Summer's too close to an end! Ah, well, at least I still have time for fanfiction! :) a few more weeks of bliss before it comes crashing down...What was the most memorable thing you did this summer? Any new traditions? Tell me in your reviews. Because I know you will review. *gives you creepy stare* I rode a horse for the first time...did some volunteering...had some revelations...and I wrote this chappie for ya!

So happy for all the reviews I got! Reviews are my writing oxygen!

I don't own Ice age...sigh.

The weather worsened, but Diego pressed on. Sid came to them in a pathetic, muddy ball of stink trying to light a fire during a hail storm beneath the cover of evergreens. Manny frowned when he heard his friend's hacking cough and sneezes, but couldn't do much for him. Peaches was still his main priority, and then...whatever came next.

They were together again. The trio that started it all. Originally three bachelors with three very different pasts, but now their family wasn't so small. Wasn't so simple. Oh, yes, it helped to have Sid, because Manny loved the sloth like a brother and worried over the clumsy mammal, but even with his closest friends at his side, something inside him hurt. The saber, mammoth and sloth were wound together tighter than rope, but at times he wondered if it had begun to fray. Surely it wasn't the same, because there were two knots tied now- one for Ellie and one for Shira; Ellie's possum brothers came into the mix, and there was Peaches. His lovely Peaches, his baby girl, his little darling, his adventurous teenager. His daughter who was all her own.

Manny felt the pain again, a dull knife digging itself into the cave of his ribs, worming between his lungs, piercing his heart. He immersed himself in the comfort of his longtime friends and pondered aloud what could have possibly happened.

Sid surprised Diego with his musings, "Maybe is was something we've done. Something we can correct. Or maybe it was just a wrong that needed to be righted and we happened to be in the right place at the right time."

Diego stared at the floppy green creature for a long minute.

"Sid," he replied, "That was the smartest sounding thing you've ever said to me. If you keep this up, you'll give me a heart attack."

Sid beamed and tripped over his own feet.

"But I don't get what you're saying."

"Don't you see, Diego?" Sid lisped. "We're time travelers! Clock astronauts going where no sub-zero heroes have gone before! Or we ate some bad sushi."

Diego pressed on, leaving Sid behind. Over his furry shoulder he called, "I think the sushi is more likely."

"It's probable!"

"I take back everything I said about an increase in your intelligence."

Sid wilted. Couldn't Diego see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together? But he was probably right. Maybe he was hallucinating. Or dreaming. He was prone to sleep long hours, after all. He scratched his back.

Just a nice, long dream.

-/-

Peaches spent the next few days in a state of confusion. The same questions demanded answers: How could this have happened? What was she supposed to do? Would she even be able to do anything? Her family, would she ever see them again?

She held tears behind a bitten lip and decided that maybe confronting Buck again might be a step in the right direction.

She asked an opossum, an ache welling up deep inside at the thought of her uncles, where Buck might be found.

"That street rat? What's a pretty mammoth like you want with 'im? Ah, no 'tis none o' my buisiness, he can be found down the aspen lane, or as of late anywhere near the grocer's daughter." The marsupial winked knowingly.

"Thank you," Peaches couldn't help but smile. She knew where to find the girl, at least. The aspen lane was a place unknown to her.

However, not wanting to have to pry too far into his private life, she decided the lane might be the better bet. She inquired, and found herself in front of a burrow in a hill beneath a grove of quaking aspen. It looked simple, but cozy enough. Certainly lived in, if the many pawprints leading up to and away from the small, wooden door were any clue. The teenager hesitantly knocked.

Surprise itself greeted her.