The call with Dane replays after you come back from the corridor, stubborn as a song you didn't choose. You almost told Elizabeth a version of the truth. The words were right there, ordinary, human, the kind of confession that buys relief at the price of clarity. You swallowed them, and they sit there now, heavy and undelivered. Not speaking didn't feel like discipline. It felt like theft: you took her chance to understand what she was standing next to, and told yourself it was kindness. Kindness doesn't leave you sweating in a stairwell that smells of other people's patience. Dane only heard progress, leverage, pharma concentration, a plan clean enough to repeat upward. He didn't hear Elizabeth's voice, or the part of you that still flinches when someone says your name softly. You hate that the operation prefers Dane's version. [[Dane Warning After Call|Hear Dane's warning]]