She flinches, her teeth gritted, but doesn’t so much as glare at him as pushback against his harsher words. It’s not the way she’d reacted to his jabs before, there’s no sense of defensiveness coming off her.

Before, she had the weight of North’s forgiveness behind her. That comforting weight is gone, now.

There’s no coming back from the choices she made.

“I know.” Her voice is a little thick. She still doesn’t know what to make of the idea that Washington saw her differently, in the past, than she’d expected. “I— I never wanted him to die. I was meant to stop it, I was meant to— but I waited too long. It was too late, if I’d tried to save him then—”

Her life still valued above her brother’s. The worst thing is, she’s sure that if their positions had been reversed, North would have come to her aid anyway, his own life be damned.

He’s the selfless one.

Her eyes scrunch shut as she tries to stop herself from crying in front of Washington, of all fucking people. Around them, the memoryscape starts to shift away from the scene, transforming into a shitty motel parking lot where another version of past South—looking tired and ragged, wearing normal clothes over her undersuit with a bulky duffel over her shoulder—is heading inside.