Required Disclaimer: I don't own Codename: Kids Next Door, or any associated intellectual property.
Review Responses:
NumbuhInfinity: Thanks for the compliments. I find it hard to pair Nigel with anyone. he and Lizzie make no sense, due to her near insanity. It just seems that he and Five think the most alike. There's not a lot of 1x5 in the story arc, I just like having both sisters having something with boys.
Numbuh 3.14: I like having Hoagie and Cree together. It's such a mismatch for age, but he seems to really like her, and she doesn't seem to mind his teen form. Poor Cree feels all sleazy, but can't really help it.
Princess Rusty: I've got nothing to say either. :)
Cindy Nuetron: Here's the update you asked for. Glad you like the story.
Demigod: Your chapters show up now.
Operation: HOAGIE
Hoagie's
Obvious
Attraction
Generally
Irritates
Everyone
Chapter Four: CANT-LEAVE
Cree
And
Numbuh
Two
-
Love
Eachother;
Adult
Victory
Ensured?
Cree's report to the adults was exhaustive. Hoagie Gilligan, it turned out, was not quite the genius that his reputation indicated. By the look of things, every craft he'd ever designed had some critical flaw with it, some debilitating error that could be easily exploited. Not only had Cree given them current flaws with his aircraft, but also had submitted designs for sophistcated weapons that would damage or destroy them easily.
Father was very, very pleased.
However, there was more that needed to be done. Aircraft aside, the Kids Next Door had innovative weaponry that needed defusing. Cree had to find out more. She protested, but once again, Father was insitent that she do her duty to adulthood. Cree had balled her hands into fists and agreed, nearly growling her acceptance of her orders.
The delightful children, on the other hand, had once again been watching. They didn't allow themselves to think of it, but deep down they knew that Father was far too obsessed with victory to notice Cree's hesitance, her anger. Not only that, but her report had several inconsistancies; there were empty sections of time on her date, changing ideas for disabling some of the aircraft, and omissions of any talk besides engineering. The delightful children had been raised to trust their elders, and they did, but for some reason, Cree still aroused suspicion in thier eyes.
Chad was sitting alone in the surveillance room when he heard the creepy voice.
"Hello Chadwick. We were hoping that you would be here. We need to speak with you about Cree."
Chad didn't move his eyes from the video screens. "It's Chad. And what do you brats want with me? I don't know anything about her. She's been out of the Kids Next Door for years."
"We don't think she is loyal to the adults. We know that you hate doing this sort of work, you want to be in the field, fighting those naughty children, doing something USEFUL, instead of sitting here staring at surviellance tapes."
Chad gritted his teeth. They had spied on him complaining to Father. "What are you proposing?"
The Delightful Children smiled. "Give us three days. After her next date with Numbuh Two, we will have all the information we need for our plan to test her loyalty. If you trust us in this, we will see to it that you get more active missions in the future, Chadwick."
Chadwick grinned, still staring at the screens. "And if you don't, I'll remind Father that you were awake, spying on an ally, in a private meeting, three hours past your curfew."
The sun was shining brightly in her window as Numbuh Five finally woke up. She squinted and looked over at the alarm clock. 12:30. She forced herself to sit up, angry at herself for sleeping so late. Testing her body, she stood up beside the bed. She didn't feel dizzy. She did a few jumping jacks, feeling the old strength back in her muscles. She never was one to be sick for long.
"Ooh, Numbuh Five is back in business now!" She looked around her room, and found her red and blue tanktop. Grabbing it and a towel from the linen closet, she headed for the shower. As soon as she left, Cree left the shadow of Abigail's closet, and walked calmly over to her pillow. She dropped the listening device she'd found in her room in the center of the cushion, certain to be noticed as soon as her sister came back in.
Cree did not like to be spied on. However, she wasn't ready to retaliate just yet. She still needed time. She looked out of Abby's window, seeing the distant treehouse. She had a mission. She had to do it.
She sighed again. She'd been sighing a lot lately. She was going to be in the same room with Hoagie the entire time she would be there, but he couldn't know about it. Her mission, forced on her from "Father", was to search his aircraft in detail; looking for any weaknesses that Hoagie hadn't shared during the date. She knew that spending that much time inside the treehouse was dangerous, but neccessary for the efforts of the adults.
She was jarred out of her thoughts by the shower door closing, Abby was coming back. Cree quickly crept out of the open window, dropping expertly to the ground below. She hopped on her bicycle and slowly started making her way towards the treehouse.
Numbuh Five's return to the treehouse was greeted with cheers and relief. Everyone was glad to have one of their best teammates back in service. Numbuh Five was of course happy to be back, not having to live in paranoia about Cree all the time back at home.
"Good to have you back, Numbuh Five. We've been lucky not to get any missions the past few days, but luck like that can't hold out forever." Numbuh One patted her back and smiled at her.
"Oh it's good to be back, baby! Now we can get back down to findin' out what those Delightful Children were after. We know they gotta be plannin' somethin'."
"Everyone get to the breifing room. We need to talk about this in detail." Numbuh One turned sharply and walked off towards the breifing room, followed by the rest of the team.
"Aw, man! More work! I don't know what they're planning! Why do I have to be here? arrgh!" Numbuh Four complained as he walked behind the rest of the team.
Cree watched from the shadowy rafters of the common room as the children filed out. This was too easy, kids didn't pay enough attention to ever find out about a skilled spy. She dropped lightly to the floor, her black suit muffling her footsteps as she walked towards the engineering room. The place was just as she remembered it from when she was an operative.
The hangar door creaked loudly as she pushed it open, making her flinch before ducking inside the room, hiding in a shadowed area next to the doorway. She listened carefully.
"Numbuh Five thinks that Cree has somethin' goin' on behind the scenes. She was actin' funny last night back home."
Cree grinned. The briefing was still going on. She hoped inwardly that Abby wouldn't tell everyone about Hoagie's indiscretion, but Cree couldn't do anything from here. She confidently crawled towards to MOSQUITO aircraft, parked just 20 feet from the entranceway. She looked over the craft's hull, nodding at the detail that Hoagie had discussed the plans for it. She padded silently over towards the weak point he'd mentioned in the steering column. She furrowed her brow. He'd been right, this was terribly done. She could probably disable it with her bare hands.
Cree continued to explore the various aircraft in the hangar. There were a few more weakpoints that Hoagie had missed, and a few things he'd neglected to mention about the problems he'd spoken about on the date. Cree was nearly finished with her investigation when she heard the door creak open again. She lept gently from the top of the space shuttle into the rafters once more, watching the two kids enter the room below her.
"Yeah, The DRAGON is a great ship! It's really fast, it can get you anywhere in the world in just a few hours!" Numbuh Two took a large bite out of a sloppy chilidog. Cree's attention was on the girl beside him, however.
"Baby, if you could make a decent-sized ship with that speed, then Numbuh Five would be impressed." Numbuh Five looked at the DRAGON, a little too carefully for Cree's liking. She pulled up a long black hair.
"Baby, You an' Numbuh One were the only people to ride in this so far, right?"
Hoagie looked up from his new design plan. "Uh, yeah. Like I said, It broke down on the way to your place, and it took a while to fix it. 2x4 technology isn't easy y'know."
"Then Numbuh Five jus' wants to know which one of y'all has two foot long black hair." Hoagie looked at the hair Numbuh Five was holding. "I found this in your DRAGON ship over there. Now, you ready to tell Numbuh Five the truth, or does she have to bring everyone in here first?"
Numbuh Two stuttered a bit, then lowered his head. "May-Maybe you dropped that... Nevermind. You're right Numbuh Five. Look, I can't help it. She's so pretty, and I finally have a girl who likes me-"
"She doesn't like you! She's usin' you Numbuh Two. What did you two talk about? She was on the phone last night with Chad, tellin' him she would send information about somethin'."
Numbuh Two turned white as a sheet. "We just talked about 2x4 engineering. he was really interested in my aircraft design. Your sister is really smart, y'know?"
Numbuh Five frowned. "Baby, she wasn't interested. She was pretendin' so that you would tell her secrets about the KND. You gotta stop-" Before she could finish, the door to the hangar flew open, and a girl in a green sweatshirt came running through.
"EEEE! No! You can't have it!" Numbuh Five and Numbuh Two stared blankly as the screaming girl flew past them, carrying a Rainbow Monkey doll.
"Give it! Cruddy Rainbow Monkey and it's stupid talkin'!" The blond-haired aussie. He stormed through the door and began to chase Three around the aircraft.
"Rainbow Monkey joy!" the voice inside the doll squeaked.
Numbuh Five rolled her eyes and looked back at Numbuh Two. "Jus' keep what Numbuh Five said in mind. She won't say nothin' unless it keeps on happenin'." Numbuh Five walked out of the room, leaving a crushed Numbuh Two to make a decision.
Cree scowled from the shadows.
Hoagie smiled at Cree as the cheesesteak sandwiches were placed in front of them. Hoagie was back out with Cree, only two days after their last date, this time they'd gone to a small sandwich store in Philadelphia. His conversation with Numbuh Five still played in the back of his mind, but he couldn't help but agree when Cree had offered to go out again.
The conversation had been pretty innocent so far, nothing had been said about 2x4 technology at all. Cree had been carefully avoiding it, hoping that it would assure Haogie that she was sincere. She smiled at him as he ate the sandwich. It was cute, in a messy sort of way. Hoagie looked at her.
"Uh, Cree, you haven't touched your sandwich. Are you ok?"
Cree nodded. "Yeah baby, I'm fine. Jus' worried about some mess goin' down at the adult headquarters. Teenager stuff, don't you worry about it." She took a small bite of the cheesesteak. "It's good." She smiled sadly.
They ate in silence for the rest of the meal, both of their other lives were worrying them too much to allow conversation. They had started back in the DRAGON already when Cree suddenly shook Hoagie's shoulder.
"Land her over there, baby. Cree needs to talk to you in private." She had pointed to a small clearing, near the top of one of the smallish Appalachain mountains. Hoagie looked at her strangely, but landed the craft easily on the ground. They both got out at the same time, and Cree walked around the craft to meet Hoagie. She took his hand in hers and looked down at him.
"Hoagie baby, you've been really quiet tonight. Is somethin' bothering you?"
Hoagie looked away from her. "Yeah... Numbuh Five knows about us. She said she'd tell the others if I kept dating you."
Cree sat down on the ground in front of Hoagie, so that she could look him in the eyes.
"Baby, we knew there'd be risks involved." She lowered her eyes a little. "If you want to call it off..."
Hoagie's mind was a whirlwind of emotions. He wanted to be here, with Cree. Her hands felt so warm and soft as they were touching his, and the moonlight was so beautiful on her dark face. But he also knew that he couldn't trust her, not really. Numbuh Five had said that she was giving away information to the adults. The other adults, he reminded himself. Cree was nearly an adult herself. But, as he looked at her, her eyes downcast, he couldn't help but want to stay like this.
As he watched, a tiny star appeared just below Cree's eye, sparkling as it ran down her cheek, falling silently to the ground. Hoagie felt nothing then but concern for the beautiful woman in front of him. He had to stay with Cree, there was no other thing he could do. He felt like he was watching himself as he gently placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face.
"No Cree. I can't leave you. I'll help you and the adults however I can, for as long as I can. I love you, Cree."
Cree finally let go, tears streaming down her face. "I.. I love you too, baby."
No kiss she had ever felt before compared to that one. All of her concerns about age, right, wrong, and loyalties disappeared as she and Hoagie held eachother under the moonlight, the only people for miles around.
A/N: Sappy, I know. If any of you girls ever need to manipulate a guy, crying is the way to go. Anyway, thanks again for all the positive reviews, and hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Hoagie and Cree both feel like their organizations aren't for them anymore. The Delightful Children, however, can get all the information they need now. How will the Kids Next Door be able to fight someone who can finally account for every variable? Stay Tuned.
Review Responses:
NumbuhInfinity: Thanks for the compliments. I find it hard to pair Nigel with anyone. he and Lizzie make no sense, due to her near insanity. It just seems that he and Five think the most alike. There's not a lot of 1x5 in the story arc, I just like having both sisters having something with boys.
Numbuh 3.14: I like having Hoagie and Cree together. It's such a mismatch for age, but he seems to really like her, and she doesn't seem to mind his teen form. Poor Cree feels all sleazy, but can't really help it.
Princess Rusty: I've got nothing to say either. :)
Cindy Nuetron: Here's the update you asked for. Glad you like the story.
Demigod: Your chapters show up now.
Operation: HOAGIE
Hoagie's
Obvious
Attraction
Generally
Irritates
Everyone
Chapter Four: CANT-LEAVE
Cree
And
Numbuh
Two
-
Love
Eachother;
Adult
Victory
Ensured?
Cree's report to the adults was exhaustive. Hoagie Gilligan, it turned out, was not quite the genius that his reputation indicated. By the look of things, every craft he'd ever designed had some critical flaw with it, some debilitating error that could be easily exploited. Not only had Cree given them current flaws with his aircraft, but also had submitted designs for sophistcated weapons that would damage or destroy them easily.
Father was very, very pleased.
However, there was more that needed to be done. Aircraft aside, the Kids Next Door had innovative weaponry that needed defusing. Cree had to find out more. She protested, but once again, Father was insitent that she do her duty to adulthood. Cree had balled her hands into fists and agreed, nearly growling her acceptance of her orders.
The delightful children, on the other hand, had once again been watching. They didn't allow themselves to think of it, but deep down they knew that Father was far too obsessed with victory to notice Cree's hesitance, her anger. Not only that, but her report had several inconsistancies; there were empty sections of time on her date, changing ideas for disabling some of the aircraft, and omissions of any talk besides engineering. The delightful children had been raised to trust their elders, and they did, but for some reason, Cree still aroused suspicion in thier eyes.
Chad was sitting alone in the surveillance room when he heard the creepy voice.
"Hello Chadwick. We were hoping that you would be here. We need to speak with you about Cree."
Chad didn't move his eyes from the video screens. "It's Chad. And what do you brats want with me? I don't know anything about her. She's been out of the Kids Next Door for years."
"We don't think she is loyal to the adults. We know that you hate doing this sort of work, you want to be in the field, fighting those naughty children, doing something USEFUL, instead of sitting here staring at surviellance tapes."
Chad gritted his teeth. They had spied on him complaining to Father. "What are you proposing?"
The Delightful Children smiled. "Give us three days. After her next date with Numbuh Two, we will have all the information we need for our plan to test her loyalty. If you trust us in this, we will see to it that you get more active missions in the future, Chadwick."
Chadwick grinned, still staring at the screens. "And if you don't, I'll remind Father that you were awake, spying on an ally, in a private meeting, three hours past your curfew."
The sun was shining brightly in her window as Numbuh Five finally woke up. She squinted and looked over at the alarm clock. 12:30. She forced herself to sit up, angry at herself for sleeping so late. Testing her body, she stood up beside the bed. She didn't feel dizzy. She did a few jumping jacks, feeling the old strength back in her muscles. She never was one to be sick for long.
"Ooh, Numbuh Five is back in business now!" She looked around her room, and found her red and blue tanktop. Grabbing it and a towel from the linen closet, she headed for the shower. As soon as she left, Cree left the shadow of Abigail's closet, and walked calmly over to her pillow. She dropped the listening device she'd found in her room in the center of the cushion, certain to be noticed as soon as her sister came back in.
Cree did not like to be spied on. However, she wasn't ready to retaliate just yet. She still needed time. She looked out of Abby's window, seeing the distant treehouse. She had a mission. She had to do it.
She sighed again. She'd been sighing a lot lately. She was going to be in the same room with Hoagie the entire time she would be there, but he couldn't know about it. Her mission, forced on her from "Father", was to search his aircraft in detail; looking for any weaknesses that Hoagie hadn't shared during the date. She knew that spending that much time inside the treehouse was dangerous, but neccessary for the efforts of the adults.
She was jarred out of her thoughts by the shower door closing, Abby was coming back. Cree quickly crept out of the open window, dropping expertly to the ground below. She hopped on her bicycle and slowly started making her way towards the treehouse.
Numbuh Five's return to the treehouse was greeted with cheers and relief. Everyone was glad to have one of their best teammates back in service. Numbuh Five was of course happy to be back, not having to live in paranoia about Cree all the time back at home.
"Good to have you back, Numbuh Five. We've been lucky not to get any missions the past few days, but luck like that can't hold out forever." Numbuh One patted her back and smiled at her.
"Oh it's good to be back, baby! Now we can get back down to findin' out what those Delightful Children were after. We know they gotta be plannin' somethin'."
"Everyone get to the breifing room. We need to talk about this in detail." Numbuh One turned sharply and walked off towards the breifing room, followed by the rest of the team.
"Aw, man! More work! I don't know what they're planning! Why do I have to be here? arrgh!" Numbuh Four complained as he walked behind the rest of the team.
Cree watched from the shadowy rafters of the common room as the children filed out. This was too easy, kids didn't pay enough attention to ever find out about a skilled spy. She dropped lightly to the floor, her black suit muffling her footsteps as she walked towards the engineering room. The place was just as she remembered it from when she was an operative.
The hangar door creaked loudly as she pushed it open, making her flinch before ducking inside the room, hiding in a shadowed area next to the doorway. She listened carefully.
"Numbuh Five thinks that Cree has somethin' goin' on behind the scenes. She was actin' funny last night back home."
Cree grinned. The briefing was still going on. She hoped inwardly that Abby wouldn't tell everyone about Hoagie's indiscretion, but Cree couldn't do anything from here. She confidently crawled towards to MOSQUITO aircraft, parked just 20 feet from the entranceway. She looked over the craft's hull, nodding at the detail that Hoagie had discussed the plans for it. She padded silently over towards the weak point he'd mentioned in the steering column. She furrowed her brow. He'd been right, this was terribly done. She could probably disable it with her bare hands.
Cree continued to explore the various aircraft in the hangar. There were a few more weakpoints that Hoagie had missed, and a few things he'd neglected to mention about the problems he'd spoken about on the date. Cree was nearly finished with her investigation when she heard the door creak open again. She lept gently from the top of the space shuttle into the rafters once more, watching the two kids enter the room below her.
"Yeah, The DRAGON is a great ship! It's really fast, it can get you anywhere in the world in just a few hours!" Numbuh Two took a large bite out of a sloppy chilidog. Cree's attention was on the girl beside him, however.
"Baby, if you could make a decent-sized ship with that speed, then Numbuh Five would be impressed." Numbuh Five looked at the DRAGON, a little too carefully for Cree's liking. She pulled up a long black hair.
"Baby, You an' Numbuh One were the only people to ride in this so far, right?"
Hoagie looked up from his new design plan. "Uh, yeah. Like I said, It broke down on the way to your place, and it took a while to fix it. 2x4 technology isn't easy y'know."
"Then Numbuh Five jus' wants to know which one of y'all has two foot long black hair." Hoagie looked at the hair Numbuh Five was holding. "I found this in your DRAGON ship over there. Now, you ready to tell Numbuh Five the truth, or does she have to bring everyone in here first?"
Numbuh Two stuttered a bit, then lowered his head. "May-Maybe you dropped that... Nevermind. You're right Numbuh Five. Look, I can't help it. She's so pretty, and I finally have a girl who likes me-"
"She doesn't like you! She's usin' you Numbuh Two. What did you two talk about? She was on the phone last night with Chad, tellin' him she would send information about somethin'."
Numbuh Two turned white as a sheet. "We just talked about 2x4 engineering. he was really interested in my aircraft design. Your sister is really smart, y'know?"
Numbuh Five frowned. "Baby, she wasn't interested. She was pretendin' so that you would tell her secrets about the KND. You gotta stop-" Before she could finish, the door to the hangar flew open, and a girl in a green sweatshirt came running through.
"EEEE! No! You can't have it!" Numbuh Five and Numbuh Two stared blankly as the screaming girl flew past them, carrying a Rainbow Monkey doll.
"Give it! Cruddy Rainbow Monkey and it's stupid talkin'!" The blond-haired aussie. He stormed through the door and began to chase Three around the aircraft.
"Rainbow Monkey joy!" the voice inside the doll squeaked.
Numbuh Five rolled her eyes and looked back at Numbuh Two. "Jus' keep what Numbuh Five said in mind. She won't say nothin' unless it keeps on happenin'." Numbuh Five walked out of the room, leaving a crushed Numbuh Two to make a decision.
Cree scowled from the shadows.
Hoagie smiled at Cree as the cheesesteak sandwiches were placed in front of them. Hoagie was back out with Cree, only two days after their last date, this time they'd gone to a small sandwich store in Philadelphia. His conversation with Numbuh Five still played in the back of his mind, but he couldn't help but agree when Cree had offered to go out again.
The conversation had been pretty innocent so far, nothing had been said about 2x4 technology at all. Cree had been carefully avoiding it, hoping that it would assure Haogie that she was sincere. She smiled at him as he ate the sandwich. It was cute, in a messy sort of way. Hoagie looked at her.
"Uh, Cree, you haven't touched your sandwich. Are you ok?"
Cree nodded. "Yeah baby, I'm fine. Jus' worried about some mess goin' down at the adult headquarters. Teenager stuff, don't you worry about it." She took a small bite of the cheesesteak. "It's good." She smiled sadly.
They ate in silence for the rest of the meal, both of their other lives were worrying them too much to allow conversation. They had started back in the DRAGON already when Cree suddenly shook Hoagie's shoulder.
"Land her over there, baby. Cree needs to talk to you in private." She had pointed to a small clearing, near the top of one of the smallish Appalachain mountains. Hoagie looked at her strangely, but landed the craft easily on the ground. They both got out at the same time, and Cree walked around the craft to meet Hoagie. She took his hand in hers and looked down at him.
"Hoagie baby, you've been really quiet tonight. Is somethin' bothering you?"
Hoagie looked away from her. "Yeah... Numbuh Five knows about us. She said she'd tell the others if I kept dating you."
Cree sat down on the ground in front of Hoagie, so that she could look him in the eyes.
"Baby, we knew there'd be risks involved." She lowered her eyes a little. "If you want to call it off..."
Hoagie's mind was a whirlwind of emotions. He wanted to be here, with Cree. Her hands felt so warm and soft as they were touching his, and the moonlight was so beautiful on her dark face. But he also knew that he couldn't trust her, not really. Numbuh Five had said that she was giving away information to the adults. The other adults, he reminded himself. Cree was nearly an adult herself. But, as he looked at her, her eyes downcast, he couldn't help but want to stay like this.
As he watched, a tiny star appeared just below Cree's eye, sparkling as it ran down her cheek, falling silently to the ground. Hoagie felt nothing then but concern for the beautiful woman in front of him. He had to stay with Cree, there was no other thing he could do. He felt like he was watching himself as he gently placed his hand under her chin and lifted her face.
"No Cree. I can't leave you. I'll help you and the adults however I can, for as long as I can. I love you, Cree."
Cree finally let go, tears streaming down her face. "I.. I love you too, baby."
No kiss she had ever felt before compared to that one. All of her concerns about age, right, wrong, and loyalties disappeared as she and Hoagie held eachother under the moonlight, the only people for miles around.
A/N: Sappy, I know. If any of you girls ever need to manipulate a guy, crying is the way to go. Anyway, thanks again for all the positive reviews, and hopefully the next chapter will be up soon. Hoagie and Cree both feel like their organizations aren't for them anymore. The Delightful Children, however, can get all the information they need now. How will the Kids Next Door be able to fight someone who can finally account for every variable? Stay Tuned.