He was silent for a few moments longer, playing with the ends of her hair. When he spoke, his tone was a little wry. "I was just thinking how...I wasn't always like this. I'd still have been jealous, six years ago, but I wouldn't have leapt to violence so quickly." He paused, them grimaced. "Not that this would have happened six years ago, obviously." She'd been eleven. He wasn't a pedophile, whatever else you said about him. "But if you'd been grown or near, and I'd just been...who I was."

He paused, then shook his head. "No. Who I was wouldn't have touched you, even if he wanted to. Not until you'd at least gotten out of high school."