"You'd probably better get used to me being nice to you," he says, smiling a little, because he can hear the gratitude in Ned's voice, and he likes it, likes that he can bring some happiness to Ned's day, however momentarily. "Because I intend to keep being nice to you. It's about the only way I can balance out being an insensitive loudmouth the rest of the time, right? Well, that and I like being nice to you, but I'm also hoping my being nice will make up for some of my, uh, countless flaws in my ability to talk to someone without upsetting them."

Because despite Ned's offer that he can talk to him any time -- and he doesn't think the offer is false in any way -- he's well aware, now, that there's an emotional charge to the discussion of fathers that he hadn't been privy to before. He may be hopelessly blunt, and very likely to complain about his own father again (old habits die hard, after all, and he's been complaining about his father ever since he met the guy) but he does understand now why it might bother Ned, and he vows to handle it just a little bit better in the future.

"Yeah, sure, sometime I'll tell you stuff," he says, with a flippant little quirk of his mouth that completely minimizes how serious anything he could have to tell would be, "and then you'd run screaming in terror, most likely."