A/N: Lmao I don't really know if anyone reads these author comment things but I like writing them regardless XD. So here's Chapter 4 of A Night To Remember, the pups are getting ever so close to determine once and for all if Chase really does like Skye! But that might not be the only discovery they make this chapter ;)
Just a sidenote, it makes my day checking the story and seeing all the views I'm getting, especially when I see who favourites my story. I've read some of your guys' fanfics as a guest in the past and to have a couple extremely good authors favourite my story means the world to me, so thank you all so much :)
UmbreonX197: Thank you so much! Don't worry, the cuteness doesn't end there ;)
The pups were gobbling down on their food, while Ryder fixed himself his own breakfast. All of them were acting casual apart from Chase. He was playing with his food bowl, not eating much, and occasionally glaring at Skye. He was petrified of one of his guy teammates finding out his secret, let alone Skye herself. But there wasn't much he could do to to prevent them from confronting and exposing him. Whenever they would mention her associated with him, he'd begin to blush, which was an obvious sign of affection to her, and he didn't really have any evidence to back up his secret. He tried not to think about it until he had to, and just continued poking at his food.
"You okay Chase? You've barely ate a thing" Ryder asked Chase, concerned about his pup.
"Oh, yes Ryder Sir, I'm fine. I was just, uh.. distracted." He assured the boy. Across from Chase, the other guys started grinning and looking at him.
"Are you sure. You don't feel sick, do you?" Ryder said making sure nothing was wrong.
"Lovesick." Zuma muttered under his breath to Rocky, who giggled.
"I'm 100% Ryder, sir." Chase smiled reassuringly. Ryder went back to the table to continue eating his breakfast. The german shepherd snapped out of it and ate his food as well. He couldn't afford to miss a meal and feel weak the entire day, especially if they were to be called on a mission.
After the pups had finished, they weren't needed for a rescue, so they went to do their own thing. Most of the pups went outside while Skye went upstairs to practice her Pup-Pup-Boogie moves to make sure she was the best at it. Chase normally would have happily went with her, but he wasn't in the mood, so we went to his pup house to lie down for a little.
In the meantime, the other four pups were trying to organize a plan to find an answer to their question; does Chase really like Skye?
Rocky lead the pups outside. He and Rubble also were keeping a secret from the pups, and felt now was an appropriate time to show them what it was
"Come on guys! I have something to show you!" he announced.
"Oooh, are we going to, the place?" Rubble said winking at him.
"You know it! I think it's time we show our friends our little hideout." Rocky replied, leaving Marshall and Zuma confused, yet extremely curious. The two pups looked at each other and shrugged.
Rocky and Rubble lead them down the hill to a spot with a couple trees and bushes, where their secret spot was located.
"What's so cool about this? I can see trees like this all over the place at the park." Marshall pointed out unamused.
Rubble walked over to the bushes, and pushed them to the side, revealing a hole the was dug out.
"Ta-da!" Rubble introduced it to them, "Now hop in!"
All four pups walked down the dirt tunnel, which lead them into a huge room that was dug out. It had chairs, a couple lights, and Ryder's old laptop which he let Rocky keep. The chocolate lab and dalmatian were in awe.
"You guys made this?" Zuma said looking around, blinking to make sure he wasn't day dreaming.
"Yep," Rocky said proudly, "Rubble dug the whole thing out, I designed it, and we both customized it."
"It looks great!" Marshall said wagging his tail, "Why didn't you show us this before?"
"Well we've only had it finished for a month now, and we didn't really want to have it crowded. And.. we may have not gotten permission from Ryder to dig this…" Rubble explained, "You guys can keep a secret right."
"You can count on us, right Marshall?" Zuma said, nudging Marshall who wasn't really paying attention.
"Oh, right! I won't tell anybody." Marshall agreed slightly unconvincingly.
"I'll keep on eye on him," Zuma said, assuring the two other pups that this place would not be mentioned to Ryder, "Anyway, more importantly, let's get down to business."
"Right, so it's kind of obvious the Chase likes Skye, but we just need him to admit it." Rubble said getting straight to the point.
"But we already asked him and he said he didn't like her," Zuma pointed out, "Maybe he actually doesn't like Skye, and we just jumped to that conclusion."
"I guess that could be possible," considered Rocky, "Well let's check if there's any more instances where Chase has acted odd and affectionate around Skye," the mixed breed suggested
"How on earth would we be able to do that?" Marshall questioned him.
"Why let me show you," Rocky said making his way over to the laptop. He clicked on a file that read, "Rescues." Next, seven folders showed up with each of the pup's names on them. He clicked on Chase's name and a bunch of videos loaded, each one being every rescue that they've been on.
"What the.." Rubble said in amazement, "Even I didn't know about this. How'd you get all that footage?"
"Well, back when we had started the Paw Patrol, Ryder wanted us to be as good as possible at rescuing people, but we weren't going to be perfect from the get go. So to learn from our mistakes, he wanted to film the rescues so that he could spot anything that we could improve upon, and then be better at it next time." Rocky explained, "And since I'm the kind of tech pup, Ryder asked me to help him install extremely small cameras into the front of our pup packs, giving a different point of view. He didn't want me to tell anyone because he said it could distract us from rescuing people, and make us more scared to mess up, so I hadn't told any of you until now."
The was a brief pause as the three other pups took in all that information.
"Wow, and all this time we had no idea." Rubble said. He couldn't believe it.
"How did you get the files onto here? I thought Ryder didn't know about the hideout." Zuma asked.
"Well, being the usual me, I had a USB stick in my pup house, and was kind of curious to see rescues from different perspectives. I mean you can't blame me, it's cool to see what Skye sees when she's flying, or what it's like so go deep underwater with Zuma. But anyway, when Ryder was out, I copied the files onto the USB from his new computer in his room, and then put them onto this old one." Rocky explained, "I mean, I helped him with the cameras, so shouldn't I get to at least see some of the footage?"
"I guess, but I don't think sneaking into Ryder's room and stealing the videos was the best idea." Marshall advised him.
"Yeah you're probably right." Rocky agreed with him.
"Well that's a problem for another time, let's look through the videos quickly before the others start to wonder where we are." Rubble said anxiously.
"Alright here we go." Rocky granted Rubbles request, and got the videos started.
After skipping through a couple of videos, the pups had finally found something. The video, in Chase's point of view, showed that the team had just finished saving the baby sea turtles. It got to the part where Alex had started flying away on his kiteboard and Skye going to rescue him. A couple seconds after Skye lifted off, they heard Chase's voiced picked up from the camera.
"Oh no! I can't watch!" Chase said, followed by a whimper.
The four pups looked at each other in satisfaction. However it wasn't over yet. Only a few moments later, the video showed Skye returning to land after saving Alex, and Chase running over to her.
"Good job Skye! I was so worried- uh.. I mean, excellent flying." Chase corrected himself.
"Aha! That proves it!" Rubble yelled out.
"Whoa, don't jump the gun now. This was one of our first missions, it was a long time ago. We need to keep looking at more recent ones." Zuma suggested.
"Smart thinking Zuma, we need to be absolutely sure before we do anything." Rocky complimented the chocolate lab's idea.
"Wait, do anything? What are we actually going doing about this. Now that you mention it, why are we even trying to prove this?" Marshall questioned.
"Think of it this way Marshall, if Chase likes Skye, but keeps it to himself, Skye will never know how he truly feels, and there's a possibility that she could like him back. And if he never tells her, he could be missing out big time," Rocky tried to explain to Marshall, "So if we have enough evidence to convince us that Chase likes Skye, we should try and get him to say it for confirmation. Then we'll try and get him to confess to her."
"Yeah, we're helping him in a way. Wouldn't you want this for your best friend?" Zuma asked him.
"Yeah, I guess I would. I love it when Chase is happy." The dalmatian said smiling, "But why don't we just tell Skye ourselves? It would save us a lot of trouble."
"I thought about that, but I think it's best Chase should tell her. It's his secret and he should be the one to tell her. I think she would like it better if he told her rather than us teller her behind his back anyway." Rocky explained.
"Yeah you're right. It should be Chase's special moment." Marshall concluded.
"Alright, let's keep looking." Rubble said eagerly.
They had come across a decent amount of clips of Chase worrying for Skye, him acting cheerful and playful around her, etc. Including the time when he, Skye and Rocky were saving Chickaletta on their camping trip with Mayor Goodway. But the one that took the cake was the day Skye got lost.
The pups watched as Chase became all panicky upon hearing the news, which was not like his normal self. Under his breath, he was begging Ryder to pick him for the mission and was overly excited when he was chosen, and when they eventually rescued Skye.
"I think we are all set." Zuma said, satisfied with all of the evidence they had uncovered.
"Yeah, looks like we've seen enough. Now comes the hard part of this whole mission, getting Chase to admit it." Rocky said, thinking of how they were possibly going to do that.
However, out of the blue, Rubble spotted something on the screen.
"Hey what's that?" He said pointing to a video file on the screen. It read Friendship Day Song.
"Hey, that's the music video we made for our Friendship Song on Friendship Day!" Marshall said, remembering how fun it was to make that, "Can we watch it? Please!"
"Yeah let's watch it, I don't think I've ever seen the final cut." Rubble begged with his tail wagging.
"Okay sure! I'm actually excited to see how it turned out." Rocky said, clicking on the video.
The video began playing and the pups enjoyed hearing themselves and Ryder sing the song they had composed. The four pups sang along, remembering how crazy and well that day had turned out. It got to the section of the video where the whole team were at city hall, along with both Mayors, and the rest of their friends. The pups shared laughs when they saw the clip of Marshall smacking into and knocking over all of the pups. But the clip that followed shortly after shocked the four pups.
The video showed Chase and Skye next to each other singing their line, "...A friend for you and a friend for me…" in which Skye gently leaned her head against Chase's chest. Chase's reaction in the video was almost as shocked as the four pups were at this very moment.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, pause it!" Zuma exclaimed, "Did that just happen?"
Rocky paused the video, clicked back a few seconds, and pressed play again. They rewatched it a second time, and still couldn't believe their eyes.
"I don't remember that happening!" Marshall said.
"Look, even Chase couldn't believe it." stated Rubble.
"Guys.. do you think this means Skye likes Chase too!" Rocky asked them, "I mean we didn't even really consider this!"
"Wow! They like each other!" Marshall gasped.
"Awwe, that's so cute!" Rubble said, fantasizing the two love pups in his head.
"Wait guys, we can't be too sure now," Zuma said, "It was just one instance."
"That's true," Rocky pointed out, "But look at how both of them act now when they compete against each other. There's obviously some chemistry between the two. And do I have to bring up how she was snuggled into Chase all night long."
He did have a point.
"You know, you're actually right. I think they could actually like each other.. and they don't even know it!" Zuma said, "Can you imagine if they became a couple?!"
"Guys wait,I think we should try and get her to confess too though. We don't want to dream up this whole relationship only for it to be false and come crashing down over our heads." Rubble suggested.
"You're right, we can't get ahead of ourselves. Let's start by thinking of a way to make Chase confess first." declared Rocky.
The pups nodded in agreement and discussed with each other a plan and how they would execute it. They didn't want Chase to expect a thing. They wanted to catch him off guard with the evidence to the point where he couldn't deny it. Eventually, they had a good plan figured out.
"Alright, Marshall," Rocky said, looking at the dalmatian, "You are going to ask the both of them if they want to play hide and seek while we are going to be waiting down here. Tell or try to convince Skye to be "it". When she starts counting, tell Chase you have a super secret hiding spot where she won't find us, and take him here. When you arrive, we will question him, show him the footage, and try to reveal the answer he is hiding."
"Sounds like a plan!" Rubble said in a tone of approval.
"I hope it works," Marshall gulped, "Or at least, I don't screw it up."
"Don't worry about it Marshall, you'll be fine. Just pretend we really are going to play hide and seek and then just bring Chase down here." Rocky said, giving him some confidence.
"Okay.. I'll give it my best!" Marshall smiled.
"Alright, so this plan is all set, but what about Skye? Doesn't someone have to talk to her privately?" Zuma pointed out.
All the pups exchanged glances.
"I'm not doing it." Rubble immediately said.
"Neither am I." Rocky agreed.
"I'm already talking to Chase so you can count me out." Marshall defended himself.
"Well I don't want to be the one to ask her. We're guys, and I don't know about you, but I don't know how to ask a girl about who they like." Zuma protested.
"Yeah, girls are a lot more complicated than boys." Rubble commented.
"Well there must be somebody that can talk to Skye about this." Zuma said, thinking outside of the box. However it was Marshall who came up with a solution to the problem.
"Everest!" he proclaimed.
"Great thinking Marshall! I'll call her up now and explain. Hopefully she's willing to go along with it." Rocky said as he tapped his pup tag to call Everest.
After Everest picked up, Rocky explained the whole situation to her about how Chase possibly likes Skye, and Skye possibly likes Chase.
"Awe, I always thought they would make a cute couple," she commented.
"I know, and we need your help," Rocky told her, "We are going to get Chase alone and question him about Skye, and we want to do the same to Skye. But, well.. we're all guys and don't really know how to approach the topic when talking to a girl. So we were wondering if you could try and possibly talk to Skye."
"Of course! I'd love to. Want me to head over right now?" She offered.
"Thanks Everest! And yeah sure, that would actually work out perfectly." Rocky thanked her.
"Alright, I'll see you guys in a bit." Everest told them.
"Wait, Everest!" called Rocky.
"Yeah, what's up?" inquired Everest.
"Just make sure you don't make it too obvious something that is going on, we don't want her to find out. And don't let her know we are talking to Chase either. We really want this to work out well for them, so it has to be secretive." Rocky informed her.
"Gotcha, you can count on me! Good luck you guys!" she replied.
"You too!" Rocky responded and hung up.
"Alright guys, it's now or never. Everest is on her way to talk to Skye." Rocky warned the three other pups.
"Oh boy, I can't wait!" Rubble jumped up and down.
"I guess I'll go get the two to play with us now so that Skye will be alone when Everest gets here." Marshall said, heading for the exit.
"Wait!" Rocky called after him, "Bring it in. All of you."
The four pups huddled around each other, waiting for Rocky to speak.
"Alright guys, this is it. Let's try not to mess this up. We have one chance to make this plan work without them getting suspicious." Rocky informed them.
"For Chase and Skye!" Rubble cheered, putting his paw in the middle of the group. The other's copied.
"For Chase and Skye!" The all hollered, throwing each of their paws in the air.
"Alright guys, I'm going. Wish me luck!" Marshall said leaving the hideout.
"We'll be waiting for you!" Zuma called out to him.
And with that, he headed back towards the Lookout to find the two pups.
Ahh! The pups are closing in on Chase and Skye! What will happen? Will Chase admit his love for Skye? Does Skye like Chase back? I guess it's gonna have to wait until next time ;).
My upcoming chapters are ending up to be extremely long, like 5k+ words, and I'm considering keeping the content but just dividing it to make two chapters with 2k+ words, thoughts? I may break them so the story can last longer and there will be more suspense and cliffhangers, but I want to know what you guys think, that is, if any of you guys even care XD. Regardless, thank you guys so much for reading! Until next time :)