[ Ah, an optimist. Carver just cocks his head at her, taking that in. Wondering how a sentiment like that survives. He wasn't always like this but his memories of a time before are blurred and strange. Sometimes, they don't feel real at all but instead like a movie or chapters from a book he read a long time ago and can't recreate perfectly. It has little to do with the now, with the real. ]

The moment you have something someone else needs, they make an equation. They weigh what they can lose.

[ His voice is soft. This was a lesson he had to learn, that he had to teach his nephew and all his students in turn. Sometimes, it kept them alive. Sometimes, it wasn't nearly enough. ]

Or they preempt. You got a habit of closing the distance, I got a feeling. That's gonna end bad.