She is part mother, part lover, part stranger.
She holds him tightly during the nights when nightmares keep him muttering in his sleep. His scar never throbs painfully to awaken him.
She kisses him fiercely when he comes home from dirty and exhausted from another grueling mission, delighted and relieved to find him unharmed though never quite whole.
She withdraws softly when small words, certain gestures, steal him from her and deaden his eyes.
It is hard for her to accept that there are some things about him she will never know, harder still to realize she should never ask.