"I'd give anything just to be a normal teen again." Canard dropped his hand at Kristy's words. He was going to knock and see how she was doing, but it sounded like Kristy was talking to someone already, probably Dive. He'd been feeling guilty about confining her to the Pond, but he was worried too. Canard didn't have any idea what Lucricia was planning, and he didn't know what to do about his sister either. He moved on down the hall, away from Kristy's door.
Kriss is right, he thought, she really hasn't had a normal life since the invasion. Neither has Dive, they're only 17 and they're both stuck on this alien planet in the middle of a war.
He hadn't realized it before, but Nosedive and Kristy both lost three years because of the invasion. Canard knocked half-heartedly on Wildwing's door. First the invasion, now this. And they'll have to live with those memories forever.
The door opened at his touch. "Wing, you in here?" he called.
"Yeah at my desk, just give me a sec." Wildwing circled something in his play book and leaned back. "Hey Canard, how's Kristy doing?"
"I have no idea." Canard took the other chair next to Wildwing's desk. "I think she's mad at me for grounding her, but I know she's scared of Lucricia, and she locked herself in her room earlier."
Wing whistled. "That's a tough load. Do you think she's mad at you?"
"How should I know? She locked me out, but she did let Dive in earlier," Canard hung his head guiltily, "I was sort of listening at her door and heard them talking."
"Please don't say you want me to enforce the new Dive-and-Kristy-not alone-together rule."
Canard shook his head. "No not that. I don't think either of them are even thinking about any thing like that after..."
"Dive's reckless, but he's not stupid," said Wildwing, "and I don't think he's got anything but the best intentions."
"Stars, we've turned into a couple of matchmakers," exclaimed Canard.
"Not any worse than your mom," reminded Wildwing.
"Oh, she wanted me to proposition every girl I met! And then she tried to set you up with her friend's daughter..."
"Enough, enough! So, totally off topic, how are you handling everything?"
"Just fine," answered Canard sarcastically, "my kid sister gets kidnaped by our archenemy, she winds up here and I suddenly become her legal guardian, and oh yeah, my crazy ex-girl friend wants some kind of twisted revenge against all of us. Wing, I can't do this."
"Yes you can."
"I can't watch her all the time, so instead I worry about her 24/7."
"Canard, you're a trained leader of Puckworld's elite armed forces, you've defeated evil Saurians, you started this team. You can handle your seventeen year old kid sister."
"That's just it," Canard hung his head, "I can handle this, Mallory lives for this, Duke adapts to anything, Grin can take anything, Tanya can handle it, even you, an untrained citizen can handle it."
Wing gave him a weird look, but Canard continued. "Dive wasn't supposed to be here, he's proven himself, but he's still just a kid. The same as Kristy. Wing, we were just eighteen when the Saurians attacked!"
"I know that!" Wildwing pounded his fists on the desk, "don't you think I wish it hadn't happened? We all lost a lot, not just yo-"
"I'm not talking about me!" yelled Canard, letting his mixture of taped emotions break free. "I'm talking about the kids! Dive and Kriss, they're only seventeen, even younger than we were. They haven't even graduated yet, and they may never get to..."
"Canard, it's ok. I'm sorry for yelling, I'm just worried."
"Wing, it's cool. It's probably my fault." Canard flashed his friend a tired smile. "I'm just really worked up about what I heard Kristy saying."
"When you were eavesdropping?" asked Wildwing, returning the smile.
Canard rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Anyways, I heard her telling Dive that she wanted to be normal."
"And now you're feeling guilty because Kristy and Dive are missing out on everything you did when you were their age."
"How'd you know?"
Wing shook his head, "Canard, I've been thinking about that since we got here almost two years ago. I've been playing 'big brother' since the beginning."
"Man, this is like an alternate universe," said Canard, "you being the voice of reason and me being the obsessive older brother."
"I'm not obsessive," argued Wing, "but if we're really in an alternative universe then it's my job to get your mind off of the 'ungrateful kid'."
"I never said, oh yeah..." Canard remembered saying that exact phrase to Wildwing in reference to Nosedive. "Use my own words against me."
"Come on," Wing stood up, "we've moped around here long enough, let's go race the duck cycles."
Wildwing frowned when he left the room. "That's weird, the lights are out in Dive's room," he checked his watch, "and there's no way he's in bed at ten-thirty."
"He's probably still in Kristy's room," said Canard, leading Wing towards the garage, "and I'm to tired to worry if he is."
Wing laughed, "There's hope for you yet."
They reached the garage quickly and noticed immediately that something wasn't right.
"Um Wing, we still have three duck cycles, right?" asked Canard, noticing the single motorcycle next to the migrator.
"I wonder who took the other two," said Wildwing, "no one mentioned anything about going out tonight."
"Let's check the migrator," suggested Canard, "we can use it's tacking system to see who's missing." And I hope my guess is wrong, or those two are going to be grounded, benched, and in lots of big trouble.
"Got it," Wildwing had the computer up and running in less than a minute, "there're six of us here in the Pond. Two in the garage, us. One in Grin's room, one in the lab, and two in the gym."
"And no one in Dive or Kristy's room." finished Canard.
"No, but there are two signals coming from...Where else? The mall. Do you want to do it or should I?"
"Both. I got Tanya to make Kristy a Comm today, remember?"
"Oh yeah. Well, let's do it." Wildwing went through the steps to shut down the migrator's onboard computer system.
Canard climbed out of the migrator to give himself some privacy. When those two get back here they're both going to be in some major trouble.