farina | His Second Son | When Calls the Heart

Title: His Second Son
Fandom: When Calls the Heart
Words: 1,819
Summary: Bill visits Jack's grave.
Pairing/Characters: Bill and Jack, mention of Elizabeth and others.
Prompt: "You know, I never thought it would be like this" (for the first-sentence meme), requested anonymously
Rating: T for themes.
Warnings: None
Genre: character study, angst, family, friendship

Notes:

Bill’s just so fun to write when it comes to exploring the topic of grief. He’s not very good at expressing his emotions or dealing with them, and we get part of an answer to that in the s5 finale when he says that he was taught not to show pain because it upsets civilians. It seems he’s lived his life under this ‘law’ and is now struggling with it to the degree he’s gone to Abigail for help/reassurance/comfort/something.

Abigail’s response to him was perfect (“Well, you’re not among Mounties now.”), but it makes you think maybe that’s part of the reason why Nora left him (he wasn’t expressing his grief in a way she understood and it made her feel alone when Martin died, like she was the only one who really cared).

Anyway, in this story I wanted to explore Bill’s relationship to his second (honorary) son. I really loved the addition in the finale of Bill admitting that Jack was like a son to him, something he never told him, but I think what makes it truly interesting is the comparison between Bill losing Martin and losing Jack. Martin wasn’t his biological son, but he raised him; his grief over Martin is more than understandable. I wanted to kind of talk about how things might feel different with Jack. The pain is similar but Bill doesn’t really feel the right to grieve the same way because the parental bond wasn’t reciprocal (in his mind, in this story), but also…he didn’t actually raise Jack—though I feel the need to point out that Bill played cards with Jack’s father, and so probably has known Jack for most of his life.

Anyway, I adore the idea of Bill latching onto, and becoming maybe a little overprotective of, Elizabeth, as a result of Jack’s death. He told Jack that Elizabeth was “family” to him, after all. It just makes sense to me that Bill would have to find some kind of purpose—and making sure Elizabeth and her baby were okay would be exactly the right kind of thing for him.