Flora's POV

It's time. I knew it was coming eventually. I just wanted to push it off till later but now I knew it wouldn't work out well. Ever since that kiss Kowalski and I had shared in the lab, we've been doing it over and over again with each time getting better then the last, yet the first was far more special then the others. We would say we were 'experimenting', but we weren't. We both knew Skipper and Amber wouldn't approve of this. Of course they didn't suspect two scientists doing anything but experiments in a lab, so they didn't suspect a thing. At least I don't think they did.

Kowalski and I were about to do some more 'experimenting', but I wasn't looking forward to it for once. This time, I had to break his heart. We were leaving in three days! I can't just suddenly drop off the face of the earth when I have a relationship with him! It's heartbreaking for him and myself. I didn't want to do it but it has to be done.

I slowly and reluctantly opened the lab door. When I entered, I saw Kowalski waiting at the work table for me expectantly. He immediately brightened when he saw me and jumped off the table he was sitting on. He waddled forward as I closed and locked the door behind me.

"Hey Flora!" Kowalski greeted with a large grin. I smiled weakly at him and Kowalski instantly frowned. "What's wrong?" he asked.

I took in a deep shaky breath and exhaled nervously. "Kowalski…" I started hesitantly. "I can't do this anymore."

He stiffened and looked at me nervously. "W-what do y-you m-mean?" he stuttered. It hurt so badly. It felt like a knife had struck me where my heart was. I knew that he understood what I meant; he just didn't want to believe it, neither did I.

"We can't have a…" I swallowed hard and choked the words out sadly, "relationship." It looked like it hurt him pretty bad. His eyes were glazed with sadness, and I knew mine were too. I looked down, afraid of looking at his expression again. I felt on the verge of tears, but I held them in. He tilted my head up so I was looking at him in the eyes. They held sadness and confusion.

"Why?" he choked.

My frown deepened. I had forgotten to think of a reason. Dang it! Stupid! Why can't you think straight? Because you're stupid! No you're stupid! The whole world is stupid! I thought as I started arguing with myself.

Kowalski helped me focus by once again choking out, "Why?"

I swallowed hard again. "Because, I j-just don't feel the s-same w-way anymore," I lied. It hurt to say such a painful and cruel lie.

Kowalski stubbornly shook his head. "I know you feel the same way, I can see it in your eyes," he told me determinedly, which surprised me. He read me like a book. "Your beautiful brown eyes," he said softly as he started to lean in. I felt myself doing the same, but I yanked myself away from Kowalski. He stared at me sadly. He looked extremely depressed and confused; I felt the same. "Flora…" he murmured.

I shook my head, finally letting my tears fall. "No Kowalski," I choked on my falling tears. "I can't do this!"

"Why not?" Kowalski cried. He had some tears falling down at this point.

"Because I can't!" I shouted harshly.

Before he could ask me anymore questions, I unlocked the door and ran out. I did my best to ignore the confused and surprised gazes of the other penguins. I did; however, take into account that Madison was back. I didn't let that affect my actions and looked around for a way out. I immediately spotted Privates First Prize entrance.

I didn't pay attention to Amber telling me to halt as I ran to Private's First Prize and used the hidden passageway. I was soon in the sewer, sliding on my belly with tears coming down like a river. I slid around the corner and crashed into something hard and furry. I looked up and saw none other then the Rat King. He still held the red flipper mark on his face, but the color had gone down dramatically. He looked at me, and his eyes went wide with fear or surprise, which neither I could tell for sure. He then put on a smirk because he, from my educated guess, saw the tears streaming down my face.

"What's wrong with you bird?" he growled.

I couldn't stop myself from exploding with emotion. "I'm in an emotional crisis!" I wailed. "I can't take it! I had to break up with the guy of my dreams! The stress and everyone is making me lose it!" I clutched the Rat King's leg, and my tears poured down even harder. I was surprised he didn't kick me away or make some kind of rude remark. I looked up at the rat to seem him with a rather blank expression.

"What?" I choked. "You're not going to kick me, or beat me up?" I clenched his leg tighter, scowling. "I dare you too!" I yelled. What I was thinking? I was dealing with emotions that I thought I had left me too rot a long time ago. Sadness, anger and confusion. What got me ashamed of myself was that I wanted him to hurt me. To have punishment for what I have done or something!

"You seem to be in enough pain, so I'll cut you some slack, bird," he snorted indifferently. Something told me it was more then that. Empathy? Perhaps he's been in the same situation I have been never had the consolation he needed.

Either way, I smiled slightly despite these words but that didn't stop the raging tears coming down my face. "Sorry for bothering you," I found myself apologizing.

"Whatever." He shrugged as if he didn't care but made a motion to let go and, by the look in his eyes, he wasn't afraid to shove a girl in pain away.

I got off of his leg and tried to wipe away all my tears. "Thanks for not kicking me," I chuckled dryly.

He offered a weird toothy grin as he said, "No problem but I make no promises that I won't do it next time."

I chuckled at that, for a strange reason, and waddled away. I looked at him over my shoulder; he looked back with certain hostility, but I smiled anyway. I admit that he made me feel better in a weird kind of way, but I was still upset. What I needed was someone to confide too.

My destination was Marlene's. Maybe she could help me feel better, or at least understand what I felt. I found the sewer grate that I assumed was Marlene's. I was confident it was because I had a knack for memorizing things. I pressed the grate up and peeked inside. I heard a scream and that made me jump into the cave with a fighting stance. I realized it was Marlene who screamed, and she was sitting on her bed, clutching her chest that rose and fell extremely fast.

"I'm so sorry!" I gasped. "I didn't mean to scare you! I was just…" I trailed off as I remembered Kowalski. I felt tears pricking my eyes, but I rubbed it away with my flipper.

Marlene looked at me with concern and asked, "Are you ok?"

I shook my head. "No, Marlene, I'm not. I'm in an emotional crisis." I started to sob again and covered my face with my flipper.

"What happened?" she asked worriedly, sat me down on her bed and joined me to my right.

"I don't know if you know, but I was in a little…" I hesitated, "relationship with Kowalski and I broke up with him."

Marlene looked at me in a weird way. Bemused was probably the term. "You're upset about that but you broke up with him. So why did you break up with him if you would be upset?"

I stiffened. I forgot to take into account that she might ask me that. Stupid! What's wrong with me! "It's complicated, but it's for the best." I didn't want to lie to her, so I gave her my best answer without giving away to much information. She looked at me skeptically but, thankfully, didn't push me any further.

"I'm sorry about that," Marlene said sympathetically.

"Thanks but I really didn't want to do that to Kowalski or myself," I admitted with light streams of tears coming down again.

Marlene hugged me, and I sniffled as I hugged her back. She pulled away and patted my back comfortingly. "It'll all be fine; besides, Valentines Day is near, so you never know."

That made me burst into tears. We were leaving before that! I don't know what to do anymore. I can't stand this kind of emotional drama. Maybe Amber was right...maybe love wasn't worth the time and only left a line of heartbreak. I forced myself to stop crying, turned to Marlene and gave her the best fake smile I could muster. "Thanks for the talk Marlene. I needed that."

She didn't look like she believed me, but she smiled anyway.

We exchanged our goodbyes, and I left to go back to the penguin habitat. I cleared the fence and landed in the water so it would get rid of my tear marks. I swam underneath the water, trying to relax myself; I didn't believe I could go into the HQ just yet. I knew it was going to be awkward when I came in, it was dead on obvious. I might be asked questions or maybe even receive a couple of glares if they knew what happened. I wasn't ready to face them all.

Apparently I didn't have to because Amber, Sara and Madison popped out of the fishbowl entrance. They were waiting for me to come up from what I could guess, since they were watching me swim. Bubbles escaped my beak when I slowly came up to greet them. "Hi," I sighed as I surfaced the water.

"Hi? Is that it? You run out of the HQ in tears and you come back all relaxed twenty minutes later, and you just say 'hi'?" Amber growled.

I looked at her with a raised brow. What'd she want with me? An apology too?

"Amber, she was in tears," Sara reminded her quietly but I still heard. "You shouldn't be so hard on her," she whispered.

I jumped on the floe and faced my closest friends. "It's fine, Sara."

Amber dismissed this and got straight to the point. "So what happened? Kowalski seemed really upset. When you left, he just closed the door, but you could be a hatchling and still notice how depressed the guy was," she informed.

My eyes grew in size. He didn't tell them? I was thankful that he didn't since it would only complicate matters. "Don't worry about it Amber, I'm sure it'll blow over soon," I reassured with little to no confidence. Amber raised an unconvinced brow but didn't seem to make anything of it.

I looked at Madison and gasped when I saw a bunch of blood on the bandages she had on her. "Madison!" I shrieked. The others looked at her and Sara gasped as well while Amber appeared surprised. Madison simply looked down and groaned in annoyance like she had known this was going to happen. "How can you be so calm about this?"

I guess the guys must have heard my yell because they all jumped out in fighting stances. I couldn't help but look at Kowalski. He looked fine except for his puffy red eyes. Probably from crying, and I knew mine were the same. We locked gazes and I had to look at the ground or else I might have cried right then and there.

"Madison!" Rico squawked in worry. He rushed over to her and inspected the bandages closely. He seemed to punish himself for something I wasn't aware of.

I set my own feelings aside and let my commanding side take over. "Rico!" I barked. God I sounded like Amber. I find that a bad thing.

Rico turned to me, surprised.

"Untie the binding and get me some rolls of bandages," I ordered. Rico didn't hesitate and undid the binding on Madison. She squirmed around uncomfortably and tried to escape his touch. "Madison, it's for your own good, so calm down," I reassured as I waddled over toward the two maniac penguins. She growled and rolled her eyes but stopped moving.

Rico and Madison were doing the entire process awkwardly like they were uncomfortable near each other. Why, I may never know. As soon as the bandages were off, blood started to slowly stream. Sara whimpered and fainted as she saw all the blood.

That's when the panic attack began.

Private yelped, ran toward Sara and tried to wake her up by repeatedly yelling her name. Amber was trying to calm down a freaking out Rico with Skipper helping her in restraining him. Kowalski was trying to get some strips of bandages for Madison but was fumbling with it and he kept cursing under his breath. The only ones that were calm were me and Madison.

We exchanged looks with an annoyed expression. I nodded to her as a signal for her to do whatever she pleased. She offered a small smile and did a large intake of breath, which only made more blood spill out. She let out a large and long scream, making everybody place their flippers or other appendages over their ears or ear holes, trying to block out the sound. I tried to block out the sound as much as possible and man it was ear piercing.

It was loud enough to make Sara wake up from her faint attack. Although I felt bad for her as soon as she clutched her head, attempting to block out the noise. Apparently the other animals from the habitats heard and everybody was now watching us, especially at Madison. She stopped her scream abruptly, and scratched her neck as if nothing happened. My observations told me it was not that. Pain was on her facial features that suggested that her throat was a problem to her now.

"Alright," I murmured quietly after a moment of silence. And it was extremely quiet, since the other zoo animals were watching silently, making my focus very limited no matter how hard I tried. "Just calm down and let me work here." My face burned from the gazes of everyone in the zoo. I waddled to my mute friend and took the roll of bandages that were near Kowalski. Poor guy was literally right in front of Madison. He might be deaf after this. Who knew a penguin could make such an ear splitting sound?

"Rico, I need some help," I told the worried penguin.

He nodded and jumped next to me.

"I need a needle," I instructed. Madison instantly had alarm flashing through her eyes, but I kept a firm hold on her shoulder. "Stay," I growled firmly. Admiration shown in Madison's eyes, that and her own stubborn behavior and distaste for needles. Rico hacked up that and some other things I would need to re-stitch Madison up. No doubt that this would affect our trip to Antarctica.

I saw Skipper in the corner of my eye looking away, probably not wanting to see the needle. I pushed Madison to the ground and began stitching her up. She had a determined expression to not show any fear or hurt, and I couldn't help but admire her resistance.

It took a couple of minutes, but the wound was stitched together, and now I needed to do was wrap it all up. I quickly wrapped the large and thick white binding around her. She didn't seem happy about it but didn't move in protest like usual. I jumped back in success and was embarrassed when everyone started cheering for my success. All the penguins, except Madison, and the other animals from the habitats were cheering. I couldn't handle everyone's gazes, so I ducked into the water.

I smiled as I saw Madison come in after me. She swam until she was in front of me and nodded her head in thanks with bubbles of air escaping her beak. I gave her a nod in return. Her beak turned upwards in a smile and she quickly swam off in a blur. I frowned as I saw Kowalski in her place. He had been behind her.

I smiled weakly and waved my flipper slightly in the water, making bubbles appear that had stuck onto my feathers. He didn't respond to my gestures, and came closer till he was mere inches away from my beak. I was startled, but I didn't move. He stroked the side of my face, not worrying if anybody saw him from above. I liked the little action, but I couldn't be pulled back into his heart. It was for the best. I swam back a little, enough so I was out of his reach. His expression filled with guilt, making me offer an apologetic look before I swam off.

If I wasn't in water already, you would see the tears coming down my face.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The clock is still ticking and now there's only three days left! Everything's falling apart, so very sad. Not very long till the girls leave.

Sara: I don't want to leave!

Me: Well you're leaving.

Flora: Are you sure?

Me: Yes, positive!

Amber: You sure we couldn't bribe you with…

Madison: *Pulls out a five pound chocolate bar*

Me: OMG! Where did you get that?

Amber: I know a guy. Review while we try to bargain with this lunatic.