Get With the Program

by Jeff20

This is set between the reset of Sugar Rush, and the moments before Felix and Calhoun's wedding. There was some time passed there. How does the girl with a new life win, and hold, the heart of her hero? It's not easy to be a young woman trapped in a young girl's code. This strays from the normal plot lines. Mild alcohol references, and not too suggestive.

6. Sorting it Out

Sorting it all out.

While many people felt that their night was just getting started, Vanellope was weary. After all the hectic movement, the fear, and the relief that everyone was safe, she felt like that one last bit of frosting someone had tried to cover an entire three-layer cake with. Shrugging off the concern of everyone, she was almost completely unaware of anyone else being there or talking to her. She apologized, and mumbling goodnight to everyone, she went to her room and flopped onto her bed. The racers and the guards, even Sour Bill, went down to the kitchen for drinks and conversation. The outside of the game was a scary place, and Taffyta and the others wanted some familiar faces around them just now.

Vanellope lay there, wondering about things… too many things. Ralph had spent time in Sugar Rush. How did things work between games? Do people… think the same? She knew the code… she had been living with the code that told her she was a racer, but had never been allowed to race. Learning, driving her car, chasing King Candy, trying to win, was the first time she had felt really alive. But the last day or so, driving wasn't that deep, burning desire it was all her life. It now was a more mellow thing. It made her think of the code, and especially hers, as some kind of a monster. It will control you; it will force you to eventually do what it wants. Like want to race, or even be a Princess.

"Is that it?", she wondered. "My code makes me who I am, I get that. But can I do anything, can I feel anything, that my code doesn't say?"

Then it came to her as a flash of insight. It was so obvious! She sat up suddenly, looking into the large mirror on the low Princess-height dresser across the room. "But the code never knew about Ralph! Ralph isn't part of my game!" So any thoughts of Ralph have to be hers, and hers alone! She let herself settle back down. She knew who she wanted to talk to. Drifting off into the twilight of thought that video game characters used as sleep, she organized what she planned to do in the morning.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Tamora was tired, too. Ordinarily, she would spend the day blasting bugs, come home, clean up, read a manual, and rest. The very un-ordinary night coupled with the thought that her newly discovered feelings for Felix could have ended with him being locked away from her forever made her shiver in a way no swarm of bugs could. She turned off the lamp and lay down, wanting to get to bottom of what she could trust as real or not. She felt it odd that she, leader of combat troops, needed the help of a young girl to understand life.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Felix had gotten home, sat down, and read the letter Tamora had slipped him. He read it again, and again, looking for anything else. Despite the smile and wink she had bestowed on him at the time, it was a simple, brief note: "Felix. I'll see you tomorrow. The Princess has everything under control. We need to talk. Tamora."

No hint at all. Granted, everyone was quite busy at the time, and there wasn't any opportunity for casual conversation. It sounded ominous, but Felix could never, ever forget the smile, and those bright blue eyes as he handed him, almost formally, this letter.

Well, it looks like he would find out tomorr…

*CRASH!*

From his half-open window, Felix flinched at what sounded like a pile of bricks falling. It sounded like Ralph was starting a game in the middle of the night. Felix bounced to the window. His apartment faced the dump, and he saw a most unusual sight.

Ralph had cleared out a large space at the foot of the dump. He was sorting out building parts and bricks from the enormous pile of rubble that had built up over the years. Like a child with blocks, he was trying, with his huge hands, to stack the bricks into walls. Of course, he wasn't very good at this, so after so many, they collapsed back into a heap. Felix watched this happen again, then heard Ralph use some very bad language as he drove his fist into a pile, shooting brick splinters in all directions, then sit down heavily, his head in his hands.

"My lands!" Thought Felix. "He's trying to build something." Felix felt it might be important to know why his friend would be doing this now. He went downstairs, and walked out towards the dump, coming over beside Ralph, who seemed oblivious to his presence.

"Ralph, old buddy?" Ralph started a bit, and lifted his head and looked over at Felix, whose look of genuine concern made him swallow his first, angry thought to tell him to get lost. Not having friends before this week, he had to work to hold off his temper. Now he knew people could care about him, even if just a little.

"Hi, Felix. Just… uh… straightening up a bit." He tried to bluff through his actions, but it clearly looked like he wasn't being normal right now. He decided to come clean. "Look, Felix." Ralph pointed to the green-wrapped package, carefully propped against the tree closest the dump. "She gave me a picture. She told me to hang it up on my wall. She's going to come by and see all I have for a home is a stump and a pile of garbage." He looked over towards the train stop as if he felt she would step out any second now. "She's a Princess now, you saw her. She's… beau… adorable… and everybody… loves… her. She doesn't need me to wreck anything for her anymore. She's probably embarrassed to be seen with me now." His rambling trailed off, as he started getting lost in his thoughts again.

Felix looked at Ralph, then around at the flat area surrounded by little heaps of bricks. Now he understood. Ralph wanted a home, a place of his own, something normal for the young Princess to see. Ralph was ashamed, after all these years, because he had never cared about anybody else's opinion of him before.

Felix then did something a bit unexpected, even to himself; he laughed! Holding his left arm out as he saw Ralph's head twirl towards him, he drew his hammer and held it out. "Ralph, buddy, do have any idea who you're talking too?"

Ralph's brain shifted into a slightly higher gear. Then his face brightened as he took in the fact that Felix would help him. "But Felix… you know most of this stuff is what I've been trying to drop on your head all day. Every day. All our lives."

Felix grinned. "That's because it's the game, Ralph. Didn't this whole mess start because you said that the game wasn't your whole life? That when we were not in the game, we could be different people? Can't you take your own advice? Let's fix it!"

Ralph had a surge of optimism flow through him as he stood up. After some discussion of how they would do this, Ralph and Felix laid out a section of wall, with the bricks lined up just right. Felix's plan was to fix the wall, then Ralph would lift it into place. Eventually they would have enough wall sections for a house. Felix leaned over the loosely joined bricks on the ground and tapped it with his hammer.

And then, in what would have been very funny any other time, the two characters discovered the one major problem with this plan. And the problem, in the most real ironic way, was the magic hammer of Fit-it Felix… Jr.

You see, the human programmers of Fix-it Felix Jr. had been simple and absolute when they created the code for the hammer. The code was strong. The hammer could instantly repair, to its original condition, or even better, anything it hit. Not only could Felix fix the building easily, he proved it worked totally. The hammer repaired Vanellope's cart. It even repaired the complex electronics of a Hero Duty's shuttle. But… there was a limit… of one 'thing' per hit.

When Felix tapped the bricks, the hammer used its magic to the fullest. The problem was that out of a random pile of decades worth of bricks, stones, and windows, stuff was totally mixed together so no two bits were from the same thing. Tapping the group of bricks restored the dozen walls that they originally came from. The shock of the restored walls threw Felix and Ralph back ten feet as the mixture of bricks restored into an enormous mess of a dozen walls, all jammed together and pointing parts in all directions. The result was a twenty-foot sort-of sculpture made of jagged wall parts.

They stood up, and dusted the brick bits off, and looked at the result. Felix had a confused look on his face, while Ralph was crestfallen. This was worse than what he had been trying to do. Felix stared at his hammer as if it had spoken to him. For the first time, he wasn't sure why it didn't work.

Then the ides came to him… "It did work!" He looked up at Ralph and smiled. "Look, it put back every wall that those bricks came from! We can make this work! Um, can you clear that out?" He thought about his plan, as Ralph swept the pile out of the way, his long arms cleaning off the flat space quickly.

As he stood and watched the handyman, Felix looked up and said; "Ralph, get me a piece of the penthouse floor." Ralph went and dug through the dump, until he came back with a corner that he had wrecked a few days earlier. Felix had him lay it in the clearing, and turn it just so. Then he tapped it.

The result was what he had figured. Now, filling the clearing, was a perfect copy of the penthouse floor, shiny as the day the game was plugged in. Ralph's hopes lifted as Felix began having him find particular pieces of wreckage, all matching the stone and carving of the penthouse. By trial and error, with Ralph having to smash and throw away a lot of wrong guesses, they had a total duplicate penthouse setting on the ground. It looked as if the entire Niceland building had sunk to the top floor. After finding, and fixing a piece of roof, Ralph, with his great strength, shoved it into place.

After that came some touch-ups, like furniture, and the front doors. Even the foyer was faithfully copied. Beds, four of them, repaired and frames laid side to side, made one enormous Ralph-sized bed on one side of the room. There was no shortage of torn mattresses or cushions, which the hammer fixed as easily as brick. Not using the hammer, they layered bricks underneath everything for the extra support Ralph needed.

Eventually, with the sun beginning to peek through the windows of the arcade, they were finished. Ralph stood in the middle of the room, which was both familiar and strange at the same time. "Mine."; he thought. "I have my own place. I have a home."

Felix could have sworn he saw a tear trickling down from Ralph's eye, but thought he shouldn't mention it just then. "Oh… forgot something." Felix said as he stepped outside the double doors. He went over to the tree and fetched the picture. He carried it in and shoved it towards Ralph.

"Well, open it up, Ralph." Ralph walked over. He carefully held the picture as he stripped the ribbon and the wrapping from it. He stared at it a long time. Long enough that Felix began fidgeting, even though he was smiling, and getting a bit impatient.

He walked over to the side wall. Taking out a nail, he placed it against the wall and tapped it with the hammer, which of course, drove it in to the exact depth and angle needed. Ralph watched this, and walked over and gently hung the picture. They stepped back to admire what had started this night's work, and had been such a worry to Ralph. Felix walked over, and straightened one corner a bit.

"Well, that's that." Felix said. "Ralph, I'm going to nod off a while, and you can relax too. You don't have to feel the least bit of shame because of Miss Vanellope, ever. We can fix this up so fancy that Gene will want to move in."

"Goodnight, Felix." Ralph said, still in a slight daze at standing in his own house, after thirty years. Then, another feeling hit him. He turned as Felix was walking towards the door. "Felix?" pause "I don't know how to thank you. I couldn't have done this…" He tried to put it in words. Humility still didn't come easily to him. The man who's main emotion was anger was having to put up a major fight with his code when he wanted… he found he needed… to feel something else.

Felix understood. "Look, friend, I get it. Our code tells us how to play, and sometimes we forget. I didn't understand you all these years because my code makes me happy when I beat you. I just didn't think about you the same way. The game says you're angry, but you don't want to be that all the time. Until this week, I never understood that. I just hope you can forgive me… us all… for it. The Nicelanders will come around eventually, I know they will."

Ralph looked at Felix, feeling that he had friends now. That made a lot of anger go away. Just how much anger was the game, and how much was his desire to be thought of as something besides the Bad Guy, only time would tell.

As Felix left, and the door… his door… softly swung shut behind him, Ralph sat down on the bed… his bed… and thought about anger, and how one little girl made it go away so easily now when he thought about her. Ralph them recalled that he had completely forgotten the important questions he had wanted to ask Felix. Felix was in love. It was obvious. But how do you know? He wasn't… programmed for such things. Do you turn it on like a switch? Or off? He looked up. Vanellope smiled at him from the other wall.

Dare he turn it on?

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Vanellope was up at first light. In Sugar Rush, there was always some light. The sky always had a kind of pure blue shade. The closest to night they had was a partial dusk. Most just closed the curtains when they wanted to rest. The palace had many large windows, and there were two such on the outside wall of her room. She didn't draw the blinds, because after the years and years of hiding in the fiery half darkness of Diet Cola Mountain, she wanted all the light she could get. Light used to be a luxury. Light helped make her a target for Turbo. She walked over and looked out the window to beauty and color as far as she could see. A day to not have to run, or hide, or try to get a cart. She could do anything she wanted here. There were people… people who looked up to her now, and trusted her. She thought that it might not be all fun and games, being the one in charge. She tilted her head at the new thought. They hated her for so long, and now she has to protect them.

She snickered. The same guards that had spent their entire lives chasing her would lock anybody up she said. Taffyta and the others who hounded her all those years could be made to suffer. "But why?", the rational part of her said. "They didn't know, and as far as they knew, the King was right." Her little joke at them after the reset made her smile, but also made her realize that their loyalty was now absolute. She was still having a problem with the President thing. Princess was hard-wired into their code. That would take some time. But she had a bigger problem… one with big hands.

Light-hearted for the moment, she glitched from her nightgown into her 'cool clothes', as she thought of them. She had worn her green outfit for so long; it felt a part of her. Running a brush through her tangled mass of hair was the only new item on her morning prep list. Running through the throne room, she passed Sour Bill. "Catch you later, sourpuss." She said as she went by. "I'm off for my appointments."

Sour Bill screwed his face up, looking, if possible, a bit sourer. "But your… Highness… you don't…". He managed to get out before the main door shut. He sighed. It was more orderly under King Candy, but in spite of it being more hectic now, he was… dare he say it?... happier. Advising the Princess didn't make him feel like he was always fighting something inside now.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Bearded Poppa was getting to work. He wondered why he bothered today. With the arcade closed, there would be no players, and nobody would be using the mini-games. Then he started to laugh at himself. He had never taken a day off, not in fifteen years! King Candy had left absolute, ironclad orders that the Bakery was never to be left unguarded. Never, at all, or King Candy swore to put him into the fungeon until 'hot cookies froze over'. As caretaker and handyman, he also became the watchman. Candy had put in the monitors, and locks, and had Devil Dogs patrol regularly. So every day he had watched.

He was just picking up his lunch to leave for his first day off ever, when he saw the cart zooming up the road towards the bakery. He knew that cart, and that racer. So he did something that felt so funny after so long; he put down the lunch box, raised the gate bar for the cart to pass, and bowed his head.

But the cart didn't pass. Still looking down, Poppa heard the cart stop. For a few seconds, he heard the low purr of the idle. Then the engine stopped. He raised his head, the first thing to catch his eye was that one red headlight of the Princess's 'other' car. Then he looked at her. She had a confused look. Her eyes went from him, to the raised gate, to the bakery, then wildly looked around the area, then snapped back to him. She seemed to be chewing on something, thought wise.

Poppa smiled. "If I thought it would help, I'd stand here and apologize all day. I'd bake you a hundred carts if it would help. I did wrong to my Princess all this time and I don't know what to say." He took another breath, and moved his arm in a broad sweep towards the Bakery. "But it's your Bakery, and I'm not a guard anymore."

Vanellope screwed up her courage; "Bearded Poppa, I know. I know all about how King Candy took everything. One day I'll tell you more to that story. But I came out here hoping to find you. I need to ask you something."

Poppa raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, if it's how to dress up that ugly cart, we can…"

"NO!" Vanellope pushed both arms out in front of her in mock horror. "Don't touch anything! It's perfect!"

Another eyebrow at that one. "Well, your Highness, what can I do for you? And folks just call me Poppa around here."

Vanellope bounced out of the cart and came over to the curb where he was standing beside the booth. "Can we sit down a minute?", she plopped down on the curb, her hands on her knees, looking at him. Poppa sat down next to her, and looked over at the worried face, the lines in her forehead, and the eyes that looked like they hadn't gotten quite enough rest.

"This sounds important." Poppa said, "And I'm not able to help much on… what was the saying… matters of state."

Vanellope looked him straight in the eyes. "No, it's not that. It's way more important… at least to me." She looked around as if she had one last thought to run. Then she sighed.

"Poppa, I need you to tell me about… about… growing up." She looked him in the eyes again. "And getting older. How it feels. How can I do it?"

Poppa understood now. Problem was, he didn't have any more eyebrows to raise. She wasn't going to like it, but he understood the truth better than she did. "But she didn't have a normal life. She never had a chance to learn things the right way." He had to figure out how to say it right, as he looked into the big hazel eyes that needed an answer.

He stood up, and paced back and forth a few steps in front of her. The he straightened up, faced her, and tried his best to make her understand.

"I'd like to. I'll tell you anything I know. But I promise you, I'm no older than you are." He watched a mixture of shock and confusion fight for control of her face. He thought; "If she gets mad, I'm going to run." He walked over and sat back down. Not quite looking her in the eyes, he tried to explain.

"Ahem… Princess, on the day the game was plugged in, and we all came… err… alive for the first time, we were all just like we are now. In over fifteen years, not one person has changed in the least. I'm the old caretaker because my code says I'm an old caretaker. He thought for a few moments more, then looked straight into her face. "But it's not that part of the code that's the most important. It's how much code that matters."

Vanellope scrunched up her face, trying to understand. "How much? How… I mean… what…" she couldn't form the right question.

Poppa continued. "See, you have thousands of subjects here, thousands. But how many do you talk to? How many can do things?"

Vanellope thought about it. The guards, the racers… Poppa here… and… "Not many."

Poppa chanced a small smile. "That's because of the code, you see. All the spectators, all the citizens, they're just a little bit of code. They watch the race, and they cheer for the racers. You, know, they don't even care who wins. They're really simple people. They watch, they cheer, then they go home and talk about the races. They probably dream about them. That's all they do."

Poppa paused a second; "Then there's people like me, and Sour Bill, and the guards, and the racers. We have things to do. We were created a little smarter so we can do our part of the game. I refill the vats in the Bakery, make sure it works, and clean up the ones that didn't finish." He smiled; "And you and your boyfriend left a doozey of a mess in there the other day." Vanellope looked at her knees and blushed a bit.

Poppa pointed at her. "And then there's you. You're the Princess. You make sure everything's in order. You show the players the demo. You can race. You can think more than the rest of us. And there's one thing, I think, that makes you really special."

Vanellope looked up at his face, the question in her eyes. Poppa cleared his throat. "Look, when the game reset, we all got our memories back. We remembered what happened under Candy, but we also remembered our real code. We all went back to what we were originally created to do. I fixed the Bakery back to the day we were plugged in… no more locks for you."

He paused a moment to try to say it right; "But you… you… are different. You didn't just go back to being the Princess like you were those days before Candy took over. You can be the Princess when you want, but… " . He waved his hand, indicating the outfit Vanellope chose to wear. "You can make up your own mind. The way I look at it… you grew up."

Vanellope wasn't sure if that was the answer she wanted. So there was no change. She was at least really happy she wasn't magically turned back into some spoiled, prissy snob. Poppa was telling her she had kept more control of her own, separate personality, formed outside the code. Princess Vanellope and the glitch Vanellope that formed when Turbo tried to delete her code had come together without a fight. Nothing had been forgotten or written over… they had just merged.

Poppa summed it up; "So if anyone can answer your question, it would be you. You're the only one I know who's done it."

She stood up. Poppa stood with her. "I've got other people to see today, but I want to thank you. I don't know if I'm… happy with this… but… sigh! I guess I've got to make it work, somehow."

Poppa tried not to smile at her confusion. "Bet this has something to do with that feller you've been tearing up the game with. That's another thing I can't help you with. But from what we all saw, I don't see a problem there."

Vanellope stamped her foot and clenched her fists. Poppa leaned back. "But there is a problem with 'that feller'!" she exclaimed; "He only thinks of me as…" She passed her hands down her sides, "…as a little girl! A child! I'll be sixteen soon, and even that shouldn't matter because I'll NEVER get big enough for him to think of me as a grown person!" She was panting, balanced between anger and sadness. "He won't look at me as somebody who loves him, and I don't mean a sister, or friend, or… anything else! The code says I look like a little girl, and I act like a little girl, but part of me thinks! Part of me doesn't…" She paused. She dropped her hands. She looked into Poppa's face, and said in a tiny voice; "Part of me doesn't even want to be me if there's no Ralph."

Poppa stepped over and risked putting a hand on her shoulder. "Your Highness, I don't know what to try to say. But I do know one thing, here. You're smart. Smartest person here. And you're… unique. Nobody else has ever been where you have. But after fifteen years of chasing you around here, I know you can find a way."

Vanellope tried to smile a bit. She gave him a quick hug, and got back in her cart, turned around, and headed for the Rainbow Road. She waved goodbye over her shoulder.

Poppa watched her cart get smaller in the distance. If the Princess had set her sights on that big man, he really didn't stand a chance.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Vanellope was a little early to the station. She had spoken with Duncan, and assured him that she would be with Ralph or Calhoun. Duncan still insisted that somebody needed to make sure someone just made sure she got there. So it was she and Duncan riding the train down. The car slid to a quiet stop, and they walked out the exit.

After the hullaballoo last night, she didn't know what to expect. But it was, she reckoned, normal. It was early, and there were few characters about. She stepped out into the main hall, looking around at all the gates, and the games they led to. She saw Hero's Duty, and her eyes rested for a few moments on Fix-it Felix Jr. Later. There was plenty of time later, but she was anxious to get going.

Saying goodbye to Duncan, who was settling down on a bench, she walked down the corridor of Hero's Duty. The train was enormous! Huge, dark, with clicks and hisses coming from the body of the multi-car metal shell. As she walked up, the sliding doors slid apart. She leaned over to peek around the door. No one was there, and the rows of plastic benches and plain metal poles looked so stark and unfriendly. There was an oily smell to everything. It was the opposite of Sugar Rush completely, and she thought she started to understand the gruff, all-business Calhoun a little better. She stepped up into the car, and sat on one of the hard seats. The doors closed, and the train slid out of the station, so fast Vanellope almost fell over sideways. But the ride was fast, she thought. Only a few seconds until she was pushed forward by the force of the brakes.

She stepped out of the car. The platform was empty. Well, she was early, but she thought somebody would be about. She looked around, wondering what to do. In Sugar Rush, there was only the short walk to the Rainbow Road. Here, in this large station with all sorts of signs, and blinking lights, were several doors. One large metal one, and two smaller ones. She then remembered that this was the place the cybugs came from! She began looking around wildly. "I'm stupid!" She thought; "I need to get out of here before they eat me!"

"Who are you, and what's your business!"

The sound had come from a square panel on the wall nearest her. Vanellope jumped several feet in surprise and fell on her… back. Above the panel, a small box with a round eye rotated to look at her. A camera! She knew what cameras were; that's how the players saw the tracks in Sugar Rush.

"Umm, Vanellope von Schweetz, and I'm from Sugar Rush." She stood, and brushed off her… back. "I'm here to see… umm… Calhoun? Tall blond lady? She has…"

"Uh, Miss?" The speaker interrupted her; "Believe me, everyone here is very much aware of who the Sergeant is. And she has left instructions. You're a bit early, but someone is on their way to escort you right now. And Miss… please don't push any buttons."

At that moment, one of the small doors slid open. Kohut stepped through and stood in front of her. "He was with Ralph yesterday." Vanellope recalled.

Kohut looked at her, and swept his arm towards the open door. "If you please, Princess, I'll take you to town."

Vanellope walked over to the door. She looked in the small, tiny, room with no windows. She looked up at Kohut. "Not too many people are going to get in there." She said, "And she's not here."

Kohut was confused for a second, then grinned; "It's an elevator, your Highness. Ummm, a small room that moves… like a train. It goes to the town. I reckon you don't have a lot of tech in other games."

Satisfied, but with a bit of apprehension, Vanellope stepped into the little room, standing off to one side to make room for Kohut as she watched him press a button on the wall. The door closed, and she felt the floor move. Trying to keep up a strong front, she said; "Well, we have cameras, and carts, but I guess we don't have this tech stuff. Nothing like this. And everything's so dark… and smelly… sorry… I don't know if you'd like my game, either."

Kohut nodded. "Who knows? The Sergeant said all the colors and the sugar in the air gave her a headache. But we've… always lived like this. We go out now and see other games, but a lot of the men just got to Tapper's after work."

"Is that a fun game?" Vanellope asked. Kohut shrugged. "More of a gathering place. Get a drink, talk… you know. Characters for lots of games go there. Sometimes get in trouble." He thought of Markowski.

The room shook lightly and stopped. The door slid opened, and Kohut stepped out, hand on his sidearm. He blocked her in the door as he took a look around, then relaxed a bit and stepped aside. She followed him as he walked down a narrow paved path to a group of buildings down the gentle slope."

Worried a bit, Vanellope asked; "Are there those bugs here? Like, all the time?" She couldn't imagine living in fear all the… well, yes she could.

Kohut gave her the story quickly as they approached the first buildings; "When the game was programmed, it always starts with us landing from the ship to clear out the lab. That's where the player always starts. But there is no ship. We didn't have any place to stay in the game. One part of the town was part of the game. The families and a few scientists not at the lab were here to be rescued. We just put up some sensors and monitors, then patrol the place. The sky is a bit lighter here, and we use the buildings and warehouses. There's even a few farms outside of town."

They walked past a church, the once beautiful stained-glass window on one end smashed. There were more Space Marines standing around, everyone seemed to be staring at her. In doorways, leaning out windows, and standing just off the street near them.

"Are they looking at me?" Vanellope asked. Kohut smiled as he looked down to her uplifted face. "Yes, they are. Sergeant Calhoun came back the other day after tracking that cybug and your boyfriend. She told us things that we would never have believed, if they hadn't been from her. She told us about a young girl who charged a swarm of 'bugs. She had no armor, no weapons, but she had some dangerous magic. Then we saw you yesterday face down an angry mob that armed Marines couldn't stop. So you're a VIP, and they want to see the little tiger in person."

Besides not knowing what a tiger or a VIP was, she marveled at the thought that everyone thought of her glitch as dangerous magic. But… "Wait." She asked; "Everybody thinks Ralph is my boyfriend… even here?"

Kohut stopped, and glanced at her serious face. He knelt down so he could look her more straight in the eyes. "See here. I was in the Felix game with those two. When Ralph heard you were in the arcade, all I saw in his eyes was fear. And not for himself. He pretty much didn't care what happened to him last night." He stood up again. "So yes… everybody knows you two have a thing going."

Vanellope absorbed that bit of information. Then she looked up. "A… thing?"

Kohut held up a hand, wiggled his fingers; "Yeah… you know… a thing." He dared a wink at her. He watched her quickly look down at the ground, her hands clasped in front of her, with her face turning a light-to-medium pink. Whoops. "Maybe you should talk to Calhoun about it."

They walked towards a small one-story cottage in silence after that. Several around it were damaged or destroyed, but some of the neighborhood had been repaired as well as their carpenter skills allowed.

The door opened as they approached, Calhoun standing in the doorway. She looked as Vanellope had always seen her… light armor, and the ever-present sidearm. She had a tired, worried look this time, though. "How can someone look so beautiful and so tired at the same time?" Vanellope wondered.

Calhoun thanked Kohut, and ushered Vanellope inside.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo