She is playing with his temper, but she's also right- he won't hurt her. He never would, of course. She's in the future too, just as worrid as ever, and he's done as effective a job cutting her out there as he's trying to do here. It may be more difficult here without the mutual pain of loss and the ingrained instinct of nearly everyone where he's from to obey the leader to get her to pull back. She never really caves, though, not completely, always pushes harder than anyone else, pushes where other people are afraid to push at him.

His eyes close at the hand on his cheek, jaw clenching to get a leash on his temper. He breathes out, a short and punctuated sound from his nose, and then opens his eyes again. They're still hard, but they're less explosive.

"The Jabberwock is unleashed. He destroys Wonderland and kills dozens of people. We're dying and there's no way to stop it. This is my only chance to fix it, now I need you to let me do what I've gotta do. Understand?" It's slow, it's dark and well annunciated, the sound of his temper on a leash, curbed for her benefit. The very last reserves of his patience spent to appease her.