simon were too old, but that sounded utterly exhausting to the both of them.
“Well, she created all of her citizens, I highly doubt that she gave them the ability to be so overwhelmingly obsessed or in need of guidance,” Betty offered as she stood up to wash her bowl, leaving Simon to burp their daughter so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable. As he did so, Simon thought about how they definitely deserved a vacation after this whole fiasco, and maybe he’d move his proposal of a spa weekend up a bit earlier so they could unwind after this nightmare. If anyone had earned it, it was his princess.
“We’re ready for the counting of the votes!” Someone said later that night as they knocked on Betty and Simon’s door, alerting them of their presence. Considering the alternative was them walking inside uninvited, this was relatively quaint. Neither Betty nor Simon was excited by what they were going to do, especially because it had interrupted their family nap, but when duty called they were going to answer. Especially because answering the call meant they could block the number after and finally be left alone.
“Fine, just give us a minute, and we’ll do it,” Simon offered as himself and Betty double and then triple checked that the baby was fine before exiting their cabin and having a cardboard box with the word “votes” written on it shoved in their hands. It seemed incredibly full, which was at least a good sign of high voter participation, and slowly Betty and Simon made their way through the votes. The bright side was that no one had cast a vote for them. The bad news was who the people had elected was far weirder.
“Seventy percent of the votes were for no-one. What does this mean?” Betty asked, as the count had been finished. She felt a pit of dread in her stomach that this was just their strange way of announcing they planned to keep the two of them as their deified leaders, something neither were looking forward to. It wasn’t helped by the fact that many of the faces in the audience looked quite guilty, something Betty picked up on quickly. “Someone better start explaining themselves,” Betty said with a tone only a mother could manage.
“Well, uh, funny story. The entire reason we even wanted to have an election was to have someone to tell us what to do about our farmland dispute but, we all worked together and solved it so we don’t actually need a leader after all,” a voice in the crowd announced and Betty and Simon just stared off into the distance trying to comprehend the ridiculousness of the situation they were in. When that failed, they both simply threw their hands in the air and gave up trying to understand, choosing instead to rejoin their child.
“Sure! Why not! Do whatever you want, just leave us alone.” Simon said, recognizing that all of this nonsense had apparently been for nothing. As they returned to their home, Betty and Simon let out a sigh of relief that this was over at least, and that now they could return to their wonderful domestic bubble. That night, as they laid in bed, preparing to sleep but ready to rush to the nursery on a dime. They snuggled a bit, as something came to Betty’s mind that she hadn’t considered before.
“That was a little fun,” she said and while Simon looked at her confused for a moment he seemed to understand her and laughed while nodding. While they had no interest in doing something like that all the time, it was enjoyable getting to spend some time with each other doing something other than parenthood now and again, and that was what this had been. They supposed on occasion a little diversion could be fun as long as it was temporary. As they settled in for the night, both were pleased with how things had gone for them.