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They're dead. That's the zenith of it all, the midpoint of the entire epic of tragedy his story is woven into - they're still dead. They're dead. He is, ostensibly, still alive, and perhaps this is the setting of the tragedy - his story being framed entirely around framing, on the cage of cards that he was, long long ago. In the past, before Them. Before he became what he is now, before and after they died and a larger They revived him.

Morden's lungs still flutter. He imagines it sideways sick: like a tired hummingbird with only one shattered wing. The other still beats on, but as a drumming now, a dissonant and unbalanced rhythm rooted in the fear of being touched by the unfamiliar hands of the humans it evolved around. If it doesn't die of this injury, it will die eventually, as most things do. They won't; They are eternal, and They will find victory as his chest expands in its repetition. It should be put out of its misery, perhaps, in this scenario. It doesn't even know that inevitably it is going to die. Not an impressive lifespan by any means.

He was always too selfish when it came down to it, still full of mangled hope scattered through his mind like shrapnel. Maybe the Icarus, he told himself, will be it - the purpose to freeze his finger before his tendons tighten up and the bullet escapes.

He didn't kill himself. His death was forced over him, like an unexpected horror, the worst and only possible outcome, like being trapped in hyperspace.

Hm. It might taste good, he thinks, the hummingbird as a delicacy. The metaphor works if you're him, if your hands feel too exposed when they aren't stained and tarnished. Something so frail even in its healthiest form - he thinks the thing would crunch when bitten into. Ortolan, he knows, is eaten whole, and the bones have a distinctive, pleasant crunch. The experience of asserting your superiority over this creature is intoxicating. Unlike him, it once sang, and its song carried beauty to the soft.

The point is this: he himself shattered. Both wings, in his case, but embodied as innocent mother and child. There was no reason, after the loss, to control himself, to swallow down the insatiable and carnivorous wholeness of him. When an animal must be mercy-killed, it often finds renewal in being consumed by something higher on the food chain, in serving survival and luxury. The same is true for Morden, alive only in the definition of lungs spreading oxygen through his body in small doses of plague. He does it for Them.

Maybe he can accept the truth here, temporarily. They are retrieving Anna Sheridan for the mission. His decision to devote himself to his associates is only a sacrifice in the eyes of someone who is too weak to be salvaged.

It was only for his family in the collision of his words. They're dead. No one can confirm it. They're not dead. They might be dead. They're dead. They're in a stasis of torture, they're dead, they left him. It's really all the same. They won't be coming back until all of this is over and he rests comfortably not at Their throne but at its side on his knees, prostrated in reverence, "praying". 

He thinks about her. Anna, not his — only her. To think of anyone else now would be futile; soon he must face the shadow of Anna Sheridan. He remembers his life before Them like picking memories out of a criminal lineup. She was compassionate. She loved her husband, though he struggles to grasp the appeal, especially after meeting him. John Sheridan and all of his true potential just discarded, buried in trash like bad meat.

Anna had been kind to him, which landed only as disturbing. He didn't deserve it. He wouldn't now, either, but she will be disoriented upon awakening. He thinks of compassion simply as passion, and passion can be weaponized with carefully chosen words and intricate preparation. She refused Them out of principle and he embraced Them out of despair, seeking relief for his ache. She can be convinced. There is a chance her personality may be irretrievable; he knows this. It is nearly definite, but that doesn’t matter; she can be convinced regardless.

Sheridan - not John Sheridan, but what Morden had called Anna Sheridan - will still ache. It is the downfall of every humanoid. Her hands will still be callused from her work, from the grit of his own essence. That, in itself, will be enough.