Nobody answered Timeline's devastating question immediately. Rama recognized, sitting with the observatory deck's quiet weight, that the honest answer required considerably more careful thought than any reflexive reassurance could properly provide.
It was Sekar who finally spoke, choosing her words with the specific care that genuinely consequential truth-telling required.
"I don't know," she said simply. "I want to be honest with you, because I think honesty is what our relationship has always required, even when honesty feels genuinely difficult. I don't know whether we would eventually face that choice, or what we would decide if we did."
Timeline received this with something that read, through the connection, as genuine appreciation for the honesty rather than the disappointment easy reassurance might have avoided.
