Iris looked up at him, and for a fleeting second, the rigid, assassin-like structure of her composure faltered. It wasn't a collapse but a subtle shift, the way a tectonic plate settles after a massive upheaval.
It wasn't forgiveness, nor was it the resolution of her grief; it was the quiet, heavy relief that comes when a person realizes they no longer have to perform a version of sadness that the world expects of them. They were finally allowed to simply be in the wreckage.
"I know you could have let the meteor land," she said.
Her voice was low, barely a ripple in the heavy morning air. She spoke it not as an accusation but as a cold fact she had been dissecting since she watched the sky burn from the eastern building line.
"The mathematics of your arrival were precise, Rex..."
"Based on your trajectory and velocity, your intervention was not a requirement for survival... Tremor was already past the point of redirection."
