A/N: I haven't written anything for ahkj for awhile, but when the final season came out I had this idea and knew I had to do something with it! I finally finished!

Super big thanks to Netflix Original for helping me out. She's amazing, and you should all go check out her story, Feelings Develop.

Accident softens the impact. Clover does not want to be softened.

What she says when they hug her, tears pooling in all of their eyes, Clover cannot remember. What she does remember is the way he looked into her soul and told her how proud he is of everything she's done in this life. Something she's been longing to hear from the cruel world for so long now. And if she wasn't already breaking down from the tearful goodbyes then, she would be now.

They both hug her, and she knows another thing she'll remember is the feeling of three bodies pressed into one. The presence. Of how they were always there when she needed them. Even when she didn't want them to be.

Clover doesn't want to be softened, but when things like this happen—when people leave—there's not much room left in anyone's heart to stay hard. Not when it's them who are leaving.

Instead, once she's taken her seat amongst the crowd, she holds Mort's paw and 0shuts her eyes. She's known about this for days. Sage showed her the letter they wrote the second it came. And of course Clover thought, or more precisely hoped (though she'd never dare admit it), that surely they needed her back. Surely they were telling her to come home to the lemur kingdom. Surely they missed her as much as she missed them.

And as soon as she grabbed it, reading every word without looking away, she raced off from the Mountain Lemur Kingdom to King Julien's kingdom. The kingdom that, despite being on the opposite side of the island, was still home.

She didn't know why she went into panic mode right then and there, but she was glad she did. It wasn't the letter she expected and if this was any other time she'd laugh and insist that Maurice would nip Julien's idea in the bud before anything could possibly happen. But the letter said Maurice was leaving too. That Julien and Maurice were taking the plane and flying off to who-knows-where with zoo animals they had just met.

She knows more now. She knows they really, truly are leaving. Clover knows it's happening today, despite her protests, despite the safety concerns, despite the fact that she'd do ANYTHING for them to stay.

A part of her still can't fathom the reality of it all. It's too much, it was never expected. They're supposed to be happy in Madagascar. There's not supposed to be a need for them to fly off on a search for treasure and luxuries from faraway islands, because maybe the greatest treasure of it all was them. And Clover knows how cheesy that is as she thinks it, but frank, forgive her for freaking out.

And clearly Mort feels the same way, given that he's screaming, crying, and pulling away from her grip of steel.

Clover can't stand to comfort him this time. She knows he doesn't want to be here with her. He wants to be with King Julien. The last place he'd ever hope of being as his king leaves is sitting on the muddy grass beside Clover and waiting for the plane to take off and for Julien and Maurice to disappear from them forever.

They don't want him there with them, as cruel as it sounds.

She can't freakin' take this. It's too much already. The added bonus of making sure Mort doesn't leave with them is something she never should have agreed to. She could have stuck the mouse lemur with Ted, sure, but no no no, Clover just had to personally agree on taking on one more of Julien's desires, and for the first time in her life, she's truly regretting it.

She's still not sure if her staying is the right decision, and the fact that Mort so clearly wants to leave is not helping.

So, with all walls and fresh hurt coming down, she loosens her grip. Just a little. Mort starts running and Clover doesn't have the heart to take off after him.

She already knows where he's going, but the planes already started. There's no way he would be able to get on it now...

That what she keeps telling herself, up until the moment she sees Mort hanging onto the plane's exterior.

It's not only the fact that they're gone, but the fact that they took the plane with them.

Clover realizes this on a early Sunday morning. Hours of intense physical exercises and pushing down obstacles still left room for subtle truths. They are gone. And they took the plane with them.

The plane she once called home more than her actual house.

The plane that was her favorite place on the island, although once again she'd never dare admit it. They just.. left with it.

The plane is gone. Julien, Maurice and now apparently Mort are gone. And she doesn't even have the faintest idea of where or what New York is.

A part of her wishes she had just left—ditched Madagascar, ditched the mountain lemurs, and hightailed it off to who knows where with them. They said she could! It would have been fun, like Julien always told her about. It would have been a new experience, and she'd still be surrounded by the people she cares the most about.

She's reminded of why she couldn't when Horst runs up to her, ranting and raving about a "beverage thief" or something of the sort. Clovers only half listening, but she still promises to solve the issue full heartedly.

She also promises she's doing okay when Ted asks later in the afternoon. Both replies are obvious lies, and she knows she's lucky not to be called out on either of them.

Clover writes a letter to Sage one week after Julien, Maurice and Mort leave.

She tells him that the lemur kingdom's doing okay, but they all understandably miss Julien.

She misses Julien too. So, so much. But she doesn't include that part when she writes.

Instead, Clover tells Sage tales about King Julien's kingdom. Willie's freaking out as always—he drives me crazy, she writes. She tells him about how she tracked down Horst's "beverage thief." Spoiler alert: there wasn't really a thief as much as there was Willie accidentally grabbing Horst's drink instead of his own. Those parts are for comedic purposes, because what she tells him next is something she knows he'll react too.

Or maybe he won't. She's been married to Sage for all of 3 weeks and he's pretty hard to figure out.

I have to stay longer, she writes without really thinking. They need me here. All they have is a gecko.

She doesn't elaborate or give more details. Sage doesn't even know about the gecko thing yet, but it's fine. She'll just seal the letter up and give it to Sage's hawk the next time he flies by.

At 12 days, lemurs start asking Clover if she thinks King Julien will ever come back. Clover says yes—of course. But she knows there's more than a few civilians who aren't as convinced.

Andy Fairfax thinks Julien, Maurice and Mort are dead. Swears he saw the plane capsize into the ocean. He'll even give a detailed explanation of everything that happened too—for the low price of 50 mangoes.

Clover has tried to shut that down more than once, but with no luck. And she's worn out and exhausted from all of this, that's the only reason it's even continued. Word on the street, or more accurately from Ted, is that Willie paid to hear what Andy was telling and that's why he's been screaming "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" at least four times every night. Fun.

It sucks even more since Clover really doesn't know what to say when lemurs ask her things.

"It's been 12 days! WHERE IS KING JULIEN?!" is the familiar question she gets the honor of dealing with.

"King Julien is traveling. He might not be back for awhile, but he'll return eventually." She'd say. She'll always smile at them when they ask, but each time she does it feels nauseating. Like she's lying to the civilians and now herself.

Because maybe when she starts being honest, she starts to think of all the terrible, horrible, probably over-exaggerated bad things that could have happened to Julien, Maurice and Mort without her there to watch over them. And maybe it makes her physically sick when she thinks that Andy could be right and that they are dead, or that perhaps they just never planned to return. Plain and horribly simple.

Julien and Maurice never even told her how long they'd be gone. She has more information than the rest of the lemurs in the kingdom, sure, but none of it is comforting. Their goodbyes were filled with hugging and tears she won't admit to, not an actual "hey Clover, we'll be back in 6 weeks" or "hey Clover, we're just never coming back" that she could tell the others about or prepare herself for.

The latter was a lot less likely, but Clover also knows that Julien had a thing for distractions. There's no doubt in her mind that he loves the kingdom, but who's to say he wouldn't love wherever he's going more?

Maurice would probably do something if he did, Clover tries to convince herself. She falls back into her bed during the evening of the 15th day without them. Maurice would remind Julien of the home they left and they'd come back.

Unless.. Andy was right. But Clover starts shaking her head whenever that thought emerges, trying to literally throw those possibilities out of her mind. She knows by now that NOTHING could take down her king. She knows by now that they'll survive through thick and thin. She knows that even though Mort was physically hanging on outside of the plane, he'd be okay too.

She tells herself this every night and every morning, and she tells everyone else this with a lot more force, "King Julien might not be back for awhile, but he'll return eventually."

Eventually is a long, painful time, it seems.

Clover doesn't know where she left her scrapbook. Or her throwing stars.

It's corny, sure, and in her first few years of adulthood she undoubtedly would have gagged and groaned at the notion of memories through pictures, and random little nick knacks she's stuffed in there before they found that camera, but it means something different now.

The throwing stars mean something too, but she can live without those. She rather wouldn't, of course, but if it came down to one or the other...

Ted and Clover search through her hut for what seems like hours, but in reality is only 39 minutes.

Teds older now. His fur is a bit darker and he's proudly single (although if Clover had any clue, she guesses with Pancho's obvious flirting that wouldn't last much longer.) Dorothy and Ted divorced about 6 years ago, and in what seemed like seconds Clover watched as a new personality took over her assistant commander. (Or her ex-assistant commander if she wanted to be technical. She didn't.) He's happier now, he's out now, he's easier to be around with now.

She never tells him that last part though. Because maybe looking back it was her who wasn't so easy to be around all the time. But regardless of that, he still always tried. A lot of people did and she hadn't opened up to them all. It took her years to see Ted as something more than her cheesy assistant commander. A friend.

Clovers changed a lot, too. In the first few years of Julien leaving, she stood her ground about how they were coming back. She kept up this attitude when no one else did. Sage tried to tell her that it was okay to move on, to be at peace again, to breathe again—and she nearly lost her cool at that because how could he still be meditating at a time like this? Sage and Clover didn't work out. A lot of things in life didn't work out. It was fine. What wasn't fine was her missing scrapbook.

Clover pulls a few journals out from underneath her bed. They've made a mess, but it's okay. They just need to find the scrapbook she lost. The scrapbook that contains nearly every memory she has.

Things are so much different than they were seven years ago. Clover still finds herself thinking of King Julien, Maurice and Mort but it's different now. They're not coming back. They're gone. And sometimes it's still hard to accept, sometimes it's easier, but either way that obvious truth is not something she likes thinking about.

But she isn't going to think about that now. She's going to find her damn scrapbook if it's the last thing—

"FOUND IT!"

Ted's loud shriek makes her flinch as she turns and there, he waves a velvety red book in his arms. Sure enough, he did find it, but she snatches it from him within seconds with a joyful, "thanks, Ted!"

She slides it under her bed to look at at a much more private time, a time where Ted can't stare at her when she thinks back on memories long ago or a time where Ted won't repeat his mantra of "some days I still can't believe they left... I wonder what King Julien would say if he saw the kingdom now? I think he'd like it. I think he'd approve. Hey, Clover—"

Truthfully Clover didn't know what Julien would say if he saw the kingdom now. Stevie had died, then the next Stevie had died. Then the Steve after that, followed by another Stevie—and it was at that point where everybody vowed No More Stevies and they had just been going with the flow when it came to politics ever since. No one really rules anymore, but people still have a gleam in their eyes when talking about Julien and what he's done for them. Heck, they still have holidays to honor him and all the Julien's before him. But the whole thing is just such a different atmosphere, Clover can't deny that.

Plus there was the fact that practically the entire kingdom had been trained to take on the fossa. Another thing Julien taught them.

"Do I get a prize for finding it?" Ted asks, victoriously. He only gives the bed she slid it under a distant glance because he gets it, before standing up and helping Clover stand up too. "I think I should get a prize!"

Clover rolls her eyes, says shortly, "no prize, come on, you promised to read to those kids tonight by the waterfall. Move."

"You promised to help."

"You're reading a book, Ted. To children."

"Yeah, okay, okay. That's fair! You're still coming though."

"Fair enough."

Now that practically the whole kingdom is trained to take on the fossa, there's no need for one central army anymore. It was a difficult adjustment at first, and Clover made sure to still get her fair share of butt-kicking in, but... it also allowed a lot more free time and she got used to it over the years.

Clover glances at the distant shadow of her scrapbook for a few more seconds while Ted steps out of the hut. He calls to her once. Twice. And then, Clover shuts the door.

It's the smell of leaves and mangos and nature that leaves him breathless as he sticks his head out the window. He waves his arms back and forth excitedly, before turning to his friend—his best friend in the whole wide world through thick and thin and everything else in between—and shakes him excitedly.

He doesn't wait for an answer from his compadres as he darts from the plane. He knows they're close behind, he knows the penguins are yelling at him to slow down and let them survey the area before he takes any action, but he knows this area even though there's changes. He knows his home despite the years. He knows he's back now, probably for forever. And he knows he won't be leaving again, for treasure or some kind of extended vacation or whatever else that could call him away.

"Can you BELIEVE we are back, Maurice?! I cannot believe it—" he shakes his advisor left and right. Normally Maurice groans or something when Julien does this, but today he's much too focused on agreeing with him to care.

Julien's much too focused on raving to Maurice to notice the crowd the plane has drawn. The crowd of his people—new and old. The crowd that currently whispers praises his way.

After a minute, he notices and gives the most subtle of all waves he has ever performed in his lifetime. Traveling the world, it does things to you. And Julien never truly thought he'd be back in a position of not knowing how to handle something.

"My peoples! It has been a while, but I am sure you remember me! I just want to reassure you—"

There's hushing and tossing and turning from the crowd and Julien almost wants to be annoyed. Maybe he would be, if the next image he sees wasn't Ted dragging Clover through the mud as she mutters along the way. "I am SO sick of your idiotic practical jokes, Ted. I don't know what you think you're doing, but I swear to frank, I'll—"

"It's not a prank!" Ted hisses back, but it has no real purpose because Clover's already on her feet, wide eyed and gaping.

Julien's eyes are wide too. And Maurice and Mort are staring equally shocked, while the penguins are doing their best to disperse the crowd, telling them all that they made it way too difficult for a properly safe landing and need to back away. But Julien, Maurice, Mort and Clover are involved in some sort of weird staring contest. And before Ted knows it, he's waving his hand frantically in front of Clover's face and proudly declaring "told ya so!"

Julien gives what feels like a slow motion wave himself. "H—Hi, Clover. I—"

She lunges forward before he can finish, and before Julien can even process what's happening, there's a group hug going on between them all.

Clover remembers what to say this time, and she'll remember this very moment for the rest of her life as tears cloud her vision and her heart pounds in her chest when four bodies press into one. "We missed you. I missed you. Thank frank you're back."