Disclaimer: Wreck-It Ralph and Ralph Breaks the Internet are the property of the Walt Disney Company. All other copyrighted characters are the properties of the respective creators and copyright holders.

Author's note: Hi friends! You've reached the fourth fanfiction in my Wreck-It Ralph fanfiction cycle, which is to say, have you read Terminal, Fallout, and Peripeteia yet? If you haven't, you're going to want to before continuing. There are also assorted shorter fics that are companion pieces to this series. My profile lists the order the fics should be read in. To everyone else who's hung in with me through the previous three stories, it means the world to me if you're still reading. I'd love to hear from you, but most of all I just hope you enjoy the final fanfiction in this series!

Special thanks to my wife, windsett, for reading and editing this, helping me through plot impasses, and allowing me to talk incessantly about it.

"For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?" —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

CHAPTER 1

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Well, a little resentful, to be honest. Like it was an excuse to not get close to me, and like I couldn't handle the truth. It's fine if she just isn't attracted to me, but throwing the bad guy thing in my face? It's just—I didn't think it showed a lot of class."

"Some people will never be able to see past the fact that you're a bad guy. We all have to work to accept that. As much as we want people to change, some of them won't. And that's okay."

"Yeah, Sorceress, I mean you have to look on the bright side—"

Clyde cleared his throat.

"Oh right, sorry. I'm Ralph, I'm a bad guy—"

A practiced chorus of 'hellos' came from the characters ringed around the room, most of them smiling like they found comfort in the ritual. Sorceress waved and smiled. "Hi, Ralph."

Wreck-It Ralph shifted in his chair, which creaked in protest. "Anyway, like I was saying, you have to look on the bright side. Sure, a lot of people can't get past the whole bad guy thing, but there's a lot more people now that don't care. Nobody screams when I walk through Game Central Station anymore!"

"But that's you, Ralph," Sorceress sighed.

"So?"

She threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, and she was saved from answering as a voice said, "Zombie, bad guy!"

"Hi, Zombie."

"Ralph save arcade! Ralph different from rest of us!"

"Oh come on," Ralph mumbled. "Not this again."

"It's true," Sorceress said. "Things got better for all of us because of you."

Ralph rolled his eyes as his ears slowly turned red and Clyde serenely said, "You shouldn't underestimate the value of your own actions, Ralph. What you did nine years ago in Sugar Rush showed a lot of people what all of us know already, that a bad guy is more than his programming."

"If all of them know it," came a mutter, "why do they need to have these meetingsth every week?"

Taffyta Muttonfudge glanced at the person sitting next to her, who was the whole the reason she was at the weekly Bad Anon meeting. Obviously she never would have called herself a bad guy and come here on her own. She tried to look stern instead of smirking, because it was totally true. This whole Bad Anon thing was a lot more lovey-dovey than she'd expected it to be. At least no one had hugged yet, though between Bowser's spikes and Zombie's rotting flesh, that might have been more an issue of practicality.

Unfortunately, hers weren't the only eyes that turned. Everyone else's in the room did too. Which honestly, was maybe what he'd been hoping for. Certainly it wouldn't have surprised him. There was a silence. And then, "Do you have something you'd like to share?" Clyde asked.

King Candy raised an eyebrow and bounced his foot, so the gumdrop bell on it jingled. "Do I detect some hostility in that tone, Clyde? Not very welcoming of you."

"I think you're supposed to say your name first," Taffyta muttered to him, meeting his eyes and knowing that he'd catch the conspiratorial look there.

"Oh right," he said breezily. "Who would you rather I be today, King Candy or Turbo?" Silence. "Tough crowd I guessth—well anyway, I'm King Candy and I'm technically a good guy—"

There was a mutter from around the room and Taffyta whispered, "You might want to try a little harder."

He winked at her and went on, "Okay, okay, I'm King Candy and if you insist, I'm a bad guy, and to be perfectly honest with all of you I'm feeling less of the warm Bad Anon welcome than I'd been led to believe I'd get when I agreed to come here."

"Turbo not bad guy," Zombie said. "Turbo just jerk."

"See, this is why I asked if you want me to be Turbo or King Candy today," he sighed. He glitched red for a second to his Turbo form. When no one reacted, he immediately glitched back, adjusting his crown as it shifted on his head.

Clyde didn't look amused. Clyde actually didn't really look anything—it made him a pretty good leader for a group like this, Taffyta had to admit. Not to mention someone she wouldn't want to play poker against. But the one-pixel-wide line of his mouth seemed to thin. "Why don't you tell us why you're here," Clyde said. "And what you expect to gain from attending our meetings."

There was a heavy silence in the room, though Taffyta was pretty sure she could hear the faint dripping of bodily fluids from Zombie. Gross.

It wasn't exactly a mystery that King Candy wasn't welcome here. And he was right that he technically wasn't a bad guy, but there wasn't a group for good-guys-turned-bad. And while there could be a group for characters that had gone Turbo, the three of them that remained at Litwak's Family Fun Center were currently sitting in the room together, so there didn't seem to be much point in that, either.

Anyway there wasn't much to talk about there—the outcome was always the same when you went Turbo, you put your game in danger of being unplugged. Of course, if you were Turbo, you actually did get your game unplugged. It still amazed Taffyta that King Candy bore that burden as well as he did, considering some people she knew who'd gone Turbo—cough, Vanellope, cough—refused to admit they'd even done it, and had still never apologized for any of the problems they'd caused.

Not that he'd apologized either, not in so many words. But he'd saved Sugar Rush from a virus and he'd tamed his demons by not going into the code vault and altering Sugar Rush's code when he'd had the opportunity after the game had reset. The problem was that he carried the approbation not exactly like a badge of honor, but not exactly uncomfortably, either.

Which was why he was never really going to fit in with the rest of the arcade. And part of the reason he was here tonight.

"Why am I here?" King Candy asked. He glanced at Taffyta. "Personal growth," he replied, his eyes only flicking away from hers on the last syllable.

Well, at least he hadn't said 'because Vanellope told me I had to last time she was here.' It may have been the truth, but it wouldn't have played as well. Anyway, while it was true that Vanellope had told him to come—she'd said it was part of his parole and he'd glared at her and asked her if she couldn't find somewhere on the internet to get run over—Taffyta knew there was another reason. Vanellope had suggested it, and she'd certainly implied that there might be consequences if he didn't attend. But Taffyta thought he might have held out, called her bluff—though Vanellope was another one that Taffyta wouldn't want to play poker against. He might have, that is, if Taffyta herself hadn't said over routine kart maintenance, "Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

Taffyta didn't know exactly when it had happened, but somewhere along the line, it had become clear that the one person in the world whose opinions were by far the most important to King Candy were hers. Maybe it had been that way for a long time, but it had taken her until the last few months to really see it. Not that she said anything, because it was weird, it was almost like—a gift. Or something. Like, sure he'd gotten two games unplugged and taken over hers and turned Sugar Rush's rightful ruler into a glitch and, well, all of it, and maybe she shouldn't have valued the fact that she was his trusted confidante. But the fact was that Taffyta had always felt a draw towards him that she couldn't explain. And now that Sugar Rush had been upgraded, now that she had the mind and body and emotions of a twenty-five-year-old woman, and not a nine-year-old girl, it was easier to see how precious the trust of someone like King Candy was.

People like King Candy, they didn't give their trust lightly. To earn that from the man she'd first idolized and who had, over time, become her mentor and then her best friend, well, that was something she wasn't ever going to take for granted.

And he obviously valued her trust too, because when she'd said attending a Bad Anon meeting wouldn't be the worst idea, he'd tapped his fingers on the hood of his kart, intently polished the horn for five minutes longer than even he normally would have, and finally asked, "So when do these people meet?"

Bowser snorted a fireball and rolled his eyes. "Personal growth?"

Clyde gave him a warning look. "What kind of personal growth, King Candy?" he asked.

"Personal growth means personal growth," King Candy said. "Don't you guysth have some kind of motto about that? The only person who can truly help you is yourself?"

"That's Chun-Li's self-care group," Clyde replied.

Making a face, King Candy said, "Look, I don't see how it's really any of your business why I'm here—the same reason the rest of you are, okay? Acceptance or…whatever."

From the looks on the rest of the bad guys' faces, it was obvious that all of them found this unconvincing. But the thing was, they were out of line asking him why he was there. Like because he'd done bad things, he could be denied the privacy that the rest of them took for granted. Nobody asked Zangief why he continued to attend when he was so obviously at peace with his role, nobody pried into Bowser's feelings for Mario. He wasn't just expected to be reformed, he was expected to be…more. Not really better, because no one expected him to be decent, which had to be its own burden. For someone used to being universally loved, being universally reviled with no hope of reprieve couldn't be easy.

"Hey guys, maybe give him a little bit of a break," Ralph said. He sounded uncomfortable, and when both Taffyta and King Candy glanced at him in surprise, he looked uncomfortable. But he still went on, "The guy came out here tonight, so, you know, baby steps. Right?"

There were shrugs and mutters of grudging agreement. Nine years—nine years after King Candy had been unmasked as Turbo, after the Cy-bug invasion had almost gotten Sugar Rush unplugged, and most of the arcade had only inched closer to forgiving him. Maybe forgiveness would always be too much to hope for. He'd said it himself, he was looking for acceptance, though Taffyta knew full well he wanted more.

"Our time's up, everyone," Clyde said. "Let's close out with the Bad Anon Pledge."

Everyone shuffled to their feet except Taffyta and King Candy. And when she looked at him, even he stood, though he didn't link hands the way everyone else did with the villains on either side of him. Nor did he join in as the group recited, "I am bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

The atmosphere turned jovial as friends walked out together, chatting amongst themselves and grabbing what was left of the meeting's snacks. King Candy adjusted his shirt cuffs as the room emptied, and Taffyta just waited, a hand on her hip.

Clyde floated over to the snack table. "Will you be joining us again?" he asked, his expression as mild as it always was. This was the kind of character that Bad Anon was made for. Quiet, reserved bad guys like Clyde, who never raised his voice and would never hurt anyone if his job didn't require him to do it.

King Candy linked his hands behind his back and went to peer at the cookies and coffee that Sorceress had provided. "I don't think I have much of a choice, do I?" He picked up a suspiciously frosted black cookie and popped it into his mouth, bit down, and made a face. His eyes watered, but he swallowed, took a breath, and then went on, "We both know that I was asked to come to these thingsth."

Clyde hovered in silence for a moment. "I'm sure you're familiar with the aphorism that we have to lie in the bed we made for ourselves?"

Raising an eyebrow, King Candy replied, "You may have to. In case you haven't noticed, I never have." He paused. "Though no offense Clyde, but you're a ghost, so you're not exactly lying in any kind of bed, are you?" He picked up another cookie, thought better of it, and tossed it in a lukewarm cup of coffee. Then he stalked out the door, though the irritated set of his shoulders was somewhat at odds with the jingling that accompanied every step.

Taffyta glanced at Clyde. "He'll be back."

"You'll both be back."

With a shrug, she said, "No one said I couldn't come."

Clyde bobbed there, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. "Most people see the most progress when they attend regularly," he said. Clearly it wasn't what he'd been about to say, but Taffyta didn't ask about that. The last thing she needed was the opinion of a ghost from Pac-Man.

There didn't seem to be anything else to say, so Taffyta left without another word and heard the lights switch off behind her. It bathed the hallway in eerie blue light and she couldn't help thinking how much it was probably washing her out and making her look dead. These 8-bit games, they didn't do anything for anyone's skin.

Well, that wasn't exactly true, because King Candy didn't look any worse for wear. King Candy had a tendency to always look good though, no matter his environment. Good in a way that Taffyta couldn't help noticing pretty much all the time.

His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were hooded, and when she reached his side, he said, "You know I could go to those meetings for the rest of forever and it wouldn't make any difference."

"Where's your optimism?" Taffyta asked him, arching an eyebrow.

"Must not be on the roster today." He smiled slightly though, and the two of them continued down the hallway to Pac-Manorail station. By now a train had already come and gone and the platform was empty. Taffyta couldn't say she minded. It wasn't so much that the staring bothered her. It was more that…well, people were judging her too, and they had been for a long time. And whereas before she'd just been King Candy's favorite, now she was as suspect as him. And the more she was seen to…er, obviously care about him, which she did, the more people figured they were up to something together.

She glanced towards the spot where his graffitied sign was still barely visible. People—Surge Protector most likely, though possibly others—had tried to erase it. But just like everything else about him, it was hard to get rid of entirely. "How was the cookie?"

With a scoff, he said, "Don't even know why I bothered."

The train arrived at that moment, outdated blue sleekness that screamed bygone era. Sugar Rush's train was bubblegum pink with orange and purple lines of frosting running along its cars, and she much preferred its aesthetic, though she guessed if she was being really honest it also was just slightly, possibly, a little too 90s for this day and age. But then again she never took the train. None of the racers ever did—the train was for NPCs, people without karts. Taffyta felt the nascent sneer at the thought, before she caught herself and remembered that that contempt was what had made her bully the president of Sugar Rush for fifteen years.

Hey, she was trying.

They hopped into a car together, but Taffyta got her feet tangled together and fell to the seat heavily and not at all gracefully. At the amused look King Candy shot her, she made a face and said, "Sometimes I think that upgrade made me way clumsier. At least I got used to the whole having a figure thing. For awhile all of it just seemed like it was in the way."

"Sort of wish the same couldn't be said for certain…people," King Candy said, raising his eyebrows as he sprawled across the seat like he owned it. His physicality wasn't something she'd ever noticed until Sugar Rush had been upgraded and she'd turned twenty-five overnight. You weren't supposed to think like that about your best friend, though. It was just hard not to when every time he smiled at her, she got butterflies in her stomach.

She shrugged. "There isn't really much anyone can do about it." The catcalls, she meant, and the whistling, though a lot of that had tapered off as people had gotten used to the fact that the Sugar Rush racers had grown up. Now it was mostly just the ogling that got to her.

His eyebrows stayed raised. "They could stop."

Taffyta snorted. "Oh, yeah, this from the guy who once told Janet from Virtua Cop to lose the body armor because she had a great figure?"

"Allegedly," he said in a tone of great affront.

"'Allegedly,' yeah right. You're the one who told me you said it."

He muttered something and slung an arm over the side of the car. "Anyway," he said, clearly trying to move past this turn in the conversation, "the point is, they should stop, and you shouldn't have to put up with it."

Tugging her gloves up, Taffyta said, "Uh huh. And who's gonna make them stop?"

"Maybe me," he muttered.

This was an alarming thought, but also an oddly nice one. Still, King Candy confronting her…er, admirers sounded like a recipe for disaster. Sometimes she felt like the whole arcade was just waiting for him to pick a fight he couldn't win. She leaned forward and held his gaze, fixing him with her most serious look. "Please don't," she said. "It's not worth it."

He drummed his fingers on the side of the car. "And why do you say that?"

"Well, for starters," she said, "I don't think it would go the way you wanted it to."

"Moi? Oh please, when has anything not gone exactly the way I wanted it to?" he asked, a sardonic gleam in his eyes. But he seemed to have abandoned the idea of defending her honor. Yeah, nice thought, except she didn't need someone to take care of her and never had—pretty literally, since she'd been programmed to be perpetually nine-years-old until Sugar Rush had been upgraded. Did it make her feel like a piece of meat to be checked out by a bunch of dum-dum guys in the arcade? Obviously. Could she deal with it? Also obviously. She was Taffyta Muttonfudge, after all.

So she just arched an eyebrow in return, and then a voice announced, "Pac-Manorail now arriving at Outlet 7. Welcome to Game Central Station."

With a screech of brakes, the train pulled up to the platform. Empty, like it usually was. It must have been a lonely game, Pac-Man. Just the ghosts and Pac-Man himself. It wasn't like there was much draw there for anyone to stop by and look around. Just those long, creepy grey corridors and blue light everywhere. And signs, luckily. The permanent ones for GCS and the restrooms, and the ones in Zangief's surprisingly neat handwriting for the BA meetings, hidden from the gamers, of course, but essential for visitors to the 80s classic. Maybe that was why Bad Anon meetings were held there—you could always count on Pac-Man to be dead after arcade close. Its own characters didn't even stick around for anything except sleeping, and Clyde, of course, on meeting nights.

And then she wondered if it would have been that way for Turbo, too, if he hadn't…well, gone Turbo. If TurboTime had survived, if he hadn't taken over Sugar Rush, would he have been there every night anyway? And how long would he have been able to tolerate that? Aside from the ever-looming possibility of permanent game over, how long would he really have been content with returning every morning to his own much less challenging game?

It was the sort of thought that made her wonder if stuff didn't happen for a reason. Like, maybe Turbo had to take over Sugar Rush. Not necessarily in the way he did, and when he did, but maybe it was just…inevitable. Because of the way he was, because of the way the arcade was. Because some things were just—bound to happen, regardless of programming, regardless of anything.

She was sure King Candy wouldn't agree, but that wasn't why she hadn't ever floated this idea to him. It was more because of this nebulous feeling that he was sort of like…the character in the arcade that drove this process. At least for them. Like maybe every arcade had someone like him, a loose cannon who bent events to his will. People who rejected the status quo, when they lived in a world where life was dependent on maintaining it day in and day out. Ralph was another one, but the way Taffyta saw it, these people's influence was like a wave, washing in and crashing over a beach, then sucking whatever was caught in its undertow back out to sea. You either got out of the undertow or you didn't. If you did, great—Taffyta was pretty sure she was outside Ralph's sphere of influence now, though maybe everyone wasn't. But King Candy? Something told her that there was more, and it didn't feel right to bring it up with him until she knew what that more was.

Before the train had entirely stopped, King Candy was on his feet and bouncing out onto the platform, where he offered her a debonair hand. If it had been anyone else she would have scorned it—seriously, she could get out of a train—but since it wasn't anyone else, since it was him, she took his hand and allowed him to help her out. "Don't want you to fall on the tracksth, do we now?" he asked.

"I didn't see you laughing at my coordination when I smoked you on the track about twenty times today," she said, sugar laced with arsenic and a smile to match.

He squeezed her hand before dropping it, the most careless gesture in the world, and chuckled. Her heart did something that didn't feel healthy, something between a skip and a hard contraction. "Nothing could take away your coordination on the track," he said.

It was as impossible as always to keep the smug smile off her face when he said things like this to her. Because she was, and had always been, the only one he'd ever said things like that to. Sure, he might admit that Candlehead and Rancis were good, he might concede that he liked Crumbelina's style, but he would never, ever let them get away with implying that they were superior to him, let alone respond with something that implied his agreement with that blasphemous suggestion.

Flipping her hair, she said, "Well, you know, I learned from the best."

"Oh, I do know," he said, shooting her a grin.

"Geez, you've almost got me tricked into thinking you might be a nice guy," a voice suddenly said. Ralph was standing at the bottom of the escalators, munching on a cherry. When both of them turned to look at him, he took another bite of the fruit and said around a mouthful of it, "Too bad I know you so well."

"Is that too bad you know me better than that or too bad you're so well acquainted with me?" King Candy asked.

"Both, Your Royal Puffy-Pants. Look, I'm all for you coming to these meetings but I also don't have all night to stand around babysitting you."

Leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs, King Candy raised an eyebrow and said, "Two babysittersth, huh? You'd almost think I did something really awful."

"Muttonchops ain't your babysitter," Ralph said.

"Yeah?" she asked. "What does that make me, then?"

Ralph's eyes flicked between the two of them. He finished off the cherry, dumped the pit in the garbage, and then said, "A tiny little bit more trustworthy, but not much."

She grinned, knowing he didn't mean it. "So that must be why you okayed me going in the code vault to fix that glitchy patch on Sweet Ride the other day, huh?"

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ralph said, "Uh huh, and don't make me regret it. Hey, did you get it fixed?"

Making a face, she said, "Ugh, almost. I thought it was okay but you can still kind of see it if you know it's there when you're driving by. Not that the gamers can see it, but it's bugging me."

King Candy shot her a proud grin and Ralph smiled, too. "You'll figure it out, kid. You're not working on that tonight, though, right?"

Taffyta stifled a sigh. She'd been trying to forget what was happening tonight, but she also didn't want Ralph to be able to tell. They'd become friends over the past nine years, maybe even pretty good friends? The last thing she wanted to do was bring his mood down on a night that he'd been waiting for for months. "Right," she said, smiling brightly, hoping he didn't notice how forced it was.

King Candy rolled his eyes and groaned. "Can't you just forget about that?" Whatever her reservations about letting Ralph realize how much she was dreading the next couple hours, he clearly didn't share them.

Ralph looked unbothered. "Get real. And anyway, just think about all the points you're getting tonight. You actually showed up to Bad Anon, and I know Vanellope's going to be really touched that you're rolling out the red carpet for her."

At that, Taffyta couldn't really help giggling, between the smirk on Ralph's face and look of long-suffering resignation on King Candy's. He shot a disgruntled look at her and said, "Purely an accident of timing, believe me. If I had my way, I'd be on vacation right now, that way I could avoid seeing her entirely."

"Hey, watch it," Ralph said, a note of warning in his voice. "That's my best friend you're talking about."

"As if we could forget," King Candy said, raising an eyebrow. "Anyway, I don't see why she'd even want me there when she showsth up. You know, last time she dropped by for one of these little visits, she said the greatest gift I could give her was to not be here the next time she came back."

Ralph rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and I know you have a thick enough skin to handle it. You're not there because she's excited to see you, you're there because I gotta show her I'm doing a good job taking care of Sugar Rush."

"And because she couldn't get away from Slaughter Race until right about now, which would have made it pretty hard for you to not be with us," Taffyta said. "And Ralph has a point, we are gonna be late if we don't hurry up."

"Yeah, so move your molasses, Your Candyness," Ralph said. "I know what a big supporter of President von Schweetz you are?"

Though King Candy made a face, he took a step onto the escalator and let it carry him to the bottom, where he jumped off with a skip. "Didn't she give up her title when she, you know, went Turbo?"

"She didn't go Turbo," Ralph said heatedly.

King Candy snorted derisively and Taffyta rolled her eyes. She'd heard this argument so many times that she could probably do a dramatic reenactment, with the roles of both Ralph and King Candy being played by her. "What exactly do you want to call it then?" King Candy said. "She abandoned her game, took off for a new one, and, she didn't bother to tell any of us."

"Yeah, I'm sure your good-bye would have been real heartfelt."

"Parting's such sweet sorrow, Ralph," King Candy said, waving a hand. "The point isn't whether or not I personally was broken up about it—spoiler alert, I wasn't—the point is what she did is literally the definition of going Turbo. I should know, don't you think?" He glitched briefly to his other form, red binary resolving to show his yellow eyes hooded and a smug smile on his face, before glitching back.

Ralph crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, well, how about you get it through that thick bon-bon head of yours that you're never going to convince me—"

"Of factsth," King Candy interjected.

"So maybe do me a favor and stop harping on it."

When King Candy opened his mouth to clearly not stop harping on it, Taffyta held up her hands and said, "Hey, guys? Vanellope? She's gonna be here any minute?"

Annoyance instantly forgotten, Ralph said, as though it has been his idea, "Yeah, so let's get going, you two." He turned to head out of the outlet into Game Central Station, shooting a look over his shoulder at them to make sure they were following.

As soon as he wasn't watching, King Candy twisted his face into a grimace, but, dragging his feet, he set off after Ralph. Once they were in Game Central Station, Taffyta started craning her neck, looking for Vanellope. It had been a whole five months since they'd seen her last and everyone in Sugar Rush—not to mention Fix-It Felix Jr. and Hero's Duty—was excited for her arrival. A third of the present company excluded, of course.

And, well—maybe Taffyta wasn't quite as excited as she should have been. She kept telling herself she couldn't wait to see Vanellope, but then she'd actually think about what it was going to be like to say hi to her and to talk to her as though nothing had changed, when obviously everything had changed. Sure, it had been almost three years since Vanellope had gone to live in Slaughter Race, but Taffyta's resentment had only festered and grown in that time. The thing to do would have been to talk to Vanellope about it three years ago. But of course, she hadn't, and to say something now would just look like sour grape candy.

Suddenly, Ralph began waving exuberantly, and there was a happy shout of, "Stinkbrain!"

A glitchy blue blur shot from the Wi-Fi outlet towards them and hit Ralph in an explosion of binary, resolving itself into a jumble of green and black as Vanellope and Ralph hugged.

Taffyta and King Candy just stood back, watching in silence. He glanced at her, eyelids lowered, eyebrows raised, and mouth pursed in disinterest, and Taffyta stifled a sigh. "Here goes," she murmured to him, before plastering a smile on her face and turning back to Ralph and Vanellope.