The touch centers her, brings her focus back to him and she looks at him for a moment. He has no idea. There are way worse ways to handle things. She could easily just turn off her emotions and not feel anything. Just flip a switch and then nothing would matter anymore.

Except to Caroline, that choice wasn't an easy one nor was it option (little did she know that in the future, it was a choice she'd make).

"Yeah," she says it softly, resisting the urge to shy away from this, from the way he seems to be able to look right through her defenses and she doesn't make another joke. "I've gotten pretty good at finding coping mechanisms."