He meets her gaze, though it's strangely difficult all of a sudden to maintain the eye contact. Sometimes gravity sets in when he looks at her, during times like now when they're laughing and teasing and just enjoying each other's company at the ass crack of dawn, and his heart gives a lurch because he thinks that maybe losing her would fuck him up a lot more than anything else. He'd thought he'd woken up to the end of the world--or his world, rather--when he'd realized Darrow's a city without kaiju but really, what would he do if woke up one day somewhere else in a city without Kate?

It kickstarts his compulsion to talk, not that it ever really goes away, especially not with someone who enjoys talking as much as he does. But he lifts the corners of his mouth into a smile and small as it may seem, it's genuine. "Hey, thanks, you're not so bad yourself," he retorts and her words have already put him at ease as he tries but fails to keep a straight face. His anchor. And she's right, as far as ploys go, claiming responsibility for the one that forces them to keep their pants on probably isn't his best move. "I promise that next time, I will try not to break any limbs. But then there's the time after that, and I just can't see that far into the future, I might lose an arm entirely. Maybe both my arms. Will you still like me if I'm armless Newt?"