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Part 36 - Lifeline

(Nathan)

"Yet another day of this," Nathan moaned, glaring hatefully at the ever-increasing list of unread emails. "I'm so over it now." He flopped back in his office chair, rapidly losing focus on the work task at hand to turn his eyes, and thoughts, elsewhere.

Since talking to his wolf two nights ago, hearing about the slump he'd fallen into over his indifference towards the shop rebuild, Nathan hadn't been able to stop fretting.

'If he doesn't rebuild it, what's he gonna do with himself?' he wondered inwardly, slowly rolling back and forth. Along with his mail, the report papers scattering Nathan's desk slowly slipped from his mind. 'He can't live with his bigot of a grandfather forever, that's for damn sure.'

In thinking about Maxim, his thoughts quickly moved to the apparently unending wave of obstacles being thrown up between himself and Alexei.

'As if Yuri and his gang weren't enough. Not to mention all these protests... Fuck, it's like the whole world's turning against us! How are we... What do we do now?'

A low growl rumbled from Nathan's muzzle, drifting off to lose itself among the continual bustle of the busy office. Bright, Friday sunshine radiated in from the world outside as springtime gracefully gave way to summer. Coupled with the weekend's ever-nearing proximity, this gorgeous weather had the power to generate unusually high spirits throughout Nathan's workplace. Even so, it didn't possess the strength to penetrate the dark clouds he felt massing all around him. After all, what did he have to get excited about? Another weekend? Another chance to spend two days sat around moping at home? Sure, he could go out; he could hang with Shaun at his place, or head with him into the city centre for drinks. Either way, Nathan knew he'd still have to return to that same cramped, lonely apartment at night's end.

'There must be a way out of this... this can't be it, surely--?'

A thick folder full of paper landed with a heavy slap upon Nathan's desk, denying him the chance to muse further.

"Need you to get this looked at and sent off today." He glanced up to the discomforting presence hovering above to find Richard's pointed muzzle directed straight back at him. The fox's look of irritation didn't come as a shock, nor did the unreasonably tight deadline imposed upon him. "That gonna be a problem?"

Nathan flicked through the report pages, quickly gauging its considerable length. He desperately wanted to say, 'It'll be a massive problem, you horrendous, sizeist prick.' Instead, Nathan kept those thoughts to himself, deciding that as much as he'd love to stand up to his boss, the threat to his employment made it more than a little unwise.

"Well?"

"Won't be a problem, Richard," he muttered, masking the majority of his ill-temper.

"Good." A characteristically snide, vulpine grin spread across Richard's greying muzzle, setting off Nathan's rebellious thoughts all over again. "Nice to know you _can_be depended upon."

'Don't snap.' He clenched his fist, making sure to keep it out of sight below his desktop. 'It's not worth it!'

"It's for our partners in Bolstrovo," his boss stated smugly, bushy, brown tail swishing about behind him. "You can just email them across once you're done. No need for you to take any time off to fly over there and deliver it in person."

Nathan scowled at the folder in disgust, though his real anger flowed towards the fox slowly skulking away from his workstation. He waited until Richard reached the front of the office, wasting no time in venting once in relative privacy. "Go fuck yourself."

With a stiff paw, Nathan shoved the folder across the desk, pushing it away from both himself and his mind for the meantime at least. Threat of disciplinary or not, he barely had the motivation to work, what with everything in his professional and private life tumbling to pieces so readily. Returning to his former position, slumped over while rolling his chair back and forth, Nathan soon drifted back to his introspection.

'A small, overpriced apartment, a terrible job with a worse manager and a partner a world away... How the hell did things end up like this?' He lifted his head to peer out of the window, casting his eyes far beyond the city's glass towers to the sun soaked, green hills resting upon the horizon. 'It'd be so perfect, to fly off and be with Alex. If only things weren't so... difficult. If only Velika was more open to us.'

Nathan's ears flicked, the sudden lucidity of his thoughts helping to make him feel as warm as those distant hills looked. For probably the first time ever, the memory of Richard's words filled him with an unparalleled level of excitement.

'...Partners in Bolstrovo...'

He stared back to the report his boss had dumped on him, grinning uncontrollably. So caught up in his revelation, Nathan barely noticed the mystified furrowing of the brow he'd won from a passing colleague.

Giddily grabbing his keyboard, he quickly left his company's intranet and called up a search engine. As he did so, the memories of all those native Polcians and Velikans milling around together at the Bolstrovan harbour overtook his thoughts. He soon remembered Pavel, the giant dockworking fox, smiling down as Nathan spoke with his smaller, feline colleague within the Polcian-sized walkway. Finally, he recalled Milan, the friendly guide from the Velikan history museum, speaking about how he'd grown up in Bolstrovo surrounded by friends and neighbours of all statures.

"Hey, Nate."

"Hey, Tasha," Nathan replied merrily, not once taking his eyes off of his monitor.

"How's it going?"

"Same shit, different day," he answered, almost snickering as he hit the return key to call up his search topic: 'Moving to Bolstrovo.'

Tasha took a silent step closer to the husky's workstation, leaning in to get a better view of the screen. "Really?"

"Why not?" Nathan craned his neck up to find the lioness' looking thoughtful. "It's at least worth a look, right? To see if it's an option?"

A small smile gradually worked its way across Tasha's short muzzle, apparently finding the series of blue links on screen an interesting read. "Right."

Nathan gave a short, contented sigh; the approval enough to seal his idea as a realistic one. He turned back to his computer, preparing to take a closer look at the search results himself.

"I certainly didn't expect to see this when I came over here," Tasha whispered.

"I bet," he chuckled back, enjoying the first semblance of happiness he'd experienced in weeks.

"I wanted to find out if you had time to come grab lunch with me and Shaun in an hour or so. It'd be good to catch up. Doubly more so now that I've seen this!"

"I probably don't have the time..." Nathan flashed a swift glance at the report folder discarded beside his in-tray, snorting at it dismissively. "But I don't really care, either. I've had enough of working my lunches for these ungrateful pricks."

"Nate, don't go getting yourself in trouble. Not after all that business with Richard and Peter."

"I won't. I'll get what needs doing done today, but the rest can wait 'til Monday." His smile spread into a grin. "Besides, I wouldn't mind bouncing this Bolstrovo idea off you guys."

"I wouldn't mind that either," Tasha answered with a grin of her own. "Sandwich shop at half twelve?" "I'll see you there."

Summer's warmth filled Nathan's favourite eatery, accompanying the joyful aroma of freshly baked bread to create an atmosphere relaxing enough to counter the frenetic pace of Arlone's financial district. Even with the seating area almost fully packed out by other patrons, the positive glow that found its home in the husky's chest remained strong, as evidenced by his unwavering smile.

"Do you _really_wanna do that?" Shaun asked, the explanation offered to him by Nathan regarding his cheerfulness garnering no small measure of surprise. "Moving to Bolstrovo... putting aside the whole 'presence of macros' thing, that's a _huge_deal."

Nathan placed his chicken salad sub on the table, peering across to the squirrel sitting opposite him in the booth. "I know it's a huge deal, but it's one I'm putting serious thought into."

"And how long have you been thinking about this exactly?"

He watched Shaun casually flick a stray slice of onion around the open wrapping of his steak-loaded sandwich, anticipating the shocked sarcasm that'd likely follow his reply. "Since about an hour ago."

"An hour... a _whole_hour? And there I was worrying you were rushing things."

No surprises there. "Calm down. It's not like I've gone and packed my bags ready to head off at the end of the day, is it?"

"You've not? Wow, you're getting cautious in your old age."

"Shove off," Nathan retorted with a smirk. "You know, sarcasm doesn't suit you." Shaun didn't respond, other than to flash a wide grin. "Oh, who am I kidding; it suits you right down to the ground."

"So..." The squirrel looked across to Tasha in her seat beside Nathan. "What d'you make of all this?"

"I think you're right," she replied, stopping herself short of picking up her chicken pesto wrap. "It's a massive deal. Lots of planning and paperwork, and even then there's no guarantee of getting granted the right to live there." A twinge of annoyance ran through Nathan's body, urging him to speak up and shoot down his friends' opinions. Tasha turned to him before he could act, her pleasant smile succeeding in cooling his emotion. "In saying that, if it's something you're seriously considering, and if there's a chance it could happen... It's not like either of us would try to stop you."

The trio took a moment's respite to take a bite of their lunches, Shaun being the first to resume the conversation with a bout of snorting laughter. "You ever considered donating that thick head of yours to science, Nate?"

"Only if you offer up to them that relentless stream of sarcasm you seem able to pull from nowhere."

"Leave it, boys," Tasha interjected, grinning. "You're both freaks of nature."

They both looked to her with a bemused frown, but soon shook it off without reply. With a series of gentle thumps, Shaun's bushy red tail twitched against his seat, tugging Nathan's focus back towards him.

"Okay, joking aside," the squirrel stated assertively. "How much research have you done into this whole Bolstrovo idea so far?"

"Like I told you, I came to me in a flash a little earlier this morning." Nathan held his paws up in front of him. "Don't get me wrong, this is all just an idea at the moment... but in the last hour or so, it's become an idea with a little more grounding in reality than you might think."

"Really? You've made that much progress in one hour? At work? All by yourself?"

"Hey, I never said it was all done and dusted, did I?"

Shaun huffed, taking a moment to glance over at the smartly-dressed badger setting himself down at the table beside their booth. "No, you didn't."

"Anyway, from what I've read, there's no real reason for us to be excluded from entry. Neither of us have political or military links, nor do we have a criminal record. It's just Bolstrovo currently has a quota... a very small quota of immigrants they're willing to take each year."

"How small is 'very small'?"

Nathan paused, recalling the ear-folding number he'd read from his monitor. "About five thousand."

Shaun's eyes widened, but it would be Tasha whose shocked voice piped up with the next question. "Just from Polcia?"

"No... five thousand, total."

"Damn, Nate," the red squirrel blurted. "I knew it was low, but... five thousand a year, into a country of, what, fifty million?"

"That's right. Apparently it's to do with 'preserving a peaceful balance, and to provide safety for all of Bolstrovo's visitors and citizens'."

"Sounds like your typical political vernacular to me. No doubt they're just looking to protect jobs and the like."

"Perhaps," Nathan sighed, ears perking a little at the thought of what else he'd seen on that same website. "It's not all bad news though. Apparently, they offer special dispensation and prioritising for workers in sectors of high demand."

"Great." The sarcasm slowly started a return to Shaun's voice. "I'm guessing that if you're a doctor, or an engineer, you're laughing, right?"

Nathan's happiness didn't falter. In fact, his slight smile grew only bigger. "Highly-skilled craftsmen, too. Masons, plumbers... carpenters."

"You're not any of those things."

"Alex is."

"Yeah, that's great for him," Shaun scoffed, "but what about you? Are data analysts in high demand?"

Nathan couldn't keep his ears from drooping at that; his friend's words bringing him down with a proverbial thump. "As I said... I'll need to look into it more. If there's any way for me and Alex to get over there together, I'll find it; _that_I can guarantee."

A gentle laugh left Tasha's muzzle, the first sound she'd made in a good half minute. She turned to Nathan with a grin; the unexpectedness of her expression knocking him back in his seat.

"What's with the show of teeth, Tash?"

"Oh, nothing... just admiring that famous 'Nathan Frost stubbornness' some more."

That lightened to mood enough for even Shaun to drop his cynical sarcasm, brushing the long, auburn strands of fur from his face before saying, "It's quite the sight to behold. I still say that hard head of yours is worth studying, though."

"If you say so," Nathan retorted, rolling his eyes.

"But, Nate," Tasha said, upping the seriousness of her voice. "You're really thinking about leaving us all behind? Heading off to start a life in a brand new country?"

He'd yet to phrase this idea of his in such terms, but hearing the lioness do so truly brought home the weight of it. "I don't want to leave anyone behind, except maybe that dick of a fox." Nathan noticed the suited badger at the next table hesitate with his messy-looking sub, spurring him to lower both his head and his voice. "In saying that... I need to do something. I love you guys, my family, but I have to be with Alex, one way or another."

"Does he feel the same?" Shaun asked shortly, clasping his paws above his half-eaten sandwich. "I'm honestly not trying to find fault or put you off, but... do you think he'll leave Velika behind to live in Bolstrovo with you?"

Nathan pawed at his own sub, knocking a few of the neatly-packed vegetables out onto the open wrapper. "He feels the same about wanting to be with me, I know that..." He peered up, looking between his two stone-faced friends, their ears perked to await the rest of the answer. "Whether he'd leave Velika behind to do it... That's a different story."