The one thing that he would never forget about that - aside from the pain - was that he'd been terrified that it would be permanent. That he would never get to feel her close to him again, see her smile. Know that she was safe and taken care of, and once they'd found each other again once the whole thing had blown over, it had been incredibly difficult to let go of her.

If he'd been just a little protective of her since then, even more than he usually was, well .. he didn't think he could really be blamed for that. Not in the slightest.

It was ridiculous, really, how much he was smiling about something as simple as keeping an alien dog. (That was what he was calling it, even though it sounded just a bit .. not-nice, but he didn't think the varren would know the difference either way.) The laugh he gave at her response was genuine, pleased. "Well, then .. what should we name her?"