He cared, of course. It put him on the defensive a little, and it disturbed him. He didn't know if she would like the way he thought of it - the way it made him feel for her, the daughter of people who'd had those sort of troubles - but he couldn't stop it. "You were hardy even born," he said, taking her hand almost automatically. He'd only been six; he could hardly remember any of it at all. "Of course - I'm all right."
The question brought him out of his daze a little. He ought to be asking after her. It was both of their pasts that had been brought up, but ...
"How was it?" he asked after a while, and against his better judgment. He turned to face her a little more directly, sounding a bit more heated and somewhat more confidential. "During the second war, I mean. Were you - safe? Are you?" The threat of it had never quite left him.