Dreams.

"Go on without me."

If he wasn't looking down, he wouldn't even have noticed the small hand resting on his. Ralph was a tough man. Literally. His hands could punch through a wall without flinching. He could smash through a window without a cut, or even feeling it. He wasn't used to gentle. His life had never had the least bit of gentle in it. Over the past hours, he had discovered things that thirty years hadn't been able to do. He had learned to care.

He stared, hypnotized, into those dark eyes looking at him. She didn't cry, or scream, or seem upset in any way about her onrushing death. She knew what was coming, and she was concerned for his safety instead. Then he heard, at the edge of his perception, the tough lady telling Felix something about a beacon. "Beacon?" His brain tried to work. He remembered the burning column of light in Hero's Duty, the one that attracted and killed the Cybugs. "But what could I..." He remembered the near-fatal glitch at Diet Cola Mountain. That one instant, somehow, he decided that if his death... real death this time, could fix all his mistakes, and save her, it was only paying what he owed her.

He was floating, the law of gravity suspended those few seconds that the Mentos crater began collapsing into the Diet Cola Hot Springs below. "What will it be like?" He wondered.

Ralph woke with a jerk. He sat up straight, looking wildly about, disoriented. The bricks that made up his blankets scattered around him. He fought to catch his breath, pressing his massive hand against his chest. His heart pounded as he tried to breathe normally, his mind adjusting to the fact that he was really at his own stump again.

"Why do I try to sleep? That's the third time tonight." He muttered to nobody. Sleep wasn't necessary for a character. It was just something to do... to 'go offline' during those long hours, even days, between games. He did more than most. At Tappers, everyone avoided him because of his 'Bad Guy' status, and he usually had a whole counter to himself. Dancing or hanging out at the DDR, where many went after hours, was lost to him, too.

There had only been a few humans playing his game today. They had hurried from Sugar Rush, gathered the others huddled around the entrance, and made it back just in time... to wait the entire morning for the technician Mr. Litwak had called to show up and for them to discover the game working again. Ralph and Felix didn't mind. Their minds were still whirling in the aftermath of what, just hours before, they had gone through. Nobody else knew what had happened, and Gene, especially, sent dirty looks and muttered his way whenever the chance arose. When the arcade closed, he stumbled off without even a glance at Felix, lost in this thoughts, and weary in a way that he had never been before. But Vanellope was safe, and her life restored, and that made anything bearable.

"RALPH!"

She couldn't push it away. He was falling. Into the crater. Into the flame. The image flickered in her brain as she sat up in her bed. Her real bed. The one stolen fifteen years before. This first night, it didn't feel like home, this room. It was large, and comfortable. The bed was huge, and covered with the fluffiest quilts she had ever imagined. The pillows were soft, and piled high against the back. She shoved a couple up to the headboard so she could lean against it.

Her hands were still shaking. "Why am I falling apart now?", she thought, "Ralph's safe, I'm safe... everyone's safe.". Then she started to think about her life, and in particular, the past couple of days. There were the years and years of frustration, and anger, and fear of being locked up. The dark thoughts wouldn't leave her alone, even though now she knew that it wasn't real. She couldn't hate everyone because Cand... Turbo... took away their memories. But that didn't take the pain away, and she knew that even Felix's magic hammer couldn't do that. Taffyta, the ringleader of her tormenters over the years, looked at her funny a lot today. Everybody was just going to have to adjust. She didn't even know how to properly be a Princess, or President, or whatever. Apparently, getting her memories back didn't help that much. Turbo had gotten to the code only a couple of days after it was plugged in.

She had been like a robot today, standing in the Royal box for the introduction screen. Since she was one of the nine who got the farthest on the course, she was added to the avatars. Quite a few had picked her today, since the humans who regularly played Sugar Rush had never seen her before. She now knew, for the first time ever, why everyone loved the Random Roster Race so much. It was the only time you, yourself, were in control. When a player was on the game, you could do really dumb things, like spin out, or hit another car, or crash off a cliff. You just didn't have a choice. "That is going to take some getting used to.", she told her hands, as if they could understand why they went left when they wanted to go right.

"So why now? I should be so happy!" She was practically shouting at the walls. "What is it about that big goof that...". Her voice trailed off. He would have died for her. He helped her when everyone else treated her like dirt. He didn't act like glitch was some bad disease. He was strong, and kind, in his own way, even when Turbo was misleading him. The thought that he was about to die broke something in her. "But WHY?", she thought as she got up to start the morning.

Tamora put down the book. It was a manual for the FP-49 Plasma Rifle. She had memorized it. Still new to the world, sleep came seldom, if at all, to her. She simply hadn't been 'alive' long enough to be familiar with the world yet. She'd only been into Game Central a couple of times to look around, and found nothing of interest. She didn't like the babe-in-the-woods feeling she had had the last few days. She was an expert on her game, but of the larger world, she was as innocent as the little girl they had saved. Funny, she thought, that that 'little girl' had a lifetime of memories, while she, the supposed adult, had only what she was programmed with. Her skills had been programmed, her life had been programmed, even her love had been programmed.

Is that what it was with Felix? She thought about the smiling handyman with a bit of a grin. Had it been the first time she had felt a choice in her own life? To kiss Felix was the first, the very first thing she had ever done that wasn't in her programming. Something that she wasn't prepared to feel, and it was good. She stood up and looked in the mirror. "Why does a Sergeant have eyeliner?" she wondered. Her face was smooth and flawless. "Not even bags under my eyes." She had been called attractive, and coarser things by some of the men, but not within earshot. Her looks had never really mattered before. "Maybe he only likes me for my resolution.", she laughed. "But that's a start."

Felix wasn't sleepy, either. Of everyone, and with everything they had done the past few days, he felt the worst. He spent the night just sitting in his chair, staring at the wall. There had been quite a bit of knocking on the door, but it had finally gone away. How could he be so happy with his thoughts one minute, and so unhappy the next? When he thought of his own actions, especially compared to everyone else, he felt embarrassed. And worse... useless. The total Hero of his own game, he was simply useless elsewhere. Trapped in the fungeon, he only made it worse untill Ralph had to bust him out.

He shivered at the next thought. While Tamora was blasting the cybugs encroaching on the Finish Line, one shot had gone through one and wounded another. It's head badly damaged, it crawled up behind Tamora, ready to sink a claw into her leg as she faced off the other way, firing madly. Felix had jumped between them and hit the wounded cybug as hard as he could. Of course, the only thing he had in hand was his hammer. The bug was more of an 'it' than a character, and instead of finishing it off, there was the familiar chime, and the bug miraculously, completely, instantly healed. Tamora spun at the sound, kicked Felix out of the way, and dispatched the cybug with a single round down its ugly, open maw. She then yelled for him to get to the exit with all the others.

"How will she end up feeling about me? I'm no soldier. It had to have just been the moment." Felix fed his dark thoughts. He waited for the arcade to open, since he would have something to occupy him. Something he could do.