The Wall

 

Author: Six

 

Rating: G

 

Summary: Post Causality

--+--

"Leave me alone," Nick mumbled as his father helped him from the
bar and out to the car. "I'm all right."

The elder Fallin grunted. "I'll be the judge of that."

Burton struggled with his burden while trying to open the passenger
door of the car. Nick's head bobbed weakly against his father's
shoulder, and when he realized it, he jerked it back up before it
made contact.

He smelled his dad's cologne. Important smell. A smell that flashed
him back to his childhood when his dad would pull him onto his lap
in his study and read to him. But that was then. That was before his
dad sent him away. That was before…

"Mom," he croaked hoarsely, almost incoherently; not even realizing
the word had left his mouth. But Burton caught it- a boy needing his
mother-and pretended not to hear.

"In we go," Burton said settling him into the front seat and
buckling him in. Nick's head leaned sideways against the glass.

Burton slid under the steering wheel and rolled up his expensive
suit coat to put between his son's head and the cold hard glass.

"What the hell am I going to do with you?" he muttered as he started
the car.

But he knew what he was going to do with him. He would drive him
home-to his-Burton's home-not Nick's. Would tend to his battle
wounds, clean him up, and put him to bed.

It was later, after he'd gotten his son home and did all that, that,
during the middle of the night, while Burton was keeping a watchful
eye on him at his bedside in a burgundy leather chair, it was his
name-"Dad"-something that his boy would never remember-that Nick
mumbled in his sleep.

THE END