"I was thinking," he begins, looking at her thoughtfully. "It's better than where we were before, for me."

There are things he needs to say, wants to ask her about, but how does he do that with tact? There are some blows even North can't soften.

"But I'm not going to get complacent or anything. I've heard some stories already. We'll have to watch each other's backs, you know." An echo of another day, something he never wanted to have to reaffirm, a day where they could have destroyed each other and didn't.