He came to my door on a Saturday morning.
This was four days after we returned to the capital. The formal debriefs had been completed. The documentation had been filed. Director Yun had convened a final summary meeting, at which he had used the word thorough twice, which was, from him, something close to a commendation. The case was closed, or rather: the case had moved from active investigation to formal proceedings, which was a different kind of closed, the kind that moved forward without requiring us.
I had spent the intervening days doing ordinary things. Filing reports. Reading correspondence that had accumulated during the southern operation. Sleeping a full night without my mind working through evidence chains. Eating meals without reviewing documents over them.
I had found that ordinary things, after a period of sustained intensity, required a small re-learning. You had to remind yourself that it was acceptable to stop.
