Buck took his first chance to go up to the surface.
He wasn't used to the cold, and it certainly wasn't ideal to leave the warm, familiar landscape of the world down below. And with the loss of his-
No. No, he couldn't think about that. Not yet, anyway.
He was in a forested patch with deep snow drifts piled up against the trunks of the trees. He'd been hearing voices – actual, real voices – on the wind for most of the morning. They kept a good pace ahead of him, which told him they were also heading in the same direction. And seeing as how there was a lot of ground to cover between where he was and his destination, he wasn't in much of a hurry to catch up to them yet.
The dino birds were crafty, but they weren't so smart and motivated as to come after him immediately. They'd bide their time, probably wait for him underground for a while hoping he'd come swinging back, an easy target with minimal effort.
Buck wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. Not yet, at least. Dinos had definitely found their way into the upper world; there was no doubt in his mind about that. It hadn't been through his own usual entrance beyond the northwest edge of the mammals' shared territory – secure offshore in a little creek that deposited him below the surface, wet and shivering into the humidity of home – and he knew it wasn't actually his fault, re: Gavin and his children's confusion, he also knew that he was quite possibly the only animal in the world equipped with actual experience to handle the situation. That thought kept him pushing forward despite how uncomfortably the air nipped at his fur and face.
The sky had been dark when he'd popped his head above the snow when he first arrived, firmly closing off his access point to keep any more scaly intruders at bay. Now, the ever-rumbling sky was bringing a cold front with it, a moaning wind through the spindly trunks of the spaced-out, colorless trees; a mirage of white before his eyes, which were used to the lush warmth of year-round vegetation.
Not to mention places to hide. Out here, following the wafting conversation from somewhere ahead of him and doing his best to find cover when he could, it was starting to feel a little pointless. He was exposed out here. Very, very exposed, and while he knew every trick in nature to keep a hungry dino from guzzling him whole, he hadn't had to think about mammal predators in a long time.
He wished-
No, not thinking about that. The weather was growing restless, and he knew with the same instincts that had helped him survive the early days underground that the environment was on a fast trail to getting worse. Between that burgeoning threat and the very real appearance of trouble where he was headed, he didn't have the luxury of pining for his knife back.
Gavin had always thought it was just a weapon. And Buck was thankful that he'd never led any of them to think more. Much less that, with Rudy gone, it was the last piece of his rival and the days when living there was fun. The one thing that Buck was ready to stake his life on. Or, had been. Before this all started.
He could still get it back, then. They wouldn't know it meant enough to him to think of destroying it. Which meant for now he needed to focus. Get this done.
Buck adjusted his eyepatch against the insistent, blustery wind and forged on to find out what was going on ahead of him.
000
It was probably foolish, but Sid wasn't really that concerned as he watched the rough waves breaking in the wind. The other side was too far away to see despite the clear blue sky and rare – for these days – bright sun. The long swathe of destruction cut from one glowing horizon to the other.
He knew how to swim, though. They'd be fine. If there wasn't a current, he was sure Manny and Ellie could make it across okay, so long as they could figure out where the other shore was.
"I…I don't know. It changed after I came through here – probably a glacier moved down. And…and now…" Bodhi's panic was on full display and growing more intense by the second. He'd more or less been standing next to Sid when they all stumbled upon the scene, and he'd quickly shrunk back, drawing as far away from the water as he could with Manny and Ellie standing directly behind them.
Sid realized with an infrequent strike of clarity that this was the first time he'd seen the saber for who he was and not that he simply wasn't Diego. It unexpectedly made him feel a little bit better. Not to mention guilty as they all watched their guide try not to visibly shake, think of options, and communicate his thoughts all at the same time.
"Can we go around?" Ellie was asking.
"We'll have to, I mean…I don't know how far this stretches."
"North or south?" Manny rumbled, already gearing up to get going again.
Sid glanced out at the water as Bodhi said something about south taking them closer to the area where Peaches had been. And when everyone else began walking, Sid did too, bringing up the rear and trying to ignore the nagging regret. Again.
He knew excluding Bodhi was wrong. Especially when he'd offered to help them at the cost of his own plans. And Sid had tried to keep it together, relieved that his and Manny's earlier agreement was still intact. Because they needed to find Peaches and Julian and make sure they were okay, and Sid did not want to be the reason that they failed.
As far as Bodhi himself went… This was one thing that Sid had never made a real effort to come to terms with. His family was messy and dysfunctional, and he couldn't remember a time when they hadn't been doing whatever they wanted to do in the moment. He still loved them, but he really didn't miss them, and he hadn't been lying to Ellie a few weeks ago when they were talking about him being abandoned. It really was okay with him. Everything had worked out for the best.
Except…the one thing that hadn't. Which was the one thing Sid wasn't willing to completely let go of. It made him angry even if he didn't always feel like thinking about why.
Because he knew it was foolish to think that everything would have worked out and led to something perfect. It was unrealistic to think that Diego would have been happy with them. They didn't even really know each other. And most of what Sid did know about Diego at that point had been disproportionately centered on his murderous intentions.
But Sid had also known that he liked how Diego seemed to occupy an invisible and hard-to-name middle ground between him and Manny. And maybe the thinly veiled, fake, death threats were worth it when Diego's serious face would break into a satisfied smirk. Sid had often wondered afterward how often sabers had cause to smile. Probably not a lot. Which was sad. It hadn't been long ago that just an edge of a thought like that could send him spiraling. He hated the fact that Diego had probably died without ever smiling much.
Details like that always made him sadder than the fact they hadn't even gotten a chance to give the three of them a shot. Sid didn't know if everything would have worked out, but it still would have been better than what had happened. Maybe Diego would have been happier more often. Maybe he would have wanted to stay.
And the truth was, Sid didn't want to know if Bodhi was miserable in his pack. He didn't want to replace Diego with Bodhi, which was exactly what all this felt like.
"You okay?" Eddie appeared out of nowhere to his right, probably having come from the looming tree line.
"I'm fine. As long as I don't have to rescue you this time." Sid lisped, finding his smile again. He liked teasing them about how they'd spent the whole short migration torturing and making fun of him for entertainment and then he'd saved them.
Crash had appeared while he was talking, having followed Eddie out of the snowy underbrush, and he waved his paw and made a pssh sound in answer.
Sid was just beginning to put two and two together that the possums were acting completely out of character, per their usual routine of sticking to Bodhi like sap whenever possible, when Crash cut off the building realization. "So."
"You didn't want Bodhi to come with us." Eddie's voice had intentionally lowered, his eyebrow cocking in expectation.
All three of them glanced up once, but neither mammoth seemed to be listening.
"And that's because…" Crash motioned that Sid should fill in the rest once they were sure they weren't being overheard.
"Well, we don't know him…or, didn't, at least," Sid ticked off the first reason on a claw, "He's clearly busy with whatever he needs to be doing." Another claw ticked off. "Also, you guys know how this usually works…" He let his paw drop.
Eddie didn't look impressed by this last reason – the unspoken rule that whenever they happened to meet someone they even moderately liked, that animal usually ended up joining their herd – and crossed his arms in annoyance. "And that's bad?"
"He already has a pack," Sid mumbled. For as much as he couldn't imagine life without Ellie and her brothers, and for as much as the possums and him had made a good team in the past, this wasn't a topic he was really willing to even address with Manny. Let alone them.
Sid could barely admit to himself that he wanted to keep Bodhi out. Or that none of the actual reasons had anything to do with Bodhi. This situation already felt like an inevitable event that he couldn't stop. For as much as Manny had tried to reassure him and Ellie hadn't thought twice about Bodhi returning to his pack, Sid wasn't convinced. Not even close.
"True." The brothers were eyeing him suspiciously.
"Shouldn't you be hanging out with your new best friend?" As much as it was a risk to try and engage them further, Sid didn't like the way they kept watching him expectantly, waiting for him to give up and say more. He already felt more vulnerable than he had in years, and definitely wasn't interested in any help they could possibly offer. Which would, of course, be none.
"You don't want our company?" The two of them looked aghast.
He didn't want help. He just wanted to avoid the subject and pretend like he didn't think about it from time to time. Manny had encouraged him to take time and space alone if he needed it, and Sid had actually found that quite useful. It had been easy to fall back into it exclusively after a while.
When he didn't answer for a few seconds, Crash and Eddie were sufficiently bored enough to roll their eyes and scoff at him.
"You know what Crash?" A sarcastic lilt to his voice.
"What's that, Eddie?" A matching tone.
"Sid's right. Let's go walk somewhere else."
With that decided, they darted between Manny and Ellie's feet and back up to the front where Bodhi was walking.
Good. Sid watched them go and did his level best to tell himself he didn't care.
000
Diego hadn't been sleeping well. But it was fine.
The worst part was having to grudgingly admit to himself that the lack of sleep actually wasn't bothering him all that much. Which was definitely bad. He should be freaking out…should be grumpy…should be angry that Merle had dumped all of this on him. Still angry, a full month later.
But maybe it also felt good to be doing something. He felt good, actually. Not that he was actually enjoying the pack. Absolutely not.
His mind was doing that thing again. The one that told him he wasn't sleeping enough and probably wasn't eating enough and that "handling things" wasn't the same as having everything under control. He remembered it all too well from when he was obsessively tracking his way south in the aftermath of Half Peak. Back when his pack had imploded and he'd been desperate to find his new herd. Back when he still thought things would work out if he could just find them.
Only this time it felt like he was chasing that feeling rather than running from it. Being pack leader felt like being stuck in the middle of a tornado. Like he was constantly being tossed unpredictably in one direction or another and always had to be ready at a moment's notice to course correct, make the right decision about a random problem that came up, or be there at the drop of a paw for a pack member that needed something from him.
It would almost be fun. And a challenge. If it wasn't for Peaches and Julian.
He knew he wasn't giving them the attention they deserved. Him and Shira had started checking in with them at least once every few days, and the two of them acted like everything was fine, even if Peaches sometimes looked at him like she hadn't seen him in ages, was wondering where he'd been and why he wasn't around as much as he should be. He was actually missing her constant questions and general harassment. Of course, just when a chance to maybe, possibly, sort of be involved in their herd unexpectedly came his way, he'd end up pulled in yet another direction away from it.
Typical.
And sometimes, when rotations were going a little too smoothly, it was a convenient thought to use to level his mood out again. Diego really wasn't interested in getting used to pack life again. And just because this one wasn't actively terrible didn't make it much better.
"You like this." Shira had said a few days ago, lying on her back again, eyeing him upside down with a sassy little tilt to her mouth.
"What are you talking about?" The pack area had been mostly empty that afternoon. And Diego had been taking advantage of the rare, relative silence to map out the area on the ground. He'd been pacing in a circle around it for the last half an hour.
"You're doing extra work?" One of her eyebrows was raised. She nudged her head toward the rough drawing he'd made in the dirt. "It's okay to like it."
"I don't." That genius and highly convincing comeback had prompted her for the last few days to keep needling. As if he needed one more complicated thing to puzzle out while more and more animals were arriving and chaos was beginning to set in due to the sheer number of bodies in an area that wasn't big enough to naturally fit them all.
Plus, his shoulder was aching again. It still wasn't a hinderance, but if there was one thing Diego had never really forgotten, it was how it had felt to stumble blindly through a raging blizzard, unsteady on his feet and in pain every waking moment. He knew the degrees of pain his shoulder had gone through as it slowly mended, and he'd definitely place this at least two degrees higher than the usual twinges that heralded an incoming snowstorm.
So that was bad.
He didn't waste much time going to see Merle when Shira was already doing her own missions and side projects. One of which included checking on Merle.
But Diego knew he should at least check in on the leader of the pack he was currently babysitting from time to time. He'd found a little time that afternoon and hadn't felt like joining Shira where she was talking to Claire and Wally and Brian in the main clearing. So he'd slunk off to make himself miserable in a different way.
"Whoa, incoming pack leader!" One of the mammoths in Brian's herd cried when Diego entered their sleeping area.
He sneered at the resulting laughter from the assembled mammoths. "Yeah, yeah, I forgot how to laugh."
He'd always much preferred going to talk to Brian and dealing with his herd members than venturing among the pack. Now, said mammoths snickered all the harder as he ignored their cheerful taunting and walked purposefully over to where Merle was resting, waiting, watching everything going on around him with a satisfied expression. Diego didn't doubt that the older saber woke up every day feeling self-congratulatory for shoving Diego into this situation against his will.
Diego stopped a few paces away from him. "Ready to take you pack back yet?"
"Good morning." Merle didn't look surprised to see him despite the fact that, at the moment, Diego couldn't remember how many days it had been since he'd last checked in. Brian's herd was taking care of Merle anyway. They didn't have any qualms about helping out and bringing him dead fish or being around for anything else he needed.
No doubt it all mangled Merle's pride a little more with each passing day. "I've heard that rotations are running smoothly."
"No thanks to you."
Merle hummed, trying not to look amused. "Glad you got it figured out."
"It's so much work." Diego tossed his head back in mock exhaustion. No way was Merle going to get a glimpse of his actual, very real exhaustion.
"You seem to be adjusting fine."
"Just because Shira tells you something doesn't mean you have to take it at face value." Merle had made the effort to sit up on his haunches. So Diego sat down across from him, pretending not to notice how much muscle mass Merle had lost or how wiped out even that one bit of effort had rendered him.
"Given your track record, I'm more inclined to believe her."
"Again, Soto was issued a clear warning. And it's not that I can't handle this, it's that I don't want to." Pack leadership was going well, all things considered. Diego didn't come and see Merle because he didn't need Merle's input on any of this. And he certainly didn't need his mate telling on him to the pack leader. What Diego was or wasn't feeling was his own personal business.
Merle wasn't big on reacting much to anything. He liked to play his emotions pretty close to the pelt. Which was probably why the two of them had sometimes had trouble talking to each other in the past. They were both a little too good at meaningless insult-slinging and mind games. So Diego was surprised when he said point blank, "You're doing a good job. I'm impressed."
Diego scoffed.
"To be perfectly candid, I've always wondered what type of second you were."
A good one. Until he'd stopped carrying out bad orders. "Why did I ever want this in the first place?"
"Because of the prestige and the power… Because you're good at it and you know it." Before Diego could do more than shake his head at this, Merle met his eyes intently. "Thank you for taking care of my packmates."
This was really why Diego didn't spend much time coming to see Merle. And rather than answering his earnest, open expression, Diego rolled his eyes with a dramatic groan and turned his back before Merle could see that, above anything else that was going on, that was what actually mattered to Diego.
000
They walked for the remainder of the morning. And finally, finally, in the late afternoon with the light starting to dim, there was a solid patch of ice. It stretched south and, more importantly, eastward out of sight, disappearing on some hypothetical other side.
They all stumbled to a stop, the wind whipping hollowly through the silence. The ground crackled from the mammoths' bulk as they stood behind him, waiting. Nervous.
"This is it." Bodhi raised his head higher to the wind, tasting the damp of the water and stinging dry of the ice around them.
Phantom creaking echoed from random spots around them.
"So," Ellie's voice rose above the feral wind. "Who's feeling reckless?"
In Bodhi's peripheral, both possums raised their paws.
000
"You know, don't you?" Julian's shoulders were slumped, having jumped sharply when Shira asked his turned back if they could talk. He stared at the ground morosely, having followed her a few paces into the trees and away from the groups of animals in the main clearing. The ones he'd been hovering on the edge of and clearly eavesdropping on.
Shira had eased up on the whole following-Peaches-around thing since the kids got back. And not just because she'd realized with some amount of shock that her kids were also now involved in whatever endless game of hide and seek was unfolding.
She still felt that being a trustworthy adult to them was more important than ferreting out whatever Peaches and Julian's weird behavior meant. So she was more than a little shocked when Cam approached her on the edge of the lake yesterday as she was finishing lunch and told her exactly what they were up to. No prompting. No preamble. It was just, Hey, so can I help search for Buck too?
"Um…" Shira wasn't used to her words failing her. And she'd never been good at recovering when they did. And she had a very distinct feeling that this was information she was not supposed to know. "H-have you asked Jackson?"
"I don't think Jackson knows that I know." Cam had frowned thoughtfully. He wasn't the sharpest by a longshot and was definitely no tactical genius, so whatever gambit he was running either hinged on outright lying or foolish, boneheaded truthfulness.
"Do you…want to help?" He was a sweet kid, and Shira was betting it was the latter.
"Of course," Cam shrugged. "Merle made a mistake. He dismissed Buck's suspicions too quickly. I know Jackson hates going against leaders, and maybe I'd feel differently if I was second, but as third, I gotta agree with Peaches on this one. She's right, and Diego's not listening. No offense. So anyway, I tried to ask if she needed anything before, but Peaches didn't seem to want to talk about it."
She wasn't aware that you knew, either. Shira was sure of that. And she knew she should be pulling a plan together even now, in this moment. But the most she could bring herself to say was, "Of course you can help, Cam."
Now, Shira was neglecting to tell Julian that this was not the first time she'd noticed him spying in the main clearing. She just hadn't been sure what it meant or how it fit in until Cam approached her. Addressing it now was merely a tactical move.
So much for her sleuthing skills. "Please tell me that Sidney is doing some tracking for you."
"She's trying," Julian answered carefully. Shira cursed whatever unnoticed day in the past she'd let her heart soften enough to care that another animal was scared of her.
"Good." She hoped her short statement would put him at ease.
It didn't. He looked terrified. "At this point, we don't think there are any tracking markers left. We're searching blind." Julian eyed her stiffly. He was making an effort to hold himself up, if not to look formidable, at least to not cower.
Shira couldn't help her frown. "I'm not here to yell at you or make you stop. I mostly wanted to ask if Cam had talked to you yet."
Julian relaxed just slightly, curiosity flooding his expression. "No?"
"He asked me if he could help you all find Buck," Shira smirked and waited.
To her relief, Julian relaxed some more. "Oh. I…didn't realize…"
"I told him that he should help." Shira said before he could stumble through his surprise out loud. It was reassuring to see him grin with relief at the comment. Shira offered her own smile back, tapping into her "mom side," the one she'd thought for the longest time that she didn't possess. Now, she just wanted her new nephew to feel better and not shrink away from her anymore. "You're not good at spying by the way."
"Uh, yeah." She knew Julian felt better because he rubbed his head with his trunk sheepishly. At least he bounced back quickly. "Peaches is better at sneaking. But we thought that maybe if I asked enough questions, we may find out something useful while she's at the leader meetings with Mayim."
Smart; Shira wasn't about to deny that she was impressed by them trying to gain information on multiple fronts.
"Why did you want to talk to me then? If you're not going to make us stop looking?"
"Like I said, you're bad at this. And I'd hate for Diego to find out before I can figure out a way to tell him that won't involve him freaking out." Mostly because Diego freaked about everything that Peaches and Julian did because just the thought that something might happen to them stressed him out of his mind. Shira was trying to work on that with him too.
"So you're gonna tell him." Julian looked like he'd been expecting the other icicle to drop. And now it had.
"Lying…or, rather, not being completely truthful with Diego has never worked out well for me." She'd tried to convince him that Gutt was a respectable captain, that she was happy where she was, that the two of them didn't have a future together even if she did leave the crew. In the end, all she'd managed to do was convince herself that Diego was actually right. "We tend to work better together."
"That makes sense." Julian looked down, away from Shira's inquiring eyes. His body language somehow looked worse than it had even a few minutes ago. And as they waited each other out, waited for Julian to say something more to explain whatever had just come over him, Shira considered, again, how happy she was that the two of them were here.
Finally, when he didn't go on, Shira nudged. Just a little. "Julian?"
His deep sigh told her he hadn't spaced out and was merely stalling. "I'm fine; I'm okay. I…" A little more hesitation. He glanced up at her once but ducked his head again. "I feel… I mean, how did you get to the point where you and Diego were talking about all of this easily?"
"About us? Or Gutt?" Shira wasn't entirely sure she was following him, but it seemed like the right answer was very important in this moment, whatever it was. And before he could clarify, Shira went ahead and answered the question in general. "The thing was, our relationship was not easy. We really hated each other at first, and it was hard, especially for me, the closer we got. It took a long time for us to talk and disagree about serious things, like our pasts, without it becoming an argument."
"Until you started trusting each other."
"Oh, it was long after that." Shira shook her head. And Julian whipping his head up finally clued her in on what she should be aiming for with this conversation: resolving communication problems. Unfortunately, one of her areas of expertise. She remembered all too well what it felt like to figure out how to talk to Diego instead of just distracting him with nuzzles and insults. "Relationships are kind of like walking into a cave. The farther you go and the more your eyes adjust, the more confident you feel. Your partner looks different, you look different. It's an adjustment, sometimes a slow one. You can't always just go running in."
"What if your partner wants to do that, though?"
Oh, Julian. "Doesn't mean you have to follow." And if they were worth keeping, romantically or platonically, eventually they'd turn around and come back to see what the holdup was. It had taken Shira nearly all her life up to this point to figure that out.
Julian nodded without looking up at her, and Shira knew enough of what he was trying to not say to leave the conversation here.
"Let me know if you need anything," she said, turning to leave so that Julian could be alone with whatever thoughts he was clearly having. "I'll talk to Diego. Please try not to get caught before I do."
Her joke landed softly and Julian laughed quietly and nodded. Shira nodded back even though he probably wouldn't notice and left. Time to seek out some solitude so she could do some thinking of her own.
Diego was not going to like this.
000
They were over halfway across, and the trees the twins had spotted were a thick swathe ridging the sky on the edge of the glacier's path. Being the smallest and lightest, they'd gone first to test the sturdiness. Then Sid, sliding a little in the slicker spots and jumping up and down a few times.
Bodhi had gone next, ignoring their worried looks and questioning silence. At least the mammoths took the hint and, when it seemed safe, started following behind.
Bodhi was okay, really. He let his instincts drown out everything else going on around him. Taking in the myriad sounds around them, filtering compulsively while he kept his eyes forward. This whole area had been forest when he'd been here the last time. He'd been the second half of a night's travel away from the large animal he'd sensed and tried to avoid further southeast.
They were so, so close. Finally. Besides, he was a pack leader's second in command and he wasn't going to turn tail and run from anything. Even if his gait was stiff from an edge of stress he couldn't quite control. But between keeping tabs on the burning sun low in the sky behind them and calculating the likelihood of finding their kids and not having to go to Brian about this, he wasn't doing too bad at keeping his mind relatively calm.
Without consciously thinking it or even realizing he was doing it, Bodhi blinked again a few minutes later and found himself walking next to Sid. As in, right next to him. A swift glance back over his shoulder, where the mammoths were still slowly following about fifty paces behind, didn't jog his memory of how he'd managed to close the substantial gap between them.
"They're just being careful." Sid was…Sid was talking to him? Bodhi turned his attention back to the sloth, who was indeed looking his way. It was the first time he'd said anything directly to Bodhi. "They're taking it slow so nothing cracks. We had a problem before trying to cross some ice."
"Oh, yeah. I-I know." The lava field near Half Peak. There was no denying that it was Diego's favorite part to tell. That part of the story was unexpected and tense and exciting without having to get too mired in the heavier, sadder aspects of what had brought them together.
Sid eyed him but didn't say anything else and went back to staring forward after a few seconds.
Bodhi had never cared much about awkward silence. Most sabers didn't, as it was common to begin with. In normal circumstances, their rugged, serious lifestyles didn't leave much room for joking around or getting too attached to one pack member or another.
The silence bothered him now, though. And not just because he hadn't actually meant to find himself walking next to Sid. For as much as Bodhi didn't want messy attachments to these animals, he couldn't deny that Sid's ongoing avoidance was starting to get weird. Based on what Diego had always said, and now what Bodhi had been seeing over the past few weeks, this behavior seemed odd for Sid specifically.
He'd assumed Manny had told Sid about their conversation, about Bodhi letting Manny know that he knew Diego. It seemed likely, as the two of them had a myriad of secret glances that, as far as Bodhi could tell, were only shared between the two of them.
The only conclusion Bodhi could really come to was that Half Peak was an incredibly sore topic and Diego's role specifically even more so. Not that Bodhi could blame them. Even if he did notice how averse Diego was to any kind of pack life and how his eyes shifted when he was talking about confessing what he'd originally been planning. Bodhi knew Diego, and he knew how sorry and disappointed he was even now. Bodhi almost wished he would have kept pressing Manfred about it.
If he was being completely honest with himself, it also seemed like a strange stance for Sid to take. Sure, his unwillingness to hold a grudge was probably said in the heat of the moment, but overall Sid did seem like the forgiving type.
Bodhi was just weighing whether or not it would be worth it to talk to Sid individually about Diego when there was a massive, low boom that cleared his mind and pulled him to a stop as it faded to echoes.
"Not again," Sid muttered, both of them looking back at Manny and Ellie, who had both frozen mid-step.
There was another deep rumble from what seemed like right below them, and by the time Bodhi realized that he needed to say something, that there even was disaster to head off, Manny and Ellie were rushing forward in unison.
Bodhi didn't think the rumbling had been anything serious. Not yet, anyway. Merely the sound of water carving its way through the ice bank below their feet. It was slowly chipping away at the edges of the ice flow, smoothing them over and uprooting the deep layers. He hadn't been fast enough to tell them it was okay. That those low growls meant that they should take it slow rather than run headlong across the ice and put extra pressure and weight on the already unsteady structure.
Now, the rumbling of their feet was deafening, much like the roar of the falls and the dark water swirling around him, cold and brutal in the darkness…
By the time Bodhi came back to himself, it was too late.
The ice beneath his paws went from being there, solid and cold, to not there. And the angry, louder boom of forming cracks brought him from the dreamlike buckling under his paws to full alert a heartbeat later as he was thrown sideways.
Bodhi felt the water easily fold over his body, swallowing him up immediately and turning him around a few times. Only a few seconds under the surface, and he'd already frozen up like ice, sinking quickly as the cold eased the pain in his legs and back. It took every effort in his panicking mind to force himself to pull it together enough to head for the undulating glow of the late afternoon sky above his head.
Bodhi awkwardly broke the surface at the crest of a wave. Another washed over him half a second later before he could gasp in a full breath. From the quick glimpse he'd gotten before sinking again, the world above had been in absolute chaos. Chunks of ice were falling and tossing and slamming into each other. The water around him was churning from the constant impact, and Bodhi's heart almost stopped to see slabs of ice sinking around him. His fate if he couldn't keep this up and fight his way upward again.
But at the same time, Bodhi was seriously doubting that he was going to resurface. It was basically a fact, really. Because he couldn't swim, and the fear that he'd pushed to the back of his mind to allow himself to do this in the first place had welled up in a relentless barrage. Among other unhelpful side-effects, the debilitating nerves told him he may as well stop batting uselessly at the water around him.
But he did know he was going downward at least, and he waved his paws around wildly to keep the glow of the surface from getting any farther away.
This time when his head broke above the water, Bodhi felt something latch onto him, and despite his messy kicking and struggling that thus far hadn't been working very efficiently, he actually was staying afloat at the moment.
It took an embarrassingly long few seconds to realize that he wasn't the one doing this and that Sid had swum over to him and hooked one of his arms under Bodhi's forelegs and was keeping them both floating. And at the edge of the water, which was actually only about ten feet away, Ellie and Manny were both standing and waiting, both still dry as a bone.
One of Manny's eyebrows was quirked. And a creeping suspicion started to work its way through Bodhi's mind as Sid calmly – and quite easily – swam them over to the edge where the mammoths hauled them out and back onto solid ice.
"Are you okay?"
"Bodhi?"
He knew the twins were hovering around him, but Bodhi couldn't take his eyes off of the literal pool he'd just come from. Because that's all it was. An elongated, rough circle of ice on the edge of the flow that had crumbled. It was maybe five mammoths wide and six long. Nothing more than an unusually deep watering hole, actually.
His near-painful panic immediately turned to bitter embarrassment as Bodhi forced himself to stop staring at what he'd mistaken for a vast ocean of crashing ice and got to his feet. If Manfred and Ellie had panicked and run over nothing, he'd gone absolutely crazy for no reason.
"Are you hurt?" Manfred asked gruffly.
"I'm fine. We need to get off of here." They let him take the lead, surprisingly. Manfred didn't even make a huffy comment about riding. And once he knew they'd all fallen into step behind him, Bodhi deliberately blocked out everything – especially his soaked and dripping fur – and focused on getting them to the other side.
He knew he was being immature. But Bodhi hated embarrassment. It was imperative to always be in control as second in command. He couldn't be scared or weak or make colossal mistakes like getting distracted and then think he was drowning when he was, in fact, perfectly safe and more than capable of getting himself out of the situation. Being a saber meant understanding that petty mistakes could get him or his packmates killed. Avoiding them was oftentimes life or death. He had to be infallible at all times. Loss of control could very well mean loss of leadership.
Plus, he wasn't good at putting up with teasing.
But, unfortunately, he couldn't give the water back there a death glare before stalking away from it. His paws hitting solid ground a mere ten minutes later didn't make him feel all that better, and Bodhi decided to stay in the lead until he was physically forced out of it. He knew he was running on the very last of his energy, but the deafening silence was getting to him more and more, and there was no way he was going to ask for a ride.
"We should stop soon," Manfred said after probably an hour of Bodhi silently leading them southeast, heading directly to where he supposedly passed by their daughter.
"We're not far from the place, actually." Bodhi was satisfied that his voice sounded steady even if the rest of him was dragging.
"I think there's been enough excitement for one day." If Manfred noticed that Bodhi took a few extra seconds to think over his words and tone for inflections that didn't seem to be there, he didn't mention it. Just waited in silence until Bodhi could bring himself to nod once, head turned just slightly in their direction.
"We'll find a spot to make camp!" One of the twins called and the two of them raced ahead and into the trees.
By now, Bodhi didn't think twice about whether they were up to the task. But he was surprised when their absence was filled by Sid coming up to walk next to him again. At least the mammoths' footsteps in the back didn't change rhythm.
Sid looked suspiciously like he wanted to ask if Bodhi was okay, so he beat the sloth to opening the conversation. "I'm assuming Man-Manny talked to you about the conversation we had a while back? About what may happen if we go to Brian? Setting up a meeting and all?"
"He mentioned it." Sid fidgeted. Point taken.
"Good." Bodhi knew he should feel even better. But unlike the last time he'd stumbled his way through this topic, he was too tired to deny that he didn't. "I wanted to make sure you were asked too."
"Me?" But it sounded more like a statement.
"It's partly your choice." Bodhi knew this was what Diego would ask of him if he could. And just because Bodhi hadn't liked Diego teasing him during the time when he and Mayim were still trying to make their ill-considered relationship work, having an ex-girlfriend with a smart-aleck father who had done nothing but be kind to him in the aftermath of their breakup wasn't the worst thing in the world. "You still have the option, if you change your mind. Or even if Manny doesn't want to."
Sid, for a tense moment, did actually look like he was considering this, while also reconsidering Bodhi, before finally shrugging. Which was probably meant to be a no. And Bodhi was too tired to push any more. It was surprising but not unlikely that Sid also wanted to keep his distance from Diego.
"So, you don't know how to swim," Sid said out of nowhere in a shockingly confident voice a few paces later.
"Uh, well…"
Sid didn't seem to be waiting for an actual response from him, though. If anything, Bodhi's silence – not that he'd really been given the chance to respond – just caused Sid to talk more about swimming as Bodhi directed them to where he could smell Crash and Eddie waiting.
They both threw up their arms expectantly when the rest of them arrived, proudly showing off the little glen they'd found. Bodhi smiled and nodded at them in acknowledgement, per their now-normal routine. The possums beamed.
Sid was waddling off in search of fire supplies soon after that, and Bodhi briefly considered going in search of a late dinner. But his stomach still hadn't unknotted itself, so it would probably be best to wait until morning to eat anything.
He claimed a spot instead, lying down carefully and trying to estimate how long it would take them the next morning to reach the spot. There had been almost no other scents for the better part of the day, let alone a mammoth's. The odds already weren't looking good. It would take at least four to five more days to get to Brian's territory.
Both mammoths were staring at him by the time Bodhi finally noticed their attention.
"You were walking better today," Manny observed. It was a poor way of starting off this conversation, and Bodhi was going to do everything in his power to avoid it going any further.
"I'm not hurt," he snapped. Even if his useless squirming in the water had, literally, hit him where it hurt. He glared at both of them. "In fact, I'm fine."
"Yeah, he's fine!" Eddie echoed. Crash paused some suspicious berry smashing behind his brother to turn and nod in agreement.
"Rule number one." Ellie leveled an unimpressed stare at Bodhi's smug look, "If my brothers think something is a good idea, that tells me we have a problem."
"Well I'm not your brother," Bodhi said overtop of the possums' indignant Hey!
"You must have been really scared," Ellie tried instead. Bodhi frowned at her assumption. She didn't seem to care. "That's okay, you know."
Sid appeared at the opportune moment and took up a spot in the middle to start the fire, cutting off their line of sight. It was enough for Bodhi to pretend like he hadn't heard or didn't care what Ellie had just said.
When Sid was finished and the fire was growing rapidly among the kindling, Bodhi was surprised when Sid chose a spot slightly closer than normal. Slightly less standoffish and slightly more part of the group – not that it mattered or that Bodhi cared.
"I can teach you how to swim," Sid informed him. "It's not hard; you'll pick it up fast."
That was the very last thing that Bodhi wanted, from Sid or anyone else. He wanted to keep a respectable distance from himself and the water from here on out. Which was as desperate and fearful as it was impractical. And he couldn't very well turn down a reasonable offer in the second direct conversation the two of them had ever had.
"Most animals can swim as babies, you know?" Sid was sneaking glances at him, but he didn't seem wary, just shy. "I'm a swimming expert and…what?"
Manny had snorted at the word "expert," and began giving a longwinded explanation that made Sid pout and huff until Ellie got sick of listening to him mercilessly criticize his best friend and insisted they all go to sleep.
Manny rolled his eyes but cuddled up closer to her. And as soon as he was no longer paying attention, but before Sid could roll over for the night, Bodhi nodded at him. "Sure, I'd like to learn. If you're up to it."
Sid beamed at him for a moment, and Bodhi couldn't believe he hadn't noticed the massive difference until then. Because Sid being civil to him and Sid smiling and interacting with him willingly were two very different things. And just as Bodhi was finding his own smile to reciprocate, Sid blinked and visibly came back to himself. His eyes dropped and he was mumbling a swift goodnight before lying down and doing his usual routine of pretending like he'd fallen asleep within moments.
Bodhi waited another few seconds, hoping Sid would think better of his reaction and open his eyes again. Or even mumble a goodnight. But he didn't, and Bodhi glanced at him a few more times as he also laid his head down and feigned falling asleep.
000
Sid curling up next to Bodhi wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Sid specifically talking to Bodhi and offering to help him before going back to shutting him out was new, though. But not nearly as much progress as they'd been hoping to see.
Both possums sighed from their place on the edge of camp and finished slicking up their side of the perimeter with crushed berries. An extra defensive step that would have to be abandoned as soon as Manny stepped in it some morning. Fun sucker.
"Don't worry," Eddie wrapped a red-soaked arm around his brother as they watched Sid breathing. "He'll break eventually."
Both of them reassured, they turned and hitched themselves up the nearest tree trunk to begin the important work of choosing a good sleeping branch.
There's a paraphrased Big Bang line and Umbrella Academy line if anything sounded familiar, and Ellie's line about feeling reckless is a paraphrase from the Community KFC/NASA episode. Troy and Abed voices: Crash and Eddie in the mor-ning!
Thanks for reading!