Never in the time they'd been together had the difference in their ages mattered to her--until this minute, when it suddenly became a lifeline. He could hold, shelter, comfort her, because even the horrors she'd lived through and inflicted were mere blips on his timescale, and right now she needed every ounce of the wisdom of his thousands of years.

Instead of trying to talk, she turned her face into his shoulder, hiding her eyes, and used a summoning gesture to pull the box to where he could reach it.