After countless minutes of pacing back and forth around the hollow, Jewel sighed for the umpteenth time and looked out of the hollow. Behind her, her and Blu's kids were flying around, chasing each other hyperactively, not slowing down for one millisecond. It really was past their curfew, but Jewel had allowed them to stay up later than usual just this one time, since she understood how much all three of them wanted to see their father bid goodnight to them.

Speaking of their father, he really should've been back by now. He was the one who wasn't willing to go to The Branch, and he was the one who had promised his kids that he would be back before bedtime, so it really surprised the mother bird that he still hadn't come flying home, panting and apologizing for his absence. But then again, he was easily distracted, and Nico and Pedro were experts when it came to stalling...

They better not have gotten him intoxicated, Jewel thought bitterly, thinking of what she would do to the two tiny birds if that was true. Poor, harmless Blu just didn't do good being drunk, especially now that he was into fatherhood.

What are you thinking, Jewel? They're your friends, they know better than to do that, she shook off her previous thoughts. It was true. Nico and Pedro could be pretty reckless and irresponsible, but they weren't that reckless and irresponsible. Well, at least Nico wasn't. Jewel wasn't too sure about Pedro. Either way, Nico would've prevented a drunken Blu even if Pedro had attempted to pull a stunt like that.

Jewel sighed again and turned back to her kids, who were now roughhousing with each other on the floor. "Kids, time for bed," she spoke up over the noises the chicks were making.

All three of them immediately got up off of each other once they heard their mother speak. "But Mommy!" they whined in unison. "Daddy promised to be back!"

"No buts," Jewel said sternly. Then, with a gentler tone, she added, "I promise that I'll stay up and wait until your daddy comes back. Then I'll let you up for just a minute so you could welcome him back."

The kids were satisfied with that, and the next thing Jewel knew, she had tucked them all in the nest and they were snoring quietly to themselves. Jewel wearily looked back out the hollow. Blu... Where the heck are you?

It was around three in the morning when Pedro finally decided to leave the club. All that partying had put him in a good mood—he normally would be in a great mood when exiting The Branch, but Nico wasn't there to leave with him. Sure, Pedro was the one who had ditched him with Blu a few hours ago, but he surely would've come right back once Blu had gone home. It was very unlike Nico to just cozy himself into his and Pedro's own shared hollow without at least letting the cardinal know he didn't feel like partying anymore. Even if he was a little irritated at Pedro for throwing him under the bus with Blu.

Once their hollow came into view, Pedro made a beeline for it. He flew in and cast a look where Nico's sleeping form was supposed to have been. He did a double take, having expected to see this bundle of yellow feathers in the nest. However, there was nothing. He was alone in the hollow. After making sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, Pedro slipped into panic mode right away. Not knowing where Nico was would automatically send him into a frenzy, even if it was a false alarm and the canary had just gone out for a drink of water. Pedro took a deep breath at that last thought, trying to calm himself down. It's okay... This has happened before, and Nico always came right back wonderin' why I was actin' all crazy. He doesn't need you goin' all panicky when everything's perfectly fine. I'll just...wait a few minutes. If he's not back, then it's alright to panic. If he's not back, then I'll go out lookin' for him.

So he waited, and Nico wasn't back by "a few minutes." Needless to say, Pedro kept his promise to himself and officially began to frantically search for his friend, scanning the nearby area. He wasn't behind any tree, he wasn't in a hollow with some lady bird (If Pedro wasn't so distressed, he would've laughed out loud at himself for even thinking that that was a possibility. Nico wasn't all for one-night stands), and he definitely wasn't back inside their own hollow when Pedro thought things over and decided to check it again. The cardinal was growing more and more stressed by the second. Every second was one more second his best friend was missing.

What was that strategy that everyone uses when they want to find somethin'? Pedro thought frustratedly to himself as he sat at the entrance of his and Nico's hollow. Retrace your steps? Yeah, I think that's it. Of course, he wasn't going to retrace his own steps, but Nico's. 'Kay. What places do you know for a fact that Nico had gone? I last saw him goin' out of The Branch, and he was gonna go and drop Blu off at his hollow even though he didn't want to, and he should've come right back...

Blu. He was going to drop Blu off at his hollow. Blu surely would've been the last to see Nico before he went missing. Pedro zoomed off in the direction of the blue macaws' home, planning on attacking Blu with questions until he finally got a lead to where Nico might be. It didn't take him long to spot the tree where Blu and his family resided in, mostly because Jewel was fast asleep at the entrance and her bright colors stood out against the dark nighttime, making her an easy sight to notice. He immediately rushed over to her and shouted her name.

"JEWEL!"

Jewel started awake, ready to defend her kids if it was some midnight avian assaulter. After recognizing Pedro, she visibly relaxed. "Oh, it's you. Would you mind not yelling so loud? My kids are sleeping inside."

"Where's Blu?" Pedro whispered as loud as he could.

Jewel's expression turned to one of confusion. "Isn't he with you and..." She looked around, obviously trying to spot Nico. "Nico?"

That was surely not a reaction Pedro had expected, nor was it one that left a good feeling inside of him. "Ya mean he's not home yet?"

Jewel shook her head. "No, he never came back. I'm just waiting here at the entrance for him. Where's Nico?"

"He's missin'," Pedro said sadly. "I've been turnin' the jungle upside down searchin' for him, and I thought I could ask Blu where he is."

"Wait, what? If you don't know where Nico is, then what would make you think that Blu does?"

Pedro sighed. "Blu wanted to go home since he wanted to keep his promise to the kids, but I guess he was mad at us for draggin' him to the club without consultin' him first, so he wanted one of us to take him home. It's a weird act of payback, but whatevs," he shrugged, unable to resist adding in that remark. "I called dibs on stayin', so Nico was kinda thrown under the bus by me, and I saw both of them leave. I just got back and Nico isn't in our hollow, so I came here."

"There's been no sign of Blu either," Jewel croaked, starting to pick up on the gravity of the situation. "Pedro, I don't think this is a coincidence at all. They both left together, and now they're both gone. Something must've happened that we don't know about. They couldn't have just magically disappeared. It's way too strange."

Pedro groaned and put his face in his wings. "Great. I thought I could finally find Nico by questioning Blu, but it turns out the witness has disappeared off the face of the earth too." He raised his head up. "Maybe we could ask Raffy? He might not know either, but there's a chance that he does."

Jewel hesitated and looked back at her sleeping children. She turned back to Pedro and shook her head. "I can't afford to leave my kids alone, and I don't want to wake them up either. I can only wait until they wake up in the morning and then go to Rafael's."

Pedro gave an exasperated sigh and reluctantly agreed. "Yeah, I admit Raffy's a little testy when he first wakes up. Maybe we should just wait until the sun's out and then go find him."

Jewel nodded in consent. "Yeah, and no matter how unlikely it is, they might be back by dawn. I'm sure that's not the case, but it's possible."

Pedro nodded slightly. "Right. Well... G'night."

"Night." Jewel went back into her hollow.

Once Pedro was back in his own tree and lying down in his nest, he couldn't bring himself to fall asleep.

They were put on a plane. It seemed as if they were one of the last ones (out of about 50 other birds) to be captured, since the aircraft had taken off shortly after they were loaded on there. Typically, Blu had begun hyperventilating at first, but Nico had managed to calm him down and convince him that things would be okay. Blu was obviously skeptical to believe him, but he did so anyway in order to keep his sanity. They were now currently playing a game out of boredom...if it could even be called a game.

"Which organic molecules are most closely related to lipids? A: amino acids, B: fatty acids, C: nucleotides, or D: sugars?"

Nico stared at Blu. "What kind of messed up question is that?!"

"Linda had this question on her finals when she was in high school!"

"She's a human! I'm a bird! Birds don't get an education!" Nico paused and then added, "It's B, by the way."

Blu frowned. "If you knew the right answer, then why would you complain about it?"

"I knew it. But I can't really say the same thing for the typical bird."

"True, true–" Blu stopped abruptly once he realized something. "Then how do you know it?"

"I get around a lot," was Nico's cryptic answer. "Anyway, it's my turn. What do you think Jewel's doing right now? A: She's extremely peeved and vowing to kill you, B: She's extremely worried and asking various birds if they've seen you and/or me, C: She's putting up with Pedro, since he's probably spazzing out right now, or D: She's not worried at all?"

Blu winced at the thought of poor Jewel frantically searching for him. "Anything except D. Though I strongly prefer that it's not A." He shuddered at that possibility. He had experienced a very moody Jewel when the eggs still weren't laid, and he definitely didn't want to be the target of her anger ever again.

Nico suddenly stood up. "I'm ending this game." He went over to the cage door and inspected it. Like last time, it was a padlock. He turned back to Blu. "Can't you do what you did last time? With the fire extinguisher and stuff?"

Blu rolled his eyes. "Do you see a fire extinguisher anywhere?"

He had a point. Nico sighed and sat down again. "I can't believe this is happening again. What is up with smugglers in Rio?"

"Beats me." Blu looked around the room. There was a large variety of bird species that also fell victim to the smugglers. There were macaws, there were parrots, there were tanagers, there were parakeets, and that was just the beginning. "Where do you think we're going?"

"Considering how long we've been on this flight, definitely not anywhere near Rio. So not Mexico, Chile, Argentina, or any other South American country."

"Maybe the United States?"

Nico shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe it's somewhere across the Atlantic, like London or Paris."

"Paris has a smuggling system?"

"I dunno. It's only a suggestion."

Blu was the one who stood up this time. "We can't just sit around here and do nothing. We both have to get back to Rio," he said firmly, suddenly determined to get back to his family. "I have a mate and three kids, and you have Pedro. We can't just give up right now when they're probably overexerting themselves trying to find out where in the world we've gone."

Nico tilted his head in curiosity. "How are we gonna do that?"

"Easy. Play dead."

"...Play dead," Nico deadpanned. "Really. Play dead."

"Hey, me and Jewel did that when we were captured by Nigel and his goons!" Blu protested. "It worked...sort of."

"Yeah. Sort of." Nico was clearly still not impressed.

"That method was only ruined because Nigel was there to catch us when we seized our chance to escape! As for the humans, they totally fell for it," Blu tried one more time to convince the smaller bird.

Nico rolled his eyes. "Right. Considering we can't think of anything better, I guess we have no choice."

Blu smiled satisfactorily. "Thank you. Now I want to see how well you can act. Play dead for me."

Nico fell over, unmoving and his wide-open eyes unblinking.

Blu nodded in approval. "That's pretty good for your first try, but you might want to twitch."

Nico got up. "Blu, twitching just gives away that you're still alive and possibly having a seizure."

Blu frowned. "Aw, come on!" he cried. "Am I the only one who thinks that the twitching always settles it?!"

"What messed up living being in this world told you that?"

"Um... Alice and Chloe," Blu said.

"Who are they?"

"These two Canadian geese back in Minnesota who always picked on me..."

"And you believed them?"

"...Anyway," Blu faked a cough. "You don't have to twitch if you don't want to. When you feel the plane beginning to land, just get into position."

"Roger."

In all honesty, I don't like the part where Blu and Nico were talking. I swear, it's just-

I just want to let you guys know that I have never gone one story without adding in some lightheartedness. I'm not sure if it's because I can't help myself, or if it's just a habit.

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of faves and follows I received. I love you guys.

Review if you can!