[She is less twisted by the plantlike transformations taking hold of some other bearers, but as she holds his hand in hers, the way the leaf-veins have begun picking into old hidden scars is more obvious - her skin has thin, fading texture of something that wants to fall from the branch.

This doubt is unraveling him. She would scrape some of it away from him if she could, before he completely eroded, and not blame him for feeling it. And when the time comes that this is actually possible, if he needs a boost from his doubt before his final relieving exchange with Hayame, Caren will still be here, to give him a little bit of her own Zenith in exchange for the doubt he doesn't want. She can handle it. Probably. It's fine.

Caren hasn't completely forgotten her own convictions to Zenith, even with her own doubts. She pities everywhere there who is lost and looking for an answer. Her role would be the same in Meridian or otherwise. That might be what sets them apart, him uncertain of his true home and her believing there may be no difference between them.]

You sound desperate. It was urgent? Then you had a good reason at the time. [A good reason can't be easily broken. If he accepted that they could no longer be saved, wasn't there an equally compelling reason why?] Something might have happened if you didn't make it back, maybe. Am I on the right track?