Elias sat staring up at his ceiling. His mind was racing. It had been since he saw the Rorkes fall into those flood waters. It wasn't worth their lives to kill Almagro, Gabriel was so insistent to it. The Federation took a large toll, but Rorke, their commander, was gone. The Ghosts took their own toll. It wasn't an easy one on both sides.

He could still see the look on Rorke's face. Desperation. He tried to pull him up. He could remember how strained his arm was, the yells of Merrick that convinced him to let go.

"You can't save him!" Merrick called to Elias. Those words felt the heaviest.

Then, the sudden fall. The splash echoed in his mind. He could still hear Rorke yell his name in an angered anguish. The silence of his voice wasn't something he could forget easily. He remembered Rorke's voice as if he was speaking to him directly now.

A knock on his partly opened door snapped him out of his trance. Elias lifted his head from his hand ever so slightly.