The touch and its reassurance was appreciated. As Ruth often told others, knowledge rarely brought peace or gave pleasure. What it did was hit you over the head with a lot of responsibility you neither wanted nor needed. Ruth let herself relax a little at the touch. If anyone understood the burden she bore, it was Irene who bore the same one from a slightly different point in life.
"A lil faith and a bit of hope can do wonders."
There was a part of her wishing Irene hadn't pulled away. Though the sense of comfort stayed, awareness all was not yet lost, Ruth just wanted to sit with her and hold her hand. It was almost childish. Years ago, she'd been that way with Madelyne, her adoptive mother. Randomly holding onto her for long periods as though she were afraid the older woman would disappear in a thunder of sound much like what had happened to her own parents.
"Dere's three," she hesitated over the word deaths as they were in a public place. "T'ward the beginnin'. Maybe t'ere? One of those threads may change it all."
That left a number of questions though: were those deaths truly linked to the escalation in the future? If so, which one or was it only two or all of them? Did they all have to be stopped? Was the path already set and they simply didn't know it yet, thus making whatever they did just an exercise in mitigating the consequences?
It was easy to let one fall into terror thinking about the fact there were some things that simply could not be changed. They would happen regardless of whatever they did and people were going to die.