Okay, so here's another chapter for you guys! I hope u still like it and blah blah blah and u know the rest. As for the poll results: 3 people asked for the flashback of Diego and Taura's times in the pack against one who voted for the one-shot of the funny discussion with Taura and the possums. So flashback one-shot it is!

Anywho, here are the replies to ur awesome reviews:

Shiego627: Hahaha, thank you! and yup, that's way Sid's such an awesome character! :) Here's the update, hope it was soon enough for ya!

Yeeeeaaaah: Thanks! Here's the next chappie for ya guys!

TimberPaw: Don't worry, that scene will happen now in this chapter! Hope u like it! Aw shucks! Nice to know that Taura is officially a favorite of someone's! And don't worry, Sid's idiocy will blossom throughout the entire story to keep us all happy!

GoldenSaber: Yup, it was bound to happen sooner or later, otherwise Manny might've burst a vein or something! Awesome to know that u like this story, here's another chapter!

Villain's Bad Girl: Yeah, I'll try to continue with this story throughout the entire franchise. Nice to know that u like the relationship between the two, hope it'll stay that way throughout the chapters I upload.

Btw, Italics means telepathic

Warning: OC pairing, Don't like, DON'T READ!

Disclaimer: Don't own the Ice Age franchise or any of the characters in it; that all belongs to Blue Sky

After dusting the snow off themselves, the famous quartet kept moving on while Taura tried to not snicker at the memory of Diego's excited face back at the ice-slides. She couldn't help herself after so many months of living with the guy, when the different expression other than his stoic face was either a cocky smirk or an annoyed scowl. To see him with that happy face, looking like he received an early birthday present, just made her giggle evilly and grin. "Oh I am so going to tease him about this from years to come!" Taura snickered in her head, trying to keep a straight face whenever Diego looked at her with a confused frown.

Taura was disturbed from her thoughts when the four of them walked into a large, dome-like structure surrounding them. But when Taura caught sight of the walls, her eyes turned as wide as saucers. The cave walls around them were covered with hundreds of cave drawings, all telling stories of old.

Sid helped prove her point by pointing out eagerly at one of the drawings "Look, look! Tigers!" The baby started to wiggle away from the drawing of a pack of tigers hunting antelopes in fear, causing Sid to change his hold on him. "No no no, it's okay, it's okay," Sid shushed him quickly, "Look: the tigers are just playing tag with the antelope..." But then caught sight of one of the sketches where a tiger managed to catch one of the antelopes and sunk its teeth into its hide, "Um...with their teeth..." Sid corrected.

Diego then started to smirk slyly and walked up behind Sid, "C'mon Sid, let's play tag..." He taunted, then leaned in threateningly closer "You're it!"

Sid then started to chuckle nervously while stuttering out 'sure'. Taura rolled her eyes at Diego and jokingly scolded "Diego, play nice!", which only caused him to smirk even further and wink mischievously at her to say 'no promises'. She shook her head at him and tried to fight of the grin that was crawling up her face, but unfortunately in vain. She continued to walk besides Manny and stared at the wondrous sketches of a diverse range of species. Until Sid pointed out a flaw within the architecture...

"Okay, where are the sloths?" Sid asked no one in particular as he scanned the walls for a familiar drawing of his kin, "You know, you never see any sloths in these things, have you ever noticed? OOH! Look Manny, a mammoth!"

"Oooh, somebody pinch me.." He sarcastically drawled with an amused smile, while Taura turned back to where Sid pointed out the said mammoth to have a closer look.

"Hey, this fat one looks just like you!" Sid pointed out as he placed the baby down, "Aw, and he's got a family!" Taura noticed at the corner of her eye Manny freezing his steps. "And he's happy! Look, he's playing with his kid!" Sid continued, whilst pointing out the different drawings he commentated on "See Manny? That's your problem, that's what mammoth's are supposed to do!" Sid rambled, wagging his finger at Manny who was now beside them and staring at the drawing, with a look of horror and nostalgia.

"Sid..." Diego tried to warn, now noticing the miserable look on Manny's face while Taura tried to poke Sid to get his attention.

Sid shook off her finger and continued while counting off the points on his fingers "Find a she-moth, have a little baby mammoth a-a-and..."

"Sid!" Diego whispered harshly, glaring at him.

Sid looked at him with a confused expression "What?"

"Shut up!" Diego snapped at him and nodded towards Manny.

"B-but...oh..."Sid finally quietened down as he finally noticed Manny's sullen face as he stared at what the sketch would have been his family portrait. "But...if that's his family, then what's he doing wandering around on his own...?" Taura wondered with a baffled tilt of her head, then looked back at the sketch-o-Rama of Manny's family. The first few drawings were of Manny's life with his family, all of them looking content and happy, which didn't help Taura lose any of her confusion until she saw the next ones. "Oh god..." was the only thing she could say when she saw them:

The calf wondered too far away from his parents and ended up being chased by humans with spears. As he ran back to his mother, Manny shoved them off and fought back the humans as his family tried to run away to safety. Spears were thrown at him and Manny tried to dodge them by turning around and trying to run away, only to find another wall of humans blocking him. A look of horror crossed his face when he found his family trapped in a corner with humans pointing their sharp spears at them and above them at the edge of the cliff was another group of humans...preparing to throw boulders down at them...

Taura felt absolutely heartbroken for him and sympathized with the big mammoth. Not only did he have his family killed, but also right in front of his eyes and he wasn't able to do anything to stop it...just...like her...

Sid gulped nervously as he saw the entire story and looked back at Manny with worry; Diego glanced indecisively back and forth from the cave drawing and back at Manny, not sure what to do, while Taura looked at him with eyes that held absolute sympathy. Manny seemed to be in a daze, his eyes glazed with longing and remorse, staring at the cave wall as he reached out his trunk and gently touched the drawing of his son. He then started to drag his trunk along the body, causing him to bump into the baby's hand.

Manny started to blink rapidly, as if broken from a trance, and looked down at the baby who was innocently leaning against the cave wall and placing both his hands against the baby calf drawing. The human child tried to reach out to him, but tripped over his own feet and fell into Manny's trunk. Manny pulled him up closer to his face, the baby looking at him with a clueless smiling face as he gurgled naively. Manny simply stared at him with loving eyes and hugged him towards his face, the baby hugging him back. Manny had tears in his eyes, but quickly closed them so that they wouldn't spill, clinging the baby closer to him. Taura felt tears beginning to build up in the back of her eyes as well, but quickly blinked them away before any of them would see them. "The last thing we need is a water slide of emotion..." She chuckled dryly in her head, making sure to block Diego from hearing it.

Taura was too busy trying to hold back her tears and staring up at Manny to notice Sid comically smear his snot all over Diego's shoulder, which caused Diego to cringe back in disgust but decided to let him go for now. Without saying a word, Manny placed the baby on his shoulders and walked away towards the exit of the cave. Sid eagerly waddled after him with a grin threatening to split his face in half, while Diego looked one last time at the family portrait before following after them.

"D'you think I could've done anything?"

Diego paused in his steps and looked back to find Taura still staring at the sketch, sitting very frigidly. He didn't make a move to walk towards her but stayed anyways and asked "What do you mean?" Taura didn't turn her head back, so he wasn't able to tell whether she was crying now or not, the only thing telling him what she felt was by her voice, which didn't crack with tears and still held strong. "Back when the humans invaded...and I lost Kraz...d'you think it was partly my fault?"

Diego frowned at what she said and sat next to her looking at her impassive and emotionless face as she held her head high. But Diego knew better than to buy her facade; she was practically brought up by her brother to act this way: "Never show weakness, never show that you care. In the end, you'll always wind up getting hurt." was what he always said. Whether it was after a battle or after a hunt or after some random discussion before going to bed, Taura memorized it like the statement was her second name.

Her brother wasn't heartless though, quite the opposite. Just picture the larger, male version of Taura and amplify the amount of mischief and bright smiles by 100 and the result would be the exact equivalent of Kraz. It was because of the way they were both treated after they were accepted into the pack that got him to act so cold hearted in public. They weren't born into Soto's pack, they were just some of the few kittens who ended up being raised and taken into the pack when their own one got attacked by Soto. Sometimes when Kraz would come back to the den, he would grumble about the idiot 'fleabags' who would mock their foreign brown and beige fur coats and their strange amber eyes. Kraz was level-headed enough to ignore them ("those fleabags are not worth dirtying your claws for, just ignore them" is what he would say), but whenever a female in Taura's group openly mocked her and her brother...well, let's just say that said female wasn't able to talk for a long time. But sometimes, Kraz would always give her the same lecture: Never show weakness, never show that you care.

And right now, she was determined to not cry openly in front of Diego like some weeping kitten. The last thing she wanted was for her to be degraded in his eyes because of her weakness, she practically looked up to him after being under his care for so long.

"No, it wasn't your fault." Diego stated like it was a fact rather than an opinion. Taura finally turned her head to look at him, trying to seem placid but her eyes gave her away: nearly spilling with tears and filled with uncertainty.

"But...don't you ever wonder...if you could've done something...when you fought those humans...and lost your friends?" Taura asked timidly again.

Diego paused for a moment, thinking how to reply to that question, before finally muttering "I sometimes feel a little guilty and horrible when looking back on the burdens of the battle," he then turned his head towards her to look into her eyes with his determined ones "I would sometimes have flashbacks of the look on my companion's face before he finally passed away in front of me. But then I remind myself that it was the HUMANS who killed them, not me," He softened his gaze a little and did something that Taura thought he would have never done in his entire life: he raised up his paw and started to pat and stroke her on the head. "Besides," He continued "What could you have done? You were young, not as experienced in fighting. And even if you tried to run out to get the healers, all the other females were on the other side of Half Peak, being slaughtered."

Diego then started to smile, trying to lighten the mood for the female who was staring in shock at him "And if you did do that, I wouldn't have ever met you, and do you know how boring my life would be then?"

Taura started to giggle at what he said and Diego managed to succeed into making her smile, even if it was a small, tight-lipped one. "Hm...I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say...Pret-ty dull!" She drawled as her smile started to widen into a smug smirk.

Diego snorted and rolled his eyes, finally taking his paw off her head and following the others. "Alright, don't start to get cocky."

He heard her giggle some more before hearing her muffled footsteps as she caught up with him. She gently bumped her shoulders into his to try and get his attention, when he looked back at her with one of his eyebrows raised in question, she simply sent him a beaming grateful smile before muttering "Thanks...and not just for the pep talk, but for all those months of being there for me..."

Diego returned her smile with a short sideways grin before grumbling with his tough facade "Yeah well, just don't get me to do anything mushy like that again..."