"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."