Overly-Personal Author's Notes (for the first and last time in my entire fanfic writing "career"): Yes, I know. This is taking far longer than I originally planned. But only because this story, in some strange way, is coming out of a time in my life when situations and thoughts are slowly changing and shaping my life. Lasting change often isn't sudden; it is slow, methodical, coming in increments and taking its sweet time in revealing itself. Much like this story.

I started writing this story shortly after the death of a very much loved person in my life (not my father). The opening chapters reflect this in a very obvious way, and while writing has often been my form of free therapy, it has never taken the form of fanfiction, which has always, in the past, just been a silly hobby that I indulged in whenever the mood struck. The internal mental space I wrote from in the beginning just took the shape of this particular story and I'm not sure why. But it is continuing in this same mental space that I haven't completely sorted out yet.

I don't mean to get too heavy with you – you didn't come to read about my life, you came to read a story – but I felt you deserved an explanation. This weird little story is often becoming a reflection of some of my own thoughts about life as my outlook changes and adapts. So, that's why it is taking a while. I can't promise quick updates – my apologies, but I simply can't. My thoughts don't work fast enough to do that for this particular story. But, I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

This chapter is rather heavy on abstract dialogue. Let's face it – these characters are a bit abstract in their thinking. This chapter might sound like it's a kind of ending, but it isn't, there's more to come.

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Calvin knew he needed to speak to Hobbes, if only to test out Susie's theory that it was some sort of strange part of the grieving process and was temporary, but the rest of the afternoon and evening had been spent in front of the television, mindlessly flipping through channels, not really paying attention to anything on the screen, instead deeply lost in his own thoughts. He had said a few words to his mother about something – dinner, maybe – but the conversation was immediately forgotten. His mind was back in the woods, his woods, straying as far back as he could remember, when his world was much safer and much more knowable.

There was something he was missing in all of this, some catalyst that had heretofore escaped him despite the fact that it felt as though an unknowable feeling was staring him in the face, begging to be recognized, named, and faced head on. Before coming home, he had long dismissed this vague feeling that something was missing, that there was some answer out there waiting for him that he'd not yet arrived at. Now back at home, a nameless, faceless something was torturing him.

And he had a feeling Hobbes had something to do with it. He just wasn't sure he was ready for the answer yet.

Calvin switched the television off and threw a few logs into the fireplace, fumbling for matches and a rolled up newspaper. Within moments, a blazing fire crackled invitingly in the fireplace, and Calvin sat down in front of it, deciding that a fire was probably better to stare blankly into than a flickering box that spent endless amounts of time trying to get him to buy something. He suddenly felt very small and very young, sitting there much as he used to when he was younger, when he'd plan his next snowball assault at Susie, or make up never-ending codes shared only between Hobbes and he, or create clubs for Hobbes and he because he knew none of the other kids in the neighborhood would ever let him into theirs. Countless cups of hot cocoa had been consumed right here during cold winters, hundreds of arguments with Hobbes won or lost here, and one of the proudest moments of his young life when his father had let him build the fire for the first time ever.

So many conflicting thoughts about his father ricocheted endlessly through his mind. Consciously, he knew David had done the best he knew how and had tried to pass on as much knowledge to his son as he could; Calvin had always felt he was the screw-up, not his father. Calvin had always felt he should have turned into the kind of son David had wanted, because David had tried his best to raise Calvin that way, but somehow the lesson never quite stuck. He could count on one hand the number of skills his father had imparted to him that he still used and enjoyed – the ability to fish (it had come in handy on a few of his excursions when there wasn't readily available food for miles), how to find north (also helpful in his excursions), how to repair simple mechanical things like bicycles, and how to build a fire. Calvin sighed; all of that could be learned in a few days, and that was all he really could count as his father having taught him in all the years they were together?

What the hell was wrong with him?

Calvin looked outside and saw that the sun had set and a brisk breeze was drifting through the trees outside, and his mind was again in his woods. The woods had been his sanctuary when his world and the expectations in it had been too much. He remembered his early life like he'd been being pulled in all different directions – his teachers wanted this of him, his father wanted that of him – and he couldn't deliver on any of it. But the woods was his world, where he was master. He and Hobbes.

Before he could think better of it, Calvin darted to the closet and pulled out an old jacket that had belonged to his father, swung it over his shoulders, and ran upstairs, grabbing a duffel bag along the way. He burst into the guest room and dove under the bed to retrieve Hobbes. He pulled the stuffed tiger out and stared at him.

"Why aren't you alive?" he muttered to himself, wondering why Hobbes stared at him with two plastic button eyes instead of real ones. He shook the stuffed animal a little. Nothing. Shaking his head and deciding not to think about it too much, he shoved Hobbes in the duffel bag and raced down the steps, calling to his mother that he was going for a walk and would be back soon. Darting out into the night, Calvin practically broke into a run towards the woods.

Of course. It had always been this way. When the thoughts got to be too much, he grabbed Hobbes and ran for the woods. Always to the woods. Calvin barely slowed his step as he crashed through branches and stray leaves on the ground, panting hard with the effort, hearing twigs snapping under his swift feet and the skittering noises of rabbits dashing for cover. He knew he'd find his answer in the woods as he always did as his feet picked up the pace, throwing him into a headlong run, dodging boulders and small trees as he sprinted deeper into the woods, towards the clearing that he still considered his second home.

He knew he'd hit the clearing even before his eyes adjusted to the moonlight. The ground was always harder in the clearing, not as many roots softening the soil, and he came to an abrupt halt, as though he'd just hit an imaginary brick wall. Breathing hard, he looked around him wildly, not expecting to see anything but never able to be sure. This place had always held a little magic for him, something he couldn't entirely explain.

He dropped the duffel bag at his feet and took a deep breath of the invigorating evening air. A full moon shone down on him and a flock of birds flew overhead, a cloud of wings and black feathers. He found himself smiling slightly.

Calvin opened the duffel bag and set Hobbes on a nearby log, backing away slowly and keeping his eyes expectantly on the small stuffed creature.

"Talk," he commanded. Nothing happened. "Come – Come alive," Calvin tried again. A stuffed tiger continued to stare at him. Calvin sighed and turned away, putting his hands in his pockets and kicking at the ground. "Jesus, the only time I want you to come alive…" he murmured, running a hand through his hair.

He snuck a peek behind him. The stuffed tiger was still just a heap of stitches and cloth. Calvin sighed again, this time much more quietly. "I guess there isn't a law against talking to yourself alone in the woods," he said with a shrug. "Why is it that I can't stop thinking about this place? That my thoughts are always drawn back here, always to this spot, hm? Even when I'm not in this town – in this state – hell, on this continent – my mind still brings me back here. Sometimes I have this…crazy urge to hop a plane, and get back here, just so I can stand here for a minute. I'll be somewhere on the other side of the world, not even thinking about home, and bam! I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to be right here. With you. To be right here with you."

"It doesn't sound so strange to me," a voice came from behind Calvin. He turned to see Hobbes, looking as alive as he ever had, giving him a small smile. Calvin returned it.

"It doesn't?" Calvin asked.

"Course not. This was our world out here, wasn't it?" Hobbes said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. "And not just because we were alone out here, but because represented everything we didn't have to be anywhere else. Whatever was going on anywhere else, this place was always what we made it – battlefield, alien planet, unexplored terrain – anything we wanted. So why wouldn't you want to come back here? You had control here; you didn't have much control over your life anywhere else."

Calvin watched as Hobbes got up, stretched ("…was under that bed too long…") and lay down in the grass, staring up at the stars with a smile. After a moment, Calvin laid down next to him.

"Hobbes…my father died."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I was a terrible son," Calvin admitted quietly. "I never listened, I never did what he wanted, I never wanted to hear what he had to say. I didn't cry at the funeral."

"You loved him."

"I'm not so sure of that."

"No one feels guilty about not crying at a funeral unless they loved the person."

"I gave up my best friend for him."

"That was your choice. Not his."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice. Even if you don't like either option, you always have a choice. Choice is objective. The illusion of not having a choice is subjective."

"I didn't want to."

"You did it anyway."

"Then I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Hobbes whispered. "It doesn't work that way, anyway."

"What doesn't?"

"Me."

"That's what I thought," Calvin said with a sigh. "I suppose if I acknowledge it, it means I'm not crazy."

"Crazy is overrated."

"I had to wait this long to find out."

"Everything comes in its own time."

"I loved him," Calvin whispered, gazing at the stars above him. "I loved my Dad."

"That's right."

"It all comes back to that. That dichotomy. That being pulled in two different directions at once, and in your mind, that tugging isn't strange. It's life."

"Your life."

"Yeah. My life." Calvin exhaled slowly. "That's how it was with you and me, too. Remember? We were opposite in so many ways. That's why it worked."

"And that's why you loved your dad."

"I wrote a poem in college once. The first line was, 'All I want is to lay in the grass with my tiger.' The professor thought it was some deep metaphor about modern life. It wasn't. It was a commentary on loneliness. My loneliness. Everyone has such a hidden life inside their head. A whole universe fits between your ears, and you move through life giving up very few clues about it. You can't. People won't ever totally understand your own universe. Some of it has to be kept just for yourself. That's where you come in, isn't it?"

"How did the rest of the poem go?"

"Can't remember." Calvin bit his lip. "You remember the night you and I came across a puddle on the sidewalk, and I said something about my reflection? You said maybe I was the reflection, and the Calvin in the puddle was the real one. I stood there looking into that puddle until midnight when Dad finally found me and dragged me home. That's my life, Hobbes. Looking into a reflection of myself and wondering which is the real me."

"You're the Calvin who wants to lay in the grass with his tiger and the one who loved his father. The reflection is the guy who's been running most of his adult life."

"Exploring."

"Escaping. There's a difference."

"I had to. Too many people wanted too many different things. I couldn't spend my whole life being pulled in two different directions."

"Maybe you never realized that the directions themselves are choices. Crossroads aren't used as a metaphor for nothing."

"But metaphors are never as pretty on paper as they are in your head. Your own universe is too self-specific."

"Or that could be an excuse."

"Possibly. But a valid one, nonetheless. I've done my best."

"The world isn't as specific as you think it is. What is it about your life that you feel is so set in stone?"

"The fact that I can't change the past."

"What's the past got to do with the future? We don't move along towards an inevitable fate with no say in our destiny. It isn't that simple."

"I suppose I should be grateful for that."

"The only reason you always wanted to come back to this spot in the woods was because you always viewed it as being the only place on earth where you had a choice, a say, some control over what happened. But life is this spot in the woods. Choice is the mother of control, and it is limitless."

"Why can't I seem to see it that way, then?"

"You think by packing up and leaving that the next place will be better, that it'll be different. But your problems follow you, wherever you go, because you are your own problems, not the place, not the people."

They lay silently for a long time, until Calvin began to feel the chill of the soil in his back and the tip of his nose became cold.

"Hobbes?"

"Hm?"

"I have a choice now, don't I?"

"Yes."

Minutes later, the two walked through the woods, into the dense fog that had formed around them. One had a tail. The other wore a smile brighter than the moon above them.