"No! No, we can't!" It's explosive, nearly ripped out of him - it's anger, and hurt, and something else he can't quite put his finger on, rolled together and left to simmer for years on end. He'd never planned on unearthing this, but since when does anything he plans ever work out? "We don't have a status quo anymore! It's been seven years since the last time I saw you, and I don't know if you've noticed, but I've changed, and I have no idea if you have or not." There's a pause, the space of a breath - his volume lowers, his tone changes to something angry and deliberate, and he continues. "Except for the part about not giving a damn what I want. That's still the same."

Wash has had a lot of time to think about his time in Freelancer, and a new perspective from which to do it. He's had quite a while to mull over the fact that not all of his friendships in Freelancer were great. He had the skills to run with the top of the board, but that didn't mean they had to like him or care about him in terms of anything that wasn't mission-critical, and...a lot of them just didn't. He'd put up with a lot of shit in an effort to fit in and be part of the team, and while he hadn't seen it that way then, he has a very different perspective on it now that he's no longer desperate for their approval.