"Aside from Kono needing to be trained up," And even that doesn't sound so much like a slight as just a fact over two years old now. "They were already great at what they were doing. I just gave them another post to do it at." A post without so many rules. One without red tape, jurisdiction, an actual dictator. "A better one."

And a chance. He knows. He gave them a certain ones of them a chance they needed. Especially Chin. Danny. Jenna. Not on purpose each of those times, but it still happened. It was still true. People who'd broken the walls in the boxes they'd been in, or been something like stuck, under the collapsed walls, stubbornly refusing to break. Each of them in their own ways.

They just needed another chance. Another place where they could do good. Where someone would let them try.

They'd proved it could outlive him, too. Which was a compliment to the system. It shouldn't need him to stand.