"I'm not sad," Ava protests. She is, in a way that drowns out everything else she tries to feel. In a way that makes it so difficult to even realize just how sad she is because it's been her baseline for most of her life. She's a reasonable amount of bitter and upset with her circumstances, the way anyone else is. She just doesn't want to scream about it anymore, Dr. Pym took the brunt of everything she bottled up. She fought and pushed and kicked and screamed and failed to accomplish anything other than making herself pitiful enough to receive mercy she doubts she deserved.

She breathes out.

"I'm funny," she says weakly. "And good at puzzles. And I'm intimidating and..." she doesn't really know. She doesn't have that great of a grasp of who she is outside of all the things she used to be and will keep on denying until it's too late.