Designated
	The only mercy that Jefferson McConnehy received upon waking was that awareness came to him so very, very slowly. Apart from that, every possible cliché and demonic visitation of distilled grains rejoiced loudly in their mutual company, recreating a grotesque parody of previous indulgences in the tormented head of the young panther, who moaned in pain until he realized that moaning, too, caused pain. There was no adequate way to describe his misery, at least not aloud, so he gave himself over to the ordinary agonies of feeling his own pulse pounding in his head, his ordinarily rasping tongue glued to the roof of his maw, and the overall sense that surely death would be a proper release from this hellspawn of a hangover.
	“Are we awake?”
	The voice was soft, probably, but it still grated on his oversensitive ears. He made the foolish mistake of trying to open his eyes; even though his room was dark, the minimal light still stung, damn his sensitive feline eyes. He started to grunt again, thought better of the idea. He managed a non-committal noise, trying to get whoever it was to let him just go back to sleep, if that were possible through the resounding timpani inside his skull. He tried to roll over and get back under the covers only to discover that his movements were somewhat restricted by the other person in the bed. There shouldn’t have been anyone else in the bed, despite the panther’s reputation and rate of success. Even in his rowdiest college days, he remembered who he took to bed, even through hangovers; it was bad form not to remember the female’s name the next day. And he wouldn’t have taken just anyone to bed, and even if he had taken someone to bed, it wouldn’t be who he found there.
	The old black bear might have been the panther’s weight or more, but it was belly instead of muscle. Even more, the bear was at least twice his age, at a quick glance. And still more than that, the bear was male.
	Had he been capable, Jefferson would have rolled out of bed, leapt to his hindpaws, and run a dozen kilometers in under three seconds (just shy of escape velocity). In his weakened condition, he could only stare through eyes that felt more like round razor blades, making something like a whimpering noise.
	“I’ll take that as a yes.” Again, the voice was as quiet as possible. “You probably can’t think yet, so I’m going to limit your options. You need to rehydrate. Three choices. One: Alka-Seltzer and ginger ale; works well, and you get some amazing belches out of it. Two: Gatorade soft-chug; not as tasty, but it’s effective. Three: Banana bag, fast drip, with 650mg a.s.a. IV push.” The bear looked into the panther’s eyes. “The answer is, yes, in the car, and I’m a registered nurse. Finding a vein when you’re dehydrated is its own challenge, and it might take a few tries, but at least you don’t have to worry about your stomach rebelling this early. Oh, and speaking of rebellion, how’s your bladder?”
	Until it had been mentioned, his bladder might have slept more soundly than he had himself. Now, as if the damned thing were answering roll call, he found himself seriously in need of expelling an estimable quantity of fluid. The next issue was whether or not he could make it to the bathroom without falling all over himself. This wasn’t his first hangover, but it was in the running for a slot in the top three, even taking into account that frat kegger in his freshman year at uni, and that was almost ten years ago.
	“I’ll help you up.”
	Shifting as gently as possible on the bed, the bear got to his hindpaws. Jefferson noted, with a horror that penetrated even this pain in every part of his body, that the old guy was starkers, and apparently not the least bit shy about it. In the next moment, as the ursine stepped around to the panther’s side of the bed, the big cat realized that he too was buffo.
	The black bear waved a paw. “Nothing I haven’t seen before. I’m a nurse, not an opportunist.” After another moment, the bear put both forepaws to his prodigiously apportioned hips. “I can get a bottle and milk you like a Guernsey, if you’d prefer.”
	“Stop. Just… stop.” Not usually all that shy, the panther gave up and threw the covers off of himself. He forced himself to ignore the scent of flop-sweat and… no, just flop-sweat, that’s all it was (holy gods, he stank like hell, he hadn’t pissed himself, had he?). He managed to sit up on his own, but staying even that vertical required the bear’s help. Forepaws to his head, as if to ensure that whatever was left of his brains didn’t ooze out his ears, the panther moaned lowly, realizing that at least he could do that without needing to silence himself as he had before. Either he was getting used to the pain, or it was backing down a little. Hating himself for needing it, he accepted the bear’s wordless help in standing, his help in controlling the swaying, and even his help in getting to the bathroom. Once there, the great black cat hesitated. “D’ya mind?” he said.
	“Not at all,” said the bear, moving to stand behind him, placing one arm around the muscular panther’s middle. “This is only to help you stand, unless you want help aiming also.”
	“I got this, I got it,” the feline insisted, still freaked out but too weak to fight off what was needed. He put one forepaw flat to the wall, the other to his semi-flaccid member, and willed himself not to be pee-shy. The pressure helped him forget that he was being held from behind by a fat old black bear who was, despite Jefferson’s unuttered protests, helping to prevent the room from spinning completely out of control. Drips became spurts and finally a stream. Despite it taking a while, the bear made no comment, showed no signs of irritation, impatience, or anything else. The panther managed to finish, then flushed and did his best to stand fully upright. The bathroom floor didn’t cooperate, and he ended up accepting the help back to bed, where he sat, back to the wall in the darkened room, still not sure what the hell was going on.
	“Stay put,” the bear admonished, moving his lard ass out of the room to (by the sound of it) the kitchen. When he returned a few seconds later, he had a large bottle of the famous sports drink in one paw and a pill bottle in the other. He passed the first bottle to the feline. “Judging by the notoriety of your eating habits,” the ursine observed, still sotto voce, “your stomach will probably hold that down well enough. Just don’t gulp, at least not yet.”
	Jefferson took the cold liter-sized bottle into his forepaw. It was the default green “flavor,” that word being used about as cautiously as he took his first sip. The bear opened the pill bottle and shook out three of the pills, handing them to the feline.
	“What’s that?”
	“A.S.A., or to the layman who can’t pronounce ‘acetate of salicylic acid,’ aspirin. Unless you’re allergic, the old stuff is still better for a hangover than anything else. Two might do, but three won’t hurt you, and you probably need it. Enteric-coated, if you’re worried about stomach ulcers, but your friends say that you practically gargle sauces well over 40,000 Scovilles, so I figure you’ve probably got a cast-iron gut.”
	“Why should I—”
	“—trust me? Here. Check the bottle. All the tablets are the same. You can’t know if I haven’t soaked all of them in LSD or something, but I really don’t think that’s what’s worrying you. C’mon, down the hatch. They’ll help.”
	The panther would never have been able to say why he chugged the pills with some Gatorade (which could have been poisoned, for all he knew). He’d heard the term “Florence Nightingale” from somewhere, although this fat bastard was a damn sight bigger than any nightingale that ever was.
	“You’re looking at least a little better. Keep sipping at that Gatorade; take it slowly, but keep going. I’ll answer some of your questions.”
	“What questions?”
	“Ones like, why did I wake up with a bear in my bed?” The big black bear smiled, just a little too predatory for Jefferson’s liking. “I drove you home last night, made sure you were safe. Sorry about the clothes, but you really needed to get them off, and like I said, I’m a nurse, so quit worrying. My name is Tyree, although most call me Ty, or even just Bear. Now: How much do you remember?”
	“Too much. Not enough.” The panther kept working at the slime-colored water, not liking it much but having the feeling that it might actually be helping. If nothing else, his tongue was no longer glued to the roof of his maw, and that was comfort enough to start with.
	“Not like you to guzzle so much booze, I’m told.”
	“Who told?”
	“Your friends. Wally got a call, and he called the others – Frank, Terry… Brian, I think?”
	“I called Wally?”
	Ty considered for a long moment. “What do you remember?”
	“Enough to know I’m straight, so what the hell—”
	“Of course you’re straight; never thought otherwise.”
	The panther looked at the bear with the barriers of suspicion still raised. “Then what the hell were you—”
	“Beverly.”
	The ability to speak left the panther for what felt like several minutes but was probably less than one. “What do you know about Bev?”
	“What do you know?”
	“She’s my girlfriend.”
	“Yes.”
	“What’s that mean?”
	“It means you’re still not remembering. Is that simple denial or retrograde from the shock, I wonder…”
	Jefferson leaned forward sharply, instantly regretting the movement – too much too soon. His snarling headache kicked up a notch. He closed his eyes against the pain, felt a large paw on his shoulder. It neither pushed nor pulled, this large black paw with the claws resting gently on his back, but simply held him steady as he tried to make the room stop being silly. After a moment, under his own power, he leaned back against the wall, regarding the bear with still more suspicion.
	“Beverly Rehnquist, as I recall. No relation to the former Chief Justice.” The bear considered, looking (to Jefferson’s still-aching eyes) smug. “Wally tells me that you’re very serious about her.”
	“Yeah, I’m serious. Like, fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of rock serious.”
	“That’s a lot for a lab tech.”
	“You could do better?”
	The bear raised a placating paw. “Not what I was trying to say at all. I’m just saying that you are clearly serious.” He lowered the paw, looking smug again, or at least that’s how Jefferson took it.
	“Look,” the panther said, “I’m up, drinking the swill, and I’ll recover, like I always have. Why don’t you just go?”
	“Because you’re not recovered yet.”
	“I don’t need a fag to wet-nurse me.”
	“What makes you think I’m gay?”
	“Because you’re naked in my bed, that’s why!” The panther put a forepaw to his head again, his tail-tip thapping against the bed in irritation, even though he tried to still it. Every tap hurt. Hell, his fur hurt. He couldn’t remember having had a hangover quite this persistent before. “Shit, I must have been loaded.”
	“Worse. You were drinking a vicious mixture of grains, on an empty stomach. No idea when you ate last.”
	“What are you talking about? Dammit, why don’t you just—”
	“We were speaking of Beverly.” The bear looked at him steadily. “I never met her. Tell me about her.”
	“She’s the best of everything, and I’m going to marry her.”
	“Keep going.”
	Jefferson wished he’d get over this hangover fast enough to beat the crap out of the pretentious, ugly ursine, but he played the game a little further. “She’s puma. She’s beautiful, smart, got a good job, and she’s great in bed.” This last had no effect on the bear, but it did make the panther realize that he’d cheapened her. That wasn’t what he wanted. “She’s the most tender lover I’ve ever known,” he said softly. “She never treated me bad, never ran around, never… she’s perfect, and she said I was about the only one of her boyfriends that she didn’t have any worries about showing off to her parents.”
	“That’s a pretty strong recommendation,” the bear observed, his voice still soft.
	“We’ve been together almost a year. I’d been saving up like crazy, finally got half of that rock paid off, and they let me have credit for the rest.”
	“You sound very sure.”
	“I’ve been sure for months. I’ve never wanted anyone so…” He blinked, looked at the bear as hard as he could. “You try to wreck it between us, so help me, I’ll—”
	“I have no such desire, Jefferson.” The old guy’s eyes were steady. “I can promise you that I will never tell her anything about your… indulgences last night. I got you back here safely, to make sure that you’re all right. I usually get that duty. I’m the designated.”
	“Not a drinker, huh?”
	“No.”
	The panther, an ear twitching self-consciously, regarded the bottle in his paw, forced down another swig. Say what you want about the crap, it had a good effect when you took it like medicine. “I guess I should thank you for getting me home.”
	Tyree – what a fag name – said nothing.
	“I guess I must have been celebrating pretty hard.”
	“When are you going to propose?”
	“Tonight. I’m going to see her tonight. She was busy last night, she had to—”
	Had to what? The feline considered with whatever parts of his brain were back online. He raised a forepaw to his forehead and rubbed, very gently. His fur was able to withstand the touch, so there might actually be hope after all. Hope for getting fully sober and staying that way. Beverly never said a word about his drinking, because it didn’t really happen much, and it was never… okay, almost never this bad. She’d seen one bit of a bender, and she wasn’t at all happy about it, but she didn’t leave him. She didn’t even ask him to give up booze, just dial it back, not to have so much of it. Even she enjoyed a cocktail once in a while, just for a change, but she never believed in excessive use. Something about being careful about it, about not abusing…
	“What did she have to do that night, Jefferson?”
	“Busy, she had to… she couldn’t meet me, had to work late…”
	“How did she let you know?”
	“I got a call…”
	He was at the lab at the time, and he got a call. He got a call from…
	“Wally called me.”
	The bear only nodded, which made the panther stop and look more carefully.
	It was Wally who called, not Bev. Why would he be the one to call, what did he have to do with Beverly…
	“Jefferson?” the bear called softly. “What are you remembering?”
	“Wally called. He called me, to tell me that Bev was…”
	“Why would Wally have called you?”
	“He and Bev work together. It’s how I met her. Wally’s been my best friend for years, and Bev worked… they had met at college, years ago, and she moved away for a while, came back, got this job with Wally, and they were friends still, and Wally introduced us…”
	“That’s how good relationships start.”
	Jefferson was trying to work something out. His brain was still knotted up like an overstressed muscle. “A year next week,” he said softly. “Was gonna wait, but I just wanted to, you know, surprise her. Anniversaries are easy to guess, so I figured she wouldn’t know what it was about until I actually gave it to her.”
	“Tonight.”
	“Yeah, tonight.”
	“A Sunday?”
	The panther blinked slowly, his eyelids sandpaper against his swollen eyeballs. “No, Friday. Today’s Friday.”
	“It’s Sunday.”
	“Are you fukkin’ nuts? I called her up Thursday, wanted to see her in person, make the arrangements for tonight…”
	“For Friday night.”
	“That’s tonight! It can’t be—”
	The bear reached around to the bedside table and picked up something. Jefferson’s phone. The cat took it in his paws and saw the time and date.
	“…Sunday.”
	The old fat bastard had nothing to say to this. He just kept looking at Jefferson with some kind of look at the feline couldn’t read. Not for lack of trying; more like for lack of brain power. Nothing made any sense, nothing pushed through, nothing…
	“How are you feeling?”
	The question was soft, the look on the bear’s face almost sympathetic, probably making some play for him. Jefferson wasn’t having any. “Look, what’s this about? What are you doing here?”
	“I told you before. Wally called me.”
	“Yeah, I know, you got me home, so I wouldn’t drive.”
	“Partly,” he nodded.
	“You work with Wally too?”
	“No. We met… another time. Let’s get back to you. What’s the last thing you remember?”
	“I told you, I’d called Bev to try to see her, arrange for—”
	“That was Thursday. It’s Sunday morning. What else do you remember?”
	Jefferson held his head in his forepaws, trying to force himself to think. The pain in his skull was starting to back off slightly by this time, but somehow that didn’t seem to help. “Hurts too much to think.”
	“Probably more than you realize.”
	“Will you quit playing games?” Despite the hurt, the panther lunged out at the fat-assed black bear, who was quicker than he seemed. Jefferson was strong, and he was pissed off, but the bear still held his wrists in an iron grip. “Who the hell are you? What do you want from me? What do you…”
	He stopped shouting. Stripes. He saw stripes. Stripes of death’s-head white fur, in parallel lines down each of the bear’s wrists, about 8cm long, toward the elbow, perpendicular to the wrists. Even through his pain-benumbed brain, the significance wasn’t lost on him.
	“I see you’ve noticed my souvenirs,” the old bear said. “Are you going to stop fighting me now?”
	Slowly, Jefferson let his arms go limp, and he felt the large black forepaws loosen their grip and release him. As wretched as he felt, something in him held the bear’s dark eyes, a chunk of something like sympathy detaching itself from the rest of his pain. “Was it…?”
	“Yes.”
	He swallowed. “What happened?”
	“Adjusting for inflation, fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of rock. Not mine, though. I was saving to buy it for him, but he decided that he’d rather have a safe life than a true one. He already had his sainted mother’s ring. I’d arranged for our anniversary dinner, at a very nice restaurant, and he stood me up in order to give the ring to the female who would become his beard, as the old saying has it. Invited me to the wedding, which was the crowning touch. Generously gave me dispensation not to buy a present, since I was strapped with medical and legal bills. Suicide is not a crime, but attempted suicide is. One of the downsides of surviving the attempt, quite apart from the hospital and follow-up issues, and let’s not forget being listed publically on the Internet along with registered sex offenders and people with bad credit ratings. What with social and economic ostracizing, it’s better all around if you get it right the first time. The way things are, you can get away with murdering someone else more easily than you can get away with trying to murder yourself. Strange how that works.”
	The panther, who said nothing for more than a full minute, finally whispered, “I’m sorry.”
	“Thank you. You could call it blood under the bridge now.” The bear rested his forepaws on his legs. “Let’s talk about you.”
	“What’s to talk about?”
	“Your memory loss. Two days’ worth. That’s quite the bender.”
	“I haven’t been drinking for two days.”
	“Not quite.” The bear’s lips pursed as he considered. “You had to have passed out at least once or twice during all that. By the smell of your clothes, I figured you spent more than a little time in an alley somewhere.”
	“What the hell are you… I don’t—”
	The old ursine held up his paws. “I’m not trying to be an ass, although I probably sound like it. Jefferson, you’re still not remembering. I’m going to have to help a little. Wally called me last night because that was how long it took to find you. You’re lucky that Brian, if that’s his name, is something of a hacker. Wally said Brian used your phone to track you by GPS. I’m just glad that you didn’t turn it off.” He nodded his chin toward the device. “Maybe you should check your call history. That might help.”
	Feeling at least slightly more like his properly feline self, Jefferson tapped his phone alive, wincing only a little at the brightness of the screen. He checked a few items first. “I’m leaving it on vibrate,” he said. “My ringtone would probably take my head off.”
	“Wise precaution.”
	His incoming call log showed a dozen or so calls from Wally between late Thursday and mid-evening Saturday… last night. Several texts came from Wally, Frank, Terry, all asking where the hell he was, asking him to text or call; the later pings probably helped them find him. Nothing from Bev. He had an outgoing call to her on Thursday afternoon, to her direct line at the lab. Usually, he called her cell… no, wait, there it was. Three calls to her cell phone, each lasting about long enough to leave a short message. There was one call that he didn’t recognize, incoming, Thursday. The index view only showed the phone number, if the caller wasn’t someone on his list. He tapped the entry to expand it.
	WView Mem Hosp
	Jefferson blinked, as if trying to make the image of the name and number disappear from the touchpad. He noted the date and time on Thursday. There was a sound in the air, something like a whine, a keening. The bed shifted, and he found himself wrapped in the huge embrace of the big black bear, a forepaw to the back of his head, pressing against the ursine’s broad chest, and the sound was quieted by the thick fur as the panther realized that the sound was coming from himself. He dropped the phone, trying first to hit the big fag, to push him away, to make him stop trying to molest him, but the grip was far stronger than the kit could have imagined, and his mind was filled with too many images, too much information, everything that he’d tried so hard to forget in the past few days, the past few liquor-ridden, agony-filled days…
	Time passed, although he couldn’t tell how much. He wanted to pass out, to forget, to sleep again and never wake up, if he could just godsdamned stop… He had no idea when he gone from hitting the bear to clutching him as if never to let go. He could not have said when he had fallen down upon the bed, still in the bear’s embrace and wailed like a kitten lost in the jungles of his ancestors, or just lost in the world itself. He was unaware of how long it took for him to pass from hysterical wailing to merely weeping, soaking the bear’s thick black pelt with his pain. Through it all, the ursine… Tyree, through it all, Tyree had said nothing, done nothing but hold him, as if trying to keep his body and spirit united with nothing more than the brute force of his powerful arms, wrapped in black bear, held fast, never letting go.
	Weak beyond imagining, Jefferson did finally manage to look into the bear’s eyes. Dark amber, soft, accepting, understanding. Hardly moving his lips, Ty whispered, “You remember.”
	“Damn you,” the panther said, without strength or emphasis.
	The bear only nodded, still looking the cat in the eyes.
	“Damn you,” he whispered again.
	Ty pet his headfur softly, his expression not changing. After a very long moment, he said, “Let it out, Jefferson. Let it all out.”
	“You made me…”
	The big head shook slowly. “You had to remember, eventually.”
	“Why?”
	“Because your friends are hoping that you want to keep living.”
	“Why should I.” The panther’s tone was flat, without emphasis. “Why should I want to.”
	“I don’t have that answer. I only have my answer.”
	Jefferson’s eyes asked the question for him.
	“Because it would hurt worse to fail again.” The bear sighed. “It’s part of why I do what I do. Why I’m here. Why Wally called me.”
	“Why?”
	“So you could hate me instead of him.” The look in Tyree’s deep amber eyes was terrible, even through the filthy gauze of the panther’s pain. “He wants to help you, but he can’t do that until you’re ready. Until then, there’s me. I’m the one you get to hate for making you remember, so that later, when you’re ready, you can reach out to the friends who love you, who want to help you keep living.” The pained wisp of a ghostly smile touched the bear’s lips. “In some ways, I’m the sin-eater for the living. Curse me all you wish, young panther. I’ll pay your sins for you, in payment of my own.”
	“I don’t understand.”
	“And you won’t. Not for a while.” He picked up the phone where Jefferson had dropped it, used a thumb to find and activate a number. Holding it to his ear for a few moments, the bear finally said, “He’ll be ready for you.” A pause. “I’d say you and Terry both, if you can get him.” Another pause. “Yes, of course. Goodbye.”
	As the bear deactivated the phone, he leaned over the panther and set the device carefully on the nightstand. Jefferson, feeling trapped, heaved heavily against the bear, snarling, spitting, trying to push him out of the bed. Instead, Tyree used his leverage and scooped the cat back into his embrace, his chin to the feline’s shoulder, pressing his cheek hard against the cat’s to avoid the threat of teeth even as sharp claws tried to get a purchase on the black bear’s hide. The struggle persisted for a full minute or more, Jefferson unable to land a blow that seemed to be more than a minor irritation to the bear. Despite the howls of outrage, guttural growls of vicious anger, the snapping of the panther’s maw and the flailing of his forepaws, claws extended and wanting to taste blood, the damned bear just held on, waiting, until finally the sobs broke out again, the howls becoming wailing, the final sense of humiliation, of anguish, of loss… the horrible, soul-consuming loss…
	He pushed feebly against the bear who, this time, let him go, and the kit curled up on his side, facing away from the bear, softly sobbing into the pillow. He remembered everything now, or at least what happened before he tried to kill himself with drink. The call, so respectful, so professional – the ICE listings, top of the list, Jefferson was first to get the news. Details, few but pointed, like razor blades, and the precise, practical expression of sorrow for the loss. Wally, also on the ICE list, Wally trying to get hold of him as Jefferson raced to the hospital, sure it had to be a mistake. Being warned against looking, yet being needed to confirm the identity. The injuries to the face were less than those to the rest of the sweet puma’s body, and they kept the sheet over most of her, her limp tail carelessly left hanging over the edge of the table. No one arrested, hit-and-run, we’re so sorry for your loss.
	Noise at the door, someone coming in, padding into the bedroom, voices, several voices, soft, not sure quite what to say or do. The bear saying something to them, one of them – Wally? – something about injuries. Weight shifting on the bed, the big bear leaving, someone else coming to sit closer.
	“Jefferson?” Terry’s voice. A forepaw reached out to touch the panther’s headfur gently. The panther was too exhausted to resist. “Jeff? We’re here now. It’s gonna be okay. I know that sounds shit, but you’re gonna be okay.”
	“Never.”
	“I know.” Terry gripped the panther’s shoulder. The mouse was a few years younger in age, his voice sounding far older in experience. “I know.”
	Time passing. The front door opening, closing. Pawsteps padding softly back into the room. Wally came around to the panther’s side of the bed, flopping on the floor, looking at him as if he might cry as well. “Gods, I’m so sorry, Jeff.”
	“What would you know.”
	“More’n ya think, kit. It’s why I had Tyree stay with you. I knew he’d keep you safe. Like he did me.”
	Jefferson blinked. “What… I don’t…”
	“Don’t look for the scars on me, mate. They’re all inside.” The Husky’s crystalline blue eyes glazed very slightly. “Blades leave marks; oxycontin patches don’t. Fifteen of ‘em. Cost like hell on the street, but I had good connections in bad places, in those days. It was Tyree brought me back.”
	“Does he make a living out of being the designated driver?”
	“Not driver.” The young canine looked into the panther’s eyes. “Tyree is the designated suicide watch.”
	“Ever since he came back from his own try,” Terry said. He managed a small smile. “You hate him, don’t you?”
	Jefferson said nothing.
	“I know I did. So did Wally. That’s his job. Having someone to hate, to blame, is always the first reaction. Wally was patches; I was pills. I woke up, hating everything, wanting to kill someone else because I couldn’t kill myself. I hated Tyree for months.”
	“Almost a year for me,” Wally admitted. “If it makes you feel any better, you drew blood.”
	“What?” The panther’s eyes were wide. “I didn’t… I couldn’t have…”
	“He’s not invulnerable. We patched him up before he left.” The Husky reached up to take the panther’s forepaw into his own. “We’re here to help now.”
	The feline felt his fur crawl, wanting only to shut off his mind, once and for all. He closed his eyes, felt the Husky’s grip tighten.
	“You’re gonna pull through this, Jeff. We’re gonna get you through this.”
	“Why,” the panther whispered.
	“You won’t know that for a while.”
	“It’s the process,” the mouse said softly. “We learned it the hard way. First is nothing; then comes anguish; then comes anger; then there’s another nothing, but it’s different. At first, you think it’s a void that can never be filled. You think that your hate and your anger and your nothing is all that’s left. It’s only later that you start looking at things that are still there, that you’re not as empty as you thought. And you start pushing the hate away, because there’s less and less room for it.”
	“Shit.”
	Wally nodded. “That’s what we said. And here we are.”
	Jefferson couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea, but he had to fight against it anyway. “So what’s with the bear? Why does he let himself get beat up like that?”
	“Because he knows what it’s like to come back without help.”
	Terry gripped the panther’s shoulder. “You’ve got help. We won’t let you down.”
	The panther closed his eyes, fighting back tears, piling on the rage that he felt for the godsdamned bear who couldn’t just let well enough alone…
* * * * * * * * * *
	The large black bear, having left his completed task, parked his car where it wouldn’t be interfered with and walked through the Sunday morning rain, coatless, bandaged, soaked to the bone, not paying much attention to it. No one else seemed to be up and about, particularly in this part of town. He walked without hurry to a very quiet corner of the cemetery. He found the plain marker, unadorned, forgotten. He sat down upon the wet ground, staring at the name and the dates on the plaque. After a long moment, he looked up and let the rain wash away the tears he could no longer shed. He would wait for as long as it took before he was needed again.
	The white streaks on his wrists matted, glistened, gave bloody testament, as he paid yet once more for his sins.