*** 36 ***

Although it wasn't full, the Moon lit up the beach decently for a penguin's eyesight. They were the last hours before Thursday dawn. Skipper had waddled most of the beach when he found them. Both were asleep, hugging... and had sand everywhere. Skipper couldn't give them more time: they should leave or would miss the plane.

"Come on, Romeo! To the airport!"

Rico woke up. "Aw, man!" he complained. He closed his eyes, stuck out his tongue and spread out his flippers.

"Come on, get up..." Skipper said while he pulled Rico's leg hardly moving him, and then he paid attention to Blake. "Why are you hiding behind him?"

Blake blushed, but only she could know that.

"I've left you alone almost for three days to organize the return to the airport. Don't think I've played gooseberry... I don't care what you have or haven't done." He looked at Blake. "I don't care, you're an adult civilian penguin. If you have enjoyed it with him, it's better for you."

Blake stood up.

"Thank you both, thank you very much for coming. I will miss you all," she said, visibly touched. She didn't want to cry, but...

"We'll keep contact. We can write to you... with help. You'll know about us, Lilcotton," Skipper said, hugging her.

Rico was standing too and hugged her next. He didn't want to be separated from her, nor she from him. They kissed for the last time, they said "I love you" for the last time... Skipper was surprised because Rico could stand all that not getting sick, being as he was with the others' displays of affection.

"Take care of yourself and don't get into trouble," Skipper said, looking at Blake for the last time.

Blake stayed sitting on the beach, staring at them while they left. Her tears were soaking her plumage. Skipper, almost a dot on the horizon, was pulling Rico trying to speed up. When she couldn't see them, Blake went home. Slowly, remembering the happiest hours of her life.

.

Skipper knew that the fastest way was a motorway. He had drawn the route on the map: they would do invisible hitch hiking. Basically it was jumping from a bridge on top of a car and traveling on its hood while the people inside didn't notice, and jumping down with Rico's parachute. If they were lucky, they wouldn't need to do many tranships... but just in case Rico had ready a gun with a plunger. They had to use it sometimes.

It wasn't long for dawn when they arrived at the airport. Skipper revised the note that Phil had given him. They had arrived in time. Rico shook the sand off, he hadn't done it yet. They repeated the suitcase maneuver and sneaked in the hold. Eighteen hours of flight awaited them. They slept for a part of the journey and, during the rest of the time, everyone was absorbed in his thoughts. Skipper didn't want to ask Rico anything about those days, the poor boy had enough with having had to say goodbye to Blake... who knows if forever. Rico sometimes smiled and sometimes was about to cry, he was thinking about her all the time.

They arrived in New York in the evening and used the public transport again. Finally, at closing time, they arrived at the zoo entrance. They sneaked inside and entered the HQ. Private jumped on and hugged them.

"Calm down, soldier!" Skipper said. "How's your flipper?"

Private showed them the featherless zone.

"Kowalski removed the bandage yesterday and says that it's okay. Now I'll have to wait for the feathers to grow again."

"Kowalski! You should have bandaged him up and he would have had a costume," Skipper said.

"That's what Manfredi would say," Kowalski replied. "Oh, I miss even him, and remember that he was insufferable..." He noticed he had cast a shadow on his teammates' return. "Well... how was everything?"

"Rico has had the best Halloween of his life," Skipper said, winking at Rico.

"Really?! Tell me, tell me!" Private intervened.

"When you're not in front, kid."

"I'm not a kid," Private protested, crossing his flippers.

"Well, then let Rico tell you... if you understand what he says," Skipper said, ignoring that.

Private stood waiting with his beak open... and just his luck, Rico refused to speak.

.

The next day, Rico was red-eyed. They couldn't know if it was for crying, not sleeping or both. Soon the others noticed that Rico was very apathetic: he was silent for hours staring at a fixed dot on the wall or on the horizon, ate a little and avoided his teammates. He did that for several days. He was given magazines about weapons and he didn't care, he was promised kaboom and he didn't care, Kowalski invited him to mix color liquids and he didn't care. Rico wasn't Rico anymore.

"It seems that he cannot forget her," Private said.

"I can't stand seeing him so," Skipper recognized.

"Maybe he should meet -"

"Of course he should, Private... and we have her!" Kowalski shouted triumphantly.

The others looked at him with a gesture of not understanding while Kowalski called the elevator. They got inside.

"Tell me it's not one of your experiments," Skipper said.

"No... it's better... you'll see."

And he put them opposite Miss Perky.

"The doll? Really?" Skipper asked.

Kowalski smiled. "It seems that you don't remember... Lola."

Touché.

"I give him the doll, Private explains it to him and you, Skipper... well, thanks for the idea." Kowalski couldn't conceal a giggle.

"Oh, come on! Are you kidding me? It won't be the same, he cannot do the same with her than with -" Skipper noticed that both were staring at him incredulous.

"So this is why you left Lola?" Private asked.

"It's forbidden to speak about that."

"Well, we won't speak if you allow us to accomplish our plan," Kowalski sentenced.

"It won't work," Skipper said. He already knew it.

"That's debatable," Private concluded.

They left the elevator with the doll. Private and Kowalski approached Rico with her.

"As we know that you miss her a lot, Kowalski has invented something," Private said. "Go along," he whispered to Kowalski. He hoped Rico hadn't heard it. "Every time you touch or speak to the doll, Bla... Lilcotton will perceive it."

Kowalski face-flippered.

Rico looked at her with curiosity. "How?"

Think, Kowalski... "Well... ahem... I had a feather of hers since I made her the culture... and I've transferred its DNA to the doll." He was listening to himself and couldn't believe what he was saying... it wasn't possible for science (yet). "If you caress her, in South Africa she will feel the caress." Oh... really? Kowalski face-flippered mentally.

Rico hugged the doll and started to kiss her. Private and Kowalski stared at him with their eyes and beaks very open. Skipper wasn't convinced but he wouldn't be the doomsayer who spoiled what seemed to be working. He saw Blake's bunk then.

"And... you'll sleep together, I guess..." he intervened. "What if you mortar her bunk as the others?"

Rico left Miss Perky sitting and started to work.

.

Five weeks had gone by since Skipper and Rico's return with no news. Until then.

"We have a new neighbor in the former seal habitat! An otter has come!"

Hearing Mason's shout, the four penguins climbed the ladder up and went to the concrete island. The TV was on.

"We're connecting live with Seaville Aquarium, where three new inhabitants are going to be presented," Chuck Charles said. "Bonnie?"

"Effectively, here they are. They are a dolphin and two penguins who were rescued on Coney Island bay exactly seven weeks ago, on October 18th's night. They were seen from a ship of animal rescue... and they really were providentially lucky, as they had severe injuries. They all have aftereffects. We're talking with Seaville's vet. Tell us... how did these three animals arrive?"

"The penguins... to be honest, we didn't give a dime for them. The one who was in better condition was the dolphin, who had cuts on his back and had lost his right eye. We think that someone saw him before us, as he appeared with his eye bandaged a day after the penguins. The penguins appeared together... One of them, who was in a worse condition, had lost his right eye too and his left leg. The poor boy was beaten up. The other had quite severe burns, one of them a third-degree one. Our team has worked very hard to get them ahead."

On the screen appeared Blowhole first and Manfredi and Johnson next. They were in their respective habitats. None of them knew what had happened to the others. After this, the connection was cut. The HQ was still empty.

"Thank you for saving me, Johnson," Manfredi said.

"Hey, you're annoying. You've been saying that since you recovered consciousness. Change the topic, dude."

Manfredi took out his eye patch and looked at him.

"On the bright side, now I'm a pirate..."

"Put your eye patch on, I don't want to see that."

"Why not? Hey, look!" Manfredi was pointing at the cavity where his eye should be.

"You're cruddy! Do you know how disgusting that is?"

Manfredi guffawed. He had something with which he could disturb Johnson! And the others... if he were with them.

"Hey, Johnson... the others haven't come yet for us, have they?"

"What do you think?" Johnson answered, annoyed. "I think they have presumed us dead. Although you... you were almost dead, huh?"

"Saint Peter would send me down again as soon as I opened my beak," Manfredi said with his usual smile.

"I believe it. Hey, dude... we must make plans to leave this bog. Even if we die trying."

"Okay... you can start."

Johnson looked daggers at Manfredi. "You're a pig-headed slack."

.

It had been the first Christmas for Blake and Nell in South Africa, very different from the previous ones. Nell hadn't known anything else about Steve. At some moments she missed exceptionally her celebrations with him, but the last ones had been intoxicated by circumstances. It was impossible not to remember it, but pain was more softened now that she didn't have him near reminding it to her constantly. Blake, for her part, had missed the Christmas that she hadn't known: Christmas with her six teammates. From them she only could have the picture painted by Rico and the letters that arrived from time to time... for now, she had two. She read them once and again. She treasured all that.

Thanks to those letters she knew that Rico was bearing her absence with Miss Perky. She imagined that Rico wasn't present when they dictated that part of the letter. She felt sad when she knew that they had teased him to help him bear her absence. She knew too that Kowalski had left Eva, annoying Skipper. That Private's flipper was getting better: his feathers were starting to grow again. And that the two girls who used to see her felt disappointed when they knew that she wasn't there, but they still went to see them because they found them adorable. But there wasn't any news about Manfredi and Johnson. Everything had ended with that explosion, and she hadn't even been there.

Letters arrived in planes for passengers. In New York and in Cape Town there were pigeons whose task was to put the letters in the hold of the plane and to take them out before any human found them.

The penguins asked Phil to type what they dictated, later they printed them and Rico added a drawing made by him. That was what she liked most in the letters. She couldn't draw, but she wrote with her own flipper for Phil and Mason to read it. The penguins couldn't re-read the letters as she did because they hadn't taken seriously learning to read... they hadn't even tried to start. They used to think that she would stay forever. She had thought that too.

Seven exact months had gone by since the day she had met them, and for that reason she decided to write them. She wanted to tell them that she missed them so much, that she would have liked to spend Christmastime with them. Oh... she was in a comedown. Maybe it wasn't the best moment to write.

Then Carmen appeared.

"Are you again with those letters, Lilcotton? Come with me! We're organizing the New Year's Eve party... it's right here!"

"I'm not interested," Blake said apathetic.

Carmen sat down next to her and moved her flipper on her back.

"Leave those letters... Each time you read them, you feel sad. And I can't stand that!"

"On the contrary... letters make me feel good." Blake smiled.

"No... they make you feel sad, and I don't like it."

Blake thanked that Carmen was worried about her, but she didn't really understand it. Carmen didn't know all what Blake had suffered and she couldn't tell her. Blake couldn't explain to her that, what apparently was sadness, was like the bitterness of coffee. To understand it she needed a maturity that was far from her reach.

"Actually, I'm not sad," she just said.

"I don't believe it! Come on, let's go... we're going to choose music... let's see what you like for dancing! There will be many boys... some will surely have his eyes on you," Carmen counter-attacked winking at her.

"I don't want to dance with any of those penguins."

"Oh... I want... you'll miss it, hah!"

"So you have more for yourself."

"What type of penguin are you, who don't want to meet any male?" She nudged her softly. "You're thinking about the penguin in the aircraft, right?"

"If you know it... why do you ask?" Blake was a bit fed up.

"Hey... don't get mad at me. It's just that..." Carmen didn't know if telling her, "nobody has ever had his eyes on me. How is it to be the center of the world for someone?"

"It's... bitter and sweet at the same time, like coffee."

Carmen looked strangely at her. Blake knew it: she wouldn't understand it. Carmen changed the topic.

"Hey... aren't you going to speak about him? Is he the one who makes these drawings?"

Blake instinctively moved the letters out of Carmen's reach.

"Eh... calm down... I don't want to steal him."

"You can't... he won't come back. He came to say goodbye to me," Blake replied sadly.

"And what happened? Can you tell me?"

"No."

"Can't you, really?"

"No, don't insist."

"How was it? One word, one word is enough. Epic? Cathartic? Cosmic? Unspeakable?"

Blake had the perfect word for answering: "Classified."

This fic is very special for me: it has been a very complicated journey. I'm grateful with all my readers, but today I want to tell you especially:

Thank you very much for reading and for your support!