[ He holds his gaze when Byerly glances back, still watches him when he looks away again. He knows what that means, knows there's truth there. He'll come back to it.

Wash acquires responsibility for people remarkably quickly. Caring about them on a personal level is quite a bit more difficult, but Natasha was already there at that point, and Byerly. He's not entirely sure when that happened, exactly, but he's there now. Still dislikes him at the same time, though. He's a worrier, and even if Byerly wasn't his charge, he was Miles', and that was more than enough for him to care on that level -- and maybe some of it was the guilt, knowing that he'd not exactly made the man's job any easier. ]

Maybe I just have a terrible bleeding heart, Byerly. Or maybe it was more that I was worried about our actual chances for getting Sonia out with the two of you poised for recklessness and unwilling to listen to reason or orders. Not to mention, just the robustness of this little intelligence operation in general.

[ It's all of the above, really. Wash cares a lot. He actually doesn't hide it too much. ]