“You’ve had worse,” The flat, American voice she has been using is always at the tip of her tongue after all this time, but she finds that her natural accent slips through with those words, and she isn’t even really sure why. She does miss it, though. Her real voice.

She’s grown used to how easily he can turn things off within himself. She can do it, too, but not in the same way, not to the same extent. He can compartmentalize to a degree she finds herself often wishing for. She’s never said so out loud, because she already knows he would tell her she’s wrong. That she shouldn’t wish for such a thing.

Once she has cleaned the wound, she readies the needle and smiles, it’s soft and it’s sad, and it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Stitching you up now,” she whispers, her accent still present. She can be a little more herself with him. Alone.

Right?