"For what?"
"I..." He shook his head. "I was useless back there. Worse than useless. You could have been hurt."
Thomas appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, pale and silent. He arched his brow, somehow managing to say, "I told you so," without actually opening his mouth.
I glared back at him, in an effort to convey several uncharitable things. He smiled a little and faded back into the kitchen. Butters missed the whole thing.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "You ever had anything like this happen before?"
"Like zombies and ghosts and necromancers?" Butters asked.
"Like life-threatening and dangerous," I said.
"Oh." He was quiet for a minute. "No. I tried to go into the army, but I couldn't make it through boot. Wound up in the hospital. Same thing when I tried to be a policeman. The spirit was willing, but Butters was weak."
"Some people just aren't cut out for that kind of thing," I told him. "That's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Sure, it isn't," he said, but he wasn't agreeing with me.
"You can do a lot that I can't," I told him. I nodded at my leg.
"But this stuff is... hell, it's simple" Butters said. "I mean, the words get a little bit long. But all in all, it isn't that complicated."
"Listen to yourself, Butters," I told him. "You're sitting there with a straight face saying that medicine and medical forensics is simple, except for the long words. Do you have any clue what it's like to not be as intelligent as you?"
He shook his head impatiently. "I'm not some kind of genius." He frowned. "Okay, well, technically I have a genius IQ, but that isn't the point. A lot of people do. The point is that I've spent most of my adult life doing this. That's why I can do it well."
"And the point is," I told him, "that I've spent most of my adult life doing zombies and ghosts and other things trying to kill me. That's why I can do it well. We've got different specialties. That's all. So don't beat yourself up for not being better at my job than I am."
He started cleaning up the medical detritus, throwing things away and stripping out of the gloves. "Thanks, Harry. But it's more than that. I just... I couldn't think. When those things grabbed me. When he was hitting me. I knew I should have been doing something, planning something, but my brain wouldn't work." He slammed something down into the trash can with more force than necessary. "I was too afraid."
I was too tired to move, and for the first time I started to notice how cold it was without my coat. I folded my arms and tried not to shiver. I watched Butters quietly for a moment and said, "It gets easier."
"What does?"
"Living with the fear."
"It goes away?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Never. Gets worse, in some ways. But once you face it down, you learn to accommodate it. Even work with it, sometimes."
"I don't understand," he whispered.
"Fear can't hurt you," I said. "It can't kill you."
"Well, technically-"
"Butters," I said. "Don't give me statistics on heart failure. Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it."
"I have empirical evidence to the contrary," he said, bitter humor in his voice.
"That's because you've never thought about it before," I said. "You've reacted to the fear, but you haven't ever faced it and put it into the right perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it."
He was quiet for a second. "Just like that?" he said. "Just make up my mind and poof, it's different?"
"No. But it's the first step," I said. "After that, you find other steps to take. Think about it for a while. Maybe you'll never need it again. But at least you'll be ready if it happens sometime down the line."
He closed up the medical toolbox. "You mean it's over?"
"For you," I said. "Grevane knows that you don't have anything he wants. He's got no reason to look for you. Hell, for that matter, I think you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when he did come looking. Anyone with access to the corpse and the ability to find where Bony Tony had hidden the jump drive would have been good enough for Grevane. Your part in this is over."
Butters closed his eyes for a second. "Oh, thank God." He blinked up at me. "Sorry. I mean, it isn't that I don't like being around you, but..."
I smiled a little. "I understand. I'm glad you're all right." I glanced down at my leg. "Looks nice and neat again. Thanks, Butters. You're a good friend."
He frowned up at me. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I thought I saw him straighten his shoulders a little. "Okay."
Thomas appeared in the door of the kitchen. "Gas stove. Hot food and tea. Sugar?"
"Tons," I said.
"Not for me," Butters said.
Thomas nodded, and slipped back into the kitchen.
"So how come if I'm your friend, you don't tell me important things?" Butters said.
"Like what?" I asked him.
Butters gestured at the kitchen. "Well. That, you know... you're g*y."
I blinked at him.
"I mean, don't get me wrong. It's the twenty-first century. You can live your life how you want, and it doesn't make you any less cool."
"Butters- " I began.
"And hey, look at the guy. I mean, I'm not even g*y, and I think he looks great. Who could blame you?"
Choking sounds came from the kitchen.
"Oh, shut up!" I snarled at Thomas.
He kept on making choking sounds that bubbled with laughter.
"You should have just said something," Butters said. "Don't feel like you have to hide anything, Harry. I won't judge. I owe you too much for that."
"I'm not g*y," I stated.
Butters nodded at me, compassion and empathy all over his face. "Oh. Okay, sure."
"I'm not!"
Butters raised his hands. "It wasn't my place to intrude," he said. "Later, some other time, maybe. None of my business."
"Oh, for crying out loud," I muttered.
Thomas came out bearing plates of steaming, reheated pizza, some roast beef sandwiches, and crackers with slices of cheese partly melted on them. He put them down and came back with bottles of cold beer and cups of hot tea. He poured my tea for me, then leaned over and gave me a chaste kiss on the hair. "There you go."