Heron Lake Plateau Just smell with your eyes

Quixote had hoped to somehow have her say no, he was getting it all wrong.  Somehow.  It wouldn't make sense but it was that little irrational bit that he clung to.  But no.  It was the same, and that fact made him feel sick and useless.  He couldn't begin to imagine how Raven must feel if it tore at him this much -- and here he was fussing over his own suffering.  She always came first in his world, so if Qui could comfort her, he'd rather do that, so he reached out and nuzzled her cheek, wondering if there was any way to somehow make things better. Probably not, but damned if he wouldn't try.  

It would probably make sense for them to stop walking at some point, but continuing on made him feel like somehow he was continuing to move away from his problems, so that wasn't gonna be his call.  He'd seen everything that had tied itself to Screech's attack as his fault.  Screech shouldn't have even been in the pack for what he'd done -- not that Quixote had known at the time -- and because he was still there, he had the chance to attack Raven again.  Because Quixote hadn't been there, he'd almost lost Raven, they had lost two of their pups before they even had a chance.  Yeah, it probably wasn't really his fault, but it still shouldn't have happened.  There were signs that could have prevented it, right?  He tried to speak, but his voice hitched, and a short breath of an I-- was all that happened.  Words just weren't happening, and he looked down at the ground, defeated.

Quixote survived by convincing himself there was nothing to mourn, that once they were gone, they were gone, and didn't exist because that was in the short term far less painful -- there were things to do, and as his mate realized, there just hadn't been time.  He thought it would work because it sort of had in the past -- just take the feelings, put them in a box and leave them on a shelf in the garage until you forget what's in there.  But nope, JB had to go out there and take that particular box off the shelf and place it on the coffee table with a bow on top.  Other things he and Raven had dealt with together, and he was better for it, but this was the one he'd never even tried to touch.