(no subject)
Grief, to begin with. For the senseless waste of life; for John Hairald, who after all she has known for four years; for Helen Saldana. And guilt, as ever. Some of them she asked to be where they were specifically; all of them worked for her. They were all her responsibility. And shame, powerful shame. There was not--she clings to this--a direct connection between her terrible choices and what happened to them. It was her own misguided response to the same attack, not the cause. But she had broken faith the same night they paid the full price. And everyone here knows it.
When Rose acknowledges that, the pain is awful. But when they join with her--
we are one from many
--she sees what she has done, how her daughter has bound the wounds she inflicted and solidified her place, ruthlessly and powerfully and with terrible honesty, and there is pride.
She has never been in just one mind about anything.
But most of all there is grief.
For twenty years, there has been the war. There have been the rationalizations of war, and the greater good; the reassurance of the rose and the lack of any other choice. The driving goad of her own ruthless nature, unable to flinch from the terrible task and unable to let anyone else. But her defenses have been shattered (we saw them smashed ourselves, did we not, and the army that did it?) and her masks taken from her.
And yet--if she chose--she could make them again. They beckon to her once more; Detta and Odetta and Mia. All the awful people she has been. So tell me--
Do you love, Boss Lady? Have you loved them all?
John Cullum and Moses Carver and Calvin Tower and Aaron Deepneau? Catania and Mason and Jacob and Erin? Cleanth Adamson and Elizabeth Tevlin? Marian and Nancy? Helen Saldana and John Hairald and Tomas and Kyra. and Alan and James and Phillip and Luke and Grace and and Kennneth and Michael and Ellis and Nathan and Anna and Louis and David? Kaylee and Charlie and X-23? All the ones who've died for you, Susannah, and all the ones who've lived--
Tell me, do you love?
Because they say if you kill what you love, you're damned.
(To pay hell is one thing. Do you want to own it?)
Yes. Yes, all right? Yes. She begins to weep, fighting to do it silently, clinging to Eddie's hand, struggling not to make her stupid self the center of attention here. Eddie holds her, and she buries her dead once more.
(I will drink my grief to the dregs.)
The road to the Tower is so terribly long.
When Rose acknowledges that, the pain is awful. But when they join with her--
we are one from many
--she sees what she has done, how her daughter has bound the wounds she inflicted and solidified her place, ruthlessly and powerfully and with terrible honesty, and there is pride.
She has never been in just one mind about anything.
But most of all there is grief.
For twenty years, there has been the war. There have been the rationalizations of war, and the greater good; the reassurance of the rose and the lack of any other choice. The driving goad of her own ruthless nature, unable to flinch from the terrible task and unable to let anyone else. But her defenses have been shattered (we saw them smashed ourselves, did we not, and the army that did it?) and her masks taken from her.
And yet--if she chose--she could make them again. They beckon to her once more; Detta and Odetta and Mia. All the awful people she has been. So tell me--
Do you love, Boss Lady? Have you loved them all?
John Cullum and Moses Carver and Calvin Tower and Aaron Deepneau? Catania and Mason and Jacob and Erin? Cleanth Adamson and Elizabeth Tevlin? Marian and Nancy? Helen Saldana and John Hairald and Tomas and Kyra. and Alan and James and Phillip and Luke and Grace and and Kennneth and Michael and Ellis and Nathan and Anna and Louis and David? Kaylee and Charlie and X-23? All the ones who've died for you, Susannah, and all the ones who've lived--
Tell me, do you love?
Because they say if you kill what you love, you're damned.
(To pay hell is one thing. Do you want to own it?)
Yes. Yes, all right? Yes. She begins to weep, fighting to do it silently, clinging to Eddie's hand, struggling not to make her stupid self the center of attention here. Eddie holds her, and she buries her dead once more.
(I will drink my grief to the dregs.)
The road to the Tower is so terribly long.