Through A Mirror, Darkly.
Miles is fascinated by those hands. They have long fingers that move elegantly over the papers, grasping a pen surely, tracing the lines clearly. There's no hesitation in those hands, and just the barest whisper of power in them. Those hands, they make him feel safe even as far away from home as he is. Home is where the Major General is, where he can listen to her voice - curt, acid, familiar - and see her eyes narrow as the tiniest smirk twists her lips into a sneer.
Home is not where the heart is, for his heart has long been away, but where his soul and his loyalty is, where he can serve the woman he swore to follow to hell and beyond.
But those hands, calloused, rough hands; they understand and inspire a sense of safety in him. Those hands belong to someone who's as loyal as he is - perhaps more, given the situation - someone who simply refuses to give up.
He has been taken away from everything he's ever known, from the cold, haunting wasteland, and thrown into this land sunlight and warmth. This is not the land where his ancestors dwelled, where they honored their goddess and pledged to serve her. He's here, not because he belongs here, but because he refused to betray the woman whose callousness conquered his loyalty; he's here because his loyalty is bothersome, and Kimblee wants him to suffer before he dies.
He's here, because he's going to die.
"Do you regret it?"
The question brings Miles back from his somber contemplations, and behind his shades, he finds the owner of those fascinating hands giving him a strange look. Jean Havoc is a peculiar man, Miles concludes, too thin, too jaded, too loyal. He looks almost small, lying under the covers of the hospital bed. But his eyes are bright, sharp. They tell Miles a very disturbing truth, one he wishes to ignore for as long as possible.
Are you ready to end up like me?
"No." He doesn't bother to clarify because the question is thick enough and a longer answer cannot hope to cut through it as effectively. Less is more, some times.
I won't.
Silence stretches, then, as silence embraces them both. Havoc, with that queer, other worldly glint in his eyes, the knowledge of pain, misery, agony and sheer stubbornness to keep on; and Miles, with that determined clench in his jaw, absolutely refusing to give up yet, defying what he didn't know or couldn't imagine, but that he challenged all the same.
"I'm glad." And Havoc smiles, closing his eyes as he lays back almost comfortably, hands linked over his chest. He's not supposed to smoke anymore, but the dying cigarette dangles from his lips teasingly. "Good evening, Major."
Havoc doesn't have the authority to dismiss him, not by much, but still, Miles finds himself standing to leave. He clutches the coded reports to his chest, and takes a moment to study the hands that intrigue him so, following their smooth lines as they fold neatly. The posture gives Havoc a corpse-like appereance that seems almost prophetic, but Miles kills that train of thought before it can be formed completely.
"I'll see you in a week, Second Lieutenant."
Look at me, look through me, look where you're heading, what you'll become.
Miles leaves the files at the arranged place, like usual, and thinks no more of strange reflections. He has a mission to fulfill, he is needed, and he needs to help to find his way back to The Cliff. And yet, even as he returns to the borrowed room that's too warm to ever be even close to home, he can't but think about Havoc and his trying riddles, and his hands. His hands and his long fingers, elegant fingers...
Home, Miles thinks insistently, curling around his loyalty against the uncertainty of this strange place, home. He sleeps, but the last thing he sees is Havoc lying there, with those haunting hands curled in defeat.