The quiet is too much. It feels like the silence that came after Danforth breathed his last, transformed from a broken man begging for salvation to a mangled sack of meat. Jon's voice is gentle, but every second--every demeaning, terrifying, confusing moment of anguish and grief and rage is branded so sharply across his memory he can almost see it overlaying the room. The cells, the blade, the blood, the sight of a wounded Teasle against the stark white of an ambulance stretcher...

Trautman's arms around him, stilted and stiff. Unwilling comfort, colder for how little he wanted to give it. The agony of every sob catching in his throat, how much that embrace hurt for how cold it was.

Unbidden, his words to Trautman return, spoken as they crossed the tarmac of an American army base on the Thai border.

"I'm the last one of my team left...as long as I'm alive, it's alive." he replies quietly, releasing the tape as Jon takes it from him. His eyes are still shining, still streaming in utter silence--and his hands are shaking badly.

"Even when I'm dead, it won't let me go...especially then."