He held her in his arms and in that brief moment, the world stopped. Not literally, of course, but for all his hypersensitive vampiric senses, it was as though everything had been submerged underwater except for her. He had missed her, beyond words could describe. He had been burning up inside with worries for her welfare since back in Caritas. Somehow, that seemed like an eternity ago. It was strange to think that here they were and life went on in their timeline. Nobody knew they were here. Nobody probably even knew they had ever been gone at all. And she pulled away and the world fell back into its place as he reluctantly loosened his hold, though not without a final squeeze.
'Was it that obvious?' he muttered, having the grace to be abashed. She always knew what to say. Not just that, she always knew what he would say. Well. She was the Seer. But that wasn't the reason why she knew him so well. He looked at her with a muted wince, the smile still playing at the corners of his lips. It seemed like yesterday that she told him he should smile more often. For him, it almost was.
'Cordy,' he repeated, as though saying her name would keep her anchored, keep her from leaving him. Her name glided with comfort from his lips. 'I know that it's...' he trailed off, unsure what to say or even what he wanted to say. 'Complicated,' he concluded the obvious. On the one hand, he did not want to know about a future that couldn't be changed. It was the time-honoured predicament of knowing the date of your death. One had to assume that they would not be here at this resort forever. They would go back, forbidden knowledge weighing down on their shoulders. Maybe they'd try to do things differently. Maybe they could change the little things. Maybe a lot of things, or none at all. There was no way to tell.
'Before you say anything,' he continued hurriedly. 'I don't want to know about the future. Not just yet. Give me...some time. To sort this all out. But I do need to know,' he added, searching her eyes because this was the important part. 'I need to know what happens to you.' He needed to know, not to relieve himself of guilt (not only was that impossible, but it hardly entered his mind to begin with), but because of all the things that could or could not be changed, that was the one thing that he would stop from happening, no matter what the cost. 'And I need to know the truth. It's not that I don't trust you, but I know that you're going to try to make it easy for me. Because you're you. And I'm grateful for that. But just this once, I'm going to ask you not to.'