She accepts the sandwich, unwrapping it with a sourcelessly delicate apprehension and regarding it hollowly. She does not know if she has ever felt less like eating anything in her life, except - except after the orphanage, when Pentecost took her to the quiet, nearly deserted place sandwiched between two alleyways and she could not eat and he did not ask her to and they merely sat in downcast silence for twenty minutes before he could gather whatever it was he wanted to say and say it.

She forces herself to bite into the thing, drawing back in alarm when it occurs to her only after the initial bright burst of flavor that it is not comprised of the synthesized meat and lettuce with which she is most familiar. She stares at it, startled at the vibrancy of the taste, the sharpness of flavors against her tongue.

See? Raleigh smiles at her in her mind's eye with his easy, sea-flecked grin saturated in his grief and his melancholia. We can make this work.

"That sounds nice," she says, unable to keep the ache of wistfulness from her voice.