Epilogue

Two years. It had been two years to the day since Egner had first taken him. One year and nine months since his rescue. Nine months since his return. Eight months since he had officially resumed his life. All those moments...moments that had changed his life permanently, some for the better, some most definitely for the worse.

Tim sat quietly in his apartment. It was one of those things that had changed about him. He sometimes spent over an hour just sitting, staring blankly at the wall or whatever else happened to be in front of him at the time. He was thinking, though. There was a thought which had been consuming his every free moment for the past week. They'd all even noticed. Tim smiled a bit at that. Yes, they noticed when he changed. It was good of them to notice even now....but he hadn't told them what was going through his mind. For one thing, he knew they'd immediately disagree with his idea. They'd try to make him change his mind.

No, not make me. They'd try to show me why it's such a bad idea, Tim corrected himself. They didn't force him. He still saw Dr. Sakota every week and she never tried to force him either. Before he went, however, there was someone he needed to call.

"McGee residence."

"Hey, Dad."

"Tim. What's up?"

"Ayn Rand. 'The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.'"

Sam didn't miss a beat. "T. S. Eliot. 'Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.'"

"'It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.' Seneca."

"'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.' Ambrose Redmoon."

Tim began to say another one, but he was stopped.

"No, Tim. I know what has to come next. Save it."

"I could say it, Dad. I can say it now."

"I know. You're going there, aren't you?"

"How did you know?"

"Because that's the one place you haven't been. Tell him that, let him know how thoroughly he's failed."

"He won't hear me, Dad."

"Doesn't matter. Save it. Then, come back and you can tell it to me."

"Okay, Dad." Tim hung up and stared vacantly out the window.

A wet nose on his hand startled him and he looked down.

"Jethro...well, what do you think? Am I crazy?" he asked.

Jethro cocked his head to the side and panted at him eloquently.

"You want to come with me?"

That was a definite yes. Tim smiled again. It was getting easier to smile although he wondered if he'd ever really feel the kind of happiness that was untempered by sorrow. Shrugging off the thought, he grabbed Jethro's leash and left his apartment.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

When he reached the building, he was unsurprised to see the notice. It would be torn down soon. The building was an eyesore and it was crumbling. No matter. He wouldn't be here long. He locked his car and trotted into the building, up the old creaky stairs to the third floor. As he walked along the hallway, he knew that what he'd be seeing was not the instruments of his torture. Those had all been removed. All that would be left was an empty room. Again, that didn't matter. What mattered was that he was there, that he was confronting it once and for all. Back when his mind had been so cluttered with pain, he'd known that this was necessary, although the timing had been wrong. Now was the right time.

Down the hallway, to the door...the only door that was maintained at all. Jethro whined a little but walked with him.

Tim hesitated. He knew what he'd see in there, but that didn't matter either because it was what he had seen in that room that still cast a cloud over him at times. With a deep breath, he opened the door...on a dusty room.

It was empty. Empty, dusty. Dimly lit. There was nothing in here. Still, Tim stepped inside and walked around it. He could see the marks on the floor where the chair had been bolted down, the holes in the ceiling where the pipe had been installed, the wiring used to bring the needed electricity into the room, the door that led to the other exit, allowing him to keep the room dark at all times.

Tim walked all around. In his mind's eye, he could see himself strapped down and Egner hovering as he so thoroughly tried to tear Tim's humanity from him.

"I won," he whispered to that vision. "You didn't. You lost."

There was no response.

Another deep breath, let out slowly...and Tim realized that he was calm. He wasn't frightened by this room. That made him smile.

"'You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.' Mohandas Gandhi."

The image disappeared and Tim stared at where it had been for a few minutes. Then, he looked down at Jethro who was sitting patiently beside him.

"Let's go, Jethro. I'm ready."

Together, they walked out, leaving the room...and the man inside it, far, far behind.

FINIS!