"Don't worry, you go ahead, I'll meet you there." Louis told Lori. "This might take a while." He said.

They were in his room. Looking down at Louis' messed up grass nest. Louis had not been able to sleep last night and kept tossing and turning that messed up his bed. Lori had come over to get him before going to The Oak Tree to see the herd.

"Ok, I'll see you there." Lori said hesitantly. She left his room and went up to the family room, glancing back at the tunnel leading to Louis' room.

Why was she so hesitant? She'd hung out with the herd without him before.

She brushed it off and left the burrow. She climbed out the entrance and turned around, blowing a kiss toward it. Lori heard leaves shaking, and when she turned around Peaches was standing right in front of her. Lori opened her mouth to scream but Peaches covered it with her trunk.

"Shh! We must go silently." Peaches said. She picked up Lori and put her on her back. Peaches reached up and pulled herself into a nearby tree and hung there. Lori held onto Peaches' back for dear life as she easily swung back and forth a couple times to pick up speed before swinging into the next tree. She swung tree to tree, every once in a while doing a flip to cover long distances.

She finally stopped deep in the forest. And climbed out of the tree they were in.

Lori stumbled a bit from dizziness and felt sick to her stomach, like she was gonna through up. Lori knew Peaches was half possum, but she didn't even know possums could do that!

Peaches looked over at Lori and saw that she was stumbling a little and her face was a slight pale green color.

"You do exactly what Louis does when I carry him around." Peaches commented. Lori barely heard her, and came back into control of her nausea and dizziness just in time for Peaches' question.

"Do you like Louis?" She asked smiling with bright eyes ad perked ears.

"What?" Lori squeaked. "W-why do you ask?" She said nervously, trying to buy herself time to think. Was she supposed to keep it a secret? Was she supposed to tell her? Was she just supposed to act like the question was never asked?

"Well you did just blow a kiss in his direction." Peaches said frankly.

"Ok, well- I just- you can't-" Lori had no idea what to say, and just sighed. "No, Peaches, I don't!" She was at least going to fight for her secret.

"Yes ya do."

"No I don't!"

"Yes ya do."

"No I don't."

"Yes ya do."

"Yes, I do."

"Yes ya- wait, did you just say you did?" Peaches asked in disbelief.

"Yes! I did!" Lori yelled.

"Oh my god, that's great!" Peaches said picking up Lori and hugging her. Lori went limp and sighed. If she told anyone else the whole herd would know.

Peaches put her back down and before she could say a word Lori spoke up.

"But you can't tell a soul." Lori said. The last thing she wanted was for anyone else to find out.

"But what about Lou-" Lori cut her off

"Especially Louis."

"But-"

"No, Peaches."

"Ok, fine." Peaches said moving her hair away from her eyes.

Peaches lifted Lori off of the ground and put her on her back and reached for the nearest branch.

"No, we're walking this time." Lori said sternly, as to make sure she didn't get sick again.

"Ok, fine." Peaches started to walk through the forest but quickly reached up and pulled herself into a tree.

"No, no, no, no, Peaches, no!" Lori screamed as Peaches swung away through the forest.

VVV

Louis finally finished his grass nest and was admiring his work. It was neat, tidy, and perfect.

He climbed out of his room and was in the tunnel leading out of the burrow when he felt a hand pull him down by his ankle. It pushed his quills the

wrong way and hurt. He looked up and saw his brothers, and Mark had developed a bruise on the side of his nose.

"Where ya going Louis?" Noah asked while Mark grabbed Louis by his shoulders and stood him up.

"To see my friends, because unlike some people, I actually have some." Louis said staring up at his brothers.

"Well, looks like you gonna be a little late." Noah remarked.

"What do you mean?" Louis asked, expecting a chore his brothers were too lazy to do or one his mom had assigned him.

"Just because we can't hit your girlfriend, doesn't mean we can't hit you."

VVV

When Peaches and Lori arrived at The Oak Tree they saw Sid talking to the herd.

"Hi." Peaches said lifting Lori off her back.

"Hi Peaches, hi Lori." Sid said

They greeted the herd and sat down to listen to the conversation. This went on for a couple minutes until…

"Hey guys." They heard Louis say from behind. They turned around to see that he was facing away from them. Everyone stared at him.

"Uh, hi?" Shira said in a confused voice.

"What going on?" Louis asked seemingly cheerfully, but his voice sounded a little funny.

"More like what's going on with you." Peaches said with a raised eyebrow.

"Louis, could you turn around please?" Lori asked. Louis put a hand up to his face and turned around covering his eye and nose.

"Now move your hand." Lori requested.

"I'd rather not." Louis said.

"Louis, move your hand." Lori told him gently

Louis sighed but didn't move his hand. Lori reached up and gently moved his hand.

The whole herd gasped at the sight that greeted them. Louis' eye was black and blue and his nose was slightly red.

Surprise covered Lori's face and then a frown appeared and she looked at him sadly.

"Let me see." Lori said. Before Louis could move away she moved his hair away from his eye. Louis blushed at the close contact.

"Open you eye as far as you can." She instructed him.

Louis tried to open his eye. He stretched it too far and flinched. Lori moved her hand away when he did, afraid she hurt him somehow. He tried to open it again, this time mindful of how far he opened it. At most it went a little past half way open.

Lori took a step back and Louis tried to walk over to the Oak Tree to sit down but when he took a step his knee buckled from a bruise that was keeping him from walking and he almost fell over. Luckily Lori caught him and put his arm over her shoulders to take weight off of his foot.

She walked him over to a root from the tree and he sat down. Louis rubbed his quills, they were still sore from when his brothers pulled him down the tunnel backwards.

"What happened?" Ellie asked.

"My brothers, that's what happened." Louis said. Now Lori knew why his voice sounded funny, his nose had obviously been hurt.

"Have they ever hurt you before?" Lori asked.

"Uh, yeah." Peaches cut in.

"He's come back with bruises, cuts, scrapes, black eyes," Manny listed.

"Once he came to see us with a broken arm." Shira growled.

"Doesn't you mom do anything?" Lori asked.

"Yeah, she grounded them for three weeks and they have to do all my chores until I'm healed but it hasn't detoured them in the past." Louis answered.

"If I ever got my trunk on those two I'd let 'em have it!" Peaches screamed in anger.

Lori's anger bubbled up inside her. How could they do that? He was their brother for peat sake! You should never hurt family, especially if they were as innocent as Louis!

"Well you know what, were gonna teach them a lesson about how to treat their brother." Lori said to the herd.

"What are we going to do?" Finn asked.

"Are we gonna rough 'em up a little bit?" Crash asked jumping from left to right and then punching at the air.

"No," Lori said "if we hurt them then Louis will get in trouble, and we probably shouldn't hurt them anyway. However we could always scare them into not beating up Louis"

"But how do we do that?"Ellie asked.

"I have a few ideas." Lori replied.

I am so evil. I haven't written the next chapter yet so it will be a while before I update. I also need to figure out where I wanna go from here. I have an idea of what I want to happen but I have to put in into words. were nearing the end of the fanfic too and I'm so excited that I get to write the end soon! XD