“She needs to be bedded,” His father ordered gruffly, indicating to Charity.
“Yes, sir,” Wyatt said automatically, getting to his feet and noticing how the sun was tucking itself behind the distant horizon, taking him back to countless times his father had given this order around this time.
“Can it wait?” John asked quietly, checking his father’s monitors, a grim line flattening his lips.
“Yeah.” Wyatt noticed his father’s eyes were barely open, but just enough to focus on John. “You my doctor?”
John smiled politely, “At the moment, yes.”
“My boy’s trainin’ to be a doctor.”
John hummed and nodded, sliding his hands into his jeans pockets, so casually attuned and listening the way he would with a patient, or with him.
“Is that right?” John asked.
“Workin’ in the city,” his father rasped. “Big city doctor.”
“Impressive.”
“Damn right,” his father said, surprising him. “He’s—he’s a good kid.”
John nodded, “I couldn’t agree more.”
Wyatt’s father’s gaze studied John’s. “You know him?”
“I do,” John murmured. “I happen to love him very much.”
Wyatt stilled, eyes darting to his father’s, waiting for the reaction.
His father nodded weakly. “Good.”
Wyatt’s heart broke, tears racing down his face.
Forgiveness was complicated. Hard. And yet, also so fucking soft and fragile, like a warm tear on a cheek, or like the drifting of new snow through the air. He had a choice at that moment: keep holding on to his anger and hurt, or accept his father. Accept that this man did the best he could with what he was capable of, and maybe that was enough. Because the forgiveness wasn’t for his father… it was for himself.
He shuddered and knelt down to his father’s side, emotion clogging his throat as he reached for his frail fingers. “I’m here, Dad.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Wyatt managed to say through his tears.
“It’s not,” he muttered. “I didn’t—I failed you. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I shouldn’t have kicked you out—denied the only good thing in my whole fuckin’ little life.”
“Stop.”
“I…” he sighed again, guilt pinching around his lips. “I should’ve done better by you.”
His heart broke even more, remorse eating away at him and feeling like he, too, should’ve done more than just run—that he should’ve done more than just a phone call here or there. That maybe…
No, no regrets.
Not now.
Don’t let our last moments be like this.
John gave Wyatt a silent look full of compassion and tenderness. He thought of the first time he lost a patient at the ED and how John had been there, holding him with simply a look.
“Your last words aren’t allowed to be an apology, Dad,” Wyatt whispered, kissing his forehead.
