Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What is that?!”

“What’s it do?”

“Can I touch it?”

“No!” Anais yanked the thing away from Gumball’s grasping fingers. “As I was just saying, this is an incredibly dangerous unknown device and using it could have any number of terrible consequences! For all we know…”

“Blah blah terrible consequences blah blah!” Gumball rattled off in a mocking imitation of Anais’ voice. She glowered at him, but he just smirked haughtily. “C’mon, Anais, you know this always ends in us using the crazy doom device anyway. Just make it easier on yourself and don’t fight it.”

Anais scoffed. “It is not a law of the universe that you get us into mortal peril at every opportunity, Gumball.”

“You sure about that?” Gumball said with infuriating smugness. “My record’s pretty good!”

“Wait, I really do want to know what that is,” Darwin said, staring at the thing. “It looks kinda familiar, but I don’t really know…”

The morning sun glinted off the heavy metal circle in Anais’ hands. Its body gleamed a brilliant gold, untarnished by any grime or scratches. The face, covered in glass so clear it could have been invisible, displayed a strange, branching pattern: countless lines emanating from a central point until they were lost in a maze of minute deltas. The pattern almost looked like the shape of a butterfly’s wings, but that may have just been Gumball’s imagination. Strange knobs and buttons jutted off the edges of the thing, as shiny as the rest.

“Well, it looks like an old-timey pocketwatch.” Anais had to stare at the thing too, and her voice was uncharacteristically uncertain. “…But the face is all wrong. It should just mark the hours, but instead it’s got this weird pattern.” She looked up and started speaking more quickly. “And, and, when I took it apart the insides didn’t have any machinery! It was just this dark empty space!” She groaned, and acted like the next sentence was physically painful: “I hate to say it, but I think it might be… magic.”

“COOL!” the brothers shrieked, eyes alight. “Lemme see, lemme see!”

“NO!” Anais yelled, scuttling back from their outstretched arms. “We don’t know what this thing does! You can’t just press buttons at random! For all we know it could be evil, or blow up the universe, or…!”

“Or do something TOTALLY COOL!” Darwin said, clapping his hands with delight. “C’mon, it’s probably not gonna destroy the universe.”

“And it’s not like we had anything else to do today.” Gumball scuffed his feet against the offensively neat backyard grass to prove his point. He smirked knowingly. “Unless you want us to wander around town and throw the universe into chaos that way…?”

Anais huffed and crossed her arms. “Look, you can play with it all you want just as soon as I change that probably into a definitely, okay? Just let me look at it a little more until we at least know what it–”

Welp, he tried asking nicely, but now Gumball was bored. Time to break out the old standby.

“HEY ANAIS, WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE?!” With a cry and a flourish, Gumball pointed at a patch of cloud as earnestly as he could manage.

Anais just glared. “You really think I’m stupid enough to–”

“Got it!” Darwin cried triumphantly, holding the watch aloft behind Anais. She looked down at her empty hands with a horrified expression and whirled around, sputtering impotently. “Heads up!” Darwin yelled, tossing the device over her head. Gumball dived, catching it just before it hit the grass.

He grinned, and theatrically poked out one finger. “Oh, I wonder what this button does~?”

“Gumball, no! I mean it, this could be really bad!”

Gumball pressed a button at random. One of the branches on the upper-right side of the face began to glow with an unearthly light. He hummed, and looked more closely at the interface. Some of them put him in the mind of navigation buttons… He clicked his thumb over the metal knobs, harder than the kinds of buttons he was used to on a computer or electronic watch. Anais’ voice and even the pleasant morning air around him seemed to fade away as he tapped the buttons. All he could see now were those butterfly veins, branching and branching until he couldn’t even distinguish individual lines anymore.

Another branch, immediately adjacent to the first, lit up.

It… felt right.

He clicked the watch just as Anais and Darwin collided into him.

For a moment, everything seemed to hold still. The world blurred, every object peeling away from itself to create a faint afterimage. The double-vision became more solid until he couldn’t be sure which version was real and his eyes watered with the strain of it. When it became too much, he blinked –

– and he was suddenly on the ground, feeling the wet dew on his shirt and his siblings piled on top of him. He still clutched the watch in his hand.

Anais leapt to her feet, hyperventilating. “What was that?! Did you see that?!”

“It’s okay, Anais!” Darwin said, radiating sickeningly-sweet innocence like a champ. “The universe is still here, see? Everything’s fine!”

“W-well then what just happened?” Anais said, clutching at her ears like teddy bears. “Maybe the universe did blow up, but then it came back again! Or maybe we’re dead! I don’t know!”

Gumball got up and brushed himself off. He looked around. Everything seemed to be exactly the same – green grass, wood fence, the shed in the corner. The sun was even in the same position in the sky, as far as he could tell. Kind of disappointing, if he was being honest…

The watch chimed.

Anais and Darwin immediately went silent as they slowly looked over. Gumball held it up.

The branching pattern on the face was gone. In its place was a glowing message: ADJACENT MOVE SUCCESSFUL. CURRENT UNIVERSE: X137.

Everyone stood frozen. After a second, the message vanished, and the branches came back.

Anais was the first to break the silence. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. So, sounds like the watch lets us travel between alternative universes. That’s… not so bad.” She smiled weakly. “It seems I… may have overreacted.”

“YES!” the brothers shouted in unison, pumping their fists. “You were wrong and we were right! You were wrong and we were right!”

“Alright, alright!” Anais huffed. “But this still doesn’t mean the thing is harmless! We could pop into a dimension where the Earth never formed, or something! Or we might be trapped here! Do you even know how to get back?”

Gumball clicked a button. The watch lit up: UNDO MOVE?

“Oh.” Anais almost sounded disappointed. “Well,” she said after a pause, “that’s great. You’ve had your fun, so let’s go back and learn how to not throw ourselves into a timeline where we’ll all instantly die.”

“Pfft,” Gumball scoffed. “We just got here! I know you hate fun, but I wanna see what’s different about this universe!”

“C’mon, Anais,” Darwin said sweetly, putting on his best puppy-dog eyes. “Aren’t you curious too?”

Anais stared intently at the watch in Gumball’s hands, plans to reclaim it flicking across her eyes. After a moment, though, she sighed dramatically, hanging her head in defeat. “Fine,” she said, “we’ll stay for a while. But!” She snapped her head back up and extended a finger. “You can’t interfere with anything here!”

“Ugh, more rules!” Gumball whined. “Why not?!”

“We’re not supposed to be here, Gumball!” Anais wagged a finger. “This isn’t our timeline! Anything we do here could have terrible, unforeseen consequences on the lives of everyone in this universe!” Gumball rolled his eyes and strolled past her – and immediately stopped dead in his tracks. “You can observe, but we have to stay hidden! If anyone even sees us – are you even listening to me?!”

“Seems it might be a little late for that, Anais.” Gumball pointed.

Standing on the other side of the yard were an identical Gumball and Darwin, staring at them open-mouthed.

“Uh,” Anais said weakly. “How long have they been…?”

“They’ve seen us!” the other Darwin shrieked, snapping to motion in an instant. He leapt forward, dukes up. “Get ready, Gumball! You take yourself, I’ll take me!”

“What are y–” Gumball started before something slammed into him and the world went sideways. When everything stopped spinning, he realized he was looking into his own face. It was wearing just the most insufferable smirk. Gumball hoped he didn’t really look like that.

“Ha!” the other Gumball said. “Thought you could get the drop on me, huh? Looks like I’m the smarter one!”

Gumball snapped his knee up and drove it into the other boy’s stomach. He gasped and released his grip, allowing Gumball to push him off easily. As he leapt to his feet, he saw the two Darwins trading blows, perfectly blocking each others’ attacks – but one was stumbling backwards, thrown off by the surprising force behind the attacks.

“Why – are we – fighting?” Darwin said between breaths.

“I won’t fall for your tricks!” the other one shot back. “I’ve seen enough movies to know what’s going on here! You’re our evil twins!”

“What?” Anais said. “That’s ridiculous! We’re not – Gumball, behind you!”

The warning was hardly necessary. Gumball stepped quickly to the side, and saw his other self tackle empty air, landing pathetically in the dirt. Gumball planted his foot firmly on the boy’s back, making him wheeze. He wriggled for a moment, then gave up and surrendered himself to the dirt with a sigh.

“Stop this!”

Anais had shoved the two Darwins apart. Her tiny arms couldn’t have done much, but the other Darwin recoiled from her touch as if burned. “Ahh! No! Don’t touch meee!” He glanced at his brother, panic written all over his face. “We messed up! We forgot about Evil Anais! She’s the most dangerous of all! Get up and help me stop her!”

Anais swept his legs out from under him, and he fell to the ground with a sharp cry. “Nooo!” he screamed, curling up in a ball. “It’s all over!”

“Oh my gosh, we are not your evil twins!” Anais said, throwing her hands in the air. “Stop freaking out!”

The Darwin on the ground gingerly cracked an eye open. “You mean you’re not gonna replace us and infiltrate our lives to tear apart our family and betray all our friends and make everyone hate us?”

“No!” Anais snapped, making him flinch. “I could have told you that if you had just stayed still for one second!” She paused. “Also, that is a weirdly specific scenario.”

“Hey, it could happen!” Darwin said defensively. Everyone stared at him and his eyes darted around nervously. “I-I mean, it’s not a totally unreasonable thing for, uh, someone to worry about. Hypothetically.” He coughed.

Anais palmed her face. “You watch too many scary movies.”

Gumball felt a grunt from beneath his foot. “Hey, if you really aren’t evil, can you stop stepping on me?”

“Nah,” Gumball said, relishing his double’s look of impotent fury. “I like being the one to actually come out on top for once. I wanna savor this.”

“Gumball,” Anais said sternly. “You’re not the evil one, remember?”

Gumball rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” Grudgingly, he released the other Gumball, who immediately rolled towards his brother and sat hunched with his ears flicked back, glowering suspiciously at the others.

“So if you’re not evil twins, what are you?” the other Darwin said, still keeping his distance from Anais.

“As I was trying to say,” Anais started, “we traveled here from another universe… I think.”

“An eeevil universe,” the other Darwin hissed.

“No!” Anais shouted. “The thing said we were ‘adjacent’, so I’m pretty sure our universe is just like yours!”

He just narrowed his eyes further. “How do we know we’re not adjacent to an eeevil universe?”

Anais threw her hands up. “Ugh! We’re sorry we caused so much trouble, okay? We didn’t want to cause a fuss. In fact we were just leaving anyway, right, Gumball?”

Gumball tossed the watch in the air, eliciting a delightfully mortified look from Anais before he caught it expertly. “Nah, I don’t remember anything about that.” Anais tried to step towards him, but froze when he tossed the watch again. “Now that we’ve ‘interfered’–” Anais let out a strangled scream as he made the air quotes, but his arm snapped out to catch the watch just in time. “–we might as well have a little fun here! Like… finding out what’s different about this universe! That’s, like, science, right? You love science!”

Anais bit her lip and looked at Gumball with an unreadable expression. Abruptly, she screwed her eyes shut and stomped her foot with a petulant huff. “Alright, alright!” she said. “Fine, you got me. I wanna know too. But we’re not messing with anything else!”

“I can tell you right now what’s different about our universe,” the other Gumball said, still glowering. “We’re not evil.”

Anais drew a breath to say something again, but Gumball cut her off. “We’re the Watterson family.” The doubles stared at him like he had gone insane. He pointed to his siblings in turn. “That’s my brother and that’s my sister. We may not express it in ways other people understand, but deep down I know we really love each other.” He paused to toss the watch again. To his delight, everyone was watching him with rapt attention. “Our dad works too little and our mom works too much, but we know they both love us in their own way and we wouldn’t trade them for the world.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in what he was pretty sure was the direction of the school. “We all go to Elmore Junior High – Anais is a class ahead of us even though she’s only four because she’s so smart – and we’re friends with everyone there, even Tina, who is literally a T-rex. On average, I think we’ve saved the town more often than we’ve destroyed it, but no one’s counting because everything seems to turn out fine no matter what we do.” He smiled. “If you want to call that evil, then I guess we’re evil. But I think we’re pretty normal kids.”

The doubles glanced at each other uncertainly. “You… could have made that up,” the other Darwin said, though he sounded doubtful. “Or… or maybe you’re friends with everyone because everyone in your Elmore is evil, or…”

“Oh really? Well, tell me if this sounds evil…” Gumball started counting off on his fingers. “I rescued Anais’ doll from Tina in the scrapyard even though I was terrified out of my mind, but we let Tina keep it because we realized she needed it more.” He ticked off another finger. “We saved Claire from having to leave Elmore…”

“She didn’t actually want you to do that, you know,” Anais said.

“But we didn’t let that stop us from doing the right thing, because we’re such good people!” The doubles looked nervous, but didn’t stop him, so he kept going. “We’ve saved Principal Brown and Miss Simian’s relationship more times than I can count, and… oh yeah.” He held his head up proudly. “I followed Penny through the Forest of Doom, even though it was super dangerous, because she had just come out of her shell and needed a friend to tell her she was beautiful just the way she was!” He smirked. “Need I go–”

“How do you know that?”

Gumball blinked. The other Gumball had said that, but it couldn’t have sounded any less like his own voice. He sounded thick and hoarse, laden with uncharacteristic seriousness. The other Gumball and Darwin were both staring at him with wide eyes, faces suddenly frozen and pale.

Gumball laughed and tried to play it cool. “Because I’m you, duh!” He spread his arms wide. “It’s like Anais said, we have the same history! Isn’t that cool?!”

The other Gumball stood frozen for a second. Then his face wavered as a small laugh escaped his lips, and the next moment he was doubled over, laughing with ecstatic release. His brother hesitated for a moment before joining in.

“Okay. Okay.” The other Gumball wiped a tear from his eye. “Maybe you’re not evil twins.”

“…And then this genius just pressed buttons until something happened, and now we’re here.”

The interior of the house looked exactly the same as Gumball remembered it. He poked and prodded at the walls and tables, daring anything to be out of place, but no strange alien objects turned up in his search. Couch, rug, television, stairway – everything was exactly the same. Even the coating of dust in the far corners seemed just as thick as it should have been.

The others were laughing at Anais’ explanation. “Yeah, that’s Gumball all right!”

Anais rolled her eyes. “Well, Gumball wants to know what’s different here, so I guess we should start there. Gumball, get over here!” she hollered.

“I’m right here,” the other Gumball said. His face fell. “Wait…”

Anais pinched her nose. “Ugh, we need a way to tell you apart…” She perked up. “Oh, I’ve got it!” She dashed into the kitchen and came back with a packet of sticky notes. After a second of scribbling, she stuck them on the doppelgangers’ foreheads, emblazoned with a single letter: B.

“There,” she said, admiring her handiwork. “From now on, we’ll call you Gumball-B and Darwin-B. Problem solved.”

“What? Why are we B?” They immediately ripped the notes off and stared at them incredulously. “You’re the ones who came out of nowhere, you should be B!” Gumball-B waved his note for emphasis.

“What? No way!” Darwin-A crossed his arms. “Our universe is the original one!”

“Says who?”

“Well… I mean… it just is!”

Anais held up a hand. “Okay, okay, hold on. Gumball-B has a point.”

Gumball-B smirked proudly. “Thank you.” His expression immediately soured. “Hey, wait a minute–!”

“We can use a label that doesn’t rank universes,” Anais continued. She stuck notes on them again, this time labeled ‘N’. “Here. We’ll call you ‘N’, for ‘native’. Problem solved.”

“Well, how come we’re the ones who need labels, huh?” Gumball-N whined, ripping his note off again. “Maybe we should label you, uh, ‘A’ for ‘alien’!”

“Well I mean, we were going to use A anyway, so…” Darwin-A – or possibly Darwin-A-for-alien – shrugged noncommittally.

“This is dumb,” Gumball said. “You’re overthinking as usual, Anais. As we just established, none of us are evil, so none of us have any reason to lie about who we are. Viola, no sticky notes necessary.”

“We still need a way to know who we’re talking about,” Anais said. “We can’t just keep calling each other ‘you’ or ‘the other one’.”

“Nah, I’m fine with it,” Gumball said before anyone else could raise an objection. His lips curled up smugly. “Besides, I thought you didn’t want to mess with anything? You can stay here and we’ll do all the talking if it bothers you so much!”

Anais sighed. “That’s starting to sound like a good idea.”

“Great! That’s settled then.” Gumball flopped onto the couch and sighed contentedly. It was just as comfy as he remembered it.

“Hey! That’s… our… couch…” Darwin-B trailed off.

“It sure is!” Gumball settled himself in deeper. “Why don’t you get some chips?”

His other self grunted. “Why don’t you get them yourself, since you know all about us, huh?” Sheesh, did he really sound like that, so nasally and whiny? The voice set his fur on edge.

Anais cleared her throat loudly. “Getting back to business… We should think about what the… thing said. This is apparently an ‘adjacent’ universe, remember? I’m guessing that means it’s very similar, possibly only different in one aspect.”

“Actually, I think that’s pretty obvious,” Darwin – his Darwin – said. He pointed to the two doppelgangers. “Your Anais isn’t here. She must have decided to do something else today.”

“Oh yeah,” the other Darwin said. “I think she was helping Mr. Dad with shopping.” He lowered his voice, as if telling a guilty secret. “You know how he gets lost sometimes.”

Anais drew a sharp breath, then snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot something today…”

She trailed off, leaving only the sound of breathing. Everyone glanced at each other awkwardly.

“So… wait, that’s really it?” Darwin said. “In this universe, Anais remembered to go with Mr. Dad? That’s all? That’s kinda… boring.”

Anais shrugged. “Things can’t be interesting all the time, Darwin. The multiverse encompasses every possible choice we could ever make. There’s another universe where all that’s different is you wore different shoes today, or had a different cereal for breakfast.” She moved over to Gumball and started talking quickly. “Well it’s been fun but now that we’ve resolved that we can–”

“No, that can’t be it,” Gumball said. The others all looked at him expectantly, Anais flashing him a look of rage.

He thought for a moment. “Anais, why didn’t you take Dad shopping today?”

“Well, I spent all morning studying the watch. That’s when you barged in and made us come here.”

Gumball tapped his chin. “So, if you weren’t busy with that, you’d have gone with Dad?”

“I… guess so?” Anais waved a hand dismissively. “But, it doesn’t matter. I made my choice, and the me here made a different choice. It makes total sense.”

“Actually...” Gumball’s ears twitched. “How do we know that? I mean, how do we know you found the watch at all in this universe?” He leapt to his feet, making Anais jump back. “Yeah! Something like that, I bet it doesn’t follow the rules! It’d be, like, cheating, right? If you think about it, it makes more sense if it only exists in one universe, like, outside of time or something!”

“And I think we’d know if Anais had some kind of magic watch,” Darwin-B volunteered. “She hasn’t been acting weird or anything.”

“When did you find it?” the other Gumball asked.

Anais looked troubled. “I, uh… don’t remember, exactly. Yesterday when I came home it was just in my pocket. I think it was put there by someone… or some thing…”

Gumball clapped his hands loudly, making everyone jump. “Well that settles it! The watch is magic time junk, the real change is something different!”

“I dunno,” Anais said, “that sounds farfetched even by the standards of your adventures.”

“Hey, I’m in change here!”

“What? No you’re n–”

“And that means we’re not done until I say we are!” Gumball’s expression softened in the face of Anais’ glare. “C’mon, Anais, it’s a whole ‘nother world! Loosen up a little! If we don’t find anything I promise I’ll let you say you told me so. Deal?”

Anais avoided his gaze. “Alright,” she sighed, “I guess I can’t stop you.” She swiveled on her feet and marched off. “But you’re on your own! I’m going to be responsible and stay out of this.”

Gumball blew a raspberry, but Anais didn’t rise to the bait. “So…” The other Gumball spoke. “What’s your plan, exactly?”

“Let’s tell each other our whole life stories and examine them for any minute differences!” Darwin chimed in.

“Yeah, or we could try something that won’t take all week.” Gumball paced across the room, rubbing his hands together in thought. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “Let’s start with the most likely thing: the school! There’s always something happening at the school!” He sidled up to his counterpart, who reflexively leaned away from the intrusion. “C’mon, give me the juicy gossip! Who’s dating who? Where are all the parties at? Anything could be different!”

“Well, let’s see...” The other Gumball started counting on his fingers. “Allen and Carmen have been together, like, forever...”

“Ugh, those two?!” Gumball stuck out his tongue. “I guess not even the multiverse can keep them away from each other.”

The other barked a laugh. “Man, tell me about it! But I don’t think there are any other couples… at least, none we know of,” he added conspiratorially. He counted off another finger. “Uh, parties… nobody’s invited us to anything in a while, eheh…”

“Because you always trash the place?” Anais said from the kitchen, evidently still listening in.

“Pretty much!” Both Gumballs beamed like this was something to be proud of.

“Guess that’s another multiversal constant,” Anais muttered.

“Oh! Oh!” The other Darwin spoke up. “Remember, Tobias’ sister had that party way back when? There were like, high school kids th–”

“We had that too.” Gumball tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Do you have a giant T-rex in your class that everyone’s terrified of but the teachers never do anything about because they’re terrified too?”

“The same one who took Anais’ doll?” the other Gumball said. “Yeah, we’ve already been over that. It’s kinda nice to know we’re not the only ones who have to deal with her.”

“I guess going to class with a T-rex is just part of normal Elmore life,” Gumball said with a shrug. “C’mon, keep talking. We’ll find something.”

“What about ourselves?” Darwin asked. “If the kids at school are all the same, maybe we’re the ones that’re different?”

“Darwin, I told you, we’ll be here all day if we do that!”

“Not if we go fast!” Darwin shot a hand out towards his other self. “What did you do yesterday?”

Darwin-B just shrugged. “Uh… I went to school, and then I played video games. Why, did something crazy happen to you yesterday?”

Darwin stomped his foot. “Darn it! That’s exactly what I did!” He pointed again. “Okay, the day before yesterday!”

“Hold on! I did something interesting yesterday!” The other Gumball drew himself up. “I went on a date with Carrie!” He immediately blushed and shrunk a little. “A-at least, I’m pretty sure it was a date, you know how she’s always like, ‘that was nice’, but you don’t know if she means it was like, nice-nice or if she’s just being cool or…” His eyes suddenly glistened with terror. “…oh no, what if she was being sarcastic, maybe she actually hated it and didn’t tell me because – because–”

Gumball finally found his voice. “Wait, what?” Darwin said at the exact same time. His brother giggled and said, “Jinx!” Gumball just kept gaping like a fish.

“Well… uh… you know, right?” The other Gumball laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head. In an instant, his expression changed to one of horror. “Oh geez, you really do know, don’t you, ‘cause you’re me, so – oh man this is so embarrassing and you probably know that too and oh geez I’m just making it worse aren’t I–”

“No! What–” Gumball sputtered. “Slow down! Are you… you mean you’re dating Carrie? I mean, you’re dating Carrie?”

His double stared at him in disbelief for a moment, then laughed awkwardly. When he was done he took a breath and started, “Well – well I mean not like officially–”

“No!” Gumball snapped. “No – no way! That isn’t right at all! Carrie loves Darwin!”

“NO SHE DOESN’T!” Darwin squeaked out immediately, face flushing beet red.

On the other side of the room, his double just chuckled. “Oh yeah, we sorta had a thing I guess…” He blushed at the memory. “But it turns out, she gets along way better with Gumball! I was kinda jealous, but I mean… After what happened with Penny, he really needed a friend, and things just happened from there, you know?”

Fire shot through Gumball’s brain. “Wait.” The intensity in his voice surprised even him. The other Wattersons froze. “Say that again?”

“Uh… Carrie gets along really well with Gumball, and he thinks maybe she feels…”

“No, no, after that,” Gumball said. “Or, in the middle, that…” His tongue lashed out before his brain could stop it. “What do you mean, ‘what happened with Penny’?”

The other Darwin’s mouth fell open, slowly. Gumball heard a shuffling and whipped his head to the side to see his other self backing away, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

“You mean how you stood up for her when she couldn’t even trust herself, and afterwards you knew she was perfect and you’d be together forever, right?” Gumball fired the words like bullets, his double flinching under the assault. “And… and you know this is all wrong, right, because nothing could possibly tear you apart, you made a promise!” Tears were welling in his eyes. “Because you know you should be with Penny, not Carrie! Right?!”

No one spoke. Gumball realized he was shaking.

“No…” he whispered. Tears were welling in his eyes. “Please… please don’t tell me…” He cried out and lunged, grasping his double by his shirt collar. More tears came, a torrent, a waterfall, a deluge of emotion that drowned his vision in blurring light. “Is she… is she…” The whole world was swaying now – how fitting, he thought, now that his core, his foundation, had come undone. “Is she d-d-DEAD?!?!”

The other Gumball backed out of his grip, making some meaningless noise Gumball didn’t hear, for what words could have meaning ever again? “Oh, Penny!” he wailed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you! How could this world be so cruel?!” A knife stabbed through his heart, cutting it perfectly in two. The broken, mangled flesh sank, and so too did his body, sinking down as his knees turned to water beneath him, unable to support such a terrible weight. The walls fell away and he kept falling, into the earth, down and down forever into an unending blackness. All light, all color drained out from his world, leaving him a hollow husk. Anais was right, he thought as the tears flooded down his face, the cold cruel waters tearing painful paths through his skin, unheedful of his –

“NO, man! Oh my gosh, nothing like that! We just broke up!”

Everything stopped.

He was lying on the floor. Tears were drying on his face. The wetness made his fur cling uncomfortably to his skin. His face was smooshed into the living room carpet, one eye squeezed shut against the rough fabric.

His chest felt tight. Blood was rushing in ears. Everything felt very far away.

A hand touched his shoulder. He felt his body being shaken. Darwin’s voice said, “Gumball! Are you okay?”

Gumball breathed in –

– and shot up like a lightning bolt in reverse. “Yes!” He smacked his fist into his palm. “I know what to do! I know why I was brought here!” He shot out his arm with a speed that made everyone flinch, pointing straight at his double. He stared into his eyes, and Gumball saw something frightening – no, determined – reflected there. “I’m going to get you and Penny back together!”

This did not get the stirring reaction he hoped. The other Gumball only stared blankly before shaking his head violently. “What are you–” His face screwed up in frustration and he threw his hands out sharply. “What the what are you talking about? Were you listening to anything?!”

“Yeah – I heard you say you broke up with Penny!” Gumball stood up proudly and continued in his best dramatic voice, “You poor thing, you must feel terrible! But fear not! Now that I am here, nothing will stand in the way of your love!”

“Not even you?” the other snapped with an acid that stopped Gumball in his tracks. “I’m with Carrie, remember? I don’t want to think about Penny right now!”

Gumball sighed imperiously. The thought that he could become so lost in any reality was tragic, but he would show his fellow self the way back. He walked over and laid a fatherly hand on his double.

“What are you–”

“Shh shh shh,” Gumball said, raising a hand. “I understand.”

“Great, so–”

“The loss hurt you so much you thought it better to close yourself off from love than to be reminded of that pain.” His double stared at him with an open mouth, incoherent noises coming from his throat. Gumball patted his shoulder softly. “Carrie… she’s a good friend, but no one can truly replace Penny. You may think what you feel is true love, but you know in your heart you long for your true soulmate!” He extended his other arm to grasp the shoulders of his double, whose eye was twitching. “But together, my friend, we put things back to how they were meant to be! What do you say?”

There was a breath of silence, and then Darwin’s laughter rang through Gumball’s ears. Gumball looked over and saw it was coming from both Darwins, slapping each other on the back and howling. A snort escaped the Gumball opposite him, who broke his grip and settled on the couch, snickering furiously. Gumball’s cheeks burned.

“Oh my gosh… oh my goooosh.” The other Gumball buried his face in his hands as the Darwins kept laughing. “Please tell me I never sounded like that.”

“Oh no, you totally did!” one of the Darwins chimed in, still laughing. He stood up and drew an arm across his brow in mock tragedy. “Oh no, it’s been a whole minute since Penny texted me! The world is ending!” He doubled over in laughter again. The other Gumball curled in on himself further, but Gumball could see he was grinning under his hands.

“I’m serious!” Gumball thundered, or rather tried to thunder. Truthfully, it came out as more of a whine.

The laughter slowly died away. Gumball started to say something else, but his double waved his hand for silence. “Look…” he started, suddenly serious. “I… I get it, okay? I remember what it was like. I remember feeling like there was no one else in the whole world. Like she was…” His eyes flicked away for a moment, but they settled back on Gumball, trapping him with their intensity. “I felt like losing her would be the end of the world. But… it wasn’t.”

Gumball’s skin felt clammy. He scratched at his hand absently. “Okay… obviously… but…” He rushed ahead before anyone could interrupt him: “But you’d be happier if you got her back, right? That’s how things are meant to be!”

“Wow, rude,” the other Darwin said, but lightly. He took on that smug tone he always did when he gave a moral lecture. “How’d you like it if we barged into your universe and said everything was supposed to be like in ours?”

“W-well, so what? I’m still right!” Gumball crossed his arms, not caring how petulant he looked. “You were happy with Penny! Don’t you want that?”

The other Gumball closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. No one else made a sound.

“Look…” He seemed to cast about for a moment, before settling on, “…dude. I know how it is. When you’re in love, it… eats you up. Swallows you, like. You can’t imagine it could be wrong, or that it could ever end. But sometimes… some people, they just don’t work out. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or with them, it’s just… you just have to accept that, and move on. If you cling to the past, it’ll just hurt more.”

Gumball paused, ran the speech through his head again, and realized it didn’t sound like something he’d ever come up with.

He smirked. “Did Mom tell you that?”

The other’s cheeks burned bright red. “S-so what if she did?!” he huffed, all gravitas lost. “She’s right, she’s the smartest person we know!”

“No, Anais is the smartest person we know,” Gumball said smugly. “What does Mom know about ‘moving on’, huh? She and Dad knew each other since they were kids!”

Gumball’s double stood up, flustered. “Well she’s still right!” he sputtered. He turned and snapped his arm out. “Other Darwin! Talk him out of this!”

“W-well… Um…” Darwin sweated nervously, his eyes darting between the two versions of his brother. “I think… maybe… That is to say…”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

Gumball let out an undignified squeak as, with even less dignity, his tail puffed up in shock. “Anais! I thought you left!”

Anais stepped forward from the shadow of the stairway, glaring up at him with as much force as the small child could muster. “You were shouting loud enough for the whole house to hear. I can’t leave you alone for one minute without you coming up with some hair-brained scheme!” She wagged an infuriating finger. “You’re meddling with affairs you don’t understand! You know the story about the butterfly flapping its wings – the slightest change you make here could have terrible consequences!”

Gumball scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, ‘terrible consequences’ again. Like how you said the watch would blow up the universe but oh whoops I handled it just fine?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” the other Gumball said, “but I think Anais is…” He gagged and cringed theatrically; Gumball gave the performance a 6 out of 10. “…rrrright?”

Anais smiled her infuriating wiener-dog smile. “See? Even you agree with me.”

Darwin-B nodded sagely. “It’s not right to mess with other peoples’ lives.”

Gumball cast around desperately, but the whole room had suddenly turned against him. He stared at Darwin with pleading eyes, but his brother just put on a fixed grin and hid behind his double. Truly, there was no greater betrayal.

Anais elbowed him in the hip and pointedly held out her hand. “You found the difference and it wasn’t what I thought it was, congratulations on your brilliant reasoning. But now as previously agreed, we go home.”

Gumball thought quickly. “I never agreed to that.” He stepped away, self-consciously reaching down to make sure the watch was still there – he wouldn’t put it past Anais to pick his pockets. “Here’s another theory: Maybe… maybe there’s more than one change. You just assumed ‘adjacent’ meant one change. Maybe it doesn’t! Maybe there’s a whole different world out there you’re too chicken to explore.”

“I am not–”

“And even if I’m wrong,” Gumball went on, “it’s not like we had anything else planned for today! Think about it, Anais: this is an opportunity to meet a whole new group of friends! We already got to see what we’re like in this universe – hardly seems fair that you don’t get the same chance! Why don’t we take you down to the mall so you can talk with yourself about science and money and all the stuff we’re too dumb to understand?”

“As if! You’re just going to–”

“–Sneak off to find Penny? I’m hurt, dear sister!” He swept his arm graciously across the figures before him, who stared at him like he had lost his mind. “I’m not too proud not to admit when I’m wrong. You have all convinced me to be responsible, just this once. I super double promise I will not even look at Penny while we’re here, okay? This is all for you from now on, pinky swear.”

“Wh–”

Anais made a strangled noise as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her over to the front door. “Okay so that’s settled! C’mon, Darwin, let’s help Anais find herself!”

Darwin shrugged apologetically at himself and ran after his brother, already bouncing down the steps with his protesting sister in tow.

The remaining Wattersons stared dumbstruck at the door as it slammed closed, then at the aliens as they skipped down the street across from their window, bickering all the way.

“He’s going after Penny, isn’t he.”

“He’s totally going after Penny.”

Gumball groaned. “I really didn’t want to have to do anything today.”

Chapter Text

The mall was just as bright, loud, and most importantly, crowded as it was in Gumball’s home dimension. The weekend mallgoers flooded the shiny, glistening lobby that expanded to an incomprehensibly vast distance, overpriced novelty shops perched in every nook and cranny ready to devour the cash of unsuspecting suburbians.

“No! Not the mall, Gumball!” Anais said in a tone that was probably meant to be an indignant scream, but came out as a shrill wheeze. Gumball had made sure to walk just fast enough to tire her out without her suspecting he was doing it on purpose. “I said grocery shopping! We need to go to the supermarket!”

“What’s that, Anais?” Gumball said loudly, pretending not to hear. “It’s so hard to hear in all this bustle!”

“I said…” Anais started, but all that came out next was a weak huff. She paused to catch her breath, holding her head and grimacing – and most importantly, closing her eyes.

Gumball took the opportunity to grab Darwin close to him, his big eyes bulging in surprise. “Keep Anais occupied,” he hissed. “I’m trusting you on this one!”

“W-w-wait,” Darwin stammered, flailing his arms. “What are you gonna–”

“The SUPERMARKET, Gumball!” The scream hit him with the force of a gale, streaking out his fur and pressing his ears flat against his head (and making them ring). The crowd froze to shoot them withering glares. Anais looked dutifully embarrassed, hunching down and flattening her ears against her body. Gumball may have gone partially deaf, but Anais was distracted and off-balance.

Just as planned.

“Woah!” Gumball shouted, pointing somewhere further ahead. He couldn’t actually see anything through the crowd, but Anais didn’t know that. “Is that the Awesome Store?!”

The passerby shrugged and moved on, but Anais’ eyes grew wide. “Wait, that place you’re always talking about? The one with all the cursed items?” She stepped forward, eyes glimmering with curiosity, everything else forgotten. “Maybe that’s where I got the watch!”

Gumball couldn’t suppress a grin. Hook, line, and sinker.

He charged forward suddenly, pushing his way through the surprised crowd. Gumball heard a surprised yelp and the patter of Anais’ feet followed by Darwin’s desperate scrabbling, but there was no way they could keep up with him. When he judged that he had enough distance, he dashed around a corner and hopefully out of sight. He saw glass double doors at the far end – lucky break! – and sprinted for them, ignoring the halfhearted grunts of adults telling him not to run. He burst into sunlight and fresh air – unpleasantly hot after the air-conditioned building, but he wouldn’t let that get him down. He glanced behind him quickly, but if Anais was nowhere to be seen.

It was time for the real plan to begin.

He considered his options, playing over the conversation at the house over in his head. What did he know? The other him had used “we” when describing the breakup, so obviously Penny had broken up with him. That would make this… tricky, but not impossible. He and Penny were meant for each other, after all. He just had to apologize for whatever happened and she’d understand it was all just a big mistake. She’d fallen for him once, after all. He just had to do it again.

It would help if he knew exactly what had happened, but he realized this universe’s Gumball hadn’t been forthcoming with details. Penny had gotten mad at him before when he went too far with some wild scheme, so it was probably something like that… He kicked himself for not thinking to ask more at the time. Not that it really mattered, of course. He was always best when he improvised.

As he mulled it over, his feet took him almost on automatic to Penny’s street. He had walked this route so many times before, but now his heart was seized with an apprehension he hadn’t known since… well, since before he knew Penny loved him back.

It only got worse when he saw Penny herself step out and onto the sidewalk.

Gumball took a deep breath. Then he took another. Put on your game face, Gumball. He forced his expression to be calm, totally chill. It wouldn’t do any good to look desperate. He had to look like it was no big deal, like his stomach wasn’t doing flips right now. That always worked in the movies, right? It made the other person jealous, made them realize what they were missing out on, or, stuff.

He kept walking, making it look as natural as possible. He forced himself to make eye contact as Penny walked by, as golden and radiant as she ever was, and gave her the tiniest nod of acknowledgment.

“Oh, hey, Penny. Didn’t see you there.” He didn’t even stutter! Nailed it!

Penny gave him a nod in return, her expression unreadable. “Hey, Gumball.”

Then she walked past him without another word.

Gumball froze like he had been struck dead on the spot. He was flailing now, aware of the slickness in his palms and the fracturing of his breaths. Oh man, oh man, she had totally out-cooled him! Now he was the one feeling snubbed!

His breaths stopped entirely when he realized he could no longer hear her footsteps. Maybe she had just taken off, electing to fly rather than take the ground route… No, of course not. Flying always made her nervous, ever since that first explosion of her powers that landed them deep in the deadly woods. She stopped, which meant she was probably looking at him, expecting something…

“What’s wrong, Gumball?”

The question was phrased so calmly, but the voice had none of the warmth he had come to know from Penny. She said it with a little exasperated sigh, like it was an unpleasant job she had to do.

Gumball forced his face back to normal and spun on his heel. Her expression was still inscrutable – not cold or cruel, but… guarded. There was a distance, a barrier between them, like she was wearing a mask.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” He barked a short laugh to relieve some of the tension. It wasn’t very successful. “Everything’s fine – great even! I’m just heading back from a trip to the mall!”

A smile tugged at the corner of Penny’s mouth. “Come on, Gumball, we both know you only do that cool cucumber act when you’re hiding something.”

Gumball felt ready to choke on his own tongue. Of course she could see right through him, cut away all his tricks and careful deflections to find his true self. That was something he had always treasured, the way they could be so open with each other. To have her use it against him, like a weapon, made him want to shrivel up into nothing.

“Wh-wh-what are you talking about, I’m like this all the time!” His voice was too sharp, too high. He twisted his head to the side, unable to look at her. “Maybe I’ve just become more, like, mature and stuff!” He could feel heat rising in his cheeks, as if this wasn’t already bad enough.

Penny giggled. It wasn’t cruel or mocking, just the same happy jingle he’d heard from her so many times. “Okay, Gumball,” she said with just a touch of sarcasm, and turned her back with a wave. “See you at school on Monday.”

Gumball couldn’t even stay to watch her walk away. He dashed behind the next corner, stuffed his fist in his mouth, and screamed quietly.

She just talked to him like it was nothing! Like everything was totally normal between them! The possibility his double was lying flashed through is mind, but he dismissed it. Penny had acted differently, so something must have happened between them. But… how was she able to be so calm?! How could she not feel the same as him, like he wanted to rip his heart from his chest, like every atom in his body was splitting apart? Even hatred would hurt less than this. It was like she didn’t care – like she had never cared at all.

He forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths. Well, he had pretended he didn’t care too, right? She must have been doing the same thing – and obviously, she was better at it. The pattern of her body usually broadcasted her true feelings… but maybe she had gotten better at controlling it, like she always said she wanted to do. Yeah, that had to be it.

(He tried not to think about how this would mean she had gotten better at it in the timeline where he wasn’t with her.)

He snapped back to reality as he heard Penny’s voice again, more distant this time but still crystal clear to his ears.

“Gumball? How did you get over here so quickly? Did you run all the way around?”

Another voice responded, too low to make out, but disturbingly familiar. Very carefully, Gumball poked an eye around the corner. Sure enough, on the other end of the street, Penny was talking to… him.

The natives were onto him.

Gumball dashed away immediately, not sparing a thought for where he was going. If Penny saw both of them at once, it would ruin everything. But then, if the other him undid all his efforts, that might be even worse…

He slowed as he realized something else. He hadn’t seen Darwin with the other Gumball. He whipped his head around, but didn’t see the fish anywhere on this street. So he was safe for now… but he’d have to keep an eye out.

He walked briskly down the street, thinking quickly. He’d have to act fast, if the others were interfering. Fortunately, it was clear that going slow was the wrong approach. Penny clearly hadn’t appreciated his cool and disaffected act. He should have done the opposite, and showed her how much he still cared…

A flash of color caught his attention, and he looked to the side. The house he was passing had a flower garden, right at the front of the lawn! He could hardly believe his luck. The universe must be showing him a sign. Yes, a flower! That was the perfect romantic gift! Such a beautiful symbol of love would smooth over whatever problem had caused this terrible misunderstanding.

His eyes flicked across the bed until they locked onto the obvious choice – a rose the vibrant red-violet of the setting sun. He looked around furtively and, seeing no one watching, plucked it from the garden easily. He stuffed the bloom in his pocket and walked away quickly, whistling innocently.

He retraced his steps, thinking about how he’d find Penny again. He kicked himself for not asking where she was going. He could wait by her house, but that seemed a little creepy and ran the risk of Mr. Fitzgerald seeing him (he shuddered at the thought). Could she have gone to a friend’s house, maybe? On a hunch, he swung onto a side street and headed towards Leslie’s house…

And sure enough, he was right – another lucky break! She was just turning the corner as he walked past Leslie’s house. This time he got a reaction – she gasped sharply, clearly shocked at his appearance. “Geez, Gumball! It’s like you’re everywhere at once!” She shook her head and laughed, though Gumball could tell it was from exasperation and not joy. “Okay, I’ll just be on my way…”

“Penny, wait.” Gumball extended a hand. Penny instantly adopted that same masked look she had before. “Y-you were…” Gumball took a deep breath to steady himself, and started again.

“I’m sorry I rushed off before. A-and, um, I’m sorry I acted like I didn’t care about… yeah.” Something flickered in Penny, but he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. He swallowed and looked down at his feet. He was already messing this up. It had seemed so simple in his head, but the way she was just staring at him like a statue, not even making a sound… “You were right,” he continued when he found his voice again. “I did have something on my mind.” He wanted to look her in the eyes again, but his neck froze when he tried to move. He continued on anyway. “I was just thinking, about, y’know…” He shuffled awkwardly, buying time before he settled on, “y’know, what happened, and…” He clutched the rose in his pocket. “I just, I still spend all my time thinking about you, because you’re so great, and you deserve the best, which is why I wanted you to have this!” With a burst of energy he jumped forward, thrusting the rose in front of him and grinning so wide he thought his face would split.

Now colors did pass over Penny’s body. There were so many and they flashed so quickly he couldn’t keep track, but they eventually settled on a shade a touch redder than her normal yellow. Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, and Gumball knew he had made a mistake. With icy slowness, Penny plucked the rose from his fingers and glared at it like its very existence was offensive. Gumball was suddenly painfully aware of its wilting leaves, the dirt still clinging to its stem, the less-than-vibrant color of its petals…

“Is this supposed to be a rose?” Every word was spoken like a shard of ice, stabbing him through the heart.

Gumball fought to keep smiling. “I-isn’t it?” It wasn’t, was it. He didn’t know flowers. Stupid, stupid Gumball. He shouldn’t have rushed this. Penny didn’t deserve a rush job. Penny deserved the best.

The girl rolled her eyes back and exhaled sharply, sparks flying from the corners of her mouth as her skin pulsed red. Her eyes flicked back down and she maintained perfect eye contact as the flower burst into multicolored flames. A spark jumped from the sizzling bloom and landed on Gumball’s cheek, burning with a flash of pain for just a single moment before it died. A moment later all that remained of the flower was fine ash, motes tumbling to the ground like snowflakes.

Gumball’s grin somehow remained in place, but the rest of his face retreated around it. “I-I-I u-uh see you’ve g-gotten better at your, uh, fairy… stuff…”

Gumball searched desperately for any hint in her expression, her body language, anything, but she just remained stock still, with that same cold glare. Her body didn’t flicker, but there was something almost aggressive about its solidity. “If this is what you’ve been planning all this time, you’ve learned absolutely nothing.” Gumball’s smile finally broke, the venom in the words hurting more than the burn on his cheek. “Since you clearly didn’t hear it the first time, I’ll tell you again: I do not like your corny romantic gestures, and we are not getting back together. Period.”

Gumball staggered back, stammering as he tried to find any words that could make this better…

And stopped as he became aware of a shrill scream, slowly growing in volume. He turned towards the noise and saw Leslie standing at the door to his house, staring at the pile of ash that had once been the flower. His face was frozen in a mask of utter horror.

When Gumball looked back, Penny’s body pulsed with red. Her body writhed and expanded like a heated balloon as her face elongated into a draconic snout. Her eyes narrowed into hateful slits, so intense Gumball feared the look alone would incinerate him the same way.

“Leave.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

He didn’t know how far or how long he ran for. The world blurred past, shapes and sounds blending together into some irrelevant background. He ran until he could tell himself that his pounding heart and trembling hands were from exertion and nothing else. Then he kept running, until his lungs burned and his muscles cried out for relief. He obeyed, dropping like a stone onto… someone’s yard, he didn’t care. He lay back on the cool grass and gasped air until his breathing steadied.

He didn’t understand why that didn’t work… no, he corrected with a groan, why it was such a disaster. Penny loved romantic gestures, no matter how silly or corny he made them. Was this really even the same Penny? Was she a completely different person, was that what was different in this universe?

...No. It was whatever he had – whatever this world’s Gumball had done that changed her.

He had to know what happened. He had to fix it.

“Gumball! What happened? Are you okay?!”

Darwin’s voice jolted him out of his reverie immediately. He jumped to his feet and, looking around, realized that this was his lawn he had collapsed on. “I’m fine,” he said quickly, “but what about you? Why are you back already?”

Darwin saluted him, face comically serious. “The other you wasn’t at the mall, just like you thought! Anais and the other me were arguing about it! I ran straight back to tell you! Did you find him?”

Something clicked in Gumball’s mind. He fought to suppress a smile.

“No,” Gumball said. After a moment of thought, he continued, “Penny said she hadn’t seen him either.” He moved briskly towards the house, sparing a glance to make sure no one was inside.

“She… said she hadn’t seen you?”

Gumball’s hand froze on the doorknob. Suspicion crept under the native Darwin’s voice like sharks in a placid lake. “Oh, well, uh, you know,” Gumball stammered, fighting for time. “I didn’t ask it like that, obviously, just, you know, she didn’t sound like she had run into him.”

“O-oh, right,” Darwin said with an easy laugh. Gumball breathed a tiny sigh of relief and headed inside, plopping straight down on the couch in a practiced motion. Darwin sat across from him. “But, what if he runs into Penny later? Did you explain everything?”

“Yeah,” Gumball said vaguely. “Look, maybe… maybe we were wrong?” he said, trying to change the subject. “Maybe he… really did go to the mall, but he got lost, or something.”

Darwin made a face. “I dunno… you heard the way he was talking. And I know you would never give up that easy!” He stood up and rubbed his hands together. “When you’re ready, we need to get back out there and get to the bottom of this! And let’s stay together this time! I know splitting up is faster, but it’s too risky! What if I ran into the evil Gumball and he tricked me?” Gumball suddenly had to choke back a laugh. “Woah, you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Gumball coughed and fought to keep his expression neutral. Darwin seemed to buy it and paced around the room, tapping his chin. “I just, uh… need a bit of a breather.”

Darwin looked up at him and chuckled. “What, you’re tuckered out already? We usually run around the town twice by this time in the day!”

Gumball started to say something, but stopped. He tapped a finger on the armrest, thinking quickly. This might be his best chance…

“It’s just… Penny.” He spoke slowly, scrutinizing Darwin’s face for any hint of suspicion. Fortunately, all he saw was concern.

“Oh,” Darwin said quietly. His eyes flicked down to the floor. “This is… making it all hurt again, isn’t it?”

Gumball waited for him to say more, and gave a lame “Yeah,” when it became clear an explanation wasn’t forthcoming. “I just feel really bad about… what I did,” he said carefully, hoping his frustration wasn’t edging into his voice.

Darwin just shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t your fault.” His face twisted in an odd expression. “At least… not any more than it usually is.” He sighed and slumped his shoulders. “No one could have known what would happen. I… I don’t think she really meant what she said. She was just scared, and angry…”

Gumball had to bite back a “Could you vague it up a little more, please?” Darwin just looked at him with an earnestness that almost made him feel sorry. “You’re not a bad person, Gumball. And Penny’s not a bad person either. You know, maybe you really should talk to her? You could still be friends…”

The front door burst open with a bang that made Gumball rocket nearly to the ceiling. “Darwin, there you are!” the panting figure in the doorway said. “I don’t know what he did but Penny’s really mad! You gotta…”

The boy trailed off as he slowly realized something was wrong. With agonizing inevitability, his gaze passed over the room until Gumball locked eyes with himself.

He was out the back door and over the fence before the awkward silence could run its course.

“Get him!!” Ah, now this was nostalgic. Getting chased through town for a heinous crime? This was his element. Gumball grinned.

He raced through the streets, but this time he knew every route he took. He was moving with a purpose now. He ran across yards and roads, ignoring the angry screams and honks of the citizens he pushed aside, until finally he was right at the edge of town, where the river snaked away into the forest. The water gurgled with an intensity that birthed froths of white as little waves crashed into each other. The banks were steep and slippery – anyone who fell in here would only be coming out far downstream.

Gumball stopped as soon as he reached the edge, and pivoted expertly on his heel. As he expected, the others were right behind him.

“Ha!” the boy across from him barked, grinning with foolish arrogance. “Nowhere to run now!”

“Guess so.” Gumball smiled, and shifted his feet ever so slightly. “Why don’t you come and get me?”

The other Gumball’s expression shifted, subtly but enough to send a chill down Gumball’s spine. Something about his grin didn’t look happy anymore, or foolish. He hunched down and leaned forward strangely, his arms almost touching the ground…

Gumball recognized the tail twitch just in time and with a bolt of adrenaline dodged to the side as his clone pounced. Naturally, the idiot found himself landing on open air. He barely had time to let out a confused squawk before he tumbled headfirst into the drink.

Wow. He must have really lost his edge in this universe if he was stupid enough to do that. Gumball had expected to have to push him in. But hey, he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Darwin-B shrieked in horror and dived straight in after his brother. Wow, two birds with one stone! “This is for your own good!” Gumball hollered down as his other self screamed curses in between getting dragged under by the current. He’d be fine, probably.

Gumball clapped his hands with satisfaction. No more interference now. He was free to work out his plan in peace.

Which, he realized with waning confidence, was easier said than done. The other Darwin’s account had been useless, and Penny’s behavior still made no sense. Gifts and big gestures always worked in the movies. He didn’t know what else to do.

And of course, he reflected as he walked, he’d have to find Penny before he could make up for anything. Normally he’d call her if he wanted to meet up, but there was no way she’d pick up in this universe, assuming his phone even still worked here. He’d just have to wander around and hope he ran into her…

He stopped and rubbed his eyes, unable to believe his luck. She was right there, strolling through the edge of town! She was yellow again, so that was a good sign. He started walking faster, head spinning. He called out, hoping to sound confident, but the noise withered and died as soon as it passed his lips, like his tongue was trying to take it back.

“Wha…” She turned around, innocent surprise flashing to anger in an instant. “Ugh! No!” She spun and started marching away, balling her fists. “Are you stalking me now?! You’ve taken this way too far, Clayton!”

Gumball staggered back. “I, what, you, huh?”

Penny wheeled around and stabbed a finger at him. “Don’t play dumb! Gumball told me everything! You know, this is low even for you–”

“I’m not Clayton! It’s really me, Penny!” So that’s what the other one had told her? That was actually pretty clever thinking, he had to admit.

Penny just threw her hands up and turned her back. “Just leave me alone.”

“I can prove it!” Gumball said. “Come on, ask me a question only I would know!”

Penny stopped. There was a long, painful silence. Gumball saw her clench and unclench her fists, until finally, she relaxed. For another moment she was completely still, and Gumball feared she would take off without another word. Instead she turned back to him and took a step forward. She glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot, breathed in deep, and exhaled. When she opened her eyes again, she was wearing the careful mask she had before, but now Gumball saw cracks. Flickers of apprehension broke through as she whispered, almost too quiet to hear: “Where was our first kiss?”

Gumball laughed, and he saw that surprised her. “That’s – that’s a good one, actually, because I know I totally messed that up when I sent you on that dumb scavenger hunt – and uh, I’m still really sorry about that!” Penny’s expression didn’t change. Gumball frowned. “But I never really forgot. How could I?” He risked a step closer. Penny allowed it. “When you broke out of your shell… you were so beautiful I couldn’t even speak. You thought it was because I hated you, and you flew away…” This time it was Penny who broke eye contact. The sudden loss of that intense gaze made Gumball feel unsteady, but he kept talking. “I felt so useless. I wanted to make it right. You were transforming like crazy, but I followed you into the forest, and… we kissed.”

“...And then everything that seemed so confusing suddenly became so clear.” Penny spoke slowly, as if every word had weight to it. “I felt so lost, like I would never be able to find myself again. But then… you did.”

Gumball had to swallow a lump in his throat. It hurt to remember that day. It hurt that she had hurt. He thought for sure that was the hardest thing he’d ever have to do, that he’d never have to feel like that again, but this hurt even worse. It had been so clear back then. Now, she was so close he could touch her, and yet it felt as if there was a whole world between them. He didn’t know what to do.

Penny glanced at him, then looked down again. “What you did for me, back then… that was real. I won’t ever forget that.” She took a deep, shaky breath, and closed her eyes for a moment before meeting his again. “But, Gumball… a relationship is more than just one big moment. It’s… it’s something you’re always working on, like, like…” Her face scrunched up in confusion. Gumball could see her struggling, trying to put into words whatever she was feeling.

Then, with a sigh, she gave up. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I…” She turned away. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

“Please don’t go.”

The words were barely more than a sob. Gumball felt the tears pricking at his eyes, felt himself losing. He didn’t even have to pretend. A distant part of him said he was getting worked up over nothing, that back home Penny still loved him and would always love him, but every time this Penny looked at him, that all felt very far away. Adjacent, the watch said. One choice. One mistake. That was all it took to make this happen.

But it was okay. Because, because, they were soulmates. Nothing could keep them apart, not really, not forever. He just had to prove it.

“I’m sorry.” Penny turned her head, cautiously, as if afraid to look at him. “I’m… really, really sorry. I never meant to hurt you, but I messed up, and, and I think about it every day…”

Penny just looked at her feet, and slowly shook her head. “It’s not your fault.” She squeezed her eyes shut and huffed and exasperated breath. “Well, I mean, it was, but…” She paused. “...You were just being yourself. I know I said you could have really gotten me killed that time–” Gumball jerked back like he had been burned, face splitting open with a breathless gasp. “–but, if I’m being honest… you were always into really dangerous stuff, and it never bothered me before. I guess I just… stopped enjoying it.” Now she did look up at him. Gumball forced his gaping mouth shut and fought to keep his expression under control. “I can’t live like you can, Gumball. I’m sorry.”

“Then I won’t live like that anymore!” Gumball reached out, but she flinched away. “You’re way more important than crazy, stupid adventures!” Gumball saw his hand was shaking. One change. Only one change. Did his Penny feel this way, too? “I won’t do anything you hate anymore! I’ll only do what you want! I’ll change, I promise!”

Penny just looked at him like she was on the verge of tears, and shook her head violently. Her body darkened, spots of blue eating away at her like mold. “Please… please, no. You taught me to always be true to myself, no matter what anyone thought. Don’t do this, Gumball…”

“Then what do you want from me?!” Gumball snapped, and instantly regretted it. Penny flinched like he had struck her. Despair welled up and washed down on him, a stormy ocean of pain that threatened to drag him down and down until he could never find his way back to light and life. He wanted to give into it, to run and hide and cry until he was empty, but – but – he couldn’t give up now –

“I think…” Penny’s voice, so clear and bright, broke through the storm like a single ray of light. Gumball clung to it, focusing on the girl before him, his light, his love, his purpose.

Her eyes flicked away. “I think I want to just have a normal weekend, please? I’m sorry, Gumball, this is… this is just too much right now.”

Again she turned away. Again Gumball felt himself teetering on the edge of a bottomless pit.

“What if you could have a normal weekend with me?” The words tumbled out almost before Gumball could think them, his mind trying to outrun her.

Penny did stop, but didn’t turn around. “Gumball, I… think you being there would automatically make it… not normal…” She spoke quietly, uncertainly.

“It doesn’t have to be…” Gumball was painfully aware of how much he was sweating, and it wasn’t from the heat. His whole body was tense. He knew this was his last chance.

Then in a flash, he realized his last conversation had something he could use after all.

“Friends…” he murmured.

Penny rotated her head just a fraction with the faintest hint of a “Hm?”

“We used to hang out all the time, even before we were… together.” Gumball stepped closer, his voice rising with newfound confidence. “We didn’t care about who had a crush on who. We all just had fun together. Don’t you miss that?”

Penny sighed. “I do… but…” She looked sideways again. “Just the two of us, that sounds too much like a… like a…” She made a strangled noise and swallowed, unable to say the word.

“Darwin can come too!” That would mean leaving Anais unattended, he knew, but he’d burn that bridge when he came to it. “You know he’ll keep me on the straight and narrow! Nothing romantic, nothing heavy, nothing weird. Just three friends having a good, normal time. I promise.”

Was that a flush of pink on her face? She stared bashfully at her feet, arms hugged to her sides. When she spoke, it was in a whisper: “…I’d like that.”

Gumball could barely stop himself jumping for joy. He let out a long breath, and with it the deluge drowning his soul. He suddenly felt as light as a feather. The world was bright again!

“Um… where is Darwin, actually? You normally stick together like glue…”

“Oh, he’s back at the house,” Gumball said quickly. “I can head over there and get him real quick.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Penny mumbled. “Maybe we could meet up… um, at the park? I go there when I want to clear my head. Open space is comforting. I don’t have to worry about breaking anything if I transform…”

“Yeah! Yeah, that sounds great!” Gumball rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “It’ll be just like old times, you’ll see!”

“Right…”

Gumball finally let her go with a wave goodbye, and bounded down the streets with an elation he couldn’t believe he had been holding back. He wanted to skip and sing. He wanted to fly! He had done it! Sure, “just friends” wasn’t perfect, but after today Penny would go back to hanging out with her Gumball… joking with him… remembering what she had missed… It wouldn’t be long before they realized how foolish they had been, and then everything would be right again. Gumball smiled.

So lost was he in his daydreams that he never even saw what he ran into, rudely crashing him back down to earth. Gumball rubbed his throbbing head and groaned – and was surprised to hear an answering moan from whatever he had crashed into.

Gumball immediately leapt back to his feet to see Darwin sprawled on the ground in front of him.

“Darwin?!” Gumball jumped into a karate pose – or at least, a pose he had seen in karate moves. “How did you get out so quickly – doesn’t matter, I can beat you again!”

“W-wait!” Darwin held up his hands in desperate surrender. “Gumball, it’s me! The real me! I need to tell you–” He paused, and wrinkled his brows suspiciously. “Wait, what did you do to the other me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gumball said quickly. “What do you need to tell me? Make it quick, I’m in a hurry!”

Darwin rose to his feet. Gumball noticed he was panting heavily. “I came here as fast as I could! You see, Anais may have, uh…” He looked everywhere but Gumball’s eyes before finishing, “…escaped?”

“What?!” Gumball snapped. “You had one job, Darwin! How did you let her get away?”

“She runs really fast when she’s motivated, okay!” Darwin whined. “I couldn’t keep her distracted forever – she’s smarter than both of us!”

Gumball groaned and rubbed his head. “Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath. “She doesn’t know where I’m going. There’s still time. I got a date with Penny, so the hard part is already over.”

“You…” Darwin blinked. “What, really?”

Gumball made a grin he imagined was suave. “You doubted me? Told you she couldn’t help but fall for my charms!” His expression suddenly turned serious. “Oh, but, she doesn’t think it’s a date, so you’re gonna have to come along to be my third wheel.”

Darwin made an incredulous noise somewhere between a gasp and a cough. “Wait, what?”

Gumball grabbed him and started walking. “Okay, get a move on!” he said over Darwin’s protests. “She’s waiting in the park, come on!” Gumball grabbed him and started walking briskly. He cried out and grumbled, putting up a performative struggle, but fell in line before long.

So Anais was AWOL… he supposed that would have happened anyway, and at least this way he had gotten Darwin without her knowing anything. And even if she did show up, he could just deny everything. As for the clones… he still had time before they got back to the civilization, and hey, he could take a page from their book and say they were Clayton. See how they liked it! Yeah. Yeah, he had this in the bag.

Darwin was mumbling something at him. “…sure this is the best idea? If this is for the other you, shouldn’t he be doing the talking?”

“Nah,” Gumball said, not really paying attention.

“But if he’s not on board with this, won’t he just spill everything the next time they talk anyway? You can’t build a relationship on lies!”

“Blah blah blah! You’re as bad as Anais sometimes.” Gumball dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and looked for his second sun among the crowd. “When Penny tells him what a great date we had he’ll realize how dumb he was being and play along and everything will be great, now be quiet I think I see her.”

“But–”

“Shush shush! Game time. HEY PENNY!” He stuck his arm out as far as he could, waving and hopping excitedly as he reached the edge of the park. Penny startled and looked around until she saw him, returning a weak wave of her own. Gumball crossed the distance in no time at all.

Penny was smiling, genuinely happy for the first time he had seen her today. But she looked more tense than ever, hugging her arms tight to her sides as if the slightest contact with anything would make her combust. Gumball gave her an easy smile. “Here we are! All ready for a nice, calm, normal walk in the park. All good?”

Penny murmured a noncommittal greeting, then her eyes slid off of him and onto Darwin. “Hi, Darwin. I… know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other…”

“Hi Penny!!” Darwin shrieked in response, voice shrill. “Everything is great and I definitely want to be here!!”

Gumball ground his teeth together. Darwin was already sweating, his smile pained and obviously forced. He was going to ruin everything! Gumball nudged him in the ribs and prepared to hiss a warning when he heard the chime of Penny’s laughter, and froze. It was the same light, happy chuckle she had shared with him so many times, over a private joke or embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Darwin, I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward. I’m just… glad you could come.”

Gumball let out a small breath, glad that crisis was averted. Penny twirled around and walked lightly along the path. “Here, I can show you my favorite spots.” Gumball and Darwin walked alongside her – Darwin a bit more reluctantly. Penny took in a deep breath as the landscape turned to pleasant green pasture around them, spreading her arms wide. Gumball thought she glowed more brightly for a moment, but then, she was always glowing in his eyes. “Ah… I feel better already.” Now she finally did relax, arms draped loosely. Gumball felt himself relaxing, too – this was normal, easy, how it should be. “You come here a lot too, don’t you, Gumball? Even if it’s mostly to chase people.”

“Hey, I’m not wild all the time,” Gumball said with a laugh. “You know I’m too lazy for that!”

Penny smiled and gave a single small laugh, but it was strained. Gumball wondered what he’d said wrong. “Right.” She looked away again. “I think there’s something here that appeals to everyone. Elmore is… great, but it can be exhausting sometimes. Something’s always happening. It’s nice to have your own sanctuary away from all that…” She whipped her head to Darwin suddenly. “Darwin, is something wrong? Your head’s darting around so much I’m worried it’ll fall off!”

“Haha! What!! I don’t know what you mean!!” Darwin stared at Gumball pleadingly. “I just feel like we’re really exposed here, like anyone could see us. You know???”

Penny’s face scrunched up as she tried to make sense of this. “Darwin, it’s… it’s a park. We’re allowed to be here.”

Gumball clapped a hand on Darwin’s back, making him stagger and gasp for breath. “Sorry, Penny.” Gumball adopted his tone of confident expertise as he pushed Darwin forward, insistently. “It’s his fish brain, you know. He’s got an irrational fear of the open air.” Gumball shook his head and sighed sadly. “No matter how far we come, there are some things we just can’t change. Tragic.”

“Why don’t I get out a laser pointer and then we’ll see who’s irrational–” Darwin hissed, abruptly silenced with another slap on the back.

“But… he… lives… in the open air…” Penny face contorted so much Gumball feared it would turn inside-out.

“Some days are better than others,” Gumball said with all the seriousness he could muster. “Please, humor him, Penny. Let’s go somewhere a little more out of the way.”

Penny’s face cleared immediately. “Right. Of course! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” She stepped off the path without hesitation, and Gumball felt a pang of guilt at her earnestness. She led them to a small dip in the landscape, close to the tree line and out of direct sight of the nearest trail. A small, wide tree stood nearby, providing cool shade – and more importantly, cover.

“Sorry, Darwin. Is this better?” Penny asked with painful sincerity.

Darwin’s eyes still darted back, but he held still long enough to smile and bark, “Yeah this is better thanks!”

Penny settled down, crossing her legs as perfectly as a yoga master, still facing Darwin. “There are lots of little spots like this in the park. They’re nice when you need a little peace and quiet. I could… show you more, sometime, maybe?”

Gumball breathed in the fresh air, enjoying the smell of grass and earth. “You’re right. I should come out here more often!”

Penny hummed approval and gave him a nod. “You should try meditation. I know I say it a lot but – oh, wait, I don’t think I told you, I’m taking meditation classes with Mr. Small now. He told me it would help me control my emotions, and since, well…”

Gumball nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, I get it. This place must be nice for that, huh?”

“Actually, I feel like there are still too many people here…” Penny blushed a little. “You can still hear people walking around the park, if you focus. It makes me feel a little self-conscious… When I really want to clear my mind, I go to the forest.”

Gumball’s fur stood on edge. “Wait – did I hear that right? The forest? Not the Forest of Doom, right? You mean some other forest?”

Penny smiled, a glint of mischievousness in her eyes. “No, that’s the one.”

Gumball could only gape stupidly, which made Penny giggle. “Wha – that – but – isn’t that super dangerous?! With the monsters and everything?!”

Penny got a distant look in her eyes, and her smile twisted in an odd and slightly terrifying way. “Not since they learned I was the most dangerous thing there.” She stared into the distance for a second more, then her eyes focused again. “It’s pretty cathartic, actually. I don’t have to worry about hurting anyone or even anyone seeing me. I can just let it all out. I went there a lot after the break – uhh –” She stammered and looked at her feet, blushing again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay, I’m over it.” Gumball dispelled the gloom with a wave of his hand.

…But it still seemed to cling to Penny. She didn’t make any indication she had even heard him. In the shadow of the tree she seemed dimmer, smaller somehow.

She took a shaky breath and tried to look at him, but couldn’t hold his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I meant to talk to you. I really did. I kept telling myself that it just wasn’t the right time, but… it’s never the right time, is it?” She laced her fingers through the grass, tugging at the blades. “Now so much has happened and… I don’t know…”

“H-hey, come on, you know the rules. No heavy stuff,” Gumball said with a small laugh. Penny gave a smile in response, but only for an instant.

“I’ve – I’m talking too much about m-myself,” she stammered. Gumball drew a breath to speak, but Penny looked towards Darwin instead. “Darwin, you haven’t said anything. H-how are you feeling?”

Darwin looked like – well, like a fish out of water. His eyes, already big under normal circumstances, now bulged grotesquely, and his face was stretched weirdly. Was he holding his breath? “I… umm…” He gave a nervous smile. “Nice weather we’re having?”

Gumball fought the urge to throttle him, but Penny just giggled again. The sweet tune blew through his mind like a cool breeze, and all his thoughts went blank. “You know, it really is.” Penny turned her head up to the sky, and Gumball followed it. It was pretty much perfect – not the endless blue that promised relentless heat, but a pleasant landscape of small white clouds. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and the coolness of the plants in the park kept the temperature just right. “The weather’s kind of been on the fritz lately – I guess because of global warming or something? I think we should really appreciate these days when they come.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Gumball broke in. “Wasn’t it raining just a few days ago? It’s like, make up your mind, weather!”

Penny laughed, and looked down again. “I was actually thinking this would be a good day to practice flying, but that feels a bit too… dragon-y right now.”

“Well, maybe you’ll feel better after this!”

“Maybe.” Penny looked over to Darwin again. “S-so, Darwin, what have you been up to? Are you still in swimming club?”

“Hm?” Darwin’s eyes focused on Penny again. “Oh! Oh, yeah, of course, haha. Coach says I’m doing really well in synchronized swimming!” He finally relaxed, the tension sloughing off his shoulders. “To be honest, sometimes I feel a little bad, ‘cause it all comes naturally to me but the others have to work so hard!”

Penny laughed as brightly as the sun. It was the happiest Gumball had seen her all day. “Oh, believe me, I know! I’m so much lighter ever since I broke my shell. I used to be so clumsy, but now I don’t even need magic to pull off all the cheerleader moves!” She leaned closer to Darwin, very slightly. The movement was incredibly natural, like she didn’t even know she was doing it. “But you shouldn’t feel guilty. If you have a talent for something, well, you should use it!”

“Yeah!” Darwin brightened up immediately. All his worries seemed completely gone. “When I’m swimming, it just… feels right!” He clutched a hand to his breast and gazed longingly into the distance. “And when I pull off a perfect performance… that feeling, it’s like, I was meant to do this, you know?”

Penny nodded enthusiastically. “Those moments when I can really control my magic, instead of letting it control me… I think I feel the same way then. If I can just stop being afraid, it feels so…” Her gaze became distant too. “I don’t think there are words to describe it, you know?”

Gumball stared at the two of them as they leaned closer together, the silence sticking in his throat. An unpleasant feeling coiled in the pit of his stomach.

“Oh, uh, you said you like performance?” Penny continued, not even sparing a glance at Gumball. “Have you thought about joining theater club?”

Darwin smiled brightly. “Not really, but I love trying new things! Why d’you ask?”

“Oh, I-I was just thinking about maybe joining myself.” Penny brushed her hand over an antler. She looked brilliant now, her brightness almost painful to look at. “The meditation has really helped, but I feel like… I’ve gotten everything I can from it? Like… I don’t just want to learn how to stuff this power in a box, like it’s something shameful… I think I’ll be able to control my transformations better if I can learn how to, like, focus my emotions instead of just letting them go? I heard actors get training for stuff like that.”

“That sounds cool!” Darwin chirped. “You know, Anais says you learn how to do that in debate club too! She says it’s really great for figuring out how to deal with people.”

“Oh, that sound wonderful!” Penny’s eyes were practically sparkling. “Debate club always felt a little confrontational for me, but, u-uh, I think you’d do really well in it, Darwin! You always know what to say to get people to do the right thing. Maybe, u-um… we could…” She looked down and blushed. “…join together?”

“Clubs are dumb!” Gumball blurted out. Penny and Darwin broke away like a string had snapped between them, and Penny gave him an annoyed look. He became all too aware of the heat rising to his face. “I-I mean, like, more power to you, if you like them, or whatever…” he stammered out. “But the real learning’s out here! Life’s the best teacher! And, stuff!”

“Okay,” Penny said blandly, and turned back to Darwin. “What do you think, Darwin?”

“I think…” Darwin sent a glance to Gumball, who returned it with a glare. “O-oh, uh, I think I’m talking too much! Let’s hear what Gumball wants to say!”

Penny glanced at the sky and stood up, brushing herself off. “Um, actually, I should probably get going. I, uh… lost track of time…”

“B-but we only just sat down!” Gumball protested. Penny pointedly looked in another direction, and hugged herself again.

“Actually that’s a really good idea!” Darwin rattled off words like they came from a machine gun. Gumball looked over and saw he was suddenly standing at attention, eyes bloodshot. In the next instant he bounded over to Gumball with quick steps.

“Darwin, what are you–”

“They’re here,” Darwin hissed.

Gumball immediately pressed himself against the tree, hoping the shadow could hide him, and scanned the horizon. Yes, there, on one of the paths: two dots, blue and orange.

“I just realized I forgot… something!” Darwin squeaked. “We gotta go right now bye!”

“O-oh…” Penny tentatively extended a hand towards him, but Darwin zoomed away without another word, so fast Gumball could feel the wind in his wake. “Bye…”

Gumball shimmied around to the other side of the tree, hoping he wasn’t visible. Penny was still staring in the direction Darwin had taken off.

“Hey Penny, why don’t I walk you home?”

Penny turned around and gave him that guarded look again. “Shouldn’t you go with him?”

“Honestly I don’t know what he was talking about. I’m sure it can wait.” Gumball felt his fur standing on end. He resisted the urge to glance around the tree. “But, um, you’re right, we should probably get going,” Gumball said when Penny just stared at him. “Nowish?”

“Did you plan this?” The sentence was like a thrown knife, and Gumball staggered back like a real one had struck him through the heart. Penny immediately looked guilty, and clutched her head with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be like this. It’s just, everything that’s been happening…”

Her whole body seemed to sag, shrinking like a deflated balloon. The luster of her skin, normally as radiant as the sun, seemed pale and faint. “Maybe… this was a mistake. I thought I could handle it, but it’s all… too much, too soon…” She pinched her nose and sighed heavily, just a step away from a sob. Dull grey curdled at the edge of her form. “I’m sorry. This was… selfish of me.”

Gumball faltered. Even the threat on the horizon seemed meaningless now. Things had been going so well. She had been laughing and joking with him like everything was normal. Now she looked more exhausted than ever, and his heart clenched with pain to look at her. What did he do to her, to make her feel this way? He wished he could forget about all this, just reach out and hold her and make it all better like he used to…

But he couldn’t.

What was he doing? This was for the other him, and for Penny. They should be the ones having this date, having these conversations. He thought he knew Penny, had to know her, but now he just felt so lost. Everything he tried to do just hurt her more.

“I… understand.” He didn’t, though. That was the problem, wasn’t it? “I’ll go home.” Penny nodded, looked up, started to say something –

– and gasped, pointing straight at him. “Gumball, behind you!” Gumball spun around, and there was…

Anais?! He always laughed at her attempts to be intimidating, but now her tiny frame did nothing to blunt the scathing glare that made his blood run cold. “Yes,” she said, “you are going home.” With a flick of her wrist, she lifted the watch for him to see. Gumball gasped and grabbed at his pocket, finding it empty.

He heard hard stomping, the noise of feet that seemed to have a grudge against the ground itself, and looked up farther. The creature he saw made Anais look like a teddy bear. He was hunched like an animal, clothes torn and dripping. His fur was plastered to his skin, making him look grotesquely thin, skin wrapped over bones. The word “infernal” flashed through Gumball’s mind, and he desperately wished it hadn’t. When Gumball looked into those eyes, pulsing and dilated, he seriously wondered if his double was going to kill him.

Gumball looked up a little more, and saw Darwin push himself roughly to the ground. The one in front was nursing a bruise on his head, and could only look at Gumball apologetically.

“And you, big brother…” Anais crossed her arms. “…are in big trouble.”

Chapter Text

“What… what…” Gumball heard Penny’s voice behind him, but he was too terrified to turn his back on the advancing gang. His reflection’s tail twitched like it had a life of its own, sweeping across the ground in violent, furious strokes. His eyes dilated to swallowing black pits, like a predator’s before the kill. Not even Mom had ever looked like this. Gumball couldn’t imagine anyone looking so hateful. He looked at him like, like he wanted to wipe him out of existence…

“Which… which one of you is Clayton? But, there are two Darwins too? Can Clayton pretend to be multiple people? What’s going on?!”

“Clayton had nothing to do with this,” Anais said. “What’s going on is–”

“No! NO!” Gumball’s double blinked, and the spell was broken. Gumball stepped out of the way and looked at Penny, to find her gnashing her teeth in frustration. “You know what? I don’t care! I don’t care what crazy thing you’ve gotten yourself into this time! This is EXACTLY what I did NOT want to have to deal with today!”

“It’s all his fault!” the other Gumball snarled, jabbing a finger out like a spear.

“Oh yeah, blame someone else, like you always do!” Penny snapped, her body darkening to orange. “I told you, I can’t live like this anymore! I’ve had enough of, of aliens or evil twins or whatever this is!”

Gumball laughed before he could stop himself, a horrible, broken sound that didn’t sound happy at all. “I-I-I think th-this was all just a, a big misunderstanding, haha…!” He felt his tail wrapping around his leg and tried not to think about how pathetic he looked. “H-how about w-w-we all just pretend this never happened and–” Gumball was silenced by a shrieking hiss from the boy across from him, horrid and primal. He flinched away as if he had been sprayed with acid.

“I can’t believe I trusted you!” Penny screamed at the other boy, not even paying Gumball a glance. “I really thought that you had finally, finally moved on, but this…!” She ran her hands down her face and groaned, a deep guttural noise. “This… is… so… like you!! Always with your crazy, stupid ideas!”

“Wha…?” In an instant the other Gumball’s fury was gone, and he just looked like a sad, drenched little boy.

“You can’t stand to talk to me so you get a clone to do it instead, is that what this is?!”

The boy tensed again. “That is not what this is!”

“Oh really? Then what was with that stupid flower proposal?! The corny rom-com dialogue?!” Penny was waving her arms madly now. “I should have known better than to think you’d ever stop obsessing over me! I should have known you were just using Carrie–”

The boy’s eyes bulged suddenly. “Leave Carrie out of this!!”

“Carrie–”

The air split with a shuddering snap as Carrie appeared in a burst of light, hovering between the two combatants. Everyone froze. Carrie briefly looked taken aback, but composed herself quickly. “Oh,” she said with a practiced hair flip. “Hey Gumball. Hey Penny. Hey…” Her eyes widened as she took in the whole crowd. “…other… Gumball…?” Her eyes narrowed again. “Someone mind telling me what’s going on here?”

“He’s cheating on you!” Penny said immediately, pointing at her Gumball.

“What – no! No, that is not what is happening!” the boy screeched.

“Woah, woah, cool down, guys…”

“Oh, isn’t it?” Penny snapped. “This is your problem, Gumball, you’re so selfish–”

“Oh oh, so I’m ‘using’ Carrie, but it’s okay for you to drag her into this for some–”

“Well someone has to! What, were you gonna tell her–”

“If you would just listen to me for one second–!!”

“Ooookay, I see you’ve got a thing going here, so…” Carrie’s face betrayed no emotion, as usual. “I’m out. Bye.” Another snap and she was gone, leaving only a faint scent of ozone.

The other Gumball didn’t even seem to notice. “This is your problem, Penny!” he was rambling, tears of fury in his eyes. “You never let me explain, you won’t listen to me–”

Gumball just stared, paralyzed. He wanted to say something, some silver bullet that would fix everything and stop this horrible scene, but his mind was blank. He watched some twisted image of himself and his love trade blows, such hurtful words, again and again. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, it was just a nightmare…

A touch on his arm jolted him. He looked down and realized his vision was blurry. He wiped an arm across his face quickly. “Gumball…” Darwin’s voice, quiet. “Let’s get out of here? Please?”

Gumball never thought he’d ever have to admit he needed Anais’ help, but now he didn’t care how desperate the look he gave her was. She wasn’t even looking at him, just staring at the fight with a blank look, lips parted slightly in shock.

“Oh no you don’t!” Suddenly another Darwin was filling his vision, expression thunderous. Gumball heard his own brother yelp and step back. “You’re not getting out of this one, Gumball! You stay and apologize to yourself! GUYS–!”

That finally brought blessed silence. Penny looked over, fury in her… everything. She towered over them now, her body the reddish-pink of a dying star. She flickered and wavered as she moved, her features just on the edge of draconic, her face too long, her wings too big, her back hunched… Gumball couldn’t help but gulp. He knew she was just barely holding it back… for the moment.

“And who are you, Darwin?” Angry tears dripped from her eyes like molten gold, sizzling where they touched the ground. “Were you in on this? I don’t…”

“It’s the real me, Penny. I don’t know what the other me said to you, but…” He breathed out, and managed to stop shaking. “Okay… I know how stupid this is going to sound, but it really wasn’t Gumball’s fault this time. Really!” he added with a squeak, waving his hands pleadingly at Penny’s unmoved expression. “Gumball spent all day trying to stop his evil twin! He knew you didn’t want to get wrapped up in this, that’s why he said it was just Clayton!” Penny’s body shrunk slightly, her jagged features slowly becoming soft and rounded again. She looked down at her feet. “We’re really sorry your day was ruined, but… please don’t be mad at Gumball. You know he would never do this to you.”

Penny’s body flared red again. “Do I, though?” Her voice was quieter at least, and sounded like a genuine question. But there was still fire in her eyes as she pinned the other Gumball with her gaze. “I wanted so hard to believe that for… for all your impulsiveness, all your selfishness, all the people you hurt without a second thought… you’d never hurt me.” The color went out her all at once. She turned away, suddenly looking so small. “But then you did.”

“I didn’t mean to! I told you I didn’t mean to!!” Gumball’s reflection was crying too now, voice wobbling like a finger over glass. “I know I screw up sometimes – okay, a lot of times! I’ll admit that! But I’d never hurt you on purpose!”

Gumball felt a light tug on his shoulder. He tilted his head on reflex, but couldn’t take his eyes off what he was seeing. Anais whispered in his ear, “Gumball, we… we don’t have to see this. Let’s just go. Please…”

“You don’t get it.” Penny’s voice was a murmur, but Gumball heard it clear as day. Her eyes were squeezed shut, hands balled into fists.

“So tell me! I’m sorry I’ve been such a, such a coward, but we’re here now spilling our guts, so out with it! Tell me what I’m supposed to ‘get’!”

Penny growled and stomped her foot. “No!” She grabbed at her antlers, and tugged at them so hard Gumball was afraid they’d come off. “Aaagh! I am not your – your mom, Gumball! I can’t do this! I already wasted the nice version on your ‘evil twin’ so just–”

“Stop calling me that!” Gumball cried out. His thin voice sounded like a whiny baby and he hated himself for it. Then everyone was looking at him, everyone, his brother his girlfriend himself all judging him and hating him and he hated him he hated how stupid he was being, he wanted to go back wanted to run away wanted to make it all stop but he couldn’t because he didn’t know what hurt more – “I’m not evil, okay!” he kept saying, kept moving forward into the dragon’s maw because what else could he do? “You – look at you!” he wailed, pointing at the arguing couple. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! You have to love each other, you have to, you know that deep down and I was just trying to fix it!!”

He was still shaking but, but now it was going to be better. They were his friends, even if they were from another history, and his friends always understood if he explained. Every time he caused trouble, he’d just had to be honest and then they realized it was all a misunderstanding and they could laugh about it and everything would go back to normal and it would be fine, it would be fine –

“Oh, here it comes!” Penny screamed, and it was as if she had dunked him in ice water. “The ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time so you can’t be mad at me’ speech! I am not listening to one of those again!” She stepped back and swept her arm out, pointing at both Gumballs in turn. Her arm looked far too long, but he couldn’t tell if that was a transformation or just the blurring of his tears. “You want the speech? Fine! You – both of you – have got to learn to take responsibility! After the dozenth time you blow up the school or summon a monster or mess up everyone’s lives, you really oughta learn that ‘I didn’t mean to’ doesn’t cut it anymore! You need to start thinking about what you’re doing before you do it, alright?!”

Gumball shut his eyes. His face felt horribly wet. He tried to hold in the sobs but he could feel himself losing, his whole body shuddering with each breath. Everything felt wrong, he felt too heavy, too light, too hot, too cold, too… everything.

“I… I’m sorry, but someone had to say it, okay?” Penny’s voice sounded more confused than angry. Gumball opened his eyes and saw he was kneeling on the ground. Everything else was deathly silent. How long had he been like that?

He didn’t look up. He wasn’t ready to see their faces.

Penny started to say something and stopped several times before sighing, “Look, I don’t want to do this. Let’s just… stop.” The other Gumball murmured some kind of apology, but Gumball didn’t catch the words. “It’s fine,” Penny sighed. “I don’t care if he’s your evil twin or mad science clone or whatever, just… just do whatever you do to deal with this stuff. I just want to go home.”

Gumball looked up at that. He didn’t look at anyone else, just Penny, her body a dark sunset orange, as she turned to walk out of his life forever.

He shouldn’t have done it. He knew it was stupid, he knew it was desperate. But he was stupid, and he was desperate.

He leapt, breaking free of Darwin’s hand trying to hold him back. He screamed something that was supposed to be “Wait,” or, “No,” but just came out as an unintelligible sob. And he reached forward, and grabbed Penny’s shoulder.

In an instant, he felt himself be knocked to the ground –

“WILL YOU JUST LEAVE ME A L O N E – !!”

And suddenly a dragon loomed over him, pinning him to the ground with her claws. From her maw, sparks dripped like spittle, and singed his skin where they touched.

Everything stopped.

The world stretched out, every second feeling like an hour. Gumball was painfully aware of his heart, hammering like it wanted to leap out of his chest. He almost wished it would, wished it would spare him from what he suddenly knew with absolute certainty would happen next, the scenes his horrible imagination was already playing in his mind nonstop. But he couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t do anything, why was he so useless…

After an eternity, the dragon lifted her claw and stepped back. Her legs buckled under her before her whole form collapsed, violet and indigo warring with violent red. The writhing mass compressed suddenly, then shot up again before stabilizing into a humanoid shape, clutching its head and muttering.

“…I am in control. I am the master of my heart. I am the master of my mind. I am in control…”

She raised her head, breathed in, and let it out in a great, shuddering breath. Her eyes flicked open and –

Gumball saw his expression reflected in her eyes, and hated himself for it. How could he think she’d actually – after everything they’d been through – how could he be scared of her when he knew how scared she was of herself, how could he do that to her?

She flinched. Her form flickered and Gumball feared it would collapse again, but it stabilized into a smaller figure, tinged with indigo.

“…I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

“I’m the one who should be sorry. It’s not your fault. I was wrong, you were right the whole time. I never meant to hurt you, I’ll do anything you want, I want you to be happy more than anything, I love you,” were the words he wanted to say. But when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a croak.

“I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean…” Penny flicked her eyes up at him and the others, then looked away again. “…I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

She turned her back, spread her wings, and was gone.

Gumball stared at the spot where she left. Everything was just a blur through his tears now, but for some reason he didn’t feel like crying. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. It was as if a part of himself had left with her.

He felt a hand lift him up and he took it. Someone was talking. He turned around just in time to see a blue blur fly at him with a furious screech.

White-hot pain brought Gumball back to reality as claws raked across his face. The boy slammed into him with a force that left him gasping, and before he knew what was happening he was on the ground again. The face above him was puffy with tears, but the mouth twisted into a hateful snarl. Gumball’s head bloomed into cracking pain, and he realized he was punching himself.

“This is all your fault!” he was screaming. “You’re always doing this!” Another punch. “You’re always ruining things for everyone!” Another punch. “This is why she broke up with you!” His voice was shrill and raw now. Tears and snot were gushing from his face. “This is why no one will ever love you!” The blows came again, punctuating every word. “YOU STUPID – SELFISH – JERK!! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I… hate…”

Gumball cracked a swollen eye open. The boy was trembling, fist still raised in the air. He lowered it, slowly. His lip trembled, and he let out a shrill, keening wail before burying his face in his hands and screaming. He collapsed, the loud, ugly sobs shaking his whole body.

As if a spell had broken, everyone shot into movement. Darwin – the other Darwin pulled his brother off of Gumball and met no resistance. Gumball felt his own brother pulling him upright again. “I’m sorry,” Anais mumbled from somewhere to his side. “We’ll go. We…” The other Darwin just looked at them with pain and confusion, his brother curled tight and crying. Anais swallowed. “We’re sorry,” she repeated lamely. Gumball felt her hand on his shoulder, heard the click of buttons, and saw the world blur.

He blinked and they were back in the yard, exactly where they had left. There was nothing but familiar grass and fence in front of him, but the sun was higher in the sky.

RETURN TO ORIGIN POINT SUCCESSFUL, blinked the watch. CURRENT UNIVERSE: X138.

Gumball sat there for a while, staring at nothing. No one spoke.

After a minute, he winced as pain flared in his face again, and touched a finger to one of the scratches. It came away wet with a thin film of red.

“You’re hurt!” Darwin shouted suddenly. Gumball couldn’t help but find it funny – it was as if he had only just noticed. He was instantly in Gumball’s face, cringing with sympathy. “Wh-what are we gonna tell Mrs. Mom and Mr. Dad?!” he blubbered, clutching his head. “Oh no, oh no, they’re gonna be so mad –”

“Nothing.”

Anais stared at him incredulously. “Wh-what?” Darwin said with an apprehensive look.

Gumball got up. “We’re not going to tell them anything. Cats heal fast. I’ll be fine by the time they get home.”

“You mean you’re going to lie?” Anais gasped. “You – you can’t do that!”

“I’m sorry Anais, do you have a better plan?!” Gumball roared. Anais looked shocked at his sudden fury, and distantly he realized he was too. “Sure, let’s tell them we got sucked into another world – because of your cursed magic whatever – where I got beaten up by myself, I’m sure that’ll go over well!” Anais bit her lip and looked at the ground.

Gumball sighed and tried to rub his head, only to yelp when he touched raw flesh. “I’ll get bandages!” Darwin squeaked, rushing into the house. Gumball followed, up the stairs and into the bathroom.

He glanced at himself in the mirror. Three thin red lines ran diagonally across his face, shining and wet. None of them touched his eyes – small blessing there, he supposed. His left eye was totally black, though, swollen shut, with red welts and dark bruises dotting the rest of his face. He glanced at his neck, where… she had held him down, but couldn’t see any marks.

All in all, he’d had worse.

Darwin was spilling everything out of the cabinets in his haste to extract seemingly every box of bandages they had. “I can handle it, buddy,” Gumball said, gently grasping an arm precariously balancing three Band-Aid boxes. It was shaking. “Just go… relax. Watch TV or something. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“But –”

“I’m fine, Darwin.” With the mirror right in front of him, Gumball didn’t have to imagine how ridiculous that must have sounded with how he looked. Darwin stared at him for a long while, but they knew each other too well for him not to take the hint. Darwin nodded weakly and shuffled out.

Gumball was fumbling with a box when he heard another voice behind him. “You should disinfect it first.”

Gumball glanced up. Anais was standing in the doorway. He recognized her expression as the one she wore when she was pretending not to be nosy. She had never been very good at it.

“I knew that,” Gumball said, reaching for tube. He squeezed out a dollop of cream and gingerly touched it to his cut. He hissed immediately.

“Do you want me to…”

“I can do it,” Grumball grunted. Anais stepped inside anyway. Gumball smeared more disinfectant over the wound and hissed again.

“You’re doing it wrong!” Anais said. “You don’t have to use that much. Here, let me…”

She pulled over a stool so she could reach his face. Gumball didn’t have the energy to protest. When she finished he tried reaching for the bandages again, but Anais had already pulled out real gauze from somewhere, like the kind they used in hospitals. Gumball vaguely wondered where she had gotten it, but it didn’t really matter.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, staring into the mirror. The largest bandage wrapped all the way around his head. Then, because old habits die hard, “Looks real unobtrusive.”

He expected Anais to rise to the bait, but she just left an odd silence hanging in the air.

After a pause, she asked, “Do you want to get ice for the bruises, or…?”

“No, I…”

I want it to hurt.

He blinked sharply. The words had been on the tip of his tongue. Carefully, he changed them to, “I-I just need to lie down. I’ll be fine in an hour or two.”

Anais didn’t move. Neither did Gumball. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. His uninjured eye stared back, accusing.

Anais stepped down and moved towards the door.

“Say it,” he snapped.

Anais turned back and stared at him in the mirror. “Say what?”

“‘I told you so.’”

Anais’ careful expression broke into an ugly scoff. “Oh, come on –”

“I know you want to! You were right and I was wrong! Go on, lord it over me!”

“Are you –” Anais stopped and screwed her eyes shut, trembling with rage. Slowly, she took a deep breath and exhaled. When she opened her eyes again she just looked… sad. With care, she closed the door behind her.

She turned back and paused for a moment. More quietly, she said, “You really think I’d do that?”

“Yeah.”

Anais gasped, affronted. “Seriously? Ugh, you’ve – you’re completely missing the point! I don’t nag you just to – to show that I’m better than you or whatever –”

“You totally do.”

An indignant yell started in Anais’ throat, but died half-finished. She put down the finger she was wagging, looking embarrassed. “Okay, I… Fine, I admit it, sometimes I can be a bit… cavalier.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“But not like this!” Anais snapped, ignoring the jab. “I never do it to hurt you, Gumball, you know that! I warned you because I was afraid exactly this would happen, because…”

“Because the world is a dangerous place and I need to understand the consequences of my actions yada yada, yeah, I heard the same speech you did.” He finally looked away from the mirror, and down at his hands. He was gripping the sink so hard he could see his knuckles turning white, even through his fur.

He heard Anais step closer. He saw her appear next to him in the corner of his eye, but she didn’t say anything. He looked away.

“Are you mad at me?” he said after a while.

Anais grunted. “Honestly… I kind of want to be. But after all that, I just… I can’t.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice shook a little. “And I mean, you’re right, it’s my fault too. I know I acted all responsible, but really I wanted to know as much as you. I should have tried harder to…” There was a long, awkward silence, and at the end, he heard her sigh. He’d never known her to give up on anything, but it sounded so defeated. “…I don’t know.”

Somehow that made Gumball’s gut twist even more. Why, did he want her to be mad at him? Well of course he did, because – because that would be normal, it would mean he could laugh it off and they’d all forget about it by tomorrow because they never really got angry at each other, not really. If she wasn’t… he didn’t know what that meant.

Gumball looked up again. Just him in the mirror now. He barely recognized himself, one side of his face swollen and black and everything covered in bandage strips, like he was a doll with the stuffing spilling out. But it didn’t look half so ugly as the face that gave him those wounds.

“He hated himself,” Gumball said with realization. “The other me.”

He couldn’t see Anais’ expression. “No, he… he hated you,” she said after too long. “I-I mean I don’t know if that makes it better,” she hastily added, “but he made that pretty clear –”

“Yeah, because I am him!” Gumball said. “And it was because of me! I made me hate myself – argh wait that sounds so stupid –” He tried to laugh at the absurdity, but it turned into a bubbling sob. The release broke something in him. He felt his face prickle with heat and tears and held his head in his hands, trying desperately to stop himself from crying. “He was right, I’m a s-stupid s-selfish jerk, I’m so stupid, I ruined everything because I’m just so stupid–!”

Anais’ hand touched his shoulder, lightly and awkwardly, as if she wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do – what was he thinking, of course she didn’t, she was Anais, she shouldn’t be here, he needed Mom…

His mind jerked to a halt, and a chill spread out through his body like his heart was suddenly pumping ice water. No, he didn’t want to talk to Mom about this. He couldn’t even finish the thought, it was too embarrassing, too… no.

“It’s… uh… it’s okay?” Anais sounded confused as she said it, like she was reading a script for a play she didn’t understand.

Gumball raised his head again. It was harder than it should have been. Everything felt heavy, like he had to hold up a weight or he’d become a bawling mess. He didn’t, though. He breathed carefully, and slowly his heartbeat steadied until it was only on the edge of hearing and not a deafening rush. He was still gripping the sink so hard it hurt, but… maybe that helped a little. It was something solid, something to focus on.

“I was afraid.” He spoke slowly, not entirely sure where the words would take him. Honesty was new and frightening territory for him, but he had to make an effort. The bruises were keen to remind him of that every second.

He took too long. “About what?” Anais said after an awkward silence.

“I-I mean…” Gumball paused. His bandaged face stared back at him. “You know how I feel about Penny.”

“Mm-hm.”

“She’s so nice and funny and perfect and, and, we’re soulmates, right? We were meant for each other.”

There was a longer pause before Anais said, “Mm-hm,” though somewhat doubtfully.

“So we can’t just… not be together. That’s not possible. It can’t happen, it just can’t…” His voice was cracking again. He fought to keep himself from shaking. “I really thought…” He took a shuddering breath. “I really thought that it’d be the same everywhere, in every world. Because that just makes sense, right? If we’re meant to be we should be together in every possible reality, but if we aren’t… if we aren’t…” He couldn’t stop it anymore. His vision was blurring. “If there’s nothing keeping us together then… then I could lose her. I could really…” The thought hit him like a punch through the heart and shattered whatever dam he had built in an instant. He slumped forward, clutching his face as tears dripped messily from his fingers. The wetness mingled with his cuts and bruises painfully, but he didn’t care.

He didn’t know how long he stood like that. Eventually he felt Anais’ hand on his shoulder again, two firm, robotic pats. “There… there,” she said, just as awkwardly as last time. It was so bad Gumball’s sob turned into a laugh, and he found the strength to look up again. He smiled weakly.

“Look, I mean…” Anais coughed awkwardly. “I mean, nothing’s changed, Gumball. Not in this world, anyway.” He winced at that, but she continued, “If you weren’t worried before, there’s no reason to be worried now.”

Gumball shook his head. “You don’t get it,” he said miserably. “I screwed up in that world. I-I mean,” he corrected, “obviously I screwed up, but I mean, the other me, he screwed up too. He hurt her. What if I do the same thing? If there’s no special destiny or anything keeping us together, then…” He bit his lip, trembling. He opened his mouth, but only a sob came out. He stood there for a second, just breathing, and finally managed,

“I’m scared.”

This was met with silence, and then a long, exasperated sigh. Gumball blinked his eyes open in some surprise. Anais was rubbing her temples. “Look, Gumball…” She sighed again. “I have trouble even keeping down a regular friend, let alone a ‘soulmate’ or whatever. I’m not sure what help you think I can give you here.”

“I’m sorry, I just… I needed someone to talk to, I guess.”

“You should really talk to Mom –”

“No.”

Anais rolled her eyes. “Why not Darwin, then? If he’s not listening in on us right now. You tell him everything.”

“Yeah, I will, but… you know Darwin. It’ll just be…” Gumball puffed his face up in a mockery of Darwin’s unshakably innocent expression. “‘You’re always right, Gumball, everything’s fine and you’ve got nothing to worry about, I’ll say anything if it makes you feel better!’” His face throbbed again, and he touched the bandages gingerly. “I… just think I need someone who will be honest with me, right now.”

“Well, my honest opinion is I think you should talk to Mom.”

“No.”

“Then Dad?”

Gumball laughed. “Even worse.” His expression fell again and he turned to Anais, pleading. “C’mon, Anais. I know you’re not good with relationship stuff, but just… you’re the smartest person I know, okay? Just say something. Please.”

Anais rolled her eyes and groaned, far louder than Gumball thought was necessary. She drew in a breath, but pursed her lips again. She looked thoughtful for a moment, but her serious air deflated with a sad sigh as she shook her head.

“Okay,” she exhaled. “Okay. I’m… just gonna put some ideas out there, okay? Just telling it like I see it.” She turned away and stared at the wall for several moments, as if the tiles held the wisdom she needed. “So, personally, the whole idea of soulmates has never made sense to me. If there’s only one person in the whole world who’s meant for you… I mean, there’s, like, eight billion people in the world, right? Even if you spent your whole life traveling and meeting as many people as possible, you’d only ever see a small fraction of that. Just looking at it mathematically, the probability of anyone meeting their soulmate in their lifetime just doesn’t seem very likely.” She took a breath. “So, let’s assume there’s no…” She waved her arms dismissively. “…‘magic destiny force’ bringing you together.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Anais shot him a glance. “You said you wanted honesty,” she said dryly. “And… actually, I do think it’s a little odd that you’re so fixed on this. Relationships, or so I am told –” Gumball smirked, making her narrow her eyes at him. “–or so I am told, are founded on mutually compatible personalities. That is to say,” she added upon seeing Gumball’s blank expression, “because you like each other. So why do you need this extra… thing? Why do you need to be ‘soulmates’, Gumball? Don’t you like Penny alr–”

“O-of course I do!” Gumball said immediately.

“You answered too quickly,” Anais said. “And you stuttered–”

“NO!” Gumball shouted with a force that surprised even him. Anais started and stepped back, hands held up defensively. “Don’t you use psychology on me, Anais! I…” He stopped and held his head. Pain still lanced through his cuts. “I just mean…” He took a breath. “It’s not her, Anais, it’s…”

All the energy went out of him at once. His arms hung down like a puppet with its strings cut, and all he could do was stare at the floor. “…It’s me. They were right, both of them, I-I do stupid things and I don’t think about who I hurt until it’s too late and I-I…” He felt tears pricking at his eyes again. “What if I don’t deserve her, Anais? What if I’m a bad person?”

“You’re not a bad person,” Anais said as convincingly as the least enthusiastic kid in the school play. She must have heard it too, because she grunted and Gumball heard the sound of her hand hitting her face. “Look, I’m really not good at this, Gumball. Talk to Mom, seriously. You don’t have to tell her everything, just…” She trailed off. Gumball looked up and saw her waving her hands hopelessly, as if she could grasp the words she needed out of the air. She eventually gave up and said with a sigh, “Just think about it, okay?”

Gumball nodded mutely. He counted his breaths for a few more seconds, then rose to his feet and to the door. He’d feel better after he got some rest.

A streak of orange zoomed through the hallway as soon he opened the door.

“I WASN’T LISTENING!” came Darwin’s voice from around the corner.

Gumball and Anais looked at each other, and laughed.

“Gumball! There you are!”

Gumball’s breath caught in his throat. He knew he should turn around, face her, talk to her like nothing was wrong, but he just stood there stupidly, looking blankly down the street ahead of him.

He expected footsteps, but he heard a familiar whoosh of air instead. She only flew in emergencies, he knew, because she was always scared she’d lose control and fall. She wanted to see him so badly she didn’t even want to wait the few extra seconds it would take her on foot. That ought to make him feel warm inside, but the lump in his throat just got bigger.

He heard her land beside him. She had gotten so good at it now that no one else could hear the quiet tap-tap of her feet, but he always could.

He couldn’t run. He forced the biggest smile he could, and turned as casually as he could manage, as if he hadn’t been standing as still as a statue moments before.

She was beautiful, like she always was. She radiated a golden yellow like a second sun, a color he knew meant she was happy. It didn’t flicker even as she stepped back in shock. “Gumball, you look terrible!” Her eyebrows creased in worry. “You haven’t answered my texts in days, and you barely talk when we’re in school, and, and you always rush straight home after! Is… everything okay?”

He ground his teeth together so hard they hurt, refusing to let his grin fall. This was normal. This was normal for him. Penny was worried about him because of course she was, and he would do the same for her. How could that ever change? What had he done in that world to make her hate him so much?

He knew he was taking too long to respond, so he coughed to buy himself time. “I, u-uh, I haven’t been feeling good, that’s all.” He coughed again.

Penny immediately stepped further back. “Oh no, are you sick?” She looked him over with more scrutiny. “Th-that would explain why your eyes are all puffy too… U-um, I’m sure your parents will let you stay home if…”

Gumball laughed suddenly. “No, no, I’m not sick!” He laughed again, and surreptitiously wiped his eyes. Stupid, stupid. He thought he’d stopped crying, but the puffiness must have stuck around. Probably everyone had noticed. No, they’d have teased him about it. Which meant she had been paying extra attention to him… “I’ve just been feeling kinda down, I guess.”

“O-oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Her expression turned even more serious. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

He tried to look her in the eyes, but he couldn’t. Is this where it started? Lying? But what could he possibly say? Hey Penny, do you ever wonder if we’re not really soulmates? Because I went to an alternate universe where we broke up and everything was fine but, funny story, I messed it up again because I’m just that stupid! No.

“It’s nothing,” he lied. “But… I didn’t mean to push you away. We really should talk more, and trust each other with important stuff, and…” He trailed off. Penny just kept looking at him, so earnest and trusting, politely waiting for him to finish. Before he knew it, he was mumbling, “I’m sorry.”

Penny just smiled, so benevolently Gumball could have fainted. “It’s okay. I understand. You need space sometimes, just like everyone.”

Gumball reached out and took her hand, but gingerly, like he was afraid she would crumble at his touch. That was ridiculous, of course. She may have looked like she was made of light, but she was as solid as anyone else. Her hand was firm in his grip, tingling slightly with fairy magic.

Gumball looked into her eyes, and said –

Penny, you’re so beautiful and kind and perfect, I don’t know what I’d do without you, you’re more important to me than anything, we were meant to be together, I want to take you everywhere I go, you’re my sun and my stars and my whole wide world, I’ll do anything you want, I’m nothing without you I can’t live without you just please never ever leave me–

“I love you.”

Everything went quiet. The world seemed to narrow until it was just Penny, her mouth forming a tiny O as her body flushed a bright pink. For a moment Gumball worried he had made a mistake, but Penny’s expression melted into joy and everything was fine again.

“I love you too, Gumball,” she said, wrapping him in an embrace. And in that moment, Gumball’s fears suddenly seemed as distant as a bad dream.

He wished this could be forever. Maybe it wouldn’t be, but he knew he’d have tried his best.