"Doris." The two voices growled simultaneously as all eyes turned to the dolphin they had all at some point loved, but even then, Skipper and Blowhole's eyes kept darting over to each other suspiciously. Their glares were murderous, desperate, fuelled by guilt or anger, one a broken heart, the other betrayed family, though Doris seemed entirely at ease in their midst, waiting patiently, though her flipper was conspicuously close to the control panel of her Segway. Nobody looked at Kowalski except briefly to see he was all right.

"You haven't answered me yet, Doris." the science minded penguin spoke in a hollow voice that got all their attentions. It hit both Skipper and Blowhole at the same time, though they'd both claim it had struck them first, how he sounded almost like a voice from the grave, dull and not really there. The part of Skipper that still couldn't give up on Doris, and possibly a similar side in his counterpart too, saw a slight twitch in her calm, pity almost, but Skipper didn't believe that side of himself any more than he thought Private understood human nature, "What's the plan this time?"

"What plan?" She scoffed showing for once true annoyance, "Thanks to the three of you there is no plan."

"Am I supposed to feel guilty about thwarting you?" Skipper countered casually though he was trying hard to keep his voice steady.

"You weren't supposed to take Kowalski with you!" She snapped, "You weren't supposed to fight Hans, you weren't supposed to look through my room – not yet!"

"Well I'm glad he did take Kowalski with him." Blowhole finally had his say, "I hate to admit this, but I think he was safer with Skipper than with you." He glanced over at Kowalski and his eye locked on to an area of rope burn on Kowalski's side and some other suspicious looking marks that hadn't been there when they'd met for coffee and were too well on the way to healing to have been a product of the tangle with Doris.

"Oh, safer with Skipper because with him it was 'just business', he's just reluctantly following orders? I think you can already see it was more to him than just business." She looked over at Skipper, and Rico gave her protective a warning look. Normally when people got a warning look from Rico they backed off, but not Doris. While the rest of them all seemed to be pushed to their breaking points she appeared to be completely calm, possibly even enjoying herself, but Kowalski was certain it was all an act she was only just recovering. Things hadn't gone to plan at just about every point, she was as on edge as the rest of them, "You know, he still can't forgive Kowalski for being the 'other guy' and he can't shake the doubt from his paranoid mind that maybe Kowalski did know that my last romance had been with his commanding officer." Skipper scowled.

"My thoughts are my business."

"And mine are yours?"

"I don't go around tryin' to make people kill each other because of what I might think could have remotely, possibly happened, unlike you." Skipper snapped. Doris just chuckled.

"Yes, I have played loose with the rules of your penguin façade of 'sporting-ness', haven't I" She laughed, " No investigation, no warning to back off, no proper face to face confrontation or formal declaration of archenemyship." She was mocking him now, and neither Skipper nor Blowhole liked it. She knew exactly how to rub both of them the wrong way, "But you haven't been any kind of angel yourself, darling…" She smiled innocently in her brother's direction, "Shall I tell Little B what you've been doing to Kowalski to make him 'talk', or more accurately because he was the other guy?"

"It was all business, I had no choice, it was me or another agent who'd have done worse!" Skipper was about to protest but Kowalski didn't give him the chance.

"Skipper never laid a wing on me," He cut in hurriedly, "She's lying!"

"Am I, Little B?" Doris spoke in that nonchalant tone, making no attempt to counter Kowalski as the particle of doubt already had Blowhole thinking, "Skipper, remember that Iceberg pass incident? There were no survivors, at least none by the time the rescue boats arrived. You were almost on one of those ships they diverted to help, Skipper, you could have been the one to walk amongst those frozen corpses – were some of them old friends?"

"Keep talkin' lady." Skipper replied trying to keep up the tough act, but she was getting to him. Blowhole appeared to be completely speechless, more than a little guilty since the very day it had happened – it wasn't like he didn't know what they were going to do with the munitions, he just hadn't expected it to be like that – but this admission of weakness only spurred Skipper on.

"Marlene's her name, right?" Skipper seemed about ready to jump out of his feathers, the thought crossing his mind that Doris might have gotten her hands on her, "She lost someone there. She would want revenge, wouldn't she?" Doris' words were like a consistent drip of water on a block of limestone, steady, constant, seemingly weak and harmless but eating through him and sculpting him more effectively than a chainsaw, "You should have seen how she protected you despite how much she wanted that revenge…" Skipper's eyes were already narrowing on Blowhole and equally Blowhole had come to his verdict about the injuries.

"Marlene wouldn't want revenge, Skipper, you know she's not like that!" Kowalski contradicted desperately but the damage was done, "Don't you two get it, she's been pitting the two of you against each other from the start, waiting to take on the winner!"

"Not quite, Kowalski, close though." Doris gave the two archenemies, too locked in their own battle to listen to Kowalski and Doris, a dismissive glance as if they were a novelty that had long since ceased to amuse her. Kowalski had to say, it was as if those two were in their own little bubble: he could shout at them, scream at them, probably shoot at them even, but all they could hear and see was each other, "They're perfectly matched, they'd fight on forever unless somebody else tipped the balance towards one or the other." Of course she'd needed to keep Kowalski out of the picture, Kowalski was what kept Skipper and Blowhole grounded in reality – when Blowhole got too dark and vengeful Kowalski would convince him to stop and think and he'd do the same for Skipper when he wanted to charge in somewhere guns a blazin'. Certainly, Rico was there, but he was just waiting for the order to shoot. Kowalski, of course, knew there was more to Rico, but at times like this, he was effectively little more than a weapon that Skipper would provide with a target and give the order to fire.

Kowalski had to get this out of here; he had to split those two up, he had to silence Doris somehow… Most of all he needed to think, which was twice as hard without his clipboard.

The place was half falling apart, maybe he could institute a controlled collapse…? Maybe he could manipulate those strange shadows and acoustics somehow to get one to walk away or something. But for either of those he had to get out of here first, made all the easier by the fact Skipper and Blowhole were off in their own little world of pre battle banter and Doris was busy fanning the flames and directing the fight. Quietly he took one cautious step backwards towards one of the doors and faced no opposition. He tried a second step.

"Hold it right there, Kowalski." Skipper barked. Kowalski froze as he heard the sound of Rico regurgitating Skipper's favourite weapon, a flamethrower, and it was aimed at him. What was Skipper doing? Taking him hostage as some kind of sick way of 'rescuing' him? It might be sick but it would work; Blowhole wouldn't call Skipper's bluff after what he knew Skipper had already done, Blowhole would have no choice but to let Skipper walk out of there, that or… No wonder Doris wasn't looking worried.

"I won't let you hurt him again," Blowhole countered in a tone that was ironically almost a mirror of Skipper's and Kowalski heard the whirr of the Segway mounted laser locking on to his heat signature, "no matter what it takes." Kowalski was tempted to point out that killing him, the 'whatever it takes part', was also a method of hurting him, but didn't risk it. Kowalski also had a vague memory of Skipper saying something about 'whatever it takes' back in the HQ with Rico and the elevator shaft.

"Kowalski's a Penguin," Skipper countered with the same intensity, "and no Penguin gets left behind."

"In your own words you called him a traitor, threw him out," Blowhole contradicted sharply, "He's no more a Penguin than I am…"

"Well he sure ain't a Squirrel!"

"No, he's not a Squirrel or a Penguin. He's caught between the black and white sides, all that's left for him is the grey area in between!"

"What, you?"

"Well it seem's like I'm the only one who'll have him!"

"You two really are as bad as each other." Doris sighed in mocking wistfulness, "You two really deserve each other, don't you? Kowalski's always caught in the middle – and you talk about grey areas, Little B." Skipper and Blowhole seemed to remember that Doris existed.

"I think we both know who we're against…!" Skipper began and Rico took it as an order to attack.