It'd been a little strange adjusting to the accommodations of what he was trying to learn as pack life. Bogart typically stuck close to Raisa both out of comfort and preference but he would occasionally venture the confines of Northfall's territory, familiarizing himself with the 'border markers' and deciphering which creatures were acceptable to wander past them. The weather started to keep him closer, though. A near-constant blizzard seemed to ravage the land and he wondered if he'd ever get used to that.

Small benefits came from it, at least. Bogart could count on curling up with Raisa in the 'den' where she'd tuck her face into his chest and he could ease himself to sleep to the sound of her heartbeat against his. His slumber was always so deep, impenetrable by little beyond his own stomach or stubborn sunlight, the latter of which had grown shyer and shyer as of late.

This morning would be different.

Bogart grunted, the warmth of the body being torn from his side caused him to stir, Raisa? he mumbled groggily, the vowels stretched and lazy. Outside, even amidst the whirling winds, he could make out her noises. Hurried breaths. A worrying retch.

"Raisa?" said Bogart, blinking to, festering fret kicked his cognizance into gear. He lifted up, narrowed his eyes on her frame, and called, "You okay?" He expected her to either answer or flip it back on him. Instead, she stood there, stock-still.

Till she wasn't.

Raisa shot off in a flurry, startling him to his paws, hackles itching upright. Had she caught the scent of a meal? Not much else made sense to him when he remained under the impression that claimed territory was safe. Bogart followed, careful-footed as he stepped out of the den, already bracing for the winds to meet him. He turned in a half-circle trying to make out what could've led her elsewhere before the sun was even a flickering existence on the horizon, and wrinkled his muzzle at the discovery. Vomit? Now that worried him. Raisa leaving worried him more. Surely if she was terribly ill, she wouldn't have left when she knew he could've helped or eased the discomfort until someone better equipped arrived.

Did that mean she was ill?

Unable to settle with the sudden absence and unwilling to risk her well-being after witnessing her flee into the morning like hell was nipping at her heels, Bogart put to work all those nasty Canadian winters where he trekked through elbow-deep snow following a trail so thin a mouse would miss it, just to find who he went out for. Raisa's path differentiated in that she ran fast and she ran far, leaving minimal time for the already transient snow to take in her scent but where one issue arose, he earned some slack for another. The blizzard wasn't leaving much behind. Whipping winds, fierce flakes, snow that laid then would be whirled away as tiny lumps. It made her tracks easy to follow.

For a short while, he trailed after at a steady mushing-trot. Bogart learned long ago that hurrying in conditions like this wouldn't get him to his destination faster, only risk him being incapable of being any use at all if he got hurt.

This modest pace would give way to him noticing the great disturbance in the snow. Ice and dirt scattered about. He investigated, nose to the ground and ears alert.

Bogart perked up, quickly alert. From the signs of trouble, he traced a line to the edge of a small embankment scattered with narrow ledges and footholds and fixed unnervingly above a decent drop to other jutting rocks below. "Raisa?" Bogart hollered out, because the unfortunate drop made sense for her tracks so abruptly ending. When her voice sounded out, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders, he said, "Hold on! I'll find ya' a way out."

Which meant finding a way down.

Luckily for him, a little backtracking allowed him to find a narrow but consistent icy-path that sloped toward that strange alcove of a ledge. He had to make a considerable jump to bridge the remaining space between the path and the ledge, but it was wide enough that it only quickened his pulse... a lot. "You okay?" Bogart barked it, worry strangling his voice more than the frazzled-frustration that'd been left to lap at the surface of his composure. "Shit, what spooked ya'? Musta been mighty bad if ya' made it this far from the den, darlin'."

The recess she'd taken shelter in was an awfully small one, impressing him with how she even spotted it in the first place. He gave a cursory look over his shoulder to assess if the storm was raging enough to warrant hustling her back, but a leveled glance back at her had Bogart believing whatever had happened to her needed to be the priority concern. Yeah, I'm okay, but he didn't accept that. Their time together hadn't been incredibly long, it'd be easy for anyone to claim he didn't know her well enough to identify unease so subtle. That didn't matter. Not to him.

Bogart knew how she sounded when she was okay, could recall the way her accent would thicken around the ends of her words, he knew how she held herself.

And until now?

She'd always been open to him.

Sweet words or soft little touches, a kiss to his cheek or her eyes awaiting him to deliver a kiss to hers.

"I don't think ya' are," he said, blunt but not cutting. "Hey now, what's wrong?" Bogart lowered his head to enter the space with her, nose twitching as it worked out the state of her. She smelled of being ill. His throat tightened. "I know somethin' spooked ya', I just can't tell what woulda had ya' runnin' like that."

Raisa's crept forward, trepidation in her movements that he never wanted to see her have with him. "Don't do that, darlin', don't," he met her so she'd stop, and lowered his face to hers before drifting his nose across her body. Shoulders. Sides. Hips. Back to her face. He didn't taste blood, that meant something. "Worryin' s'just what I'm good at." Again, so blunt but so careful with maintaining his gentle tone. His fret wouldn't reach her as anything but tender persistence. "What made ya' run?"

But that wasn't right. What made her run? Not much, he imagined.

Bogart rephrased, "Who made ya' run?" because he could believe someone of immense concern might do it. A growl rolled in his chest, the mere thought that anyone might've terrified Raisa, his Raisa, disturbed him. "I won't let 'em get far, I'll tell ya' that much."

"Ain't nothin' 'bout wakin' me, couldn't care less 'bout that," he reassured, carefully licking at her ears. There were worse things he could imagine than a bit of disturbed rest, least where she was involved. Bogart didn't have much in the way of connections before. His humans were caring, loving, and for their devotion he offered his own, but he'd never had another dog's companionship; he had their company, their back as they had his, but unless work called for it, his existence was monotonous, quiet, and lonesome.

Raisa was the first canine who he sincerely saw with great importance.

What would he do if suddenly he was asked to be on his own again?

Well, he reckoned he'd miss her.

"You?"

If overthinking had driven her astray, what trouble was she sitting on and how frightening was it? He hated the idea of pushing for answers at a rate that'd satiate his uncertain impatience, his instinct bordered on interrogation. He just... If something had so deeply disturbed her, Bogart wanted to fix it; he wanted her to know he would fix it.

Why are you here?

Bogart opened his mouth to speak, squeaked out a, ""Cause I saw—" and was promptly cut off. "—oh, right."

His brows furrowed, jaw working at words yet to surface on his tongue. The question caught him off guard. "You offered?" Bogart posed his rebuttal with near naive amounts of confused innocence. "I wanted to be with ya', you offered, it worked out I was reckonin'?" Because, naturally, his first thought had him fret that he'd done something to have unsettled her. His stomach lurched just to think about it.

"I," he smacked his jaws to wet his suddenly parched tongue, "I've stayed cause of you, Raisa. I've liked what we've been doin', liked this, like us."

Whatever they were.

He settled down on his haunches next, ears drawn slightly back. "If ya' ain't favorin' it no more though, I'd get it."

Bogart startled a little when she laughed, near certain he'd done something so abysmal that no other response could've been a fraction more appropriate. His mouth was already attempting to shape around an apology as his brain toiled at a question, whatever would make sense of this. "Stupid? What's that s'posed to mean? No ya' ain't. This coulda happened to anyone." He told her, still thoroughly convinced her flight had truly been troubling enough to cause such a response.

Except. Well, that would've been easy. Throes of the heart hardly ever are.

"Oh," he licked at her face, muttering a soft shh as he did so. Of all the wolves he'd come to know, she was the last one who had to worry about him wandering amiss when she had been the reason he traveled to these mountains just as she'd been the reason he never considered a life after Northfall. After Raisa. If he could have it his way, even if she'd grown disinterested in his affections, he'd remain in her life somehow. "Love, all ya' gotta do is tell me ya' want me there and not a thing could move me."

His chest throbbed miserably at the sight of her.

For the life of him, he could barely think about what caused this when his focus was on soothing her with careful swipes of his tongue as if once the tears were gone, he'd be able to help find her breath, her voice. "Trappin' me 'ere with what? Ain't no teeth at my throat, I could leave," Bogart used a forepaw to lift her chin just so that her eyes remained on him. He needed her to know this. "I don't wanna. Raisa, there ain't any place I'd rather be. Sure, things might change, but that won't. I swear it."

There's a long, stretching silence that twisted a knot in the depths of his stomach. Whatever this was, he wanted to fix it yet he felt like what ailed her was out of his depth of understanding; not due to any disoriented comprehension of his own, but for not having the pieces he needed to make sense of it. Bogart didn't blame her for that. Maybe this was beyond what she saw him fit to know?

Was the short duration of their relationship finally rearing its head? Where Raisa trusted him but time prevented her from trusting him with more?

He reckoned that made sense. It left him sore of heart, but he could recognize and accept that.

Bogart's breath caught in his throat, mind thrown to a full stop as he shifted back. Just enough to look at her. Pregnant? He—well, he... He had no business being surprised did he? The consequences of what they did weren't incomprehensible nor was he so dumb that he might believe she's simply misunderstanding or confusing the signs; at the time he'd even considered it a possibility with how repeatedly they indulged one another, albeit that consideration was distant. It wasn't like he tried to prevent a pregnancy either.

Quite the opposite, actually.

No, he had no business being surprised but still shock steeled him against the pressure of any other thought.

Pups. Children.

His pups.

Their children.

"Not what I asked for," he repeated, soft. "Nah, I won't lie to ya' and say that's what I asked for, didn't plan it. Ain't ever considered it neither... but that don't mean I don't want it." Bogart moved to his paws and brushed his head against her cheek before coming to rest it at her nape. "I want them. I want you. If y'all're gonna be 'ere, I don't wanna be no place else."

Against her fur, he laughed, more air than mirth as his mind whirled with worries. "I gotta get better at this huntin' thing then, aye?" And then, a tentative pause. Bogart swallowed, asked of her quietly, "But do ya' want 'em?"