"Some things, you cannot alter," Nathan said slowly, eyes on the table but thoughts very far away (or not so far, just across town, mind brushing over a girl with fiery red hair and the man she once had been, the things that could not be). "Some things, like love, like hatred, like devotion, some things are in the core of you. In the knit of your bones, the throb of your heart. They are not changeable because they are not choices. The choices are all you can hope to make different."
Pulling himself away from her, from him, from what was, Nathan blinked and turned his gaze back to Keiran. A faint, thin smile and Nathan shook his head. "Make better choices this time, Galehaut. That is all anyone could ask of you."
He glanced, too, back towards the door, though with less concern. "Yes. It is where she is meant to be," he said simply. "But we can go back and you can rejoin her." It wasn't what Keiran had asked, but Nate wasn't actually interested in what he'd said. "I really will make some coffee, I think."