"err...we should be okay". Is just a noise that leaks out of the brain...when its workload suddenly increased exponentially. As suggested above, wait a moment or two and then ask again.
Despite my initial reaction, there was a time when I really could have done with some decisive input from ATC.
After a very long break, I found myself in the left seat of a sizable turbo-prop--with about 10 hours PIC on type (not counting line-check time). For some obscure reason, my F/O was taken out of the loop on long finals. There was a lot of stratus about, and some of it was filled with hills. It usually takes me a couple of hundred hours before I can take a new aircraft by the b@lls and still keep a passenger standard of smoothness, so being high, I asked for an orbit. (This was fairly common at this airfield)
About 90 degrees into the turn I was asked if I was in VMC. I said I was still IMC, and there were all sorts of non-decisive noises as a reply. I took very decisive action to get my but out of the granite filled level and prepared myself for tea and bikkies.