He smiles a sort of self-deprecating smile as he retracts his hand. It's no surprise that Gaelio's last memory of him is something like that—if it had been anything else, anything more "recent," this would probably be a very different conversation. But McGillis remembers what he means, even though it's been a long time since then. After all, they called it a vacation, but... Well, Gaelio's not exactly wrong. He rarely took vacations without good reason.

"I can hardly hope to gain a full understanding of things here if I'm not," he says, not-so-subtly brushing off the comment that 'dates' his friend. The fact that there is a time difference between them isn't so horrible, but the sorts of questions it could lead to were a different story. He'd rather avoid it, at least for now. "Of course, my original thought was that I'd have to do this alone."

Gaelio being here was more like a wrench in his (very vague) plans, but once again, it's easy to fall back into these old habits and expectations. He figures Gaelio probably wouldn't mind too much if he relied on him a little bit. Quite the opposite, in fact.

(The real irony, though, is that the reason McGillis worked so hard in the first place was something that was not exactly relevant here... Regarding the long term, he was already at a bit of a loss as a result, and that's not something he's used to.)