[She smiles at his observation, lifting her gaze to him to respond...only she does hear that hitch in his breath, but it's more the look on his face that she notices: something empty and bereft and just lost.
The horrible thing is...she knows that look. Sometimes, when he thinks she's not looking...she sees it on her own father's face back home.
For a moment, all she can do is sit there and hurt for him, without knowing why. Finally, after a moment she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
She thinks about home. She thinks about the last class she sat through at the Academy--she thinks about everything and anything that's not in this elevator, in this place, tangled up in memories she shouldn't have.
Because so far, everything she really remembers is buried in muscle memory. She has snippets in her head, but the body hasn't forgotten anything...
When she opens her eyes, she's standing in front of Scott. She's dangerously close...and she's reached out and captured his hand in hers. She's holding on for dear life, holding it like a lifeline.
Or like she's the lifeline.
Staring down at their joined hands, something rises up in the back of her head. It's not bright like that pen, it's darker and desperate and it hurts so much her eyes sting with tears--but she wants the pain, she clings to that pain.
Why did you do that?
She answers the remembered voice out loud, a whisper she's not aware of uttering.]