Jack stood dumbfounded for a moment, taken aback by Carver's bluntness. Sally quickly put her sewing down and pushed herself from her seat. She moved to Carver and got down on one knee to better be at her level. Sally gently placed a hand at the back of her cage and took a few vines in her other hand. The parts about being guilted over life given, over not turning out to be the type of creation the doctor wanted, hit home with her.

It took another moment, but Jack slowly approached Carver. He let her speak uninterrupted. In his mind, he saw Lock's face, heard the middle trickster's voice as he tried to plead on his friend's behalf. "It's complicated," he had said.

And he was right. Jack knew Finklestein was particular about his creations and their purpose. But even he hadn't been aware of the depths of these complications. Lock, Shock, and Barrel were hardly upstanding citizens, but hearing this...Jack suddenly better understood why Carver spent so much time with them. They weren't just kids her age. She was one of them, no questions asked.

And close enough to them that she trusted them with these details of her personal life long before he knew.

Jack carefully set a hand over Carver's cage as well, then slowly dropped to one knee too.

"...Then it sounds like maybe he needs to hear it from someone else," he said gently. "Someone he'll listen to."