This is the advantage to keeping an old man around. I've learned all this gross stuff the hard way. Now, when I tell it to you in turn, I get to sound wise and you get the easy way out.

[He's back to his joking, but as always, it's just the frosting atop the cake of truth, if you will -- Break's ability to tell her these things stems from everything they have in common, from the ways they interact with the world to the pains they've experienced at its behest, and Break is simply the one who's had twice as long as she has to find himself on the other side of it all. To him, there's actually very little more satisfying than the notion that he can pave the way for the kids to come through after him, and do better.

That's what his last great stand wound up being, after all. It wasn't the fight with Glen Baskerville. It was getting Oz and the others exactly where they needed to be --]