"It's a beautiful city, isn't it? Remind me--in your time, that was when the really bad hurricanes devastated it for a while, right? Even then, it was beautiful. It came back twice as strong." Counter to his hard and tough ways, then, she's clearly indulgent. A dreamer and an optimist, softer edges, compassion.

She shrugs a little, still smiling faintly. "I'm actually really confused and kind of scared," she admits. "But you don't get far as a nurse or an officer if you can't school those reactions." It's not terribly reassuring to your patients, after all. After a while masking how you really feel in a tense situation becomes second nature.