[ Jaime pauses to scrub at his face, get some of that strange emotional build-up out. He doesn't know what he's feeling anymore. He hadn't had to live through any of that - and poor Ruka had; she looks like she could use the kind of cry that she's clearly holding back as it is - but it's still strange to hear about and just as awful to contemplate what his life will bring now that the Negotiator's back in it, knowing that he died in the way that he did. ]

Yeah. Honestly, Ruka, I didn't ask you about him to grill you about anything. I asked you about him because I know I'm going to be okay. I'm not scared of him anymore.

[ What can the Negotiator do to him, really? Beyond outing him as the Blue Beetle, he has no power over him anymore, no access to his minions or to his technology, no way of controlling him and Khaji or controlling the people of this city. But he knows what the Negotiator's done in the past, and what he may do again. ]

But I am worried about what he'd do to the people around me. [ The people who are important to him - and in some odd way, Ruka's up there. ] That's where he'd take his anger out, not on me. I just needed to make sure that you knew.

[ And, as it turns out, she knew all of that and more. He shouldn't have expected anything less. ]