DANGER MOUSE:

DANGER ON HER LIPS

WRITTEN BY ZARIUS

(Contains spoilers for "The World Is Full of Stuff")

In the not too distant future, the sky was clear, the air was crisp, the garden was lavish. It was a beautiful spring day. The conditions were perfect.

As Squawk headed up the aisle towards the mouse of her dreams, the plucky professor had a lot on her mind, and something on her lips.

It was the lingering after taste of a special brand of DM's cologne, something she had developed for all of the male Danger Agents back in the day. Its potency had a duration of over fifty years.

She had been living with the scent of that cologne pressed on her lips for what had been five or six years now, ever since DM retrieved that key from her mouth on the alien hillbilly Flarg's ship.

She wondered whether or not she was in love with the remarkable results of her own invention, or the dapper looking mouse that was eagerly anticipating her arrival by his side to exchange vows.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of the future now, a little part of her reflected on all the trouble the futuroid camera had caused that had contributed in part to this moment in the first place, though it wasn't the full story.

Everything that day felt almost like life and chance had been playing them all for fools, tapping into their worries, their hesitations, and then pulling the rug out from under them with a remarkably amusing outcome.

The Colonel was beside himself with frustration when he found he was destined to stand side by side with Baron Greenback, only for it to be revealed as a wax model he found while later attending Madame Tussauds.

She and DM spent most of the day trying to awkwardly tip toe around one another to avoid a clash of lips. Precisely the kind of story you end up telling the grandkids.

Perhaps they could omit the little detail of how the first time came about was all to acquire a key she had in her mouth.

Or perhaps she could tell them the only one who didn't appear too shaken by what was to come in his future was Penfold.

Her earnest little Penfold.

When faced with humiliation from his peers as they caught sight of him in a pink tutu, he didn't hesitate to point out he normally preferred to wear purple onrd. He didn't fear the mockery, he welcomed it. He was comfortable in and out of his own skin.

This was a man who was not afraid of the future, and it inspired her to be just as fearless.

She thought of him fulfilling his destiny as he bit into the camouflage doughnut she invented that allowed whoever ate it to blend in with their surroundings, transmogrifying his appearance and giving him that attire.

While this was the first of destiny's maddening tricks that day, it was not the cruellest.

The cruellest part of the whole ordeal was that the first time wasn't with him, and the more she dwelled on it, it was indeed the first sign of squandered chances and choices concerning him.

Life is short, and love is fleeting.

At the end of it all, nothing is safe from entropy, noone from death.

Perhaps if you're lucky, really lucky, and if you believe in life beyond death, those you love will follow you in a short span of time, and you can get those second chances you never had in life to make it all right, to say what's on your mind and express what's in your heart with people you wish you could make time for.

Why does life have to hint at one direction, only to then thrust you into another?

Were affairs of the heart truly this inconsistent?

Were they ever truly fair?

She knew Penfold, for now, wouldn't worry about any of these things. He wouldn't want her to either.

For now she would remain fixed on the day, the mouse in her life, and a dream come true.

All her loved ones were in attendance, her parents to the left of her, beaming with pride, to the right of her was Penfold, giving her enthusiastic thumbs up.

She blew a kiss at him, taking advantage of a rare chance offered by life and destiny, a way to thank him for all he meant to her, even now.

Now was all they had left.

The future awaited her, and the future had danger written all over it.

Danger was on her mind.

And as soon as the vows were exchanged, danger was again on her lips.