Immediately, she's aware that apologising is the wrong thing to do. It means she doesn't say anything at once, holding that in, because— it is not helpful, I'm sorry that it hurts you that you love me, it is not the right lesson to take away. For a moment it feels terribly as if she's tricked him into something under false pretenses — made him care for her, and then spilled all of this at his feet — and she knows, intellectually, better. Certainly, that that isn't what he's trying to say to her.

She leans, instead, until her forehead presses against his. Closes her eyes and wraps around herself, instead, the relief she'd felt when she'd asked him to sit and he had. And he's here. With her. By choice, even, the state of the Gallows notwithstanding. She lifts her hands to his face, and tries to find adequate words—

“It feels so fucking unfair to lose some of the people who've let me be more than that,” in a great exhalation, tears pricking at true eye and false, thick in her throat. “Who believed that I could be. Who — expected it from me. Maker, Alistair held that space for me before I believed it. And I just always thought I'd get to show them.”

Now, of course, it feels naive. Even still. Her thumbs press to his jaw,

“I want very much to do a better job of loving you. I want to— I like who I am, with you.”