A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

John Steinbeck

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A man's character is his destiny.

Heraclitus

The moment the private jet's wheels touched down in Iskoniskan, Canada, Waylon Smithers was already on his feet, on his phone, barking orders as he waited for the ground crew to secure the craft.

"I don't care what you the rules are. I need to see them immediately, and that's final." Waylon disconnected and glared at his phone. He appreciated the ease of a touch screen, but missed the finality that snapping an old flip-phone shut provided. It seemed so anticlimactic to simply hit "end." That hardly mattered though. What was most important at present was his family.

Waylon had gotten a call late last night from the Canadian Search and Rescue division. His son and husband both had been found alive, but not exactly well, in the small town of Muskeg, Saskatchewan; Burns suffering from a head wound and broken arm, Ryan the victim of a rattlesnake bite. With no anti-venom or large hospital, the two men had been airlifted by evac chopper to Iskoniskan's hospital, while the anti-venom was flown to meet them from the stocks.

It was quicker to meet halfway than it would've been to bring patient or treatment the full distance one way.

As soon as Waylon had gotten the call, he'd ordered the flight crew to make the plane ready. He packed while they prepped, and by the time he was done he was on schedule to depart from Springfield International Airport, adrenaline surging through his veins.

In the air, he'd begun to feel tired. What time was it? Sometime in the wee hours of the morning. He reclined on the couch and put an arm over his eyes. The flight would take at least two hours. He might as well rest while he could, Waylon reasoned.

By the time he landed though, he was wide awake again, fueled by a combination of fury and relief known only to loved ones of a catastrophe. Thank god they're safe. I'm going to strangle them both!

Waylon reached for the pocket where he occasionally kept his cigarette tin.

Empty.

Damn.

In his haste, he must've forgotten it. Such was life, he decided as he stormed across the tarmac, a tempest in a storm grey suit.

Ordinarily, he would've simply gone business casual, but these were not ordinary times. So he'd dressed to impress and intimidate, looking every bit the chief operations officer and co-owner of Burns Worldwide Consolidated that he knew he was. He wanted to make a statement to Monty, that he was not pleased, and he would handle the matter with a surgically precise hand.

As the limo drove him to the hospital, he rehearsed what he was going to say.

By the time it arrived, all planned speeches had been thrown to the wind. His heart, rather than his brain, was leading the charge.

Waylon swept into the lobby, and surged past the receptionists' station, leaving the matter of signing in to one of the loyal "yes-folk" he'd brought from the manor. He paused briefly at the nurse's station, and demanded direction to the critical care ward. Waylon had already made up his mind who he'd speak to first.

Two hallways and an elevator-ride later, and he was at the door to Burns' room.

He barged in without even pausing to knock.

...

The hospital room was well lit but sterile, and smelled of antiseptic cleaners. A single bed was pushed up against the walls. Charles Montgomery Burns lay in the bed, face turned towards the windows, arm propped up in an elevated cast. He looked pitifully thin and small under the white blanket. Waylon could see how sunken his cheeks looked in the light, how deep the circles under his eyes.

And still, it was not enough.

Waylon pulled the door shut behind him. The latch clicked with an odd finality.

Burns raised his head. "I know you must be very disappointed in me right now. Your aura was palpable from the moment you crossed into the room. It needs no introduction."

Waylon cupped his hands together behind his back. "Oh, it's not disappointment, Monty."

"Waylon..." Burns began slowly. "It is not as you make it. I had the situation firmly under control." He rolled over as best he could, till he was facing Waylon. "There was an unanticipated mishap, I confess that, although those can happen at the best of times. I'd been prepared. My TorusCom satellite phone was, most likely still is, neatly concealed in a hidden panel beside the pilot's seat. I made sure to include an emergency transponder in there as well, which I could've activated had the situation gotten out of control."

Waylon Smithers clasped his hands behind his back and stared down at the old man. He clenched his jaw, focused on keeping his expression neutral. Behind his back, out of Burns' sight, he squeezed his hands together with such force he could feel his knuckles pop.

Burns must've seen the stern look on Waylon's face. He held up a hand, imploring the younger man to hear him out.

"Smithers... Waylon... none of the casualties that occurred were in any way my intent. I had planned, at the most basic, to engage Ryan in a little unscripted charade. To see how he handled an emergency situation, and gauge his reactions thereof. Though you may not see it Waylon, I am getting older. The years that I delayed in my past have fought me, and are catching up faster than I anticipated."

Burns regarded his splinted arm for a moment. "In the littlest things, I notice them. From my own physical reserves to the grasp of my once unwavering intellect. Each dawn I know it: I am an irrevocable made weaker as the long days add on their weight to my stooping shoulders. In this, I am greeted by my own mortality, the increasing frailty of body and mind. I'm getting older Waylon. It is unavoidable.

"I don't regret it," Burns added, shaking his head. "It is a promise I made to you, and would gladly do again. Mayhaps I am selfish though, for when I step down as the executive and commander of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, I expect you to retire with me. In the meantime a suitable leader will take his place at the helm in the form of young Ryan. The lad has the wits and the tenacity to rule our company with a firm but delicate hand. My hope is to spend the rest of our lives, two old queens living out their golden years together, indulging in the simple pleasantries they had denied themselves in younger years. How does that all sound to you?"

Waylon felt the muscles of his jaws working, clenching and releasing as he ground his teeth together. He wondered vaguely, almost distractedly if it were possible to bite down so hard one's one teeth shattered in one's own head. Well, if that could happen, today would be the day.

Slowly, deliberately, he moved to the top of the bed and leaned over Burns, resting his hands into the firm hospital pillow, palms on either side of Burns' head. He willed his muscles to relax.

"Waylon, clearly you can understand-"

Smithers cut him of with a shake of his head. He lowered himself closer still, lips hovering centimeters above Burns cheek.

With a voice scarce more than a whisper, he spoke. His words were slow, deliberate, and unwavering.

"If you ever, EVER do ANYTHING to put Ryan in danger again, I am leaving you."

He straightened his back, and glared down at Burns, cold fire flickering behind his brown eyes.

"I don't care what you intentions were, and I don't care how prepared you thought you were. You put my son in danger for your own selfish games, and that is something I will not tolerate. Ever."

Burns reached out his hand, but Waylon didn't take it. He turned his back on the old man, and was about to add something more when the door to the room opened softly.

...

Ryan Smithers poked his head around the frame. Immediately he sensed the tension in the room. He glanced nervously from his father to Burns, then back again. His father's eyes were stormy behind his glasses, mouth set in a firm line that meant business. Add in the full suit he wore, and this was definitely not a happy reunion.

Ryan quickly reconsidered his decision.

"Uh, hi Dad. The nurse said you were here, but if this is a bad time, I can leave." He backed out, started to pull the door shut again, but before he'd even made it halfway into the hallway his father was upon him.

Ryan found himself caught up in Waylon's long arms, pulled tightly against the wool suit coat in a crushing embrace. "Ryan," Waylon whispered as he stroked the young man's black hair. "I thought I'd never see you again."

Ryan discovered his own arms were wrapped around his father. He buried his face into Waylon's shoulder. His father's scent swirled around him, like an invisible hug. Notes of cologne, aftershave, and the deeper scent that was the man himself. Ryan realized his father smelled like Burns Manor. Or perhaps, more accurately, Burns Manor had come to smell like his father. Whatever order that was, it didn't matter. Ryan pressed his face against Waylon's collarbone, indifferent to the way his own glasses dug into his face. All that mattered right now is his father smelled like the safety and security of home.

After a long moment, Waylon's arms loosened, allowing Ryan to straighten up and step back.

"How's your hand?" Waylon asked, taking Ryan's wrist firmly, examining the area where the rattlesnake had bit.

Ryan flexed his fingers.

"I got lucky. It was mostly a dry bite. I guess the snake either didn't have time to inject me, or it didn't put in much. They said if it was a real, full bite, I would've been dead before I even made it to that house."

Waylon rested his hand on Ryan's arm, guiding him gently but forcefully out of the room and into the hall. Ryan noted his father didn't even pause to look back at Burns. Ryan did, however, and caught the look in the old man's eyes.

"How much did he tell you?"

Ryan didn't have to ask who he was. He leaned against the wall, and straightened his glasses.

"About?"

Waylon gestured back towards the room. "He put you up to this. It was a test. He'd never intended things to get so out of hand. He brought a phone, he had a tracer. He planned the whole thing, Ryan. Staging a crash, faking it all to see how you'd handle it."

The creases in Waylon's face deepened as he fell silent. Ryan saw a silent war going on behind his father's brown eyes. He wondered what, if anything he could say.

"I hate hospitals," Waylon announced, a comment out of the blue. "No offense to the fine healthcare team," he added as a passing orderly gave him a miffed look. He leaned against the wall next to Ryan, and shoved his hands deep into the pocket of his suit coat. "Everything about them, it's hell for me."

Ryan shuffled his slippered feet, staring at the tiled floor. Sometimes the only thing to say was the truth. "I knew."

Waylon stared at him blankly.

Ryan rubbed the back of his neck and continued staring at the floor. "I knew about it being a test, and how Monty completely screwed the pooch on his fake-crash attempt. He told me. I don't remember all of it, I was only half-conscious. But he told me how he'd misjudged the distance from the reflections on the water, how he never expected to catch a submerged island in the middle of the lake. I guess he thought I was dying, or going to die. So he told me everything."

He pursed his lips, and looked up at his father. "Monty was crying, or at least I think he was. He is sorry about it. He never meant for anything to turn out like this..." Ryan let his sentence trail off, waiting for some response, any response from his stoic father.

"Do you know why he did this?"

Ryan saw his reflection in his father's glasses. And in that, a smaller reflection of his father from the mirrors of his own. So on, ad infinitum, an endless cycle of his father and himself falling into one another.

"He told me he wants me to take over the nuclear power plant, and perhaps someday Burns Worldwide itself," Ryan answered. Truth. It was best that way.

Waylon fussed at his tie for a moment before replying. "Is that what you want, Ryan? This isn't his life, or even mine. This is your own, and only you can make those choices."

"Right now? Honestly, I don't know. Yes... maybe... it all depends. It's too early to make that sort of decision; but I guess I wouldn't be opposed to it, if it ever came up." He offered a weak shrug. He knew it wasn't the answer his father wanted.

After several moments of awkward silence, broken only by the various wheeled carts and occasional hospital announcements, Ryan sighed. This wasn't silence. It was a world of noise and sound. Here the click of a visitor's heels. There, the rustle of a nurse's clipboard as he flipped through charts. The phones ringing, the ever-present background hum of the ventilation system. It wasn't silent, anymore than the woods had been silent after he learned to listen.

Ryan wondered if he'd ever even experienced true silence. Life was happening all around him. Movement, time, the world marching on. All those times he thought were quiet, he'd just been preoccupied with the noise of his own thoughts.

He closed his eyes, like he'd done in the wilderness.

As it had on the lakeshore, the world suddenly became much larger.

Ryan could hear the rustle of cloth as his father shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He became aware of his father's breath, slow and controlled. Letting his mind expand further, Ryan could almost imagine he heard his own heartbeat, the soft lub-dub under his ribs. He inhaled through his nose, held his breath a moment, then released, letting the air swirl out of his lungs and carry his tension with it.

"It is my own life, you're right about that, Waylon. Dad. Sometimes we do the right things for all the wrong reasons. And sometimes, people do the wrong things but it turns out right in the end."

He opened his eyes, and the world shrank down. Once again he was in a narrow hallway, standing side-by-side with his father. "I think Monty meant to do good. I mean, I have to right? If it's a choice, well, he almost killed us but I learned how to be alive from it; and if I'ever forgiven you, it seems only right to forgive him too." Ryan folded his arms behind his head, stared at the ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights. Above that, more floors. But beyond that he knew was an open sky.

"Honestly, Dad? Between you and me, I don't regret this. Any of it. It was kind of worth it, in its own way. Probably not to you; and Monty did go about things the wrong way. I hope though, if I can forgive him, that maybe in time, you can too?" He peered at Waylon out of the corner of his eye, trying to mimic his father's poker face. He didn't want to seem too hopeful, but it was hard to conceal his heart. Ryan didn't have his father's years of practice to his name.

Waylon might've seen that glimmer, or he might've missed it.

Ryan never knew for sure.

All he did know was that his father was clasping his shoulder in the way of men, of equals, and giving him a firm squeeze. "I still love him, Ryan. That won't change. I love you too, and I'm not leaving you. Whatever happens, we're a family."

Ryan tilted his head towards Burns' room. "All of us?"

"You care about him don't you." It wasn't a question.

Ryan couldn't help but smirk. "I dragged his unconscious ass through god's country and and bumfuc- er, the middle of nowhere!" Ryan draped his arm over Waylon's. "Seriously, no one does that for fun. Like you said, we're family. We might be pretty fucked up by 'normal' standards, but that's okay. I like what we have. I'm glad I found you."

Waylon pulled Ryan into another hug, ignoring the younger man's protests about manliness and dignity.

"Okay, okay!" Ryan laughed, pushing himself back. "Jeeze, Dad! People are watching! Let's go find the doctor and see how long he'd got to stay in traction. Then, as soon as he gets cleared to go, let's make like sheep and get the flock outta here, because I've got a confession, Dad: I hate hospitals too."

With that, Ryan gave his father a playful slug in the arm, grinned, and pushed his way down the hall. He didn't notice Waylon rub the spot he'd punched, and missed the look of proud surprise across his face.

Without another word, Waylon turned, and followed his son.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Winston Churchill

A good beginning makes a good end.

Louis L'Amour