Chapter two: Tender Wounds
"Hope you get better soon, Ryder." Mr. Porter commented, as he and Alex prepared to leave.
"Me too!" Alex sighed. "Thanks for letting us stick around Ryder. It was..kinda fun!"
"No problem Alex. Whenever there's a problem, just yelp for help!" Ryder still remained as positive as ever, even despite all that had happened today.
"And if you need anything while your leg heals, don't hesitate to call." Mr. Porter reinforced this offer for the third time today.
"I will. Thank you, Mr. Porter." Ryder nodded his thanks.
"Come on, Mr. Porter, Alex." Rocky called bounding up to him. "Rubble and I will take you home in the PAW Patroller."
"Thanks Rocky," Mr. Porter answered gratefully, following the pups. "Well goodnight to you all."
"Goodnight!" Marshall, Skye, and Zuma called back. The door slid closed and the silence ensued, in the sudden quietness they all realized something.
"Hey, Where's Chase?" Marshall was the first to voice the thought that came to all their minds.
"We should go find him." Ryder suggested, grabbing his crutches.
"No Ryder!" Marshall spoke up. "You stay and rest. We'll go look for him." Zuma and Skye nodded at each other in agreement. Ryder willingly gave in and relaxed back again, and the three pups bounded off together.
"The best place to look for him, first, is his pup-house." Skye openly suggested, as they ran on towards the blue Police style house. Stopping short in front of it, they saw that the door was shut.
"Hm, guess Chase decided to turn in early." Zuma thought aloud. Marshall adopted an unsure looked, then shrugged it off and followed the other two pups; to tell Ryder what they found. Inside the quiet house was a sniffly, miserable, sleeping pup, who squirmed uneasily in his sleep.
The moon was now high in the sky, as Chase's busy mind took on more traffic from a train of thought, that had been chugging along in his head all day since the accident...
Chase found himself standing at the top of Marshall's ladder. A cracking noise made him look up, to his horror there was Ryder waving and calling for help. Skye hovered closer.
"Ryder!!" Chase cried out. His voice echoed, but no one seemed to hear him. The ledge cracked more. Suddenly he was spilled over the edge of the ladder, and grabbed the top rung and clung to it tightly. Marshall appeared where he had once been, he reached out a paw. As the ladder seemed to moved closer to Ryder.
"Almost there!!" Marshall strained, his voice sounding distant, as he desperately tried to get there. But the ledge crumbled before their eyes.
"NOOOOOO!!!!!" Chase and Marshall cried together, tears immediately jumping to the German Shepard's eyes at the sight of Ryder falling. Marshall slumped and Chase squeezed his eyes shut hoping for this to end.
"Why weren't you here Chase?" Marshall's voice sounded clearer, making him look up at him. Marshall's hollowly, blank looking, blue eyes bore into his terrified brown ones. "Where were you Chase?" Marshall questioned again.
"I...I...I don't know. I.." Chase stammered trying to remember.
"You could have saved him." Marshall told him blankly, almost as though he were a robot. "If you had been there."
"Marshall- I..."
"You could have stopped this." Marshall said.
"I'm sorry!!" Chase bawled uncontrollably, "I didn't know!! I DIDN'T KNOW!!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. Marshall's words echoed back and forth across his mind, as the scene faded away; and Chase lay in darkness alone crying. A small light caught his glance, Zuma, Rocky and Rubble we're slowly walking towards him.
"We should have gone to help sooner." They said at the same time. "We should have called if they needed us sooner." They continued advancing toward him. Chase began to slowly creep away from them. But they kept coming, repeating these statements, when another light appeared behind him. Whipping around, he feared it would be Marshall again. But what he saw, instead, made his heart clenched in his chest. Ryder was laying unconscious under the pile of rubble, not moving, not speaking. The pups stopped behind home, as if frozen, as Chase ran forward. He wanted to get to Ryder's side, but an invisible force stopped him. Suddenly the ground cracked again, originating from under Ryder. The cracks extended out and Chase had to step back. The cracks emitted a light for a few seconds, before crumbling into darkness taking Chase, Ryder and the other pups with it...
Chase was upright in a flash, his heart pounded and his breaths were fast and gasping. Realizing what had happened he tried to calm down, but the memories of the nightmare he'd just had, broke him; to the point that he crumbled once more. Burying his face in his paws again he tried to hold back the tears... but to no avail. He stayed like that for the rest of the night, his cries almost echoing in the coming dawn...
Chase lay still, hugging Officer Bear loosely in his forepaws, when a knock on his door stirred him from his slumber.
"Chase, are you awake?" Rocky's soft high voice was muffled a little by the door.
"Uh... yeah." The German Shepard answered, wiping the sleep from his puffy, once, tear-soaked eyes. "Why?" Came Chase's next response.
"It's 9 a.m. Ryder's worried about you. You don't usually sleep this long." Rocky told him. Oh great! Chase silently cursed himself.
"I...I'll be right there." Chase called back. Then he heard the sound of paws padding away. Opening the door, he peeked out to check if the coast was clear, then slipped out into the morning air. The sun was just peaking over the horizon, beginning to melt away the morning dew that was nestled on the ground from the cool of night. Chase stretched and yawned, looking into his bowl of water he saw his red bloodshot eyes. Quickly splashing the water in his face, he decided that that made him look not quite so teary. He slowly walked to the door of the Lookout, his heart began to pump a little faster. His paws trembled as he approached the doors. He stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath he pulled himself together and entered the quiet room. Ryder was sitting right where he left him last night, the pups all sat around him. They all turned toward him when they heard the door slide open. As soon as Chase entered, the pups all felt the atmosphere shift; but to what... none of them had a clue. Chase walked slowly through the circle of pups and approached Ryder. Upon reaching him, he sat down staring at the ground, then daring himself to roll his eyes up to look at Ryder. Ryder instantly saw the distress, still, in his eyes, looking up the other pups looked away; all avoiding eye contact with either of them.
"Can you pups give us a minute?" Ryder asked finally, gazing around at his pups. They all stood, nodding they turned and ran out the door leaving him and Chase alone. Chase watched until the door clicked shut, then turned back to meet Ryder's glance; as if hearing something from him.
"Chase, what's wrong?" Ryder asked him, tenderly placing a hand on his head.
"Nothing." Chase answered firmly, shifting sideways and closer to Ryder.
"Come on, something's wrong." Ryder said, pulling Chase close, the pup still avoiding eye contact. "You're upset and you've been crying, I can tell." Chase's head slowly turned toward him, he shot a quick glance up at him then looked away again.
"It's...just that... I was so worried!!" He finally gave in, launching himself up at Ryder and wrapping his paws around him. Ryder was taken aback by this sudden change, but hugged him close anyway.
"I know... we all were. It was scary, I get it." Ryder soothed. Chase stared at him, in shock, with his tearful brown eyes.
"Were you scared?!" He almost didn't believe it. He had known Ryder since he was a really little pup, he never thought that he was ever really scared.
"Of course I was." Ryder confirmed, pulling Chase in to his chest, and set his chin on the pup's head. "It was a terrible accident. Anyone would be scared." Chase thought about this, feeling Ryder's comforting embrace. "But it's ok." Chase perked up at this. "It's ok to be scared." Ryder continued. "But everything's ok now, and we are all safe and sound."
"Well most of us are sound." Chase answered dryly, looking away again as they broke apart.
"Hey." Ryder said, pulling Chase's chin up to meet his gaze. "I'll heal. And I'll be back on duty in no time. But in the meantime..." Chase searched his face for what he thinking and going to say.
The pups scrambled to their feet, as they heard the door open again. All that met them was Chase standing their staring at the ground, still as a statue.
"So Chase, what did Ryder say?!" Rocky asked hopefully.
"He wants me to lead the PAW Patrol until he gets better." Chase said, walking away, unwilling to look at them. Rocky's wagging tail stopped and frowns were spread amongst the group; as they watched Chase go. When Chase reached his house, he went in and curled up in a ball in the back corners closing the door behind him.
How's it going everybody!!! To just to clarify, being a Christian, when I say 'cursed' it's more of a 'why did I do that?!' Or 'shoot they figured it out!' type thing; not a cussing thing. Also I forgot to mention that Zuma's lisp is still there, I'm and just not sure how to write it in. So imagine it's still there. Hope you're still liking this story. And thank you sooo much for the amazing comments! Thx!!!!!!!! 3 3