Sitting alone in a big, empty castle wasn't really how Vanellope imagined she'd be spending her typical Saturday night after the restoration of her game, but that's exactly what she found herself doing, twice in a row now.

The game had been reset for almost three weeks. Ralph was sometimes busy, and he couldn't make it to her game to see her on Saturdays because that's when he had a guy's night with Felix and occasionally a few other characters now that he was more accepted. He was also helping with the construction of more apartments in Niceland for the homeless characters, and thus couldn't visit several other days of the week.

Vanellope thought it was great and all, but she really wished that he could spend just a bit more time with her, because, she didn't really have any other good friends. That was why she was sitting in the castle alone three or four days a week.

She could go see some of the racers, so easily…

She stared at the door of her minty-green room for a while.

Maybe she should just go out and try to be social with the racers. What's the worst thing that could happen? A 'no thanks'? Awkward silences? Inside jokes she didn't understand? Them telling her that they still hated her for no reason?

'Okay, maybe THAT one wouldn't happen. Now I'm just being unreasonable.' She scolded herself mentally for the last thought.

She glanced at the door one last time.

She could…but, no.

Vanellope proceeded to stay in her room and entertain herself by drawing pictures of whatever came to mind. She'd get around to talking to the racers some other time.

(Elsewhere)

Candlehead poked Taffyta for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day.

"What is it this time, Candle?" Taffyta asked in an exasperated manner, though not rudely. She had always taken it upon herself to be responsible for the cake-themed racer, and that meant getting used to her quirks. Like poking.

"Well, I was thinking.." Candlehead started, looking concerned, but was interrupted by Gloyd, who was hanging out with them at the moment. Rancis, Taffyta, Candlehead, and Gloyd were currently at the center of the town, lounging about and talking casually as they walked in the direction of Rancis' house to get to a part of the candy cane forest that they liked to hang out in.

"That's a first." He snickered.

"Oh, can it. What were you thinking?" Taffyta asked curiously, leaning in to hear and now really wondering what her friend had to say. Candlehead was rarely so serious.

'What could she be thinking that's gotten her so worried about it?' Taffyta thought, looking at the concerned expression on her friend's face.

"I was thinking that Vanellope might be sick or something." Candlehead said, thinking pretty hard about it and idly twisting her hair around a finger as she spoke. "We never see her around unless she's with Ralph, and they usually stay in the forest somewhere in in the castle, or even in the GCS. When Ralph or one of her other out-of-this-game friends can't visit, she just races then keeps to herself all day until the roster race, then goes back inside right after." Candlehead pointed out. "But, I might just be imagining it." She shrugged it off, but she still seemed confused with the matter.

Now that had Taffyta thinking as well. She knew that their new president wasn't sick, but everything Candlehead had pointed out was true.

Taffyta thought hard about it for a moment, and an idea of what was going on formed in her head. "I think…" she started slowly, "I think Vanellope just doesn't want to hang out with us." She frowned at the thought.

"What? Why not?" Gloyd asked with a frown of his own. "Don't you remember how she was always going on about wanting to be friends with us back in her glitch days?" He protested, furrowing his brow.

"That's exactly the point! Every single time she asked to be friends, we were awful to her! Just, think about it, would you want to be friends with everyone if they did some of the stuff we did to her, to you?" Taffyta asked accusingly, raising an eyebrow.

"Well….." Gloyd lowered his head in defeat. "No. I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone."

"Exactly. But, we all feel pretty bad now, don't we? The only thing is…no matter what we do now, it'll look bad in somebody else's eyes. If we wait and just don't interact with her until she tries to talk to us, it'll be like we don't care about what we did all those years, but if we take the first move and tell her we're really sorry…It'll look to some people like we're only sorry because of her new status as president of the game. No matter what we do, we'll lose! And I don't 'do' losing!" Taffyta paced back and forth as she ranted to her friends, throwing her arms out occasionally to emphasize points.

"Well…Maybe, before we do anything, we should figure out where we really do stand on the matter. Is anything you said true?" Rancis said slowly, trying to figure it out.

"D-do you think… do you think that maybe that really is how we feel?" He breathed, shoulders slumped miserably, and a slight dampness in his eyes became apparent as he looked at the ground shamefully.

The group of friends grew tense, sinking into an unnerving silence like it was nesquik-sand. The long silence left plenty of time for reflection, and even more time for guilt to seep in, time that each of them spent thinking, each about different things.

Rancis was thinking about what had ever gotten into him that could have made him think that being mean to anyone was okay.

Taffyta was thinking about her own motives, thinking about what Rancis asked. Was she really being shallow and just trying to make herself look like a better person by pretending she had no ulterior motive for feeling bad and wanting to make right her wrong?

Gloyd was thinking about the tense silence.

Candlehead was thinking about riding a unicorn through a meadow and lighting it on fire with her candle, then basking in the sweet scent of the burning nature and running off to set an isolated candy village on fire to see how bright it burned and whether or not candy citizens liked to be on fire.

Taffyta drew a deep breath in as she reached her conclusion, and her friends' eyes turned to her quickly, wondering what the answer was. The thick silence began to seep away as she lifted her head to look her friends in the eyes.

"No." Taffyta got that one short word out first, and the confidence behind it comforted her friends, if only just a little.

"Everything we did was wrong, completely wrong, yes…" She shook her head slowly and continued speaking. "But she never heard what …" She trailed off as her face gave way to an expression of anger. "She never heard what Turbo told us." From the way she spat that name out, it was clear that the mere mention of him seemed to leave a bad taste in her mouth. All three of her friends cringed visibly at the name.

"He fed us lies, but he didn't want to make us hate her. He was trying to make us fear her." She practically growled.

In all their talking and thinking, none of the racers had noticed the tall person behind them, who made herself known at that moment.

"And with the fear, you pipsqueaks made the hate all on your own." All four friends nearly jumped out of their skin when Calhoun said this, having not known that she was there before.

"What do you mean by that?" Candlehead asked curiously. She asked this about many things, but this time it just happened to actually be about something that had other people wanting to ask the same thing.

"Fear is what breeds hate." Calhoun said knowingly. "You feared shortstop because she was different, right? Not something you were used to, not something you wanted to deal with." She said coolly, looking to the side and then back at the kids. "You had no idea how she worked, you knew absolutely nothing about her. How were you supposed to know if she was some sort of impossible piece of code that wasn't programmed by the makers of the game? How were you supposed to know if she was going to do something bad to you if you let your guard down near her?" She received curious expressions at this. "You didn't. But not knowing anything about her started to make you mad. So you made things up. You gave yourself excuses for not treating her well. You pretended that she wasn't sentient, you imagined away the tears and the injuries you caused her. You practically made her out to be some sort of devil's advocate any time she retaliated against you, which was self-defense on her part anyways, from what I hear. And all the while, you lived in your own, perfect little worlds, where you didn't have to question anything. And that's exactly what Turbo wanted you to do." Calhoun narrowed her eyes. All of the children now had mortified expressions, mixtures of fear, guilt, remorse, shame, and shock crossing their faces as the full extent of what had happened dawned upon them. Calhoun's facial expression stayed hardened.

"It started out as fear, and it escalated to hate because fear made you feel vulnerable, and because it stung your pride. I understand fear perfectly. I understand everything you did, very well." Calhoun suddenly and inexplicably went down on a knee to look them all in the eyes. She was intimidating by all means, but she wasn't showing direct anger.

"And in spite of all of that, your president forgave you willingly. So man up and do what's right, you have no time to waste dawdling when your commander still questions her own standpoint with her 'troops'. Make nice, or fail trying." Calhoun abruptly stood up and turned on a heel, continuing on her way to the castle, most likely to visit Vanellope.

Just as she was about to go out of hearing range, Calhoun shouted back to them: "That's an order!"

Taffyta turned and looked at her friends, most of which were still digesting everything they had just heard and then some. Except for Candlehead. She was currently mesmerized by the flame on her candle, having taken her helmet off in the middle of Calhoun's rant, and was simply staring intensely into the fire.

She sighed and snapped Rancis and Gloyd back to attention, though she didn't bother trying with Candlehead. She was long gone until she decided to stop staring into that fire.

"So, you guys…do you want to wait a while, think everything over well, and all that? Right now, I think we have a lot of reflection to do. We also have a lot of hiding to do, because I think that Vanellope's soldier friend will give us a beating if she figures out that we're trying to put it off." Taffyta said, glancing warily in the direction Calhoun had gone off in, towards the castle. She quickly began to speed walk in the direction of Rancis' house.

"She scares me…" Gloyd whimpered, all of his usual confidence lacking. "One time, this pie prank I set up missed someone, and it hit her husband in the face instead…" He shuddered at the memory, and shielded his 'down there' area protectively, before turning in the direction of his own house. "I have to go, I have a lot on my mind…including safety." He then ran off.

Candlehead snapped out of her trance soon after, and looked around the town square in a confused manner. "What were we doing again? Oh yeah, the sergeant was talking to us….hmm, I need to go get a match and add a little more flame to my candle…I'm going to go home, okay? Night Taff, night Rancis!" Candlehead skipped off merrily, leaving Rancis and Taffyta in the town and walking towards Rancis' house so that he could also retreat for the night.

(POV shift)

"So, umm…I guess we both really have a lot to think about, huh?" Rancis commented, glancing over at his friend.

'And that's an understatement.' He thought to himself.

"Yeah." Taffyta breathed, letting all of the wound up tension out of her system. "I never thought about some of that stuff. It's….it's really quite the situation, isn't it?"

"You said it." Rancis agreed wholeheartedly, nodding. "So, where are you staying tonight?" He asked tentatively, not quite sure whether this was a sore subject or not. Tafffyta's house had been eaten and destroyed by Cy-bugs during their brief invasion, and hadn't reset because the racers had all made their houses, they weren't initially coded in, and she had taken to simply bunking with the other racers.

"Hmm? Oh, I hadn't thought about that…I guess it's not too late to ask Jubileena…" Taffyta muttered in response, trying to think.

"Um, if you'd like, you could stay at my house, I guess. It's late. My house really isn't much, but, uh, it's shelter." Rancis was thoroughly embarrassed throughout the statement, he knew very well he'd catch it with the other guys for letting a girl into his house to stay the night, something that was often equated to romance. In truth he had no romantic interest in Taffyta, seeing her more as an overbearing sibling who won at everything.

People used to say that he had a romantic interest in himself, but he found that he wasn't nearly as vain after the reset of the game. He was often rather shy, now. Maybe it was just him being shy, maybe it was the fact that Turbo's rule only brought out the worst in people and never brought decency, so once he was wiped of its stain on his personality he had to develop a whole new one. He wasn't sure what it was, but suddenly he felt like he had been selfish and rude for most of his life and was trying to make up for it now.

He was also embarrassed because his house really wasn't much, though something was still better than nothing.

'Please, please don't accept.' He pleaded mentally, willing Taffyta to say no.

"No, it's fine." Taffyta shook her head, "I can bunk with Juby. Thanks for the offer though." Rancis tried to restrain any signs of obvious relief until Taffyta left.

She walked away, and when she was out of earshot, he let out a sigh of relief and whispered to himself, "That was a close one…"

He slowly walked towards his home thinking harder about the conversation with Calhoun.

He was smart, and he understood most of it at face value right away, but there was more to it, he was sure. The simple equation of 'fear = hate' made more sense than he'd have liked it to, that wasn't what he was questioning. He was questioning Calhoun's knowledge on their actions and the motives behind them. She got into their heads so easily. Rancis realized with a start that everything Calhoun had said was true.

They did that. They did all of that. They did pretend she wasn't a living, feeling character like they were. They did imagine away all of the very real signs of pain and suffering coming from her, as they were signs that maybe she did feel and think just like they did, and they wanted nothing in common with the unknown, unnatural thing that King Candy –Turbo – had made her into by word of mouth.

Turbo had preached about why she was bad. Many times.

Rancis tried to think back to some of the things the now-deceased racer had said about 'the glitch'.

"It wasn't programmed by the makers of the game! It's unnatural! It shouldn't exist by right!" the lisping voice rattled in his mind.

"It feeds off of madness, it comes to the racetrack to cause chaos! And if it races and crosses the finish line, It'll transfer some of its glitching code onto the racer behind it, and then there'll be two of them! That's how a game goes out of order!" Lies, lies, so many lies, that voice had told him.

"Rancis, you cannot feel bad for anything like that. It looks like a character, carries itself like one, and is astonishingly good at faking emotion. But it is not a character, and that fact will always remain. Those tears were fake. The pleading was fake. The appearance of the glitch is probably also fake, I bet it doesn't even look like a person when it's not wearing the disguise of a girl. Maybe it has sharp claws to rip real, coded characters up with under that disguise. You certainly wouldn't feel bad for it then, would you? I know I wouldn't." Rancis clutched his head in anguish, He had believed all of that, once. He was such a terrible, terrible person.

Did Vanellope even know half of the rumors, half of the things Turbo had told all of the racers bout her? He knew that they were all fake, but other racers…there was word going around the other racers that some of them were true. They still had the nerve to be mean to her, only this time they did it in the form of whispers on the street and gossip behind the scenes. Was Vanellope blissfully unaware? Or did she know about all of it and simply not want to say anything?

Rancis groaned and hit his head against the door of his house, while he had been thinking, he had completed the walk to his house.

He idled by the door for a moment before walking in to his house and flopping onto the comfort of his bed. He tossed his hat and jacket aside, near the bookshelf because he didn't really have anywhere to put them.

He muffled a sigh with his pillow and then turned up to face the ceiling, staring at it and trying to sort out everything in his head. Tomorrow he had the day off. It was Sunday tomorrow.

After staring at his wall for a long amount of time, Rancis decided that he needed to talk to Vanellope first thing tomorrow. They had already held the roster race earlier after closing, so he'd have to go straight to the castle and ask for her.

And he was going to do it without Taffyta, or any help. They were all just going to keep putting it off, and he wasn't sure they even really cared as much as he did. This was something he needed to do on his own, and besides, he just couldn't do everything with Taffyta anymore. They were still friends, but Rancis was beginning to get annoyed by her arrogance. It had lessened a little, but nonetheless, it was there, and the fact that Taffyta would still boast and rub victories in people's faces when she was worked up after a race bothered him. A lot.

He personally was trying to be less vain, surely she could at least try and be less arrogant.

So he was going to do it on his own, and he was going to do a great job. He would clean the slate, and then everyone would be friends!

He shut his eyes and fell soundly asleep, already both excited and nervous for the next day.

(Back with the president)

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Vanellope heard the loud noise and darted out of her room, pushing the door open. Someone was at the front door? Well, great timing, 'cause she was starting to grow bored of drawing pictures.

She ran to the front door and opened it without hesitation. She looked up to see the Sarge grinning down at her.

Wait, grinning?

Vanellope did a double take, her eyes looking ready to pop out of her head from surprise.

"Since when does Sergeant strictness smile?" she teased incredulously, grinning ear to ear to match Calhoun's.

"I'll have you know it's not very often." Calhoun played along, walking into the castle casually.

'Wow, she's in a really good mood right now!' Vanellope thought, amazed at this side to her no-nonsense soldier friend. She ran over reasons in her head as to why the Sarge might be so happy.

Her eyes widened as she recalled something Felix had told her a few days ago.

"He finally did it, didn't he?!" She exclaimed excitedly, her eyes lighting up with happiness. She practically skipped in a circle around the Sarge, before hugging her leg in sheer joy.

She had no idea that this is what Felix meant when he said he'd propose 'soon'. But whatever, right? It actually happened! From what Vanellope heard, marriage was a big deal.

"That's right, kiddo. I finally got him to swear, after two weeks of trying. To be honest I almost thought it was impossible." Calhoun laughed, then looked down at Vanellope, who was digesting that sentence and practically choking on laughter from getting so ahead of herself.

She gave the Sarge a sheepish smile, and peeled off her leg.

Calhoun raised an eyebrow at her behavior. "I didn't expect you to be so excited, shortstop."

"Heheh, well, to be honest, I was just really, extra excited to have somebody visiting me. If you had walked up to me and said something dumb I still probably woulda been over the moon happy, you know?" Vanellope rubbed the back of her head just as sheepishly as she smiled. She wasn't lying. She was just leaving out half of the truthful explanation.

"That reminds me, I had a nice talking to with some of the other racer kids in the game. They were debating something and I just had to throw my two cents in." Calhoun proceeded to reminisce about the talk, while Vanellope groaned and facepalmed. She was happy to have changed the subject, but…

"Your 'two cents' didn't involve any shooting or mental scarring, did it?" Vanellope asked drily, resting a hand on her hip in that position Calhoun seemed to use all the time. She found that it made looking tough just the slightest bit easier. She had picked up a few things from the Sarge.

"No shooting involved. I'm afraid the other question can't be answered. It shouldn't have been mentally scarring, but then again, some of those kids are pansies if I've ever seen 'em." Calhoun replied with a short nod.

"Anyways, I came over here to check on you for the guys, make sure nothing bad was going on, all that. I also wanted to tell you that Wreck-it is almost done helping with the construction. Now, I need to go do some night patrols in my game, so, I'll see you later." Calhoun wrapped up the visit in a businesslike fashion, and gave a quick salute as she walked towards the door. Vanellope returned it, knowing that Calhoun didn't do waving.

When the visit was all said and done, Vanellope found herself wishing that it had lasted longer. She scowled at her own thoughts.

'Since when did I get so dependent on other people's company?' She sighed and walked back to her room, deciding that she could just sleep early for lack of better things to do.

(Breakline/ transition)

Vanellope's eyes slowly opened as a soft noise came to her ears.

Knock…..knock….knock…

Yawning, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and slipped out of bed before quickly getting dressed in her usual clothes. She wondered who would be visiting in the morning around this time.

Ralph usually slept in on his days off, Felix hung out with Calhoun all day and vice versa…who would be visiting?

She made her way to the door, not even bothering to put her hair up in a ponytail. She was too curious to see who was at the door to do much of anything with her hair.

She opened the door, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and was surprised to see Rancis standing there.

He noted her sleepy appearance and the lack of her usual ponytail, and he quickly stammered apologies.

"Oh! D-did I wake you up? I'm really sorry, I figured…."

"Chill out, Rancis. I was going to get up sooner or later." Vanellope dismissed it with a wave. "Do you want to come in? It gets kinda cold in the morning." She asked, moving out of the doorway for him.

He sheepishly shook his head and walked in. Vanellope closed the door behind him and brushed some of her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears and making a mental note to put her hair up in its licorice ponytail as soon as possible.

She pulled her ponytail off her wrist and began to put her hair up with it, talking in the meantime.

"So, what's up? Do you need something?" She asked him inquisitively, head tilted as she tried to think of a reason he'd come to the castle to see her. And why alone? Wasn't he usually with Taffyta or one of the other guys, or something?

'This is going to be an interesting morning, isn't it?' She thought dryly.

He stared directly at his feet, rocking back and forth on them nervously. "Well….not really, but, I….I want to…I want to…."

"You want to what? Spit it out already!" Vanellope said, throwing her arms out. "It's not like I'm going to bite!" She added playfully.

"I want to know if you want to hang out today!" He blurted out suddenly, before he riveted his attention to his shoes, apparently becoming very interested in them. He looked just about ready to start trembling as he waited for a response.

Vanellope looked at Rancis curiously. Why would he want to hang out with her? They didn't really know each other that well, but then again, she didn't know any of the racers very well. But, it's not like she would turn him down because of that…

"Umm…Sure, Rancis. Why're you so nervous about it though? It's not like I would've flat out turned you down." She accepted, then poked his shoulder as a cue that he should look up.

"Sorry. I figured you might have plans." He looked up, his face visibly reddened from nervousness.

"So, why the sudden urge to hang out?" Vanellope asked, prodding for answers as she headed towards the door again. "And what do you want to do?"

"Hmm? Well, you could pick, but, I was thinking maybe we could have a one v one race, maybe go get a root beer after…." He answered, then looked up apprehensively, "A-as for the other question… I guess, I have to start somewhere….I don't want it to be so awkward every day with people. Every day after the races...nobody really says anything to you, and when they do it's just small-talk…and you don't say much either….and then we just shake hands and walk away. That's awkward…I want to be able to talk to you normally, I guess…So I thought maybe if we hung out and did something that wasn't strictly for our job…"

"That it would break the ice!" Vanellope exclaimed excitedly, interrupting him. He didn't seem to mind, he actually looked rather relieved to not have to be talking anymore. "That makes sense!" She moved over to Rancis and ruffled his hair happily, he made an attempt to fix it but his arm was quickly grabbed by Vanellope, who began walking the both of them out of the door.

"Alright buttercup, let's have that race! We'll go get that root beer you were talking about later at Tapper's!"

Rancis followed along, smiling a bit as they made their way to the tracks.

"This is gonna be great, Fluggerbutter! Do you want to place bets? Maybe, if I win the root beer is your treat, and if you win, it's mine. Does that sound good?" Vanellope asked excitedly, looking to Rancis for acceptance.

He shrugged. "I figured it be my treat anyways, but sure, why not have a bet?"

"Great! So, is this race going to be power-ups or no power ups?" She asked again, now standing at a box by the finish line and programming in the details of the race so that it would recognize when they finished, and who won, and all that stuff.

"Hmm…power ups, I guess. Do you think you've gotten all the details set now?" Rancis replied, motioning to Vanellope who was shutting the box.

She gave him a thumbs up. "Yep! It's a one v one race, three laps, power ups, first to cross the finish line wins, last to cross the finish line pays for root beer! Good luck!" She pulled her racing goggles on and hopped into her kart, as Rancis did the same across from her.

"Good luck to you too!" they revved their engines and waited for the announcer to start the race.

"3…." Vanellope gripped her wheel tightly. "2…" She shifted the kart into drive.

"1…GO!" Both racers slammed the gas pedals of their karts, and took off, leaving candy-coated dust in their wake.

AN: Wouldn't it take a while for the racers and Vanellope to get comfortable being near each other? Wouldn't it be awkward? And what about all of the terrible memories they have of each other? Those wouldn't go away overnight. So, this fic is about the road to recovery between them. I'm really having fun writing it. Thanks for reading!