Save Me from My Dark Side

Chapter Thirteen

The first thing Turbo noticed when he finally woke up was that he was in bed. The second thing was that his head was killing him and his whole body in general was sore. What happened? The last thing he remembered was sitting on a bench in Game Central Station drinking vodka with Officer Bob and two of his buddies. After that...he had no idea.

He groaned when he tried to move, pain shooting down his neck from the base of his skull. Putting a hand to his head, he attempted to stabilize it as he rolled onto his back. He cracked his eyes open and his eyes focused on the familiar ceiling that belonged to his bedroom. How had he gotten home? And why did he hurt so much? It was almost like he'd been in a car accident.

"Oh good, you're awake," he heard Rosie say from his left and he twisted his head a little too hard to look at her, grimacing in pain as he cursed himself mentally for moving too much right away.

His throat felt dry and his tongue thick as he tried to say something, his hazy mind still trying to sort out what happened to him. He felt Rosie lift his head up with one of her hands and press a glass of water to his lips, which he accepted without argument. Some drops trickled out the side of the glass but he didn't care, it felt good going down his throat. She took the glass away when he was done and laid his head back down on the pillow.

"You...," he tried to choke out, his voice sounding embarrassingly raspy. "You came back."

She didn't say anything right then, but he felt her crawl on top of him to sit on his stomach so she could look down at him. Turbo cracked his eyes open to peek up at her and saw the frown she was wearing. He closed his eyes again, not wanting to see her like that.

"I'm sorry," he said after a spell when she didn't respond.

"Sorry for what?" Rosie asked, forcing him to be more specific. "Look at me when we're talking."

Turbo did as he was told, much as he didn't want to. Surprisingly, she wasn't glaring daggers at him. He had honestly expected her to be angry with him. More honestly, he hadn't expected her to even be here.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," he said quietly, his headache turning into a dull ache now that he was still.

"It really wasn't so much the yelling as what you said," she intervened, turning her head away to the side. "You said I made you feel worse."

Did he really say that? He couldn't really remember much of what he had said so it was a possibility. Turbo slid his hand up to place on top of hers, which she had resting in front of her right below his chest.

"I didn't mean it."

"It doesn't matter if you meant it or not. It still hurt."

She turned her head back towards him and he could see the pain reflecting in her eyes.

"All I ever do is try to make things better for you, not because I think you need it, but because I love you. I like doing stuff for you. It hurts that you think I'm only doing it because I feel sorry for you, which I'll admit that I do sometimes, but that's not the driving factor. It's part of my programming to cheer people up, and it makes me feel bad when you either don't appreciate it or think it isn't sincere."

In other words, he made her feel useless. Kinda like how he'd been feeling lately. Useless and unwanted. It was appalling to think that he'd made her feel that way without even knowing he was doing it. Turbo felt his heart sink when it hit him just how much his behavior had been affecting her.

"Sweetie, I never meant to hurt your feelings," he told her.

He started to rub her hand but she pulled it back to make him quit. She'd never done that before. His heart sank lower and he curled his empty hand up on itself, wishing he could just disappear into the bed and never come out.

"Why did you think I left you earlier?" she wanted to know, being serious. "Didn't it cross your mind that I just simply went out for a while?"

"Well...I..." Turbo tried to think of an answer. They all sounded ridiculous. "You weren't...here...and...I..."

"You automatically thought I'd just up and leave you because you threw a tantrum," she finished for him, aggravation evident in her voice. "I'll admit I got upset, but I wouldn't do something so silly as just leave you over it. My God, I forgave you for murder, didn't I?"

He looked sheepish. Yes, she had.

"It's insulting that you think I'd be so childish or think so little of our marriage that I'd even think such a thing," she had to admit. "And then to top it off, the first thing you do is go get drunk? Again, I might add?"

Turbo gulped and began to mindlessly scratch at the bedsheets with his fingers to give them something to do. When said out loud, the things he'd done did sound insanely stupid.

"Where...where did you go?" he asked out of curiosity.

"To my family's," she replied bluntly.

Right, the ninja turtles. He hadn't even considered them when he was freaking out over her not being around. Though, admittedly he still couldn't wrap his head around the idea that she considered them family. It was so bizarre to think about.

Crap, I hope that one that wears red doesn't come kill me, he thought suddenly, remembering the threat he had been given on their wedding day that if Turbo so much as made Rosie cry, then he would personally come after the racer (it was Raphael but Turbo didn't know their names yet).

"Where'd you get the booze from?" Rosie asked, changing the subject. She suspected Officer Bob gave it to him, but she wanted to make sure.

Her eyes lowered into a glare when he verbally confirmed her suspicions. She wished she knew where that jerk was so she could go slap him right in the face.

"I don't want you associating with him, or his friends, anymore. No questions, just don't do it."

Turbo sighed and rested his eyes. "Okay," he agreed simply, not wanting to discuss this anymore.

"And what were you thinking getting behind the wheel while drunk?"

His eyes popped back open in surprise at that. "Wait, I drove?"

"I take it you don't remember."

"No!" he exclaimed loudly, then groaned and grabbed his head when his head throbbed in reaction to his outburst.

"To answer your question, yes. You drove," Rosie informed him as he tried to rub away his headache. "According to Felix, you were in Candy Goodbody's car and you crashed it into one of Sugar Rush's giant gumdrop things."

This new surge of information was making him dizzy and he kept both hands over his eyes to try to ease his symptoms. He had gotten into a hooker's car while drunk. That alone was bad enough, never mind that he drove. He couldn't believe that, he'd never dared attempted to drive while intoxicated before.

As if she could read his mind, Rosie commented, "Don't worry, I don't think you slept with her."

Thank God. Not that he did, but damn that would've been a real mess if she'd thought that. Okay, so he had somehow gotten into the car drunk and ended up in...Sugar Rush. How did...

"How did I get to Sugar Rush?" he asked out loud.

Rosie shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't think you drove there. Personally, I think Bob drove you there, or maybe Candy did, and they thought it would be funny to watch you kill yourself in an accident."

Ouch. The idea that Bob had only been pretending to be his friend really stung. He felt like a complete idiot.

"So anyway," Rosie kept on filling in the details, "After you crashed, some of the little kids found you and told Vanellope, then she had Felix come over and help fix the track up and drag you back here. I didn't know about it until I got home, of course, which was about an hour before the arcade opened."

Oh great, so Fix-It and the glitchy princess both saw him when he was boozed out and in a crashed car. That's just perfect, just turbo-freakin-tastic. He would never be able to look at them straight ever again. Not that he ever wanted to look at Vanellope, ever, but still.

"You don't remember anything?" Rosie asked him, almost sounding disappointed that he didn't.

Turbo thought in silence for a good minute. At first, he was going to say "no". Then something from the cobwebs of his hungover mind worked its way to his conscious being. He slid his hands off his eyes and barely opened them.

"I...I remember thinking...I was..." He sounded depressed as he said it. "I thought I was back home...at TurboTime."

Rosie stared at him with an expression that he could not read. Then she shut her eyes and sighed deeply, sitting still for a moment. Turbo wanted to ask what was wrong but he opted to keep his mouth shut. She finally opened her eyes again and they were shiny with tears that had not yet fully formed.

"That's all you ever think about, isn't it?" she asked him almost bitterly. "That's the only thing that's gonna make you happy, huh?"

He was taken aback at her attitude. "Honey, that was my home..."

"Exactly! It was your home!" She wasn't fussing at him, she was trying to drive the point across. "It's not there anymore, champ, it's gone. You need to accept that it's gone."

She almost sounded like she was pleading with him. "I know you miss it and I'm not saying that it's wrong to, but if you can't obsess over it like this. Now you're hallucinating it! That's not healthy!"

Turbo was stunned at her outburst, staring up at her not knowing how to respond. Rosie had tears coming out of her eyes as she looked down at him from her position on his stomach.

"Do you love me?" she asked him unexpectedly.

His jaw dropped, surprised that she needed to ask that.

"Of course I do!" he insisted, trying to ignore the throb in his head that had evolved from him talking loudly. "What kind of question is that?"

"If you had a choice of staying here with me, the way things are now, or going back to TurboTime... which one would you pick?"

He opened his mouth to answer but no sound came out. He hesistated to answer. Tears slid down Rosie's face, her mixed expression of anger, disappointment, and sorrow quite evident.

"Don't bother, I already know," she bit as she climbed off of him sideways and made her way off the bed entirely.

Alarmed, Turbo jerked up then grabbed his head with one hand as his headache intensified ten-fold, forcing his legs to work through the pain.

"Rosie, wait!"

Rosie had the door already swung open and halfway out of it by the time he fell on the floor, groaning as he cursed himself to crawl after her. Through some form of miracle, he managed to catch up enough to grab at one of her ankles and get her to stop in the hallway right before getting to the kitchen.

"Rosie, please!" he begged tearfully as he lay on his stomach, pulling himself forward using her ankle as an anchor. "Please don't go, I love you, don't leave me, please!"

He hugged his arms around her trapped leg as he kept saying "I love you" over and over, tears pouring out of his eyes like an open faucet.

"Let go of my leg."

If he let go, she was going to leave. No way in hell was he letting that happen so he kept his arms wrapped firmly around her, sobbing quietly at the floor, his breathing but harsh gasps of air.

"Champ, seriously, let go," she said calmly. "I'm not gonna go anywhere."

Turbo wasn't sure if he believed her or not, but he reasoned he couldn't very well stay in this position for the rest of their lives so he did as he was told and just laid there pitifully on the floor with a pool of tears under his face. Rosie turned and sat cross-legged in front of him, reaching a hand out to gently tousle his hair. Turbo crossed his arms in front of his face so she wouldn't see him crying anymore.

"Baby, I know you love me," Rosie started after he'd calmed down some, speaking in a soothing tone. However, she had to admit that it hurt that he'd hesistated when she had asked him to choose between her and the possibility of going back to TurboTime. She had expected him to automatically pick her, of course...that's what she would have done. Thus, she began to have a little doubt at just how much he actually loved her. It was silly perhaps, but it still weighed on her mind.

"But I think you're confused right now with everything that's going on," she continued, trying to ignore the idea that he perhaps didn't love her as much as he thought he did. "You're too preoccupied with either how things used to be or how people view you now. You don't even like yourself, do you?"

He kept his face hidden and his eyes closed, thinking about what she just said as more tears ran down his face. No, he didn't like himself. What was there to like? He was a murderer, a selfish bastard, and no one wanted to be ten feet near him.

Turbo shook his head in the negative to answer her question, pulling his arms closer to his face to cover it better. Ghost Teddy was right, he was a pathetic loser. He used to be something special and now here he was crying on the floor trying to keep his wife from leaving him and just feeling sorry for himself.

He felt Rosie stop petting his head and inch her hand down to try to touch his face and he shifted his head a little so she could press it against his cheek, then rested his head against it so her hand was pinned between his head and his shoulder. Her hands were always so soft and delicate, so warm and loving.

"I love you, sweetheart," Rosie told him quietly after another moment of silence. "But I miss you being yourself. I miss my cocky little daredevil that's always looking for the next big thrill. The guy that could light up any room he went in."

"That's not me anymore," he mourned in a whisper.

"Yes, it is. You just got lost." She pulled her hand back and took a breath before she added, "That's why I think you need to go away for a little while."

Turbo popped his eyes open in shock and he lifted his head up to her, surprise written all over his face. One look at her face told him that she wasn't joking around.

"You're...you're throwing me out?" he asked quietly, feeling another cry coming on.

"No, I'm not throwing you out," Rosie clarified, cupping the bottom of his chin in hand so he wouldn't drop his head down. "I just think you need a change in scenery. A vacation or something. You know, like a get-away retreat."

She wasn't sounding very convincing, almost like she wasn't sure this was a good idea that she had. The last idea she'd had was sending him to Bad-Anon, so he wasn't positive that he was going to like this new idea.

"You're not coming with me?"

"I'll come visit," she offered with a little smile. She started using her free hand to clear off any remnant tears on his face. "You need to straighten up, champ. You can't do that if I'm around you twenty-four-seven."

Turbo didn't like the thought of being away from her; he'd already spent a twenty-five year chunk of his life away from her and he didn't want to add to that. But then again, he didn't want to become one of those annoying clingy guys that can't even breathe without assistance from their significant other, so he supposed it was only realistic that he would have to stay away from her at some point.

Not that he approved.

"Where am I supposed to go?"

He almost dreaded the answer.

Rosie smiled bigger and matter-of-factly said, "Sugar Rush."

He did dread the answer. Turbo sat up on his elbows and looked at her like she was crazy.

"Are you insane!" he questioned as he struggled to sit up on the floor, completely ignoring any aches and pains he felt as he propped himself up in front of her. "I can't go back there!"

"Why not?"

"I hate that place!"

"You didn't seem to mind spending fifteen years ruling over it, King-y," she pointed out with a slight smirk. "Good grief, you lived there longer than you did at TurboTime. If you think about it, Sugar Rush should really be more of a home to you."

He opened his mouth to argue with her but she held her hand up to stop him from saying anything.

"Don't argue with me," she commanded him. She had this twinkle in her eyes that he wasn't sure he trusted. "Vanellope already said it was okay for you to go."

"You had this planned the whole time I was asleep, didn't you?" he quickly deduced in an accusing tone.

"Well, what did you want me to do?" she asked him, briefly throwing her arms up in slight exasperation. "I turn around and leave for five seconds and you get drunk...again...and nearly kill yourself. I try to make you feel better and you get pissy and throw the kitchen table across the floor."

Turbo winced at the reminder and he leaned over to see if the kitchen had been fixed while he'd been unconscious. The table was now upright at least and there wasn't a mess of destroyed cookies on the floor; he assumed they were in the garbage. His stomach churned at the thought of food and realized he hadn't had a decent meal in quite some time.

"I didn't know what else to do with you," Rosie continued, her eyes casting sadness towards him. "I can't keep an eye on you all the time and you can't stay cooped up in the house avoiding life. I got desperate, so when Vanellope offered to help and I accepted it for you since I knew you wouldn't."

What could that little cookie crumb possibly do for him? Granted, Turbo had meant it when he apologized to her for usurping her royalty, but that didn't mean he wanted anything to do with her or her sugar-coated world. To be honest, he was baffled that she would allow him back in the game, even if he didn't pose any threat now. He couldn't take over it again even if he wanted to without the Universal Code at his disposal.

Rosie reached her hand out to grab a hold of his and squeeze it. "Champ, you gotta trust me on this. The first ten years I had without you...I drank a lot. Probably more than you did today. But I had someone give me a wake-up call and make me think that I needed to pull myself together. The only way I could do that was just get away from everybody for a while and get cleaned up, and I think it'll work for you. Now I'm not saying you have to stay gone for years like I did; you can come back home in..."

She scrunched her face up to think. "Two weeks."

Turbo's eyes nearly bugged out. "Two weeks?!"

"It's not as long as you think it is."

"That's a pretty damn long time to make me go live with a bunch of snot-nosed brats," he grumbled, turning his head to the side to glare at a random spot on the floor.

"Well, maybe by the time two weeks is over, you won't dislike kids so much," Rosie quipped back.

And maybe you won't take me for granted so much either, she added silently.

"They won't bully you, I've already made sure of that."

Turbo flicked his eyes back to her. If she had personally made sure of it, maybe the little rugrats wouldn't pester him so much. Maybe.

"I don't have a choice in this...do I?"

"Oh, you have a choice, but it'd be wise to go along with it," she suggested smartly.

In other words, if you don't go, that means you have no desire to even attempt at getting your life back on track, Turbo translated for her in his head. And she would take that to mean that I don't care enough about HER to even bother taking care of myself.

He sighed in defeat and ran a thumb over her hand in a caressing motion.

"All right, I'll go," he agreed semi-reluctantly.

Rosie beamed and she leaned in to give him a little kiss, but then she made a face and backed away.

"I love ya, but...you smell like straight vodka," she told him, not even bothering to sugar-coat it. She took her hand from him and patted him on the knee. "Might want to go freshen up a bit, hmm?"

While Turbo made himself more aromatically tolerable, Rosie slipped out the front door for a minute. Vanellope was out on the front lawn throwing some pop rock candies in the air and trying to catch them in her mouth. When she heard the front door open, she turned her head in distraction and the candies that were in the air ended up landing in her hair, not that she noticed.

"Well, what did he say, what did he say?" she asked excitedly as she bounced up to her cheerleader friend.

"He said okay but..."

"But what?" Vanellope wanted to know, shrugging animatedly with her palms up.

Rosie bit her lip and looked off to the side briefly. "I mean, he is going to be all right, isn't he? I think he's expecting all of you to gang up on him or something."

The candy-themed racer rolled her eyes around in a wide circle and held her palm up as if taking an oath. "I swear on my official royal title that he will be treated no different than anyone else in our game."

She then smirked slyly and shoved both hands in her hoodie pouch. "Of course, we do like to rag on each other a good bit, so unless you call that bullying, I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Rosie still appeared nervous and tilted her head up towards her bedroom balcony. "I hope he doesn't get temperamental."

"I think we can handle him," Vanellope dismissed her concerns. "We outnumber him and he can't exactly do anything to us since, for starters, that would just ruin his precious reputation more and also I doubt he'd want to upset you."

The little girl made a valid point. Turbo wouldn't dare do anything to risk disappointing her more, since he seemed to feel remorseful enough about his earlier actions.

"Don't worry, this'll work," Vanellope reassured her. "We're gonna work him so hard, he won't have time to even think about drinking. And he might even get an attitude adjustment with it, so it'll work out for you too."