Loaded question indeed. Gideon knew he shouldn't have asked, but he also had a feeling that he otherwise would've remained stone silent. But he hadn't meant to make her cry. Trusting she knew that, he rubbed her back as Amelia turned away, not needing the apology she offered. "Don't apologize to me, Mel. You don't have to apologize for anything," he told her. They were both going through the same thing, after all, and there was no need to explain themselves. He didn't speak, waiting for her to put her thoughts into words like he suspected she would do. Gideon listened with as much patience as he had, managing to wait until his wife talked herself out before opening his own mouth.
Resting a large palm against her cheek after their kiss, Gideon let his thumb brush over her cheekbone, wiping away the lingering wetness from her tears. "You're making plenty of sense, love." He didn't want to answer her question just yet. Gideon wasn't sure he wanted to talk about how he felt, but it was only fair since Amelia had done it. "I think you put it right with conflicted," he finally said after a moment or two. "I want my brother back. And my sister and brother-in-law and niece, nephews, and their kids. I want your brother and his family back and everyone else who's gone. But when I think about that and whether or not it's all worth it, I have to realize this is the only place I have most of them. It's the only place I have you and Eli."
Gideon paused to coax Amelia to lean against him once more and then continued. "Being angry about it isn't selfish, Mel, and it sure as hell doesn't make you an awful person. You can be angry about losing everyone and still be happy about what you do have. I really don't think it's a mutually exclusive thing." People were, after all, capable of feeling more than one emotion at a time. If he heard about the process of grieving and five stages associated with it, he might've mentioned it. As it was, it was still such a new theory in his time that Gideon really had no idea. But he still thought what Amelia was feeling was entirely normal.
Gideon still had a lingering feeling that he should know how to fix all of this for her, but that wasn't possible. "I just don't know why it all happened. It's like it happened for no reason, and that's what makes it worse."