He waited.
Oh, this should be interesting.
He’d be lying if he didn’t say he wondered what his mother thought about their relationship.
“Natives have different rules. They have different beliefs. Had I married Lance Running Wolf, your fate line would have changed. You would have shacked up with Callen, adopted kids, and you would have become the Shaman. He still would have written books, but your life would have been here, not in DC. You wouldn’t have been a Fed. You would have been a psychologist with an office and a practice.”
He laughed.
That was interesting, because he could see it happening. He loved Callen, and psychology.
“Really?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Elizabeth would have married Chris. She would have had six kids, and she would have kept being a Fed. Gene would have been her partner in the field, and he would have married a nice man.”
That hit hard.
Ethan was sad.
“I wouldn’t have married him?” he asked, suddenly realizing that would have sucked. He felt whole because of Gene, and their relationship.
She shared.
“You would have when Callen died. You would have married him when you were much older. He would have come out here to work on a case, and the two of you would have met. All of you would have met, but just the timeline would have been different.”
Ethan picked up her fingers, and kissed her knuckles.
“Thank you for that, Mom. I needed it.”
She reassured him.
“I raised a good boy. Be yourself, Ethan. He’s a good man. Everyone loves him. Forgive your father. Take the last few months with him and heal.”
He was curious.
“Does he really not make it?”
She shook her head.
“Nobody‘makes it’,” she admitted. “We all die. He fights for a while, but we all have that expiry date. I wasn’t lying about that. I hope you dream walk with him. I’d love to talk to him one more time. We both need it.”
When they heard windchimes, Ethan knew who it would be. His grandfather had gone suspiciously missing, giving them time, but there was no doubt he was lurking.
“It’s time,” Timothy said. “You need to go back, Ethan. You have choices to make, and they are important ones. You still haven’t made up your mind about being the Shaman. You say you have,” he admitted, helping Catherine up, “but you’re still questioning it in your heart.”
When Timothy tucked Catherine under his arm, Ethan got up too.
“You need to make amends with your father. He gave you life, and while you owe him nothing, you owe yourself everything. Love is more powerful than anger. Haven’t you learned that being married to all the people you’re sleeping with, son?”
Yeah, he’d let that slip his mind. Ethan was robbing them of the decent part of him by being rage-filled.
Catherine blew her son a kiss.
“I love you, and when the next child comes, you’ll name him after me.”
He was confused.
