The bucket of bolts had graduated to a full-blown ship with little turrets on the outside. They were lasers meant to superheat the inside of the rocks, releasing whatever water was in the rocks and exploding them.

After blasting the big meteor, Gumball said, there would be a lot of cleanup. It would be Marshall's job to break apart any chunks that seems like a threat. They'd been practicing for the past couple of weeks, and Marshall had to admit it wasn't so terrible of a job besides the nauseating feeling of being launched into space.

Target practice had been these little blips of meteor showers like the one that happened that night. It had been a long, emotional night, and Marshall's space helmet fogged up with it. He constantly had to lift the visor to wipe at the inside of the plastic, and then wipe at his eyes.

He'd been so mean to Fionna, and she didn't deserve it, really. It wasn't her fault his feeling had been unrequited, and she had given it a good shot at returning or at least understanding how he felt about her. Perhaps there was just enough time in this world to patch things up.

Another shot missed, and Gumball complained loudly on the intercom.

"What are you doing? You only have so much energy up there, quit missing. Focus. The lasers use up a lot of fuel, and you're going to end up doggy paddling back to Earth."

Marshall rolled his eyes. The closer The End seemed to be, the more Gumball's mask of niceties slipped. He'd always known Gumball was like this. They were, after all, buddies in immortality. That was why it had bothered him so much when Fionna had been charmed off her little human bum with Gumball's forced flattery.

"Don't test me, I've had a bad night." He replied, firing three shots in quick intervals.

"I saw you talking to Fionna. I thought you were done with chasing her."

"I am. I don't want to talk about it."

There was a long silence, and Marshall was almost teased into thinking the subject had been dropped.

"She came over the other day. Told me all that's happened between you two."

Adrenaline began to boil in Marshall's blood at those words.

"I said I don't want to talk about it."

"You should try to at least-"

Marshall flipped off the intercom. The word 'try' had snapped his last nerve. He had tried, and he didn't need anyone to tell him about trying anything.

He blasted a couple more asteroids before the surge of meteors seemed to pass. The closer doomsday came, the more frequent these showers had become. He sat back in the seat, which Gumball had made comfortable for him, and maneuvered the craft back down to Earth.

Marshall had collapsed on his bed, exhausted with space travel and weary with emotion. He'd planned on contacting Fionna the next day, to finish the conversation they had started last night, but he didn't get the chance.

Marshall was awoken at four in the morning, with barely three hours of sleep, by the loud crackling sounding from the Walkie Talkie Gumball had given him in case of emergencies.

He fumbled to turn the volume down in his sleepy half conscious state, then pressed the large button on the side.

"What's up." He said plainly.

"Over." Gumball's voice repeated. "You're supposed to say over…over."

"Yeah, I'm not doing that. What do you want?"

"It's time, Marshall. I have everything ready to launch the bomb. You just have to be in space to be ready to clean it up."

Marshall could sense the anxiety oozing out through the speaker. Gumball's voice was shaking with fear, and Marshall didn't blame him. His heart was pounding against his chest as well, and he hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to Fionna.

"It's going to be okay, Gumball." Marshall said in a way he hoped sounded assuring. He'd given up hope long ago.

"I hope so, Marshall." He said, "Be here in an hour sharp."

"Okay."

Marshall stretched himself from sleep, and looked around his house. The house that would be obliterated if Gumball failed. What if they would succeed? What then?

Would he and Fionna patch things up? Would life go back to normal? Certainly not. This year had changed him. He'd been chomping at the bit in this purgatory of immortality, and this year had been the final nail in his coffin.

If the world didn't take him out, he'd take himself out instead.

Taboo subject, perhaps. But these mortals didn't get the concept of 'forever' like he did. And damn it, he was tired.

If only he could have gotten a few more hours of sleep... but there was something he felt he had to do before resigning himself to the services of Lord Gumwad.

He stood to grab his guitar, and warmed up with a few chords. Then pressed the record button on his little tape deck to record the song for Fionna.

Marshall wanted to make sure that she heard it. He'd thought he'd stop trying, but this time it was different. He didn't want an answer, just for her to listen. She'd asked for it by name, anyways.

Like an idiot, when he got to the treehouse, he knocked, and was too late to remember it was four in the morning. But to his surprise, Fionna answered. Her eyes were red rimmed, and she rubbed them sleepily as she opened the door.

"You okay?" He asked, hoping she hadn't been crying. If she had, he knew their conversation earlier probably had something to do with it.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Playing BMO all night." She gestured him inside, but he shook his head.

"I have to go, sorry. Just dropping by."

Her shoulder fell in clear disappointment. He held out his long-loved tape recorder to her.

"What is this?" She asked, taking a hold of it. Of course, she knew what it was, just didn't understand why he was giving his precious recording system to her.

"Listen to it. It's the rest of the song."

"Oh." She said, hugging it to her chest. Something about the precious way she held it should have set off signals in his head. It should have made him realize something about the way she felt about it; about him, but those neurons had been fired off so many times, they were numb to the stimuli. The sun was rising, he had to get to Gumball's before he'd burn to a crispy vampire chip.

"I gotta go, Fionna. And… I'm sorry."

"I'll give it back." She said, cutting off his apology. "I'll come over later. Would that be okay?"

He chuckled dryly, knowing that later was probably not going to happen.

"Yeah, Fionna. I'd love to see you later."

That response earned him a smile. I'd be the last thing she ever offered him, and he'd just have to take it.