I really, really wanted to have this up before we all hit 2019, but that didn't happen.

I meant what I said last chapter about being bad at writing in installments. I'm sorry if you've been waiting and waiting.

Also, I'm a bit scatterbrained, and I realized that I never clarified the timeline here. I have updated the author's note in the first chapter to reflect this, but I'll mention it here for current readers.

In this timeline, Sid's family never caught up with him before the events of Continental Drift, and basically everything having to do with the meteor in Collision Course never happened. Peaches and Julian met, got married with Manny's drama about them roaming, and they headed off on their own where my story picks up. This means no Granny and no Buck at this point. Personally, the whole meteor thing was just not something that I wanted to mess with, and Granny and Buck serve this story better if they come in later.

So I think that's everything for now. Here we go!

Sometimes, Crash swore that no one besides Peaches and Ellie actually knew which one of them was which.

Sure, the twins often tried to throw people off intentionally, but still, it was a little offensive to be chased blindly through the night by a couple of angry bucks because Eddie had decided it was a good idea to steal all of their berries.

There had also been an incident with a muskox right before that in which their mud balls had quickly turned into flaming mud balls with the help of Sid and his fire-making abilities. That might have also set the deer off as it scared half the animals lounging around the lake and began a small fire in a nearby copse of trees.

So, Crash was running for his life and loving it. It was cold out tonight, and he counted himself lucky that it was dark too as he shifted from the ground, to the tree trunks, to the branches, and back again.

The nighttime was possum time, after all. And at least he didn't have to stick around and watch Sid fumble around trying to fix the mess that Crash was definitely going to tell Manny was his sloth friend's fault.

That muskox had it coming though.

Flying past a cache of acorns in one of the leafless oaks, he paused briefly to stop and chuck them as hard as he could at the bucks before turning and taking off again, snickering at the insults it prompted.

But for all his agility, he wasn't ready for the ice in the trees near the waterfall. In a moment, one paw, and then the other, slipped as he tried to grab onto a branch, and then he was plummeting to the ground.

The hooves, which had always been just a little too close for comfort behind him, stopped. It had been fun to be only a few paces ahead of them only a moment ago.

Now Crash sat up a little from the small bank of snow he'd fallen into, staring at the deer as they glared him down. They were furious, and something told him that their slow approach was just the beginning.

The next time Crash saw his brother, his twin was in for the wrestling match of his life.

"Would it help if I told you it was all Sid's fault?" Crash asked brightly. He was fast, but he wasn't this fast. There was no way he could turn tail and run at this point, and now that he knew the trees were icy, it would slow him down even more. His possum instincts were already screaming at him that he should have been playing dead by now.

"We'll let everyone else take care of him." One of the bucks snarled. And even though these other animals, the herd's neighbors, were generally peaceable, Crash felt a small moment of fear.

They really had done it this time.

Where oh where was Ellie's righteous, and more important, distracting, fury when he needed it?

"Apologize." The other deer commanded. As if that would do anything to calm these two down. Crash had seen enough of their useless bouts against each other to know that they were here to fight.

No way was he going to kowtow to these two morons. "I'd rather be roadkill."

"Oh, you will be." The first deer, Jace, charged at him, hooves coming in fast, and even though Crash leapt as fast as he could to miss them, he still felt one come down on his tail.

He yelped without meaning to, immediately feeling the same fury he felt whenever a larger animal assumed that just because he was small he was going to get out of their way.

And times like this were the reason Eddie and he maintained their mischievous behavior.

"Not if I turn you into it first." With that, Crash doubled back and was clawing at one of Jace's knobby legs before the deer could stop him. Just as Crash figured, Jace lost his balance and fell to the side, stepping off of his tail and giving him more leverage to scamper up onto his back, clawing and shouting insults as he made his way across his pelt.

Neither Crash, nor Eddie, were necessarily violent, but with his tail on fire and all but useless, Crash didn't hesitate when the other deer, his name was Brock or something, began swinging his horns. He jumped onto him next, pulling at his short fur and trying to get the deer to prance himself dizzy.

It was a loud, confusing tangle of horns and hooves and shouting.

It was all going so quickly when there was a too-loud boom and suddenly there was a red streak launching into the sky back the way they'd come. It was followed by a raging cracking that could only mean one thing. And it stopped all three of them in mid-action.

The deer stared at the fireball in stunned silence.

Meanwhile, Crash, who generally assumed that he needed to keep moving if he wanted to stay in one piece, took advantage of the distracted silence, laughed humorlessly, "Heh, how about we just, uh…call it even then?"

And then he was taking off as fast as he could back toward the smoke in the sky.

000

"So this is nice." Manny whispered into the cold air. They'd been silent for a while, filling their eyes with stars and sky and the outline of the other next to them. Being the kind of quiet he was constantly failing to impose on their herd. "Too bad we had to wait until our daughter was married for our next date night."

Ellie giggled next to him, nudging at his right side with hers and reaching over with her trunk to brush at the locks of long fur at the crown of his head. He smiled and turned his head to catch another glimpse of her. He'd forgotten how much he missed hanging out with his mate one on one.

He'd been coming up here for the last week: clearing snow, gathering flowers to string around the canopy, trying to decide the perfect spot for stargazing.

Now, the sky bloomed above them, a million stars tugging at the dark blues and blacks, slipping past all that nothingness with their snow-white glow. They'd been watching this silent snowfall for the last hour, and all the preparation was well worth it.

"Maybe if you would have let Peaches have a little more independence we could have done this more often."

"Or we would have ended up with that Ethan kid as a son-in-law."

"See? I knew you'd come around to Julian. It just took you some time." Ellie snuggled into the pine needles he'd put down as a cushion for them and pulled her trunk back. Her green eyes went back to staring skyward. "Then again, I probably would have been worried if you'd warmed up to him faster. You don't exactly jump into new situations."

Manny just snorted at that. "I can take charge and make decisions when it's necessary."

"Only when someone is literally dying, dear."

There was an immediate heaviness to the following silence, and Manny found himself momentarily upright, planted in two feet of swirling snow as blinding daylight gave him the perfect opportunity to watch blurs of orange toss each other back and forth in the fine powder.

He remembered the terror, the confusion, the deep regret that it had come to this. But most of all, he remembered how much he hated that split second opportunity. The one he hadn't taken, hadn't known to take in the single moment it was presented to him, before others were doing things they couldn't take back. And no matter what Sid wanted him to say, he couldn't take it back for them, either.

"But you have a knack for coming to the rescue at the last minute." Ellie's added, but the words sounded just out of reach. Rehearsed. Like one of his regular nightmares where his first mate was saying the same thing every time, or when he watched himself fighting with Peaches just before Sid and he were swept out into the ocean.

Ellie had pulled him aside as they watched Peaches and Julian heading off on their own adventure, saying, "She was afraid that you wouldn't come back after the ocean swept you out. She didn't want to have your last conversation be a fight."

"I love her, and she knows that. It wouldn't have mattered what happened. There's nothing she can ever say, or do, that would make me so mad at her that we wouldn't have a relationship anymore."

Ellie was smiling at him now the way she was smiling then. And the too-real images in his mind began to fade. Manny forced himself to see only her. "Thanks for the faith in me."

"Well, you mostly deserve it." She teased. And then they were laughing together, and the night righted itself once more until-

"MANNNNYY!"

"I didn't hear that." He said in a measured voice, nodding to himself in a comforting manner. "I am in a dream."

Ellie frowned at him.

"Manny!"

"A nightmare, that's it"

"Manny." Ellie scolded, whapping his trunk with hers as Sid came tumbling over himself through the undergrowth, his short arms flailing as they always did when he'd gotten himself into a situation he didn't know how to get back out of.

The two mammoths glanced at each other before climbing leisurely to their feet, regaining balance slowly, and, as Ellie had once said, throwing their weight around. He'd never admit it to anyone, but that had been one of the moments he'd started thinking maybe Sid's crass attempts at getting them together had more substance than Manny wanted to admit.

"This is definitely a nightmare." He sighed as Sid stopped before them, panting and doubling over like the whole of the area had been chasing him in a mass mob up to their date-night spot. The spot Manny had been sure to tell him not to come under any circumstances.

"Sid, what's wrong?

Manny turned to his wife. "Don't encourage him."

"Well, uh, I need some help because…well…" The sloth paused, and in the brief silence, Manny could hear faint shouting.

A moment later, both he and Ellie took a few steps forward as they saw the small dots of something glowing down by the lake.

"Sid!" Manny thundered.

"And Jace and Brad went after Crash because they thought he was Eddie. They're mad." Sid added, smiling in embarrassment when Manny fixed him with a hassled look.

Ellie spun toward Manny, "You go help him with the fire, I'll get the twins."

They parted ways after that, Manny grabbing Sid and dropping him on his back as he transitioned into a slow gallop towards the lake.

000

"This is all his fault!"

"I told you those possums would be a problem!"

"That stupid sloth destroyed my nest! What am I supposed to now? I have kids to take care of!"

They were well into a heated blaming session now that the flames had been doused. And as Manny stood, with Sid standing as close to him as possible, and listened to their complaints, he tried to think of the fastest route to end this so they could all go to bed.

"Manny I'm sorry…I-"

"I understand your concerns." For as much as Manny had grown used to his makeshift family's antics, he also knew that there were times and places to weaponize his natural grumpiness. This was one of those times. "We're going to get it cleaned up. And Poppy, we'll help rebuild your nest."

He leveled a brief glare at Sid who was shifting his weight nervously, before turning back to the simmering crowd. "It's going to be okay."

"It'll be okay when he stops playing with fire!" Poppy shifted a wing toward Sid. "Fire is for the humans, not us."

Manny didn't have to look to know Sid had glanced at him briefly. He fixed Poppy with his best incorrigible look. "Noted. No more fire in the public areas."

A short-snouted pig scoffed. "No more them in the public areas!"

Manny feigned thoughtfulness. "You know, that suggestion's not half bad."

If Sid realized that Manny was, at this point, putting on more of a show than actually reprimanding him, he wasn't acting like it, "Manny, I'm sorry, but nobody got hurt, and Crash and Eddie…"

"Sidney! What is wrong with you!" A too-familiar voice cut above the grumblings of the crowd, and a moment later, Francine was pushing her way to the front. She stopped, eying the both of them and shaking her head. "I knew you were irresponsible."

"Franny, let me explain-"

"No! You know what? I don't want to hear any more of this!" She pointed one of her claws at him, "We were having a conversation and you said you'd be right back. And what were you doing? Helping those trouble-makers set something on fire."

"You can talk to him tomorrow." Manny grumbled at her because even if Sid didn't know where this was going, he did. Those two had been on and off for the last month, trying to "work things out," and Sid was only going to get his heart broken. "After we get this picked up."

Next to him, the sloth was looking between them indignantly, which usually preceded him saying something incredibly unhelpful. "We were only throwing a little flaming mud! Franny wait!"

But Franny had already stormed her way back through the crowd.

"It was him Manny." Sid went on desperately, pointing to a muskox standing at the front of the crowd. The animal frowned at him darkly. "He was messing with Crash and Eddie and they asked for some help."

"Hey!" He jumped forward. "You're not going to blame this on me!"

"Oh yeah, buddy, then why'd they approach me in the first place?"

"So you went in on a prank with them?" Manny rounded on him before Sid could get much further away from his side. The sloth just frowned at him petulantly.

Before the argument could plunge back into chaos, the unmistakable steps of a larger mammal moving closer thumped over the voices, and Ellie stepped out of the trees a few moments later with Crash on her head and Eddie down at the tip of her trunk.

"Everybody's okay." Ellie said before anyone else could go back to complaining, and judging by the look on her face, she was also asking, him, as well.

"Good." Manny nodded to her in confirmation that everyone here was okay too.

"It was those little twerps!" the muskox yelled furiously, throwing his horns in the direction of the twins.

"You started it!" Eddie screamed, swinging his fist at him.

"Oh yeah, then let's go."

"Anytime." Crash cried, trying to get down off of Ellie's head, but she'd already reached up and secured both him and Eddie right behind the shocks of long fur.

Before Manny could begin accepting the fact that they weren't going to be sleeping anytime soon and then beginning to piece together what exactly was going on here, Ellie cut in. "We're all going to bed right now. No exceptions. Whatever happened, happened. No more whining, no more arguing. Good night."

They all watched in surprised silence as she turned and stormed off.

It only took a matter of seconds after that for the grumbling to start up again. But it was half-hearted, and all the other animals turned themselves around to head in the direction of their burrows and nests.

Reginald, a surly mid-age camel paused next to Manny as he left, glancing at Sid before shaking his head. "Look, you and Ellie have been great. But the rest of your "herd"…everyone else isn't mad because there's mud everywhere and half the lake's tree cover went up in smoke. It's because things like this are always happening. I don't mean to be mean, but…just something to keep in mind."

"Noted."

The camel nodded at Manny's deadpan tone, checking once more to make sure that Sid hadn't heard – the sloth was a few feet away kicking a pile of charred leaves – and then nodded to Manny once more and left.

Soon, it was just the two of them.

Manny sighed. The air around them still smelled like rot and smoke, and he really should just suck it up and go get those burnt logs out of the middle of the lake so he wouldn't have to do it tomorrow.

"We finally get some time to ourselves, and I end up on a date with you." He shut his eyes and shook his head. Sometimes it felt like he was forever on a date with Sid. Their "bachelor" days, in which they found themselves racing the snow heading south, had been less than wild. When Sid looked up at him, Manny gave him a rare, amused smile as he looked around at the damage. "My life would be so boring without you."

That got a relieved smile, but the sloth still looked upset. "It wasn't all our fault Manny."

"Alright." Manny sighed and dropped the few charred sticks he'd absently been gathering. "Whatever it was that Fred said or did, I want to hear about it from you guys. But not tonight, okay?"

That did the trick. Placated, Sid enthusiastically fell into step as they began heading away from the lake, through the thickets of trees and shrubs, skirting around the waterfall, and over to their herd's small territory. If their clearing and its surrounding perimeter was even big enough to warrant the term.

"I don't think Franny and I are meant to be together." Sid said suddenly.

He should have known that the sloth was being too quiet. "Really?"

"Very funny." Sid whined. "You know how much I want to find a mate."

"Yeah, I know." Manny nodded. It was incredibly late now, and a part of him was surprised that without the kids here things were still this interesting. He wanted to not be enjoying it as much as he was. "Didn't you say that you've already been engaged?"

"Sylvia." Sid sighed with so much raw emotion that Manny had to laugh at him. He hadn't forgotten, but usually he could get Sid sidetracked pretty quickly by bringing her up. "It's not funny. She was crazy. You think my family abandoned me because I was weird? I couldn't get rid of her!"

"Your family left you at the mercy of two rhinos."

"I did that on my own." Sid waved him off, as if Manny randomly saving his life was just another day in their relationship. Which it was.

"You always do things on your own until you need me to come in and save you from them." Like climbing up a waterfall with a human baby clutched in one paw.

Manny waited a moment, just to see if both of their minds had gone to the same place. And if so, if the sloth would say anything more. Sid rarely wanted to discuss the early days of their relationship.

Whenever a conversation did manage to get that close, there was usually some kind of a time jump involved in which Manny complained about the rhino incident, and then suddenly he was traveling south with Sid.

No one had ever asked about that gap before, not even Ellie. Manny had alluded to it briefly at one point, but she hadn't asked for details, and he didn't really want to go into it anyway. He doubted she would understand, and it was over and done with anyway.

Trying to talk about how they'd managed to befriend a saber and then promptly got him killed by his own pack was something that he'd struggled to reconcile. Even if the whole thing had begun as an ambush plot, Manny still felt guilty. He never should have hesitated when the pack leader had him cornered.

Because whatever choices had been made over the course of that three days, Manny had liked his two new friends a lot. Heading south afterwards with only Sid had been hard. Heck, just getting Sid to stop swinging wildly between his usual free-spirited demeanor and bottomless depression had been difficult. Neither of them really wanted to talk about that fight or their final conversation in the falling snow, and Manny quickly found that leveling Sid out during the grieving process was almost more than he could handle.

It hadn't helped that they'd been so far behind that there was no one else to migrate with by that point. Everywhere they went was endlessly snowy with another storm always on the horizon. Getting back among other animals had improved both of their moods, and things had gotten even better once Ellie and the twins came along.

But even after all these years, Manny knew that a part of the sloth's heart was still broken.

"You'll find someone." He continued before Sid had a chance to think everything through and retreat into the uncharacteristic sullenness that surfaced whenever they did find themselves talking about Half Peak. "Just think, maybe she'll smell even worse than you."

Sid grinned. "Thanks, but I still maintain that you have a very cruel sense of humor."

I just want to make it clear that even though the humans were mentioned above, they won't be in this story. While I'm not completely sold on how far movies 2-5 stray from the original rules of the story world, this fic is very much focused on the dynamics of the herd.

Also, a quick note on the whole finding love for Sid thing. I know that one review of the fifth movie criticized his romantic subplot, but I'm not opposed to the arc of Sid finding a significant other. That being said, the whole plot structure of Collision Course was way off, and one of the (many) things it affected was Sid's love life. I think that there is a huge amount of potential in the Sid/Brooke relationship, but it should come from a more realistically-paced place. Brooke isn't shy about the fact that she likes him immediately, which is great, but it felt rushed on Sid's part. He strikes me as the kind of guy who finally manages to find someone he has deep feelings for and suddenly hits the brakes. His enthusiasm over their relationship really only served to keep the film moving forward, and it felt very flat for him. He gets excited on the surface, but he really does think things through (you know, sometimes). Falling in love is not something he's going to take lightly, and once a relationship reaches that deeper stage, he probably won't come at it from his usual angles of silliness and blind optimism. To me, that really marks the difference between his relationship with Franny and the one he'll have with Brooke.

Merry (Late) Christmas and Happy (Also Late) New Year!

Please R&R! Thanks!