[ He means Ikari-shirei. That is, she wants to think he means so, dismissing his lack of specifics as being due to his view from the outside, the ombudsman, the man in the walls. The commander was never his commander the way it was for her, so it's to be expected. He doesn't mean Ikari-kun, surely, not Ikari-hakase.
Misato wears a furrow between her eyebrows when she looks down to think. There is something cold in the pit of her stomach, something that coils and sinks, threatening to pull her down with it. She names it dread or guilt or regret and thinks it insufficient, such small words for something so heavy. She places her hand over his to keep it against her elbow, an accord. But when she looks up, her face is an entreaty, her eyes a silent rebuke, and she raises both palms against his cheek, bracing through the sting of his stubble to meet skin. She thinks of digging through layers of lead paint to find a man, somewhere beneath all that. ]
If I didn't know better, I might think you sound gallant.
Well-- [ Well, her smile is timid, eyes falling to his lips. Well, she is beginning to wonder if it's also a kind of strength to resign oneself to certain inevitabilities. If perhaps it's a kind of strength too, to allow things unfold as they will without her strangling it to death for the sake of exercising agency the moment it shows signs of dying. ] You kept your word. I didn't think you would.
no subject
Misato wears a furrow between her eyebrows when she looks down to think. There is something cold in the pit of her stomach, something that coils and sinks, threatening to pull her down with it. She names it dread or guilt or regret and thinks it insufficient, such small words for something so heavy. She places her hand over his to keep it against her elbow, an accord. But when she looks up, her face is an entreaty, her eyes a silent rebuke, and she raises both palms against his cheek, bracing through the sting of his stubble to meet skin. She thinks of digging through layers of lead paint to find a man, somewhere beneath all that. ]
If I didn't know better, I might think you sound gallant.
Well-- [ Well, her smile is timid, eyes falling to his lips. Well, she is beginning to wonder if it's also a kind of strength to resign oneself to certain inevitabilities. If perhaps it's a kind of strength too, to allow things unfold as they will without her strangling it to death for the sake of exercising agency the moment it shows signs of dying. ] You kept your word. I didn't think you would.