//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13: Remember 
// Story: What Separates 
// by Zurock 
//------------------------------//

	It wasn't a simple task to separate Spike from Rarity.  They were still both inside the cottage.  Rarity hadn't stopped obsessing over her appearance, verifying that the day's venture had not inflicted any serious damage to her visual perfection.  Spike sat besides her with a longing gaze, completely enamored by her every last detail like a love-struck puppy.  You could almost make out small hearts in the pupils of his eyes while he let out one big, contented sigh.
Twilight asked him if she could speak with him in private but, no matter what she said or how she phrased it, she couldn't get a response out of the lost dragon.  His singular attention to Rarity was blocking out every other thing going on around him.  She was simply going to have to force the issue.
"Excuse me, Rarity.  I'm just going to borrow Spike for a minute," Twilight said to her occupied friend while she magically gripped the dragon's tail.  For several moments Spike was still oblivious to what was going on as his butt was dragged across the floor, tail first, by Twilight.  Once he recognized what he was happening, he dug his claws into the floorboards and desperately tried to crawl his way back to Rarity.  He couldn't overcome Twilight's enchanted pull though, and he lost much more ground than he gained.  Wood shaving peeled away as he left scratch marks in the floor until at last the annoyed unicorn who was wrangling him decided to merely lift him up into the air by his tail, hanging him upside down.  She carried him out, though he made one last bid to stay by digging into the door frame of the room.  His tail stretched from the pull as much as it could bear before he lost his hold on the frame, leaving telltale claw marks there as he snapped back like a rubber band.
She brought him all the way outside the cottage.  At this point he had folded his arms and wore a grouchy frown, still hanging upside down by his tail.  Apologizing to him for dragging him out, Twilight encased the whole of him with her magic in order to gently correct his orientation and set him down.  He didn't flinch during the entire process.
"I"m sorry, Spike," she apologized again, "but I really need to talk to you about something."
He leered back at her for a second before dropping his arms in resignation.
Smiling, Twilight thanked him graciously.  "Now," she began, "I want to know how everything went while I was gone.  Did anything significant happen?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"With you and James," she clarified.  "Did anything happen with you guys while I was out?"
Spike immediately nodded in understanding but swiftly fell into a disinterested torpor.  "Not really," he answered her.  "We sat around and watched the animals.  It was pretty uneventful."
"Oh!  Oh..." Twilight called out in surprise before catching herself.  What was she so surprised about?  Nothing happened.  Rainbow Dash had told her as much.  Asking Spike was only for confirmation of that, so it should have been what she expected to hear.
"There was that one time some of the animals got loose, I guess," Spike admitted, "but that was only for a few minutes before we rounded them up."
"What?  What happened?" Twilight inquired.
The little dragon raised his arms with a mix of embarrassment and uncertainty.  "I dunno," he moaned.  "This annoying ferret got out somehow and started releasing the other animals.  But we got them all back in their cages again eventually."
"How?" Twilight asked him, without hesitation.
Feeling somewhat pressured, Spike stumbled over his words for a moment as he brought back the fresh narrative from only several hours earlier.  "Well, we had to... I mean... we weren't able to catch them.  There was too many of them and they were way too fast," he recalled.  "But eventually James just asked them to go back into their cages and they did."
Twilight blinked at the quiet air.  "He asked them to?  I mean, and that was it?"
"And that was it," Spike shrugged.  "They went back to their cages and we took a break."
That sounded very good to her.  No serious trouble, just as Rainbow Dash had asserted, but also the only problem that came up was resolved without incident.  By James, no less.  She chastised herself silently for getting way too worked up over nothing.  There hadn't been anything to worry about at all.  Better to just drop it and let Spike go, now that her questions had been answered.
Only she couldn't.
"So... that was the only thing that happened while I was out?  What else did you guys do?" Twilight resumed questioning.
"Geez, I dunno" Spike complained again.  This girl was being heavily inquisitive and relentless.  What was the big deal?  "We just kept watch over the animals.  Checking their food and water and everything.  I guess we mostly talked in order to pass the time."
"Well, what exactly did you talk about?" she asked curiously.
Spike reeled back in frustration.  "I don't know," he moaned yet again.  "Stuff."  He didn't set up an incredibly organized schedule for his day or keep a detailed log of every specific thing that gets said and done.  Why was this so important anyway?
The zealous unicorn's head bobbed, expecting more information out of her small friend.
Sighing, Spike hands stirred about in front of him as if he was juggling his own memories to produce the details.  Finally he said, "Rabbits.  We talked a bit about that.  Did you know he used to take care of rabbits?"
"He..." Twilight started to say, before consciously noticing the sheer mundanity of what he had told her.  "...wait, what?  Really?" she completed in diluted confusion.
"Yeah," Spike said.  "When he was growing up he raised some rabbits.  We talked about that for a little while."
There was a relative silence where Twilight couldn't muster a response.  That was indeed something she did not know.  It was also a side of James she hadn't imagined before.  Not after the earlier talk of his world, and particularly of the place of animals within it.  Lastly, she was simply in yet another bout of surprise.  She didn't know what she expected Spike to tell her, but it certainly wasn't that.  Seeing nowhere else to go, she eventually said, "So... was there anything else that you guys talked about?"
Enough was enough for Spike.  He suddenly snapped back at her, "Why do you want to know anyway?  What makes this so important?"
Twilight pulled back, caught off her guard.  She hadn't realized how much her imposing on Spike was bothering him.  All these recent, repeated failures of hers to read others was becoming a real problem.  "I'm sorry, Spike," she apologized, "but this is the first time I wasn't around to watch him myself, so I guess I've been a little bit nervous."  She looked back to her assistant, approaching him again.  "After all, the Princess assigned me to take care of him, so he's my responsibility.  I'm the one who needs to watch him and make sure everything goes well.  So, again, I'm sorry for pushing you about this," she sincerely offered up.
That was so much like the typical neurotic Twilight which Spike knew that it put the dragon at ease.  When he first started working as her assistant she compulsively had to double-check everything he did, just to make sure it had been done the way she was used to it being done.  They've settled into a more reasonable working relationship now, but still he noticed every now and again that she just couldn't rest easy until she had absolutely made sure something was the way she thought it should be.  It was like that with a lot of things for her; she could really be a dedicated micromanager sometimes.  Besides, with the way she was laying all the responsibility on herself you'd think she would get along with James much more naturally.
"I think you guys worry about things too much sometimes," Spike told her with a relieved honesty.  He rubbed the back of his neck slowly while wracking his brain for the specifics of what he exchanged with James.  At the very least, sharing the information with Twilight would help her relax, even if that information probably wasn't important at all.
"There isn't really anything that stands out... I told him a bit about Ponyville, and you, and our friends.  He talked a little bit about where he's from..."  Suddenly Spike recalled the shift which that conversation had.  They had gone from the tower's function and James' relationship with it to the results of its emergence.  The details instantly became clear in his head.  "We also talked about this whole situation with Fluttershy and the animals," Spike said.  "He sounded like he was as worried about you guys as much as you've been worried about him."
Twilight tilted her head, unsure of what to make of Spike's opinion.  "He didn't seem that worried to me," she commented lowly.  Thinking back she could only remember his anger in their confrontation.
"Yeah," Spike added, "he wasn't happy about staying behind here.  But he really just wanted to help out, I think."
The unicorn mused over what the dragon had said, nearly whispering her thoughts aloud to herself.  Just as Spike was going to say a bit more she put her hoof up and interrupted him.  "That's enough, Spike," she told him.  "Thanks."
"So... that's all?" he asked.
"Yes.  Thank you," she answered.  "And... I'm sorry again."
He easily brushed any offense aside with a friendly, "Don't worry about it."  He lingered for a moment to be sure there was nothing more to add, and then took off back into the cottage to rejoin Rarity.
Twilight's eyes dulled as she retreated into her head to think.  Any noise and activity around her faded from her senses as she unconsciously started pacing back and forth.





"Thank you, Pinkie," Fluttershy said in gratitude as the pink pony filled the final water bowl.
After setting down the water jug she was carrying just outside the pen, Pinkie Pie casually kicked the door shut.  The latch fell into place from the force.  "Aw, no problem!" she answered.
Fluttershy surveyed the scene once more.  Things were looking pretty good.  All the animals were separated into appropriate spaces, the proper food was laid out, litter was changed where needed, and all the water had been replaced with fresh liquid.  Everything was set for the new animals' temporary stay at her home.  Between so many of the animals being returned to the wilds of the Everfree Forest and the remainder being well set up here, this painful, home wrecking saga was coming to a close.
"I think that's everything," Fluttershy reassured herself as she finished her visual inspection.  "It's so nice for this to finally all be over."
"Don't the rest of these guys have to go back to the forest?" Pinkie Pie asked uncertainly.
"Oh yes, of course," Fluttershy responded plainly in acknowledgment, "but I can take care of that myself now."  She beamed with her rarely seen confidence.  "You girls have really done the hard part for me already.  With the help of the animals who have already been out there, I'll be able to find homes for the rest of them.  And with no more animals missing, we're not in any sort of rush."  In the pens and cages, the settled animals were already stretched out and resting.  Compared to what they had gone through, an impromptu vacation would be more than tolerable for quite awhile.
Pinkie Pie absorbed the answer quietly, before giving her usual cheery smile.  "Okay, if you say so!"
"Besides," Fluttershy tacked on with teeny bit of guilt, "I don't want you to have to put off that party you were planning any more than you've already had to."
The reminder caused Pinkie Pie to animate with a jubilant vitality.  She reached back into the curls of her hair and produced a paper party horn that she had somehow stored in there, just in case.  It made a sudden, loud buzz when she gave it a blow, causing all the present animals to jump up in awareness.  Fluttershy ducked her head down to avoid being swatted by the paper roll which unfurled out from the horn when it was blown.
"I can't wait!" Pinkie Pie shouted, shaking with anticipation.  The horn flirted and flittered as it caught bits of the stray breaths from her speaking.
"The party is still going to be tomorrow, right?" Fluttershy questioned her friend.
"Right!" Pinkie Pie confirmed.  She blew the horn loudly again, causing Fluttershy to repeat her dodge.  The wary pegasus gave an awkward smile as she took a single step back to be out of range from any future strikes.  Pinkie Pie finished her tooting and continued, "Technically, it's going to be yesterday's tomorrow's tomorrow."
Fluttershy blinked twice.  "So... tomorrow then?"
"Tomorrow!" Pinkie Pie yelled out gleefully.  She drew a tremendous breath and gave her party horn its biggest blast yet.  The frilly end of the paper roll danced as the horn's sound rang out.  "I hope everypony is as excited as I am!"





It came time to depart.  Having been assured by Fluttershy that everything was in order, Twilight wanted to get back to the library, eat, and perhaps take some rest.  With all the thoughts plaguing her she honestly didn't expect it to go quite as smoothly as that, however.  Politely declining her pegasus friend's offer of food, she gathered Spike and James to head out.  Her words to James, telling him it was time to leave, were simple and terse.  He responded with only a nod.  Spike was reluctant to part from Rarity yet again, but the rest of the ponies looked like they were preparing to head home as well so he gave in to leaving.  Tomorrow was always another day.
After some quick farewells, goodbyes, and "see you tomorrow"'s, the trio became the first to leave the cottage.  Throughout the walk Twilight held her eyes low, quietly thinking to herself.  Spike figured it would be fruitless to try and interrupt the pensive mood she had gotten herself into, so he tried to clear the silence instead by talking to James.
"Well, I guess everything turned out alright today," he opened up.
"Yeah," James dryly admitted.  "Fluttershy seemed very happy with the results anyway."  He let out a subtle, subdued sigh but then perked up a little bit.  "And I suppose it was all good in the end.  Most of the animals getting homes and everything.  And Rocky got his parents back," he said.
"Rocky?"
"The flying squirrel," James answered the dragon's confused question.  Things resolved fairly well all around but that reunion was what James felt most genuinely happy about.
"I guess everybody got what they really needed," he hesitantly mentioned, shaking his head in exclusion.  He looked once at Twilight as well, who was still staring down as if following an invisible line on the ground, not acknowledging any of the ongoing conversation.
"I'm definitely glad everything worked out," Spike said.  He strolled along hoping the conversation would carry on, but James didn't offer a response.  Thinking for a moment, Spike tried drawing the discussion elsewhere.  "So, do you have everything you need?" he asked the man.
James shot the dragon an uncomfortable, guilty look.
Spike quickly clarified himself, to make sure he hadn't misspoke.  "At the library, I mean.  We're trying to get you settled in and everything..."
"Oh," James heaved.  "I could use a bed," he replied.
"Ah, well, I know a place that sells them," Spike said.  "They do the delivery and stuff too, so we can get it anytime.  I mean, we'll have to make room and figure out where to put it and everything, but-"
"It's not a huge priority or anything," James hastily interjected.  "We don't need to rush it.  I can deal with using pillows and blankets to sleep on the floor.  That kind of situation has been coming up a lot for me recently, so I'm fairly used to it."
"It's no big deal to get a bed," Spike suggested.  But then his curiosity made him ask, "You sleep on the floor a lot?"
"Actually, come to think of it, I've been doing it often for a long time.  Ever since I had the rabbits," James realized.  "Mom really hated it, but sometimes at night, rather than leave my rabbit cooped up in his cage, I would throw my pillow and sheets on the ground, open up the rabbit cage, and we'd sleep together on the floor."
The dragon tried hard to stifle his laughter.  "You slept with your rabbits on the floor?" he got out between choking on his laughs.
"Sometimes!" James confirmed, warming with the memory.  "It's not like they couldn't just jump up on the bed either!  All the rabbits can and did at some point," he chuckled.  He wasn't sure why, but maybe it was being down low on the floor with the rabbits, on a similar level to how they usually see the world, that made him feel closer to them.  Maybe that was why he did it like that?
Spike shook his head while working out the last of his giggles.  After everything faded into a noiseless lull again, save for their clops and footsteps, he at last asked, "Is there anything else you need?"
Rubbing his chin, James reflected for a moment.  But that action with his hand quickly brought his attention to something.  "Some kind of razor would really come in handy now that the beard's coming out.  Don't know where I would find one around here..."
"There's the Gentlecolt's Store not far from the bed place," Spike told him.  "I bet you can get one there."
"The Gentlec-" James broke off his words and sighed.  "Ponies with beards?  Really?"
As the three continued to amble back into town towards the library, Spike and James carried on their conversation, peppered with lighthearted fare.  Twilight maintained her muteness the whole way, contemplating things on the inside.  She could hear their words but didn't bring an ear to listen, missing most of their exchange.





James was sitting on a small stool, thumbing through the pages of "The Tourist's Guide to Ponyville".  Nearby the pillows and blankets that would make up his bedding for the night sat neatly stacked and ready to be deployed.  His basic plan was to get some reading done and turn in the instant he felt tired.
A knocking sound caught his attention, and he looked up to see Twilight lightly tapping the wall nearby.  He didn't have a personal room with a door, so it was the best she could do to avoid impolitely intruding.  "Can we talk?" she asked.
He slid a bookmark into the tome and dropped it on the table to his side.  "Alright," he said, nodding.
Twilight approached slowly, without saying a word and avoiding eye contact.  She sat down across from him but still didn't start speaking.  The heavy wear on her face showed that she was just preparing herself before beginning.
"First," she started when she was ready, "I want to apologize for having you stay back at the cottage today.  I still stand by my decision to make you do so, but I realize that you didn't like it.  So... I'm sorry."
"That's alright," James weakly responded.  He suddenly fumbled with his words for a moment as he rapidly tried to avoid sounding ungrateful.  "Thank you, I mean.  But I guess I understand why you choose to have me stay behind.  Even if I didn't agree with having to do."
Twilight let out a breath and her shoulders drooped with relief.  "Thank you," she returned.  "I'm glad to hear it.  That was a big disagreement that we had, but I really don't want our interactions to be characterized by antagonism."
"Well, you were just trying to do your best to follow Princess Celestia's orders, right?  Which I suppose includes keeping me safe.  And I can understand following orders."  He still couldn't tell how much he danger believed the Everfree Forest actually represented, but he was now fully accepting that Twilight truly believed there was a risk to him and she made the best call that she could.
With James' words, her tension started to release and she relaxed.  Continuing from her previous line of thought, Twilight said, "I also want you to know that I didn't mean anything hostile when I put my hoof down and got harsh with you.  I just..." she seemed to have some reservation about the word choices she had to make, "... I had to make sure my point got across."
"It got across, no problem," James lightly dismissed.  When he saw Twilight stare questioningly at his spontaneous forgiveness of her past aggression, he added, "I can withstand a little serious talk and verbal dressing down when necessary, don't worry."  He's had parents, dozens of teachers, superior officers, and other authority figures in his life.  The only thing novel about this particular experience was that it had come from a purple talking unicorn.  "I've definitely had worse.  Your effort was kind of adorable in comparison, really."
For Twilight, hearing that was one step in the direction of comfort but also one step in the direction of confusion.  Was that a compliment... or...?
Not having a recognizable reaction from her, and feeling the need to fill the vacant air, James simply continued, "I've been reprimanded and yelled at by people in charge of me plenty of times.  I get it.  I try not to take it personally."
"Right, well," Twilight picked up her side of the conversation again, "I was worried because of the way you reacted.  You were pretty... angry."
"Sure.  Because it wasn't what I wanted, or expected, to hear," he explained.  "I thought I... I expected I was going to be going in with the rest of you to help out.  So your plan caught me by surprise."
"You weren't angry at me specifically," Twilight said, to verify what she had begun to suspect.
James backpedaled apologetically.  "Oh no, not at all.  Not really, anyway.  I'm sorry if I let on that impression."  He ran a hand over his head once, resting it against the back of his neck.  "I was just... frustrated and annoyed with the whole situation, you know?" he mumbled uneasily.
Once again, things were going much more smoothly than the bumpier possibilities Twilight had feared.  While the darker parts of her worried imagination had conjured up nightmares of an unforgiving man, easy to stir with rage, the reality had turned out to be far more straightforward and understandable.  Everypony gets a little riled up when things take an unexpected, aggravating turn.  It was ridiculous of her to imagine it sprang from somewhere else.  She really should had probed his feelings last night; pushed harder to get him to talk then, instead of presenting it to him the moment before.  That time has past now, but the present has given her a new opportunity to discover his feelings and learn about who he is.  She asked him honestly, "Do you want to tell me about why you think you're responsible for what happened?"
There was a pause before he replied, "Not 'responsible' as in 'at fault'.  I think someone needs to step up and claim responsibility."
"Why?" Twilight pressed.
"I'm the one bested suited to do so."
"No," she shook her head vigorously, "I mean, why does somepony need to be responsible?  You've made it pretty clear it was all an unfortunate accident."
"Well, because-"  He started to raise his arms up in emphasis, but quickly stopped midsentence.  "Actually, I went over this whole thing with Spike earlier," he realized aloud.
"I had a feeling that you did," Twilight told him.  She had stopped short of asking her assistant about this directly because he had made her wake up to how intrusive she was being, but he had more or less already implied that they had talked about James' feelings.  Recalling that, she decided to avoid demanding conversation specifics of the man and instead carefully laid out her question to get straight to the results.  "Did anything Spike say to you make you reconsider how you felt?" she asked.
He shook his head plainly and shrugged, saying, "No.  Well... sort of, I guess.  It helped me calm down which dissuaded me from taking any rash actions, at least."
The revelation was disheartening for Twilight.  Effectively what he had said was that he didn't have any intention of following the directions she had given to him.  He would have ignored her if not for Spike.  Now she somewhat regretted not learning exactly what the dragon said to James.  "Incisive wisdom" wasn't a quality she often attached to the little guy.  Maybe he's earned an extra treat next time they have dessert.
James continued, partially rambling, "I might've gone off on my own, who knows.  I wasn't thinking clearly."  For a moment he almost seemed to be talking to himself as he couldn't settle on his feelings.  Then his attention snapped back to Twilight and he said, "You were right to draw a line and put me in my place.  Regardless of how I felt about the situation, nobody else really cared who was responsible.  And everything worked out in the end with your plan anyhow."
"I still don't understand why you're on about the responsibility," Twilight picked up.  "Why do you, or does anypony, need to be responsible?"
"Innocent people suffering is a horrifying thing," James stated.
"It is," the unicorn immediately agreed, "but having somepony to blame doesn't do anything to relieve their suffering."
"Probably not physically," James admitted, "but having someone who can explain the 'why' of it can give them answers."
Twilight raised an eyebrow in suspicion.  "Answers?"
James glanced around the room briefly while he searched for the right words to elaborate with.  "Have you ever been in a situation where..." he began, slowing down when the next sentence didn't come to him immediately.  He rolled his hands over on another in front of him until he found what he needed to continue.  "Where... everything was just so wrong or terrible, and you didn't understand why?  You search and search and search for answers about why things are the way they are, but you get nothing back from the darkness you shout into?  Turning to someone, ANYONE for answers, asking 'why?'  You want so badly to know why, but you just simply can't understand it?"
She paused in reflection.  "Yes... I think so," she finally answered.  "What I've realized is that many times you do find the answers, with or without help from others, but sometimes you don't.  Sometimes there is a point at which you must accept things are the way they are, even if you don't understand why."  Generally she was on the side of all questions being answerable if the right tools were used, the right data gathered, the right approaches taken.  But more than once she had felt like she was drowning in questions, in over her head and unable to escape, and eventually surrendering to ignorance became the most sensible solution.  "You can't always understand everything that happens around you, even if you want to.  And I REALLY like trying to understand everything," she emphasized, "but... I think sometimes you don't always need to."
He thought about her words, but grimaced when trying to reconcile them with his views.  "Even in matters of justice?  What if it's an injustice that you don't understand?" he asked.
The unicorn gave James a perplexed look, unsure what specific difference that would make.  Internally, she tried to predict where his questions were leading.
"Many years ago," James started, cutting Twilight off from answering his questions, "I lost a friend in a terrible accident.  Some irresponsible, inebriated stranger lost control of his vehicle and crashed into my friend's car, killing her.  The stranger himself, through some sick twist of fate, walked out of the wreckage without a scratch on him."  James rubbed his elbow and looked off to the side while telling the story.  He had put his more intense feelings from this event to rest a long time ago, but it was still perhaps the most seminal event of his adolescence.  It would be impossible to talk about it without completely dismissing all of his past discomfort or anger.  "I mean, he was still hauled away and put in jail for breaking the law and everything.  But the crash he caused, which killed my friend, didn't touch him physically."
Twilight's eyes dropped sorrowfully.
"I never felt like I got an answer," James told her.  "I never understood why it had to happen."
With a hushed sigh, Twilight reseated herself to try and get more comfortable.  The conversation was going to have to continue despite the sullen turn of mood.  She didn't want to let the change of tone suppress her too much, and it was clear the event he was talking about was far enough away in time that he was settled emotionally.  There shouldn't be any need to tip-toe about the subject.  "It didn't 'have' to happen," Twilight stated.  "It was a horrible accident."
"But that's just it!" he lamented, tossing a glance aside.  "That's all that guy said too.  'It was an accident, sorry!'"  He spit out the words he was attributing to the other man.  "That's all he thought of what happened.  'I didn't mean to do this.'  That's what bothered me the most.  He couldn't own up to it.  He couldn't stand in front of everybody else and say, 'I did this.  I'm responsible.  It was my fault.'"  James exhaled through his teeth, resting his open palms on his lap.  "It all had to be an 'unfortunate accident.'"
Again, Twilight searched for the words to respond with, but didn't have anything to immediately offer.
"Even if it wouldn't have fixed anything," James continued, "and, I know, of course it couldn't, you can't bring someone back to life, but... even if it wouldn't have fixed things, just having him be accepting of that responsibility... just getting that answer..."  He trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
They steeped in silence for several seconds before Twilight spoke up.  "I'm sorry about your friend," she said emphatically.  She let that sit for a moment to separate it from what she was about to say.  "But... you don't really think an admission of responsibility would have made you feel better, do you?  Or made you understand the situation any better?"
In the past he would've told her, "Yes, I would have felt worlds better about it!"  James was beyond doubt that earlier versions of himself would refute her insinuation.
"I don't know," he admitted to her.  "Maybe it would've.  I was thinking about it earlier today."  His mind mixed the memories and feelings of the past with his modern person and ruminations, teasing out whatever answers he could.  He mused out loud, "At the time the accident happened I was certainly younger and more immature, I guess I was caught up more in my own personal feelings and my own world.  So maybe I didn't stop to think about bigger things as much as I should have... like how anybody else was affected.  I sort of just worked through it on my own.  You know, I didn't REALLY talk much to anybody else about it.  Not to my other friends, or my parents... or especially not my lost friend's parents."  The faces of his friend's parents barely materialized in his mind.  He saw so little of them after she had died; the common link between him and them had been severed.  "I never talked to them about it.  What the loss of their daughter meant to them.  I don't know how they felt about what that man did, or how they would have felt if he was more forthcoming."
No concrete conclusion came to him.  Other than the knowledge that he didn't even know if he was on the same side as those who arguably lost more than he did, his pondering gave him nothing.  "I don't know how I would have felt," he said again to Twilight.  "In any case, that was definitely my most personal experience with that kind of situation.  But I've seen the same kind of thing played out several times elsewhere in many different circumstances.  And I hate letting it stand."
The insight did a lot to clarify his actions.  Now what Twilight saw earlier as erratic behavior stood out more clearly as part of his own attempt to be of assistance.  She openly told James, "I can sympathize with how you feel.  And I think where you're trying to come from is a very good place.  But personally, in this case, I don't think you claiming responsibility would have helped anypony."
"No, I guess not," he concurred.  "I talked to Fluttershy briefly afterwards, and she was just so overjoyed with how everything turned out, despite what had happened."  In their past conversation, he saw pegasus' meek form rise above the chaotic storm of circumstance, seizing victory and happiness despite not understand the tragedy's origins.  "She didn't care why it happened at all."
"Her empathy with animals is astounding," Twilight asserted.  "She wouldn't be able to rest as long as she knew a single one of them was in trouble.  Having somepony to blame wouldn't have helped her."
While he nodded in general agreement, he opposed one element of her final statement and countered, "I don't think it's about blame, though."
Twilight was surprised at the interpretation.  "That's not what it sounds like to me," she said.
"But-"
"I know," Twilight cut him off with her quickly arranged thoughts on the matter, "You understand that you're not directly at fault for the events, but you want to take responsibility insofar as explaining the facts of the situation.  To tell why the events occurred.  But... in the end isn't that the same thing as trying to be blamed for it?  I don't see how it's any different than just trying to be the pony that everypony can direct their ire at."
"That- That's not what it's about!" he argued.  "It's not a matter of scapegoating!"
"I guess I just really don't see how it's any different," Twilight shrugged, helpless unless he could elaborate further.
James leaned forward a little, resting his wrists on over his knees, bouncing one slightly in mild nervousness.  "It's different because it's about being fair," he insisted.  "It's not leaving the innocent people with an empty 'sorry this terrible thing you had no control over happened to you for no reason.'  An attempt to give them the facts and let them make up their own minds about the matter."  If after they had the facts they wanted to blame someone, well that was their business.  Or the business of the courts or whatever, if it came to it.
Twilight dabbed the front of her hoof on her chin a few times while thinking.  "I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but to me that still mostly sounds like trying to find a target to blame.  Or maybe... even worse, focusing almost on revenge."
"No, it's not about revenge either," he said.  "I mean, I really, REALLY hated the guy who killed my friend, but..."  He froze in thought.  Now that he was a trained soldier he had actually made the necessary moral decisions about the when's and where's of killing, something that wasn't true when he was an angry, hurt young man.  Back then, would he have killed the drunk driver in revenge if he somehow had the chance?  Would fear of the consequences stop him, or would fear of crossing that murderous threshold do it?  Instinct said no, he wouldn't, because of course history said he didn't, but it wasn't clear on why.  But maybe that wasn't important anymore.  Would he kill the drunk driver now, with who he was?
He bit his lip hesitantly, but shook out an answer.  "But... I wouldn't kill him," he said.  "Not in revenge.  I don't know about 'deserving to live' versus 'deserving to die', but murder in vengeance... that isn't right."  His military experience wasn't, in any part, really about empowering to kill.  It was, in part, about being ready to do so when absolutely necessary.  That issue with the drunk driver was a matter for the law, not a matter for vengeance.
Twilight pulled back, her eyes widening.  "You... wouldn't?" she asked, with the raised pitch of the final syllable being unusually high and choked with surprise.