A/N Diego's line in IA4 caught my ear - "It's like having a child, but with none of the joy." It got me thinking - what does Diego know at that stage of his life about kids and the joy they bring? Sure, he's helped raise Peaches, but he still doesn't exactly strike me as thefatherly type... but it did strike this idea.

"Shhh. He's going to hear us!" The smallest of the tiger cub trio glared at her two brothers. They fell silent, still-fuzzy ears pricking to listen for the sound of their ward's pawsteps. When nothing could be heard behind them, the little female, Jaya, nodded permission, and the boys crept forward. "Where are we going?" Whispered the eldest of the litter, Benson. Bronson, his brother, looked expectantly towards Jaya. In truth, when she proposed sneaking out, she hadn't actually had a specific destination in mind. Just being out from under her father's strict paw was enough of a temptation, but Jaya never liked to look like she wasn't in control. "We're going to the tar pits!" she whispered with a dramatic swish of her stubby tail. The brothers exchanged eager looks and pressed on.

"How far is it?" Bronson ventured, carefully picking up his little paws over a loose stick that migt give them away if stepped on. He looked over his shoulder as Benson's paw nearly came down on top of it, and nudged a warning just in time.

"Just up ahead." Jaya didn't honestly know that, but she had a keen sense of smell and she had caught the scent of the tar, so she reasoned it couldn't be too far.

All three cubs leap away shrieking in alarm when a tawny figure sprang without warning into their midst with a low roar. Bronson was snatched up, wailing, by the scruff of his neck. Jaya and Benson whirled to face their attacker, fur puffed out in fear and anger. Jaya was the first to relax. "Diego!" She sighed, half relieved and half annoyed. "Diego? Oh man, we're busted!" Groaned Benson as he too recognized the muscular male saber. The only one still in the dark was Bronson, who had clamped a paw over both eyes and was wailing about being too young to die. Jaya nipped his tail. "Open your eyes, Bron." she growled, and used to obeying his sister, he removed his paw, and looked up into a stern pair of green eyes.

Diego deposited the cub on the ground. "What do you three think you're doing?" He growled, looking down at them. Bronson and Benson huddled behind their sister nervously, who blinked innocently up at him. "Nothing?" She offered, and Diego rolled his eyes and waved a paw, shepherding them with only mild protests back the way they'd come.

"Come on Diego, we never get to go anywhere." Whined Jaya, pushing her head pleadingly against Diego's nearest leg. He grunted, responding by catching her scuff and swinging her in the air three whole strides before setting her back down to walk. She shook herself, headbutting him this time. "But it's not fair!"

"Yeah, well, that's life." Chuckled Diego, his annoyance vanishing now that he knew his young charges were safe. He felt a bit bad, seeing the three fallen faces. He'd been no different as a cub - and these weren't just any cubs. The offspring of Soto and Sierra weren't likely to be docile, and with the tight rein their father kept on them, Diego couldn't blame them for wanting adventure.

"We never have any fun." Mumbled Benson, and a moment later he squealed as Diego grabbed him by the scruff - the grip firm but gentle, and with Diego it was more of a treat than a reprimand. "No fun?" Diego questioned, eyes glinting with mischief as he winked at Jaya and Bronson. "How's this - last one back to the den is a slow-worm!" Diego took off with Benson still in his grip, now pealing with laughter, and Jaya and Bronson at his heels.

"You three better not have been giving Diego any trouble." Remarked a teasing voice as four sabres skidded into the clearing outside the den and collapsed in a panting heap, Diego on the bottom with the cubs piled around his paws and head. The adult saber looked up in surprise to see Sierra standing on the slightly rounded cave roof, smiling down at her cubs. "I won, Mama!" Jaya announced, standing up proudly on top of Diego's head.

"They've been fine." Diego assured the female pack leader, displacing Jaya gently from his head with a small shake and catching her with practiced ease between his forepaws. Sierra jumped gracefully down and the cubs stumbled, tired now after their adventure, to greet her. "Thought they'd go exploring, but they didn't get very far before I rounded them up."

Sierra sighed as she looked fondly down upon her willful cubs. They were a pawful all right, Jaya especially. Nobody knew better than their mother just how much trouble they could get in to. One day, she feared it would land them in trouble. She could only hope that the pack had taught them all they needed to survive when that day finally did happen.

"Diego, I'm glad they have you to protect them." Sierra said sincerely, smiling when the gruff male saber scraped his paws against the dirt and looked at the ground. He wasn't exactly what Sierra would have described as 'being in touch with his emotional side.' Such was the way with many a male saber. Her Soto was no different.

"They're good kids." Diego admitted, looking down at the trio. Exhausted, they had piled together and were sleeping, about the only time they looked peaceful. "You're not mad I let them get that far?"

Sierra shook her head. "Nobody could do a better job than you, Diego. Soto never needs to know they left the den." Sierra didn't lead the pack with the same iron paw as her mate did. As a mother, she was gifted with more patience than he would ever be. There was no call to get Diego into any trouble. Soto could be unforgiving, relentless, when the mood struck him.

As the second in command, Diego had his doubts when Soto and Sierra gave birth to three cubs, and as both parents were the best hunters in the pack, Diego's rank meant that he looked after the youngsters as much as they did. He didn't have a lot of experience with cubs. He did have two brothers, but both were older, from an earlier litter of their parents, and so Diego had spent most of his own cubhood playing with bigger tigers, learning how to be quick and cunning to compensate for being smaller and weaker than the others. Eventually he had grown up, and left the place of his birth to join Soto's pack. No longer smaller and weaker, he rose quickly to the second in command.

The three cubs proved impossible to dislike. Before Diego realized it, they had crept into his tough heart, and though they weren't his children, he loved them nonetheless. Lenny and Zeke might tease him, and Oscar glare... the latter having his eye on Diego's rank. Oscar would very much have liked to take Diego's place in the pack.

"How did the hunt go?" Sierra smiled and flicked her short tail. "Those mammoths never stood a chance. We brought down two. The boys will be back with the first load of meat before sunrise."

Diego licked his lips. Mammoth meat - his favourite. It wasn't unusual for Sierra to be first back. As the fastest saber in the pack, she acted as messenger, which made sense as female sabers were not as big or strong as the males, and she couldn't carry as much meat as they could.

"Great. Now, let's get these rugrats of yours inside."

Three days later as evening fell, Jaya and her brothers were tussling over a the end of a mammoth tusk. Diego lay nearby, head on his paws, one eye open. Even though the whole pack was here, lounging on the sun-warmed rocks after a rich meal of mammoth meat, it had become his habit to keep an eye on the rambunctious cubs. As he watched, Benson gave the fragment of tusk a mighty whack with a forepaw that sent it clattering into the stream bed. Yowling insults at each other, they raced to be the first to get it as it plopped into the water and the current washed it downstream.

Soto grunted and raised his head with a growl. "Those cubs! They never stay where they are told!" He snapped, rising to all fours. Not wanting to see the cubs get in trouble when they were only enjoying a game, Diego jumped up. "I'll go get them Soto." He offered, and the pack leader grunted once, then lay back down with a nod of permission. Sierra looked like she was on the verge of rising to go after her cubs too, but Diego waved a paw. "Don't worry." He reassured, and Sierra smiled at him briefly, knowing he could handle the terrible trio.

Diego sprang down the streambed, careful not to let his paws get wet. The cubs, a bit further down, had no such worries.

"Hey, let me get it!" Benson whined, pawing at the tusk as it bobbed along. Bronson elbowed him out of the way and splashed water everywhere as he pounced, missing the tusk. Jaya dashed along the streambed, which was increasing in pace as the ground sloped downward slightly.

"Hey, you three! Are you trying to get in trouble with your father?" Asked Diego. The boys stopped, looking guilty, but Jaya just looked stubborn and frustrated - and she kept on running. "I'm not going to loose it!" She hissed with determination. Diego sighed and hustled the boys behind him. "Keep close, and don't wander off!" He warned, jogging down the streambed to catch Jaya. She dodged aside as he drew level with her, but he was ready, and gently he knocked her over, claws sheathed. Diego pinned her lightly and let her struggle - she was going to be as fast as her mother was someday, he mused, but she didn't yet have much in the way of strength.

"Now, don't be silly." He scolded. "I'll find you a better toy, but we've got to head back now before your father comes looking for you."

Jaya finally gave up and went limp. "You promise you'll find a better toy?" She looked up at him. Diego lifted his paw from her and ruffled her ears. "Promise. Now come, on let's go."

Bronson and Benson fell in on either side of Jaya as they turned to go back, but then Jaya froze. With one paw lifted, she sniffed the air. Her brothers looked at her, puzzled, and Diego felt the beginnings of unease stir his stomach. "Jaya? What can you smell?"

She frowned. "I'm not sure. It's something I haven't smelled before now... sort of... sharp, like the tar pits."

Diego gestured for the cubs to stay where they were. With the downward slope, he didn't have much visibly from where they were, and he quickly scaled a tree to try and figure out what was happening. Each claw he dug into the bark to propel him upwards made him feel more and more worried. Something was wrong, he could feel it!

The orange glow when he was halfway up had realization hit him like a lightning bolt. He leaped clear out of the tree and landed by the cubs, who hissed in amazement at Diego's incredible jump. "Fire!" Diego panted, sweeping the cubs in the opposite direction, pushing them into the streambed. "Stay in the water, you'll be safe. I'm going to let your parents know I'm with you." He braced all four paws, tilted his head back, took a deep breath and let a roar split the night sky.

He didn't know how far from safety they all were.

Diego's worry only grew when he didn't hear a returning roar from Soto or Sierra. Had the fire reached the den? Couldn't they hear him over the crackle of flames and the popping of burning sap? He paced a tight circle around the cubs, all huddled up and wide-eyed with fear.

Then he got an answer - but not one he wanted.

A howl.

"Dire wolf!" Diego suddenly had a very, very bad feeling about this. There were no wolf packs in their territory, the huge dire wolves being the same size as the sabers, and in direct competition for the same food. And that meant...

These wolves were not here on their own.

"Into a tree! Climb!" Snapped Diego, snatching Jaya, the smallest and lightest cub, and leaping into the tree he'd climbed himself moments ago. He dropped her on a branch at a safe height and sprang down for the boys. Bronson was halfway up the trunk and doing well, but Benson struggled to get off the ground as the heaviest of the cubs. Diego leaned down for him and nudged Bronson ahead of them as they climbed - and a huge, shaggy-furred dire wolf leaped towards them. It caught sight of the sabers and hurtled itself at the trunk, but Diego had gotten the cubs high enough. He stood over the terrified youngsters and snarled wordlessly down at the massive wolf. It snarled right back at him and made an attempt to climb, but fortunately there were no low branches for it to gain purchase and the blunt canine claws were not the right tools for this job.

"Get outta here, mutt. Run back to your masters." Growled Diego. Jaya huddled in fright between his forepaws, while Benson and Bronson had a branch each just over his head. "Who's their masters?" The she-cub whispered fearfully.

Diego didn't have it in him to scare the cubs further by telling them his fears were true- the wolf's scent carried that of humans. This dire was the hunting wolf of a human tribe! "Never mind." He murmured, and the wolf, though it didn't say a word, sat down at the foot of the tree with a horrible laugh.

Diego evaluated their position. They were struck - he might have been able to leap to the closest of the neighboring trees but not with the cubs. But then what was the wolf waiting for, he wondered?

It's humans.

Diego suddenly noticed the smoke was worse, choking the air now. The cubs, then he, began to cough. "Just hang on!" Diego urged the trio. He looked up to check on the boys just in time to see Benson's eyes flutter shut as he lost consciousness.

Diego frantically grabbed at the little saber as he fell, but the smoke was making his eyes tear up, and he couldn't line it up. Benson fell. The wolf jumped up with a sick, eager look in its eyes, ready to catch the cub where Diego missed.

"NO!" Diego dropped on top of it, digging all twenty claws into it's hide. It howled in fury and bucked and twisted, throwing Diego clear. He landed beside a tiny body. "Oh no." He breathed. Benson was lying still. So, so still. "ARRRRHHH!" Diego whirled on the killer wolf with his claws still out. He was locked in combat, powerless to stop a half-conscious Bronson when he half jumped and half fell out of the tree. The cub staggered over to his brother and buried his nose in his fur. "Ben!" He sobbed.

Diego sliced open the wolf's ear and roared when he just missed ducking a bite in return, knocked onto his belly. He staggered to all fours in time to see the wolf charging at Bronson, still bent over his fallen brother. "Lookout!" Bellowed Diego, but the warning came too late. Even as a predator himself, Diego had never witnessed anything as horrible as seeing poor heartbroken Bronson in the jaws of a wolf.

With a roar that shook the very leaves around them, Diego leaped for the wolf and tackled him away from the now-two fallen cubs. He prayed that Jaya was still safely up in the tree. But the ever-present smoke from the approaching fire reminded him they had no time. Hearing Jaya's choking cough from above him gave Diego a surge of strength. He closed his jaws around the wolf's neck, squeezing his saber teeth together until he feared he would break them. The wolf dropped lifeless at his paws. Sparing it no thought, hating himself for turning his back on Benson and Bronson's bodies, but knowing he had to live for the living, Diego climbed back up to Jaya. He had never seen the once-bold and fearless cub like this. Both her brothers dying before her eyes had drained everything out of Jaya except for the raging grief he could see in her expression. "Don't be scared, I'm here. I'm going to get you out of here Jaya, I promise!" He called as he reached her branch, reached for her.

He picked her up and let go of his hold, felt earth warm to the paw rise to meet them, and he ran along the stream bed with his precious bundle.

"Diego!" It was Soto, his coat black with soot. There was something in his eyes that hadn't been there earlier, but Diego didn't have time to figure out what. He saw other figures loom around them in the smoke - he heard Oscar growling and spotted Lenny's bulky figure. "Quickly, this way!" Soto let his pack now, Diego on his heels, feeling Jaya bounce slightly in his grip as he jumped over a boulder. She hadn't so much as whimpered as they fled from the flames and he felt proud of the brave little cub.

Soto led them down to the river, and Diego finally, knew they would be safe. As they jumped over the rocks leading to the other side, he took stock.

Soto. Oscar. Lenny. Zeke.
Sierra... she wasn't there. She wasn't with them.

In a flash Diego understood. He understood the look in Soto's eyes. He understood that a mother could never let her cubs stay in danger without trying to save them.

He half fell and half lay down, switching Jaya to cradle her blindly in his paws. Soto leaned over them, looking down at the single cub huddled in Diego's with disbelief. "The boys...?"

Diego shook his head. "A wolf." He croaked, wondering briefly how Soto would ever trust him again when he'd failed so badly. "I had to leave them." He groaned, and Soto bared his teeth. "Why did you bring Jaya?" He asked roughly.

Diego didn't understand the question. "Of course I brought her. She's the only one still... still..." He couldn't say it. Admitting that Bronson and Benson were dead was beyond him. It might yet all be a nightmare. "Sierra?"

"The humans." Soto packed a whole lot of anger into the two quiet words.

"The idiot doesn't even realize!" Fumed Oscar in a sudden fit of rage, leaping up like he wanted to shred Diego's ears. Soto remained strangely calm, almost empty, holding up a paw to stop Oscar from pouncing. "Leave it." He commanded. Diego looked around at Lenny and Zeke's frightened faces, Oscar's enraged one, Soto's blank one, with pain already being locked away behind resolution. Soto always had a plan. Jaya took after her father.

"Let her go." Soto gruffly instructed Diego. Diego loosened his front paws from where he had been cradling Jaya.

Soto gently pulled her towards him. She offered no resistance. Her head lolled towards Diego and he felt himself shutting down completely. The shock and the smoke had been too much for her tiny body.

She was dead, too.

Diego and Soto were the ones to pick through the soot the following day. Coals still glowed in some places and the ashy soil was warm, but not unbearable. Neither saber spoke much. Soto had lost his whole family, half his pack - and his mate. Diego had lost one good friend, three small friends, and a part of his heart. There was very little left to say.

Diego was the one to find the bodies. All three of them were together, and he tackled Soto to the ground before he could see.

"What are you doing?!" Demanded the pack leader as Diego pinned his head, so he wouldn't look in the wrong direction. "Don't look." Grunted Diego, but Soto threw him off and saw the horrible sight for himself.

"The humans did this - on purpose. The fire. Their tool, just like the wolves." Soto said grimly, his ears pinned back against his head, the only sign of his rage. Diego could say nothing. He had failed, beaten by humans, who held wolves and fire to hunt for them, in place of teeth and claws like other predators.

"Soto?" He questioned, when he could no longer bear to see the mangled bodies in front of them. The pack leader stood staring blankly at the remains his mate and sons.

"I swear, Diego... I will have revenge for this. I promise you that."

Promise.

Soto wouldn't move from the spot he'd lain upon their return to the pack, and so it was Diego who dug the grave for the one body they had been able to recover. His heart twisted at how tiny and helpless Jaya looked lying there in the dirt. She never looked like that alive. Diego hooked something closer to lay beside her - a close-packed ball of moss. A favourite plaything of tiger cubs.

"I broke my second promise to you." He whispered, as he covered the grave over, bowing his head. "I hope you forgive me for being late with the first."

The End

Just a oneshot idea I wanted to get down, although now that it's written I feel like I could easily tie into 'of Silver and Gold', my Shira/Diego AU fic. I'd be interested to hear opinions as always, especially from fans of Silver/Gold.