The Next Day

The night went by slowly for both Blu and Jewel. Their hearts were torn apart from not being by one another. Jewel had been trying to stay strong for the kids, but there was no fighting the pain she felt in her heart. Blu, on the other hand, was devastated. He barely moved from the spot he crashed into the night before. Even though he felt like he did the right thing, he knew that overcoming something like this would be impossible. His body refused to move with the pain and suffering he had been feeling. There was not a thing he could do except lay there and cry.

Jewel had awaken from her broken slumber. The kids weren't in the hollow, probably out getting her breakfast. She looked around from the nest, hoping to see her beloved there, waiting for her to wake up, but she knew that wasn't going to happen. She began to recall last night, tears began to drip down from her eyes again. "Blu… I'm sorry, for everything. I want you to know that. I ruined everything. We should have never come here. We had it all in Rio." She sobbed. Her thoughts became worse as she kept thinking about him. "Y-you don't have to love me anymore. I was never the one for you. You were always so caring, but I was always thinking of myself. You came out here for me. And I separated us. I ruined our family." She cried harder. "I-I should have let you take the kids with you, knowing they would have been well taken care of by you. I should have been left here, alone with no one to love." She looked out of the hollow again. Her tears began to drip down to the floor. "I'd do anything, just to see you one last time. I still love you Blu. I just wish you knew that."

Laying her head down once again, weakness overtook her body. She couldn't do anything. It felt as if losing Blu had made her body begin to shut down.

The children returned with some fruits for their mother. They noticed her still in her nest, but she was awake. They greeted her. "Morning mom. We brought breakfast." Jewel smiled weakly at them. "Thank you kids. I couldn't ask for more caring children than you three." The kids smiled at her. "We are here to take care of you until dad comes back." Bia said. Jewel looked down and away from her children. "Why would he even come back? After everything I said and done to him, I doubt he would. He has his reasons why he left, and I'm sure he wants nothing to do with me." Jewel weeped. The children came up to her and hugged her. She did her best to hug them back, but was too weak to do so. Tiago chimed in, "It's okay mom. He will come back. You'll see." "Yeah mom, he might just need a bit of alone time, he will come back to us." Carla added. Jewel smiled weakly at her kids. "Thank you. I appreciate your words. We will wait for him. Hopefully your pop pop will find him and bring him back to us." The kids nodded, releasing their hug from her.

"Now can we have a nice breakfast. I'm starving." Tiago complained. The females rolled their eyes as Jewel said, "You three go on ahead. I'm not that hungry right now." They looked at her with some concern. They knew she hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday. "You haven't eaten since yesterday. You need to eat something." Bia said. Jewel shook her head. "I don't think I can eat right now, but I appreciate you bringing some for me." The kids nodded to her and began eating breakfast, while Jewel nodded off, attempting to sleep away the negativity.

Meanwhile, Blu had begun to wake up from a terrible nights sleep. His mind was so clouded with thoughts that he didn't even feel like he slept any. He continued to lay there, thoughts flowing through his head. "I just wanna lay here for the rest of my life. I have nothing to come back to and nothing to give anymore. My life was with them. At least I'm doing the right thing." He thought to himself. He felt that his decision to leave Jewel was for the best. Roberto would make her and the kids happy, and Eduardo would have nothing to worry about anymore. "They will be okay. My kids won't have a disgrace of a father, and Jewel will have what she has always want-"

Blu was cut off at the sound of nearby flapping. He turned his head and looked around. He saw three scarlet macaws flying close to his location laughing and kicking around a Brazil Nut. He saw one of them look down at him and slowly descended towards him. The nut fell down to the ground as the other followed. They landed nearby him on the branch, slowly approaching.

The first bird to speak was someone Blu recognized. "Hey boys! If it isn't the bird who gave us all this." It was none other than Felipe. "Man I have to thank you for scoring in the wrong goal." Blu slightly cringed as the thoughts came back from yesterday's argument. Tears began to drip down his cheek. He spoke softly, "Yeah you're welcome. Now can you leave me alone." Blu lowered his head back to the log under him, weeping slightly as he curled up. Felipe looked at his two companions and turned back to him. "Um. Blu? Right? Is everything okay?" Blu shook his head. "Nothing is alright. Not anymore. Now please just let me be alone." Blu wept. Felipe didn't take that as an answer. He knew something was up, and didn't like what it could be already. "I'm afraid I can't let that happen. You're in my territory. So you're coming with me." He ordered the two other scarlets to bring him with them. Blu protested the best he could, but his weakness proved too powerful. He gave up as he let them take him.

He was brought to a hollow not too far away from where he was. It was rather large inside with minimal sunlight penetrating through the entrance. Felipe ordered his men out of the hollow. Coming up to his side, Felipe rolled him onto his back and inspected his chest. The bleeding had stopped but he still needed to cover it before it got infected. "Stay here Blu. Let me get some stuff to clean this up." He walked away from Blu and flew outside to gather a few things.

Blu looked outside of the hollow and whispered, "I'm sorry Jewel, for not being the one for you. You deserve better than me." Although confused about his decision, he couldn't stop feeling the love he had for her. Her and the kids were his life and he couldn't move on. Just like Jewel, without their family, they just couldn't function.

Felipe returned a few minutes later with some leaves, sap, and clean water. Felipe walked over to him with the materials. "So you wanna tell me what's going on?" Blu looked at him and said, "Why do you want to know? It's not like you'd really care." Felipe looked him in the eye. "What makes you think that? I may not be the best bird to talk to, but I know when someone has problems that they need to talk about. So talk to me, what's eatin ya bird?" Blu thought about it and sighed. He would be here awhile and didn't want to be pestered the entire time. He began to tell the story of what happened last night. Felipe listened to everything he had said.

Once Blu had finished telling him how he ended up here, Felipe began to speak and return to his work. "Well I'm no love expert but it sounds like Jewel does still love you." He said as he began to rinse Blu's chest of the blood and debris in the wound. Blu winced at the pain it brought him. "And who cares what Eduardo says. Your love life has nothing to do with him. He can't control how you live your life with her." Blu spoke up. "But he was right. I shouldn't keep dragging her down. She's an independent and wild bird. I'm just a socially awkward bird who can't do anything right. We were never meant to be." He said as tears began to drip down his cheeks again. Felipe frowned at him. "Blu you are so much more than that. Evidently, Jewel fell in love with something in you that she saw past all that. I bet if she was here right now, she would tell you that, and so much more." Felipe said as he dabbed a wet leaf across the wound, further cleaning it. Blu leaned his head back, letting out a small sound of discomfort from the dabbing. "But how can someone like me compete against someone like Roberto. He's everything she could ever want in a bird. And I'm just… me." Blu replied. Felipe cleaned his wings and discarded the used leaves. "Did you ask her if she loved him more than you? Did you even think of asking her what their past was like?" Blu turned his head to him, looking him dead in the eye. "I don't need to know. I know that she loves him more than me. The way she looks at him, stays by him, everything! She had something with him before she disappeared from here." Felipe sighed and looked back at him.

"Do you really want to know what happened between them?" Blu rolled his eyes. "Like you would know. You were in a whole other tribe." Felipe shook his head. "You think we were always two separate tribes?" Blu's eyes widened. "Well yeah seeing as how both tribes are separated from one another." "Well Blu, I hate to burst your bubble, but we weren't. We were one tribe." Blu's eyes widened.

"Many years ago, we once lived in peace. Both Scarlett Macaws and Spix Macaws got along. We were at peace with one another. Roberto and I were best friends at one point in time." Blu stared at him shocked. "We used to tell each other our deepest darkest secrets. We spent countless nights with one another, to a point that it was almost like we were living together. We were that close to each other." Felipe paused at the memories, smiling at the good times. "What happened then? Jewel told me that there was a fire that destroyed the forest." Blu said, trying to figure out what happened back then. Felipe smile disappeared. "Loggers came and set fire to the jungle. We had to evacuate. That is when Eduardo had lost his mate and daughter. We eventually found this place, and tried to rebuild it as we once had." Felipe paused again, a tear dripped from his eye. "Eduardo was emotionally destroyed at the loss of his family. He couldn't think straight. The first night, someone had found some matches in a scarlets hollow. Being that nobody had really seen who had set fire to the jungle, the scarlet family was kicked out of the tribe. Before they could even begin to fly away, I tried to explain to Eduardo what I had seen. He didn't believe me, told me that my kind couldn't be trusted. It was at that time when everything had went downhill, when we separated the entire nut grove." Wiping away the tears in his eyes, Felipe continued. "Years passed and we had been at peace with our separated tribes. Only a few incidents occurred to which we hadn't escalated to war. Until you came along, that is." Felipe said chuckled a bit. Blu looked away guiltily. Felipe grabbed the sap and placed it all over a few leaves. Gently, he placed them over Blu's chest, making him hiss in pain. "Those were some of the worst times I've been through. I had never expected things to happen that way. Eduardo was convinced that we had set the fire, whereas the family had those matches due to the father, who was once a pet himself, having them for emergencies. Eduardo had convinced everyone in the Spix tribe that we could not be trusted. Even Roberto was against me, even though I tried to explain what had really happened. Not one Spix Macaw would listen to what I had to say. So I gave up trying." Felipe finished with a sigh. He finished patching up Blu and stepped back away from him.

Blu had taken in the story he had told him. He felt bad that the scarlets had been through this kind of rejection. "I'm sorry things went down like that Felipe. If it helps any, I believe you." He said sitting up slowly, being careful not to damage the makeshift bandage. Felipe nodded. "I appreciate it Blu. I really do." He said. "Now when I said I know what had happened between Jewel and Roberto. Will you believe me if I said that they never found anything to love in each other?" Blu looked at him. "I'd at least like to know how you would know." "Fair enough." Felipe commented. "About two weeks prior to the fire, Roberto and I had been on guard duty of the perimeter. To pass the time we used to joke around and talk to one another. That particular night, I had asked him if he had any crushes with anyone. He said yes, just one bird. At first I thought he was lying, cause he always had the women swooning over him, but he assured me that it was the truth. I took a few guesses at who it was, but he said no to all of them. When I mentioned Jewel, he said that she wasn't the one either." Blu's eyes widened. "He told me that both him and Jewel had agreed to only be best friends, and nothing more. They had no feelings for one another." "So then… what Jewel had said to me about there being nothing to mention when we got here… that was the truth?" Felipe nodded.

Blu froze at that point. He had believed she had feelings for Roberto, that she had wanted to leave him for Roberto. Blu lowered his gaze. He was wrong. His mind was scrambling to find an answer on how to fix this, but his mind kept telling him that he was no good for her, and that she wouldn't want him back after what he had done. "W-what have I done?" Blu began to cry into his wings. Felipe watched as Blu broke down in front of him. Felipe placed a wing on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. "Hey." Blu looked up at him sobbing. "Once we get you all healed up, we will send you back to your mate. You will have your chance to fix this." Blu continued to sob. "B-but how am I… supposed to fix something as bad as this. 'Sniff' I broke my mates heart and left my family behind. S-she can't forgive me for all I've done to her." He said as he wiped the tears with his wings. Felipe thought about it. It would prove to be difficult if Jewel had begun to hate him, but he doubted that she could hate him like that. "Well, it may be a challenge, but I don't believe that she would go as far as kicking you out for good. You are her mate and the father of her children. She couldn't possibly hate you after everything you've been through."

Blu began to calm down some minutes later. Felipe smiled as he released his wing from his shoulder. Blu looked up at him. "Thank you Felipe. For everything. You have been nothing but nice to me since I've been here. Why? After everything I've done to you." Felipe rolled his eyes. "In all honesty, it hurts me to see a bird so broken hearted that he can no longer function. I don't like seeing birds suffer the way that I have." Felipe said turning away. Blu tilted his head. "What do you mean? I thought you never had a mate before." He looked back at Blu. "I've never had a mate, but I did have someone that I loved. Someone who I used to spend all my time with. Someone who did not treat me different because I was a different species. Someone who is in another tribe, one that I can not be a part of." Blu's eyes widened a bit. "Do you mean…" "Felipe nodded his head. "Yes Blu. I found love in Roberto."

Blu couldn't say that he was surprised. When Felipe was telling him that story, it seemed like the two of them had grown attached to one another. "From the way it sounds, you must really love him." He nodded. "Have you told him about this?" Felipe shook his head. "I was going to tell him but I didn't know if he would reciprocate. I was afraid to lose a friend over it. The one day I finally told myself I was ready was the day the fire broke out. After everything that happened with the matches that were found, and when the tribes separated, I remained in my hollow for a week. I barely ate. I didn't sleep. I just laid there." Felipe admitted. Blu stood up and walked up to him. Felipe turned back around. A tear streamed down his face. "During the war, I could tell he hated me. I had to keep my love towards him down to fight for my tribe. There's nothing else I could've done."

Blu shook his head. "Well since you gave me a bit of love advice, maybe I should give you some of my own." Blu said. "Maybe it's time to tell Roberto of your feelings, talk to him about what you have felt for him. Love has no boundaries." Felipe stepped back. "No no no. I can't do that. The tribes aren't supposed to mingle with one another. I can't tell him that I love him either. He hates me." Blu smiled at him. "And you know this how? Has he told you?" Blu said, using Felipe's own medicine against him. Felipe narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you trying to use my own advice against me?" Blu chuckled and nodded. Felipe rolled his eyes. "I-I will see if I can catch him alone. Maybe, just maybe, I can tell him my love for him."

Blu smiled at him. "Once I'm able to get back to flying, I will bring you to him. How's that sound?" He didn't respond to him immediately. Thinking it over, he had already missed one chance, he wouldn't want to miss another. Even if he gets rejected, at least he wouldn't feel so guilty about not telling him. He had nothing to lose. Looking back at Blu, he said, "Okay. I will return with you and talk to him in private." Felipe then brought up. "And maybe we shouldn't have the whole grove to ourselves. I've made mistakes in the past, maybe we can resolve what has happened and form our old tribe again." Blu smiled at that.

In his mind, he began to rethink of everything that has happened. Maybe with this, he would be able to gain Eduardo's trust and be a part of the family. Bringing back together two tribes that were once one would give the tribe peace and prosperity. Blu brought his wing out in a handshake. "For the tribe?" Felipe looked at his wing questioning. Blu remembered that this was a human thing. "Sorry it's called a handshake. Well wingshake. It's something humans-" He was cut off as Felipe hugged him. "I know what it was. I would like to thank you." Blu looked down at him. "For what?" He questioned. "For the opportunity to create what we once had. For giving me the motivation to talk to the one I love again." Blu smiled and hugged him back lightly. "It's no problem. And hey, I'm sorry for what happened with the nut thing." Felipe released the hug. He smiled. "All is forgiven Blu. I should have been more understanding that you were new here."

Walking outside of the hollow, both of them watched the Scarlet Tribe during their daily routines. Blu and Felipe both sighed in content. "You should be fine by tomorrow morning to go back to your mate. I just don't want you to open that wound again." Blu nodded to him and thanked him once more.

Throughout the rest of the day, Blu and Jewel were thinking about one another. How much they missed each other. How much they loved each other. Jewel had received word from Eduardo and a few other birds that they have not seen any signs of Blu anywhere. Roberto had found out what had happened and went to Jewel. She told him about everything Blu had said to her. Roberto felt a sadness within him, feeling somewhat responsible for what she was going through. He tried his best to comfort her, but she continued to cry for her mate. Roberto said his goodbyes to her minutes later, telling her he needed to be alone to think. She continued to stay in her hollow while the kids attempted to help her, knowing that they couldn't fill the void in her heart that belonged to their father. Blu on the other hand, couldn't wait to see the love of his life again. Although worried that she may push him away, he pushed out the negativity, having good hope and certainty that she still loves him. He and Felipe both chatted the rest of the day. Blu told him about the first time he met Jewel. Felipe told him about all the times Roberto and him spent together. Night fell fast and the two decided to hit the hay. Tomorrow would be a big day for all birds.

'Seems like Blu and Felipe are getting along well. Will Blu be able to recover Jewel? Will Felipe be able to confront Roberto?'