[ there's a slight pause following ethan's question.

the person he'd been before would've said yes, absolutely. he would've scoffed at their hope and their sentimentality. he was too hardened by his fears and his anger to see anything useful in the concept of wishing. now that he sits beside his brother, who seems to need it most but will never ask for it, alek finds that it's all too easy to give. ]

I don't know about that, man.

[ and he means that, too. alek wouldn't say something that isn't true merely to comfort someone. life's been hard enough on them all. they should get a break, and it's not wrong to want it. ] Look at all we've lived. All the places we've traveled. We're on a boat that goes nowhere. The odds of anything happening don't seem too slim when you take into consideration everything else that's seemed impossible and it ended up happening, anyway.

[ maybe they didn't escape cruel fates, but maybe they have escaped their father. ]