KNOCK KNOCK!
Ralph yawns and sits up in bed, stretching the kinks out of his back. It was a long day at work, and he hoped to get a nap in before heading to Sugar Rush to see if Vanellope got to race today.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
"Alright, alright," he says with a huge yawn. He slides out of bed and, scratching his butt, shuffles to the front door. "I'm comin'." He rubs his eyes with one hand, and the other grabs the doorknob and opens the door. His eyes trail down to find a sniffling Vanellope with downcast eyes. "Kid?"
"Hey, Stinkbrain," she mumbles, voice heavy.
For a moment, Ralph just stands there and looks at her. Then he blinks a couple times and steps aside. "C'mon in." He watches her hug herself as she steps inside and makes her way to the chair near Ralph's bed. It's the perfect size for him to sit in, but when Vanellope climbs up on it, she looks like the size of a teddy bear. "What happened?" he asks, coming over to stand by her.
Vanellope sniffs and rubs her eyes, pulling herself together. "Dad's not letting me race," she says, staring down at her boots. "And I waited all week to race again!"
"What?" Ralph plops onto his bed, mouth open like a fish. He knows how hard it was for her - whenever she wasn't hanging out with her dad or talking to Kairi, she would come over and complain like a drama queen about having to stay away from the roster race. She counted down the days - hours even - until she could race again. "But today's the day you get to race again, right?" he says.
She huffs and crosses her arms. "Yeah, doi. Even Dad knew that, since he let me do the Roster Race."
"Aw, I missed it?" Ralph frowns. Sometimes the race doesn't happen right after the arcade closes. He hoped this was one of those days.
"Yeah. I came in ninth place."
"At least you're on the roster for tomorrow." Ralph attempts a smile, but inside he thinks, She never comes in ninth place. Ever.
Vanellope's lip trembles. She draws her knees up and hugs them, burying her face in her striped stockings. "Dad won't let me race tomorrow, and says that if I disobeyed him he'd have my kart destroyed."
"He said that?" he seethes, balling his fists.
"All because he thinks I could cause an accident on the course!" She looks up at him, and he notices her eyes are red. "But accidents happen all the time!"
"You weren't in an accident this time, though, were you?"
She lowers her gaze and picks at the fabric of the chair. "No, all I did was swerve and hit a wall."
"You what?" he stares at her.
"It's not like I got hurt," she says, giving him a pointed look, "or got anyone else hurt." She shuts her mouth tight, as if she almost said something else she didn't want to share.
Ralph wishes she would tell him everything. He thinks back to last month, when she tried hanging out with him but felt like he was too busy for her or didn't care about her anymore. She told Felix and Citrusella, but she didn't tell Ralph until he confronted her about it. Is she upset? Does she have any more "memories?" He stares at the ground in thought. "Want me to go over and talk to your dad about letting you race?" he offers.
"You'd probably scare him away with your ham hands and your 'halitothith,'" she says, imitating her dad's voice, making herself grin.
His mouth twitches into a half-smile. "Well, there's gotta be some way for you to race."
She frowns again, staring at her boots as she taps the toes together. "He says he's a king and I should listen to whatever he says." She makes a face. "It's supposed to be a constitutional democracy, ga-doi!"
Ralph opens his mouth to speak - but it hangs open in silence as the two stare at each other and listen to the approaching sound.
An engine.
They remain silent and still as the engine sound gets louder until it sounds like it's right outside the house. It seems to pass them, but then it stops completely. Vanellope slides off the chair, sneaks her way over to the window. She lifts a corner of the curtain that Mary made for Ralph and peeks out the window. Her eyes widen when they spot the purple and yellow kart and the glimmer of a crown as someone enters the apartment building.
Felix has just sat down to a cup of chamomile tea when he hears knocking at the door. "Who could that be?" he wonders aloud, rising from his seat and going over to the door. He closes one eye and looks out the peephole, surprised at who he sees on the other side. "King Candy," he says, opening the door and smiling politely, "how can I help you, Your Majesty?"
Candy lifts his gaze, and Felix notices his eyes are red. "May I come in?" he asks in a small voice.
"Um, sure." Felix steps aside as the Sugar Rush-ian shuffles in. "Please sit down in the blue chair. Can I get you a refreshment?"
"No, thank you." Candy makes his way to the blue armchair and sits, keeping his eyes down and wringing his hands.
"Is something wrong?" Felix asks, coming over and sitting in the lower-back chair across from the king.
He inhales and exhales deeply through his nose before looking Felix straight in the eye and say, "How can I be a good father?"
Felix blinks and says, "Your Majesty, you're a great father."
"No, I'm not." Candy stares at his jingly shoes. "I try to keep my daughter happy and safe, but I can't protect her from getting hurt on the track and she hates me when I try." His voice cracks.
"She didn't get hurt, did she?" Felix asks.
Candy shakes his head. "She's fine."
"That's good," Felix says with a small grin. He'd hate to have to tell Ralph that the sweet little girl got hurt racing. Ralph would never admit it, but since last month, he's worried about Vanellope's safety, sometimes pacing in his own house whenever he heard about another accident on the track. His first impulse would be to go check on Vanellope, but Felix always talked him out of it - until last week, when they both went over to fix the karts and Swizzle's leg.
"Felix," Candy says, looking up into the fixer's blue eyes. Felix snaps out of his thoughts and looks at the king. "What if I messed up? What if she never talks to me again?"
"She will talk to you again." Felix shifts his position on the chair, but keeps his gaze. "Vanellope loves you." He remembers the day after the party, Vanellope told Ralph that she was going to spend every day with her dad, making up for the past sixteen years. Even though she said that Ralph would always be part of her family, there was no denying she was excited to have a dad.
Candy hangs his head. "After today, I'm not so sure about that."
Felix smiles kindly, places a hand on Candy's shoulder. "Don't worry, Your Majesty," the fixer assures. "No matter what happened, I'm sure she'll forgive you. Just give it some time."
A brief silence. "Even if what happened is really terrible and unthinkable?" Candy says in a quiet voice.
What happened? Felix really wants to ask. Instead, he politely says, "I don't think what you did is that bad."
The older man watches his hands. "I said I would have her kart destroyed if she tried to race tomorrow."
Felix's jaw drops, his eyes bugged out, a hand still on the king's shoulder.
"I know, I know," Candy says in response to Felix's silence. He shrugs off the hand and draws into himself like a turtle. "I didn't mean to say it, it just came out in a rush. Before I could take it back, she drove away." He buries his face in his hands, muffling his voice when he says, "What kind of a father am I?"
"Don't be so hard on yourself, sir," Felix says, scooching a couple inches forward on his seat. "You were locked up for sixteen years. It's going to take some time before things get fully better. Just...let things calm down for a couple days, then explain everything to her."
Candy's not entirely sure, but he sniffs and meets the fixer's blue eyes. "Are you sure?"
"Yes!" Felix flashes his signature grin.
The king smiles a little. "Thanks, Felix."
"No problem, Your Majesty."
"Please don't call me that," Candy says with a small, sad chuckle. "You know, I'm glad I talked to you. I originally wanted to talk to Ralph, but I saw Vanellope's kart outside and thought I wouldn't be welcome."
Felix smiles reassuringly at the older man and opens his mouth to say -
ACHOO!
Both of them turn their gazes towards Felix's window and see two familiar faces. Candy's heart skips a beat and he freezes as if caught doing something horrible. Felix hops off his chair and opens the window. "Ralph! Vanellope! What are you doing here?" he says.
"We weren't spying on you guys, if that's what you're saying," Vanellope says with her signature smirk, rubbing her nose with a hand.
"We heard Candy's kart enter the game," Ralph says, picking up Vanellope by the hood and setting her inside the room, "and we wanted to make sure everything was alright." He swings inside and lands behind the kid, making the room shake.
Pressing himself against the back of the seat, Candy asks, "How much did you hear?"
"Everything," Vanellope says, stuffing her hands in her pouch.
Candy whines, turning his head and hugging himself. He just wants to disappear.
"Why didn't you come over to Ralph's house? He doesn't smell that bad." Vanellope chuckles at her own joke, ignoring the wrecker's playful glare.
The king, however, frowns and squeezes his eyes shut, tucking his legs under him like a ball. "My dear, I'm so sorry, I never meant to intrude. I just wanted to talk to someone about...about what I did," he finishes quietly. He bites his lip to keep his emotions under control.
A hand patting his arm makes him look up to see Vanellope standing next to the chair, looking sympathetic. "It's okay," she says softly. "I know you didn't really mean it and were just looking out for me."
"But what I said was horrible-" his voice cracks, "-and you thought I was like...like him." He shudders and continues, "I don't want you to suffer anymore like when Turbo was around, and I never, ever want to see you hurt or upset." He cups her cheek. "I'd rather suffer another sixteen years in the fungeon if it meant you'd be happy and well."
She stares at him for a moment before moving his hand off her face, her eyes slightly narrowing. "Don't you ever say that again," she says. "Ever! You are nothing like Turbo! He was a jerk who didn't care about anybody other than himself! You just got out of the not-so-fungeon, so don't expect you're gonna get over everything soon and be this perfect ruler and racer. I even had trouble adjusting to stuff after becoming president!"
"Really?" His voice sounds so small.
"Yeah, doi!" She steps in front of the chair. "I used to have really bad nightmares the first couple of months after I became a racer again. I still have them occasionally, but not as bad as those two months. It also took me a while to figure out to get used to compliments and nice things. Even last month, when I crashed Taffyta's kart, I thought she was gonna lose her strawberry cool, but she just said it wasn't my fault."
Candy stretches out his legs, but keeps hugging himself, rubbing his arms as he exhales through his nose.
"All you gotta do is give yourself a chance," Vanellope says, shrugging and smiling. "Things'll get better. You'll see."
"You really think so?" he says with a hint of a smile.
She makes an X over her chest and says, "Cross my heart, and hope to be pied."
He giggles softly. "So, do you forgive me?"
"Does this answer your question?" She climbs onto his lap and throws her arms around him, startling him for a moment before he wraps his arms around her, a loving grin on his face.
"Aww," Felix says, the scene before him giving him the honey glows. He hears a sniff, and looks up. "Ralph, are you crying?"
"Nah, I just, uh," the big lug says, dabbing at his eyes, "I just have something in my eye."
A light blinks and beeps.
Poor Surge growls and turns over on the small, white couch. He finally finds time to lay down and take a nap, and not even five minutes later, something has to wake him up. He curls up on his side facing the back of the couch, but after a minute of the constant beeping and flashing, gives up on trying to sleep. "This had better be important," he grumbles, rubbing his eyes before grabbing his glasses from the glass table in front of him. Barely even lifting his feet, he makes his way over to the wall with the noise and puts his glasses on to see which light dare keep him awake.
"Turbo/Candy."
Surge stares wide-eyed at the light, momentarily forgetting his exhaustion. Other than the one image last month of Turbo sitting on a sugary throne as himself, this light has remained relatively silent. "What do you have to show me?" the surge protector asks aloud, tapping the light.
A pixel ball appears in the middle of the room, the inner pixels slowly forming an image of Candy carrying an exhausted, tiny Vanellope down a hallway. He comes to two white chocolate double doors and shifts his little girl to his other shoulder, freeing his hand to open one of the doors and slip inside. Late afternoon light pours in through the floor-length, curtain-framed windows. He crosses the room, his shoes making soft jingles, and pulls back the pink sheets to lay little Vanellope down.
"Dad?" she says in a small voice, looking up at him with red eyes. "Will Mommy really get better?"
"Of course she will, my little vanilla bean," Candy says, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. He makes an X over his chest. "Cross my heart, and hope to be pied."
The little girl chuckles. "You'd look funny if you were pied."
The king gazes lovingly as he rubs her head. "Now, no more crying, my dear. Get some rest, and I'll come get you if Mommy feels better."
"You better," she says, frowning. "I want us all to go racing again."
"Me too, sweetheart," Candy says distractedly. "Me too." He keeps rubbing her head until she shuts her eyes and drifts off to sleep. He leans forward and kisses her on her forehead before rising and leaving the room. He shuts the door quietly and sighs heavily through his nose.
"Is she okay?"
Candy turns around to see Turbo and says, "She's fine now. She threw a fit when she heard her mother wasn't getting any better." He wrings his hands. "I'm not sure what to do."
Turbo maintains a steely look for another few moments before huffing and laying a hand on the king's shoulder. "Toddlers are hard to take care of sometimes. I should know: I had two to take care of." When Candy remains silent, he says, "It'll get better. You're lucky Vanellope doesn't throw fits as often."
"Turbo," Candy's chocolate brown eyes meet the other's eyes, "what if she doesn't make it through this? Last time I went to see her, she said her health was getting worse. How do you handle losing someone you love?"
The gray-skinned racer glares sadly. "I don't know. But I know you'll be able to handle it." He smirks and teasingly punches Candy's shoulder.
"Hehehe, you think so?" he asks with a smile, rubbing his shoulder.
Turbo makes an X over his chest. "Cross my heart, and hope to be pied."
The image fades as the ball disappears pixel by pixel. All Surge can do is stand there, staring at the space the pixel ball occupied, mouth hanging open. "What the...what?" He doesn't know what to say, what to think. Was Turbo actually nice in that "memory?" How does Vanellope have a mother?
Wait, when Sugar Rush was plugged in, Vanellope was already nine years old, and nowhere in her, or Candy's, or anyone else's backstories was Turbo in them. How does this fit in with the game?
A/N: It's always nice seeing families get back together. :) Good thing, too, because our favorite racers will need to hold onto these ties in the upcoming chapters. What will become of poor Mister Sparks' home if these lights keep beeping? How will this affect our favorite arcadians?
Last chapter's phrase was "'Honey, honey,' nearly kill me," from the famous song "Honey, Honey." It took me a while to find a good phrase for this chapter, since nothing really fits in that well. I finally decided to make the phrase the same name as one of the chapters in "Connections." Another hint: Vanellope says this phrase when she's talking to her dad in Felix's apartment.
Good luck! And happy reading!