You said she drained them. How exactly does that work?

......the Little Sisters carry ADAM, the substance, in their own bodies. They were implanted with....a creature, a type of sea slug, that could produce it. The slugs live inside the stomach of their hosts in a symbiotic relationship.

What Eleanor did was extract all of the ADAM from the slug using a large syringe, killing both it and the host.

Ah ... and that was the kind of thing you had to help her do...

[A mutter, more to himself as he lapses into silence, wrapping his head around that. He'd call the process fucked up, but it's more than the process than is, honestly.]

She needed the power. I didn't stop her from taking it.

[.....]

I could, but also couldn't. Not without risking my position with both of them. I was Sophia's watchdog, a way for her to keep her daughter on another leash, but I was also Eleanor's tool.....and her ally, albeit one she didn't trust, united in our hatred for her mother.

All that precarious juggling of plates for the sake of my revenge.

She needed the power ... would she have been in danger if she didn't have it?

[The doesn't comment on the vengeance part. Not yet. He has a lot of conflicting thoughts about the concept himself, sometimes.]

It doesn't matter. The same thing would have happened regardless.

Considering everything about the circumstances, yeah, it probably would have.

... you stayed in the place you were, did things like that, things you regretted and feel ashamed of for a reason. How does it feel now...? Knowing how things turned out in the end.

......

[He puts his face in his hands, feeling very tired.]

I don't regret that Sophia is dead. I only wish she could have been eliminated sooner, without innocents being made to pay a high cost.

... yeah. [That's how it always is, but that's kind of a given.] I definitely don't feel any regret about that either. [Just like he doesn't care about his sister. Just like he wouldn't care about Nyssa.]

But now that she's gone, you can work on starting something new from here. Not to forget the awful things that happened, but to accept that they did for the reasons they did, and work on creating a new path where things like that don't have to happen again.

[A very quiet sigh. Not because he thinks Rook is wrong but because it's hard to, emotionally, get there. Optimistic talks about the future can't erase the burden of past mistakes, of present guilt.]

I know.

It's hard ... and impossible to completely get over, in some ways. I know. And even then, sometimes it takes a long time to feel any better inside at all.

But ... even wanting to try, sometime, is enough of a start. Nobody's rushing you now. We're just here to support you any way we can.

[Even in small ways. His hand around his shoulders slides to grip one, giving it a little massage-like squeeze, feeling the tenseness there.]

So you keep saying.

[He keeps his head ducked, gaze lowered.]

....I understand. I do.

It's good to keep at the front of your thoughts. [Something to hold onto. An anchor in raging waters.]

Here, try to relax your shoulders just a little bit.

........

[He tries.

Probably not very well. But it's easier to focus on, easier than words which sound nice yet still sting almost too much to bear, so he tries.]

[He says nothing all throughout, coiled tension soothed away almost in spite of himself.]

....Anyway, that was all I had to tell you. Now you know.

[He's relieved himself, feeling Jaguar relax a little bit that way.]

I'm glad I could be here for you. That you came to tell me. ... Are you feeling any better now...?

[Later, yes. For now....]

A little.