The rest of the world grew muffled, as if a great swath of gray velvet were suddenly dropped over it. The woman clinging to his arm stood in stark relief to such silence and became, instead, everything. He didn't think. He didn't feel. There was What Must Be Done and there was Everything Else; and only one was important.
"Mm," he answered.
First, he took the keys from her hand. Then, he bent low and set one arm against the back of her knees. The other one -- the one she had seized -- twisted gently to free itself, then went behind her shoulders. When he started walking, it was done carefully, on the balls of his feet only, so that he lessened the jarring and jostling impacts she'd otherwise have endured. Elias did not look up at anyone who might have been watching them; they didn't register. He had but one goal. When the elevator slid closed and started its climb, he most fastidiously did not look down at her. Instead, he stared straight ahead, reminding himself near constantly that she was not his.
But even sighing with pain, heavy with restraint, she felt like no one else he'd ever had against his chest. She felt like she was built to be with him. His jaw clenched tightly, and he kept his eyes forward. What was it that plagued her? Possibly those migraines she'd told him briefly about. That meant that there was a prescription in her apartment. He could see her home, then see her medicated, then ... leave her.
His arms tightened. "A migraine?" he asked very softly, looking to confirm what he would do once he unlocked her apartment door.