It might be. A valid reason. [It's a concession on his part.]

She's been dead since we took her, if not before. But it's not that she kills our commander, so we kill her, and then there's another reprisal, and so on and on. It's that they're looking to kill all of us always.

If we do this for our children, taking the chance that they're real, we can't do it forever. And I can't --

[He presses his lips together like he's clamping down on his next words, and he shakes his head once, heavily.]