"..More awkward, I think, to say he's me, but fifteen years older." Or so, give or take. And he'd have preferred a sibling, though he didn't even now really know what to do with one. Some connection to someone in the way everyone else seemed to enjoy, in the absence of a father or mother. Maybe few others could understand that in the way Gaia could, she also lacked her own family.. but she'd had them, once.

She'd left people behind as well. Did she think about Ryne as often as he thought about Glenn?

As ever, he doesn't meet her eyes for long. It's a lifetime of habit, of knowing people were uncomfortable having the evidence of how inhuman he was watching them with a gaze better suited to a cat or a snake. Shaking it off was difficult. Knowing Gaia - and many others - simply didn't actually care didn't affect much either, even though for a while hers had been even stranger than his own. "I'm certain they did their best."

Whether or not it was true, he felt it was. What part of SOLDIER taught anyone how to deal with a child? Even if he'd chafe at the label, he was no child but he knew he'd inevitably be seen as one..

In its way, the briskness is familiar and welcome. Could he rely on anyone else? He wasn't sure, but ... it was true, if nothing else, that he didn't have to be ... wasn't alone here. Sure, Cloud was around - but that man was forever labeled his elder self's focus, not his own. The entanglement of Nibelheim and Cloud's captivity there.. he didn't know enough about it to broach the subject. Not really.

"I suppose that's true," he concedes, after a long moment of silence. "You are here. And .. I have not heard of anyone simply disappearing, as yet."

Did that mean it was safe? No. But could he pretend, at least for a little while?