(39) I am what I am

~ Quinn ~

A week after the death of Blair’s stepfather we were back home.

The police in Blair’s birth city were none to happy with the idea that it took a cop from out of town to deal with the beast in their midst. And they were even less happy with the fact that it was Blair that killed him, even though we both told them he did it to save our lives.

Blair spent a few hours in the emergency room while the doctors tended to the damage done to his back and thighs, coming out with several sets of stitches which were needed to close the wounds inflicted by the belt buckle. When they set him free, the police took over, interviewing us separately about what had gone down. Once they were satisfied, they let me stay with him as he told them about the murders his father had confessed to. I was able to verify the facts of his story and add the details that Blair was unaware of. Until his father had told him about them, Blair had not known about the deaths of Doctor Freer and the two punks who had tried to assault him. He accepted the information stoically but I knew that he was taking it all to heart and believed that he was partially responsible for what his stepfather had done.

I intended to disabuse him of that idea if it took the rest of our lives together—assuming of course that we would have a life together. That discussion was yet to come and I wasn’t going to press for it until I knew he was ready.

We stayed for the funeral only because it gave Blair the final closure he needed. And then we headed home.

When we arrived back in the city, Blair was on tenterhooks as the cab dropped us off at the diner. He knew, because I’d told him, that Bonnie was now aware of who, or I guess what he really was, and he was scared stiff that she wouldn’t accept him now.

I kept my arm around his shoulders as we walked through the door, feeling his tension. Bonnie turned from the customer she was waiting on see who had come in. It took her two seconds to cross the room and sweep Blair into a huge hug. I could see him git his teeth even as his face lit up. She saw it too and broke away but didn’t let loose of his arms as she looked him over carefully.

“Who hurt you and did someone take care of them?” She shot me a look at the last bit and I nodded.

“I… I’ll tell you later. I mean if you…if that’s all right,” Blair stuttered out.

“Sweetie, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. I’m just glad to have you back here and one piece. You scared me out a year’s growth when you disappeared like that?”

“Only a year?” he joked as he visibly relaxed.

“Well, okay, two years,” Bonnie admitted with a laugh. “Now both of you get over here because I doubt the nuts they serve on the plane were enough to keep even a bird alive.” She didn’t let go of Blair’s hand until he had gingerly settled down in the booth. When I leaned over to remind him to take his pills, Bonnie was gone and back in a flash with a cold glass of water. She watched and waited until he’d taken them before going back to her other customers, promising to return to take our orders, on the house, as soon as possible.

I started to slide into the seat across from him but he shook his head. Since I was fairly sure he didn’t mean that I should leave, I sat down beside him.

“She was glad to see me,” he said, and he sounded both surprised and relieved.

“Of course she was, baby, She cares about you and she really doesn’t give a damn that you turned out to be a man and not the woman she thought you were. It’s you she likes, not the external but what’s inside.”

“Which is still pretty messed up,” he confessed softly.

“But we’re going to work on that.” I wrapped my arm around him until he was pressed to my side.

He looked up at me. “Are we?”

“Yes. We are. Emphasis on the ‘we’.”

He let out a small sigh as he leaned back against my shoulder and we waited for Bonnie to come back.