Gleb isn't sure if her phrasing is deliberate or not, if she'll know just how deep those words cut or if it's a coincidence. Regardless, he feels them even so, drawing in a deep breath in response. He'd known, once, exactly where he stood and what his cause was. It wasn't even very long ago at all that he would have said that nothing could have stirred him from that. That was before Anya, though, and before he aimed a gun at her and realized that he couldn't pull the trigger, and what the cost of that would be. His life for hers. An easy choice to make, in the end, if not to grapple with the implications of. If only one of them could have survived, then of course he would want it to be her rather than having to carry on with her blood on his hands. He's had to cope with that now, though, for far longer than he ever expected he would, and he still doesn't always know what to do with that.
What he believes is the same as what it always has been, but he can't claim that side, that cause, as his own anymore. Neither would he pretend for a second to have any attachment to the other. Everything that was done was in Russia's best interest, and until hearing about yet another war coming to them, he'd been certain that the future ahead of them would eventually be a bright one, once the wounds of the past healed further. Either way he looks at it, then, the cause that he'd have been dying for wouldn't have been his own, except perhaps in the sense that he'd have been doing it for her. Looking at her now and the softness in her expression, nearly desperate to reach out and touch her, he still believes that the choice he made was the right one. He could never have ended her life, no matter the cost.
He loves her too much for that.
"I wouldn't have minded it," he says quietly, somehow managing to keep looking at her as he speaks, his own pace slowing so he can match hers. "Dying for someone else's cause." It's the first time he's ever outright addressed what would have happened to him, putting a name to it rather than talking around it. Under the circumstances, though, he doesn't see any way not to say it. Whether or not her words are an intentional reference to the fate that would have awaited him had he not shown up here, she must know the ways in which they'll ring true, and she deserves his honesty. After everything, it's the least he can do for her. "Just... We've seen more than enough war."
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What he believes is the same as what it always has been, but he can't claim that side, that cause, as his own anymore. Neither would he pretend for a second to have any attachment to the other. Everything that was done was in Russia's best interest, and until hearing about yet another war coming to them, he'd been certain that the future ahead of them would eventually be a bright one, once the wounds of the past healed further. Either way he looks at it, then, the cause that he'd have been dying for wouldn't have been his own, except perhaps in the sense that he'd have been doing it for her. Looking at her now and the softness in her expression, nearly desperate to reach out and touch her, he still believes that the choice he made was the right one. He could never have ended her life, no matter the cost.
He loves her too much for that.
"I wouldn't have minded it," he says quietly, somehow managing to keep looking at her as he speaks, his own pace slowing so he can match hers. "Dying for someone else's cause." It's the first time he's ever outright addressed what would have happened to him, putting a name to it rather than talking around it. Under the circumstances, though, he doesn't see any way not to say it. Whether or not her words are an intentional reference to the fate that would have awaited him had he not shown up here, she must know the ways in which they'll ring true, and she deserves his honesty. After everything, it's the least he can do for her. "Just... We've seen more than enough war."