Neal doesn’t say anything at once, his eyes on his tea, on the little fragments of leaf at the bottom. He doesn’t know how to explain what it felt like, hearing Malcolm tell him if he didn’t start behaving that everything he’d been promised would be yanked out from under him and their only real obligation to each other would be severed. Hearing what Peter said over and over again from someone who would be leaving him to die instead of leaving him in prison. Someone he loved in a way that felt so much more fragile and dangerous than the way he loved Peter. Who he loved in a way that Malcolm dismissed as a reaction to kindness. A reach for something unfamiliar. He doesn’t know how to articulate it. The compliments are nice, but they’re two stones throwing ripples on the surface of a well of hurt.

“I don’t mean it like that. You can leave someone and still be standing in front of them.” For Neal, that kind of leaving has always been worse. He clears his throat and makes himself take a drink. “Kate. I want to bring Kate back.”