Chapter 12
He woke like he'd never even been asleep.
One second there was darkness, the next awareness, and the next he was staring into the roof of his bunk and the unlit reptile light screwed into the concrete.
There was a moment where he didn't think as he blinked evenly upwards, listening to the low rattle of the coffee machine warming up and the faint drone of the morning news bulletin in the background. Scooter Alverez, the man himself, was delivering a recap of late night international sport. The air smelt like Coffee and salt water. It was peaceful.
But how exactly had he gotten to his bunk? He could have sworn he had passed out on the couch with everyone else? Where were they? Was Private ok? And what about Rico and Skipper?
Before he was even aware of it, the moment of thoughtless quiet was over. Kowalski sat up, limbs heavy as he rubbed at his eyes.
The base was utterly soaked through with sunlight. The fishbowl entrance was cocked open, allowing the fresh morning air to ride in on the shafts of light, picking out the dust swirling lazily through the undetectable air currents buffeting them around. It also tunnelled easily through the water and shone in pastel blue spotlights through the portholes that had now been uncovered along the wall. The soft daylight almost left Kowalski more tired in a strange way. It felt like luxury after days of being shut in a dark box, and his body ached for him to indulge in the rare daylight by partaking in a medication free nap. Just to doze in and out of consciousness as the light warmed his black and white feathers.
Unfortunately duty called and he swung his legs clumsily out of his bunk, twisting around to prepare to drop onto the floor only to pause.
"Oh!" Internally he slapped himself, but not before his beak jumped the gun and continued to try and speak before he had even found the words. "Uhhh…"
Private was slumped at the makeshift table, flippers clasped in his lap and eyes down turned towards the concrete slab. He looked somehow both better and worse.
His eyes were still ringed by a raw looking puffy pink waterline, but the deep bags settled around his eyes had eased from cargo to carry-on. He didn't look quite as haggard now either, clearly at some point he'd taken the time to smooth out his feathers. It was a shame that the preen hadn't done anything for the slump in his shoulders or spine. Private had definitely heard the surprise in his voice, but for whatever reason had seemingly decided it wasn't worth addressing, and he left his eyes fixed on the table.
Kowalski shook his head to try and clear the mental fog that yet to abate. "Good morning?" He settled on finally, unsure if he had meant it to come out as a question.
Private finally glanced up, and offered the weakest half-smile Kowalski had ever seen grace his face as he did. It was almost worse than if he hadn't tried at all. "Good morning." He murmured back, returning his attention to the table in a slow slide of his eyes.
Kowalski's knees almost buckled when he dropped from the bunk, hissing at the ground shock that rang in his feet, talons attempting to curl into the concrete. The rest of the bunks were already empty. "Where's Skipper and Rico?" He asked.
Private shrugged, pointing upwards with a lethargic flipper. "Topside I guess."
Kowalski nodded slowly, eyes crinkling upwards in the corners with concern as he folded his arms across his chest. Part of him had to wonder if Private held his inaction against him, but the thought was quickly banished. Grudge wasn't a word in Private's vocabulary.
The youngest penguin kept his eyes fixed firmly on the table, and it settled some of the unease Kowalski could feel crawling under his skin. The details given last night had been few and far between, and while it would probably be easier to sweep the whole situation under the rug and not push his luck, the gnawing worry in the back of his brain that somehow what Private has seen would turn out to be relevant pushed him forward. It was easier now that he wasn't crying, but the margin was thin. Start simple. "Are you-"
"No." Private said sharply.
Kowalski stopped speaking with his beak still open as he formed the word 'ok.' The hardness in Private's tone taking him aback. Private was a member of their team, and while he would never forget that, the maturity that came with it and showed itself in fleeting moments was always able to take him off guard. He snapped his mouth shut.
Private was just a kid, but sharpness belying the age in his eyes didn't match that in this moment as he stared him down from his seat at the table. He just looked just as jaded as the rest of them. And where Rico's jarring shifts in personality left him lost this, for some strange reason, left Kowalski more sure of his footing than before. Of course he wasn't ok, but if he was able to recognise that it was surely a good indicator of his mental state.
There were questions that needed answers, and Private was the only one that knew them. He swallowed the lingering doubt and straightened his shoulders. "Private, I need to ask."
"Do you?" Private sniped back. Kowalski could see his flippers coiling around the edge of the table top, the grip once again hard enough to risk a fracture the same way they had with the cinderblock when his feathers had been pulled. This must have been just as hard, but instead of watering eyes and soft whines now Private was all sharp edges and focused eyes.
Kowalski knew it wasn't, but it felt like even ground. He could handle anger, he'd dealt with enough of Skippers.
He folded his flippers across his chest. "Yes, I do. It could be relevant." Private wasn't budging. Behind him, the coffee machine was rattling, the water inside reaching a fever pitch. "You saw dead fledglings Private, that's im-"
In a violent movement Private shoved himself away from the table, leaping to his feet like a caged animal backed into a corner. "Dead kids!" He snarled. "Dead, human kids! Like the ones that visit this bloody Zoo every flipping day!" His chest was heaving, but the desperate sobbing from last night was a far cry from the feral movement now. "They were young. No older than 10 and I –" He broke off with a rattling breath as he slammed his eyes shut and trembled under the force of his own haywire emotions.
Kowalski had misjudged this. It wasn't anger borne out of what he'd seen, it was anger about being asked to re-live it. The wounds were still too fresh, of course they were, and Kowalski had just stuck his clumsy flipper into the scar and twisted. Mentally he kicked himself, unfolding his arms in a desperate fumble as he tried to undo as much of the damage as he could. He was in hot water all the way up to his neck.
The words were only sinking in now, a step removed from the blistering outrage Kowalski couldn't say he blamed him for. A numbness settled in beside them.
The screaming was back, but only inside his head, forced to watch as Private scrambled backwards away from him, eyes wild in sheer terror as he pleaded to be left alive.
He'd assumed by kids, Private meant children of their own species, hunted down by a group of leopard seals or some other fang mawed predators in a deep bow to the darker nature of animals in the name of survival. Mother nature could be cruel after all.
But human children?
That wasn't survival, or a desperation stoked by a need to eat or be eaten. It was murder.
His heart sank as the new information stained the rest of what little he knew. Where he had once been standing in neck deep water he was now flailing in ocean waves as a storm raged. Penguins or Human, neither were good enough to dismiss the trauma. But one was far worse than the other.
"Private I'm sorry, I didn't-" He rushed out, desperate to fix his mistake. Rico wasn't here to help. He needed to reign this in before it spun out of control.
"It's fine!" Private hissed, lifting his flippers defensively. His eyes opened, and while there was still a turbulent mess of emotions lurking his eyes, they were covered by a film of tears threatening to spill over.
He was just a child himself. Good Galileo, how could he have been so careless?!
"It's fine." He repeated, heaving in a rattling breath just as the whining pitch of the coffee maker cut out and left them in quiet. The muted murmur of the zoo was all that was left between them. "Can we just not talk about it? Please?" He mumbled, the wavering note in his voice leaving it sounding like he was once again pleading.
It was too similar to last night, too raw, and even if Kowalski had wanted to press him further he wouldn't be able to bring himself too. He forced himself not to look too closely at how eagerly he jumped for the out. "Of course. I'll go." He stammered. He wasn't able to do anything last night, and this morning his first move had been to trip head first into his own stunted emotions once again.
His track record was not looking good.
Private sucked in another hard breath, flippers crossing over himself to press against his shoulders, nodding as he turned away to deal with the now quiet kitchen appliance. "Thank you." He added, voice so low as to be almost inaudible.
He didn't need to be thanked. Part of him was almost waiting for the sharp crack of a flipper slamming against the back of his head in a crude reprimand, he'd certainly deserve it more than a thank you.
He was only half-way up the ladder when Private's voice stopped him again, and as much as the half-moon of free daylight beckoned with faint whisps of a fresh morning breeze, he still forced himself to pause.
"I'm sorry."
It took a second for the words to settle, only partially due to his still sleep addled brain. He flicked his gaze over to Private, sure the confusion was probably written across his forehead. Certainly there was someone here that needed to apologize, but it wasn't Private.
The smallest penguin in the rookery smiled in another half-hearted twist of his beak, eyes still wet with fresh tears. "I didn't mean to snap. I know you only want to help. It's just too…"
He trailed off, and Kowalski eagerly scooped up the rest of his sentence in a bizarre form of repentance. "Fresh?" He offered gently. Private nodded softly, picking up a mug from the counter by the coffee machine, filled to the brim with a glossy dark liquid.
Once again his beak jumped the gun, throwing itself in front of his brain without warning. "You don't need to apologize. I should have known that." So far so… good? "I'm sorry for pushing you like that."
Private's smile dimmed, but in doing so it morphed into something genuine that made Kowalski's heart twist uncomfortably. "I know you didn't mean too." He paused, taking a sip from the mug as he did, seemingly mulling something over as he did. "I get that it might be important but just… not today, ok?" he murmured.
Kowalski tried to smile back, but he knew deep down it would never reach his eyes. "Of course." Not today. Not for a while. They'd gone this long without a lead, he could wait a little longer to dissect this problem. Let the memories scab over before he started trying to pick them apart again. Which wasn't to say he was shutting his brain off entirely.
Private lifted the mug again and Kowalski cleared his throat, raising his voice a little as he changed course. "I thought you didn't drink coffee?"
The mug paused just before it reached the youngest recruits beak, and he lowered it gently back down as he considered the hard brew in front of him. His eyebrows drew into a furrowed 'v'. "I didn't. It was always too strong and bitter." He said, a low warbling of confusion in his tone. "It's the same now but… somehow I don't mind it."
Kowalski felt his eyebrows furrowing in a mimicry of Private's as he decidedly took a sip. Huh.
Private shrugged finally, swallowing. "I just felt like I wanted it I guess."
Kowalski nodded slowly, though there really was no understanding behind the action. How many times had Skipper tried to coax the smallest penguin into a cup only to have him curl his beak in distaste and push it away?
"No way! It's so gross."
"Oh young, naive Private. You'll get a taste for it when you get older."
Strange, Kowalski decided. But considering everything else going on, it was almost a nice strange. Besides it wasn't like Private was the only one refusing the drink that had apparently replaced Skippers blood. He had his own issues with insomnia that were only worsened by caffeine so he rarely indulged, and Rico wouldn't touch the stuff.
Speaking of, there were more pressing issues than a newfound taste for arabica beans. Private seemed to sense the shift in his thinking and offered a small wave before turning away to catch the end of the morning news broadcast. Kowalski took his leave as if dismissed.
The morning light was bright, but not much worse than the inside of the base and it only took him a moment to adjust. The nor-easter coasting through was brisk, but not necessarily cold and as he heaved himself up onto the ice floe he relished once again in the gust combing through his feathers.
"It's like she knew we were taking a break this morning."
Backed by the morning sun Skipper wasn't much more than a silhouette, but even squinting Kowalski was still able to make out the proffered flipper.
"Yep, Mama Nature's pulled out all the stops this morning." He added, pulling Kowalski easily to his feet with a jaunty grin. "Doesn't get much better than this."
Kowalski hummed in reply, shaking out the last of the sleep from his limbs with a long stretch. "We're taking a break this morning?"
The zoo was evidently closed today, and it took Kowalski a moment to sort through his mental calendar to determine the day of the week. Normally by this point in the day they would be inundated with tourists and NYC residents clamouring to bear witness to furry and feathered antics, but the zoo paths were decidedly empty. The usual daytime clamour of squawks and chirps were still there, backed by a thrumming drum and bass pop hit undoubtedly coming from the lemur habitat, but it was still quiet compared to the normal volume the zoo reached during opening hours.
Skipper nodded. "Whole day actually. We've been wearing ourselves out a bit too much lately and I think last night stands as an example to how well that works out for us."
He couldn't disagree, but it didn't stop the unease climbing to the surface anyway. "Are you sure that's wise? We still don't have-"
"-Anything." Skipper finished for him, nodding sagely. "I know. But in the grand scheme of two years I don't think one day is going to be the make or break Kowalski." There was a moment he regarded him, jovial mask still firmly affixed, before he let it slip and the tiredness hiding just behind it show. "We need to 86 last nights events before any of us are clear headed enough to be of use." He said, lowering his voice, as if there was someone standing just behind them listening in.
The truth in that statement hit just this side of too close to home, and Kowalski felt his eyes move to the nearest camera instinctually. There were no mics, he'd examined them inside and out during the first few days they had been here, but even if they were it was already more than apparent that Humans couldn't understand them.
"Did you consider my theory?"
Kowalski tore his gaze from the sharp beady eye of the security camera, fixing it back on Skipper as his leader stared him down seriously.
"That we may have chosen this?"
"The very same."
Now that was yet another interesting problem, but fortunately it was one he had been granted time to think over in the period between Rico nodding off against his shoulder and falling asleep himself.
They could have chosen this. There was no proof that 100% confirmed that wasn't the case after all. But there also wasn't proof that the same aliens that had plagued his sedative addled and concussed mind after that incident with the billboard weren't involved somehow. Such was the problem with working with limited information after all. But there was still evidence, and there was still interpretations to make with that data, and most of it actually helped here.
Frances 'Genevieve Waters' Alberta was a big part of that. If they'd already deduced that whatever was done to her was also the party that had done this to them, why would they have willingly put themselves in the same danger? Most people didn't sign up to be shot, and even if this was some twisted suicide fantasy it had clearly misfired somewhere along the line. Kowalski didn't want to die, and he'd bet a fair amount of aged kippers the rest of his team felt the same way. But, for argument's sake, let's consider the idea that that they were involved in this for different reasons. Genevieve wasn't a good person, she'd at one point advocated for the death penalty to violent extremes after all, android zoo animals non-withstanding, so it was entirely possible that what was done to her was a punishment of some kind. They might have signed on of their own volition for entirely different reasons. If they had however, then there was no danger in figuring it out. If anything, would it not be helpful? Could whatever had been done to them not simply be done again, with the added help of knowing how to improve the process?
Either they were never in any danger, and all of the dark memories recovered would simply wash with another attempt; or the danger was real and indulging in such ideas was actively dangerous to their continued lives.
On the other flipper there was always the option that this was their punishment too. He'd clearly done something terrible in whatever his past life was, but the twisted curl of disgust and fear he'd felt reliving that moment had been real. He was a good person. They all were.
Skipper was still looking at him for answers, and he started speaking, trying to articulate the tangled mess of thoughts he was trying to unspool inside his head. "I think you're wrong about this one." He said, trying and failing to find wherever he had misplaced his tact this morning.
He cringed slightly, but when Skipper failed to light up like the bootleg firework of misplaced anger he was forced to continue. Maybe he had been right about needing a day off? The jittery hair pin rage of the past few days wasn't present at all, his eyes still level and clear as he listened. "Which isn't to say we shouldn't have considered it, but you're basing this on what exactly? An arson attempt, some dead kids and what… a forest fire?" Skipper's eyes dropped. "It all seems… circumstantial at best." He finished warily.
Skipper didn't answer, studying the concrete as his expression tightened. There was concern there, but just behind that was something else far more worrying.
Guilt.
Kowalski felt his feathers begin to rise. "Sir?" He asked, stepping closer, craning his neck to try and get a better view of his leaders face as he did.
Sure, the nasty bruising on the back of Han's skull would attest to the fact that whatever that Forest fire had dredged up inside Skipper wasn't good, it was still just a fire.
Kowalski's heart sank. The old plastic lighter had ignited so easily, the red body of it scratched and covered in dirt as the bright orange flame illuminated the gasoline soaked door before him.
Skipper hadn't…
"I saw a forest. It was on fire. I… I just felt angry."
The guilt hadn't faded, if anything it had intensified. Kowalski's beak was dry. "You… You didn't start that forest fire… did you?" He whispered hoarsely, tongue a dry brick in his mouth.
He needed the next word Skipper said to be no.
But that wasn't what he said.
"It wasn't a forest fire."
His brain was leaping in to fill in the gaps before he was even able to come to a conscious conclusion. A house fire? Just like the one he had lit? Just like the one he had used to burn someone alive? Or maybe worse. Skippers flippers balled into fists as he hissed out an anguished breath, the sound taken immediately by the light late summer breeze and carried into the robin's egg blue sky without a care. He was still reeling when Skipper clenched his eyes shut and spoke again.
"It wasn't a fire at all. I lied."
The relief on its own would have been enough to leave him shaking. But it wasn't alone. Because why would Skipper lie.
Skipper turned to him, a live wire of regret and guilt and too many other minute emotions that raced past too fast for Kowalski to follow. "You have to understand, at the time no one else had seen anything like that, I… I didn't want to scare anyone. We also had no idea what it meant yet, I didn't know what it meant."
His desperation was palpable, but Kowalski couldn't help. Not yet. Not without answers.
"What did you see?" It came out a croak.
Skipper reached out, like he was going to try and grab his shoulder to steady himself, but stopped himself just as Kowalski flinched out of his reach. Beyond them the music playing from the lemur's boom box abruptly changed from a Drum and Bass Remix to a lively Samba track as the Flamingo's started calling wildly out for each other in fevered clicks and honks.
Skipper closed his eyes, heaving in a deep breath. "I saw a man get shot."
There were questions, but they didn't even have a chance at being articulated before Skipper let the cat completely out of the bag. For the best really. He wouldn't have liked them.
Did you shoot him?
"It was underground. There was another man there, I couldn't see his face but when he fired… the other person wasn't expecting it. They looked so betrayed. It hit him here-" He jabbed himself in the stomach- "And he just… fell. I saw it all happen. I think I was hiding I-"
Skipper broke off with a shuddering breath, yanking his Flipper away from where it was pressed so deep into his white feathers as to bruise like it burned. His eyes were alight with a shame and desperation that made Kowalski's gun churn, though not nearly as much as the flipper that tightened around his shoulder. "I never thought it would matter, but then this whole thing got away from me and I didn't know how or when to tell you…"
Kowalski was shaking, and it seemingly took Skipper a moment to register the flipper he had resting on his lieutenant's shoulder, and he pulled it back. "I'm sorry Kowalski, but I couldn't tell Private or Rico either. It's Frances Alberta all over again." He whispered.
The worst part was that he could understand it. Hell, he was doing the same thing really wasn't he?
No one knew about the sealed door.
And no one would know. Not until he could figure out why he'd done it. There had to be a reason. There just had to be. Besides, at least he'd been honest enough about it, he hadn't told an outright lie and just ran with it. It was all truth, speckled with a lie only by virtue of omission. How much sooner would they have known they were in danger if Skipper had only been honest in the first place? Dark thoughts were starting to rise, and while he had already decided that paranoia wasn't a good look on him, it didn't stop the questions.
What else was Skipper lying about?
Every admission was like pulling teeth with his commanding officer, and they were never on the same playing field for long. Every time he thought they were, there was another lie, another subterfuge as Skipper gleefully served his own agenda without regard for those around him.
There was shouting from the lemur habitat, and the song changed again, now a vigorous electronic track was blasting from their boom-box, powered by stolen batteries returned under false pretences to serve yet another game Skipper was playing without letting anyone know the rules.
Skipper was still staring at him, the hysteria growing with every harsh breath between them, and Kowalski knew he was mistaking his guilt wracked silence as a condemnation of his actions. And maybe it was. There was definitely a rage there, somewhere in the cocktail of twisted, gnashing emotions the sharp red bite of the feeling was ruffling his feathers and driving a wedge between each of his vertebrae.
But indulging in that would get him no where fast. He needed honesty, and he needed answers.
There were words on his tongue, how could you? What else are you hiding? They were building so quickly to the point they were sticking in his throat and right there in the hollow of his chest was the confession.
I think I killed someone.
"Did you recognise them?" It was strange. He couldn't even recognise his own voice in that moment.
Skipper shook his head, and between the shaky breaths Kowalski could see his shoulders slumping inwards. He wanted to reach out and shake him. Do not mistake my willingness to forget as naïveté. There was too many emotions clashing and fighting inside his chest. Guilt. Rage. Distrust.
Emotions got him nowhere. They only got in the way of the point.
"No." Skipper rushed out, "The victim was male, ginger hair and glasses. Shooter was also male, dark hair and pale skin." Additional detail. Indicator of guilt. A way to prove that this, finally, was the truth.
"Sounds like the same person as your last memory." He probed. "The one in the white room."
Skipper nodded sharply. "They look similar. I couldn't see the shooter's face, but it could be the same guy." He paused, and in the space his flipper went to his head, scrubbing roughly at the feathers there. "Is that a lead? We don't know who they are though-"
Kowalski cut him off. Curiosity sated. Rage was next. "It could be. We could have known it sooner if you'd just been honest." He hissed.
He knew how Private must have seen him when he had cut him off. It was a strange feeling to be on the other side of it so soon. Surprise flashed across Skippers face for only a moment before his open beak clicked shut and an admonished, reproachful look replaced it. "I know that. I should have said something sooner." He paused. "I wanted it to be a fluke Kowalski. I didn't want it to mean anything."
Once again he could understand that. "Don't lie to me again." He said instead, voice low. "We're a team, and as much as you might not like it, we're in danger. This isn't something we chose, and it's not a mistake."
Skipper looked away. "You can't blame me for wishing it was."
It wasn't an apology. He'd already gotten one anyway, as under duress as it had been. He was forced to remember that, this was still Skipper at the end of the day, and that meant he'd been lucky to even get that. He'd been lucky this hadn't turned into a brawl.
Anger was potent, but it was fleeting. It always was. And as much as he wanted to believe all of it was directed outwards, there was no way to deny that just as much of it was pointed directly back inwards. What would he have done if it had been his lie that had caused this? Of course it would have ended worse, Skipper was many things, a hypocrite among them, and Kowalski knew instinctually that if their roles had been reversed he would have been on the wrong end of Skippers bad temper for far longer than this.
But he wasn't Skipper, and it wasn't his lie. Not yet anyway.
"Kowalski?" Skipper asked, brows furrowing. "What is it?"
I think I killed someone. I locked them in a room and burned down a house around them. Death by smoke inhalation at best, burnt alive at worst. They weren't getting out, and neither was I. Murder suicide.
But he was still here. Something had gone wrong.
He shuddered at the thought. That was the wrong way of thinking about it. He was a good person and god dammit, he didn't want to die.
"Just… don't lie again, alright? We can't figure this out if we don't have everyone on the same page." He muttered finally, scratching absently at his neck.
Skipper studied him curiously with a depth that was making his skin crawl. It felt like his own sins were scrawled across his feathers to be read aloud by the crowd gathered at the stake.
Skipper sighed and turned away finally, looking outward over the fence surrounding their exhibit. "I won't. Not to you at least." He stated. "You're my lieutenant. I trust you." He straightened his shoulders, pushing his chest out as he did. Kowalski had to wonder if the posturing was for his benefit or Skippers. "We'll figure this out together, as a team."
It can't have been just for Skipper, because watching his commanding officer say something like that, so definitively, without an ounce of hesitation well… it was helping. They would figure this out, and whatever came next, no matter what it was, they would get through that as well.
"I think you're right about my theory." Skipper continued, swirling the kipper planted facedown in his coffee as he did. "It is circumstantial. And it's not as if we haven't seen good things. Private had his parkour action hero moment, you've got those mystery eyes…" He shrugged and pulled the coffee infused fish from his mug, swallowing it whole in a swift snap. "What was it you said about those pills? The side effects would induce anxiety? Not that I'd let a few rouge chemicals past my mental fortress or anything, but I think it's at least fair to give them a fighting chance and assume they managed to do something. Not much mind you, I'm locked down tighter than Guantanamo in here, but credit where it's due." He licked his beak to catch any coffee splatter and grinned.
Just like that, the mask was back and better than ever. Kowalski had to wonder how he did it. "Never thought I'd hear you say I'm right."
"Yeah well you play the table enough eventually it'll land on red."
Kowalski barked out a laugh. The tonal whiplash should have been dizzying, but as it stood he welcomed the change of topic. There was nothing left anyway, bouncing between both Skipper and Private had left him with nothing left in the emotional tank. Shame it wasn't over. "Where's Rico?"
"Rico?" Skipper cocked his head to the side thoughtfully, scratching at the underside of his beak. "I left him and his plastic Senorita at the clocktower after our morning Recon. The man's back in the land of make believe after last night. I think working his magic like he did broke the last of the crayons in the box if you catch my drift."
"Magic is one word for it." Kowalski agreed, the words grim even to his own ears.
Skipper frowned then, but his tone was still bright as he tapped Kowalski with a faux sternness on the back of the head. "Don't question his enigmatic ways, just be thankful for it." He scolded. "You'll end up where he is before you figure it out."
Rico wasn't the only enigma. For as fixated as Skipper could get, his ability to let go of anything he deemed unimportant was second to none. The confidence he had in his own deductions was staggering.
"Hey Kowalski didn't you say you had a spat with Marlene last night?"
Kowalski blinked. "Uh… yeah? What about it?"
Skipper tipped his head. "6 o'clock." He tilted sharply to the side, waving cheerily. "Marlene! Good to see ya doll."
Kowalski span around so fast the world blurred around him. The otter in question was pulling herself up onto the ice floe, pausing to wring the water out of her tail as she did. Her eyes met his for only the barest of seconds before jumping to Skipper, nose tilting towards the sky. "Skipper." She said sharply.
Ouch. Not undeserved though.
"How have you been darl, its been far too long since our last pow-wow. What's new in Mammal land?" Skipper mused, throwing a casual flipper around Kowalski's upper back as he did, leaning against him like he was nothing more than a feathered lamp-post.
"Uh well, not much, Julien is as obnoxious as ever, but- Oh! I tried that trick you mentioned, the double pike? You were right. The Kids Loved it. Popcorn city." She breezed, propping her paws on her hips genially, going out of her way to deliberately ignore Kowalski as she did.
"Marlene-" He tried.
"So!" She interrupted, voice pitching deliberately as she did. "What's new with you, Skipper?"
"Marlene, I'm sorry alright!" Kowalski managed to blurt out. Skipper squeezed his upper flipper, whether in warning or encouragement he couldn't tell. The otter's smile dropped instantly as she folded her arms over her chest. "I was out of line last night, clearly. I didn't mean to offend you."
"Yeah, Well, you did. So." She snapped back, still refusing to meet his eyes as she did, instead focused somewhere off to the left of his head, eyes narrowed and tail lashing behind her as she did.
"I know I did. And, again, really sorry." He repeated, shrugging out of Skippers grasp to step towards her. If there was one thing Kowalski was worse at than emotions, it was the emotions of the fairer sex. Private didn't know how to frown for more than a minute at a time, and Rico had an unnerving ability to treat harsh words and praise. Even Skipper was eager enough to forget, even if he took the forgive part at his own pace, but at least that made it easy enough to be civil. Marlene was a whole other story. Her bad moods lingered like the humidity after a storm, sticking around for days and lingering uncomfortably in the air so you just couldn't forget it was there.
Skipper was the only one of the four of them with any love life to speak of, and had been more than happy to spew unwanted advice at the drop of a hat. Normally Kowalski would just hide behind his clipboard and roll his eyes backwards into his head in Rico's direction every time he got onto his quasi-philosophical soap-box, but the few times he had been forced to listen he had picked up a few things. Namely, the Woman is always right. A logical impossibility, but admittedly helpful.
"You were right," He tried, "We've been over worked and under rested and I took that frustration out on you when you were just trying to be kind."
For a moment she didn't seem like she would budge, eyes narrowing further as he tapped her foot against the concrete, and Kowalski was ready to take the hit to the pride and descend directly into begging for forgiveness when the ice wall broke. "Fine." She sighed. "I guess I get that. Rude still," she fixed him a stare that was mostly disappointment, and it stung more than anger would. "Extremely rude actually, Kowalski, but I get it. Being tired can turn anyone into a monster."
He didn't know if monster was fair, but kept his beak firmly shut as she nodded gingerly.
"Let's just move past it, m'kay?"
Kowalski sagged slightly as the tension in the air abated slightly. "Thank you." He wheezed.
One fight and two apologies under the belt and it wasn't even lunch time yet. Kowalski was exhausted.
Marlene tipped her head to the side and eyed them both curiously. "So what has been keeping you all so preoccupied?"
Skipper beat Kowalski to the punchline, and for a second his heart jumped into his throat. He'd just gotten them out of this mess, and he wasn't ready for Skipper to throw them headfirst back into it. The second the word 'classified' left his beak they were all dead to her. "Oh hohoho! I'll dish the goss my aquatic amiga, don't you worry, but Kowalski here had to go reel in Rico from wherever he's hiding."
Hiding? Skipper just told him where to find him, but before he could even open his beak Skipper pinched roughly at the flesh of his back, out of the otters line of sight as he ducked around to smile up at Kowalski. He hissed sharply as Skippers smile pulled into a tight grimace, eyes flicking rapidly towards the clock tower and back. "Don't you Kowalski?" He ground out between his forced smile.
Clearly Skipper had some kind of lie up his non-existent sleeve, and Kowalski was more than happy to let him handle it if it meant he would stop twisting at his skin beneath the feathers on his back. "Uh… Yep." He hissed, arching his spine as he stumbled out of Skippers iron grip. "That's uh… exactly what I'm doing… now. Marlene."
The otter raised one eyebrow critically, but let him off the proverbial hook. "Kowalski." She drawled in reply.
Kowalski vaulted for the fence, clearing it easily and tucking into a combat roll to hit the concrete on the other side. Swimming was still a no-go until his waterproof feathers grew back in. Skipper waved when he craned his neck back around, only to violently shoo him away the second Marlene stopped watching him.
Point received. Kowalski scurried quickly away from the scene. If Skipper wanted to handle lying to a friend, let him. Evidently he was good enough at it.
Kowalski shook his head to clear the bitter thought, there just wasn't enough room left for the lingering traces of anger floating in the ether of his depleted social reserves. He sucked in a hard breath and paused for a second, trying to scrape whatever was left together into a cohesive pile. All he really wanted to do was retreat to the secluded comfort of his lab and hide from the world for a while, but he wouldn't be able to do that without at least trying to dig some answers out of the new found mental health expert of the team.
The zoo was busy as he waddled slowly down the pathways, weaving between the exhibits. Clearly the lemur dance party had ended, and he offered only a short wave to Maurice who was busy wafting a palm frond lazily over Julien's head as the lemur monarch lay stretched out on a sun lounger, a pair of purple flower patterned children's sunglasses clearly pilfered from lost and found affixed over his eyes.
Joey was lent on the wall of his habitat, snarling something up at Leonard who was only half awake and sprawled on a tree branch high out of reach, and his wave was met only by glassy eyes and a rude gesture.
He smiled regardless. Fake it till you make it. Maybe if he pretended he still had an emotional tolerance he would start to feel it.
Burt lofted his trunk in a greeting as he passed, thankfully too pre-occupied by a mouthful of peanut shells to try and strike up a conversation.
Rico was nowhere to be found at the clock tower, and for a scary second Kowalski was sure he had done the only thing they weren't supposed to do and left the zoo. It was only when he craned his head back past the thick, chained shut gates to try and get a glimpse of the clock behind the suns glare that he spotted it.
A pair of orange feet kicking listlessly against the brickwork, barely visible at such a distance. They were little more than a pair of orange dots against the overwhelming blue expanse of the sky, but it was enough to quell his fears. He was still here.
The lock to the small grate housing the hidden interior ladder up to the top of the spire was popped open, and the metal banged gently open and closed in the wind and he flipped it open and slipped inside easily. It was cooler inside the brick channel than outside simply by virtue of not being baked by the sun, but the dust and litany of cobwebs outweighed any luxury and Kowalski had to bite down on a sneeze as he started scaling the ladder in a gruelling succession of full body pull ups. Dust had been smeared off each of the human spaced rungs, and if the lock hadn't been confirmation enough it was a nice lingering piece of proof the rouge maverick of the team had definitely been here before him.
He was panting by the time he reached the top, flippers burning with the effort as he hauled himself out onto the wide stone ledge at the top, rolling gratefully into the shade of the giant bronze bell to try and recover. Why the hell couldn't Rico have simply picked a nice park bench to depart from reality?
The sky seemed somehow even bluer then before, and he clenched his eyes shut against the feeling of the UV rays singing his retinas to heave wheezing gasps. From up here the city seemed muted, the ever present squall of Manhattan traffic still loud, but a far cry from the ear splitting choir of discordant voices and car sounds it usually was from the ground.
The rustling of wings as a feral pigeon threatening to land was waved away with a sharp flipper, the bird taking off again with a rattling coo.
It took a moment, but when he finally felt like his lungs weren't going to spill out of his beak in a misplaced attempt to get more oxygen he rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his elbows.
Rico hadn't moved, still sitting on the edge of the flat ledge, little more than a dark outline against the sky. It was like someone had cut out a Rico shaped hole in reality and he sighed as he pushed himself up fully onto his feet. "Rico?"
The weapons expert started, like he hadn't even been aware of the laboured breathing coming from just over his shoulder, which wasn't a good indicator for where his head was currently at. Rico twisted around, hiking a knee up onto the brick trim lining the edge as he did. He squinted, lifting a flipper to shield his eyes. "Walski?" He sounded surprised.
"The one and only." Kowalski huffed, stumbling over to the weapons expert before slumping heavily back onto the ground, a decent way back from the edge, but still close enough to brush the edges of Rico's personal space bubble.
Rico hummed in his throat, eyes crinkling upwards in the corner as he watched Kowalski flick his feet out in front of him with a groan. "Why here?"
"Because someone couldn't dissociate on ground level like a functioning member of society." Kowalski snarked, rubbing at his shoulder as he did to try and pre-empt the knot he knew was forming there. "Why, in the name of Rosalind Franklin, are you even up here?"
If it had been anyone else Kowalski would have been worried about the abrasiveness of his greeting, but he really didn't have to worry with Rico. Words washed off him like water beading off well preened feathers.
Rico blinked dumbly at him for only a moment before shrugging noncommittally and mumbling some indecipherable gibberish.
Kowalski wasn't sure why Skipper had said he was 'back in the land of make believe'. In terms of Rico's ability to be present, it seemed for all intents and purposes a decent day. Responding to his name, engaging with others, doing things of his own volition. Three things ticked off the list right out of the gate. Sure he wasn't as aware of his surroundings as he was on a truly good day, but it was still a decent effort. He grimaced as his flipper finally found the tight coil of overused muscle and began working at it diligently with his flipper. "Next time do me a favour and pick somewhere I don't have to ruin my body to find you."
Rico smirked a little at this and rolled his eyes with an offhanded wave of his flipper. That's not my problem.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence and Rico went back to gazing out over the zoo. It was admittedly a nice view, and an even better vantage point. From here Kowalski could see clearly as Joey hopped over the walls separating his and Leonards habitats to begin pounding on the Koala's tree and as Julien snatched his palm frond away from Maurice to start whacking the aye aye with it. Admittedly they were little more than vaguely shaped blobs, and if Kowalski didn't know the layout of the zoo like he knew the back of his flipper he probably wouldn't have known what he was looking at, but it was a change of pace from constantly having to look upwards to see anything.
The knot in his back had finally relented, and he let his flippers drop restlessly into his lap. His body, and certainly at least some part of his mind was worn out, but his curiosity had still yet to shut off. Neither had his suspicions, and he inched as close to the edge of the clock tower as he dared to get a better look at his current companion.
Rico either didn't notice or didn't care, continuing to stare down at the view below. His eyebrows were drawn in tight in a way Kowalski either hadn't noticed or Rico had hidden, eyes heavy with something Kowalski was hesitant to call sadness. The curl of his beak told the same story, tongue pressed firmly inside instead of lolling out the side as it sometimes did when he wasn't paying attention. There was a decisiveness even to Rico's inaction, awarded only by the fact he seemed to have chosen this space and the low steadiness of his mood.
There was something about Rico that made it feel like every choice he made was with a purpose, probably only because it was so obvious when he took actions that were made without any thought at all. And it wasn't the reckless, act first questions later mantra he apparently lived by, but an absolute severing of all brain power from the equation. Even when he was acting out of speed and instinct the decision was still there, if that decision was only to not think about it.
Maybe that was where the suspicion came from? Simply because Rico telegraphed his choices so clearly when he was actually the one making them instead of simply running through the motions as and when prompted. It was hard not to wonder where they came from or what drove them when you could plainly see they were there.
But none of that explained last night. Sure, none of them had ever needed to deal with such a fraught situation, but there should have been a sign in there somewhere that he was capable of something like that. Even as Kowalski mulled it over he knew that wasn't true, Rico pulled new stunts out of the bag on the daily. It also couldn't be because it didn't fit with the rough outline Kowalski had of who Rico was in his head, because nothing Rico did fit into that outline. He lived to subvert expectations, but the fact it all happened without intent only made everything more hazy. If he deliberately did it, Kowalski could pick that apart, but he didn't. He just did whatever he felt like, either uncaring or unworried about how that would affect the way he was viewed in the eyes of anyone else.
It was almost admirable. Everyone had a self-image and self-concept they were trying to juggle. Inward perceptions vs outward expression, but the two seemed inexorably linked in Rico's mind. And there was the almost. Even the most free of spirits took the time to cultivate that image of themselves in the eyes of others. Not Rico.
There was no game plan and because of that he was unpredictable in the most baffling of ways.
None of this stopped the suspicion, but only obfuscated where it came from and left Kowalski with nothing concrete to grab onto but this distinct feeling of wrongness that squirmed unpleasantly under his skin.
As usual, the only way through Rico was the direct way.
"What happened last night?"
Rico perked up like he was clicking back into himself, looking over at Kowalski with confusion all but spelled out in the downward curl of his beak.
Kowalski lent forward, looking for something, anything to use as a visual guidebook. He felt his brow furrow. "Private's Panic attack?" He asked, seeking some kind of understanding. "How did you know what to do?"
As per usual Rico sidestepped his expectations. There was no scoff, or shrug or continued confusion. Instead his eyes softened, the tightness in his face waning as he tipped his head down onto his shoulder. He was looking for words, and his beak opened and closed a few times before he finally settled on the ones he wanted. "I get it." He said.
A momentary flash of irritation. "I have it. Them. Had." The words were disjointed and broken, the sentence a swing and a miss, but he settled back into his hazy gentleness once he got them out. Kowalski could barely follow, which wasn't to say he couldn't.
He raised an eyebrow. "You? You had panic attacks?" He wanted to laugh. "When."
Rico shook his head. "Not Panic. Night…" He struggled again and Kowalski tried to find first the context, then the word.
"Terrors?" He guessed. "Like… Nightmares?"
The smile came back, and Kowalski couldn't even begin to guess why as Rico nodded.
"Well that explains your disjointed sleeping at least." Kowalski mumbled. Night Terrors? It simultaneously made perfect sense and also opened a whole new line of questioning.
Rico hadn't moved, still smiling that dazed, gentle smile. Who was he? After two years Kowalski felt like really was no closer to answering that question.
"Ok, so you experience Night Terrors, that's how you knew how to help Private." He summarised, and Rico nodded again. "What of?"
Rico shook his head this time. "Don't know. Remember. It's sad. Bad. Anxiety."
He wasn't sure if the words were all descriptors or one attempt at clarity. An aggravated breath left him before he was aware of it. "Who are you? Every time I think I know, you pull something like this." He grumbled.
Anyone else would have reacted in anger to such a blunt question, and Kowalski wouldn't have had anything left to try and fix it.
Rico just curled his beak upwards as his eyes shifted in a way Kowalski couldn't follow even if he tried. "You know." He assured him.
It only made Kowalski sigh again, decidedly frustrated.
"I don't you. Know. Kind of." Rico seemed to think for a moment. "Parts."
"You're better off speaking gibberish." Kowalski stated bluntly. "At least then you're not convincing me I can figure it out if I try."
He was tired. Emotionally empty. It left him abrasive and prickly and Kowalski knew this about himself. It wasn't even just today, it was all of it, everything that had happened since those damned eyes.
Rico only laughed, kicking his legs out merrily as he did. His eyes squinted like the sun was bothering him.
The laughter wasn't at his expense and somehow that was worse. If Rico was laughing because he was frustrated that would be one thing. This was an entirely incomprehensible other and he buried his face in his flippers and groaned.
There was a touch to his elbow, firm in a way others usually didn't touch there. "Hey."
"What." He snapped, refusing to look up.
"Hey." Rico repeated, somewhat more insistently.
Kowalski dropped his flippers in a sharp snap, glaring openly at Rico. The frustration was all internal, but he couldn't make it stay there. Rico was annoying him because he couldn't figure the maniac out. It wasn't anything Rico was doing. But he didn't need to hide it, because Rico didn't care.
Rico blinked at him seriously before shaking his head and poking him in the temple. You don't need to figure me out.
"In case you haven't noticed I need to figure everything out." Kowalski said, pulling his flippers away from Rico's. "My control issues only fly under the radar because Skipper acts like a living lightning rod."
Rico beamed at him and patted him on the head. "See?" You do know me.
It threw Kowalski for a loop and he blinked numbly for a moment. He couldn't deny it. When they were on the same page he did understand him. He did know who he was.
It was everything else that was the problem.
He rolled his eyes and flopped down onto his back, pressing his flippers once again over his eyes. "You're secrets on top of mysteries wrapped in psychosis."
The sun was nice but had the edge that promised a burn if he lay there too long. He heard the shuffling beside him, and cracked a flipper away from one of his eyes to peer over as Rico lay down beside him, eyes closed and beak tilted up towards the sun like a sunflower as he sighed deeply. Whatever muted emotion he had been tempted to call sadness from earlier was back.
Rico didn't look over, instead he just folded his flippers over his stomach. "You ok?"
It should have been a casual question, but it didn't come out like one. "Me? I'm fine Rico, you should be worried about-"
He was cut off as Rico rolled his head onto the side, flicking his eyes open to stare at hm seriously. Flat-printer ink blue as always, but so clearly present in the moment it was almost scary. "I'm not." He said sternly. "Worried about you."
Now that… That made no sense too Kowalski. He was fine. He was always fine. Plus, he wasn't the one who broke down from a panic attack or was being grilled by a team made or got caught in a lie. Not that Rico knew about Skippers obfuscation of the truth, but still. He was fine.
But there was something there in Rico's eyes that was making him reconsider. He sighed and settled back on his shoulders, closing his eyes once again against the sun. In the distance he could hear the trees in the park being rustled by the light breeze, and just afterwards felt the same gust gently over the ridge of the clock tower and toy gently with the edges of his feathers.
"I'm tired." He admitted. "This whole situation is… It's constant. I can't stop thinking about it because I feel like if I do that's admitting it can't be solved. And if it can't be solved-" He stopped himself, remembering that as far as Rico was aware Frances Alberta had died of natural causes. He felt his jaw clench unwillingly.
"Danger." Rico finished for him.
His eyes snapped open again. "Wait- How did you know, I never…"
Rico cut him off with a shake of his head, and his eyes glanced downwards.
Kowalski hadn't even been aware of it, but his right flipper was moving up and down the inside ridge of his left, tracing an invisible path from the crook of his elbow downwards and then back up. Rico moved slowly, telegraphing his movements carefully as he gently grasped the moving flipper and pulled it away from the line it had carved through the black feathers.
His eyes were dark with that same, almost sadness. "Know you." He murmured, resting his flipper against the parted feathers.
Kowalski couldn't even begin to understand what that meant and he was left blinking down dumbfounded at the contact between them. Rico's brows furrowed and he sighed as he let go, leaning back onto his elbows, feet twitching back and forth. "This…" He circled his flipper lazily in the air. This whole Situation. "Its… Not correct. Right. Shouldn't happened."
Understatement of the century as far as Kowalski was concerned. He knew Rico understood what was happening, but it was strange to hear him voice it. Of course he would have picked up on the ambient threat, he and Skipper had been far from subtle and even without that Private's jarring memory was enough to encourage such a deduction. Rico may act stupid, but the reality was he was far from it, and that was easy enough to forget at times.
This whole conversation had felt remarkably candid despite his best efforts at subterfuge, and he knew Rico preferred it when people didn't beat around the bush, so why had he even tried?
"Are you hiding something from me?" Kowalski asked.
Rico's brows jumped upward in surprise. That said enough.
His suspicion had all been based around something Rico had done to help, which meant that even if Rico somehow knew everything, he wasn't some distant callous puppeteer. The care he had shown for Private and now here even, for him, it all spoke to intentions that were founded only in wanting what was best.
But the surprise was real, and it only underlined the through line in his impromptu interrogation, that was just how Rico was. If any of them had fallen victim to a panic attack in the past he likely would have done the same thing and it was only the circumstances that lead to it feeling somehow nefarious.
Kowalski shook his head with a chuckle, feeling a lightness creep into his bones that hadn't been there before. "Uh… No. Don't worry. I know you're not I just…" He shrugged. "This situation has me on edge. And you were right, I guess, I'm not 100 percent."
Rico's eyes narrowed, beak parted and gaze searching. The silence was dragging on longer than strictly comfortable. He hadn't offended him by asking, had he? It was possible he'd managed the impossible and actually said something that managed to get under Rico's feathers.
Finally Rico shook his head, offering a smile that didn't reach his eyes and sat up. "Nah." He grunted. "Just… be ok. Ok?"
Again, that rattling, undeserved kindness. Rico seemed to be done with his moping, and stood up with a full body stretch before turning around to offer Kowalski his flipper to help him up.
Standing again Kowalski was able to see the whole zoo laid out again, and saw the black and white outline of a pair of penguins laying out a set of sun loungers on the top of the ice floe. Too bad he already felt a sunburn imminent. He turned to head back towards the ladder heading down to sidewalk level when he felt a flipper latch onto his elbow again.
"Yes?" He probed, raising an eyebrow.
Rico paused, taking a second to organise his thoughts. "Walski you…" He stopped, looking Kowalski seriously up and down like he was trying to memorise something about him. He closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them again. "You got this." He said seriously. "Can figure out." He looked him over again, and the flipper dropped back to his side. "You'll know."
He said it like a promise and Kowalski was left trying to decode the purpose of his words as Rico waddled over to the hatch and swung himself around the side-bar of the ladder and dropped out of sight. It was a strange tone to take for a pep-talk, but If this exercise had revealed anything it was only that Rico was just as incomprehensible as he ever was.
First Skipper, now Rico? Did he really appear so lost as to need two variations of the same pep-talk? Maybe he hadn't been hiding his doubts as well as he thought he had been.
The journey back down the ladder was thankfully much quicker than the one to the top, all he had to do was hold onto the side bar and let gravity do the work as he slid all the way down to the bottom, kicking off his with feet just before the bottom of the ladder dropped out completely. There was leap back up to the square entry hole, one he miscalculated and left him grazing his cheek along the rusted hinge with a sharp hiss as he pulled himself through. Rico looked up as he finished clapping the dust off his flippers, either ignoring or unbothered by the thick line carved up his white feathers from the long drop. Kowalski waved him off as he touched the tender area with a gentle flipper. No blood. It might bruise, but he'd had far worse in the past.
"Are you heading back to base?" He asked, head twisting to the side as the tell-tale quiver of a sneeze built in his beak.
Rico nodded, bending to copy Kowalski as he watched him concerned.
Waving him off, the sneeze was gone anyway, Kowalski pointed a flipper up at the lock on the square hatch. "I'll lock up, I wanted to swing back past the vet lab and check they haven't noticed anything missing."
He shrugged, Suit yourself, before dropping into a belly slide and slipping away, leaving only a dull grey dust line in his wake.
Kowalski popped the padlock back into place and have the grate a shake for good measure before turning to leave. With any luck they hadn't noticed the borrowed equipment, as Skipper had put it, but if they had there was bound to be extra security measures in place. Not usually a problem, but it would make returning the equipment when they were done with it more difficult than it needed to be.
It was as he was preparing to drop down from the inset mechanical entrance, eyes on the building in question he saw it. A pink plastic foot cocked upwards from the entrance trash can, pointed like a ballerina and toes a flat 90 degree angle away from the ball of the foot.
The trash was taken out at the start of every open day, so all of this must have been left from yesterday, though it was unlike Alice to have tossed a child's toy. Callous as she was, even she had the decency to throw something like that into the lost and found where it could rot for eternity unclaimed.
He wanted to leave it, but somewhere in his mind he could almost hear Private's voice whining about how important it was to do good deeds. Lost and found was on his way… He sighed, flipping up onto the dark grey concave lip of the bin, refusing to think about just what kind of germs were probably spreading onto his skin as he lent down to try and fish the forgotten toy from the mountain of cardboard waste and discarded zoo maps.
He stopped sharply, half bent over into the trash and beak inches from the face smiling resolutely upwards despite their current situation, eyes ever so slightly applied wrong leaving one pupil staring off to the left uncannily. "What?"
Miss Perky looked as pristine as she ever had, even bent in a pike position and half nestled in a popcorn box. It was definitely Miss Perky, capitalised iteration, they usually came out of their boxes with at least one defined crease in their dresses and hair matted with some kind of varnish masquerading as hair-spray, but this doll was well taken care off, dress pressed free of lines and hair combed until it hung in loose fluffy waves.
He looked up to search for Rico, but the maniac was long gone, leaving his plastic femme-fatale apparently behind. He almost would have assumed Shelly was back to her nutcase ways, but she'd been so happy with her new boy-toy, Crusher B. Pain (now with real punching action), it was hard to imagine she would have turned back into a love-sick doll snatching lunatic. Plus hadn't Skipper said Rico had brought her on their walk this morning?
Kowalski let himself slide off the bin, landing with a stumble. What had changed? And so quickly at that. Even children didn't throw away beloved toys, instead choosing the far more degrading option of simply letting them waste away inside closets or draws for years. They'd all agreed to never let Private watch toy story again after that incident.
So why had he apparently tossed her? Not that Kowalski was complaining or anything, the whole Doll thing went from weird to normal and then looped all the way around to unnerving exceedingly quickly, but it was still a rapid change of heart.
He frowned. They hadn't… broken up had they? He shook his head.
No. That was a little too far for his tastes. Better to leave that alone before he went too far down that particular rabbit hole.
Better still to leave the whole thing alone. If Rico had decided to move on from his infatuation for a plastic doll, good for him. It would probably help with his myriad of mental issues and perhaps this was a good sign he was able to actually tell the difference between real life and make believe.
He cast only a single glance backwards as he left, unable to shake the bone deep wrongness of the whole situation. But it wasn't his place, he'd already accused Rico of harbouring information today and asking him about this would only double down on his apparent distrust, even if he had already put that to rest.
There were more pressing issues than a doll in a trash bin now anyway, First and foremost vet security.
He shouldn't have bothered, the offices were locked up the same way they always were, with the same budget friendly alarm systems and hastily turned window latches. They hadn't been discovered yet, and presumably as long as no zoo animal had a sudden medical emergency requiring surgery they wouldn't for a while yet.
Skipper waved him in the direction of the spare sun lounger when he arrived back at HQ, tilting his own stolen child-sized sunglasses down onto his beak as he did, but the sun burnt feeling had only increased and he passed up easily enough on the option to double down on the feeling.
"Your Loss." Skipper breezed, taking a long sip from the plastic smoothie glass to punctuate the statement. Private only smiled wanly and Rico had evidently passed out, head on his crossed flippers as the sun baked his black back feathers.
The base had been aired out well enough curtesy of the still open dish, the musty stale scent that had been lingering for days finally mostly gone. Between that and the sunlight flooding it almost felt like an entirely different space than the one Private had broken down in, a fact Kowalski was quietly thankful for.
The voice in his head was pushing him towards his lab, there was little he could do in this situation, but doing nothing wasn't an option. He needed to do something, he owed it to his team, didn't he?
Chalk it up to the sun, or the words he had shared with his teammates, but the self-hatred felt easier to shake than ever before, and he pulled himself into his bunk with the same mental rude gesture Joey had given him earlier. If it was to be a day off, let it be one. He didn't have any old inventions currently progress and the rest were so far into the beta stage as to be nothing more than scrawled ideas and a few lines of formula. Besides, even with one decent night's sleep under his wing, there was still an exhaustion lingering that would only shake with more sleep.
He laughed slightly as he settled back onto his pillow, luxuriating in the cool air of the water surrounded concrete. Sleeping in preparation for… well… more sleeping? It sounded absurd. But if tomorrow was going to go back to business as usual then it was probably important.
One short nap, and if he really still felt the urge to be productive afterwards he could polish the imperfections out of the rushed job he had done one the holograms.
He shut his eyes with a long exhale, pausing only to rub gingerly at the sensitive skin under his eye where it had met the door of the clock tower. It was still sore, but it wasn't enough to bruise and the feeling would probably dissipate in a few hours. If he spent them unconscious he probably wouldn't even notice.
He woke up dazed, body aching in every single joint. God, what time even was it?
The room was dark as he sat up, but when he went to rub his eyes he flinched back with a hiss. Still tender. It had definitely bruised by now.
Sighing, he pushed himself up out of bed, choosing to ignore the sharp protest in his shoulders as he did. That's what he got for pushing so hard.
No one was around as he pushed through the door into the hallway, lights still off. That was for the best, as when he clicked on the bathroom light he stumbled backwards into the wall as the light burned a hole right through his head with a laser like accuracy. Fumbling around with blurry eyes he found the handle and swung it shut behind him, before the banging could wake anyone else up. He would never hear the end of it.
Someone had clearly ransacked the medicine cabinet above the sink, plasters and antiseptic cluttered around the soap and a roll of half unspooled bandages circling the drain. Not his problem. If they were that injured, maybe he'd clean it up, if not they really should know better.
He shut the cabinet door, ignoring the tail end of the fabric triangle meant for slings caught in the seam as he did.
He sucked in a breath. Yup, it had bruised alright. Right under his eye was a swirling psychedelic Mandela of purple and blue, the edges still red and yet to start shifting towards the dark rich colours as the blood under the skin lost oxygen.
He probed at it gently, poking at the unblemished skin before inching towards the centre of impact. As his fingers pressed lightly down on his cheekbone he was forced to pull away with a sharp hiss, biting down on his lower lip. Yeah, still sore.
The reflection in the mirror stared back evenly as he paused in his investigation of the swollen skin, dropping his hands to the sink rim as he leant in to examine himself. He looked like a mess. The pale sensitive skin around his other eye was marked by heavy eye bags, only hidden on the other by virtue of a bruise camouflage. He swept his dark hair out of the way, taking only a second to finger comb out a knot as he pushed it back, before tilting his head down to take in the small circular bump still forming on the side his forehead. There was a faint brown mole in the middle and he huffed out a breath.
His stubble was growing in as well, and he scrubbed at his face absently. Where had he put his razor again?
Someone knocked, a short polite rap against the wood, voice muffled as they spoke. "Kowalski?"
He started, hands flailing. The reflection did the same, pale blue eyes darting back to centre as he stared into the mirror.
The man staring back was tall, pale skin marked by bruises and a constellation of light brown moles. His hair was dark brown, distinctly marked by waves as the previously pushed back fringe fell back into place across his forehead and similarly dark eyebrows. His eyes were a pale blue, bordering on grey, framed in a sharp down turned eye covered in wispy eyelashes. High jaw, pointed chin and aquiline nose.
His reflection moved with him, mouth twisting as he spoke. "Yeah, just give me a minute."
Kowalski woke with a start, the shout trapped in his throat as the blistering pain tearing through his cortex ran wild, but he didn't buckle, instead twisting to the side and falling heavily out of his bunk.
He was breathing in hard, raspy gasps as he looked up, vision blurry as the pain started to ebb, flippers curing into the concrete the interior base of the fake ice floe of the penguin habitat. The three remaining penguins were all watching as he struggled, mostly concern if you discounted Skipper who threw his cards onto the table in front of him.
"Are you ok, Kowalski?" Private asked gently, unaware of Rico leaning over to steal a glance at the cards in his flippers beak curled in a sharp grin as he did.
"He's fine Private, he's just being a Diva." Skipper groaned, rolling his eyes as he looked over at his lieutenant. "What did you see this time, Nancy Drew?" He scoffed.
Kowalski's heart was racing, stomach roiling in his feathered chest. His beak clicked as he opened it, the keratin solid against itself in a way skin wasn't. His tongue was dry, the backwards barbs evolved for swallowing live fish and other aquatic prey scouring against the matching ones lining his upper palate.
There were so many emotions, key among them fear and disbelief as he fought for the words to explain what he had seen. The human face staring back at him out of the mirror, responding to his name as easily as he did now.
Of course he would. It was his name.
"I saw myself." He rasped, eyes flickering back and forth between the three penguins sat in front of him. Orange beaks for hunting and killing fish, white feathers along their fronts to camouflage against the white glare of water as seen from underneath, and black on their backs to do the same when seen from above.
His beak felt wrong. A jarring protrusion as the hard plates worked against each other when he swallowed.
Skipper rolled his eyes again, heaving out an exaggerated sigh. "Wow, congrats. Just wait until you hear about mirrors." He picked up his cards again, shuffling them in his flippers. "It'll blow your mind."
He was too keyed up, too volatile, and the dismissal hit him right where the hysteria was beginning to peak. "Not before this does." He laughed, more than ready to reel back and spit out the conclusion lurking in his chest.
"We were human."
WHOOOOO!
Ok hold up - notes, lets go in order
1) - sorry this is late. Life has gotten hella in the way in this, the month of our lord, November. For that reason, and now that we've hit a MASSIVE turning point (insert maniacal giggle here) I'm going to be taking a short break. I'll be back on the 11th of December - or whatever day closest to that that's a Friday for ya'll in different time zones. I should have taken this last week, but I mean... come on. I had to leave you all with this didn't I?
2) This is purely for me but please know, this story has been planned pretty well, so the retcons, if there even are, any are minimal. Skippers lie was always planned. The forest fire was a ruse. to be fair, I had planned on revealing that last chapter but with the way it shaped itself out it didn't seem right so it got the boot over to this chapter. But yeah. There be plans. Many irons in this fire.
3) please take a moment to listen to me maniacally giggle in your head. yes folks you heard it hear first WE'VE HIT THE BIG MOMENT! THE MASSIVE WHOPPER OF A REVEAL. THE WHOLE BASIS OF THIS FIC. I think you can guess where we go from here. I hope I had left enough bread-crumbs for you all to follow me to this point, but judging on the comments I'm pretty sure I have. You're all just too smart! and I'm not about to sacrifice good mystery writing just to keep everyone from figuring it out ahead of time, so if you cracked the Da Vinci code, good job! gold star for being an attentive reader :)
Whoo. Ok. I'm gonna go ride this high for a couple of days and then drown in my real life and all of the things I've let get away from me in the interim. For real. I can's see my floor. It's a problem. I hope you'll all still be here when I return! I'm having fun with this :)
See you all in three weeks~
Peace!