Maybe it's different for a civilian, but Cougar thinks that he trusts exactly two people right now. Aisha is an easy to understand reason for mistrust, and Clay too often follows other parts than his head. Really, the only two people that Cougar trusts unequivocally are Pooch and Jensen, neither of whom are here. He knows that it's sad, knows that it's made him closed off, but he's paid the hard way and is still working off the grief of trust in the middle of the night through screaming night terrors.

He shrugs, because it's the best he can do. "Means no one gets a knife in my back," he says. "Alive is better than trusting and dead."