[it gets one right back. Her fingers still dug through his hair, curing around the back of his head, her thumb brushing back and forth lightly. It asks for nothing. ]

Just so, I thought I would not have thought to be yelling that I care for someone in bathwater. But war does strange things to us all. We value even the briefest interactions for all that they are.

[she murmurs it soft, light, things that aren't secrets, but are kept as deeply, as solemnly.

Mused softly, quietly to his cheek. ] I knew her for as many months as I knew my natural born son, and I mourn the thought of her loss as deeply. I wanted for her a future, a chance, whole and happy. Time has no bearing on these matters, it never does. One act binds us for lifetimes. To pretend otherwise, that would be stranger.