"How did it go? Where's Zeus?"

Stevie's Diner was quiet when Peter limped in; his crutch clanking against the door as he pushed through it. "Cup’a coffee please Steve," he said by way of greeting. "Zeus' at the vet."

"Serious?" Stevie asked as he walked to the coffee machine.

"Don't know." Peter responded in a muted tone. "Been acting strange lately. Not eating right and moving slow. I dropped him off before my appointment with Doc Willow."

Peter reached the closest table and began his well-practiced process of sitting down. Turning his back to the chair, he held it firmly with one hand so it didn't escape while keeping a tight grip on his left crutch. He squatted down slowly, putting all weight onto his right leg while keeping his rotten excuse for a left leg extended. Throughout all this, he prayed his backside wouldn't fail this mission and end up on the floor.

By the time he was done, Stevie was in front of him, coffee in hand, waiting patiently. "I'm sure it's nothing serious." He said, laying the mug down in front of Peter. After ten years there'd been no need to ask how he wanted it. He liked his coffee to match his mood, dark and bitter. "You've taken good care of that dog. He's what, fourteen, fifteen?” 

"Eighteen."

"Well, there you go. He's just long for his years."

After a momentary daze, Peter reached for the mug. He was about to take a sip when Stevie asked, "What about you? What'd Doc Willow say?" 

For a while Peter just sat there staring at the coffee cradled in his hands. His thumb absently caressing the lip of the mug. Stevie just waited, his eyes randomly studying the street outside the window.

"She said they need to operate again. Says we took out the shrapnel too late, and it did too much damage. And the medication isn't working anymore; not that it did much to begin with." Peter said in a raspy voice. "Says I won't be able to drive anymore. That I shouldn't have been for a while now. And to be honest, she's right. Nearly got us killed this morning on the way over; damn leg locked up at the level crossing. Luckily the train was still far enough away." Looking up, he continued, "And the bad news is that smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish won't put me out of my misery anytime soon." He let out a bitter chuckle at the end, a sardonic smile peeking out for barely a second on his trembling lips. "At least, I still got Zeus." This time though, his smile was genuine.

Stevie met Peter’s eyes then. A look of pity written all over his face. Stevie opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, "Don't", Peter interrupted him, "I'm already gonna get that from Dr. Sanders in about an hour. No doubt she's gonna wanna know all about how I feel about becoming an invalid. Probably gonna prescribe some of that silly meditation or some weird breathing exercises. I'm so damn tired..." He sighed.

“She still making you knit?” Stevie asked, a huge grin on his face.

Peter could hear the barely contained laugh in Stevie’s voice. “Fuck off.”

“I’m serious. Christmas is coming. When do I get my jumper? Oh! Think of all the money you’ll make!”

“Keep it up and you’ll end up with this coffee in your face.” Peter threatened.

It took a while for Stevie to get a hold of himself again. When he finally did, he had to wipe away tears as he looked at Peter’s less than pleased frown. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop. But, seriously, does it work?”

Peter looked his friend in the eye, looking for any sign of ridicule, but though Stevie still held a teasing smile, Peter could tell he was done. For now at least. 

“Yes…” Peter admitted, staring at his left hand, “I’m gaining mobility and getting less pain. In another month or two, I might actually get back to my tinkering. It’s also helped process…” Peter drifted off as his eyes unfocused for a moment. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat as he came to. "Right, I'm off. Wouldn't wanna miss this month's allotted therapy session." Stevie didn’t pry.

Just as Peter was leaving the Diner, Stevie called, "Listen, me and boys are getting together for game night this Sunday. You know, bet a little, smoke some cigars. Matthew says his whisky is ready! What do you say?"

"Sure." Peter replied noncommittally. "Your place?"

"Matthew's, ten o'clock."

"Sure." Peter said once again as he limped out of the Diner.

 

*********************************************************************

 

"Do it." A few days later, Peter held the sleeping Zeus tightly as the last plunger was pressed and the blue tinted soothing poison flowed down the I.V. A few seconds later, Peter felt Zeus' last breath against his neck and his suffering come to an end. He tightened his grip on Zeus' loose coat and clenched his jaw, struggling to keep a hold of himself as his chest shook. The vet took her hand from under Zeus after confirming his heart had stopped and gently readjusted his position, lying him on his side before quietly leaving the room.

Peter sat there silently stroking Zeus' fur, his face pressed against Zeus' neck. After a while, letting out a trembling breath, stood up and lifted Zeus into a tight embrace and limped out of the room. He didn't say a word to anyone as he moved to exit the building. He heard footsteps follow him before the secretary moved past him and held the door open for him. She kept her silence. Even if she hadn't known Peter for years, she could easily tell it was taking all of his will to not break down right then and there. They’d already had this discussion with Peter. They'd tried and failed to convince him to arrange alternative aftercare or even letting them, or anyone else for that matter, help him. All she could do was stare at his back as he limped towards the parking lot. 

As Peter approached his car, he saw Matthew leaning against it. Matthew put his hands up when their eyes met. "Hear me out." He said hurriedly, "Let me open the door for you, we can talk afterwards. Where're your keys?"

Peter took a few breaths before replying, "Jacket. Left pocket."

After opening the left side door, Matthew went around to the other side and got in. He helped lay Zeus across the backseat, a pained look on his face as he felt how thin he was. "You're in a better place now, boy. Keep an eye on your daddy for us. Don't let him do anything stupid." He muttered under his breath. He patted Zeus' neck one last time and got out of the car.

"Me and the boys wanna have a quick chat..." Matthew started.

"Not now." Peter interrupted and made his way to the driver-side door where Matthew stood. "Move out of the way Mat." He said not meeting Matthew's eyes.

"No. Not until we talk." Matthew said stubbornly. 

Just as Peter was about to try and push him out of the way, Matthew grabbed his shoulder, "Come on man, we're worried about you." He pleaded.

Peter stared at the back seat before, finally, meeting Matthew's eyes, "five minutes."

"Five minutes." Matthew agreed, "the boys are waiting at Stevie's place.”

With the support of his crutches again, Peter followed Matthew into Stevie's Diner. At the counter were his friends. All of which greeted him with some variation of, "Hey Pete, how’re you holding up?" One of them followed with, "I'm sorry for your loss," which the other three parroted. Peter barely registered their words.

"Drink?" Stevie asked after a short and awkward silence.

"No." Peter responded bluntly. "Mat pulled me in here because you all wanna have a chat. Looks more like an intervention, if you ask me. And last time I checked, I'm neither a drunk nor a junkie. So, enlighten me, what's this about?"

"Come on Pete, don't be like that. We're your friends and we're worried about you." Joe, to his right, tried to mollify him.

"What are you talking about? All I want is to bury my dog and be left alone for a while." Peter ran an incredulous look across his friends' faces, trying to figure out what was up.

"Pete, none of us are blind. You've been growing more and more distant, and the look in your eyes...," Mat paused, "Now that Zeus is gone..."

"I don't have ti..." Peter stopped himself, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I know you mean well. Just give me tonight. I'll meet you guys for game night tomorrow." He compromised. "Just don't expect much." 

His friends exchanged some looks and seemed to reach an agreement. Matthew turned to Peter, and asked, "Anyway, can I convince you to let us, or even just me, help you?"

"I need to do this on my own."

"Okay, okay. Here take this." Matthew walked towards the counter and grabbed what looked to be a sapling of some sort. "It's called Flowering Dogwood, it's a tree. Doesn't look like much now, but we saw some pictures and it grows beautiful, just don't eat the fruit. And the name... well we thought it was a good match. We hoped you'd plant on Zeus' grave. We heard that was something people did, so, erm… here."

Peter accepted the sapling feeling a mix of warmth and sorrow flow from his chest. "Thank you."

Thankfully, Peter arrived at his and Zeus' favorite spot in the mountain after a couple of hours without incident. The weather forecast promised a clear sky tonight and it was going to be a full moon. They'd spent many such nights here. He'd always had a fascination with the full moon and Zeus just loved any excuse to be outside.

He arrived with plenty of time and well prepared. Opening the trunk, he let out a chuckle at the strange mix of items inside. He took out the firewood first, deciding to get a fire going, so he didn't have to worry about light. Looking forward to enjoying one last full moon with his best friend, he grabbed his shovel and started digging. Not the easiest task considering his injuries, but worth it all the same. He owed Zeus this much. [What's a bit more pain?] 

"That's deep enough," he muttered to himself after another couple of hours, wincing as he struggled out of the just above waist-high hole. He held back a cry as he got to his feet, trying to keep most of his weight on his good leg. He leaned against his car for a couple of minutes, taking deep breaths.

Once he could manage the pain, he took Zeus out of the car and, using a sheet he brought with him, lowered him gently down. After spending some time replaying memories of their time together, Peter got to work filling the grave back up. At the end, he took the Dogwood tree out of its container and planted it in the center of Zeus' grave.

By now the sky had gone dark and the moon was out. He fed the fire some wood and set everything up so he would have to move as little as possible: some more firewood at easy reach to his left, and three bottles at an even easier reach to his right. He'd brought two bottles of whiskey, and a bottle of something called Smithy's Slag. A limited edition brandy his brother gifted him when he came back from the war. He hadn't touched it. Couldn't bring himself to. [Might as well drink it today].

Finally, he took out a gun, and sat down in his camping chair, before taking a swig of the brandy. 

"Mm, apple and blackcurrant! Never thought that could work. Needs ice though. Ah, well." He mused. Looking up at the moon, more memories replayed in his mind: the seemingly happy marriage, a beautiful daughter, adopting Zeus, then the never ending shit storm that followed. He looked down at his handgun, staring at it for a while. A Beretta M9, standard army issue. It had saved his life many times taking that of many others as payment. Now, he was using it against its purpose.

He racked the slide and loaded a round into the chamber. Taking another swig of brandy, he brought the gun up under his chin and closed his jaded blue eyes. "No," he whispered a minute later and lowered the gun. "Not yet, gotta tell her the truth first." He released the magazine and racked the slide again, this time to clear the chamber. Then he simply let go of the gun and let it fall on the ground before laying back into his chair and closing eyes, "I'm sorry, boy," he whispered again.

He woke a while later in almost pitch-black darkness, with a splitting headache. "Argh!" He screamed as he struggled forward in his chair. The barely touched bottle of brandy fell to the ground without notice.

He forced himself to calm down and breathe deeply before opening his eyes. The fire had died down, some glowing embers scattered in the dark, and dark heavy clouds filled the sky. Peter realized then what awoke him besides the sudden crushing migraine as lightning flashed through the clouds and thunder roared all around.

Peter stared up in shock, not because the weather forecast had been wrong, but because he felt something wasn't right.

Not one to ignore the well-honed instinct that had saved him more times than he could count, Peter hurriedly packed everything into his car as fast as his broken body would let him. Luckily, he was a minimalist. He paused at Zeus' grave silently before hobbling to his car, getting in and driving off. No sooner had he done this when rain started pouring down. However, this rain was very strange. It gave off a slight luminescence.

For some reason, his headlights flickered on and off, getting worse the longer he drove. The combination made it hard to see where he was going. A while later he just barely swerved in time not to hit a shadow that leapt across the dirt road in front of him. Then he barely managed to swerve again, this time to a stop, preventing crashing into a tree.

He peered out the window and into the darkness of the forest. Trying to figure out what he had almost hit through the ever heavier luminescent rain.

Suddenly, through a flash of lightning he made out the figure of a mountain wolf. Realizing it was just a mountain wolf, a lone one at that, he relaxed. [You nearly got killed].

He moved to start his car again and just as he turned his key in the ignition, through another flash of lightning he saw black smoke rising from under the hood of his car. A second later a warm light lit up the car behind him and the smell of burning assaulted his nostrils, the temperature quickly rising. Not sparing even a glimpse, he hurriedly opened his car door and rushed out, hopping away as best he could; forgetting all about his pain. As the light behind him grew brighter he finally looked back. Losing his balance, he slipped on the mud and crashed onto the ground, screaming as a jolt of pain ran up his bad leg. He grit his teeth and forced himself to crawl away; he could still feel the heat at his back.

He reached the tree line and climbed to his feet. Turning around to look back at his car he saw that the flames had spread and enveloped it. Despite the distance, he still felt as if he was being roasted. That's when he realized it wasn't just because of the fire. The rain stung his skin and seemed to be causing his temperature to rise. A moment later, he grabbed his head and cried out as pain jabbed into his head and spread down his neck and back before traveling through all his limbs at once, causing his muscles to spasm and eliciting even more pain. He was about drop to his knees when he heard a loud explosion and was thrown on his backside instead.

He came back to his senses soon after. The only thought in his head was that he needed to get away from the rain. He struggled to his feet and moved into the treeline; under the cover of the trees the pain lessened somewhat. He knew where to go. There was a cave not far from there. 

He lost track of time in his delirium, each step a struggle. He stumbled and fell many times, and many times he got back up, his legs threatening to give up altogether. He leaned against the trees for support, taking his weight off his leg. But he didn't dare sit down lest he not be able to get back up. All the while the rain kept coming. With the tree cover reducing the rain that got to him, he endured the fire burning inside him. His skin, he couldn't feel anymore. He made a point of not looking at it, afraid of what he might see.

The soul crushing pain in his head and chest was so great he wasn't entirely sure if he was feeling it anymore. All that was in his mind was getting to the cave. Lightning flashed overhead as if chasing him. He had long since stopped being able to hear the thunder that was supposed to follow; all he heard was a persistent ring. 

He did eventually find a stick long and sturdy enough to support his weight. It was hard to miss as it barely missed him when it crashed to the ground when the particularly tall tree he was under got struck by lightning.

He picked up the branch and used it for support as he kept walking on autopilot. Not much longer after that he reached the cave. But before he could let himself pass out, a deep growl echoed through the cave.

Straight away he reached for his sidearm, except he didn't have one. Old habits die hard. He didn't bother reaching for his hunting knife; he'd left that in the camp. All he had was his walking branch and a miserable two-inch pocket knife.

"Hey, there boy. I've no issues with you." He rasped. "I just need to stay out of the rain. We're in the same boat and there's enough room." He stepped further into the cave. Slowly, inching forward, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. The wolf went quiet. Relief spread through him as he leaned on the cave wall. As he started sliding down it, the hair on the back of his neck rose and he lifted his branch just in time to meet the wolf's jaws. Still, as the wolf impacted him, he felt the branch smack heavily against his face. He instinctively grabbed at the wolf's thick coat as the two rolled out of the cave. All the while the wolf bit at him as he pushed and punched back trying to keep his face and neck safe. Every time the two broke apart, the wolf would just throw itself back at Peter. As they fought they got further and further away from the cave.

At the edge of a steep hill the wolf threw itself at him one last time. Breathing heavily and bleeding all over, Peter could do nothing but stand there and take the full brunt of the tackle as the wolf's teeth finally found purchase on the side of his neck. But Peter didn't let go. If he was going to die he would take this bitch with him. They fell backwards. As they rolled, sharp edges of whatever was in their path would find their way into their flesh. Still neither let go. They finally came to a stop in what appeared to be a deep puddle. As the water seeped into their wounds they both roared. Yet, a moment later the wolf bit down again, this time its jaws locked around his throat, and started to violently shake its head.

Peter grabbed the wolf's jaws, but quickly found he didn't have the strength to pull them apart. Feeling his life ebbing away he punched the wolf on the head several times, desperation driving him, before reaching into his pocket while keeping one hand around the wolf's lower jaw, trying his best to slow the damage.

He quickly pulled out his pocket knife, pressing the spring release button and stabbed its two inch length into the wolf's side causing it to jerk away, releasing Peter's neck. Peter coughed up blood as he quickly pressed his hand to his neck, and in the next moment, brought his chin down as the wolf jumped at him again. This time its jaws closed around his face and before the wolf could get away, Peter let go of his neck wound to wrap his arm around the wolf, causing it to fall across him, and stabbed into its side again. He kept stabbing wherever he could; ribs, stomach, back... Blood gushed out of his throat, his roar nothing but a gurgle as he stabbed one last time, deep into the wolf's stomach and dragged the blade down as far as his strength would let him. Letting go of the knife, he forced his fingers into the wound, followed by the rest of his hand. He grabbed and tore at everything and anything he could until his strength finally gave out. 

The wolf stopped fighting just before his hand stopped moving, its dead weight still pressing down on Peter. Their breathing slowed and their blood mingled in the puddle around them. With a smile on his face, Peter opened his eyes and stared at the sky, looking for the moon, wanting to see its beautiful light one last time. Unfortunately, all he could see were the dark clouds as lightning continued to flash through them undisturbed by his epic battle. He could swear the clouds were swirling around as if to unleash a heavenly fury on the world. The lightning was getting ever more condensed. Were those eyes?

All of a sudden everything went white. Then dark.