Joel just feels tired now. Tired and sad. He pauses when Nerium speaks and shakes his head without turning back to look at her. It is a beautiful place, he hasn't once said otherwise, but beauty is more than sunlight and magnificent creatures. Beauty is found in love and kindness and warmth and sharing. It's found in other people and he doesn't know how to say that to her, not in a way that will make it feel the way he does inside.

"You can't live in a fairy tale, Nerium. Sooner or later, real life finds you," he says, his voice soft. "Any child of mine is going to know how to be kind to people and that doing things to them against their will, no matter the intention, is wrong. I'm sorry you won't be able to give my baby a gift, too, but it's not lack of magic that prevents that."

This is all she has left now, he realizes. And a part of him still wants to reach out to her, but he thinks of how horrified Coop had been, he thinks of his own memories gone, Charlotte and his parents simply willed out of existence and he can't. He's too afraid of it happening again.