（ he purses his lips very faintly, and then shakes his head. he does not believe she is being deliberately obtuse — merely literal. and so after another sip of his tea, he clarifies: ）
That isn't the sort of alone I mean.
（ the discussion they had, after that disastrous and very public blow-out about heroes had given him some perspective. other things, sifted through like sand, have begun to form a picture of what may have shaped her life. there are many things he does not know about her, but he knows that making friends is not easily done when one lives and breathes spycraft. her first deep cover mission, she had said, happened when she was only eight years old.
no subject
That isn't the sort of alone I mean.
（ the discussion they had, after that disastrous and very public blow-out about heroes had given him some perspective. other things, sifted through like sand, have begun to form a picture of what may have shaped her life. there are many things he does not know about her, but he knows that making friends is not easily done when one lives and breathes spycraft. her first deep cover mission, she had said, happened when she was only eight years old.
(only a year older than sasuke, when he —) ）