Wow, another update! I'm surprised I managed to get this out so quickly! I guess school hasn't gotten too crazy yet. This time we have a new POV!

I don't own Wreck It Ralph, only my 2 OCs. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! Remember to read and review!

Chapter 16

"Well? How is she?"

Ralph heaved out a sigh, trying to find the right words to answer the question he'd known would come. He could feel the faces of Calhoun, Felix and Vanellope on him, but Vanellope's was the only one he cared about then. Her eyes were anxious, and he knew it was because she needed to know if there was more she could do to help Lemona. As president of the game, Ralph knew she felt the need to always find ways of fixing every problem that popped up. Being her best friend, Ralph didn't want to discourage Vanellope. But sometimes a person could only do so much.

"She and Lemona are resting by the game's entrance," he started, receiving a scoff from Vanellope. "I gave her my shirt, in case she got cold or uncomfortable."

"Okay, that explains why you look like you're wearing a booger instead of a shirt and the stench of your body odor is more overwhelming then normal, but that doesn't tell me how Lemona is!"

"She's fine. Confused, but when I left she was definitely calmer," Because he was such a regular visitor to the game, the office had an enormous chair specially built and designated for him, and he went to sit down in it. Resting his head in his baseball glove hands, he continued. "She wanted me to tell you she may not come back tonight."

"Ralph!" Felix bounded forward before Vanellope could get a chance to even nod in understanding. "You shouldn't have just left her out there! What if your shirt isn't enough to keep her from catching a virus out there? What if Angelina catches one? Heaven knows that's the last thing Lemona needs! Y'all stay here; I'll bring her back."

"Felix…" This was the hard part. Shuffling his chair so Felix couldn't get by, even by jumping, Ralph summed up all his courage, and tried to explain things as nicely as he could. "Lemona said she would prefer not to see you until she's got things figured out. You…you remind her of Turbo."

Just as he'd feared, Felix's face paled and dropped. Jaw hitting the floor, he didn't even try to hide his misery as he stuttered. "I…I…What?"

"It make sense," Calhoun nodded. When Felix gave her a look of disbelief, she threw her hands up in the air in defense. "Soldier, you know I love you. But we all know that when you can't fix something, you can get very overwhelmed. And right now, the last thing Lemona needs is stress around her."

Felix didn't look like he'd heard or understood a word his wife had said. "I…I remind her of a bad guy?"

Everybody noticed the tears of shame pricking his eyes, and instantly Calhoun scooped him up by the front of his shirt and held him close to his face. But instead of barking out an order to toughen up, her roughened voice came out almost apologetically.

"Listen to me Short-Stack. I get that you want to help her. We all do. But if you panic and cling too tightly to her, the more threatened by us she'll feel. That's probably why you reminded her of Turbo. Because you were trying to get her to open up too much, too quickly. But don't think for a second that you're a bad guy. You have good intentions. But it's like when I told you to get out of my space shuttle. You just need to give people who are suffering lots of time, and lots of space. You got it?"

Sniffling, Felix managed a small nod. Calhoun pulled him in closer for a quick kiss, and then set him down again. Dusting non-existent dust off of her hands, Calhoun looked to the rest of the group. "Well? Anything else?"

Ralph shook his head, but Vanellope shuffled in place a bit. "Well…"

Calhoun didn't miss a thing. "What is it kid?"

"I've just been thinking…" The kid shot a glance at one of the red curtains, behind which was the pathway to the code room door. "Remember when we first met Lemona? And Turbo was pretending to help her by showing her how to control her glitches?"

Everybody nodded.

"Well…" Vanellope hesitated. "What if that's when the syndrome started developing? She was relying pretty heavily on him."

"But we fixed her code," Ralph interjected, his eyes shooting from one person to the next, to see if they were all agreeing with him. "Remember? It was corrupted with almond rocca, and we forced the little weasel to get her back to normal. We watched him do it; there was no funny business."

Vanellope nodded. "I know. But after almost being deleted, her code is weaker than the average characters'. That would make her more vulnerable, wouldn't it? Maybe even after being cured and knowing what he did to her, she held onto a bit of her admiration towards the jerk."

Though Ralph stared at his friend in confusion, Calhoun slowly nodded back. "I think I see where you're going with this kid. You think her code in general is easier to corrupt? Like some metals that rust easier than others?"

"Maybe." Vanellope started to pace, her boots slapping the ground in a steady rhythm. "I mean, I'm not positive. But her sourness spells are pretty severe. I've never seen somebody get angry like she does. Not even you Ralph. And she'd been trying to hide them from everybody. That had to be wearing her down."

"So what are you saying?" Ralph asked, spreading his hands out in front of him. "You want me to ask if she wants to attend Bad-Anon or something like that?"

Vanellope stopped pacing and scowled back at him, taking extra care to wrinkle her nose as she did so. "No, of course not. But…" her face softened as she turned to look at Calhoun. "Is there something we can do? To make it stronger?"

The soldier sighed, and folded her arms across her chest. Staring down at the hopeful little kid, she tried to think of a way to answer that wouldn't completely crush her.

"Well we can't just heal her with the push of a button or the smack of a hammer."

As Vanellope's face started to fall, Calhoun held up one finger to pause her. "But…I asked some of the scientists in my game to try coming up with a way to strengthen code. I was getting tired of hearing the pussy-willows in my game belly-aching about how hard it was to fight the Cy-bugs day in and day out. And they may have come up with something. They call it Vitamin V. It's not magic; it doesn't fix broken codes, so it won't get rid of her phenomenon. However, the men have been using it for a few months now, and it seems to be improving their code health. They feel stronger, don't tire as easily, and their attitudes have greatly improved. If Lemona decides she's willing to try it, it could do the same for her."

A grin spread across Vanellope's face until Ralph was sure that it would touch her bottom eyelashes. He was positive that her mind was already jumping to the best possible scenarios and end results. "She's going to start leaping for joy in three…two…"

"Whoa there tiger," Calhoun had latched onto Vanellope's arms before her toes had gotten the chance to follow the souls of her feet up into the air. Ralph watched as she bent down so she was face-to-face with the child. A proud woman and a leader, she never stooped to the level of those beneath her. She always stood tall. This had to be serious.

"Now listen Sugar Sprite," she ordered, steely high definition blue eyes burning like bullet-fire. "We have to be very careful how we approach her with this idea. From what you've told me, she is getting better, but her trust level is still quite low as you've seen. If she even gets the slightest impression that we're trying to force her to do something, or telling her there's something wrong with her, or if she thinks the vitamins are some sort of method of getting her to ditch Turbo, we will all be in trouble. We have to propose the idea in a way that makes her believe that they will help her. I'm not sure how to do that yet, but if she's not willing, do not push her. These are orders. Do you understand?"

For a moment, Ralph feared that Vanellope would defy the soldier like she used to defy other adults and authority figures. After all, for fifteen years she'd been tormented by people telling her what she could and couldn't do. Now she was in control, and though she wasn't a tyrant, she wasn't particularly cool with people trying to boss her around.

But though she stiffened, Ralph let out a breath of thankfulness and relief when Vanellope finally nodded back at Calhoun. She must have been impressed that Calhoun, the leader who always had an action plan, was willing to admit she didn't know how to do something.

Calhoun gave a curt nod back. "Good." Returning to her standing position, she then addressed everyone in the room.

"I'll proceed to my game and ask the scientists to start filling some bottles. We should leave the girl alone for today; she clearly needs some time to herself. But when she comes back, if she's feeling better, then we can start figuring out how we're going to do this. We can't mess this up ladies. It could be the miracle we've all been looking for."

Ooh, suspense! I hate to leave it like that, but sometimes one just needs a cliffhanger to up the excitement level. Like I said, I hope you all enjoy, and I thank you for being so dedicated to this story! I know its been a long ride, but I would like to one day finish it, no matter how long it takes. I feel like I owe it to all you wonderful readers, who have been so kind to me during this whole process. You are all amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Until next time!