AN: So this started out as a resonse to the challenge but went way over the word limit. However, there is not word limit for posting it here so I hope you all enjoy. This takes place after "Into The Wood".

So if you hear this song turn it up real loud

Cause it's time for me to figure me out

Alright, if you hear this song turn it up real loud

Cause it's time for me to figure me out

-The Summer Set "Figure Me Out"

Thankful for a task that would take him out of Hope Valley for most of the day, Constable Nathan Grant mounted Newton and turned the horse up toward the mountains. The damage caused by the windstorm yesterday needed to be properly assess. Were any of the hunting cabins damaged? Which trails needed to be cleared from fallen branches and trees? They were already aware of a few, and teams would be sent up in the coming days to take care of those as well as any new ones he found.

He let Newton walk leisurely. There was no urgency today. There was no reason to take any chances.

As he neared the line of trees, he left the sounds of the town behind him. As those faded away thought, new sounds took their place. The gentle hum of the wind through the trees. The rustling of the leaves. The scurry of squirrels and other small animals that went running at his approach.

The sound of nature was a peaceful symphony to Nathan today. A sound he enjoyed hearing. It allowed him to be alone with his thoughts and those thoughts were quite the opposite of the quiet song of nature today.

He kept going over the events of yesterday. Had he made the right choices? Would things have turned out differently if he had changed his actions?

Nathan knew the 'what if' game could be dangerous. However, if he didn't analyze his response then he would be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. That was something that he didn't want to do.

The first question he needed to ask himself was if he should have even let Lee go look for Jesse in the first place. Lee was a civilian after all. He had a duty to protect Lee as much as he did any of the other townfolks. However, Lee probably wouldn't have listened to him anyway. Like he felt a responsibility to the people of this town, Lee felt a responsibility to his workers. Nathan understood that.

If he had gone looking for Jesse then Elizabeth would have been on her own looking out for the children. Who knew what could have happened in that scenario. Elizabeth would have gone looking for Emily sooner. The kids in the cabin would have been on their own longer, and who knows if they would have stayed put. Elizabeth may not have ever found Emily in that scenario. They would not have had his help to get back to the cabin. Would Elizabeth have known the trail that he had led them home on? He could've been out looking for one or more of them well into the night.

Though he hated the fact that Lee had gotten hurt, the simple fact was there had been two groups of people who had needed assistance. He couldn't be in two places at one time so a choice had to be made. He knew that put in the same situation, he would make the same choice time and time again.

He could only hope that Lee and Rosemary understood that choice.

Then there had been the words he had with Elizabeth. She had asked what was on his mind, though perhaps he was a bit too harsh in the manner in which he had conveyed those thoughts. However, it didn't change the fact that in his mind, she had put not only herself, but the children she had left behind, in jeopardy by setting out herself to look for Emily when he had told her to stay put. He would not be swayed in that opinion no matter what.

Though he hadn't been completely honest with her either. Yes, he had meant everything he had said. However, when she had asked what it was really about, he had held back. He hadn't told her that he loved her. He still hadn't said those words.

Now more than ever, he wondered if he ever would. She probably hated him now. Any chance he'd had with her had probably evaporated in that cabin in the woods. Perhaps he never did have a chance with her? Perhaps it had never even been fair to her to consider a possibility of the two of them given her past?

Perhaps now, all the what if's didn't even matter anymore? Perhaps the best thing he could do was to focus on the two things he had told Elizabeth were his focus - raising Ally and keeping Hope Valley Safe.