A/N: Seems fair to give y'all two stories in one day. I mean, it's been months...
I can't believe him!" Alyss said with a furious expulsion of breath. "Just cannot believe he would come here, expecting anything!"
This day marked the six-year anniversary of the death of the Ranger Halt. The grizzled Ranger's death had been met with nothing but despair from all that knew him, but none had been so affected as one man in particular. Halt had been like a father to Will, and the younger man had fallen apart at Halt's decease.
Since then, Will had went into a steep downward spiral into a black hole of depression and hopelessness. Being at the wrong place at the worst time, though, had led him to a vise that he grew to cherish: liquor. The sweet respite that came at the bottom of every bottle was one thing that Will had never been able to achieve on his own.
Putting up with the despondence and drunkenness, Alyss waited nearly two years before finally filing for divorce. With Will obviously unfit for the responsibility, she had taken their two kids from the little cabin at the fringe of the forest that had been the home of a happy family for so long to a roomy apartment in the castle, where they were welcomed with open arms. The three had been living there ever since.
17-year-old Danny watched his mother as she paced the floor in a fit of rage. His older sister Katherine had discreetly moved all of the breakable items from the path of destruction a moment earlier, before Alyss had set to her angry strides, and now the girl was holed up in her small bedroom.
The boy had no idea what would have happened if he had been the one to answer the door. More than likely, at seeing his father in the hallway, he would have opened the door and invited Will in without saying much of anything, leaving them together in the living room for his mother to find. Probably luckily for him, Katie (who was turning 20 within the next month) had been halfway there already. Upon looking though the peephole and seeing her father, she had called to her mother over her shoulder, "Momma, it's Dad at the door." This was when the fury began.
Will was still standing there five minutes after he had come knocking, drunk as Daniel had ever seen—probably slightly high on a little of some substance or another, too. Danny glanced away from his mother and toward the door, eyeing it in pity with his big gray eyes as if he could see his father through the hard oak entrance. Cautiously, he asked, "Don't you think we could at least see what he needs, Momma, instead of just leaving him out there…?"
Alyss rounded on him. "Don't you dare let him in, son," she warned in no light terms. She walked to the door and slid open the small vision slot near the top. Through the opening, she yelled at her ex-husband, "Get your sorry ass back down that hallway and out of here! I'm not helping you!"
As she slammed the opening shut, Danny could hear his father stumbling down the hallway, presumably out of the castle. Danny waited until his mother had stormed into the kitchen and out of sight before standing and going out to catch Will before he got too far.
It didn't take long before they boy spotted him wandering down the hall in the general direction of the exit. Jogging lightly to catch up, Danny went up to him. "Hold on," he called. Coming up face to face with the man whom he so much resembled, he looked into his father's chocolate-brown, glassy eyes. "You okay?"
"'M all right'," Will slurred, leaning heavily to one side. Dan, obviously knowing better, draped his father's arm across his own shoulders to bear his weight.
"Come on, Dad," he said, straightening as much as he could. "Let's get you home."
He took Will back to the cabin. The furnishings inside were next to nothing, plain, spartan. Danny went into his father's bedroom and made the bed, turning the covers back. He arranged his father's cloak on the hook and his boots beside the dresser.
In a moment of weakness and nostalgia, the boy stepped through the door and into the room that he and his sister had shared for the first thirteen years of his life. Nothing had changed since they left it—the two beds and dresser were all unmoved. Will probably just hadn't even bothered with messing with them; but still, he had kept Katie and Danny's things.
The boy went back into the living room, where he had left Will. His beautiful, broken hero was on the couch, passed out asleep. With a grunt of effort he was able to pull Will's arm around his shoulders again and draw him up off the couch, waking the man enough to get to the next room. Dan put him to bed, getting him to pull off his shirt before succumbing to sleep again. The boy arranged the covers around his father's sleeping figure, tears filling his eyes. He straightened, swiping a bit of salt from his cheek as he stood in the doorway and looked back at his beautiful, broken hero. "Dad, I love you. Goodbye."
Danny rode home alone that night, in the silence and reminiscence that came with thinking of years past. He headed out into the night, his collar turned up to the cold that threatened to penetrate his defenses. At the end of his short journey he put his horse in the stable, gave it a brief goodbye, and headed in.
The castle grounds were dark and dreary this time of night, the hallways inside near deserted. The boy trudged to his mother's apartment, hands shoved in his pockets, encountering no one but a couple of castle guards. When Dan finally reached the door to the apartment, he eased the door open as slowly and gently as possible. He winced as he prayed that it wouldn't squeak too badly on its unoiled hinges—a habit that, even out of Will's scrutiny, the three of them had never tried to break.
Danny knew what he had to do…he had to choose. He had two choices: extremes, or his current life with its dull prospects.
He tiptoed to his room and opened the middle drawer in his dresser, which held all the money he had to his name. From the small store of coins he plucked out silver crown, rolling it over his knuckles how his father had shown him so many years ago. Danny closed his eyes in thought for a moment before opening them again to study the two faces of the coin: heads and tails. Succinctly, he assigned a choice to each side of the coin, slid it onto his thumb, and flipped.
Seemingly in slow motion, the silver coin turned end over end in midair, and the boy felt that familiar stone of longing in his belly. Aware of his course of action, he plucked the crown from the air and pressed it into his pocket without looking at which side it had landed on. He didn't need to see what the coin would have told him; in that brief moment when it was falling, he had realized what he hoped it would show.
Set firm to his choice, he grabbed a sheet of parchment. He started to reach for his graphite stylus, but he hesitated—after a moment of thought, he decided that this was deserving of his quill, so he unstoppered his inkwell.
Mom,
I wish I could wave a wand and, just like that, make things how they used to be. I wish I could bring back the man who stole your heart all those years ago, before the demons got to him. I wish I could do something, anything, to make you smile again.
But I can't. I just can't.
I can't fool myself anymore. If I stay here any longer, something sacred is going to die.
Momma, I love you.
Goodbye
Danny blew on the ink to let it dry before folding it in half and sticking it in the fold of the quilt on his bed. In a brief minute he had packed a bag with his savings and belongings, which he placed by the door.
One last time before he left, Danny sneaked into his mother's room, where she lay quietly sleeping. For a moment he almost started to doubt his choice, but resolved himself and kissed Alyss on the cheek in a sad farewell. In Katie's bedroom, he eased himself gently down to sit on the edge of the bed. Sleepily, Kat dragged herself awake and looked questioningly at her brother. She was groggy for a moment before looking at Dan's melancholy expression, and her own seemed to crumple. She always had known her brother best; and now, looking into his sorrowful face and resolute gray eyes, she knew that he was leaving.
Before either of them could say a word, Katherine threw her arms around his neck and almost held back all of her tears. They embraced for a time, but when they released their grip on each other the time seemed insufficient. Kat looked at him hard, her beautiful brown eyes—Will's eyes—filled with tears. "Do you really have to go?"
Danny nodded, not saying a word.
She swallowed and nodded in return, steeling herself and putting on a brave face. "Okay then," she said solidly. "I believe you."
Quietly, Danny leaned forward and gave his sister a loving kiss on the cheek; she closed her eyes and let a tear slip down her face. He patted her leg, and Katie loved him for his awkwardness at the goodbye. She smiled fondly at him. "Love you, little brother."
"Love you, too."
Watching as her baby brother stepped through the doorway, she let another tear fall. "'Bye."
"'Bye."
Katie wiped her face with her blanket, taking a deep breath. When she lifted her face from the quilt, she saw that Danny had slipped away.
He had made himself a good life after leaving. With only his meager possessions and the clothes on his back, Daniel managed to find himself a place to rent, a good job as a watchman in a small town near the sea. Sure, he had made a lot of wrong turns, but on this road finding his life, he always managed to find himself traveling in the right direction.
After a couple of years, Danny was nicely settled in this little town. By the grace of God he ended up marrying the girl of his dreams. Grace was a sweet, resolute girl that Danny loved with all his heart. By the time he had been gone for five years, he and Grace were living in a quaint little home not far from the shore, with a little boy who was almost two years old.
It was about this time that the letter came.
A knock brought Danny, toting his baby boy in one arm, to the front door, which he pulled open. The messenger on the other side smiled politely and extended his hand. "Letter from Redmont for Daniel Treaty."
"That'd be me," Danny said, shifting his son to his other hip and taking the proffered letter. After exchanged pleasantries and saying goodbye to the messenger, he sat down on the couch, sat his son to play on the floor, and tore open the top of the letter. The guy said it had been from Redmont, so it could be sent from anyone.
"Redmont…isn't that where you're from?" his wife asked.
"Yeah," he answered. "Yeah, it is."
Upon unfolding the parchment, Danny saw the handwriting and, even after this long, recognized it as his sister's. His wife watched his eyes scan the message, watched his face as he saw what his sister had to say. When he looked up from the parchment, she eyed him inquiringly.
"It's from Katherine, my sister," he said slowly, lowering the letter to his knee. "…My mom isn't doing well."
She said, "Is she sick?"
"Yeah…real bad sick." Danny blinked, looking into her eyes. "Katie says that she doesn't think she'll make it much longer."
Grace was silent for a moment before bending down and picking up their son. She put him on one hip and her hand on the other. "Well, you know what we have to do, don't you?"
"What?"
"We have to go see them, of course," she said, as if it was obvious. Going and grabbing saddlebags from the cabinet, she started to get a few things ready. "You're going back home. We're visiting."
The service was simple enough, probably just how Alyss would have wanted. A few words were said, dirt was thrown into the grave, and the small crowd of friends and family gathered later to reminisce. In the midst of the food and nostalgia, Danny repeatedly found himself in conversations with people whom he hadn't seen in years. Even in the somber atmosphere and the lack of the pleasant air that his mother had always seemed to bring to gatherings, Danny felt the warmth that only comes with returning home.
As the crowd was dispersing, he was met with a sight that he never expected to find again—his father, hands in pockets, came up to him. Will reached his son and gave a hesitant smile. "How've you been doing, son?" he asked.
Feeling more than a little awkward, Danny said, "Good. I've got a great job that's doing well." Pointing over to one of the tables, he continued, "That's my wife and son right there. We've been doing well."
Will dipped his head, hiding the sadness in his eyes. There was so much time he could have spent with his family, getting to know the ones he had never even met; it had all been taken away from him by his own past choices.
In the short silence that followed, Danny shoved his thumbs in his pockets. After a moment, he said politely, "How's it been going for you?"
"Good."
"Yeah?"
Will looked up solemnly and met his son's eyes, and answered the hanging, unspoken question. "Yeah. I've been clean for a year now. Clear-eyed and sober now—Jesus took my sins." With the raise of his eyebrows and a shy, sad smile, he said, "All I can do now is pray that someday, maybe, you'll forgive me, too."
Danny saw with a wrenched heart as his father's eyes filled with tears. Swallowing thickly, Will stepped forward and embraced his son for a moment. "Son, I love you." He couldn't think of anything else to say, so he gave a quiet "Goodbye," before turning and walking away. Danny watched his back in silence as he walked farther and farther away.
Stepping back into their house when they returned from their trip to Redmont, Danny and Grace silently put away their travelling items. Looking at his son, who had been asleep for an hour before they reached the house, Danny had to fight back tears. All this time, he had struggled to be a better father than Will had been. But nonetheless, Dan desperately wanted to merit the level of love and affection that he had for his own father, despite Will's bad choices and shortcomings. And here they were now, with Will back on the right path…it put a whole new spin on everything.
Grace came up behind him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Go ahead."
"Go ahead with what?" he asked.
She raised her eyebrows. "With your father," she said. "You know you need to. And more than that…you want to."
And in his heart, as he looked into her beautiful, loving face, Danny knew that she was right.
That night, he sat at his desk, the small fire from the lamp flickering and giving the papers that littered the surface a surreal glow. Danny reached for his graphite stylus, but hesitated. With a moment of thought, he left the stylus be and unstoppered his inkwell. After a minute of thought, he began to write the letter.
Dad,
I know you went through a lot these past few years. You have no idea how happy I am that you've turned your life around.
We've got an extra room here at our house. Your grandson has your eyes.
At this, Danny found that he was unable to write anything else, because he started to cry. With an immense effort, he was able to scratch out through the tears:
Dad, I love you.
Goodbye.
Finis
A/N: I had so much fun writing this! Which is a bit weird, considering the sadness…but it turned out all right! This was based on Tim McGraw's song Love You Goodbye. Hope you liked it!