😘 -- She senses the shift in his mood. Something quiet, yet an eerie melancholy that doesn't quite /fit/. Wordlessly, Quinn pats his shoulder, before pressing her mouth to his temple in a rare show of comfort. And just like that, she resumes her work, as if nothing had happened at all.
Damien feels as if he is being plunged into ice-cold water. The realization, not a new one by any means, pierces down beneath his skin, as he stares across the hall, out the window, to a young oak. He thinks on how the roots bend downwards, tethering it to the world, and by extension, tethering it into time. It could live hundreds, possibly thousands of years. It could see empires rise and fall. It might become a symbol of everlasting life, of existence continuing on before and after the perception of any single life. It could be here before, and after, countless people.
It will not be here after Damien dies.
Before he can begin to falter, internally, he is brought back. A hand, and a kiss, is all he needs. He blinks, and sees the table in front of him, unfinished mission report draft sitting unsaved on his laptop. The grain in the wood. His hands on the keyboard. Quinn settling back into her seat.
The future stretches out in front of Damien, but for how, he realizes, there is someone willing to bring him back to the present, and that is more astonishing to him than any miracle.