When he squeezed her hand, Leeloo smiled - though the not-quite-curiosity, not-quite-befuddlement was still in her eyes. Leeloo learned very quickly, but what he suggested went against everything trained into her. Dying for the preservation of others was not a sad thing. It was right. It completed her. What Leeloo learned from Eric, however, was that he did not see the reality of her death as she did, and did not experience it in the same way, either. Her fingers threaded in with his and she squeezed his hand back.
"You love me?" she asked, hearing his words but wanting him to confirm them. The thought warmed her all over and brightened her eyes. She loved him too, she knew. Though it was different from how she loved Peter, it was just as powerful, and would drive her just as strongly. When he mentioned fighting beside her, she took a deep breath and nodded firmly. This was only one of the reasons why she was so close to Eric: he was eager to fight against that which should not be -- eager as she was. That warmth inside her only heated further.
He was different from the man she knew in die Festung, at least in appearance. And there was a strange sort of shift in his seeming. But the core of him had not changed. And she loved him, not his circumstances or experience but him - the heart of him, the truth of him.