LOTS of angst and grief in this chapter. Like, a lot. Please read at your discretion.

*Drops chapter and runs away before the angry mob of waiting readers can catch up with me.*

"You have to trust me."

"Trust you? Why in the world would we trust you?" So, Manfred knew that pinning this stupid, lying saber to the rock face wasn't going to solve the problem. That suffocating this stupid, lying saber until he collapsed in an unconscious heap at Manfred's feet wouldn't change the fact that they'd been tricked.

That they'd blindly walked into certain death. Or, at least almost had.

If the last few days had felt like a haze of travel and a mounting swell of feelings, the last two minutes seemed to instantly race before his eyes. And he wanted this stupid, lying saber to feel the pain, the betrayal, the…the utter desolation of finding out that they were being led along into a gruesome, bloody trap.

Manfred was, in short, furious. And even worse, not just for himself. Because for as much as he often wished out loud that Sid would fall through the ice in the sloth's more talkative, cloying moments, he already knew that he would fight to the death to keep him alive. It wasn't a question or a choice. It just was. Because Manfred needed him.

And…he needed Diego.

And if he was going to be completely honest, it was his own anger at himself that had his tusk pinning the saber by his throat. Manfred had been too stupid to learn his lesson the first time, to not let himself get too close and let their short time of companionship sneak its way into unconfirmed normalcy.

He also very much doubted that their two-faced acquaintance was their "only chance." Manfred had been in scrapes a trunkful of times, and while it had been a while, he had experience fighting hungry carnivores. It hadn't been solely desperation when he'd told Sid that they could fight their way through the danger at the bottom of the mountain.

When it came right down to it, Manfred wasn't doing this because he wanted Diego dead. Or hurt, really. He was just angry. But more than that, he wanted this swift-talking, conniving carnivore to have even an inkling of how disappointed Manfred was. That this wasn't real. That this uncomplicated back and forth, their natural push and pull, wasn't as uncomplicated as he'd assumed.

He hadn't realized it at the time, but his still-too-soft heart broke to realize that the first conversations, the first relationships he'd had in so long weren't actually real. And it wasn't until long after it was all said and done that he realized that if it hadn't been real, they'd be dead and Diego would have been the one still alive.

000

They were stopped in another small clearing, but the night air had acquired a sharp bite when the sun went down, so Sid's small fire was cheerfully snapping away as the stars came out overhead. The ever-shifting weather felt like an invisible, thunderous avalanche. They could all hear it, but nobody knew where it was coming from or when it would catch up to them.

And after their first week, which felt like a month, Manny was tired. It was the most traveling they'd done in a long time, but more than that, the stress of the ever-worsening weather, and the greater stress of trying not to overburden Ellie with his swelling, turbulent feelings left him wiped out at the end of every day.

"I'm fine! Ellie, stop, I'm fine. How many times do I have to say this until you're going to listen to me…"

And then there was Bodhi.

He'd been allowed to walk on his own when he was actively leading. Otherwise, he was riding. Grudgingly. But it actually hadn't been that difficult to enforce after their initial knockout, drag-out argument. It had also become clear within the first day that Bodhi was much more comfortable getting a ride from Ellie, so Manny had backed off and pretended like he didn't notice and didn't care. Which he really didn't. So long as the saber was actually resting and Ellie was feeling up to it, Manny didn't mind listening to the muttered-under-his-breath complaints or the accusing, humiliation-filled silence.

Plus, whenever Bodhi was riding, Sid didn't want to ride as well. Manny figured it had to do with being eye-level with the saber. And he'd take that deal all day long.

The frosty silence between Sid and Bodhi had melted just slightly as the first two days of their second week of travel went by. Sid still spent his walking time staying between Bodhi and the possums in the lead and Manny and Ellie behind him. But he looked slightly less morose, and he didn't side-eye Bodhi anymore when the saber lied down a little way away each night. That had honestly been more than Manny was expecting, and it was more than good enough for him. And as Bodhi slipped away from their temporary campsite to check the area, Manny tried to get his exhausted, tripping mind to just stop for a moment and rest.

The constantly changing land wasn't helping. There were mountains and deep, deep forests and large, wide bogs that smelled like many seasons of rotting vegetation had collected there. All sights he had seen before and used to be used to. He'd traveled a lot when he was first on his own. Not that he'd exactly been doing it consciously, but still. He'd traveled with Sid, and they'd continued to migrate with Ellie and her brothers, but the restless feeling he had now that never went away reminded him of his aimless wandering after turning his back on his old herd and running straight for solitary, all-encompassing grief.

Now, he looked around, wondering if the kids really had come this way, if they had stopped in this very clearing to rest for the night. They never should have agreed to let them go. It was stupid and a mistake. One they weren't going to make again.

"I've got watch." Manny wasn't surprised that the rest of his herd was out cold by the time Bodhi came loping back into camp. He was already moving easier than a few days ago. "And I don't care that you've been riding all day and you're 'not tired.' I'm not in the mood to argue."

Bodhi scowled at him as he took his usual spot. Sid was already in his snoring stage, the only indication that he was exhausted too and probably taking this stress just as hard as Manny and Ellie. "If you're not in the mood to argue, then I definitely need to be on watch." At least Bodhi seemed to be sleeping better the last few nights. He didn't look so strung out and stressed anymore. And there hadn't been any more random, nonsensical outbursts. At the moment, he looked infuriatingly awake. "You're clearly delirious. Go to sleep."

At Manny's momentary loss for words, Bodhi's usual crap-eating smirk crept onto his face, and he didn't gloat too much when Manny harrumphed and laid his head down. His eyes were already closed when he caught the tail end of the saber's soft laugh.

000

It was over.

The snow was getting heavier around them, weighing down the freezing silence. The soaking, jagged rocks penning them in beneath a green-tinted cloudy sky.

And Diego was lying in the snow. Dazed. Dying.

Manfred had fantasized about stopping time on the day fate came for his family. He'd gone over and over and over in his head in the lonely, pitch-black hours of the deepest nights, imagining what he would have said to them. He'd known, almost as soon as the grief had loosened enough that he could bargain, that he would have liked to say goodbye. So that they'd go knowing that he loved them and that his life would never be the same. Before them or after them.

He'd wanted it so badly sometimes that it physically hurt.

What had never occurred to him, of course, was that he was bad with words. So when it came time to say something, anything, to Diego, he just…hadn't. His long-wished-for chance to say the words when they really counted, and he couldn't bring himself to do it, to take the burden off of Sid, who'd immediately begun running a last-ditch, futile gambit to rouse Diego from the snow where he'd collapsed.

All he could think was that this was happening again. It was happening again and it wasn't going to get better, and how had he let this happen? He wasn't prepared for Sid's sudden appeal to him. To tell Diego that he was going to be okay. Again, he reached for words that weren't there.

It was his last chance. And even when Diego made the effort to shift his head enough to actually look Manfred in the eye as he repeated his own words back, Manfred hadn't been able to bring himself to respond. He just…hadn't said anything.

That silence was the one he regretted the most. Because he knew, in that moment, he wouldn't have known what to say to his family even if he had gotten the chance.

They'd stood there for way longer than necessary. Diego hadn't opened his eyes again, but he'd kept his breathing fairly even for a while. Probably because he didn't want them to know what he was feeling and, Manfred was willing to bet, because it was less painful that way. He'd known the moment Diego fell unconscious because, without purposeful regulating, his breathing immediately began to catch and stutter.

It was only going to get worse from there, and Manfred knew it was time. If it had just been him, he would have stayed and waited there with him. But he wasn't alone, and this day was already nightmarish enough. He ushered Sid off with a convenient reminder about the humans and returning Pinky.

They left.

000

The mornings were getting harder. Harder to wake up. Harder to get moving. Just…harder all around.

"Guys! Let's go!" Ellie shook her head at him in the crisp, early light. The distant sounds of the possums' play halted for a moment. And then started right back up again.

Manny just shook his head in answer, watching out of the corner of his eye as Bodhi softly padded by on his other side.

Sid popped out of the foliage around them a few seconds later, still chomping on the last of his breakfast, and generally looking well rested. Which didn't stop him from giving Manny a hopeful look.

"Yeah, climb aboard." Manny notched his head to one side.

Grinning, Sid used his climbing skills – which were actually quite good despite the sloth's all-encompassing laziness – and settled in between Manny's shoulder blades just as the possums came skittering back into the clearing. They slid a little, trying to turn to get up to where Bodhi was standing, waiting to lead.

The sunlight was weak on the horizon and it was somehow colder than the day before and the exhaustion and worry had become gasping, breathing things that followed them everywhere now. But when Bodhi started walking, they followed.

000

It was still snowing. A never-ending storm of white chasing them away from the north.

It was also their first night making camp. Officially.

Technically, they'd been traveling for about two full days. Manfred had gotten the hint that things were gonna get bad within the first hour of backtracking from Glacier Pass. The flurries started again, drifting slowly at first and picking up by the time they were just parallel with the lava field. He'd picked Sid up wordlessly, ran his trunk once over the unfamiliar string of human beads that Sid had helped to wrap more tightly and push up to the top of his left tusk, and staunchly headed forward.

Between the ominous edge to the sky that made it look like it was always a moment away from breaking open and the familiar feeling of grief, painfully sharp and almost unreal in its freshness, Manfred had just…walked. It hadn't been a fast pace, and it hadn't really occurred to him how much time had passed until light the next morning began crowding out the dense gray clouds.

Sid had fallen asleep hours ago, but he hadn't paid much attention to that either, as the sloth had been through a lot that day and it was no secret that he'd take any chance to nap he could get.

And he'd been crying before he went under. Manfred had considered saying something, or acknowledging it in some way, and he spent about an hour after the sloth's breathing evened out contemplating why he hadn't. Sid had obviously been trying to stay quiet, but he'd also had the genius idea to rub his nose in the mantle of Manfred's shoulder fur in a way that could only indicate that he was upset.

So it obviously wasn't meant to be a secret. And after Manfred had turned down his own support system in favor of going it alone, he wasn't about to let Sid find out what he'd learned the hard way. This emptiness, bottomlessness, was not in any way a new feeling to him, and Manfred resolved to say something as that endless day wore on. Knowing Sid, he probably wanted to spill his guts already but was more than likely holding back for Manfred's sake.

Now, it was sometime between afternoon and nightfall, and they'd finally made camp and the exhaustion and stress and the rest of the building emotions had finally caught up with him. Manfred was lying near the pile of abandoned sticks Sid had dumped on the small patch of barren ground they'd claimed before leaving again to find something to strike with.

He stared at the far-off sky. They'd veered westward, following the scents of the migration but not exactly aiming for the long trail of animals. He wasn't in the mood to be back in the crowd, and it would be faster to outrun this if they just went straight south. It was a little unconventional, but bypassing the migration altogether was definitely for the best.

"You didn't have to do that." His own stupid words echoed through his head out of nowhere. Then a different echo, in a voice that wasn't his. "Why did you do that?" As if Manfred was going to do anything else? He'd brushed the question off as near-death jitters as they continued onward. He'd certainly been feeling jumpy after that. His body had felt like it weighed three times what it usually did. He'd practically sunk to the ground when they found that sheltered rock face at the base of the mountain. It had felt good to know that he was going to wake up in the morning surrounded by other animals. By them, specifically.

Again, he should have known that Diego wouldn't have asked if there hadn't been another motive. They were traveling together, weren't they? Working together? Of course Manfred would do what he could to save another animal that needed help. His stupid need to step in was what had brought him there in the first place, so why stop with Sid and the baby? He might as well just save everyone while he was at it.

So Diego's question had definitely been strange, and to be honest, a little bit sad. Because it only served to remind him what it felt like being the only one watching his back.

Manfred had never considered himself all that good at relationships. The friends he did make, meeting his first mate, those connections had all come naturally to him. Being alone also came unhelpfully naturally. Wielding his ordinariness with an added boost of curmudgeonly glaring had made it too easy to keep strangers from even approaching let alone trying to get to know him.

And while he had no illusions that Sid was like this with everyone, he couldn't deny the fact that he and Diego had actually gotten along quite well. Manfred's sarcastic comments, his deadpan commentary hadn't phased the saber. If anything, it seemed to have given him welcome encouragement to respond in kind. Manfred had, on the second day of mostly silent travelling, grudgingly acknowledged to himself that, despite this headache-inducing situation, he appreciated that Diego wasn't bothered by his snark and seemed to even appreciate it. Their "conversation," which was being generous, was mostly silence occasionally punctuated by a flatly delivered, out of the blue comment about something or other and equally cool response. And Manfred had actually kind of loved it.

He'd been so unused to liking anyone, he hadn't kept his wits about him and been more careful. And the open wound of horror that this was really happening, had happened, was still actively raging through his mind. It loitered in the background, sometimes drawing his attention with sharp images and overwhelming emotions. Just when he got distracted, felt a vague sense of safety in forgetting, they'd come back to wreck it all again. He was familiar enough with these feelings that he knew this was just the beginning. He hadn't even really gotten to the grief part yet. Just the shock and oscillating emotions waiting to take shape as he unwillingly started to process what had happened.

But he did know that he felt alone for the first time in a long time lying there by himself. And he was going to be smart enough not to try and do it all alone this time.

So by the time Sid found what he needed and returned, Manfred was ready. He waited until the sloth got the fire going and had claimed a random spot, suddenly looking unsure of himself and glancing around like he was waiting for something. All of the relative ordinariness he'd had when Manfred gently lifted him from his back, announcing they'd make camp there, was gone.

"Sid?" When their eyes met, Manfred was at least able to put his honed impassiveness to good use. "How are you feeling?"

Sid shrugged blankly. "I'm fine."

"Do you…need to talk at all?"

Three days ago, Manfred never would have thought it possible for Sid to draw into himself like that. To look so small and helpless and…angry. He looked ready to burst apart and like he wanted to scream in the process. And Manfred knew, he'd been there, been there so many days and nights and afternoons and moments, that it physically hurt to watch Sid crumble right in front of him in response to his question. On top of his own sadness and guilt, it felt like being rammed straight on by a rock. And if it hadn't been for his tendency to push back at every obstacle – the only thing that kept him on his feet this long – he might have been mired in his own grief over what had just happened to their threesome as well as the older, duller but still overwhelming memories of the losses he'd already survived.

Manfred also never would have thought he'd find himself hugging the sloth, up and on his feet and going over to wrap his trunk around Sid's gasping shoulders. Whatever his reasons for trying to cry quietly earlier, now Sid sniffed and sobbed openly, shaking and angry and definitely not fine.

And as the fire burned on and eventually out, and Sid continued to cry, vacillating between calming down and getting worked up again – yet another state of opposites Manfred had unwillingly become well acquainted with – he lied down next to him and got comfortable for the night. The darkness soon pressed in around them, and the stars were too far overhead to make it any better. And it was nothing short of enraging that all they could do was lie there and grieve and wait. Because experience had taught him that this process was not quick, no matter how much he tried to push through to the other side.

It was going to be a very long migration.

000

Bodhi was sort of good at being sneaky, but it was a ridiculous sneakiness. For instance, he kept trying to lead for a little longer, kept going for a little longer as they made their way closer and closer to where he'd last seen the mammoth they'd all given up pretending not to hope was Peaches.

He'd also taken to outright lying about how he was feeling, and it was starting to drive Manny a little crazy.

Despite his high ranking in his pack, he was still just a kid. Probably intellectually the same age as Peaches. Which was not a welcome thought, considering how much trouble he'd managed to get himself into so far and how hard they were having to rein him in from seeking out more.

Manny knew it was only a matter of time until his blunt reminders that Bodhi had walked enough for the day and it was time to ride would be met with outright refusal. And there was no way Bodhi could possibly know, but every time he did start to bargain, all Manny could think about was him getting hurt. Of having someone else push themselves too far on his watch, and it was like his mind froze up and he was snapping at Bodhi to stop arguing without really meaning to.

It wasn't fair to him. And it wasn't fair to Sid either. Manny couldn't tell if the sloth necessarily realized his thought process per se, but this situation was taking a silent toll on Sid in general, and Manny was trying really, really hard to keep everything in balance until they could find the kids.

He was increasingly noticing that he couldn't stand to think any further ahead than that.

000

Sid's emotions were different than Manfred's. Manny was a hollow rock on the outside protecting a center that was dangerously too pliable. Sid had no defenses and no filter, and he swung uncontrollably through his emotions when they got too overwhelming.

And now that Manfred was actually paying attention, and managed to get more information out of him in the weeks following Half Peak, he felt guilty for all the grief he'd given the sloth when they first met.

Sid's family had literally abandoned him. He'd been completely on his own, about to be brutally killed by two rhinos for whatever stupid reason their small brains had used to justify the action. Sid had no one, and he'd been completely unconcerned about it. His family leaving, getting left behind, trying to chase after them while outrunning the bracing cold front… No wonder he was so often upset and having a hard time dealing with the grim reality that death was real and it had taken their friend.

Manfred tried to be more patient with him when Sid was feeling up to acting like his usual self, but if he was quickly diving into Sid's entire life history and all the complications that had made their paths cross, he was also finding out too much about how their personalities worked together.

It was hard, and Manfred definitely would have said before all of this that they didn't work. But the truth was, they tended to balance each other out. Sid was silly and impulsive while Manfred had the tendency to put his head down and storm forward regardless of the situation or his own well-being. Together, Manfred kept them moving and Sid kept them entertained and bantering back and forth on the long, long miles south.

It was all that alone time on the road that permanently rooted their relationship. And it was a long time before Manny would look over, camped somewhere new for the night, roaming, just the two of them, and think That's my best friend. Because they'd pretty much skipped that part to begin with, and in true Sid fashion, Manny didn't realize how much he actually did like the sloth – independent of caring about him and, unfortunately loving him to literal death – until the oncoming cold was far behind them and they were back on surer footing and in better places.

So, yeah. They did work. Really well, actually. Infuriatingly well, but Manfred had long since abandoned the hope of finding out he was wrong about that and had very slowly begun depending on the fact that he was really, really right.

The irony of depending on Sid of all animals after such a long time on his own was not lost on Manfred, and he was always playfully annoyed when the sloth got a smile out of him. Or when Manny managed to add just a few more details to the unfolding story of how he'd found himself on his own, Sid was always there to listen and sit with him and make him feel like it was okay to let a little more slip next time.

It almost made up for his uncanny ability to drive Manfred nuts had any other given point in time. He'd never forget the day they met some other migrating animals and he'd introduced himself as "Manny" instead of Manfred. It hadn't even been intentional; it had just slipped out. Sid had called him that too many times, and it had been an accident.

He told the sloth as much that night as Sid made endless fun of him. Manny huffed and glared and didn't go back to his full name after that.

And slowly, the two of them built a life together. An unexpected, sort of dysfunctional life that was, all in all, happy.

But at the center of that happiness, Half Peak still remained a sore spot. Those were the times when Manny felt like he'd been dropped back into the role of caretaker. Because when Sid did go the other way, and when he stared, depressed and silent, into the fire some nights, or stormed off over a minor inconvenience at first light before breaking camp, Manfred was the only one there who could bring him back. And it was a question more often than not of whether he'd still be successful the next time Sid broke down.

It got better over time, both Manny's ability to figure out what Sid needed from him and the pain of it. The devastating memories began to fade enough, like snow thawing at the edges, that Sid's ability to deal with those times noticeably evened out over about a year of travel. They were both still sad, but talking to the sloth and helping him work through his feelings got easier with practice. And once they reached their semi-unspoken agreement that Sid wanted to be the one to bring it up, that had gone a long way to making the harder days more bearable.

For his part, Manfred let his thoughts drift back to the north almost unrestricted at first. It was easier to breathe through the sweeping guilt of having not done his part in that fight if he wasn't actively trying to block it all out. But as time passed, he increasingly pushed the memories to the back of his mind, pretending to himself that he was successfully forgetting. And it was all the easier that Sid really didn't like talking about it. The baby, the journey, Diego, he let them dull as much as he could without truly forgetting. That was what he'd learned the first time. It wouldn't do any good to try and completely destroy the memories, and this was going to be one of those things that he'd always have with him. That fact made him feel both better and worse.

000

"We're a day's walk away." Bodhi's announcement was met with all of them whipping their heads up to look at him. He'd left them to walk on their own for a bit to go scout ahead, another excuse to avoid resting probably. And he nodded at their desperate looks. "I remember this area. We're really, really close."

"Any sign of them?" Ellie asked quietly even though they all knew that would have been the first thing out of his mouth if it were the case.

Bodhi kept calm and just said, "Soon. Now that we're closer, I know I can get you to the exact spot."

Crash and Eddie whooped, scampering down from the canopy where they'd been playing tag for the last half hour. "Let's go!"

Manny was going to pick up Sid and let him ride, but the sloth was scrambling after the possums, just as happy and excited as them, and Manny instead went over to take Ellie's trunk, twining them together and wishing with all his might that this was going to work.

It was a quiet few hours of anticipatory walking, and by afternoon they were emerging from the trees. The massive patch of forest behind them broke off abruptly, and the herd stopped short in the too-bright sunlight.

A shoreless lake was spread in front of them, flooding the horizon with deep blue water, and small chunks of glacial ice were bobbing in the brittle sunlight, probably having broken off when the last glacier came through. It reminded Manny of the extreme swathes of land slowly being drowned under the runoff during the last warm period. Back when they met Ellie and the possums.

It scared him just as much now as it did then.

"This… This wasn't here." Bodhi's voice was so small, Manny almost didn't catch it.

"So, how do we get around it?" Crash looked up at him, waiting for instructions. He was the first to break the silence. The first brave enough to even begin to go there.

And for all his tough-guy bluster, Bodhi was incrementally shifting back from the edge of the water, trying to put more distance between himself and it. He maybe didn't even realize he was doing it. There was a long pause in which Manny didn't know what he could possibly be thinking about, although probably a lot of things at once. And finally, finally, finally, Bodhi answered, "I don't know."