"This -" She taps the papers with one fingernail, keeps her voice even, "Says nothing at all about caring. About loving. It obligates one party to be responsible for another, because that's what anyone outside of it is going to act on. They can't police emotions, just actions and consequences."

Her eyes search his, like she can find that fear in him, that scar, that wound, that hurt - and drag it out where one or both of them can get a fair shot at it.

"You'll know, if it's something you want to know. You're smarter than that. And none of this - none of it, not one piece of it, not one law or person or mark of it - changes what you and I are because none of this can touch what we've been through."