"My life's goal is complete then," he says, tones dry and flat and utterly teasing. "I have made you laugh. I thought I would live my whole life with never making that happen."

Except he knows it's not cruel and he knows it's how things will be. Here more than before. He'd been the leader but they were equals. Now though they are truly all on equal footing, if not that he is a bit behind.

That question though makes his mouth go dry and she perhaps gets the most surprised look ever from him. "I..."

There aren't words after. What did he say? No is a lie, but then he hasn't even so much as attempted tried to make a claim to her time in traditional standards of romance. No one in the world is going to think him holding her hand, bare handed and in public, is any kind of a sign of romance and feelings.

Yes means he actually has to find a way to live his emotions and not just bottle them up and then what might he take from her if she learns he is stunted emotionally and incapable of giving her what she wants and needs?

"I don't think that is my decision to make alone," he says, sincere though he fears she'll hear something else in his words.