Ever since Marshall had put the albums back in their place in storage, none of the pups had felt like playing or even moving an inch, with most of them electing to lounge around the Lookout in silence. Not for any lack of getting along, but for their inability to get their one final member to even speak to them or come around slightly from his own trauma.
Any attempt to see Ryder had been met with Jake or Carlos turning the pups away no matter how much any of them insisted. But instead of feeling angry at being turned away, the only thing they felt was fatigue. Every single one of their efforts was proving futile, and the pups were only growing to resent Jake and Carlos for stopping them from talking to their owner. The owner who so desperately needed them, they felt.
And Jake and Carlos were starting to feel the same fatigue, which was only growing more intense with the pups clearly starting to dislike them. All of their own efforts to get Ryder to open up were even slower than those of the last few days. The boy simply wouldn't respond to any of them anymore. Jake and Carlos had gotten to speak to Ryder for a while, but the boy had been miles away for the entire time they had tried talking to him. As if he was actively retreating into his own mind to avoid speaking to them. Their frustration was growing more and more as Carlos closed Ryder's bedroom door behind them, the two having given up for the time being. Carlos slumped against the wall, not noticing that Jake had moved to the main room of the Lookout's top floor.
"Carlos? Over here?" Jake asked.
Surprised that Jake had somehow made his way past him, Carlos got to his feet and slowly walked over to join Jake in the centre of the Lookout's briefing room.
"Dude..." Jake began tiredly. "...this is NOT working."
"Tell me something I don't know..." Carlos replied through a huge sigh. "Jake, why can't we just let the pups in to talk to Ryder?"
"It's not gonna be that easy! A few days ago, Skye told me that Ryder just screamed at her when she tried to talk to him! I saw she was trying to hold it in, but she was a total wreck! If that happens again because we overloaded the guy…!"
"OK, OK, I get it! But… our choices are drying up, here… Trying to talk to him through the door's getting us nowhere fast, and if we bring up the pups, we risk him blowing his top again... H-He's been avoiding just about everyone! Even Marshall!"
"So there's only one thing we can do now, dude. We gotta take drastic measures."
"What do you mean? Like forcing him to talk to the pups?"
"Kinda. I'm thinking we need an intervention of some kind. I mean, what else can we do? Getting through to him any other way ain't working."
"Got any ideas?"
"Well… got one. But it's pretty risky."
Carlos shrugged with a resigned expression. "Well, I guess if it's that or just pointlessly talk to him through his door even more..."
Why weren't they taking the hint?
Ryder wanted to be alone. How hard was that to get?! How could they keep it up for so many days?! He'd hurt everyone! His pups, himself, everyone in Adventure Bay… For Ryder, the whole ordeal couldn't blow over fast enough. He couldn't talk to his pups after he'd spent the last few days shutting himself off and yelling at them for the heinous crime of trying to talk to him, after all. In fact, he wasn't sure if he even had the right to call himself the owner of six pups after all that had happened. Marshall coming back made no difference to him. If he was truly a good owner and leader, none of what Marshall and the team went through would've happened in the first place.
He wasn't even sure if he'd ever speak to them properly again, in fact. Obviously, he still cared about them with all his heart, but could he truly say that after letting one of them die? All he could do was wait for the funeral to pass and just pray that things went back to normal by themselves. It seems that having Jake and Carlos bothering him all the time was good for keeping him in the loop. But nothing more.
Ryder was still puzzled at how his horrific nightmares had attracted the pups, though. And even moreso why they even bothered to comfort him the way they did. Didn't they despise him? Why would they come and check on him in the first place? And Rocky getting him a glass of warm milk? He hadn't done anything to deserve their love at all. He may have bore witness to some happy moments, but none of them did anything to light the inky blackness within. In fact, once they were over, he only felt worse. All they did was remind him of the moments that he could never share with his pups again.
In fact, the only thing that lit up anything around him was his Pup Pad. Ryder growled. He'd never set it on "Do Not Disturb" before, but he still got calls from Katie sometimes. Perhaps an odd attempt to cheer him up? Why couldn't they take the hint that he didn't want to talk? Begrudingly, he decided to slake his brain's flaming curiosity by looking over at the cracked screen. Surprisingly, it wasn't Katie's icon that flashed, but that of Mayor Goodway, the same person who they hadn't had contact with for at least a day. Shouldn't her part of the funeral preparations have been keeping her busy along with Skye?
As much as Ryder wanted to let his Pup Pad ring out, just as he'd done every other time before then, he simply couldn't bring himself to ignore Mayor Goodway. Not when she might have been in trouble or worried about him. He'd never say it outright, but Mayor Goodway seemed to have an odd way of connecting with him. For someone who wasn't related to her, Mayor Goodway sure treated Ryder like he was. With great reluctance, Ryder picked up his Pup Pad and very slowly pressed Mayor Goodway's icon, watching as her appearance lit up his screen.
"Mayor Goodway…" Ryder began flatly.
"Oh, goodness sakes, Ryder, you look terrible!" Mayor Goodway scolded. "Have you been looking after yourself at all?!"
The conversation had started predictably. Ryder had looked at himself in the mirror from time to time, but each time, he barely recognised the pale, exhausted boy staring back at him.
"Gimme a break..." Ryder mumbled guiltily. "I've been eating, you know..."
"And has that helped?" Mayor Goodway asked bluntly. "You know how much people care about you! Why are you still shutting yourself off?!"
Ryder simply squeezed his eyes shut and looked away from the screen. He could feel more tears working their way to his eyes, and he had to fight to push them back down. Once he was confident he wasn't going to burst into tears in front of Mayor Goodway, he turned back to her.
"...what did you need, Mayor Goodway?"
Mayor Goodway sighed heavily. "Listen, Ryder. I know you and the pups might not be in any condition to do very much, but I've got a problem, and I didn't know who else to talk to."
"A rescue?"
"I suppose so… My dear Chickaletta's gone and gotten herself stuck in some trees… I don't have any way of getting her down myself… Please, Ryder… just this once?"
If Ryder sighed any harder, he probably would've cracked the windows. It was bad enough he couldn't face his pups, but now he had to face his pups AND go outside to risk being potentially talked to? He couldn't bear to think of it. But an emergency was an emergency. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could go back into hiding. Hiding from the scorn of the pups he'd failed.
"...just this once." Ryder eventually conceded. "...But I'm warning you. We're not ready to go back into this full-time."
Mayor Goodway, much to Ryder's surprise, smiled. "I owe you a BIG favour, Ryder. Thank you so much."
When the call finally ended, the pit in Ryder's stomach only got deeper. Of course, he'd said that "they" weren't ready to go back into rescuing full time, but the pups were probably itching to get back into action. Ryder just couldn't bear to speak to anyone. After his failure to keep his pups safe, he couldn't even call himself their leader anymore. But what was he supposed to do? Resign? Where would he go then? And where would that leave the pups? He'd already failed them so many times that he'd lost count, but he wasn't exactly prepared to do it again. At least Marshall wouldn't want to endanger himself again. The faster Chickaletta was saved, the better. With a deep breath Ryder tapped the button on his Pup Pad to call the pups to action.
"Pups, er..." Ryder stuttered. "...everyone… We've got a… rescue?"
Instead of an enthusiastic cry from the pups, instead there was a perplexed silence.
"...what the heck was that?" Rocky asked dumbfoundedly, laying in front of the TV with Marshall, Chase and Skye.
"I think… Ryder needs us?" Chase replied uncertainly.
"Maybe we have a rescue?" Skye theorised.
"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Marshall shouted. "Let's go!"
After a few seconds, Marshall felt his stomach drop, as the looks he was getting gave him the impression that he'd just said the wrong thing entirely.
"...you've gotta be kidding." Chase replied bluntly.
"Marshall, you-!" Skye spluttered. "You're not trying to come on a rescue?!"
"Huh?" Marshall replied dumbfounded. "A-Am I not supposed to? I can't just run away from a rescue!"
"C'mon, think about it, Marshall!" Rocky shot back. "On your last rescue, you nearly died! How could you just… just jump straight back in?! You should be resting! Having fun! Not going right back in!"
"Rocky!" Marshall shouted. "Someone's in trouble! If they need a fire pup, what are we gonna say if I didn't come?! 'Oh, sorry, Marshall didn't come to help you, he's too lazy'?!"
"Marshall, you know it's not that!" Skye retorted. "We've told you a million times what losing you did to us! And it was all because of that rescue! You're going straight back into something possibly dangerous if it's something that needs a fire pup! We just got you back! We might run the risk of losing you all over again!"
"But what if it's not?!" Marshall demanded.
"We can't take that chance!" Skye replied. "We can't let you come with us! Not after we came so close to losing you last time!"
Marshall felt wounded. Deep down, he understood why everyone was so against him coming with them, but at the same time, it felt like they didn't trust him anymore. Like they were trying to shut him out. Even though he knew better than that, the dalmatian was still hurt.
"Guys… you don't trust me?" Marshall whispered. "Am I… not good enough?"
Now it was everyone else's turn to feel wounded. "Oh, don't be ridiculous, Marshall..." Chase replied.
"Marshall, that's not what we think and you know it." Rocky added quietly. "I stand by my saying that you're the world's greatest fire pup… But… we can't lose you… not again..."
"Marshall, please don't say you think that..." Skye whined. "We're all scared to death of losing you again… It doesn't matter how dangerous this rescue might be… If there's even a little chance you might get hurt… A chance we might lose you again… None of us wanna take it..."
Marshall had suspected as much. It was nice to know that they didn't doubt his abilities, but he still hated that it felt like they were trying to coddle him.
"Guys, you know how much being a fire pup means to me." Marshall said calmly. "I know it's way scarier thinking about how one of us could die if something goes wrong now that it's kinda happened… But it doesn't matter how scared we all are. If we all just stayed home because of how dangerous something probably was, we wouldn't do any rescues at all! Please, guys. Lemme come with you… Just this once… I swear on my dad's spots I'll be super-duper careful. I won't let anything happen to me… I'll take things slow, I won't be clumsy, anything. Pup Scout's honour."
Marshall prayed that the pups would at least take his plea seriously. He'd made it clear how much his work meant to him, and the pups at least seemed to be giving it serious consideration. But then, it'd take a lot to get past their fears. Odds are, they probably weren't expecting any rescues for days. But after a period of silence thick enough to cut with a knife, Chase finally spoke.
"Marshall… Are you ABSOLUTELY SURE this is what you want?"
Marshall stared into Chase's amber eyes with a surprising amount of dedication. "Positive."
"You're sure you're sure?"
"One hundred percent."
Another pause preceded Chase sighing. "Marshall… PLEASE be careful. Stay as safe as you can if you get picked. And if we wanna help you, please don't turn us down?"
Marshall nodded. "Deal."
The remaining pups all exchanged nervous glances with each other, still unsure of whether they should keep trying to veto Marshall's pleas or not.
"Well..." Rocky sighed. "We can't keep delaying this. Let's not keep Ryder waiting any longer than we already have."
Skye sighed as well. "Right..."
Suddenly, the voice of a certain chihuahua came from the elevator.
"Guys! C'mon!" Tracker demanded. "We've got an emergency, here! Are you all waiting for a pizza or something?! Get the lead out! ¡Venga!"
Realising that they'd likely wasted a huge amount of time arguing, the pups finally saw fit to head for the elevator. Perhaps more proof that they weren't ready for whatever came their way. And despite the extreme hurry they were all in, surprisingly, Marshall made it into the elevator in an orderly fashion. Not that anyone was in the mood to point this out.
"Guys, you know we heard that, right?" Everest piped up, causing everyone to jump.
"Guys, please." Chase cut in. "This is Marshall's choice, not ours. We'll keep him safe every step of the way, but in the end, we can't stop him."
"We didn't wanna try." Rubble replied bluntly.
"The only thing we weally wanna say is: BE. CAWEFUL. Please." Zuma added firmly.
"Don't worry, Zuma." Marshall reassured. "I will. More than ever. I mean, I'd pinky swear, but have you ever tried doing that with no fingers?"
As the elevator doors finally closed and the elevator began to ascend to the briefing room, the pups, much to Marshall's shock, actually laughed. Despite all of the tension that they were feeling at that moment, it was good to see that Marshall was as good at breaking it as ever. To the point that when the elevator finally reached the top, the pups were all in surprisingly-high spirits as they bounded out of the elevator and sat in their usual spots.
"Paw Patrol ready for action, Ryder, sir!" Chase shouted, perhaps a little louder than he was intending.
The remaining pups, however, couldn't help but notice that Ryder still looked decidedly sick and tired. A mere shadow of who he really was. Most of them wondered if Ryder was even in a fit state to lead them at all. The rain outside continued to pour even as Ryder began his speech.
"Pups… I'll make this quick. Chickaletta's stuck in some trees. We need to get her down." Ryder instructed curtly.
The pups found themselves slightly dizzy at how quickly and flatly Ryder delivered his briefing. He was usually never this blunt with them.
"Chase." Ryder began. "We'll need you and your net in case something goes wrong getting Chickaletta down from the trees."
"Chase is on the case!" Chase replied, outwardly happy, inwardly concerned.
"Skye. We'll need your harness to get Chickaletta down from the trees."
"(The heck?!)" Skye thought. "E-err… This pup's gotta fly!"
Everyone noticed from Skye's starting stutter that she thought that this wasn't a good idea at all. And it didn't take much thinking to figure out why. Ignoring the fact that flying in the rain made it hard to see much of anything, her harness was surely bound to get caught on some trees at some point.
"Alright, let's go." Ryder said flatly, getting ready to move to the pole.
"Wait a minute!" Marshall suddenly shouted, grabbing the room's attention. "Ryder, sir. Sorry to interrupt, but wouldn't it be easier if I brought my ladder along? I mean, I could help Chickaletta down, easy."
"Absolutely not!" Ryder barked with a surprising degree of force, frightening the pups. "This is way too dangerous for you, Marshall! You're staying here!"
"Ryder, I've handled worse than this kinda thing! I swear I'll be super-careful!"
"No! The last time something worse came up, we lost you! I'm not letting that happen again!"
"But it won't! I learn from my mistakes, Ryder! I already swore to the pups I'd be careful! I don't break my promises!"
"I don't care! Anything could happen! You! Are! Staying! Here! That's an order!"
"But I'm better than that! Why don't you believe me?!"
"MARSHALL! THAT'S ENOUGH!" Ryder bellowed, shocking the entire room into silence. "YOU'RE NOT COMING ON THIS RESCUE AND THAT! IS! FINAL! I'M THE LEADER, HERE! YOU'RE! NOT!"
No-one could bring themselves to say anything from the sheer terror they were feeling. The amount of times that Ryder had gotten this vicious with them could be counted on one hand, and all of those times were from his depressed tongue-lashings in the past few days. Everyone stared at the furious-looking Ryder before them, completely unable to move and scared beyond measure.
And slowly, Ryder's rage melted from his face, to be replaced by horror, dizziness and the urge to be ill. It took a while, but what he'd just said had finally sunk in with him, too. His angry glare vanished, replaced with a wide-eyed look of appalled remorse. He looked around the room to see eight pairs of eyes burning into him with looks of terror. Ryder found his voice failing him for a while before he finally dropped his gaze to the floor and choked out a sentence.
"...let's just go."
Without another word, Ryder ran across the room and jumped onto the pole, ungracefully sliding down it faster than usual. Upon seeing this, Chase looked around the room with a surprising look of panic, unable to fathom what to do next. He looked like a deer in the headlights. Until eventually, Chase slowly dragged himself over to the slide and jumped onto it, but not before giving Marshall the saddest look he'd given him in a long while.
Skye, for her part, slowly settled back into a familiar feeling of rage, glancing at the teary-eyed dalmatian, and then at the other pups, and then at the slide. Upon looking at the slide, she paused, only to growl and let out a frustrated yell as she pounded the ground with her paw, before storming over to the slide and hopping down it.
With both pups gone, attention quickly turned to Marshall, who hadn't moved his gaze from where Ryder was standing. His eyes were clearly welling up with tears as he stared ahead. Not once had Ryder even spoken to him like that, and his words had crushed the pup's heart into powder. Beginning to break down, Marshall tore his helmet and Pup Pack from his person, angrily cast his vest aside and burst into tears, charging into the elevator and hammering the button hard enough for it to practically crack. The dalmatian was still hammering the floor with his paws in tearful frustration as the elevator took him out of sight.
"Marshall!" Tracker cried.
"Mawshall! Wait!" Zuma shouted after him.
"Marshall! Don't go!" Rubble yelled.
"Marshall, no! Wait up!" Everest screamed.
"Oh, no-!" Rocky stammered. "Everyone, wait up, I'm going after him!"
Without thinking, Rocky blazed his own trail to the slide and practically dived down it, flying to the bottom as fast as he possibly could, and having a hard landing in his own truck, just in time to see the vehicles of the chosen pups vanishing over the horizon. Recovering from the bumpy landing, Rocky hopped to the ground to see Marshall come tearing out of the Lookout crying, running towards the rear of the island.
"Marshall! Stop! Please!" Rocky shouted over the rain as he took off after Marshall. For once, Rocky didn't have a solitary care about getting wet. All he was concerned with was his friend and brother's wellbeing.
About 20 minutes later, the rescue hadn't gone much better. In fact, Ryder, Chase and Skye would likely number it as amongst the Paw Patrol's worst, if any of them had cared to rank it. The mood throughout could be described as awkward at best and moribund at worst. Chase would usually be delighted to put his siren on, but here, he simply couldn't bring himself to do so. Perhaps worse is that even when he was directly spoken to, the shepherd didn't utter so much as a peep, avoiding looking at his leader at all, clearly haunted and saddened at Ryder's outburst.
Skye, however, was the exact opposite. Unless she had to focus on where she was going, not once did she stop glaring at Ryder from on high. For the second time, Skye was absolutely furious with him. Having had experience with outbursts such as that, her stomach turned at the mere concept of Ryder yelling at one of them the way he did, and even moreso when that one happened to be the pup they had all thought dead, and when the loss of said pup had sent them all into a dark pit of despair. One could be forgiven for thinking that the cockapoo was trying to burn a hole in Ryder's head with the power of her disgusted, scornful glare.
And although Ryder's gaze remained solidly-locked on the task at hand, he didn't have to look at his pups to feel their utter hatred for him. Almost as soon as Marshall had come back and they had taken turns making a fuss over each other was Ryder now screaming at the one he loved for no good reason. Ryder saw Marshall's heart break very clearly in the dalmatian's eyes, and he just couldn't get the scene out of his head. With every passing second, the boy's hatred of himself grew more and more. As did his conviction that he was a terrible person unfit to even look at his pups, let alone care for them.
Unless Ryder had to give a direct order, he kept his mouth firmly shut, but he still felt Chase's disappointment and Skye's rage burning into him every step of the way. Skye, of course, struggled to get her harness through the cluster of trees to the oddly-calm Chickaletta, especially in the high winds. And of course, it didn't go as well as they'd hoped, thanks to the harness knocking Chickaletta out of the tree and into Chase's waiting net. Mercifully, the chicken was unhurt, with Mayor Goodway personally making sure of the fact with Mayor Humdinger at her side.
"Well, thank you for your help, Ryder, pups..." Mayor Goodway began, still holding her purse chicken in her arms. "...but where's Marshall? Is he alright? Did he not want to come?"
And with the Mayor's innocent question, Ryder felt like he'd been punched in the gut. As was evident by the boy cringing and looking like he wanted to vomit. Ryder couldn't conceal his feelings; a fact very quickly seized on by the two mayors.
"Ryder..." Mayor Humdinger began with an unusually stern voice. "...is there something you're not telling us?"
"...I… E-Er… M-Marshall, he..." Ryder stammered. "...we… we had a fight..."
Ryder's last sentence was less spoken and more squeaked in shame. Chase and Skye looked on from outside of their vehicles, listening closely to Ryder's words.
"It was more than that!" Skye cut in, unable to hold herself back any further. "Ryder yelled at him! Marshall WANTED to come with us! He wanted to be part of this! But Ryder stopped him and yelled at him when he tried to put his paw down!"
Chase stared in astonishment at Skye. Surprised, but not objecting. But her words had a deep impact on Ryder, who couldn't stop a tear from running down his cheek. Nor could he stop some strangled sobs from escaping his mouth.
"And that's why you're here now, dude."
A voice caught everyone's attention. Looking in the direction of it, they noticed the unusual sight of Jake walking up to the group with a surprisingly-serious expression on his face, Carlos at his side.
"...Jake…? Carlos…?" Ryder squeaked.
"Ryder. We need to talk." Carlos added sternly.
"G-Guys… Please, I-"
"NO." Jake barked with a firmness unbecoming of the cool-headed skier, making Ryder feel even more helpless than he already was. "All this time we've been at your door trying to talk to you and you keep pushing us out! And now look what it's done to you! You're a total wreck, and now you're yelling at the people you love! We know you feel bad, but if you keep shutting yourself off, nothing's gonna get better! So for once, we're all going to talk, and you're going to listen!"
Ryder stared at Jake with tears in his eyes. Not once had Jake ever spoken to anyone like that, but now Ryder could tell that there was no deterring Jake from talking to him now that the two stood face to face again.
"I know what you're thinking, Ryder." Carlos added. "Si, this was a set up. We faked this rescue to get you out of your room. But before you yell at us, if you hadn't shut yourself off, we wouldn't have had to do this! All we were trying to do was help you before things got worse again! We were all so worried about you, but all you did was leave us to it!"
"That's quite enough, Carlos!" Goodway interrupted, noticing that Ryder was about to burst into tears, before taking a gentler tone. "Ryder… We all want to see you get better… And talking to you through your door wasn't working. We know that the thought of losing Marshall isn't just going to go away. But you've been bottling it up for so long that it's making you lash out at everyone… Unless you talk things out with us AND your pups… well, there's no telling how far down the rabbit hole you'll go."
"Be honest with us, Ryder." Humdinger added. "How bad did this fight with Marshall get?"
"...w-well..." Ryder whimpered. "...i-it... it got a little heated, I guess..."
After the five second ensuing silence, Ryder dared to look up at the group again. He swiftly wished he hadn't, owing to the unimpressed looks everyone was giving him, complete with Mayor Goodway raising a skeptical eyebrow at him.
"...OK, A LOT HEATED!" Ryder yelled, before clasping his hands over his mouth, realising that he was yelling again.
"...the prosecution rests." Humdinger replied.
Goodway slowly laid a hand on Ryder's shoulder. "You were scared, weren't you? You were afraid that if Marshall came on a rescue, you risked losing him all over again, didn't you?"
Ryder sniffled, realising that Mayor Goodway had struck the nail on the head. He could only give a protracted whimper and squeeze his eyes shut, teetering on the edge of a complete emotional meltdown. The pot had been boiling for days, and the lid had stayed on it for far too long. Now it was about to blow.
"...'s..." Ryder squeaked.
"What was that?" Carlos practically demanded.
"I think we all heard him, dude." Jake swiftly cut him off.
"Just as I thought." Humdinger concluded.
Mayor Goodway moved to put an arm around Ryder's shoulders.
"Come on. Let's go inside and talk." she whispered, before looking to the pups. "And pups. I think Ryder needs to be alone for this. Can you both please wait here?"
Chase and Skye both desperately wanted to reply in the negative. They really didn't want to leave Ryder alone after finally getting to see him, and they were both done waiting around for something to happen. But the two, knowing that Ryder needed this badly, swallowed heavily, and slowly nodded, deciding to sit by their vehicles as the rain slowly came to a halt around them, watching on as Ryder disappeared with the group into City Hall.
The sun had just finished setting in Adventure Bay, plunging the town into darkness. And the pups had a feeling that they were in for an incredibly-long night.