The immediate denial hit Becker square in the chest, piling the weight his confession had shed back on tenfold. He caught Danny's eyes with a desperate plea, the one thing in his mind a sudden, selfish thought: Please. Please, don't make me say it again.
He hated himself for thinking it, for showing weakness when confronting his own failures, but the pain was so raw, so fresh. It had been roughly nine months since Sarah accompanied him on that ill-fated mission and even though the pain hadn't gone away, it had begun to heal.
But the reappearance of Danny and Connor and Abby bought it all back. They escaped the past and came back expecting to find things as they'd left it and Becker couldn't give them that. They'd come back expecting to find that the people, at least, were as they'd left them and Becker couldn't promise them that, either. He couldn't protect them from the pain of Sarah's death and their pain only served to deepen his guilt.
”Becker.” He didn’t miss the anger that flashed in Danny’s eyes, so the sudden warning tone in his voice only confused him. He turned pained eyes in the other man’s direction and waited, somewhat on edge, for his verdict.
But Danny’s words weren’t at all what he had expected and it took him a moment to process that they weren’t accusing him. Danny’s hand settled on his shoulder and he flinched, not quite expecting the touch or the gentle reassuring squeeze that followed it.
“She’d tell you the same thing.”
The fact that Danny was trying to comfort him after what he’d just told them caught the words in Becker’s throat. He swallowed roughly, feeling his eyes threaten to water, and blinked them back.
”I guess we missed the funeral, then?”
Connor’s voice broke the silence. Becker jumped, finally breaking eye contact and looking over at him in surprise. His stomach flipped when he registered Connor’s words and an invisible hand squeezed his heart in his chest.
He opened his mouth to respond but found himself at a loos for words, not quite sure what to say. Connor seemed to realised he’d stuck his foot in it, because he apologised, saving Becker from the need to respond, for which he was thankful.
”I’m really sorry.”
Becker shook his head, eyes downcast. “Me too,” he murmured softly.
Sarah Page had been a brilliant woman. The fact that she was no longer here with them, and not because she’d quit but because the job - this bloody job - had taken her from them while he was helpless to do anything to save her would always be on his mind and in his memory. But Danny was right. Sarah wouldn’t have stayed behind. She’d gone through the anomalies before, on her own, even, he knew. Danny had told him. And she had been determined to help. Nothing would have got in her way.
Until something did.
Becker looked up at his friends. “Me too.” He repeated.