[Them. Plural. That's always fun, isn't it? Learning that there's more than one?]

But it hasn't happened yet.

[Jaime knows a little something about holding onto hope, but Ken, Ken's had to face down another's hopes and shoot it down for the greater good. Would he really be doing Ken a service by providing him with false hope?

But hell, Jaime's got false hope of his own too, hope that Minato and Shinji will come home with him, hope that they still have time to save Wally. It helps about as much as prayer does, which is intermittently and depending on his mood.]

People have gotten out of worse scrapes before, Ken. And the people you know are stubborn.

[Not that stubbornness tends to save them in the end, but it at least opens up the possibility.]

I know that doesn't make things better now, from where you can't help stop it, but it's not a done deal either.