Uh... yeah...

Remember how the last chapter was so ridiculously fluffy? Well, there's a reason I had to make it so friggin' happy... read. You'll see.

The next two months were some of the happiest yet in the entire history of the HQ. Private felt like he was walking on air whenever he was with Sarah - Sarah would never word it that way, but felt exactly the same. Christmas was the best - Sarah finally finished her drawing (her best to date, quite truthfully) and presented it to Private as her Christmas gift to him. Private - and the rest of the team - was astounded at just how talented an artist Sarah was - the abstract shapes filled the page just as masterfully as any human in art school could have done it, perhaps even better - Private smiled when he saw his own eyes hidden in the beautiful thing Sarah had created.

About a week before Christmas, Private almost regretted giving her those colored pencils - this was Sarah we were talking about! She didn't need or even want anything else than to draw and... be with him...

After a lot of consideration (and a short conversation with both Marlene and Vanessa), he decided to not give her a gift at all - at least, not one you could give in a box. On December twenty-third, when everything in town was still open, Private took Sarah out for a whole day and most of the night on the town - just the two of them. They toured an art gallery, skated at Rockefeller Center (at least, until they heard some jerk calling animal control on them), shared a mug of hot chocolate (Private swiped it off of someone, then left enough money in its place to buy another one), and ended the day by going to the last showing (this year) of the Broadway hit musical, Wicked. Both Sarah and Private had a blast!

Everything was perfect… until that horrible, horrible day, January twenty-fifth.

…

Skipper knew something was up when he saw Alice skulking around the zoo that morning. It was very unusual for Alice to come to work when she didn't have to, and especially not during the winter. She usually just fed all the animals, made sure no one was dying, and left. The penguins were almost finished with their breakfast and she was still here. Skipper became especially concerned when he noticed she was holding a large cage. He realized with a jolt that someone was going to be transferred.

He told the others of his observation. Vanessa dropped her fish in shock. "Oh no..."

"What? What's wrong?" Skipper said urgently.

Vanessa shakily said, "Our three months are up... Sarah and I were supposed to be here three months while our habitat in Boston was being renovated..."

No one moved - except Sarah, who was jerkily shaking her head, unwilling to accept.

"No... no... I can't... I won't...!" she stuttered. She froze, staring into space, then slowly lifted her flipper till it pointed directly in front of her. "Alice!"

They turned. Alice was heading directly towards them, with the cage - perfectly Sarah-and-Vanessa sized.

"NO!" Sarah cried out. Private held her close, turning his back to Alice, trying to shield Sarah - she was not leaving without a fight, not if Private had anything to do about it.

Alice boredly put down the plank that allowed her to get into the habitat, walking across it. Skipper called for evasive maneuvers, and everyone ran amok in different directions, trying to confuse the zookeeper. Alice wasn't really surprised by this - she'd seen much weirder - and looked around.

"Oh, there's one." Alice said. She waited a moment, following Vanessa with her eyes, then jumped and caught her.

"SKIPPER!" Vanessa cried out, trying to wriggle away. Skipper didn't waste anytime, sliding over to Alice from the other side of the concrete floe, but he was still too late - Vanessa was quickly tossed inside the cage and locked in. Alice put it down to resume her hunt. Skipper tried to break it open, but the locks were state-of-the-art animal-proofed.

"Kowalski! Rico!" he called, and immediately the two of them leapt over and went to work picking the lock. However, the loss of two penguins drastically decreased Alice's confusion, with only two others still doing maneuvers.

"Ha! There you are!" Alice said triumphantly, then made a grab for Sarah, who dodged with a scream just in time. "Come on!" Alice said stubbornly, with another grab, "time..." another, "to go..." another, "HOME!"

Success.

"PRIVATE!" Sarah screamed, pecking and slapping Alice's thickly gloved hands (it was January, after all). "HELP!"

Private, completely forgetting Section 3 of the Penguin Credo (never reveal yourselves to the humans), launched himself in a ninja-kick$$ pose at Alice. Wouldn't you know it, Alice turned just in time to miss him, and bent down to pick up the cage and ninja-Private soared right over her head and landed on the icy moat below, knocking the wind right out of himself. A little dizzy from the fall, he stood up and tried to get back on the concrete and continue to fight. But even so, he was simply too late. Alice had left the habitat.

Sarah's and Vanessa's cries intermingled in the relative silence of the zoo.

"Private!"

"Skipper!"

"HELP…"

Private felt tears well up in his eyes. "No... it can't be... Sarah..."

Kowalski bent down his head and said quietly, "I heard Alice tell Chad (the other employee we never see the face of) that the truck was coming in a half-hour. We still have time to go say good-bye."

…

Five minutes later, the team entered the zoo hospital, where the animals were kept until they were shipped or brought to a habitat. Private was holding Sarah's notebook and pencils - old and new. She'd have left them at the HQ otherwise.

But when Private slipped them through the bars of the cage, Sarah shook her head and threw them to the floor.

"I don't want them - I want you!" she said angrily. She thrust her arms through the cage, reaching for Private. He slipped his arms through too, and held her tighter than ever before. Sarah tried to press her face into his chest, but the damned bars wouldn't allow it. She started to cry - once again, Private felt her tears fall on his feathers, but it didn't have quite the same effect as last time. Private fit his beak through a larger opening and kissed her beak, a bit more forcefully than he'd intended. Sarah pressed her flippers into his back, trying to somehow pull herself out of this cage and back into his safe, warm arms.

Private let go of her beak, and whispered that he loved her.

"No matter what anyone else ever says, know that you are the most beautiful, smart, funny, wonderful girl I'll ever meet." Private whispered sweetly.

Sarah opened her beak to say something similar, but nothing came out. "I'll never forget you, Private." was all she could manage. "You're... you're..."

"I get it." Private said with a smile, quoting her. She barely smiled.

Meanwhile, Skipper talked to Vanessa from the other side of the cage.

"Skipper - I, um..." Vanessa said.

"Yeah?"

She smiled and shook her head. "All I want to say is... never lose the eye of the tiger."

Skipper blinked, then smiled, recognized the words to his own heart-song. He replied, "Vanessa... just keep stand - ing up for yourself - and for Sarah, too." Skipper embraced her for one last time. Truly, they were sad to leave each other, but it wasn't quite the same as Private and Sarah. Skipper loved Vanessa, and vice versa, but they didn't really need each other. Both Skipper and Vanessa had that rare, innate sense of independence and resiliency that they were complete without each other - their love was more like putting frosting on a cake that tasted just fine on its own.

Private and Sarah, on the other hand... they balanced each other out. Sarah helped Private become more mature and able to see the world through normally-colored glasses, as opposed to his previously rose-tinted ones, as it were. Similarly, Private helped Sarah understand that the world wasn't all heartache and rejection - there was also love, and dreams that could be achieved - Private showed her see the simple comfort and happiness that could be found in seeing a smile on the face of someone you loved, or in the everlasting chocolate-y smell from an empty wrapper from a Peanut-butter Winkie.

You know, while we're monologging about emotions, it is well worth a mention that Kowalski had had to leave a few minutes ago… seeing Private and Sarah touched the scientist's seemingly dormant heart in a way no one else could know. It gave him an overwhelming sense of déjà vu - he was reminded of a day in his own life, years and years ago, when he'd been forced to leave a girl he'd loved dearly, saying his final goodbyes and sharing a chaste kiss through the bars of that infernal cage. He could barely keep his tear from falling... wait... no, he couldn't keep it from falling.

As for Rico... well, he was sad, it was true, but this particular scene didn't move in him the any special way like it did the rest of his teammates... if anything it gave Rico a certain appreciation that his girlfriend wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Anyway, back to the scene. Skipper was finished saying good-bye to Vanessa, and cleared his throat. "Sarah?"

Sarah slowly broke away from Private. "Yeah?"

"Good-bye." Skipper said. Sarah gladly accepted his hug.

"Good-bye, Dad." she said.

He quietly but forcefully told her, "Don't lose hope. You will see Private again - one way or another. Don't ever lose hope."

Sarah half-smiled. "You mean, don't stop believing?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"You know, Boston's not that far away..." Skipper consoled the young couple, changing the subject. "Of course, the water'll be too cold to swim through, it is the end of January... and it's too far to walk around all the rivers… we'd probably have to wait until spring."

"I wouldn't bother, the elders wouldn't let you in." Vanessa said. Sarah nodded in agreement.

Skipper shrugged. "So we'd have to crack a few beaks - it's all in the name of love, right?"

Sarah tried to smile. Spring could be over two months away! Sarah and Private both knew it would seem more like an eternity.

Kowalski silently re-entered the room (not that anyone but Rico had really noticed he'd left) and said, "Skipper, the truck just arrived. Alice is on her way now."

Private looked at Sarah, right in the eye. Reaching through the bars, he gently pulled her face closer and kissed her one last time, said that he loved her...

And then he was gone.

Sarah felt tears welling up in her eyes. She accepted her mother's hug, but her eyes were dead. Vanessa was about to say something encouraging, but then Alice entered the room and stopped her.

…

Fifteen minutes later, the penguins were back in their habitat. In the dead silence of the zoo, they heard the sound of an engine being revved up, and then they saw the truck leave the zoo.

Skipper looked over at Private. He was surprised, even shocked to see a crazed, Rico-worthy look on the Private's face, as if he was about to jump out of the habitat and cling to that truck's bumper all the way to Boston. Skipper put his flipper on Private's shoulder. Their eyes met, and Skipper shook his head, silently telling Private to stay where he was.

Private lost the crazy look, but still didn't look right. He turned away and watched the truck drive away, taking his own heart with it.

You see what I meant? It's so sad, I was crying as I wrote this.

Skipper's heart-song: "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor

http:/ www . youtube . com/watch?v=QEjgPh4SEmU

On a (not-so-much) happier note, did you catch my little shout-out to Katrina? I finally figured out a timeline for this series, so I can assure you that this will not be the last part of Flashback - there will be an epilouge after this story is over, telling you when everything happened.

Review!

Vanessa's heart-song: "Stand" by Rascal Flatts (I was originally going to use this song for Skipper, but realized it would be practically a crime to not use "Eye of the Tiger" instead) http:/www . youtube .com/watch?v=OT10h5vqmZs