Chapter 3: The Deal
Gumball had fallen unconscious after the fight with the alien. Later on, he had woken up. His head was throbbing in pain and his right arm had medical gauze on it from where he was bitten. He looked down and realized that he had a ventilator in his mouth running to his lungs. He was in the hospital. He looked around and saw Rachel in a chair asleep beside his bed. Gumball didn't like having the tube in his throat that was breathing for him, but he was confused by how he ended up in the hospital and wondered what happened to cause him to wind up in this bad condition, but then he remembered the fight with the alien and how he passed out. He never imagined too have been hurt that bad.
Before long, he noticed a nurse enter the room, surprised to find the young feline awake. "Oh my! You're awake? Let's get this out of you then," she said. She went over and cut off the ventilator pulling the tube out of his mouth. He gasped for breath, coughing and wheezing until he calmed down. "What happened to me?" Gumball asked while the nurse was removing the I.V from his arm. "Your friend here brought you in sometime last night. You wouldn't breathe, so we had to put you on the ventilator," the nurse explained what had happened, but she left right after, leaving the young feline confused.
Gumball just sighed while he was lying in the hospital bed with his thoughts. He remembered the fight he got in with the alien last night, though he could still feel a burning pain in his arm. Rachel at last woke up. As she yawned, it did not take her any long to see Gumball awake. She saw his eyes and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly and surprising him greatly. "R-Rachel?" Gumball said confused by her actions, but heard her sniffling. "I'm sorry for getting you hurt like that…" Rachel apologized, looking up at him with her tear filled eyes.
"Don't worry about me. It's not like you knew what it was," Gumball claimed knowing that this was the whole reason why he joined her when investigating the crater due to fear of the unknown. "Still, I'm the one who brought you here. It was dumb of me to have just the two of us to go alone like that. But just like I said I would, I'll set that blind date up for you," Rachel claimed. Gumball sighed, unsure of what to say. She was still keeping her side of their agreement of setting up that date with Penny. Suddenly they heard the sounds of shoes clacking along the tiled floor of the room.
They saw a chameleon in a black suit with blonde hair enter the room. "Gumball Watterson?" the chameleon asked wondering if it was him. "Uh, yeah?" Gumball questioned. Rachel was creeped out by the visitor. "I need to talk with you… privately. I'm with the government," he claimed, but the three of them stayed silent for a while awkwardly before they realized what he meant by privately, literal that he wouldn't talk at all. Rachel left the room and shut the door behind her, planning to come back in a few minutes.
"So uh… what are you doing here?" Gumball asked seeing the chameleon shake his hand before taking a seat. "I came to talk to you about what you've encountered. Would you mind telling me about what happened?" he asked. The feline nodded while his ears were low in fear as he began explaining what had happened at the crash site and what he had done. Recalling the memories alone was scaring him enough but he felt guilty for putting it to its grave.
After the chameleon listened to Gumball's tale of what had occurred, he nodded in agreement before speaking. "Right, first off, my name is Ron. And secondly, that alien you killed was called a Chryssalid. It has clearly infected you with its bite as well," Ron explained but Gumball was more confused by the fact that this alien had a name which made him bring up a question. "Do you mean I'm not the first person who's been bitten?" he asked. The government worker nodded before he shook a tiny blue vial, dangling it in front of the young feline.
"This is the antidote. If you don't get it, you will slowly die and become a zombie," Ron explained what the Chryssalid bite does, terrifying Gumball. He made a grab for the antidote. Ron let him take it without any trouble and let him drink it. He calmed down once he drank it. "You have only got a little bit of the antidote. All that will do is pretty much keep you from turning," Ron stated getting a growl in response. "What do you want from me? I'll do anything!" Gumball begged before being told to calm down.
"Do not worry. I can give you more, but you need to know this. Your friend's father and your father are infected as well," Ron explained. That was why their fathers were so sick they had become bitten sometime before. "So, let us make a deal. You join the government to deal with these aliens, and we will cure them instantly and you slowly," he got straight to the point what he wanted and why he had come here. Gumball didn't want anything bad to happen to his father and he thought that he owed it to Rachel, especially to get her father cured as well. "Fine, I'll help. Just take care of our parents!" Gumball ordered and saw Ron laughing at him.
"Excellent. We'll be in touch through your cell phone. I hope you don't mind traveling a lot," Ron claimed. With that, he got up and walked away, opening the door and leaving the room, leaving Gumball alone to his thoughts, but he didn't have a cell phone so he questioned what the chameleon meant by that.
Before long, Rachel came back to the room to see Gumball lying on the bed depressed. "I have good news. Guess who's getting released soon?" she asked with a smile. Gumball chuckled in confusion. "Me?" he asked. Rachel nodded happily saying that he was going to be let out today. "What did that man want with you?" Rachel questioned curious about what the conversation was about, but Gumball didn't know if he should tell her or not but sighed.
"He came to treat me for the bite that alien gave me. He said he was going to treat your dad for his illness too," Gumball claimed explaining what had happened and what was said. It made Rachel happy since her father was going to be alright. "So you're a government agent now?" Rachel asked with a giggle. Gumball shrugged as an answer. "I don't know. Just don't tell anyone, please?" he pleaded. She nodded insisting that she will keep it secret, even though Gumball didn't tell her about the one important part of what occurred that Ron had not given him the full antidote and only a small dosage of it.
Rachel spent the next few hours with Gumball, helping him get ready to leave the hospital. They knew that their families were probably worried over them.
End of Chapter 3