"Trusty! Trusty! Wake up!"

Collette continuously pulled on the old dog's long ear in an attempt to wake him from his slumber. So far she had no luck in achieveing anything. The best response that she had gotten out of him, were a few mumbles.

"Trussssttttyyy!" Her voice streched out. "Just wake up already!"

"Collette."

She looked exasperated at Angel. "What?"

"Would you please calm down? I get why you're so worried, but c'mon, panicking isn't going to help anyone- let alone Stormé. Just go ahead calm yourself and breathe deeply, I'll wake Trusty, okay?"

Collette nodded and did as she was told, as Angel approached Trusty. She watched as the golden dog bent down and whispered something, too quiet for her to hear, into Trusty's ear. Nothing seemed to be happening, until a second later Trusty leaped up on high alert, sniffing the air dramatically.

"Intruder! Wha-wha-where!?"

He looked down to see Collette and Angel staring at him wide-eyed. "Oh-uhm...afternoon ladies." Embarrassment was present in his voice as he bowed down in greeting. "What brings you two here on this fine, fine day?"

Collette broke her stare. "Trusty! We need your help to find Stormé! She's gone missing and-"

"Collette." Angel stopped her mid-rant. "Let me do the talking." She cleared her throat and turned her head to Trusty. "Okay I'll start from the beginning, Colette met this dog, Stormé, she's been staying in the doghouse..."

Her heart refused to calm it's pace, as she sat there waiting. She couldn't help, but feel that Angel was wasting time. Nevertheless, she chose to be patient, as Trusty took in all that he was being told. He was the only one who could do this.

"Why would she...how could she just run off like that? Maybe she was taken, it could have happened at night while...no! Stormé wouldn't let anyone take her without putting up a fight, there would have to be blood, or something..."

She tried to remember the last few days, last few conversations, last few moments that she spent with her. "She was acting strange, maybe she really was hiding something. Maybe it had to do with her past." She wracked through her memories in an attempt to recall something, anything that could help. "...Bill...Verna...Baucom...hilltops...mother...Farace...w-"

"Farace!" She exclaimed suddenly, getting the attention of Angel and Trusty.

"What was that Collette?"

She opened her mouth in preparation to explain, but her beating heart reminded her of the urgent situation at hand. "I'll explain later."

"Well now that little ol' me understands what's going on, we can get going." He said, rather slowly. "I just need a scent and then old reliable over here will do the rest."

"A scent, huh?" Collette brows furrowed for a second. "I guess she spent a lot of time in the doghouse, so-"

She broke off as Trusty started sniffing her. "Well I'll be darned! She's all over you! This dang sniffer just needed a second was all."

"So you have her scent?" Angel asked quickly.

He threw his head back, but didn't howl. "You'll bet I do! Let's go."

"Ay' where do yer' think you lot are off to?"

All three of them turned to Jock. Trusty tried explaining, but Collette quickly stepped in. "We have something important going on, let's go Trusty."

With that Trusty took off at a brisk pace, Collette and Angel following right behind. They did their best ignoring Jock's angry rant from behind the fence.

"Did she really go to Farace? Why would she? She told me he was bad...or something like that. Why would she purposefully hand herself over?"

They continued to jog down the streets, only stopping occasionally, to allow Trusty to catch his breath.

"You worried?"

She turned to Angel, her eyes practically doing all the talking. "A little."

"Well, from what you told me Stormé is strong, really strong. Wherever she is, I'm sure that she's doing just fine."

Collette nodded, unable to answer. "Angel's right...but who even knows anymore?"

"She passed right through here I'm sure of it." Both dogs heard Trusty's tired, quiet muttering and looked up infront of them. Trusty was poking his head in every nook and cranny of a dirty alley. "There were three...no two others."

Collette looked around, the alley was filled with broken glass, overturned trashcans and general dust. "Something bad must have happened here." She thought of asking Trusty if there was any blood around, but stopped herself when she saw how focused he seemed to be. "I really hope you're okay Stormé."

Trusty started to move towards the end of the alley. "Looks like all of 'em left through this way, scents still not too strong so I reckon-"

"Aha!"

Collette spun around and noticed Angel do the same beside her.

"I've been combing this area for the past four hours." A man, whose voice Collette had once heard, spoke. "You're not that French Spaniel, or her friends, but this place must be popular among you filthy beasts, even the collared kind." He glanced momentarily at each of their collars.

"Collette." She glanced fearfully at Angel. "It's a dogcatcher. Take Trusty and run, I'll distract him."

"Are you sur-"

She didn't have time to finish the question, Angel leapt forth and immediately started running around the man's legs. As Collette ran, with Trusty leading the way, she could still hear the yipping of Angel contrasting deeply with the deep, angry shouting of the dogcatcher. Her heart seemed to somehow be beating even faster than it was before, the pounding sound filled her ears. All her surroundings became a blur, the only things that she could see were her dirty paws and Trusty in front of her. She knew in that moment that this was not the sort of thing she would ever do, but reminded herself sharply. "You're not doing this for you Collette, you're doing this for Stormé, this is a chance to prove that you're not a selfish, stuck-up, prissy..."'

Her thoughts broke off, when Trusty fell to floor, breathing heavily. "Trusty!" She immediately ran to his side.

"D-don't wor-worr-y 'bout m-me Miss Collette mam." He said in between trying to breath. "I just really need some sleep or something about now." He gestured with his head towards a rail yard. "Scent leads all the way over there, I'm sorry mam, it's just that I really am mighty tired."

"It's okay, you get some sleep Trusty, I'll go on."

The old dog nodded, as his eyes closed.

Collette turned her attention to the rail yard- the one that supposedly held Stormé. "Alright. Here goes nothing."

"Well? Say something!"

Stormé looked up at her half-brother, no emotion present on her face.

He grew more impatient as the silence went on. "Aren't you happy to see your own brother Stormé? Aren't you happy that I didn't let you die out there? That I ran away from all the comfort I could possibly ask for, just for you?"

A silent tension filled the room, as she remained silent.

"Erm...boss?" The leader of the three who had brought her here stepped forward. "So-uhm, about that food that you-"

"I know about the food!" Farace snapped impatiently at him. "You'll get your food soon enough, just stay there for a moment with your other fools."

He looked momentarily offfended, but didn't protest, quietly sitting in the same spot where the twins were waiting patiently.

"Stormé." His voice seemed to take on a calmer tone. "Look at my eye. I'm not mad at you. I get why you left, but it really is okay. You can come home now, you don't have to be so unhappy out here." He chuckled then, in an attempt to ease the tension in the room. "I know for a fact that you didn't spend so much time with mother, without her telling you, how did it go again? Chase happiness?"

All the time that she sat there in silence, her resolve, her willpower, threatened to slip away, under Faraces' gaze. "I knew this would happen. Knew that he would try talking me into leaving. I can't do this. I can hardly look him in his two...one eye." She suppressed the urge to cry out. "Oh! What kind of a monster am I? How could I hurt my brother in such a way? And he's not even mad...maybe I should just go back."

Farace spoke again. "You know, Bill and Verna aren't even mad at you for running away. All they want is for you to come back, before I left, I saw them searching. Verna was even crying, things ain't been the same without you." He paused, using a paw to touch his broken eye. "Things really ain't been the same since mother passed."

That caused Stormé to finally break down. "Oh Farace! I'm so sorry!" She tried to speak through her sobbing. "I'm sorry for your eye an-and for running away! It's just all one big mess!"

He leapt from the train car he had been sitting on. "Like I said it's okay." He nuzzled her affectionately and she returned the embrace.

"Boss? This uh train of yours is leaving real soon, so if you could just point us in the direction of the food tha-"

"Can't you see I'm busy over here! Go see to it that there aren't any pesky humans around, or something!"

"Hey! You said all we had to do was-"

"Do you want the food, or not?"

He sat there a moment, frowning, but eventually stood up and gestured for the twins to follow him, mumbling angrily along the way.

"Idiots." Farace mumbled under his breath.

Stormé chuckled in his ear. "You promised them free food?"

"Yup." He laughed back. "Desperate fools will be desperate fools."

The sound of their laughter helped immensely in calming the tension.

"You remember that one time when it was Christmas and-"

"-Bill dropped the chicken Verna spent hours making and they let us have the whole thing." She licked her lips from the memories. "I still remember the one time we all went for a walk and it started raining and we all got soaked."

He laughed even harder. "And then we ran in and left muddy paw prints everywhere."

Stormé laughed just as hard. "What about the time..." And they sat there for a long time, reminiscing, getting nostalgic, laughing together, acting like brother and sister once more.

The dark of the earliest morning, eventually became light, as dawn broke through. And even then they were still lost in laughter. Farace only broke it when he needed to ask a question. "Stormé?"

"Yes?"

"This trains leaving in an hour or so."

"Mmm hmmm."

"It goes right back home."

She was silent.

"So are you ready to come back?"

Her willpower should have been gone by now, but somehow it persisted. Prevented her from opening her mouth to say yes. Prevented her from nodding her head. Prevented her from even moving. She sat there frozen in time. "...always pursue happiness..." Then she knew, she knew exactly what to say.