He didn't even bat an eye at the unspoken accusation. The idea that he was no longer one of them. Even if, even if he could convince the government to overturn this, even if he managed to make things better, he would never be able to be one of them again. He wasn't an import anymore. He'd gone fucking native.

It was the sacrifice he'd made. He'd given it up, on purpose, because he'd needed to. Because imports needed him to.

He'd been a man to give up everything once already. He would do it again and again and again if it meant he could save the planet. Hell, if there was a chance of saving the planet. "You're joking, right? Sherlock, I'm not going to make this slow," he explained. He didn't offer more than that, of course. He couldn't. Not which cycle, not which office he had his eye on. Saying that he wasn't making it that slow was too ambiguous, too little for him to go off of, while still contradicting him.

He'd learned so much, even from being Maskin, at being the consummate politician.