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Sasha

This chick...

"Kelly? How do you know us again?" I asked, trying to keep pace with the ermine.

"Lee," she simply said.

"How do you know Lee?"

"Ren-Fair."

"Ren-what?"

I heard Red panting. I kept forgetting he couldn't keep up with us. I'd pause to wait every so often when the clack of his crutches grew too faint, but eventually he just shook his head and told me that he'd get there eventually.

"The waiting room isn't that far," Kelly called over her shoulder. Red grunted and I smiled at him.

I didn't want to leave him behind, but I knew he wanted to find out what happened just as badly as I did. His tail wagged as I waved then turned to follow Kelly, already a good ways away. I was surprised that the coffee she had wasn't spilling. Still, I was glad we ran into her.

Red's mother had dropped us off at the hospital earlier (which probably wasn't the safest thing considering she'd had a few mojitos too many), and Red and I babbled with a mouse attending nurse for a good while in an attempt to figure out what had happened. We asked about Lee, but she couldn't tell us anything and couldn't find anything on her all-knowing computer screen about our shepherd. But, after Red gave the nurse a last name (duh) we got some results.

"A Mr. Percival Hawthorne was admitted into the OR at eight o'clock," she'd said, clearly aggravated. She'd tweaked her button nose and stared hard at us, cocking an eyebrow. I'd felt like taking the ink pen chained to the desk in front of me and jamming it up...

"Uncle Arthur?" Red asked. He'd crutched closer, shaking a bit. "What happened?"

"I'm afraid I can't divulge a patient's information to anyone unless they're an immediate family member," hateful mouse-nurse had rambled robotically. Crowley had pretty much said the same when we'd asked about the "accident" before he raced out of Red's house.

But at least we knew where to find Lee. The nurse had pointed us in the direction of the OR's waiting room, but she could've at least faked a smile while doing it. We'd inched through the hospital, following the signs on the walls to the best of our abilities, but we'd clearly gotten lost.

When we'd stopped to get our bearings we were outside of the cafeteria. Red was getting tired from hobbling all over the place. I'd thought about asking for a wheelchair, but instead I opted to ask a nurse going into the cafeteria for directions. He pointed us toward the OR (we were on the wrong side of the hospital!) and we were about to set off when...

"WHOA! Hey, guys!"

Enter a pretty ermine with a pawful of coffee. She'd tromped out of the cafeteria like she knew us, flicking her pretty black hair over her shoulder. Apparently she was with Lee; She'd gotten the coffee for him, a few protein bars, too. And she offered to take us to him, much to our relief. We'd followed, of course. Red bombarded her with questions about what happened to Lee's uncle, but she couldn't tell us much.

Now, here I was trying to keep up with her still. She could power walk like no one I'd ever seen, her elegant tail swirling behind her like a ribbon.

"So," I barked, lunging and getting next to her. "Please tell me everything's alright? Lee..."

"He's fine, foxy," she said, blue eyes forward and unblinking. She then glanced at me and winked, but she frowned afterward. "I mean he isn't hurt. He's hurting, but..."

"I get it," I said.

Red told me about Lee's uncle a bit while walking around, before we found Kelly...or Kelly found us. Whatever. I didn't have any uncles (my dad was an only child, and my mom has her sister), but I still felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of Lee possibly losing someone he loved, someone who had raised him apparently. From what Red said, Arthur was more of a father than Lee's actual dad. He didn't even bother telling me anything about Lee's mother. He'd just shuddered. I didn't know Lee had such a dysfunctional relationship with his parents, preferring life with his uncle over them, but it made since now that I thought about it: his reluctance to be honest with Red, his reclusiveness, his pain. He wasn't able to be himself with his mom and dad. I couldn't help but wonder if they were that awful. I reckoned so, especially after what he'd said at the Haunt when I'd pressed him about his reasoning behind getting upset with Red. I didn't get it then, but I was slowly grasping the truth of the matter, the fingers of my mind closing around those words he spoke.

"Y...you wouldn't understand. He... Hell, I don't even...understand it myself."

His parent's had hurt him. Or I guessed they did.

Kelly slowed a little, turning right down a corridor with glass all along the right side and revealing a garden. Benches were set up here and there outside around a fountain, and broad-leafed plants, trees, shrubs, and some weird salmon-colored flowers created a mini oasis for people to relax in. I only saw one guy out there, though, a lizard of some kind in a thick parka. He was smoking. He tapped the ashes from his cigarette into the fountain when Kelly called after me. She'd turned again--left this time--and I'd kept going. I backtracked to find her paused. She wanted to wait for Red, who couldn't have been far behind, as the waiting room was just down the hall. She pointed with a coffee-latent paw and a drop fell to the floor.

"Whoops," she said, her ears fluttering. "You wanna' go ahead? I'll wait for..."

"No. That's alright," I said. "I want to go in together."

"Okey-dokey."

I put my hands into the pouch of my track hoody and strained my ears to pick up the telltale clack, clack of Red's crutches. Kelly shuffled about and took a sip of one of the coffees. I watched her as she directed her own attention toward me, a smile curling up at the corner of her mouth, black lips glossy against the white of her fur. Awkwardly, I cleared my throat. She offered me her cup. I just shook my head and she shrugged, taking another sip.

She was a pretty thing, that was certain; stylish, too. She had a dark, punk thing going on that really set her apart: black, studded jacket with a massive hood, purple plaid skirt over some black tights, matching plaid socks poking out of some tall, biker looking boots with silver clasps. I never would've thought that Lee would have a friend like her. She didn't seem his type. She looked too...aggressive. Plus, I'd never seen her around school. I wondered if Lee confided in her. She knew him pretty well, apparently, no matter if they didn't seem a fit match. Did she know anything about his folks?

I leaned against the wall, flicking my tail into my paw and stroking the end of it. Some shed hairs came out and I tossed them aside. "You said you met Lee where, again?"

She swallowed and smacked her lips. She loved coffee as much as me apparently.

"At a renaissance fair a month ago," she said. Her eyes squinted as she smiled toothily. "I saved his ass from a mob of cock-hungry maidens." She laughed. I let out a hot breath.

"Oh." I eyed the curvature of her breasts. "That was...nice of you." I met her gaze and flicked my left ear. "So you know Arthur then, too?"

Sadness washed over her face. "Yeah. He's a wonderful man." She let out sigh and her tail drooped over her boots. "God, he'd better be alright. I don't know what Lee will do without him."

"What about his parents?"

The mask of sadness remained, but a spark of anger lit up in her eyes. "I haven't had the--uh--pleasure of meeting them yet." She smiled; a snarl, really. "Probably wouldn't be the best idea."

Huh. Good job Sasha at making things awkward. Minus 5 charisma points.

The hall was silent for a while. Kelly leaned against the wall beside me, and I just stared at my feet and tried to think of something non-touchy to talk about.

"Uh, so--" I said. "Saving Lee from getting raped, huh? Sounds exciting."

She smirked. "It was an accident really." She lolled her head back, grinning for real this time. Her hair slithered down her back, shimmering like obsidian. "He was desperate and ran into my tent to hide."

I dropped my tail. "So you, like, dress up too?"

"Yep," she chirped, her cheeks flushing. "In more ways than one."

Okay. Whatever that means.

"What do you do there? At the fair?"

"I'm a fortune teller."

I almost laughed. God I would've hated myself had I let it out. "For real?"

She nodded and stepped closer to me. I kind of wanted to scoot away but didn't. I was mesmerized. Well, that and I didn't know what to do as she sat the coffee in her right hand down on the floor and reached for my left arm. I let her pull out my paw, and she leaned over and examined the palm closely.

Was she serious?

"Consider this reading a freebie," she said, grinning up at me. "For making a new friend."

Yay friendship! I think.

She squeezed my paw a bit and the wrinkles running through my palm deepened. Her eyes roved over them, deciphering some mystical message traced into my flesh. My brow furrowed as I watched. She was serious about this. She clicked her tongue, mmhmm'ed, and then looked up at me.

I felt uneasy.

"You're quite the complex fox, Sasha." She had a look of all-knowingness on her face, her eyes glittering.

I held my palm close to my face and felt my ears pin flat against my skull. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, first, a little palm reading 101." She took my paw again and traced a claw over the topmost line. "This is your heart line. It relates your emotional stability, romantic ideals, depression, and cardiac health." She traced over a line right beneath the heart line that curved down and stopped short beneath my ring finger. "Your head line relates your style of learning, intellectualism, and thirst for knowledge." The next line began near my thumb and curved steeply toward my wrist. "Your life line reflects physical health, well-being, and major life changes. And this line--" My entire hand tingled as she traced a line starting at the bottom of my palm and running through the middle. "This is your fate line. It indicates how much of your life is influenced by external forces beyond your control."

I just looked dumbly at her. I'd just have to take her word on this.

"Anyway," she continued. She traced a circle around my palm and squeezed my fingers, spreading them apart and looking carefully at them. "Your hands are of the water, fingers long and elegant." She roved over my lines again. "You're a very emotional guy, imaginative and artistic, but really sensitive. Your heart line reads that you fall in love easily--"

My face scrunched as I stared at my palm. Right so far, I guess, but..."How'd you get that last bit? About love?"

She tapped the beginning of my heart line in between my index and middle finger. "It begins between these two fingers here--"

"Okay." Because that explained it.

"--and it's long and curvy. That indicates you express your feelings easily and are subject to them more than others. But the line is broken by these small lines here. See? They form a chain?"

I nodded. I'd never noticed that before, the lines weaving through one another like that.

"The breaks mean you've suffered great emotional trauma, but the chain they form signifies that those traumas are linked to who you are as a loving individual. They've formed you." She looked up from my palm and smiled. "You see? You're bound by your heart."

My mouth had gone dry. How the hell did she know all of that from some wrinkles in my hand?

Then she curled my fingers and patted my paw before tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear. "Lee's the same way." She looked at me and her eyes held a spark. Again, it was like she knew something I didn't. "You two have a lot in common. Your fate lines? Remarkably similar. Almost identical." She then peered into her own palm and her eyes seemed to sadden. "I've never seen that before."

"Wha--what do you mean?"

"Whooo!" I jumped as Red came hobbling around the corner, his tongue hanging out and arms draped over his crutches, trembling. "This is embarrassing. I'm worn out."

Kelly giggled. ""Come on, then, big Red; there're some nice chairs waiting for you down here." She picked up the coffee she'd sat down. Red passed by, and she whispered in my ear as we started walking again. "I'll tell you more later, alright?"

"Okay," I said.

"Lee will be glad to see you."

My tail coiled around my ankles. What did Kelly know about me and Lee? I'd ask later.

Red paused in at the entrance to the waiting room and his tail began to wag. Kelly continued in. I followed, tugging Red along by the shoulder. All I saw were empty chairs before us, tables latent with dirty old magazines and a bible here and there. Another attending nurse--this one a fox in blindingly pink scrubs--glanced up at us from behind a wall of glass. Someone was speaking low, their voice nearly drowned out by a television in the corner of the room playing something about a new type of catheter that didn't cause too much pain. It was a doctor, a yellow lab in nasty, turquois scrubs. Lee was listening intently to him and nodding his head along to whatever he was saying, his back turned to us.

My heart instantly kicked into high gear, and I heard Red whining next to me as he set eyes on our friend, too. Months of anxiety and worry and eagerness built in my stomach and made standing hard. I had wanted to see Lee, hear his voice, for such a long time. In all honesty, our talk after the Shadow attacked at the Haunt was the last real time I had spoken to the shepherd. But I didn't like remembering that. Instead, I recalled the beauty of his voice as he'd sang that song which would forever be his song in my mind, that song that defined him and--even now--made my skin chill and eyes water just remembering. He'd been in such pain; pain I'd caused, pain I'd made worse, pain that seemed to keep dividing and strengthening as more things went wrong and got worse for him. I clutched Red's shoulder and tried to steady myself. I wanted to run to Lee. If Red could have run, I know he would have wanted to do the same.

We'd missed him terribly.

But we had to wait. The doctor was in and, hopefully, delivering good news about Lee's uncle.

Kelly didn't bother waiting, though. She was invested in Arthur's predicament more so than Red and I, and once she saw the doctor she was at Lee's side in an instant and perking her ears to whatever the scrubbed-lab was saying.

"I hope everything's alright," Red whispered. I nodded. "Lee looks..."

"Don't say it," I said, perfectly aware that Lee looked like shit. "What did you expect him to look like?"

"Sorry."

My ears fluttered all of a sudden and I spun around on my heel as energy shot through my legs. "Agh! I want to talk to him!"

Red nodded this time. "Me, too."

"Oh, look out," I grunted, pulling Red to the side.

"Excuse me," said the man who nearly ran us over to get into the waiting room. His blue, mottled fur was in a state of panic, jutting this way and that out of his tee shirt (which was wrinkled and pulled up a bit as if he'd yanked it on in a hurry); his floppy ears were tall and erect, brown eyes hard and focused but--ultimately--lost in worry.

Lee's father.

"Mr. Hawthorne," Red gasped, taking a tentative crutch-step forward. I didn't move. The elder shepherd jerked his head around and stared through the husky for a moment before realizing who he was. He kind of smiled. I think. But he looked much more confused than he had been.

I saw him mouth Rudy, his head still turned toward us as he continued walking on.

"Dad!" Lee barked upon seeing his father, and Red and I were quickly forgotten as father and son embraced. They spoke quickly--too low for me to hear--and then the two of them were facing the doctor.

"Maybe we should come back later," Red suggested. I too felt incredibly awkward being here given the circumstances that were playing out. We weren't family. Lee had more important things to worry about.

It hurt. Thinking about leaving. Especially now. Lee was right there.

I frowned, staring at the two Hawthorne's backs. Then the lab doctor smiled. That was a good sign, right? He held out an arm toward two doors leading to the back and--presumably--Lee's uncle, his dad's brother. Doc began to walk off, and Lee's father began to follow, but he paused and looked warily toward Red and me again. He spoke to Lee, nodding in our direction, and the younger shepherd jerked around so quickly that I saw him wince. His broken arm must've still been bothering him. But, even through the pain and the circumstances burdening him and burying him, he smiled at us. He stood stock-still as he registered our presences, his eyes widening and showing no evidence of stopping, and then he was coming our way. His toothy grin spanned his entire face and it didn't stop, much like his eyes. My stomach fluttered and then I was smiling, too. Red's tail was beating me across the back, and he was whining again like an excitable pup being thrown a long overdue treat.

"Sasha," Lee said, his voice quivering. "Red." He looked on the verge of tears and breaking into a run to get to us.

I found myself laughing excitably as he got within a foot or two and stopped, his own tail a blur behind him. He said our names again, in disbelief I guess. Kelly was grinning, too, as she came and stood at Lee's back, out of range of his tail. She took a sip of coffee and just watched. I was afraid to move; I don't know why. I could've reached out and grabbed Lee's paw if I'd wanted, and I did want to. He'd been out of reach for so long, fading into the background. I guess some part of me felt that, if I made a sudden move, he'd vanish like dusk-light through stained glass. I'd reach for him and there'd be nothing but dust motes.

But I reached for him all the same. My body seemed to move all on its own. I carefully wrapped my arms around him. I felt his warmth, the hard muscle beneath his clothing and fur, the stuttering breaths he took as he embraced me back with his good arm and held me tight. My eyes stung, and he sniffed really close to my right ear and I felt the moisture of his tears on my cheek as he nuzzled me. I nuzzled back, my body shaking. He then pulled away and stared into my face. So happy. For some reason I frowned, and Lee tousled my hair playfully and wiped the sad expression away. He looked to Red who was all but prancing on his crutches and waiting impatiently for his own dose of shepherd-affection, ears sharply perked, eyes squinted and glistening, tail a blur. The husky grunted as Lee latched onto him and squeezed, tottering a bit but retaining his balance. His composure was another story. He broke down immediately.

"I'm sorry, Lee. So sorry, so sorry," he bawled. He nuzzled the shepherd's face rough and sweet like dogs do, all but licking him.

"I missed you guys so much," Lee whimpered into Red's chest. "I'm so sorry."

I did all I knew to do and walked up, placing my paw at the small of Lee's back and rubbing gingerly like my mother used to do me as a kit when I was upset. I felt him stiffen, but then he relaxed, gazing teary-eyed at me over his shoulder.

"We're sorry, too," I said. I wrapped my arms around him again and hugged from behind. We'd made a Lee sandwich of love, Red and I. "And we missed you so much, Lee."

"I love you guys," he said.

Red and I both sighed and hugged/nuzzled more.

"Lee," a ragged voice said. The shepherd shifted between us and we let him go. Turning, we found Lee's father watching us. He didn't look angry or anything, just tired. His eyes were glassy as he looked from me to Red then to Lee. His muzzle twitched into a frown, and the look on his face spoke a sadness and unwillingness I'd only ever seen once before.

On Lee's face after he'd finished singing to me, when he'd poured out his soul.

Again, I wondered if Lee's dad was as bad as Red and Kelly made him out to be. He seemed like a good guy to me. I saw Lee in him, and I saw him in Lee.

"We need to see your uncle," he said. He then smiled apologetically at me, Red, and even Kelly. "I'm sorry. I need my son back for a while if that's okay."

Red looked hurt, but he nodded. "Of course."

Kelly was much the same. She padded to Lee's side after I let him go and handed him his coffee and protein bars then, much to my surprise, pecked him softly on the cheek. He blushed, and I looked wide-eyed at Red who just shrugged.

"Call if you need me. M'kay, Sir Studly? And I'm glad Arthur's going to be alright."

"Okay," Lee whispered, smiling at her. "And thank you. I'll tell him you came. You know, when he wakes up."

She just smiled.

What the hell, I thought.

The ermine then grinned at Red and me. "I'm sure I'll see you guys soon. Besides, I've got to finish your reading, Aiden." She then winked, patted Red on the butt and making him turn crimson, and waved over her shoulder as she walked out.

Again I thought, WHAT THE HELL.

"Aiden?" Red asked, his head cocked to the side, cheeks still recovering from the blushes.

"My first name," I said, just as confused.

"Oh, yeah."

I hadn't told her my first name.

"Lee, son," Mr. Hawthorne said again, a little more impatient this time. I couldn't blame him, but I still didn't want Lee to go so soon. Lee knew it, too.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered. "You have no idea how much so, but I have to go..."

"We know, Lee." Red flicked a finger toward the doors that Mr. Hawthorne and the lab doctor were holding open. "Go and take care of Uncle. We just wanted to be sure that you were alright."

"And," I added on--almost desperately, "To let you know that...that we're here for you. If you need us."

Lee smiled again. It was pained, but it still lit up the room. He then hugged us quickly again. "Thank you both." He let go of us and shuffled toward his father. "I'll call you, okay?"

Red and I nodded.

Then he was gone. The double doors clapped shut, and the only sound was that television still going on about catheters. The entire encounter felt rushed. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, but that was good in a sense. I thought Lee was hurt, but he wasn't. His uncle was going to be alright too, apparently. And he was going to call. Lee was going to call us. He wasn't shutting us out.

That's all I could have asked for.