Inseparable

Taffyta couldn't stop gazing up at Ralph while they walked. She'd never heard of this "Bad-Anon", but it sounded like a place for social rejects. That didn't help Taffyta feel better about herself.

"Why'd you bail me out?" she asked him.

Ralph looked down at her with accusatory eyes, like he was trying to figure out all of her secrets without asking. But he shrugged, instead, and replied with, "I thought you needed some time away. Y'know, being cooped up in that place all day probably isn't good for you."

"It's not that bad." Taffyta said, surprised at her own words. "At least I'm not living on the Internet."

Ralph's brow furrowed. "You get used to it after a while."

Taffyta looked at the ground in front of her. "She could've given us a warning if she was going to leave us all behind."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, kid."

She didn't know why Ralph was apologizing to her when it was Vanellope who left the close-knit nest of Sugar Rush, but Taffyta didn't tell him he didn't have anything to be sorry for.

It was his idea to leave her there, after all. And part of Taffyta resented him because of it.

"What's Bad-Anon, Ralph?"

"It's a little get-together for all of us Bad Guys."

She'd never heard of such a thing.

"You guys have a party celebrating all the Bad Guys around here?"

"That we do, little lady."

Taffyta crossed her arms. "That doesn't sound like a place for me."

Ralph chuckled slightly. "It'll be fine, kid. You'll see. We've got refreshments and great stories to tell."

Most of the people there weren't ones Taffyta could recognize. There was Bowser, Zombie, Satine, and Clyde, but some of the others she could see were new. There was a mechanical bear with a microphone in its hand, a man - or a creature of sorts - with a big, round diving helmet and a giant drill attached to one hand, and a man with a vicious smirk that was carrying a huge pack of masks.

Taffyta sat beside Ralph and listened to each of them introduce themselves and talk about their troubles. The creature in the diving helmet only spoke in long, animalistic moans. The mechanical bear wasn't much of a conversationalist; he just sat back and occasionally turned his head towards the little girl. And laughed with a deep, unsettling laugh.

Some of these issues Taffyta learned about made hers feel like first-world problems.

Clyde talked about how his game almost experienced an unplugging several times in the past six years. He said it was because his game had more glitches than it used to. And he talked about how soon it might have been time to find a new home.

Another said that they've already lost their game permanently. They've traveled through the Internet from another arcade and had a difficult time getting permission to be here at Litwak's, and spent a long while waiting for sanctuary.

And when everyone turned to Taffyta for her own story, she didn't have much to say.

"Uh... well, I'm Taffyta, I'm not a Bad Guy, I think." She said. "My game doesn't really have any of those in it. Well, we did have one enemy. King Candy. But he's gone now." She was waiting for people to say their words, but they were all patiently waiting for her to continue. "Let's see... I'm the new leader of my game because our last one took a hike. Not that I'm upset about it, or anything." She looked up at Ralph. "I'm just here to accompany ol' Ham-Hands here. That's all I have to say."

The rest of the group nodded and murmured to each other.

"Well, we're really glad to have you here, Taffyta." Clyde said to her. "There is no judgement here at Bad-Anon, and if there's anything you feel like getting off your chest, feel free to do so."

The things that Taffyta had on her mind were not the ones she wanted to disclose. She could feel her pixels arguing against each other in her tiny little body. Like they were trying to push her to talk. Ralph nudged her gently.

"You did good, kid."

"Yeah, I know." Taffyta said, absent-mindedly. She hoped Ralph wouldn't have any questions for her after this little gathering. But if she were to give out all the details that led to her almost zapping out of existence in that last race, then all of those "problems" would have been blown out of the water.

As far as Taffyta was concerned, no one has suffered more than she has. Vanellope's leave, Taffyta's code being messed up, and now being a new leader. But she wasn't about to tell the rest of the crowd this.

As kind and accepting as the others may have been, they probably would have scowled at her for being so self-centered. It wasn't as if being self-centered was a bad thing, though.

Maybe if Taffyta was more full of herself, she could have been Sugar Rush's new Bad Guy.

...

After the meeting, Ralph gestured towards another open outlet in the GCS.

"Want to head over to Tappers?" He asked the pink racer.

"Shouldn't we go back to your game?" Taffyta responded. "It's getting kind of late."

"Ah, we won't stay there too long." Ralph said. "I just want to drink a quick root beer and give a shoutout to my good friend, Tapper."

Taffyta looked down at the ground. "Isn't that your and Vanellope's thing?"

"Yeah, so?"

The pink racer blinked. "So... it would be kind of weird if we did it, too."

Ralph shrugged. "Vanellope would've wanted me to share my hobbies with the crew."

After a while of thinking it over, Taffyta nodded her head. "Okay, fine. But they better have diet root beer."

...

Taffyta barely drank more than a tiny sip of her root beer, and not just because it wasn't diet. It was just impossible to get into the groove of the gathering and Ralph's good mood.

He seemed happy about something, but how could he be when one of his closest friends was gone now?

"Ralph, you seem cheerful even if your best friend isn't here."

Ralph set down his empty mug. "She's moving on to bigger and better things, kid. Following new dreams, making new discoveries. I couldn't be prouder of her."

Taffyta looked at him. "Don't you miss her?"

Ralph nodded. "Sure I do. I miss her a lot."

"Then why'd you let her go?"

Ralph thought for a moment. "Because I cared more about her being happy than I did about wanting her to stay. I already messed up our friendship by being selfish before. And I ain't about to do it again."

"But what about my game? What if the gamers stop playing completely because of Vanellope being gone?"

She felt as though they'd asked him this question over and over again. And he gave him the same response.

Ralph narrowed his eyes into the empty mug and said, "We'll figure things out. I know it's not going to be easy. But I'll help create more exciting tracks for all of you kids if I have to."

Taffyta was unsure, but it was comforting to know that Ralph was willing to make an effort.

"That's fine, but you still haven't told me what we're going to do about it."

"Well, that's just our worst-case-scenario plan. But Vanellope was right about it being fine before she became a real racer."

"Oh, yeah, that..." Taffyta shrunk in her seat. "Does she hate me?"

Ralph looked down at her. "What? No! Of course not! Why would she hate you?"

"I wasn't that nice to her before she was one of us. And then when she did join the roster, we still didn't really get along."

Ralph chuckled. "She said she had fun throwing shade back and forth! She said she was aspiring to be as good of a racer as you were."

"But she was the best! How could she have tried to be better than me?"

Taffyta's tone was much lighter as she spoke.

"Well, you were racing for a long, long time, kiddo. You had time to develop all those cool movies and tricks. She always admired that about you."

Taffyta's cheeks blushed. "Oh... Well, it was Vanellope who I wanted to be like. She was the best leader we had. She was always so calm and collected and I don't know how she did it."

"It wasn't easy," Ralph said, tracing his hand along the edge of the mug. "Sometimes, the little scamp would come to me when she was feeling in over her head. She was always asking us for advice on how to be a proper president."

"Really?"

He nodded. "She had stuff on her plate, too, kid. No one can run a place without a little help from others."

Taffyta and the others had been on their own for so long that accepting help was still a strange concept to them. But she never did see what went on behind the scenes of Vanellope's rule.

She was taking it for granted. They all were. She gave Ralph a half-smile.

"You're not as bad as I thought, Ralph."

And she drank the rest of her root beer. Out of her mouth came a loud belch.

"Sorry." She said, her cheeks red.

"Nice." Ralph told her. "I'll match that later." He stretched his arms. "We should probably get going."

...

Taffyta was keeping to herself while they walked, but there was something she'd been wanting to get off of her chest. She'd already talked to the three racers about what had happened to her, but she felt she needed an adult's opinion.

And she didn't want to tell her parents, yet. She wasn't comfortable with that. Maybe she would be, soon, but not right now.

"Hold on a second, Ralph."

The big man stopped and turned around. "What is it?"

Taffyta looked down at the floor and traced circles in it with her shoe.

"I'm going to tell you something pretty serious." She began. "But when I do, you have to swear not to tell Felix and Calhoun. Deal?"

Ralph was already in trouble with them as it was, but he wanted Taffyta to trust him. Unless it was a life-threatening emergency, he didn't think he needed to tell his friends.

"Okay, shoot."

Taffyta looked around them to see if there was anyone within earshot. There wasn't. She took in a deep breath.

"Okay. Well..." She bit her lower lip. "You know how you found us in the database of Sugar Rush?"

Ralph already knew this news wasn't going to be good.

"Yes?"

"I... I may have... accidentally... changed my code..." The last part of her statement was a mumble.

But Ralph knew what she said because after spending all of his time with little Vanellope, his hearing developed tenfold.

He took a step back. "If this is a joke, it's not funny."

"It's not..." Taffyta admitted, glumly.

Ralph had his hands on his hips and put on his parental scolding face. He was trying to remain calm, despite feeling a tiny lightning storm in his chest. "Does anyone else know?"

She shook her head.

"What exactly did you change about your code?"

"I... pulled out a chord." Taffyta held up her hands. "That's it. Just one chord! I didn't think it was going to do anything. But..." Her head lowered. "Now I can't race anymore... my kart's been permanently damaged."

"Kid, you could have deleted your whole code!" Ralph's hands gripped his hair. "Don't you know how big of a risk you were taking?!"

"Shh! I know, I know, I'm a horrible person for doing it, but please don't shout it out to the whole arcade!"

Ralph took a deep breath in. "This isn't something I can fix, Taffyta. You need to tell Felix. He can help get your code back to where it needs to be."

"But... I don't want him to be disappointed in me."

"He won't be, Taffyta. He'll probably be upset because he cares, but he'd understand. I know the guy. He's not unreasonable."

Taffyta wanted to wait until she was ready to tell Felix and Calhoun on her own. But if she couldn't race, then she would have been another lost avatar on the roster. And they were already experiencing losses as it was.

She sighed heavily, and then nodded to him.

"Okay, Ralph. I'll tell them."

...

They walked through the game tunnel and once they were inside the game, Taffyta turned to him and said, "Thanks for hanging out with me."

"No need to thank me for that, kiddo. We're a family."

A family. Those words were said more times in the past week than ever before.

Taffyta turned around to face the apartment complex. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"

"Because it's true. And family is there for you whenever you need 'em. As cheesy as it may sound, it's the absolute truth. We're tighter than a really tough knot, you know."

Taffyta looked back at him. "Vanellope was really lucky."

Ralph was looking up the complex, where he could see Felix and the others gathered around in front of the open window. He nudged the little girl forward.

"Let's go tell him."

"What? You're going in with me? And you aren't worried about being in trouble, too?"

Ralph shook his head. "Nope. Not at all."

Taffyta breathed in and walked towards the apartment with Ralph training behind. She knew this wasn't going to be easy, but when was anything any of them had ever experienced easy?

AN: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this. I don't abandon projects completely. Just wait a million years before updating sometimes. I'm trying not to burn out on my stories by taking some time away from them and then coming back.

It amazes me how some people in the WIR fandom are so heavily devoted specifically to WIR and have made art and fics about it for years. I can't commit that much to any one fandom. I'm always jumping around. And I love every single fandom I participate in.

But there's so many of them. It's hard to pick just one.