Harry was quiet for a long moment. When he began to speak, his voice was distant, as though accessing memories he had long tried to master and bar from his waking memory. "A few years ago - maybe a decade, though it doesn't seem that long - I was caught by monsters. Vampires of the Red Court. They... did things to me. Played with me. Hurt me. But they couldn't change me. They couldn't drain me dry like they wanted. So instead, they did it to the woman I loved. Her name was Susan. They changed her into one of them."
He looked down at the sand under the swings, and Mouse, sensing his master's unease, sat beside Harry and placed his head under the man's hand. Harry began to stroke the dog's head absently. "Susan resisted the change, staying half-vampire. She wouldn't turn fully until she killed, gave into her blood thirst. So when they had the chance, the vampires got their revenge another way.
"They kidnapped my daughter. Mine and Susan's. Her name's Maggie - Margaret Angelica, after my mother. I didn't know she existed until I got the call from Susan that the Reds had taken her. I was an orphan since I was six, and I didn't want my daughter not to know her family. I didn't want anything to happen to her. They were going to kill her, use her in a curse that would kill Susan and I, and all our relatives. I stopped them, and saved Maggie."
He let out his breath, slowly. "She was my daughter. My child. Any price was one I was willing to pay. But... they still hurt me."
Another moment of silence, as Harry reigned in his emotions, controlled them. And then he looked back at River. "Life is pain. Only the dead don't feel it. And to do the right thing... sometimes it hurts even more. Sometimes the price seems too high. But what I did to stop them... it saved lives. Hundreds, maybe thousands. And it saved Maggie. Knowing that she's safe, that she's alive, and that I was there to save her... I have to keep reminding myself that it was worth the price." A shiver in his tone, soft and quickly controlled again. "But I wish that it had been mine to pay, and not Susan."
He rubbed Mouse behind the ears. "Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just forgive yourself afterwards."
Another moment passed. Once Harry felt like he had himself under control, he moved his hand from Mouse, and gently rested it on River's arm. "Emotion, feelings... they're the hardest to control, but it is possible. Sometimes instinct takes over, but that can be overridden. No matter what else we are, we're also human, and we can control the things within us. Even when we sleep. It's a matter of choosing what outcomes we want. We all have free will, and choice goes with it. Sometimes..." The ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Sometimes people like us have to work a little harder to make those choices into reality."