Chapter One

Before too long, about six months of having moved to the ice age, Buck and I were picking Baby names. We found out I was pregers in Dinotopia when I go morning sickness for the third time in a row, plus, I was over three weeks late. Of course, he turned into Manny when Ellie was pregnant; smothering me, never let me out of his sight. I was flattered, but I didn't particularly like the fact that he wouldn't let me do a thing for myself.

It was a peaceful day in December; I got three seconds away from Buck, off to the river for a drink. Who I saw there just made my day. Cameron, you member, the guy I dated before Buck? Well, this guy has the nerve to sweep me off my feet, and start mauling me with kisses like a maniac! I was trying to get away from him, cussing and squirming and hitting him, but his grip was tight.

"Suzan!" I heard Buck yell, I pushed Cam's face far away from mine, and looked a Buck like, "Help me!"

Buck took immediate action; he ripped me away from Cameron and proceeded to give him a nice punch in the shnoz. After he did so, Cameron fell backwards, nose bleeding. Buck held me protectively as he yelled at Cameron, "Oi, what in the hell do you think you're doing? You bastard!"

Cam stood up and wiped his nose before saying, "The bitch owes me a first kiss." he chuckled. I would not have this! Hell no! You wanna know what I did? I walked right up to him and gave him a slap on the left cheek. When he didn't go down I changed tactics, I gave him a nice right hook to match the bloody nose!

"Like hell I do! And if you even think of getting up I'll feed you to Diego!" I screamed, Cameron moaned.

"Come on, before he's got the presents of mind to hurt you more." Buck said, pushing me in the direction of the herd's cave.

Once we got there, I was on the verge of a breakdown "Oh god, Buck, I'm so sorry!" I fell into his arms sobbing, the first time I'd done so since... I don't know when. "I couldn't do anything-"

"No, it's my fault," he caressed my cheek, "I should've been there, or left you with Diego or at least someone."

I smiled the smallest bit, "But I should've tried harder to get away," I kept on.

"Shhh, it's okay, he's gone now anyways." he did the heart-melter, which always made me feel better.

*LINE*

Mine was not a lucky pregnancy. I was looking forward to surprising my mother by going into the human world and telling her that her green-eyed girl was a mother-to-be, but I guess god had a different plan for us, because I had I miscarriage. All six kits, all gone weeks before I was due.

I cried, Buck cried, Ray even cried, even though (and I knew at the time, always did) Buck wasn't his favorite person in the whole wide world. Sid, who was looking forward to being an uncle again, was among the saddest of all of us. Sid went into a deep depression in the months that followed, as did Buck and I.

We "tried again" five months later, and Buck whooped and hollered when he found out that I was, once again, pregnant. Sid was ecstatic, and Ray seemed happy at first.

Well, it would have been all happy happy joy joy, if my results had actually been positive. Now I was okay with this. Not in a happy way about it way, I just liked to know that I never even was pregnant, that way there was no baby to miscarry. So then, I didn't have to go into suicidal depression like last time. Plus, I may not have wanted to be a mother just yet, I was only twenty-four. So maybe it was for the best; after all, it did turn out pretty well in the end anyways.

It was a beautiful day, two months after I found out I wasn't pregers, and I was walking through the mountain side with the rest of the herd. We all decided it in a spur-of-the-moment walk about the valley. Sid was the one who thought of it, Manny had said no, but I vouched for Sid. Of coarse, Manny had a soft spot for the once pregnant she-weasel. I wanted to go for a walk with the family, have fun, plus Ray. I invited him because we hadn't been able to see each other much anymore, plus, he was usually in the human world.

"Beautiful up here in the mountains isn't it?" I asked aloud, not referring to anybody in particular.

"Absolutely!" Sid was the one to answer.

"Isn't it though?" Ellie said dreamily.

"Yeah," I rested my head on Buck's shoulder for a moment, then lifted it back up, still holding his hand none-the-less. "Hey Sid, let's sing a song!" I suggested, Diego and the twins groaned, Manny looked irritated, but we still sang anyhow. We sang, my happy song, witch mostly consisted of us singing, "I am so damn happy cause there's only on of me!" over and over again. Although not very many of the herd wanted us to, Buck and Ellie seemed amused.

We may have sang a little too loudly, because as we sang the last few lines, an avalanche started. Rocks tumbled downhill towards us, Manny and Ellie took immediate action, they huddled around Peaches, trying to keep her safe. A gigantic boulder came my way, Buck came running towards me in a panic, and pushed me out of the way. Well, more tackled me and kept me close to his chest than pushed me. Sid was running around like a headless chicken, screaming and almost getting crushed. Diego was just about to get squashed by the boulders himself, (And I guess you could say that he did) but he leapt out of the way just in time to get away with nothing but a bloody and deformed hind leg. I screeched, pointlessly trying to hide my tears I got up and bolted over to the twins, who I grabbed and ran over to the other herd members with. Buck followed close behind me with Ray's arm in his right hand. Sid was crying like a baby, (I didn't blame him either) and Diego had passed out from pain. A sharp shard of stone flew from out of nowhere and scratched Sid on his chest, causing him passed out as well.

"Jesus Christ!" I yelled, staring at Sid's unmoving body. "God please save us." I whispered a small prayer under my breath, still crying. Manny was knocked out by a rock hitting him on the head. Ellie was still protecting her baby, and Ray was nowhere that I could see through the dust. "RAY!" I screamed, holding onto Crash and Eddie. Then, I saw it, something that I was sure would haunt me until the day I died, witch may have been soon… Buck was crushed by a rock. Shards came raining down like bombshells upon Crash, Eddie, Ellie, and me. Some hit Ellie, others hit Crash, one hit Eddie in the exact spot where his heart was. I screamed bloody murder, as one struck me in my abdomen. Hot sticky blood covered me, and the rest of the herd members.

"SUZAN!" Ray yelled, he had been crying, and still was.

"God, Ray, it hurts so bad." I said, whimpering. "Buck's gone, Ellie's gone, Sid, everyone!"

"Shhh, I can fix this, sleep, go ahead." Ray closed my eyelids for me, like they did on TV when somebody died with their eyes open.

"Ray, I'm dying." I said quietly, the pain was causing me to fall asleep. Was this sleep? Or was this deeper? It felt that way, deep, deeper than any coma, deeper than death.

"You will be okay, go on, go…" those were the last words I heard before I died. Yup, died, over, finished.

Before I died, though, I was able to murmur this: "I love you all."

*LINE*

I came to in a void; a black, hollow, void. Floating in mid-air, and then (once standing) I was on my feet, I couldn't tell if this was some I.D.C.A. trickery, or the blue horizon between our world and god's kingdom... or hell for that matter. Once I saw Ray, I ran to him, hearing every footstep, like the would be on frozen metal.

"Ray you jackass!" I half yelled, slugging him. "Why in the hell did you let me die like that?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down woman!" Ray insisted. "This is where the members of the I.D.C.A. go when they 'die'," (he made air-quotes with his fingers) "they get sent back to the human world. And since the herd died with you…"

"Shut up! Are you saying…?" I instigated.

"Yup." Ray gave a sharp nod.

"Thank the lord!" I danced like a drunk Irish girl and hugged Ray. "Hell ya! So where are they?" I asked, I noticed now that I was in my human form. I was wearing a yellow penny-T that had embroidered pink flowers at the hem, and saturated navy-blue skinny jeans. I noticed I was also wearing my mom's gold chain with a little gold Jesus at the end; his face, not him on the cross. As for my golden blonde (I call it that... it's more of a dishwater blonde) hair, it was loose, with a single small braid and a butterfly clip, I felt so girly. My shoes were at least not so lady-like, converse, sweet, sweet converse.

"Over there." Ray pointed off in the distance of the void, there I saw a group of human figures, six of witch were children, two of witch were adults. They were all lying down, sleeping.

The ones that I presumed to be Crash and Eddie were huddled together, as they were when they were "killed". They had chocolate-colored hair, and the one I guessed was Eddie had freckles. They were pretty short, but then again, I didn't know how old they were yet. The boys were wearing red t-shirts and black running pants, with (not any name-brand) sneakers. They had a tan, but seemed to have Irish in them in a way I couldn't describe.

The one I figured was Sid was tallish, skinnier than I figured he'd be, with a reasonable length of shaggy, yet thin, jet-black hair, and pale skin.(Maybe he was Norwegian, I don't know) He was wearing a green t-shirt and jeans, with black sketchers.

The adults (who were Manny and Ellie) wore black around-the-house shirts and blue jeans, (Ellie wore khakis) and Manny had a brown leather jacket. They also wore native-American style gray slippers. Ellie had red hair, (a short-cut pixie) and she was tall, athletic sized. Manny had dark, dark brown hair, almost black, and he was "Good sized" or… poofy, like a guy I know named Ed.

The one in the middle of them was little Peaches, in a white cotton-dress with brown flats, it was easy to tell she was very young, six maybe? As for her looks, just like her mother (in Sid's words: thank goodness!) same hair and everything, but with bigger eyes, (I could tell even with them closed) and freckles.

The last two I could tell apart no-problem. The taller one was Diego, he dwarfed all the other kids, including me, and he had butterscotch hair. He had muscular shoulders, a defined chin, and he looked like the kind of guy who would play a lot of sports. He wore a solid light gray t-shirt and ripped up blue jeans, with blue DC shoes.

Last but certainly not least, Buck. He was about four inches taller than me, (I shall never reveal my height, mwahahah!) so he was 5 feet nine inches. (I lied ^^) he wore a black and white checkered over-shirt with a white one underneath it. He had what I believed to be wrangler jeans on, I couldn't see the logo, and converse (Sweet, sweet converse!), as for his patch, it had been replaced by a black velvet one, he also had a gold hoop in his left ear. I blushed a little, he was even more handsome as a human than I'd imagined... and trust me, I'd done my fair share of imagining that.

Ray and I began waking them up, I woke Buck up first. Naturally, they were all freaking out, so I told them all to sit down, and we'd explain the whole thing to them.

And so we did, Ray gave them the choice weather to die now, or live in the "future" with me and my family in North Dakota. They all said yes right away. And don't ask me how, cause I couldn't tell ya; but suddenly, we were at my house. I was surprised to find out that it had only been one month in the human world, so I was still just thirteen in my human form. We'd also moved into a new house instead of a camper.

Ray explained how the whole "knowledge helmet" thing worked to the herd, and they got all the knowledge that they needed to be at their level. Crash and Eddie were twelve and a three quarters, Sid had just turned thirteen in September, Diego was Thirteen and two months, he was still in Seventh grade because his birthday is all screwy, and Buck turned thirteen three days before me. Manny and Ellie were thirty-eight, and Peaches was eight. They all got the appropriate skills to be proficient, and the adults had enough schooling in their noggins to get them jobs at tobacco gardens, and MGM enterprises. (P.S. my mum works at MGM, they did not pay me to advertise!) we got them a house in town, a gray five-bedroom with a garage and a nice basement. There was just enough room for all of them in the schools, (that was a relief) and just enough realness in their fake alibis, birth certificates, adoption papers, etcetera. We got, by some magic of the I.D.C.A., them into the systems of the American government. (And Buck insisted he keep his accent, so we had to get him into the English government, along with immigration papers for him and his dead parents. And that's another thing, certificates of death!)

It took a few days to get the herd situated in their new home, and in that time, I was able to spend a lifetime's worth of time with Buck. We went to the movies, to the river, the wheat fields, he had never stood in a field of wheat before, it was the first time I'd ever stood in a wheat field too. It was even better than my nana described it, I guess it was because I was with someone I loved.

The only thing I could possibly worry about was how the kids at school would react, and if the girls would try to move in on Buck. If that were to happen, there would be some screaming, and blood on my shirt. I imagined going home and telling my mom that some girl was hitting on buck, and I told them to go screw a donkey. She would point out the blood stain on my shirt, and I'd say, "It's not mine it's Missy's." I smiled at the thought of giving Missy a bloody nose; I guess that makes me sort of hateful, but at least I didn't do my evil laugh… tehehe tehehe tehehe! ^^

(Author's note)

Anyway, that's how It all started up, the rest of the memorable occasions will be documented in this book, and others, starting next chapter! Thanks for reading!