Bundled in a crate on the lower deck of a freighter bound for a South Pole research center, Rico and Private huddled together in silence. It had taken the combined efforts of Rico and the chimps to figure out the closest freighter to Antarctica, and it had taken the two penguins two days to get to the harbor at the tip of the Florida panhandle.

They'd boarded a flight in New York after saying goodbye to their zoomates, leaving them in Maurice's capable paws. Private wasn't exactly sure what the lemur was meant to do, but he didn't want to break rank. If Rico knew, that was enough for him. Huddled in the cargo hold, they had spent a restless night flying across the US, landing in the early morning hours.

With no time for rest, they'd immediately headed for the port the boat was leaving from. They got to the dock with mere minutes to spare then snuck onboard and headed down into the hull, searching for the cargo hold. Rico pried off the top of a crate, and they'd pulled out the contents, scientific equipment for some team down in Antarctica, and hidden them. They planned to refill the crate after docking. Now, all they had to do was wait.

And it was agonizing. Private wanted to do something. Sitting there in the dark, silent hold was driving him crazy. He was failing his commanding officers! They needed help, and he was just sitting still and doing nothing. Rico was lying back, snoring lightly, while Private was wide awake, feeling horribly guilty.

The younger penguin shifted around in the small space. There was enough room for the two penguins to stand and lie down, but that was it. It was uncomfortable, and Private didn't like it. He'd also never been on a mission like this before. This wasn't like the fun, playful missions that Skipper had used to increase his skills. It wasn't even like the more serious missions, like fighting Blowhole. It was so very different, all because Skipper and Kowalski were not there. It made him uneasy, but he couldn't place it for the longest time. Then it hit him; he had less protection now.

Private shifted again, muttering a complaint. Rico's snoring stopped, and he turned over, searching for Private's face with his flippers.

"Private?" he asked sleepily. "Are you okay?"

Private swallowed; Skipper didn't like it when he complained. "I'm fine."

"Are you?" Rico pressed.

Private swallowed; he needed to talk about it, but he didn't want to. After several moments of silence, Private gave in. He attempted a sentence, but his mouth was dry. Coughing to clear his throat, he tried again.

"I'm just worried."

"And?"

Private curled up tighter. "I feel like I'm failing them."

Rico paused, and Private heard him shifting closer. "Failing them? How? We're going to Antarctica. What more can we do?"

"But we're just sitting here," Private grumbled. "Sitting here while Blowhole's doing who knows what to them."

There was another pause, much longer than before. "You want to do something for them."

"Yes. But I don't know what."

Rico nuzzled Private's neck with his face. "Get some sleep. That will help them. You've been up for almost three days. You're tired."

"But I can't sleep," Private groaned. "I can't stop worrying about them. Is this what it's always like with missions? The ones I'm not authorized to go on. Is it always this endless waiting?"

The older penguin moved to pull Private down, snuggling him against his chest. Private tried to push away, but Rico didn't budge. After a moment, Private felt Rico's beak against his face. It was nipping, nibbling along his feathers. Private froze, unsure of what this was, but Rico only made a soft churring noise in his chest and continued to work. He sat stiffly as Rico moved around his face then onto his neck.

"What are you doing?" Private asked.

Rico paused long enough for only one word. "Preening."

Private tried to move back, but another noise, one of displeasure, met his ears, and he stilled. Rico continued to preen him, and after a few minutes, Private found himself relaxing. The sensation was actually pleasant, and Private let out a noise similar to Rico's churr. His eyes grew heavy, and the three days with little sleep finally caught up with him. While Rico nibbled along his flippers, he drifted off into darkness.

Rico knew the moment Private was asleep, but he continued to preen him for a while longer. It wasn't surprising that Private didn't know what preening was, but it hurt the older penguin that he hadn't been able to share that experience with the younger penguin before. He could still recall the scientist's visit to the zoo, and Private reading from a book, explaining normal penguin behavior. He could still recall the look on Skipper's face when Private mentioned preening. It was funny, but only in a painful, bitter way.

The last time Rico had preened anybody, it was Pol. He'd preened Lita once, but it was usually Pol that needed it. With Lita so busy with the egg, Pol hadn't had a proper preening partner, and he'd come to Rico after discovering that Skipper, Kowalski, Manfredi, and Johnson didn't even know how to preen. Confused, he'd demanded if Rico was as stupid. Rico only gave him a rueful smile before assuring the civilian that preening was something he knew about, though he was out of practice.

"Is it true?" Pol asked as Rico preened his neck. "Do they really not know?"

Rico could still hear his own bitter chuckle. "There are many things these captive penguins don't know about. Not only do they not know how to do it, they're embarrassed by any mention of such things. They're masculine penguins. Masculine penguins don't do such things."

Pol had muttered something dark, and Rico had nipped a little harder, which made the civilian stop speaking. After an hour of preening, both penguins' feathers shone, and they were much smoother and sleeker. Rico chirruped happily, and Pol returned the noise. Satisfied, they went to check on Lita, who very much appreciated her mate looking so wonderful. She had complimented Rico's skill and told him that he looked handsome, too.

Rico smiled, tears pricking his eyes as he finished preening Private. He didn't have to have light to know that the boy looked much better. Plus, he was sleeping, which had been the main goal. Rico thought about preening himself, but he was just too tired. As he settled in, nuzzling Private's cheek, he thought again about Skipper and Kowalski's response to preening.

They had a skewed sense of masculinity, Rico thought. In the wild, he had preened his brothers and sisters, and he would have preened his mate if he'd had one. If a penguin was close enough to another, they preened. It wasn't a 'girly' thing like Skipper said. It was natural, pleasant, and it drew their kind closer together.

Rico could still remember the harsh slap against his face the first time he'd tried to preen his commander. He had been getting better at understanding English and helping his commanding officers to understand him. Shocked and filled with the hurt of rejection, Rico had wondered what he'd done to make Skipper not want to be close. Hadn't they just called him brother? It was only after he heard Skipper talking to Kowalski, Manfredi, and Johnson that he finally understood that it wasn't him, they just never did 'that girly stuff'.

Masculinity, the essence of being male, was different in his tribe than in the 'civilized' world. Males didn't preen in that world; that was female behavior. Males were cold and emotionless, which was at least a little more understandable; in the wild, a male was cold and emotionless when facing down his foes. But these civilized birds, they took it too far. There was no family bond for them, no time to let their emotions out. It was unhealthy, but they didn't see it that way. Rico had long ago learned to have a face like a sheet of ice in front of them.

Hugs, which Skipper saw as more acceptable, but just barely, were harder for Rico. Now, those were unnatural. Private had always been a hugger, having seen it again and again on the television, and it was only through his persistence that Rico learned that hugs meant affection. Rico wanted to draw close to the hatchling they'd raised, but he didn't dare preen him. Skipper would shoot him where he stood, insisting that he wasn't raising a sissy-bird. So instead, Private would hug him, completely oblivious to the fact that that wasn't normal behavior, that Skipper and Kowalski were teaching him all wrong. And without a way to be understood, Rico stayed silent, lost in the sea of pain and confusion of another culture that didn't understand or even want to know about his way of life.

Private shifted, and Rico squeezed him. The boy turned over and nuzzled his chest. Rico couldn't help but smile. Okay, so maybe hugs weren't so bad. But Private had a lot to learn. And then Rico paused, an illuminating thought lighting up his emotions like a match to a stick of dynamite. A grin spread over his face, and he shook with silent laughter, unwilling to wake up the boy.

This was his chance, he thought gleefully. This journey with Private, alone, without his commanding officers to bridle his wild-born instincts and scoff at his tribal culture, was Rico's chance to leave a part of his legacy with the boy! Excitement flooded through his heart, and he began to wonder where to start with all he'd ever wanted to teach the boy but couldn't. Because now he could. There was no longer a language barrier. There were no commanding officers to frown at his behavior, calling it 'weird' and 'unnatural'.

Weird and unnatural! Ha! It was their ways that were weird and unnatural. It was their lack of trust for their instincts that was a major problem, instincts that were dangerously underdeveloped anyway. It was their lack of natural skills, their lack of abilities that even a three-week-old hatchling had in the wild, that was bizarre. And now, Rico thought gleefully, he could fix that with Private. He could teach him not only to survive but thrive in his wild homeland.

A chirp of delight escaped his beak, and Private shifted. "Hm?"

"Nothing. Sleep, Snowdrop. Sleep well," Rico shushed, nipping around Private's ear.

Private giggled. "Snowdrop. That's funny," he murmured, drifting back to sleep.

Now it was Rico that couldn't sleep, and he saw the irony at that turn of events, but he didn't care. He lay in the dark, feeling closer to the penguin that he'd helped to raise than ever before, and yet not nearly close enough. If Private were his son, they would be nearly estranged at this point, so distant that they weren't even family. Rico knew that he had a lot of ground to make up, and he was excited to get home to begin to teach Private how to be a real penguin.