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Summary
Ash reads the letter twice, and the second time, alongside the animal that has learned helplessness, some part of him that he thought had died with Shorter, or with Griffin, or years before either of them, cracks out of its shell and blinks. It's not joy, and certainly not hope; just the knowledge that if he reaches out his hand in the dark, it will be met by one warmer than his own.
He thinks that's probably the only real mercy his life was ever going to hand him, and that he used up his allotment of it by just being loved a single time.