This story has been edited and re-uploaded as of 6/29/15. Also there is now a Park Avenue ask blog so you can ask these versions of our favorite Penguins all sorts of questions. The link can be found on my profile.

If you've seen the episode Love Hurts you might remember the part where Skipper asks who hasn't gone stupid for a lady and Rico raises his flipper only to have Skipper say Guatemala and he puts his flipper down. Well I expanded that one line into a huge chunk of this story and Rico's past.

Also this story does contain hints of slash because Rico is not exclusively as ladies' man.

For the Love of China Doll

Chapter One: Medication

Oh no, how'd I sink so low?
Ain't got the patience, I need my medication
I need to crawl out, out of this hole now
Before the darkness grabs a hold and takes my soul now -Hollywood Undead 'Medication'

Something told Rico that it was going to be a weird day when he woke up, even if his routine had been normal so far (up at 6, risk life waking up Kowalski, fight Private for use of the bathroom, cook breakfast) call it instinct but something bad was brewing. No matter what Kowalski had to say, the supernatural was real, even if it wasn't such things as werewolves and vampires.

Thankfully, it was their hobby day, which meant he could sneak off to his studio and that would help put his mind at ease. He whistled a small tune as he set up the painting he'd been working on for years and mixed a few muted reds, the last few nights he had nightmares or maybe it would be better to call them memories. The room filled with a soul shattering silence once he stopped whistling, normally he wouldn't mind the silence but it left him with an unsettling feeling.

"Down in the dirt/With your blood on my hands/I blacked out/But now I do understand/That you were too good/For this world so you left it"

Better but not quite enough, a small half-smile pulled at his lips as he picked up the china doll sitting next to the CD player. The doll was all he had left of his first love, a singer named Reina, he had met her on an undercover mission at the club where she worked in Guatemala. He had been 21, young and stupid; the mission lasted only 4 months more than enough time to fall in love and make a thousand promises. It had been the greatest 4 months of his life and even to this day he remembered waking up next to her every morning and the feel of her lips on his skin.

He set the doll down carefully and moved back to the canvas inspired. Reina, the name alone was enough to set his heart ablaze, for years he'd been trying to capture her beauty on canvas, but it never seemed to look right to him. It always seemed like he'd paint her long, lush, dark brown hair either too dark or not dark enough, other times it was her wide amber eyes causing the trouble. In his memory, they were sparkling with life and burning with passion, but in his painting, they always turned out dull with the shadow of death. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to get lost in his memories of her hoping that this would be the day he would get it right.

It had been a typical Guatemalan summer night, just comfortable enough for bare skin and a single sheet in a small apartment with no air conditioning. Rico had recovered some time ago and the scent of sex was had started to dissipate, but now he found that he was unable to sleep. Instead, he found himself running his hand through Reina's long sweat damp hair, which still smelled faintly of the ginger shampoo that she used that morning during their shared shower. Her face was peaceful as she slept and he wanted to commit the image to memory. He blinked and amber eyes stared back at him through thick dark lashes.

"¿Qué pasa mi amor?" Reina's honey like voice was dripping with concern under a layer of sleep. He took his hand back and she proper herself up on to her elbow causing the sheet to slide down and reveal her breasts and abdomen. His gaze fell to the raised line of skin that ran from under her left breast to just an inch or two above her belly button. There was another similar scar that ran below her belly button and a few more on her legs, the majority of her scars were on her back, including the one that matched his.

"No hay nada." He replied leaning over to capture her kiss bruised lips as a gesture of comfort and apology.

"No te me mientas." Her voice was sharp, but she didn't push him away instead taking one of his hands into hers, reminding him that if they were to be together then they couldn't hide things from each other.

"Renia…" It had taken nearly a month to gain her trust and he wasn't about to lose it. He spoke when he found the strength to speak and she would kiss him after each sentence, thanking him for being honest and assuring him that she felt the same. They continued the pattern until they fell asleep, but not before she whispered the two words that he had only heard one other time after he had been taken from his family so many years ago.

"Rico! Snap out of it, we have a civilian to rescue." Skipper's harsh voice pulled him back to the present and he snapped back into the perfect soldier or close enough to the perfect soldier. He was at least lucky that he hadn't actually started painting. "Marlene was on her way to the store when she spotted Shelly, who lost her glasses, tripped on a wet cement sign and somehow got stuck in an iron fence early this morning."

"Shelley? You mean the crazy ostrich girl?" Private asked as they made their way to the back alley where Marlene was waiting with Shelly.

"Do you really want that question added to your naïve question file, Private?"

"No, sir."

"Oh thank goodness you guys are here! Don't worry Shelly, the Penguins will have you out in a jiffy. Do not panic." It was at that point Rico zoned out, just awaiting orders since that bad feeling had settled over him again.

"Hello." He rasped stepping forward to assess the situation and began to pull several small explosives from his pockets. Kowalski had developed them after a mission escape nearly killed them; the explosives should heat the metal enough that that he would be able to cut the bars with wire cutters.

"Skipper he's going to blow her to bits!" He chose to ignore Marlene's protests and got to work, just because he was a little off mentally didn't mean he was completely unstable and would kill someone for the hell of it Well…perhaps he should say that depending on the circumstance. He had already killed enough people when he was in Chile and it wasn't something he got much enjoyment out of. However, that certainly didn't mean a little torture and violence was off the table.

"No Marlene, but he will blow your mind."

"Rico's an artist when it comes to explosives; actually he's an artist when it comes to anything." It was nice to know his team trusted his judgment, Private's reassurances were surprising but not unwelcome. He stepped back and pressed the detonation button, sure enough it had worked and in just 5 snips he had removed the bars trapping Shelly. The woman tumbled back and blinked owlish at him.

"See?" He glanced over to see Skipper nudge Marlene playfully before looking back at Shelly, he felt a bit sorry for her. It wasn't that Shelley wasn't exactly pretty, if she changed up her style a bit she would actually look quite cute. Short dirty-blonde hair that was a mess of curls, light blue eyes, and freckles dusting her nose; it was simply that she came across a little crazy. "Alright boys, time to slide out." Rico helped her to her feet and gave a small wave good-bye before falling last in line.

Once home, he retreated to his studio, that creeping feeling had gotten worse since that little rescue mission, and his head was starting to feel like it was splitting in two. Which was something he hadn't experienced in years, at least not since…no he couldn't go there. That was one memory he had all intention of keeping buried.

"Reina." The name fell from his lips and before he realized it he had picked that doll up and was holding it to his chest, running his hand over the blonde painted hair and down the pink silk dress. At one point the doll smelled like Reina, a bittersweet combination cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. When he had first spent the night with her she had made chai tea in the morning and it was then that he spotted the doll on the table. She had apologized and explained it had been a gift from her father before he had passed away and one of the few things Los Diablos let her keep when her mother sold her to them so she would have protection in return. Sometimes Rico would catch her talking to it when she was painting. He had asked her about it once when she was teaching him to paint and teasing him about his attraction to the color blue, going so far as to call him Starry Night while painting a blue swirl on his shoulder when he expressed that he found something about the night sky full of stars calming. She explained that the doll was her only source of comfort growing up and she liked to imagine that maybe there was some life in the doll, something good that was meant to be treasured.

Rico set the doll back down and collected his paints, maybe if he could hold on to all the good memories he could forget the bad ones. He dipped the brush in to some red paint, red as freshly spilled blood and touched the brush to the canvas. That single stroke was all it took and he fell in to that perfect trance, that perfect harmony that is only reached through creating.

"Rico?" Kowalski's voice reached his ears and pulled him from his work, the genius had sounded horrified and concerned. "Are you okay?" For a second he was confused. How long he had been painting? Certainly long enough for his back to start hurting, he stepped back to look at his friend, but caught sight of his painting first.

Everything was red, the entire scene constructed in all shades and tones of red. There was a soft rattle as the brush he was holding hit the floor and he fell to his knees seconds later. He had finally painted Reina, but why had he painted her like this? She was in her costume on stage at the club she had worked at and was stunning, hauntingly beautiful with one hand extending out to the audience. Only her face wasn't smooth and peaceful, instead it was twisted in to a scream and her neck was cut wide open.

His world was spinning and his mind barely registered Kowalski running over to him. "You forgot to take your medication again, didn't you?" It always amazed him how calm the older man managed to stay in these situations, then again he usually wasn't the one out of his head in these situations. "Stay with me Rico, just long enough to answer me question. Did you forget to take your medication today?"

Wake up at six, risk life waking up Kowalski, fight Private for use of the bathroom, medication, and cook breakfast.

"Yep." The word came out surprisingly clear despite how tight his throat felt, Kowalski hummed and slipped an arm around his back.

"Let's get you out of here and cleaned up." After struggling to stand on his feet everything became a blur and he could hardly recall what had happened other than Kowalski jabbing him with a needle and then dragging him to bed. He blinked over at the man sitting by his bedside with a book in hand, his mind growing cloudy; Kowalski must have given him a sedative.

"Doll?" That one word fell from his lips before everything went black.

When he woke the next morning, he'd gotten a stern lecture from both Skipper and Kowalski, especially when he admitted that he might have forgotten more than one dose of his medication. Although after Private had darted out the door from all the yelling their tones had gotten surprisingly calmer.

"Look, Rico, you have been through more than any human being should ever be through and there is no one who could come out of what you came out of with all their marbles. But you have to keep it together or CENTRAAL will put you away for good and that's the last thing I want to see happen." Skipper's words caused guilt to sweep through him; he owed both Skipper and Kowalski his life. "Now just as you're in charge of getting Kowalski's ass out of bed in the morning, he's going to be in charge of your medication. I hope that we won't have another repeat of what happened last night. Be ready in 20 minutes, we're going for a run." After Skipper left Kowalski handed him a glass of water and his medication for the day and after proving that he had swallowed it, the two got ready in silence at least until Kowalski broke it.

"If you ever want to talk about what happened in Guatemala, I'm more than willing to listen. In fact it might help if you talk to someone about it." Rico only nodded, not sure, if he'd ever take Kowalski up on that offer, even if the genius was his best friend.

They were just coming back from their jog, when Shelley came running over to the front door of the base with guitar in hand and upon seeing Rico began to sing.

"Oh I'm a freako for Rico! I'll give him a kiss on the cheeko! Then I'll do a silly dance for this flightless bird romance! Oh I'm a freako for Rico! A SECOND VERSE!" Rico stared in horror before bolting, not wanting to hear anymore. Then as if that awkward experience wasn't enough, not even 2 hours later she was ringing their doorbell again to drop off a sculpture of him made out of gum and a card that she had drawn with them kissing on the front. It seemed like Shelley was completely serious about wanting to give him a kiss on the cheeko and then some. This was exactly what he didn't need, who the hell thought he needed to be in a relationship anyway?

Translations

¿Qué pasa mi amor?-What's wrong my love?

No hay nada-Nothing

No me mientas-Don't lie to me