Hello everyone! I'm back with yet another TAWOG fanfic, the third one I'll be writing here.
Now, I'm aware that the show is supposedly ending soon, and that the final episode should be titled "The Future", which I assume will take place in future (because that would be kind of an ultimate heartbreaking ending? That's at least how I see it), but know nothing about yet. So I decided to make another fanfic that would be set in the (near) future, before writing it stops making sense (due to the release of the episode). The idea, I got the other day, out of - honestly - pure boredom. And I thought to myself; why not publish it? While the idea is still fresh! So, there it is.

The main reason I set this fanfic in the future - but not too far in the future, only four years - you'll see in an upcoming chapter.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the story.

THE SAD PART OF HAPPINESS

Chapter 1: The sad part of happiness

Everybody has a breaking point.

Some people are well aware of it, but there are many more people who aren't exactly keen on acknowledging they have one. They do, too. Regardless of what they themselves claim. It's just that their breaking point is a little higher than that of those firstly mentioned.

The city of Elmore, California, is no different. Well, unlike probably any other city in the world, it is, rather than with humans, inhabited with anthropomorphic everything. Not just animals. Food too. Plants. Clouds. Ghosts and robots, of course. And so on and so forth. Just about anything. But in terms of their everyday routines, it's really not all that much different from your average city.

Each resident of Elmore has a breaking point of their own, too.

Which brings us to one of the many families that lived there.

The Wattersons.

Now, even for themselves, numerous of their acts throughout Elmore have been... out of place. Most lightly said.

However, just as often, members of the Watterson family got into quarrels with each other. Sometimes it was for the most ridiculous reasons, but much more often, those arguments were serious. Because those arguments concerned, among others, money, trust, and respect.

And who took the biggest part in suffering from all that? Of course, the breadwinner of the house.

Nicole Watterson.

Now, it wouldn't be anything unusual that most of a family's housework is done by a single member, and the rest - or at least some of the rest - by the rest of the family. But nothing is ever so simple now, is it? The thing is, Nicole was the only Watterson family member who ever did anything around the house. She had to do all the housework, all the time. While the rest of the family was as irresponsible as one could get. Her husband, Richard, most of all. You'd expect he would take more action in the family's routines as it grows larger. But no. He only grew more irresponsible, lazy, and oaf-like, as time passed.

Naturally, Nicole's family's irresponsibility gave her anger issues.

However, every time she was to vent her anger issues on them, in an attempt to tell them off, make them feel guilty, all that would happen was; she would frighten them, they would remain frightened for a while (and not even a long while), and then they would return to doing whatever made Nicole angry in the first place.

Let's not get confused; she greatly loved her family, but she merely tolerated everything they did.

And at one point, but certainly not all of a sudden, she wasn't able to tolerate her family's actions any longer.

She had reached her breaking point.

Picture this: You come home from a semi-exhausting day at work; you have bags under your eyes. You open the door, only to see your family, the four other members, lying on the couch as if they were glued to it, the house being in utter mess, and obviously none of them having done any single one of the chores you asked them to. Not even take out the trash. Not even... anything.

When it happens once, maybe it's tolerable.

But when it happens every single day all over again, with no sign of change; when you guilt-trip them hundreds of times about it and they're entirely unaffected by your guilt-tripping, when every discussion with your family about their problems only increases them - well, that's not how anything works.

That's what happened to Nicole that Saturday.

As you can guess, none of the other family members thought they had done anything wrong.

Later, around 3 AM, all of Elmore was fast asleep.

Correction: most of it.

Gumball Watterson, Nicole's sixteen-year-old son and her first child, had some troubles sleeping on that specific night. Nothing serious, he was just... not feeling sleepy. He was also very thirsty at the moment, for that matter. Therefore, he thought he could use a glass of water.

"Man, I could really use a glass of water right now." Yeah, like that.

So he got out of his bed and headed downstairs to get himself one. On the way there, he of course walked carefully, not to wake anyone up. As he got downstairs, he headed to the kitchen, grabbed a glass that had been placed nearby, opened the pipe, poured a glass worth of water, and took a big sip.

It felt awesome.

But not for much longer.

Because almost right afterwards, he accidentally turned his head to the window that faced the backyard, and what he saw in the backyard absolutely saddened him.

His mother was sitting in the backyard, with her face buried in her hands, crying. And crying. And crying.

Now, Gumball may be stupid, but he's not an idiot. He knows that nobody would go outside their house at 3 AM, sit down and cry, just out of pure boredom. He figured that this was happening due to all the pain that the rest of the family had been giving her for years. Psychological, of course.

She got fed up with it. Gumball should've seen it coming. But it was too late now to fix anything.

He left his glass in the kitchen, opened the backyard door, and whispered, quietly and with concern:

"Mom?"

Nicole then got her face out of her hands, her face enclosed with tears, and she turned around to face her eldest son.

"Oh, hi, honey..." she whispered back as if nothing was wrong, but her tearful face said otherwise.

"Is everything okay, mom?" Gumball asked, already knowing the answer.

Nicole first needed a few seconds to catch her breath from crying. Then she said:

"No... no, it's not..."

Even though Gumball was expecting to hear something like that, the way she said it - sad, hopeless, depressing - broke his heart.

What he was going to ask next was what was wrong, but he felt like it wasn't anything specific. Not the fact that nobody had done their house chores. Not the fact that he was overly spoiled. Or that Darwin, his brother, basically followed his steps. Or that Anais, his sister, was a smarty-pants. Or that Richard, his father, constantly forgot his and Nicole's wedding anniversary, among numerous other flaws of his.

It was, in some way - all of it.

Gumball didn't know what to do about it. But his mother was still in tears.

So he hugged her.

And of course, as any good mother would do, Nicole wrapped her arms around him, embrace the hug.

Gumball knew that a big part of the reason his mother sat in the backyard and cried was his fault, due to all the mischief he caused in Elmore. So it was now that he felt guilty. Not whenever she got furious at him, for doing whatever wrong he did. No, it was now, when he saw her entirely unhappy.

"I'm sorry, mom..." he said. Nicole looked him in the eyes and asked:

"What for...?"

Gumball just sighed in sadness. "...Everything..." he said. "I'm sorry for all the times I've made you angry..."

Nicole just looked at him. She thought about telling him it had nothing to do with him. But they both knew that wasn't true. So she just said:

"It's okay..."

But Gumball knew it wasn't exactly "okay". Otherwise this wouldn't be happening.

So, what he chose not to ask at first, he asked now.

"So, what's wrong?"

There was a long period of silence after he asked that question. Only the sound of Nicole's tears streaming down her face could be heard. And fireflies, of course. For a good part of said silence, Nicole was thinking about Gumball was prepared to hear what had been on her mind for quite some time.

To answer Gumball's question, Nicole swallowed saliva and told him:

"I'm sorry, honey... I can't live like this anymore..."

And of course, Gumball became heavily worried, because he had no idea what his mother meant by that.

"What are you talking about?" he asked her.

Nicole looked at the ground for a few seconds, wiping the remaining tears from her face. A few more seconds passed in silence. Then, Nicole realized there was no more postponing. It was time she told him. So she took a deep breath. In. And out. Still hesitated for a moment. But it slid.

And she told him.

"I'm thinking about leaving your father."

There were hundreds and hundreds of things Gumball thought his mother would tell him. But not this. Not that his parents were getting divorced.

It broke his heart.

"W-what?" he asked.

"I'm sorry..." Nicole said softly.

And even though he clearly knew why she made such a decision, he wasn't willing to accept it. So he asked:

"But why?" and it were his eyes this time that were coming to tears.

And when Nicole tried to answer it... she didn't really know where to start from. She and Richard had known each other since they were kids. They had spend their whole lives together. And even though he was childish, she still loved him. Because as a child, he was exactly that - a child. Something Nicole never got the chance to be, due to her parents' obnoxious expectations for her. So she started dating him. And the two lived quite a happy life. Naturally, they got married and had children. But, over all those years, Richard was becoming more and more childish. It was kinda cute at the beginning, but he went to extreme as time passed.

It was not the Richard that Nicole knew.

That was about the time when she realized she really only stayed with him out of pity.

But now, she could no longer stand it.

"He's not making me happy anymore..." she told her son.

Gumball, of course, tried to say something to undeceive his mother from divorcing Richard:

"But... but..." but he couldn't think of anything. He really loves his dad, but even he's aware that his dad has so many flaws.

Another long silence.

Nicole now tried to say something, to break the silence - and of course, to comfort her son. But nothing sounded appropriate for the moment.

Another deep breath in and out. Nicole sighed.

"I hope you'll understand," she then said. Then, she looked at Gumball again, kissed him in the forehead, and patted his head. "You should go back to sleep," she said, too.

And that's exactly what Gumball did: just got up and left. Without a word. Without even a glance at her. But with sadness on his face.

Nicole stayed in the backyard for a little while after Gumball went back inside, and just stared at the door, the direction he went. She sighed, and went back inside as well.

The next day, Nicole would be telling Richard all this...

There goes the first chapter of The Sad Part Of Happiness. This is actually basically just an introduction. The real story begins in the next chapter. I'm, of course, talking about the part with Gumball and Penny. Until the next chapter, please leave reviews. See you!