More Than Just Family
Chapter 1: Swept Away
A flash of lightning erupted in the heavy clouds above Windermere that was followed by the booming of thunder, cracking the silent atmosphere of the usually quiet countryside. Then, the rain came. It started with light, pleasant showers of raindrops that were only enough to wet the ground; then it came pouring by the buckets, accompanied by strong winds and intermittent claps of thunder. Such was the norm of the weather since the rainy season started in the English countryside, and it had put quite a burden on the residents of the area for the last few days, particularly the rabbits living around the McGregor manor.
"Come on! We've got to save what we can before the rain floods the whole garden again!" Peter Rabbit cried out as he rapidly plucked several radishes from the garden bed, his coat and fur completely drenched from the endless, torrential downpour.
The rain during the wet season usually lasted from the afternoon all the way to the middle of the night, and this had caused the garden to be almost constantly be filled with rainwater, often killing or washing away several vegetables and crops in the process. But given the vast area of the garden and the absence of Bea and Thomas, who had been in London the last few days, and not to mention the lack of assistance from the other animals, who were all preoccupied with their own problems of trying to prevent their homes from being flooded, there was only so much that Peter and his family could do to salvage their food.
"Ugh, there's never been a time that I wished Mopsy and Cotton-Tail were here to help us," Flopsy grumbled as she hurriedly plucked several tomatoes and putting them in a pile.
Since the last few months that passed, the rabbits grew and matured in their own way, and Cotton-Tail and Mopsy both had found the love of their lives and eventually settled down elsewhere away from their family burrow, leaving only Flopsy, Benjamin and Peter to tend the garden.
"Peter, the water's already started to flood half the garden and we've only managed to salvage tomatoes and radishes! There's no way we can save enough food to even last us a couple of days!" Benjamin warned as he piled together the vegetables collected by Peter and Flopsy, ready to haul their food back to their burrow. "We salvage what we can with only three sets of paws! Though we could probably save more vegetables if we had an extra pair of hands helping us!" Peter huffed back. "But of course, everyone else is too worried about saving their own homes, and we have to do all the grunt work ourselves!"
"Wait a minute, what about Mr Jeremy Fisher? He's a frog, he probably wouldn't be so busy about with the rain!" Flopsy suddenly suggested, remembering the cheerful old frog who lived nearby the small stream that ran behind the McGregor manor.
Peter looked at her and considered, "Okay, then you and Benjamin can go and find him while I try to save whatever I can!"
"Wait, why can't I go alone? You'll need Benjamin's help more than I need him!" Flopsy retorted indignantly, agitated that her brother was still treating her like a baby sister.
Benjamin rolled his eyes and carried on plucking out some beetroots, not at all happy that his cousins had made him the subject of their argument. Eversince Mopsy and Cotton-Tail moved out, Peter seemed to have taken his role as an older brother more seriously, and had recently become more and more protective over Flopsy, which didn't bode well for her as she preferred being treated as the matured rabbit that she already was. And this became the cause of many of their arguments back at home, which usually ended with Benjamin having to calm and separate those two before things got out of hand.
"No, Benjamin's going with you, and that's final! You know Jeremy isn't in his home half the time, and the rain has probably caused the stream where he lives to overflow! There's no-one there to help you if anything happens!" Peter firmly ordered in exasperation as he hurriedly continued plucking out the radishes.
Benjamin could see that Flopsy was about to retaliate back and decided to intervene quickly before their argument heated up. "Come along, Flopsy, the water's already covered our feet, so there's no time to waste..." He mumbled his words as he hurriedly rushed over and ushered her away before Flopsy could even open her mouth in protest.
Peter shook his head as he watched his sister and cousin disappear through the back garden gate before continuing with his salvage operation.
"You didn't have to push me away like that, you know," Flopsy grumbled, adjusting her drenched red shrug-jacket as she and Benjamin braved through the rain towards the stream.
"Judging by that look in your eyes, I'd say it's a good thing I did," Benjamin commented while pulling his brown jacket over his head, which did little to protect it from the rain. He saw that Flopsy was still aggravated about being forced to give in to Peter's orders, so he decided to give in a few soothing words, "You know Peter is only looking out for you, right? He just doesn't want anything bad to happen to you, that's all."
Flopsy wanted to rebuke to him that she's already matured and could very well look after herself, but she couldn't find it in her to talk back against her soft-spoken cousin, whom she had always seen as a voice of reason, and so was the reason why she secretly looked up to him more than Peter. Not wanting to offend Benjamin, she mumbled, "Yeah, I guess you're right," with a sigh and continued walking ahead without saying anything else.
The rain got heavier by the minute and howling gales blew into their faces, but they kept pushing onwards until they reached near the embankment where the stream flowed through. There, they saw that the usually slow-moving creek had become a thundering river of rapid waters, gushing and crashing about with currents powerful enough to 'swallow' anything that got caught in them.
Benjamin and Flopsy carefully edged closer towards the embankment and observed the roaring waters. "Well, I guess it's safe to assume that Jeremy isn't out fishing right now..." Benjamin concluded.
"Hey, isn't that him?" Flopsy pointed out, noticing the jacketed frog in the distance towards their right.
Benjamin turned and squinted his eyes. "Yeah, that's him. Hmm... he must be pretty excited to see us, jumping about like that." Both rabbits were puzzled to see Mr Jeremy Fisher hopping and waving his arms in the air while seemingly shouting something towards them, though they couldn't really hear him as he was too far away.
"Yeah, we're just as happy to see you too, Jeremy!" Benjamin shouted back while waving a paw, thinking that that was the frog's way of saying hello to them.
They both started to take a pace forward, only to see that Mr Fisher became even more frantic in his waving and jumping and shouting. Puzzled, Flopsy paused in her tracks and decided to decipher what exactly the frog was shouting about.
"River bank... collapsing! It's going to...! You have... away from there!"
She didn't need to hear his full sentence to realize what Jeremy had been trying to warn them all along. "Benjamin! We have to get out of..." She began, suddenly clutching on her cousin's sleeve, but it was too late. In a matter of seconds, the soil of the river bank that they were standing on crumbled without warning, and with no proper ground and hardly any time to react, the two rabbits found themselves being pulled into the strong currents of the rapid waters.
"Flopsy!" Benjamin cried out just before he was slammed down by a wave of water. The rapid currents dragged him downstream while he was underwater, but the determined rabbit was able to hold his breath and quickly swam his way to the surface again. His muzzle finally burst through the waters, and he instantly exhaled the air that he held while he was underwater.
"Ben- Benjamin!"
His ears flicked when he heard his cousin's distressed voice screaming out to him.
"Flopsy?!" He shouted back, frantically searching for her while being constantly blinded by the sprays of water that splashed into his eyes. Seconds passed and he suddenly caught sight of his cousin just a few feet away from him, struggling to keep herself afloat. Flopsy was much less of a swimmer than Benjamin was, and the constant pounding of the waves of water made it even more difficult for her to stay on the surface. Not wasting another second, Benjamin quickly swam towards her despite being hindered by the strong currents.
"Got you!" He exclaimed, once he managed to grab her paw. Flopsy quickly latched herself onto him with a whimper as he tried to swim themselves back to solid ground. But with only one free arm and having to support Flopsy at the same time, his paddling and kicking in the water made no difference at all and they found themselves drifting along through the currents.
"Flopsy, hold tight!" Benjamin yelled, still paddling with his one free arm to keep them afloat.
Flopsy didn't need to be told twice. Her shivering paws clinged tightly around Benjamin as they bobbed up and down among the waves and currents. Just then, they heard more yelling:
"Over here! Try to grab the other end!"
Both rabbits turned and saw that Jeremy Fisher chasing after them along the embankment while wielding a long bamboo pole, which he extended towards them. The rapids were pulling the cousins faster than Jeremy could keep up, but the extended end of the bamboo pole was only a few feet away from Benjamin. Paddling furiously with his free arm, Benjamin tried to swim closer to the pole's end. "Almost there!" Benjamin grunted, as his paw was only inches away from being able to grab onto the pole.
But before he could swim another inch, a huge wave of water slammed unexpectedly into the rabbits, separating them and sending them deep underwater.
"NOOOO!" Jeremy Fisher cried out helplessly, as he heard gargled yells and screams from the cousins before they completely vanished from his sights. The frog halted in his tracks and rapidly scanned the waters at the spot where he last saw them. But of course, they were nowhere to be seen. Stunned after what he had just seen, Jeremy Fisher knew there was only one thing to do,
"I gotta get Peter!"
The silentness of the still air slowly shifted as Benjamin wrinkled his face into a pained frown, letting out a low groan as he slowly opened his eyes after finally regaining consciousness. His head was heavy and he felt like as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep that lasted years. Through his limp ears and blurred vision, he could make out the sound of a river of some sort and the sight of several streaks of sunlight penetrating through the thick foliage of some overhead trees.
He slowly sat up and as his vision slowly cleared, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. There were tall trees with thick foliage that towered above him, dried leaves that scattered all around, a stream that flowed several yards away from him...
Benjamin's eyes widened when he realized that was most likely the same stream that had pulled him and Flopsy away-
"Flopsy!" The young rabbit gasped when he noticed his cousin-sister wasn't with him. He looked frantically around him but could not find a single trace of her. Not knowing where else to look, he sprinted to the stream and stopped at the very edge. The water was flowing downstream towards his left, so he decided to look for Flopsy in that direction. His left foot felt somewhat limp after he took off a few steps, forcing him to hobble on his right foot instead, though his determination in searching for Flopsy meant that he wasn't bothered by what he deemed was a minor inconvenience.
His resilience paid off, however, as after a few minutes of hobbling and searching, he finally found his cousin laying face-down on the embankment, about a couple of miles away downstream from the spot where he first regained consciousness. Benjamin's heart started pounding heavily against his chest as he slowly approached her, fearing the worst as he got closer to her limp body.
"Flopsy?" He whispered, kneeling next to her, awaiting the response that never came. Trying desperately to calm himself, he carefully moved her body so that she was now laying on her back instead of her side. Gently, he used a paw to slightly tilt her head upwards while he rested his other paw on her muzzle.
"Come on, Flopsy, wake up..."
Her eyes were still shut but he could feel her chest subtly rising and falling, giving him hope that she would regain conscious again. It was only a matter of waiting for that to happen, which he didn't know how long that would take. She could take hours, maybe days, or weeks, or maybe she wouldn't even-
*COUGH* COUGH*
Benjamin's eyes lit up when Flopsy suddenly started coughing and gagging. Her body shook violently as she coughed and spurted water out her mouth. After a few more coughs and gags, her eyelids fluttered as her blurred vision slowly cleared and she could vaguely discern the worried face of her cousin looking back at her.
"Benjamin?" She spoke his name rather weakly, confused as to why and how she ended up being in his arms.
"I almost thought you were gone..." He choked on his words, though he was beyond relieved that she was still alive.
For a moment, Flopsy couldn't understand why he had said that. But then she heard the sound of the flowing stream a few feet away from her and her memory of their terrifying ordeal once again came back to her. "Oh Benjamin..." Her lips quivered as she buried her face into her cousin's chest, realizing just how close she came to drowning to her death. Benjamin wrapped his arms around her to soothe her, closing his eyes as he planted a comforting kiss on her forehead. "Don't worry, Flopsy. You're safe now."
After a few emotional moments, Flopsy eventually pulled away, a brief smile now displayed on her lips. Eventhough Benjamin's fur and jacket were just as drenched as hers, she really appreciated his comforting gesture. It was quite rare that they displayed such affection to each other, what with them being cousins and all, but at that time, she really needed it.
It was then that Flopsy started noticed the tall overhead trees and the unfamiliar underbrush of what looked like the entrance of a dense forest just behind them. "Um... Benjamin? Where exactly are we?"
Benjamin followed her gaze and peered into the woods. "My guess is as good as yours..."