Toast is troubled, Furiosa knows, and has been since they buried Angharad's bones at sunset, but – as familiar as her form is, bare and sweat-slick in the heated dark, as often as they've found solace in each other, Furiosa doesn't yet understand the moving parts that drive the formidable engine of her mind; she knows anger when she sees it, and grief when she breathes it in with every kiss, but she isn't expecting Toast to draw back, distance and moonlight in her eyes, and say, "Tell me you're sorry she didn't make it back."

Furiosa runs her good hand idly over the curve of Toast's hip and thinks of Angharad falling beneath the wheels, that sharp cry and sudden silence, and then she thinks of Joe's blood on the sand, the Citadel reborn as shelter and oasis, and the delay that had let the rest of them make it out alive; she wishes she could simply turn and say what Toast wants to hear, be what Toast needs her to be, but the desert is harsh and she's learned to be harsher, and she would kill to keep this woman safe, but she will not lie for her comfort.

"I can't," she says, hollow-voiced and unflinching, "because I'm not."