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Though they had met once before, Laurel didn't remember it. At best her name may have pulled at a piece of mental string somewhere, but it was a piece far too small to use to tie it to anything. Many of the things that had been there years ago were no longer, but Gabriel being absent was slightly sobering. Maybe he should not have been surprised, but Laurel had always found a certain monotony in the region. But perhaps not, not any more. There had been a monotonous overtime to his life if he thought about it hard enough, which of course he did not.
Still, he made a noncommittal sound over what she told him.
“I suppose you could,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “I used to live around here, well, not so much around here as many miles to the south and many years ago. I met your father a time or two. His sister too, for that matter,” but those details were neither here nor there; the last thing Laurel wanted to discuss was the sickness that had run them all away so long ago. He shook his head dismissively, sensing tangents coming on and latched onto a moment of clarity. Confidence, if anything. “I came here looking for somewhere to settle.” For now or for permanently, he didn't know. It would always be up to the nature of the beast.