Huffing a humorless laugh, Derek nods. "Yeah, you could say it, but it wouldn't be a valid complaint right about now, however much I wish it," he replies, rolling his eyes a little and shaking his head. It's annoying, sure, but he's sort of grown used to it at this point and it's actually strangely less bothersome than it probably should feel by now. Maybe that's just because he kind of enjoys talking to her and getting to know her a little and he's willing to pay the respective price for it, so to speak.

"I don't either. Well...I didn't. I've been doing it a lot more since getting here. I don't know, I guess I just sort of trust that there's a vetting system of some kind that the city council or whatever has in place, so it feels safer to do that here than it did at home, or something. It's hard to explain without oversimplifying like that or else sounding like a paranoid idiot," he replies, shrugging a little. "But something's got to give, you know? Right? We can't keep losing everyone that matters forever, can we? Maybe that's just what I tell myself to make myself feel better, I don't know..."

And then there went the extra information he would've preferred to keep to himself.