"I understand."

It might not have been easy to imagine loss on the scale of an entire world, but it was easy to imagine the guilt involved. Feeling like you should have been able to do something more, that maybe if you'd tried harder you could have changed things. It was especially hard when things were out of your control, and it didn't lessen any guilt.

"Maybe..." he hesitated. "Maybe there was nothing that could have been done." Maybe it wasn't anybody's fault.