a/n: is this what you call a two-shot?
i actually got the "what if shira had jumped?" idea years ago, a little bit after Continental Drift had been released. jotted it down and then never really got anywhere with it til...til recently, and then this happened.
took me some time to piece this together and be satisfied with it. thank you for stopping by and i hope you enjoy reading it!
disclaimer: i do not own Ice Age.
I need to tell Diego something.
Those being the only words that flashed rapidly in Shira's tired mind as she willed herself to just keep going, just keep going. The world around her blurred into an indistinct mess of white and ocean-blue as she tore down the cliff, in a desperate attempt to catch up to the sabre making an equally desperate sash towards the end of the cliff.
"DIEGO! COME ON!"
Said sabre put on a burst of speed, his friend's panicked cries sending him into overdrive. He just needed to be a little faster. Just a little more, and he could jump, and then…
He didn't notice the sabress closing in on him.
Diego came into pouncing distance just as Shira was certain her lungs were about to collapse into each other. He was so close, just a little more strength, and then…
It's now or never, her tired mind thought.
Shira lunged, and both sabres fell forward onto the cliff ground with Diego taking the brunt of the fall. His head crashed onto the ground with a thud. His eyes rolled—he failed to register the silver sabress panting heavily on top of him, pinning him down so firmly that you wouldn't have thought that she was exhausted from mad-dashing like her life depended on it just seconds ago.
What...what do I need to tell him?
Suddenly, her mind drew a blank. She stared dumbly at the sabre below her, whose eyes had stopped rolling, and she began to panic. Her first question remained unanswered as more and more began to bombard her.
Why am I doing this?! For Gutt? Why am I—trying so hard to—to—
Diego's hazel-green eyes shot up to her, and for a moment, all they could do was stare at each other in pure, desperate panic—Shira, who had lost the words she wanted to say, and Diego, who had been wanting so badly to tell her that there is something much better than the hell Gutt put her through now, but didn't know how.
Gutt's ultimatum had been painfully burned into her mind since he uttered it to her like an execution warrant, and it was at that moment that she recalled his words: you take the sabre down, or you die trying. No excuses.
Shira's chest tightened as fear seized her in its iron grip. If she failed—
"Why are you doing this?!" Diego almost pleaded, his eyes urgent and desperate.
Diego didn't know—he couldn't have known, but he had voiced out her troubled thoughts down to the exact words. It threw Shira off guard, and in those few milliseconds Gutt's warning pounded ominously in her ears: this time, she wasn't allowed to fail, she wasn't allowed to let him go—just how could she tell him that without her own heart breaking?
"You don't understand!" She cried, anguished. "I don't have a choice!"
The words one of us will end up dead ended up painfully lodged in her throat and never made it to Diego's ears.
But what he saw was more than enough—the fear flooding into her eyes was there in plain sight. He knew that there was only one reason for it, and that reason came in the form of a silhouette of a livid giant ape in the distance, slowly but surely charging towards them with a murderous vengeance.
His urgent reply spilled out of his mouth without hesitation—his time was running out, she had to understand now.
"You don't have to live this way, Shira," He said, almost comfortingly, "You'll be safe with us! We take care of each other!"
Diego felt his heart breaking as he forced the difficult choice onto the anguished sabress standing atop of him. She looked at him as if he didn't understand, silently begging him not to do this.
But he did. He did understand, and the truth was that she had a choice. And the herd took care of each other.
He wanted so badly to get her away from Gutt's grasp. If only she chose him…!
"Diego—! I can't hold on much longer!"
Manny's strained cry forced the two sabres to look up—the log he had wedged into the cliff face to stop the ship had broken into two, and the current continued its relentless push on the ship towards the open ocean.
The precious seconds he still had were slipping through his paws. He had to act now—for this frightened sabress whose innocence and happiness had been stolen, who had been going through each day in fear of an unforgiving captain—the same figure who had "rescued" her once, who she believed so dearly had accepted her—
The day the ship sank, Gutt hadn't even seen her as worth saving.
Diego made a move to get up, and to his utter surprise, she released her hold on him.
The thing was, he thought he had blown it last night, since the words he had wanted to say never found their way out. When dawn came with the tree cell ripped open and bare, he was even more certain that his chance had escaped with her. Gone with the wind and her silhouette, never to be seen again.
And then—here it was, in plain sight, having come straight back to him.
He knew then—he just knew, that he couldn't just turn and make a run for the ship. Not without her, not when he had the chance, right here and now, to get her out.
And…not when she had already become so important to him.
"Come with us—" He begged, faltering slightly at the pained look on her face. It's now or never.
"—come with me."
Come with me. I could use a sabre like you on board.
You'll be safe with us. Please, come with me.
Three simple words—it was exactly what Gutt had said that first day, when the captain looking for a crew had bumped into the wandering sabress.
She had given the same response too. The only difference—and the one that set these two identical sentences worlds apart—was that Shira hesitated less the second time.
The sabress had thought that Gutt would come back for her—and so adamantly, too.
Years spent aimlessly chasing after an illusion. Mistaking the gleam in his eyes for kindness, the lilt in his laugh for warmth. She hadn't stopped to realise—if Gutt really had her back, why had he abandoned her at all?
Here and now, right in front of her—Shira had never known it, but there was no mistaking the whole-hearted sincerity glimmering in Diego's eyes.
This whole time—how foolish I had been.
Both had given her a choice. The first time, she didn't know any better. Now, she knew what she wanted.
The truth was that Shira only had a few milliseconds to make that decision. But in the brevity of that moment, she was already certain that she could trust him with her life.
The two sabres were back to making a frantic dash—Diego took off, with Shira close behind.
A furious roar pierced the air from behind them, and the sabres felt the ground shake as the enraged ape captain continued to pursue them, drawing dangerously close.
Both Diego and Shira heard and knew that it was only a matter of time—maybe even seconds—before they lost the ship or the chase when Gutt caught up to them.
Shira started thinking: Maybe only one of us will make it. Maybe I should buy time for him. He's the one who deserves it—
Fear churned in her stomach like tense cramps, threatening to overwhelm her. She was scared. What if she couldn't do this?
In between the mad dash to the cliff face, Diego looked across and the troubled look on Shira's face told him enough.
And he started thinking: What if she turns back? What if her second thoughts cause her to stop? Will I lose her? But she's the one who deserves a way out of this—
Panicked hazel-green eyes met frightened ocean-blue ones. One more stride, and they would be right at the cliff face.
He doesn't want to lose her.
The words spilled right out of Diego's mouth, in between erratic gasps of air as he ran.
"Promise me you'll jump!"
She doesn't want to stay lost.
One more step, and the cliff would end.
They were so close. She just needed to be just a little bit braver, and then…
Shira blinked back the tears stinging at her eyes and ignored the sound of her own pulse throbbing in her ears.
I promise.
The next instant; the cliff disappeared from under the two sabres' paws.
His paws found solid ice and he landed safely, the adrenaline still tingling in his veins. Diego steadied himself, only to hear a shrill yelp from the sabress behind him.
The sabress who should have been behind him.
Two silver paws clinging desperately at the edge of the ship were the only indicator that she had, indeed, jumped. But Shira had not been so lucky, the ship having been just a little way outside of jumping distance—the now terrified sabress had only managed to sink her claws into the edge of the ship and was now hanging on for dear life.
The ice was viciously pressing into her underbelly, as if with a vengeance, and with each desperate struggle she made to cling onto the deck, her body would slip down a little further.
Of course, fate would choose to be unkind—two seconds earlier, the promise of a new life was so close. Now, she was just inches away from a violent, watery death.
The crashing of the waves below suddenly sounded louder, closer, fiercer. Her ears were ringing; her lungs constricted with terror as the horrific image of choppy, unforgiving waters swallowing her refused to leave her mind. A horrifying numbness began to creep into her paws. She had to fight for air as the pressure in her chest became unbearable—smothering and painful as the sharp edge jabbed into her body.
A strangled cry for help forced itself up her throat as the quiver returned to her lips. She was losing this; tears burned behind her eyes as the panic-stricken sabress struggled to keep her loosening hold, pleading with any and every force of nature to allow her to survive.
"Shira!" Diego's cry sounded so faint.
Strong paws were over her weakened ones in an instant, tight and secure; she felt her body stop slipping.
Even so, her heart refused to still, continuing to hammer frantically against her ribcage. Her eyes searched for his as she tried to drown out the roaring of the waves in her head.
Please, don't let me fall. I don't want to die.
Diego's heart hurt with an unfamiliar ache as he stared down at her, wide-eyed and frightened. But he knew that they were still being watched by Gutt—who was seething. If he pulled her up now and no fighting scene ensued, Gutt would smell a rat and that would put Shira in even bigger danger.
Somehow, Diego knew that even though they succeeded in pirating the ship, it wouldn't be the last they'd see of Gutt, no matter how much Manny tried to get them to believe that. Soon, they would cross paths with the ape captain again, and when that moment came, he knew that Gutt would come for them with an even deadlier desire for revenge.
He should know. Being in Soto's pack had taught him more than enough.
And Shira...had been through enough.
"Hang on," He whispered, keeping an eye on the ape at the cliff edge. Shira whimpered, and he rushed to comfort her as much as he could. "Just a little more. I won't let you fall, I promise."
Diego redirected his focus to the cliff; the current made light work of pulling the ship away, and the shapes on the cliff had now been reduced to tiny coloured specks bouncing and moving around frantically on the now distant cliff face. The sabre had been waiting for a window of time where he could safely get Shira up without raising the crew's suspicion, and he figured now would be a good opportunity to—
He stiffened in disbelief as his eyes took in the sight of what looked like the entire face of the ice wall sinking into the depths of the waves with a faint, eerie crash.
It sounded like distant thunder.
"What was that?" Manny asked, for he, too, had picked up on that faraway echo of a deafening noise. Shira inhaled sharply.
"I don't know," Diego replied, trying to sound honest with his half-truth of an answer. He knew—a storm was looming on the horizon—that nagging feeling told him as much. Ice walls don't just sink into the ocean like that.
"H—hey—" Shira gasped, cutting his musing short, "—a little help here, maybe—?"
"Shit," The orange sabre gave himself a tight mental slap and quickly hauled her up on to the ship, using his teeth and neck—as if carrying a cub. (She clearly wasn't, and he grunted as he pulled her to safety.)
Shira had never thought that she'd love the feeling of landing on ice that much. The fear-stricken sabress allowed herself to relish in the feeling of being on solid ground—more or less—after having her life literally hang in the balance. Her breathing was still erratic and ragged, and her paws frustratingly shaky and numb and useless—she felt her legs give in from under her as she attempted to force herself into an upright position.
But she didn't hit the ground, colliding instead with a firm, warm body as Diego moved quickly to break her fall.
She found herself leaning on his shoulder, and now it wasn't just her mind that was reeling—her heart had begun to race furiously too.
"You okay?" Diego asked. His voice was low and comforting. He sounds like a dream, she thought.
Shira turned towards the sound of his voice—a mistake, she quickly realised, as she found his hazel-green eyes searching her own ocean-blue pair with concern. His face was close to hers, unintentionally and unexpectedly so. For all the rapid-fire beating her heart was doing, Shira was certain that it had just skipped a beat.
Or two. Damn, his eyes were beautiful.
A shaky breath escaped her mouth as the sabress steadied herself on her paws.
"I will be, hopefully," She said wryly, still trying to calm the fast-paced thrumming rhythm in her chest—the fact that she had effectively betrayed her crew and had been hauled from a near-death experience just moments ago didn't help.
Of course, there was Diego too. He also didn't do much to calm her frantic heartbeat, but something about the wat her heart fluttered more around him than run amok with panic suggested that he was different.
And he was—already a far cry from all that she had known.
The aforementioned sabre chuckled—he liked the way her eyes shone with mirth and something hopeful.
Both sabres failed to notice the mammoth who had been watching this entire exchange quietly, and who now felt the need to speak up before things got even more bewildering.
Manny spied an abandoned fishbone sword and picked it up before clearing his throat and approaching the pair slowly.
"Okay. I don't know what I just saw with my own two eyes, but—" He narrowed his eyes at Diego while cautiously pointing the sword in Shira's direction, "—explain. Now."
Diego wondered how he should do just that, and Shira wondered if she should say anything.
The pair looked eerily similar to Peaches whenever she was caught disobeying her dad, Manny thought.
"I asked her to join us," Diego finally settled for that.
"Uh huh. Just like that," The sarcasm was practically dripping from the unconvinced mammoth's words and expression.
Shira darted a glance at Diego, who looked as if he had just gotten a tight slap across the muzzle. It was then she realised that it hadn't struck her, in the seconds between Diego's plea and her agreeing, to consider how his…what word had he used? —herd—might take to it.
"I'm…I'm sorry—' She began shakily. "Gutt…I'm…I'm not wanted there anymore."
Manny remained unimpressed. "So, you traded one pack for anoth—"
He unknowingly echoed the exact words Diego had spoken to her that fateful night when he chose to mercifully bring her a water dish. The sabre jumped in quickly before any more damage could be done.
"No—Manny—it's—" but he himself faltered.
Meanwhile, Shira winced at Manny's comment—her own words had not come out the way she had wanted them to.
Manny spoke again. "Look, I just want all of us to get home safely. And that means making sure a member of the pirate crew that was just trying to attack us is not here on board with plans of ambush." His eyes narrowed at Shira as the last word left his mouth.
"There is no ambush," Shira blurted out. Her voice was much smaller than she ever remembered it being. She swallowed, trying to steady herself as her mouth went dry—where the words she needed?! "I didn't—I don't want to—"
"Denial, now?" Manny pushed on, relentless and determined to sniff her out. "I see—Gutt sent you after us first. If you didn't get us by then, he'd come sailing in to finish the job himself—"
His accusations stung—cold, unforgiving, brimming with distrust. Shira felt gutted, speared, stabbed through—
You take the sabre down, or you die trying.
"He'd kill me if I didn't get you!"
The words burst forth from her mouth like a violent waterfall—choked with pain and anguish and everything in between.
It was Manny's turn to look stricken.
A stunned silence ensued. Shira was trembling as she pressed on.
"I didn't—I didn't realise that was all he cared about. Not—not that I had been separated, not that I had been missing, not that I nearly d-drowned—and I—I don't want to kill any of you…"
The nauseating feeling worsened with each word that tumbled out, threatening to swallow her and rob her of her ability to speak. Her last sentence came out as a whimper, one that she immediately felt ashamed of, but broke Diego's heart and made Manny freeze again upon hearing it.
"And—I don't want to—to—live—this—way—anymore…"
They were plunged back into silence—thicker than before, as if everything around them was collectively holding its breath. Heavy and unbearable, and yet at the same time felt like it was being stretched thin and taut, painfully close to bursting, rupturing.
It was an unwelcome revelation for the mammoth, that the crazed ape captain was far more cruel than Manny had expected him to be. And he found himself wondering there and then, as if it was second nature: What would Ellie do?
She probably wouldn't hesitate to help—of course, Ellie was far from naïve and foolish when it came to things like this. But that being said, Ellie had a strong yet sensitive heart that was simply able to pick up on things that Manny usually missed—that sixth sense, gentle yet firm and discerning, that enabled her to look through another's soul, to sort out matters of the heart—things that he fumbled and faltered with if and when he had to confront them.
Just like right now.
Ellie would know what to do. And she most definitely wouldn't turn away from someone who was hurting so much.
The mammoth's next words shattered the taut, fragile silence easily.
"How can I trust you? Diego—why are you defending her?"
And Diego remembered how he had recognised his old pack leader in Gutt, how he had seen his own self mirrored in her frightened blue eyes, and how he just couldn't ignore it—her—everything.
"It's terrifying to realise that someone you saw as 'leader' only saw you as disposable—you only matter if you're reliable. It's like waking up one day to find that all you thought you knew was wrong—"
Old memories he thought he'd buried clawed their way back into his mind's eye, bubbling furiously and already overflowing like mad. Pinky, Half Peak, Soto's sick, relentless pursuit for revenge—they refused to stop. It took the sabre all he had to keep himself from choking on emotion.
"—it's like always having to be scared that you might let your guard down—feeling as if you have no choice—because it's terrifying to realise that one, single failure would cost you your life.
What would you do then? She's just as lost as we all used to be—"
There was a kind of firmness, desperation, an impassioned plea in Diego's voice that, in all the years he'd known the sabre, Manny had never recalled hearing before.
It came rushing down on him like a sudden, heavy downpour then—maybe he should trust Diego's judgment. Diego, of all animals. The wariest, most cautious, always-on-guard one in the herd. He and Ellie were two sides of the same coin, just that one was softer, and the other with sharp edges hardened by the cruelty he had seen in the life he had before the mammoth and the sloth and everything that came after.
Surely he knew more than Manny about sniffing out true intentions and trust—and he had already proven to Manny that he had his back, no matter what.
Clearly, Diego had seen Gutt's cruelty in the sabress, even though they barely had any moments to connect with each other—what with the pirate ship going down and the elaborate Hyrax Island plan. And yet, he had somehow managed to see something that Manny himself had apparently, and as expected, completely missed.
Surely, that meant—and said—something.
As remorseless as he said he was, Manny knew that Diego wouldn't turn away, either.
"I asked her to come," Diego raised his voice and repeated what he had said at the start.
The words I couldn't leave her there were left unsaid.
Manny heard them anyway.