Nosedive jolted awake, sucking in air like he hadn't had any in years. He'd been lucky this time, waking up early enough to be spared the horrors of the nightmare that plagued him every time he shut his eyes.
Finally, when he had managed to get his heartbeat back to normal, he looked around the room, noticing for the first time that he was still on the floor, and the painful crick in his neck seemed to enjoy reminding him why he didn't sleep on the floor to often.
He slowly climbed to his feet, and stretched, trying to get the kinks out of his neck and back.
The conversation he had had with Wildwing a few hours ago came to mind and he winced slightly. He knew he should have said something to him about his dreams, perhaps Wildwing could have helped, but he didn't feel like getting him involved. He wanted to deal with his problems by himself.
His stomach growled and snapped him out of his thoughts. He gave a humorless laugh and decided to go get something to eat since he hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. He had been spending most of his time in his room lately and rarely left it long enough to even get food for himself.
Nosedive hesitated at his bedroom door, wondering if it was worth the effort and trouble to walk all the way to the kitchen, his growling stomach decided it was. He took one look around the hall before exiting to make sure no one was in sight, then gathering as much energy as he could, he made a mad dash towards the kitchen.
Nosedive sighed in relief when the kitchen door came in to sight and there was still no sign of Wildwing or the others. He opened the kitchen door and peeked in, only seeing Duke and Mallory sitting at the kitchen table talking quietly over a cup of coffee. He groaned at the thought of having to possibly confront any of his team mates, but decided that he was too hungry to turn back now. He hoped they wouldn't say anything.
They looked up as he came in and gave him an odd look, then glanced back at each other before continuing to watch him. Nosedive, choosing to ignore them, made his way over to the refrigerator to take out the various items he would need. As he turned from the refrigerator he risked a glance at them then went to the cabinet and took out a plate and a glass.
The entire time they stayed quite, opting to sit and watch their youngest team mate. The only sounds that could be heard were the soft noises of Nosedive making a sandwich.
Finally, not being able to stand the silence any longer, Nosedive whirled around to face them.
"What is wrong with you people!!! Why are you staring at me like I just grew another beak. I can't possibly be that interesting!"
He turned around again, and grabbed his sandwich and drink and made his way towards the kitchen door, eager to get back to the solitude of his room. But before he could, Duke called out his name.
"Nosedive wait up!"
"Leave me alone Duke!" Nosedive exclaimed, then continued on his way.
Duke and Mallory exchanged worried glances, then hurried after their young team mate.
"Hey kid, hold up a sec, I wanna talk to you" Duke called to Dive's back.
"GO AWAY!!" Nosedive called back. This time Mallory tried.
"Please Nosedive" she nearly begged, "we just want to speak with you."
Nosedive made an odd sound, that was somewhere between a growl and a whine, then turned around.
"Look, all I want to do, is take my sandwich and drink here, and go back to my room without being hounded on. Is that to much to ask?"
"What's wrong kid?" Duke ignored Nosedives question and got right to the point.
"What makes you people think that there is anything wrong! What, I can't have a bad day? I have to be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky all the time? Why can't you leave me alone, that's all I ask."
"Nosedive, you've been like this for weeks, I hardly think this classifies as a bad day anymore." Mallory looked up at him to see if anything she was saying was getting through his thick skull. She sighed inwardly at his blank look, then continued.
"Your locked up in your room all the time, and when you do come out you look half dead. You've got huge, black bags under your eyes, you look incredibly pale, and it's obvious that you've lost some weight, you look like a twig your so skinny. Even your hair, that you always take good care of, is stringy and lifeless looking. If someone even utters a word to you, you yell at them, and your trying to tell me that nothing is wrong? Now let's try this again. What is the problem here?"
Nosedive looked back and forth between Duke and Mallory. The anger was gone from his eyes and was now replaced by something that was akin to helplessness. He opened his beak to say something but was cut off by the loud sound of Drake1's alarms.
Duke groaned at the bad timing and turn back to Nosedive.
"We'll continue this when we get back, ok kid. Right now we hafta go see what ol' lizard lips wants." With that said, both Duke and Mallory, took off down the hall towards the Ready room to see what the problem was.
Nosedive stood where he was, thinking about what had just happened and trying to decide if he cared enough to go see what Dragonous was up to. Realizing that he didn't really have a choice, he slowly made his way to the ready room, where the rest of the team was already gathered.
*******
Ok, so I said that this was going to be the last chapter. But since I'm taking so long to update it, I thought that I should put up what I have finished. Sorry about it being so short, but oh well, get over it =) Thanks to everyone for reading it and leaving such great reviews, I just love ya'll sooooo much (sniff, sniff. wipes tear from eye) ok, I'm ok now, anyways, I'll try to hurry with the last part.
CIAO
Taura
