[He doesn't miss the touch on her hand where her ring should be—the ring that's hanging around his neck, tucked under his shirt. It's strange to see her bare finger, just as it had been strange to have no ring on his when he'd come through the Ingress. Even after months without it, the moment he'd taken it from Sully and slipped it back on at the airstrip, everything had felt easy and right again. He hadn't had to fight so hard.

There's something to be learned from that, he thinks.]

You never did. I was the was the one who was changing, trying to prove something I didn't need to. Sully saw it, Chloe saw it, hell—even Marlowe saw it.

[He reaches out to rest his hand against hers, fingertips over fingertips.]

You know I was afraid, when our plane landed in Yemen? Hell—I was terrified.