November put her hand on his, and the gesture itself might have been taken in another context as insignificant, but Ben knew his sister well enough to understand the weight of it, however light the touch itself was. The question was heavy too: friends. Was it possible? He doubted it. Not when he had loved her and hated her already, and she had done the same to him. One could work up to being friends, from something flat and neutral, but he didn't know that anyone could work their way back to being friends when they had been something else once. He had loved her, once.

"Maybe someday," he said, more for the sake of his sister's sensibilities than because he thought it was possible. Let Nova think what she wanted about what could or couldn't be; let her hope, if he couldn't. "But not now."

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