"Trust me, I'm not about to go flying off the handle at the slightest provocation." Any suicidally missions would be as well-thought-out and considered as her other actions.

She pursed her lips, pondering the question. "I think they'd feel alive, for one, which is a key prerequisite to feeling any other emotions." Even as she said it, though, something in her stomach sank. Lily would blame herself. Ilia would, too, but in a self-servingly maternal way, and Rose was less inclined to feel guilt over that. Lily, though, had some serious self-esteem issues, which would be exacerbated by watching Rose die to protect her. Had been exacerbated. She hadn't been in the room at all this morning, so Rose hadn't even been able to explain not being dead to her.

"Would you change your mind if, instead of saving a person, you were saving an entire universe?" Rose still had high hopes for a timeline in which no one had to be brutally dismembered or otherwise annihilated while midwifing an entire reality, but scale was important. It wasn't exactly saving so much as creating, but not-creating was kind of like killing.