He knows its not the way things tend to go. He's British, stiff upper lip and all that, keep going, don't let it break you. But they aren't made of stone, they aren't beyond hurt even if they've suffered. He certainly isn't, and he doesn't expect anyone else to walk off their pains and grief. You can't let it stop you living, but that doesn't mean you ignore it.

"Because I'm a person. I'm here, I went through it. I want to heal. We think that there's only two roads to go down, with pain- you ignore it all and pretend it isn't there, or you let it flatten you. But neither of those work." He knows that from experience. The anger that built up in him because he tried to bury it, the emptiness inside him when he found himself consumed.

"There's a middle path. And it involves talking. And working out that you can still walk, if you have someone by your side."

It's a bit of a metaphor, but she's clearly intelligent, she has seen a lot of shite in this place and at home.

"And, like I mentioned before, I owed you an apology for throwing back in your face what you were trying to tell me."