[ He may be a grown ass man, but... she doesn't know how to explain without giving away too much. He takes a while to speak and so does she, milling about in the silence. Not for the first time she curses her unfamiliarity with words, and tact now that she's been separated from Julius for a year. It's been a week and she still doesn't know what happened to him.

So it's with a sigh that she answers, not quite looking at him, her expression just the vaguest tinge of sad. ]

He's... been through a lot. It's not my place to say more, but I hope you can understand. [ He'd scold her for giving away too much private information, too. ] And... he's important to me. He saved my life once. I want to help him in return.

[ Yeah it's totally not like she likes him or anything... though at this point she's not so good a liar anymore. ]