Oh, it was definitely a lie, and not one she was stupid enough to believe. Whether Bert might settle out into some other belief or not wasn't the point. For now he would be upset until he cycled through the whole thing and if someone was getting hit then it only helped to be prepared. Through that and the silence, she continued to touch him, though every so often the specifics of it changed. A little massage, a gentle scrape of her nails, that sort of thing. Patience wasn't usually one her virtues but for Roland it seemed she could find a well of it.

"I suppose it should have." And she only said that much because no amount of convincing would change his mind. Whether he had been there or not, no matter who had been behind it ... Nothing would have changed. People still would have died, been hurt, and Gilead would have fell. But it wasn't going to feel that way for him. "But even so, I don't think it's purpose was undermined any, Roland. 'One from many', that doesn't change just because of a world stuck in the middle." It was a romantic thought but one she still thought held merit in its own way.