As your belongings were packed away in the train, you stood and talked with Atticus his children, Scout and Jem, and Calpurnia. Calpurnia had made you a goodbye pie as you left for Birmingham, Alabama.

Atticus looked at you longingly behind his glasses. You two just couldn’t be together. You just couldn’t. Not with the entire town on Atticus’s back.

You gave Calpurnia a hug and a thank you for the pie, kissed the children on their heads and gave them hugs and lastly you and Atticus embraced, hugging tightly.. you gave him a quick and chaste kiss on his lips which made Atticus blink rapidly to shoo away tears.

As the train pulled out, Atticus watched with a squeezing heart. Until he looked at Calpurnia and said,

“ Give me a week. “

His legs moved on their own— Scout and Jem hollered and ran after their father as he chased after the train, insisting for him to stop and that he’d hurt himself.

He took a leap of faith and jumped onto the cupola of the trains caboose, hitting the metal flooring hard. He stood up, glasses cracked from the fall as he shouted.

“ ILL BE BACK!! BE GOOD AND LISTEN TO CALPURNIA!! “

This was unlike him. Completely unlike him. Jem sighed and Scout looked dumbfounded at what she’d just witnessed. Atticus turned to enter the train car and now had one goal.

Find you, and convince you to return to Maycomb so you two could be together.