She drags her eyes away from his arm slowly, staring up at him with a look of such utter devastation that the tears brimming unnoticed in her eyes aren't even the worst part--it is the downturn of her mouth, and the disbelief in the arch of her eyebrows, the crease of sorrow pressed between them.

"None of these could possibly be your fault," she says, looking back down at his arm, running fingers over a burn mark, a deeper line, her other hand curling around his in an unconscious, but tender manner. She shakes her head. "If he's your father, nothing you could ever do should provoke these kinds of things. You don't...you don't raise children by force."