Chapter 2: the first meeting

A/N hey guys this is chapter 2 of my story I'm sorry about how I spelled Rosie's name last chapter I know it's stupid not knowing one of my favorite movie's character names but oh well. I should also probably mention this story contains romance between Jenna and Balto when they were younger but were forced to stop seeing each other because of the towns and Steele's view on their relationship and also I have a new dog so yeah! Not much else to be said here so enjoy

Remember constructive criticism always appreciated

The return of the Half-breed hero and the other dogs was celebrated long into the night but, the brown wolf-dog himself had not joined in the festivities as he and his canine lover Jenna were just strolling around the town simply enjoying the company of one another, talking about random things, exchanging jokes and admitting how much they loved each other after 4 and a half years. "I can't believe that it took us 4 and half years to finally work up the courage to say that we love each other in public." said Jenna with a slight laugh at the end of the sentence snuggling in to the rugged fur of her lover. "Correction you can't believe it took you 4 and half years to work up the courage to say that you loved me in public. I said it within the first few months of us knowing each other. "Balto said in a matter of fact tone.

Jenna's smile faded as Balto said this and she let her head and tail droop towards the ground "Balto I'm so sorry I didn't say that I loved you back then. I did love you I always had I was just scared how all the other dogs would react. How could you ever love me if I couldn't even say that I loved you back all because of my public image? You should have just moved on its what I would of deserved anyway keeping the love of my life out in the frozen tundra when I could have easily invited you to come and live with me ." Jenna said as she began to tear up. Balto seeing his lovers mood instantly stepped in front of her and put his head down to where he was eye level with her, looked into her gorgeous brown eyes and spoke "no-no-no Jenna I don't care about that, all I care about is that we are together now" he said still staring into Jenna's entrancing brown orbs. All Jenna had to do to feel safe and admired was stare back at her canine counterpart's eyes. She was lost in the deep golden orbs of the brown wolf-dog. Slowly Jenna's smile returned and she lifted her head from the position it had been stuck in. Balto seeing the change in the beautiful husky's demeanour let a small smile creep its way onto his face, but that smile soon turned into shock as Jenna had fully righted herself and gave Balto a lick from his muzzle to his ear and stepping back to admire her work.

Balto stood there in the snow frozen in place and mouth agape. He tried to form the words to reply to the affectionate action by the rust coloured husky but they all just came out as jumbled up words and strange noises. Jenna looked at what she did to the usually calm, collected and organised canine and giggled a very feminine giggle. This giggle was enough to bring Balto back from his momentary state of shock he then blushed, tucked his tail between his legs and covered his face with his paws. This in turn caused yet another short laugh from Jenna "aww Balto you look so cute when you do that" she said in a tone that carried a lot of sincerity. this in turn caused Balto blush more but also caused him to remove his paws from his face, place them in front of himself and push himself up off of the cold hard ground but he kept his eyes glued to the ground as if trying to bore a hole in the icy road they both stood upon "but why do you do that?" questioned Jenna, curiosity evident in her voice. " I don't know really I just do it when I'm embarrassed or scared." Balto explained finally being able to bring his head up to look at Jenna expecting to see her trying to supress a laugh but was instead met with the sight of the husky he had fallen in love with and the smile that always melted his heart. "So which are you? embarrassed or scared of kissing your mate?" Jenna asked slyly, letting a playful grin spread across her features.

Balto just smiled, shook his head and began to walk forward as all they had been doing was sitting around for about five minutes because of Balto's bashfulness. Jenna was quick to fall into step right next to him and snuggle into his fur once more, letting his musky scent flood her nose. As they continued to walk Jenna looked down a very old and dark It was at that point that she remembered just how she had first met Balto "hey, Balto?" Jenna questioned as the vague, yet wonderful memories of the first meeting of the two came flooding back into her mind "yeah?" he asked back wondering what exactly it was his new mate was going to ask him. "do you still remember how we first met?" Jenna was really hoping he would say yes because she had always remembered those moments. "Well of course I do Jenna, who on earth could ever forget meeting such a beautiful girl such as yourself, and who could forget what else happened that day." He said wincing as the painful memories came back to him. He then gave Jenna a lick on the muzzle in an attempt to emphasize his first statement about how beautiful he thought she was even though he knew no action could ever portray that amount of beauty. Jenna smiled and returned the gesture though this time Balto didn't feel even the slightest bit embarrassed for two reasons, 1 he was now used to the feeling of being licked by her and 2 he was remembering how they had both first met. He just wished it could have been under better circumstances.

4 and half years ago

A young pup that looked no older than four months old scampered about the town of Nome. But then again this pup looked a lot of things he looked unbathed, he looked unfed and the most important of all he looked like a wolf. It was because of that trait that no-body in town accepted the starving young pup and left him to fend for himself often kicking at him or throwing things at him the pup had a narrow escape once when the local butcher had caught him stealing some meat from the butcher shop. The burly man threw his cleaver at the pup. The large knife had narrowly missed the poor pup's forehead but had still managed to clip his ear hard enough to draw blood. That incident was a week ago and the wound had only just fully healed.

The pup was wandering around one of the the back alleys of Nome making sure he wouldn't be spotted the pup had always wondered what he had done that was so wrong that everyone hated him for it. The pup was so unsure about everything, where was his mother? She said that she would be right back then left the den on the outskirts of town but never returned forcing the young pup to go into the town and scavenge for food. Why did everybody hate him? For the four months he could remember he didn't have any recollection of doing anything wrong to anybody, in fact he was only sure about two things 1 was that he was a half wolf and two his name was Balto.

Balto was so deep in thought that he didn't see the four dogs walk into the alley he was in and approach him. "Hey there mutt" a voice rang out through the alleyway with a cold malicious tone. Balto jumped in surprise and whirled round as fast as he could only to come face to face with a black and white malamute husky who looked almost a whole month older than himself "w-w-who a-are you?" Balto's weak voice stuttered out barely even containing his fear. Balto had heard of these dogs whilst eavesdropping on others' conversations, an easy way to gather information without being in danger and from what he had heard Steele was very popular. He also has a very big problem with wolves. "My name is Steele but you can call me your worst nightmare you mangy mongrel." the husky now identified as Steele growled out.

"w-w-what d-do you w-want from me?" Balto stuttered out once more, trembling in terror as he saw the malamute move closer threateningly " I want to make your life a living hell, wolf". And with that, a black and white blur launched itself straight at the pup.

Balto had barely managed to dodge the first attack by jumping backwards in shock but he wouldn't be so lucky the second time as the large black and white dog picked up the squirming pup by the scruff of his neck and threw him against the hard wooden wall of one of the local houses letting Balto's small figure fall to the cold snowy floor with a thud. The supporters of the husky cheered and laughed at the small performance being presented to them. As Balto attempted to stand he collapsed in pain and let out an involuntary yelp. Steele, seeing the pathetic excuse for a dog trying to stand, decided to torture the pup even more. He stood towering over the whimpering, cowering brown ball of fur in front of him and inwardly laughed at how weak the hybrid was. And how much enjoyment he was gaining from doing this. With those thoughts in his head he slowly clawed down the right side of the small dog he was torturing for about 2 minutes, in turn eliciting small howls of pain that slowly died down into nothing more than small whimpers as Steele withdrew his claws and the torment seemed to stop.

The cuts were quite deep and had started to bleed quite badly, if they were not seen too Balto wold lose a lot of blood. Finally deciding to end the torment of Balto with one act of ultimate cruelty, Steele placed his jaws around the small fragile foreleg of the pup before him and slowly applied pressure which caused Balto to struggle and try and pull his leg away but all that succeeded in doing was hurting himself even more by causing Steele's sharp teeth to puncture his skin even more than they already had. Pretty soon the pressure was strong enough to escalate the whimpers of the small pup into yelps and soon into wails and cries of pain. "Please stop!" Balto screamed with a very obvious sense of pleading knowing that if much more pressure was applied the jaws of the massive malamute would snap the small limb in his jaws into two. The scream however was like music to the husky's ears and only made him grin as he bit down as hard as he could onto the small brown leg in his mouth resulting in a loud snapping noise, a satisfying blood curdling scream and very long howl of pain. The husky dropped the now broken appendage to the floor.

Steele then bent down to the now cowering, twitching and shivering ball of brown fur in the snow and said "let that be a lesson to you wolf, This is my town and ever catch you here again you're going to end up with something a lot worse than just a broken leg." In a tone of voice that could kill. The husky then began to turn around to head back to his small group who had been watching and enjoying the show but, before he left the stomped down on Balto's newly broken leg eliciting one last satisfactory crunch and scream of pain from the now traumatised wolf-dog. Steele and his gang then left the alleyway, joking about and laughing at Balto. Leaving Balto alone in the alley to attempt to nurse his broken right foreleg and torn up right side.

Unbeknownst to both Steele, his gang and even Balto the noise of the young pup screaming had brought some attention to the entrance alleyway. In the entrance of the alleyway was a young and very beautiful rust and cream coloured female husky with an orange bandana wrapped around her neck, who had been watching the whole ordeal. She sympathetically looked at the beaten and bloodied body of the small wolf-dog. Knowing that this dog needed help, the young husky approached the small, whimpering and shivering form of Balto. "hello?" she called out trying to make sure the pup wasn't In a comatosed state, she however got her answer instantaneously as Balto let out a scared yelp and try to stand to run away, completely forgetting about his broken foreleg. That is until he felt a jolt of pain shoot through his entire form and he collapsed to the cold hard ground.

Realising he couldn't run anywhere, Balto simply curled himself up into a ball as best he could with his newly broken limb. The young husky seeing the panicked state of the brown canine in the alley with her, knew very well that if he kept this up he would injure himself so much so that the damage would be irreversible she also noted that the pup was shivering rather badly, indicating the pup was completely freezing. So the husky did the only thing she could do to calm down and warm up the brown wolf-dog, so she padded up next to the young pup and curled herself around him making sure not to seem threatening or accidentally hurt him. "w-w-why-who a-a-are y-y-y-you" Balto said, worried that history was going to repeat itself and this new canine would try and hurt him just as the previous dog, Steele, had. "Shhh you're hurt and freezing. Right now all I want you to do is conserve your strength as best as you can." The young husky then felt the brown pup nod his head and accept the warmth and comfort that she was trying to give him and then felt him instinctively snuggle deep into her chest fur looking for the warmth he so badly needed which she didn't mind at all. In fact she blushed, as she thought that beneath the tears, blood and snow that covered the mysterious canine she had rescued, he looked very cute and handsome for a pup his age, the young husky blushed even more at these thoughts she, didn't even know this dog what was she thinking. After about five minutes of staying in that position Balto realised that if the other dog had wanted to hurt him it would have happened already so he pushed himself painfully to an upright sitting position, careful not to let his broken leg hit the ground. The female husky also sat upright and noticed that Balto was still shivering.

Worrying for the small pup's health she stood up and slowly made her way to the right side of the whimpering and shivering form of Balto who was now having problems keeping himself upright. She sat down next to Balto on his right side and proceeded to slowly prop herself against his right side in an attempt to keep him upright, as she knew if he were to fall onto his broken leg he would hurt himself more than he already had and the young female knew that after everything this pup had already been through he didn't deserve any more pain. Unluckily the young husky had forgotten about the scratches down Balto's side and as soon as her body made contact with his side he yelped in pain and collapsed writhing in agony as his wound opened up again and started to bleed. Balto had fallen forwards but still landed on his broken leg and this only added to the immense pain he was feeling. Jenna instantly realised her mistake tried to comfort the pained pup.

She nuzzled his head and once again lay down in front of the cold and hurt pup who was now sobbing. "Please. It hurts. Make it stop hurting. Please?" Balto chocked out pleading that the young female knew a way, knew any way to make him stop hurting. He wanted it to end. He couldn't take it. All the husky could do was continue nuzzle him and tell him it would be alright and that the pain would go away soon, blushing profusely as she did so. After another five minutes of the same repetitive pattern of nuzzle, lick and comfort the young husky noted it was becoming dark and slowly stood. Balto who was shivering no less than before hadn't really looked at the husky who had helped him all that much as he was almost always staring at the ground not wanting to make eye contact with the husky thinking that she was just like Steele and would hurt him for absolutely no reason. In fact the only reason that Balto even knew this canine was female was because of her voice and the only reason he knew she was a husky was because of her scent, but when he actually saw her he thought that she was very beautiful Balto also saw that she was starting to walk away "p-p-please don't go i-i-I don't want to be alone." Balto whimpered out.

The female husky looked back at the brown wolf-dog who's name she had still to obtain and, upon seeing his beat up face simply said "don't worry I'm not going to leave but, I really need to clean your cuts and be warned this is really REALLY going to hurt." Balto stared up at her and nodded with an accompanying whimper knowing that this really was going to hurt. The female gave Balto one last lick to the cheek which made them both blush, and then moved to Balto's right side making sure to dodge his broken limb. She then slowly lowered her head down to his side and licked his side to cleanse his wound of any infections he might have gained from lying down in the now bloody alley. As she licked his side just as the husky had suspected Balto let out a pained whine this, broke the husky's heart because, even though she had only just met this young canine she felt very attached to him so, as she continued to lick his side in an attempt to clean all of the iron tasting red liquid she started a conversation "what is your name?" she asked trying to take the young pup's mind off of the excruciating pain that she was sure he was going through.

Balto had begun to feel colder than he already was which he didn't even think was possible but, he knew that soon enough the husky would be done cleaning his wound and she would come and provide him with the warmth and comfort he so desperately needed. So until she could join him, Balto managed to choke out the word "b-b-Balto." "Balto that's a great name it suits you" the female said whilst spitting out some more metallic tasting blood. Balto then asked a similar question"-w-what i-is your n-n-n-n-name?" "Jenna. My name is Jenna." Balto looked dreamily at Jenna, a beautiful body a beautiful attitude and a beautiful name to top it off. As little as Balto knew about the subject Balto definitely knew he was in love "y-y-y-your name r-r-really suits you to." Balto said letting a very small smile grace his face even through all the of the pain and coldness he was feeling, meanwhile Jenna had almost completed cleaning Balto's wounds and she could now actually see how deep and how bad the cuts were and in all honesty she was surprised the young pup even lived through what he had the 3 cuts were very long and very deep they ran almost all the way down his entire right side. Balto and Jenna had now both been in the alley for over 1 and a half hours and it was now dark. Jenna stood up, turned to Balto and spoke in a soft caring voice "Balto we have to get home my owners would be very worried if I didn't come home and I'm sure your owners would get worried too."

At this Balto sighed and once again pushed himself off the ground making extra sure not to accidentally hit, bump or scrape his already broken leg which was at this point throbbing in pain. At this point mostly all of the pain in his side had stopped thanks to Jenna but he was sure that once he started to move around, if he even could move thanks to his now broken leg, the pain would instantly return, but Balto wasn't sad because he knew he was going to be in a lot of pain. No he was sad because he had to go away from his beautiful husky saviour. He knew he would have to spend the night on the old dilapidated trawler at the edge of town. Alone. Balto hung his head low and whispered "n-n-no they won't." Balto managed to say through his shivers. Jenna looked shocked "of course they will look at you, you have a broken leg and 3 very bad scratches! If they don't care then they don't deserve you!" Jenna almost yelled angered that a human could neglect such a gentle, caring soul. "n-n-no, j-j-Jenna they won't care because I don't h-h-have any owners no one wants to accept me b-b-because I'm half-wolf and now that I have told you this I d-d-don't mind if you ridicule me just like everyone else." Balto prepared to be laughed at or yelled at for being a wolf-dog but instead he received the sensation of a cold wet nose coming into contact with his neck. Jenna was disgusted that anyone could hate a dog for their heritage so she nuzzled him and said "well, if no one else can look past their prejudices then I will. No-one deserves to be alone especially for such stupid reasons." "J-j-Jenna you know that if we are seen t-t-together all the d-d-dogs will laugh at y-y-you." Balto said "well let them laugh I don't care what happens I will be your friend no matter what." Jenna said giving him a small lick to the cheek. "t-t-thank you s-s-so much j-j-Jenna." Said Balto, whilst still shivering uncontrollably. seeing this Jenna walked up to his left side and pushed herself into his fur to keep him upright when they started to walk and in a small attempt to keep Balto warm "so Balto where do you live." Jenna asked hoping to guide him home so he doesn't get injured and maybe pay a visit every so often, well, every day.

"I live on that beached trawler on the edge of town." Balto replied. Jenna had thought that she had seen a figure on the old boat but just shrugged it off as her imagination "ok then let's get going." Jenna said as she let Balto lean into her so that he could move without all too much pain "j-j-Jenna you don't need to c-c-come with me. I-i-I'm fine really." Balto chocked out through his intense shivering. "nonsense Balto look at yourself you can barely stand, you are freezing and you have a lot of injuries that if not seen to could very easily hurt you a lot more than you already have been." Jenna reasoned. Balto knew that there was not going to be an alternative. she was going like it or not "o-o-ok." Balto said as they started to walk towards the edge of town. At some point Balto had buried himself in Jenna's fur for warmth causing them both to blush at the close physical contact.

The trip mostly consisted of Balto shivering, Jenna nuzzling him and asking if he was ok and silence. As they both reached the trawler Jenna noticed how little protection from the elements it actually had and she also noted that the plank that lead up to the deck of the ship was only big enough for one at a time so, she nuzzled Balto and said "we're here." Upon hearing this Balto looked up and saw his home. He was about to thank Jenna for everything and wish her a safe trip home but noticed she was in fact on her way up to the deck of the boat. She turned around and said "ok Balto I want you to walk up the plank really slowly and don't put any weight on your leg." Balto nodded and did as she asked but, as he reached the top he accidentally let his broken leg hit the ground and he fell to the hard wood floor.

He braced for the impact but it never came, he instead found that he had fallen on top of Jenna who had positioned herself underneath Balto to catch him when he fell, but also putting them in a very awkward spot with Balto on top of Jenna and their noses touching. They both blushed as Balto did his best to stand up and stutter out an apology "Jenna i-i-I'm sorry i-i-I tripped a-a-and I-" but Jenna cut him off "Balto its okay it was an accident, now come on let's get you out of the cold you look freezing." Jenna said concerned that the young pup had yet to stop shivering after almost two hours.

Balto nodded in reply instead of trying to create a sentence that he knew would be unintelligible thanks to the coldness that was slowly taking over his body, Balto knew that it wasn't the weather that was causing the ice cold feeling washing over him, yet he just couldn't put his paw on what was. As Balto retired into the broken down wheelhouse of the trawler, Jenna decided to stay for five minutes jusyt to make sure the young pup was okay so, after five minutes Jenna popped her head into the small wheelhouse and saw Balto sound asleep "aww he's so cute." She whispered to herself and started to leave and let Balto get some sleep something stopped her. A sound, one that broke Jenna's heart. Balto was crying.

Jenna turned around once more and started padding towards the rundown wheelhouse and slowly pushed the decaying wooden door open. It was only then that she saw how little protection Balto actually had from the elements, there was a large hole in the roof and several smaller holes in the walls of the room, and then there was the canine himself, he had a tattered blue blanket and his fur protecting him from the freezing cold of the Alaskan tundra and that was it. Jenna also noted the lack of food or water and then and only then she realised just how skinny the wolf-dog actually was. Jenna soon found herself studying Balto she looked over his right side at the painful scratches, she looked over his bruised and beaten face, she found herself looking at how skinny the pup was he looked like he hadn't eaten in at least a week and she also found that she was staring at how cute he looked.

Jenna laughed she barely even knew Balto yet she was already staring at him and thinking about how good looking he was. Her thoughts were interrupted by another whimper from the sleeping form across the room. Jenna knew that Balto was more than likely having a nightmare but unlike most people he didn't have someone to wake him and tell him that it was alright. He didn't have someone to rely on. Jenna knew that Balto was truly alone in this world and she hated it. So she decided that from that day forth. Balto would never be left alone again.

So she walked up to the crying, shivering and whimpering pup and shook him awake whilst whispering "Balto it's just a bad dream wake up." The simple sound of Jenna's angelic voice was enough to bring Balto into the land of consciousness "j-j-Jenna?" Balto asked thinking that his bad dream was still continuing and that Steele would burst through the door to the wheelhouse and kill him any second but, his train of thought was broken when Jenna spoke "Balto are you okay you were having a nightmare" to which Balto replied "i-i-I'm fine i-i-it was just a d-d-dream." Which he was really thankful was the case. "Do you want to talk about it?" questioned Jenna concern evident in her voice. "n-n-no I would rather n-n-not." Balto said not wanting to remember the gruesome images of him being torn limb from limb by the black and white psychopath. "Well okay but let's get some sleep, your road to recovery is going to be a long and hard one." Jenna said as she lay down and curled herself around the shivering pup.

Balto was speechless Jenna was actually willing to not only stay with him but also sleep with him. He really couldn't believe his luck. So with these final thoughts going through Balto's head he said "goodnight Jenna" to which she replied "goodnight Balto, sweet dreams." Topping it off with a small lick to the cheek. With the events of that day buzzing in his head Balto, who was still shivering, began to drift off into a deep comfortable sleep.

One of which he didn't know might be his last.

A/N. oh cliff hanger. Anyhow there you guys go an extra-long chapter that goes into depth on how our canine lovers first met and how Balto first met Steele. But don't forget that chapters will vary in length some will have 5.1k words (like this one) and some will have 2.1k words but I promise they will always have at least 1.5k words each chapter. Poor pup went through so much and will be going through much more in the next few chapters. I would like to give a huge shout out to those of you who have reviewed my story and an extra big shout out to noblewriter who through his review and small PM's spurred me on to write this chapter. And please leave a review or PM me If you would like me to put something in this story. Anyway

Until next time: TH3L0NEW01F