"Yeah, maybe I had powers that coulda stopped them, but I was eleven, dad! I was so scared I could barely see straight! You had no right to make a scapegoat out of me just because you... just because you..." He wiped viciously at the corners of his eyes, trying to fight back the threatening tears. Nathaniel McCoghlan, brown hair, golden brown eyes, twenty-three years of age. Born with powers that were both a blessing and a curse, powers that were centralized at the small of his back and interfered with his spinal cord, causing him to need forearm crutches to keep his balance, powers that were strong enough by the age of eleven to stop the tragedy he witnessed, and yet - didn't. Couldn't, perhaps, for who in their right mind would expect a small child to have the bravery needed to step in and be the hero when their mother was being murdered before their eyes? "I... I was hurting, Nate. I'm so sorry. I never should have turned that pain on you. That... that's why I want to apologize to you now... before it's too late... before anything happens to you." George McCoghlan, brown hair and eyes, forty-eight years of age. Married to Teresa at the age of nineteen, had two children, John and Nate, five years apart. A happy family, a loving family, an understanding family even when Nate demonstrated powers that they didn't know what to do with. When John started failing school and they suspected he had fallen in with a gang, they tried coaxing him out of it to no avail. What would any father do? George instituted a curfew, made John check in before going anywhere. What would any teenager do? John rebelled, digging himself deeper into the hole he was in. What would any younger sibling do? Nate stayed home with his mother when he got home from school, helping her throughout the day - from sweeping and doing dishes to making the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, Nate proudly considered himself a momma's boy. After all, it wasn't an insult when you had a mom as sweet and amazing as Teresa was. Hell, even the neighbor kids wanted a mom like her. It wasn't until John saw something he really shouldn't have that he realized the hole he was in. He wanted out, but by that point getting out wasn't an option, not without consequences - consequences he never could have realized, consequences that lost them all a mother, a wife, a friend. He was followed home, the house staked out. George left for work and John left for school, and that's when they broke through the glass sliding door that separated home from backyard. Teresa was in the kitchen, making the cookies she was famous throughout the neighborhood for. Nate was in the closet looking for paper to make a craft with, a beautiful pink heart with crayoned "I ❤️ U" and drawings of their family already planned out in his head. They burst in, some teens, some adults, all of them with one intent. Teresa couldn't fight one off, let alone all of them. Nate watched in horror from the closet, the door cracked barely enough for him to see, but more than enough for him to hear her screaming for help. He was frozen, a boy of eleven years seeing a horror that should never befall anyone. Powers, yes, he could stop them, but his fingers froze and his mind refused to function, his fear preventing his action, preventing his breathing. His stifled sobs choked back for fear of being discovered, for fear of being stabbed, for fear of his own life. He was young, too young to understand what they could have to gain by tearing apart her clothes, too young to understand what evil pleasure they found in her being at their mercy as she bled out, but he was not too young to understand that this would be the last time he would ever hear his mother's voice, the last time he would ever see her breathe. He didn't leave the closet, not even after it was over and they were gone. He didn't leave, not even after her blood stopped flowing and began to dry on the cold linoleum. He didn't leave until they found him sitting there, curled up with his knees to his chest and his eyes blankly staring ahead of him, eyes that were stained with tears he never should have had to cry. Nate didn't go to school after that, instead staying home to teach himself from books. He didn't go out to hang with friends after that, instead isolating himself in crafting, in creating beautiful figurines that he could lose himself in. George was broken, broken beyond repair. His sweetheart, his life, gone. He was blinded, blinded to reality, blinded to the many things that could have been done differently but weren't, and in his pain he lashed out at the one thing he could pin some modicum of blame upon - his children. John, for even being in the gang to begin with. Nate, for not using the powers he was gifted with to save her. John, in his turmoil and guilt, tried everything to pin the blame on someone else, and the most readily available scapegoat was the brother who had seen it happen. They drifted, John to the military at eighteen, Nate to his own apartment at sixteen, George across the sea when both sons had left him, never to return to that house again. Over time, time that dulled the pain, the hurt, time that eased the heartbreak, feelings were eased and blame was no longer given, but it wasn't until word reached George that Nate had been diagnosed with cancer that he was hit with the realization that he might lose everything once more. He flew home, he sought out Nate, and he came to his bedside. The prognosis was hopeful, but George was shaken even still to see his son so sick, to see his pain as his body fought for survival. He dropped to his knees, pleading for forgiveness. "Yeah, maybe I had powers that coulda stopped them, but I was eleven, dad! I was so scared I could barely see straight! You had no right to make a scapegoat out of me just because you... just because you..." Nate wiped viciously at the corners of his eyes, trying to fight back the threatening tears. "I... I was hurting, Nate. I'm so sorry. I never should have turned that pain on you. That... that's why I want to apologize to you now... before it's too late... before anything happens to you." The pain was evident in his eyes, the guilt over what he had put his child through bubbling to the surface. "You probably don't want to forgive me, and... I understand that. I wouldn't want to forgive me either. That's why I'm not asking for that. I'm just here to say I'm sorry." Nate went silent, taking the time to choke back tears and the time to think over his father's words. He... he was still his dad. He'd even been a really good dad until that day. Nate wasn't sure anyone could come out of something like that unscathed. "I... yeah. Alright." He nodded, reaching a hand out to his father to shake. "I forgive you." No one could forget, not really, but that doesn't mean he couldn't give his dad the chance he was asking for. After all, no one really knows how much time they have left... and no one knows who is going next. George clasped his hand, moisture forming in the corners of his own eyes as he held his son's hand for the first time in years. Forgiveness... yeah, there weren't many feelings much better than that.
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