After fighting so long, he found it difficult not to, even went as far as to pick fights with himself.

After walking on the moon, the grass of the Earth felt alien.

After saving the world, normal life was hard to come to terms with.

It took a while. Took a long while.

He lived ... differently, then. Somehow he always thought better, but that wasn’t the case at all. He regretted most of it; there was so much death, so much devastation. He betrayed, and he still couldn’t look Cecil in the eye.

In must have been, he thought, that he wanted to do it all over. And to do it right this time around. To not betray, but to stand and support. To stand up to Golbez’ control, and to die if that was what it took.

What it was, he was never sure.

What he realized, when she came to him, was that it wasn’t the adventure he missed.

He had molded living around him in such a way that he forgot a man could live in any other way. He had lived and loved and hurt, and in hiding himself away from the world he had lost them. All that was left was the emptiness.

It was something to find them again.

He thought that maybe he should tell his children as much, when he could understand it himself.