WHO: Mike. WHAT: Patrolling and thinking. c: WHEN: July 25th. WHERE: Hallways of Sing Sing. RATING: Low. STATUS: ---
The last few months had passed Mike by. He'd done his best to enjoy Sing Sing: its relative peace and quiet, Kori, the camaraderie among the security duty. He'd tried his hardest to take every day slowly, make up for all that time he'd been wild, but it was no use -- things passed him by too quick, and even with so much effort to cherish everything, Mike was beginning to realize that he hadn't even scratched the surface of what these things meant.
Elliot's death had reminded him.
This wasn't a world where you could take your possessions or your people for granted. Not that Mike had, exactly. Maybe he'd taken it for granted that all of what he'd worked for would continue being there, that things would keep getting better indefinitely, that he'd always have time to improve.
Now, walking up and down the halls, it occurred to him that this wasn't true. Not at all. He didn't have forever to make it up to Kori. He didn't have forever to let her know exactly what she meant to him, work back to the place they'd left off so long ago. Maybe these things were supposed to take time, but maybe there wasn't going to be any.
When he'd lived in the city, away from the safehouses, this wasn't a concept that had been lost on him -- he'd felt every second go by, felt his life ending bit by bit. Security gonna make me complacent. Like a fuckin' farm animal.
So there it was. He didn't have years to make friends with all of the people here -- people he watched over and felt concern for, but never managed to connect with. People he'd known from the past, like Kori's siblings. Baby Stone. Children were giving him a real ache lately, down deep in his heart, and he didn't know what for.
I just gotta appreciate life. I gotta try harder. That was the what and why.
And as soon as Mike was done with his patrol, he'd come up with how.