#chuck hansen

You raise your son to be a soldier alongside you, you raise your son to be your right hand, and yet... he is your son. You live in each other's heads, you function as one being, over and over, and there's always stuff, memories you don't look at, images, thoughts, feelings you don't examine, both in your own head and in his.

You are ready to die together. You've been ready to die together for a decade, you've been facing death together since the day she was taken out of your lives. You work together, you live together, you are ready to die together.

Because what better way to die? Than together, with your son, the last piece of your wife, the worst of yourself, but oh, oh, the best too. When he's with you you can protect him, and if the point comes that you can no longer protect him from death, then at least you can hold him as you walk into together, cradle his very consciousness, his very being, and hold him as you both go. That way neither of you have to die alone. Not like she did. Because death will come. It might as well come for both of you together.

And then...

You aren't there when he dies. You are miles away, on the other side of a microphone, and maybe you can still feel him, ever so faintly, just a hint of that link, like a silent presence in the back of your head. But you're not there. You're not there to look into his eyes and press the button together, and smile as the fire consumes you.

Your son does not die alone, but he does not die with you, he's so far away, he's right there so you can hear his voice, you can hear him speak of you as he reaches to trigger the means of his death, and miles and miles away... you hear him die. He's gone. Your son is dead and he is a hero and he is your hero and you would give anything to have been in his place.

He was all you really had, him and Max. And you and Max were all he had, and now he's gone. You were supposed to die together.