Yes.

[For a long moment, that seems like all Ange is going to get. Break all but grunts the word, and then resumes sipping at his drink. Baltus objects, it seems. With a grumbling groan, the omen reaches out a paw and whacks gently at Break's knee, and he makes a sneering face at whatever Baltus is telling him in the privacy of his head.

Baltus is encouraging him to actually talk about things, as it happens. That they saw yet again with their own eyes today what corruption does in this place, and that it can't be good to linger too long in so foul a mood. That Ange is safe. She's made it a point to stand at his side before. That she has elected to come sit with him now when he's plainly unfit for genuine company means she's choosing to do so again, and Break should allow it.

These things are all true. Break has two problems. The first is simply that nine months in Trench has not made "talking about his problems" any easier or less annoying. The second is that it has not escaped Break's attention that Ange has collected a great many pieces to the puzzle of his history, and if Trench doesn't reveal his past to her for him as it did with Qrow, she might well manage to figure it out.

By rights, he needs to tell her on his own. But just this second, when she's staying here because of Sayo again and Break is easily as horrible as Sayo is, is not the time. Which means he can't reveal just why this is so hurtful to him personally anyway, not without giving her too much.

Still, Baltus says in his head. It's better than nothing. And she should know this can happen. She certainly has her own regrets.]

...several times. [He blurts it out before he can persuade himself not to, and then backtracks a little.] Miss Ange. Were you aware that there is a Pthumerian here that -- can force people to relive the same day over and over...?

[He does not even know about the witch games.]

[This earns more silence. Ange isn't wrong, of course. The final timeline was just the best version of a bad ending. Break knows very well the burdens that come from dying and living to tell about it, and he loathes that Oz will be going through that now for a second time. The first death, the one that brought him here, has already scarred him so deeply Break hasn't been able to fully cross the distance between them, and the only thing that makes it better is that Gilbert is here now and Gil is far better equipped than anyone else -- even the Alices, even Ada -- to adore Oz so hard his troubled mind can't help but warm up again.

But it isn't the real problem, and the full truth of it is not something Break can say. He can't tell Ange about how he changed the past once and has regretted it as the worst mistake of his life ever since, because he doesn't have an explanation as to what the hell he was doing in the first place and how he pulled it off that won't just tear another bit of his life to shreds as he sits here. There's no way to explain to her, even if he knows that doing so is supposed to help, that the source of the worst of his fury is a very old wound. One nestled down so deep within him that he hasn't even fully processed the sense of violation he feels over having it slashed at so directly.

After a great deal of thought, as Break so often does, he lands on something that is not at all a lie, even if it isn't the whole truth either. It will get the point across.]

...at the end of everything, at home...all of us wanted to restore the Abyss to its proper state. We wanted to fix it in the moment. Free the Will and let the world go on. Glen Baskerville, meant to be the guardian of the Abyss, wanted to go back in time to a century previous and kill the one person whose absence would mean the Abyss would never be broken in the first place.

His way would have prevented a great deal of pain and suffering. But it also would have erased our timeline entirely, and all the wonderful things everyone who had ever lived over the course of that century had managed to find. We believed that...even with so much suffering, our world as it existed then was something beautiful, and worth preserving. So, we fought him.

[Break speaks very slowly, trying to put the ending of the story together for Ange in a way that will make sense, given that she hasn't heard a great deal of the beginning or the middle.]

We fought him and a great many of us died, to save that world. I won't grant him the kill, but that guy was my last fight. I caught him on his way through to the past and stalled him as long as I could, and opened the way to send Oz and the others through after him once he'd gotten past me. To have devoted everything we had to go against his plan, a plan he himself ultimately gave up on as he passed the remaining burden down to the kids -- I imagine you can see why being thrust into exactly that sort of situation, and forced to play it out, would be...extremely disagreeable.

[Understatement.]

[This sentiment earns her a laugh that actually has a shred of genuine delight under the nastiness in it. When you're the sort of menace Break is, you can't help but feel good when someone you like enables your bad behavior.]

I could kill it, I bet. I thought of a way, in the midst of all that. It's exactly the sort of nonsense that makes me so mistrustful of these powers, but if I thought for a second it wouldn't have the lot of them raining hell down on the people I love here in retaliation, I would not be sitting here now.

[Break has actually considered the consequences of his actions before running off to commit violence in a fit of rage. This is progress, and he isn't actually thrilled about it. Baltus grumbles and switches his toothy attention to one of Break's shoes, and Break waggles his foot around almost playfully.]

...other than that, I don't...know. I don't know. You know, I think its real target was me? It sent us back to a moment when I was waiting for Oz to join me, not back to the moment when he already had, so -- I was the one who saw the message first, alone. When it's like that, it's difficult to think it wasn't meant for me, right? If I could sort out...exactly what I did to call its attention, then...

[Another long sip of whiskey before Break sets his glass aside and holds up a single long finger, as though to pause Ange's line of thinking.]

Ah, but that's just it. Surely the most obvious answer to something like this is that the goal should be "to prevent someone important from dying", right? Sooner or later, that's the sort of wish most everyone has. You're right -- given our current circumstances, it definitely can't have been that.

So, it stands to reason we ought to look back to the actual message. "Get it right this time". For the nasty thing to say something like that, it begs the question -- what exactly was done wrong, if it was never a matter of Oz surviving the day?

[The way the words come so easily, it's pretty clear that this is what Break has been brooding over here in his pit of darkblooded angst, and that he's latched onto it in much the same way Baltus latches on to whatever he happens to be systematically chewing to shreds on any given day. Fortunately, the omen seems to be restraining himself from destroying Break's shoe, which does still have his foot in it.]

Mm. It was his choice. Since that's the case I really...couldn't argue with it anymore. Ugh, such a helpless feeling.

[With a sarcastic smile, Break lifts his hand to massage at his temple. Helpless, and betrayed, too, honestly. He'd been so certain they'd all make it out that time, and he'd called the others out to ensure that, and in the end they'd all had to watch in horror as Oz died in front of them. Nobody seems to be blaming Break for it, either, and that honestly just makes him feel worse.

So long as he can take responsibility somehow, it means that somewhere along the line, at some point, he had control. The Pthumerian has robbed him of that now, too.]

Perhaps I'm receiving a slap on the wrist for my meddling.

[Probably Break should have expected to have his dour mood interrupted by a scolding sooner or later. That it's Ange in particular also shouldn't be a surprise. He's taken off guard by it all the same. Most of the young people he knows weren't old enough to lecture him for real until very recently, and to hear Ange speak with such passion in her voice is still a rarity despite how often he manages to catch her upset.

To that end, despite being blind, he stares at her through this tirade as though she has grown a second head. Baltus, deeply impressed, also slowly sits up so he can observe. His ears are erect and he still has a few extra fangs sticking haphazardly out of his mouth.

But it has the desired effect. He can't help but laugh a little at her stunning conclusion, muffling it as a faint cough into his fist, and his omen stands up and gives himself a good shake. The last time a favorite young lady really came at him, he was mostly upset about having embarrassed himself, and Sharon took it as a fantastic opportunity to explain to him all the ways in which he is disagreeable and immature. He'd burst out laughing properly then. He doesn't do so again now because the tone is so painfully different -- it's a close death he's upset about, and Ange is talking about fighting on his behalf, of all things. Even so, he can't help but feel a little cheered up by her energy.]

I keep forgetting I'm only "some middle-aged guy who thinks he can do everything on his own," and these days I'm supposed to look to the young people. [An echo of Sharon back then. Given the slight sarcasm in his tone, no doubt Ange will be able to tell he's quoting a previous scolding directly.] Even so, you'd better not. If I hear you've gone and beat up the eyeball without me, I'll never forgive you.

[But the dark, dour atmosphere in the room lifts away, somewhat. The shadows begin to recede to more normal sizes, and the sense of the raging hearthfire that doesn't actually exist eases.]

[Ah, his own words to her from earlier in the month come back 'round to haunt him again. He'd used this exact same reasoning on her when Ange felt a need to call herself stupid for being upset. Honestly, it's only fair that she'd turn it on him so soon after. Under his lingering upset, he can't help but be a little proud.

It isn't really enough to jog him away from this entirely. Not on its own. After all, Ange wasn't there to see any of this for herself, and he still hasn't told her the parts of his past that made the day even more impactful. But it does remind him that Oz himself has reached to pull him down from this same ledge in the past too, even when Break was blaming himself for the loss of Oz's beloved uncle.

With Oz's death being his own choice in the last timeloop, even Break can't quite bring himself to believe he wouldn't be agreeing with Ange just now. He may not be willing to let himself off the hook here entirely, but he can recognize that Oz would tell him to. So, he doesn't retreat from the comfort offered by her hand.]

These Pthumerians may be the cause of this and that, but -- how we react to such is up to us. [It's both a denial and an agreement. After all, while he couldn't have done all the horrible things he did so many years ago without the Chain, it was still Break himself who agreed to the plan and then saw it through. He will always take full responsibility for that. Still, the fact remains that he would not have spent the day in those loops if it weren't for that meddling subpar eyeball.] I suppose they can't all be so delightful as Milady Very Large Snake.

[Break is given to brooding about things alone, which is why he's sequestered himself in here in the first place. Now, having gotten to talk it out a little, the idea of regaining his solitude just feels lonely, rather than ideal. He does have to chew on the notion a little before he comes to this conclusion. But after a few moments Break slides out of his chair entirely, joining Ange down on the floor and leaving what's left of his whiskey behind.]

If that's what suits you. I imagine that...it will please everyone else to know that I've not been left unsupervised.

[That Ange was willing to run off with him to help him kill the thing can be their little secret.

Break is not fooling anybody with his casual talk, though, and Baltus, as usual, manifests the truth of the matter. Having done a restless circuit around the room to sort himself out, the omen slinks up to them and sits his very large posterior down in Break's lap, one hind leg jutting out awkwardly. His front end, he drapes over Ange's lap, as this is where the really good ear scritches are going to be.

His person, of course, remains blind for the moment. He has to pat around on his omen for a moment to figure out just what is happening here, but you can see the exact moment he does in the way his expression shifts to knowing bemusement.]

Ah, I get the end with the bum. I see how it is.

["Boof," agrees Baltus. He settles in, providing a physical connection between them that allows the two of them to keep to their own personal spaces, right here next to each other.]

Please. The advantage to being made of shadows is that he doesn't do uncouth peasant activites like slobber, or fart, or eat strange things and give himself dog breath --

[I could fart if it suited me, Baltus announces, and Break stops short as he considers this new information. His omen settles in comfortably as though he has not just announced himself as a potential biohazard, draping his noodle head over Ange's shoulder. Behind him, his tail whacks the floor a few times, smugly. Of all the things Break thought he was going to have to think about this evening, this was decidedly not one of them, and for at least this small moment all his previous lines of thought have been thoroughly obliterated.

Baltus is the omen Break deserves.]