"You don't fucking get it," she snaps, looking up at him abruptly. "This isn't about scientific method, it isn't about logic, goddammit Rush, this is me. This part of me is gone. I can't get it back, and I need to face that now because hope will fucking kill me."

She wants to get up and pace but she doesn't have the strength or the balance. She sits tense in Greta's chair, staring him down even as her voice starts to betray her, starts to shake. "Don't tell me I'm being a defeatist, don't you fucking dare. This isn't defeat, it's survival. I know this tech better than you do and I know there's an extremely low fucking probability that we can get it back to what it was, so no, I don't want to waste any energy trying, because I'm not that person anymore. That person is gone. If anything happens to either of you now I can't go busting you out, I can't do shit. I'm nothing now. Just some regular fucking nobody."

Well.

She didn't mean to say about half of that.

But it's too late now. Just like a lot of things.

Never going home. Never gonna be that person anymore.

All gone.

She buries her head in her hand and shakes with brittle laughter.