Mary, with Alexander's drawing still clutched protectively to her chest, wandered a bit aimlessly towards the heart of the new women's quarters in this strange landscape. How could humans stand to live here? She thought. The forlorn young ape girl wondered if she'd ever feel anything but mixed up ever again in her whole life.

Before she went too far, a huge shadow seemed to materialize directly in front of her. With a cry, Mary froze, but when she looked up, it was a familiar face looking down on her. Not the most welcome of faces, but still no enemy, either.

"Oh, Red," she exclaimed, glaring in exasperation at the gorilla. "You scared me!"

"I'm sorry," the gorilla signed back to her. "I tried calling out, but you didn't answer. You usually at least tell me off."

Mary blinked in surprise but otherwise did not smile at his comment. It was nothing but the truth. She usually just tried to ignore Red, who almost always seem to be somewhere close to where she was a lot of the time. The gorilla was still acting as if he thought he were still assigned as Mary's gorilla guard, and it had not been an actual assignment, at least not as far as she knew, as far as she knew, for years now.

It would have to be him who finds me. Why couldn't it have been Winter, Mary thought, but not unkindly.

"I … I really didn't hear you," she confessed quietly.

Red only shrugged. He knew full well that if she were trying to ignore him, she would do a much better job of it.

"You lost?" he signed.

She shook her head. Without another word, and with a heavy sigh, Mary slipped easily by him and kept on walking. If he wanted to follow her, he would, if he did not, she would not miss him too much. But the gorilla easily fell in to step beside her, and Mary resigned herself to his company for a little while. She was just too tired and too heartsick and confused to try and evade him. She was not even sure she could keep putting one foot in front of the other, in fact.

"What do you want, Red," she asked bluntly.

"To. See You. Safe home," Red responded out loud.

Mary stopped dead in her tracks, the gorilla stopping along with her, and she gaped up at him in pure astonishment. She had never heard him try and speak before and did not know what to make of it now.

What's happening to everyone, Mary thought. It felt like more and more apes were starting to speak or at least try, and this should have made Mary almost ecstatically happy. It was one of the things she would miss most about the humans, their speech. All her life, she had longed for other apes to talk to aside from Caesar and her Father, neither of whom talked much, and had all but given up hope of it happening. And now, instead of being able to enjoy it, it just confused her more than ever. The change was too sudden for Mary to process. All the new changes were just too sudden, and this place they were now in, though full of curiosities, was just too unnatural and alien.

As they rounded a corner in the remains of the human city, a hastily scrolled picture confronted the two apes. Violent, stark and nearly obscene, it seemed to scream back at them from the crumbling wall it was painted on. It shrieked of human hatred for all apes. And though it was obviously an old picture, it was the mirror image, Mary thought, feeling sad and sickened, of her Father's soul.

\Mary stood in front of this depiction, stiff and wide-eyed and staring, until Red took her gently by her slender shoulders, turned her around, and began to gently urge her away from the terrible site.

"No, please. You don't Look At that," the gorilla implored Mary, gently tugging at her and trying to use his own body to block the hateful image. "Mary, this should not be for your eyes."

Had Red tried that at any other time in her life, Mary would have shoved him vigorously away from her. She would have leaped up in to the trees, and climbed hastily away, knowing he would not be able to follow her very well. He could climb, of course, but gorillas were not nearly as agile with climbing as the other apes. But now, she just did not have the strength or the will to do it. And besides, she really did not want to look anymore, anyway. And whereas Red's presence had always seriously annoyed her before, now she found his closeness, his gorilla strength, to be strangely comforting.

Biting back a sob filled with grief and exhaustion and other emotions she did not even have the words to describe, Mary suddenly buried her face in Red's chest. The young gorilla held her, showing a gentleness she had never suspected from him. He kept patting her back, and idly grooming away a bit of dirt and dust from her fur, meticulously smoothing it down with his large hands, taking great care to see that every single hair was in place.

"Your song. It was … very beautiful. Koba. He would be proud of you," Red rasped out softly, his voice seeming to reach Mary's ears through his rib cage, low and oddly soothing as he began to pick some bits of debris from the long thick mane of blond hair that cascaded down her back. She felt him start a little when he touched that hair, and she could guess why. She knew it did not feel like ape hair at all, but it did not seem to deter him.

Mary stayed very still and let Red continue his ministrations. She had never thought of Red as being a soothing ape before, but he was starting to change her mind.

The mention of her Father's name was painful, but at the same time, Mary did not feel terrified or defensive by it as she did when it came up around other apes. She knew how much Red had admired her Father, maybe a little too much? But she wondered if he were right about Koba's feelings for her. How would Koba have felt for instance, about Mary's raising the human baby Hope as a daughter, and not the pet he had intended her to be?

Her confused thoughts could not help drifting back to Red, who was still holding her and gently grooming her. It might be a relief, she thought, to be able to talk with someone and say Koba's name without fear. And she could certainly do this with Red.

And, who knew he was so good at grooming.

Maybe I've been too hard on him, Mary thought wearily as she let Red tend to her. Maybe he …

A loud huff caused both apes to give a start. Mary jerked her head away from red's chest, and from the corner of her eye, saw a blur of white rushing towards them.

"Winter!" she cried happily, springing easily out of Red's grip and rushing up to the big white gorilla. Winter and Mary had been friends all their lives and at least it was not one of the older adults, though why one of them finding her with Red bothered her, Mary could not have said.

"Is something wrong?" Mary questioned Winter anxiously. "Hope?"

Winter gazed between Mary and an obviously annoyed Red, looking a little confused, and a little concerned.

"Hope?" he signed.

"The baby," Mary explained.

"Oh? Babies fine," he signed to Mary. "Cornelia wants you back now, though. She worries, you know."

Mary groaned inwardly. It was not that she minded being called back by Cornelia. She had been heading that way, anyway. But she was dreading the moment

when the gentle Ape Queen would try and talk with her about Caesar. She did not want to talk about Caesar yet, not even to Cornelia. Especially not to Cornelia.

"Well, let's go then," she sighed, putting an arm around Winter and starting to trudge off with him.

Red was following them closely, though, not letting them out of his site.

"What's that about," Winter signed discretely to Mary.

"What's what?" Mary asked, honestly puzzled.

Winter shot a look over his shoulder back at the watchful Red.

"Him?" Winter signed.

It was Mary's turn to look confused.

Winter bent closer over her and signed more emphatically then she had ever seen him do before now.

"Thought you didn't like him much."

It suddenly occurred to her what Winter meant, and Mary blushed furiously.

"It was nothing, Winter, she exclaimed. "Red was just … he was just …"

"Sure," winter signed back a little sullenly. "Saw what he was doing, didn't I?"

"It's none of your business!" Mary shot back, irritated.

Mary glared so fiercely at Winter that he shrank away from her a bit, looking abashed and taken aback.

"I … I'm sorry," he signed hastily, his hands trembling.

This softened Mary's gaze quite a bit. She always forgot how timid and easily frightened Winter could be sometimes. He was so big that it was always easy to forget how timid he was all the time.

He needs a little more of Red's fire, Mary thought. But only a little bit, not much.

Reaching up, Mary fondly patted Winter's cheek.

"It's okay, Winter," she tried to console him. "Red was just trying to comfort me, that's all. Some bad pictures back there."

Winter huffed out a breath, still looking annoyed, but also worried.

"Winter, please, not now," Mary pleaded. The last thing she needed or expected was to get grilled by Winter, of all gorillas. Luca she would have expected it from, but not Winter. She had hardly ever seen him be argumentative with anyone. What was wrong with him, anyway. What was wrong with everyone.

And still, in the back of her mind, she knew why Winter was so shocked. She was starting to feel a little shocked herself, and confused and troubled. And mostly about her own reactions, not any of Reds.

"Red, stop skulking back there and come up here and walk with us," Mary called back. She always hated it when he followed her like that. It made her nervous.

She almost laughed out loud at the surprised look on Reds face as he immediately came to walk with her and Winter but stopped herself. Had she really been that mean to him all their lives? Well, sadly she realized that it was possible.

Oh, alright! I'll be nicer to Red! She grudgingly promised herself. Just maybe he does deserve it after all.

With one arm still around Winter, Mary reached out and put her other arm around Red, placing herself between the two gorillas. She could not help but note that this made Red look even more surprised.

"A girl can't ask for better protection, can she now?" she said, beaming at Winter and giving Red a gentle smile. Winter blushed, and Red looked even more confused than ever.

"So, take me to our Queen, my brave gorillas," Mary said in an attempt to sound more like her old playful self.

As they trudged on in silence, Mary's thought grew dark and brooding again. The place on her head where Josie had ripped out several strands of hair still stung, and she absently rubbed at it.

As if sensing her darker mood shift, and wanted to distract her from it, Winter looked down and signed, "What is that?"

Mary gave a start. She had been lost in her own dark thoughts.

When she unrolled the drawing, Winter gasped in recognition.

"It's so … so …"

The big white gorilla did not seem to know how to go on.

"Lifelike," Mary finished for him.

Winter nodded.

"Did you draw it?" he signed.

"No, Alexander did it for me," Mary said, and felt Red immediately stiffen beside her.

Giving Red a hard look, Mary shrugged. Choosing not to get in to an argument with red right now, she let it go for now, re-packed her drawing, and they walked on towards Lake and Cornelia and Mary's new human baby.

And as they began to move through larger groups of apes, Mary was still so distraught and distracted that she did not notice at all how many of them looked at her with admiration and real awe in their eyes, and how many of them gave her gentle sympathetic looks. Everyone within earshot, and it had carried well, who had heard Mary's funeral song to her Father, had been moved by it. but none of this moved Mary. She simply kept putting one small foot in front of the other, and flanked by the two gorillas, she just walked on, oblivious.

A/N:

Hi everyone, and thanks to anyone who has hung in for this long. Welcome to any new readers. And special thanks to those who have left reviews or PMs. I hope to have updates out more swiftly in future.