Annie is sitting curled up in her chair in the middle of her room, hood pulled over her hair, a mug of tea cradled uselessly in her lap. Mitchell taps on the doorframe.
"Hey," he says. "How're you doing?"
Her lips twist, and she shrugs. "You know," she says. "Trying not to think about everything, because I'm fairly sure if I do I'll go mental."
"Probably for the best, yeah," he says. He comes in and perches on the arm of the chair, a little gingerly; his chest still twinges when he moves too fast. "You done with that tea?" he says after a minute, for lack of anything else to say.
"What, you volunteering to do the washing up?"
Damn. No, not really. "Sure," he says. "Limited time offer. Take it while you can get it."
"Must be a blue moon," she says.
His fingers twitch to push back her hood, push her hair away from her face, but he stops them, keeps his hands firmly in his lap. "Something like that," he says.
She lays her palm on his knee, placatingly, and he starts – not just because she's actually touching him, when she usually goes out of her way to avoid making contact, but because she's actually warm, like the heat from her ever-present cup of tea has leached into her skin.
"Annie," he says.
She pulls her hand away quickly, lashes lifting as she looks around the room a little wildly, and he knows she's about to flee. He takes the mug of tea from her other hand, and it's stone-cold: that heat is all hers.
"Is that you?" Mitchell demands.
Her eyes meet his and he takes her hand, turning it over in his. She's not quite solid – there is still some element of insubstantiality, a lingering suggestion of something not-quite-there – but for the first time since they've met she feels like something akin to a real person.
She smiles sunnily, and he doesn't let go of her hand.