"But—" He stopped again and drew a long, shuddering breath, and his swollen eyes gleamed suspiciously. "But I almost lost you today," he said hoarsely. "Perhaps I already have, and I won't blame you if that's true, but today I almost lost you forever, like . . . like I lost your mother. And I realized that if I had lost you, if you'd . . . died today, then any chance I might ever have had to tell you how sorry I am, or to tell you how much I love you, or to even try to repair some of the hurt and harm I've done would have died with you. And I can't have that, Adrienne. Maybe that's the ultimate cowardice—that I'm too terrified to lose you with the coldness still between us to keep that safe, uncaring coldness there. I don't know. I only know that when Colonel Tudev's first message came in, I—"
He broke off, face working, and covered his eyes with his hands. His shoulders shook, and Adrienne heard the treecat in her lap crooning to her as tears spangled her own burning vision.
"I'm sorry, baby," he told her in a shaking voice. "God, that sounds so stupid–so useless and tiny after all I've done, but I can't– They're the only words—" He sucked in a deep, wracking breath. "I don't know another way to say it," he said finally. "I won't blame you if you don't forgive me. I made my choices, my decisions. They were wrong. They were stupid. They were cowardly. But I made them, and they hurt you horribly, and if you hate me for that, I earned it, and I know it. But this much I promise you. It may take something as horrible and terrifying as today to get through to me, but I can learn, Adrienne, and whether you can forgive me or not, I will never shut you out again. Perhaps we can never be like we were before your mother died. If not, the fault is mine, and I accept that. But now I know how stupid I've been. I can't turn away, pretend I don't know. So at the very least, I will treat you as a monarch ought to treat his heir—as someone to be consulted and involved, whose opinion counts and who has the right to demand explanations of me. I would like . . . like very much—" his voice cracked again "—to do better than that, as well. I would like to learn to act like a father once more, but I know that's not something I can demand of you or order you to let me be. It's a position I'll have to try to earn again. I may not succeed, but I intend to try, and—" he managed a shaky smile while tears trickled down his face "—one thing I've learned to do is try really hard when I want something badly."
"I know you have, Daddy," she whispered through her own tears as he paused once more, and her hands caressed the treecat in her lap. She'd waited so many hopeless, pain-filled years to hear those words. Now she had . . . and he was right. In her dreams, she'd seen them coming back together, their scars magically healed—seen him once more as her adored father, and seen her as his beloved daughter. But he'd hurt her too badly for that. The wounds went too deep, and that innocent perfection had been lost to both of them forever. They had become worse than strangers to one another; they'd become sources of pain, of hurt and loneliness, and that could be neither forgotten nor forgiven in a moment, whatever she wanted. Indeed, she didn't know if it could ever be forgiven at all.
But I do know that if we don't try, we can never even hope to fix it, she thought, feeling her tears splash her hands where they rested on the treecat's silken fur. And at least he's come this far, reached out this much to me after so long. I can't just rush home and tell him all is forgiven, that it's all water under the bridge. But I can go home and let him try, and I can try, and maybe we can patch something together between us once again, if only for the sake of Mother's memory.
"On another matter," her father's voice said from the com, and she blinked, then rubbed at her eyes with one hand, "I understand I also have to change my opinion of treecats." He managed a more natural looking smile, and there was a ghost of true humor in his voice. "Colonel Tudev has kept me up to date, so I know one of them has adopted you. And I also know he and his friends are the reason you're still alive. Which means, of course, that I owe them and all their relatives a debt I can never hope to pay.
"But just because I can't pay it, doesn't mean I don't have to try, so as soon as I finish recording this message, I'll be sitting down with the Prime Minister to discuss the withdrawal of the Crown's opposition to the Treecat Rights Bill. The Sphinx Forestry Service will be getting a somewhat larger budget over the next few months, as well, and I would be very grateful if you would ask General MacClintock if he would be so good as to accompany you back to Manticore so that he and I can discuss how best to clarify—and enforce—the treecats' legal status as quickly as possible.
"In addition," his recorded image looked straight into the pickup, meeting his daughter's gaze levelly, "I would ask you and your new friend to come home to Mount Royal Palace. I understand from Colonel Tudev that the 'cats have rather conclusively demonstrated their ability to sense the hostile intent of would-be assassins. I find that an excellent reason to encourage my daughter to consort with them, and I intend to ask the SFS to reassign a few of their enforcement personnel to the PGS. More to the point," his mouth tightened, and grim pleasure flickered in his eyes, "I agree with Colonel Tudev. This had to have been arranged with the help of a high-level leak and, probably, with some high-level conspirators, as well. And that being the case, I am looking forward with considerable anticipation to introducing as many 'cats as possible to the people here at Court who might have profited from your demise. I know it won't be admissible in a court of law, but if we know where to look, I feel quite confident that men and women like Colonel Tudev will be able to find the evidence we require. Or at least," his smile was cold, "to keep the guilty parties far too busy running for their lives to try any more plots . . . or ever enjoy themselves or their lives again."
Adrienne felt her own mouth quirking as she visualized the scene as her 'cat and a dozen or so others suddenly found themselves with the free run of Mount Royal Palace. Whoever had tried to kill her was undoubtedly well enough connected to realize why they were there, and for the first time in far too many years, she found herself in complete and total agreement with her father.
For several seconds she smiled at the com while her father smiled out of it, but then his smile faded and his voice softened.
"But that's for the future, Adrienne. For now, just be well. Come home to me. However foolishly I've acted, I love you, and I want the opportunity to prove that to you once more. Please."
He stopped speaking and gazed out of the display for a moment longer, and then the message ended, and Adrienne leaned back against her pillows and hugged Seeker of Dreams to her breasts while fresh tears misted her vision. He twisted in her arms, wiggling until he could nestle his blunt, triangular jaw down into the angle of her collar bone, and the deep, buzzing strength of his purr burned into her flesh and sinew.
It was all his doing, she realized wonderingly. He'd dropped into her life like a whirlwind, and he was the only reason she was still alive. He and his friends were the only reason anyone even knew there'd been a plot to be discovered, not simply some lone, deranged assassin, and they were the ones who were most likely to discover who the plotters were. And if the miracle she'd prayed for occurred—if somehow she and her father were able to piece back together even a shadow of the warmth and love they once had known—that, too, would be possible only because of the 'cat in her arms.
"I haven't even named you," she whispered into one tufted ear, and the ear twitched. The 'cat raised his head just enough to look into her eyes, and she smiled tremulously. "I guess I really am one of the slowpokes Colonel MacClintock was talking about," she told him, "but you'll have to be patient with me. It has to be the right name for all you've accomplished this afternoon . . . and somehow I don't think you'd like `Miracle Worker' very much when you learned what it meant!"