There's no spark of revelation or flood of relief in the wake of Johnny's words. Nothing happens suddenly, as things so often do for Paul, those great, turbulent crashes of comprehension and intuition and emotion that buffet him too often. When he breathes out, with a little pulse of his fingers, what it feels like is something small and green and new putting down pale roots in warm, dark earth.

"I believe you." He says, and he does, still. "I believe in you. I have, all this time, and you think I'm going to just - quit on you?"

He has a hand free. He makes it into a fist and socks Johnny in the shoulder, something watery about his crooked, closed mouth smile.

"That's not what you've been teaching me, sensei." He shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes before he drags his fingers through it to slick it back. "We get knocked down, we get back up. That's the part that matters, isn't it? Not never falling - but always rising."

Like eagles, or hawks, though he won't linger on that. The point is made, he thinks, and that's the start of putting things right between them.

"That's why you have to invite Robby back for dinner," he adds, and Johnny has known Paul long enough now to recognize the gleam he gets when he shifts into strategic planning. "A welcome feast. Belated, but we can make up for that - I'll have to get out the larger pans, but it's feasible, especially if we borrow a hall - "