"Not caring completely was easy," Jack said, "Not giving a fuck about anything or anyone? Real easy. Caring sucks. It's hard. It's.." Terrifying. "It's dumb. All this shit, Kanan. All this stupid shit I never fucking thought about ever in my goddamn life. None of it mattered. Now it all does. Has to because I don't know what fucking should or shouldn't and what if that part I thought was some little nothing wasn't nothing? What if it hurts someone that I thought it was nothing? You can't take hurt away once it's there. Maybe you can not do it again. Doesn't make the one time hurt less. It's complicated and there's no rulebook and it sucks and I hate it. I'm bad at it."

Took a breath. More words. Didn't know where they were coming from. "Some guy in a galaxy I've never even heard of gets shot a decade ago, the fuck do I care? Except I know him, it's you, it's Kanan and suddenly that fucking blaster scar matters because I know what it means. I know what came after. I know where that shit came from and now it's all so much more fucking serious and I didn't even fucking know. It's not in the past, it's not ten fucking years ago, it's right now cuz that's when I knew and that's when it hit and.."

And the realization. That he hadn't just been drinking. It hadn't been self medication. It could have very easily killed him.

And he knew that. And hadn't cared. It had been so bad, so dark, that he hadn't cared.

It mattered.

It was a whole load of ugly that Kaidan had seen and she hadn't. And that mattered, too.