Chapter 196| William’s First Step

The message arrived without warning, considerably shorter and less formal than William’s usual, careful correspondence, and Allen found himself reading it twice before fully trusting its plain, unadorned sincerity.

’I’ve been thinking about what you said. I don’t know how to actually start. Could we talk properly, not about the succession this time?’

Allen showed the message to Myria, who studied it with her own careful, considered attention. "That’s a considerable shift in tone," she observed.

"It is," Allen agreed. "I don’t know what to make of it yet."

He agreed to the meeting regardless, curiosity and cautious hope outweighing his own lingering wariness, and found William waiting at a quiet, unremarkable café near the family estate, his usual polished confidence noticeably absent, replaced by something considerably more uncertain.

"Thank you for coming," William said, gesturing for Allen to sit. "I wasn’t certain you would."

"I said I would, if you ever wanted to actually talk," Allen said. "I meant it."

William was quiet a long moment, turning his own coffee cup slowly between his hands before finally speaking. "I’ve spent considerable time since our last conversation trying to understand why I’ve never managed what you and Edward apparently have," he admitted. "Genuine change. Genuine growth. I keep circling back to the same answer, and I don’t particularly like it."

"What’s the answer?" Allen asked gently.

"I never actually wanted to change," William said. "Not really. I wanted the appearance of legitimacy without the actual work behind it. Edward at least made a catastrophic mistake he had to properly reckon with. I’ve simply coasted on inherited advantage my entire life, and called it accomplishment."

Allen absorbed the admission with quiet, genuine surprise, recognizing something considerably more honest in William’s voice than he’d ever previously witnessed. "That’s a hard thing to admit."

"It is," William agreed. "I don’t know what to do with it yet. I don’t have Edward’s dramatic reckoning to build from. Just this uncomfortable, growing awareness that I’ve wasted considerable years being someone I’m not particularly proud of."

"That’s still a start," Allen said. "Sometimes the awareness has to come before the actual change is even possible."

William studied him carefully. "Why are you being kind to me?" he asked. "After everything. The years of dismissal, the constant cruelty toward you specifically."

Allen considered the question seriously before answering. "Because I spent most of my life wanting exactly this from this family," he admitted. "Genuine reckoning, genuine effort toward something better. I’m not going to refuse it now, just because it’s inconvenient or overdue."

William’s jaw tightened, something raw and uncomfortable crossing his usually composed features. "I don’t deserve that kind of grace," he said quietly. "Not yet, anyway."

"Grace isn’t usually about deserving it," Allen said. "It’s about someone deciding to offer it anyway, and trusting the other person to eventually grow into it. That’s what Vivian gave Edward. What Susan’s slowly earning from me. I’m not going to withhold the same chance from you just because you’ve been considerably slower to ask for it."

---

They talked for nearly two hours, William’s careful, guarded composure gradually giving way to something considerably more honest as the conversation continued, old grievances aired without the usual, practiced deflection, genuine uncertainty about the future replacing his familiar, confident posturing.

"I don’t know where to actually start," William admitted, as the conversation finally wound toward its natural close.

"Neither did Edward," Allen said. "He just started somewhere small, and kept showing up. That’s really all any of this actually requires."

"Somewhere small," William repeated, turning the idea over with visible, careful consideration. "I might actually be able to manage that."

"I hope you do," Allen said, meaning it completely, and watched William depart with something considerably more thoughtful in his bearing than Allen had witnessed in years, a small, uncertain first step toward whatever genuine change still waited, patiently, for him to finally, properly claim it.

"That went considerably better than I expected," Myria said, once Allen had returned home and relayed the conversation in full.

"It did," Allen agreed. "I don’t know if it’ll actually stick. But I’m glad I gave him the chance to try."

"That’s all any of us can offer anyone," Myria said gently, echoing her own earlier wisdom, and Allen let the observation settle, grateful, once again, for a family patient enough to keep believing in redemption, even for the most stubborn, resistant corners of their own fractured, healing history.

He found himself, later that evening, telling Edward about the conversation, curious whether his brother would share his own cautious optimism or something considerably more skeptical, given how much longer he’d personally known William’s own particular resistance to genuine change.

"He said all that?" Edward asked, genuine surprise evident in his voice. "William, admitting he never actually wanted to change?"

"He did," Allen confirmed.

Edward was quiet a moment, processing the news with visible, careful thought. "I don’t know whether to be hopeful or suspicious," he admitted. "I spent considerable years watching him perform sincerity when it served him. I want to believe this is different."

"So do I," Allen said. "I think the only way we actually find out is by giving him the same chance you got. Somewhere small to start, and time to prove whether it sticks."

"That’s fair," Edward said slowly. "I suppose I owe him that much, given how much grace I’ve been shown myself."

"We all do," Allen said, and let the evening settle into quiet, considered hope, one more fractured piece of his family’s own difficult history finding its own tentative, uncertain path toward something genuinely better.

Myria found him there some time later, still turning the day’s difficult, hopeful conversation over, and settled quietly beside him without immediately speaking.

"You seem lighter," she observed eventually.

"I think I am," Allen admitted. "I spent so long believing William was simply incapable of this kind of honesty. Today proved me wrong, at least a little. That matters more than I expected it to."

"People surprise us," Myria said gently. "Even the ones we’ve written off longest."

"I’m learning that constantly, this past year," Allen said. "Susan, Edward, now William. I don’t know what to do with a family that keeps proving considerably more capable of change than I ever gave them credit for."

"You could simply let yourself hope," Myria suggested. "Cautiously, but genuinely."

Allen let the suggestion settle, drawing quiet comfort from her steady, familiar presence, and found himself, watching the evening deepen over Hegeville’s own considerable, hopeful lights, willing, for the first time in longer than he could properly remember, to extend that same cautious hope toward every fractured corner of his own complicated, healing family.