Story [Penguins of Madagascar] Debriefer, Debetter (response to prompt, complete)

Title: Debriefer, Debetter

Author: pronker

Era: One month after the episode "I Know Why The Caged Bird Goes Insane" wherein one solitary space squid threatens our world, heck, the entire second galactic quadrant, before an injured Kowalski and an able Marlene drive it back to its mother ship.

Summary: Skipper debriefs Marlene in her own habitat. His way.

A/N: Per the prompt "soft epilogue" on theforceDOTnet's list. This fic is prelude to Flag Day

IOIOIOIOIO

"Where is everyone?"

Marlene called to her friend who dripped water from his feathers five yards below her after a triple somersault over her habitat barrier to splash into her pond. She unfolded from her lotus position atop her water slide. For some reason, she chose bedtime meditation in an elevated place. She watched without comment as he powered his way against the slide's torrent to reach her side. Ho hum, the first time he'd done this, she had ooohed and ahhhhed. Funny how commonplace his feats had become. Ho hum.

Skipper gestured to her to remain seated as he turned his back to the full moon. Marlene couldn't see his expression, but his relaxed stance outlined by the brightness demonstrated that there was no immediate crisis. "Since Kowalski is off medical leave as of tonight, I've ordered Rico and Private to debrief him regarding the space squid attack. It's your turn now."

Marlene made a face. "Why? Kowalski saw the whole thing. He can tell it better than I can." She patted the space beside her.

"The Big Boss commanded that I gather your input because you got captured and he didn't." The penguin plotzed a formal distance away and folded his flippers in his lap. "She claims, and I agree, that you never know when space squids prowl our spacious skies and amber waves of grain."

Marlene gazed up at the serene starry night. "Maybe they enjoy just flying around the universe, ever think about that, huh? Who says one will invade again?" She straightened with a coy toss of her head. "Anyway, 'Ski and I scared it off but good."

"Yes. For the time being. Kudos. Now tell me on a scale of one to ten the pain you suffered under its terrifying, horrifying, overwhelming control." He may have appeared relaxed, but Marlene sensed strong concerns preying on his battle mind. She sighed and then snorted. Wait a minute, he was forgetting something.

"Where's my telescope, bird? You've had it a whole month."

"We're done with it after taking shifts to surveille the night skies since the squid incident. You can have it back and we thank you, missy."

It couldn't be possible. "Your team has skywatched every single night for a month?"

"Semper alertus, Ms. Otter. You'll get your hobby back soonest." Was his relaxed pose tonight the result of chronic fatigue or was it true relaxation? She might never know.

"Oh all right." She thought of one last protest because her interrupted meditation deserved respect. "Don't you know what it's like being captured? You've been under the thumb of baddies before, now don't say you haven't. México jungle guerrilla warlords, the gulag, that Amway distributor - "

"Not everything is about me. I want to know about you. I say again: Did the tentacles hurt?"

Tentacles, ropy tentacles sporting suckers that gripped her, lifting her close to a disgusting face with eyes that were larger than her whole body, that smell - "N-No."

Skipper tapped his beak. "Were they slimy?"

"They were unslimy and bendy, but when Kowalski got beat up it looked like the squid hardened them somehow to, er, do more damage see I don't want to think about that part." She took a deep breath to quell the shakes. "Isn't that enough debriefing? Seems the opposite of brief to me, pengyou."

He was unrelenting in pursuit of duty. "Sister, I'd not make you relive it if I didn't have to. Followup question, could you defeat a space squid again if necessary?" Marlene felt her face crumple as Skipper took heed of her trembling. "Not that you'd need to face danger alone! We'd take point if their armada darkened the stars - " He thrust a flipper towards the heavens, which she perceived populated with spears of hard, cold constellations rather than the minutes ago friendly Cassiopeia, Andromeda and the bear like the one that Julien had mooned over, oh yeah, Sonya was her name. Marlene's imagination flowered to picture the stars as pinpricks in a tight, dark covering affording air to a creature trapped inside a kill jar right before the cyanide took effect. Marlene saw herself as that creature. A split second afterwards, she imagined her whole planet in the jar with her as the stars provided peep holes for a star-spanning Intelligence to spy through. She felt even smaller than she had in the grip of the tentacles.

"Eek."

Skipper patted her shoulder. "Get hold of yourself. Don't get the gollywobbles, Marlene, I don't want to have to slap you."

"I w-want to help y-y-y-ou - "

"And you are, just keep going." The pats turned to a soothing rub.

"Drat, now I've got h-hiccups." The hiccups were so hard that they hurt. "Ouch! hic Ouch!" She rubbed her middle. "Owwie! Don't just sit there! hic Scare hic me!"

Skipper turned away and then turned back quickly with a weird face. "Boo! Hubba hubbagurda boo!"

He only looked goofy. "That won't do it! Ouch! hic Ow! Try something else, this hurts!" If she didn't always ask him for help, the circumstances would have been strange. As their relationship stood, she knew that he knew she would have done the same for him. It was just the way things were between them that generally his experience was broader than hers. The random thought was proven true by his next move.

He flipped her onto her stomach and straddled her back. "Hey! hic What are you getting up hic hic to back there ow?"

"This works every time. Trust me." He tickled her pits until she cried from laughter. "Go on! Cry it out of your system, lady!" She shed a bucket of tears and her tail turned limp as overdone rigatoni when he was done. "Better now?"

"Yuh huh." She gasped as if to hiccup and they both held their breath in suspense, but the hiccups stayed cured. "Get off me, you're heavy."

"That's all muscle, I'll have you know." The stern voice turned comradely as his weight lifted from her sacroiliac. She turned over, still atwitter. "Eh, enough intel for the present. The Big Boss is as reasonable as I am about treating civilians more, er, delicately than troops. You take it easy."

He dropped her paw when she stopped trembling. "Stay a little?" Marlene asked.

"Are you sure? We commandos are used to later hours than you - "

The zoo clock chimed. "It's just ten. I'll survive one late night and I am wound tight with the, the bad memories."

"Yeah. That happens with squids. One time on a mission in Atlantis - never mind."

The stars resumed their appealing twinkle, the mood was right and so she asked what was none of her business. "How's Kitka?"

Skipper gathered his knees to his chest. "Fine! I'm sure she's fine. I haven't seen her in a week, but she's fine. I'm sure."

"I haven't spotted her flyover, either, in yeah maybe a week. She used to dawn patrol looking for prey, er, not zoo animal prey oh you know what I mean." Skipper studied the constellation of Orion for a long time.

"She's out of my league, Marlene. I see that now." His voice sounded matter of fact.

Time to be a friend. "Oh she is not. You and she are both alphas and had, I mean have, a lot in common. I won't let you talk yourself down."

He flopped backwards. The water slide bbrrrrbbbld and the moon spied like the cool neighbor who observed when you stumbled down the wintry porch steps but saved yourself from a fall with wild paw swinging so he didn't hustle over to help. Marlene flopped, too, as Skipper folded his flippers under his head. "I think we're done."

"No, don't go yet - "

"I mean Kitka and me."

Serenity shouldn't feel this melancholy. Marlene tracked Orion, too, as he wheeled overhead. Orion the hunter, a hunter like Kitka, wild and free to swoop and shred. Well, Skipper and she would be hunters, too, if they didn't reside in a zoo. She herself would pry clams from muddy river bottoms, chase perch, go hungry if pickings were slim ... Skipper would speed after Antarctican tooth fish in the wide ocean, come home to bare rocky beaches filled with squawky penguins, all alike, all different ...

She pulled out of what ifs. Reality was that Skipper and she escaped the grinding need for chasing sustenance and could concentrate on elevated parts of life, like stargazing and protecting the world from space squids.

"Skipper."

"Mmmm?"

"I don't know what's in store for you and Kitka, but I do know that the zoo wouldn't be the same without you."

"Mmmm."

"Everybody comes to you with their problems because you're so good at solving them. Your abilities seem commonplace to us zoosters, but they really - aren't." She blinked rapidly and her breath hitched. "You're not commonplace at all."

"Meh."

Time to spout practicalities. "You're tired, lao ban."

"Not."

"You look it."

"Meh."

"Go crawl in your bunk, pull up the blankie, and zone out. Kowalski's feeling better, Rico and Private likely have finished grilling him by now, uh debriefing, and Kitka might fly over tomorrow at dawn. I'll look for her, too." Marlene smiled even though her friend couldn't see it. "Isn't it nice to have somebody in your corner?"

"You and Kitka? Sure, I need backup just as much as the next penguin commando." They fell into silence once more. Peace, serenity, whatever you called it, Skipper could use more in his busy life. Marlene lay close as she could without touching, willing the night to unfold as it should.

Jets populated the night sky, too, arrowing their way into and out of airports, shying off on tangents for who knew where. Marlene lost herself in memory of arriving from the California Aquarium on a jet, hauled into a strange zoo and habitat and meeting the penguins. Curiouser and curiouser, the place felt even homier than before tonight's meditation. She glanced at her friend, wondering if he succumbed to slumber, but no, his face remained upturned, his expression blank. She turned her attention back to the sky. Ooh, a helicopter wupwupped overhead, was it a medical evac or a police action? It passed to the horizon, forever a mystery.

The clock chimed eleven as Marlene yawned.

Time for bed. "I'm w-wiped out."

"Aw, poor Marlene baw boo hoo. First a good ticklefight and then a good chinwag before a good sleep. I'll take that every time to end my day." He draped her over his shoulder. "Beddy bye for you, my friend."

"Lemme down no don't. I don't care anymore. Take me home, James, toot sweet." She flopped back and forth with his waddle and then her eyes widened as he stepped casually into the water slide. "What wait waaaaahhhhhhhh - !"

The night may have been temperate for February but the pool felt icy after her bout of tears. They surfaced and she hollered at him when she stopped coughing. "Tell a gal when you're going to half drown her, really, Skipper!"

"Got your adrenaline up, right? Washed all the negative nellies out of you like it did me?" He dodged her punch. "Relax! I'll towel you off."

"Go home! I'll wipe myself down, thank you very much! You've done enough tonight, you you - " The stars showed her his bemused look as he waited for what she would call him. "You friend, you," she murmured. "Good night, Skipper."

"Sweet dreams, Marlene." He leaped onto her landing and then backflipped over her habitat fence to head home before she thought to make a last request.

"Skipper?"

The honed commando hearing never failed. His disembodied voice sounded deep as Lake Erie to thrum a chord deep inside and she shivered. She was glad he couldn't see her from behind the bricks. "I'm here. Forget something? Kiss me goodnight? Kiss me good morning? Or both?"

There it was. She could advance on territory that belonged to Kitka or she could keep her honor. She couldn't get really mad at him for being suggestive because she knew how easy it was to allow one thought to lead to another. She'd try to keep things light. "Oh you kidder. You're kidding, right?"

The ball was in his court. "You know me, Marlene."

Back to her. "Yeah. I do."

"So."

"So."

"So?"

"So bring back my telescope tomorrow, okay?"

The voice deepened. "How about tonight? I'm up for awhile."

"Er, uh, okay. Leave it outside my cave. I'm hitting the hay."

"Want some help going to sleep?"

This was the crux and she'd made her decision. "No thanks. Night night!"

"Goodnight, Marlene." She thought she heard a chuckle as he waddled off and if that were the case, she'd kill him tomorrow. After she'd made sure he'd returned her telescope, that is.

IOIOIOIOIO

The End.

IOIOIOIOIO

 

Funny scene

 

Fun and supportive banter between friends and lovely to have stargazing and tickling mixed in

 

+ earlybird-obi-wan I'm pleased you thought it funny! It was a hoot to depict the only sure fictional cure for hiccups.

+ WarmNyota_SweetAyesha They support and depend on each other without being too clingy - it's a fun aspect of the show!

+ Mira_Jade A new fanfic term to explore - and the emotions did swing all over before calming to "soft." Yes, they two enjoy a muted 'ahah!' moment there at the end ... something shows over the horizon ... all to the good, as long as it isn't an invading space squid armada ...

Thanks for reading!