The words caused a spasm in Fitz's neck. Stunned, he reared his face and stared blankly at DiPasquale, trying to reconstruct the events which brought him to this station house, attempting to put together some semblance of causality: Staten Island and Iraq, Columbia and drywall, Bernie and Alma Mater. Violence and freedom. In his mind they were all round holes and square pegs, but despite the sheer cacophony, despite their inexplicable confusion, the sharp, ringing sound they produced convinced him that this was real.

He pulled back his chair and pushed himself up.

"Hang on a second," DiPasquale called. "If you ever feel like talking about stuff like this, I know a guy."

"Why?" Fitz stopped short of the door. "You think you know me or something?"

The cop smiled meekly and rolled up one of his sleeves, "Better than you know yourself."

Fitz looked down at the detective's bare forearm and there is was—a small blue and yellow globe, just like the one he had on his own arm, only the ink on DiPasquale's was old and faded. And right above the little planet's dome, tattooed amid gorges of muscle, were five Master Sergeant's gunny stripes.

In a single jolt, Fitz straightened his torso and cocked his chin, "Sir!"

"Semper Fi," the detective nodded. "Stay out of trouble, son."

***

The next day Fitz showed up on campus almost an hour early, unsure if he still had his job. Before going to Facilities to clock in, he stopped at the foot of Alma Mater. He remembered what the kid said about it to the group of visitors the day before: "The great Athena of wisdom and justice, welcoming us into the lore of this great university." But Fitz didn't see the sculpture that way. He didn't care about its history. He wasn't interested in the origins of the ornate scepter in her right hand any more than he was in the open book that rested on her lap. What held his curiosity the most was her left hand. Bent at the elbow and lifted shoulder-high, its fingers unraveled with almost ecstatic tenderness as if to caress the air. Except to Fitz this was not a beckoning gesture, but one of stewardship and grace. In that hand, he imagined, she held all of the world. Only unlike the bronze Atlas on Fifth Avenue, across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral, whose mighty legs buckled under the weight of the Earth, or the ink globe tattooed on his own arm—anchored, roped and guarded by an eagle—the invisible globe above Alma Mater's left hand was, to him, a tiny floating balloon. He looked at her and dreamed what it was like to feel none of the world's burden.

Fitz didn't need eyes on the back of his head to know someone was coming behind him. He didn't have to turn to know that Bernie was roughly twenty feet away and closing, or that he wore a green Members Only jacket, or that the coffee inside the thermos he carried was freeze-dried and instant. The endless silences of waiting which separated each burst of combat from the next conditioned Fitz to hear breathing. He didn't have to turn to face what already surrounded him, but he did anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Bernie stopped and checked his plastic watch.

"I just came to say I'm sorry," Fitz said. "About yesterday."