Medals Must Be Earned
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Chapter 8: The Lovers
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Ralph opened the double doors to the penthouse suite, picked up Sgt. Calhoun, and carried his bride over the threshold. He was very careful to tread lightly, wanting to avoid what had happened the last time he'd come down the stairs just inside the doorway.
"Oh, nice place," said Calhoun as he set her down. "Though we might have to replace the dollhouse furniture," she said glancing about a second time.
"Well yeah. The Nicelanders are pretty small. I'm sure Gene will be taking a lot of it with him anyway."
Ralph went to the bar, searched around a bit, and produced a bottle of champagne. He got out two glasses, popped the cork, and poured them each a flute-full. He handed her one and raised his glass in a toast. "Here's to you, for changing my life,"
"And to you, for changing mine."
Ralph drained his glass and Calhoun smirked at him. "Thirsty?"
"I just wanted to toast you again," he said filling the flute once more.
She said nothing but smiled and sipped from her own glass.
He raised his glass again to her. "This is to you as well for being so understanding with me. No one has ever cared about my problems as much as you did, in that you cared enough about them to help me win a medal."
This time she leaned in and kissed him before he could drink. "You cared enough about me to accept my marriage proposal. Most guys would have run in terror after what I did to you."
"I knew there were still a few pieces of your heart left inside of you," he said tenderly. "Maybe I can put them back together eventually." And then he chuckled. "It will be eventually. I'm a wrecker...not a fixer."
She laughed and grabbed the bottle of champagne and topped off their glasses. "C'mon. Lets go see if that bed's also doll furniture."
Ralph raised an eyebrow. "Eager for your wedding night?"
"Aren't you?" She forced a yawn. "I've had a long day too. I was also thinking about getting some sleep." She picked up their glasses and walked over to what appeared to be a hallway. Ralph went back around to the working side of the bar, put another bottle of champagne into one of the brushed steel ice buckets, and then filled it with ice. Taking the bucket and the mostly empty bottle, he followed after his bride.
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They found the bedroom off of the hallway. Calhoun's overnight bag had been left in a corner of the room and Ralph's bag of clothes sat next to it. And while the bed might have been extravagantly large in size for a single Nicelander, it looked cozy for Ralph and Calhoun, but at least it would fit them both. Calhoun was pulling back the bedcovers. "Whaddaya know? Clean sheets. Someone other than the Devil must have changed them for us," she guessed.
"I'll bet Felix or one of the ladies did. Even if my relationship with them has always been at odds, I think they're trying to be nice to me now, especially now that I've got a wife to look after."
"Didn't you read my window sticker? I'm no-maintenance. I don't need 'looking after'."
"Hmm...all right. But I'm still going to work on some of the design flaws," he said playfully, tapping his chest over his heart. He lay down on the bed, resting his head on the pillow. "Mmmm...this is really comfy." He closed his eyes and wriggled into the middle. "Well I'm sleeping here. There's probably room on the sofa out in the living room for you."
"Hmmmph!" she snorted and shuffled about the room, unbuttoning her bag.
The sound of a zipper opened his eyes again. She was stepping out of her gown, and Ralph froze. While he'd seen her out of it earlier that day, having taken it off for the final part of his punishment, seeing her there in her bridal underwear was like seeing a completely different woman. It had been the same reaction as he'd had at the wedding ceremony. "I've changed my mind," he said slowly, agape at how beautiful and sexy she looked. "You can sleep here with me."
"I'm glad you changed your mind. I was worried that you'd need convincing from my little friend."
"Your little friend?"
Suddenly there was a pistol in her right hand despite her not wearing a holster, and not having brought any weapons, at least that he was aware of. Her left hand slid the clip in and out with an ominous click.
"What the...? How did you...?"
She just flashed her lopsided little smirk and turned away, tossing the pistol into the bag. And then she grabbed a smaller bag out of the larger and went off to the bathroom. "Just going to wash up."
Ralph relaxed again back into the pillows. "This is going to be one heck of a night," he grinned, "and one wild and bumpy ride of a marriage." He climbed back out of the bed and stood before the wall mirror in the bedroom, admiring himself. He had to admit that he did look pretty good in uniform.
He began to undress, flinging the beret like a Frisbee onto the dresser and shucking the rest of the suit off. But he left the Medal of Heroes hanging around his neck. Somehow he just couldn't bear to take it off. That shiny piece of honor had gotten him not just a place in Niceland, but his persistence in earning it had won him a wife as well.
He finished off the rest of the bottle of champagne and opened the second, filling his glass up again. And then he climbed into Gene's comfy bed again. "This is going to spoil me. I'll never be able to go back to sleeping on my brick-pile with my stump," he mused. Ralph pulled the sheets up over himself and closed his eyes again.
Calhoun came back in, no longer dressed in her bridal underwear, but in a little cotton camisole and boxer shorts. "Warming up the bed?"
"You bet."
"How's your back feeling?"
"It feels great."
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I must be loosing my touch."
He sat up and pulled off his undershirt.
Ralph turned around and showed her his back, as clean and damage-free as the morning his game had been plugged in.
"But how!" she gasped. "When did you regenerate? I've been with you the whole time since we came to your game." She walked over and shyly touched his pink skin.
"I didn't. Felix fixed it for me, just before the wedding. That hammer of his can fix bodies too."
"Amazing!" she said, running her hand lightly down his skin. Her touch was beginning to tickle, but Ralph tried not to laugh. And then she went and turned out the overhead light, leaving the room lit only by the soft glow of the reading light on the bedside table. "You're not wearing that to bed, are you?" she asked, noticing the Medal of Heroes still hanging around his neck as he turned back around and made himself comfortable on one side of the bed.
"Why not?"
"Aren't you worried that I might strangle you with it in my sleep?"
"Sarge, you don't have to be such a tough-girl all the time and keep trying to intimidate me."
"And you don't have to call me Sarge either. I have a first name you know."
"May I use it?"
"Of course, now that we're married."
He smiled at her. "Anyway, you don't have to be such a tough-girl, Tamora. Not with me at least. Besides, if you strangled me I could die a happy man right now. That look on Gene's face was the most perfect thing I've ever seen in my life. And hearing the preacher-guy pronounce us man and wife was the most wonderful thing I've ever heard. And kissing you just after you proposed, that was the sweetest thing I've ever tasted."
"Hmmm...that's three senses. What about smell and touch?"
"Smell? I think we'll get to smell tomorrow night. Mary's going to make us such a wedding cake! You'll be impressed. And I think I'll get to touch in not too long here," he grinned at her, hoping his expression looked as devilish as he was feeling at that moment.
She climbed into the bed and cozied up to him, putting her head on his shoulder and an arm over his broad chest. "I still keep asking myself if everything really happened. It was just so out of the blue."
"You're not the only one." He reached up and stroked her arm with the lightest touch he could.
"What if we've made a terrible mistake?"
Ralph froze. How could she say such a thing? "Tamora, don't even think about that now. If it turns out we have, we'll deal with it when we come to that realization. Right now, as far as I know, everything's perfect. I'm curled up here living my dream, wanting to be in Niceland accepted by the others. But it's even better than that dream, because I'm in Gene's penthouse with this amazing woman I seem to have picked up as part of the deal."
She chuckled and squeezed him. "And I've gotten married to a handsome villain who's actually a really nice, caring person. And no Cy-Bugs came to our wedding."
"Somehow I knew that was what you needed. Though I never thought I'd be the one there at the altar with you." His hand moved to stroke her back. "I kinda feel like we've cheated fate."
"Not cheated. Been reassigned."
Ralph rolled onto his side and admired her. The hand that had been stroking her back moved up to stroke her face and neck. "You're so beautiful," he whispered. "But there's so much more to you than beauty."
"I still can't believe you're the bad guy in this game," she responded, uncomfortable with being appraised for her looks. "You can be kind and thoughtful at times. I was shocked when you rescued me in the tower. I wasn't expecting it."
Ralph only smiled and brushed her bangs off of her face yet again.
"I should warn you," she said, changing the subject again. "I've never been to bed with a man," she said with uncharacteristic timidness. She'd sounded so bold earlier. "So if I do something wrong, tell me so I don't keep doing it wrong."
"Wait...what about Brad? You were engaged to him. Didn't you...?"
"I don't remember anything but kissing him. I guess we were waiting until we got married."
Ralph chuckled. "Well I guess I'm safe then. I've never been to bed with a woman before, so you won't know if I'm doing something wrong myself."
She suddenly sat up. "What!? Thirty years and you've never?"
"I'm a bad guy. It sorta goes with the territory."
Calhoun started laughing, and then climbed up on top of him, kissing him enthusiastically. "So then, let's get to figuring this out."
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Medals Must Be Earned continues in:
Chapter 9 – The World
Chapter 10 – The Fool
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Wreck-It Ralph and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of Walt Disney Pictures. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.