"Not ... great," Liz says, after a long couple of seconds spent staring at a rivet in the bench and wondering how the hell to phrase how Laura had seemed. "The people who grew her in a lab found her." She rests her arms on her upraised knees and glances back at him. "She said they used to torture her. I didn't ask about this time, but..."

She shakes her head, her mouth set tight. "I've never seen her so quiet, Red."

Not even when they first met, before Laura started to occasionally show a flash of emotion or crack a (bad, deadpan) joke.