Once upon a time (about four months ago) I wrote my first fanfiction called "Roots". It was a story about how each of the operatives came to join the Kids Next Door. Now, nine stories later, I'm writing about what happened to them after they left the KND in celebration of my tenth fic. Enjoy!

And FYI, I made the characters a little younger than they were in the interviews portion of the series finale.

Disclaimer: Being an evil teenager, I'm incapable of being awesomely immature enough to come up with Codename: Kids Next Door

The doors slid open, and a thirty-year-old man stepped into the Kids Next Door Moon Base for the first time in years. He marveled at how much lower the ceilings and more narrow the rooms were than what he remembered.

The man still wasn't used to being a man in the first place. Back where he had come from, time passed much more slowly. Only about three years in their terms had gone by during his stay, but here it had been much, much longer. However, the closer he got to the Moon Base, the faster the years that he had missed began catching up with him. In the span of a few weeks, he had aged nearly twenty years.

In walked a child, a spaghetti strainer upon his head and a baseball catcher's safety equipment across his chest. Duct tape spelled out the number 150 on the gear.

"Numbuh 1, I presume?" he asked.

The man shook his head. "It's just Nigel now."

That's when the truth of his words hit him. He was no longer a Kids Next Door operative.

Numbuh 150 bowed his head. "Of course. Follow me, Nigel. Your friends are waiting for you."

Friends. Whether it be three years or twenty, it had been far too long since he had last seen them.

As Numbuh 150 led Nigel through a labyrinth of halls, the kids that they passed whispered to each other, pointing out the bald man. He had only recently learned that he was something of a legend nowadays, the KND's best agent who abruptly disappeared without a trace.

Numbuh 150 finally halted before a door. "Good luck," he said, and with a final nod of respect he was gone.

As nervous as Nigel was, he did not hesitate to pull the door open and enter the room. Waiting for him were four adults conversing amongst themselves, but they all instantly turned their heads upon arrival of the newcomer.

Older, yes. Taller, yes. Updated looks, yes. But without a doubt he recognized each of the faces of Abby, Wally, Kuki, and Hoagie staring straight back at him.

One moment, the five just looked at one another in disbelief. The next, they were all tangled up with each other in a huge group hug. Through the delirious laughs and hysterical tears, only one thing was certain.

Sector V was whole once again.

~0~0~0~0~0~

After the recently reunited group returned to Earth, they all gathered around Wally's kitchen table to catch up.

Nigel asked his teammates about various people from their childhood, such as Fanny (became, of all things, a politician), Tommy (joined the CIA under the alias 'Numbuh T'), Joey (entering his third year of college), and even Lizzie (married former class president Jimmy Nixon McGarfield two years ago).

The others, in turn, fired question after question about the Galactic KND. Nigel told them of all the different forms of alien life he met, all the odd customs of the galaxy he had been stationed in, and all the exciting adventures he went on in his quest to cure adulthood.

He was right in the middle of telling the story of how he and his friend Hal Soda and Princess L'ena defeated the evil Dark Valor when he noticed a small child standing in the doorway.

The girl couldn't have been more than four years old. With her blonde locks and short stature, she had to be Wally's kid.

So it came as quite a surprise to him when Kuki stood up and approached the girl. "What's the matter, Sydney?"

"I has a nightware," the preschooler said, lower lip trembling.

"Well, it's all over now," Kuki said comfortingly. "What can we do to help you get back to sleep?"

The little girl's face immediately brightened. "Can Daddy sing his special song?"

Kuki looked directly at Wally, silently pleading for him to grant the child's request.

"Alright, sweetie," the man sighed. He picked up his daughter, careful not to squish the Rainbow Monkey clutched in her arms, and disappeared around the corner. After a moment, those still seated at the table could faintly hear the tune of "Na, na, na, na, puttin' my kid to bed, yeah!"

It wasn't until then that the pieces began putting themselves together in Nigel's head. Of course he, along with the rest of the planet, knew that this was going to happen eventually. But the fact that the day had indeed come left him completely floored.

"You... and Wally?"

Kuki, now back at the kitchen table again, was quickly turned a shade of bright pink. "Seven years," she told him, fingering the wedding ring Nigel had failed to notice before.

For some reason, this greatly angered Nigel.

Voice layered with sarcasm, he said "So what next?" He gestured toward Hoagie and Abby. "Are you gonna tell me that these guys are married, too?"

Hoagie whistled innocently. Abby pulled her hat over her eyes.

Nigel's eyes widened at the thought that he had actually guessed correctly. "No way..."

Kuki gave a huff in annoyance. "They got together before Wally had even worked up the courage to tell me how he felt!"

Abby smirked. This was clearly an old joke between them. "That's right." She thrust out her hand, where her own set of rings glistened on her finger. "Ten years, baby!"

"Why the crud are you so worked up anyway?" Wally asked as he rejoined the group. "You should be happy for us, mate."

Nigel sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just that you guys were all moving on and taking these big steps in life, and I had to miss that."

The other four exchanged glances with one another before looking back at Nigel, each with a look of incredulity on their face.

"Did you even hear yourself when you were going on about the GKND?" Hoagie asked. "We were stuck here living average lives while you got to do things that were, well, out of this world!"

That earned him a slap from his wife, but Nigel actually chuckled lightly. Oh, how he had missed those lame jokes.

"Not to mention that you got to spend an extra seventeen years as a kid," Abby added. "You were living every Kids Next Door operative's dream!"

Palms flat on the table, Nigel leaned in close. "Believe me when I say that I would've given all that up to spend one more day with you guys."

The entire room fell dead silent.

Having achieved the desired effect, Nigel changed the subject. "So fill me in on the details. I don't want to miss a thing."

Thus the others began telling Nigel everything that occurred since he left. Abby and Hoagie grew even closer over the years and began to date at sixteen, marrying four years later. Wally had procrastinated until the last possible moment to ask Kuki out, the night of their graduation. Always afraid of a relationship, it wasn't until five years after that they wed.

Then there were the kids. Hoagie and Abby's youngest daughter CJ, being only a year younger than Sydney, was her best friend, and the two could never be parted. Meanwhile, their eight-year-old son Dimitri, seven-year-old daughter Annie, and Wally and Kuki's son Lee of the same age were now the new Sector V of the Kids Next Door. Lee was a bit quiet and introverted, but also the most vicious fighter out of the three when provoked. Dimitri was calm and laid back, but also extremely lazy. This was why his sister Annie, despite being a year younger, was head of the Sector. Intelligent and ambitious, it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if she became Sector Leader in a few years.

This last part of the conversation sparked something in Nigel's mind. "Speaking of which, how's Rachel been?"

His friends went quiet once again, each giving nervous glimpses to the others.

"She became... different," Kuki said at last.

Nigel's brow furrowed. "How so?"

Kuki bit her lip anxiously. "Ever since you disappeared she became more and more... off. She just wasn't as sharp as she used to be."

"Numbuh 5 thinks she figured out that we knew were you went, but we couldn't tell her," said Abby. "And that unhinged her even more."

"After a few months," Kuki continued. "She stepped down from her post and she... she went looking for you."

The shock displayed on Nigel's face was nothing compared to what he felt within.

"She searched every corner of the Earth," Wally told him. "And after that, she went beyond. She spent a whole year searching the galaxy."

"By then she began putting it all together, so she returned to the Moon Base," Hoagie continued. "She tried recruiting a team to go outside of Milky Way, but no KND operative had ever done that before. No one was willing to take the risk."

"She was declared mentally insane by the Kids Next Door Scientists," said Kuki, finishing the story she started. "And decommissioned."

Anger suddenly began welling up inside of Nigel. "She was only eleven? Who was the idiot who made that decision?"

Abby folded her arms across her chest. "Me."

But that wasn't enough to quell Nigel's fury. "Why in the world would you do that?" he cried as he jumped to his feet. "How could you have been stupid enough to believe she had gone crazy?"

"I didn't do it because I thought she was wrong," Abby yelled. "I did it because I knew she was right!"

Nigel slowly sank back into his seat.

"I was afraid your cover might have been blown," Abby explained gently. "And I also did it for her own good. I thought it would be for the best if she forgot about you."

Nigel nodded. "So she's fine now?"

Wally coughed awkwardly. "Well, not exactly."

Nigel was taken aback. "But if her memory got wiped, then she wouldn't remember any of the reasons she went all loopy. Why would she still have problems?"

Every head turned to Hoagie. Realizing the position he was in, the tech geek cleared his throat self-importantly."

"Decommissioning is not an exact science," he explained. "While the memories themselves can be erased relatively easily, the emotions pertaining to them are not quite as simple to remove. Some particularly strong ones may still remain even after the process has been completed. My theory is that Rachel retained the anxiety and worry she had when you left, but she doesn't know why, or towards whom. And, well, you can imagine what that kind of frustration and instability can do to a person."

Nigel could hardly believe it. Smart, level-headed Rachel McKenzie had gone insane, and it was all his fault. It was because of him that Rachel was convinced to stick with being the Soopreme Leader, and this time it was because of him that she chose to abdicate her position. His duty to his former superior was clear.

Rising from his chair, Nigel looked each of his best friends in the eye and spoke in the same commanding tone he had used as their Sector Leader.

"I have to see Rachel."

The second chapter will be out within the week.