Ross had been in the Raft for over a year at this point. Locked away deep inside, time freezing since there was no sunlight, no darkness. Just a constant medical light and drone of electronics.
He never once complained, but he wasn't looking good at all. He looked pale, he was growing thinner. As if his age was rushing as fast as it could to catch up with him.
There was talks of maybe soon seeing if he could be moved to a team as part of his sentence, but the way the old general looked now....he might not make it that far.
Betty stood just beyond the reinforced glass, her heart squeezing at the sight of him.
It had been years since she’d last seen her father in person, and in that time, she’d told herself a thousand different stories about how this moment would go. Sometimes she imagined herself furious, laying into him with every word she’d swallowed over a lifetime of battles, both with him and because of him.
Other times, she pictured walking away without saying a thing at all. But nothing had prepared her for this: the sight of him pale, thinner than she’d ever remembered, the weight of his years finally catching up to him inside a cage that allowed no night and no day, only the hum of fluorescent light.
“You always said nothing could break you,” she whispered, voice trembling though she fought to steady it. “And maybe I believed that once. But now…” She shook her head, struggling between pity and the old edge of resentment. “Now you look human. Fragile, even. And that’s harder for me to see than the general who used to bark orders loud enough to drown out every other sound.”
Her hand hovered near the glass, not quite touching, as if closing that gap would admit too much. “I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore. Part of me is still that daughter who wanted you to be proud. The other part-” Her throat tightened, old bitterness spilling into her tone. “The other part remembers every time you chose the mission over me. Over us.”
She looked up at him then, meeting his hollowed eyes with her own, and for a moment her anger faltered, the softer truth breaking through. “I should hate you more than I do. God knows you gave me every reason. But standing here, seeing you like this, I can’t. Not completely. Not when you look like a man who doesn’t have much left.”
A fragile smile ghosted across her lips, fleeting and sad. “So maybe this is the cruel irony: you’re still my father, no matter how far apart we’ve been. And I can’t just watch you fade away in this place.”
Finally, she pressed her palm to the cold glass, the barrier colder than she expected. Her voice dropped, steadier now but heavy with all the years left unsaid. “So listen to me, Dad. You don’t get to give up here. Not in this box. Not before we’ve had it out, before we’ve said everything we should’ve years ago. You owe me that. You owe yourself that. To face me, to face us, before you let go.”
She let the silence stretch, her hand unmoving, her eyes never leaving his. “Don’t make me mourn a man I never got to understand.”
