Chapter TWELVE!

Disclaimer! I don't own Ice Age! If i did, wouldst I write a fanfiction? I should thinketh not!

ANYWHO
thanks for the reviews... for anyone wondering whether all of the herd will walk out of Dinotopia alive...They won't. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN of course, this could be a brain teaser or something, like omg what about Sid when really Sid's not even in dinotopia any more. So pay careful attention...

Buck

I awoke slowly, slow enough for nobody to notice. I stared up at the leafy canopy for a while before I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I must have made a sound, for Melody, Eddie and Tabitha turned. Mel, as usual, got stressed out over a lot of things, usually small things, so I wasn't suprised to see that she was sleep deprived. Eddie looked rather worried, and Tabitha looked upset.
I locked eyes with her for a split second, and I remembered last night.
It made my head hurt more, and for a fleeting second I panicked, thinking that I really had let my only daughter die.

I must have had the deer-in-the-headlights look on my face, because Melody asked me something softly and came to my side. Something that sounded like, "Qousnopbleuham?" Terrified that I was losing what little sanity I had left, I asked stupidly, "What?" My voice sounded dry and cracked.

"Buck, you know who I am, correct?"
"No...Do you happen to be the pizza delivery man?" She frowned, and her furrowed brow furrowed some more. I laughed.

"Smellody, of course I know who you are."

She looked relieved (if a bit annoyed by the nickname), and she and Eddie shared a glance.
What was going on? Was I suffering from some sort of amnesia? What had changed between Eddie and Melody. A horrifying thought of a romance between them flickered in to my head, and then flickered out because Melody was, fortunately, much too old for him. Maybe friends, finally. Being stranded in a deserted jungle inhabited by dinosaurs usually either kills you, drives you mad, or makes you befriend people. In some rare cases it makes you hate them. But it's very rare.

She laid a paw on my forehead. "Still feverish," she announced quietly,"But at least you're a bit better now...You had us worried, I thought- Never mind." "Wait, what happened?" "You went berserk," replied Manny, ever enthusiastic to make me look like a loony. Ellie gave him a disapproving glance. "Well," Melody, ever cautious, chose her words carefully. "I suppose that has a bit of truth in it."

I didn't like where this was going.

"But to be, ah, fully truthful, you were hallucinating; seeing things that weren't there. When we found you, ya had a high fever-dangerously high. That could have been a contributing factor. Most likely, it was." "You were puking blood, too," added Crash.

I let my head fall back down on the makeshift pillow of leaves, a small groan escaping my lips. It was really hot in here, and my vision was becoming blurred. Beads of sweat dripped into my eyes and I suddenly felt chilly.

I let the fever seep into my thoughts, and fell unconscious once more.

(Universal POV)

"That's not normal, is it?" asked Tabitha. "What?" Melody played dumb. "Don't ask what, you know what I mean! Is it normal to be unconscious one second, perfectly fine the next, and then out cold in less that five minutes?" Her voice grew louder with each word that passed her lips. Melody sighed and motioned for her to calm down.

"Of course it's not normal, but we can try to bring his fever back down again. It's rising quickly."

"What can we do?" asked Tabitha, quickly regaining composure. Melody was surprised by how mature she sounded. Like an adult; a doctor, ready to help the patient rather than a kid screaming about Dad.
Melody bit her nails, a bad habit she had tried to break numerous times in the course of her lifetime, never quite succeeding. "You're not goin' to like it. None of you, least of all Manfred."
"We have to go into the jungle, don't we?" It was Eddie who asked this.

"Aye, mate. That we do."

"What do we need?" asked Manny. "Manny, I need you an' Ellie to stay here with Buck." "But-" "No buts about it, mammoth. If he goes wacko again, we need somebody to be there." "What about Cash and Eddie?" "Safety in numbers. They're stupid, no offense of course, but they could come in handy. You know, fill a leaf with water or somethin' like that."
"Be careful."
"Aren't I always? At least, compared to him." She nodded in Buck's direction, and flashed her beautiful smile that had won a certain man's heart, if only for a short time.