Was that speech meant for me too?" Laura asked, wringing out the cloth and dabbing at the cut over his eye, "I think it's stopped." She murmured, more to herself.

Bill winced under her tender attention.

He took in the woman before him; carefully tending to the wounds he has inflicted upon himself. Her shoes were by the couch, haphazard on the floor, her blazer cast over his desk, shirt untucked from the band of her skirt.

Comfortable.

He is caught by the gap in her blouse, the buttons pulled taught by the rigidity of her posture. Her hair tickling the tops of his shoulders as she works. He reached out to touch her but caught her wrist instead, ceasing her ministrations.

She looks down at him curiously, almost playfully, her glasses balanced at the end of her nose, still waiting for his answer.

He runs a thumb in small circles over the back of her hand, unable to meet the warmth and understanding he knew he would find in the green of her eyes.

She hums. A warm, soothing sound that balms his battered soul.

Drawing away her hand, Laura dipped the cloth back into the basin.

"Well… in that case, Admiral," and she scrutinized his face more closely, the hint of a sorrowful smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, "It's nice to have a friend."

She pushes her glasses further up her nose, the yellow light reflected in the lenses, obscuring her eyes. She pressed the cloth to his temple easing out the blood that had already begun to dry there.

"Friends don't usually do this." He observed dryly, watching her bracelet shimmer in front of his eyes.

"Good friends do." She countered quietly, shaking out a pack of butterfly stitches from the med kit.