A/N: This fanfiction goes out to one Lizzie Devine, who is abused far too much in this fandom. Personally, I happen to be an ardent Lizzie fan, and although I admittedly have not seen all of the episodes of the show, the only time I have ever really disliked her was in "Operation: R.E.C.E.S.S." But I think everyone has to agree that she acted rather badly in that one.

As well, correct me if I'm wrong, but to the best of my knowledge I believe that this is the first fanfiction on this site to feature Numbuh 101, or at least the first to feature him in a major role.

Operation: T.E.A.R.S.

Traumatic Evening Affects Raging Sorrows

(Writing Operative: The Illustrious Crackpot)

"Luella Rappington," a teacher's voice droned mechanically.

"Here!"

"Vincent Truffles."

"Present!"

"Nigel Uno."

Once again, the query was met with silence.

And again Lizzie Devine tried her hardest to keep from crying.

Nigel's gone, Nigel's missing, Nigel Nigel Nigey...

It was like the instructor had said some magic word to deafen her to the world; after he read that name, she heard absolutely nothing of the lesson. Just like last period, and all the periods of the day before, and all the periods of the day before that.

...why do they have to call roll in EVERY class?...

The first day, she hadn't really noticed—Nigel had always had a tendency to skip school in favor of a mission from his precious Kids Next Door, so she had accepted it with as much dignity as an ex-girlfriend could muster. Besides, his teammates had all been absent as well, further supporting her theory.

The second day she had been mildly irritated. Oh, that Sector V, so wrapped up in their OWN affairs that they couldn't even stop and come to school! Well, weren't THEY all high-and-mighty! Woe to those COMMON FOLK like she who were forced to get a GOOD EDUCATION every once in a while!

...The third day was when she had realized that something was wrong.

Only Nigel's friends had come to school, not Nigel himself. And they had all brought with them a sort of cloud of sadness, something that had immediately put her on guard.

Where IS he? she had wanted to ask—to DEMAND—but had stopped herself. She wasn't his girlfriend anymore, and had no right to pry into his private life. Besides, despite how she acted with them, she knew Nigel's friends had never really liked her.

...No one liked her.

"Nigel Uno."

It was a different voice this time—a woman's, sterner and drier—but the response was the same once more. Nothing.

Lizzie sat, gaze fixed on the spine of the girl in front of her, trying to will herself to remain emotionless. Nigel was gone. Every single roll call in every single class was a stern reminder of that. She didn't know where exactly he could be, or even whether it was temporary or permanent. She could guess, though. And, the same as she had since the day she'd realized it, she tried to steel herself against the probability that she would never see Nigel again.

Unbiddenly, she sniffled, and the lecture dissolved into nothingness like all the others.

Breaking up with her Nigey had to have been the most painful thing she had ever done, to herself or to anybody else. Even if she'd always had a hard time showing it, she loved him. And telling him it was over right after one of the only times he'd EVER professed the same to her had broken her heart in half.

...She'd never been able to comprehend his loyalty to the Kids Next Door. Yes, he said they fought to save kids from adult tyranny, he said they were crusaders for justice, he said they were all trying their hardest to "save the world". He said all these things, and Lizzie heard him...but there had always been a little part missing in between. "Saving the world" was something too big for Lizzie to comprehend. "The world" was just too big a place, filled with too many people; try as she might, the young girl was unable to comprehend even the size of the world itself, not to mention the thought that any one person or organization could "save it all". And from what, anyways? ADULTS? That was ironic in and of itself—kids grew up and became adults. The adults' constant, bullyish prosecution of children was nearly juvenile, and the kids' sophisticated methods of striking back were nearly grown-up. Both sides were fighting flawed reflections of themselves, and, as the cycle of life continued with more kids growing up and more grown-ups having kids, the fight could never end.

She could never understand the Kids Next Door. So how could she possibly concede to it? "Oh, yes, Nigey, you go off and play with your little international group of friends. What? This date I've been planning for weeks and weeks? Oh, NO, you go ahead, I'll just sit here and enjoy it by myself!" It was PREPOSTEROUS! She had been Nigel's "friend" just as much as his fellow operatives had! How many times had she actually saved his life? She'd foiled a plot by the Delightful Children with her camera, her soup had cured his cold on a day when he'd needed his full strength to fight—heck, on the day she'd broken up with him, she'd saved him from his own TREEHOUSE! And he repaid her by skipping out on dates, hanging out with other girls, abandoning her to be with his "other friends"!...

Lizzie wanted to be mad at him. She wanted to tear his memory out of her head and stomp on it with fervor, to befoul his name, to feel good and superior that she was at last rid of such a conniving little snake-in-the—

...She wanted anything but to feel that empty hole in space where Nigel Uno had once been.

The next time her head jerked up, Lizzie was alone in the classroom. She hadn't even heard the lunch bell, and nobody, not even the teacher, had bothered to tell her what time it was.

But it didn't really matter, anyways. With only the slightest of sighs, she reached under her desk and pulled out a small plastic lunchbox, unwrapping her food in her lap. Why bother going into the cafeteria? She'd still be alone.

She'd always been alone.

It wouldn't have taken too much brains for her to realize that she intimidated people—"If I want something, I go out and I get it!" she used to declare proudly, and she always "got out and got it" with a single-minded, almost frightening, determination. Of course THAT put a lot of people off. She also had a tendency to tell people exactly what she thought of them, regardless of manners or tact, and often rather loudly. "I'm bold," she used to say, "and I'm not going to lie to someone about how I feel."

...And there was her size. She'd grown, well, used to remarks about her weight, and still thought it unnecessarily stupid (and cruel) for people to single out a physical trait like that. "I like to eat good food, no matter what happens afterwards. Besides, it's not the OUTSIDE of a person that counts anyways." But people were shallow and stupid and cruel by nature, and still she continued to hear those remarks behind her back, and still she was alienated and alone.

Lizzie's parents were almost always busy, her mother with some real estate deal or her father with that novel he was constantly trying to write. In the past, they had been able to set aside days to spend with their only daughter, to see a movie, to go out and play, to...well, to anything. But for the past few years—Lizzie wasn't entirely sure what it was. Maybe money was getting tight, or her father was getting more desperate, or maybe maybe maybe. But the last time she could remember the three of them being together as a family had been one night when her mother had been sick and her father had had to play the nursemaid.

...Nigel had been her everything. He was the first...he was the only one who could look beyond her faults—no, not EVEN that! He was the first and only person who had accepted her, faults and all! Had even liked her!

All right, so ex-President Jimmy had liked her too. But that had been different; he'd liked her because he'd wanted to own her. Nigel had liked her because of her.

The only person who'd ever liked her the way she was.

And now he was gone.

And now he was gone...

The rest of the day passed by in silence, laying no judgment on her as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and headed numbly home.

NigelIsGoneNigelIsGoneNigelIsGoneNigelIsGone.

The words drummed against her forehead, sinking further in with every successive beat.

NigelIsGoneNigelIsGoneNigelIsGone.

After the long, excruciating wait, the shock was finally setting in. Nigel was GONE. Never again would she see his face, hear his voice, watch his face light up when he laughed. Never again would she witness that peculiar way he held a spoon when he ate, the way his hand would rub the side of his face when he was thinking, the way he could give a single look and send his audience reeling.

Never again would she feel the warm press of his palm against hers, the swaying of his shoulders as he danced...

The day his teammates had returned to school, that Abby girl had had his sunglasses perched atop her hat. That was enough to make it "never".

When Lizzie awoke, she was at her front door with no recollection of how she'd gotten there. Her cheeks were dry, to her surprise—she thought she remembered crying.

A hiccup, a sniffle, a whimper. And yet she didn't shed a tear.

...Somehow, it hurt more that way.

After a bit of distracted jangling with her keys and a couple of missed passes at the knob, she flung the door open and stepped inside. A hot shower, Lizzie decided firmly, dropping her backpack to the ground and rubbing almost guiltily at her dry eyes. And maybe a good book, or a cup of—

She didn't even get that far when she heard a loud knock on the door.

Lizzie paused.

Thunk.

There it was again.

How was that possible? Granted, she'd been extremely distracted and hadn't noticed whether there'd been anyone else on the street or not, but...to be at the door that quickly after she'd gotten in, the person would have had to be RIGHT BEHIND HER. And Lizzie was sure that she would have noticed THAT.

Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk thunk.

For anyone to start knocking that fast, they'd have to have been hiding in the bushes lined up next to the door...

THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK—

"I'm COMING!!" Lizzie shouted in exasperation, fumbling with the doorknob again. She was nervous, but she was LIZZIE DEVINE! She could take on ANYTHING!

Cautiously, she opened the door a crack.

A boy was standing on the doorstep, grinning pleasantly. He looked to be around her age, with a long purple overcoat dragging past his ankles and a thin yellow tie wound clumsily around his neck. ...And, yes, those were leaves stuck in his hair.

"Whaddaya want?" Lizzie growled suspiciously, unable to hold back another sniffle.

The boy jumped as he spotted her, and he juggled the clipboard he held in his left hand. The pin on his lapel read "KND".

"AH!" he exclaimed, nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He checked the clipboard, looked at her, checked the clipboard again. "Would you happen to be one LIZZIE DEVINE? I mean, I already know what you look like, but I just wanna make sure you're REALLY her and not just some kinda freaky robot CLONE or—"

Lizzie stayed where she was. "Yeah, that's me," she interjected shortly. "What's it to ya?"

The boy coughed, a noise that was either disdainful or indicative that he was about to embark on a long-memorized speech. "Well, I am Kids Next Door Operative numbuh One-Oh-One, and I happen to be the OFFICIAL"—he straightened up, puffed out his chest proudly, and spoke in an impressively deep tone of voice—"KIDS NEXT DOOR: I.N.T.E.R.R.O.G.A.T.O.R."—the next part he recited rapidly—"Interviewer (Nosy) Tries Everything Required, Rather Obsessively Gathering Anything Truthful Or Relevant"—and then he returned to his normal tones—"for this assignment." Numbuh 101 let out a deep breath, his smile wider than before, and he leaned forwards as if imparting an important and self-fulfilling secret. "Numbuh Three-Sixty-Two put me on this mission HERSELF 'cus she knew how much I wanted it. And besides, I just HADDDD to get outta the museum for THIS."

"...Mm-hmm." Lizzie was losing her patience. As well, her composure was slipping, and she was afraid that if she stood there for much longer, all the day's stress (all the WEEK'S stress, all her LIFE'S stress) would send her collapsing, weak-kneed, on the landing.

Which was NOT something she wanted to do with that weird BOY standing there.

Numbuh 101 coughed again, and one hand went plunging into his coat pocket, rustling among what sounded like a lot of useless items. "Just a sec, just a sec," he assured her, and continued digging for nearly half a minute before he finally extracted a thick red crayon, poising it expectantly over his clipboard. "OKAY. Now, unless I miss my guess—which is REALLY not that likely, considering I...anyways, you are none other than the former girlfriend of Nigel U—"

SLAM!

It was a moment or two before Lizzie was able to slow down her pounding heart and breathe normally again, though she still had to lean heavily against the door for support. NigelNigelNigel...

It was hard enough coping on her own. She didn't NEED some snotty brat showing up and shoving the whole matter into her face like some—

THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK!!

He was banging even harder this time, sounding as persistent as his acronym had stated.

"LIZZIE! LIZZIE DEVINE!! NUMBUH ONE'S OLD GIRLFRIEND!" Numbuh 101 shouted doggedly, voice muffled only slightly through the wood. "HEY! LEMME IN! CUH'MONNNNNNNNNNN, I JUST NEED TA' ASK YOU A COUPLA' DOZEN QUESTIONS!!"

"NOT A CHANCE, BUSTER!" Lizzie shouted back, pressing firmly against the door to make sure it didn't open, then violently twisted the latch above the knob. It locked with a satisfying click.

"HEYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

The pounding came even more heavily, but Lizzie gave the door a swift hard kick, which landed like a thunderclap.

The outside noises stopped.

"Lousy Kids Next Door..." She sniffled, rubbed her eyes again, but still no tears would fall. "Stupid dumb kids, not caring, just want to...want to torture me, and all this STUFF...Why can't they just...just..."

Silence.

At length, her feet dragged her into the kitchen, where she threw herself into the nearest chair she could find. With a short, whistling sigh, Lizzie slumped backwards, letting her head dangle over the back of the chair. ...She needed something to drink.

Within seconds she shot straight up. TEA! Tea always helped calm her down, and cheer her up, and make her feel better, and—

...The Boston Tea Party was a turning point in the American Revolution, because it was one of the first times the American colonists had revolted outright against the ridiculous laws of their oppressors, the British. The British liked tea. Nigel was British. He'd moved from England at the age of—

Lizzie shook her head violently, rubbing her dry eyes again, sniffling. She couldn't drink tea.

Hot chocolate, then! That was warm and sweet and calming and soothing and one of her favorite things to—

...Hot chocolate is most often served in the wintertime. It snows in the wintertime. Kids don't go to school when there's too much snow. Except when President Jimmy sends out troops to collect the kids, and Nigel has to go out and—

She sniffled.

"Hey!"

She blinked.

There, at the open window, was Numbuh 101. He was peering in through the inch of empty space between the sill and the windowframe, and still he was smiling broadly, even after the unceremonious brush-off he'd just received.

"No need to apologize about accidentally shutting the door in my face," he consoled breezily, brushing a few stray locks of red hair out of his eyes. "It's no biggie—I mean, that kinda stuff happens to me ALL the time, and I mean allllllllll the time. Y'know?" Bringing the crayon up to his mouth, he wetted it slightly with his tongue, and held it over his clipboard again. "Okay, ANYHOW. Do you happen to have any idea where Numbuh One is now?"

Lizzie pushed herself out of her chair, crossed the room, and yanked the window shut.

As she left the kitchen, she could hear a subtle but impatient buzzing noise that was most likely Numbuh 101 trying to point out the fact that she was "accidentally" ignoring him again. But she didn't pay any attention, instead smoothing down her skirt and trying desperately to find some thought to fix on that didn't have anything to do with Nigel. Her Nigey.

Homework. She still had homework to do. She could do that. She'd never done HOMEWORK with Nigel.

Her backpack was next to the door. Her homework was in her backpack.

She just had to take ten nice steps over to her backpack, and she could pick it up, and take out her folder, and take her homework out of her folder, and—

Suddenly the flap over the mail slot swung up and a small sliver of the boy's face appeared through the gap.

"Y'know," he complained, teetering delicately on a nasal whine, "you're not making this very easy for me."

Lizzie bent down, and her eyes met his, and she glowered dully at him. "Bite me."

She jabbed at his glasses with a pencil—the eraser end pointing out, by coincidence more than anything else—which startled him, and he dropped the flap. So Lizzie trudged away into the living room, dragging her backpack behind her and blocking out the increasingly more childish insults being hurled at her through the mail slot.

Lizzie was suffering. She didn't need to take any more junk from anyone else...

She had barely even started her math worksheet when the stream of barbs suddenly trickled out, and all became quiet. Lizzie allowed herself a small, triumphant (yet still anguished) smile at this and turned to her fractions with new relish...but then Numbuh 101 called out again.

"Are ya gonna let me in or not?"

She gritted her teeth, and almost snapped her textbook shut. "What do YOU think?!" she barked in reply.

Another pause. Then:

"...Y'know, I might just have to use my PRESS PASS."

Lizzie almost snorted aloud. "A press pass??" Now she couldn't help it—she burst out laughing. "What, you think I'm gonna let you in just 'cus you're a JOURNALIST?"

She laughed and laughed, the first time she'd done so since she'd officially become single again. Had she remembered that minor point, she would have stopped laughing; but because she was laughing so hard, she heard absolutely nothing else...

Until the door exploded.

When she heard it, Lizzie sat up with a gasp, whirling around in her seat to gawk at the—at what had been her front door. It was nothing more than a pile of rubble, with Numbuh 101 standing victoriously on the outside step.

"KIDS NEXT DOOR: P.R.E.S.S.-P.A.S.S.," he recited smugly, patting a rectangular device attached, shield-like, to his right arm. There was a spring-loaded boxing glove on the end of it, which was caked with splinters from Lizzie's precious door. "Persons Resisting Entry Surrender Swiftly, Permitting Access (Simon Says)."

Lizzie gaped.

"My door..."

Nonchalantly flicking a few specks of plaster off the sleeve of his jacket, Numbuh 101 strode into the front hallway, an odd swagger in his step. "NOW THEN." He flipped the clipboard out of his left hand, twirling it around like a gun in an old-time Western flick, and beamed expectantly at Lizzie. "NOWWWWWW do ya wanna answer some questions?"

Nigel had never harmed her house but he HAD caused destruction like that to school property and public property and he'd used that same kind of Kids Next Door technology and he'd been a Kids Next Door operative just like this boy—

"First things first. Do you know where Numbuh One—I mean, Nigel Uno—I mean, do you know where he is now? Normally I'd start by asking Sector V, but THEY all said they couldn't tell, so I thought maybe his OLD GIRLFRIEND could give me some information—"

—she'd broken up with Nigel just a week before he'd vanished she'd been so stupid and selfish maybe it was HER fault he was gone oh she missed him oh she MISSED HIM—

"—or, if you don't know where he is, maybe you can tell me WHY he's gone. 'Cus, I mean, you probably knew him the best of like almost ANYONE, and if he told ANYONE he'd probably tell you—"

—NIGEL'S GONE NIGEL'S GONE MAYBE DEAD MAYBE ANYTHING AND THIS STUPID BOY THINKS THAT SHE KNOWS WHERE HE IS HE THINKS NIGEL WOULD HAVE TOLD HER—

"...Hey, are you all right? I—I mean, I'm sorry about your door, but if you'd just let me talk to ya in the FIRST place—"

A lone tear trickled down the length of Lizzie's face and splashed against her foot.

And then she sobbed as she had never sobbed before.

Lizzie was not the crying type—she'd sooner break someone's arm than start crying—but she collapsed to her knees, pigtails dangling awkwardly off her shoulders, and bawled. She bawled and bawled, back heaving, nose dripping, hands shoving her glasses onto her forehead before she drove the heels of her palms into her eyes in an attempt to stop the flow.

She hadn't cried when she'd broken up with Nigel.

She hadn't cried when Nigel had failed to come back to school.

She hadn't cried when she'd first realized that something was terribly, HORRIBLY wrong.

But now she was crying for all those times and more. She was crying for the skinned knee she'd gotten in preschool, for the test she'd failed the year before, for the nasty remarks that followed her everywhere, for the empty house she always came home to, for everything that had ever happened to her that she had never cried for.

And she cried for Nigel.

"...Uh...um..." Numbuh 101 cleared his throat awkwardly from somewhere above her, and she could hear his shoes scuffing the floor. "W-well..."

...Suddenly, there was a hand on her back.

For a moment, it wasn't quite on her back—just hovering hesitantly above it, though she could feel the tingle of skin even through her T-shirt. Then it patted her tentatively, not quite sure if what it was doing would have much impact, but trying its best anyways.

The tremors subsided, the sobs became quieter, and Lizzie slowly took her hands from her face. Just that one hand on her back, that one hand moving jerkily and embarrassedly...

"...L-look," the redheaded boy began uncertainly, shuffling to a kneel just beside her, "I'm..." A sigh. "This mission I'm on, it's..." Another sigh, and he shook his head, and he began again. "Don't worry about Numbuh One. I'm sure he's fine, honest. ...I've been assigned to find out where he disappeared to. And, if I can, I'm going to bring him back."

Lizzie shook her head—slowly and in small motions, but firmly, with an undefinable certainty behind it. "...He's not coming back."

They sat in silence for a long while, broken only by the last remaining hiccups of Lizzie's grief and the shifting of Numbuh 101's feet as he subtly eased his aching legs out of the crouch.

"...Listen."

The quiet word caught her attention immediately, though not as much as the sudden removal of the boy's hand.

"Numbuh One...he's always been kinda special to me. My 'hero', I guess. A'—a'course, since Sector V is the best Sector there's been in this entire era of the Kids Next Door, and—and I should know, since I'm the designated historian, an' I know everything there is to know about the KND." He took in a deep, shuddering breath, and with a furtive movement of that hand Lizzie was suddenly aware that he was crying. "But...Numbuh One was my hero before he became the best. I was there when he was in basic training—I'd just signed up for the Kids Next Door myself. And...and watching him train like that...sparring against Numbuh 274...sparring against Chad D-Dickson, one a' the best operatives of that time..." A hiccup, and another swipe of the hand, though Numbuh 101 kept the tears out of his voice as best he could. "No matter what happened, he never gave up. N-never. So th-that's what I'm doing. I don't CARE if it seems like he's never comin' back, I'm lookin' for him anyways. And...an' even though I...the fact that he's gone makes me..."

Numbuh 101 trailed off, wiping his nose on his sleeve. He couldn't communicate it. He couldn't put it all into words.

"...you gotta keep going," Lizzie finished softly, fists clenching in her lap. Because she knew Nigel, had known him for so long, she knew what it was that this boy was unable to say. She could feel it, could sense it, just as she had when Nigel Uno had first extended his hand to her and introduced himself. "'Cus...sometimes that's all you can do."

The room was quiet a moment longer, though all tears had been exhausted. Then, with a groaning sort of sigh and another surreptitious rub at his eyes, Numbuh 101 rose to his feet.

"...I'm gonna go look for Numbuh Zero—M-Monty Uno," he muttered, straightening his necktie. "Even though there're rumors that he and Numbuh One's mom have gone back to England, I heard that the two of 'em were there when he left. Maybe...maybe, even without the Recommissioning Module, they can tell me something."

Lizzie remained seated, head bowed and eyes centered on the floor. "...Well, good luck."

"And don't worry about the door. I'll call Moonbase and have 'em send a team to fix it."

"Yeah."

Then, with a squeaking of oversized sneakers, he was already trotting over the threshold and down the walkway towards the street. And he was almost farther, out of reach, out of earshot—

"Wait! ...Numbuh One-Oh-One!"

He stopped, head half-turned back. Lizzie's fingers curled around the chipped doorframe, though she wasn't aware of having even gotten to her feet.

"...Thanks."

Thanks for coming over. Thanks for understanding. Thanks for comforting me. Thanks for helping. Thanks for being here.

Phrases like those passed silently between the two numb statues, and Numbuh 101 nodded slightly before turning again.

"Call me 'Matt'."

...She stood there for a long time after he had vanished, looking out at something and nothing all at once. Maybe she was looking at Nigel, wherever he was. Maybe she was looking at the past so far out of reach.

Or, maybe, for the first time in so many days, her gaze had finally returned to the present.

...I'm not alone.

The pain was still there, yes—she wasn't sure if it would ever go away. That hole in her life wasn't something that could be patched up in a moment, and, even if she knew how to fix it, she wasn't sure she wanted to risk destroying that precious part of her nostalgic tapestry.

She still felt the pain. But she could deal with it, as long as she wasn't alone.

Matt.

Thank you.

Fin