Hey! Just to let you guys know, I started school this week, and junior year's looking to be pretty tough, so if my updates are not as frequent (because Flashback will not be my final peice, oh no), be patient with me. However, I'm taking a Creative Writing class this semester, so the quality should be a little better!

Let's see what Private thought of at the end of the last chapter, shall we?

"Private... this is... great!" Sarah exclaimed, taking the box of brand-new colored pencils Private had just given her (blushing). "Thank you!"

"Well, I couldn't help noticing the other day that your own pencils were getting quite small, the dark-blues and reds were just tiny little stubs…" Private said modestly, proud of himself for finally getting something right.

"One question, though." Sarah said suspiciously, looking up from her inspection of the burgundy. "Where and how did you get these?"

Sneaking out of the HQ at half-past midnight, catching the only bus that ran near the zoo at that hour - his old foe, 'Graveyard Eight' of course - and holding on to the bumper for dear life for almost ten blocks until he sighted an art supply store, almost getting stuck when he squeezed through a miraculously if minuscule-ly open window, gotten the pencils (paying at least partially for them using a few dollar bills he'd found on the street), missed the bus and had to walk back to the zoo, arriving home at about three-thirty, and had to sleep outside for fear he'd set off the intruder alert by re-entering, then still had to do five o'clock team exercises…

"Oh, don't worry. It was no trouble at all." Private said brightly.

"Somehow, I highly doubt that." Sarah said with a smirk remarkably like her dad's. "But thanks anyway." She paused for a moment, then continued, "This really does mean a lot to me, Private."

"But that's not even your whole present!" Private blurted out. Darn it! He'd told himself not to do this, but it was too late now, he had to go through with it...

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Is that right?"

"Yes-"

Private was interrupted by Skipper's commanding voice calling from the fishbowl entry. "Up top, men!"

Private frowned as he saw Kowalski and Rico bounding up the ladder, leaving Private and Sarah alone.

"Oh dear - I've got to make this quick, sorry." Private said quickly but apologetically, then - faster than a flash of lightening - kissed Sarah on the cheek.

On that note, he raced up the ladder, grinning like an idiot.

…

"Well, men," Skipper started once his team was in line up top, "A few weeks ago, Private and I made a deal that he could... attempt... courting Sarah after I had gotten to know her a little myself. Since he had already completely disregarded that rule-" Kowalski and Rico sniggered quietly as Private smiled sheepishly "-I have decided to stay at the HQ today with Sarah since Vanessa is out visiting with Marlene. Kowalski, you'll be in charge."

"Yes sir!" Kowalski replied confidently.

"Now, get going. And don't forget to check Ms. Zookeeper's calendar for the week's events!"

"Roger that!" Kowalski yelled as he, Private and Rico triple-flipped out of the habitat.

Skipper watched his team go, then turned back around. With a deep breath, he slid away the fishbowl and jumped inside the HQ.

What he saw before him was quite puzzling, to say the least. Sarah was standing in the middle of the room, holding in one flipper, a new box of what looked like colored pencils, and with the other flipper was touching the right side of her face. She was smiling and staring off into space.

"Uh, you okay?" Skipper said a little worriedly, waving his flippers to get her attention.

"Huh?" Sarah blinked and shook her head a little. "Yeah, fine, I'm just a little... discombobulated." She looked at him pointedly. "Aren't you supposed to be on one of your commando operations with the other guys?"

"I decided to take the day off." Skipper stated. He eyed the new pencils suspiciously. "Where did you get those?"

She let out a little smile. "Private just gave them to me." she turned and put the box of pencils next to her notebook and other, much-shorter drawing utensils. As she did this, Skipper smirked.

"You really like him, don'tcha?"

Sarah shot him a typical, meaningless teenage glare. "Since when have you been so interrogative?"

Skipper shrugged. "Since army training, I guess. Colonel always said-"

Sarah held up a flipper, interrupting him. "Rhetorical question, dude. Rhetorical question."

"Oh." Skipper muttered.

Sarah shook her head again and sat down in her usual spot in the shadow of the TV set, picking up her notebook and a pencil.

Skipper would have none of that. Not now. "Wait a minute! I'm trying to talk to you!"

"Believe it or not," Sarah said sarcastically and not looking up, "it is possible to talk and draw at the same time."

"Oh." Skipper said again. This was so awkward! "Well, um..."

"Let me guess." Sarah said, somewhat amused now, "You've got questions and think it would be too awkward to ask them?"

"Yes." Skipper said.

"So do I. We'll do '20 Questions.' That sound good?"

"Yeah!" Skipper said, relieved. Sarah motioned with a wave of her flipper for him to start.

"Alright... can I see what in the name of pickled schnauzers you're so busy with?"

"Not until I'm done." She replied curtly. Skipper figured that made sense.

Sarah put a little more thought into her first question: "Can I trust Private?"

"Huh?"

"I've had my heart broken before and am not exactly springing for the chance to experience that again." she elaborated a little darkly.

Skipper let out a short, derisive laugh. "Believe me - you'd be in more danger of heartbreak being with a toothpick."

That got a real smile out of Sarah, a good smile of assurance and humor. Skipper saw this and had a thought that she should smile more often.

Skipper moved on. "Why do you dye your feathers like that?"

Sarah gave him the same reason she'd told Private weeks ago when they had gotten the popcorn and had their first real conversation. Though he didn't really show it, Skipper's heart broke when he'd heard how the other penguins had treated her... if he'd been there, those 'elders' probably would no longer have a beak to turn up in the air...

Then came one of Sarah's more meaningful questions.

"Did you ever wonder, just for a moment, how my mom was doing after you left?"

Skipper took a minute to figure out how to word his answer truthfully.

"Yeah... I thought about her all the time, actually. She was one of the reasons I worked so hard, I wanted to somehow show her I hadn't left without a reason... Part of me always wanted to go back to her, but... I had found my niche in the army. I was Colonel's model student, the one who was going places, and I felt a sense of belonging there I had never felt anywhere else. I suppose I could have signed up for on-call duty and when band to Antarctica, but I could have been called back at any moment of any day, then gone for months, maybe years at a time... Vanessa never would have approved of that. So I stayed in training... neither of us know how to read or write, so a letter was out of the question, and it's not like there are telephones in Antarctica. I asked a few men who were going back home to break the news gently to her..." he chuckled a bit. "You know, a few years back, in 2005, I actually organized a mission for the team and I to go back to Antarctica. First we planned on digging there - our tunnels are still all over the zoo from miscalculating the distance, it's how we get around so fast - but that just ended up in almost getting sent to Africa. We manifested the ship we were on and finally got back to Antarctica, the rest of the boys thought it was only because we were penguins and that's where we belonged... I just wanted to see Vanessa again, to see she was alive and well... that's how I got intel that she had been sent to a zoo, but they didn't know where or that you were with her..." He paused again, "And Sarah?"

"Yeah?" She had long since looked up from her drawing.

"If I'd ever known you were in the picture... that Vanessa... that we...had..." he was choking up a little and fumbling for words. He wasn't used to dealing with this amount of... emotion! "I would have gone back in a heartbeat. No questioning, no nothing…I would have resigned immediately and gone back to both of you girls, but the fact was I didn't know, and-"

"I get it." Sarah said, with a tear threatening to fall at any second. "Seriously, I get it."

Skipper honestly couldn't believe what she just said. "You're not... angry at me?"

"No." Sarah replied calmly. "I know more than anybody how important it is to be true to yourself. You did what you had to do, and I respect that. In fact, I probably got my own... self-awareness from you."

Skipper chuckled a little at that. "Most likely."

"By the way," Sarah said in a teasing tone she hadn't used for a few years, "that counted as your next question. My turn again."

"Come on!" Skipper exclaimed. "I had a good one too-"

"Okay, what?" Sarah relented.

"When's your birthday?"

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "That's it? Okay then... October twenty-third."

Skipper looked at the team's calendar... October twenty-third was exactly four weeks ago. "They shipped you and Vanessa here on your birthday?"

Sarah nodded and smirked. "Best present ever."

As Sarah asked her next question ("Why can't Rico talk?") the trophy door in the back opened noiselessly, allowing Marlene and Vanessa to enter. Skipper noticed, of course, but after seeing who it was, ignored the women and continued his explanation of Rico's muteness.

Marlene was touched. "That's so cute - Skipper talking with her like that..."

Vanessa was in tears. "No, Marlene. It's a miracle."

I've been waiting to write this chapter for ages. I hope it turned out okay - Skipper seemed a little (or a lot) out of character sometimes...

Review!