Frannie merely nodded at the shock on Joan's face. She remembered the expression because she'd made it herself, even as the world was falling apart around her.

"I can't take him back there. I can't watch him go through...I had to bury my father alone. I can't bury his namesake, too."

There weren't any tears for the dead, they'd been cried long ago. Just a cold, acceptance of what she'd had to face and the strength of a survivor.