Disclaimer: see chapter 1
To the Victor Go the Spoils of War
Father and son catharsis. Reflections on a time he would rather forget. A snippet of his time in the Air Force.
He's out there. I can see him, spine bent over in a c-shape as he leans heavily on the railings of the balcony.
Briefly, I wonder if I did the right thing, letting him head out on that last rescue. Bereznik is… a harsh reminder of the life he used to lead. Knowing the past, knowing what happened to him there, I raised objections, but my son, just like his mother, was as stubborn as a mule and insisted he would do his duty. Not that I expected anything less from him.
"Nothing's changed," he mutters, bitter, sensing my presence through some sort of psychic link. "Everything's ravaged; civil unrest is normal, women get raped by rebel forces, men get beheaded and children are murdered. Question it and people shrug their shoulders; just the way of life."
I stand next to him, careful not to touch him. I know how skittish he can be at times. Offer him a shot of whiskey. Anything to smooth out the rough edges.
"You can't solve people's problems for them, son."
He fingers the knot in his spine, fumbles around the indent where a bullet severed his spinal column, hands move fluidly over the scars running up and down his back, token reminders of what he fought for a lifetime ago, what he knows he did not achieve. "I know that. I've got the scars to prove it."
More bitterness, mingled with a hint of resentment and desolation. Almost as though he's come to the realisation that his time there in the Air Force meant nothing. He runs tired hands over eyes that are much too old for their time, have beared witness to horrors one could only imagine and returns to the present as a blank slate. He accepts the whiskey, knocks it back as though it was water and heads straight for another shot.
"Why're we doing this? What is the point of it all? Why're we trying to preserve a species that's so hell-bent on destroying themselves? It's madness. Just senseless waste."
Another drink, this time he heads straight from the bottle and swallows from it. The silence between us stretches into an eternity.
"You were right," he eventually says, turning to stare at you. "I shouldn't have gone."
"I was right," I agree, pushing a small mini disc into his hands. I see his eyes widen slightly before the shutters roll down and his eyes dull. Can't hurt him any more than the rescue has to show him what I've found in the basement, can't hurt him to know that I've watched it, even though I know he'd rather I didn't. "I was right, but so were you."