You might recognize this first chapter because I first posted it in my WCTH anthology. Since it's already been posted, I'm going ahead and posting the next chapter as well. Everything from that still holds true: this takes place after 8x08 (though we haven't seen that episode yet) and everything in canon has happened up to this point. The exception, of course, is that we have no idea what Nathan's secret actually is. I went with what I theorize it will be, but I might be way off the mark.

Like many, I saw the preview for the next episode and, while I am ready for this secret to come out so we can move past it, I am also just really tired. I hope - but don't expect - that we'll get to see Elizabeth facing the consequences of her actions and the people she's hurt. Not just Nathan, but Allie. I would love to see some contrition from her, and the care and concern for Nathan and Allie that I feel has really been missing from this season.

Thus, the idea for this was born.

What was it, Elizabeth wondered, that drove humans to divide their lives into so many pieces? All of her life, bisected by two simple words: before and after.

Such a narrow margin, yet she had somehow managed to get lost in that un-nameable between.

Before Nathan's secret, and after. Her mind had instinctively drawn that line even as her heart withered in her breast. She'd stared at him in disbelief, in horror, in outrage - he couldn't be right. It had to be a lie, despite the fact that Elizabeth knew in her bones that Nathan had never lied to her.

He wasn't supposed to be there, Elizabeth. The pitch and timber of Nathan's voice still resonated in her mind, hours later. Jack disobeyed orders; he made a mistake, and it cost him his life. I'm sorry, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth had retreated home to cry broken tears. She had ambushed Nathan in the middle of the street - in the middle of their town, in front of their friends - and demanded an answer to a question she wasn't certain she'd fully understood. She'd known instinctively that whatever Nathan wasn't telling her must have something to do with Jack, but now ... if anyone had asked, she would never have been able to guess what he would have told her. Jack had died without the knowledge that he was a father, and left his new bride alone when the ink was barely dry on their marriage certificate, because he'd made a decision. Nothing more sinister or complicated than that. He had made a choice that took him away from her forever.

A mistake. And how many mistakes had she made? How many mistakes did anyone make in the long, sometimes relentless march of life?

Before Jack, and after.

Nathan had tried to catch Elizabeth as she fled. He'd tried to explain, to beg her to understand that he'd only wanted to protect her memory of her husband. He'd only been trying to spare her more pain and heartache.

Elizabeth had left him standing in the middle of the street just as she'd left him standing in the middle of that dirt road after his I love you, so many weeks ago.

Before and after.

And life was cyclical, an endless wheel turning them inexorably toward the future with no regard for what was being left in the past, so Elizabeth knew that one day she would look back at the her of the present and understand that, even at this moment, she had been caught between one turn of the wheel and the next.

So many pieces of her life, and Elizabeth felt that they had all been scattered and lost to the wind.

She was lost.

I'm sorry, Elizabeth.

So was she.

"...and then she attacks you in the middle of the street! In front of everyone!"

"She didn't attack me, Allie."

"I was there, Uncle Nathan! I've never heard Elizabeth -."

"Mrs. Thornton," Nathan corrected.

"Mrs. Thornton," Allie amended without stopping for a breath, "raise her voice like that to anyone! I know you were just saying that she cares about us, but that didn't sound like care, Uncle Nathan. It doesn't feel like she cares about you, or me."

Nathan sighed. In all honesty, he was tired. He understood how Allie felt, and he understood where Elizabeth was coming from; he empathized as an adult who had suffered at the hands of loss, albeit differently, but that did not make him invulnerable. He had tried to shield Elizabeth from the pain that he'd seen in her face. He'd tried to protect Jack Thornton's memory from the truth of his own actions, and been unsuccessful.

Nathan had tried to honor Jack's sacrifice by keeping his secret, and had failed.

"Come here," Nathan said and beckoned Allie to sit next to him on their couch. "Grief does strange things to people, Allie. Everyone reacts differently, and not all grief is the same. I hope you'll never have to experience that for yourself, but it's unrealistic to think that you won't. Whatever you may feel now, Allie, I hope you'll remember that Mrs. Thornton is hurting."

"Why does that mean she gets to hurt you?"

Nathan slung an arm around his niece - no, his daughter's - shoulder and pulled her tightly to his side. He may never understand how Dylan had run out on Allie, but Nathan could admit in the privacy of his thoughts that he was grateful that he had. He didn't know what he would do without Allie.

"Thank you for caring about me. But Mrs. Thornton was upset, and afraid. She didn't hurt me."

Allie made no response. She leaned into his side and studied his face for a long moment and then said, "Am I wrong for being angry with her?"

Nathan gave her a small but reassuring smile. "Emotions aren't wrong, Allie. You're entitled to feel however you feel. I just hope that you'll find it in your heart to be kind anyway, because that's what Mrs. Thornton needs right now."

"Yes, sir," Allie said half-heartedly. Then she turned in her seat and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug and said into his shoulder, "If it's okay for me to be angry then it's okay for you to be hurt, Uncle Nathan. You deserve kindness, too."

And though he tried to fight them back, Nathan felt tears rise to his eyes.

"Thank you, Allie. I love you."

"I love you too, Uncle Nathan."

He didn't care that Allie saw him wipe away a few tears when he released her, or that the breath he inhaled seemed a little shaky. Whatever else the world threw at them, they would always have one another.

"C'mon," he said, heaving himself off the couch. "We need to make dinner."

No matter how it had ended up, Nathan had tried his best to protect Elizabeth and honor Jack Thornton's memory. Maybe keeping that secret from her had been wrong, but Nathan had made the best decision he could and the one he'd felt would cause the least pain. Either Elizabeth would eventually come to see and understand that, or she wouldn't. There was nothing to be done for it now. Nathan had made his choice, just as Jack had made his, and he couldn't regret that. He had been willing to lose Elizabeth rather than see her hurting, and given the chance to do it all over Nathan doubted that he would choose otherwise.

She couldn't be more lost to him than she was now, and Nathan would learn to live with that, too.

You are free to behave however you choose, Nathan, but actions have consequences. The truth will out, his mother had always told him.

The truth had found him at the top of her voice in the middle of a crowd, and now Nathan had no more truths left in him.

He wondered what his mother would have to say about that.