Hi, guys. So, I've finished chapter 6. I know that chapter 5 may not have been as impressive as the first four, but I had to make that transition in the plot.
To a guest that mentioned the remote, I feel like an idiot for not having thought about that. However, I feel like that's kind of "cheating", in lack of a better term.
To Spineshocker62645, I'm about to do something like that in this very chapter. Not exactly that, but something similar.
To PennyIsAHero, thank you.
Here's chapter 6. Enjoy!
Chapter 6: Move on
It wouldn't be until a month later that Gumball went out of the hospital. Nicole drove him back home, just to make sure he wouldn't injure himself on the way home.
When they came home, what Gumball expected, from what his mother had told him, was kind of a mess he and Darwin used to make all the time. But he was dead wrong. The mess he came across exceeded all of his expectations. Hardly anything was left intact, and the walls were practically covered with food, among millions of other stuff.
In the middle of the living room, Darwin was standing, frightened, also covered in food.
"I tried, Ms. Mom," Darwin said, panicking, "I really did, but she's-"
"I know you did, honey," Nicole sighed. Gumball was still astounded by the look of the house.
"There you are, Gumball," Anais said, coming downstairs, with a serious expression on her face. "This is a giant problem! Loraine doesn't understand basic principles of differential geometry; she's impossible to communicate with! I try to explain her Gauss' curvature, and all she says is goo-goo, gah-gah, and then she cries and rampages the house."
"I DON'T THINK HER INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND MATHS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM RIGHT NOW!", Darwin yelled to Anais, frantically.
Frustrated by both statements, Gumball rushed upstairs, to see how his daughter was doing. The blue fairy was in her crib, crying heavily, waving her arms and legs around.
"No, no, no, sssshhhh, it's okay, daddy's here..." the moment he picked her up, Loraine stopped crying and smiled. And that smile on her face made Gumball feel a lot easier.
Loraine playfully laughed. This really filled Gumball's heart, knowing his daughter was happy.
"You're so cute and beautiful..." Gumball whispered to her, "Your mother would be so proud of you..."
And then he remembered Penny. She was exactly the same; sweet, innocent, lovable. There was nothing wrong about her. She made him endlessly happy. And now, he had to live without her. He sighed.
Loraine started to cry again.
"No, no, it's okay..." Gumball tried comforting her again. "What's wrong, my pumpkin honey? You hungry? Come on, let's get you something to eat..."
So he went downstairs, still holding Loraine in his hands.
"Hey guys, could you please go get something for Loraine to eat?" Gumball asked everyone in the house.
"There's plenty of food on the walls," Darwin said cynically, pointing at the walls.
"I meant from the store," Gumball said.
"So she can splatter that too?" Anais said. Gumball sighed. Loraine cried even harder.
"Okay, okay, just please make her stop," Darwin complained, annoyed by Loraine's crying. So he, Anais, and Nicole drove off to Elmore mall.
Gumball and Loraine remained alone in the house.
"I know what we can do until the food comes," Gumball said to Loraine.
"Goo-goo, gah-gah," Loraine replied.
"Exactly," Gumball said. Then, he picked up the remote and turned on the TV. "It should be about now..." Gumball rapidly switched channels until he found it. Daisy the donkey.
Loraine instantly smiled and clapped excitedly.
"Yes, honey..." Gumball said to her. "That's aunt Anais' favorite show..."
They watched it until they fell asleep on the couch.
When Darwin, Anais, and Nicole came back with food, and saw the two asleep, they quickly ate the food, so that Loraine wouldn't splatter it on the walls.
Two months later, Gumball was back in the rhythm he was in when he first got his job in the bowling arena. He tried his best not to let his job interfere with his personal life.
He still hadn't got over Penny's death, but he got used to living without her.
A stronger feeling inside him around that time, though, was the frustration that Patrick had been found innocent of what he had done to him. But he had to let that one slide, too.
And just when he thought he wouldn't let his private life mess with his job, a certain group of people came inside for a round of bowling.
His class. His former class, that is. Most of it, that is.
That's when he realized he was completely out of touch with almost everything that's been happening in Elmore ever since Penny got pregnant. What he also realized was that all of his class had probably moved on with their lives - something he wasn't even close to beginning doing.
He was almost getting lost in his thoughts, when:
"DUDE!" It was Tobias. He stretched out his fist in an attempt of fist-greeting. "I haven't seen you since, like, forever! Sorry about Penny, though; we all miss her."
"It's okay, I'm already over it," Gumball lied. He then accepted the fist-greeting.
"So..." Tobias began, "You bowl a lot?"
"Actually, I'm not allowed to, exactly because I work here," Gumball explained.
"Come on, dude, try just one," Tobias insisted. "It's not like your boss or anyone will notice."
"I'm literally standing right behind you," Gumball's boss said, standing right behind Tobias.
"Come on, Toby, don't bother Gumball," Masami said, taking Tobias' hand. "Can't you see he's in pain?" Then she and Tobias looked at each other seductively, and started making out. Apparently, Tobias and Masami are dating now.
"Can't you wait till we get home?" Masami asked passionately. Then they stopped making out. "Besides, it's your turn."
"Already?" Tobias panicked and rushed back to the bowling pit.
Gumball went to check out how good his former classmates were at bowling.
They were terrible.
They were absolutely terrible.
Only Bobert was doing remotely good. The rest, not at all.
Gumball couldn't look at this. But he had to, because that's what he got paid for.
In time, along came Carrie's turn. Her swing almost seemed hopeful for half a moment. But, as you can guess, no cone was hit.
"Wow," Tobias said to Carrie, "I guess you got..."
"Don't even think about it..." Carrie threatened him.
"I'm already thinking about it," Tobias smirked, "...CARRIED away."
Carrie possessed Tobias' body and punched him in the face. Masami then tried to strike Carrie with lightning, but Carrie is a ghost, so it didn't work. She smirked, and Masami got furious. So they got into a fight. Well, as much of a fight as it could've been, due to their physical abilities and disabilities.
"Hey, hey, hey, girls!" Alan interrupted. "We didn't come here to fight. We came here for a greater cause."
"That's right! Gumball!" Teri remembered.
"Me?" Gumball asked, confused.
"You know anyone else named Gumball?" Tobias asked sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up, Tobias," Carrie silenced him. Then, she turned to the blue cat. "Gumball, we came here to tell you what idiots your parents are."
Gumball was even more confused, but he now understood why the whole class were such terrible bowlers.
"Ummm... what?" he said in confusion.
"While you're mourning Penny's death," Tobias explained, "your parents are smooching behind your back."
"My parents are divorced," Gumball told him.
"Not according to what we just saw at Joyful Burger," Tobias said.
That caught Gumball by surprise.
"What the what?!" He looked at everyone in the bowling arena, and tried saying something, but he didn't know what to say. Then, he came up with: "Oh, look at my wrist; my shift is almost over."
"No, it's not," Gumball's boss told him. But Gumball was already on his way out. "Hey, I'll take that away from your salary."
But Gumball was already gone.
"He didn't even slow down," his boss muttered.
Nicole and Richard were legally divorced, but something happened that very evening at Joyful Burger.
They bumped into each other. For Richard, that was his everyday routine, and as for Nicole, she was getting it for when Gumball came home.
So they both sat down at a table and started conversing, for they hadn't seen each other in a while. And they had so much to talk about; Richard's barbecuing abilities, Nicole's stress over taking care of Loraine, etc.
Meanwhile, Richard ate both his food and the food Nicole had intended to bring for Gumball. She stared in disbelief at first, but she realized she couldn't do anything about it because she and Richard are divorced. Besides, she remembered, there was food at home. So she laughed.
The eating bit and the laughing bit was what the class saw from the parking lot of Joyful Burger, through the window. They had already been on their way to the bowling arena, so they thought they should tell Gumball.
Later on, Richard and Nicole saw it was late, so they had to go back to their homes. But before that, Richard asked Nicole something.
"Nicole..."
"Yes?"
"Would you..." Richard took a deep breath in and out. "Would you like it if we got back together?"
Nicole's happy facial expression turned into that of surprise. Then, she started to feel kinda sorry for Richard.
"I would love that..." she honestly said, "but... I can't. I just can't. It wouldn't work. I'm sorry."
This made Richard feel sad. Still, in the end, the two hugged each other, after which they went separate ways.
The hugging bit was all that Gumball saw when he came to Joyful Burger, hiding behind the bushes. He stopped for a second, thought about everything that had happened in the last year and a half, and then he went home.
Gumball was on his way home, thinking about what he had just seen at Joyful Burger, not aware that it wasn't exactly the way he saw it.
"Great..." he thought peevishly, "My parents are back together... and I'm all alone... perfect... just fucking perfect..."
The closer he got to home, the more he tried to steer his thoughts to just about anything else, but he only ended up thinking more and more about it.
As he was getting near the house, he saw somebody approach its entrance door. It was, of course, Patrick. He had come to apologize. His knock on the door was answered by Nicole. But when she saw who it was:
"What are you doing here?" she asked angrily.
"I came to apologize," Patrick said. And Nicole was inexplicably infuriated by this.
"I'm sorry, what?!" she said. Patrick tried to repeat, but she immediately continued: "After what you did to my son?! After you nearly killed him?! You think an apology will fix everything?!" This made Patrick feel insecure. He tried to explain, but Nicole threatened: "No! Now listen to me very carefully! If you ever come close to my son or anybody from my family ever again, you'll end up like your daughter! Is that clear?!"
This sent shivers down Patrick's spine. He just stared at Nicole for two seconds - and then he left.
That's when Gumball felt it. What he was hoping, this whole time, that he would be able to avoid. That everything that could've gone wrong, in the past year and a half, went wrong. There was a second of silence - and then Gumball burst into tears, in the middle of the street. He just couldn't believe this was happening. He was heartbroken. He was deeply heartbroken. He just laid on the sidewalk and let tears flow through his face. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid. And now, that exactly was happening.
"Why..." he repeatedly told himself. "Why... just fucking why...?"
He couldn't bear it. There was nothing he could do about anything.
Then, he calmed down. He started thinking about Penny. It was the only positive thought inside him right now.
And that was enough for him to remember something. Something he should've thought of long ago.
"Of course! How didn't I think of that before?"
So he got up and ran to the graveyard.
Once in the graveyard, it was around midnight, so no one else was around. He found Penny's gravestone, and sat on the ground in front of it.
He remembered something he had learned from Carrie. How to summon a ghost. Call their name five times.
So he did just that, hoping it would work.
"Penny, Penny, Penny, Penny, Penny."
And it did. The ghost of Penny showed up before Gumball's very eyes. It was the happiest Gumball had been in a long while.
"Penny..." Gumball said, with tears of joy in his eyes.
"Gumball!" Penny said excitedly, rushing towards Gumball and hugging him tightly. "I can't believe it. You're here! Tell me about everything!"
Gumball didn't know where to start. He took Penny's hands, and took a deep breath in and out.
"I miss you..." he said.
"I miss you too," she said back, comforting him. She tried to cheer him up by asking: "How's our little girl?" Gumball smiled.
"She's just like you," he said. Penny blushed.
"What did you name her?" she asked.
"Loraine," Gumball said.
"That's a nice name," Penny said. Then, she asked him: "And how are you doing?" Gumball sighed.
"Not well..." he said, reluctantly. Penny was one of the few people Gumball could be completely honest with. And she didn't have to ask him why he wasn't doing well. She knew it was because everything had gone downhill ever since she died.
"Gumball..." she said, still holding hands with him. Gumball looked her in the eyes. "You have to move on," she said. Gumball sighed again.
"I can't," Gumball said. "I just... can't..."
"It's okay," Penny said reassuringly. "I know you'll find a way."
They both smiled.
"Penny..." Gumball said.
"Yeah?" Penny said back.
"If you had... lived..." Gumball began, "would you... marry me?"
"Of course!" Penny said confidently. Gumball felt relieved.
"Okay," he said, "just wanted to be sure." They both laughed lightly. "Penny..." he said again.
"Yeah?" she also said again. There was a second of silence.
"I love you," he said. He had told her that hundreds of times before this one, but this time, he meant it wholeheartedly. Penny felt that and she smiled.
"I love you too, Gumball," she said back. They kissed each other in the lips.
They stared at each other afterwards, with smiles on their faces.
"Don't worry," Penny said in comfort, "we'll see each other again."
And then she disappeared.
Gumball sighed and went back home.
There goes chapter 6. So, as you can see, I used some of your suggestions. I didn't exactly follow them, but I found a way to incorporate them into the story. Thanks for the suggestions, again! Until chapter 7, leave reviews and see you!
