It's something in how he says the second part that makes her pause and look at him. There isn't a maybe. But there's something else, too. They might not be mirror images of each other, but after what they'd been through they understood each other in ways no one else, who hadn't been to or through what they had, did.

Sometimes what they needed was not what people thought they did. Couldn't be asked for or even put into words. He didn't want space (yet). He didn't want any part of the too greater, complicated truth (yet). But he wanted to be here. With her. And there's a harrowed edge to that lingering darkness on him. The one in his eyes that doesn't leave when it's bad. When it's at its worst.

This one she never saw: because she wasn't there to see it. Because he's still looking at her like she's a ghost, a body gone cold and yet somehow up moving, too. She doesn't know what his last two days were like. But she knows him too well to not have to an extremely detailed guess.




"Fair enough." Sara can say blithely after that moment of consideration, and if her smile crooks at one side, her eyes might have all the rest there her face doesn't. Compassion. Concern. Regret. Acceptance, that couldn't judge, not especially now.

She tips her head to the daggers back in the wall. "Your turn."
"I need another drink. Do you want anything?"