There's a funny little twitch to his fingertips when she says that, I thought I was going to die yesterday. She didn't. He couldn't have done a damn thing about it if she had. She'd just be gone, her and her notebooks and her theories and her tough questions — everything she ever was or was going to grow up to be, gone. But she isn't yet. He holds her just a little tighter anyway.

"Or maybe for asking the right ones," he agrees, mulling over the possibility. There's gotta be some kind of thought process behind the things they do, even if it isn't easy to map out. "He was making a lot of noise lately — about forming a government or something?"