andhiswife | (Reply)

It's so sudden, such an abrupt change of tone, that Sam lets out a surprised huff of a laugh before he can help himself. If he was hungry, it isn't something he's been thinking about now, far too preoccupied with Greta and what she's told him. He'd already forgotten that she was carrying groceries when they came back here, everything having seemed to stop for a few moments or minutes or however long it's been. (Now that he's wondering, he isn't entirely sure of that, either. As long as there's someone to watch Jordan, which there is, then he doesn't particularly care.) She's not wrong, though, that it's probably a good idea to put them away sooner rather than later. It's a good idea, too, to stop and breathe for a moment, coming back to himself a little, pushing one hand over his hair as he does.

"I can't believe you're thinking about food right now," he says, about as close to teasing as he can get under the circumstances. "But yeah, if you were going to have something, I could eat." It is, maybe, a little less about actually eating and a little more about not wanting to leave her alone with this too abruptly, giving everything a chance to settle a little back into something like normal instead, but regardless, it's still true. If he were in a hurry, he wouldn't have made a point of passing by her building anyway, or coming back up here to hear whatever she had to tell him.

Sam doubts he'll be able to get any of this — any of it — out of his head anytime soon, but it wouldn't be fair to look at her and only see a ghost when she's alive here, and that's the only way he's ever known her. To the best of his knowledge, it isn't even all that uncommon a phenomenon, people showing up from a time like that, when they weren't supposed to have been anywhere at all. God knows he has the sense not to wish for anyone from his own life who died to show up here, when doing so would only likely lead to him getting hurt, but it happens, has happened, so often in his life. Sometimes he still gets stuck on that. In a strange way, with that being the case, this isn't surprising at all. It sort of almost just stands to reason.

"Here, I can help you put stuff away."