Raphael's POV
He was doing fine.
This was what he told himself, with the practiced conviction of someone who had been managing his own internal states for two hundred years and was extremely good at it. He was doing fine. He was present in this room, contributing appropriately to a tactical discussion, processing the situation with the analytical clarity that two centuries of survival required.
He was not thinking about Elena's apartment outside the pack. The specific building, fourth floor, the window that faced east and got the morning light. The way she'd described it to him once....it's small but it's mine, I made it mine....I made it for when i needed to ust be away from the pack, it is mine.
She had said it with the particular pride of someone who had built something from limited resources and refused to apologize for the scale of it.
