She had to be optimistic, so she offered him a smile. "Well, I'm older than I look and younger than I should be, so maybe I will." She didn't put a lot of hope in it. The best she could hope for, she thought, was a truce. And that was with the public as a whole. She wasn't going to sugarcoat it for these kids like Charles would but neither would she tell them a stark future that would only leave them without hope. She might talk that way to Charles, but the kids deserved better.

She stirred the cocoa into the milk and carefully poured out two cups, offering him one and turning off the heat before pouring herself out the other.

"So is there a reason you can't sleep?"