Nothing she can do for John's feelings, especially knowing a decade separates them, and aside from that which they aren't mentioning, things have been familiar between them all. There is so much Claire would like to know, all of the things that have made her into the friend John views her as today. Or more than a friend—she isn't sure yet, and it's too much to think about the first day they've been thrown together.

She does laugh, a dry but genuine sound, putting her things away now that she's satisfied he won't be in miserable pain tonight. "It was alarming then, but imagine my surprise to find myself drowning one second and emerging from a fountain the next. Nude, to boot. I thought I was dead."

It took a while for her not to think so; it started sinking in the night she met a witch, an archangel, and a vampire all in the same place. That's too bizarre and complicated to be dead.

"Now that I know I'm not, I'm rather annoyed to be separated from Jamie again." 'Annoyed' isn't strong enough a word, but it's the only one that doesn't feel dramatic.