He didn't speak, rubbing Bobby's ears in a slow, almost mechanical movement. He hated the feeling of people watching him, loathed it in a way that he'd grown immune to other things. Hated the feeling it evoked, that there was something wrong with him. That he wasn't right.

"I can't be paranoid." He didn't look at her, voice lacking tone. "I can be afraid, I can be sad, I can be angry but I can't be paranoid. I can't care about my secrets, because even if I wanted to hide, everyone would tell them anyway. I'm still everybody's tool, something to be tossed out in an argument. Even you, even my brother, I bet. Even if I haven't caught him in it. I can hold it against Marco, because he's angry about something that saved Rachel's life. I like having my cousin alive, you know? I like having lunch with her and teasing her and being able to interact with her on a day to day basis. Can't do that much with a corpse, can you?"

He looked at Bobby, finally, instead of off into eternity somewhere. "I am just his ghost. That's all anyone will let me be. I thought it'd be fixed, you know? You get free and it all goes back to normal. But it'll never be normal again. Right? We're just echos. Or I am, at least."