Roland took in her response with complete equanimity, probably at least in part because he really didn't understand what it meant to her. He could see that she was surprised, and that she was grateful, but it didn't make much sense to him. All he had said, as usual, was the truth, plain and unvarnished. True, it had been a harder truth to carve out than most, but it was bare truth nonetheless. That she was strong, that she had surprised him with it, and that he wanted her.
He didn't say any of that, though, just covered her hands with his and closed his eyes again for a moment, thinking. His first instinct was to ask the questions that really burned at his curiosity - what Joshua had been to her, for instance, where that desperation came from, why her mother had turned coats - but even dense as he could occasionally be, he was sharp enough to know when a wound might be too raw to prod at it. Instead, after a little while, he asked, "What were you expecting me to be? When you came here, before you met me, what did you expect?"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2015-02-06 04:30 am (UTC)He didn't say any of that, though, just covered her hands with his and closed his eyes again for a moment, thinking. His first instinct was to ask the questions that really burned at his curiosity - what Joshua had been to her, for instance, where that desperation came from, why her mother had turned coats - but even dense as he could occasionally be, he was sharp enough to know when a wound might be too raw to prod at it. Instead, after a little while, he asked, "What were you expecting me to be? When you came here, before you met me, what did you expect?"