Author's Note: Sorry all. Others fandoms distracted me. You know how that goes, I'm sure.

Chapter 13

Pixel's reaction helped Stephanie's mood none at all.

By the time they'd got there the realization of what happened was starting to sink in. Now that she didn't have Sportacus' health to think about she started feeling her body more. Her skin seemed to move a little more than she was used to, and it felt too thin to actually keep the rest of her held together.

Her legs didn't want to move in the same way they had before. She had to keep reminding herself to adjust her stride as she walked. As such she appeared to be stumbling, which spurred Sportacus to help her cross the street no less than three times. Stephanie gave him an annoyed look the first time and he apologized, but he kept doing it.

So Pixel's gobsmacked stare, when she was ALREADY starting to feel like an old lady, was just depressing. Stephanie sighed in resignation. Which Sportacus misinterpreted as tiredness and so quickly wheeled Pixel's office chair over to her.

"It's going to be a long day..." Stephanie thought in disgust. She took a seat in the chair anyway.

"Stephanie... What happened?" Pixel asked after a moment. He got up from one of his desks and went over to the couch to sit nearer.

"Robbie Rotten." Stephanie said, the disgust she felt leaking into her voice. Sportacus put the remote down on the coffee table.

"He used this. But we can't reverse the effects because it hit a tree and seems to be broken now." Sportacus explained. Pixel picked it up and examined it closely, wincing and shaking his hand when it shocked him.

"Hmm..." Pixel said. "Robbie makes the most interesting gadgets." He went over to get some rubber gloves then came back and picked the remote up again.

"You'll forgive me for being less than thrilled with this one." Stephanie deadpanned. Sportacus just blinked at her while Pixel chuckled a little.

Pixel popped open the back of the remote and winced.

"Oh boy..." Pixel sighed.

"What's wrong?" Sportacus leaned over to get a look at the inner workings of the remote. Not that it did any good since he couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"This might take a while." Pixel answered. "I don't even know how this works. I'm going to have to figure that out before I can fix it."

Both Stephanie and Sportacus gave him despairing looks at that statement. Pixel just shrugged helplessly at them.

"In the mean time, why don't we have a look at you?" Pixel asked Stephanie. He hopped over the couch and rummaged around on his desk.

"What?" Stephanie asked. Pixel came over with a complicated looking camera.

"Say cheese." Pixel announced. Stephanie started to protest, but then the light flashed and it was too late.

"Pixel. I don't think I really want a picture of this." Stephanie thought to mention.

"It wasn't really a picture. This is my newest invention. The Diagnosticator." Pixel said. One of the computers made a pinging noise. "And there are the results." Pixel sat down at the noisy computer.

Stephanie started to get up to go look but Sportacus started wheeling the chair over before she could raise herself up very far. It caught her behind the knees and she fell into it. As she got close enough to the screen, which was actually maybe a little too close, she could see the display. It was a silhouetted version of her sitting down with a lot of statistics surrounding it. Heart rate, blood pressure, various other vitals.

"Looks like Robbie aged you just about... 60 years." Pixel surmised. "But you're pretty darn healthy for 70 something." Stephanie decided that she probably could have done without a pinpoint on the age she was now. 'Old' had been enough for her, but if they were going to get her back to the correct age then she guessed they needed to be exact.

"Well, that's something I guess." Stephanie said, trying to be as optimistic as always.

"Do you think you'll be able to get the remote working so we can fix this Pixel?" Sportacus asked softly.

"Oh, it'll take a little while but I'm sure I can do it." Pixel said confidently.

Stephanie was about to protest Sportacus' tone of voice. He seemed more upset than she felt he really had a right to be. But just then Sportacus' arms wrapped lightly around her shoulders and he pressed his face into the side of her head.

"Poor Stephanie." He said, his voice muffled by her hair.

Stephanie sighed. She supposed she couldn't really be mad at him for feeling sorry for her. Even if the way he chose to express it was getting on her nerves.

After a bit Pixel started working the remote and waved them away saying he'd let them know when he got anything done. Sportacus decided to take Stephanie home since she actually WAS getting sort of tired. She was going over how to explain the situation to her uncle when Sportacus disrupted her thoughts. He didn't say anything, but he held up her hand and started stroking the back of it and examining the veins and bones that peeked through the skin.

He seemed so fascinated, Stephanie wondered what he was thinking about. It also made Stephanie wonder what she looked like as an old person. She suspected that that was another thing she could do without knowing. But unless she wanted to avoid mirrors completely then she didn't think she could avoid finding out.

They got to her house without interference. Her uncle's reaction was, as usual, to be overly helpful.

"You know, I've still got that old bath chair from when your grandmother was still alive..." Was the first thing he said after the situation was explained. He then continued to hem and haw over different things he could do to make the house more accommodating to an older person. Usually Stephanie could rely on Sportacus to stall this sort of thinking in it's tracks, but that just wasn't happening this time.

Sportacus was nodding eagerly at uncle Milford's suggestions. Clearly thinking about what he might do to make things easier and what errands he might run in this process. He gave small suggestions now and then as well.

"Okay, STOP!" Stephanie said before they got out of their planning phase. Both of them stopped and looked at her.

"Not that I don't appreciate the consideration... But this is only going to be for a day or so, and really I'm just fine. I don't need all of these things done for me. I'm not feeble or broken down or anything." Stephanie informed them.

"Oh, I suppose you're right... Mother WAS in rather poor health before she passed, and you look rather healthy. I'm sure you'll be just fine." Her uncle conceded. Sportacus just stood there with a contrite and slightly confused look on his face.

Stephanie felt a little bad for snapping at him. The overall impression she got was that he'd just never been around an old person before. Maybe he just couldn't define the new limits on her body and was being far too cautious because of it. But she didn't truthfully know her limits yet either, so she didn't know if she had much right to be so annoyed with him.

It was still early in the day, only a little past noon, but Stephanie couldn't recall ever being quite so tired. It seemed childish, and she knew this wasn't going to help her case, but she definitely felt that a nap was in order.

"I think... I'm going to go to my room and rest." Stephanie said after a silent moment.

"Are you alright Stephanie?" Sportacus asked warily, afraid he'd make her mad again.

"I'm fine." She answered. "Just a little tired."

Stephanie was able to walk to her room, at what she thought was a respectable pace, without stumbling. Sportacus followed behind her while trying to appear as if he wasn't. Stephanie decided not to call him on it. She didn't really want to be upset with him.

When she got to her room and sat down on her bed she noticed the Sportacus was hovering by her door. He had an expression on his face that she couldn't quite place. But he looked sort of upset still. He looked at her for a long moment, clearly hesitating, then came in quickly and sat down next to her.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he just wrapped his arms around her in a hug as fierce as he dared at the moment. Which was really rather gentle. Stephanie was too tired to translate this action. She could only guess it was an apology, but for what in particular she couldn't be sure. Was he just generally sorry for her still? Sorry for aggravating her? It seemed like a bigger sorry than either of those.

Either way, Stephanie leaned into the embrace. Sportacus was warm and firm, and the way he was stroking her hair was nice. It wasn't long before she was drifting off to sleep, still wrapped up in his arms.

Author's Note: D'awww. This chapter made me feel all bad for Sportacus.