"I had spent so long telling myself I was protecting you that I didn't know how to admit I was protecting myself."
That was the first answer Noah believed completely.
Ethan's voice shook.
"I was afraid you would look at me exactly the way you're looking at me now."
Noah's eyes filled.
"Angry?"
"No."
Ethan smiled sadly.
"Like a stranger."
Silence.
Noah looked away.
"You are a stranger."
"I know."
"Stop saying that."
Ethan nodded.
"Okay."
Another silence.
Then Noah asked:
"Did you really watch me for seven years?"
"Yes."
"Creepy."
Ethan laughed.
Unexpectedly.
Noah almost smiled.
"Where?"
"Baseball games."
"I was terrible."
"Very."
Noah stared.
Ethan continued.
"Your academy entrance ceremony."
"You were there?"
"Parking structure."
"Mom's funeral."
Ethan nodded.
Noah swallowed.
"Daniel's funeral?"
"Yes."
Daniel Hart.
The stepfather who raised Noah.
Ethan's expression softened.
"He was a good man."
Noah looked surprised.
"You knew him?"
"Not personally."
"But I watched enough."
"He loved you."
Noah's voice cracked.
"He was my dad."
Ethan nodded.
"I know."
This time the phrase did not anger Noah.
Because Ethan was not competing.
That mattered.
Noah looked at him.
"Does that bother you?"
"Yes."
Honest.
"But I'm grateful too."
Noah's eyes filled.
"For what?"
"That somebody was there when I wasn't."
The sentence finally broke something.
Not healed.
Broke.
Noah looked down.
Tears fell onto the table.
Ethan did not reach for him.
He wanted to.
But waited.
Noah noticed.
Then, slowly, he extended one hand.
Ethan stared.
Took it.
No salute.
No ceremony.
No cameras.
Just two men beginning something twenty-two years late.
Three months later, Noah received his first assignment.
A destroyer.
Pacific Fleet.
Ethan hated it.
Noah found that hilarious.
"You spent half your life underwater."
"Exactly."
"Then you should understand."
"I understand too much."
Whitmore attended Noah's departure.
So did Ethan.
No uniform.
No rank insignia.
The Navy offered Ethan reinstatement for administrative purposes.
He declined.
Then they offered formal retirement with honors.
He accepted only after lawyers ensured benefits would pass partly to families of Phantom Anchor personnel who had been erased from records.
At the ceremony, Whitmore handed him a folded flag.
Ethan looked uncomfortable.
"You hate ceremonies."
Whitmore said.
"Deeply."
"You came to Noah's."
"That one mattered."
Whitmore stared toward the harbor.
"I should have looked harder."
Ethan knew what he meant.
Twenty-two years ago.
After Deep Lantern.
Whitmore accepted the official report.
He mourned Ethan.
Moved forward.
"You had no reason not to believe them."
Whitmore shook his head.
"I was your commanding officer."
"You were also thirty-eight years old and surrounded by people with better lies."
Whitmore smiled.
"Is that forgiveness?"
"No."
Ethan smiled too.
"It's old age."
Then Whitmore became serious.
"There's one thing I never understood."
"What?"
"When you escaped the submarine."
"Where did you hide the Meridian seed?"
Ethan looked toward the water.
Then toward Noah boarding the ship.
He smiled.
"I didn't."
Whitmore frowned.
"What?"
"I lied."
"Again?"
"The seed never left the submarine."
Whitmore stared.
"Then what were they hunting for twenty-two years?"
"A piece of metal I told them mattered."
Whitmore almost choked.
"You let two factions chase a fake authentication key for twenty-two years?"