What a warm and surprisingly comforting gesture on her part. For a moment, as she speaks, it does, in fact, provide some measure of solace. How kind she really is, to be worrying about him like this...

Right before those memories rush right out of her, and back into him.

And just like that, everything is laid out there nice and clearly for the both of them. Everything from that first step forward to it's failed followup, and all the distress and chaos that came afterward, all as sharp as Shinji's memory allows.

Ah, he manages to think in the middle of that sudden rush, this... is what she must have seen. He can't stop himself from gasping in the shock of it all as it comes racing through his mind, his hand squeezing tightly around hers and sending her own memories right back to where they belong.