Bodhi turns to say he's feeling more or less peaceful of mind, but he'll remember if it comes up, but Kira's next comment catches him off guard. Sometimes things do. There are so many carefully maintained walls, and then the oddest thing will reveal a fault in the defenses.

He gave up a lot of things when he took on Galen's mission. Didn't really recognize everything at first, but it had gradually become clear, and one reason he's as calm as he is about the valley as a rule is simply that he had nothing and no one left to lose by the end. But that doesn't mean he goes around thinking about everything that's gone. Flying comes up a lot, since he has to explain his job every so often. He's numb to that. And everyone here lost home and however they made sense of the world and whoever they belonged to. But one offhand reference and a wound he was carefully ignoring flares. Home-marriage-family wasn't even really a dream, more of an expectation since childhood that he always looked forward to as both pleasant and inevitable. He'd only just begun to wonder about those prospects at twenty-five, not enough wondering to really turn wistful.

But now they're all gone, and it's a sudden sting. He swallows, is silent a little too long, and hears himself say, "Well, there... there aren't any here, anyway. Probably a good thing."