This would have been the right moment for a kiss, but kissing was still not a part of Goliath's romantic vocabulary.

He still remembered the kiss she'd given him that morning, so long ago, but pleasant as the memory was, it was a human gesture. Instead, he drew her into his arms again, and the way he held her close and stroked her hair conveyed the same feeling.

Not so long ago, this would have been the point where he would have spoken his heart to her clearly, informed her that he had given up on happiness, that her return had woken him from a sleep of a different kind.

If so much of what he felt for her required great sacrifice on her part in returning those feelings, perhaps those would still have been the right things to say. If he had still been the same person who had never known the loss of a world, of a family, and had not yet known by experience that he could, that he must survive it, perhaps he would have said it anyway.

What he settled on after stroking her hair in silence, his voice soft with gratitude, was - "Just to see you again would have given me joy enough."