"I definitely did not acquire it on purpose," she says, failing to sound as even as he does. She watches him nervously as he addresses the cat which obviously isn't a cat, does he know what it is? She sure as hell isn't expecting it to reply.

"Ffshit," she hisses, jerking back in her chair. In their heads, no less. She assumes Rush 'heard' it too.

Repair her.

Like she's a thing.

Okay.

Uncharacteristically she doesn't really have any vitriol rise up, nothing stored. She just sits there, feeling a little smaller, like yeah, you're right, magic cat, this is stupid, it's not going to work, it's useless and we should probably just not do it at all.

It's sickening, how easy it is to bring her to that point now.