Webber's POV

I was struggling a bit to get a handle on my emotions. Namely, I couldn't quite decide what I should be feeling. Bits of fear, excitement, nervousness, and wariness wove into my thoughts, all vying for presentation. Outwardly, though, I kept myself carefully neutral. Wilbur was too good at catching on to my thoughts, and I hated for him to think I was doubting my decisions yet again.

"He says he likes that name a lot," Wilbur said to me, a few paces behind as he translated Popsicle's speech. "But that he'll probably stick to Shatter. You can call him that, as long as he can keep calling you Snappy."

I let out a light giggle, throwing off the negative emotions that were threatening to swallow me. "I've gone by a few different names, and I have to say that, without a doubt, Snappy is the best one."

Wilbur translated, and Popsicle bounced and yipped cheerfully. I tipped my head slightly at the blue hound, leading the way. Knowing that he was sentient enough to have an entire language that could be translated made me feel almost guilty for simply treating him like a pet. And yet, when I had brought it up earlier, Wilbur had only laughed and responded with: "Yup, and he's been thinking you were a pet too. You're even."

"Now, a question from me and not from Shatter, but uh, I would like some elaboration on the," Wilbur vaguely motioned with his hands. "Name... front. Webber's the spider's name, isn't it?"

A twinge in the back of my head. I promptly smacked it back. "Yeah. But... my mind was a bit scrambled when I first woke up here. I didn't remember my own name. So," I shrugged. "I just went by Webber."

"They all call you that here?"
"Mhm."

"The other Survivors, your buddies, they know you as Webber?"

"Yup."

"And Webber is... okay with that?"

I thought for a moment, almost anticipating the sniped response to appear in the back of my head. Instead, something other than words burned behind my eyes, and I furiously rubbed at them to dispel the feeling. "So-so. He gets mad either way. I wish you could have heard him after I had you call me Tyler. You're the first person in years to know me by that name."

"And is that..." He looked frustrated, almost, as if he couldn't quite figure out how to express his thoughts. "Like, the name you want to go by? I dunno, your 'preferred name' or whatever?"

"Either is fine, really," I said with a shrug. "Tyler feels more 'me', but Webber makes him really mad and that fact gives me life." Before Wilbur could continue speaking, though, I thrust an arm out to stop him, suddenly glowing internally. "I know where we are! We're almost at camp!"

Popsicle stopped in front of me at my voice, spinning in slow circles as he waited for me to continue following him. Instead, I broke into a run, outpacing the young hound as I swerved through the trees. It had been awhile since I had to use my whiskers to navigate this much, but my partial blindness really took hold in such cramped spaces when I was running. Before long, they felt bruised and battered, once again unused to being brushed against trees and limbs.

Heat rose in my chest as I ran, body tilted slightly forward to enable my whiskers to guide the rest of my body. It felt good. Between struggling to leave camp at all and being on a sandy island, it had been far too long since I had the ability to simply sprint through the trees and relish in my natural speed. My feet instinctively moved over and around exposed roots, dodging slanted ground and bounding from rocks as if I had never been out of practice. When I breathed, cool, crisp air met me. I didn't realize how long it had been since I felt like I had genuinely taken a full breath, and now that I had, I was gasping for it, taking great gulps of air just to satisfy the burning in my lungs.

Or, that was just my body being terribly out of shape and struggling to keep up.

It was when that thought crossed my mind that I finally slowed, calves already cramping from the sprint and chest heaving for air that I wasn't quite getting enough of. At the sound of cracking twigs behind me, I swung around to face any possible assailant only to see Wilbur struggling to keep up. Popsicle less so, seeming as if he could keep running beside me for miles, but Wilbur looked on the verge of passing out. When he saw that I stopped, he immediately let himself dramatically fall to the ground, chastising me between gulps of oxygen.

Popsicle slowed to a trot, nudging his nose against my legs as if eager to get me to move again. I bent down, rubbing the hound's head. "Let's give him a second to breathe, shall we?" I said, aiming a teasing tone towards the breathless ape.

"I'm not... as young... as you are!" Wilbur protested. "I'm an old man! Not built... for this... running..."

I rolled my eyes playfully, but settled onto my heels in order to be face-to-face with Popsicle. I scratched around his ears and ran my claws through the fur on his snout, a purr rising in my throat. Popsicle raised his nose to press into my neck, causing the purr to stutter slightly.

"Oh my goodness, look at that. Two best friends," Wilbur teased, finally pulling himself into a standing position. "Absolutely adorable. Now, I hate to ruin the party, but I am absolutely starving and would love for the opportunity to eat something."

"I know, I know, all you ever think about is food." I stood up and brushed myself off, noting the light blue furs that stuck to me like static.

It wasn't much further of a walk. I kept my gaze traced on the leaf litter below me as if trying to save the sight of my companions for very last. I inhaled deeply before rounding the last few trees, glancing back at Wilbur and Popsicle for strength, then pushed ahead.

Camp was quiet and... empty. Neither Wilson nor Winona were there, but a quick glance at the fire pit showed embers still burning. Likely out hunting, or gathering supplies. A smile rose on my face to see that we were still alone, and I settled with my back against one of the trees on the outskirts of the clearing.

"It's, uh, kinda empty here, huh?" Wilbur commented. As he sat beside me, Popsicle bounded forward towards a familiar glowing glob. Pyrite, the tiny dragonfly lavae, rose up in her protective bubble as if to greet the ice hound. Popsicle barked at her, and she buzzed at him, and they settled beside each other, with Popsicle keeping his eyes set steadily on me. "They didn't ditch, did they?"

"There's still embers on the fire," I responded. "They're still here. Don't worry."

"Worried?" Wilbur scoffed. "I'm not worried. Yeah, chilling around, waiting for the guy with the known nasty reputation to reappear? Sounds not at all threatening."

"It wasn't his fault," I protested, but I said it so softly that Wilbur didn't hear, or at least, didn't react.

Wilbur's nervous energy was starting to affect me, though. Even though he stayed mostly quiet, I could sense the way he was unable to sit still, staying on his feet and pacing around, shooting looks everywhere as if an attacker was going to appear at any second.

While I couldn't quite tell him to calm down, knowing full well that I was the source of his anxiety, I did get back up and start on rebuilding the fire that was still smoldering. Well-practiced claws got the flames back up in only a matter of seconds, providing the warmth that I craved at the moment, and the light that often stood between life or death in this land.

I closed my eyes and leaned back, gently brushed the palms of my hands against the grass beneath me.

Despite me being quite used to having the sharpest senses of the group, it was actually Wilbur who reacted to sound first. He shifted a little, tail brushing slightly against my wrist as he glared out into the trees. I reached out and tapped him in between his shoulder blades, earning a very irritated glance back.

"Don't you know better than to make yourself seem like a threat? Or else they're gonna think that you're holding me captive, just like the spiders did."

He grumbled at that, but he could clearly tell I was making a good point, for he settled down beside me instead, forcing his fur flat and muscles relaxed. Honestly, if it weren't for the expression on his face, he would have made himself appear completely calm and nonthreatening.

It was Winona I saw first. Her face was creased in an unhappy expression as she said something to Wilson, just a few paces behind her. I noticed immediately that she looked... tired. Exhausted. Wilson seemed to be doing better than her, the only thing noticeably off being that his fingers kept twitching, as if something was bothering him.

I think it was the fire that alerted her first. She looked up, breaking off mid-sentence to let her mouth hang open. Wilson froze completely in his spot, eyes boring into me as if he thought I was about to disappear. Beside me, Wilbur let out a soft grumble, and I noticed that his claws came out.

"Webber...?" Winona started softly. She took a hesitant step forward, one hand reaching out. Could she possibly confuse me for someone else? Maybe she thought I was a ghost, or a shadow cast by the fire light.

I found myself choked up for words, too. I couldn't quite figure out what to say first. Who Wilbur was? Where I had been for the past... week or so? (Week and a half?) How I had gotten back? With so many different options in my head, it was a wonder I was able to speak at all. I rose one hand and gave a little wave. "Hi."

"Holy crap," Wilson whispered under his breath, just as he and Winona both shot forward to greet me.

Winona reached me first. She immediately crouched down to my height and pressed her hands against my cheeks, as if testing to see if I was solid. An awkward laugh bubbled up in my chest as she did so, and I lazily swatted her away. She was undeterred, although she did release me to quickly look over my body. "Where have you been!? Oh my God, are you hurt? What happened? You're not sick, are you?" She immediately went to press a hand against my forehead, but this time I actually leaned away.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" I protested, flapping my hands at her. "Stop with the touching."

A look of confusion dawned on her face, and Wilbur tapped my arm. "Ahem, Webber, language barrier."

"Oh." I hadn't even realized my mistake. "I'm good," I repeated in English. "Alive. Safe. Healthy. In one piece. Not a ghost."

"Webber, ah, not to dampen this, but... who's that?" Wilson questioned, pointing a finger towards Wilbur.

I glanced at the ape, deciding on how to introduce him properly. After a moment, I answered: "My emotional support monkey."

"And don't you forget it!" Wilbur snapped in a spider's hiss.

"Emotional support... you know, it's better that I don't ask, right?" Wilson said with a soft smile. He took a step closer, close enough to touch me, and I twitched slightly in the opposite direction. He drew back at that, eyes darting towards the ground. "Er- s-sorry. I'm just... I'm really happy you're okay. You've been missing for days, and we found your knife but not you and we assumed..."

"Erika told me what you assumed," I sighed.

Something uncomfortable wavered in Wilson's eyes, and he turned to Winona. "He's probably starving. Can you get him something to eat? I would, but..."

Wilbur nudged me. "Sharing emotions, remember? Open yourself up a bit."

I forced my shoulders to drop, unaware that they have even hiked up as high as they had. I let out a long breath, and forced myself to try to meet Wilson's eyes. "Thank you," I said earnestly. "I... I don't really trust you with my food." I twirled my claws together. Wilson said nothing, but there was a silent invitation on his face to continue. "I'm... I'm still really scared of you, Wilson. Erika... Erika said you weren't even looking for me. Do you even want me here? Or am I just a reminder of...?" I didn't finish the sentence, but I saw the way his gaze flickered to my missing eye.

"You're not just a reminder of anything," Wilson said sharply, tearing his eyes away from the ugly scar. "I'm glad you're back. We were terrified for you. When you went missing- God, Webber- I felt like such a failure. I really failed you. I knew you were in a hard spot, but I didn't realize how terrible your mental state was. It's true that I didn't look for you much... definitely not as much as Winona did. But it's not because I didn't want to find you. I was terrified that we would find you, and it would already be... too late."

My whiskers twitched at the confession. When I didn't immediately respond, Wilson backed away a few paces, dropping his gaze once more. "Here, I'll-"

"Wait."

Wilson froze. I took several deep breaths, trying to calm my racing hard.

"I was in a terrible place. And I know that you guys wanted to give me space, to process it myself..." I inhaled deeply, encouraged by Wilbur's gentle nudging of my arm. "But that wasn't what I needed. I... I needed you guys to act like you cared. I needed someone to stop looking at me at face value and try to understand me. To see more than I showed you. And..." My voice got small. "And you never tried."

Wilson appeared thoroughly chastised. His head hung low and his shoulders slumped. "I didn't... I thought that we were seeing your true self. Under the anger and defensiveness. I thought that was you."

"You thought that was really me?" I repeated. "You thought that I was really showing all my emotions. Then tell me, Wilson, why did I almost never cry?"

This time, Wilson winced as if he had been physically hit. He looked panicked, as if trying to come up with an explanation that he didn't have. Some easy answer, some simple reasoning, that would give him a genuine answer to that question that didn't involve proving my point. "I-I thought... not everybody cries... I thought that you..."

"Wilson."

His rambling stopped mid-word.

"I'm a child."

He shrunk.

"You thought that a child- an actual child, never wanted to cry?" Anger bubbled up in my throat, and I drew myself into a standing position. He followed suit, immediately dwarfing me, but that didn't even cross my mind as I shouted. "You thought that I didn't want to cry myself to sleep at night? You thought that I just 'wasn't someone who cried', when that's all I wanted to do most of the time I was here! I've been terrified and absorbed in grief for so long, and nobody ever tried to understand that!" Silence immediately fell over the entire area. Birds had stopped chirping, Winona had gone completely still near the fire, and even Popsicle and Pyrite were staring at me as if disturbed. Wilson took another step back, eyes squeezing closed as if blocking something out. His fingers twitched. I reached my hands up to my face, rubbing them harshly against the fur on my cheeks. "Wilbur knew me for a day and... and started to break down my walls. He saw through that mask and he... he helped me understand that it was just a mask. I... I want to start over with you guys." At that, he opened his eyes again, and I blinked up at him. "Without masks. Without pretending. Just real me, and real you."

Wilson nodded slowly. "Then... what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we start at the beginning," I responded with a soft smile. I offered my good hand out to him, and he took it hesitantly. "Nice to meetcha, Wilson. My name is Tyler."