Disclaimer: Own nothin'!

Author's Note: Last chapter, thanks to everyone who read! :)

Shawn and Henry sat at the kitchen table.

The kitchen was the room that held the most memories, the most emotions, in the house. Anger had filled the room, along with frustration and grief. There had been happiness too, and love. The kitchen was where all of these emotions mixed and mingled, and where they faded away as different ones took their place.

But now there was a new feeling added to the mix, though Henry wasn't quite sure what to identify it as.

Shawn and Henry weren't okay. Neither had recovered from their wounds. Henry still had his headaches and Shawn still clutched his leg in pain every day.

Henry had been allowed to go home from the hospital after a few days, but ended up spending most of his time there anyway, at Shawn's bedside.

Henry was there day and night, not ever wanting to go to bed for the fear of Shawn dying while he was asleep. It was silly of course, to think that. Shawn was recovering, the doctors had said so.

But even their reassurances didn't stop Henry's nightmares. These days it was rare for him to be able to sleep without being immediately woken up by horrible nightmares of motorcycles speeding away in the night, and red stained glass falling from the sky. Though those weren't as sickening as the ones where Shawn was bleeding out of his leg, and Henry was unable to reach him. The dream always ended with Shawn reaching out, and Henry unable to close the chasm between them.

Henry still suffered devastating headaches, though the constant pain he had gone through in the first week or so diminished into a dull, almost unnoticeable ache in time.

Henry felt like Shawn had gotten it worse. Though Henry's impromptu procedure after the crash had saved his son, it had caused minor muscle damage. In addition to the massive blood loss he suffered, Shawn was in the hospital for weeks for treatment for his leg.

Henry visited him every day, glaring at the nurses when they tried to insist that visiting hours were over, and thinking his silent mantra of, I'm sorry, every time Shawn struggled through physical therapy. He tried to help, support Shawn as he slowly healed, but he felt like there was nothing he could do for his son. It was like he had never gotten off the bus.

Henry wasn't completely sure if Shawn had the nightmares as well. Whenever he asked Shawn about it, he would only receive a weak smile in return, and the subject would be changed.

Henry felt angry when Shawn tried to brush off the accident, when he claimed to be fine, and that it wasn't a big deal.

His son obviously hadn't had to watch the life slowly drain out of him while he stood by helplessly. He didn't have to watch as a slideshow of memories flashed before his eyes, bringing guilt and grief to him that he had been trying to deal with for fourteen years.

That wasn't fine. That wasn't okay.

Henry had insisted that Shawn stay in his house for the next few days. He sensed that something was wrong when Shawn didn't protest. Shawn never went along willingly with what he said. Whether he was twelve and Henry was bringing him to the hospital, or thirty-two and Henry was trying to lecture him about a case, the kid didn't listen. But this time Shawn only sighed and limped his way into Henry's house, more than a month after the accident.

Shawn immediately sank into the kitchen chair and rubbed his leg gingerly, almost unconsciously, as Henry followed him into the room. Shawn looked pained, more pained than Henry had ever imagined he could be.

Henry sat down at the table, and suddenly it was two men trying to avoid a subject all over again.

This time it was Shawn who brought it up.

"Dad, I'm…sorry," he admitted, jumping straight to the chase, which was unusual for him.

"Shawn, don't be-"

"No, I said stupid things before the crash, and it's all my fault it happened," Shawn said, his eyes filled with unspoken sadness. He looked ready to fight Henry to prove himself right, but at the same time weary, and ready to give up.

Henry knew where that sadness had come from. Damn it if he hadn't felt that way dozens of times since Shawn left. The sadness, the grief, stemmed from anger. It stemmed from guilt. The guilt of words said, and unsaid, and the unforeseeable results that they sometimes produced.

"It isn't your fault," Henry insisted. "I know you feel like taking the blame for it all, but that's not the thing to do. Not if you want to move on."

Shawn nodded slowly and listened, for once not interrupting his father as he spoke. Their eyes met briefly before Henry spoke again.

"I could say it's my fault," Henry continued. "Hell, I want to say it's my fault. I want to say I'm sorry, and wish it could turn back time. But what would that solve? It's no use replaying the past in our heads, Shawn. Otherwise you'll be stuck living the crash for the rest of your life."

They both knew that he wasn't only talking about the night of the bus accident.

Shawn smiled, still a shadow of the once large grin that had been on his face. But it was closer. And for now it was enough.

Henry patted Shawn on the shoulder before getting out two bowls and a box of cereal.

There was a new feeling in the kitchen. Henry wasn't quite sure what it was.

But it felt like closure.