"Right. I'll see if I can track down some fish oil capsules, okay? My grandma said those make all the difference." Wrong body or no, she can still play the flippancy game. "Just message me when you need a hand crossing the street, okay?"

It's weird feeling that the way the muscles tug is different from your own. Smiling a smile that isn't yours, muscles trained to makes expressions in different ways, while somehow all those subconscious parts of your brain battle with it. The smile she gives Steph isn't an Ellie smile, but she's still behind it, means it as sincerely as possible. "Don't stress." She gets it; she knows. Words are wonderful and complicated and confusing and so amazing and so entirely likely to fall short at the crucial moment. The urgency in not-her fingers has faded.

"Are you okay?"