Here is (finally) a new chapter for this story. I know it has been on hiatus for quite a while and I kind of lost most interest in this story until now. Anyway, enjoy this new chapter!

Chapter 8: Wondering Wishes

White. Everything was white. And cold. Very cold. But even though he now managed to open his eyes, Rico didn't notice more than that about the room he was in. What happened? When did it happen? He tried to shake his head, but he found out really soon that he was unable too. Something held his head tightly in the same place, the same for his flippers and feet. Everything was blurry. Very blurry.

But that was not his biggest problem, he realized very soon when his ear holes finally allowed him to hear more than the faint buzzing he had heard before. Voices... Weird and strange voices. He didn't recognize them and they scared him. A language he couldn't seem to understand... Which meant that it was a language besides English... Or was it? Rico tried to listen more carefully and he closed his eyes tightly. He tried to concentrate hard on the voices, the words they were saying. Just how he had managed to get his own grumbling noises distinctive for his friends. But still, he couldn't understand what they were saying. He felt scared, even more with his eyes closed.

It was then that he felt the first streak of pain going through his body. A pain he hadn't felt before. It was nowhere near the pain he had experienced ever before. It was a pain coming from inside of him, roasting him, torturing him. But even for all the pain, he remained completely silent. The pain caused him to be silent, even though his insides were screaming in horror. And then, there it was. A recognizable sound. Something he had heard earlier. A man's voice, loud enough to be heard over Rico's own pain, said something. And repeated it after the first time. It brought some sort of weird feeling of comfort to Rico.

"Stop it! Stop it!"

Kowalski grinned from ear to ear. This place had yet to disappoint him. Bottles full of the rarest chemicals, every mechanic device he could wish for, 'partners' who would obey to his very command, everything was flipper-ready. It didn't took long for him to get to know his new laboratory, it had quite some similarities to the lab he had back at the HQ. Not that he thought much about the HQ or the lab back in the Central Park Zoo... No, his mind was now filled with endless equitations and experiments, mixed elements or dangerous weapons.

But after some time, he began to feel empty. It was like he had all his loved ones close, all the things he had ever longed for. His knowledge and everything he needed to get on top of the world. He wondered, mostly when he had returned to his residency after a long day in the laboratory, what precisely he was missing. It took him a while to figure out.

Friends.

He missed them more than anything. He missed them more than he had ever missed all the goods he had now. His partners were great and he was sure they were among his top fifteen friends by now... But still there were three someones ever more important than them, than the laboratory, than everything. And he had deserted them. His brothers.

"Skipper?" The female penguin said in her accent as she sat down next to him on the stone. "Something wrong?" He raised his head out of his flippers and looked at her small and deceivingly young-looking face. "No..." He answered silently and tried to turn away from her. To show her she wasn't invited to join into his feeling of loneliness, even though he was in a big flock. "Sure there's nothing wrong." Anneke said with a small laugh that sounded really unamused. "I've been following you." She then said.

"No kidding." Skipper muttered under his breath, now becoming quite annoyed by this female penguin. She just shrugged. "I've noticed that it looks like there's something wrong." She said with her eyes casted upon his downfallen face. "I know the others don't pay any attention to you... I know they can be harsh... And don't particularly care..." She said slowly. "And I thought that was what was bothering you at first... But it isn't, is it?"

He turned a little more towards her, only to have a better view for if she was playing tricks on him or not. After all, she was a female. And not a soldier, obviously. "Classified." He then muttered uninvitingly. He silently thought about how his friends sometimes tried to get information out of him. How they tried to make him feel better. Or how they just liked to annoy him. All for fun. But they weren't here and this wasn't fun. He had nothing. Not his music, not his soldiers, not his weapons, nothing. It was only he and himself.

Private happily stayed with his uncle. He got trained, fed and cared for. Even though he knew he would never forget about his times in the zoo with his friends, the memories of them faded slowly out of his mind. He was happy and after some time he managed to make a couple of new friends in the neighborhood. Uncle Nigel was always there for him and whenever he wanted something he just had to ask for it.

He played his violin every Tuesday and Thursday. Just to practice playing and because it was fun. He practiced a lot of varied songs, but a view of them still brought very strong memories to him. Memories about the home he had known in the zoo, memories of his friends, memories of the missions... Happy memories which brought him to tears, mostly because of the memory of their departure was the following thing he remembered. At the end of those days he would spend a couple of hours wondering about his friends, where they would be now... If they would be happy... If they would miss him like he missed them at that moment...