He shifts his grip a little bit, running the thumb of his left hand over the palm of his right in an unintentional self-soothing gesture. He can feel the muscles there tremoring a little, like the gremlin in his blood has woken up to mock him at Doc's words.

Neal shakes his head as Doc keeps talking, more and more emphatic, until he stops in the middle of the road and snaps on the heels of Doc's question, "Because I won't have any."

There it is. Out in the open, voiced and unavoidable. Neal squeezes his right hand into a fist. "What I do is who I am. It's who I've always been."