When Ashe says she’s still angry, Jesse just nods, unsurprised. He’s always known it, ever since they’d crossed paths for the first time after he’d joined Blackwatch. He’d felt angry too, at first—but it had mostly shifted into something sad at the end of it all. They’d both lost so much, and he’d known for a long time it wasn’t ever coming back. He’d had all that time to grieve for the past. Ashe hadn’t.

“Yeah, I do know,” he says, replying to the bit about sending a message. “Especially here, in places like this.” Violent places. Antagonistic places full of teeth and claws, real and metaphorical.

The admission that he’s never stopped confounding her does get a chuckle out of him, and he relaxes a little, leaning back against the headboard. “I don’t do it on purpose,” he admits with a smile. “And I want to see things from your perspective too, much as I can. Doesn’t mean we’ll always agree, but that really ain’t the point of the exercise. Just want you to know you’re not the only one trying.” He gives her hand another squeeze. “And you don’t have to tell me everything. But if you’re not going to say somethin’, I don’t want it to be because you think I’ll think less of you for it. My hands are bloody too, you know.”