The remark makes him cringe, it's not even noticeable, but it feels like a punch to the gut. He shouldn't even be surprised but she hadn't been as forward about it until now, not verbally anyway.

There are so many things he could say, all of them useless, to her. For starters that he cannot just forget that, followed by how she's there for some reason, that it is not her time yet, not that he knows it, that she should choose to live, that she still has a lot to offer. But the truth is, he doesn't know any of it.

"You know Hope would just bring you back." He instead goes for the immediate truth. "Besides... Death is not the end, you know?"