Shira was lolling on her back when he found her, flirting with a nap but clearly waiting to be disturbed.

She'd been up at daybreak the day before, rising so quietly he almost hadn't heard her. And she'd been gone into the trees before he was awake enough to ask where she was going or if she was planning on being back for the pack meeting. But apparently her stealthy exit was supposed to serve as a no. He'd been busy throughout the day, and by the time he finally made it back to the pack's clearing, long after the sun had set, she'd already been asleep.

She'd been gone again when he woke up this morning.

Diego stopped just short of where she was sunbathing, placing himself in her line of sight, their faces level from her spot on the saber-sized boulder.

"How'd the pack meeting go?" She was smiling. She already knew.

"Terrible. And Jackson thought so too even though he wouldn't say it." He'd actually been mostly silent as they traced a path through the snow afterwards. A kind of silent that Diego remembered all too well. It was an absence. Of thought, of security, of a way to say no, I don't want to get this human baby for you…

Shira looked dubious, but he knew that she understood whether she wanted to or not.

The three of them really were their own club. All seconds. All ready to follow orders and spring into action or stop dead at a moment's notice. All-too-familiar with unpredictable leaders. Diego's lurking horror welled for a moment. He hadn't known when he agreed to take over that Jackson would be this difficult. It wasn't a difficult he was used to. He wasn't Soto, but he could be from Jackson's point of view. And he'd never know it because the kid wouldn't tell him. He'd almost forgotten the multiple levels of miscommunication that packs often suffered from.

But they could talk more about him later. "The rest of them aren't listening to me either."

"It sounds like they are."

"Only because they have to. All they're doing is following the leader; it's not real participation." For as much as Diego didn't like the idea that Jackson potentially saw him as a tyrant, these changes weren't meant to be popular. The pack was more disorganized than he'd ever realized. If he was going to do this…well, it was going to be right.

"Don't tell me I have to remind you that, that's what a pack is."

They gave each other deadpan looks for a moment, and even though he knew that this was the conversation they'd end up in if he came looking for her, he wasn't trying to drag it out. He had things to do, a pack to run. "Where did you disappear off to this morning anyway?" And left me to do this completely by myself.

"Talking to Merle. Keeping an eye on our niece and nephew."

"Please don't call them that." He still hadn't broached the whole "uncle" topic yet. He wasn't…ready. He'd quickly realized that he didn't even like thinking about talking to her about it, and he certainly hadn't been about to do it when she showed up unexpectedly before the pack meeting. Peaches was a force of nature, and not in the physical way most mammoths were.

The one relief was that she seemed to be getting along with Jackson. That was good.

Shira gave him a look and rolled over so that they were face-to-face, right-side up. "Have Isaiah's scouts caught the kids' scent yet?"

"No." Diego frowned at the added insult to injury. "And I would know, because he came over this morning to be his usual self. But you probably had a chat with him too."

"I caught him briefly on his way out. He wanted me to tell you that he doesn't like the new mammoth and you need to take back what you said to her."

He just snorted. "Sure. Whenever I find time to see Peaches in the next week, I'll lead with that. You said you talked to Merle? How is he?"

"He's…only just starting to heal. I wouldn't be in any hurry to turn the pack back over to him."

"I'm not," he lied, "But I knew that this would be way more work than he thinks. And I know that I'm just beating my own head against a rock trying to do something about it, but I can't stand running his current rotations."

"I know."

"Do you?" It would be nice if he could tell himself straight that it was easy for Shira to remove herself from the situation because she hadn't liked pack life to begin with. And at the moment, he didn't care that it was more complicated than that. "Because so far you haven't had to deal with any of it."

"I love you, but I don't want a repeat of my entire life, thank you."

"And I do?"

"You never made it to being pack leader." She finished that statement with a prim head tilt.

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"It seems like you have it all under control."

"Kitty."

"Is that supposed to convince me?"

Diego just shook his head at her raised eyebrow, the sparkle in those glacier eyes. Shira held her expression for another moment, "You focus on the pack. I'll take care of everything else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The glacier cracked apart into a dangerous smile. "One of us needs to keep tabs on Peaches."

Diego scrunched his nose at that. "You don't need to keep tabs on her." As far as he could tell, Julian was the one who was more likely to need babysitting. The kid had fake sneezed and gotten himself stuck to the snow.

"Don't I?" Shira rose with the words and leapt down next to him, keeping pace as he turned so that they maneuvered around each other like the start of a brawl. She took a further step forward so that their faces were uncomfortably close, an intimidation tactic he'd seen her use before when she wanted to shortcut what would likely be a drawn-out argument. "Because I can guarantee that only one of us knows exactly where she is right now."

Okay, fine. Maybe something was going on with Peaches that he didn't know about. He had no doubt Shira knew what she was talking about, but none of this was successfully distracting him from the reason he'd come to find her. "You couldn't have just said that's why you disappeared this morning?"

She lifted her chin and those eyes hardened back to ice. Too far. "You didn't need me there this morning because you're already doing all of this by yourself."

"But-"

"Pack leader is a one saber job. Besides, I can't deprive Jackson of the learning experience." And before he could start in on how Jackson wasn't learning anything from him except how to take orders from someone that wasn't qualified to give them, she added, "So do what you need to do and know that I've got your back."

For the second time that day, she was gone before he could ask where she was going.

000

Manny found Sid a little way away from their clearing about midmorning. Or rather, the sloth found him where Manny had positioned himself near a quiet outcropping that looked out toward the valley to the northeast. He didn't turn as Sid crunched through the snow to stand next to him.

"Morning." He'd known Sid would seek him out eventually, and once Manny was sure Ellie would be okay without him for a while, he'd gone in search of breakfast and a place to wait.

Out of the corner of his eye, the sloth's shoulders slumped. "Hey."

"Sleep okay?"

Sid shrugged at the ground. Which was a fitting response given how stressfully uneventful the day had been so far.

The saber had woken a couple of times during the night, groggy and clearly in pain, with heavy-lidded eyes that blinked into the darkness absently. He didn't seem capable of registering what was going on around him with any amount of clarity, and nothing about his swaying head and quick returns to unconsciousness were threatening. He'd been soundly asleep since the pinkish morning haze was just showing on the horizon, having spent what little energy he had on those short bursts of wakefulness.

He was helpless.

Manny had thought taking care of a sick saber would bother him more, but he was mostly concerned for Ellie and her uncanny knack to wake when the saber was awake even when it wasn't her turn to be on watch. He didn't want her getting sick or worn down. They couldn't afford it right now. And the possums were…well they'd been quiet. And that was, of course, never a good thing.

Second only to Sid, currently staring morosely into the distance. He looked better than Manny had thought he would, but Sid could be unwittingly subtle at times. Every once in a while, he had a hard time guessing accurately what the sloth was thinking and feeling. But the fact he'd been up and gone shortly after it was light definitely wasn't a good sign.

This was probably the time to lay it all out. Based off of how sleepy their unwitting guest was, they were going to be stuck with him for at least a day or two. And if Ellie had any say in it, and she'd probably dominate the conversation, it might even be longer than that.

Although Manny was still holding out hope that the saber would melodramatically storm off prematurely. It certainly wouldn't be surprising, sabers seemed to be temperamental even when not under direct threat. Like when they were needled about their ability to stop and ask for directions. That had been a long afternoon of Sid and him tag-teaming making fun of the deep frown that had spread over their new acquaintance's face as they moved on from the squirrel's mute attempt at directions. The two of them never had figured out what he was trying to convey.

"I should probably go check the fire." Sid's voice, the difference between now and what it had been trekking through the endless miles of snowy emptiness that day, pulled him back to where the two of them were currently standing.

"I know that you don't like this…"

"He shouldn't be here." Sid muttered.

"I know."

"It's not fair."

"…I know."

"And what if he gets better and attacks us!" Sid's voice rose desperately. "Or what if he leads his pack back here?"

"I think we'll be more ready for it than we were the first time."

"What if…what if his leader is like Gutt?"

"Then we'll just get some hyraxes to climb all over him. Besides, Gutt was crazy."

Manny didn't know why, but every once in a while, he found himself digging through those memories for…something. He wasn't sure. That three days of back and forth between the two of them and Gutt's ragtag group made him feel uneasy long past when life had returned to normal. There was something so final about Half Peak, and when he thought of those three days, it was almost always focused on the time the three of them had spent together, or the one on one fight he'd been forced to watch from that small corner of rock he'd been backed into. He could still clearly remember the snarling, vicious tumbling. Claws making silent slices through fur and the too-dull thud of a skull hitting rock.

And that moment, when the leader turned and their eyes locked. For some reason, that was all Manny really remembered of him. He didn't know who he was, his name, why he'd plunged them all into this situation in the first place, nothing. All Manny knew was that he wanted the baby and that if somebody didn't do something, he'd kill them all. And he had killed. Someone. And the bits and pieces of a new life they hadn't even started living yet. And that was the end of it.

But Gutt was a whole world onto himself. He was different. In a way that Manny didn't like to think about but found himself uselessly drawn to over and over again. That saber had been out for himself but Gutt…there was always the sense that he was out for someone else.

In fact, one of his clearest memories, Gutt pacing across the deck late that first afternoon, was one of the scenes that stuck with him the most. As the crew bustled around their captain, after having serenaded them with that poorly composed, hero-worship song, Gutt seemed restless. His earlier keen eyes had taken on an edgy glint and he'd gone back and forth, almost oblivious to what was going on around him, muttering. It was something about unfaithful crew members, betrayal, a plot to undo him.

Faithless… saved…gave everything and then…how dare she…went...bad, bad…are still here but she isn't… gone…doesn't understand…why…why…why…

Every once in a while, the rabbit that kept reminding them all that he was the first mate would glance over, eyes filling with uncharacteristic concern and fear. But he never intervened, and when he went back to whatever he was doing, he seemed hurt more than anything else. And just having Manny and Sid on board seemed to spark a reaction in Gutt that the rest of the crew didn't quite know what to do with. He was a distraction instead of a director, and a part of Manny still wondered if Gutt had failed to guard them adequately because he wanted to see if they'd try to escape and leave him.

Even the thought, let alone the implications, was unsettling, and Manny usually, unwillingly, followed these memories up with the wondering if the decisive end to their last fight had saved more than just his own family. He didn't like to think that the answer very well might be yes.

"We've already dealt with the worst." He added, pulling himself out of those sharp memories to where Sid was standing, the only other one who had been with him through it all. "We'll get through this too."

Silence for a moment. Then Sid looked up at him. "What would have happened? If Diego could have stayed?"

Manny almost never thought his name if he didn't have to. And it had never occurred to him until that instant. For a moment, he couldn't think fast enough. Couldn't imagine a response that could make this better, couldn't imagine that life…not until the image of Sid limping his way along the migratory route, trying to escape the impending flood, came to mind. "Well, I don't think you would have ended up stuck in the possums' burrow holes, getting rocks fired at you." Or, more accurately, Sid would have ended up in the same position but with a smirking, sarcastic audience. He couldn't even imagine having a saber around for his brothers-in-law to antagonize. Someone would have definitely died by now. And it almost certainly wouldn't have been the possums. He had a creeping suspicion it would have turned out to be his already strung-out sanity. "And I doubt you would have wandered off looking for dinosaur eggs."

"Found dinosaur eggs."

"That you didn't give back. No need to drag Diego into this."

Sid smiled for a moment at the thought, something he almost never did when they talked about this. "Ah, it all turned out fine. Buck helped us."

"Yeah fine." Manny scoffed. He'd had to fight his way through a seemingly never-ending hoard of dinosaurs while his mate fought for her life, while in labor, waiting for him to get to her. It had worked out but…it certainly hadn't been ideal. "And you survived a river of lava for the second time."

"Waterfall." Sid corrected, "It was much worse because of the waterfall."

He'd give him that one. But before he could agree, another tremor shook the earth under them, and Sid wobbled with the movement, looking around himself frantically for anything stable before finally settling on Manny's leg and latching himself onto it. The shifting stopped a few moments later, but the sloth didn't let go.

He mumbled something into Manny's fur.

"I can't hear you." He grumbled into the fragile silence, shaking his leg a moment later when Sid still hadn't released his hold. Manny shook his leg more vigorously. "Come on Sid, let go. It was just a little tremor."

"I think…this is going…to get…worse, oof." Sid hit the ground with a thump, climbing to his feet a moment later. "I asked, what if we migrate again? Like old times."

Because it's too soon. Because…I'm not ready. A cloud passed overhead and plunged them into gloomy darkness for a few moments before receding. Somewhere out there, his baby girl was dealing with this too. He kept going back and forth on letting them leave, and this was just another point for the keeping her their little girl forever side.

"Let's just get rid of the last thing we saved and then we can talk about it." Manny glanced back toward the clearing. One inconvenient, unavoidable problem at a time. Besides, he needed to get back and check on everyone. If he left Ellie alone for too long, that saber would probably end up with a bunch of leaves piled over him to keep him warm and any other thing she could think of to make him more comfortable.

"Fine, but we should at least talk about it." Sid nettled.

"Deal." Now wasn't the time to argue. Sid had rallied and his goofy simple-mindedness was back, but they'd been through this before. The sloth could break in some truly odd places, the outward proof of how grief worked its way between everything around it, pushing and pushing until whatever was in its path gave way, and he knew that Sid needed support right now. Support and as much of a peaceful atmosphere as possible.

Cautiously, he reached his trunk out, placing it softly on his best friend's shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

Sid beamed despite himself, and Manny's heart leapt just a little. He was healing. This was good.

000

The saber woke in the early evening, just as the color was beginning to fade from the sky.

He blinked unsteadily, clearly confused by the sunlight surrounding them, and looked around himself at the trees and the fire and the mammoths and possums standing a little way away. Manny and Ellie had both frozen when he'd suddenly begun to move, and now that his eyes were open, they waited, tensely watching to see what he would do. A few feet away, Crash and Eddie had stopped the slap fight they weren't supposed to be having and were practically leaning forward in anticipation.

But the saber just twisted his neck blearily. It was clear he had no idea where he was and was trying to piece that together first. Amazingly, it seemed to be more interesting to him than the two huge mammoths a mere trunkful of yards away. Instead he just continued to take in his surroundings. But no amount of looking back and forth was going to clue him in, and he finally seemed to realize this and gave up after a solid ten seconds had passed.

Then his eyes focused on them, and he sat up just a little. Defensive. He couldn't go much farther, Manny doubted he'd still be laying there if he could stand given the immediate look of surprise on his face. And he certainly didn't relax, especially not when Ellie was suddenly moving from Manny's side toward him. Her slow walk was meant to be as unthreatening as possible, and just by the look on her face, Manny knew what she was about to say. "You're safe. Everything's okay, you just had a really nasty fall."

"What…"

"We found you under the waterfall, back near the rocks. Did you trip sweetie?"

The saber's face shifted into the barest look of disbelief, presumably at being called 'sweetie,' but he nodded and then screwed his eyes shut and took a heavy breath against what must have been a sudden onrush of pain.

"And you hit your head." Ellie went on sympathetically and waited until the saber's eyes were open again and back on her. Mostly. He kept glancing at Manny and the possums. "I'm Ellie. And that's my mate and my brothers."

The saber took the opportunity to glance at Manny and the possums more openly this time. But his gaze soon enough went back to Ellie. "Bodhi."

"It's nice to meet you." Her smile was warm and soothing, and Manny doubted the saber noticed the note of self-righteous vindication hidden beneath. It had been a whole few minutes and nothing bad had happened yet. She knew she'd officially won this argument.

"Where am I?"

"In the northern forest." Manny put in, drawing his unfocused attention. "It's a day's travel to the coast."

The saber started. "I need to get going." But he didn't make a motion to stand. Instead he stared down at his paws like he didn't understand why they weren't immediately underneath him.

"We'll have you ready to go soon." Ellie said quickly. "But right now you need to rest."

Bodhi still hesitated, looking between them as if he could pull wherever it was he needed to go closer.

"You can't travel like this." Ellie nudged. "At least for one more day. Stay here and get some sleep so you can rebuild your strength."

He waited another moment, clearly weighing his options before finally saying, "Okay."

Besides standing at the ready to deflect any unlikely attacks, Manny had been watching the possums out of the corner of his eye. They'd crept closer, following in Ellie's footsteps, and before Manny could say anything were bounding between her legs to get a closer look now that they had a confirmed guest.

She caught them just as they got within a few paces of the saber. "And you two need to leave him alone."

Crash and Eddie grumbled and squirmed a little but otherwise let Ellie deposit them a safe distance away. Safe for the saber anyway. When Manny glanced his way, Bodhi looked slightly amused, if also predictably confused, before turning his gaze on the two mammoths. "Is this your herd's territory?"

"More or less." Ellie glanced at Manny once, "But we're a community, we don't really keep anyone out. We share it."

Bodhi seemed a little underwhelmed by this but was clearly not ready to get bogged down in particulars, "It must be a large area then. I started picking up smells a good half night's travel east. It would take a day to walk it. I can't imagine more than ten mammoths could live here without enforcing some kind of boundary. And there are other herbivores too, aren't there?"

"You ask a lot of questions." Manny stared him down skeptically. A ten-mile radial breakdown of the area had certainly not been what he was expecting. He definitely didn't like it any better.

Bodhi shrugged and once again winced. But he recovered quickly, "I'm second in command of my pack; I'm used to having information."

"What's that like?" One of the twins piped up, practically climbing over his brother in excitement.

"And where's your pack?"

Bodhi probably would have shrugged again if it didn't hurt him so much. "It's busy. And they're far away."

Ellie and he exchanged a glance at that as Eddie asked, "Do you like it?"

"Of course." Bodhi lifted his head a little higher, taking on a brief air of authority. But then he smiled, and it went away. "It's a lot of following behind my packmates and making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to. And I handle most of the tracking and hunting coordination."

"Wow."

"Whoa."

"Sounds like a lot of work." Manny added to the possums' immediate adulation. No wonder he was so calm, he was trained for it. Trained to survive. Get information. Report back. Disappear when he needed to. "Far away" was subjective.

"At least I'm not Jackson." Bodhi said, and before Manny could decide whether or not he wanted to find out who that was, Sid came shuffling back into the clearing.

Everyone's heads turned towards him as he headed for the fire pit, and an anticipatory silence, the kind only Sid never noticed, filled up the spaces between them. Manny waited for it – the moment the sloth realized their guest was awake – but Crash beat him to it.

"Sid! Meet Bodhi."

Sid blinked and then followed the sweep of Crash's paw to where Bodhi was, once again, taking this newest entrance relatively calmly. He gave a small quirk of his mouth toward Sid just as the sloth's eyes narrowed a fraction. There was a moment of silence in which Manny deeply regretted never having the Half Peak discussion with the rest of the herd as Sid straightened up, clearly unsure of how to react beyond frowning.

"He's awake, and he's awesome!" Eddie added, twisting out of his twin's grip to scamper closer.

Bodhi did look taken aback by that, appraising the possums a little more closely this time like they'd suddenly risen in his estimation. Or at least possibly warranted closer tabs than he'd probably put on them at first. Not that it mattered. If he tried anything, they'd make sure he was in for the surprise of his life.

Sid seemed to come back to himself once the attention was off of him, and he gave Bodhi one last wary, albeit a little dark, look that the saber didn't see and dumped the sticks into the fire pit. He went to his usual spot and immediately did a near-perfect job of removing himself from the conversation and everyone else's notice.

"Bodhi, do you remember what happened to you?" Ellie asked as Manny turned from his best friend back to the more pressing situation at hand.

Bodhi must not have been expecting the question. For the first time, he hesitated, and Manny could see how hard he was fighting not to let those dark, too-close memories overwhelm him. The fragileness that his wakefulness had been deflecting returned, and he looked desperately, unselfconsciously scared.

"I want to make sure that I'm doing what I need to do to help you feel better." Ellie added gently. Manny wondered if this was what his face looked like when he talked about his first family. It probably was.

"Of course." Bodhi rallied relatively quickly, but not as fast as he had so far. His voice picked up a telltale detached note, and he stared at the ground in front of him as he said, "Like I said, I was traveling through the area, and I…um, came to the river. I figured it was iced over, but I wanted to get across while it was still dark, since I have no business here.

"I figured if I used one of the fallen logs to get down onto the riverbed I could get across. As soon as I found one and started to climb down though, I lost my balance and fell forward onto the ice. I started sliding from there, and I could, could hear something loud coming toward me, but I didn't know what it was. I just couldn't stop sliding and it was, um, very dark.

"Then suddenly the…the ice just disappeared, and I didn't have time to reach for anything. I just fell. And then I hit the water and…sank. I was able to swim back up, some-somehow. I don't really know. I think it stunned me, and I just kind of lost all sense of what was going on. But for some reason I still knew that I had to get out of the water. I found something solid and clawed myself out. And then I think I passed out because the darkness just kind of stops after that. And then I woke up here."

There was an unsure silence as he stared even harder at the ground. The possums had fallen silent and were stuck together like sap, and Manny knew his own expression probably mirrored the horror of falling a waterfall's length through darkness. Even Sid was looking at him empathetically, his soft-heartedness getting the better of his resentment.

"Thank you Bodhi." Ellie said quietly when he didn't go on. He looked up at her words and she gave him a smile. "If you only hit the water that's a good thing. We found you on the ice, so we weren't sure if you'd fallen onto that. You did have a bit of a fever overnight from being in the water, but it's gone now. I'm sure you'll feel even better in the morning, okay?"

He nodded as much as he could in answer, and Manny could see the memories he wasn't telling them. All the little bits in between what he'd described that were coming back to him as he was retelling it. Things he hadn't known that he remembered, feelings he'd had so strongly at the time that they didn't even feel like feelings anymore. Just survival. And Manny knew that this was where the story was going to end for now.

Plus, Bodhi looked exhausted. Just the last few minutes had taken all of the fight, the tentative okayness, out of him. Even if he had decided to sweep off now, there was no way he'd be able to get more than ten paces. He'd collapse in another unconscious heap and they'd simply pick him back up and face him back toward the fire. He was stuck here with them.

Bodhi seemed to realize this a moment later. Ellie was briefly wrapped up in a lecture aimed at her brothers about behaving, and Sid was looking anywhere but at everyone else, and with the attention mostly off of him, Bodhi looked panicked and worried in a much different way than when he'd woken up earlier. Almost in pain. And it was that last, fleeting expression that Manny couldn't resist. The small, small part of him that kept nagging and doubting that this was the best idea fell silent.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Bodhi finally gave up and put his head down on his paws too quickly, eyes swimming with vertigo at the motion. He didn't seem to have the energy to care about how much it must have hurt.

Ellie didn't notice any of this, and once she'd wrested promises of best behavior from the possums, turned and refocused on him. "Get some sleep honey. I'm taking the first watch, so let me know if you need anything."

Bodhi blinked what might have been an answer. But drowsiness kept his eyes unfocused and his head firmly on his paws.

"Sid?" Ellie murmured quietly, and the sloth immediately rose at his name.

"I'm on it." The fire started a few moments later, but Bodhi was already too far into falling asleep to notice.

Sid did glance at him as he went back to his spot, and as he laid down, Manny watched him watch the saber for a few more minutes. His eyes finally closed, and it was obvious the moment that he fell asleep because all the lines in his body relaxed.

When Manny glanced Ellie's way, the possums were also watching the saber. They were still sitting right up against each other, not having bothered to separate during Ellie's speech and subsequent threats. And now they just looked shaken. Like they hadn't been expecting the emotional side of the story. Crash was the first to get up, and he patted Eddie on the arm before going over to scamper up their preferred tree. Eddie rose too, but Ellie was there to wrap her trunk around him and reached up to place him next to his brother.

They smiled sleepily at Ellie as she rubbed their heads like she did every night.

But her smile fled as soon as she turned away from them. The loving, searching, worry was gone too. Chronic exhaustion replaced it, and when their eyes met, she didn't smile at him. Manny was glad. He didn't feel like smiling either.

She laid down halfway between him and the twins' tree to take the first watch, and probably to think about what Bodhi had told them.

Manny closed his eyes, letting her think and plan in privacy. He'd take watch during the quietest part of the night and hope that this feeling, the one that told him helping Bodhi was the right decision no matter what, would hold true. Because at this point, none of them really had a choice.

So a bit of bad news. Posting is going to be delayed for a little while – as if I'm usually all that reliable anyway – but I am still here and slowly making progress. Some (good) life changes have been messing with my schedule since last chapter, and writing has become a less pressing activity than, say, sleeping. Which I should technically be doing more of.