"He can't hurt you he can't hurt you we can get you to Mars or something even if we can't get everyone..."

"Hmm, I wonder how hard terraforming Mars would be..."

"Easier than killing Morgoth while Doomed."

"Yeah.

I love you."

"I'm not going to let you get hurt."

"Maybe we can convince, like, all the Elvis fans or something to come to Mars with us."

"If we can get a colony up and running lots of people will want to come. Just, nowhere near all of them."

"I know. I know.

I don't know what to do."

"We can't do any good, we're Doomed, whatever we do will be the wrong thing. So we can at least protect ourselves."

"We still don't know for sure that I'm Doomed."

"Not for sure, no..."

She sighs. "I love you. I love you so much. I hate that this is happening. I just want our happy ending already."

"Me too."

"We can't just have kids as soon as aging's sorted."

"We shouldn't have kids."

"You're probably right.

I just wanted it so badly."

"I know. Me too. But the Enemy -"

"I know. I know. It just--it hurts so much, losing that."

She shows him memories.

Being five in Kilaiuossa, carefully cradling a baby doll, getting patted on the head by a neighbor and told she would be a wonderful mother someday and glowing with pride--

In Valinor, in Tirion, before Melkor started spewing hateful prophecies, discussing what a hybrid baby might be like and bubbling with delight--

Cuddling a baby dinosaur and hearing from him that she would be the best mother ever--

Alive again, and seventeen, and knowing that there was no merciful got but begging anyone who would listen and didn't hate her anyway that she would manage to fix aging and live long enough to rescue him, and one of the things that came up was, please, I'd be such a good mother, you know I would, give me a chance--

Learning blond wasn't his natural hair color and commenting that it was a good thing she had learned before they had children and imagining herself holding a black-haired baby, her husband's arms wrapped around the both of them--

"I'm not sure how much more I can stand to lose."

"On Mars, maybe."

"We thought we were safe here. We thought we were safe in Valinor."

"You are safe here, I will get you somewhere safe, I won't let anything hurt you..."

"Okay. Okay.

I hate feeling this trapped."

"Yeah."

"I keep feeling the urge to say 'there must be something we can do,' except no, there doesn't have to be."

"There doesn't. Sometimes there isn't."