Rerunning a Disaster

Chapter 6: The Calm

Penny and Gumball both stood silently for a moment. The air was icy, albeit with a faint sense of calmness.

"Is... is it over?" Gumball asked nervously.

Penny looked towards the paused van. Within the paused image of the world, she could see the image of Rob next to the van starting to glitch out and distort, until it finally corrected itself, albeit with one major difference: Rob was gone from the image. Deleted. Erased. As if he had never existed at all.

"Yes, Gumball..." came Penny's delayed reply. "It's over."

There was a long pause between Penny and Gumball. Both clearly wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words.

At last, Gumball spoke again.

"Penny?"

"Yeah, Gumball?"

"Was... was what we did right? Locking him away in the Void with nobody else for company?"

"Gumball, listen to me." Penny said, holding the cat's face. "That was a man with nothing but malice flowing through him. If he saw the murder of me and your family as okay, then he wouldn't have hesitated to finish you off, or worse. He was so deep in his victim complex as to be beyond reasoning with, and the consequences of his awful actions finally caught up to him. It had to end this way."

Gumball thought about her words and came to agree, for the truth in them made everything right.

"You're right, Penny. There was no other way."

Gumball gave her a smile, and so Penny leaned down to embrace him in another long, loving hug. The two lovers stood in their hug for a good while, until they parted as another thought struck Gumball.

"Penny?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you... do you think the world will make something bad happen to us?"

"What do you mean, Gumball?" the perplexed Penny asked.

"Like, when everything resumes as normal, we'll know about the Void. What if the world gets angry and tries to erase us, and we end up there with Rob... and nobody here remembers us?"

Penny thought about it for moment. A holding ground dimension for erased mistakes was a big piece of knowledge to carry around. However, she pushed the negative possibilities out of her mind.

"I don't think we need to worry, Gummy." she assured him. "Remember, it was the world itself that likely planted the memory of Rob's actions towards me into my mind so that we could prevent this. If it knew this would result in us remembering the Void, why would it even allow this chain of events to happen in the first place?"

Gumball sat in silence, the fairy's words ringing true in his mind.

"Not only that," Penny continued, "but now that this is all over and done with, and the Void is sealed off forever, I don't think we need to worry about our knowledge of it coming back to haunt us ever again. I think the world knew its balance was thrown off by Rob, and it must've decided that if prevention of the harm he inflicted resulted in two residents learning about the Void, then so be it. Plus, it's never considered you or me to be mistakes, so it's unlikely that it would suddenly decide so now."

Penny then looked Gumball directly in the eyes again.

"If we just don't dwell on its existence," she told him, "then nothing will happen."

"...You're right, Penny." Gumball finally responded. "Sorry, it's just this whole situation's got my brain working all topsy-turvy..."

"Well you should've seen how topsy-turvy my brain was when I first realized all of this stuff was happening." Penny giggled, trying to lighten the mood a little. She knew it worked when she saw Gumball smile.