[His world can come crashing down, become reduces to cinders. He can lose his love, his hope, every dream and ambition he had and be cursed with permanent physical pain. He could find fear and hatred in so much of the world, bitterness that leads to terrible mistakes, but through everything there would always be David Bowie.]

[Truly, though, the name seemed like an obvious choice to him. Diamonds, in his mind a symbol of strength and loyalty. Commitment and honor. Dogs... well... basically what they all are. Dogs of war. It made perfect sense.]

[Paz's voice still holds the youth that's been sapped out of his own, her face still as bright as a china doll's. The impossibly pretty Angel of Peace on motherbase. The fact she doesn't recognize Skull Face's name, though... How much was she aware of? Didn't know. Her tapes only exposed so much. Her feelings at the time. A bit of it did stick with him, the knowledge that the efforts to treat soldiers as people is what helped draw the humanity out of someone who has spent their life deprived of it. Being able to do that is the one hope he has left for... anything, now.]

So you don't know. [His brow tenses up over his glasses, blond eyebrows steeped. He actually believes her, and there's surprisingly little questioning doubtfulness to those words. No reason for her to hide, so telling her to cut the crap does no good. He makes a sound in the back of his throat and rubs his mouth.]

[Seems like a bad time to tell her everything. No. Going to hold off on that. There's other stuff to take care of.] Where do they have you staying. We can talk there. [Away from rampaging bugs and uncertain foods.] I don't know if Big Boss will be too happy to be seeing you around. What's the last thing you remember?