Behind The Mask

Out In The Snow

     A new day has come, and Chase slowly woke up and looked around, remembering that last night, he returned Maya to her home and lazily walked into his pup-house, really tired.

"Man, I love these lazy mornings." Chase yawned as he rubbed his eyes and looked over at the clock.

1:18 PM

"Or...noon's, I guess." Chase corrected himself as he got up and stretched a little bit, surprised that his body still felt a little sore. Wow, I'm more tired than I thought. Chase sighed in his mind, now wanting to get back to sleep.

Just then, he heard knocking on his door which made him sigh a little bit and opened up to see Ryder standing there on one knee.

"Hey, bud. Is everything okay?" The leader asked and Chase yawned for a second before he responded.

"Yeah."

"You slept long...a little too long." Ryder mentioned as he looked over at the clock inside Chase's pup-house.

"I know, I guess I'm just a little tired." Chase chuckled a little bit which surprised the leader a little bit.

"Really? That's...kind of surprising," He said. Again, Chase isn't the one to oversleep, but even though he has been for the past couple weeks, he overslept way too much this time. "Do you wanna keep sleeping?"

"Nah, I'm up anyways." The police pup shrugged as he re-positioned his hoodie a little bit and didn't bother to fix his messy hair and walked outside to the spiked hair boy and closed the door behind him and yawned once again.

"So, what's goin' on?" He asked as both of them began walking towards the doors.

"Well, I would say about half of us went shopping while the others were playing outside." Ryder pointed out and Chase looked towards the direction to where he pointed and in a fair distance, he could see the pups playing around in the snow.

Building snow forts and throwing snowballs, while others were snowboarding or just playfully tackling each other on the snow.

"You wanna go join them?" Ryder asked and looked back down but already saw Chase walking towards the front doors of the Lookout.

"Nah, I'm gonna get breakfast." Chase chuckled a little bit.

"But it's one." Ryder recalled the time and Chase glanced back at him with a tired smile.

"It's morning in my world." And with that, Chase walked off inside the Lookout.

In the distance, Marshall was laughing on the ground while he was playfully tackled by Rubble. After calming down, he glanced over to see Chase walking towards their direction with Ryder, but then walked off inside the Lookout. Did he just wake up? Marshall wondered and watched as the doors closed behind the German Shepherd.

"Hey"

Rubbles voice broke through Marshall's thoughts and the Dalmatian glanced over at Rubble who was slightly frowning at him, already knowing where Marshall was looking.

"What?" He asked, as if trying to hide his actions was going to do anything.

"Remember what we talked about? We can't pay any attention to him." Rubble reminded and Marshall broke eye contact and sadly looked at the ground and over to the sides. He was conflicted. He was now beginning to have second thoughts.

"D-Do you think this'll actually work? So far, he's ignored us just like we ignored him. It feels like we aren't getting anywhere." Marshall pointed out, trying to reason with the Bulldog.

"It was only a couple days, just give it more time, he'll tell us soon." Rubble said and walked back a far distance, "Now, let's play!" Rubble said in a cheerful and excited tone.

After eating his food, Katie decided to take Chase's temperature with Ryder sitting down next to him. The shepherd opened his mouth, allowing the blonde to take the thermometer from him and looked at the results which made her smile.

"Looks like your temperature is back to normal. And considering that you're not coughing or sneezing, you're all better." Katie grinned which made Chase and Ryder smile.

"Ah, that feels so much better." Chase sighed as he stretched out and Ryder chuckled a little bit as he placed his hand on the shepherd's head.

"I'm glad. Now you'll be able to go on missions." And Chase only grinned at that sentence.

"Can't wait." The second-in-command responded with an excited tone.

"Glad to see you're doing better!"

The three turned and were a little surprised to see Wildcat standing there.

Outside, Skye and Tundra decided to take a small break while the others were playing out in the snow, taking a small breather.

"Man, that sure was fun." Skye laughed along with Tundra.

"Definitely, I think I hit you five times in a row." The Husky bragged which made the Cockapoo smirk at her.

"Oh just wait, next time, I'll get my revenge." She said in a competitive smirk which Tundra returned.

"Bring it on."

And both of them shared a laugh once more until they fell silent.

Suddenly, for some reason, Tundra began remembering the small talk they had with Skye and the other pups about Chase and there was one flaw in that plan.

"Hey, Skye? For Secret Santa, who did you get?"

Hearing that question, Skye frowned a little bit, almost growling. Of course, according to the rules of the game, you shouldn't tell anyone who you've got, but since Tundra wasn't participating, it didn't matter.

"You got him, huh?" Tundra asked, already knowing the answer given by Skye's reaction which surprised the pink pup a little bit, but then she just sadly frowned at the sight of Adventure Bay.

"Skye, I know you're upset with him. But I can tell that you're regretting that choice, aren't you?" Tundra sighed and she watched as Skye's face softened a little bit.

"Who said I was? It'll hopefully teach him a lesson on how he's been treating us." Skye weakly defended which made the Husky frown a little more.

"And how's that working out for ya'?" She asked with an eyebrow face, once again, seeing the Cockapoos face weaken once again.

"It'll just take time, he'll realize the mistake he made soon enough." Skye said, but in a much softer tone.

Both of them stood in silence for a minute before a smirk crept onto Tundra's face.

"Hey, come with me." She said and Skye only looked at her for a second before her paw was being dragged by Tundra's.

Now, both girls were heading towards Adventure Bay.