He simultaneously felt he'd said something wrong, and was so glad that she said what she did. It was talking about herself and he knew that was the hardest thing for her to do. He decided not to reiterate things she already knew, and said she already knew, with reassurances, because that would be trying to talk her out of her feelings. (He had learned some things as trainer and recruiter.)

It was tempting. But instead he just kissed her forehead again, cupping her face, and murmured, "I can understand that. We'll keep saying what we need to, doing what we're doing, until we can believe it."

Take all the time we need, Darrow-willing. He was going to start researching, maybe the religious route in spite of his own skepticism, to find whatever, whoever, he needed to find to get some kind of assurance of duration. If anyone ever could.