Maybe in asking to be pitied he’s really just allowing himself to wallow. Maybe it’s the arguing that makes him sounds petulant and pathetic, or as though he’s trying to find someone to pat him on the back for continuing to push on even though it’s certifiably insane to keep caring. Maybe that’s what he wants, to keep being punished for all the things he didn’t do.

He can hear the insistence in Ram’s voice, can see him in his own mind even though his back is turned, that intense stare and curled fists. He exhales softly, his own hand finding the rough table and spreading his palm out to support himself in a lean. He falls silent, thinking over their gentle disagreement, Rama’s annoyance at the others and his own inability to detach himself despite the harm it’ll inevitably cause.

“It’s easy for me to keep caring,” he finally relents, circling back to the phrase that started this whole thing. “It hasn’t always been like that. I’ve taken myself out of the equation, Rama. There’s no Francis Crozier when it comes to others. You…this between us, is the only thing I’ve allowed myself.”