Guest: Van's not president anymore because she probably wouldn't wanna keep the presidency all to herself (thus, the "constitutional democracy" thing she wanted). My headcanon is that Sugar Rushswitches out their presidents every month or so with an election. She probably still gets elected very often, but not all the time, which was probably why she wasn't president when Lizzy was born.

Enjoy the chapter!

Emily Hannah Carter hated moving. She hated it more than anything else in her life.

She hated the long trips in the car (and occasionally on a plane), the endless, mindless packing and unpacking of everything she ever owned, and the unconvincing gushing from her mother about how wonderful their new hometown was going to be.

But most of all, there was the fact that she was never going to see her friends and old home again. And you can't forget that, she huffed nastily. It wasn't fair…it wasn't fair…How many times have they moved this year?...Four times? Five? Why do they always have to-

Emily Hannah's bitter internal rant was thankfully interrupted by the sound her mother's tired voice. "Em, cheer up, please," Dorothy Carter muttered exasperatedly, not taking her eyes off the small road. It wasn't a dirt road, or anything overly middle-of-nowhere like that. It was just a small road, with black-and-white asphalt glittering with small shards of glass caught in the pavement, peppered every so often a food wrapper or broken beer bottle. A road way too small for the girl so used to big cities and suburbs to get used to, or so she thought.

It was a small town, Emily Hannah remembered her mother telling her. Leon, North Carolina. Not one of those only-one-traffic-light towns that she heard girls at her previous schools joke and tell stories about, but still rather small. Since the Carters had passed through the city limits (and Emily Hannah's phone had coincidentally died) about five minutes ago, the fifteen-year-old had taken a sort of sadistic pleasure of ignoring her single mother's various word games and idle chatter, choosing instead to stare out the window at the town she would call home for the next few months (at most).

A grocery store with a cracked glass door...a strip mall, paint peeling…an old library, lights flickering….

"Oh, Emily Hannah, look at that!" her mother exclaimed again, pointing her red-painted fingernail at a small building in the distance. "A video arcade! You don't see many of those anymore!"

Distracted from the fact that she was actually supposed to be mad at her mother, Emily Hannah's head perked up at the news. "Really? Where?"

"There." Again, her mother tapped at the window displaying the dingy old building, several decades old, by the looks of it. By a large sign up front, Emily Hannah learned its name: Litwak's Family Fun Center. "Isn't it cute? Like I said, you just don't see those anymore. This is the first one I've seen in…years, really! Good for the owners, I say, for managing to still make money off of it."

"Yeah," Emily Hannah muttered absentmindedly, still staring at the quickly retreating building. The parking lot was empty sans a car or two, while the door announced very loudly the reason for the store's emptiness: CLOSED.

"I just hope we'll be able to add to his business soon!" her mother continued to joke, holding up the fliers reading The Everworld. "I swear, Emily Hannah, this gaming project could be revolutionary. A whole new step in virtual reality, with—"

"—'AI's so realistic, you'd think they were thinking on their own!'," the teenager snapped angrily. "Haven't you practiced that advertising crap on me enough?! I'm your kid. I don't think that I really need to be brainwashed into buying this stuff; we're gonna end up spending money on it anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Little Miss Conspiracy Theorist," her mother cackled, throwing her non-driving hand to the passenger's seat to playfully swat the annoyed young girl. "But yeah, it's gonna be lots of fun. It'll be just like acting in a movie, only—"

"—I'll be wearing a skintight, uncomfortable, unattractive jumpsuit that records my every movement. Yeah, lots of fun."

"Well, if it's any reassurance to you, I'll be going through the same thing."

"That's not really reassurance, Mom—"

"Anyway," Dorothy interrupted, "at least you'll probably have time to make some friends before your Sweet Sixteen comes around—"

It was this one sentence that finally made the girl snap. "In two weeks, Mom? Really? What kind of person can meet, get to know, and make whole new friends in two weeks?! You know, why couldn't we have stayed back in New York and at least waited until after my birthday, so I'd have someone to actually spend it with?!"

As soon as the words left the girl's lips and entered Dorothy's ears, a bitter silence immediately tainted the atmosphere surrounding the mother and daughter. Dorothy turned her face toward Emily Hannah, peering at her with as much concentration and surprise as her careful driving allowed her to have. Emily Hannah knew that face: it was the face her mother made when she discovered something that totally blindsided her, with her neatly waxed and plucked eyebrows scrunching together, her ruby red lips pursing, and her eyes growing bigger and bigger behind her sunglasses. Almost as soon as it appeared, however, the woman shook her head as if shaking off her confusion, and returned her focus to the road. "Just…just…cheer up, Em. Here; if you're good for the rest of the day, I'll order you a new dress once we get Internet. For your birthday, I mean."

They didn't speak again for the rest of the car ride.

As soon as his father failed to say hello to him after closing, Fel Calhoun knew it was that time of the year.

It began the same as every evening. First, Fel could hear the voices of Mr. Litwak and his grandson shooing stragglers out of the arcade and, after a little while, the faint splish splish and squeak squeak of Mr. Litwak and the boy cleaning off the smudges and fingerprints from the games' screens with Windex and towels. Vaguely, Fel could hear Litwak's grandkid chatting about school and complaining about a project he had due the next day, about a book called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, whatever that was. In the back of his mind, Fel made a mental reminder to somehow acquire this book and read it once he was done with his current novel. But that wasn't important now.

Finally, the doors slammed shut, the arcade's lock clicked, and Yuni made her regular nightly announcement. "All clear; the arcade's closed!" At the sound of the declaration, Fel put down his book, swished open his window curtain and grinned as he watched everything come to life.

He could see characters breaking out of their standard title screen poses and start chattering exhaustedly and amicably to each other, walking out of the view of the screen, and behind him he could hear the Nicelanders' lively gossip and conversations. His Uncle Ralph wiped some eight-bit mud off of his shoulder, looked up at his nephew's third-story window and greeted Fel with a wide smile and a wave, which was quickly reciprocated.

Mod, Fel loved closing time.

Picking his book up from his nightstand, he strode quickly toward the door, cracking it open to greet his father and a handful of Nicelanders who passed by his door at this point. The first thing he noticed was that Fix-It Felix Jr. was not talking to any of them.

That was his first alert that something was wrong.

"H-hey, Mary, Deanna," he stuttered to his two self-proclaimed "aunts" and former babysitters. "H-how're things going?"

Fel listened halfheartedly to the standard "Oh, just wonderful, Felly!" and "Your father did such a good job, sweetie!" as he kept his eye trained on his father. As the women talked to his son, the game's protagonist just kept walking forward, not taking his eyes off of the end of the hallway. Thinking quickly, Fel opened his mouth to turn the conversation to Felix, in the hopes that maybe he was just distracted, and that a quick reminder of reality would pull him back.

"U-uh, Dad, how was today?" he stuttered.

Nothing happened. Felix just continued to walk forward, without even the slightest sign that he had heard what his only child was saying. "Dad?" Fel repeated. "Dad, did you hear me?"

It took a moment, but finally Felix's head perked a bit, and he murmured with dead eyes, "What? Oh, yeah, son, everything was just swell."

And that was that. He kept walking with everyone out of his son's sight without even looking at him. Once he was gone, all Fel could do in his confusion was gently shut his door, sit down on his bed, and flop on his back. Staring at the ceiling, Fel Calhoun did what he always did when something happened that he didn't understand: wonder what happened, and not do much else.

It was so weird…normally whenever he saw his dad after closing time, Felix at least had more than a sentence to tell his son in greeting. Maybe it was a stupid anecdote about some kid that acted in a cute way that Fel probably had already heard through his window as it actually happened, or just innocent questions about the book that Fel was reading at the time like whether it was good, what it was about, what his favorite part was, that kind of thing. Little things, but still…it was something.

This time, his dad didn't even look at him. What happened with him?

Did he have bad gamers today? Normally that didn't bother Felix; if anything, it amused him enough to joke about them with Fel and his mother. Or, Mod forbid, did he and his mom have a fight or something? Quickly shaking the absurd thought from his mind, Fel reminded himself that he didn't hear any shouting, and Felix and Calhoun (as everyone seemed to call his mother except for his father) seemed pretty lovey-dovey earlier, but who knows what could've happened…

Wait. Wait wait wait. Was it.…Fel shot up in bed, and glanced at the small calendar hanging in front him, on the opposite side of the room.

November 9th. A week before her birthday…

…

…

…

Shit.

Even at the age of fourteen or fifteen or maybe even sixteen (he didn't know; he had lost track of his physical age long ago), Fel was still somewhat frightened of his Uncle Ralph. It was utterly absurd, he knew, and he kept on reminding himself that he was almost a grown man who knew completely well that Ralph would never hurt a fly, and was as skittish around his nephew as his nephew felt around him (Fel couldn't remember the last time his uncle had touched him, in fact).

Fel could put his fear aside in times like this, though. At this time of the year when Felix holed himself up in his moping self-pity, Fel's Uncle Ralph was the closest thing to a somewhat decent father he could get.

It was actually kind of pathetic.

Anyway, Fel's blue eyes scanned the doors as he walked through the apartment hallways. His uncle had to be in the game somewhere. Like Felix, Ralph normally saved enough time to say at least a few words to his nephew before he went off to Sugar Rush so he and Vanellope could go off and do Mod knows what. In fact, Vanellope probably had already gotten bored and come to Fix-It Felix, Jr. by herself. If that were the case, Ralph probably wouldn't leave at all tonight, which was good. But on the other hand, Fel would also have to deal with Vanellope too…

His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar and much too convenient voice.

"Kid? K-kid, you okay?" Ralph said from behind him, worry tinting the question.

Sighing, Fel turned and faked a smile at his wrecker of an uncle. "Hey, Uncle Ralph. What's up?"

Ralph continued to stare down at his nephew, his brown eyebrows pushing together in a suspicious scowl. "Same as usual. You didn't answer my question, though; are you okay?"

Fel allowed his fake smile to fall and a sad smirk to gently replace it. He should've known. Fel never really wandered around the building unless something was bothering him, choosing instead to stick to his bedroom or to sneak out immediately after closing time to another game. "Would you completely hate me if I said no?"

Ralph's expression collapsed into a concerned frown. "Tell me what happened."

"What can I say? It's almost Lizzy's birthday and death anniversary, and Dad's not taking either so well."

A look of grim understanding shadowed Ralph's face. "He'll get over it soon," Fel's uncle reminded. "Just...just be patient with him, okay? Mod, I really wish he didn't act like this…I know how hard it is for you."

"I know...I get it; losing a kid's hard, he just needs a week or so to get over this crap, and it'll be done. I just…I need to get out for a second. There's someone I have to see."

Ralph's face still displayed a suspicious and doubtful frown. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I just…I wanna..I wanna…no offense, Uncle Ralph, but I just wanna talk to someone who isn't either moping or crying crocodile tears over someone who died before I was even born." Fel ran his hand through his messy blond hair, refusing to look his uncle in the eyes anymore. It was an insensitive thing to say, he knew; he knew how crushed his mother and father still were over his older sister's death, and he knew that, even if he never said it, Ralph was hurting just as much as they were.

He hoped that his uncle didn't think he was trivializing their sorrow, because he wasn't, but he had to be honest; he was sick and he was tired of all this fucking grieving. He hated it: all of the sadness, the mourning, the fake smiles "for Felly's sake". Everyone talking about how much they missed sweet little Elizabeth Calhoun, and accidentally filling Fel with so much guilt and shame over never having any emotions about this newborn infant whom he had never even met.

It really sucked.

As Fel straightened his thoughts out, tugging at his hair, cleaning his glasses on his shirt, doing anything but look at his uncle, he realized that the man hadn't said anything since Fel confessed to wanting to see someone actually happy. A clenching fist of fear closed around Fel's heart: was Ralph mad at him? Did Fel drive him away? No, no, that couldn't be it, Ralph was one of the only people he could—

But when Fel raised his head, he saw to his relief that Ralph wasn't frowning at him, or glaring at him, or even scowling. Instead, he had that exact same fake, melancholy grin that Fel had used on him not sixty seconds before.

"Don't worry," Ralph said. "I'll cover for you. If anyone asks for you, I'll tell 'em you went to bed early and don't wanna be bothered or something like that. Take as much time as ya need."

Fel hesitantly returned the grin, nodded his thanks, and started down the stairs.

The old car parked inside the parking lot for the second time that day. The old man behind the steering wheel rested his chin on his hand, staring at the teenage boy in the passenger's seat with a mixture of tired exasperation and amusement. "Are you sure you left it here, Jack?"

Jackson Litwak's freckled head wobbled up and down in agreement. "I know I left it in there, Grandpa," he said, breathless in faux-panic. "It was charging in the games' plug. That was exactly where I put it; I remember it."

Stanley Litwak laughed sardonically and reached for his keys to unlock the door. "Jack, you know I don't like it when you plug your phone in the games' surge protector. Can't you charge it just as well at home?"

"But Grandpa," Jackson whined sarcastically, "my phone's battery's crappy; it wouldn't last the whole day if I just charged it at home!"

"Maybe if you didn't stare at that darn thing half the night instead of doing your homework and getting a good night's sleep like you should, the battery would be in better shape," Stanley scolded, jabbing his grandson in the side with a wobbly finger. "Still, go. I don't want to deal with what your little sister would say if she can't call you."

"Thanks," Jackson said, running out of the car while fishing the arcade's key out of his pocket.

As he approached the glass window, he could faintly see the games quickly switching back to their title screens, as if those inside were completely clueless to Jackson's knowledge of their lives. (They probably were.) He fiddled with the several keys on his grandfather's key ring, picking out the proper key, probably taking up more time than was necessary while he gave the Characters (as he had dubbed these weird AIs) time to get back into position.

A loud honk from his grandfather's car forced him to finally shove the key into the lock and open the door.

For a moment, he just stood there, in the middle of the arcade, staring at everything. How would all of the Characters in here react if they knew what he knew? That all of their efforts to keep their consciousness secret were absolutely meaningless? That everything had been ruined by their aging owner's dorky grandson?

Shaking his mind clear of these thoughts, Jackson's eyes turned to the ground in search for his phone.

It took only seconds to find it: a small rectangular slab of white metal and plastic. A standard iPhone. Nothing special, good or bad. Connected to a white wire and charger at the very edge of the surge protector, it was hidden behind several of the games, to avoid being stepped on by the smaller children and stolen by the older.

But that wasn't important now. All Jackson could think of was the faint, ever so quiet noises of gentle rappings and whispers floating from the phone.

He was here. He kept his promise.

Bending down, Jackson unplugged the charger, rolled up its wire, and picked up the phone as he quickly strutted back to the door. He had to make the greetings fast; Jackson didn't have much time before his grandpa got upset and took the phone away from him for the night for dawdling.

As he entered the small container, Fel felt himself go weightless and start to hover in front of that body-sized window that meant so much to him now. For the next few seconds, Fel tapped and knocked at the screen gently, and hissed out, as quietly as he could, "Hello? You there?" He distantly heard the grating sound of the metal part of the iPhone charger sliding out of the plug, a sound that still made him tense up in apprehension and start to feel the beginnings of panic, unused to survivable unplugging.

Finally, upon hearing the sound of a short, bitten nail tapping on the window, Fel slowly looked up and felt all of his fear and negativity melt away.

That handsome, teenaged face looked at him straight in the eyes and smiled that wonderful, wonderful smile that made Fel's heart pump and his stomach fill with butterflies. "Hey, Fel. What's been up with you?"

"Nothing much, Jackson," he muttered, trying and failing to control his racing heartbeat. "Hey, can I ask you a question? Can I hang out with you for the rest of tomorrow, too? It's a long story…"