Spirit never died. It refused to be crushed, unwaveringly lit and bright, waiting for Skipper to notice.
The escape would have been perfect, the penguin reasoned, had Marlene not apprehended him with another plausible excuse to visit the HQ (do you have a cup of water I can borrow?). She found Skipper tying up his few belongings. Within minutes, she returned with a similar knapsack.
"Leaving aren't you?"
"I have no reason to be here." The walls of the HQ were blank. The interior was empty, save for one bunk.
"Then, neither do I."
Skipper paused. He felt something inside him stir, a groggy thing awakening from slumber.
"Very well Otter."
"Where to?"
"Philadelphia."
Marlene didn't need to ask to know who was there.
The two emerged from the tunnel on the sidewalks of Manhattan. Skipper instinctively turned into an alley, and Marlene wordlessly followed, though she grimaced from the pain her bones were causing her.
Her body never quite recovered from birthing, and she was left to suffer eternally from weak joints and stomach pains that would jolt her from sleep and cry against Skipper's shoulder, cry for the pain, for the pups she would never see again.
They escaped into the sewers, and lead Marlene to a small raft, tied to a rotted post, bouncing with the waves of sewage.
Within an hour, they emerged from the sewer pipe under the Philadelphia zoo.