LOGAN
Tonight is an anniversary of sorts.
Last time I said those words, I said them with so much hope and anticipation. Tonight, I can only say them with bitterness. This anniversary marks only the passing of another month of grief, not the celebration of our year together. If only ...
Funny. I thought I'd gotten over torturing myself with "if only" after the shooting. I thought I had become a man who didn't look back. But for some reason, tonight, I can't look forward to tomorrow, and the opportunity for revenge that each new day brings. Tonight, the past fills my mind.
LYDECKER
Another month gone since the raid.
Quiet night, here. That's the way it usually is when you're out in the field, under deep cover ... you wait. You watch. You try to empty yourself, let the night, the sounds and the movements, speak to you. Warn you if necessary. It's foolish to fill your head with personal thoughts and emotion. Downright dangerous. Funny. I thought I was stronger than this. More disciplined. But tonight I just can't clear my head.
LOGAN
You never had a funeral or a memorial service. Cindy and your friends went to Crash one night and got blasted, but I couldn't bring myself to join them. I didn't dare drink in public. I was afraid I'd lose control. Some nights I drank here, alone, because passing out was the closest I could get to sleeping.
Not that I wanted the Cale family-style memorial for you, either. You didn't go with me to Uncle Jonas' funeral. It would have been fun to hear your take on things. The gloomy old church, the long effusive eulogy, the relatives oozing sympathy all over Aunt Margo and then dissing Jonas the minute her back was turned ... no, Max, that's not how I would have chosen to honor your life.
Still, I sometimes wish I could have laid you to rest in the Cale family cemetery. It's actually beautiful there, very peaceful. From the top of the hill you can see the water, and in spring the lilacs and cherry trees bloom. I hate thinking of you alone, wherever you are.
LYDECKER
You kids were no strangers to death, but you never saw a funeral, let alone a real military ceremony. Full dress uniforms, flags, bugles. A 21-gun salute. Maybe I should have exposed you to more of that kind of thing. Given you a taste of the glory even the ordinary soldier deserves when he falls. I thought you were above all that, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe you wouldn't have run off looking for emotional comfort, Max. Maybe you wouldn't have needed it. Well, what's past is past. You two lie where you have fallen, and there's honor in that too.
LOGAN
The power is out. These days that means I usually sit in the dark. I can't bring you home from whatever dark place you lie in, but tonight I will light the candles the way we used to, and I won't fight the memories. I'll welcome them as if they were you. It isn't right that someone as special as you is remembered only for that last terrible night of her life. There was a whole year before that, a year we never had the chance to celebrate. I'll do that tonight. Somewhere, somehow, maybe I can even find a little of that mirth you were hoping for.
LYDECKER
Laughter. Not much place for that in the field. Maybe that's something else you kids needed, a little laughter.
I see it's nearly midnight. Should be safe now to light my candle and get some work done. Work is always the best way to refocus the mind and clear away all these memories, all this sentimentality. There was a time when I would have used the bottle to do that. But in the end it only made things worse. So tonight I'll drink to you two from this canteen of stale warm water.
LOGAN
So here's to you, Max, and a year of life spent in your company.
Wish I had something better than this cheap wine for the occasion. Not that you ever drank much of the good stuff anyway. Seems like you were always running off after just a sip or two. I knew you were a little afraid of where things might go, just the two of us alone, drinking that wine. Afraid of saying words you couldn't take back, afraid of sharing secrets you couldn't hide again afterwards. I thought I would have time to show you that you had nothing to fear. Remember the night I let you read my poetry? I've never felt so exposed in all my life. But I wanted to do it, Max, to let you know what kind of risk I was willing to take for you. Even the risk of letting you know that I wrote poetry about your eyes. "Forever eyes. Dark." I still wonder sometimes what you really thought about that.
LYDECKER
Zack, I wasn't there when you were engineered. Those were the darkest days of my life, after my wife was killed. I wasn't fit for duty. But Max ... I thought I had cheated death itself, when you were created. Her eyes ... the moment I first saw you, I believed I had succeeded in giving her immortality. That I had defied her murderers. I was triumphant. Now it's all gone. With your death, she has vanished from the face of the earth. My dreams for you kids, also gone. Nothing but cinders and ash, now. Yet I keep seeing those eyes.
Why not kill myself, then, and end it all? That last night, you showed me the essential cowardice of such an act. You chose to fight the bitch and you succeeded, even if for only a short time. We've suffered heavy, almost insurmountable losses. There will never be another Zack, with that gift for leadership. And there will never be another you, Max, with your spirit, misdirected as it sometimes was. But I can rebuild. I am not helpless, and I will not allow myself to be weak.
LOGAN
One of the memories I treasure most, Max, was that awful day I nearly killed myself. Sounds funny to say that. But that afternoon, your heart was in your eyes as you threw your arms around me. I knew then what an act of cowardice it would have been to leave you, after all of your other losses, your mother, your brothers and sisters, your freedom, your innocence. I was a mess, and I knew it. Too much had happened to me that I couldn't bear. But in that moment I understood that that in spite of my ruined body and the bitterness in my soul, there was still a good act within my power. I could stay. Be there for you. I still had to hold back so much of myself that was chaotic and miserable. But I could stay.
I stayed as long as I could, Max. I know I promised I would not leave you, but I wasn't given a choice. Now I want to make you another promise. I will not try to destroy myself again. Instead I will destroy the evil that did this to me and to you.
LYDECKER
It would be easy to walk out of hiding right now. Head for the nearest bar and let it all go. Who would blame me? Might even save my life. Turn myself in to her, let her think I've become nothing more than another pathetic drunk. She'd love that.
But I won't. Some of your brothers and sisters still live. And because of them, I will go on.
LOGAN
Speaking of poetry, all these years I've carried with me a quote from Rilke:
"Do not believe that the great love once enjoined upon you was lost; can you say whether great and good desires did not ripen in you at the time, and resolutions by which you are still living today?"
I thought of these words again and again when Daphne broke our engagement, and when my marriage went wrong. I thought then that I knew what a broken heart is about. But now, Max, I understand what loss really means. And those words give me the hope to go on. You are lost to me, Max, but once again, I can stay. You will be the resolution by which I live today, and every day to come.
LYDECKER
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Marcus Aurelius. A soldier.
I will not die. I will honor my fallen soldiers by continuing the mission. Stronger than ever.