A species of relief, he said, so lightly, but it's different, to hear it straight out, to get it from - from the person who's supposed to help him, supposed to be his guide, and it doesn't have to be about trust if it's just a matter of who is in a position to know, to have the right intel - who must have been chosen for that position, that perspective -
It hurts. It hurts in ways he doesn't understand and doesn't have words for, like when his nerves started coming back online for the chunks of his ribs medical had to reconstruct after he got shot with burrower ammunition. He's spent so long being the terror, the traitor, the madman, notorious and reviled. There were so many people - good people, or as good as he ever knew anyone could be, loyal and honest and brave - that couldn't see the things he saw, that he couldn't trust or convince without getting them killed, too. All the things that were worse because he tried, all the consequences he ever saw - you did a pretty bad job, Holden says, and he can't dispute it, but it was all he had; and worse, he knew it was a long shot, knew he didn't have the right tools without the fucking math, knew it was going to be a mess. So he's never, ever been able to separate it from trying from the way that he tried, from the choices he willfully made, the only ones he could find.
If he were alone, he'd cry, with confusion and hurt and relief, but he's not alone, he can't do that, he can't fall apart over - over -
No one has ever told him he did the right thing, any right thing, not since he was alive and lying constantly to everyone and getting feted and promoted for being the shining star in Kel Command's talons, for strengthening everything he wanted to tear down.
Complicit, dead, or evil. He did know it - could see it, sideways, out of the corner of his eye, could make out the inexorable and terrible and inescapable shape of it, the way the system ruined people, without ever having seen what people might look like, unruined. He knew it without having any sense of the details or the alternatives, but he saw just enough to know he had to force a change. Some way. Any way.
Complicit, dead, or evil.
"I guess I got the hat trick," he says, chokes out, not meeting Holden's eyes.
no subject
It hurts. It hurts in ways he doesn't understand and doesn't have words for, like when his nerves started coming back online for the chunks of his ribs medical had to reconstruct after he got shot with burrower ammunition. He's spent so long being the terror, the traitor, the madman, notorious and reviled. There were so many people - good people, or as good as he ever knew anyone could be, loyal and honest and brave - that couldn't see the things he saw, that he couldn't trust or convince without getting them killed, too. All the things that were worse because he tried, all the consequences he ever saw - you did a pretty bad job, Holden says, and he can't dispute it, but it was all he had; and worse, he knew it was a long shot, knew he didn't have the right tools without the fucking math, knew it was going to be a mess. So he's never, ever been able to separate it from trying from the way that he tried, from the choices he willfully made, the only ones he could find.
If he were alone, he'd cry, with confusion and hurt and relief, but he's not alone, he can't do that, he can't fall apart over - over -
No one has ever told him he did the right thing, any right thing, not since he was alive and lying constantly to everyone and getting feted and promoted for being the shining star in Kel Command's talons, for strengthening everything he wanted to tear down.
Complicit, dead, or evil. He did know it - could see it, sideways, out of the corner of his eye, could make out the inexorable and terrible and inescapable shape of it, the way the system ruined people, without ever having seen what people might look like, unruined. He knew it without having any sense of the details or the alternatives, but he saw just enough to know he had to force a change. Some way. Any way.
Complicit, dead, or evil.
"I guess I got the hat trick," he says, chokes out, not meeting Holden's eyes.