A/N: So I when I started this story, I had a big ol' plan in my mind. However, I had to drop off of the grid because I was finishing up my semester, doing a summer class and working three jobs, so while I didn't have a chance to write during that time, boy did I have a chance to think…. And I realized that the original story plan I had was really bizarre. I had something I wanted in mind, but I didn't play it out the way I wanted to, and finally I had a chance to revise this and get things to a place where I wanted them to be. The only thing that's changed is the end of this chapter, and then hopefully new chapters will be coming soon. Please excuse me being a mess/changing things up.

-o-o-o-

Years ago, he had become familiar with what a burden it was to grow older. It was almost as if he had been on a steady decline since he turned forty-five. His eyesight was on a steady decline, it was beginning to sound like cotton balls were shoved in his ears, and the rheumatoid arthritis made it nearly impossible for him to live comfortably.

However, he didn't realize that growing older would be such a burden to others.

He was filled more with embarrassment than pain when he fell down the concrete steps outside of the church in Montgomery following Louise's funeral. He was filled with shame as family and funeral-goers surrounded him, suffocating him with gasps of shock and words of concern. He was almost brought to hate himself when he saw the looks in Jem's and Scout's eyes. They were devastated enough after losing the closest thing they have had to a mother, and now they were forced to watch their aging father make a display of falling down an entire set of steps and hitting his head. He could tell they were conflicted, they wanted to stay with their father and make sure he was alright, but they also wanted to go to the cemetery to say their final goodbyes to their aunt.

He almost wanted to die when Jack stayed behind while the others went to bury Louise, joining him at Hattie's house and tending to the cut that had somehow formed on his forehead. "I patched it up," Jack said before easing himself into a chair next to his brother after what seemed to be an eternity of silence. The hint of laughter that was usually in his voice had disappeared days ago, and he was no longer quick to come up with a joke or riddle. "I think I'm going to check on it over the next few days, to make sure it isn't infected."

"I'm sorry," Atticus said for what seemed to be the thousandth time that day. Jack scoffed.

"Honestly," Jack responded, making a soft grunting noise as he got himself comfortable in his chair. Atticus could not help but to notice that his younger brother, the baby of the family, was getting old too. "I didn't want to go."

"But it's Louise," Atticus said, unable to hide his confusion.

"That's why," Jack said wistfully, sighing as he looked away from his brother. "I'm not sure if I could handle seeing her being put in the ground. I think I would laugh."

"Laugh?"

"I can picture that broad standing next to me," Jack said, his eyes still not meeting his brothers. "I can picture her clicking her tongue and saying 'ah, I'm goin' where I ought to be—closer to hell.'"

Atticus couldn't help but to laugh.

"Ah damn," Jack said, wiping his eyes. "I'll miss that gal."

Atticus would, too.

Selfishly, Louise's death reminded him of his own mortality. The woman was only fifty-eight—two years away from sixty—when her heart failed her for the second, and final, time. Compared to his seventy-five, Louise had been young, but she outlived a nephew and three sisters, and all of their tragic ends was something that Atticus still could not understand. Louise had been seemingly unstoppable, continuing on with life as though she was still in her twenties, without a clue that anything was wrong.

And then she was stopped.

-o-o-o-

He hadn't realized how excruciating it would be to travel the hour home to Maycomb after his fall. It was almost as though his tumble down the stairs of the church enhanced his usual pain and unsteadiness, and there was a constant ache throughout his entire body. His head hurt. His joints hurt. Everything hurt.

Atticus had traveled to Montgomery with Jem, also joined by Scout and Jem's wife and five-year-old daughter. The ride had already been tense, with Jem and Scout silently sat in the front seat, their jaws clenched as they tried to conceal the emotions they were feeling. Meanwhile, Jem's wife Carol sat beside Atticus, trying to occupy her young daughter, as Atticus tried to hide the fact that he had never felt so much pain in his life.

His children were thirty-five and thirty-one now—they both had existed for over three decades. It blew his mind how fast time had flown by. One moment they had just been born, but in a blink of an eye, they were adults. He felt the need to constantly remind his son not to take advantage of his daughter's youth. One day she'll be turning thirty, too, and Jeremy will be left wondering where time went.

It had been a year since Jeremy fully took over his father's law practice, and while that made Atticus proud, it simultaneously broke his heart. He never once imagined a day where he would be too old to go to work, where it would be too painful to make the seven-minute commute to his office, where he would grow unbearably tired after just a few hours. It killed him that his body was failing him, because his mind was still so active, still so eager to be put to work.

Jean Louise, meanwhile, left Maycomb long ago. Once she turned eighteen, she took a leap of faith and sent out applications to all sorts of places in New York. She wanted to be a writer, to be a journalist, to make a difference with her words. Unexpectedly, however, a department store was the first to respond, wanting her to work in their advertising department. Based on the letter she sent them, they liked her wit and charm, and thought that she could bring them much success. She had been there ever since, growing in the ranks of their advertising team—surprising grown men with her intelligence and gall—and was using her spare time to write opinion pieces to send to newspapers. Unlike her brother, Scout still never married, though that did not mean there was an absence of men from her life – however, there were many details she did not share with her father.

Looking back, he was proud of his relationship with his daughter, and how far the two of them have come. It had been fifteen years since Hank, a dastardly boy that used to live with their neighbor, raped his daughter. In the immediate aftermath of that event, Atticus couldn't live with himself for failing his daughter and coped with it the best way he could – through pushing her away. Although it has taken years, and things were still not one hundred percent the way the used to be, he and Scout had strengthened their relationship. Though he was sad to admit that his health hasn't allowed him to visit her in New York in the past five years. Thankfully, that coincided with the birth of Scout's only niece, Josie (a name that Scout picked herself), and it no longer felt like pulling teeth to get Scout to come home.

Though, this visit will not be the usual joyous occasion. The air was thick and heavy with grief, and Atticus was unsure if it would ever go back to being completely normal. Louise's death had been unexpected, sneaking up on them at a time when they foolishly thought that she would live forever. It surprised them in the worst way, and it seemed like they were all suffering from a shock they couldn't recover from.

"Atticus?" Josie asked softly. That was Jem's doing—from the moment the little girl began to speak, she was trained to call her grandfather by his first name, just as his children had done. Atticus didn't object. It was nice to hear the sweet, small, voice of a child calling his name again.

"Yes, sweet?" he asked, resting a hand on her small head.

"Who's gonna be my almost-grandma, now?"

His heart sunk.

-o-o-o-

Almost shamefully, Atticus found himself needing a nap when he got home. Alexandra and Jack, who had driven separately to Montgomery, had already arrived in Maycomb and Alexandra was at Jack's—keeping him company. Josie had become inconsolable just as they were nearing Maycomb, probably from a mixture of grief and sleep deprivation, and Jem and Carol thought that it'd be best if they took her home. As Atticus was about to go lie down, Scout told him she was heading to Jack's for a little while.

"I can stay," she told him. "If you want me to."

"I'll be asleep," he told her. "You wouldn't have much to do around here. Go."

"But—" she was referring to his fall, to his health.

"Don't you worry about it," he said. "Go."

And she did.

Atticus ended up settling himself on the sofa in his sitting room. Time and time again, Alexandra told him that it would only make his pain worse, but the couch was at a much better height than his bed and it was far easier to get in and out of it. Plus, Alexandra wasn't here right now, so there was no one here to lecture him about his "reckless" behavior.

He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, but he awoke to the feeling of someone watching him. He supposed it was Scout or Alexandra, home from Jack's, getting ready to scold him for making his back worse.

But it wasn't either of them.

Seeing her sitting there, on the chair opposite the sofa, and watching the sun illuminate the hair that he knew so well, almost made him stop breathing. She wasn't facing him. Instead, her eyes were cast out the window, observing the outside world with a placid expression on her face.

He blinked, thinking that perhaps he was still sleeping, still dreaming.

But, when he opened his eyes, she was still there.

"The treehouse is gone," she remarked, her eyes still not moving from the window. "The one you and Jack built for Jem."

"It's a different house." He found himself saying. "We moved."

She faced him, and he was struck with a wave of nostalgia. She was as young as she had been the day she died, her hair bright and ungraying, her skin smooth and full of youth. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning – her face was serene, peaceful.

He shook his head, almost as if the shake the thought of her away. This wasn't rational, wasn't logical – Jean was dead, there was no possible way for her to be here. You're tired, he told himself. You're seeing things. He closed his eyes, blinking tightly.

She was still there.

She was looking out of the window again. "I think I remember this part of town," she said. "I think we passed through here on our way to church or somethin' like that."

He couldn't remember.

"I suppose so," he said.

She was smiling now, the hint of laughter etched on her face. "Do you remember the time I was impersonatin' the visiting preacher when I thought y'all left to Louise, and you and the preacher actually caught me? My, I think he wanted to damn me to hell right there."

He chuckled. He could remember that.

"I hated church," she said.

"I know, sweet," he told her.

"But I sure do love you," she told him.

"I love you," his voice was a whisper, almost as if he was suddenly reminded that Jean was dead, that when he woke up from his dream, Jean wouldn't be there to tell him she loved him. He didn't want to wake up, he wanted to stay in this peaceful alternative universe for the rest of his life.

Looking out the window again, Jean chuckled. "How is it that Alexandra can still manage to fit inside that corset at this age?" she asked, a mischievous look on her face. "That can't be the same one she always wore."

"Hush," he told her, trying not to laugh himself. She looked at him triumphantly as the front door cracked open.

"You know I'm right," she said, smirking.

"You're the devil for saying that," he told her.

"Atticus?" Alexandra asked, with Scout trailing behind her. "Atticus who are you talking to?"

What was happening?