Disclaimer: I do not own Wreck It Ralph.
The damage was too much.
They'd tried. Over and over again, they had tried to fix the damage Turbo had caused, tried to right the wrong within her that had gone beyond her perfect glitch. Beyond the glitch that made her her, to the data corruption that was beyond any of their powers.
Turbo had caused a lot of damage, but this kind just couldn't be fixed.
They had tried it all. Felix had swung his hammer. Calhoun had tried to rewire the code within the core. Ralph had smashed everything he could, hoping, perhaps, if he hit the right thing, things would be okay.
They weren't. They weren't, and they never would be, cause the kid was disappearing right before their eyes and there was nothing they could do to fix it.
"Ralph."
The wrecker refused to look at the blue clad man beside him, instead keeping his gaze focused on the coding boxes before him. There had to be something, anything, that they had missed. A zero where there should have been a one. A set of crossed wires, red connecting where there should have been a blue. A virus gnawing at the vulnerabilities these older, more complex games had, before there were proper firewalls and designers were just throwing things together to look cool.
"Ralph, please."
There had to be something. Something Felix could fix or Calhoun could shoot or he could wreck just something. There had to be. There just had to be, and he wasn't going to go until he found it.
"Ralph, please, she-"
"I can't, Felix," Ralph growled, the noise getting caught in the back of his throat, twisting into something close to a sob. "I can't, not until I know what's wrong. I can't, I can't, I just can't…"
"You have to, brother," Felix said quietly, his eyes downcast as he delivered the news. "She's almost gone."
"But…" Ralph chocked out, his heart in his throat. It was getting hard to breath, hard to see, something heavy sitting on his chest and crushing his lungs as his vision blurred and his cheeks became wet. "There has to be something."
"I'm afraid to say there isn't. You need to come say good bye."
It didn't take much to force the Wrecker away, the code room closing behind the two as they left, returning the throne room to its normal glory. He hated it. Hated how the pink still pinked enough to hurt his eyes, how the castle was still standing, sugar and gum holding the structure in place despite what was happening within its walls.
He hated it, wanted to knock down every sugar brick until all that remained was dust and code. But Ralph forced himself forward, forced himself to climb those stairs and enter that room, so he wouldn't miss her.
There wasn't much of her left.
It had started a few days ago, pits and pieces of her disappearing after glitching, leaving raw, sore patches of data in their wake. She had tried to stop; to stop glitching, stop racing, stop being who she was until they could figure it out, find a way to reset her before the problem started, but it hadn't helped.
There was barely enough of her left to recognize, but the moment Ralph entered that door, her one eye fixed upon him and refused to leave.
"We've been waiting for you, Wreck-It." Calhoun's voice was soft; he could barely hear her words over the labored breathing besides her, over the sound of skin scrabbling over cloth as what remained of her hard reached out for him.
"I know," Ralph replied, taking Van's hand gently between his own as he sat by the bed. "I'm sorry."
"Stink…brain." The words were slow, pained, panted out between labored breaths, but he still couldn't help the small smile that forced itself to his face at the sound of them.
"The stinkiest brain ever," Ralph agreed, shifting closer. "But hey; if you like me, how bad can I be?"
"Bad," Van coughed out, a smirk seeming to appear before being replaced by a grimace, her form going still as a part of her flickered and was gone. She had told him, once, towards the beginning of all of this, that it didn't hurt, just felt weird. Like wiggling a loose tooth that wasn't ready to come out yet.
He had known she was lying, could read her blank face better than she thought, but had kept it to himself. If the kid wanted to make him feel better, he would let her.
Suddenly, as it happened again, Van's fingers clenching around his hand as hard as she could, hard enough to actually hurt, Ralph was glad Felix had come to get him. There would be no other chance to say good bye.
"You look like you need some rest, President Fartfeathers," Ralph joked as she finally relaxed, soothingly stroking the back of her hand. "Why don't you get some sleep? I'll still be here when you wake up."
"No," Van slowly wheezed. She knew. Whether she had done the math and realized that there wasn't enough of her left to survive many more episodes, whether someone had told her that her time was almost up, or whether she could just feel it in her bones, Vanellope Von Schweets knew she wouldn't be waking up. Using the last of her strength to tug him closer, Vanellope gently kissed his cheek before whispering in his ear, her almost unintelligible words more enough to wreck him.
"My…hero."
His fist clenched; her hand slid from his, the familiar blue glow of raw data jumbling together into a mess they couldn't fix, they had to fix but they just couldn't; his hands reaching forward to grab her, hold her, to try to keep her there, to save his friend…and closing around air.
Where Vanellope had been, there was nothing. She was gone.