∞

Jarod didn't recognize her until she dropped into the chair opposite his; time had touched her features, grayed her hair at the roots, dimmed her eyes.

Fine lines and virile posturing had measured the passage of that time, were a measure of all he'd lost; asking to meet her was a measure of his madness, desperation.

He studied her at length, unaware of her growing tetchiness, the internal dialogue: he intends to gloat, cast aspersions on my family and career.

I will not be harassed!

She colored beneath his rapt gaze, ejected herself from the chair; she came to a halt when his left palm connected with the glass barrier between them. 
 
Tumult twisted her face, consternation rooted her to the floor. Her gaze riveted on his anguished countenance, the supplicating tears.
 
He pressed his right palm to his heart, intended to leave no room for doubt. This isn't a matter of the mind, a simulation, child's play.
 
Her features softened, at last; he expelled a protracted breath. Her acquiescence was a token of reprieve.
 
The glass and the years fell away, melted into sand, slipped through the forsaken hourglass; time is nothing, and in the passage of time, nothing had changed.
 
Nothing, except-
 
"Time to go." The guard bleated as he stepped from the darkness. 
 
Jarod observed despondently as she was steered beyond his arc of vision; his hands dropped limply and then he, too, was ushered— grudgingly— from the room.
 
Outside, it was the burnt end of summer; the sun sank indolently in the gray horizon, slipped behind the massive edifice that would haunt Jarod for the rest of his life, trouble him deeply, torture his mind more profoundly than the Centre ever had; the reasons were quite simple:
 
she was serving ten to fifteen years inside the structure; it was his scathing testimony that had compelled the judge to impose the harsh sentence.

∞