[He has, admittedly, had six months to grapple with the idea after the initial freaking out about it... Joe's only just finding out now. It helps to tell himself that there wasn't all that much in his life, apart from his parents which is a sick, hot-stove thought to avoid now in it's depths of how much were they in on it.

But it's also that... despite being dead, he still exists. He still thinks, breathes... he hasn't completely disappeared. In that sense, then, he's survived. Sort of. Maybe this is all just more mental scaffolding shoring up that avoidance of the reality of it.]

...She's been having nightmares for months.

[He already knew, but it does snap more into place when Joe says it outright like that. It's true. Sara definitely isn't doing well, and hasn't been for a long time, and that's... probably the iceberg of it. 'Thanks for being truthful with me' sets an uncomfortable itchy prickle across his skin.]

Don't worry about it.

[It's been so long since he's thought about it but... Joe trying to win with the Sacrifice... he really was trying to do that, wasn't he? Deceiving them all, so that him and Sara could win, could live, and all the rest left to die. What Shin thought he was doing in the first place. Mixed feelings squirm in the pit of him. He'd been doing the same thing hadn't he, the moment he thought Kanna had that card... so he doesn't have much place to judge and it's uncomfortable.]

I-i put you in that position in the first place, after all. Calling it even... if you really want, let's put it all behind us.

[It kind of hurts, that Joe is the one trying to reconcile with him... there's a hesitation, and then he takes the offered hand and shakes it with a closed-eyed smile.]