"You know," Nigel stared at the surface of his coffee. "I saw my cousins over at the family reunion the other day."

"Those idiots?" Wally raised an eyebrow. "How they doing? Still a bunch of stuck up snobs?"

Nigel allowed himself a small smile. "Pretty much. They're getting better, though, and at least they don't all stay in their own private little huddle anymore. David wasn't even there, he had some meeting to go to or something."

"Where's that guy work?" Abby frowned.

"Beats me." Nigel shrugged. "Uncle Ben got him some government job somewhere. He's never at home anymore. I did talk to Lenny though."

"He's alright." Wally nodded. "I see him sometimes at practice. Stinks at football, but he tries." He slurped noisily on his milkshake, earning him a glare from Kuki. "He's been helping me with math too."

"He used to play with us." Hoagie squinted, trying to remember. "Sometimes."

"Oh, silly!" Kuki grinned. "They all played with us! We played with them all the time! Remember? We would be trying to attack the evil ice cream factory, and they would be the…"

"That was when we had forts. We pretended to have fights." Nigel shifted uneasily. "But it always came down to pretending who won, and we could never agree. It wasn't exactly 'playing', Kuki."

"Yeah…" Wally frowned. "That one time they got Lenny to play with us, and then he just grabbed our book and ran off, laughing." Wally growled. "That was such a stupid thing to do."

"We did a lot of stupid stuff back then." Nigel pointed out.

"Anyway, it didn't make a difference, cause we didn't have anything in that book anyway." Abby smirked. "Just a stupid photo album. I think we pretended it was a bomb, that blew up their base, or something."

Hoagie grinned. "That was Chad's idea. Hilarious."

"Oh, that's right!" Kuki covered her mouth, her little eyes shining. "I remember! Chad used to play with us! Like all the time! He would get everybody, from all the neighborhood, and we would play these humooongously fun games! He was awesome!"

"He was pretty good at it." Hoagie grinned back. "He had all these wild ideas, and other great stuff. He's the one who helped us build that weird fort back in the old junkyard."

"That's right." Wally grinned. "That place had old refrigerators and beat-up TV's, and all sorts of rusty old cars to pretend we was flying space ships. And I think we set up another hamster tunnel farm, even bigger than the one we had set up back at Nigel's place. All the kids hung out there. We pretended it was on the moon, and then when Hermie pointed out people had landed on the moon, Chad told him it was all a fake." Wally chuckled. "You know, there's this kid in my class who still thinks the moon landing was a fake."

"Chad was one awesome dude, baby." Abby tugged at her hat enthusiastically. "He would make up great plans about what the French KND was up to, and how the Russian KND was plotting, and whether the Chinese KND needed help..." She chuckled. "Wild ideas. Course, he was a big teenager, and we was just little bitty ten year olds at the time, so we looked up to him anyways. But he was fun."

"He was." Nigel agreed, somewhat distantly. "He was."

There was a little silence.

"We were pretty mean to him, weren't we?" Hoagie ventured.

"Oh, ya think?" Abby nearly exploded. "Chasing the guy around while he was delivering pizzas, charging into his team's locker room, even getting all the six-graders to attack the high school! DANG, we was idiots back then!"

"And that doesn't even include hiding or attacking him everytime we saw him." Nigel winced. "How he put up with that…"

"Aw, c'mon!" Hoagie shoved Nigel. "We were just kids! We didn't understand all about high school, and girls, and stuff like that. We just figured he stopped playing with us cause he didn't like us!" He sank back to his seat grumbled. "Anyway, it's not like it was all our fault. He did start acting all high and mighty, ignoring us and calling us brats."

"Didn't we make up somethin' about him betraying the club, or something like that?" Wally cocked an eyebrow. "Pretended he was going to send the 'moonbase' into the sun."

"Oh yeah!" Kuki giggled. "And Hoagie's little brother pretended to be all kidnapped and stuff. That was fun. We decided he wasn't a part of the Kids Next Door."

"And we decided teenagers were evil." Nigel took another drink from his coffee. "Don't forget that. We also decided the reason why none of them believed in the 'moonbase' was because they had their memories erased, or something."

"Uuuunnngh…"Abby closed her eyes and bent her head down to drink from her drink. "Abby ain't gonna forget that for a while. How her sister ever lived through them years…"

"How is your sister, anyway?" Hoagie asked.

Abby gave him a sideways glance that made Hoagie get a little flustered. "Oh c'mon! I keep telling you, that was years ago! Anyway, she's got a boyfriend now, doesn't she?"

Abby softened and laughed. "Yeah. She and Maurice sure have hung on. Heh." She shook her head. "Kinda funny, considering how Maurice and I used to go on about her."

"Maurice?" Nigel perked up a little. "Maurice we didn't tease so much. And he played around with us some still even after he went off to high school. Told us he was some kind of 'undercover agent', or something." Nigel smiled as he remembered. "Still." He shook his head. "We used to be a bunch of little pills."

"Aw, relax." Wally looked up at the ceiling disinterestedly. "It's been years, and they're all off in college. They probably don't even remember it anymore."

"I'm not even sure I do." Kuki giggled. "Are you sure all that stuff happened? It sounds so… silly, really!"

"Oh, it happened all right." Hoagie chuckled. "We had loads of fun back then. I mean…" he threw a glance at Nigel. "Yeah, we were jerks, but so were all the other kids, so I don't think anybody really noticed."

"Eh…. Maybe not." Nigel smiled a little.

"And I think the older kids kinda liked playing the bad guys." Hoagie smirked. "At least, I know Cree did, and I think Chad mighta liked it too. And your Uncle Ben just lived to catch us running around his yard. About the only thing kept him amused. You remember the time we had the neighborhood picnic?"

"Ooooh." Wally's face got a look of dawning comprehension. "THAT time. That was awesome."

"Oh yeah!" Kuki's eyebrows bounced. "I remember that! We had everybody at the convention center place, and all the adults were there too."

"There was a lot of people at that place, baby." Abby grinned. "Mr. Fullbright, the one cranky guy down the street with the busted leg, even Nigel's granddad from overseas." She gave out another little laugh. "And we were all running around, pretending the world was getting run over by zombies or something."

"Yeah!" Wally nodded enthusiastically. "I remember that! Nigel's granddaddy was supposed to be the really nasty guy, and anyone who touched him was turned into a cruddy zombie, and then they ran around touching other people."

"Hoh yeah." Hoagie's grin spread from ear to ear. Awesome time. I think your cousins even got in the game, Nigel."

"Could be." Nigel nodded. "I don't remember exactly. I just remember my Dad finding out about the game and playing with us, pretending he was a Kids Next Door operative." He stared at the table, "That was the most awesome thing ever. My Dad always was good at playing with us, but that time… that was just… wow."

"Yeah…" Hoagie nodded.

The five friends fell silent again, staring at the table. Kuki slurped on her snowcone. Hoagie reached out and tickled Abby's side, who turned and gave him a light smack. Around them, the noise of the coffee house flowed about, patrons bustling and light music wafting over the speakers. Two ten-year olds ran in the door and hopped into a booth. An old couple came up to the counter and spoke with the blonde at the cash register.

Wally finally broke the silence. "We shoulda kept up with the others better."

The others nodded.

"Fanny, Patton, Hermie…" Wally sighed. "I ain't really spoke to them in years." He looked at the others. "Why'd we ever stop hanging out like that?"

Abby shrugged. "We grew up. It happens."

"After a while, people just stopped coming." Hoagie frowned, thinking. "And it… I dunno. All the work at high school, and everything going on… It was just easier to plop in front of the TV and watch something."

'Yeah." Kuki nodded, her smile dimming some. "I mean, like, we still saw them at school and stuff, but we just didn't talk as much anymore."

"Heh." Nigel smirked a little. "I wonder if the others thought we were just like the other teenagers. THAT'd be justice."

"They have been speaking for a long time now."

"Yeah. I noticed"

"They have spoken about many things that concern us directly." The chubby ten-year old stole a glance from under his wide-brimmed hat over at the teenagers laughing at the corner table. "Our reconnaissance has proven most instructive."

"Well?" The short blonde kid peered across the table at his companion. "Are we done here or what? Didja find it out?"

"Indeed." The other's hat nodded up and down. "They remember nothing."

"Nothing?"

A smile curved the mouth of the chubby one. "Nothing that can be dangerous to us. The revised decommissioning process has allowed them to retain their memories by manipulating them into seeming fantasies."

"Huh?" The blonde kid looked up.

The hat frowned, and the child pulled up the corners of a dark cape he was wearing. "They think it was all a game, Joey. They cannot oppose the organization, because they think the organization never existed." Tommy grinned. "My brother's invention worked perfectly."

A.N: Yeah, another one. I just wanted to get that last little bit in there, and cover some other things that I didn't really mention last time. I'm not going to do any more of these, I think. They're fun, but they're not the kind of story I get in for.

Still, more of this or not, PLEASE REVIEW! I realize I'm twisting some basic facts about the KND universe here, but that's kinda the point. The thing with decommisioning I think is actually intentional on the part of the show, I mean, why else does the decom chamber use television screens? (especially if a plunger comes out. Whose idea was that?) But I also thought it fun to give a hint of the world surrounding the teenagers.