After breakfast the next day, Riven and I took Sapphire for a walk, which was incidentally my first time leaving the house since the incident.  I couldn’t help but be nervous about it, despite knowing that he was locked up, but between Riven’s soothing presence and calm attitude and Sapphire’s enthusiasm about chasing everything that remotely resembled something she could fit in her mouth, by the time we got back I was actually starting to feel relaxed.

Ren’s mother was waiting for us when we got back, along with a female police officer.  Err, patrol officer?  She was there to take my official statement from the other night.  That sort of brought my mood down again, but I did want to make sure he couldn’t get away from this, so I reluctantly repeated the events of the incident.  Riven stayed with me, at my request, which I ended up regretting when the officer asked what he’d meant by “apologizing” and I had to explain.

Riven promptly looked horrified and started muttering that he regretted not letting Beatrice kick him around a little.

I then ended up giving an abbreviated statement about what happened back in Retherwood, about the years I was under his control.  It was a little easier to talk about it this time after having talked about it a couple of times bow, so at least it was a little less emotional for me than the more recent event.  When the officer and Ren’s mom eventually left – both of whom seemed rather pissed off at the police force in Retherwood, by the way, when I’d explained what had happened there – I felt a sigh of relief that maybe the worst of this was over.  I mean, testifying would still be awful, no matter how I looked at it, but at least I’d had a chance to talk it over with people and have it all written down.

It wasn’t until after I’d had to relive all of that, feeling kind of humiliated, emotionally bruised, and unexpectedly relieved all in one, that I noticed that the letter I’d left for Nathan was gone.  Ren must have taken it when he left.  Hopefully – hopefully Nathan wouldn’t be too upset.  Hopefully he’d understand.

Still, the thought of Nathan being upset made all the sad emotions come back – thank you, stupid heart – and I trudged upstairs to go and throw the other letter away since it dawned on me that it was still in the windowseat.

I picked up the other letter and started to walk to the trashcan when I paused.  I could have sworn – I could have sworn that I’d used blue ink on the letter, not black.  I’d switched pens between them and – oh no.

I ripped open the letter and stared at in dismay.

I’d sent Nathan the wrong letter.

~~~~

Once I stopped my brain from malfunctioning, I thought about running to Riven and seeing if he could call Ren and try to get him not to deliver the letter.  Wait, no, Riven was working on his paper now, I didn’t want to interrupt him, plus he might not want to disturb Ren’s work, which made sense.  What do I do?  How do I fix this?  I paced back and forth nervously, biting my fingernails.  There had to be something.  Some way to stop this?  Maybe – no, no, I couldn’t look up Nathan’s work, call him, and ask him not to read the letter.  That was – that was too much.  Call Ren?  No, Riven said he was working on an exhibit or something and was busy.  Maybe I could just go to Ren’s workplace and see if he still had the letter myself?  Only – I didn’t know where he was working, where the exhibit place was.

But…I was a shifter.  I could potentially figure out where Ren was.  I hadn’t exactly tried tracking someone in a city and I wasn’t going to be able to run around in fox form, so it might be tough, but it was better than nothing and the only option which didn’t involve interrupting Riven and Ren, right?  Which I really didn’t want to do.  I was trying to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong to make them not like me anymore.  Interrupting their work seemed like the opposite of that.

My mind settled on the only feasible option I could see, I yanked open the guest room door and went barreling down the stairs – straight into Nathan.

Apparently he’d let himself in and was about to come up the stairs, and by the time I’d realized he was there it was too late.

He let out a startled “oof” when I hit him, but managed to catch me and not let either of us fall over.

“Miles?  Are you okay?  What’s the hurry?”

Nooooo.  He – he must have gotten it already.

My shoulders slumped.  “Ren gave you the letter, didn’t he?”  I whispered.

“Yes?”  Nathan’s tone was tentative.  “I was actually here to talk to you about that.”

“It’s – it was the wrong letter.”  I told him miserably.

“The wrong – you wrote more than one letter?  What did the other one say?”

I didn’t answer, but I was still holding it in my hand, so he gently pried it out of my fingers and read it, a furrow appearing between his brows.  For a few minutes, he didn’t say anything, and then he motioned towards the back yard.  “Let’s go have a chat.”

It didn’t seem like a suggestion, so I grudgingly obeyed, trailing after him to sit on the bench by the tree where we’d sat some time ago.

We were both silent for a bit, me looking down and not really wanting to see his face.  He was holding both of the letters and I got the impression he was reading them again before he looked over at me.

“I want to make one thing very clear,” he told me, his voice uncharacteristically firm, “you are not responsible for me being hurt.  You shouldn’t feel guilty about it, shouldn’t feel like you got me hurt, and shouldn’t feel like it’s your responsibility.  You’re not a dangerous friend to have and I’m not looking for ‘safer’ friends.  I want to keep you as my friend.  I would hope that would be obvious by now,” he said wryly.  “I’ve been trying to befriend you since we first met.  And I thought it would be obvious that I care even by what happened then – I chose to get involved, chose to risk getting hurt because I wanted to protect you.  So, no, I refuse to give up on our friendship just because some jerk on a power trip decided to hurt me to try to get to you.  I’d do it again if I needed to.  I’m honestly just glad you’re safe – I was really worried there that Riven wasn’t going to get there in time.”

“Why – why call Riven?  He shouldn’t have been put in danger.”

“I knew he was meeting up with Beatrice at the time,” Nathan explained.  “I suppose it might have made more sense to call Sorrel or Ren, fairies specialize in dealing with shifters like that, but since Riven and Beatrice would be closer I knew they would get there faster.”

I still wished Riven hadn’t been in danger, although he had told me he wasn’t actually in danger thanks to his protection mark, so maybe it was okay that Nathan had called him.

I wrapped my arms around myself, still not quite looking at him.  I was afraid of what I’d see on his face.  “Thank you for calling them – and recording the conversation.  And for standing up for me.”

He laid a hand on my shoulder, and this time, when I tensed, he didn’t move it.  Instead, he slid his other hand up and took my chin in his fingers, forcing me to look at him.

I did so very, very reluctantly, afraid of meeting his eyes, afraid of seeing the disappointment or disgust that had been missing that night but might be present now.

“Oh Miles,” he whispered gently when I finally looked at him, his face soft with concern, “please don’t be afraid of me.  I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m afraid of hurting you,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears again.  “Or rather, getting you hurt again.”

He slid his hand off my face to my other shoulder and then pulled me into a hug.

My brain stopped functioning.  What – what do I do now?

“You won’t get me hurt,” he whispered, one hand gently stroking my head, “it’s okay.  Please don’t push me away because of him.  I care about you.  To be honest, I don’t make new friends easily, but I’m kind of stubborn about becoming friends once I’ve made up my mind on the subject.  Ask Riven if you doubt me – he was wary of me at first, too.  Well, he was wary of all supernaturals, really.  Point is, I have no intention of allowing you to retract our friendship, at least not if it’s because your ex made you afraid of prey shifters or because he taught you that things he does are somehow your fault.  It’s not true.  What he does is on his own head, plus, I dove in fully knowing the risks.  It is not your fault.”

He still hadn’t let me go, and I knew my tears were soaking his shirt.  I wished I was better at controlling them, but the only thing I could control about my tears was making sure they were quiet.

“Tell me something,” his vice was soft in my ear, his arms still holding me firmly against him, “if I weren’t a rabbit shifter and you weren’t a fox – would you still say we shouldn’t be friends?”

I blinked.  “Well…no?”

“Then that’s not a good enough reason.  We can’t change our species – honestly, I would if it would make you more comfortable – but we can definitely be friends with anyone, regardless of their species.  You find the right person, find someone you enjoy being with, the species shouldn’t matter.”  He pulled back just enough to look me in the face.  “Understand?”

I did, but…I didn’t entirely agree.  “What if I get you hurt again?”  I whispered.

Nathan shook his head.  “Stop thinking like that.  You’re thinking you’re responsible for what happened and you’re not.  You’re also focused on the negative possibilities.  Your ex is in prison now, and he’s not getting out.  There’s no reason for me to get hurt again, but if I need to risk it to protect you?  I will risk it.  And that’s my choice, it isn’t your responsibility.”

I wavered.  “But – ”

“No.”  Nathan said firmly.

I looked at him in surprise.  “But – !”

“No,” he repeated, interrupting me.

But I hadn’t even said anything!  How did he know if it was a good argument or not?

“Nathan – ”

“No, Miles.  I’m not accepting any other answer than that you’ll give up on this idea that it was your fault I got hurt and that somehow I won’t get hurt again if we’re not friends.  You know the time I was attacked by a feral wolf shifter, I was a lot closer to dying and would have died if Riven hadn’t come along – and that had nothing to do with you?  You not being friends with me won’t magically protect me from getting hurt.  The only thing it will do is hurt my feelings because I don’t want to lose my friend.”

I blinked.  Wait, but – not being friends would hurt him?  Wouldn’t – but I didn’t want to hurt him!  Physically or emotionally!

“Miles,” he told me, looking straight into my eyes, “are you going to cooperate and stay my friend or do I need to recruit Riven?

“What would Riven do?”  I asked curiously.

He blew a strand of hair out of his eyes.  “Honestly, no idea.  Talk to us?  I was just trying to come up with a threat you’d listen to.”

I laughed.  I couldn’t help it.

Nathan cheered up at that and smiled at me warmly.  “Does that mean you’ll give in?”

I bit my lip, looking at him shyly, well aware his arms were still wrapped around me for some reason.  “I – it sounds like you’re not giving me much of a choice.”

“That’s the goal,” he agreed.  “I have plans for us, anyway.”

Us?  Like – no, no, he couldn’t mean that.

“I’ve decided to quit my job,” Nathan explained before I could fully overthink that comment, “and start a daycare like I always wanted.  I’ve decided I spent enough time holding back for something that was never going to happen.  I want to focus on me now, do what I always really wanted to do.  I plan to cater mostly to supernatural kids, because there isn’t anyone in the city that does that and supernatural kids sometimes need, uh, extra help.  And I want you to help me.  You’re good with kids, you even have a degree in it, so I was hoping you’d be willing to help me.”

Of course, he wasn’t talking about us like a relationship – that was stupid of me to even think of that – he meant as a friendship, as work partners.

But it was hard to be disappointed in the opportunity he was suggesting.  “You want me to work for you?”

He shrugged.  “I was thinking more like with me.  Fair warning, you would end up being around prey shifter kids, but I can promise they won’t bite you.  Oh, wait, no, I can’t promise that, young ones might,” he mused to himself.  “Okay, I can promise they won’t seriously injure you.  And you might get a chance to help young prey and predator shifters learn to be friends and decide there’s not really such a difference between them after all.”

“Kids are okay,” I murmured.  “Even the prey shifters.  They’re – they’re kids.”

Kind of a weird explanation, but Nathan seemed to get it.

“Will you think about it?”  He asked me eagerly.  “You don’t have to tell me now – it’ll be a while before I can even get it started, so you have some time.  I’m going to have to look at some buildings and see if I like the facility and location, and if I can’t find one I’ll like, I’ll just build one.”  He shrugged.  “I’ve been saving money for about 15 years instead of going to school, so at least I have enough to afford that.”

He had finally released me from the hug, but kept one hand resting on my shoulder while he enthusiastically told me his ideas for the place – which included space for shifter children to run, fairy children to grow things, various magic users to practice simple age-appropriate magic, and so on.  He wanted to offer some basic tutoring for the younger ages who might particularly struggle to attend school regularly while they were still working on mastering their abilities – which was part of where I came in.  He was more talkative than normal, more energetic due to his excitement for this idea.

I mean, it sounded great.  Getting to work with kids all day, ones who we didn’t have to hide we were supernaturals from, either, and even getting to teach one-on-one.  I honestly could have given Nathan an answer now if I wasn’t so nervous about the idea.