He pulled her into the hug and squeezed gently enough not to disturb any hidden injuries. He'd been at this long enough to think there could be and probably was some under there. When she first said something he had asked if it was an ambush because he couldn't imagine that she had intentionally found herself in a fight. As far as he was concerned what she had endured was an ambush. Everyone had to know that she wasn't the type to be out in the field like that but he didn't consider it a weakness in her. There weren't many ways to help a person see that but he knew he had to try no matter how long it took.
He could point out that there weren't a lot of older hunter still out and about, either they died or they found themselves behind the safety of hq walls calling shots and not taking risks. He hoped he would never end up there, if he did anything 'safe' he just wanted to help train people, but he would have preferred being one of the ones that didn't make it that far. But he had. And he couldn't comfort her with any of this knowledge, he had to use something else, she wasn't the kind of hunter to take solace in her own expendability or the idea that most of her friends were probably comforted by that very thing.
Instead he brought up a hand to pet at the back of her head and then he pulled away, drawing in an overdue breath. "If I know anything about how Matthias is feeling - how any of us would be feeling - I'd say there's nothing to repay. The gift we get is being able to protect you and everyone who needs a helping hand. People who are special in ways we can't touch. I've learned a lot from running this place and working with you and all your specialty pieces but when I was younger the only thing I wanted was the rush of saving people and taking out monsters like that. All that matters to him, and to me, is that you're alive and he did what's built in him to do."
"It's icing on the cake that now you can keep doing what's built in you to do... because I'd put money on the bet that he used weapons you made to take them out." A glance at his array of melting monstrosities brought it all into focus for him.
"It's like a smoothie. It doesn't taste any good with too much of any one thing in it. People with the weapons in their hands are like the yogurt and you?..." he reached over and grabbed a chocolate bar he'd been cutting up for the drinks, offering it to her, "You're the chocolate. Our smoothie could use some more chocolate in it."