Lucien stood there silently, brooding as the tension hung thick and heavy in the air between them. He gulped as he watched her moved to the table, sit, offer to let him leave and not let him get in trouble for it. Damn it! But it was... just like Cassie to do so! She had never wanted other people to get in trouble, was always taking the fall for them and saying it was her responsibility to do so! When she tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced up at him it like that? This woman in front of him now looks and acted so much like his Cassie that it hurt even worse. If only her eyes did not shine so pinkly in the dim cavern lights. If only her body did not still move with that slight stiffness. If only she didn't still have just that faintest staccato rhythm to her voice that was so indicative of the robots and their Androids. If only he hadn't given up...

"No," he managed to rasp out finally. Unconsciously, he brushed at the sore spot on his lip with the back of his hand. "Uncle... He wouldn't like it... if I left right away."

He felt he should move somewhere or do something. He couldn't. Lucien could only stand where he was and look at her, his face stern and eyes haunted. No on in the Colony was obese or heavy, not with the strict rationing, but Lucien had lost an unhealthy amount of weight since that horrible day and it made him cadaverous in the gloom of the cave. Unsure of what to do or say, he ran his fingers through his short hair in frustration. The act allowed the dam within his soul to slowly leak.

"Pony. She says she was in here, that you're... really Cassie. Toni seems convinced, too, and where Toni goes Jodie follows. Uncle's pretty sure, too. Almost everyone thinks that you're Cassie, come... come back from the dead." Un-noticed by Lucien, a tear began to form in the corner of one grey eye. "But you can't be. You.. can't [i]be[/i] Cassie. I... I can't let you be her, or... or I'm going to go mad. Do you understand? I had to give up on believing in miracles to survive, and if you are her... if you are Cassie... then miracles exist... but I can't allow myself to think that. It hurt too much before. And... I don't know if I can take that pain again."

He was rambling and he knew it. He was trying to explain his feelings and fears to a woman... a thing... who had forgotten what it was like to have those. But for the sake of saving his body from further reproofs from Uncle, and for the sake of what little soul he had left within him, Lucien had to at least try. Uncle may have coerced him into this, but Lucien had always tried to be a man of his word. Tried, that is.

In desperation, an idea came to his tortured brain. He leapt upon the idea like a drowning man for a life vest. "If... if you are Cassie. If you are... the woman I loved... then come here and kiss me. Kiss me... kiss me the way Cassie used to." Should her kiss prove true, his wracked mind reasoned, then he would have to admit it was her. If not, and she was an Android spy or some such, perhaps he would be lucky enough for her to kill him while he kissed the memory of his heart's desire goodbye.