“Separation Anxiety”

Chapter Two: Gone

Nosedive burst through the front door, Wildwing on his heels.

“Oh, don’t run away yet. We’re not done.”

“Really?” Nosedive emphasized with a heaved sigh. He stopped right where the hallway met the living room and barely registered the presence of Canard, Duke, Tanya, Shane, and Grin—the search party. Pivoting on his heel, he glowered at Wildwing tiredly. “You wanted me home; now I’m home. I think our verbal contract is completed.”

“So you think you can just run off like that, and there’s no recourse whatsoever?” Wildwing countered.

“You think that you can join the Legion, not tell me for two months, and there’s no recourse whatsoever?”

Wildwing was rendered silent for a moment, blinking, before gradually, his face clenched. “Look, kiddo, I’m going to give it you straight. I did this because I have—”
“I know, Wildwing. ‘Your duty to the planet,’ ” Nosedive mimicked his brother’s spoken words. “I heard the whole spiel when you went off to take down the Saurians the first time. You know, it’s funny. Both times your duty to your brother was never even thought of.”

“You think I wanted to go off like that?” Wildwing barked venomously. “You’re not the only person in my life, Nosedive! I have other commitments to honor! We’re not on Earth anymore!”

“I know that, but you didn’t even give me a first thought, let alone a second one!”

“It’s only until the Saurians are off the planet!”

“Or five years!” Nosedive repeated incredulously. He shook his head, tears shimmering in his eyes. “Wildwing, I knew things would be different when we got back here. I mean, hey, this is the first time I’ve seen Tanya and Grin since we’ve been back.” He motioned inside the living room at the five ducks watching them attentively. “Hell, I have no idea where Mallory even is.”

“She’s in the ‘uncivilized zones,’ ” Wildwing alerted softly. “She wanted to come, but since we’re in the same regiment, the general wouldn’t give her off.”

Nosedive processed the information before sighing wretchedly. He affixed Wildwing with an expression between desperation and frustration. “I knew we wouldn’t see each other everyday. I’m not that far into La-La Land, but I thought we’d be more than, ‘Hey, you need me, kid; I’ll be there.’ ”

“I wish we lived in a world where Saurians don’t exist,” Wildwing replied softly, anger no longer present in his voice. “But Stars, Dive, they’re still here, on Puckworld. I’ve got to do this. If we don’t get them into Dimensional Limbo, then they might as well come back, and you know what that means.”

Nosedive held in his wince. While the Stigma was gone and Dragaunus was dead, there was always a chance...a day didn’t go by that Nosedive didn’t think about the ramifications.

“Then go,” Nosedive resigned breathlessly, crossing his arms and averting his eyes.

“I still have a week left,” Wildwing extended a consoling hand to grip his brother’s shoulder, but Nosedive backstepped out of his reach.

“No.” The little brother shook his head stubbornly, his blonde hair glistening. “Go.”

“You can’t be serious,” murmured the older brother, horrified.

“Look, if you’re going to go, then go. I’m not going to do this.” His voice was low, almost inaudible.

“Do what?

“A—A week of long good-byes! Of sitting there, staring at you, wondering if I’ll ever see you again! Of every day praying that the daystar won’t set, so then you’ll have to leave!” Nosedive exploded in frustration. Betraying tears stung in his eyes and coursed his reddened cheeks. “I’m tired of waiting, Wildwing! I’m tired of sitting out on those damn stairs and looking for something to tell me you’re okay! I’m tired of hurting!” He recoiled, panting. He shook his head dismally, his bangs shifting over his demoralized eyes. “I’m tired of it, Wildwing. I’m tired of it all. I want the phantasm to just end, and it’s not going to. We’re never going to be able to lead normal lives, are we? We’re always damned to be like this!”

“Baby bro,” Wildwing started, but froze at the look from Nosedive.

“Don’t…call me that,” the teen managed to say, despite his wavering voice. “Just go, Wildwing. Leave. If you’re going to die,” he stopped, gathering whatever strength he had, and stammered, “then go off and die already, so I don’t live forever dreading it!”

“So that’s it?” Wildwing burst, arms spread wide. “After fifteen years of looking for you, after the Stigma, after Earth, this is it? This?”

Compared to everything else, Nosedive, albeit begrudgingly, admitted to himself that it was ridiculous that a simple separation would end their relationship. But he couldn’t help it. His life was crashing down around him, and the one person had clung to for the last three years was going off without him again…and he couldn’t take it. He wouldn’t be left behind again.

“Then, yeah, Wildwing, this is it.” Nosedive glared at him, eyes locking in unfathomable anguish. He replied with a strangled cry, muted from grief and agony, “You promised you would never leave me, and now you are,” The little brother pierced, his demoralized voice more sharp than any knife could ever be. “Yes, this is it.”

*^*^*

Even before Wildwing could breathe, Nosedive bristled past his older brother, grabbed the railing, and vaulted himself up the stairs. Each footstep resounded in Wildwing’s mind, stomping on the mallard’s heart.

The footfalls led to a reverberating clatter of a door, followed almost immediately by a riff of an electric guitar.

Wildwing breathed heavily, the full extend of his actions hitting him full-force. The ramifications….they were too much to bear. What had he done? He should have known his brother would be like this…but...even as the thought flashed through his mind, the electric guitar reinforced his reasoning. Nosedive was still alive, but his other family member might be so lucky.

A hand clasped Wildwing’s shoulder, yet he failed to register it.

“You better go,” Harper urged in a despairing mutter. He extended the direction to the rest of the guests. “Once Nosedive hits the guitar—let’s just say he’s not in the mood to talk.”

“Harper…”

“I’ll talk to him, even if I have to wrestle the guitar from his hands,” the older man reassured, “but I can’t make any promises.”

Wildwing nodded absently, his body suddenly weak and on the verge of collapse. “I leave in a week.”

“He’ll be there,” Harper said as he led Wildwing to the door, the others not far behind.

“How can you be sure he’ll forgive me?” Wildwing muttered.

Harper smirked. “Forgive you, I’m not quite sure, but he will be there. I have my ways.”

*^*^*

Nosedive huffed as he slipped his helmet on his head and clasped the strap. He leaned against the wall of the tunnel, and his eyes naturally drifted to his jersey. He was no longer a Mighty Duck, and just the thought of that deflated his excitement of the game ahead. The arena was packed, the chants of his schoolmates and the fans of the team engulfing him, yet their noise hardly befell upon his ears. He was lost in a mixture of anger and hurt, and he couldn’t detach himself from the sullenness.

“Hey.”

A nudge of an elbow in his gut awakened him from his trance. He looked to his best friend. “What gives, man?”

Tremaine shook his head. “Get your head in the game, eh, cap? Seriously, you’re, like, fretting, and that’s not a way to pump up your team.”

Nosedive scowled at his best friend, but couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at Tremaine. He was right, damn it.

As soon as he straightened his back, Nosedive watched his best friend leave for the ice when his name and number was called for the starting line-up. Nosedive froze at the sinking abyss that suddenly swirled in his stomach.

Four days.

Four days until Wildwing and Canard left…

He closed his eyes, the shocked emotions rushing over him. He took a deep breath, unable to deal with the pain. He couldn’t lose his brother, not again…but…Stars, what could he do?

“And number thirty-three,” that gained a squall from the roaring crowd, “Captain NOSEDIVE FLASHBLADE!” The announcer dragged the last syllable of his name.

Nosedive took a deep breath, then let out it. The world seemed to slow, and he wished it would just stop. A camera flash lightened his face, and he took a step forward. He took another step, then another, and another. He walked out of the tunnel and stepped on the ice.

His eyes ricocheted to the goal, and for a brief moment, he caught a glimpse of white mallard, blocking the majority of the net with his built body. In the time it took to blink, however, the image was gone, replaced by the sight of a teenager mallard not quite grown into his pads. His head looked so small compared to mass of his padded body.

Nosedive went to meet his teammates, slapping their hands as he glided down the blue line—then whirled at the cheers.

“Yeah, kiddo!”

“You go, Dive!”

“Kick some ass, son!”

His heart failed to beat as his eyes scoured the packed arena—then restarted when they pored over three drakes, two tan-and one chocolate-feathered.

Canard, Shane, and his father.

Wildwing wasn’t there.

*^*^*

“Great game, kiddo,” Canard congratulated three periods later as Nosedive emerged from the locker room, his equipment bag slung over his shoulder, weighing down upon him. In his right hand were his two sticks.

“Thanks, Canard,” Nosedive rejoined, a fading smile darkening his usual jovial face. A deep frown remained less than a minute later.

“Really great job,” Shane commended, slapping the boy warmly on the back. “Hat trick against that goalie? That’s a feat in itself.”

Nosedive shrugged aloofly. “That was my fourth against him in my career.” He peered left, then right, surveying the thongs of people cluttering about the locker room exit awaiting for their family members. “Where’s my dad?”

Canard took a piece of paper, signing it, and handing it back to a duck, roughly forty years older than he. “He said he had to go call someone or something. I don’t remember.”

“And once again, the master liar,” Nosedive commented surly. “Let me guess,” he dropped his bag to the floor with a resounding thud. “He went to call Wildwing.”

“You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Gotcha, but…he didn’t want to come?”

“He didn’t think you wanted him to.”

“Oh.” Fidgeting with his sticks, Nosedive rolled his eyes, then just sighed. “Shane!” He winced, embarrassed at the volume at which the address fled his beak.

“Yeah, kiddo?” the older tan mallard asked. A lingering smile was maintained on his beak, and Nosedive smirked. Everything Wildwing told him about his older brother was true.

“Can I…” He nodded toward the exit at the far end of the hall. “Can I talk to you for a second? Alone?”

Shane exchanged a quick, quizzical expression with Canard before nodding rigidly. “Uh, sure.”

Navigating around the mobs of people, dragging his overstuffed bag behind him, and receiving slaps of praise, Nosedive heard Shane laugh warmly. He glanced over his shoulder and stifled his own chuckle. It must have been funny to see him, not even five-foot-ten, tugging a bag almost bigger than he.

When he finally pushed open the school door and dropped down the small step to sidewalk, he huffed, “It’s like Mardi Gras in there.”

“What?” Shane questioned, to which Nosedive just shrugged.

“Yeah, that seems to be the trend lately. No one has any idea what I’m talking about.” He yanked the bag on his back and staggered down the sidewalk toward his father’s truck.

“So, what’s on your mind?”

Nosedive hemmed and hawed, trying to figure just how to phrase what he wanted to say. Really, there was no better way than to just spurt, “Look, I wanted to let you know I don’t hate you.”

“Hate me?” Shane halted in mid-stride, his smile falling into a frown for the first time since Nosedive had met the older mallard. “What are you talking about?”

Nosedive sighed, turning, and with a strained whine, chucked his bag into the back of the blue truck. A resounding thunk reverberated through the air. “Wildwing lied to me.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Shane remonstrated; his frown deepened.

Opening the passenger door, Nosedive stepped on the stair and sat down in the passenger seat. He was just about Shane’s eye level. “Wildwing didn’t go into the Legion because of his duty to Puckworld or because the Saurians might come back. He went in it because of you.”

Shane’s face told Nosedive just what the older brother thought of that. “How’d you figure that?”

Nosedive’s shoulders hunched, and he bent down, grabbing a bottle of water from a compartment in between the seats. “Wildwing’s lost a lot of people in his life, our parents, me, later on your parents,” he scoffed at the sight of Shane’s shocked face. “I’m not stupid. When they weren’t at the party you guys threw, I put two and two together. They didn’t survive the invasion, did they?”

Shane didn’t answer at first as his eyes drifted shut, and Nosedive observed the pain grasping the older duck’s face. He remembered poignantly what it was like for him back on Earth when he thought his father had died during the Resistance. While he was trapped by the Stigma’s touch and fighting his own insecurities over his relationship with Wildwing, he hadn’t thought that much of it. He couldn’t. The hopelessness of the situation drowned him, but when finally he calmed down and was no longer Dragaunus’s slave, he collapsed. He still remembered how Wildwing heard him in the middle of the night, whimpers of gutted sobs inaudible but to his brother’s ear.

He was lucky. He had been spared the unending searing. Obviously Shane, Canard, and Wildwing had not been as fortunate.

“Smart kid,” Shane offhanded, looking up at Nosedive. His pain in his eyes was transparent.

Nosedive took a swig of his water. “Wildwing doesn’t want to lose anyone else in his life, so he aligns himself with the person he’s most likely to lose. On Earth, that was me, but now that I’m with my father, he thinks I’m a pretty safe bet. You, on the other side of the stick, are in war, and he could lose you at any second. So, he enlisted to try to save you.”

Shane stared at the boy, flabbergasted. Slowly, his beak reformed its usual smile. “Got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“I just know my brother,” Nosedive declared simply, but quickly added, “but I want you to know I’m not angry about that. I understand it, and hell, if it was reverse, I would be there, too. I just wish…” His bottle crumpled in his hand, squirting him with cool water. He jumped in his seat when the water splashed on his legs and shirt, then wiped them with his hand, scowling, “I just wish he would have braced me for this or called me first. I mean, he’s two months into it.”

“And,” Shane asserted, “it’s good to know he’s not really ignoring you.”

Nosedive glowered at his drink. “At first, I didn’t listen. I knew how my brother felt about me, and it didn’t matter what they said. They were just being jerks and harassing me because I’m related to the greatest hero since Drake DuCaine, and they were jealous. But…after he didn’t return in five months and didn’t call for two…”

“If there is one thing you never have to worry about, kid, it’s how Wildwing feels about you.”

Nosedive smiled genuinely. “I know.”

“He even went to that Tre kid’s house and apologized.”

“I know. He called Dad for the address.”

Shane tilted his head, sending Nosedive a sideways glance. “Then why are you doing this to him? You have four days.”

“I know, but…” His teeth gritted. “If I spend the next four days with him, knowing that he’s going to go and I might never see him again…I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”

“You’re doing that from afar, you know?” Shane bowed his head to look at Nosedive from under the boy’s bangs. “I saw you at the house yesterday.”

Nosedive scowled. “I know.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“I get it all from Dad.”

“Hey!” A familiar, mock-hurt voice objected from behind Shane. Harper swiveled his keys around his forefinger as he walked to the two younger mallards. “I still maintain that you get it from Wilder. Ready to go?”

“Two secs?” Nosedive asked, holding up two fingers.

Harper nodded in understanding and ambled around to the driver’s side of the truck.

“Look,” Nosedive resigned and pushed his sweat-drenched hair from his eyes, “I just wanted to let you know all….this….because I know what you were thinking and…I thought…I don’t know, maybe…we could be friends.”

“What was I thinking?” Shane inquired, eyebrow furled in confusion.

“ ‘Who the hell is this kid trying to take my brother away.’ ”

Shane suppressed an explosion of uproarious laughter, then clasped the teen’s shoulder genially. “I was not thinking that. Maybe, ‘how the hell is this kid related to my brother?’ You two look nothing alike…except your eyes.” He peered hard into the teen’s azure irises. “You have the exact same eyes.”

Nosedive grinned. “Like I haven’t been told that before.”

Shane returned the smile. “So, when’s your next game?”

“Not tomorrow, but the next day—in Shyre.”

Shane nodded, then began walking back toward the school. “I’ll see you then.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure, isn’t that what older brothers do?” He smirked at Nosedive’s cocked head and perplexed glare. “People in my family aren’t friends, kid. It’s all in or all out.” He pivoted on his heel before quickly turning back, a pensive look of concentration on his face. “Hey, kid?”

Nosedive peeked out of the truck. “Yeah?”

“Why couldn’t you say this in front of Canard?”

An exasperated sigh huffed from his beak. “Are you kidding? I’m peeved at him, too. He’s my brother. He couldn’t have called?”

Shane shook his head and backstepped, still watching the boy closely. “Are you angry at me, too?”

“Nah,” Nosedive relayed, “you’re off the hook. I didn’t know you when you enlisted.”

“Ah…kid?”

Nosedive leaned out again. “Yeah?” He said, piqued.

“What the hell does ‘off the hook’ mean?”

Nosedive just sighed.

*^*^*

“Life sucks,” Nosedive declared as he slid into the seat at the kitchen table and propped his head on his hand.

Harper sighed and grabbed the morning burrito when the gammawave. He turned to his son, tossing it in front of the younger mallard on the table. The boy didn’t even glance at it.

“So, this is what it’s going to be like for the five years?” He broached, sitting down in the seat next to the teen.

Nosedive glanced at his father, then reclaimed his head from his hand, leaning back in his seat. “Why does it have to be like this?”

“You still have a day.” Unwrapping Nosedive’s breakfast, the general took a bite.

A grunted scowl groaned from Nosedive’s beak. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to say good-bye.”

“How do you know you’re saying good-bye?” Harper protested. “Most likely he’ll be back come next ice season. The Saurians are almost eradicated.”

“Superhuman, Wildwing isn’t, Dad, and how many times can he cheat death before it takes a chunk out of him?”

Finishing the burrito, Harper swallowed. “I could say the same for you. Of course, superhuman isn’t the word I would have chosen.”

Nosedive scowled.

Harper ruffled his son’s hair, then stood, obtaining his briefcase from the floor. Gently nuzzling Nosedive on top of his head, he conveyed, “There are more burritos. Eat before you go to school.”

Nosedive looked down at his burrito wrapper—his empty burrito wrapper—then queried his father as he opened the door, “Dad?”

“Yeah, son?” Harper turned half-way around to make eye contact.

Nosedive looked up at his father, tears glistening in his eyes. He pleaded to his father, soul-wrenching despair oozing out, “He’ll survive, right? He’ll come back.” Harper shut the door instantly and clutched his son as the pent-up and suppressed emotions finally broke the surface. Nosedive buried his face in his father’s uniform and unabashedly wept.

*^*^*

“Where is he?” Wildwing fumed in front of the terminal. Dressed in complete military attire, gray pants and a buttoned teal overcoat with a maroon undershirt, he paced in a circle, to which Canard and Shane shook their heads.

“You think he gets that from his mother or his father?” Canard pondered, rubbing the bottom of his chin.

Shane shrugged. “I don’t know. Harper said Nosedive got that Starry, Starry Night thing from their father. Maybe this is a mother-trait.”

“You know Starry, Starry Night?”

“I do listen sometimes when you talk,” Shane retorted, impertinent.

“Only sometimes?” Canard quipped.

“You know,” Wildwing stopped his pacing and glared at this two brother, “I don’t think he’s coming.”

Canard snorted. “Really? What tipped you off?”

“The fact that it’s five minutes before we have to leave, and he’s still not here.”

“Yeah,” Shane acquiesced with a somber nod, “that would do it.”

Wildwing closed his eyes with anupsettingly grave sigh. There was no use. He would call, but his brother just wouldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t force his brother to accept his apology and a hug good-bye.

“I…guess this is it,” Wildwing conceded, turning and picking up his bag to the left of Shane. “Let’s get on board.”

“Come on.” Shane clasped him on the shoulder. “You have four more minutes. Wait until then.”

“Oh, you’re right. Let’s stand here, and wait to be disappointed some more.” Shaking his head, Wildwing slung the bag over his shoulder. “No. He doesn’t want to say good-bye, and I can’t force him to.”

Shane’s eyebrow furled. “Do you blame him?”

Wildwing met his gaze exasperated, but then deflated. “No. I just wish he would see why.”

“He does,” Shane affirmed with a knowing smirk. “We all do.”

“Then—”

“Because you’re being a jerk.”

Wildwing halted and turned wide-eyed at Shane, who had spoken so casually he almost thought his brother hadn’t spoken. Irritation tinged Wildwing’s reply and glower, “What?”

An unusual frown edged itself on Shane’s beak. “Look, he’s just a teenager, and you’re treating him like he should know exactly what you’re thinking and should agree. He might be years ahead of his time, but he’s still just a kid. And he’s not much different from you. You joined for me—”

“That wasn’t the only reason.”

“Maybe not, but it was the deciding factor. If the puck was on his stick, what do you think he would do?”

“Enlist to be with me,” Wildwing muttered. “He wanted to.”

“Yeah, but the difference is you didn’t tell him before you did, and that, little brother, was stupid.” Shane’s voice was light, yet poignant.

Wildwing sighed, shaking his head. “I know, but he’s being stupid now. If I don’t come back, he’s going to regret this.”

“Nah, I don’t think so, Wild,” Canard challenged, signaling with a nod of his head.

Whirling on his heel, Wildwing scoured the crowded walkway of the terminal, his body moving from side to side. As the jammed crowd began to filter off the aisle and toward their gate, a flash of blonde hair glistened over his eyes. A particular, short, younger mallard caught his breath. The teen’s arms were crossed in a universal expression of anger, while his usual jovial face was contorted into a pouting scowl. Next to him sauntered an older mallard with dark brown feathers and lighter, tan hair.

“You came,” Wildwing asserted with relief as the teen walked up to him.

Nosedive averted his eyes, never even glimpsing over at his brother. “Dad hid my guitar and said he wouldn’t give it back unless I came. I have a gig tonight, so I kinda need it.” His voice was metallic, void of emotion.

“Thanks, Harper.”

“I promised he’d be here. I never said he’d like it,” Harper recalled, putting out a hand, then drawing Wildwing into a brief hug. “Good luck, and come back safely.”

“I’ll do my best.” Affixing his brother an affectionate grin, Wildwing drawled, “So…”

“So try not to die; see you in a year,” Nosedive spurted curtly and pivoted to leave.

Harper immediately seized his son by the arm and turned Nosedive back around, albeit not without a pain-filled whine.

“Dive, this could be the last time we see each other,” Wildwing posed uncouthly.

“Should have thought of that two months ago, huh?” was the blatant attack.

Wildwing bowed his head, his heart heavy. “Little broth—I can’t change what I did.”

“Atmosphere Transport 898 for Karyia, final boarding call.” A booming voice called over the loudspeaker, its message besieging the brothers.

Nosedive flinched, but didn’t uncross his arms. Instead, they seem to tighten about his stomach, a dam holding back his emotions. “Looks like you have a date with Destiny. As her if Fate is single for me.”

“Nosedive, this isn’t just hard for you,” Shane interjected, and he actually attained Nosedive’s attention.

“No, you’re right, Shane. It’s so hard on you because you’ll be there, knowing if your brothers are okay. I’ll just have no idea until I read about it in the paper. I can see the headline now, ‘Resistance Strike Force members killed in line of duty.’ ”

“LAST CALL!” The stewardess in the doorway screamed impatiently at the mallards.

“We’ll be there in a minute!” Canard hollered at her. “Can’t you see we’re working stuff out here?”

Wildwing just focused upon Nosedive. “Isn’t there anything else you want to say?”

The teen rolled his eyes, and while the gesture was one of annoyance, fear raged his eyes in the form of pent-up tears. “Have a happy hatching day. If you’re going to die, try not to make it that day, huh? That would suck.”

Wildwing scowled, vexation finally overtaking him. “Look, if this is the way you want it, fine. Great to see you. Maybe I’ll call you when I get back.”

“Maybe?” That got a rise out of Nosedive as he swiveled to glower his brother’s retreating back. “What the hell do you mean by ‘maybe’?”

“Well, if this is it, then maybe this should be it.” Wildwing waved over his shoulder. “Have a great life, little brother. By the way, keep your arm loose when shooting. You slipped back into your bad habit.”

“Hey, you’re the one who forgot about me!” Nosedive shouted through the terminal. “You’re the one who didn’t call!”

“I’m not perfect!” Wildwing slammed his bag to the ground a few feet from the gate door. His ticket waved in his hand, only inches from the stewardess. As she reached for it, he pulled it away, not even noticing her. “I made a mistake, okay? I can’t change that! All I can do is apologize and tell you ‘I love you’ before I go.”

“That’s not good enough!” Nosedive bit, his arms falling to his sides with a slap. “I don’t want the damned letter!”

“There are no guarantees in life! Hell, I didn’t want you fighting Dragaunus, but you still did—against my wishes.”
“At least you were there!”

Wildwing stared, flabbergasted at Nosedive before shaking his head dismally. “I’m sorry. You don’t know how much, but—”

“Just go, Wildwing, or you’ll miss your aircraft.” Nosedive spat scathingly, waving a dismissive hand in the air. He didn’t even meet his brother’s horrified glare. “Call me when you get back, please. The first day, not five later.” His voice was flat.

Wildwing just stared at his brother. He didn’t know what to say, how to make it better. He had always known before. He was able to get Wraith to take off Nosedive’s Stigma. He was able to finally save his brother from Dragaunus’s clutches. Why couldn’t he fix this?

A hand landed on his shoulder. “Come on,” Shane urged softly. “There’s nothing more you can do.”

Wildwing redirected his startled glare, then nodded bleakly. Uttering as he picked up his pack, “Bye, Dive,” he followed Shane and Canard toward the exit. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t, as he handed the flight attendant his ticket.

Standing at the doorway to gate, he said aloofly, “I love you, kiddo.”

He waited for a reply for only a second, and his heart sunk when none came. Head hanging, he disappeared down the hallway to meet his brothers.

*^*^*

As soon as Wildwing disappeared, Nosedive turned his back. His head ducked. His shoulders shook, and he sought solace in his father’s arms when he suddenly couldn’t even stand on his own.

The pain overwhelmed him, crashing down upon him, forcing him to the ground. His father, unable to hold him, fell to his knees, cradling his distraught son as Nosedive clung to him. Resilient tears surged from his squeezed-shut eyes, and gutted sobs choked from his throat.

Wildwing was gone, and at any given time, he could be killed.

And the mere thought was enough to intensify his trembling and the disconsolation gripping his soul.

He sucked in wet, gasping breathes, as his chest tightened, and he familiarized himself with the searing, piercing pain he would have to live with for the next five years—if not the rest of his life.

An abrupt, gripping hand clamped down his shoulder, and suddenly, his father’s hands slipped from around his torso. A second being knelt in front of him, and reticently, Nosedive raised his eyes, blinking back the tears streaming down his face. He noticed with a sniffle that demoralized tears coursed his brother’s face, too, as Wildwing drew him close, holding him very much like his father just had.

“Don’t go,” Nosedive implored of his brother, clinging to him to keep him there. Violent sobs wracked his frame. “Please don’t go.”

“I have to,” Wildwing whispered brokenly, as he rested his beak on Nosedive’s head. “I’m sorry. I really am, and if there was anyway to get Shane and Canard out so we could stay—”

Nosedive stiffened in his embrace, then beseeched, “Please don’t die.” He flinched, as if hit, and sputtering from his beak, “Please…I didn’t mean it. Really—I didn’t—”

“I know.” Wildwing tightened his hold on his brother. “I promised you once I wouldn’t leave you. I’m not going to take that back, little brother.”

Nosedive felt a pang of uneasiness, and though he felt like a little hatchling, he needed to ask, “You promise?”

A loving chuckle sounded from Wildwing, as he trailed a hand through Nosedive’s hair. “I promise.”

Nosedive just clung his brother, knowing he had to let his brother go, but he just couldn’t. Wildwing seemed to understand, moving only to run a hand methodically his hair.

They stayed like that, on the floor, clinging to one another to shelter each other from the backlash that would slam into them the moment Wildwing would be ripped away again.

For the moment, however, they were content to just revel in the warmth of the other and knowledge that each was still alive.

If only for the moment.

THE END