( He winces, and closes his eyes; there's a twinge by his lips, a furrowing of his brow. Empathy meeting empathy. It's doubly hurtful. )

That's in my distant past. By some handful of years now.

( Not that it really made things any better. )

I'm a better person now. ( His eyes open and he raises his hand from his stomach, tracing a line in the air. ) Timelines are flexible, and so is the distance between 'friends' and 'enemies'. We're neither in the future. Somewhere in those shades of gray, that's where we wind up.