The pinchy feeling comes back when Sera claps eyes on Skyhold. Not as bad as when she left, but the fuck does that matter? It'll just grow.

Oh, look. Run away from problem. Come back. Problem still there. Frigging shocking.

That's the reason I never come back.

Brownie is happy. Sera has to stop him from picking up the pace and galloping home. Prick should know by now they gotta walk him the last bit of the way to cool him off. Blondie prances about until Blackwall steadies her. It's full-blown night when they pull into the stables. The first thing Sera does, so she won't forget, is take out her note to Josephine to find out who supplies the Hinterlands camps. Bryant, one of the stableboys, is happy to run it over. She offers him coin.

"Aw, no, Lady Sera, I couldn't!" he says. Even the little kids are saying Lady Sera now. She stares after him, wanting to scream.

"Fancy a drink?" Blackwall asks.

"Yeah." She looks all the way up at the Inquisitor's room. The lights are on. What's her sweetie doing up so late? Maybe saddling up. She got Adder's letter at the last inn before Skyhold. The thought makes her quiver.

But on the way to Adder, there'll be all of Skyhold, with their Lady Sera and their nodding and their eyes that want to skewer her or eat her up.

"Probably shouldn't, though." She starts unsaddling Brownie. "Way I'm feeling, I'll drink too much and be useless as interrogating a Chanter."

"As you will." As he unsaddles Blondie, he looks at her, really and truly. It's a little scary but it's Blackwall so it's nice, too. Like she's been holding a drawn bow this entire time and she can finally relax and put it away. "Sera, take it from an old man: Love is easy. Relationships are hard."

"Pshhh. If you go into 'em thinkin' they're hard, sure." Now for the bit and bridle. Brownie's a weirdie who doesn't always like this part, so she has to watch her hands.

As Blondie submits calmly to him removing the bit, Blackwall goes on like he hasn't heard. "They require compromise. Listening. Patience."

Two can play the 'I'm only talking about what I want to' game. "Where you pick up all this 'old man' wisdom? Stumps and rocks in the woods? Maybe I'll take what you say seriously if you have a relationship now, instead of a 'longing-staring-ship.'"

"Be fair now—I also send flowers."

"Just like a proper nobleman."

"Just like a proper gentleman."

They take off the rest of the tack and hang it up. (Horsey-stuff is called tack. Beardy taught her that, years ago.) She runs her hands over Brownie, looking for any cuts or chafing. Fit as a fiddle, her boy. Sera's not one for horses, but she thinks she'll miss this one. Nothing stopping me from taking him for a ride, is there?

"Beardy...?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." She grabs a pick and starts cleaning Brownie's front hoof. "For...you know."

"You're welcome." Warm and kind. He'd make a great Da, if he ever let himself be one.

They finish up with the horses. Sera turns to go out into the chilly courtyard, but lingers at the doorway. If I'm going to be just the Inquisitor's lover, might as well do some good with it. "I could convince her." She doesn't turn back.

"Haven't a clue what you mean, Sera." Blondie starts chomping on something; he must've fed her a bit of carrot.

"Inky. I could make her keep you here. You're good enough as a fake Warden—why do you need to be a real one?"

Blackwall sighs. "Sera...you know why."

"Those Caller kids become ghosts, tell you to go to Witsup? That what friggin' happened?" She turns around and gets in close, uncomfortably close, staring up into his eyes so she can see only their cool blue-grey, not the tightness around them or the frown between them. "Beardy, you need to listen, like, proper listen: you are fine. Better: you're grand. I didn't believe Ardley. You did, and look! We're helping people!"

"Sort of regret helping that prick," Blackwall grumbles, glancing at where his coin-purse used to be.

"Well...yeah, it was stupid." Sera pretended to be just as shocked as he was to see his purse gone. Seems she was successful. "But good stupid. Noble stupid. Look, everyone's got shite that keeps 'em up nights. But everyone don't go off to maybe kill themselves in some stupid blood magic thing. Everyone ain't cowards! Everyone just...they live with it, yeah? Day in, day out. Have a drink or a tumble and move the fuck on."

"Some things you can't outrun." That stands in for everything she's heard before. He committed a crime and hid his guilt, letting his own men pay for it. If he dies in the Joining, it'll be what he deserves; if he survives, he'll be the man he was meant to be.

What did I expect? People always leave. People don't give a shit about friends.

If she'd been thinking ahead, once Blackwall joined her walkabout, she would've roped him into some madness, something so fun and exhilarating he'd decide this Grey Warden idea was shite. But that's Sera—always doing, never thinking.

"Fuck you." She backs away from him, turns to the door to hide the tears in her eyes. "Just...just fuck you. Prick." She's really swearing at the pain that's washing over her, filling up every part of her. Tears are gushing rivers from her eyes. She swallows, throat all sodden and nose all sniffly.

Crying's worse than anything. That's as good as saying 'Hey, world, make the worst possible shite happen to Blackwall.' If she didn't cry, then she could pretend there was nothing to cry about. Anger just makes her cry harder.

The stupid bastard hugs her. She screams, swears. She has to fight for every word, forcing air into her heaving lungs, making her mouth form words instead of rough, ugly sobs. Stupid! Not some kid who's never been hurt, am I? Should be stronger.

Blackwall doesn't care that she's not being brave or that she's being mean or anything. Just hugs her tight, rubbing up and down her back, crooning nonsense words. She only catches a few of them. "Sorry," and "Sera," and "dear girl." One phrase in particular smacks her in the face: "A better friend than I deserve."

And she hates him for that, too, for the fact that they mean anything to each other. I shoulda left long ago. She knows there are reasons she didn't, but they're too dim and the pain's too real and she can't see past it.

"Not about deserve!" she shrieks, though she's not even sure he can understand her. She can barely understand herself. "Piece of shite fucker! Asshole..."

Sera screams until she's hoarse and cries until her eyeballs feel raw. Then, after an age or two, she gasps a breath and a sob doesn't follow. She gasps another one—deeper, this time. Feels like she got the shit kicked out of her. Blackwall kisses the top of her head, and her breath hitches in her chest. Tears spill, but only two. She looks up at him, wiping tears and snot from her face, and cringes at the hurt in his eyes. Pissed as she is, she doesn't want to see that.

"I wouldn't be the man you know if I didn't go." He's said before he'd go even if Adder hadn't ordered it. Sera always knew that. Just didn't want to really know, to stare it full in the face and tell it "hi."

She reaches up like she's going to touch his cheek—then yanks his beard, hard.

"Ow!"

"Toldja once," she croaks, "beardy people should be jolly or I'll yank it off. So be jolly. Hear me?" She gives his beard another twist then lets go.

"All right, fuzzhead. Go make nice with your lady. I'll see you tomorrow, right?"

"S'pose. You're still a shit, though."

He lets her go and she steps out into the cold.

A nap after her fit seems only right. She wakes up before dawn, groggy and gummy-eyed, but feeling a touch lighter. Sera planned a little something for Adder on the ride back. A bit of a quest, like how they first met way back in wherever.

First, she puts on a pair of red knickers and strokes herself through them. This part should've been easy and fun, but it takes longer than it ever has to shed her mopiness and start enjoying herself. When her knickers are nice and wet, she leaves them on the handle of Adder's bedroom door and places Leliana's owl token within: go to the war table. At the war table, she takes another owl marker, wraps a red ribbon around it so that it looks like a heart, and sets it on Redcliffe. Sera goes to her room in the Herald's Rest―anybody would look there next―and puts some dried embrium petals on her bed, then splashes some ink on one of her pillows: Inky's bed. Then she sneaks back to the castle and waits, hidden in the doorway to the Undercroft, for Adder to leave her room.

She spies Adder as she enters the main hall, moving at a fast pace. She's wearing her boring brown leather armour with the boring brown scarf again. Who goes from beige to brown? Weirdy. 'Least it doesn't cover her ass, though. Adder enters the door to the library—strange, but Sera has no time to think about that.

Now, Sera has to break into her lover's room. As she passes, a few nobles watch her and whisper. Her skin pinches, hard; she grits her teeth and gives them two fingers. One of them gasps, and they all turn away.

Then she has to pick the lock. She leans casually against the door while her hand works furiously behind her back. When Dagna passes by on her way to the Undercroft, Sera waves her over and they start chatting. Dagna's brilliant—she angles herself to hide Sera's hands. She even pretends to help Sera look for something on the floor so Sera can turn around and face the lock as minutes go by.

"You know," Dagna says, "I can run down and get you some acid..."

"I can break any lock in Skyhold! Matter of professional frigging pride." Another broken lock pick makes her curse, then shrug. "Well...not like I'm really a professional, am I? Er, this acid don't explode, yeah? I'm going for subtle."

Dagna glances about the crowded hall full of people, then back to Sera, who didn't bother to disguise herself in any way. Sera readies a 'Shut it,' but Dagna doesn't mention how bad she is at subtle. Instead, the dwarf's gaze goes distant. "I don't know if acid can explode. I should look into that..."

"Dags..."

"Oh, right. Regular acid, coming right up."

The acid eats right through the lock. Dagna looks a little disappointed. After a quick "Thanks—owe you one," Sera darts up to Adder's room.

Books cover the left side of the bed. Reading. As ever. I'll always be her second love. She rolls her eyes. Adder's side of the bed is still warm. Sera falls onto it and buries her face in the pillow. The Adder smell gets her tingly all over. She almost slides her hand between her legs but stops. Inky will get me where I need to go.

She's very glad she decided that when Adder steps in not a few moments later, face lighting up to see her. Sera sits up, blinking. "That was fast."

"I thought the owl marker meant go see Leliana," Adder explains. "As I was there, one of her agents mentioned that you were breaking into my room. So I just waited. And waited. And waited…."

Sera chucks a pillow at her. It bounces off her tits and Adder picks it up, chuckling. She then walks to the bed, replaces the pillow and sweeps the books off. Then she's beside Sera, all huge and warm, and the world makes sense again.

Adder slips her scarf off. "We should definitely stage a fight before our last Wicked Grace game with Varric. Everyone felt so sorry for me, I actually won!" There's a bit of a sting, there. Of course, Varric's leaving, too. Back to Kirkwall now that he's got a first draft of his Inquisition book.

Then their lips collide hard, all pressure and tongue, and they squeeze each other tight like they're trying to become one person.

Instead of getting down to business, Adder pulls away, panting. "I missed you so much," she murmurs as she sprawls out on the bed. Sera falls back, lying on Adder's arm, head on Adder's shoulder. Adder's strong arm encircles her, hand resting on her stomach, warm as a sunbeam.

Sera grins. Coming is grand, but she can get that on her own. You need Adder for Adder-cuddles. Starting to like the soppy stuff now. Ugh, what's she done to me?

She reaches up and strokes Adder's horn nubbies, the hard peaks and valleys of scar tissue. Whenever anybody asks why Adder doesn't have horns, Adder spins a different story. They were goat's horns and she got tired of people baaing at her. They looked like a desire demon's, so she cut 'em off so nobody would get confused. She told Sera the truth, though. She was drunk, the only way Adder ever talks about her past. "I cut them off after Ansburg." Every time Sera touches the nubbies, she remembers that moment, that rush of love and trust.

"How'd the job go?" Adder asks. And though she really means 'Are you okay?', Sera answers the spoken question. She'd have to say 'no' to the unspoken one.

"Got some more sniffing about to do." She explains the situation at Dusklight, watching Adder's face darken. "Once I find out, though, you and me should go out and nab the fuckers! Just as you and me, though. Not the Inquisitor and the Inquisitor's whatever. It'll be fun."

"I'd love to." Adder kisses Sera's nose. "If there's anything I can do to make sure you never leave again, I'll do it." Another kiss. "You need to stay right here."

Sera nips at her neck. "I'd love to, yeah." She sighs. "It's nothing you can help with, Inky. Thanks all the same."

"I can't even try? But look at my references! Teaching Cole to be human, showing Iron Bull he's not Qunari, getting Dorian to give two fingers to his father, getting Josephine out of that assassin's contract…. Not to brag, but I'm pretty amazing."

She's not gonna let it go. "Right. Well, I got Diva fired. That was weird. Who thinks I have that much power? Like, I'm not this thing people think I am."

And Adder laughs. Here's Sera, talking about stupid shite she doesn't even want to, and Adder laughs at her. "I might know a thing or two about that. It's why I keep my friends close. You just have to be yourself, love. The ones that count will see you. The rest? Fuck them."

Anger bursts beneath Sera's skin, so sudden and strong it's scary. I can't keep my friends close if you keep making 'em leave! It was the Inquisitor, sitting on her Inquisition throne, who sentenced Blackwall to join the Grey Wardens. Back then, Sera had been so happy with the judgement. Killing Corificus seemed some airy-fairy dream.

Sera breathes deep, tries to relax. Don't put his choice on her.

"Everything all right, love?" She can see Adder thinking about the last time she asked and Sera dodged aside. She'll want a real answer this time.

"Didn't seem so easy back then." That's true, even if it's not what she's pissed about this very second.

"Feelings never are." Quick as anything. She's reading lines from a play she's seen before, because she's got it all figured out, and isn't Sera the moron who ran through the Hinterlands in a strop.

"Too clever, you," Sera grumbles.

"I'm annoying you? That's a change."

Stupid, but the joke works to make her feel better. The way Adder's fingers start stroking along her inner thigh also helps.

Which leaves Sera to focus on what Adder said about reputations. Seems some pinchiness is going to be the new normal. Just like living in a castle, sleeping in a fine bed, eating regular meals. All changes...but they don't seem as scary now. Bernie told me that my custard prank was shite. She still sees me. Keep the friends close and leave Skyhold when shite gets weird. Why was that so hard to figure out?

"Huh. All right. That...sorta helped, actually."

"You're welcome, love." Adder sounds a touch smug. Normally, Sera would get pissed, but she doesn't imagine she'll saying 'talking helped me' a lot, so she'll give Adder a small victory. She's a hard one to stay mad at, too, all big and muscle-y and right beside her.

"So," Adder squeezes her gently, "no more shouting in front of everyone?"

Sera kisses her lips. "Right, 'cuz that was all my fault."

Adder enjoys that for a few moments then pulls away, but not far, close enough that Sera feels her breath on her face when she murmurs, "Er, wasn't it?"

"You just kept pushing."

A huff of laughter. "Other people call that asking questions, crazy."

"'Other people' should know by now what gets what with me." She kisses Adder's chin, then her jaw. "Which you do most-times—especially down there." Adder's muscles go tight against her as her fingers trail down, making their lazy way between her legs.

"'Other people' should take responsibility for their own shitty behaviour."

Sera pulls back to get a look at all of Adder's face, not just the parts she wants to kiss. Adder seems genuinely shocked that she said that. But then her jaw tightens and her eyebrows lower. Sera knows that look. She's felt it on her own face a hundred times. You say something and maybe you didn't mean to, but now you're committed to it. "Wait—we having fun or fighting?"

"Well, um…." Adder's gaze flicks down Sera's body, then her jaw clenches tight again as she pulls away. "So in your letter when you said 'Sorry for being a twat,' you actually meant 'Sorry you were upset by my being a twat.'"

"Is this a thing now? Why is this a thing?" This isn't how it goes. Home is where things are good.

"Because not wanting to have fights in public is a fucking normal response, Sera." Adder gets off the bed, turns to face the door. "I don't know why I have to explain it."

"What, I can kill some noble in front of you and us not even sweeties yet, but this riffles your fur? Loony." She means to say "loony" the loving way she usually does, but the word comes out harsh, ugly.

Sera hops off the bed, hurries around to Adder's side, grabs her arm. "Said I'm sorry, yeah? Meant it. I don't say shite I don't mean. Well, I do, but not to you. Well...I do, but not about us."

"Meant it. Right." Adder isn't even looking at her. Something on her face makes Sera's gut all clenchy: like there's something there that shouldn't be or something missing that should be there.

Anger is easier than trying to figure out what that means. "Oh, frigging sorry I'm not—I'm not—frigging Josie, primped and pretty and quiet and respectful. That's not me, Inky. You know that."

That makes Adder focus on her. The smile lines on her face deepen as she grins. But Sera's clenchy gut doesn't go away. It's her eyes; they're not here. So when Adder draws Sera into a kiss, fingers sweeping through her hair and tongue doing its tricks in Sera's mouth, Sera is stiff and awkward.

It's a kiss that feels like an ending.

Adder pulls away.

"Inky…."

But Adder, who listens patiently to everyone, doesn't. Talks over her, in fact. "You're right, Sera. I know you very well." She steps back, drawing herself up to her full height. "So I'm going to give you some time to think very, very carefully about what to say next. I'll be in the Herald's Rest. Drinking," a soft huff of a chuckle, "naturally."

"But—but—you can't—but, Inky, I love you!"

"And I love you, too." Doesn't sound like love—she sounds tired and sad. Like Beardy talking about those kids he offed, the one time she actually pried a word or two out of him about that. Adder looks like she's going to say something else but stops herself, then turns and leaves Sera alone in a suddenly much colder room.

Same old, same old. "Be normal, Sera." Fuck her. Fuck them. There is nothing wrong with me.

With a shout, Sera starts pacing, slamming each foot down like she was stomping on one of Vivienne's hats. Her hands clench to fists, knuckles white, hands quaking. "Frigging piss-balls shite arse sodding…."

Everywhere she turns, there's a memory of Adder. The desk where Sera seduced her away from some fancy letter she was writing. The floor by the fireplace where Sera first got her thumb up Adder's bunghole and she made that noise. The centre of the room on that giant rug, where Sera stood and told her things were good and she felt like they always could be.

Sera pulls up short, breath catching. Nothing wrong with me...but I do shit things sometimes. You don't give up on good because it's not falling in your lap.

She thinks over the conversation again. Shutting her out isn't like Adder. When they argue, Adder sticks close, always trying to explain, no matter how frustrated she gets. The frustration's good, usually—shows Adder she can get pissed and not become the "savage Qunari" that stops her from getting pissed other times. Running's what Sera does. So Adder's got some deep-down, Sera-and-cookies hurt going on.

Or Adder-and-Ansburg hurt, maybe. My job to fix that. Well, try. Hope it's still my job, anyway.

There's only one way to find out.

Cole is listening to Irvine, a young dwarf who helps takes care of the orphans in Skyhold's Shadow. His pain is relatively easy: loneliness, needing someone to listen.

"I suppose it's just...hard, lately. What with Pa off trading." Smuggling lyrium is what Irvine means. He's one of Adder's suppliers.

Cole feels a sudden, wrenching throb from Adder, and sucks in a breath. He wants to run to her, to help. But that would mean leaving Irvine. He wavers, torn—then makes himself stay. Irvine is just as deserving of help as the Inquisitor.

Already, the sharpness of Irvine's ache is wearing away. Pain for family lost won't leave soon. "Thanks for listening, Cole."

"You're welcome, Irvine."

"They say—" Irvine blurts out. He pauses, then says more gently, "Do you...know what they say about you?"

"I'm a demon."

"Just because you act a little different." Irvine pokes at an old bruise, the black brand on his face and all that means in a kingdom below the ground. "Don't you listen to 'em. People are petty and cruel. You're nothing of the sort."

"I am, though. Or I was. I can't become that again."

Irvine blinks. Cole feels the sharp slap of his offence, and hears the thought, "What kind of person is the Inquisitor if she lets him think such awful things about himself?"

He thinks I mean figuratively. Cole opens his mouth to speak the truth, but Irvine speaks faster.

"Be that as it may, if you ever need an ear to listen, feel free to seek me out. It'd be my, ah, pleasure." A flush starts at his cheeks.

For a moment, Cole says nothing. He will find out what I am and regret his offer. But Varric wants me to make friends. "Thank you."

Cole's moment of silence is louder in Irvine's ears than his words are. What he says is, "If you'll excuse me, it's my turn to read to the littles. See you around," but Cole also hears, "Overreaching again, stupid brand."

"You too." That did not go well. The urge to reach out and make Irvine forget is still so strong, even though that ability is lost to him. Sighing, Cole starts up the mountain to the Herald's Rest.

Adder is there, drinking ale, with Blackwall, Iron Bull and Dorian, who are drinking water or cider.

"And then," Blackwall is saying, "she jumps up on my shoulders, firing arrows all the while, the mad thing!"

Adder laughs along with everyone. But inside she's shaking, snarling. "That's right, Sera the joke. And me the bigger joke for loving her..."

Everyone smiles at Cole when he approaches, but Cole knows how fake those smiles are. Part of Blackwall is still holding his dearest friend as she breaks down, still heavy with her anger and his shame. Dorian is fuming over a letter from Maeveris about the Tevinter Imperium's collective shrug at the defeat of Corypheus and the persistent whispers that now would be the perfect time to march on the south. Iron Bull wishes there wasn't a Venatori enclave on the Storm Coast—he and the Chargers will go, of course, but it'd be nice not to start having the dreadnought dreams again.

Adder's smile is the widest and the most false. "Shit, what's he going to say this time? I wouldn't be thinking so much about my fucking mother if he'd shut up about her... Maker, he's probably hearing this, isn't he?" Her anger extinguishes, swamped by shame.

"I don't mind," he says. So many pains, so many hurts, and that's just these four. There's Cassandra, who walked away from the Seekers and now seeks a purpose she might never find. Varric, crumpling up another letter to Bianca and adding it to the growing pile of paper balls on the floor.

And Sera. Running past Varric at his chair, past Cassandra at the training dummy, bursting into the bar in a wild, windy whirl. Cole starts humming.

Adder doesn't feel at ease. It's obvious to everyone else something's wrong: Dorian leans in closer to Adder, Blackwall stares into his cider, and Iron Bull watches neutrally. Sera starts to rush, then stops, makes herself walk.

"Thought about it," Sera says, softly, for once. She reaches out for Adder's hand. After a wary, wordless moment, Adder takes it.

Sera leads Adder to her room. When she doesn't close the door behind them, Adder raises an eyebrow at her. Cole bites down on his tongue.

"I can talk," Sera explains. She holds Adder's hands loosely, thumbs stroking Adder's forefingers. "No shouting—honest. Won't be any whispers or titters or buying you beer so you don't feel so shite. I can be like people. It's...harder for me, I guess. But, fuck, you're worth it. 'Sides, what else do I have to do in Skyhold but eat cake and get fat? Learning to be less a cunt will be good for me."

Adder mutters just loud enough to be heard, "Well...could work on your lockpicking skills..."

"Ha bloody ha." But Sera smiles and Adder smiles back. "Talk to me, Inky? I want to be better."

And Adder does exactly what Cole asked of her. The lesson her mother taught her no longer lessens. Cole is so startled, he stops humming.Oh, I hope I was right about Sera.

Adder talks around her mother, not of her, but Sera knows enough of a whorehouse in Ansburg to understand why a raised voice might mean more to Adder than it does to Sera. (Adder isn't even thinking about Granny Mae and rats in the dark. The ones that should love you but hurt you cut the deepest.) Adder's smoothness makes Sera's teeth itch, but Sera reminds herself that not everyone howls and thrashes when pain hits. Sera's words don't come out right, but Adder counts to ten and tries to hear behind them.

The puzzle pieces don't make a picture, but Sera and Adder break some nobs off and cut some holes out and at least they fit together.

"So, kid, how was Skinner out in the yard yesterday?" asks The Iron Bull.

Distracting me, so I won't say anything embarrassing about what's going on in Sera's room. "Old aches are burrs on the cloak of her thoughts, pulling, snagging the thread. The smell of honey-cakes always makes her think of the bad times."

"Yeah...I meant how's her flank attack coming along, but that's good to know, too."

Now that he's focused close by, it's harder to ignore the waves of hurt from Blackwall. "It would be worse if she didn't care."

"It would," Blackwall agrees. It's too early in the morning to get as drunk as he wants.

"My, is it time for cryptic comments already?" asks Dorian. "What fun."

Kissing has started, up above. Sera glances at the door then moves to close it. "Said no whispers—"

Adder pulls her close. "You don't have to bethat normal." She leaves her arms loose, though, so Sera could break her hold and close the door if she wanted to.

Sera doesn't. She kisses Adder back. It's just Sutherland and his lot up on the second floor. They've seen worse.

Cole relaxes with a sigh, feels the three around him relax as well. Dorian will doubtless hear all about the reunion from Adder when they next talk. The Iron Bull thinks it's about time Adder got laid properly. And Blackwall's happy that he played some small part in helping. It might be the last time he ever helps Sera, after all.

"We might want to leave," Cole advises. "It's probably going to get loud soon."

The Iron Bull's laugh booms throughout the Herald's Rest, over the sound of conversation and the crackle of flame in the fireplace. Cole smiles to hear it.

Cole thinks of what he will do today. He will find Irvine, apologize for hesitating, and tell him he would be happy to be his friend. Irvine might not want to be once he finds out what Cole is, but he might. Another puzzle to fit together.

I shouldn't give up on good because I'm scared. The thought comes tinged with Sera, combative, angry at how shit things can get even when both people are trying their best—but learning that you still try, even through the fear and the pain.

Learning from Sera. That's something he never thought would happen.

Being human certainly is interesting.