Author's Note: And that's all she wrote for this one, folks. Thanks so much for being good sports about all of this! Side note, the story was loosely based off the novel/film Watership Down. It was my favorite movie as a kid, which is odd considering the amount of blood in it... oh, well!

For a long while, no one moved a single muscle.

The hostility between Kiba, Hige, and Tsume was almost palpable, and Toboe had found himself caught in the middle. He wasn't sure what to do, didn't know how to react to Hige's words, the obvious indications that the three older wolves knew one another.

"… How do you know about Darcia?" Toboe asked cautiously, fighting past the suffocating wave of his own memories of the large wolf and the pack he'd viciously ruled.

"You spent the whole winter with them, didn't you?" Tsume growled, and at the sound of his voice, Hige's muzzle curled back into the fiercest snarl Toboe had ever seen. "I'm surprised they didn't tell you."

"Tell me what?" Toboe glanced back at his pack mates, bewildered. "Hige? Kiba?"

Hige's ears flattened against his head although that horrible expression never left his face. Kiba was far more composed, but Toboe couldn't really tell what he was thinking or how he was feeling.

"Not here." Kiba said eventually. "Come on, we'll talk back at the den."

Hige yelped, shooting the white wolf an incredulous look. "You're not seriously going to show Tsume where our den is. Are you insane?"

"And what am I going to do?" Tsume snapped. "Run howling back to Darcia with my tail between my legs?"

"It wouldn't be the first time!" Hige snarled, and what was left of his fur fluffed up dangerously as he took a step toward Tsume and Toboe.

Despite his fright and confusion, Toboe positioned himself squarely between the two older wolves, almost able to feel Tsume's surprise, Hige's shock.

Kiba took his chance to intervene, butting his head into Hige's side and urging the beta to head back into the forest. "Come on, Hige. Not in front of Toboe."

Hige growled, jerking away from Kiba and stalking up the bank and into the trees, but not before shooting Toboe a look that was laced with bitterness and betrayal. Toboe hadn't liked it one bit, hadn't understood at all, and his happiness at being reunited with Tsume had dampened the slightest bit.

It took a lot of cajoling, but Toboe eventually managed to convince Tsume to follow them back to their den site.

"At least let me look at your wounds." Toboe pressed. Kiba and Hige had already left the riverbed, but still, Tsume refused to move. "And you should eat something. I've never seen you this thin before."

"I don't need you looking after me." Tsume growled low in his throat, and while it stung, Toboe refused to dwell on it. They were separated the entire winter, and Toboe didn't know what Tsume had gone through during that time, how he'd managed to escape Darcia's territory with his life.

Toboe himself had changed a lot since they last saw one another, so it only seemed logical that Tsume would have as well.

"I don't know about all this bad blood between the three of you, but Kiba and Hige aren't bad wolves." Toboe tried one last time to make Tsume see reason. "They saved me, Tsume. I would've died over the winter had Kiba not found me. Just give them a chance? Please?"

When Tsume maintained his stubborn silence, Toboe feared the older wolf would deny him that much and try to go off on his own. Toboe didn't know what he would do if he had to choose between staying with Hige and Kiba and going off somewhere with Tsume.

Thankfully, Tsume wasn't going to give him an ultimatum. He got to his paws somewhat shakily, and when Toboe jumped to help support him, the older wolf didn't even protest. "Whatever. Lead the way, kid."

Kiba and Hige were waiting for them just outside the den, Hige pacing back and forth anxiously, tail lashing, as Kiba sat with his tail wrapped around his paws, tracking Hige's movements with his eyes.

Hige stopped once the other two wolves made an appearance, Toboe almost supporting a heavily limping Tsume, but the beta was unmoved.

"Don't think for a second that this means we trust you."

"Oh, give it a rest already." Tsume huffed, sitting back on his haunches with a heavy sigh. Toboe hovered beside him nervously, anxiety making the fur along his spine rise. "I can't do a damn thing to you in this condition."

"You seemed to be holding your own against Kiba." Hige said drily, glancing back at the white wolf, whose fur was still crusted with blood. "Pretty impressive if you ask me."

"Can someone please explain to me what's going on? Because I'm really confused." Toboe blurted out, shifting his weight anxiously from paw to paw. "How do you three know one another?"

Hige shifted his gaze down to the ground, and Kiba tucked his head close to his chest, closing his eyes. "You asked how we knew about Darcia." The white wolf murmured. "Well, we were originally from his pack as well."

Toboe's heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, what Hige had told him about their difficulty to trust other wolves made perfect sense. How Toboe hadn't noticed the signs before now, the young wolf would never know.

"I thought no one had ever escaped before?" Toboe said weakly, turning his head to regard Tsume.

The gray-furred wolf shook his head, tail twitching in agitation. "No one was allowed to talk about it. The only ones who even remembered were from my generation and older. Darcia couldn't have the hope of escape alive in the hearts of pups like you when the rest of us had already resigned ourselves to our fates."

Toboe found that he didn't like this side of Tsume, the despondent side that spoke like he'd seen far too much in too little time.

"How did you do it?" Toboe asked, turning back to Kiba and Hige. "How did you get away?"

"It wasn't easy." Kiba said slowly, lifting his head once more. There was a faraway look in his yellow eyes, as if just thinking about it were enough to suck Kiba completely into the past. Toboe understood that feeling well. "We weren't that much older than you, Toboe. I remember that they were grooming me to be a Marked alpha."

"Even though you were so young?"

"Age didn't matter to Darcia. I guess I'd proved to him that I was capable, and he saw it fit to reward me." Kiba's muzzle wrinkled as if he were fighting off the urge to snarl. "But I'd had enough of that pack. We all had. There were too many of us. It was so overcrowded the she-wolves were having trouble producing healthy litters. But no matter what we said, Darcia never tried to fix anything."

Toboe felt sick to his stomach as he listened to Kiba talk. He understood everything that he was saying perfectly, remembered exactly how it felt to be a member of Darcia's overly large, alpha-dominated pack.

It was almost enough to revert Toboe back to old times, but when he started to shake, there was the brush of Tsume's tail against his flank, and Toboe was suddenly okay.

"So, we decided to leave." Kiba continued. "Me, Hige, Tsume, and Darcia's eldest daughter."

Toboe was surprised to hear that Tsume had tried to escape once before, but he was even more so at the fact that Darcia had a daughter. When he'd been in the pack, Darcia only had strong alpha sons, but his mate, Hamona, almost never left their den. Toboe wondered if it had something to do with her daughter's betrayal.

"I didn't know Darcia had a daughter."

"Her name was Blue." Hige said, and the grief in his tone was so apparent that Toboe couldn't help but whine in sympathy. "She was an alpha like him, but… she was our friend."

"She offered to take the evening patrol so no one would be around when we left." Kiba went on to say. "We waited for Tsume to show up, but he never did, so we left without him."

"And lo and behold, Darcia somehow found out about our plan." Hige simpered bitterly, and Toboe was filled with a slow-burning horror at the implications behind Hige's words, the reason for his anger. "He came after us and killed Blue, his only daughter, as if she meant nothing to him. Kiba and I managed to get away, but Blue would still be alive if it weren't for him."

Hige was glaring openly at Tsume now, and Toboe's fears only grew as Tsume made no move to defend himself.

He was refusing to react, ever the impeccable alpha, but Toboe knew Tsume well enough to know that the older wolf was experiencing nearly crippling guilt and sorrow. Toboe could see it in the way Tsume was going out of his way to stay quiet.

"Tsume." Toboe began slowly. "Is that true? Did you tell Darcia about what they were planning?"

Tsume said nothing for a moment, but then he shook his head slowly. "It's… not like I wanted to."

"Oh, don't give him that crap." Hige snapped. "Just admit to Toboe that you sold out your own friends, you traitor!"

"It's the truth." Tsume shot back, and even though he hadn't said anything yet to dispute Hige's claim, Toboe believed him. "The alpha in charge of my Mark caught me sneaking out that night. I wasn't going to tell him a thing, but then he went and fetched Darcia and his sons and – "

Tsume stopped, his sides rising and falling with each rapid breath he took. He was growing more and more agitated, his scent turning sour with fear. Even Hige noticed, for the low growl that had been vibrating within his throat fell away quickly.

"This isn't a sign of authority." Tsume said suddenly, and Toboe's eyes drifted down to the alpha's Mark. "It isn't even a real Mark, just a scar, the only one that didn't heal. That was their method of getting me to talk, and I couldn't hold out against it. I'm sorry, Hige, I never wanted – "

The alpha stopped again, growling in frustration, and Toboe pressed close to his side, aching for all three wolves. "Tsume… "

"Darcia rewarded me for talking by giving me control of the Mark Kiba was supposed to head." Tsume went on. "And I accepted the role, even if I hated myself for it. I never planned on trying to escape again. I figured staying in that awful pack until the day I died was my penance for getting Blue killed."

"What made you decide to leave, then?" Kiba inquired, genuinely curious. "If you'd resigned yourself, what changed your mind?"

"A scrawny, omega pup." Tsume said with a little humor, and Toboe ducked his head when he felt Kiba's and Hige's gazes shift to him. "His mother died shortly after he was born, along with the rest of his litter-mates. You can imagine how Darcia and the others treated him. I had to get him out no matter the cost to myself."

"So, Tsume learned to put others first." Hige said, though his tone lacked the same bite it had held since Tsume first appeared. Toboe would even go so far as to say that Hige looked a little apologetic. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Tsume snorted, but even that didn't sound angry or bitter. And Toboe found himself wagging his tail, because things were finally starting to fall into place.

"How come you left Toboe by himself for so long?" Kiba asked. The wagging stopped. "His condition was severe when I found him. He was too young to survive that winter on his own."

"I never meant for him to be by himself." Tsume began heatedly, and to Toboe, it sounded like Tsume was speaking specifically to him, not Kiba. "I distracted the patrol Darcia sent after us and gave Toboe enough time to escape. I had every intention of finding my way back to him, but… I was weakened in the fight, and they caught me."

Hige was pawing at the ground anxiously, tearing up grass and dirt. "How are you even here? Surely Darcia wouldn't have let you live."

Tsume barked out a laugh. "He had better plans. They held me down and shoved my nose into this burning… concoction one of the elder she-wolves made before banishing me from the territory. I haven't been able to smell right since."

Toboe whimpered, tail instinctively tucking between his legs. "You mean you… can't smell anymore?"

Tsume shook his head, teeth bearing in a slight snarl. Now that Toboe was paying attention, Tsume's nose didn't seem as dark as it had been before, wasn't as wet. "I can if something's right in front of me, but I can't follow scent trails. I don't think Darcia expected me to survive the winter that way, so that was just his indirect way of killing me. But that's why I couldn't find you, Toboe."

As if everything they'd already been through hadn't been enough, Darcia had to go and take Tsume's sense of smell from him as well. Wolves could live without it, but day-to-day life would become increasingly difficult, and it would be nearly impossible to survive for long without a pack.

And Toboe was furious, because Tsume hadn't deserved that. No wolf did.

The both of them had spent that winter alone, not knowing for certain if the other was dead or alive, but somehow they both came out of it relatively okay.

"You do look a little worse for wear." Tsume commented, leaning forward to nose at Toboe's torn ear, a parting gift from the pack across the river. "You don't even seem like the same pup."

"I've grown a lot." Toboe said, standing at his full height, more than a little proud. He still had a long way to go before he could stand paw to paw with Tsume and Kiba or even Hige, but he was getting there. "Kiba and Hige even taught me to hunt."

"Did they now?" Tsume rumbled, clearly amused. Toboe had missed this, missed Tsume. The older wolf was like family to him, he'd been around for so long. "You'll have to show me what you're capable of."

Toboe squirmed happily, sitting down next to Tsume to prevent himself from doing something stupid, like running around in excited circles. Kiba and Hige were just watching them, yellow and amber eyes shining with mirth and intrigue, respectively.

"I'll never be able to atone for what I did." Tsume said suddenly, serious once more as he stared at the two wolves who had once been his friends. "I lived with that guilt everyday, and I still do. I should have just let them kill me instead of giving them what they wanted. If I had, Blue would still be alive."

"No." Kiba replied, and even Hige was shaking his head. "If you'd died, no one would have been there to rescue Toboe."

"I think it would have made Blue happy, knowing that you were able to liberate someone else." Hige added. "She hated Darcia's way of running things more than anybody."

"Yeah." Tsume said softly. "I remember."

"So, are we good now?" Toboe asked, shifting his gaze among the three older wolves. "No more fighting?"

"For now." Hige lamented, but there was humor in it, so Toboe wasn't concerned. "But hey, what's one more addition to the family?"

"Who said I wanted to join your sorry excuse for a pack?" Tsume retorted, but Toboe saw through it.

And from the long look shared between Kiba and Hige, they did as well.

The companionship between the four of them was amiable, and Toboe found himself seeking it out at every possible opportunity. It didn't feel right when they weren't all together, when Kiba was patrolling or Hige was hunting while Toboe stayed with Tsume and nursed him back to health.

It should have felt odd considering the amount of time they'd known one another, but it made perfect sense to Toboe.

He now understood why Kiba and Hige had chosen to trust him, why they'd taken him in during the winter and asked him to stay come spring. They'd seen bits of themselves in Toboe, because even if Kiba and Hige hadn't known it at the time, they'd all seen the same horrors, lived precarious lives.

The four of them found common ground in the fact that they'd all been born and raised in Darcia's pack. Their time there had warped them all, left them with scars – physical and mental – that would probably never heal.

Toboe wasn't the only one with nightmares, the only one who'd suffered abuse at the paws of Darcia's Marked alphas. As a beta, Hige hadn't faired much better, but with alpha friends like Kiba, Tsume, and Blue at his side, the ridicule wasn't nearly as severe.

Toboe learned that Hige and Blue had loved one another, and they'd planned on having pups of their own as soon as they escaped Darcia's territory. Within the folds of the pack, Darcia would never have allowed his alpha daughter to mate with the likes of Hige, no matter the strength of his spirit and character.

It wasn't fair, wasn't right, but Hige didn't seem to have any regrets. He missed Blue terribly, that much was certain, but the days he'd spent wallowing in grief and self-pity were well behind him, or so Kiba said.

Eventually, Tsume got better, and even if his sense of smell was irrevocably damaged, he was determined to pull his own weight. As an alpha, he joined Kiba in patrolling the territory and scent marking the border, and with the extra help, Kiba was able to spend more time at the den than ever before.

Toboe was content. He'd found lasting friends in Kiba and Hige and had reunited with Tsume at long last. He couldn't imagine asking for anything more, and for the first time in a long while, he was genuinely happy.

Talk of happenings across the river was cast aside. Kiba got over his paranoia when Tsume confirmed that the wolf pack on the other side was still there. He'd passed through the heart of their territory before crossing the river, and while he said they hadn't chased him out as they had Toboe, they weren't exactly welcoming either.

None of them knew why they'd suddenly stopped patrolling their eastern border, but they chose not to worry about it. Fatigue no longer plagued Kiba's body, and Hige's near constant shedding ceased.

It worked well for a while. They all supported each other, helped one another to get over the traumatizing moments in their pasts, and even if they still had a long way to go, at least they had the time to work it all out.

However, one night, Toboe found himself blinking awake for no apparent reason, trapped with Hige's head resting on the back of his neck and Tsume pressed close to his left side.

But he wasn't the only one. Before too long, Kiba was shifting, lifting his head off Hige's back, and Hige awoke with a loud snort that sent Tsume into a fit of irritated growling.

Still lying down, Toboe shook out his fur, eyes still fuzzy with sleep as he yawned, staring up the tunnel leading to the entrance to the den. He couldn't find a cause for it, but there was an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. And from the exhausted confusion he was picking up from the others, he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

"Did we all have the same nightmare or something?" Hige muttered sleepily, head jerking upright as he started to nod off again.

"Not likely." Tsume replied, slowly rising to his paws. "Kiba? Should we check it out?"

Kiba didn't have to reply verbally. He was up and moving in a matter of seconds, stepping over Hige'ds and Toboe's forms as he followed after Tsume.

"Wait up, I'm coming with you." Toboe said, turning to nose at Hige's cheek. "Come on, you, too. If something's going on, we'll be safer together."

"But Toboe." Hige's whines fell on deaf ears, for Toboe was already squeezing out of the den after Kiba and Tsume.

The two older wolves were standing side by side in the clearing, staring out into the forest through narrowed eyes. Toboe cocked his head, trying to locate any sound that might have woken them from their sleep. But he came up empty-pawed, and that unsettled feeling only increased.

"Alright, I'm up." Hige said as he exited the den, jaws parted slightly as he breathed in the fresh air. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." Tsume said gruffly. "But something doesn't feel right."

Toboe knew better than to question Tsume's instincts. The young wolf refused to believe that Darcia had given Tsume control of a Mark just to reward him for talking. As awful as the entire thing was, Tsume was a skilled and capable alpha, and their entire pack had known it.

"We should go check it out." Toboe said, going to stand at Tsume's shoulder. "Maybe it has something to do with the pack across the river."

"Let's hope not." Kiba muttered, already stalking off toward the trees. "Everyone stay low. I have a bad feeling about this."

Even Hige didn't dare argue, and the four of them slunk through the trees silently, skillfully keeping to the shadows. Toboe heard an owl hooting in the trees, the rustle of nocturnal animals moving around in the bushes, and at one point, those things might have spooked the young wolf.

But he hardly paid the sounds of the forest any mind, was experiencing a sort of tunnel-vision as he kept Kiba's and Tsume's backs in his sight. He just knew, somehow, that things were about to change again. Tsume and Kiba were too on edge for it to be anything less.

When they reached the riverbank, they kept to the edge of the trees, crouching down in close proximity of one another as they stared out over the water. It had rained a lot recently, and the roar of the river was louder than Toboe could remember it ever being, so it was difficult to pick up on any sound.

But the longer they waited, and the harder they listened, the more apparent the sounds of fighting became.

"What's happening?" Toboe asked worriedly, glancing up at Tsume. "Are they being attacked?"

"There isn't another pack nearby." Kiba said. "The closest one is further downriver, far south of here. Hige, can you smell anything?"

Whereas Toboe had the sharpest ears, Hige had the superior sense of smell. Hige closed his eyes, tilting his head up the slightest bit as he scented the air. Toboe wasn't sure how he was going to smell anything over the scents of the forest behind them and the river before them, but if anyone was going to figure out what was going on, it would be Hige.

After a moment, Hige's entire body seized up, and all three wolves looked to him in alarm.

"Darcia." Hige croaked. "I – I can smell him."

"Why would he be all the way over here?" Toboe demanded, a sense of raw panic coming over him. This was it. Darcia had come to take them back.

"I don't know, but I can smell blood." Hige hissed, the fur along his spine rising. "He must have attacked the other pack. But why?"

Toboe stared hard at the tree line on the other side, trying to see if he could spot movement within the trees. But there was nothing.

"Before Toboe and I left," Tsume began, a certain edge to his voice that Toboe had never heard before, "Darcia and the Marked alphas were talking about expanding the territory. I guess that was his way of dealing with the overcrowding issue."

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Hige demanded. "Dammit, Tsume, you always keep this kind of crap to yourself!"

"I didn't think it was important. I never imagined that Darcia would lead the others this far east!"

Toboe was beside himself with terror. He couldn't go pack to his old pack, he just couldn't. He never wanted to see Darcia's mismatched eyes again, one yellow and the other a foggy blue. Supposedly he'd been blinded in that one eye when he rose to power, when he'd challenged the previous Head Alpha and changed the dynamic of their pack forever.

"I don't want to go back." Toboe whimpered, ears flattening against his head, all the progress he'd made since the winter leaving him in a single instant. He couldn't return to Darcia's territory and allow the abuse to start up again, not now that he knew what it was like to be in a real pack. "I wouldn't survive that again."

"You won't have to." Kiba growled. "I think it's time we moved on, Hige."

"Wait. What?"

"You said you wanted to go over the mountains, right, Toboe?" Kiba asked, turning his head to stare at Toboe over the slope of Tsume's back.

The young wolf returned his friend's sharp gaze, bewildered. "Well… yeah, but that was before… " Before he'd realized that he didn't want to be alone, before he'd found out that Tsume was still alive. He'd wanted to scale the mountains to escape the ghosts of his past, but they'd already caught up to him, so what was the point?

"It's our best bet. If we stay, and Darcia crosses the river, we'll find ourselves trapped between him and the mountain. We should leave now before he realizes we were here."

"But, Kiba." Hige pressed, seemingly as surprised as Toboe. "Are you sure? This place – This place is our home!"

Toboe couldn't say he was as attached to the forest as Hige and Kiba probably were. He didn't know how long they'd been living there, how long it had been since they escaped Darcia's pack, so it must have been difficult for the two male wolves to decide to leave the place they had claimed as their own.

"We can find a new one." Kiba insisted. "The four of us are no match for Darcia and his alphas. We'll be dead before the next full moon if we stay."

"And I highly doubt Darcia would take the entire pack over the mountain." Tsume cut in. "He may cross the river and take this place, but that's as far east as he'll go. I have to agree with Kiba on this one. Seeing what's on the other side of the mountain is our best bet."

"If you guys say so." Hige eventually said with some reluctance. "You think you can make a journey like that, Toboe?"

"Of course I can!" Toboe shot back, indignant. The prospect of leaving sounded perfect to him. The fear had dissipated somewhat, for in his mind, they were already leaving Darcia behind. "I'm the one who wanted to cross it in the first place, you know."

"Then it's settled." Kiba said, wiggling backwards, back into the cover of the trees. "We have to go now. We can't take any chances."

No one protested Kiba's decision, because even if there wasn't a true hierarchy within their group, they still instinctively looked to Kiba for guidance, even Tsume, who found it difficult to take orders from anybody.

They hurried back to the den where Tsume and Kiba made quick work of the entrance, filling the tunnel with dirt and pawing at the logs until the entire thing caved in. And Toboe found himself sorry to see it go, had grown somewhat attached to the cozy den in which he'd spent the entire winter recovering, but he knew they would find another den, perhaps a better one, once they reached the end of their journey.

"My paws are going to fall off, I can already tell." Hige was already complaining even before they reached the base of the mountain.

They traveled all night, mostly keeping silent, the four of them lost in their own thoughts. Toboe kept glancing over his shoulder, irrationally fearful that Darcia was already tracking them, but a few sharp reprimands from Tsume put an end to that rather quickly.

"Hopefully they'll just go numb after a point." Tsume huffed. "And hey, maybe you'll finally lose some of your puppy fat."

"I resent that!"

The journey was harder than Toboe thought it would be. He wasn't exactly a mountain wolf, after all. But they saw many amazing things, played in clear pools of spring water and howled to countless numbers of stars. He almost couldn't believe he'd planned to brave the mountains on his own, and it just made him all the more grateful to have Tsume, Kiba, and Hige at his side.

Toboe didn't know what the future had in store for them, couldn't say for certain that they wouldn't find another wolf like Darcia on the other side, but he was eager to find out.

The days of his puppyhood no longer nipped at Toboe's heels like the frosty bite of winter. His ear was still torn, and his left hind leg would probably always feel stiffer than the others.

Tsume would never regain his sense of smell completely, and even if he tried to hide it, he couldn't deny how his scent spiked with anxiety whenever Toboe was out of his site for too long. Hige wouldn't forget about Blue, and Kiba would always wage an internal war with his instincts, fighting against the alpha Darcia had praised and rewarded.

His grandmother used to speak of Paradise, of a place where all wolves could live peacefully together despite their nature. Whether or not a place like that actually existed, Toboe might never know. But when he looked up at the stars, tried to discern which ones belonged to his grandmother, his mother, and even his litter-mates, Toboe found that it didn't really matter.

Tsume, Kiba, and Hige were with him, as strong and as real as any fantasy or dream Toboe could've ever had, and even if there was no such thing as Paradise, that was okay, because Toboe had his pack.

They were broken, that much was irrefutable. For their small pack of four, nothing would ever be truly okay.

But despite all of that, for the first time in… ever, Toboe was actually happy to be alive.