He hears it, and he wants to reject it. Aaron may mean it now but that's not something to seize to and depend on. That he can't rely on anyone is a lesson the other him knows well, and one that's been impressed upon Julien again and again.

But he does know how much the LSR means to Aaron Strider, and feels a little of that himself. For all its roughness, for all the awful things that have happened in it and the desperation that brings most people to it, it's a good place, a worthy one. Aaron's taken one of his very rare leaves of absence from it, the same way he'd left when something had happened to his mother, to find Julien.

That has to mean something, temporary or not.

"...that's really sweet," he says at last, quietly. "I'm sorry you've had to go to all this trouble."