The silence in the room was thicker than fog. Eileen caught her breath and waited. After an eternity, Henry's head lifted as if in slow motion, and his gaze turned to the windows. Eileen could barely hear him speak for the ringing in her ears.

"This doesn't involve you," he said flatly.

"Yes, it does," she said. "We're in this together."

"Like I said before. It's not your problem. It's mine."

"If it's going to make it difficult for us to get along, then it is my problem. Is it?"

"So, send me back to Brookhaven."

"Like hell."

"Fine," he said. "Since you won't leave it alone – yes, I am angry."

She held her breath.

"I'm angry." His voice was slow and firm, and he spoke deliberately. "I'm angry at Frank, for letting this happen. Again. I'm angry at you, for…"

"Tell me," she whispered.

"I'm angry at you for the week before you found me. And I'm much more angry at Walter for putting you and me and all of those other people through his personal hell. But he's not the one I'm really angry at. Neither are you, and Frank isn't, either."

"…who?"

Silence. She watched him breathe deeply, slowly, in and out and in and out. His next word was inaudible.

"What?"

"Me," Henry said. "I'm angry at myself."

"Yourself?" she blurted. "That doesn't make any sense."

He laughed harshly. "Tell me about it."

"What the – you?"

"Yeah. Just – "

"Why? Why on earth – "

"I DON'T KNOW!"

She hadn't known that he could explode like that, either. There was anger and shock in his eyes. His hands gripped the edge of the counter as he took a deep breath. The words were still ringing in her ears.

After a minute or so, he raised his head. That look was still there, in eyes that had gone a dark green now, almost black. These were the eyes of a stranger. She thought she knew him, as well as anybody, but she'd never suspected any of this, never really had any idea what was going on in his head. All of this time – all of these months, there must have been so much that he'd kept to himself, that he hadn't shared with her, with her of all people – why hadn't he told her? He had to have known that she would understand.

Or, maybe the fact that she'd had no inkling of any of this meant that she wouldn't have understood at all.

"I'm angry at myself most of all," he said simply. "And I do know why. It just doesn't make any sense. There's no point in trying to explain it."

"Try me. Why?"

He shook his head. "So many things."

"You have no reason to be – "

"I have every reason to be."

"Why?"

"I don't want to talk about this. Will you stop?"

"No."

"You're stubborn."

"So I've been told."

He leaned back against the kitchen island and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes roamed about the room.

"Jesus, Eileen, where do I begin?"

Eileen waited.

"You know," he said, "after all of this time, you'd think I'd have figured things out."

"It's OK," she said automatically. But Henry was staring off into space as if he hadn't heard her.

"I wanted…I never wanted anything but to be left alone to live my life by myself. It's not really that much to ask. Or, at least that's what I thought I wanted. I – I was too stupid, too oblivious to see what that was really costing me. It didn't matter, as long as I could do what I wanted to do and not have to deal with other – with other people. That's all that mattered to me, and I thought that I was happy…until I woke up one morning and my door was stuck shut, and I realized that that was all that I had left. And after I saw what I'd lost, I knew that it wasn't enough, it never could have been enough, and that I'd been an idiot.

"Soon, I was left with only my rapidly decaying apartment and a headache and a lack of sleep that got worse every day. Then, that hole opened in my bathroom wall, and everything started happening. Things were happening around me, to me, to other people, and I had no control over anything that was going on. It didn't take long for me to see how useless I'd become, how completely…redundant. I thought that I didn't need the world, but now I saw that it didn't need me, either. I'd never – I'd never thought about that before. Somehow, I'd assumed that it would always be there for me, but…

"Then people started dying – and then you…"

"There was nothing anybody could have done, Henry," she said quietly. "It wasn't you. It was – "

"Let me talk," he said firmly. "I've – God damn it, Eileen, I've never been so damned helpless before. Since I was…for a long time, I've had to be the one to take care of things, for myself and sometimes – for other people. This isn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be able to deal with things. And I couldn't even get out of my goddamn room. At least, not without going into one of Walter's hells. There was nothing I could do about it, for you, for me, for any of them. Nothing. NOTHING!"

The last word came out as a bellow, and a bony fist slammed into the countertop, hard. Eileen shrank back against the counter. Henry took a few seconds to compose himself.

"I was too focused on getting myself the hell out of there," he said. "That didn't help. They died because I wasn't paying attention. I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I had no idea what was going to happen. I could have gone after Cynthia when she disappeared. I could have kept an eye on Jasper, at least to make sure that he wasn't going to come after me. I could have warned Andrew and Richard that something was up, but I didn't. Would Walter have gotten to them anyway? Maybe, maybe not. But they might have stood a better chance if I had thought more about them and less about saving my own skin.

"I know what you're going to say," he said, holding up his hand to stop her. "You're going to tell me that I did my best, that nobody could have done better, that there was nothing I could have done to save them. You've told me that before. But I'll never know that for sure. Not really. I realized that at Brookhaven, early on, and I've spent the months since trying to figure out how to live with that. I don't know whether I should be angry with myself, but I am anyway. Whether I like it or not."

Eileen was silent.

"See, it's been drilled into me for as long as I can remember," he continued. "You have to watch out for yourself, then you can deal with other people. That's what he told me. I never liked that. It seemed too selfish to me…but as it turned out, that's exactly what I did. It wasn't right then, and it isn't right now. But after all this time, I see now that he was right, kind of. I mean, how could I take care of you and keep you safe if I couldn't even stop myself from getting killed?"

He met her eyes, and the blood drained from her face as she realized where this was going.

"You remember." His words were a whisper. "In the forest. I died then, Eileen. I didn't realize it then, but I know it now. Tell me I'm wrong."

How could she ever forget? And how could he bring himself to talk about it?

"N…no. You're right. We made it back to Wish House, just barely, and then you collapsed and – you were so cold and pale…and then you stopped breathing."

"How long?"

"A few minutes, maybe. I don't know. It felt like forever."

"You were crying when I woke up."

"I thought that…"

Henry nodded. "So I did die. And Walter brought me back to life." He laughed harshly. "God forbid I should screw up his plans by dying ahead of schedule, right?"

"We were all puppets then, Henry. Walter's puppets. But he's gone now."

"He won't ever be gone, Eileen. Can't you see that?" He shook his head at her angrily. "He's dead, but what he did will never go away. Nineteen people are dead, and we're still dealing with it. The fact that we're standing here, talking like this – that I'm telling you these private thoughts, thoughts I'd planned to keep to myself – isn't that enough proof? That you're left to take care of this…this broken shell full of nothing but frustrated anger and guilt who can't even manage on his own any more?" He slammed his fist into the countertop again, and she saw him wince from the impact.

"Too goddamned feeble…" he muttered.

Henry…

"That's not the way it is. You're not making any sense."

"No kidding," he spat. "Well, I haven't had to since I went to Brookhaven. Why should things be any different now?"

Eileen had no idea what he was talking about. None at all. She remained silent.

"Look, here's the thing," he said. "Yes, I am angry at Frank, and at Walter, and at you. But the reason that I'm angry at myself is that – that somehow it seems as if I have no right to be."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because when I look back at it, you didn't really do anything wrong. What's the saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, that's what we've got here. That's exactly what happened. A FUBAR of the first magnitude because of people doing the wrong thing. Not out of malice, or anger, or anything like that. Just – misguided people.

"It all starts with Walter, of course. None of this would have happened without him. That's obvious. But he went through more hell when he was young than anybody should have to, ever. It screwed him up more than anyone could ever understand. He lost everything when he was only a few minutes old. Everything. All he wanted was his mother back, and he was ready to do anything to make that happen…even if it involved bringing twenty other people into his hell forever. He was broken, delusional, sociopathic…but he was human once, too, and it's hard to forget that. You remember how hard it was."

Yes, she did. She'd felt this irrational sympathy for him toward the end, standing there in the apartment entryway with his sketchbook in her good hand, and Henry had had to shake her out of it…almost literally. She'd been so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now, he was having the same problem, it seemed. But at least he was aware of it.

"He did what he thought he had to do, what he'd been brought up to do," Henry continued. "He had to have known that it was wrong, though. Whatever...humanity that he had left after that cult had screwed him up, it had to have told him that slaughtering twenty-one people was wrong. And he tried to do it anyway. Damn near succeeded, too. But from what I saw, I could tell that he wasn't malicious, and he wasn't evil, not really…just very, very delusional and misguided. It wasn't about hurting people for him. They weren't even people to him, any more. They were just tools in his plan.

"But it's the same thing with you and Frank. Not as bad, but the same idea. You had no reason to think that anything was wrong…but still, you could have done more. Frank could have avoided renting out the room after Joseph disappeared, after he heard those strange noises and saw those strange things, but he didn't. You could have checked the apartment, to see if I'd really left, but you didn't. The problem is, why would you have? Why would he? Neither of you had any reason to. There was no really good reason to think that anything was wrong. Just doing those things could have made a huge difference, but neither you nor he can really be faulted for it. I want to, so much, because we know better now…but I can't. I'm angry at both you and him. Very, very angry, but I'm more angry at myself because I know that you didn't mean to do any harm. So, I can't really get good and mad with you, and like I said that's frustrating as hell."

Eileen wanted to put her hands over her ears, to shut this out and pretend as if it had never happened, but she couldn't. Part of her wanted Henry to keep talking, about anything at all…because when he stopped talking, it would all start to make sense, and that would be so much worse. It was already making far more sense than she was comfortable with.

But as bad as it would be, it was nothing, nothing compared to what he'd suffered because of her.

Suck it up, Eileen. You wanted to know how he felt, right? Well, now he's telling you. Deal with it.

Henry turned to look out of the window again. The shadows outside had moved since Frank had left, and the afternoon light was just starting to creep into the room. The silence that fell was near-suffocating.

"When I was a kid," he said after a while, "I used to stew about the smallest things. Every little thing that went wrong bugged the hell out of me, and I never let them go. It wasn't right, you know? It wasn't the way things were supposed to work. That drove me nuts. Worked myself up at the drop of a hat. Then…well, things changed, and I didn't do that any more, but I held grudges like you wouldn't believe. Now, that's gone, too. It's all gone. I don't have that luxury any more. I'm still trying to figure out where that leaves me.

"What good would it do me to be angry now, anyway? It's all in the past. I can't go back and change things, as much as I would like to. People are still dead, my room is still possessed by a half-born demon or god or whatever the hell she is, and what's happened to you and me and everybody else can't be undone. Being angry – well, it's not only pointless, but if I let it get to me…she wins, Eileen. She wins, and so does he. And there's no way in hell that I'm going to let that happen."

"But – dammit, Henry, something's got to give! How can you stand there and tell me that – that you don't think you can get mad about everything? That's unnatural!"

The words were out of her mouth before she realized how they sounded, but he just shook his head.

"Perhaps I'm unnatural that way," he said. "Perhaps…it's just how I was made." There was something unreadable in his face, something that she couldn't touch.

"Look, Eileen, it's like I said before. I don't know. That's all I've got. I don't know why I can't let myself hate Walter. For what he did to me, and for what he did to you and to all of those other people whose lives he ruined. I don't know why that isn't enough to work up a good, healthy, blind hatred for him and what he's done. I should be able to, but I can't. I should be able to hate you and Frank for leaving me in my room to die. But it's just not happening. As much as I don't want to let myself get angry, I know that I need to, and I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. It's…I can't explain it.

"So, I don't know what to tell you now." Deep breath. "Maybe I never will. I'm angry at myself for letting them die, I'm angry at myself for wanting to blame you and Frank and Walter, and I'm angry at myself for not being able to get good and mad in the first place. It's all screwed up, I know, but that's what it is. I don't know what you want from me, but whatever it is – I'm sorry, but I can't give it to you."

He sounded tired, so tired.

God, I...this is the last thing I'd expected, every. I screwed you over, twice, with my laziness, and left you to stew in that bitch's clutches for a week. You nearly died – again – and look at what it did to you. God only knows if you'll ever really be OK again. I could do everything for you for the rest of our lives, everything, and if you'd spit on me and told me you'd never wanted to see me again, I'd think I'd gotten off easy...and now you tell me you can't get mad?

"Can't – can't you yell at me or throw things or stomp around or something like a normal person?"

"I wish."

"But – what are you going to do about it?"

"Like I said. No idea."

"You've got to do something."

"Well, it's not like I'm going to walk out. Nowhere to go."

"This place is yours for as long as you want it. But if you want to go – "

"I don't. Really." He smiled. "Just kidding."

"I wouldn't blame you."

"I know."

"Jesus, Henry…I just don't get it."

"Neither do I. Guess that makes two of us."

Then Eileen remembered that day in Brookhaven, that day when she'd spoken to Andy and found out the true extent of Henry's damage. He was dangerous, unpredictable, violent – but she had somehow known that he would never hurt her. Never. She had known that she should have been afraid of him, should have always been watchful around him. After all, he could have killed her so easily, if he had wanted to – she'd seen that that night with the revolver in her front room, too. But she just couldn't work up that fear. It wasn't happening, even though she knew it should.

So…maybe I do understand, a little. Maybe after all that we've been through – all that he's been through…maybe it's been burned out of him, somehow. Forever? I hope not…

Then he looked at her. He was tired and wrung out, but she could see in his eyes that he meant what he said. He really wasn't furious with her, like he had every right to be. It was unbelievable, but true. She felt herself deflating…and then guilt, heavy, black guilt, stepped in to fill the void.

And I started bitching you out because of my stupidity, because of feeling guilty because of something I did, something that nearly got you killed, again. Again, I've been a total idiot, and it's not your fault I'm an idiot, it never was, and now I've proven it once and for all, and sooner or later you're going to realize that and hate me, you've got to, and…and…and now I've…

That was the last straw. She couldn't take it any more. She burst into tears right then and there, and she had never been so angry at herself in her life. She was supposed to be the strong one here, she was supposed to be taking care of him, and now she was the one falling apart in the middle of her kitchen. Right in front of him. How could this get any worse?

Then, it did.

"Eileen! No – what – don't cry...it's OK..."

Now she was in his arms again, sobbing against his shoulder, and it was ten times as bad as before. She found herself pummeling his chest in blind anger and frustration. This was getting worse with every second, and although he was growing stronger every day, she couldn't help thinking that if she didn't get a hold of herself soon she was going to break something in him and send him back to the hospital.

Wouldn't that be just the perfect way to end this. You really are an idiot.

She struggled to free herself before she did something else stupid, but she couldn't even do that. He was holding her too tightly. So she was stuck, stuck with her face in his shirt again, crying and hitting him more and more weakly until she finally wore herself out.

"That hurts," she sputtered.

"So do those fists of fury."

That made her laugh in spite of herself. Then, she choked on her own tears and started coughing, and he laughed and smacked her lightly between the shoulder blades. Soon, she lay still again, with no idea of what to do next.

His hand came up under her chin, and he lifted it and looked straight into her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

She was so afraid of what she would see in his face, but she steeled herself and looked back at him. His eyes were back to their usual green, and were trying to read her, to see beyond her tears.

I don't know where to start...well, I'm the biggest moron that ever lived, but…

"I…I'm confused," she blurted.

"Like I said, that makes two of us," he replied.

"I can't believe you're not angry."

"Well, I'm not."

"Doesn't that bother you at all?"

"Like I told you. It does."

"Sure doesn't seem like it sometimes," she grumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"Like now. You can talk about it like that. Just – just talk about it."

"I've had a lot of time to get used to it."

"You're sure that you're not mad, huh?"

"Only at myself, like I said. Do you want me to be?"

"Yeah."

"At you?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I deserve it."

His hand left her chin. "Sorry, but you're outta luck on this one." He reached behind his back, and pulled a paper towel off of the roll by the sink. She took it gratefully and blew her nose into it, then tossed it over his shoulder into the sink.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks."

Eileen looked around for a corner into which she could curl up and die, but nothing doing. She was too tired to think, too wrung-out to do anything…and Henry wasn't about to let go of her any time soon.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"Do you have to ask?"

"No. Not really. But…"

"Look, I'm being straight with you here. As straight as I can be. That's all that I can give you now."

"From what I've seen, it's a lot for you to give."

A pause. "Yeah, it is."

"You…you don't hate me?"

Silence. She stared at the floor and listened to him breathe.

"Because you should," she said after a few seconds. "I…I left you to die in there, Henry. I didn't mean to, but I did anyway."

She felt something touch her head, and before she knew it she was looking up into his face again and he was stroking her hair gently.

I don't think I see any hate there…but admit it, Eileen, you're too chicken to really look. And you never could read him, anyway. If you've learned anything from this, it's that.

He shook his head. "I'm tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn't do."

That made sense. "If I were you, I would be too," she said to his clavicle.

"This isn't what you signed up for."

"Neither of us did."

"No, guess not."

She felt the tears coming again, and she wasn't going to be able to stop them.

"Come here," he said.

He pulled her back against his shoulder, and they stood there for a long time as he stroked her hair and she tried to quiet her mind. He'd done this before, when they were down in Walter's hell that night, more than once. Even then, when they were still strangers to each other, she'd found it irrationally comforting. She couldn't remember where it had been or what had happened, though. Now, she didn't want to feel better, but she couldn't help that, either, and she was too wrung out to struggle free.

That's it. In that damn concrete prison where they kept the kids. I nearly fell through one of those holes in the floor during one of my fits. Just another time that I would have died if he hadn't been there – and I ended up in this same place, with my nose in his neck, blubbering and soaking his shirt just like I am now.

So, she found herself relaxing into him just as she always did. The softness of his shirt was soothing, as was the strength of the arm holding her and the gentleness of his fingers in her hair. He smelled like himself, too, and as she stood there she could feel his heart beating strongly in his chest. She could feel how alive he was, how really solid and real. He was there, with her, and that was all she needed just then.

After a few minutes, she couldn't deny the inevitable any more. It was going to be OK. Then, he released her slowly. She felt a pang of regret.

"I look like hell," she said for no reason at all, through the hair stuck to her swollen, wet face.

"You look beautiful," he replied as he pushed the strands from her cheeks.

"That's what you always say," she said with a little smile. "You said it in the prison, too."

"It's always true."

"I'm an idiot, Henry, and I'm so sorry."

"Me too."

His hand found hers, and he squeezed it tightly as he led her over to the couch. They sat down, side by side, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and put her arms around his waist. They kept their thoughts to themselves as his hand stroked her hair and the shadows in the room moved.

After a while, he shifted to one side as he reached into his jeans pocket with his free hand and extracted a folded piece of paper.

"What's that?"

"Part of the reason I couldn't go off on Frank just now." The paper crackled as he unfolded it. It was a lined sheet from a yellow pad. "I just found it today, in the inside pocket of that coat that he gave me. I must have missed it before." She leaned closer to see as he started to read aloud.

Henry:

I hope that you can wear this. Eileen tells me that she's going to bring you back soon, and it's too damn cold out there.
We didn't find a coat in your closet, so you're going to need one.

"My old one finally fell apart last winter," Henry said. "I'd been planning to try to find something when winter stuff went on sale in the fall. You know. But that coat is a lot nicer than anything I would have gotten myself."

"It's very nice," she agreed absently.

This used to belong to my son. He was about your height and size, and so I hope that it fits.
It was a favorite of his, the one he wore whenever he took Mary out for a nice dinner.
Cost him a lot of money, too, but she loved it so much that he got it to make her happy.

When she lay dying, she asked him to leave it with her, in her room, so that she could have a part of him there.
And he did. Then, after – after, I found it in his room.
I've never told anybody that. But I think that you should know.
You and he are different in many ways, but you remind me so much of him sometimes.

Henry, this is my fault. I failed you, like I failed him.
Both of you would be here now if I'd done what I should have, so long ago.
He's never coming back. I know that now. It's been too long.
This is the least I can do. James would have wanted you to have this. It should be yours.

Frank Sunderland

Eileen kept her head on his shoulder and held him more tightly.

"I never knew his name," he said quietly. "Not before today."

"I was a kid when he was here," Eileen replied. "Just a girl. He always had a smile for me or a joke. He was good-looking, too. I was old enough to notice that," she said with a smile. "Then, he found Mary, and she became his world. I barely saw him around, but when I did I could see the happiness in him. After they got married, they moved out, and I saw them maybe once or twice before they disappeared."

She could see James in her mind's eye now, just as he'd been when she was younger, smiling that smile that he always said was just for her…and she knew that he would have understood.

"Frank's right," she said. "James would have wanted you to have his coat."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it. He was a good guy."

"He was a little taller than me."

"Yeah, maybe an inch or so."

"A little leaner than I used to be."

"Maybe."

"Blond, light green eyes, looked like Frank, right?"

"I didn't know you knew him."

"I didn't."

She sat up then. "Henry, they disappeared ten years ago. How did you…"

He was still staring at the note. She couldn't read the expression on his face, but that was nothing new. He laid the note on the coffee table and turned to her.

"I'm not sure, Eileen, but – I think he was swallowed up by that town, too. Not like us…it was different. But that's where they went."

"How do you know that?"

"Before the hole opened in my bathroom, I had these nightmares, every night. People and monsters and strange things going on. I recognized some of the places in the dreams, from Silent Hill. But they were changed – very changed. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. There was one dream, though, that screwed with my head worse than the others. I'd had a lot of vodka to drink that night before I went to sleep…there was an old bottle in the kitchen left over from New Year's that I polished off."

"New Year's? Yeah, I remember. At the window, right?"

He stared at her. "You remember that?"

She did. She'd been at home alone on New Year's for the first time in ages. Shortly before midnight, she ended up leaning out of the window in her front room, feeling the cold, fresh night air blow through her hair and listening to the party going on downstairs. Then, when she looked to her right, there he was, leaning out of his window with a bottle in his hand, taking a sip and staring out into the night. She'd never really gotten a good look at him before, and he didn't seem to know she was there, so she had taken her time. He wasn't bad-looking, not at all, as far as she could tell in the shadows. There was a looseness to his movements, but she guessed that the bottle might have had something to do with that.

She'd watched him for several seconds out of the corner of her eye before he saw her. He almost dropped the bottle when he did, but she smiled at him as he wiped his mouth with his hand and stared at her, glassy-eyed. She could understand that completely – she hated being alone on New Year's, too. And from what she saw and heard, he was even more alone than she was most of the time. If she were him, she'd probably be downing a few, too.

Then, the clock chimed midnight, and off-key voices singing Auld Lang Syne floated up to them. She smiled at him and whispered "Happy New Year." He grinned from ear to ear and raised his bottle to her, and they turned their gazes back to the black night.

So long ago.

"I do," she said simply.

"Anyway, there was this guy in one of the dreams. He was a little taller than me, blond, light green eyes…looked familiar. I couldn't place him, but I felt like I'd seen his face before. But I did know his name. I don't know how I knew it, but I did. It was James." He turned and stared at the dark TV. "It wasn't until I read this note that I realized why he seemed familiar. He looked just like Frank."

Eileen sat still, unable to move.

"There were other people in the dreams, too. I didn't recognize their names, though. When I get a chance, I'm going to look through the old newspapers at the library and see if I can find out who they were."

Eileen found her voice. "You…saw…them? James and Mary?"

"Kind of."

"What do you mean, kind of? Henry!" She grabbed his knee. "You've got to tell Frank! He has no idea – "

"That's the problem. I'm not sure exactly what I was seeing, Eileen. I mean – the woman in the dream, the dream with James in it. She was several inches shorter than him, blonde hair, short skirt, boots…"

Eileen shook her head. "That doesn't sound like Mary at all. Maybe the right height, perhaps, but she never dressed like that. Never."

"That's the thing. This woman and James – I got the feeling that they didn't really know each other. Something weird was going on between them, but they weren't a couple. I don't think I saw Mary at all. Hell, I don't even know what happened to James. I didn't see how things ended up."

"Oh."

"So I can't tell Frank a damn thing," he said. "Even if it wasn't just a dream, and I can't prove that it wasn't. I don't know where James is now, or what he's doing, or even if he's still alive. All I know is…"

"What?"

He met her eyes. "The only thing I know for sure is that things went very, very wrong with them, and that Mary's not coming back. And that's not something he'd want to hear."