Author note: Been a while since this story was touched. Going to make an effort to finish it. Chapter 18 has been rewritten and revised, the subject matter and plot has changed. Happy reading.
With Mallory checking on Tanya at the safehouse, Asher was left to his own devices. Bored, he decided to be productive and gather all the laundry in the house. At some point Fledge found him by the washer going through the mundane task of sorting lights and darks.
"Having fun?"
Asher glanced up. "You caught me."
Fledge sighed dramatically. "Well since my homework is less than desirable I suppose I can dedicate my time to you."
Asher rolled his eyes. "You're too kind."
"I know."
He shook his head and grabbed a light canvas satchel and tossed it into the washer without a second thought until he heard a dull thunk. Pausing, he turned and pulled it out thinking maybe Nosedive's cellphone had been about to take another swirl in the wash.
Reaching in, the object was anything but a cellphone, its sleek curved edges fitting comfortably in the curvatures of his hand. He slowly pulled out the white Drake Ducaine mask, feeling like it was wrong of him to be holding it in the first place.
Fledge stopped his sorting to stare at it with him. "How did you get that?" He was awed.
"It's Wildwing's. He's had it for as long as I can remember." Asher felt the smooth surface. "It doesn't work anymore though." He pointed to the large crack arched around the left side, fissures spiderwebbing up over the eye socket. "-Was broken before I was born."
Fledge drifted closer. "Can I?"
Asher felt hesitance for a moment at handing it over.
Fledge took it like it was a piece of glass and turned it over, studying it.
"The hard drive is here?" He tapped an area between the two ocular lens.
Asher shrugged, throwing more laundry into the washer. "I guess so. Why?"
Fledge didn't answer right away, scrutinizing the edges.
"I could probably fix it."
Asher turned the washing machine on as Fledge handed it back to him. "I don't know. Wildwing's pretty secretive about it. I'm surprised he left it in the satchel like he did, though I wasn't really paying attention when I gathered the clothes. I mean- I trust you but if something happened and it broke, that would be really bad."
"True." The duck agreed absently, his gaze far off.
Asher looked down at the mask again. "I'm gonna go put it back." He left the room, half expecting Fledge to follow but he didn't.
The pit in his stomach returned, twisting painfully in his gut. He didn't understand the nervous feeling. Was it simply because he was holding a vital piece of history in his hand; something that a million people would have died searching for had Canard not beat them to it first?
He didn't know. "Are you okay?"
Fledge snapped out of it. "Yeah, sorry." He followed him out of the room.
In the basement, Asher paused outside Wildwing's door, still feeling his stomach churning.
He raised a hand to knock when a bang next door startled him. It was Canard's room. He glanced at Fledge who had jumped just as much as he did at the unexpected noise.
He pressed an ear to the bedroom door, there were strange noises coming from within.
"Canard?"
No answer.
He grasped the doorknob but pause. He had always been taught to knock before entering someone's room. He raised a fist-
Strained choking.
Screw knocking.
Asher opened the door, the scene uncomprehending to him. Canard was on the floor, the table lamp must have fallen off when he went down, that was the bang. The duck's hazel eyes rolled in his head as his limbs shook.
"Holy shit! He's seizing!" Fledge ran in. "We have to keep him from hitting things!"
The seizure worsened as the two pulled him away from the table and bed.
"I'm getting someone!" Fledge ran from the room.
Asher looked down, shocked to see blood. He bit his tongue. He searched wildly for something to stop Canard from continuing to harm himself. There was only a sweatshirt. He grabbed the sleeve, forcing it into his beak and held it as he heard pounding down the basement steps. His dad appeared with Regla and Drebeer.
"The hell-" Duke swore, darting forward to hold the duck to the side to avoid him choking on the blood from his tongue bite. "Let him go Ash."
Asher stumbled away as Canard's limbs stiffened, contorting with tendons and joints dramatically visible.
"Canard- Hey…."
No recognition but the shaking was decreasing, though his limbs remained stiff.
"He's coming out of it." Regla murmured.
….
Colors expanded and contracted, blindingly bright and then dull with no synchronized order to it. He tried to move but the weightless suspension in midair kept himself getting anywhere. He tried to call out but it felt the air was sucked out of the voided abyss.
Where was he?
He tried to recall what led to his current predicament; after some hard thinking an elusive memory returned.
The aerowing was tipping violently as the large electromagnetic worm grabbed on to it, sinking deadly spines into the metal so the ducks had no hope of getting rid of it.
At the controls Tanya was saying something needed to be jettison from the plane in order for the worm to let go, otherwise the gateway would shut with them still in it.
Something or someone needs to go…
He turned to the side door and with surprisingly not much fear, hit the keypad. A blast of cold air swept into the plane as the door opened, nearly taking him out with the strong vortex.
"Canard! What are you doing?" Wildwing grabbed his shoulder.
"You heard Tanya, that thing needs to be shut down." He pulled the Drake Ducaine mask off and held it out to his best friend. "Take it Wildwing. Take it."
Wildwing shied back, shaking his head.
A glowing tail swung around the side of the ship and grabbed onto the first thing it could reach.
Canard hit the floor hard, his boots held together with a crushing grip; before he could be yanked out Wildwing grabbed his arm with Grin behind, holding the white mallard, ensuring two of them wouldn't wind up in Limbo. Canard felt his grip beginning to loosen from fatigue of fighting the worm's strength. He looked up at Wildwing, willingly letting go of the duck's hand.
Now only the mask was between them. "You're team captain now."
His fingers let go and the frigid air rushed around him. He had enough time to feel satisfaction as the worm let go of the aerowing before it coiled itself around him and in a blinding flash, disappeared.
Colors expanded and contracted, blindingly bright and then dull with no synchronized order to it. He tried to move. He tried to call out.
He was going to die there…
…
"Canard? Hey…"
His eyelids felt like lead as he slowly opened them, the scene around him blurred. "-what 'appened?"
"You had a seizure." Duke answered.
The tan duck didn't react to the news, fresh pain blossomed as he shut his eyes again. It felt like his nerves were on fire.
"Has this happened before?" Regla asked.
In Canard's hazy vision he saw the arrival of Wildwing and Nosedive. "I think so….." His hand shot out his coordination surprisingly accurate, grabbing Duke's arm. "You need to do something. I think they're getting the information from me…."
In the corner Drebeer straightened from his lean against the wall, his eyes unblinkingly on Canard.
"Who?" Duke knew it was a stupid question but he couldn't help himself.
"Mox….something's wrong with me. It has to stop."
Regla noticed Drebeer and stood up. "Back off Arren."
The assassin's gaze flickered to the cop, clearly calculating. Calculating what-Duke didn't know.
Wildwing stepped up to Regla's shoulder, partially blocking Canard from view. "We don't know what's going on here Arren." The white mallard said. "It's not right to assume-"
"What's there to assume?" Drebeer's voice was void of emotion. His attention turned to Duke. "I warned you Duke…."
For the longest time Drebeer didn't say anything. Then he took a breath in slowly, giving a subtle wince due to his still healing injuries. "Fine. It isn't anyone in the house. But if I find out who it is-I don't care if it's your mother, I will not hesitate to kill them."
Mallory knew he wasn't kidding. She nodded reluctantly.
"And." He took a step towards her, his beak close to her own. "You will not get in my way."
"What did you warn?" Nosedive demanded. "You're going to fucking kill him? Are you serious right now, man?"
"It's either the one feeding the information to the enemy or its one of us." Drebeer snapped. "I'd think you of all people, Regla, would get that."
"I do get it-" The cop started.
"Then get out of my way." A handgun appeared in the black duck's hand.
"Whoa, no…." Nosedive stepped forward. "Are you fucking crazy? You're gonna shoot him? You're gonna shoot Canard with your nephew in the house, who grew up with him. Asher doesn't remember a time without Canard. How the hell are you going to explain that to him, why you blew his brains everywhere."
"That's not my problem."
"Well it should be." A new voice spoke. Ches stood in the doorway. He came in. "Lose the weapon Arren, now."
Disgusted, Drebeer relaxed his hand though he didn't put it away.
"He just suffered a grand mal seizure, he doesn't know what the hell he's saying." Duke added. "I want to see you do the same and be coherent afterwards."
Boots on the stairs announced the arrival of Mallory as she came into view. "What's going on, Asher said something about Canard seizing?"
The duck in question sat up, his motor skills shot again as he fumbled for the bucket that was not there.
"What do you need?"
"I'm going to puke-"
"Move." Mallory shooed Duke away to grab the bucket behind him. She barely had time to give it to Canard before he retched into it. "Alright, everyone out now."
"What?"
"Did I stutter?" She snapped. "Out!" She waited until the door closed before she locked it knowing they heard the knob click, but she didn't care about their reactions. "Canard, get up."
His eyes were slits. "I don't think I can…."
"Yes, you can. Get up."
He shut his eyes and sat up clumsily.
"Think you can make it to the bathroom?"
He eyed the room shared between his room and the one Nosedive and Wildwing slept in. "Maybe…?"
…..
He was able to get himself into the bathroom and sat in the tub, forehead resting on drawn up knees as she ran water over his shoulders and back. He shuddered the first few times.
"How long has this been happening?"
"Since I-came back…."
"All these years?"
He nodded jerkily.
Mallory sighed. "Can, seizures can kill you if they're bad enough."
He gave a half shrug. "Haven't had them walking down the stairs yet or driving."
"That's not funny." She didn't appreciate the joke.
He sat up straighter. "Mal, you remember how difficult it is to make me slow down."
"Yeah, I remember." She put all her focus into scooping the water up into her cup.
"This won't be any different."
"Won't it?" She asked softly.
…..
The past
5 months into the Saurian Invasion
Mallory sat fuming on her bunk, her fingers wringing the wood of her bed. She had made it into the Resistance, showed she was capable of handling herself and even proved her worth in a firefight with a whole lot of sleazebag robots and yet Thunderbeak sidelined her.
Far off in the distance she heard booms and only sunk deeper into her irritation at being left behind. He was intentionally screwing her.
But was she truly mad at him as a subordinate to her commanding officer or was it that she felt put out by her-? What the hell were they to each other exactly? A mistake? A beautiful, awesome mistake?
They had a little too much to drink one night after a successful take down of a Saurian bunker and he was very good at pretending everything was normal the next day.
She shook her head. She never got this fired up over relationships. Why now?
Because as much as I want to wring his fucking neck, I'm attracted to him.
And who wouldn't be? He was excellent at hiding any affection for her when in the face of others but it hadn't escaped the attention of other female soldiers his preference for completing tasks with her on the team. He was good looking. Intelligent. Knew what he wanted and how to get it. Was she one of those challenges he wanted and knew how to get? Had she given in so easily?
There were a few fellow resistance members who tried getting her attention, she didn't give them the time of day. And it wasn't until one particular idiot wasn't getting the hint that she was saved by him.
"Excuse me…." The voice was confident and commanding.
"Excuse me what?" The blockhead male snapped. Beeker was his name.
"I believe you're in my seat."
Mallory rolled her eyes and turned back to her drink.
The duck scoffed. "I don't see your name on it, Thunderbeak."
"Funny." The captain made a show of studying the stool. "I don't see yours either. Now you can piss off and leave McMallard alone."
"Puh, so you can have her to yourself?"
Mallory had enough, swinging around in her seat. "Yeah. Hey babe, what took you so long?"
"Got hung up with some moron who couldn't take a hint."
The male duck glowered at Canard before standing abruptly; on his way by he muttered, "asshole."
Canard ignored the insult.
Mallory pushed the chair out slightly with her boot. "Take it before some other buffoon shows up and ruins my drink."
Amusement lit up his face as he sat.
That was almost a month ago and now there she was, sitting and fuming over her once upon a time savior.
An alarm ripped through the Resistance bunker, signaling the return of fighters. She was up and out of the room and holding the stair railings, jumping them.
There was yelling, ducks who weren't injured gesturing wildly at the higher-ups. There was an ambush, too many robots and Saurians had been involved this time instead of relying only on their AI technology. Someone had set them up.
She turned away, searching the crowded corridor; her gaze fell on a side hall, leading to the infirmary. She looked back at the gathered officers, there was no sign of him.
The smell of burnt flesh was first to get her as she edged into the room. Wounded ducks were everywhere, some sporting heavy injury making her wonder if they even had the manpower and tools to do anything about it. In the corner behind a curtain she could hear medical staff discussing amputation.
"Mal."
The call of her name came from her left. He sat, shirtless, a nasty burn stretching from his elbow up and over his shoulder.
"What the hell happened?" She couldn't get her eyes off the seared skin and lack of feathers.
"Don't know. They shouldn't have known we were coming."
"Somebody turn?"
He half shrugged. "That's my guess."
"Excuse me, ma'am, you can't be in here." A medic appeared, trying to shoo her out.
"It's okay Elle, she can stay." Canard straightened slowly, making Mallory wonder what other pain he had he wasn't showing.
A frazzled doctor appeared, the feathers on his head standing up in all directions. "Well shit." He leaned to get a better look at Canard's injury. "What happened to you?"
The tan duck looked up at him with a what-the-fuck expression. "I was in the ambush, like everyone else who's in here?"
"No shit genius." Bedside manners absent, the doctor shot him a glare. "What happened exactly to you to get these injuries."
"Explosion. I shoved a kid out of the way."
"Winger?" The doctor nodded. "Just some singed feathers last I was told." The doctor paused. "What's that?"
"What's what?" Canard repositioned himself.
The doctor didn't look impressed, his eyes straying to Mallory. "He your boyfriend?"
"Uh-" She didn't know what to say.
"I'll take that as a yes." The duck dropped his clipboard. "Lay down."
Grudgingly, Canard listened, grimacing as he did so.
"Your feather follicles are intact it looks like. That's good, means you don't need a skin graft, your feathers will grow back. Just going to suck healing for a little while."
A medic reappeared with a basin. "This may sting."
For two hours Mallory sat, she still couldn't come up with a good enough reason why she did so. Compared to some of his comrades, Canard was lucky with only cracked ribs from debris hitting him and that nasty burn.
Ever the difficult patient, the doctor finally poked Canard's catheter with a syringe he said was for the pain.
Within seconds Canard slurred, "what the fuck-?" He tried to sit up but his balance was off. "You drugged me." He said accusingly.
"I think it's fair to say you're one of those who won't listen to doctor's orders. You can stay there and rest."
"You're. an. Asshole." Canard managed to say.
The doctor smiled for the first time. "That's what I'm told."
"He is right though." Mallory said after a minute, taking a seat.
"Don't agree with him."
She was just putting some lame small talk together in her head when a light snore pulled her from her thoughts. The drugs had knocked out Canard.
"Nice talking to you too." She sat back, arms folded and watched him sleep.
….
Present
"If I'm betraying-"
"It's not you Canard." Mallory didn't mean to snap.
"I black out Mal, a lot." He shifted, staring off into nothing. "Limbo fucked me up more than I wanted to believe." He sighed. "I almost hope Arren takes me out."
Mallory's stomach flipped. "What?"
He finally looked at her. "I was out of it, but I could hear him…"
"That's not going to happen." She grabbed a towel. "Come on."
…..
Later
Mallory found Regla on the front porch with no coat his feathers puffed from the cold, staring blankly into the night.
"Are you okay?"
She laid her hand over his, hoping no one would appear behind them. He seemed to have the same thoughts as he looked down at their hands and then behind them before settling his gaze on her.
"Every day is a worse day for me. I'm slotted to take the commander oral board in five months and ironically enough while I'm sitting up late at night studying for it, I'm consorting with Brotherhood members and talking homicidal criminals out of executing supposed friends."
She shut her eyes, having wondered when his breaking point would come. "I don't blame you if you leave."
She didn't want that. She didn't want him to agree more than anything in the world. Hearing her words come out of her own beak she realized she couldn't imagine life without Regla there.
"It's not that easy anymore."
"Yes, it is." She opened her eyes. "You have too much to lose Regla over this. It's not right to expect you here."
"It's not easy." He repeated. "-To leave." He looked back at her. "I'd have to sever every tie to you, to Asher…I'm not willing to do that."
The porch door banged behind them, startling Mallory. Leaning she tried to see what or who made the noise, she couldn't see anything until the joint lit up.
She tsked. "Can you not smoke that on my property?"
Drebeer shot her a look. "I have to cope with our creative differences somehow."
"Creative differences?" Regla echoed. "Is that what you call the thing with Canard?"
Drebeer blew out a lung full of smoke in response.
"Arren."
He looked over in her direction again. "You promised me."
He stood rigid for a moment and then with a frustrated growl dropped the joint and ground it out under his heel. He turned to go back inside. "It's zero out, shouldn't you two be inside?" He didn't want for an answer as the front door slammed behind him.
"Zero? It's a tropical heat wave."
Regla snorted.
"I'm going to go see Tanya, I'll be back."
"Now?" Regla glanced at his watch.
"Yeah, she's expecting me."
"Someone should go with you. I can get Duke-"
Mallory hesitated and shook her head. "No. I uh-" She flushed from the embarrassment of answering too quickly. "It's something between her and I for now."
He studied her for longer than she would have liked.
"No offense."
"Then I'll drive you. Wait in the car."
"She's expecting Canard too."
"Okay." If he had questions he didn't ask. "Let's go."
The drive was quiet, no one at home asked about the nature of the visit to Tanya, not wanting to make the situation surrounding Canard worse. Having known Canard since childhood Wildwing and Nosedive managed to talk their way into coming along. Mallory glanced over her shoulder to the tan duck. Dark circles under his eyes, Canard looked like he hadn't slept in days.
Like when he made it his mission to find the one responsible for the ambush.
….
Past
The glow of a small monitor screen lit the room in a dim blue luminosity. Mallory got out of bed slowly.
"Hey….."
Canard shifted. "Hey." His attention turned back to the screen, onscreen the reruns of someone's body cam footage. The volume was off. A nice gesture of him to try minimizing waking her.
"No luck?"
He jerked his head once, his eyes never leaving the action unfolding. "It's someone you wouldn't expect….someone whose been to the meetings." His hazel irises flickered up to her face. "I think it was a woman."
She thought he was kidding and quickly saw he wasn't, losing her nervous amusement at the revelation. "A woman?"
He nodded. "There was a straggler who came to us not long ago, claimed to be the only survivor of a mass casualty out west at one of the bases. A female. No one knows her name. Some had suspicion she used a fake one and after this shit, I tend to believe it."
"Well then haul her ass into one of the interrogation rooms. I don't particularly agree with it but if we have to torture it out of her, so be it-"
"She's gone.
"Gone?"
"No one's seen her in the last three days."
"How'd she get out?"
He jabbed the screen, switching to a new video, surveillance of the two entrances into the bunker. "Don't know." He sat back in his chair, giving her full view of his right arm. The bandages were finally off, giving the still healing skin air to breathe, she could see the light tufts of feathers beginning to grow back.
Her gaze switched to his face. "I don't want to sound like an asshole and I know that's probably exactly how it's going to come out-but how much of this is because of your ego?"
She expected him to be insulted and maybe even order her ass back to her own room but instead thoughtfulness crossed his features.
"Five percent, maybe ten….." He shot her a sideways grin, the first sign of amusement he'd shown since the attack. He sobered quick enough. "The majority of it's the audacity…the nerve to betray your own people and for what?"
"A sick person….."
….
Present
"How many episodes have you had in the past month?" Tanya's focus was on paper, taking notes.
"Not sure. But I've woken up on the floor, in blood and vomit about five times."
"Do you see anything?"
In the corner sat Wildwing and Nosedive, listening. Nosedive for once somber. Nearby Regla stood.
"See anything?"
"Yeah, delusions or hallucinations?"
He muttered something.
"I didn't hear you."
Canard sighed. "Limbo. I'm in Limbo- everytime."
"You know you aren't, right?"
"Yeah, I know that." His tone changed, aggravation as if Tanya suggested something offensive.
"Canard-" Wildwing beat Mallory. "She's only trying to help."
"Yeah," Canard blinked. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize." Tanya laid her pen down. "I don't know anything about Dimensional Limbo. When we landed on Earth I was able to patch our technology into Drake 1 so I had one search engine from Puckworld, barely worked with the human's technology but I read everything I could get my hands on…. It was like a page and a half." She paused, clearly apologetic. "If we wanted to know everything about Limbo we'd need Saurian technology- which we obviously don't have."
"The museum has it." Nosedive said suddenly. "There's like two wings of that place dedicated to the Invasion…took Asher there many times. They have whole computers, still intact, in that place."
Canard seemed to snap out of his trance. "What the hell are you suggesting? Just walk in there and ask the director if we could borrow their shit for a day?"
"No." Nosedive rolled his eyes in irritation. "It wouldn't be exactly legal…"
"A heist?" Regla asked from his spot. "You're talking about breaking and entering into the Puckworld Ducaine Museum." He didn't show any emotion of what he thought.
Nosedive grew sheepish. "We got Puckworld's most famous jewel thief in our family… why not?" He looked to Canard. "If it means curing you, I'd do whatever I could-even if it's illegal. Besides, Tanya would only need the thing for a few minutes, download what you need with your omni-tool and put it back, no one will even know its missing."
"My omni-tool." Tanya repeated absently. "I don't even know if that thing works anymore."
"You built it, everything you've made is fantastic, except for that Migrator X-whatever, no offense that thing kind of s-"
"Okay-" Tanya cut Nosedive off. "Uh-" She avoided Regla's gaze. "It's something we need to discuss with everyone…"
"I'm not worth burglary and grand larceny."
"Yeah, you are."
The reply was soft, yet everyone heard it.
Mallory looked past Canard to Regla who still hadn't shown emotion to the discussion.
"Let's talk to Duke."