Of course there’s a difference, but that’s completely beside the point, at least as far as he’s concerned. He’s never claimed to be good at any of this, has never needed to be in the past, and he’s certainly not going to be making those claims any time soon. Fine, he’ll admit to being dumb, emotionally vulnerable, and completely unable to deal with anything that doesn’t require brute force to fix it.

But she doesn’t push, and that’s the best thing she could do; for that he’s thankful. Anyone else wouldn’t leave well enough alone, but she’s a soldier, she knows the difficulties. She gets it, understands, and that means more than he’d ever be able to put into words.

Perhaps it would behoove him to let go of her hand, but he doesn’t. This is okay, he has to remind himself. She helps. This helps. Maybe at some point, he’ll be able to admit that there’s a problem, that he’s not as put together as he’d like people to believe, but this helps for the time being. He can’t force the words out, but there’s a very, very quiet noise in the back of his throat, nearly a purr; thank you