AU: Wow guys. This is so late it isn't even funny. I'm sorry; I've just been really busy and uninspired. But then I got some ideas, and pulled this together. Hope you like it. Again, sorry it's so late.

I can't even think of anything else to say except for I don't own Wreck It Ralph, just my two OC's. So please read, review, and overall, enjoy the 14th chapter of This Shouldn't Be Happening!

Chapter 14

Vanellope must have spent the entire night and the following day planning, because as soon as the arcade was declared closed, she was rattling and banging on the bars to Lemona's cell like she was the one trapped inside. "Up an' at 'em Sleeping Beauty!" she crowed, her words a song she was glad to sing.

Lemona had been resting on the cell's cot, trying to enjoy the peace and quiet after her hellish night, so at the sudden burst of noise, she tumbled off, landing with an unpleasant thump.

"Oof!" she grunted, and when she stood up and faced Vanellope, she was greeted by a sheepish grin.

"Oops," Vanellope brought a hand up to cover her mouth, and slightly annoyed, Lemona could tell that she was trying to muffle giggles. "My bad."

Rolling her eyes, Lemona chose not to bother with putting up a fuss. "So," she began, brushing the dust off her clothes with her hands, "What's got you excited enough to come down here and scare the lemon seeds out of me?"

"It's a surprise," Vanellope was trying to locate the right key for the cell on her key-ring, but she was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, so it took more time than it should have. Finally she grabbed the right one, jamming it into the lock and twisting so hard that Lemona expected it to break in half. The cell door was barely open before Vanellope started gesturing urgently with her arm for Lemona to come. "You have to follow me. Come on! We don't have all day!"

Before Lemona had even started thinking about moving, Vanellope's hand was reaching for hers. The thought of physical contact made her stomach churn and her head spin, so it didn't take long for her instincts to kick in and pull her back from the incoming touch. Her arms twisted around her waist like protective Laffy Taffy vines. The motion felt like the first step to becoming one of the giant gumdrops that littered Sugar Rush: unable to be harmed and completely immovable.

Vanellope's arm froze, leaving her ligaments hanging mid-air only briefly. They stayed like that only briefly, as Vanellope made a quick recovery by pulling her arm back and using her arm to rub her opposite shoulder delicately. "Oh yeah. The whole 'time' thing. Sorry. I forgot."

Lemona's stomach twisted again, but for a completely different reason. She was being rude. If Vanellope was going to make an effort to help her, then she had to try to allow herself to be helped.

"N-no, it's not that," Stammering, she forced her arms to unwind from her torso, and attempted to act casual by brushing back her bangs with her fingers. "You forgot what happens when I get touched."

Though what she'd said was true, Lemona couldn't meet Vanellope's eyes when she watched for her reaction. She watched as her eyes grew wide, and she slapped her forehead in a manner that Lemona would have thought was comical nine months ago and braced herself for what was about to come.

"Oh man, you're right! Gah-doi! I'm such a peanut-brain! So do you want to follow me on foot, or do you want to take the karts?"

Her casual dismissal of the incident made Lemona inwardly let out a long gust of breath that she'd been holding in her lungs. Whether she'd noticed or not that Lemona had been not entirely honest, Vanellope hadn't done anything about it, and that was good enough for Lemona. She had no plans to point it out. Instead, she just focussed on the question Vanellope had posed. "Um…How about we walk?"

Practically bouncing on her heels, Vanellope looked like she would argue the point if she'd been talking to anybody else. But because it was Lemona, she just shot her an eager smile and cried, "Okay. Come on!" before taking off though the Fungeon, waving Lemona forward with her swinging arm.

Shaking her head, Lemona reluctantly trailed behind Vanellope, who led her out of the castle. Her eyes took some adjusting to the brightness of the environment after spending so much time hidden in caverns. They started off quite squinted, and entirely focussed on the footprints Vanellope created in the dark chocolate ground under her feet.

Lemona was ready to keep it that way until they reached wherever Vanellope was guiding her. But as the time passed on their travels, her feet were lifted lower and lower off the ground until finally she was scuffling. It was this that caused the tip of one of her shoes to connect with a jawbreaker.

"Ow!" Jumping back on just one foot, Lemona wavered, her arms held out for balance until she thought it safe to put her other foot down. Though hitting the jawbreaker had hurt, it didn't seem to have done any serious damage. Most likely there would just be some bruising. So once confident she'd be able to keep walking, Lemona lifted her head to see if Vanellope had heard her. Judging by the distance she was gaining, she hadn't.

With Vanellope too far away to answer any questions, Lemona was left to determine where they were on her own. There were no distinguishing traits ahead of her, or behind her. But when her head was turned left, her jaw dropped in recognition.

Game restarts had fixed any dents or destruction she had caused, but she could still remember which gumdrops her kart had crashed into. They sat in the perfect circle she was sure they had been in since the game had first been programmed and plugged in. Yet as she started at them, it felt as though they were whispering, "We've been waiting for you."

It was the first track she'd ever been on.

Approaching one of the candies, all about the size of traffic cones, she rested a hand on the top and allowed her memories of that day to resurface and play like a video in front of her eyes. They started out fuzzy from being locked up in the crevices of her programmed mind for so long, but gradually as they went on, they grew clearer. She could have stayed right there and not gone any farther, had it not been for Vanellope screaming, "Come on Lemona! We're not there yet!"

As she forced herself to continue walking, repeatedly seeing the same shape in the ground grew dull, and her irises began craving new things to take in. They started darting around, always returning to the ground, but as they got more and more curious, the time it took for them to move from one sight to the ground grew longer and longer. And the more she looked around, the more she remembered from before Turbo had taken her. They passed more race tracks, ones that she'd conquered, and the ones that she'd been on when she'd first been trying to learn the craft of racing. Memories of hours spent tree-climbing and looking out at the world from the highest branches came just from glancing at candy-cane seedlings. Houses in the distance reminded her of the fourteen other racers that were programmed into the world, the ones she wasn't sure she was ready to see again yet. And far away, the shining rainbow road that was swallowed up at the end by a mountain that hid the game's only way out sparkled beautifully. But behind the sweetness was a bitter reminder like an aftertaste in Lemona's mouth that it lead to the place where Turbo had been taken. A place Lemona didn't have the ability to get to no matter how hard she tried.

A shudder ran through her, leading to a glitch that turned everything in front of her eyes into blue and white numbers. She didn't realize the sharp sensation of electricity coursing through her skin had caused her to make noise until Vanellope was a few feet away asking, "Are you okay?"

Body still burning, Lemona forced herself to nod and prayed that it was convincing enough. It seemed to be, because Vanellope's shoulders relaxed, and a smile blessed her face again. "Well good, because we're finally here!" Taking a step backward, she flung her arms up in a grand presenting manner. "Tada!"

The first thing Lemona noticed was that somewhere on their journey, the dirt road had become a road. Her eyes lifted up to see where this road was leading, and were met with the sight of a very big and very familiar land site. Sprawling for acres, it was easily the largest part of the game, which was good, considering it housed something even larger than Vanellope's palace.

In the very center of the prosperous landscape, surrounded by obviously planted sugary plants (there was no way they could grow naturally in such neat lines or spiral designs) and encircled by pure white walls, stood a massive construction. This was a place that served as the beacon of hope and promise to all who inhabited Sugar Rush, including the President herself. The name of it came to Lemona right away.

"This is the kart bakery."

"Ga doi!" Vanellope leaned forward and rolled her eyes dramatically. "Of course it is. You're going to bake a cart!"

Lemona understood the individual words, but putting them together in that sentence turned them into icing-like goop that her brain couldn't register. "I already have a kart Vanellope." Unless her clone had somehow crashed and destroyed it while she was away, but Lemona didn't care to think about that at the moment.

"I know that Captain Obvious." Vanellope rolled her eyes playfully again. "But Angelina doesn't."

"Vanellope, she's too young to drive a kart. She's barely a day old."

The spirited raven-haired girl let out an exaggerated sigh, but Lemona's protestations weren't enough to put even a dent in her attitude. Even when she spoke, her gleeful tone was still perfectly intact. "I know that too silly. I may be running on a permanent sugar high, but I'm not crazy. Births aren't a common thing in video games, so we don't know how quickly it'll take her to grow up. The sooner we have a kart for her, the sooner she can get started learning when she is old enough to drive. And since you're her Mummy Moo-Moo, you get to do the honors."

Without waiting for another argument, Vanellope took off towards the entrance to the factory, leaving Lemona to chase after her. Once at the door, she was left breathless, and every gasp of air she pulled into her heaving lungs was filled with the scent of the inside of an oven. "Wait, wait," somehow the panted words managed to come out comprehensible. "You want ME to bake her a kart?"

"Yeah. I told you, you're her mom, so you should be the one to do it."

As they stepped inside, Lemona's voice wavered as she stared at what little she could see in her dark surroundings. Colored squares with glowing white backlight trained on her made her feel closed in, and she briefly considered taking off the way she'd come. "No, no, I can't."

"Sure you can! You remember how to play the mini-game, don't you?"

A single, shaky nod. "Well yeah…But I can't Vanellope, I just can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because Turbo makes all the decisions. Because I don't deserve the great honor of being the creator of my daughter's first kart. Because he's the one in charge and knows what's best, not me. Because I'll mess it up and prove that I'm an incompetent fool. Because I can't do anything right.

"What should I do?"

"It's your kid who's going to drive it, so this is your choice, not mine Lemona. But if you want a helpful tip, the long ones that are angled at the back go faster than the round ones."

Lemona's eyes followed Vanellope's finger to a blue raspberry colored box with a picture of a kart in the description Vanellope had given. Hesitantly she walked towards it, and after taking a gulp to try to shove the lump in her throat down to her stomach, she reached up and gave it a tap.

The game started immediately, and despite Vanellope's whooping and cheering, Lemona kept at a slow and steady pace. At the mixing station, she kept her keen ears trained on what the President was saying, following the orders that Vanellope didn't even know she was giving as she attempted encouragement.

"Get the milk and the flour! Don't let that fish bone get in! Oh no, the eggs don't go in the garbage! Quick, catch those socks! You can do it Lemona!"

Once that was over, they made their way over to the Baking section of the game. They both climbed to the top of the pump, but Lemona was more than willing to hand the job over to Vanellope. She stood warily with her eyes more on her two feet than on Vanellope, desperately trying to stay balanced on the handle. But when Vanellope proclaimed, "Come on Lemona! You've got to jump with me, or you won't get to the next stage!" she gave a few weak hops. They weren't enough to carry her very high up, but every time she was in the air, her stomach plunged, and she imagined her feet slipping when she landed and falling to the ground, which looked very far away at this height.

A weight lifted from her shoulders when the game suddenly shut down and she heard the announcer's voice declare it to be Game Over. "Oh well," she shrugged, leaping down. As soon as her feet hit firm ground again, she was getting ready to leave before Vanellope could convince her to go again. "We tried."

"Hang on a minute!" Before Lemona could even put her foot down on the first step, Vanellope was in front of her, arms crossed over her chest. "What's going on?"

Lemona cursed herself for forgetting about Vanellope's glitching abilities. She could try to run, but Vanellope would catch her easily every time. The best thing to do was play dumb. "What do you mean?"

"Don't give me that!" Lemona flinched back at the accusatory tone, and Vanellope's tone immediately softened by a couple of notches as she continued. "Sorry. But seriously, what's wrong? It's almost like you don't want Angelina to have a kart!"

"Of course I do!" There were few things Lemona wanted more than for her child than for her to know the thrill of racing. After her own struggles with trying to find her purpose in the game, she knew how heart-breaking it would be for Angelina if she was stuck in that same situation. And she never wanted Angelina to be lost or sad or confused. "But I'm not the person to build it."

"What? Why would you think that? You're the best person to build it!"

"I think we both know that you aren't capable of much without me around."

Lemon juice tears stung Lemona's eyes as Turbo's words from the night before came back, wrapping around her heart and lungs and squeezing until she felt like she couldn't breathe. "No Vanellope, I'm not," she protested, throwing the palms of her hands over her eyes and shoving the acid away to dry. But as fast as she cleaned them away, they returned, causing more damage. She was practically blinded when she finally got up the guts to say, "I'll make mistakes. It'll come out looking like something a Cybug puked out, and the first time Angelina goes to sit in it, it'll fall apart. I could burn the entire bakery down. She deserves the very best kart, and I can't give her that."

As she fell silent, Vanellope stayed quiet as well, watching as Lemona crumpled to her knees, deep in her continued thinking. All of the other things she couldn't give Angelina began flooding her mind like a tidal wave, and in the midst of it all was one over-bearing thought: "Maybe I shouldn't be the one to raise her."

"It all comes back to choices," Vanellope's words broke the silence as she knelt beside Lemona. Even without touching, Lemona could feel the heat radiating off of her, and for the first time it was slightly comforting. It reminded her of all the nights she'd been kept warm only by Turbo's body heat and made it easier to look at Vanellope.

"You wanna know what happened when I built my first karts?"

Vanellope owned more than one kart? Green eyes met hazel ones, and Vanellope offered a slight smile as she spoke. "I built the first one soon after the game had been tampered with. I'd just discovered I wasn't allowed to race, and let's just say I didn't take the news well. So I broke into here, and spent hours trying to bake myself a kart with a burn the size of a jawbreaker on my leg from Diet Cola Mountain. It took a miracle to get me past the second level of the mini-game, but once it happened, I had my first kart. I named her The Flash."

Lemona wondered if there was a story behind the name, but before she could ask, Vanellope took a deep breath. Shocked, Lemona realized she was getting teary-eyed.

"Turbo and the guards finally found out and tried to arrest me. I tried to take The Flash with me, but she was too heavy to push. I should have tried to drive her away, but I ran instead. I almost got away, but they caught me on the Rainbow Bridge. Then they took me back to the bakery and forced me to watch as they…" Vanellope swallowed her own lump in her throat. "They burned her to charcoal in the oven. Now she's buried in Diet Cola Mountain. Acting when I was in irrational and panicked states of mind were my first mistakes."

She was about to tell Vanellope she didn't have to continue when she started speaking again.

"My second kart, the Lickety-Split, came next. It took years to complete because after my first break-in attempt, security measures were increased at the bakery. I had to build her using garbage and stuff from the junkyard. She was a sweet little ride."

Lemona watched her closed mouth smile crack, revealing teeth as her own memories played in her mind. "It was just a pedal kart, not very good competition, and certainly not enough to win. But I was proud enough of my work to show it off to the other racers. But they wanted to make sure that I couldn't attend any of the races. So they destroyed it. Broke it into a million pieces just like Cinderella's dress. Not determining how loyal they were to the false king before showing them my kart was my second mistake."

To have one kart destroyed sounded horrific, but losing two, especially when Vanellope had so little else in her life? Lemona wondered how she'd managed to stay sane as Vanellope continued.

"Finally, I met Ralph, and I decided that with his huge hands, he could break me into the bakery and help me make another nice kart. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed. The mixing went horribly, he destroyed the oven's heat pump, and when it came to decorating, the entire stage fell apart. The glass tubes holding the icing and treats broke, and covered everything, including my kart. But it came out looking beautiful. Then, after teaching me how to drive, Ralph was lied to by Turbo. He told him that if I was allowed to race, the game would be put out of order, and I'd be left to die. So in a desperate attempt to save me that I didn't understand at the time, he destroyed my third kart. I was thrown in the Fungeon, and he left with a medal he thought he needed. But in the end, he discovered the truth, busted me out, and got my kart fixed good as new. So I guess you could say that my kart's made entirely out of mistakes. But I wouldn't trade it for any other kart in the game."

As Lemona thought about it, she suddenly remembered seeing three words written in blue and red icing on the side of Vanellope's treasured vehicle. "You…you mean…"

"Yep. It wasn't supposed to turn out like that, but it did. And it's all I could ask for." There was no hint of the crying, weakened girl Lemona had seen earlier as Vanellope turned to speak directly to her. "There's nothing wrong with mistakes Lemona. They don't make us incompetent or end the world. They help us learn, and give us really good stories to tell years later and memories to relive. I don't care how many mistakes you make when you're creating Angelina's kart. Heck, you could create a hundred karts, and I wouldn't mind. I just want you to come out of this with something you can be proud of, knowing that you can make your own choices and do things by yourself. We all know you've been leaning on Turbo and relying on him for a long time, and I wanted to help you get your independence back."

With the second motivational speech over, Lemona slowly got to her feet, and Vanellope did as well. They stood just staring at each other for a while as Lemona tried to wrap her head around all of the information she'd been given. Vanellope seemed to know everything about her just by looking, but she was learning more and more every single minute they spent together. "Did they hurt?" she whispered. "The mistakes?"

"Those ones did. But not every mistake ends in pain. And the ones that do usually have a much sweeter pay-off."

So Lemona slowly made her way back to the curtained-off area where the kart options were, and this time, Vanellope followed her. When they arrived, she stood in the center of all the choices, and slowly spun, taking in every single one. Statistics for speed, handling, and sweetness slowly came back to her after all of the times she'd spent racing opponents. Finally, instead of going back to the blue square, she made her way towards the red one and hesitantly raised a hand. But before locking in her option, she turned to Vanellope. Vanellope grinned back in her direction. But instead of giving a nod of encouragement, she just shrugged.

That mere motion said more than the words ever could. "This is your decision."

So with that in mind, Lemona took one more slow look around. Then she turned forward, exhaled deeply, and pressed down on her own choice.

It took three tries for her to get used to passing the second level, and after that, countless more games were played. Every once in a while Lemona would look behind her shoulder, looking for confirmation. But the only thing Vanellope gave any assistance with was using the equipment, though a couple of times she stepped back to let Lemona do it by herself when Lemona was so invested in a project that she wouldn't notice. So gradually, Lemona stopped doing that, reminding herself that every second of hesitation was a second she lost for the building process. Different icing colors were mixed with various candies and other sugary goodies. But none of her creations ever came out of the presentation booth screaming, "This is good enough for my child." Vanellope didn't mind; she figured they would be good extras for bonus levels and if any of the racers got into an accident or wanted to try something different. Maybe she could ask Felix to build them a big garage somewhere in the game.

As she played, the game became a routine for Lemona. She was trying so hard to not lose hope in her abilities, but as the time passed, she grew more and more exhausted. Vanellope came up to her shoulder and whispered that if she needed a break, they could come back the next day, well rested and refreshed. But Lemona was too focussed to really acknowledge the offer. The only thing in her mind throughout the challenge was the image of Angelina.

And then, finally, as she stared at a latest creation, she felt the squeezing from Turbo's words lessen until it all fell away, allowing her lungs to expand to their full potential. The inner structure was made of gingerbread, just like Vanellope's, but it was round, just like a cake, with a hole in the center where the seat was located. It wasn't a perfect circle; instead, Lemona found herself thinking of the bottom half of a ball gown when she looked at it. The entire thing was covered in white whipped cream, littered with candied fruit and nuts that left colorful paint-like splotches wherever they had landed. The steering wheel was a cherry. When it started up, it would spout spiced cinnamon gas. Four candied nut wheels gleamed proudly underneath it all.

"It looks great," Lemona couldn't even tear her eyes away from the creation when the compliment came like it had for the other hundreds of karts she'd built.

"This is it." She couldn't believe it. She'd actually accomplished something by herself. And nothing disastrous had happened because of it. "This is what I want to give Angelina when she's old enough." Her very first gift to her child.

"Okay. I'll get Ralph to help us bring it to the castle tomorrow. That way we aren't tempted to drive it before its owner does."

The joke actually brought out a laugh from Lemona, but it had been so long since the last time she'd done it that it came out like a cough. It brought a hearty chuckle out of Vanellope, and she made herself busy slapping her knee as they got out the door.

It was late. The two had spent their entire day inside the factory. Now the stars were out, and Lemona recalled the hundreds of days she'd spent sitting by the force field waiting. She'd dreamed about escape. Now that it had happened, it was so different from what she'd imagined. So many nights she'd thought about how happy she would be to be free. But now that she was, she still didn't feel totally like it.

But she was getting better. And as much as she would have hated to admit it at one point, Vanellope was helping.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so." Again, their eyes met, and Vanellope extended a hand. Lemona eyed it, then looked when Vanellope reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out two strands of black licorice. "Come on. Sour Bill and the others will be waiting for us."

Both smiled lightly. Slightly shaking, Lemona lifted one arm. The two grabbed each other's' hands, and Lemona felt the familiar shock of someone else taking over. It didn't hurt as much as it used to, but a slight gasp started to leave her lips. She tried to hold it inside, but after a long day, she was too tired to make much of a fight. When she was unsuccessful, she shrunk away, expecting a slap or a reprimand.

But neither came from Vanellope, just a quick hand squeeze and another understanding smile.

And when the two started walking, each footstep and movement in time, Lemona couldn't help thinking how nice it was to be touched by somebody without getting hurt.