Midway through Follen's reply, Quinn closed her eye, letting him continue as she listened and thought.

It was true, she though. She didn't much like looking back on how she was when she was in the room, but only when she did was when she fully realized how terrible it had been. She reached up unthinkingly and gently stroked a finger along her chest, just beneath her collarbone, where she knew that a long, narrow scar lay. She didn't remember the operations, of course; she'd been knocked out for all of them, and what happened afterwards was all a fuzzy blur. But she deeply and [i]vividly[/i] remembered the strange feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach every time she found a new scar, what she realized now was something like fear.

And, she realized immediately afterwards, he was right about the bad memories being all she had of them. Even the fragments of happy memories that she still kept--as was shown in a stark light after she'd visited Roaki last--only caused her distress now. Deep, profound distress. They were things that she perhaps wished she could forget, but they stayed locked in her head nonetheless. Like she couldn't let them go.

But then, of course, came Doctor Follen's last question, and the answer jumped to her lips before her mind could even really register it. [i]"[color=ffe63d]No.[/color]"[/i]

And then, as she caught up to herself, she added quietly, "[color=ffe63d]I can't imagine being anywhere [i]but[/i] here ever again.[/color]"