She took a breath, shuddering like she might start to cry. “A few weeks before Enola Gay, he told me he wanted to start studying me, my symptoms, to observe me while I slept to see what precipitated the nightmares. So he started staying with me every night until I fell asleep.”

“Staying with you?” he repeated, trying to keep any judgmental tone out of his voice. He’d never asked, but he’d often suspected something along those lines.

“Yeah . . . like close. Physically close.” She winced at that admission, keeping her eyes closed, refusing to look at him.

“Like touching.”

Her face flushed. “Yes.”

He braced himself. “Intimate touching.”

“No. Well . . . intimate, yes, but not like that. Nothing sexual. He started staying with me until I fell asleep every night. He would just . . . hold me until I fell asleep. And I stopped having nightmares. Even during the day, I almost stopped having panic attacks. I just . . . I don’t know. For this brief moment in time, he was like the family I never had.” She opened her eyes, red and glassy. “But then Enola came, and he changed.”

Kaveh bit his lip and crab walked his fingers toward her again. “So I do not pretend to understand the metaphysical underpinnings of your bond, but here’s my read on the situation. You were suffering, and someone you cared about offered to help reduce your suffering. And over a period of time, you developed feelings for that person, because they were doing you a kindness.”

She looked at him, the gray of her irises steeped in a pool of redness.

“So I may be off mark, but honestly? That doesn’t seem like alien mind-meld magic; that seems like . . . normal.”

“How is it normal?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“What the hell are we advocating for? I mean, if we really believe that Ampersand is a person, then how is what you’re describing wrong? You’re both adults by the standards of your respective species, you shared some emotional and physical intimacy, so you developed feelings for him. That’s what happens. What’s a better indicator of humanity, of personhood, than the ability to fall in love with someone?”

Her expression fell even further. “He doesn’t love me.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You don’t go out of your way to help someone you don’t care about. I get that he has scientific curiosity and you are his interpreter, and they seem to develop feelings more slowly than we do, but I don’t buy that it was completely utilitarian.” He scooted closer to her. “You can be a loving caretaker, and you can be cruel and neglectful. Both things can be true of the same person.”