DARK DUCK: FOWLed

CHAPTER TWO

PART 3

Not Making Sense

Monday Evening

Drake slept through most of the school day. At five in the evening, once more he found himself opening the fridge to contemplate Gosalyn's need for proper meals. He was a rational person and meat was part of a healthy duck's diet. Sensible, he could do sensible; of course, he was perfectly sensible!

Drake slammed the fridge door to find Gosalyn standing there.
"Hey, don't look at me!" Gosalyn pouted, "it's not like I started the circle of life craze."
"Everybody has to eat something," he sighed and headed to the kitchen door, "Let's go, Gosalyn."

They were out on another search for Gosalyn's dinner.

Gosalyn giggled, following him out to the car; "So if a meat tray is like evidence from a crime scene, then you're telling me you can't eat meat because you're a crime fighter? Tough gig if something happens at the hot dog stand."
"Fu-unny," Drake said darkly, "and no, I am not taking you to Hungry Hippo again."

Drake walked down the street purposefully with Gosalyn beside him.
"There's not a lot of choice, dad."
"Just get me away from the smell of that grease and preservatives; I'm sure I can be better about it." He stopped once he got to the place he was after, looking up at the swirling black writing on the orange background.
"Whoa, dad." Gosalyn stared up at the oval hanging sign overhead as well, "De'La Croissants?"
"I just hope they serve actual food in here." He opened the door and she slipped inside in front of him.

The air of the restaurant was mute. Only a few tables were occupied but the restaurant could easily fit a lot more. Drake was happy with the feeling that he hadn't led Gosalyn into the middle of a murder investigation. "A table for two, please?"
"Of course, this way." The smiling waiter escorted them to a table against the orange painted wall. "Here are the menus." He handed one to Gosalyn, and then one to Drake.

Drake took hold of the menu and the smell of cologne and herbal shower gel mixed with moderately healthy blood and faint traces of bleach and apple inundated his senses. "Thank you, Artie."
Artie quietly pulled his hand away. "Uh, can I ... get you ... something ... to drink for a starter?"
"Do you have apple juice?"
"Yes, sir."
Drake put the menu down on the table. "That would be good, thank you, Artie."
"Would you like anything, miss?"
"Can I get a banana smoothie, please?"
"Okay." Artie smiled and walked away.

Drake looked down at the menu. Unlike Gosalyn's fantastic juice concoctions, he was not terribly enthralled with the selection, although it would be good food for his growing daughter and that was the point of being here.
"Dad ..."
Drake looked up from frowning at the menu to see Gosalyn with a look of concern on her face.
"Don't eat the food service, dad."
He jolted in shock, "I'm not ...!"
"Da-ad!" She gritted, making Drake frown. "It crossed your face; don't tell me it didn't cross your mind."
"For your in-formation," Drake took a moment to take control of the conversation, "since you clearly weren't paying attention: Artie has a girlfriend and actively looks after at least one small child with his wages from this and at least one other job where he works as a cleaner."
"Wow. He was thinking all of that?"
"I can smell all of that. Gos, you taught me how to do it, remember the juice you made?" Gosalyn cocked an eyebrow at him, "... and a bit of traditional deductive reasoning, of course. The smell of abrasive cleaner only combined with the appearance of rough hands indicates an alternative job as a cleaner. The presence of that particular brand of floral hair shampoo combined with the absence of a wedding ring and a liberal amount of cologne."

Gosalyn's face cleared for a moment. She looked back down at her menu and her face went dark again. "There's tomato soup on page 3, dad. That won't have any cereals in it."
"You're worrying again."
"You need to go back to Eider." She resolved. "That'll fix it."
"Gos ..." Drake hesitated, "I was just trying to explain why I'm not interested in him."
"Yeah, dad, that's great for Artie. But that trick won't work to everyone's advantage."
Drake flinched, understanding what she was getting at. However, that was his problem, not hers. "But at least I can be sitting here in this fancy restaurant surrounded by people and spend some quality time with you, huh?"
"Yeah, that's pretty good."
They sat in a moment of uncomfortable silence before Gosalyn broke it with a sudden giggle, "Negaduck..." Gosalyn quivered, "Gets to the front door: 'I'm going to a bank heist; don't wait up.' Cue the applesauce hug. 'Ah, get off me kid, come on!' What would St Canard's supervillain do next?"

Drake had to chuckle, "Use the crowbar, get to his motorbike only to discover there was no fuel left in it."
Gosalyn grinned, "How'd that happen?"
"Older daughter." Drake chuckled again.
Gosalyn implored, "Will you teach me how to drive, dad? Please?"
"Gosalyn, you know you need to be at least..." Drake took a sharp breath in, but before he found an age that Gosalyn would be happy with, Artie came back with their drinks and the situation was averted. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Are you ready to order?"
"Yes, yes we are." Drake answered, "right Gosalyn?"

The rest of the evening with Gosalyn went by much smoother and Drake eventually returned to the reception area of the Hamil Corp security offices. The waiting chairs, the large brown dot painting.

"Hello, Drake. How are you?"
He advanced and looked down at the receptionist and her short straight brown hair, remembering the truce between them, "Hi, Joss."
"We're on field training tonight." She asked nicely, "Do you want to come?"
Drake hesitated for a long moment. The last time he'd been on 'field training' it had been to hunt a very large beast of a demon for food. 'What a fantastic idea ... No!' His mind swung right around. It also meant pack hunting. 'What a terribly bad idea!' He swallowed his panic. After which they did that communion thing. His heart rate shot right up. Meaning he would do that communion thing. "No, no. I don't think that'd ... that's not going to work for me. Sorry."
"You're flighty. What's the matter?"

"Hey ..." Joss began again in a warm, sultry voice. Joss stood up and slinked out from behind the desk. The familiar cat-like motion in which she moved ramped up his anxiety even further. "We're all family here, you know that."
Drake shied away from her before she made physical contact. "I can't, Joss! Really, I can't. Please ..." He begged and turned away from her. "I've got to see Eider."
There was a switch in Joss's mental state. "Well, you know where Lawrence is. If he doesn't want someone coming in, he won't let them come in." She pouted, "That's the perk of having an office."
Drake turned his head back towards her. The emotional feedback that came with the stilted words was a painful backlash. "I didn't mean to offend you, Joss."
"Honey!" She smiled at him, and in that moment as they stood there, the bad vibe faded from the air between them.

"You have so much to learn, Drake. I understand that you need breathing room. Field training does get intense. You're not ready for that, and that's fine."
"I just don't want to see ... it ... in ... me." He gestured to himself.
" 'It'? Hmm ..." She watched him intently. "You know, your life would be so much easier if you just gave in, Drake. There is only one eventual conclusion and you know it." She moved past him, checking the magazines on the table were in a perfectly aligned stack before pausing and began that stealthy stalking towards him again.

"Joss!" He moved away from her. She was still playing cat and mouse with him and she didn't seem to even realise it. "Stop it. You're not helping me." She was actually making him feel sick. Drake looked away. "I need to see Eider."
"Give it a year and you'll have it all properly sorted, I think."
Inflamed, Drake spun around on her. "I don't have a year! I have to be Darkwing Duck again and soon. And Darkwing Duck does not ... give in to ..." He looked away from her, summoning all his strength to fight this notion that threatened his sanity; "to that."

"You can't fool yourself," Joss replied curtly. "Sure, you can ... put it off, deny it, but the closest you'll ever get in reality is Darkwing Vampire." She went and sat back down behind the desk. "You're a predator."
"Yeah, thanks, I've gotten that far." Drake raised an eyebrow at the tactless Joss. "Right now, on the subject of mental math, the single most crucial issue ... would be to not kill anybody while I'm doing my job!" He ended in a slight squawk.
She blinked, "Oh, my, I never even thought about that ..."
"Jo-oss!" He sighed in exasperation, shaking his head. She meant well. That's what really mattered.

She paused in thought. "I don't know how to help you with that one, Drake. Could you ... maybe do another job instead? What about ... uh ..." She gazed at him. Joss's face went totally blank for a moment. She was unable to find an alternative. "Well, uh, we can get a careers advisor in from our school in Australia, or France. Maybe they can ..."

"Joss." Lawrence Eider appeared beside them out of thin air. "That's enough, thank you."

A moment later, a much disturbed Drake was following Eider through the corridor and into the training room.

Eider took out two rubber-tipped quarterstaffs from the dozen in the rack and handed one to Drake.
"Drake. Right now we have to take a step back. Way back. You need to relearn your strengths and weaknesses."
"I know what my strengths and weaknesses are," Drake argued in response. "I trained for years to learn how to use them."

Eider twirled the staff in his hands, warming up. Drake checked his holding position. Eider struck, Drake caught it, and then Eider twisted about and struck again. The kinetic force rang through the metal and up through Drake's arms and he staggered back. Then with a growl, he launched himself at Eider. The department head easily shouldered him over and Drake landed on the matted floor.

"What? What the heck!" In shock, Drake scrambled away from Eider. On hands and knees, he looked across the room to where he'd forgotten about the staff and dropped it.

"Would you like to tell me what it was that was going through your head just now?"
Drake swallowed his mortification. "Nothing."
"Wrong. It was emotion. All your life, you've fought by turning your inner turmoil outward. Unfortunately, emotion also makes a killer." Eider picked up Drake's staff. "Our emotions directly link back into the hunger impulse. You're no exception." Eider put the staffs back into the rack. "Have you found your reflection yet?"
"Yes." At least Drake could answer that question with confidence.
"Good."

All Drake's years of training flashed through his memory to be summed up by that one uncontrolled moment. A temper worse than a duck's and there was barely a hint of it until he tried to fight. "You're saying I need to fight cold. I've never done that very well."
"I'm just pointing things out to you, Drake. If I could tell you the exact answer you need, well ... I could never tell you the exact answer for you."
Drake stood up, the feathers on the back of his neck were prickling, "You don't think I can do it either?!"
"Oh, I'm sure you can do it, Drake. The word 'Impossible' got written out of your dictionary a long time ago."
Drake felt his heart rate jump with the warm feeling Eider inspired. Hope. "... Thanks for the compliment."

Eider took his shoulder. "Come on; let's check in with the skeleton crew."