"I'm talking like a kestra'chern," Drake counters smoothly, "who's finally had time away from the war."

It's not like he'll ever be completely over it. The war haunts him, still, and it always will. But it isn't the entirety of his life as it was before. He'd never had a break from it, when Sanzo knew him last, never had time to recover at all, to mourn, to even attempt to heal.

"I have a family, now... people I don't want to lose. I've accepted that they don't want to lose me, either. And you're one of them." So there! "Ten years has given me a lot of time to think about what I'd say if I ever got the chance, you know."