[ It wouldn't have been easy for Rex, if the tables were turned. He remembers seeing Cut and his wife and his children, seeing their happiness, their carefully-preserved domesticity and thinking it cruel. If it had been him and Poe and him and Poe alone, would he have stayed? He's not so sure.

But with the three of them, Poe will always have someone else, and Andy will always have Poe, until --

That's the sticking point, isn't it? That one day, it's all going to go away. So Andy ran now to save herself the pain of the future. And, as obstinate and cruel as she's been, she's not wholly wrong in that desire. Rex stares hard at the ground for a long moment, lips thinning as he goes over every barbed word she's thrown out, the desperation with which she's been fighting, the way that she crept back in secret for reasons beyond his knowledge. When he looks up again, he meets Andy's eyes, stare as intense and steadfast as it ever is. ]

Enough of this. Enough about how we feel on the matter. Speak truly now, Andy. Do you want to leave? Is that why you came back? To get your things and go?

[ If the answer is yes, then they'll let her go. They must. That's the beauty of what they've created: Rex had given both of them ample opportunity to leave him at the next spaceport, but they chose to stay. Without that choice, they're nothing. ]