A.N.-Okay people, this is a story that Meagan Snow and I are working together on. She wrote this chapter. :D Enjoy!

It was a quiet day in the lair of the penguins.
Relatively.
Skipper was playing chess with himself- Kowalski was doing something in the corner wit regular explosions and cries of, "I'll get it right now!"
Private was watching MTV (they had just managed to hook their TV up to cable) and Rico was doing a weapons test up above.

Suddenly, a silent red light began to bathe the room in an eerie glow.
Skipper jumped up suddenly and made a few motions too fast for Private to catch.
He was about to ask Kowalski what had just happened when the words froze in his throat.

Down the ladder descended a certain macaroni penguin that he knew all too well.
"Hullo, boys" she smiled, speaking in a strong London accent.

"H-Hey, Trixy!" Private came forward to greet her, once his initial surprise was over.

"What brings you here, darlin'? Did Skippsy make you leave the zoo?"
Skipper came forward, his relaxed attitude in sharp contrast to how tense he had been seconds before.

"What?" The addressed Trixy turned around. "No, no! Skippsy would never do that!" She laughed.
"You see, the zoo where I stay is under remodeling and I was sent over here to stay, because the zoo in Hoboken only agreed to take three and my mates were taken there, so I was sent here. It's just for a couple days, I hope I'm not intruding! If anything, I can always kip outside, or something..."

"What?" It was Private's turn to protest.
"You're not intruding at all! One of us can sleep on the couch, and you can take a bunk! I mean, what are friends for?"

Trixy sent him a dazzling smile. "Thanks so much! I was worried I was going to have to spend the day with your friendly neighborhood lemurs..."

Skipper laughed. "I wouldn't sentence my worst enemy to a night with Ringtail, darlin'. Not if I can help it."

"It's a sleepover, then!" Trixy announced happily.

Several hours into the night, they had agreed to this setup.
Private was on the couch, and a protesting Trixy had been placed on the bunk in his place. The other penguins were out doing something so they just had time to talk.

"So." Trixy asked, throwing his pillow at Private from his bed.
"What do you do, around now usually now that you live here?"

"Usually? I'm exhausted from training and black out as soon as it's lights out." Private answered truthfully. "You?"

"Same." She laughed. There was silence for a while, before Private spoke up.

"How long have you lived in NY?"
He avoided the one question in his head. Have you missed me?

Trixy looked thoughtful. "About three years? Maybe more?" She thought out loud.
Then, she added quickly. "I never knew you were in New York, or I would have come to see you!"

Suddenly, a shout from above stopped their conversation short as Private felt chills come down his spine.
A millisecond later, Skipper's head poked down the hatch.
"ASAP, Private. Kowalski's MIA." As he spoke, he used the soldier shorthand that seemed to make everything more complicated anyway. "Meet me at the corner of the Juke.
You." He was speaking plain English now, pointed directly to Trixy. "Stay here."

Private meet Trix's eyes, and they both knew she was going to follow them.
"10" he motioned with his flippers. Ten steps behind them.
Then, he scrambled up the ladder toward Skipper.