Numbuh 7

by Me! :)

Disclaimer: The author of this work does not own KND, and enjoys talking about herself in the third person.

Author's Note: I'm baaack! Sorry, I just needed to take a little break from writing fanfics because I needed to get a few things settled. Oh, and you may notice a slight change in my writing style. A good one hopefully. :) Enjoy!

On with the story (finally)...

Nigel came out of his room and let out a small giggle. If that sentence didn't seem weird to you, then you better read it again. Being the leader of Sector V, Nigel would snicker, chuckle, and possibly even guffaw, but never would he have even dreamed of giggling. Until just now.

This strange behaviour made Lara look at him quizzically. She asked what he had found so funny. And she said she wanted to know what kind of a laugh that was.

'One, two of my best friends have just confessed their undying love for two completely unsuspecting girls, and two, it was a giggle. If I'd done a louder kind of laugh, they would know that I'm listening!'

"Nothing."

Lara rolled her eyes. "Of course. I must have just imagined that giggle then."

Nigel could feel his ears slowly turn crimson. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice.

"I think they may be in there for a while," he blurted out in an attempt to change the subject.

"Ew! May I remind you that this is a K PLUS RATED STORYNigel Uno! I will not tolerate anything suggestive like that, thank you very m-,"

"Quiet!" he yelled slash whispered, putting his hand over her mouth. "They'll hear you!"

They both stared at the two doors, waiting for someone to come out and tell them off for eavesdropping. No one ever did.

After removing his hand, Nigel continued; "You know very well that that's not what I meant! Anyway, I was saying that I think they may be in there a while, DOING K PLUS RATED THINGS..." he paused to give Lara a hard stare. " And I think that it would be best if we got started on repairing your time machine. Does the rental company's insurance cover exploding engines?"

"The what?"

He sighed. "Whatever, let's just get started with the repairs. Numbuh 5 mentioned that you were the 2x4 Technology expert for your sector, so this is probably going to be pretty easy for you, am I right?"

Lara had always been incredibly eager to defend her skills as a mechanic slash scientist. "Pfft! Easy? This'll be a piece of pudding for someone at my level of expertise!"

" 'Piece of pudding'?"

"Isn't that what you guys say when you think something isn't going to involve much hard work?"

"Um, no actually. We say-" Nigel then remembered that that they had work to do. "Never mind. I'll give you an English lesson later."

They both walked over to the battered looking time machine which had now been pushed into the corner of the room. Lara helped him to drag it into Hoagie's bedroom so they would have access to plenty of tools.

"Hmm..." a look of deep concentration spread across her face as she began to examine. "Do you have a skateboard I can use?"

"What? You mean one for you to use to slide around while you're working underneath the car?"

She rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, I don't really need it, but it makes me look clordone!"

Nigel put his head in one hand and mumbled something that sounded like, "Just get to work."

Lara raised her hands in an 'I surrender' gesture and passed a toolbox she had found on Hoagie's desk to Nigel. She then lay on her back and began to analyze the bottom of her time machine.

"Actually, the engine doesn't seem to be as damaged as I thought. I'm not likely to need a new one at all, I think." she claimed.

He seemed slightly surprised with this piece of information."So this shouldn't take too long?"

"Don't think so."

"Great."

A few minutes went by. During this time, Nigel just sat on his stool next to the machine, passing Lara all the tools she asked for. Feeling pretty bored, he decided to start a conversation.

"So..." he began. "How are things with you and the Kid?"

Nigel heard the sound of a bolt being tightened before she replied, "Non-existent."

For some strange reason, Nigel felt a wave of relief rush through his body. He couldn't think why though. Perhaps he lov- no! Absolutely ridiculous! There was no way in heck that he felt that way about Lara!... but then again, this wasn't heck.

"What do you mean by 'non-existent' exactly?" he queried, begging to know more about a now potential 'rival'.

"Well," Lara started to say. "When we first met, the Kid was awesome..."

Nigel's heart sank.

"...or so I thought."

It floated back up again.

"He was flirting with other girls while we walked to the cafeteria! He also had the nerve to give someone his number when he thought I wasn't looking! Can you believe that?! Screwdriver please."

Nigel looked through the toolbox for a screwdriver then handed it to Lara.

"Thank youuu..."

Lara didn't love the Kid? The very thought of that started to send a million questions racing through Nigel's brain.

Then what was all that business during first break?

Did you break up with him?

Do you love me?

Is 2Pac still alive somewhere?

He decided to ask the most obvious one.

"Is 2Pa- um.... I mean... you know, if that's the case, then what was all that business during first break?

"I figured that if I pretended to be going out with the Kid, then I could get Kuki and Abby to be jealous. I would then persuade Wally and Hoagie to confess their feelings, and voila! We'd have my two sets of possible parents already matched up!"

"Clever."

"I know. Spanner, please."

Nigel gave her the tool she required. He started to slowly swing his legs back and forth while he silently toyed with the idea of asking another question. After a little pause, he finally decided on 'Did you break up with him?'

"Did you break up with him?"

"Of course I did! He turned out to be one of the worst people I've ever met, for crying out loud! Veryunclordonic."

A 'I'm-feeling-a-bit-pleased-with-myself' sort of smile burst across his face. He noticed a small screw lying on the floor, and began to kick it around. It was a less crazy way of pointing at it and yelling, "See! I told you, you stupid screw!"

"Besides," Lara continued. "He was definitely not my type."

He froze. Lara had a type? The feeling of being pleased with himself was gone, and worry that he didn't qualify as 'Lara's type' was in its place.

"Ha! Who's laughing now, you stupid kid!" the screw seemed to be saying.

In anger, Nigel kicked the screw so hard, it flew across the room. How dare that piece of metal call him stupid! It should have known better than to mess with the Leader of Sector V of the Kids Next Door!

As Nigel tried to regain his sanity, he cleared his throat to speak.

"You have a type? What sort of type?"

"I tend to go for a guy that's honest, caring and funny. Someone that's the exact opposite of a 'macho man' like the Kid."

He gulped. "Define 'macho man'."

"A macho man is basically a guy that treats girls like they're not human beings. He treats them like they're just there for him to show off his 'manliness' and to impress. When really, girls are often impressed by the type of guy that isn't afraid to giggle in front of them."

And even though he couldn't see her, Nigel could tell by the way she had said the sixteenth word in that sentence, that Lara had winked. His ears went a deep red for the second time that day. Again, she didn't see.

The door to the room opened without warning. Nigel looked up to see two very happy looking couples standing in the doorway. Hoagie had his arm tightly wrapped around Abby's waist, and her right hand was draped over his shoulder. They were both smiling and gazing into each other's eyes, just like young lovers should.

Kuki and Wally looked as if they had just stepped out of a certain vampire romance novel that the author of this story happens to love. He had a slightly dopey look on his face, not to mention plenty of lipstick marks. His new girlfriend was even more cheery than usual, if that was possible. She had Wally in a back-crushing bear hug, the kind he normally would have objected to. Not anymore.

Lara stuck her head out from underneath the machine and grinned. "Well, well, well! What do we say to 'Cupid's Little Helper', boys?"

"Thanks." Wally smiled. "You've made us all the happiest kids on the planet!"

"Your welcome. But I didn't do anything really, it was all you."

Nigel tried to stifle back his laughter. If only Wally knew how much of a lie that was.

"I see you've got the time machine in Lara..." Hoagie pointed out. "And in MY ROOM as well. Why is that?"

Lara got up onto her feet, and brushed some dirt off of the front of her shirt. "It was Numbuh 1's idea. He thought that while you in your room not doing anything not-K-plus-rated, that it would be a good time for me to work on fixing the time machine. I'm actually done, I think. All that's left is for me to test it out..."

She felt around in her skirt pocket, looking for the keys. "Hmm... where could those keys be? Are these they? Nope. Err... I know I left it next to my chili-do- oh hey Elvis! Umm... AHA! Found them!" She pulled out a pair of keys attached to a spiky, light- up ball.

"Gather 'round! I'm gonna try and start this baby up!" Lara declared, stepping into the driver's side of the time machine slash purple Mini Cooper. Once in, she rolled down the windows so that the other operatives could listen to her while she tried to start the engine.

Nigel, Wally and Kuki leaned in on Lara's side, while Abby and Hoagie stood on the passenger's side. They heard Lara murmur a prayer, before she put the key in the ignition. No one breathed. Lara got a firm grip on the key, and slowly turned it right...

They all gave a huge sigh of relief when they heard the engine roar to life. Strange as it may sound, the present day members of Sector V had never seen a real time machine in action before, (Must have been something to do with the fact that they still hadn't been invented yet.) so they were surprised to see an array of lights flashing next to what they assumed must have been the steering wheel. To they're annoyance, Lara seemed to know exactly what to do with them all.

"You know what?" Lara asked, completely out of the blue. "I think it would be best if I went away for a little while."

Nigel gasped. "W-w-whatever for?!" he stammered, seemingly oblivious to the weird looks he was getting from his teammates.

"Just to see if everything in the machine still works. I should be back soon though, I won't go too far in time."

"But...but... I just got used to you being here!"

"Like I said, I should be back soon. Relax, it'll be fi- hello... what's this?"

The screen that was used to control the radio had a string of words going around in a loop on it.

'Incoming video call from Numbuh 263,' it said. 'Would you like to accept the call?'

A little green button with the word 'YES' engraved began to flash. Lara pressed it, and the face of her Supreme Leader appeared.

"LARA!!! YOU'RE ALIVE!!! Oh my god, I can't wait to see the look on Numbuh 666's face when I tell him- oh. Umm... excuse me. Good afternoon, Numbuh 7." he said, saying the last four words in a military-like fashion. "It is the afternoon in the past, isn't it?"

Lara gave him a quick salute. "Yes sir, indeed it is."

Numbuh 263 looked fairly pleased with himself. "Good. Never doubted that for a second. Anyway, I've been trying to make contact with you for over 2 days now! Where have you been?"

"Sorry sir, but the time machine's engine burst and the whole communication system was busted too."

"I see. Well then, who are those people standing around you?" Numbuh 263's eyes widened with shock, "They're not teenagers, are they??"

Lara laughed. "No sir, of course not. These are Numbuhs 1 to 5 of the old Sector V. Guys, say hello to my Supreme Leader, Numbuh 263."

"Hey, sir."

"Close enough." Lara turned back to face the screen. "Why did you need to contact me, sir? If you don't mind me asking that is."

"Not at all. Actually, I was hoping you were going to ask that..." his voice trailed off then.

"Is there something the matter sir?"

"Umm... not particularly..."

"Sir..." Lara added a stern edge to her voice.

Numbuh 263 sighed. "During the time we were out of contact, I decided that it would be a good idea for me to do what I could to look through my Soopah Secret Files for some more information about your parents, and their death-"

"And you decide to do this after I set off on my life-threatening time travel quest?! My god, how thickcan you ge-" Remembering who she was talking to, Lara stopped and said, "Err... I mean, carry on sir."

"Very well." he said, giving Lara a cold stare. "As I was looking through some files, I found some rather interesting things... take this for example;" There was a pause as Numbuh 263 appeared to be going through some papers on his desk. They waited until he held up an incomplete looking picture book.

"This," he began. "is a book your mother was known to be working on before that tragic April night. It was called, 'Marshmallow, The Dolphin Princess' and was set to be an international bestseller."

Wally sniggered at the book's title until Lara gave him a 'Shut- up,- or- that- pink- Rainbow- Monkey- you've- got- hidden- under- your- pillow- gets- it' sort of look.

"As I was saying, this book was set to be an international bestseller, and therefore it needed to go through a lot of editing before it was put on the shelves. This particular copy of the book had been sent to your mother's editor with a note."

"So what..." Lara said disapprovingly. She then decided it was best to add;"...sir?" to end, just to be safe.

"Well, there's good news and bad news about this... the bad news is that your mother's handwriting is the worst I've ever seen, and no one here can read it."

Hoagie scoffed. "He's obviously never seen your handwriting, Numbuh 4. If you can call it that..."

Kuki and Abby laughed quietly as they watched Wally go red with anger. "Oh yeah? Well...your face is my handwriting!"

"Shh, you lot!" Lara raised a finger to her lips. "What's the good news sir?"

Numbuh 263 grinned broadly. "The good news is, that it's signed and dated by your mother. Even though we're not sure which day it's dated, there are clearly two digits in the date. However, the day of the accident was on April 9th 2019. This means that its impossible for this to have been sent any time before the accident occurred. Therefore..."

"But... it doesn't necessarily mean that she's still alive." Lara interrupted. "I mean... you know... someone might have... I don't know... forged the signature or something..."

Judging by the look on Numbuh 263's face, this wasn't quite the reaction he was hoping for. Nevertheless, he continued. "That's quite true. And also the reason why we hacked into the Emergency Services databases to search for any road accidents that occurred on that da-"

"Were there any?" she asked solemnly.

"I'll tell you if you let me fin-"

"I SAID, WERE THERE ANY?"

The present day members of Sector V took a few steps away from the machine, afraid of anything Lara might do in the spur of the moment.

Numbuh 263 bit his lip anxiously. "No."

"And the book- does it have her name on it?"

"Do you mean your moth-"

"YOU FLIPPING WELL KNOW WHOSE NAME I MEAN!" Lara screamed, hot tears of anger streaming down her face.

"No. It doesn't. The front cover hadn't been designed yet."

Lara tried to calm her voice down a little, but it still had that angry tone. "I see. And you can't read her signature either, because of her handwriting."

He nodded.

"I understand. Goodbye."

"Wait, what are yo-"

But she had already turned off the engine. Lara gripped the steering wheel firmly, rested her forehead against it and just burst into tears. These were not the fiery tears she had just used a few seconds ago, but tears of confusion, sadness and possibly even heartbreak.

"Lara..." Nigel tried to speak after her crying had quietened slightly. "...are you feeling any better?"

She let a loud sniff escape her nose before replying. " I don't know. I really don't know anymore.

"Everything I've ever known about my parents has been a lie. Everyone that's ever known the truth about them is a liar. Mrs Drilovsky at the orphanage? Liar. Mrs Lincoln next-door? Liar. My so-called 'Supreme Leader'? Liar! They all are! I'll bet Lara isn't even my real name. Yeah. It's probably something more interesting, like 'Naomi' or 'Skye'.

"And you know what else? Chances are I'm not even human! I might be this alien princess, and my parents might have been bent on world domination or something, except I'll never know because... because..." Lara stopped her ranting and started crying instead. Her steering wheel was covered with water, making it very hard for her to hold her grip.

"Lara. Stop crying." Nigel said in a soothing voice. "You need to calm down and think carefully about the situation you are in. Maybe the people that you were talking about were all telling the truth as they knew it? Maybe someone lied to them. Maybe there's only one person you need to blame instead of one hundred."

The crying had reduced to noisy sniffling as she raised her head. "Alright."

Nigel smiled without showing any teeth. "Now Lara, is there anyone you know that may have wanted you thinking that your parents were dead?"

Lara thought. She started flicking through her memories as she would a photo album. Moving to the orphanage, making her first friend, learning to ride a bike, her fourth birthday party... she stopped. Her eyes widened. She knew who she needed to find.

Lara dried her eyes and the steering wheel. Grasping both sides of the wheel she announced, "Get in. We're all going for a little ride..."

I haven't had any writing inspiration until about two days ago. It's a Christmas miracle! :P

Happy Holidays, and please review.

O- Lollipop