Piece by Piece // the lego movie oneshots

An Apology in Two Parts // unikitty & good cop, bad cop

H-He's actually here, he came back, he came back—

As she listened to the officer in front of her, Princess Unikitty hoped her face appeared calm and pleasantly friendly. Her mind was... well, not so much.

Forgiving someone was the right thing to do. Actually paying attention to their words when they apologized was the polite thing to do. Letting go of all the pain would be the nice thing to do, especially since she was only ever hurting herself with it.

But the person who had led the absolute demolition of her wonderful kingdom was standing in front of her, even if it was only his Good Cop side—and much like her emotions, her fight or flight instincts were going haywire.

—sHOW HIM HOW MUCH DESTRUCTION HURTS!—

However, she was not going to curl up in a ball and cry, and she was especially not turning into Enraged Unikitty. That was for emergencies only.

No, no, no, absolutely not, that would be not happy and very not nice, a-and I won't stand for that—

Good Cop clacked his claw hands together, scribbled eyes still hesitantly on the floor.

"...I know we can't begin to make up for what we did, t'you and your kingdom, and... and 'sorry' won't fix any of it, but we... w-we still wanted to give our apologies."

Breathe in. Sparkles! Breathe out.

She smiled widely, hoping dearly that he couldn't see the pain in her eyes.

Magical creatures had the worst-best memories. All she could see in her peripherals were flames—crashing clouds—rainbows on fire—innocent people screaming...

She flinched, but made her smile bigger.

Breathe in. Bubblegum! Breathe out.

He was watching her, flinching slightly as if he was expecting to be hit, waiting to see her reaction.

Something nice! Say something nice! This is Good Cop! I-It wasn't his fault!

"I don't think you have anything to apologize for, Good Cop," she replied sweetly before she could force herself to phrase her thoughts better. She winced after that. That wasn't nice! Be nice! Y-You have to be the nice one here!

Good Cop's head twitched as if it was about to turn—but he held his jaw in one hand to keep it from moving, a guilty expression creeping over his face. He rubbed one elbow absentmindedly, dropping his gaze.

"I—I know, yer highness. He wanted to do this himself, but... I... I had to apologize too. If I hadn't gotten myself..." He ducked his head and made a feeble, sweeping gesture to his scribbled-on face. "...like this, I could have... I could 'ave helped. I-I could have done better. To protect people. An' serve them. That's my job."

He dropped the hand that was holding his head, and clasped his hands together meekly. He gave her a saddened, pleading look. "...Please don't hate Bad Cop. He was—"

His head spun mid-sentence—revealing Bad Cop's mouth set in an unreadable line, and Unikitty's watery-eyed reflection in his mirrored sunglasses.