Sara
A Darkwing Duck Fanfic
By E. Grimes
Disclaimer: Dr. Sara Bellum and all Darkwing Duck
characters are Disney's. The rest of 'em
are mine. Please don't use them or any of this writing without my
permission. Capisce, babe?
Note about the dating: this
story is set in the early 1990's, about the time of the Darkwing
Duck series or afterwards. Sara was likely
in her mid to late thirties at the time, so the
date of her birth is placed in the late 1950's, her father being
a Korean War veteran.
Thanks to my kind reviewers...you give me one more reason to face the world every morning!
Chapter II:
Gone...But Never Forgotten
"All right, Darkwing," sighed
Hooter as a sullen and very embarrassed Darkwing sat down in the
director's office. "What was going on in there?"
"Dr. Bellum almost killed me again," Darkwing grumbled, "as you can see from the way I look!"
"I'm quite sure killing you wasn't her intention," Hooter said patiently.
"Well, no...but doesn't she test her inventions before trying them out on me?"
"Always. And sometimes, they work very well."
"Not this time," the duck muttered darkly.
"But that's hardly Dr. Bellum's fault,
is it?" Hooter insisted. "She tries her best to improve
our weapons;
and in fact she's been successful a great many times. However,
people do make mistakes, Darkwing---
you in particular should know that, if you don't mind
my saying so."
As a matter of fact, Darkwing did
mind Hooter's saying so; but unfortunately, the
director had made
a valid point.
"Dr. Bellum's been working with us for
several years now," J. Gander went on. "Longer than
you,
in fact. Much of what has made her a valuable asset to SHUSH is
her loyalty to us---her dedication
to her work, and to our cause for justice." He adjusted his
spectacles, and his voice became grave
as he continued. "And I might add, Dr. Bellum has a certain
history with us..."
His speech was interrupted by a dispatch from one of SHUSH's operatives.
"Report of suspicious activities at
a chemical plant outside of St. Canard. Perpetrators not as yet
fully identified, but may possibly be FOWL agents. Immediate
action requested..."
"Very well. I'll send help right away," replied Hooter.
"You mean you'll send me!"
put in Darkwing, suddenly perking up---not to
mention, he was anxious
to get away from Hooter's lecturing. "I'll
handle this one, J. Gander---no sense endangering any of
your men!"
But as he ran for the door, he was stopped in his tracks by J. Gander's voice.
"Now just a minute, Darkwing!"
Hooter protested. The hero was startled, yet apparently used to
the
tone; and he turned back to J. Gander with a can we
get this over with? look on his face.
"Don't think that our discussion is
over, Darkwing," the director said sternly. "We'll be
speaking of this
further when you get back."
Darkwing sighed and rolled his eyes
impatiently. "Okay, okay...whatever you say, Chief." He
gave a
half-hearted salute and went out the door as quickly as he could.
"I mean it," Hooter muttered after
him. Then pressing a button on his intercom, he announced:
"Attention, Dr. Bellum? Please report to my office as soon
as possible..."
Boy, I really ticked the old guy off
this time, Darkwing thought moodily as he walked
quickly away
from Hooter's office. He was grateful Launchpad had gone to wait
for him in the Thunderquack---he
didn't need any more I-told-you-so's at this point.
Suddenly, he caught sight of Dr. Bellum
coming down the hall. She looked very tired and discouraged;
her eyes were downcast and her shoulders stooped in a defeated
posture. Darkwing gulped---he knew
it was his fault. Maybe if he tried to talk to her...
"Uh...hey..." he croaked, raising
his hand in a sickly attempt at a wave as she passed by him.
But Sara didn't look up or even glance at him, and his heart sank.
Hadn't she seen him? Perhaps she had,
and was just ignoring him. Yeah, that was it. Not that he could
blame her after the way he'd talked to her...
He felt he should say something, anything,
to let her know he really hadn't meant to hurt her. But the
words stuck in his throat---whether it was his ego or he just
felt too ashamed, he wasn't sure. All he
could do was stand there and watch her until she disappeared
behind the door of J. Gander's office.
"Haw, boy," sighed the caped
mallard as he walked away. Little did he know that his troubles
weren't
over yet...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Are you quite all right, Sara?"
Hooter asked kindly. He addressed the SHUSH scientist mainly as
'Dr.
Bellum' when they were working; but otherwise he also called her
by her first name. They had known
each other long enough that formality was a mere option. It was
quite different with the other agents,
notably the protocol-loving Gryzlikoff.
Dr. Bellum sighed wearily, a bit embarrassed.
"Oh, yes...you shouldn't fuss over me, James. Things
just got out of sorts over at the lab, that's all."
"You mean Darkwing
got out of sorts," Hooter replied with a stiff smile as he
poured Sara a cup
of tea. "We should all be used to his little tantrums by now."
"His tantrums aren't always so
'little'," Dr. Bellum said rather irritably, "and he
acted like an absolute
jackass this time. Did you hear what he said to me??"
"All too clearly," Hooter had to
admit. "It was most dreadful, I dare say. He's far from
tactful; but I've
never heard him speak so harshly to you before. I would have
reprimanded him for it, but he ran out
to his assignment before I got that far with him."
"But how could he say such terrible
things?" Sara blurted, the hurt obvious in her voice. "Doesn't
he understand how much I care about his job? Why does he think I
work my tailfeathers off to
perfect all our weapons? Of course," she added quickly,
blushing a little, "I'm doing it for SHUSH
too, James..."
The director smiled a little---Dr. Bellum's
feelings about Darkwing weren't as much a secret as
she wanted to believe. "Well," he explained, "he's
really not himself right now...he's had a very
difficult week. Rather like you have, Sara..."
Sara stared down into her cup; she nodded
somberly and her eyes suddenly looked misty, but
she waved a polite refusal when the director handed her a box of
tissues.
"Thank you, James...but I guess I'm too old to cry," she responded sadly.
"We can be too old for a lot of things,
my dear," Hooter reminded her gently, "but we can never
be too old to cry."
Dr. Bellum looked up at these words, and
gazed pensively at the director. "I remember you saying
something like that...a long time ago," she said in a soft
voice.
It was J. Gander's turn to look sad. "Yes,"
he answered, "I did, didn't I?" He glanced down at his
desk, his thoughts his own. "Fifteen years to this very day,
in fact...I miss him too, Sara. Cyrus
was one of our finest agents; but more importantly, he was my
best friend."
"Will we ever find the man who killed him?" Sara asked, her voice halting a little.
"We have to," Hooter said grimly.
"And that is one reason---one of many
reasons---that we must
never give up. And why you must never give
up, Sara, even when circumstances demand otherwise.
You know what you mean to us...and how much we all count on you."
Dr. Bellum smiled---now she really
felt like crying. "Thank you," she stammered. Gulping
down her
tea, she rose quickly. "Well," she sighed, "back
to work. I have a raygun to repair..."
"You'll get it right, Dr. Bellum---don't
worry," Hooter assured her, as he heartily shook her hand.
He
watched her as she walked back to her lab, her head a little
higher and her face a little more hopeful
now.
But no sooner had Sara left than the
director heard some angry male voices out in one of the corridors.
It was far too obvious who they belonged to; casting a martyred
glance up at the ceiling, J. Gander set
off to deal with the latest crisis.
~~~~~~~~
Darkwing had been running to the exit when
he slammed into what felt like a brick wall. The 'wall'
turned out be made of dark purple suiting and brown fur, and had
a Russian accent...a very angry
one, for that matter. The duck glared up painfully to find,
plainly, that Gryzlikoff had stepped
out in front of him.
"What???" snapped Darkwing, as he glowered up into the enraged bear's face.
"Vat rright you haf, talking to Doktor
Ballum like zat, eediot duck??" demanded the Russian agent,
poking
a large finger into Darkwing's chest. "Vy you zay zuch
ter'rible sings to her? You hurt her. You make her
crry!"
"Look, I'm sorry, okay?? Now park it
over, Gryz---I'm on assignment right now!" Darkwing started
to push
past Gryzlikoff, but a huge hairy paw grabbed the drake by the
neck and slammed him up against the wall.
"You zay to her you zorrry!!!" Gryzlikoff ordered. "You zay to her face!"
"Listen up, you big fat hair ball---I don't have time for this!! I'll apologize to her later---"
"You vill do it now," snarled Gryzlikoff, glaring furiously into the hero's eyes.
"Will you listen
to me??" Darkwing screeched, as he struggled to get loose.
"I'm on duty, for crying
out loud---just lay off, will you??"
"Let him go, Gryzlikoff," Hooter
ordered, as he came upon the scene. "Darkwing is on
assignment.
We'll all settle this matter later on..."
Reluctantly, the agent released his hold.
Darkwing couldn't get out of the exit fast enough, as Gryzlikoff
stood glowering daggers after him.
"Do not forget
vat I tell you!" he warned the duck, who shot him a look
just as he ran out to the
Thunderquack---to find that Launchpad had been gawking at the
whole incident. As Darkwing
climbed aboard, he held up a warning finger at his sidekick.
"Not one word," he said between his teeth. The pilot nodded meekly and took off.
After they were gone, it was Gryzlikoff's
turn to look meek---if one could call it that---as he
looked down at the director's disapproving glance.
"Iz zorrry," the Russian agent declared.
"For what you were doing to Darkwing---or
merely for being caught?" Hooter
asked, his
eyebrows raised dubiously.
Gryzlikoff rolled his eyes half-innocently and supressed a chuckle. "Not vant to zay."
"Well, never mind," J. Gander said.
"I believe Dr. Bellum's honour is sufficiently avenged,
Gryzlikoff.
So..." he glanced at his watch. "In keeping with the
situation, and the present date, shall we pay a
visit to the Hall of Remembrance?"
Gryzlikoff sobered up at these words, and
nodded heartily. "Da! I had been
sinking to go zere...
is better ve go togezer. Vill Doktor Ballum come vit' us alzo?"
Hooter wasn't so sure. "I think she
would rather spend time there alone," he answered. "Such
a
thing would best be private for her..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Hall of Remembrance was SHUSH's memorial
to its fallen agents. Inspired by other such
memorials as Arlington in Washington and Yad Vashem in Israel,
the Hall was fairly large and
well-decorated. Like the garden, the Hall was a stark contrast to
SHUSH headquarters proper.
The organization's basic colour scheme of dark purple made up
much of the decor, but black
and other simple colours balanced it out. Purple silk draped
black and gold-inlaid marble walls,
on which hung numerous pictures of deceased agents. An eternal
flame, set inside a marble slab
in the middle of the Hall, burned night and day.
Behind the eternal flame stood a monument of polished granite, bearing these words:
In Grateful Memory of
the Men and Women of SHUSH
Who Bravely Gave Their Lives
To the Cause of World Peace.
They Are Gone...
But Never Forgotten
No anniversary of an agent's
passing was neglected; his or her picture was decorated with
flowers
and white ribbons on that date each year, and candles were lit.
Memorial Day was most solemnly
observed, with classical music and playing of 'Taps'; and the
names of all deceased agents sounded
out like a ghostly roll-call. (There was, in fact, a private
SHUSH legend that, late at night, their
spirits roamed the Hall and the headquarters itself---as if still
awaiting the call to duty.)
Few of the agents had died
natural deaths. Most of them had fallen at the hands of FOWL, or
were
killed by foreign terrorists or such criminals as Negaduck.
Occassionally an agent was lucky enough
to live to old age, yet was still posthumously honoured. The Hall
was rarely locked except for dire
security reasons; otherwise, it was always open for visits both
public and private. It was a place of
special respect and recollection, seeming to carry all the
sanctity of a chapel...this was the place,
rather than the garden, where Agent Gryzlikoff went for
inspiration.
It was in the Hall of Remembrance that Gryzlikoff's rare
sentimentality made itself known. If one
dared to peek, the normally gruff Russian bear could be seen
sniffling and wiping his eyes as he
studied the faces of his fallen comrades, recalling past
assignments with them.
This day would be no exception, the memory of one agent in particular to be held sacred.
The Hall was empty when Hooter
and Gryzlikoff walked in; the other agents would assemble for
a short service in the evening, but the two wanted to pay a
private visit to honour their associate.
And now, Gryzlikoff fought to hold back tears as he and J. Gander
lit memorial candles before
the portrait of a handsome agent in his early forties; he was the
same figure in the photograph
Sara had brought to the garden and kept with her always. A brass
plaque beneath the portrait
read:
AGENT CYRUS J. BELLUM
Killed in the Line of Duty:
November 30, 1977
"We meet again, old
friend," Hooter said in a hushed voice. He and Gryzlikoff
were silent for several
moments.
"Fifteen years," J.
Gander finally went on. "Cyrus and I were friends for nearly
twice that long. He and
I went through all the peril of Korea...only for him to be struck
down by the enemy on our own soil."
He shook his head at the tragic irony of the agent's passing.
"Vy haf ve not found
murderer?" Gryzlikoff asked brokenly. "Ve brrought zo
many eefil peoples to
chustice...yet ve cannot find zat man who keel Agent Ballum...iz
not rright, J. Gahnder..."
"No. It isn't,"
Hooter said with some bitterness. "It's one of the cases
that SHUSH has failed so
long to solve---and one that has haunted Sara most of all: her
own father's murder."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back in the lab, Dr. Bellum was tinkering
around with the Bio-Duplicator---being careful, of course,
to make sure its power was disabled. But she had no heart for her
work at the moment, and finally
sat down with a heavy sigh.
"Why do I even bother?" she asked
herself miserably. Yet deep down, she knew the reason---
the real reason that had driven her to work so hard for SHUSH all
those years.
She glanced at the clock---3:15 pm. At 5 o'
clock all the staff of SHUSH would assemble at the
Hall of Remembrance, to hold a special service for the late Agent
Cyrus Bellum. Sara was unsure
whether to be a part of it; as Hooter had guessed, the scientist
felt she would rather honour her
father in private.
Fifteen years ago. It seemed like a dream now---a
nightmare, to be precise. It was the years
before that were the dream; the happy but too short life Sara had
known with her father---
before one terrible night that would change her life forever...
End Chapter II