author's notes: sorry for taking so long to update this! especially since, once again, it's supposed to take place fairly soon after the last chapter. i'll hopefully get the next chapter up sooner. and it is getting close to the end...really!

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"You feeling okay?" Chad asked Cree as they walked to her house. "You seem kind of quiet."

"Huh? Uh—no," she answered. "I mean—I'm fine. I'm just…thinking about the meeting. We didn't really come up with any ideas for missions last time."

"Yeah, I guess we didn't." In truth, not much had been discussed in the last meeting at all. Cree had seemed even more distracted then than she did now.

"But I'll wait until the meeting to worry about that," Cree said with a brighter expression. "What were we talking about again?"

"Football."

Cree's cheery demeanor faded at the word, and Chad laughed. "You weren't listening to me at all, were you?"

"Sure I was," she insisted. "You were talking about the team…with the…things…. Oh, look here we are," she announced, hastening to her front door and pulling out her keys. "I was thinking of having the meeting in the dining room today. More formal, don't you think?"

---

Maurice slouched against the tall, hard-backed chair, which wasn't actually easy or comfortable to do. Why Cree had decided to have the meeting in the dining room, he had no idea. She could've at least given us a meal while we're here, he thought to himself, but of course she never did when they had their meetings in the kitchen, so he supposed he should have expected it.

The last meeting had been in the living room; Maurice didn't understand the reasoning behind that, either, but it was never his job to question these things. Not out loud, at least. It had been a completely pointless meeting, no ideas on fighting the KND or making kids' lives generally miserable were thought up at all, so it was all just a waste of time. Of course that technically was a good thing. But Maurice couldn't help but wonder what his purpose there was if Cree wasn't much of a threat anymore.

This meeting was turning out very similarly to the last one. He glanced over at Cree, who sat at the head of the table with her notes spread out before her. She kept smoothing out the papers in front of her. Sure they were a little wrinkled, but Maurice didn't understand why she kept compulsively flattening them. Not that he cared. As long as she wasn't looking at him, that's all that really mattered. Because that meant that he could look across the table at Abby.

Of course he shouldn't be looking at her. She certainly wasn't looking at him. She hardly looked at him at all. (Did she ever used to look at me?) At least she wasn't looking at Chad, who was sitting next to her. Maurice gave him a cursory glance; he seemed to be looking at Cree, playing the part of supportive team member or whatever. Maurice didn't care.

His eyes wandered back to Abby. She looked bored, but not quite as bored as he felt. He wondered: If I stare at her long enough, will she look at me?

Maurice's experiment ended prematurely, however, when Cree said, "I'm completely out of ideas," and flopped against the back of her chair. He then had no choice but to focus again on Cree.

"We've already done Rainbow Monkeys, Yipper Cards, and Chewy Pellets. Though we still don't know what went wrong with the Chewy Pellet operation." Cree frowned and tilted her head. "Well? Do you guys have any ideas?" She turned to Abby. "Anything?"

She deferred the question by asking, "We had a Yipper Card mission?"

"Yeah, it was before your time."

"Oh," she nodded.

"How about you?" she turned to Maurice.

He had to drag himself back to the topic at hand. Dammit, why are you asking me? He avoided the question by stating, "I thought it was the leader's job to come up with missions."

She frowned slightly at him. "You can't expect me to come up with all of them. Even back when we were in Sector—." She cut herself off and sighed.

Maurice looked away uncomfortably. Lately he didn't want to think about their past in Sector V. He was glad that she thought he didn't remember them. Besides, the only mission he ever came up with back then was the chickenpox one, and he especially didn't want to think about that one.

Cree was then addressing Chad. "How about you?"

He seemed to think for a moment then ventured, "Soda?"

Cree shook her head. "Ever since they raised the drinking age to thirteen, if we did anything to soda we'd probably be messing with more teens than kids."

They all fell silent. Cree smoothed out her notes again.

"We could always try to destroy Moonbase again."

Maurice looked up to scrutinize Chad warily, but Cree only laughed.

"The old standby," Cree said. "But we've tried that so many times now, and I swear it just keeps getting bigger."

It was true enough. Numbuh 362 seemed to be making a lot of upgrades to Moonbase lately.

Chad commented, "I still think that Moonbase must have a self-destruct button somewhere. I mean, everything else does, why not Moonbase?"

"That is pretty flawless logic," Cree grinned at him.

"How about Kid's Meals?" suggested Abby.

Cree turned to her. "You mean like Burger Frenzy?"

"No, like actual meals for kids. We could target those."

Maurice coughed loudly, and everyone turned to stare at him.

"'Scuse me," he muttered.

"So what did you have in mind?" Cree asked, focusing again on her sister.

"Well, I was thinking we could promote all that health junk that parents are so into these days. Like tell them to make broccoli sandwiches instead of hamburgers, and a side of brussel sprouts instead of fries."

Maurice stared at Abby in disbelief. "What are you doing?" he demanded before he caught himself and hastily added, "…this weekend?" while turning to Cree.

His "girlfriend" regarded him quizzically. "I don't know, Honey, but we'll talk about it later, okay?" She turned back to Abby. "That's not a bad idea, what were you thinking in terms of execution?"

Abby crossed her arms in thought. "I'm not quite sure yet. We can either go at it from a corporate angle and incite parents into demanding healthy kids' meals from fast food places, or we can take a more direct approach and put the new menu items in the fast food joints ourselves, and make them seem officially sanctioned…?"

Maurice was watching her with growing horror, but Cree smiled, looking proud. "You seem to have some ideas on the subject. How'd you like to be leader of this mission?"

Abby stared, surprised. "Really?"

"Yes," her sister beamed. "Of course I'll help you out if you need it, but I'll only be second-in-command. I'll leave the planning, the delegation of duties, everything up to you. Do you think you're up for it?"

She seemed to consider for a moment. "Yeah, sounds like it might be fun."

"Great!" Cree said. "It's settled. Then you get to call the next meeting. Though as second-in-command, I suggest that you make it in the next few days so you don't lose momentum."

The sisters continued to chatter as Maurice glared at them. More specifically, he was glaring at Abby. What is she thinking? She isn't seriously considering running an anti-kid operation? As he looked intently at her, he wished more than anything that he could trust her.

---

Sabotaging my own mission is harder that I thought it would be, mused Abby as she stood on the roof of the local Rusty Burger. She searched the area with night-vision binoculars and saw no one around aside from her team, awaiting her signal from a clump of scrawny-looking bushes that didn't do much to hide them.

Fairly certain that she could see them far better than they could see her, she took the opportunity to spy on her team. Cree was looking up at her, but in a way that made it clear that she couldn't quite see her. She appeared somewhat apprehensive; Abby figured it was because her big sister didn't have complete confidence that she could run a mission by herself, in spite of all Cree's supportive words. It was kind of aggravating, especially since Abby knew that the mission would have to end in failure, which would only confirm Cree's doubts. But Abby knew what she was getting into when she signed up for this operation, and it wasn't like she really wanted to be leader of a teen unit anyways.

Just next to her sister was Chad, who was gazing at Cree rather blatantly. But the moment she turned in his direction he looked away abruptly. Abby laughed. It was amazing that Cree hadn't figured something out just from the way he was always staring at her.

Cree said something to Chad, he nodded and replied and looked away again. This time Abby caught her sister's eyes lingering on Chad for a while after he had turned away. Then Chad peeked in Cree's direction, they made accidental eye contact, and then they both looked away immediately, making rapid, awkward conversation. Abby laughed again, but this time it was followed with a sigh. She supposed that she would have to leave the two of them to figure things out for themselves.

On the other side of Cree, quite some distance away from the other two, was Maurice. He was wearing a rather sour expression, but that was normal for him lately. Abby knew this because she was far better at the staring game than either Cree or Chad was. But even after the days, weeks even, of careful observation, she wasn't entirely sure if his grouchiness was directly related to her. Lately her conversations with him had gone badly enough that she had been avoiding talking with him, only exchanging a few words here and there. She hadn't discussed this mission with him at all. It was very possible that he resented being out of the loop, but he hadn't made much of an effort to communicate with her, either.

She sighed and put away the binoculars. It was time to get down to business. She signaled her team with a small flashlight, and they were quick to react. Cree rushed to the restaurant's back door and easily picked the lock. There was no alarm, as Chad had verified in an earlier recon assignment. After Cree gave the all clear, Chad and Maurice charged in, each towing large, heavy sacks.

Abby jumped down from the roof (with help from her jet pack) to join them, and found Cree and Chad scouting the kitchen while Maurice stood staring in her direction.

Cree walked over to her boyfriend. "You could at least pretend to be helping," she commented as she grabbed the large, misshapen bag beside him.

"I'm the lookout," he said dismissively. "Look, here comes Abby."

Cree turned. "Hi, Boss," she greeted. "Where do you want these?" She indicated the large bags.

"The fridge," replied her sister. The bags were filled with broccoli and brussel sprouts, tens of pounds of them. Where they came from or how they were paid for, Abby had no idea, just as she was never quite certain who funded the Kids Next Door missions. It was never really her business.

As Cree and Chad hauled the goods into the giant, walk-in refrigerator, Abby smirked as the idea to lock the two of them in there together crossed her mind. She shook her head slightly. I'm starting to think like Cree, she thought to herself. But she couldn't help but wonder if, put in that situation, they would huddle together for warmth. Abby counted herself lucky that Cree hadn't tried that particular plan on Chad and herself.

Her smile faded when she turned to see Maurice watching her with a grim expression. He seemed to have that effect on her lately—smiles turned to frowns whenever he was around. She forced a grin. "You know, we should empty the cash registers while we're here," she joked.

He stared.

"I'm kidding," she said, disappointed that she even had to make that clarification. She stifled a sigh. "Well, I guess we're about done here." She took the "official orders" from Burger Frenzy Headquarters and placed them where they'd be easily found.

Maurice stepped forward to look at it. "Otay ebay roay otnay otay ebay…?" he read aloud. "What is this?"

"Hamlet's Soliloquy in pig latin," Abby shrugged. "I decided to go for something quasi-educational."

Maurice gaped at it, then at Abby.

"They'll find this in the morning, realize it's gibberish, and then throw it away. I don't know what they'll do with all that broccoli and brussel sprouts, probably put it in their salads or something. What?" she asked, realizing that Maurice was gawking at her oddly.

"So…you mean…this was all…?"

"What?" repeated Abby, detecting his disbelief all too clearly. "You didn't…you didn't think I was actually—"

"Stop right there, teenagers! We've got you surrounded!"

Abby froze not so much at the words, but at the voice. She turned with a slow, sick dread to see what she fully expected to see. It didn't make it any easier.

The four remaining members of Sector V stood just inside the doorway, each training their 2x4 technology weapons on their supposed enemies.

Abby could only stare at them. She couldn't move or speak. It felt as though her stomach had suddenly turned to lead. She missed each and every one of them so much. Just a few months ago she would be standing there with them. But now….

Nigel, still with his weapon pointed at her, took two cautious steps towards his former teammate. "Okay, listen up, teens, this is what we're going to do. You're going to give us that paper and whatever else you've planted here, and we'll let you go on your way."

Even in her current state Abby knew that negotiation wasn't a common KND tactic, and that he was making an exception for her. She looked down at the paper in her hands. If he saw it, then maybe….

But before she could do anything, she heard someone call, "Abby!" and immediately afterwards a laser blast knocked Numbuh One against the wall. An instant later the room was filled with mustard, carrots, and laser fire.

Cree, Chad, and the current members of Sector V were embroiled in messy battle. Abby just stared at the chaos in horror, frozen in indecision. She didn't even notice when someone came and stood right in front of her, until a SPLANKER was aimed right at her face.

"Give up…teenager…." The voice was trying, and not succeeding, to sound tough. Abby looked past the shaking weapon directly before her to see Wally. He was crying.

"Numbuh Four…" was all she managed to say before he was kicked away by Cree.

"Abby! What are you doing? Let's get out of here!"

Her older sister grabbed her arm and pulled her away. Abby stumbled on rubble and shattered tile on the way out; the place had been demolished.

She was dragged out into the night air. She strained to turn and see behind her—smoke was streaming out the back door of the fast food joint. She saw Maurice run out, then Chad. Cree activated her jet boots, her hand still firmly around Abby's wrist, and before she knew it, she was airborne.

"Wait—wait!" she cried, still staring at the doorway. Then she saw them; one, two, three, four figures ran out, safe, if not unharmed. Abby sighed; in relief, disappointment, and she didn't know what else.

The four teens alighted in the Lincoln's back yard.

"Abby, are you okay?" her sister asked softly.

"I'm fine," she answered, turning to walk into the house.

Someone stood in her way. "Abby," Maurice murmured, "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"How could you?" she snapped in a low, strangled voice, tears welling in her eyes. "How could you?"

Then she ran from him, blindly, and smashed directly into Chad. He looked at her tear-streaked face and didn't say a word. She finally broke down, sobbing into his shirt, and he silently put his arms around her and held her tight.