Aidan's eyes widened as Evey pulled away from him, the look on her face could have destroyed him easily. To see her in any kind of pain was too much. But to see that pain on top of the lost figure that she had been molded into? It was devastating.
His eyes closed as she spoke the words. His jaw clenched. He closed his face down from her so that she wouldn't see the relief that flowered inside of his chest. He had been afraid to ask about the other Evey - his true Evey - because he had been deathly afraid of what the answer would be. But she knew. This Evey knew about her double. Which made him wonder if his Evey knew about this one. If she did, why hadn't she said anything? What had she thought might happen if he knew?
And what was he going to do now? Lie? Try to make her think that he would have greeted her the way he had even if he hadn't spent the wonderful moments at the top of the Ferris wheel, holding the hand of the woman he loved, kissing the purple off of her lips? He knew, and he knew that she knew, that it wasn't true.
What it didn't change was that he ached for her, that her pain grieved him. He wanted to take it all away. Find some way to give her freedom from all the darkness she kept pent up inside. He wished that he could tell her something that would end the suffering and help her let go of his loss and everything that it had done to her.
Because it was obvious that she was this way due to her certainty that he had died. The loss of him. If he hadn't had the dual Eveys to compare, he still would have come to the conclusion. This Evey was closed off and broken. Missing the vital spark that had so attracted him in the first place. As egotistical and vain as it might have sounded, Aidan knew this was his doing.
"Yes." He admitted, finally opening his eyes again now that he was sure that his elation wouldn't be seen so plainly. "I thought you were her. I had no idea there are two of you. I didn't ... it's not..." Aidan floundered. Impossible? Impossible was dragons and dinosaurs. Impossible was people from different worlds coming together. Impossible was vampires to some people, and Colossus for others. So why would it be impossible for a double?
"I'm sorry, Evey." He repeated the words that he had said originally. "I am so very sorry. I wasn't thinking. I didn't know."
Aidan wanted to help her, but it seemed cruel now to reach out to her again. His chest ached with his inability to take any action that wouldn't be devastating.