Hey all! Don't really have much to say this go round, so let's just get right to it.

The Safehouse was a good shelter, especially for something built under short notice with a small amount of tools. Unfortunately, just because it was warmer than outside didn't mean it was warm. Sleeping was done as close to the fire as I could get without being burned and I was in no way surprised when I woke up and found I'd wormed myself halfway under Sly. Or maybe he rolled over on me in the night. It could be hard to tell.

Extracting myself, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked around. For possibly the first time ever, I was the first one up. Well, maybe not. I couldn't see Kristian anywhere. Murray was curled up nearby, apparently drifting toward body heat happened to everyone.

Bentley was over by his table, sacked out in his wheelchair. He must have been up all night, he definitely was when the rest of us had gone to bed. He'd been trying to fix the replicator and it looked like he'd managed it if the fact that there were way more blankets around than we'd gone to sleep with.

Grabbing one of the blankets, I wrapped it tightly around my shoulders and tiptoed my way to the van as quietly as I could. Assuming it hadn't been lost in the Old West, my backpack should have been in there and I wanted warmer clothes. Plus, I hated sleeping in anything that wasn't pajamas and really wanted to change anyway.

But when I got to the van, I remembered that the replicator was a thing and I could actually get winter clothes from it. Twenty minutes later, I was happily wearing two more layers, a scarf, and gloves.

Making my way back to the table, I started examining the weird fruits scattered across it. There were weird pink things that looked vaguely like strawberries, things that looked like blueberries and cherries... they looked like fruits I'd grown up with, just on steroids. I picked up one of the strawberries; it was heavier than it looked.

Bentley started to stir and I flinched, grimacing when he sat all the way up, stretching under his blanket, "Sorry, Bentley. Did I wake you up?"

He waved off the apology, yawned, stretched, then looked down in confusion at the blanket that had been draped around his shoulders, "Thanks for the blanket?"

I shook my head, "I just woke up. Must have been Kristian. What's his deal anyway? He clearly has some kind of history with you guys."

Sighing and looking tired enough that I wanted to order him to bed, Bentley tucked the blanket around his legs, "I don't know. We were all sent to the same orphanage, but he was already thirteen. I grew up in the orphanage, I think I was around eight when he came. I followed him around a lot back then; he was nice enough, but never really friendly. Looking back, I'm sure he just tolerated me because I was quiet. Sly showed up two years later and he and Kristian never really got along, but they didn't hate each other either."

I nodded, this was the second time I'd heard this story, "Do you know what happened to his family?"

"Burglary gone wrong. He lost his parents and a younger brother. I thought at first that he just hated all criminals, but..."

But Kristian wasn't hateful toward me or Bentley. He was annoyed with me because I'd joined up with the Coopers, but he wasn't actively mean. He tolerated Murray fine too, and he'd been okay with Tennessee. It was just Sly he had a problem with.

"He makes my head hurt," I admitted, sliding into a chair and tucking my feet under my legs.

"You and me both."

"So what's the deal with these fruits?" I asked, holding up the strawberry thing, "Are they safe or what? And why aren't they frozen?"

"Yes, I tested them, they are completely safe. Though, they have some sort of chemical that lowers their freezing point and allows them to live in winter. It must have evolved out of the fruit over thousands of years once the Ice Age was over."

Shrugging, I took a bite. Seemed the same as normal strawberries, maybe a little sweeter, which was fine by me, "So, I'm guessing you already have a plan because you overwork yourself and if we weren't stranded in prehistoric times, I'd find a way to put you on stress leave."

The turtle ignored the second part of that, focusing instead on the first, "Now that I've fixed the replicator, I can get most of the parts we need to fix the time machine from that. But there are a few key parts that got scattered across the valley when we crashed. I also noticed some weird structures nearby, but the van parts are our biggest priority."

I hummed, rocking onto the back legs of my chair, "Recon?"

"Recon."

"Bentley," I said, rolling a cherry across the table to Murray, who beamed his thanks, "I think your penguin paranoia might be a little... overboard."

Bentley scoffed, "Remember the attack robot?"

I shuddered.

"Remember what you said about the Contessa's attack robot?"

"Yeah, yeah, shutting up."

"Attack robot?" Murray looked confused and disappointed that he'd missed that little adventure. Even Kristian seemed intrigued.

I stretched, peeked at the little icon on Bentley's laptop that indicated Sly's position in relation to his target, and decided I had enough time for the story, "Yeah, it was when we were trying to bust you out of the Contessa's psycho prison. There was this water tower. Bentley said it was an attack robot, wanted to destroy it with lightning. We didn't actually believe him, Sly fried it anyway, it briefly came to life, and we were proved rather horrendously wrong."

"So that's where Interpol's budget went..." Kristian muttered.

"Okay, that conveyor belt does not belong here," Bentley took over the conversation, looking at the picture Sly had just sent in, "The question is: what is it being used for? Sly, I'm picking something up. Look for a building that resembles an... arena and let's take a closer look. My thermovision is picking up a lot of activity there."

"You got it, pal."

"I'm just worried that there is an arena somewhere prehistoric," I admitted, tugging idly at my gloves.

"You and me both."

It was only a few second later that Sly stumbled across a rather... colorful character.

"What is he wearing?" Murray demanded in something like horror.

Kristian blinked slowly, wearing a similar expression, "Is that a grizzly bear wearing a hot pink track suit?"

"And a crown," I added.

"Wait a second," Kristian squinted at the screen, "I think I recognize him..."

"Sly, see if you can get a shot of that guy," Bentley suggested, "Maybe we can identify him."

The thief obliged before pulling out his binocucom for an actual face chat, "Okay, no way that guy dug that bling up around here."

"No, you're absolutely right, Sly," Bentley agreed, spinning the laptop to face the whole table, "He definitely doesn't belong here. This whole place demands an investigation. Let's start by figuring out who we're dealing with here and what he's up to. Head for that crack in the wall and try to keep a low profile until we know what we're dealing with."

"I hear you, pal."

I poked at Kristian with my baton, "So, do you think Interpol's going to have to have some kind of temporal division now to keep track of dastardly time-travelling crime?"

The cougar rolled his eyes heavenward, "That question is so far above my pay grade it's not even funny."

"What I want to know is how they got a time machine in the first place," Bentley said, tapping the marker he was writing out equations with against the table, "Given the way we observed the blimp move, it's similar to my design, but that's not possible. I double and triple checked my security once I figured out what was going on, there were no breaches."

"Probably shouldn't rule it out, though," I propped my chin up on my folded arms, "How soon after you completed your prototype did the Thievius Raccoonus start being weird?"

Bentley grimaced, "Just a few days. I see your point." He rubbed a hand over his face, looking tired again, "I just hope Penelope's okay."

"Penelope?" Kristian questioned, "The RC expert from Holland?"

"And Bentley's girlfriend," I nudged Bentley, "Hey, she's probably fine. She's tough. It's probably just a weird timeline thing. Once we correct the problem, she'll be back at the lab, angry she missed the adventure."

"Yeah, you're probably right," He didn't sound convinced, though. I'd have tried to cheer him up more, but he kind of unsubtly changed the subject by shifting his focus to Sly, "Stay on your toes, Sly, and don't alert the guards."

"I hear you, pal,"

Sly climbed up some long icicles, which didn't seem physically possible, then found himself looking down into an arena with a platform surrounded by lava. Some guards had pinned down a prehistoric native to torment. I felt my face twist into a sympathetic grimace.

"Wow, I'm glad I'm not that poor guy. What's weird is... he looks kind of familiar..."

"Wait-" Bentley leaned so close to his laptop screen that I became seriously concerned he might be trying to will himself into it, "Holy missing links! Sly, that's a prehistoric raccoon! I wonder if he could be..."

"... my ancestor?" Sly's face clearly said he didn't know what to do with that idea.

"It's a distinct possibility!" Bentley insisted, "Let's help him out! Sly, I have an idea, but you need to get that saber-toothed tiger skin. Just don't let anyone see you!"

"I'm on it, Bentley. One tiger skin, comin' up."

"You know, I miss the good old days. Where we'd steal from Dimitri and I'd threaten to turn you guys in to Interpol three times a day and we didn't travel through time to observe the evolutionary process first hand. You remember those days? They were pretty awesome."

"Are you saying you want us to go back to trying to ditch you after every job?"

I considered that, "I see your point," then I flicked a blueberry at him, "You're the reason I have abandonment issues."

He flicked the blueberry back, "I seriously doubt that."

"I have to agree," Kristian said, snatching the berry out of the air before we could devolve into an all-out food fight and handing it to Murray, "You're perfectly capable of developing issues all by yourself."

"Sly, come back," I called to the laptop, "I'm beset on all sides by sarcasm and pretention."

"How terrible," he drawled, zooming in on the bear from before, who was standing in front of some kind of tarp, "This guy's painting is not improving my opinion of him."

"Forget the art, see that key in his back pocket?" Bentley asked, "I bet it unlocks the door the tiger skin is behind."

"Right," Sly ran a hand over his cane, "Time for some real art- the art of pick-pocketing."

Kristian grimaced like that statement caused him physical pain. I kicked him under the table while Bentley applauded Sly's pick-pocketing skills and urged him to hurry and get the skin.

"Not really my color, but I'll make it work."

Apparently Sly needed the tiger skin for its claws, which provided better traction for jumps. He also enjoyed using them on hapless guards, which was not improving Kristian's opinion of him.

By the time Sly reached where he needed to be, the prehistoric raccoon had had his club taken away. The club that looked suspiciously like a cane. My suspension of disbelief was stretching.

"The guards on those pedestals are the ones holding him down, Sly," Bentley explained, "Take them out and he should be free."

"Looks easy enough."

"Be careful, Sly," Bentley admonished, "If you're caught, you'll never get him out of there."

"Do you really think that's Sly's ancestor?" Murray asked.

Bentley had taken out a notebook of graph paper and was scribbling away in it, "I'm trying to find that out right now."

"I want to know why Le Paradox is going after the Coopers," I scratched at the side of my face, "I mean, he's not exactly being subtle about it."

Kristian hummed like he agreed with me, but wasn't willing to admit it out loud.

"Sly, this is... amazing!" Bentley had apparently finished his calculations just as Sly took out the last guard, "I've run comparison tests: facial features, fur length, tail volume, and according to them all, that cave raccoon is definitely your ancestor! I believe you've found the very first Cooper!"

"I'm not sure I see the resemblance, but I'll take your word for it, Bentley. Hey, big guy!" Sly called to the trapped raccoon, "What do you say we get out of here?"

The cave raccoon stilled for a moment... then broke out of the net and tossed all the guards off the platform.

"Sly, your ancestor scares me." I hissed. He laughed, because he was a jerk.

The cave raccoon lumbered up to Sly and said... something. It wasn't any language I'd ever heard, which was why it was very strange to me when Sly replied.

"Well, no, we've never met. But a reliable source tells me we're distantly related. I'm not sure what to say, it's truly amazing to meet you!" Sly was getting back into fanboy mode. That was understandable, though. These last few days he'd seen more of his relatives than he had probably ever thought he would after he dad died... which was kind of sobering, "Uh, what's your name? Uh, my name's Sly. Sly Cooper. What's yours?"

This cued a string of sounds I did not understand, though Sly was listening to them attentively.

"Yeah, I can't pronounce that. Why don't I just call you 'Bob'?"

Weird thing was, 'Bob' sounded like he was communicating with Sly just fine, there was conversational inflection and everything. And then Bentley just had to go and say, "He's right, Sly! You two should get out of there before more guards show up!"

Bob dragged Sly off, Bentley shut his laptop, and I cleared my throat uncomfortably, "Uh, Bentley, could you... understand what Bob was saying?"

Kristian, Murray, and Bentley all stared at me with varying levels of confusion and concern. "Could you not?" Murray asked.

I shrugged noncommittally and tried not to be worried about it.

"That might make sense," Bentley muttered, "We could be able to understand him because we have some instincts left over from our ancestors of this time period, whereas you have so few genes of the same type that it could cause problems with your understanding-" he started to reach for the graph paper again and made a wounded sound when Kristian held it out of reach.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. "Great. That's just... yeah. You guys can be my translators, that'll be fine." I was kind of surprised at how disappointed I was that I wouldn't be able to directly communicate with this Cooper. Rioichi and Tennessee Kid had both been so interesting and this guy was apparently the first-

This was going to suck.

Bob was... nice. Okay, "weirdly affectionate" was probably a better term. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, the way he'd carry Sly around by the back of his shirt like a wayward kitten was downright hysterical.

I just wasn't sure what to do about it when he picked me up by the back of my shirt and dropped me next to Sly, like he was trying to keep an eye on both of us at the same time.

"What is he doing?" I demanded of Sly after I tried to slip away and failed miserably. We'd determined pretty quickly that Bob couldn't understand me any more than I could understand him, for whatever reason. Bentley was in the process of giving himself an aneurysm trying to figure it out.

"Well..." Sly scratched his head, "We're pretty small compared to his tribe members and he's having a hard time believing that you're actually talking-"

"Are you saying he thinks we're children and I'm pre-verbal?!" I shrieked.

Sly held his hands up in surrender, "We're working on convincing him otherwise!"

"This is humiliating and I hate you." I grumbled, crossing my arms and settling down with a huff.

"Yeah, keep acting like that and it'll be harder to convince him."

I was giving deep consideration to elbowing Sly and screw the consequences when Bob caught sight of the green crystal device the gang used to contact Dimitri (when it was functional, at least) and was instantly mesmerized.

"You know, I understand why he's food provider for the tribe if he's that easily distracted," Sly said, dusting himself off and pouring coffee like nothing had happened after Bob wandered away.

"Yeah, okay, about this tribe... are we going to run into them?" Because that had potential to be pretty scary.

Bentley shook his head, "Unlikely. They don't seem to be very near here, Bob must have come this way in search of food after the Griz started using that conveyor belt to steal all the pterodactyl eggs."

"The Griz?" Sly wondered aloud, "Where have I heard that before...?"

"The art thief," Kristian said dryly, managing to somehow make those three words extremely condescending and insulting toward Sly's intelligence.

The raccoon stiffened and I braced myself for another snarking competition, but then Sly relaxed with visible effort, "Right, one of Carmelita's main targets."

"That guy is an art thief?" I asked incredulously.

"He was an artist first," Bentley explained, "A prominent pop singer featured his work on an album cover, so he enjoyed a brief celebrity status."

"Yeah, before people started to realize that his art was just bad." Sly said with a roll of his eyes, "Then he got bitter."

"Well, I suppose you'd be a fine judge of art, given how much you've stolen."

"Okay," I broke in before Sly's apparent determination to not rise to Kristian's bait broke down, "But when is the world going to learn to stop pissing off artists? I mean, the Grizz, Dimitri, Hitler..."

Sly rubbed at his forehead, "Did you just put Hitler in the same category as Dimitri?"

"Sly, we are in the Ice Age. Suspend your disbelief."

"What does that have to do with-"

"Children," Kristian growled, as though he was the one having to deal with difficult people, "Can we focus?"

I shot him a glare, "You need an attitude adjustment."

He turned to me with a raised eyebrow and I was fully prepared to head into a verbal sparring match, I didn't have whatever hangup Sly seemed to have developed in regard to that, but Bentley interrupted.

"If you could all hold it together for a few days more," he said coldly, "We should be able to fix the van and then we can all go our separate ways. The less you fight, the faster it'll be done."

Kristian seemed to stiffen at the turtle's words, but I got the feeling it wasn't from the chastisement, "So, what's the plan?"

"We're going to need Bob's help to hunt down the rest of the van parts," Bentley explained, zooming in on the map, "His climbing skills will be essential. But first, Murray will be working with him to get him back in shape."

I felt my eyebrows crawl toward my hairline, "That should be interesting."

"Why didn't we bring snacks for this?" I asked Sly, desperately trying not to laugh.

"I don't know!" He wheezed, voice strained in mirth, "But I am seriously regretting it!"

We were observing Murray and Bob's 'training' from a nearby ledge. It was pretty much the best thing ever.

About an hour in, Sly was half collapsed with laughter. I was putting some effort into holding him up, but not too much because I was really no better. Murray's training seemed to involve incredibly hyperbolic statements (which we were used to) and new and interesting uses of prehistoric penguins (which we were not).

"This is why they went extinct," I gasped for air, watching Bob launch a perfectly willing penguin from a makeshift catapult, "Because they had no self-preservation!"

Sly was laughing so hard it was totally silent, but he was nodding so I assumed he agreed with me.

"As much as you two seem to be enjoying yourselves," Bentley drawled over the binocucom, "I need Sly back at the Safehouse to help coordinate the search for the van parts, he has the best lay of the land. Kaia, make sure they don't accidentally kill themselves training or get hypothermia."

"Your faith in me makes my heart sing, Bentley," still, I shifted my shoulders to make sure my first aid kit was still in my backpack, just in case.

With a few final chuckles, Sly straightened and clapped a hand on my shoulder, "You got this, Jinx?"

I resisted the urge to sigh, I thought I'd broken him of that nickname, "Just try not to murder Kristian or be murdered by him, we wouldn't have any idea what to do with the bodies."

"Glad to know you care so much about my health," With a final wave, he took off and left me standing on the ledge and wondering just where Murray had gotten those medals from.

Murray's training camp lasted about a week. Sly, Bentley, and Kristian spent the time canvassing every inch of the valley. Bentley managed this by mostly sending the two of them in opposite directions and using the binocucom software to make sure they never, ever interacted. We were going to have to deal with that, at some point.

As for me, I helped out with Bob's training and got in some of my own. I was better than I'd ever been, but that still wasn't enough to keep up with Sly. So I took advantage of what would otherwise be downtime and focused on building my skills as well.

Helping out with Bob's training actually provided a lot of opportunities to do that. From dodging flying penguins to building strength through running the whack-a-penguin area, I wasn't working nearly as much as Bob, but I was doing a good deal.

After a final training montage (I'm not even kidding, I had to, under Murray's insistence, get ahold of a speaker system and select inspiring music) Bob was admiring his medals and Murray was giving some kind of speech to the penguins, who had certainly seemed to enjoy all the abuse we'd put them through.

I pulled back on the coat I'd shed after I'd gotten too hot working out and wound my scarf back around my neck before leaning against the massive, carved ice pillar (how...?) Murray had used as a stage and waited for the hippo to finish up the speech, which Bob was also now listening to raptly.

"The troops sent off?" I asked when they both finally lumbered up to me.

Murray puffed out his chest, "They enjoyed the Murray's curriculum and wish to be of service in the future!"

Briefly pondering whether or not he could actually communicate with the penguins, I shrugged and started walking with them back toward the Safehouse, taking notice of the setting sun.

Bob rumbled something and Murray nodded enthusiastically, "You should be able to climb anything now, chum! The Murray's training regime is completed!"

I was opening my mouth to comment when my earbud crackled to life.

"Kaia!" Bentley sounded slightly out of breath, "Are you and Murray and Bob at the training ground still?"

"We were just leaving, is something wrong?"

"I was working out some calculations and didn't notice, but Sly and Kristian are together on the map and neither of them are answering their binocucom. I'm on the way to their location, but you're closer. Try to run interference until I can get there."

My eye widened and I immediately raised my binocucom to my eyes to locate the waypoint Bentley had set. It looked like it was over by one of the bridges, "You got it, we're on our way."

This had been a long time coming, but I'd still been hoping we might be able to avoid it. I just hoped the fighting was being kept to words and not fists.

"Come on, guys," I said to Murray and Bob as I started to run, "We gotta keep Sly and Kristian from killing each other."

There were a lot of bridges spider-webbed across the valley, wooden and massive spans of ice alike. The one Sly and Kristian were on wasn't far from the training ground. We were there in under a minute, though we had to jump down from another bridge to get there as quickly as we could.

Kristian looked to be mid rant, "... always been taking advantage-!"

"Taking advantage of what!?" Sly's shout was mostly frustration, but with enough anger that I knew this wasn't going to go smoothly.

"Guys," I knew even as I started talking that I wasn't going to be able to do anything, they'd been alone too long and Sly was at the end of his rope, "The last thing we need is to be fighting each other-"

"Stay out of this, Jenks," Kristian snapped, shifting his grip on his tonfa and eyeing Sly's cane. Sly's eyes narrowed, he widened his stance to a fighting position, and I went to plan B.

"Murray," I hissed, "See if you can get between them." I remembered hearing somewhere that interrupting eye contact could put a stop to a physical fight, I just hoped it was true. If we could just snap them out of it for a second, Bentley could show up to put Kristian in time out or something and I could drag Sly off to beat on Le Paradox's goons until he felt better. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it was what we had.

Murray pounded one fist into the other, "You got it, little buddy."

He took three steps forward, only to be unexpectedly shoved back by Kristian. Sly leapt at the cougar's move, I shot towards him in an attempt to head him off, and the culmination of events sent Murray crashing into me.

I fell back into the rickety railing of the bridge, heard a crack, and had only an instant to realize what was about to happen before it gave way.

"Kai-!"

Hitting the water was like a physical blow. I was a good swimmer, despite the fear of drowning. The water was not the problem. The cold was.

My limbs felt locked in place as the quick current swept me away. I forced them to move, fighting for the surface and just barely breaking it to find the stiffness had extended to my lungs and I couldn't get a breath in.

The loud rushing that filled my ears became muted when I went under the water again, but sheer adrenaline made me fight against the freezing muscles that wanted to stay paralyzed due to the laws of biology.

I crashed into something, a rock or protruding piece of ice at the bottom of the river, I wasn't sure. What I was sure of was that it knocked most of the precious little air I had left out of my lungs.

My head broke the surface again and sucking down air was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I managed it, coughing against the water I'd accidentally swallowed.

A massively ice floe bobbed in front of me and with a few desperate strokes I was clinging to it, scrabbling desperately for any purchase I could use to heave myself onto it. It was too slippery, it was all I could do to keep my head above water and look around desperately for any means to get myself out of the river.

I didn't see a way out. What I did see was the end of the river, a massive water fall that was too close, way too close, and getting nearer every second.

While I was giving a brief mental nod to the fact that falling over a waterfall to my death would combine my two worst fears perfectly, the ice floe I was holding on to pitched one way and I lost my grip, once again plunging under the water.

There was barely any time to process the darkness around me before there was a sharp pain in the back of my neck and I was being yanked from the river.

It felt harder than that, with the water dragging at my clothes, like the river was trying to pull me back in and that was a whole new thing to have nightmares about.

The world pitched dangerously around me before I realized that Bob's teeth had punched through the three layers I was wearing and he was clinging to a sheer wall of ice with nothing but three-inch claws and stubbornness.

The fact that Bob was in a high position in his tribe suddenly made a lot more sense.

He swung us both onto a nearby bridge but didn't put me down and I was thankful, so thankful for that; he shifted his grip so he was holding on with one massive arm rather than his teeth, but I barely noticed.

It was somehow even colder outside the water and I was less shivering and more vibrating as I tried desperately to figure out if shedding my sodden coat would help or hurt and buried my fingers in Bob's warm, thick fur.

Bob's chest rumbled as he talked and I could distantly hear voices, loud and panicked, but I had to focus on breathing because it was harder than it should have been. Bentley's voice entered the mix and I realized after a few seconds that that was an immeasurably good thing. Being out of the water didn't equate to being out of the woods and as Bob started loping toward the Safehouse at high speeds, I knew Bentley knew that too.

By the time we reached the Safehouse I'd fought through most of the mental fog and managed to recall most of what Ritsuka had told me about hypothermia. I flailed my way out of Bob's hold, stumbled, and lurched toward the van, fumbling with the zipper of my coat and dropping the soaked material on the ground as I went.

"Most hypothermia is caused by being wet and cold," Ritsuka had said. We'd been at the kitchen table, Tate coloring and me taking notes on the cat's words, "Getting dry is the most important thing."

I fell into the van, pulled myself up, slapped at the replicator until it started to make towels, and tugged at the wet cloth trying to vacuum seal itself to me body. It all went into a pile in the corner. I didn't bother trying to deal with it beyond making sure it was well away from any electronics.

The replicator dinged and I pulled hot towels out with shaking fingers. I knew they were only passably warm by normal standards, but my fingers felt frozen and the towels felt like they were burning me when I pulled them out. I didn't care, just focused on moving as quickly as I could manage, first drying my hands and feet, well aware of the most likely places for frostbite and nerve damage.

The van was warmer than outside, with all the electronics Bentley had crammed in there humming away and putting off heat, but it wasn't warm enough. Honestly, I had a suspicion nothing would ever be warm enough again, but wanted to get out to the fire anyway.

When I was as dry as I could manage, I pulled on a pair of sweats the replicator had just finished making and grabbed about four sets of socks. Two went onto my feet, two onto my hands, then I stumbled out of the van, dropping onto the pile of blankets and sleeping bags by the fire and pulling them around me even as I registered Bentley's presence.

"What did Sly give you when you were mad at him in India?"

That threw me for a looped, before I remembered something else Ritsuka had said.

"People with hypothermia can be disoriented, confused, even have memory loss," Ritsuka had rattled absentmindedly, placing a magnet over Tate's picture on the refrigerator to hold it in place, "It's important to establish how lucid they are before treating them."

"An opal necklace," I managed through chattering teeth, shoving my hands under my armpits and tucking my feet under my legs, "It's in my backpack." I thought about asking where Murray, Sly, and Kristian were, but the expression on Bentley's face told me I probably didn't want to know. I'd never seen the turtle mad, apparently the Ice Age brought out the temper in everyone.

Bentley heaved a sigh of relief at that, which quickly turned into an alarmed, "You're bleeding."

I blinked in surprise, only then feeling the hot pulsing at the base of my neck. I thought back to the pain right before Bob had pulled me out of the river as Bentley came back with a first aid kit, rolling right up to my back and peeling the sweat shirt back.

Bob paced anxiously nearby while I hissed at the pulled of the fabric against the cut. I looked at his massive fangs and figured it could have been worse.

"Would you tell him 'thanks' for me?" I asked, partially because I really wanted to convey gratitude and partially because my eyelids were starting to droop and I knew how important it was to stay awake right now.

Bentley did, curtly, and I flinched at the cold and sting of alcohol against the cut, "The last thing we need is a prehistoric bacterial infection you don't have any idea how to fight off."

Sometimes, I was glad I wasn't as smart as Bentley. I never would have thought of that until he said it and could actually feel the blood leaving my face.

The turtle rolled away briefly and in the time he was gone Bob had managed to curl himself almost entirely around me, which I appreciated. He was almost as good as the fire.

A mug was shoved in my face and I didn't even have to smell it to know it was hot chocolate.

"You need to warm the core," Ritsuka had said, taking up crayons of his own at Tate's mute insistence, "Warm, non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated beverages are effective."

I was still shivering, but I managed to not spill the hot chocolate everywhere, which I considered a plus. Heat seeped through my sock-covered hands and I took a sip, it felt like being lit up from the inside out.

"I find it ironic that I'm supposed to be the medic, but it always feels like you're taking care of me," I said lightly, trying to get that expression off Bentley's face.

"I'd rather it the other way around," he said thickly.

Balancing the mug against my knees, I turned to look at him fully, "I'm okay."

I should have been scared. I was probably in shock. I'd almost definitely have nightmares about this. But that wasn't happening right now and Bentley needed the reassurance.

He seemed to settle a bit, then noticed I was falling asleep sitting up and said I could sleep if I finished the hot chocolate first.

Wrapped in blankets and surrounded by heat, I knew I should take advantage of the lethargy while it lasted. Something told me I wouldn't be getting much more restful sleep until we were well out of the Ice Age.

I don't know how long I slept for, probably only a handful of hours. It was hard to gauge the time from the light, especially without knowing what time of year it was and what was normal. But my cocoon of blankets was swelteringly hot, which was comforting, and I felt sleep-heavy and deeply relaxed and also like I couldn't breathe through my nose, which wasn't that surprising, given yesterday's events.

Stretching a bit and flexing my fingers and toes just to make sure they all worked, I tugged at the blankets until I managed to get my hands free. The air was cold and that made me shudder reflexively, but I couldn't be scared of the cold too, that just wasn't conducive to living a fulfilling life.

Peeling the socks off my hands, I curled my fingers again, relieved to find them not at all tingly or numb anywhere.

Grinning at the great accomplishment avoiding nerve damage actually was, I almost jumped when a hand came in from my peripheral vision and wrapped around one of mine.

After briefly blinking in surprise and registering the hand as one of Sly's, I shifted onto my stomach to look around. Bob, Murray, and Kristian were all absent. Bentley was over at the binocucom station, muttering into his headset softly.

Sly, though... he was kneeling next to me. He looked like hell, his eyes were bloodshot, the hand that held mine was shaking and I wanted to ask if he'd slept.

I tightened my fingers around his and wished I knew what to say. That expression on his face was way too close to the one he'd had the first time I'd seen him again. Quietly terrified and desperately hopeful, but now with a metric ton's worth of guilt thrown in.

"Sorry," he said, voice breaking, "I'm so sorry."

I wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, that it was an accident, no one's fault. That was all absolutely true (except it was maybe Kristian's fault a little, he was being ridiculous), but I knew he wouldn't believe me. There wasn't much I could do about this and it was beyond frustrating.

All I could do was show him I didn't blame him, words would be useless. They often were, for some reason, with us.

I was still too tangled up in blankets to do much, but I wrapped my free arm around his ribs and buried my face in his shirt, squeezing as tightly as I could.

He was fever-warm when he hugged me back and I couldn't tell if it was from his proximity to the fire or not. A muffled thumping in my ears was his heartbeat and it hit me somewhere around the sternum that I was still a little bit in love with him.

It wasn't like the first time, where I'd expected and subconsciously prepared for it. This time, it was like an explosion from wherever I'd tamped the feelings down before in an attempt to deny and ignore them.

The overload was some kind of beautiful torture and I needed to change the mental subject right now, right freaking now.

"I'm getting your shirt all snotty and I'm not sorry," I muttered and Sly laughed and things were going to be okay, at least for now.

Followers of various blogs, I'm going to be taking a sabbatical to deal with work/school/novel writing for a little while. Still feel free to ask questions and stuff, but I might not get around to answering them for a while. Hope you enjoyed!