Finding them was an accident.
Dad had been stressing for five days straight, caring for Mum hand and foot with every ounce of energy he had; he wasn't allowed into the room. If he and Mum got sick, there was no telling what Dad would do.
So, while his immortal father did his best to save the life of his old, very mortal, very sick mother, he decided to do what any son would do; try to help out as much as he could.
And since he couldn't enter the bedroom without risking infection, that left cleaning out his father's office.
He made sure not to even touch the research notes – whether on immortality or on influenza, he didn't dare mess them up – and began to simply put books back in their place, mostly novels father would read in his rare free time and books of poems mother enjoyed.
He'd been putting one of mother's favorite back when he noticed something stuck into the back of the bookcase, behind all the other tomes.
Curiosity killed the cat; he dug it out – it was a thin metal box – and opened it.
Inside, instead of some secret tale of the secret to unending life, as he'd half expected, were letters.
A vast majority of them were all in his mother's flowing script, but more than a few bore the familiar chicken scratch he associated with his father.
He'd quickly slid the papers back into the case and hid it away again, but in the process he'd seen a few of the lines from a letter or two.
We can make this work. Nothing lasts forever, Henry. Not even you.
I'd fight a thousand battles if it meant meeting you again in the After.
He'd put them back and, biting his lip, closed the library door behind him to sneak back to his room.
He didn't want his mother to die, but he knew there was no stopping nature sometimes.
He didn't want his father to die, either. He just hoped his father would want to stay afterwards.
A/N: More Abe POV because he is good for the soul, if not for the heart.
~Persephone