Empty.<br/><br/>Carson sat at his desk. He had moved back into the smaller room at first, the storeroom he had turned into a bedroom. But it reminded him of--<br/><br/>Pain. He shied away.<br/><br/>Instead he moved into one of the dorm rooms. Smaller than the storeroom and the CIC quarters, it seemed to suit him. A small, empty space. His rifle hung on the wall next to his belt, with his pistol and a new knife. The hatchet had been so badly damaged from his reckless assault that he'd had to replace it. Not that he cared much. One tool wasn't much different from the other. Both could kill.<br/><br/>In the two weeks since he had returned to Central he hadn't done much of anything. His stubble had grown into a beard that was scraggly and in need of a trim. His eye had been destroyed. The TRIM machine had salvaged the actual organ, but his left eye was entirely useless now. A small scar crossed from just above his nose to just below his temple from where he'd been cut, and he wore a patch to hide the disfigurement from the people around him. He didn't really care if they found it disgusting, though. Sunny had been the one to force him to wear the patch.<br/><br/>Runners had begun to arrive, too. He remembered the first wave of volunteers who had come from Azmarin. They had been bright-eyed and hopeful, ready to learn how to fight without really understanding what it meant. He had let them in because he agreed to but done nothing since. Sunny had told him that Nat was working with them, doing her best to train them in weapons and warfare, but Natya was on the mend too. Her raiders had wound up being Vanguard, too, though not a quartet of rogue Striders. Just the War Dogs, their crossed sword motif plain on their chests. Her injuries hadn't been severe, but they had been numerous, and her healing took time and energy. She was spreading herself thin.<br/><br/>Carson didn't care.<br/><br/>For two weeks he had sat trying to process everything that had happened. The ambush. The fight. The cold, bleak reality. An idea had begun to form in the darkness of his imagination, one last gesture that he couldn't allow to go untouched. Even if he just let himself die, he would have to do this thing. Carson pushed away from the desk and stood, shuffling to pull on his boots and a shirt. The clothes he wore were clean. Sunny, again, forcing him to do something other than sit and think and waste away. There was something to that, he realized. One last thing to be done before he... well. He wasn't sure what. Not yet.<br/><br/>He paused where he stood, looking over his armor. It was a new set, freshly built to replace his damaged and stained armor. The new suit looked like something out of a medieval fantasy show, a leather doublet that went down to his knees with metal squares sewn and riveted into place. He deliberated over whether or not it was worth putting on for a long time before he finally took it down and slid it over his head, his face tucked down so that it wouldn't dislodge his patch. He left his coat and rifle where they hung, but took the belt with the knife and pistol. He needed some sort of self defense to get this done.<br/><br/>When he left the hall was empty, and he didn't bump into anyone along the way to the Growlers. Seeing them again made him pause. He almost went back to get Sunny or Letto. There was still another Growler parked near Little Lake, unless somehow he'd driven back after everything, and he doubted that. But talking to them would require explaining himself, and he wasn't much inclined to do so. Instead he opened the doors, started one of the machines, and left. He ignored what might have been someone calling his name.<br/><br/>The ride went quickly, and this time he made no attempt to pull over or hide the Growler. He drove right up to the gate of Little Lake, disturbing the guards and likely the entire village. They leveled their crude spears at him from on top of the gate, plainly intimidated by the scruffy, angry, exhausted-looking one-eyed man in front of them. "Halt! Who goes there?"<br/><br/>"Carson of the Striders. Open the gate. I have business here."<br/><br/>"How do I know--"<br/><br/>"Open the fucking gate or I'll kill you and climb over it."<br/><br/>The guards exchanged glances, but after a moment scrambled to pull the doors open. One of them peered closely at him as he shuffled through the wooden panels, then recoiled in shock. "Hell, it really is you. Where have you been? What's that thing you rode up on?"<br/><br/>"Just don't touch it," he said shortly back. He turned away and peered around the town. Being here was painful in ways he hadn't expected, but he shoved the pain down and away with everything else he'd decided didn't matter and started toward the house where Malia's mother lived. He owed her an apology. One last person to tell he was sorry, and then he could just... leave. That sounded nice.