"What?" Raine said, and she sounded startled, like that had never actually occurred to her. "Of course not." She bit down on the instinctive followup of this is different, since in her experience when someone had to say that, the situation was not in fact all that different.

"I suppose," she said at length, "that any commentary on the subject of providing an unnecessary burden is also easily dismissed by the same virtues." Friendship, and things she had said on the matter, and things she knew Lloyd would likely say, given half a chance to talk to her. "No; I wouldn't be alive now if not for relying on friends. This is..." Different. No. "Foolishness," she finished quietly, and it would have been difficult to say whether she meant her behavior or the fear itself.