I still have a plan. I'm still going to make it work, damn it. I'm not going to give up! And I'm sure not going to just sit on this train like a good book to get trotted out every month or so to do whatever it wants me to!

[The anger isn't determination, this time. It's an effort to convince himself -- no, force himself past this critical, crushing failure. Because this is the first time, in all those years, that he'd had a shot and failed. At least in his mind. The idea that he hadn't actually had a shot didn't occur to him.]