Surely the universe was on its rightful axis if Bert could still coax the tiniest of smiles out of her, even if she did bite the inside of her cheek to drown it. The sudden closeness was ... Odd, but if he wasn't overdoing himself then Nariko couldn't complain. Their newest addition, who she had now deemed as 'Sonia', crawled up her shoulder and meowed at Bert.

"I might not have known about the ear thing. Does being irritated at trying to even vaguely talk to him fall under the human emotion umbrella?" That's her hesitant contribution. "Or feeling like a complete failure for wanting to ask for help or at least maybe not deal with multiple assholes by yourself? Or telling him to his face that something is a bad idea and one person's life isn't worth hundreds so why ignore that to begin with?"

Okay, there was all of that, too.