"I know it's hard," Stark told her. Maybe he could get away with stroking her hair? He was going to try. "I wish it weren't."

"You're allowed to cry, you know. I cry." He'd cried plenty last night even. "And to be a mess. I...I do that too. Not as much as I used to. But I do it."

Zhaan had her own moments of messiness. The occasional murderous rage and all that.