"Make decisions you can live with."

That's what Jack had said. And she could. She could live with everything she'd done.

He hadn't said what to do about decisions other people made, how to live with those.

Janice had been right: Larry would have hated what she did to Wilson. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that he wasn't there to yell at her.

There were times when she picked up her phone and hit speed dial and it wasn't until she heard the message that his number was no longer in use that she remembered. That was after the FBI had finally removed his voice mail message. She wished she'd thought to record it first. There were times when even the sound of his voice would have been comforting. Something familiar, some way to pretend none of this had happened.

By now they'd probably given the number to someone else, someone else who was sitting at his desk, hanging his coat on Larry's hook.

Jack's voice on the machine was a raw reminder she couldn't face. Not yet.

xxxx

And now it was all for nothing. Larry was dead; Jack had given up on her; Vlad was still free. They hadn't had enough as it turned out. She had to go back in. But she wasn't the same person she'd been then. The first time had been horrible, but she had believed, then, that what she was doing was worth it. That her sacrifice was for the greater good, and that good would ultimately prevail. She didn't believe that any more.

Renee's left hand went instinctively to her right wrist. The shrink had said she hadn't really wanted to kill herself; that it had been a cry for help. The shrink had been wrong. Across for hospital, down for death. Isn't that what the Moonies had taught their followers to do in case of kidnapping for deprogramming? As if. As if there were some magical formula that could turn her back into the person she once was.

She'd done it right, but she had failed anyway. Another failure to add to the stinking pile of her life. But she wouldn't make the same mistake this time. This time, she wasn't coming out.