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[Daniel looks tired, dirty, and a little haggard, but otherwise seems fine.]

Hey. Sorry I've been out of the loop for a bit, I was off in the woods.

[...technically true.]

Anyway, I'm around again, and I should be in the city for the a while. Let me know if you need anything.

[Private to Claire]

Hey, did you make it out alright?

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[Israel doesn't stop him. He holds him tight, presses his face against Charles's hair and shakes because he cannot cry, rocking him and hugging him close for as long as Charles needs.]

[Such an incredible shock to the system. Something deep, something life-changing, and his mind utterly refuses to process it.

So his defensive solution is sleep, his emotions wringing him into exhaustion.]

[When Charles is asleep, Daniel carries him the pallet of blankets in the corner, rests curled around him, with his eyes on the door, clinging to the warm shift of Charles's breath as he starts to process what he's learned.]

[It's not long; a few hours, only, until his nightmares wake him up and he twitches back to consciousness.

The strange thing is that he relaxes on feeling Israel's presence by him. Goes limp in relief, his heartbeat slowing from racing in fear.]

[He strokes Charles's hair softly.]

Shhh. You're alright.

[Not you're safe, because Israel tries not to make promises he might not be able to keep. But right now, they're okay.]

[Tears flow again, but it's the quiet, sweet sort this time. Two million.]

In the next war, the one for Israel, once, I fought in Syria...

[Halting tones, speaking slow, with the half-dream-slur of the newly awakened.]

We were in Damascus, and the decision was made to test a telepathic enhancement device. -- You don't understand, I've hated myself -- It was an accident, but I still -- they burst in the doors, and they had guns, and I just thought stop and I stopped everything. Everything in miles.

Thousands of people, I... I thought i would never even the scales. Do you understand?

[Cracked voice, and he turns, to face Israel, shifts around.]

I thought I would never...

[And to think that he already had.]

I understand.

[It's sort of a lie. Nations - with the ever-fascinating exception of Germany - aren't really capable of true self-loathing. But it makes sense, in an intellectual way.]

You have done great things, achi. And perhaps also a terrible one, but that does not make you terrible.

[Charles closes his eyes. It's dark now, and he thinks of gas lamps and flickering lights in the old, creaky mansion.]

Maybe someday I'll believe that.

[He means it, this time. He's never really thought redemption was possible. And this is a little dawning, a crack of light over the horizon.]

[Daniel hugs him gently around the middle, murmurs,]

Continents move slowly.

[Because - yes. That kind of fundamental shift, the staggering difficulty of accepting it, that he understands.]

[He wonders if this is what it's like having a lover. The easy acceptance of physical contact, without the constant focus on hold back, hold back, don't read. He wants to relax and drift in Israel's embrace, without thinking, which is a truly tectonic shift from his usual attitude, and it all happened so fast.

The attraction isn't sexual, though. He's only felt that sort of desire as a tentative, prickling thing; this is as different from that as a stream is to the Atlantic. Like watching trickling water against seeing the stretch of gray-green-blue all the way to the horizon.

He lets out a long breath and reluctantly, slowly pulls free.]

Thank you.

You're always welcome.

[It's the way of history, slow grinding processions that can be shattered and steamrolled overnight, when events and truth and power come together just so, and then the world is different.]

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