"Look what they make you give."
It really meant look at what you've lost. Jason knew this, he had lived it. Even with his fragmented memory, he knew he had lost so much.
Nothing before the program; that was permanently gone. His identity, his personality, anything that would distinguish him from the other men he stood beside had disappeared during his training. It was ripped from his grasp.
His memory was gone. He could remember certain faces, different people and events, but they were few and far between. Nothing that could help him regain anything about who he used to be. All he knew, his whole life, was simply about running and staying alive. No security, no relaxation; that's what had gotten them caught in India. For a while he had been able to relax there.
With Marie. Something else he had lost; someone else. But she had meant so much more. He would gladly trade any memories he had to get her back. Marie, dead in the river. Nothing he could have done.
That was a lie, and he knew it. He could have been more careful. He could have faced the assassin rather than running with her. What if he had taken a different route? What if they hadn't switched spots? What if he had made her keep her head down? What if... what if…
But there is no more time for 'what if's. Marie was dead. Even if he had killed Abbot, nothing was going to change that. There was no reason to dwell on what he had lost. As an assassin, you learn to focus on the objective, rather than the past. The future, his survival, was the only thing that mattered now.
So someone could remember Marie.
Jason looked down the barrel of the pistol, pointed at his chest. The man on the other side hesitated, tense, as he warred with himself to shoot the man before him.
"Why didn't you take the shot?"
Jason wanted to tell him. Wanted to tell them that he was tired of killing people. To tell him that his life had been ruined by this program; that they had taken everything from him, and would take everything from that man as well. He wanted to tell him about Marie, and India, and Russia and the orphan and Abbot and Conklin and Nikky. But he couldn't, not now. Instead he said the only thing he could think of.
"Look at what they make you give."
Jason turned and ran. He jumped; the bite of a bullet hit him before the sound reached his ears, and he was falling. In his mind, his past, or what he could remember of it, repeated once more, every face, every event, until it stopped with the memory of Marie, in India, smiling, and holding him. As the icy water raced towards him, he held onto that memory, a tear forcing it's way from his eye.
Look at what they make you give.