He didn't think he needed to finish that sentence. "It sucks," Pike added, punctuating his point by jabbing a finger down against the bar. "It sucks, and there are days that your heart is going to break for them and other days where you think you want to break them, but you don't. We don't. And maybe neither of them will ever be what they were before, but if they can manage to pull themselves out of this, they'll be stronger for it. Better, in some ways, than they were before. They'll always have their scars, but sometimes, scars can be a helpful lesson, constantly reminding them of what can never happen again."
Truth was, Pike didn't mind talking to Sam about this anymore. It had been uncomfortable at first, but Sam was clearly at least willing to listen. Maybe it was the alcohol doing it, maybe it wasn't, right now Pike didn't care. The point was that he was listening, and they were talking, and that was helping the both of them. He listened as Sam talked, and when he placed a hand over his heart Pike lifted his bottle slightly in a salute. He understood that feeling very well. "Average, sure. Unextraordinary, sure. For us. For most people, people who have never been through what they have. But they have to start somewhere. You have to tread water in the shallow end of the pool before you can start swimming laps in the deep end. So maybe they're doing little things, average things, unextraordinary things right at this moment. But that's paving the way for bigger things down the line, when they're ready to try the deep end of the pool."
He wasn't sure what had happened with Ruby earlier. He'd missed that thread on the boards. Still, it confused him. Ruby hadn't seemed like the type to backslide. "Did she fail, Sam? Did she fail tonight, or did she tell you about something that happened before she decided to change? I know hearing those things are hard, but there is a difference between failing now and failing then, back before she knew there was any other choice. It's a terrifyingly fine line, practically invisible, but it's there all the same." Without knowing the details, he couldn't really say much more than that.