"He wasn't there to watch me be hurt. That was the point. He was here, playing with the elves, catching a break."

Where he deserved to be, at least for a little bit.

"And I was out there, working out what I needed to in my own head. It wasn't about pride, it was about knowing I could still handle it. I had a snowglobe if I needed to get away, everything went fine, and I figured out what I needed to know, okay?"

He didn't need to go out alone again. He had it all sorted.