Everything I love, get back from me now. Everyone I love, I need you now.
[dialogue © canon, which you should really just watch]
Joseph had mailed it to every major news network in the country. And to Jack.
"I needed to say goodbye, but you never gave me the chance. I needed you to know that behind the lie, I see you. For who you really are. And I love you- and I know you love me.
"And I think everyone should know.
"No more hiding, Jack. You're too brave to be such a coward. You deserve to be who you really are. I hope this will help."
Fear. Cowardice. The sensation of the very ground pulling out from beneath his feet and the desperate hope that his family's influence could restore it. That had been his first reaction, and he was not proud. But soon, far too soon and not soon enough, Jack had known what it was to feel remorse.
He wanted to air the video across every wavelength, on every frequency, around the world and any number of others. In Gilboa, in Gath, in the Nexus, everywhere. He wanted to run into the studios screaming it, wanted to hurl copies of it at the press in droves. He wanted everyone to see. He wanted everyone to know what he had done.
The media would crucify him. His father would disown him. Send him into exile. Put him before the firing squad. Gladly, he would have let them. Willingly, he would have gone. He would have spit in their eye and relished the javelin in his side.
His mother would never let it see the light of day.
She stopped the mail. She extinguished Joseph's final cry. If it cost her only daughter's honor, even young David's life, she would do it. She was Queen, and this stranger who would expose her son was but mortal man.
Jack did not stop her.
No one would know him for this monster. No one would see what beauty he had destroyed. And he would live with the knowledge of what he had done.
"Joseph Michael Lasile. A man like us beloved in the eyes of God, challenged by traits that God bestowed. Such a split can divide a man in two, but not Joseph. He lived as one man his whole life, despite the inequality, despite the hate. Took his own life, not for loving wrong, but for loving too much. Some will say he died a cowardly death, but he lived a courageous life. Let's remember that."