Regan’s promise earned her another amused smile, but it faded quickly. “I don’t know what there is to say,” Ber began after a long moment, still addressing the contents of the shelf. He’d spent the weeks carefully trying, with varying levels of success, to dull the sharp edges of his memories of Zevran, so peeling back the protective casing now felt strange. Like an invitation for more heartache.

After another moment, he offered a simple but earnest, “He was my friend.” Though unable to fully articulate what the word meant to someone who had spent nearly his entire life alone in a crowd, he hoped that Regan would understand regardless. A third pause, then a quiet admission accompanied by a half-shrug: “And I don’t have many of those.”

No commoner in Nevermere was a stranger to hardship, but fewer lives faced more difficulty and required more grit than that of an orphan who had to look out for himself from the time he could walk. While many, like Temperance, could tacitly acknowledge that reality, only in a couple of people had he found the mutual, unspoken understanding that arose from living through similar experiences: Regan, whose story so closely aligned with his, and Zevran, who had come from a horror that Ber himself could not truly comprehend. To Ber, the rare kinship of misfit survivors who had yet to find their place in the world had bound them all together.

Until it didn’t.

Regan continued at her task, listening but not putting Ber too much on the spot. She’d agreed to listen, to care, but being a comfort to anyone was not a natural thing for her. But Regan had talked Grant through his Magda-related heartache, and though this was—as far as she knew—a break of a friendship, it was still something broken. So, Regan tried to summon the same energy she’d had back then: keep it light, genuine. When Ber finished, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye with a smirk.

“You got me. I don’t come with an angry little fox, but I can still be a good time.” It wasn’t accusatory—it was playful, but there was a sincerity to her claim. “I’m not saying anyone can replace him—I mean, when Grant and I were paired and then we, uh, suddenly weren’t, it turned me upside down. He was every—” Regan’s voice unexpectedly cracked, causing her to stop. She shook her head a little in surprise before she continued.

“It hurt for a while, but I just had to look at where I was at. Try to change along with the changes, you know?”

Regan’s words brought a small smile to Ber’s face as he chanced a glance at her, picturing Rune in her bow tie. “We’ve got each other,” He confirmed, a quiet appreciation in his tone. And maybe neither of them had an angry little fox by their side, but they were both, apparently, able to turn into other canine-like creatures, so maybe that counted for something.

Rolling with the punches, though – he could do that, and he nodded his understanding. In the weeks following the ball, he had resolved to do that and, for the most part, thought he’d done a pretty good job of it so far. Still, the way her voice cracked had him pausing, thoughts shifting from him and Zevran to her and Grant. Like Regan, he had minimal practice with offering a shoulder to cry on that did anything more than just stand there in silence, but he found himself willing to try. “Do you, uh, wanna talk about him? Grant, I mean.”

Regan grew visibly uncomfortable when Grant’s name came out of Ber’s mouth. The nature of her discomfort was difficult to discern, but she was nonetheless stiffening and suddenly incredibly interested in the shelves in front of her.

“Not much to say,” Regan shrugged, voice a low, awkward grumble, “He kind of just, uh, backed away. After I started serving Cassian, he just…wasn’t there anymore. Being partners was a military position, yeah, but…I dunno, I thought it was more than that. Guess it was silly to think that.”

Regan cleared her throat, continuing on with her task.

In an attempt at returning the favor, Ber had inadvertently turned the tables back on Regan. A glance toward the Huntsman showed her averting her gaze much like he had, and the air of awkward discomfort that often accompanied somewhat stilted conversations like these persisted. Belatedly, Ber realized that his own lack of experience and advice with these matters hardly helped. The best he could do was commiserate.

“I don’t know if that’s silly,” He offered, shoulders rising and falling in a brief shrug of his own. “I mean, paired partners usually become friends, don’t they?” From what he’d seen, it certainly seemed like all of them were far closer with each other than the average unpaired soldier and the man or woman beside him. It made sense that long hours working and training with one other person would forge bonds that meant more than just a position in the military. What might have started off as an assignment and grown into something more didn’t need to end just because the military had split them up.

Ber shook his head. “If he made you think he was your friend but really wasn’t, that’s not cool of him. And he was your partner, so there was no reason for you not to trust him.” Another shrug. “Doesn’t seem silly to me, I guess, is all.”

Friends. Even now, Regan was tempted to hide behind the word as if it adequately described just what she and Grant were to one another. But it was more than that, it had been for some time—far before they’d acknowledged it. But fulfilling what had seemed inevitable had ended up being the kiss of death. Whatever Grant had found…he’d found wanting. Or at least, that’s what Regan had come to believe.

Regan shrugged.

“People move on, I guess. Word is he’s gettin’ married. He’ll be a good husband. Good father. And he doesn’t need me to be those things. So…” She sighed, shrugging again.

Regan shrugged. Ber offered a half shrug back. Any happiness he felt on Grant’s behalf at the news of his impending marriage and inevitable fatherhood felt as distant as the horizon compared to the prickly, protective indignation at how he had treated Regan. Cast her aside once he had whatever he’d wanted from her, just like everyone else.

“I guess,” Ber agreed, albeit somewhat unconvinced, on the point that people moved on. But maybe that was what Regan needed to believe to make the abandonment hurt less; he remembered telling her about kids at the orphanage doing the same. Still, if he were ever to get married and have kids, he wouldn’t leave his friends - wouldn’t leave Regan - behind. “Still sucks though.”

With that, Berengar Stormcrest had exhausted his worldly wisdom on matters of the heart. After a moment of silence, he cleared his throat and gestured to the crate in her hands. “So, uh, I know I was supposed to help, but I think you’ve found more ingredients than I have.” He was almost certain, in fact, given that he heard flasks and vials and jars clinking around in there yet had handed her absolutely nothing.

Regan looked up at Ber from where she crouched to snag potion ingredients. The sameness, the understanding between their similar backgrounds afforded, was obvious. No, it wasn’t just about Grant. It was that he’d joined as the next in a succession of people who had been tossing her aside since she could first recognize it.

Box on her hip, she smiled at him. Regan reached up and touched his cheek in an uncharacteristic display of sisterly affection. “You did help,” Regan said, though clearly, her statement had nothing to do with finding potion ingredients. After a moment, she dropped her hand.

“See you around, ya?”