Ned bites his bottom lip, half-tempted to caution Charlie to do absolutely whatever it takes to get out of the next one. As if Charlie couldn't figure that out, himself. Why be ominous, why talk about just how bad it's going to be? Charlie might not even remember when (and if) he gets returned home, and the only result will be potentially making him sick with worry while he's here.
Ned hopes he does come up with something, though. Hopes he doesn't have to live through it personally. He likes Charlie, considers him a friend. Doesn't want to think about him in some uniform with a gun, dying in the middle of nowhere, a single casualty amongst the thousands and the millions. He rubs a hand over his eyes, tries not to worry about things that he has no power to control.
Charlie helps him in that process with his next comment, which has Ned going bright red in the face. Meyer had been extraordinarily delicate in his questions and speculations about Ned's relationship with Daneel. Charlie is... not so much.
"I don't think of myself as putting up with it," he says, because he's not going to comment one way or another on the sex, thanks. "It is a little crazy, sometimes, the things he doesn't know about my time, and the things I don't know about his. But we manage. Just like we manage even though he's a robot and I'm a human." That, more than anything, has been the biggest hurdle between the two of them, but they've been working on it, haven't been letting it get in their way.
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Ned hopes he does come up with something, though. Hopes he doesn't have to live through it personally. He likes Charlie, considers him a friend. Doesn't want to think about him in some uniform with a gun, dying in the middle of nowhere, a single casualty amongst the thousands and the millions. He rubs a hand over his eyes, tries not to worry about things that he has no power to control.
Charlie helps him in that process with his next comment, which has Ned going bright red in the face. Meyer had been extraordinarily delicate in his questions and speculations about Ned's relationship with Daneel. Charlie is... not so much.
"I don't think of myself as putting up with it," he says, because he's not going to comment one way or another on the sex, thanks. "It is a little crazy, sometimes, the things he doesn't know about my time, and the things I don't know about his. But we manage. Just like we manage even though he's a robot and I'm a human." That, more than anything, has been the biggest hurdle between the two of them, but they've been working on it, haven't been letting it get in their way.