Ned wants to just agree, to let Charlie see what he and Daneel have found as someone else's silver lining, but it's not quite that simple, is it?
He doesn't know why he doesn't just keep his mouth shut, why it's Charlie who manages to coax these concerns out of him, out loud, for the first time. Maybe it's because he remembers the way Charlie was, bellowing and shoving to get past him to be at Meyer's side when he was hurt, or how exhausted he'd looked the next day when he'd fallen asleep on the couch. Or because he'd seen the way the two of them were towards each other when they were all alone, even if it had been in Meyer's dream. Charlie might say he's never seen love up close before, but maybe it's just because it's too close for him to recognize.
"Except what if something happens?" The question is rhetorical, but he looks at Charlie all the same as if he's going to have an answer, "What if he disappears one day, the way people are always disappearing around here, and I never see him again? Or... what if the next time they're doing some psycho experiment something happens to him?"
That whole rock-throwing thing is starting to look like a good option to Ned, so he picks one up, too, launches it out past the small waves so that it skips twice on the surface of the water before sinking. He loves Daneel, loves what he has with Daneel, wouldn't change it for the world. But he knows it makes him weak, knows that caring about someone means setting himself up for pain when that person gets taken away, as they inevitably will.
And these are things, he knows, that could happen to Meyer too. Have happened. He hasn't disappeared, hasn't died, but he got hurt. Badly. Both of them saw it. It hadn't meant nearly as much to Ned as he now knows it had to Charlie, but it hadn't left him unaffected.
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He doesn't know why he doesn't just keep his mouth shut, why it's Charlie who manages to coax these concerns out of him, out loud, for the first time. Maybe it's because he remembers the way Charlie was, bellowing and shoving to get past him to be at Meyer's side when he was hurt, or how exhausted he'd looked the next day when he'd fallen asleep on the couch. Or because he'd seen the way the two of them were towards each other when they were all alone, even if it had been in Meyer's dream. Charlie might say he's never seen love up close before, but maybe it's just because it's too close for him to recognize.
"Except what if something happens?" The question is rhetorical, but he looks at Charlie all the same as if he's going to have an answer, "What if he disappears one day, the way people are always disappearing around here, and I never see him again? Or... what if the next time they're doing some psycho experiment something happens to him?"
That whole rock-throwing thing is starting to look like a good option to Ned, so he picks one up, too, launches it out past the small waves so that it skips twice on the surface of the water before sinking. He loves Daneel, loves what he has with Daneel, wouldn't change it for the world. But he knows it makes him weak, knows that caring about someone means setting himself up for pain when that person gets taken away, as they inevitably will.
And these are things, he knows, that could happen to Meyer too. Have happened. He hasn't disappeared, hasn't died, but he got hurt. Badly. Both of them saw it. It hadn't meant nearly as much to Ned as he now knows it had to Charlie, but it hadn't left him unaffected.