Ernest was certain that he would never tire of hearing her telling him that she loved him. "It's natural to be frightened, but you really don't have to be," he assure her softly. "There's nothing you could share now that would change the way I feel about you," he told her.
"I've already shared much worse, Knightly. Things I've never spoken about-" he said, referring to the day he'd spent as a woman. "War is just ugly as hell, there's never any glory in it. Just boys fighting boys, for power and greed of them at the top, disguised as this cause or that-" he told her.
"But this?" he pulled back slightly, just to roll up the right shirt sleeve, noticing where her gaze fell. "Not war, and not very exotic. Just a car accident," he explained. "I broke my arm, and the surgeons bound it back together. I was in hospital for... oh, six, seven weeks? It was total agony, but I could have coped with that if it wasn't for the nerve damage. It made it difficult to write for nearly a year. Total hell," he explained.