For nearly a minute, Luke stared down at Alice as she leaned on his shoulder, completely flummoxed. He could see in her eyes that she was consumed by pain, and her soul was being eaten away. Just as his had been, so long ago now. Only the memory of the agony he'd once endured stopped his laughter before it ignited, and he gently wrapped one arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer.  Luke recognized her suffering instantly, and even though he no longer shared it, Alice had all the sympathy he could offer. Which, considering his current state, he reflected, wasn't much. All he could muster was a spark of memory, a ghostly trace of what he dimly remembered to be empathy. But it was something.<br/><br/>Luke could almost feel Nirvana observing events from within her nest, but it was clear that this time, she would offer him no assistance. He sighed to himself and shook his head as he caressed Alice's shoulder. He was certain that left on his own, he would only say exactly the wrong thing and compound the poor woman's pain even further. And he hated himself for caring so little about that. For several moments more, he sat silent and still on the couch as she looked up at him expectantly, feeling Alice's heart beating through her skin and struggling to compose a clumsy model of compassion from dusty, long-untouched memories. He cycled through a number of possible responses, expanding and editing and discarding those he felt warranted it. In the end, he settled on the simplest, knowing that she would probably take it the wrong way, knowing that it would probably only make things worse, but hoping down to the last shreds of his dwindling humanity that she would understand his meaning.<br/><br/>He leaned down closer, and pressed his head against hers. He brushed a lock of hair from her face and drew his fingers slowly over her cheek. His voice was soft, gentle, and as soothing as he knew how to make it, and he whispered into her ear as kindly as he remembered how.<br/><br/>"Alice, you are a stupid, foolish woman, and you have no idea how amazingly lucky you are."