Ride

Chapter 29- Little Victories and Big Victories

"Yes you can", Dr. Cortez insisted. "You can do it, Fudge."

"No, I can't, I can't!" she wept. After months of this same conversation over and over again, why wouldn't anybody else just accept that she couldn't do this?!

"Come on, Fudgie!" Luigi cried. "You were doing fine! Please just try again!"

"No!" She slumped down in her wheelchair as much as she could. "I'm not doing it again! I can't do it!"

No amount of effort would get Fudge out of her wheelchair again. She just sat there, bawling her eyes out for twenty minutes before Luigi and Guido took her home.

Back at Flo's, Fudge complained to her family how hard it had been.

"I'm sorry to hear you're havin' trouble, honey", Flo sympathised as she fed the girl. "Maybe tomorrow will be better."

"Yeah, 'cause I'm not going back!"

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

"I can't do it!" she whinged. "I'm never going to walk again!"

"So, what? You're just giving up?!" Sarge asked in disgust.

Fudge didn't say anything.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, soldier!" he continued in that same disgusted tone. "Do you think you're supposed to just give up when things get a little difficult?!"

"It's not a little difficult!" Fudge countered, about to cry. "I can't do it!"

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, either way, you're right", Sarge pointed out.

"He's right", Flo spoke up in a gentler tone. "Fudge, honey, you've come too far to to give up now."

"We all believe in you, sweetie", Sally added.

"But I can't!" Fudge moaned. "That's what I'm saying!"

"Right", Lightning agreed comfortingly. "Now, listen to what we're saying. You can do this. We all believe you can. Right now, the only thing that's stopping you is you. You're telling yourself you can't do it, so you don't do it."

"But it's hard!" the human girl insisted.

"I know it's hard. I never said it wasn't. But just because it's hard, that doesn't mean it's impossible. Remember how scared you were in London? You were really scared to confront Axlerod and tell the Queen what he'd done. You still did it."

"But I wasn't alone that time", Fudge pointed out. "Mater was with me. He did it too."

"You're not alone this time either, Fudge", Lightning assured her.

"Yeah! We is with you all the way!" Mater grinned. That was what Fudge had told him when he'd had doubts about exposing Axlerod.

"In fact..." Luigi raced home and returned with a video tape. Flo brought the TV out and put the tape in. "There is something here I think you should see. I have been saving this for a special occasion."

"What is it?"

Fudge got her answer when the screen lit up with footage of herself as a baby. Her papà was on the screen too, looking younger than Fudge had ever remembered him looking.

"Come on, Fudgie!" he encouraged her gently. "You can do it!"

Baby Fudge just sat there.

The onscreen Luigi frowned. "I am getting very concerned. I thought that Fudge would have learned to walk by now."

"(She is still very young)", Guido reasoned from behind the camera. "(She will get it.)"