He held her on his lap, one arm around her waist under the twisted blanket, his other hand in her hair. "I should have...none of us knew, I don't even know if anybody tried it back in the beginning, but when people disappear here we don't even look. Nobody searches for them. We don't look in town, we don't try. I never thought to do it, I just assumed it wouldn't do any good. That's fucked up, right? What if you were in one of those houses or someplace right there in town, and we could have..."
He trailed off. Maybe they would have been allowed that kind of victory if they'd tried, yes. Or maybe not, maybe the searching would have been pointless, maybe Cecilia wouldn't have been able to wake Gemma up from this weird induced coma. "I'm just glad you're back," he whispered against her hair. "I'm so glad I have you back..."