He wants to say no; he wants to remain in denial. They'd started to build something on Serenity, a life of a sort, a life he didn't hate even if he didn't love it like his old one. He could have loved it. But now they're here, and he has to assume--for both of them--that it's real, that they're on the run again. So he says yes, says it with his mind and his heart and there's a hollow feeling in his stomach even as he runs with her, adrenaline pumping through his veins.

"Yes, River. It's all real." He sees it all, too. It's not just her. Not another lapse, even if a part of him wishes it were.