Crow had nearly made it to the door when he felt someone take hold of his hand. He blinked and turned to see that Penelope had caught up with him. Feeling a twinge of embarrassment for his actions, he averted his gaze. He knew he wasn’t being fair to her by letting Rikki get to him so badly. Ever since they had gotten back together, she had done nothing to make him have such little trust in her. In fact, if either of them should have a reason to not trust the other, it was her.

They had only been together for a short period of time, and yet he had already given her more than enough reasons not to depend on him. From lying to her about his illness, to hiding his accidental kiss with Rikki, and even to his current, secretive dealings with Jaxon, he had done nothing but let her down while she had been completely transparent with him. He had no right to even harbor a shadow of a doubt that she would leave him again when the war ended.

So, when she began to apologize to him about the past, he just shook his head in response. “I know,” he said softly and then sighed. “And I believe you. I do. It’s just…” He winced and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Now, hear me: I don’t want you to think I’m holding a grudge against you or anything like that. I promise you I’m not. I understand why you did what you did, and I’m just happy you were even willing to give me a second chance… It’s just hard to keep out that little voice in the back of my head that keeps saying ‘what if,’ you know?”

He finally looked up to meet her gaze, “I know you have no intention of going anywhere this time, but we made the same promises to each other two years ago, and they turned out to be meaningless. I guess there’s still a small part of me that’s wondering what’s changed to give those words more substance this time around.”

Crow looked away again, feeling strange for speaking about his inner thoughts so openly with Penelope. He still wasn’t used to sharing his emotions like this with another person. It made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable, but he knew he needed to be honest with her. If he didn’t address his worries now, they would just fester inside of him until they caused a bigger problem down the road. It was better to face them now, while they were still small and easy to combat.

After a moment of pause, he reached out to take her other hand, so that he held both of her hands in his. “I’m not saying any of this to guilt you into making any absurd promises to me about why I should believe that you’ll stay this time,” he went on, forcing himself to meet her gaze again. “I already know that you will. I just wanted to be honest, like I told you I would before. So… whether it’s rational or not, that’s how I’m feeling.”