Of course, the other times in his life he'd heard that phrase there had been no undercurrent of fond exasperation, the way there was when Verity said it.

But that was a discussion for another time, perhaps.

"... Shit," he muttered softly as something occurred to him. "We were supposed to go flying this weekend." Which wasn't all that big of a deal, they'd been going up fairly regularly since she'd started learning how to fly the shuttle, but he'd had something specific he'd wanted to show her on this particular trip.