"Yeah, I get it," Sam murmurs in reply. "When you're made to be only one thing for too long, you lean into it, and you don't really have a choice in the matter either way. But... Y'know. You can still have that in your past without making it everything that you are. You build on top'a that stuff. It buries it down after a while, makes it easier to ignore, n' then you can just...I'unno, dredge up and tease apart little bits at a time. It's a real slow process, n' it sucks sometimes, but that's when you look to the people around you for support, right?

"Took me a long time to learn how to do that. Hell, I'm still learnin' how to do it. It sucks, n' it's fuckin' hard."

He's parroting things that other people have tried to tell him, re-framing it in a way that he understands a little better. It's not advice specific to him, just advice for the broken and desperate.

The fist that John raises gets a look, then Sam lifts a hand, curling it into a loose fist in kind, and gently bumps it against the other man's. It's light enough that he's pretty sure it shouldn't leave a mark, and more importantly, it's a gesture meant to drag him out of his own head and keep him talking about the future, rather than dwelling on what had been done to him.

The past just won't let go.

But sometimes you could pry it loose, a little at a time.

"Ain't a war. Ain't the lynchpin of anything. Not anymore. But I like havin' you around, John Rambo. N' I know she does too."