"Hey." It starts as a single word. But it turns into many all repeating that word (hey, hey, hey), raising her second hand, because Jack's brain, whatever it does, is doing, sprints him off toward what's starting to sound like a hyperventilating. Or a panic attack. Either one or something else nearby. Whatever else might be? She's losing sight of things that aren't him; they slide out even when they try to stomp in.

There's no stopping it, though, and by the time he's out to words, they're so much louder than that whisper. It's redlining toward hope, with the throttle violently accusative and threatening, and it only makes her heart ache harder, makes her move faster. Having to let go of his hand and reach out for his shoulders. The defense of her memory doesn't go unnoticed, but she's not the person he needs to threaten to kill to keep it.

"I'm here. I'm really here." A hand to the side of his neck, but it's more of a directive and not a caress, to try to draw him closer, make him focus down rather than explode out. "Alive. Real." Whatever either of them means. "Breathe." They don't matter. They mean whatever Jack needs them to. (It means she has him with her, and how many things would she have foresworn for just that in these last five years.)

"The big shiny rock in the middle of this place didn't make me."

A tiny beat. "It's definitely not that cool."

Another. "And I will not forgive you if you tell me you've started worshiping it like some people here." None of it is serious, nor does it pretend to be in more than the words put out; it's just her mouth making sounds now and giving them to him. Herself, to him. To hold on to rather than every other fact that has so much more right to be there in his head than she does here, inches from him.